BooksBarbecue
Back Trespasses Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. COVER
  2. HALF-TITLE PAGE
  3. BY THE SAME AUTHOR
  4. DEDICATION PAGE
  5. TITLE PAGE
  6. 2015
  7. THE IRISH FOR NO
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. 4
  12. 5
  13. 6
  14. DÚIL
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. 9
  18. 10
  19. 11
  20. 12
  21. CHIAROSCURO
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. IN CALVARY’S FLOW
  29. 19
  30. 20
  31. 21
  32. 22
  33. 23
  34. 24
  35. WHEN I MOVE TO THE SKY
  36. 25
  37. 26
  38. 27
  39. 28
  40. 29
  41. 30
  42. 2015
  43. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  44. A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

Voices rising at the far end of the room. The guide in the moss-green dress has broken away from the group and is walking towards them. Davy lets go of Cushla gently, placing his hand on the girl’s arm, around the gorse tattoo. Ellen, he says. This is Miss Lavery.

Davy told me about you, she says, picking a fleck of lint from his sleeve, straightening his collar. He accepts her attentions shyly.

Are you rushing off, miss? he says.

I will if you call me ‘miss’ one more time.

Ellen’s laugh echoes around the room. She says she has one more tour to give before she’s finished and will meet them in the café in an hour.

She’s lovely, says Cushla when she’s gone.

She’s young. You probably think I’m a dirtbird.

No, says Cushla. I don’t.

She looks at the shrouded figure one last time. The tight precise weft of the old linen is visible through the resin, its folds voluptuous, as if it has been starched. She reaches for it, expecting it to yield to her touch, but it is hard and cold. The cast is hollow. It conveys a sense of emptiness, as if a body has rolled out of it. Cushla moves her hand to the shoulder, expecting, for a mad moment, to feel a bump at the collarbone, but it is not there. She runs her fingers down along the right arm and covers the hand with hers.

I was going to check out the John Lavery stuff, says Davy. Would you like that?

I would love that, Davy McGeown.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I appear to have written a novel. This is a work of fiction that is based on true events; sometimes the way the events occur (and the events themselves) are from my imagination. Nonetheless, very many people helped me.

I am grateful for the ACES Award I received from Arts Council of Northern Ireland in 2019, which gave me both vital financial assistance and a shot of self-belief. Thanks to the Achill Heinrich Boll Association for a residency in their cottage on beautiful Achill in November 2019. Thanks to Paul Maddern of the magical River Mill Writers’ Retreat, where I spent way more time than I am willing to admit; delightfully, no matter how hard I worked, the calorie count always exceeded the word count.

Thanks to director Glenn Patterson and all my friends at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queens University Belfast for support and understanding. In 2021 I was one of the inaugural Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellows there and it is particularly humbling to have been allowed to quote from ‘The Irish for No’ in Trespasses; thanks to the Estate of Ciaran Carson and Peter Fallon of Gallery Press for their generosity in this regard.