Aureations

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    As Pigeons Go

    Grandad always said that his office was “off-limits.” The door was always kept shut, the knots in the wood glaring at me every time I walked by. He never told me why I couldn’t go in. He had never told anyone, really.

    The_lovely_couple
    Original photo.

      There was a very uncomfortable-looking leather chair, its hard foam-filled cushion depressed in the middle from many days of sitting and pondering. Though the chair had been worn out, its curved wooden legs seemed to suggest that one not sit for long.

            As I sat all the way to the back, the chair kept my feet flat on the ground, as if to say, “Don’t rest for too long, there is still work to be done.” At least Grandad wouldn’t fall asleep on the job. Instead of welcoming its owner in for a nice, four-hour nap, this throne of sorts kept one just conscious enough to be unable to escape into sleep.

            His old wooden pipe lay on the dusty mahogany chess table beside the portrait window. Though the office had not been inhabited for years, the intricately carved tobacco pipe seemed to have a glistening sheen on the mouthpiece, as if he’d come back for one last earthly smoke.
            Grandad was always into his books. He had to have thousands of them on the shelves that lined the walls. Lots of Shakespeare. Oscar Wilde and Yeates, too. I always wished I caught onto his fascination, but I’d been too caught up in soccer the past few years. I should have read many books for my classes at Saint Kevin’s, but “higher education” never really appealed to me, to the disappointment of my family.
            His desk was still covered in accounting papers. A mindless job, if you ask me. Punching in numbers and keeping track of someone else’s money. It was a mockery of your own worth. Grandad never seemed to mind it, though. “Gotta keep the spuds in the pot and the pints full,” he’d always say.
           

      “Calum, is the tea wet yet?”
            I heard Gran’s slow footfalls down the hall. Though she couldn’t move fast, her voice sure could strike quick. She gave out like there was no tomorrow, especially after last week. I felt sorry for her; I hadn’t seen a smile cross her face in ages.
            “Calum?” her feeble voice called again. How am I going to get out of this one? I sucked in a deep breath and peered around the heavy door. I winced, knowing that I was about to get a verbal belt across the mouth.
           
            “Calum Aidan Byrne! Are you gone in the head?! You know this room isn’t to be tampered with! Get your arse out of here and put on the tea before I really give out on you, you no good, dodderin’ little...”
            “Yes, Gran. Sorry, Gran.”
            “You bet you’re sorry! All you do is goof about lately. Haven’t you got any work to do for school?”
            “Nope.”        
            She looked me keen in the eye. “You better be keeping up them grades, boy. Maybe it’s best you don’t come here any longer. You need to concentrate on getting a good education.”
            I rolled my eyes at this, apparently too conspicuously, as she said, “Just wait, Mister ‘Soccer Scholarship’. You can’t get anywhere without working for it. Remember what your...”
            She stopped then, her tightened, wrinkly face coming loose. “...just remember what we say.”
            I took my hand off the door, taking a layer of dust with me. “I’m sorry, Gran. Is there anything else I can do?”
            She closed her eyes, her hands balled into feeble fists. “Just go home, Calum. You’ve done enough.”
            “I don’t want to leave you alone, Gran...”
            The crow’s feet in her eyes loosened as she quietly whimpered, “I’m fine on my own.” She took a breath. “Go. I’m having tea with your mother. We need alone time.”


            The days before they aged were a thing of inspiration. Though I’m not a very romantic fella, they were the days that made me believe in something true, as far as men and women went. I’m glad she is young enough for me to watch her relationship with my granddad grow over the years. So many people fall out of love and end up just being “stuck.” Yes, they were stuck, but there was something different. Not like a fly on flypaper, or a businessman stuck in traffic. They were stuck like... two leaves on a stem. They created life, love—the stuff that I seemed to lose belief in.
           
