'Darcy and O'Mara' is a novel by Arthur Cronin.
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Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Ronan's Story


It's been cold for the past few days. There's little or no green left on the trees. With every gust of wind you can hear the brittle leaves falling through the branches. I found a German airman stuck in one of the trees. He had the wrong address.


My cousin Rachel helped organise a concert to raise money to repair a village hall. The concert was being held in the hall itself. She convinced her brother, Ronan, to do a stand-up comedy act. It didn't take much convincing because it seemed like a good idea a few weeks before his performance. It seemed like a very bad idea on the day of the concert. People had laughed at him before, but never when he wanted them to laugh. He wondered if he'd be able to control his nerves enough to go on stage.


As Rachel and her sister, June, were busy with the final preparations for the concert, June's kids, Daisy and Graham, were busy making car noises. Graham made a humming sound and said it was a car driven by a dolphin.


Daisy said, "That sounds more like a... farmer driven by a dolphin."


"How could a dolphin drive a farmer?" Graham said.


"The farmer would carry him around on his back, and the dolphin would tell him where to go."


"Why would he be making humming sounds?"


"To re-assure the dolphin."


They tested this by humming at the goldfish in the bowl. "They do look re-assured," Graham said.


June said to them, "Don't do anything to upset your Uncle Ronan. He's nervous about his performance."


They thought they could do one better than not upset him -- they could re-assure him. When he came into the room they stared at him and made a constant humming sound. They kept this up for a few minutes, and they thought he looked very re-assured when he ran to the sideboard and poured himself a huge glass of whiskey.


Ronan was due to perform after a woman who sang to her pet budgie. They left the stage to a warm round of applause, but most of the audience's acclaim was for the budgie. Rachel introduced Ronan and he went to the microphone. His tie was loose, and there was a bottle in the pocket of his jacket. His speech was slurred, and no one was entirely sure what he was talking about. He just rambled on, and before he knew what he was doing, he was enacting a play that was being performed in his head by match stick people. He did the voices of all the characters. To help the audience see what he saw in his head, he drew imaginary match stick men and women in the air with his index finger. Sometimes he asked the audience if they saw the hat or the handbag he drew. He drew a match stick vocal coach, followed by a match stick wolf, but someone in the audience said, "That wolf is bigger than the vocal coach."


"No it's not," Ronan said. "It's not. It's not bigger. A wolf? Not a wolf. It's not, y' know. Bigger than my thumb, more like."


"The wolf you drew was bigger than the vocal coach you drew. Is it a big wolf or a small vocal coach?"


"It's not."


The argument went back and forth like this a few times without getting anywhere, and it ended with Ronan leaving the stage and starting a fight. Other people joined in.


Things eventually calmed down, and most of the audience returned to their seats. A band were due to perform after Ronan, but one of them had been involved in the fight and he was still missing. Rachel needed to fill the time somehow. She went to the microphone and said, "Cheese. Think about cheese. Do. It'll do you good. Don't think about hedgehogs. You'll only hurt yourself. Imagine cheese full of holes, and don't imagine a vandalising hedgehog lying on his back on the cheese. Don't think about cheese if it makes you think about hedgehogs. Think about hair, or milk, or small dogs. I once thought about hedgehogs when I was in a phone booth and I fell off a small ladder. In fairness, it was a very small ladder."


She stopped talking because everyone was laughing at her, but she was furious because she was being serious, especially about the hedgehogs. She felt like fighting then, but no one else was in the mood for it because they were all laughing at her.


On the following day people kept telling her she was hilarious and she kept saying, "I was being serious!"


Lots of people phoned Ronan and asked about the end of the story he was telling, but he couldn't remember what he was talking about, and he had no idea where it was going. They tried to jog his memory, but they were just as confused as he was. They all remembered the wolf and the vocal coach, and most of them remembered a deer as well.


Ronan had seen a deer in the woods just a few days before this, and he assumed that the story had something to do with this. He went back to the woods with his friend, Joe, hoping to jog his memory.


They spent an hour walking through the woods, and they saw the deer again. Ronan said, "Do y' know when Mel Gibson shoots that man in the film?"


"No."


"Did I mention that when I was on the stage?"


"I can't remember."


"That thought just came to me now... I wonder why the deer isn't afraid of us."


"He can see you're not Mel Gibson."


They followed the deer for a while. Joe thought of something else. He said, "Do you know Imogen?"


"Oh yeah. She makes models of things with match sticks."


"Maybe you got the story from her."


