Glimpses from the Glimmer.

Glimpsed him again at a meeting in Carcassonne, finding his way he was in there among the afflicted addicts checking those recently released from prisons and asylums. He was comfortable enough with genuine addicts who were no longer in denial and intent on recovery. He being a slave to obsession and compulsion identified. The French accents at times seemed to slur and gave the impression of being uncertain and half-hearted, a bit laissez faire. The eyes in the men’s room mirror were somewhat jerky, tentative, and paranoid, with deliberate caution in their glare. Mc Uaigneas was aware of unreality regarding time, screaming children, burning bodies, smug-faced clergy, hoodie men with large gcrosses on their chests issuing orders for total annihilation of every Cathar every gnostic to be burned in the fire. No wonder he was on tippy toes. He was not going to pick grapes, for blood and wine were red, for blood and wine were on his hands when they found him with the dead in the “Ballad of Reading Gaol” coursing through his washing machine brain and just one glass would have found him with the dead. Mr. Mc Uaigneas knew himself to be a late bon homme burnt and castrated in Carcassonne.

Nodded to him again in ’64 when he had time off from the hotel in Eze sur Mer and went rambling in Marseille savouring illicit absinthe to seek the one eared man whose sunflower colours he adored and the husky Piaf from the shadows in the darkened doorways down the cobbly streets while peiteny ladies sardonically grunted a bon jour while dunking their stale croissants in their bowls of chicory café au lait. Friends he had never met before arrived in droves from the shadows to greet with Bon Jour and C’est va encore. Yes he knew the town from before the war although he had never been in body here before. The patron of the bistro said the Irlandais is welcome to rest and stay in his place any day but to” fait attention” while mixing Calvados with Absinthe for ghosts inhabit the vapours unleashed from within and have a way of scalding virtue and praising sin.

Mc Uaigneas scribbled a card to his mother with colours from the Cote d’Azure describing the excitement in the not so sure. Wormwood and apple not so clear could twist a day into a year cycling circles in green vapours, ending in delirium tremens seeking solace with serpent vipers.

Ah! Yes waved to him again in the winners’ enclosure as he presented the Cup for the Amateur Hurdle. He seemed half blind, looking wide eyed into the middle distance, his voice seemed coherent full of fun and humour, yet it echoed with hollowness that wasn’t himself. His nose was bulbous; his cheeks were blotched and starkly veined impeccably dressed in an undertaker’s wardrobe you knew he wouldn’t be hanging around long.

As the sun shone down a body was floating in Carpentera Bay, the eyes were closed and tears were squeezing out from under the lids, the brain was baking inside the skull, tormenting thoughts went on and on, the past was swirling around his head, he had failed before at going dead. He was far from shore and it felt safe to think and ponder and peruse the past that was so unpalatable, and to feel the desertion and desolation from the first wife divorce. The lies and deceit as his children were brought out of reach was being realized. Now a similar possibility might be about to recur for Mc Uaigneas felt he had been duped again but vowed he would be a hands on father to the new baby.

Saw him again about to pee into the crystal water with the reflection of the moon over his shoulder, his head was thrown back as he laughed and howled back to the howling wolves on the other side of the lake, announcing to them that they were by no means alone in resonating their untamed proclamations in the Scandinavian wilderness, he was there with family.

Saw him again one night on the shore striding the edges of white foam from the Indian Ocean breaking rhythmically, as a mala beads slid between fore finger and thumb to the chanting sound of Om Mani Padme Hum, a wild gleam of freedom fringed the shadows.

Again over the shoulder Opa in der bahnhof a floating picture returns like a recurring dream full of nuances,shadowy caverns, crowded tables,raucous laughter, shunting carriages ,garbled tannoys announcing platform numbers with imminent imperatives or implied painful consequences..Meanwhile a grizzly whitebearded gnarled faced roguish eyed old geezer smiles bemusedly at me over his frothy tankard ,”Libe “Amor'',”Love” he pronounces and emphasises each word slowly .He inclines his head and furrows his brow and turns his open palm upwards making clear that his utterance was not rhetorical but that he expected a reply. I was young, raw and flattered by the auld fellow’s attention in some strange way and having been addressed in three different languages I answered “Grá “being love “Gráitude “being “Buíochas “Bui being the colour of gold I pronounced with equal slowness and deliberation. He pounded the table making the foam fly while his chair scraped the ground as he made to embrace me “a young irishman “he beamed with good nature towards me . That’s right “Opa” says i using up one of the few words of german I had.He beckoned me to join him .He called for “Zwi Grosses” shur I couldn’t refuse .

“Do you have a word for loneliness “ he says to me ? "Uaigneas"says I ,"grave like" in a cemetery voice as I puffed out the smoke from the "Rothandel "in a steam engine fashion a crematorium in a forest ."We don't talk about that "says he."I know" says I "like sex in Ireland "He chuckled”and” like the English dealt with your own poor Oscar “ “Yet each one kills the thing he loves “ I sighed and motioned to the barman “ , Nach zwie “ A portly black trousered, bow tied, white aproned, waiter put two more ticks on my beer mat before placing the drinks . Simultaneously we all turned towards the groaning and grinding of the starting train on platform four. Through the haze of mist rising from the hosed and sweltering concrete walkways we watched a neatly dressed woman in a black veil dabb her eyes and wave a white handkerchief to a young man in a uniform leaning out a carriage door. “ A widow wondering “ we acquiesced in unison acknowledging in the humidity the loneliness and the incongruity of the veil . We lowered our eyes and looked away as the woman turned and walked towards us to enter the bahnhof bar .Stately was her gait and her demeanour as she strode to the bar and in firm but faultless german ordered a San Patricio .

We nodded to the woman respectfully, there was no other customers in the bar the waiter placed a schoner of dry sherry before her .”San Patricio “says I to Opa and the lady “is said to have banished the snakes from our country but what he installed in their place is a lot more deadly”.”Proust,Sainte,Slainte” we all smiled as “Pretty Woman”finished on the jukebox to be replaced by another Roy Orrbison number “Only the Lonely”sang out. I looked at Opa, he smiled most benevolently at the young Irishman and the young French widow..