The Epigone:
Parts 5 & 6
by John McGroarty
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: Having persuaded Miriam to let him read some of her work, Jimmy discovers that she is a highly talented writer. He resolves to prevent her from wasting that talent.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Having persuaded Miriam to let him read some of her work, Jimmy discovers that she is a highly talented writer. He resolves to prevent her from wasting that talent.
5
I became a regular at the little bar under Miriam’s window. I was waiting for my chance. I never saw her but I knew she was there; that they were there. I heard the incessant cello practice and the arguments. I must have been going there every morning for two weeks but I didn’t notice any improvement or that the bum notes were being smoothed out. Then one morning I saw the husband leave in a fizz. He banged the door and headed up Espronceda with his cello slung across his back. She came down with the children and I stood up and made ready to follow but something told me to sit tight. Sure enough, half an hour later she reappeared childless. I called out to her and she came over. Are you following me? she asked right out, before I got a chance to say anything. She didn’t look angry. I sucked my teeth and shook my head. Maybe, I said. I mean, you’re a person you don’t meet every day, I added. What’s that? she asked. It’s an Irish thing; it means you’re someone out of the ordinary. A special person. She threw her head back and laughed. Laughed as if she were possessed. A demonic laugh. Then she stopped and looked serious. Out of the ordinary? I’m the most ordinary person in the world. Believe me. And then, are you Irish? No, Scottish, well, my people, some of them were Irish. You are following me, she said. I’ve seen you at the bar here. I have a husband, you know. And, she frowned, don’t take it badly, but you’re a little old for me. And you’re a guiri, I am a very traditional girl. She laughed wickedly. No, it’s not that, I said. She looked sceptical. I promise, I insisted. You told me once that you were a writer. I write too and I need a writer friend. That’s it. Nothing else. Someone who really understands. I don’t have anyone to read my work and I thought we could read each other’s and, you know, help each other out with writing. She sat down heavily and ordered a beer and a sandwich. I’ve stopped writing, she said without feeling. Life has taken over, the children, worrying about money, all that stuff’s my life now. I felt a deep sadness. Like the flower of the world had just lost a petal or something poetic like that. No, I said defiantly, a writer never stops writing, they can’t. They don’t get to decide. You don’t get to decide. And then I thought about myself. The years I had spent working and trying to make more and more money. For what? The thousands and thousands of stories I had never written. The moments of time I had never saved from oblivion. How I had wasted my talent. The guilt that I felt. How even now I can’t do it. How the muses have abandoned me for refusing their offer. As a punishment for turning my back on them. I thought about that quote by Nietzsche about the malicious joy of the artist who sees his body and spirit assailed by the thief time but is happy as he knows that his safe is empty and all his treasures are already saved. I wouldn’t let it happen to her. You don’t even know if I’m any good or not, she said. I flared up. What the hell has being good got to do with anything? Who decides that? She laughed. You should tell my husband that. He wants to get into an orchestra. He plays like an angel. She paused. But imperfectly. Brings life, a part of himself, to the score. Like all good musicians. But the world doesn’t see that. The artistic perfection in imperfection. Everything must be sweet and balanced. He’s very ambitious. He’s going to destroy his talent if he keeps on like that. And his soul. I was quiet for a minute and then said, when we were in the reading group I wanted to ask you to let me read one of your stories but you left before I got a chance. Maybe you could now? She looked at me closely and then a smile broke out on her face. Wait here, she said. She disappeared for twenty minutes and then reappeared with a folder. There are four or five stories in that. They’re from a few years ago. I haven’t written anything for well over a year. And even then the last stuff I wrote was just a couple of pages that led nowhere. Well, I have to go now. I have to tidy up the house and do a shopping. The kids will only be away for three hours. She got up and moved away from the table. What’s your name? she called. I thought for a second. Jimmy, I said. Like all Glaswegians. I watched the door to her building swing shut and sat thinking about my name. About how even that had seemed strange to me over the last few years. When I said it out loud it seemed to belong to someone else. To some character in one of my stories. Now Hans’ generic Jimmy seemed as good a name as any. I picked up the folder and headed home. I was a little surprised. Everything had gone much easier than I had imagined.