They went to see Imogen, and she showed them some models she was working on. There was a match stick man and a match stick woman. They were wearing shorts and T-shirts. They had sweat bands around their wrists and heads. "They're two joggers I know," she said. "Aileen and Ben."


"Who's the man in blue?" Ronan said.


"He's a man that Aileen and Ben often meet when they're out running. He always wears a light blue suit. He offered to sell them a piano once. In the model he's holding a gold cigarette lighter, and he has toes too. I haven't given the others toes. I just keep thinking his toes are up to something."


"What about the octopus?" There was also a match stick octopus, with tiny playing cards stuck to each of the eight tentacles.


"I don't really know about the octopus. Making an octopus just seemed like the right thing to do. The other man is a magician. They often meet him too. He trains in the fields for his magic act. He can make stamps appear on his face. When Aileen needed to post a parcel once, she went to the magician for stamps, and he made each stamp appear on his face."


Ronan looked closely at the model of the man in the light blue suit. He was wearing a grey tie. "Now I remember why I mentioned Mel Gibson," he said. "He was wearing a tie, the man he shot. It could have been Bruce Willis who shot him too, but the important thing to remember is that he was wearing a tie, the man he shot."


Joe said to Imogen, "Is there anything else you know about the man in the light blue suit?"


"I know that his wife is a dancer."


"What sort of a dancer is she?"


"Most of it is just going around in circles. She teaches dance as well."


"Maybe it's her toes you should be thinking of."


"I thought of them before, but no, I'm fairly sure it's his toes I should be thinking of. Not that I want to think of them."


Ronan told her about the play in his mind, and she got the idea of bringing action to the scene. She could create a story and hope it would come true, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, or even like voodoo dolls. She wanted the story to end with Aileen and Ben falling in love because she thought they'd make a perfect couple.


She'd have to glue them together to get them to kiss, and she didn't want to do this because she'd feel responsible if they ended up glued together in real life. So she got the model of Aileen to lie on top of the model of Ben.


Ronan said, "What if she trips and falls on him?"


"That's just a short step away from love, whereas if your face was glued to someone else's face, you'd probably end up hating them."


Ronan and Joe met Ben and Aileen when they were out jogging. Ronan asked them about some of the details in his story. They'd never seen a wolf before, apart from in films, and they'd only seen Mel Gibson in films too. They said they'd be afraid of a wolf or an octopus if they ever came into contact with one of them, and they'd be afraid of Mel Gibson if he was going to shoot them.


Ronan asked if they'd ever been to a vocal coach. "No," Aileen said. "But I know the organist in the church, if that's any help."


Ronan thought that this was close enough to a vocal coach, but it still didn't help him finish the story. He said to Joe, "The wolf could be like the octopus -- it's completely irrelevant. Or else its involvement is yet to be seen. Of course, Mel Gibson could be the octopus too."


"The vocal coach doesn't do anything either."


"We just have to get the organist to do something to sort that out."


"What about the man in the light blue suit?" Joe said.


"He's the man in the tie that Mel Gibson shoots."


"If Mel Gibson shoots someone, then he's no longer irrelevant."


"He hasn't done it yet," Ronan said. "His involvement is yet to be seen. The wolf in my story could be the octopus in the model. It's something you'd be afraid of if you ever came into contact with, but you're never going to come into contact with one because there are no wolves in the country and no octopi in any country."


"You could say more-or-less the same thing about Mel Gibson. He's not in this country, and you'd be afraid of the Mel Gibson in films who shoots people wearing ties."


"Only the man in the suit would be afraid of him."


"The man in the suit could be the deer," Joe said. "He's not afraid of us, but he'd be afraid of the wolf or of Mel Gibson. He could also be the vocal coach. He has a piano that he's trying to sell and his wife teaches dance."


"I'm sticking with the idea of the organist being the vocal coach."


"In the model he only had four toes on each foot. That's eight in total. He could be afraid of the octopus taking them, or winning them in a game of cards."


"Or to put it another way, he's afraid that Mel Gibson will take his tie after shooting him."


"So that would make Mel Gibson the octopus."


"Yeah."


"Who's the wolf again?"


"I can't remember."


They decided to stick to what they could remember. They needed to get the organist, or the vocal coach, involved in this somehow.


Ronan told Aileen and Ben that the magician was in the church making stamps appear on the statues. The organist was in the church at the time, practising for a wedding on the following day.


The joggers took a detour from their usual route and went to the church. The place was empty when they got there. They thought they heard a sound. They stood still and tried to listen. There was complete silence.


