The Temporary Gentleman by Sebastian Barry Read Free Book Online Page A

sitting on the edge of a narrow single bed, looking out on the great wordless theatre of Galway Bay, unless the words were the secret words of God.
    A memory I have carried with me like the little creature that gets into the apple barrel, climbs in all unseen, and by the time your ship reaches Madagascar and the provisioner opens the barrel, there is not one apple left integral and whole.

Chapter Six
    When my brother Tom was still a teenager he got a job as the organist at the Picture House in Sligo. It is not given to every man to see his brother in such a guise. The owners had gone full out for their effects, including the installation of hydraulic lifts very interesting to me as a young engineering student. These had been invented during the First World War as a way to raise a Zeppelin undercarriage – so my text book said.
    Three hundred faces raised and expectant, the motley population of Sligo that could afford the sixpence for a ticket. It began in Stygian darkness, then a mighty release of sound somewhere under the earth, then the floor of the fore-stage opened, and a geyser of light burst upward, like a veritable explosion. Then an engine was seen rising, bearing the great organ, then my brother, if it was my brother now really, in his blazing white suit, his army-like cap, his stocky frame, his still back and his arms distorted by light into the wide thick arms of a gorilla, powerful as Zeus, working the keys like a wizard, and he seemed to be sitting astride the sun itself, such a great flower of light forced its way out, blazing and frantic, wonderfully lunatic, then noise upon noise, and more noise, then, with a calculated majesty, he let it all go, stopped it all, so that for a moment the breath was burned out of the audience, like the force of a detonation, their hearts paused, their hopes were held suspended, the past had no sting, just for a moment, just for a moment, and then life was given back, the first scenes of the film flashed and flared into life, and Tom would throw the kindling of one note into the silence, the little Lucifer of a note, graciously allowing us reprieve, our knees settling down again, here and there a redeemed soul clearing their throat, a little laughter here and there, a brave man somewhere giving his date a quick squeeze, her cry of surprise, and then laughing, the great bliss of it, the life and death of it, the death and life, and my brother Tom the captain of it.
       
    The Plaza, Strandhill. My father Old Tom, my brother Young Tom, their dancehall. Sometimes I imagine that everyone’s to be found there still, everyone that was important to me, Tom and Eneas, the girls we thought we were in love with, the girls we definitely were in love with, lovely Roseanne, vivid and vibrant Mai, and what was the name of the girl Eneas loved, wasn’t it Viv, it was, eternally present in those tin walls, the to-do and turmoil of the Atlantic oftentimes lending the little orchestra inside an added music, the ferocious tantrums and deceitful moods and sudden violence and queer hatreds and manias of the sea. But of course it is all long ago, and a hundred different fates and stories have swallowed up my comrades, as my own fate has swallowed me. We are in the great belly of the whale of what happens, we mistook the darkness for a pleasant night-time, and the phosphorescent plankton swimming there for stars.
    Mai dancing there, in her youth. What immense pride I felt in her, so happy to show her off to my friends and my brother. Even as he struck out the notes from his trumpet, I could see his eyes following her. She loved all the new American dances and could do them to the nth degree into the bargain, and I was well-nigh obliged to learn them quick. Such joy in that, her strength, her fiery steps, her willingness to allow for my lack of polish, as long as I would thunder through the hours with her, mashing our arms and legs, with that measured wildness. Her face aglow, her stamina infinite,