            Gran would always take me to the park, where we fed the pigeons. I’d never been fond of the scummy things; “flying rats” I used to call them. Once in a while, though, there would be a few white ones. Pure white. “Gran,” I’d ask, “how do they get so white?”
            “Doves’re people who have gone to Heaven, Cal. Pure, forgiven people. Sometimes, they turn into angels and watch us; invisible. When they have no business left to take care of, but still want to walk earth’s green grass and smell its pink and red flowers, they come back as doves.”
            “But why would they want to stay here? Isn’t Heaven where you get to be perfect?”
            She sniggered. “Perfect, Cal, is what you are. We’re all perfect. We just slip sometimes.”
            “Did Daddy slip?”
            She took my hand and gave it a good squeeze. “Love, like these pigeons here, comes and goes. Sometimes, though, it stays forever, like the doves.”
            Love was a cryptic word to my ten-year-old self. Hell, I’d bet any “adult’s” last dollar that they still have not a clue what it means. I rustled my brows. “Why’d he leave?”
            “Hmm, maybe it was ‘cause he was sick and tired of changing your nappies!” she teased, her laugh lightly ringing through the crisp autumn air. “Oh my dark-haired, bright-eyed babe, we’ll never understand everything. Just know that they love you very much.”
            “You love Grandad a lot, don’t you?”
            “With all the drummings of my heart, I do, Cal. You’ll find a pretty bird for yourself. She’ll love you, too.”

            I waited out on the front porch as Mum talked to her. Their voices were so different from what I remembered them to be a few years ago; they were so gentle and smooth before, but now were raspy and rough, like their throats were constantly sore. I opened the door a crack.
            “Evelyn, I’m sure Arden wouldn’t have minded...”
            “Don’t say his name.”
            “He was just curious. He wants to hold onto his grandad, just as you want to hold onto him.”
            I saw her give Mum a look of pleading. Her grayed eyes filled with tears as she tried to blink them away. “Miriam, I can’t. I need to be wide about my heart. I can’t let him see me like this.”
            At that, I ran the five kilometers back home.


            “Alright, Gents, next practice we’re going to work on those two plays. Please, can we at least aim for perfection next time?”
            “Yes, Coach,” the team and I said in unison. I gathered my rucksack and headed off the field, where Jemma waited, a sarcastic smirk crossing her lips.
            “Coach giving ya the puck again, Cal?”
            “Shut it, Jem,” I mumbled.
            “You alright?”
            I wasn’t sure. My game had been off, but that wasn’t what had me bothered. “My gran’s having a bit of trouble coping with the whole... thing.”
            Jemma didn’t say anything then. She knew when to stop.
            As we walked in silence, we passed Dunlavin Cemetery, just as we did everyday. From the sidewalk, I could see my grandad’s headstone, the soil in front of it still freshly tilled. The black iron bars of the fence around it made me tighten my hands. I felt him, trapped by this inescapable cage of eternal sleep.
            Jemma grabbed my balled fist. “Calum, you can tell me.”
            She stared at me with those emerald globes of hers. “I don’t know what to say.”
            I loosened my hand and interlaced my fingers with hers. She gave a slight reassuring squeeze, and began to lead me gently toward the gate. I hesitated, leaning away from her pull, but once again her eyes won me over. Jemma understood my family’s history; she was the only one that knew everything. What, you think the gents on the team would understand? They’d think I was a nutter for lingering. They’d never lost anyone.
            It wasn’t like I knew the old man well. He was very quiet, only nodding to me when I came into a room. He’d always have a paper in his hand, either that or a pint of gin. He never drank it, though, which Gran would always laugh at. “Ardy,” she’d say with a smile, “now why would you waste perfectly good gin like that? It’ll be no good with you just holdin’ it there.”
            “Better to waste gin than to waste time, Ev.” Those words ring through my head still. He was always relaxing, always had his work done on time so none of us would see him in his “professional” mode. His office was always off limits, but the one time I peeked in while he was working at his writing desk, he didn’t mind a bit. “Wanna see the way I bring home the rashers and the spuds?” he said in his deep, whispery voice. I watched him for ages—at least two hours straight—counting and calculating. His big-knuckled fingers tapped the old register like they were born to do it. His silver-framed glasses sat at the tip of his nose, making me wonder how they were balancing there so impossibly. I’d look to his eyes every once in a while as they peered out of the little circles, blue-gray and bright. They would squint every few minutes or so as his cheeks rose into a slight smile, as if to tell me that my presence was still known.