6
When I got back to my flat the police were everywhere. There were crowds of neighbours standing around gaggling and gossiping. I approached cautiously, suddenly absurdly feeling guilty. The woman next door approached me and filled me in. She was fanning herself and panting in the heat. The boy from upstairs had thrown a knife at a group of passing children from his balcony. Then he had tried to set fire to the house. I say a boy but he is in his late twenties. I often hear him playing techno music at full blast. He’s always definitely on something. One night at three in the morning he battered on my door in a state of panic. He was going on about someone being after him. I tried to calm him down and then his father arrived and took him back up the stairs. His father is a policeman. There is always a look of being lost and unloved in his eyes. I felt sorry for him but my instinct told me to keep out of it. He was sitting in a police wagon in handcuffs looking off into space. Luckily, none of the children had been injured. I spoke to a policeman and he told me that it would be better if I came back in a couple of hours so I went off to the library. The place was full of old people taking advantage of the free air-conditioning and reading the week’s papers. I sat down at a table and pulled out the folios Miriam had given me. I sorted through them and saw that there were four stories. Three were shorter and there was a longer one running to some twenty pages. I read the longer one first. It was a story called Perdón. It was set in modern day Rosario and was about the historical memory of the country. It told a terrible story of injustice and cruelty on an unimaginable scale. It was written in a straightforward Spanish prose without adoration or embellishment. The story was almost purely journalistic in its style and you had to look very hard to find any trace of the author’s voice. It was obviously a great work of literature. I was taken aback. The title was certainly ironic and it told the story of three grandchildren of paramilitaries who try to make amends to the families of some of the victims of the terror. They go on a trip from Rosario to Santa Fe and wait outside a series of houses but are never received. It was like a horrific factual-voiced Kafka. I was very affected by this story and felt a claustrophobic attack coming on so I left the library and went down and sat on the pier next to the sea. There was a cool breeze. I read one of the shorter pieces. This one was set in Spain. In Galicia. It was called Dolores and was about an ordinary wife and mother who likes to walk barefoot in the rain. I looked at the date and it was from just over a year ago. It was obviously autobiographical and a revindication of her own life. Nothing much happens. The husband is a painter in the story. It’s really about the inner world of the eponymous heroine. Her mental struggles to accept monotony and responsibility. But what struck me was the style. It was written in a sort of Spanish blank verse. Well, that’s the way it sounded in my head. I had never read Spanish prose like it. The other stories, earlier ones, were about student life in Buenos Aires and had a touch of Bolaño to them. That night I sat on the balcony with a beer and thought the cool thoughts of Dolores walking barefoot in the rain. I could hear the clock of time ticking again. But this time it wasn’t for me. It was for Miriam. Maybe that’s how it comes. How it all works. I knew I had to do something. She was a far better writer than I would ever be. And she had youth on her side. Her whole life in front of her. I couldn’t allow her to waste it the way I had.
I became a regular at the little bar under Miriam’s window. I was waiting for my chance. I never saw her but I knew she was there; that they were there. I heard the incessant cello practice and the arguments. I must have been going there every morning for two weeks but I didn’t notice any improvement or that the bum notes were being smoothed out. Then one morning I saw the husband leave in a fizz. He banged the door and headed up Espronceda with his cello slung across his back. She came down with the children and I stood up and made ready to follow but something told me to sit tight. Sure enough, half an hour later she reappeared childless. I called out to her and she came over. Are you following me? she asked right out, before I got a chance to say anything. She didn’t look angry. I sucked my teeth and shook my head. Maybe, I said. I mean, you’re a person you don’t meet every day, I added. What’s that? she asked. It’s an Irish thing; it means you’re someone out of the ordinary. A special person. She threw her head back and laughed. Laughed as if she were possessed. A demonic laugh. Then she stopped and looked serious. Out of the ordinary? I’m the most ordinary person in the world. Believe me. And then, are you Irish? No, Scottish, well, my people, some of them were Irish. You are following me, she said. I’ve seen you at the bar here. I have a husband, you know. And, she frowned, don’t take it badly, but you’re a little old for me. And you’re a guiri, I am a very traditional girl. She laughed wickedly. No, it’s not that, I said. She looked sceptical. I promise, I insisted. You told me once that you were a writer. I write too and I need a writer friend. That’s it. Nothing else. Someone who really understands. I don’t have anyone to read my work and I thought we could read each other’s and, you know, help each other out with writing. She sat down heavily and ordered a beer and a sandwich. I’ve stopped writing, she said without feeling. Life has taken over, the children, worrying about money, all that stuff’s my life now. I felt a deep sadness. Like the flower of the world had just lost a petal or something poetic like that. No, I said defiantly, a writer never stops writing, they can’t. They don’t get to decide. You don’t get to decide. And then I thought about myself. The years I had spent working and trying to make more and more money. For what? The thousands and thousands of stories I had never written. The moments of time I had never saved from oblivion. How I had