Shadows on Our Skin

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Shadows on Our Skin

A Novel

Jennifer Johnston

For B. Friel

with constant admiration

I see the last black swan

Fly past the sun.

I wish I, too, were gone

Back home again.

Now we’ve got time to kill,

Kill the shadows on our skin.

Kill the fire that burns within.

Killing time my friend.

My body’s black and sore.

I need to sleep.

Now hear the heaven’s roar.

I can’t escape.

With acknowledgements and thanks to Horslips.

Father, you had to go away.

And sadly I have had to stay.

I am sad we had to part.

I will miss you in my heart.

He chewed the end of his pen and tried to visualise the words printed in the Journal, even perhaps with the importance of a thick black line around them, presenting them to the world. No, anyway. He crossed them out, carefully inking out each word so that no one would be able to read it.

Dear father I am sad you had to go.

So, blow, flow, po … ha ha … slow, oh, oh, oh.

Miss McCabe’s chalk squealed pitifully on the blackboard. A triangle. Three sides. A.B.C. Three angles. Triangle.

He saw his father propped against grey pillows, his head folded down into his shoulders like some ancient bird.

Father, it’s time for you to go,

But don’t think my tears will flow,

Because I hate you so.

His fingers trembled as he wrote the word hate.

The sides of the triangle are all the same length. Squeak. A to B. Squeak. B to C. C to A. An equilateral triangle. All equal.

Your eyes are blue,

Your nose is red,

I wish that you were bloody dead.

That means that each angle must be 60 degrees. Angle A, 60 degrees. Angle B 60 degrees. Angle C 60 degrees. Thus making 180 degrees.

You’ve lived too long, already, Dad.

And when you go I won’t be sad.

I’ll jump for joy and shout and sing,

Dee da dee da dee da dee ding.

Now hands up those who can tell me the name of a triangle with three sides the same length. Martin Casey. That’s right. An equilateral triangle. EQUILATERAL. Squeak, squeak.

When you go to the heavenly land

I’ll hang out the flags and order the band.

That, now, had a ring about it. A kind of dancing rhythm.

What degrees are the angles of an equilateral triangle? Joseph Logan?

The drums will beat

And the bells will ring …

‘Joseph Logan.’

A terrible silence filled the room and then he heard his name spoken once more.