Leaving, Not Leaving
Two young men lay in the long grass, thoughtfully chewing on crabapples. The short one periodically slapped at his ankles, failing to drive away the midges that were tormenting him; the tall one fiddled with the loose screw on his spectacles. About them cows mooed, lazily flicking their tails and dribbling green slime out of their fat lips. Beyond the fence came the intermittent snuffle of a mare methodically chewing her way through a bale of hay.

"Murt Brennan left on Saturday," said Michael, the tall one, polishing the glass in his specs with an ink-spattered handkerchief.
"I heard that," said the short one, Jimmy, tossing an apple core as far as he could into the meadow in front of him. A squat dog that had been resting under a blackberry bush waddled after it, panting.
"He got in so."
"Aye."

The knowledge of it drifted skywards where it mingled with the afternoon haze and then the weight of it hung over them, weaving its way in and out of their consciousness. In the nearby woods a pigeon called incessantly, the sound bouncing off the trees and melding with the trill of robins. For a moment it seemed as though the very day was about to give birth to something momentous, but Michael broke the spell.

"Will we go shootin' next weekend?" he said.
"We could I suppose," said Jimmy. And after a while – "Do you think those forms are hard?"

They cogitated on this a little bit. Forms. There were always forms of one kind or another. The devil himself couldn't have created a worse kind of torture. Michael stared off at the high blue mountains in the distance, and even from this far away he could see the white dots of sheep moving about on the ridges, echoing the white drifts of cloud on the peaks. He had a sudden overwhelming desire to paint the scene, preserve it somehow, just in case. He looked down at his fingers with the dirt ingrained in the cracks and wondered if they would even know how to hold a paintbrush. In the distance they could hear the roar of the crowd at a hurling match. The sunlight streaked through the chestnut trees overhead, casting curious shadows over them. In the stream by their feet trout were jumping now and again, spattering water into the air. A willow looked as though it were about to heave its last sigh and tumble off onto the rocks. Michael crossed his legs and in doing so noticed an oil stain on his sock. He sighed a little and then returned to their discussion.

"I heard they were about twenty pages long, those forms. Sure you'd have to get one of the solicitor boyos in town to help you with that." Michael put a blade of grass to his lips and whistled a long, low keen. The dog raised its left ear and then rolled over and went back to sleep.
Suddenly Jimmy seemed very excited. He turned onto his elbow, staining his shirt with grass-juice.

"Mebbe we'd need help. But only if the questions are hard. If it's just a matter of long, sure it only needs stickin' at and we'd manage it."
"I suppose so."
"And besides, Bernie Doyle'd do us a deal after hours if we slipped him a few bob in cash, if we did need any legalising doing."
Michael picked at a bit of dead skin on his knuckle.
"Ah, he's a bit of a joker that Bernie fella. Wasn't he the very solicitor was involved in that bank scandal? How do you know he wouldn't rip you off?"
"He wouldn't dare. Not if he wants to keep courtin' my sister he won't."

Michael stood up then, running his hand through his hair to check for twigs. A stubby pencil fell unnoticed from behind his ear into the grass. A colony of ants immediately began to chew on it. He picked up his torn satchel and stuffed his fishing gear back into it, rearranging his clothes as he did so. There was a noticeable gap between the end of his trouser leg and the start of his shoe, which no amount of tugging could eliminate.

"C'mon so, we'll go for a pint. Mebbe Murt's brother will be in, we can pump him for information." Jimmy and the dog heaved themselves up and trotted along after him. The church bells rang then for the Angelus and the two men hastily made the sign of the cross on the approach to the pub.

***

Ryan's was empty though when they got there, with only the ghostly imprints of The Regulars' backsides in the barstools for company. It wouldn't fill up until the match was over. They couldn't afford cigarettes so they snaffled a few butts out of the ashtrays. Players Please. The brown carpet stank a bit of stale beer, but the wind from the dog under their feet distracted them from that. Flora was behind the bar in a too-tight maroon jumper. It wasn't her mammy knitted that for her. She felt sorry for them, huddled up in the corner; gave them a free packet of Cheese & Onion Tayto to go with their drinks.

Michael started in again.
"They'll never let us in. You have to be a doctor or something. Or a teacher, they probably need teachers."
"Ah whist. There's more than one way to skin a cat."
"Is there an interview for that now? I'd say there is. I couldn't go Jimmy, I've no suit or shoes or nothin' for it." Michael wiped his sweaty palms on the frayed knees of his trousers.
"Could ye not borrow one or somethin'? I tell ye, once we're there we'll be makin' enough money to buy a whole factory of suits if we want to!" beamed Jimmy.
Pints were supped.

