Free The Railway Station Man by Jennifer Johnston Page A

couple of times, I mind, for reunions or something. My father used to take him to the train in Sligo. He’d bring his medals in a little black box. He always came back a new man … not just an old fogey telling his stories to the kids, because no one else had the time for him. You wouldn’t remember his shark?’
    â€˜I heard the story. I didn’t know it was your grandfather caught it.’
    â€˜Yes. Swan song.’
    â€˜But none of this is …’
    â€˜Yes. Inside my head it is … relevant I suppose you were going to say … something like that. He used to talk. Maybe that’s where I get my clacking tongue. Sit outside the kitchen door on summer evenings or by the fire in the winter and talk about the wars he’d seen, his old friends, the travelling, the great times they’d had together. India, terrible tragedies, happy days … all together like some kind of fairy story, only it was true. He would just sit there and let the brightness of his past catch up with him. I had all the time in the world to listen. And he’d talk about Ireland. You’ll have to shoot them out, he used to say. They’ll never go any other way. If you want them out you’ll have to shoot them out. They simply don’t understand the need that people have for freedom. People would rather be poor and suffer and be free. The English … he always talked about the English … don’t understand a stupid thing like that. So you’ll have to shoot them out, lad, and the quicker the better.’
    â€˜Well? Wasn’t he right?’
    â€˜He didn’t think it was right. He thought it was inevitable … like an operation without an anaesthetic, painful and possibly maiming. To be born Irish is a bitter birth, lad, he said to me. So many times he said that.’ He picked up his glass and drained it. He held it out, the inside patterned with froth, towards Jack.
    â€˜Are you buying?’
    Jack stood up. He took the glass from Damian’s fingers.
    â€˜Manus doesn’t like messers.’
    â€˜I don’t like Manus.’ Spiky orange lashes framed his hostile eyes. Jack shrugged slightly and went over to the bar. Guinness was written on the round mats placed at intervals along the bar. Three men played cards in the corner by the bar and from the carpeted saloon he could hear the sound of a girl laughing.
    â€˜A pint,’ he said, pushing the glass across the counter to the barman.
    â€˜Only the one?’
    â€˜Only the one.’
    There didn’t seem to be any point in having the rest of Damian’s life spilled out across the table at him. He had delivered his message. No point in wasting time.
    â€˜I talk too much,’ said Damian, as Jack sat down across from him. ‘Aren’t you having one yourself?’
    Jack shook his head. ‘My mother is waiting.’
    â€˜Ah.’
    â€˜We eat at odd hours.’
    â€˜I like my meals at regular four-hourly intervals.’
    â€˜What’ll I say to Manus?’
    â€˜How soon does he want this place?’
    â€˜Within the month.’
    â€˜I’ll be in touch with him. You can give him that message.’
    â€˜Secure.’
    â€˜You said that before. One of the few words you have said.’
    â€˜I suppose we should try and like each other.’
    â€˜Remember the bloody nose I gave you?’
    Jack nodded. ‘I gave you one too.’
    â€˜You loosened one of my teeth.’
    â€˜Did I? I never knew that.’ He felt obscurely pleased.
    â€˜It fell out six months later. Look.’
    He rolled up his lip and Jack saw that a right-hand front molar was missing.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ Jack lied.
    â€˜No hard feelings,’ said Damian. ‘The girls like a fellow to be battle-scarred.’
    â€˜A sabre scar would be more glamorous.’
    â€˜True.’
    They both laughed. Anyone coming into the bar at that moment might have thought