When the organist started playing the Wedding March they both got a shock. Aileen nearly tripped on a kneeler. She lost her balance and fell on Ben, who fell backwards. He landed on his back and she landed on top of him. They listened to the music and smiled. They both realised what Imogen had realised a long time ago: they're perfect for each other.


Ronan enjoyed the ending to this story, but he knew it wasn't the ending his own story was heading for. He eventually remembered the real one, and he told it to Joe: "A vocal coach lost her engagement ring. She used to write songs to remember things, but she never wrote a song about where her engagement ring was, and even if she had it'd just have been a song about how her engagement ring was on her finger. But she remembered where she left it when she heard a song about losing a handbag. She left the ring in her handbag. I heard this story somewhere, and the play in my head was based on this."


"What about the wolf?"


"I probably just added him in for effect."


"And Mel Gibson?"


"I'd say I just imagined that, or else I saw it in a film. I must have added in a lot of other things as well."


Rachel was helping to organise a second concert to raise money to pay for the repairs after the fight at the first. She convinced Ronan to have another go at the stand-up comedy and he agreed because people were very eager to hear how the story ended, so it didn't matter if it wasn't funny. And he had a very good ending in the story of Aileen and Ben. It didn't matter if it wasn't the right ending.


He changed their names and added a wolf to the story. He tested it on some friends of his beforehand, and they all reacted positively to the story, so he needed no drink to calm his nerves this time.


He regretted his decision to avoid the drink when he looked at the audience before the show and saw Aileen and Ben. The nerves returned. They'd recognise the details, and they hadn't heard the whole version. They'd be very surprised to hear about the wolf too, and it might not seem so romantic when they hear what Imogen did with the match stick people.


He tried to relax, but Daisy and Graham were performing just before him. Their act was three minutes of humming. He panicked, and he told Rachel he was pulling out. He convinced her to take his place. "They'll love you," he said. "You were hilarious the last time."


"I was being serious! Especially about the hedgehogs."


"Well you can tell the real story about the vocal coach and her engagement ring. No one could find that funny, but they'll find it interesting because they all want to hear how the story ends."


Rachel went to the microphone and said, "Don't laugh. I'm not going to say anything funny." She paused for a long time, and she glared at the audience to re-inforce her point. "There... Stop laughing!"


She never got past the words 'there was'. She made a few attempts, but the audience always laughed. She tried to attack someone in the front row who fell off his seat, and people had to hold her back. She was eventually dragged off the stage to a standing ovation.


The moose's head over the fireplace has acquired a new look. The wife's niece started adding things to his antlers because she thought they looked bare. At first we thought her inspiration was the increasingly bare branches on the trees, but she really just wants to make him look like a peacock. She seems to think that his antlers are retractable. If anything, he's now looking more like a punk than a peacock.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Music for Stones


The grass is still growing, but it's too wet to cut it. There's nothing to do on a Saturday afternooon apart from stand in the shed and look out at the rain. My grandfather once made tiny windshield wipers for his glasses, to keep him entertained rather than to keep the rain off. He needed to drink a lot before he found them entertaining.


My Uncle Cyril used to train a local soccer team. He knew a woman who trained a hockey team by giving them cookery classes. They were more of a catering company than a hockey team. Cyril thought that if she could get away with that then he could train his team by getting them to remove the slates from the rubble of an old house. He knew someone who'd buy the slates, even the broken ones.


But people accused him of taking advantage of his position as coach. He said they were getting great physical exercise, unlike the hockey team, who were only baking cakes. It was pointed out that they'd get much better exercise if they ran around the soccer pitch or played a practise match.


Cyril remembered an elocution teacher who loved the sound of elastic bands in the wind. She got her students to sound like these, and somehow it helped improve their speech. They were able to speak perfectly after a few lessons. Cyril used this example to justify his training methods. He thought of another example too. He said, "And don't forget Mr. Miaghi from The Karate Kid. That kid did nothing at all like karate when he was training. He painted a fence, and that's what made him unbeatable at karate."


"How will removing slates from rubble make them better at soccer?"


"A true artist only reveals his work when it's finished. Like Mr. Miaghi."


"So your team will be unbeatable at soccer after they remove slates from the rubble?"


"It's quite possible. Probable, even."


Cyril didn't think it was likely, but he had to find a way to ensure they won their next game. No one expected them to win it, mainly because their opponents' star striker, Martin, was by far the best player in the league. The only reason he didn't play in a higher league was because he was more interested in music and in stones than in soccer. He played the trumpet and he was always on the lookout for interesting stones. These things were connected because he composed short tunes about the interesting stones he found. This gave Cyril an idea when he was trying to think of a way to diminish Martin's impact on the game.


