Short Writing Week 11
“I’m afraid your brother is dead”
Some context here.
“Your brother’s back.” It was my mother.
“What do you mean he’s back? He’s dead.”
“He might not be. You should call over.”
So over I called. Patrick was sitting there on the couch, thumb slowly undulating over a phone screen, feet up, seeming very much not dead.
“Patrick,” I said. “Aren’t you dead?”
“Ah I was yeah,” said Patrick, without looking up. I looked over at my mother who gave one strong nod: go on.
“I suppose the question,” I continued, “is how are you alive again?”
“I just left, y’know.”
“You left what, though?”
“Being dead, like.” He had not yet looked up.
“Are you saying there’s an afterlife. Patrick?”
He tapped his screen off and put the phone down beside himself. Tapped it again briefly to light it up, as if double checking something, and then slid it under his thigh out of sight.
“I guess there kind of is, yeah.”
“What’s it like, Patrick?” asked our mother, hovering for some reason in the kitchen doorway as if this was none of her business. “Are there lights?”
“Kind of normal,” said Patrick.
“Ah, right,” said our mother.
“No I think I need more than that,” I said. “Were you corporeal? Was it a physical place? How did you get there, how did you leave?”
“Dunno,” said Patrick, his eyes seeming to attempt to look through his thigh back at the phone. “A few of the lads were there. Rayo, Steve, your man Peg Leg.”
“Ah how’s Rayo doing with the baby?” asked our mother.
“None of them are dead though,” I said.
“Rayo’s grand yeah,” said Patrick. “The baby’s sleeping through the night now. You’re right there Cathal, he’s not dead. Neither is Steve, he’s still doing management shifts in the Super Valu. Peggo you can never be sure, you know like? He might have been dead when we met. Didn’t really make sense for them to be there, though.”
“Patrick you were in a car that drove into the canal and you drowned,” I said. “This was three weeks ago.”
“Ah yeah I haven’t forgotten it like.”
“You don’t seem to be taking it very seriously, though.”
“Maybe you just got over it Patrick?” suggested our mother.
Patrick, unable to resist any more, slid his phone out, visibly relaxed his posture and started tapping furiously. I struggled to find any question that would elicit a satisfactory answer, having exhausted the obvious ones.
“Well I guess you’re back now, that’s great,” said our mother. “Will you be staying for dinner Cathal?”
“Hang on, no, is he back from the dead? We can’t, like, just wash our hands of it and carry on. We had a funeral.”
“It was a lovely funeral,” she said.
“Just tell him, ma,” said Patrick.
“Just tell me what?”
“Ah Patrick, you can’t start that now, let’s just have dinner and get on with out without a fuss.”
“Just tell me what?”
“I wasn’t dead,” said Patrick, tapping away. I had no response to this, I looked over at our mother who looked annoyed more than anything else.
“What do you mean you weren’t dead?”
“I got out of the car. I didn’t tell anyone and just stayed with Steve for two days.” He looked up. “It didn’t work, ma, don’t be annoyed at me.”
“Did you know he was alive when you did the funeral?” I asked, stunned.
“Everyone knew,” said Patrick.
“What do you mean everyone knew?”
“Ah Cathal don’t worry about it, your brother’s back, can we just get on with it?”
“Did you stage an entire funeral just to avoid telling me he wasn’t dead?”
“Ah come on,” she said. “We told you he was dead, how stupid would we have looked if we came back two days later and said, no, he’s alive actually, he was just down the pub for two days. How embarrassing that is? You’re just the kind who’d make a big thing about it, did you not look for a body, what did the police say, did you try ringing his phone, on and on. You’d have us committed.”
“Those are all good questions,” I said.
My dad arrived at the front door and walked in on the scene.
“Ah Cathal,” he said. “Did you see Patrick’s not dead. That’s good news isn’t it.”
“Forget it Liam, he blew the whole thing,” said our mother, flapping her hand in the direction of Patrick on the couch.
“Ah right so,” said our dad. “Are you staying for dinner Cathal?”
There was no recourse left available to me other than staying for dinner.