"How would we buy the ticket anyways? We'd never have enough money." The tall one was given to bouts of gloom. Cobwebby days, his ma called it.
"They help you out with that," said Jimmy.
"They never! That's a baldy lie and you know it." Michael supped fiercely at his pint of Guinness, wiping the creamy moustache off on his sleeve.
Jimmy studied the stains on the flocked wallpaper before replying.
"Ways and means my friend, ways and means." He didn't actually know what he meant by that, but he thought it sounded about right. He plucked at his cuffs and tapped the side of his nose, like they did in the fillums. Except he'd never seen a fillum, himself, but sure Teddy Byrne was always tellin' him about them.
"Anyways, Murt wasn't qualified in anything like that," Jimmy carried on.
"No," said Michael, "but he was a jackass. They always get on somehow."
"Jackass? No, I think you're wrong there. Smartass more like."
"I heard he spent a few days counting pennies in his auntie's post office and then wrote down on his form that he was an accountant." Michael had so far shredded two beer mats and was now reaching for a third.
"Did he now. That's very interesting. I might go and pay a visit to his auntie myself."
"For what? That biddy won't give you a new job any more than Flora will!"
On hearing her name the barmaid turned and scowled at them through a pint glass, a sloppy rag in her hand.
"Ye plonker ye," said Jimmy, "I need stamps. I'm sendin' off for them forms."

***

Jimmy came whistling into Ryan's on the Wednesday of the following week. Straight up to the bar and two Guinness and a packet of Planters Roasted Peanuts from Flora and whatever you're having yourself. She put a bottle of Lucozade under the counter for later. Michael eyed him suspiciously.

"You're fierce chirpy for a man after a hard day's work."
"Ta-da!" Jimmy hefted a sheet of papers on to the table with a flourish.
"What's that there now?" said Michael. Jimmy's attitude was an annoyance, but his pint was cold and creamy and in the end that was what mattered.
"The forms, the forms! I've finished mine. Fill in yours like a good man and we'll send them off together, for luck."

Michael reached for the papers. Application for Immigration. He paused before reading on.
"How will we get there though, really? The ticket must cost an arm and a leg," he said quietly, not looking at his friend.
"Well, I'm sorted," said Jimmy. "I persuaded the grandda he didn't need all those cattle. He's too old for them anyways, sure he's gone soft in the head. He told me he'd give them to me if I sent him back a kangaroo's paw! Can y'imagine? I'm takin' 'em to the mart tomorrow." The short one tried to ignore the reticence of his drinking buddy and carried on, gesticulating wildly. "Maybe I could lend you something. You could pay me back. There's bound to be great jobs out there. Sure I even flung a few drops of Lourdes water on the papers before fillin' 'em in, it's bound to work." But Michael's silence was getting more and more awkward and the more Jimmy tried to fill it the bigger it grew.

"I see," said Michael finally, and then suddenly Jimmy seemed to retreat, grow fainter in the smoke that was snaking its way round the pub. "Well, I suppose there's no harm in having a look anyways," pulling the sheaf of papers towards him again.
Michael's eyes fell on Section 6 and a laugh burst out of him like an unexpected fart. He prodded his finger at the box marked 'Occupation'.
"Engineer! Engineer? You bloody pump petrol."
Jimmy at least had the grace to colour slightly.
"Whist, whist out o' that Michael. Everyone does that. Sure no-one would get in otherwise. Didn't Murt do it? Happy as a sandboy I bet he is now. Here, here's a pen."
Michael took the pen and looked Jimmy directly in the eye then.
"I work in a shop," he said.
"Retail Manager, perfect."
"I work in a shop," repeated Michael, still staring at his friend.
"Never mind that," said Jimmy, jabbing at the form.
The tall one's hand wavered.

***

He tells me all this, late one night, out of nowhere. As we sit at the table by the window, slouched over a dusty bottle of Jameson, the mountains silhouetted by the rising moon and the pigeon still calling in the wood. By the door my rucksack has left muddy tracks. I look at him then, and I think about there and back again, time travelling, and instead of the familiar I see a whole other world of possibilities, all buried now under an old geansaí.

"They didn't let you in, did they?"
"No, they didn't. No call for shop boys." He sips at the whiskey in one of the mismatched tumblers.
I put my hand over his. "I bet you were the best shop boy they never had."
"Mebbe so."
"Do you ever hear from himself?"
"I never heard another dickybird after he left."
"Oh. Maybe he didn't get on so well."
"That's possible I suppose. There was a rumour in the village there a while back that he's dead now anyways. Cancer."
"All that sun probably."
"Could be."
"If you'd gone Daddy you'd never have had us. You'd have had different kids, imagine! You'd have missed out there, I'd say."

He looks at me and he smiles but he says nothing. And I can't read his face anymore, in the dark, with the mountain watching over us.