wasted my talent. The guilt that I felt. How even now I can’t do it. How the muses have abandoned me for refusing their offer. As a punishment for turning my back on them. I thought about that quote by Nietzsche about the malicious joy of the artist who sees his body and spirit assailed by the thief time but is happy as he knows that his safe is empty and all his treasures are already saved. I wouldn’t let it happen to her. You don’t even know if I’m any good or not, she said. I flared up. What the hell has being good got to do with anything? Who decides that? She laughed. You should tell my husband that. He wants to get into an orchestra. He plays like an angel. She paused. But imperfectly. Brings life, a part of himself, to the score. Like all good musicians. But the world doesn’t see that. The artistic perfection in imperfection. Everything must be sweet and balanced. He’s very ambitious. He’s going to destroy his talent if he keeps on like that. And his soul. I was quiet for a minute and then said, when we were in the reading group I wanted to ask you to let me read one of your stories but you left before I got a chance. Maybe you could now? She looked at me closely and then a smile broke out on her face. Wait here, she said. She disappeared for twenty minutes and then reappeared with a folder. There are four or five stories in that. They’re from a few years ago. I haven’t written anything for well over a year. And even then the last stuff I wrote was just a couple of pages that led nowhere. Well, I have to go now. I have to tidy up the house and do a shopping. The kids will only be away for three hours. She got up and moved away from the table. What’s your name? she called. I thought for a second. Jimmy, I said. Like all Glaswegians. I watched the door to her building swing shut and sat thinking about my name. About how even that had seemed strange to me over the last few years. When I said it out loud it seemed to belong to someone else. To some character in one of my stories. Now Hans’ generic Jimmy seemed as good a name as any. I picked up the folder and headed home. I was a little surprised. Everything had gone much easier than I had imagined.
6
When I got back to my flat the police were everywhere. There were crowds of neighbours standing around gaggling and gossiping. I approached cautiously, suddenly absurdly feeling guilty. The woman next door approached me and filled me in. She was fanning herself and panting in the heat. The boy from upstairs had thrown a knife at a group of passing children from his balcony. Then he had tried to set fire to the house. I say a boy but he is in his late twenties. I often hear him playing techno music at full blast. He’s always definitely on something. One night at three in the morning he battered on my door in a state of panic. He was going on about someone being after him. I tried to calm him down and then his father arrived and took him back up the stairs. His father is a policeman. There is always a look of being lost and unloved in his eyes. I felt sorry for him but my instinct told me to keep out of it. He was sitting in a police wagon in handcuffs looking off into space. Luckily, none of the children had been injured. I spoke to a policeman and he told me that it would be better if I came back in a couple of hours so I went off to the library. The place was full of old people taking advantage of the free air-conditioning and reading the week’s papers. I sat down at a table and pulled out the folios Miriam had given me. I sorted through them and saw that there were four stories. Three were shorter and there was a longer one running to some twenty pages. I read the longer one first. It was a story called Perdón. It was set in modern day Rosario and was about the historical memory of the country. It told a terrible story of injustice and cruelty on an unimaginable scale. It was written in a straightforward Spanish prose without adoration or embellishment. The story was almost purely journalistic in its style and you had to look very hard to find any trace of the author’s voice. It was obviously a great work of literature. I was taken aback. The title was certainly ironic and it told the story of three grandchildren of paramilitaries who try to make amends to the families of some of the victims of the terror. They go on a trip from Rosario to Santa Fe and wait outside a series of houses but are never received. It was like a horrific factual-voiced Kafka. I was very affected by this story and felt a claustrophobic attack coming on so I left the library and went down and sat on the pier next to the sea. There was a cool breeze. I read one of the shorter pieces. This one was set in Spain. In Galicia. It was called Dolores and was about an ordinary wife and mother who likes to walk barefoot in the rain. I looked at the date and it was from just over a year ago. It was obviously autobiographical and a revindication of her own life. Nothing much happens. The husband is a painter in the story. It’s really about the inner world of the eponymous heroine. Her mental struggles to accept monotony and responsibility. But what struck me was the style. It was written in a sort of Spanish blank verse. Well, that’s the way it sounded in my head. I had never read Spanish prose like it. The other stories, earlier ones, were about student life in Buenos Aires and had a touch of Bolaño to them. That night I sat on the balcony with a beer and thought the cool thoughts of Dolores walking barefoot in the rain. I could hear the clock of time ticking again. But this time it wasn’t for me. It was for Miriam. Maybe that’s how it comes. How it all works. I knew I had to do something. She was a far better writer than I would ever be. And she had youth on her side. Her whole life in front of her. I couldn’t allow her to waste it the way I had.
About the Author
John McGroarty was born in Glasgow and now lives in Barcelona, where he works as an English teacher. He has been writing short stories for many years. His long short story, Rainbow, his novel, The Tower, and his two short fiction collections, Everywhere and Homo Sacer, are all McStorytellers publications.