The man who was buying the slates made paths out of old stones, old slates, broken tiles and anything else he came across that he thought would look good in a path. One of his paths twisted and turned for half a mile through the gardens around a heritage centre. It was lit up by lights. The path was made of multi-coloured stones, slates, tiles, coins, broken plates and bits of an old toaster.


Cyril's niece, Jane, knew Martin, and on the evening before the game Cyril told her about the path and he suggested it was the sort of thing Martin would like, given his interest in stones. So she went around to Martin's house and took him to see the path. At first he couldn't speak when he saw it stretching out ahead of him, sparkling in the light. He thought he could get a double album out of this.


He went home to get his trumpet and a tape recorder. When he came back he knelt on the path and carefully examined each stone. He came up with tunes for the interesting ones, and Jane recorded them. She loved listening to him play.


At half-two in the morning he was exhausted, and so much of the path was still unexplored. He remembered the soccer match, and when he told Jane about it she realised what her uncle was up to. He had used her just to make Martin tired.


But she had the perfect opportunity for revenge. She knew the goalkeeper on Cyril's team. His name was Richard. Jane always enjoyed writing notes she didn't understand. She believed that the notes satisfied at least one side of her brain. She mentioned this to Richard once, and she asked him if he ever felt like that. He said, "The two sides of my brain are more-or-less married to each other, so... I don't really know."


She loved the idea of the two sides of his brain being married. She said, "Which side is the woman and which side is the man?"


"I don't know about that."


"Or would they be a same-sex couple?"


"I really don't know about that."


"If they were, would they both be men or both be women?"


His brain couldn't cope with either of those options. It ruined his concentration for a while, but he was able to overcome the problem by thinking of the two sides of his brain as two squirrels running in circles.


Just before the match, Jane went over to Richard and showed him a drawing of two squirrels kissing. "I did it myself," she said. "As you can see, they're obviously deeply in love. And that's all that really matters."


Richard looked distracted throughout the match, but he wasn't punished for this because Martin was clearly off his game. He lacked his usual pace, and he missed some great chances.


It was a poor game, and it was still nil-all during injury time at the end. Martin had the ball in the opposition penalty area, but he didn't seem to know what to do with it. One of Cyril's players became frustrated with the lack of action, and he set off on a completely unnecessary sliding tackle on Martin. He missed the ball but caught the man, and the ref gave a penalty.


It all came down to one kick, Richard versus Martin. Cyril's critics were gathering around him on the sideline. Richard stared into Martin's eyes, wondering which way he'd go, terrified that the squirrels in his head would start kissing. He was desperately trying to keep them apart. Martin didn't know which way he'd go, and the wait seemed to go on forever. It was too long for Richard. He snapped, and he ran away screaming, but he didn't get far. He ran right into the goalpost and fell to the ground. This left a completely open goal for Martin, but he kicked the ball over the bar. Richard didn't see it because he was unconscious on the ground.


Cyril turned to his critics and said, "Now do ye see what I was doing?"


They couldn't say anything to that.


The moose's head over the fireplace has been enjoying the silence for the past few days. The wife's aunt asked us to look after her budgie for a day last week. The budgie spent the whole day talking to the moose's head, who looked bored out of his mind. He was sick of hearing the same stories over and over again, like the one about the bishop and the shoe. Some people are just as bad, and at least you can keep a budgie in a cage.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

The Puppet


The song of the wind and the rain was ruined by the wife's aunt, who kept saying she loved Paris in the springtime. I don't know what she's trying to say. It's the wrong time of year for that. The wrong place too.


My cousin Craig wanted to be a ventriloquist. He had a puppet called Alexander, but Craig could only talk in monotone when he did the voice of the puppet because all of his concentration went into speaking without moving his lips. He never paused in his speech either. A friend of his called Clara tried to help him. She attached a piece of string to his ankle and every time she pulled it he'd pause. She read from the script as he performed his act, and she pulled the string at every comma. She pulled it twice for a full stop.


After a bit of practise this method came to work very well. She thought they could add inflections to his voice by just adding other pieces of string. She attached one to his other ankle and when she pulled this he'd lower his voice. She attached strings to both of his arms and his ear lobes as well. By pulling the strings she was able to make him raise, lower, speed up or slow down his voice. She could make him sound sarcastic, sad, angry, happy or excited. After a lot of practise, these reactions became automatic in Craig, and he was able to devote all of his attention towards speaking without moving his lips.