            “Cal, just say what you’re thinking. It’s good for you.”
            I took a deep breath, puffing up my cheeks. I looked at the headstone, my mind blank. My lips tightened as I thought of the right thing to say, but all that came out of the breath was air. “Jem, I dunno what to do. My gran barely wants to see me anymore. She nearly got up to ninety just seeing me in his office.”
            “She still loves you, Cal. You have to give her time. Help her out a bit.”
            “How?” I couldn’t bust in on her again. She wanted to be alone. Her poor old heart was too fragile to be, though.

            Dunlavin was a sad, sulking excuse for a town for the next few weeks. There was no rain, but a damp fog surrounded everything. Granted, we didn’t get very many sunny days, but something about the soggy air made everyone go a little out of their heads. As my friends crawled down the avenue, I’d avert my eyes, letting on the impression that I couldn’t see them. It was complete bollocks for me to feel this way still—it was only my gran, right? She’d come around eventually. Right?
            Somehow, Dunlavin Cemetery became a daily sight for me, even on the weekends. Every errand I had to run for mum somehow led me past the cold, gray headstones. “What, Grandad? What do you want me to do?” I’d ask. As expected, I’d get no answer. No dove on my shoulder.
            As I walked to get mum some bread and spuds, I saw a figure bent over the site where Grandad lay. They looked to be wearing a black cape of sorts, but it was hard to tell through the thickening fog. I squinted, trying to get a better look. The figure looked around, taking a bag out from the inside of their cape. I could feel the heat of the blood rising to my face as I ran over, screaming at them.
            “’EY! You there! Get away from my grandad’s grave!”
            Just as I was about to give the grave robber a milling, the figure stood. “Cal?”

            “Gran? What are you doing here?”
            “Feeding the birds,” she said calmly. “I figured I’d share my chips with Ardy.”
            As she tossed the tiny bits of spuds to the pigeons, I could see which one she was paying extra attention to. A brilliant white dove sat atop the headstone, it’s head cocked to the side, a chip in its tiny yellow beak. “Mind yourself, now,” Gran said gently as she tiptoed among the birds to me. “They’re helping keep the site nice.”
            She handed me a bit of spud, her feeble hands careful to make sure every last chip got into my palm. “Gran,” I started. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you felt so strongly about Grandad’s office...”
            “He would have wanted you to see it. He was always proud’a his books and trinkets.”
            Her face was peaceful now as she stared at the beautiful bird. “You know, Calum, that one may be a dove.”
            “What’re you on about, Gran?”
            “That Julie girl... the pretty one with green eyes.”
            “Jemma?” I corrected her. “Gran, she’s just a friend...”
            “Pigeons come and pigeons go, but doves’ll stay with you forever. They may seem fleeting or unexpected, my young babe, but they always come back to your heart.”
            She cupped her hands and turned to the headstone. Slowly shuffling around the burial soil, she scooped the dove right up off the slate. It did not shuffle its feet or rustle its wings; it sat there, perfectly happy to be in her warm grasp. “Go on, Ardy,” she whispered, leaning closely to the dove’s tiny face and raising it into the thinning air. “I’m not long behind.”

    Tags » Short Story
    • 20 February 2012
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    Currently a student at Emerson College, Class of 2014. BA Writing, Literature and Publishing. Specializing in Creative Writing, Book Design, and Editorial.

  • About Amber Cunningham

    Currently a student at Emerson College, Class of 2014. BA Writing, Literature and Publishing. Specializing in Creative Writing, Book Design, and Editorial.

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