WHO Cathal WHEN Thursday WHERE Burlington, Wisconsin WHAT It's a classic character intro scene, ya'll
Sometimes - when he walked the night time streets of Burlington, absorbed by the quiet – Cathal missed Galway like a physical ache.
Galway had been the first place that Cathal had thought of as ‘home’ as a child, moving there when he was five and leaving again at ten. It had been the longest his parents had ever stayed in one place, and every city or town thereafter couldn’t stand up to his rose-coloured memories of Galway. And so, when he had left home at eighteen, it was straight back to Galway he went.
The memories hadn’t led him wrong. Galway was a beautiful city, and he knew he’d made the right choice in coming back. He found a small apartment that overlooked the River Corrib, and although there were factories on all sides he still slept well being on his own and away from the stresses of his family.
Burlington was so small, but it had been where the work was six years ago, and after settling in he’d seen no reason to move again. He’d moved so much in his youth, that now his desire was to always stay. But it had been quite the change coming from the cultural capital of Ireland to a one cinema town that took ten minutes to drive across and whose own cultural centre was the Spinning Top and Yo-Yo Museum, set up in a single shop along the main street.
But it also had things going for it: it had strangers who had become friends, and it was six thousand miles from his home and family. Those were both things that counted heavily in its favour.
And, yes, it was a little white, that was true. There were exactly forty-three other South Asians in Burlington- which Cathal knew because people had either assumed they were related or he’d been set up with them on dates by well-meaning locals.
The majority of the racism he faced here on a regular basis was a sort of well-meaning kind, the idiotic sort that showed up when people had been living in their white bubble, and Cathal could live with that. Sure it wasn’t great that he was clearly considered ‘one of the good ones’, but he supposed it was better than the alternative. Around town he was well-known and well-liked and he had made very intentional choices along the way to make sure of that. He made sure he was easy to talk to – not a trial, as Cathal had always been desperate for approval and conversation – and he was always quick to volunteer to help others. (The volunteering wasn’t entirely calculated. Cathal always felt good when helping others, and he knew he got that from his parents: his mother was self-sacrificing to the point of lunacy, and his father was obsessed with duty. Neither was quite Cathal’s style.)
In front of Cathal, the crash of a falling trash can drew him out of his thoughts and he frowned, moving forward. He had expected a raccoon but the beast that came shooting out from behind the bin was smaller.
“Archibald!” Cathal said, snaking out a hand to grab hold of the little dog by his collar so he couldn’t escape. Escaping, as everyone knew, was Archibald’s main interest in life and greatest skill. How was he still so spy at twelve years old? Cathal almost asked him if Enid knew he was out, but he knew that Enid probably just assumed Archibald was always free and loose if she couldn’t directly see him.
Cathal scooped up the terrier – an indignity Archibald was well used to and didn’t even struggle against – and crossed the street to head down Elmwood instead.
At Enid’s place he lifted Archibald over the back fence, and Archibald looked up at him with extreme doggy distaste.
“Hey lad,” he told him, not without sympathy, “take it up with the missus.”
Back at his own house – no missus to keep Cathal in the yard – he unlocked the door and let himself in, listening for the presence of his housemates. But there was nothing but a dog barking somewhere outside – luckily, it didn’t sound like Archibald – and Cathal made his way into the kitchen to make some toast.
On the top of the mail pile there was one with a lot more stamps and a very familiar handwriting. Sighing, Cathal reached out to pick it up, turning it over as though he’d be able to read the letter through the envelope.
The toaster went off and Cathal put the letter down to focus on more important things, like butter and cherry jam. He ate one piece while leaning back against the sink, staring at the clock on the wall. The second piece he took back to his bedroom, along with the letter.
There was a flicker when Cathal turned the bedroom on, but he barely noticed it. He had managed to find a very nice house to live in, but the wiring had always been a little temperamental. He was good at fixing cars, but wasn’t willing to mess with the electricity in the walls of the house for something that barely bothered any of them.
Kicking off his boots into the corner, Cathal opened the envelope while he held his toast slice between his teeth. Cathal’s mother wrote to him every couple of months, and he could almost predict some of the things that would be included already: another move, his father sending his love but never writing anything, hints of marital discord that Cathal found alarming but that they always considered ‘normal’ in a relationship, a gentle encouragement that he could come home at any time, or perhaps a more clear plea for that same thing.
Cathal unfolded the letter and sat down on his bed to read it.
They were living in Drogheda and his mother was working on another book – this would be her third, all self-help types on marriage and motherhood. Cathal had sometimes made appearances in them when he was a child, and had never liked the idea of that. Your father and I are taking time apart to process, she wrote in the letter, and Cathal knew what that meant. It meant his dad had kicked her out of the house in a bout of jealously, convinced that she had been unfaithful.
She hadn’t. She never had, and yet they did this over and over, and then in the end always went back to each other with great celebration, as though this was somehow all very romantic. It was hardly a wonder that it had taken Cathal so long not to treat his own jealous feelings like facts when it came to women. His father had been a terrible role model for romance, and his mother little better.
The request to come home was simple this time, if a little manipulative. (Cathal had never worked out how much of that she meant on purpose.)
It’s terrible lonely here in the nights all on my own, and gives me much time to think on how I drove my little boy away. Plane fares are so inexpensive right now. Perhaps you could come home, maybe just for a visit?
I hope you’re well there, even though you’re far across the sea from me. I saw on the internet that the chocolate festival was last month. Maybe you could send me photos if you find it in your heart?
Yours in love always, your patient mother.
Cathal sighed and gazed vacantly across the room towards his Victorian prints of insects. There was an urge to scrunch the letter up in his hand but instead he opened the second drawer down beside his bed and slipped it in with all the other letters. He found replying to them so difficult, but he would think of something at another time.
Back out in the living room he put his legs up in the La-Z-Boy and flicked on the telly. When the image appeared there was a lizard running across the hot desert sand on a episode of Planet Earth and Cathal decided that, yes, he could very much just sit here and listen to David Attenborough talk about life in the desert tonight.