Sunrise with Sea Monster by Neil Jordan Read Free Book Online Page B

and she drew away.
    Now play it again, she said.
    Hoc est enim corpus meum, the priest says and now raises the small disc of white. The Virgin seems to sweat in the heat and Mussolini stares into some
     indeterminate future and the Caudillo contemplates his own moustache. And I feel the urge to kneel, if only for my father's
     sake but the Welshman spits contemptuously to the pebbles in front of him and the Spaniard who tries to crawl into my bed
     each night cracks a thin, melancholy smile.
    He left us to our own devices, as his face on the posts of the promenade urinal became gradually indistinguishable from the
     concrete. Rose stayed, I can only surmise because she had to, because of those seven brothers and sisters in that cottage
     in Sligo, because prospects for young ladies were limited. Some years later I would visit out of curiosity the hostel where
     she lived in Hatch Street and understand more: the barred windows, the nuns in blue, the list of rules pasted on the inside
     door. But at the time I imagined she'd stayed because of me. The thought of her complementing my father's life had vanished;
     he was rarely there, she began to complement mine. I came to understand the precise emotional import of those stockings, drying
     by the stove that day I first met her. I discovered Erik Satie. The arbitrary melodies puzzled her, but she worked her way
     through them while I stood behind her, watching the movement of her shoulders under her dress. I could see between her buttons
     the down of her skin. I reached my finger out to touch that skin, expecting a reprimand, or the music to stop. But none of
     that happened; she stiffened slightly, then relaxed and played on. This then became our habit, Erik Satie, her working out
     the discords as I sat beside her and worked my hand up the inside of her leg. Stop it, Donal, she would mutter, but some peasant
     pleasure-principle took over, her knees would shift to hit the pedals and my hand would stay there till her legs were wet.
    Hie est enim calix sanguinis mei, the priest says, which shall be shed for you and for all men for the remission of sins. He raises the battered cup to the
     sunlight. Rose's notes would falter and her body would shudder slightly, a tiny missive I was coming to recognise. She would
     tell me to stop, but without conviction. Her eyes would fix on the manuscript as if the dots charted the rhythm of her breathing.
     She would only speak of it in musical terms. Moderato cantabile. The more profound her pleasure was, the less she referred
     to it. Afterwards I would play the same tune while she stood by the window and smoked. Music, I realised, was the way to keep
     Maisie's footsteps at bay. And Rose tried to disapprove, but her heart wasn't in it. Give over, Donal, she'd say, what would
     your father think? Till the day I took the dusty record from the pile of my mother's things in the attic upstairs.
    It was Rachmaninov playing himself. When she came for her regular class I showed it to her and placed it on the phonograph.
     I put the needle down, turned up the volume gradually and his second concerto filled the room. What's this? she asked. Sit
     here and listen, I said, tapping the space on the couch beside me. I want to learn this. She sat beside me and let me take
     her hand, which was by now smaller than my own. She listened with her head back, let me unclasp one stocking, then the other.
     Stop it Donal, she said when I undid the buttons of her blouse, but again her heart wasn't in it. Her hand played with my
     hair, my mouth and then in a moment of surrender eased me down on to the carpet. The playing was impossibly good and I wondered
     whether Maisie would notice the orchestral bits or hear our ever-more impassioned breathing but gradually the concerto seemed
     to fill the house, to echo round the promenade, beyond the railings and out over the Irish Sea.
    O res mirabilis. I remember Mouse's voice echoing round the arches of the church on the