During performances, she used to hide at the side of the stage and pull the strings. They became very popular. Clara always came onto the stage at the end and took a bow during the applause. She saw herself as a puppet-master, and he was her puppet, but he preferred to think of himself as a rally driver, and she was his co-driver. "Punctuation is like a map," he said. "You're just reading from the map."


They used to argue about this, and they started arguing about other things during their rehearsals. When he forgot a line one day he said, "I know this."


"Well say it if you know it," she said.


"Shut up for a second so I can think."


"It's..."


"Don't tell me."


"You'll get it wrong."


"I won't. I know it."


"Say it if you know it."


"Shut up for a minute."


"Why won't you just listen to me? I'm looking at it."


"I know this."


"You never listen to me."


"Who's doing the driving here? It's me. Would you just shut up and let me get on with it?"


"You'll get lost and we'll be here all day."


"My ears are sore from your constant tugging."


"All you have to do is ask me. I'm looking at it."


"I know it. It's..."


"'It wasn't even my potato'."


"I knew that."


Just before a show they argued about a string she wanted to attach to his neck. While he was on the stage she pulled on the strings very hard and at the wrong times. They argued again after the show, and this time she said she had enough of the act. She left him.


He tried it without her, but it was like driving without brakes. He started off quickly, and he got quicker, without any pause for breath. He often fell off his chair, and the audience enjoyed this. They loved it when the puppet's head fell off. Craig was getting bigger audiences than ever, even though his performances were much shorter.


But people lost interest in him when a new act came on the scene. A man called Mackenzie played the part of a beach ball in a low-budget film. Hiring him was cheaper than using a real beach ball. He just had to roll over the sand. They used actors to play things like passing cars and tables, and the inanimate objects were much more interesting than the main characters. A hat stand completely outshone the leading lady.


Mackenzie became a mime artist. He'd stand completely still on a stage and pretend to be a filing cabinet or a locked door. People loved the slowness of his act, and they lost interest in the speed of Craig's ventriloquism.


He knew he had to get Clara back if he was to have any chance of regaining his audience. He went to her with flowers and said, "We have to stick together. We've got to make this work for the sake of the kids."


"What kids?"


"The ones in the audience."


"Oh. I don't know. Is it really in the kids' interest to see us arguing all the time?"


"It'll be different now. I realise just how much I need you. I promise to listen to you."


She agreed to return to her role with the strings, but they needed to find a way to win back their audience, and the most obvious method seemed to be the destruction of Mackenzie's act.


They came up with a plan. They knew someone who was making a film, and they suggested Mackenzie for various parts in the film. Mackenzie pretended to be a tee pin in his act. He'd stand completely still and hold a golf ball above his head. They showed a video of this to the director of the film, and he immediately cast Mackenzie as a tee pin. He was so impressed with Mackenzie's act that he also hired him to play a filing cabinet and a door. He created roles for all of the objects that Mackenzie did in his act.


The star of the film was drunk for most of each day. When they were filming the scene on the golf course, Mackenzie stood on the tee and held the ball above him, but the actor just kept hitting him on the legs with his driver. It wasn't much easier to play the filing cabinet. The actor kept pulling his nose. Putting the key in the door was difficult for both of them.


The experience shattered Mackenzie's nerves. The next time he did his act, he couldn't stay still, and the audience booed him. He tried drinking, and this eased his nerves, but it didn't help him stay still.


Craig's ventriloquism act enjoyed a revival. He enjoyed working with Clara again, and she enjoyed working with him. But their favour amongst the public came to an end when the film came out. People loved Mackenzie's performances as the tee pin, the filing cabinet and so on. He added another performer to his act: someone to get drunk and hit him across the legs with a golf club or pull his nose or whatever the situation required. He became more popular than ever, and people lost interest in Craig again. The tension between himself and Clara re-surfaced. They'd argue during rehearsals and before performances, and one night he stopped in the middle of his act to tell her she was pulling too hard on his ears. She came onto the stage and said, "Well duh."


This was the start of a heated argument, and the audience thought it was part of the act because the puppet was looking back and forth between the two of them. They got a standing ovation at the end. They incorporated the argument into their act and they became more popular than ever. And the repeated heated arguments completely drained away all the tension between Clara and Craig.


The moose's head over the fireplace likes having his photo taken, but he always looks stunned in the photo if you use a flash. He likes to look good in photos. I once photographed various family members standing in front of the fireplace. In the photo, the moose's head was wearing his monocle, and I'm sure he wasn't wearing it for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

The Rain Appreciation Society


The days are getting shorter and the leaves are turning brown. I'm looking forward to Autumn. It always puts on an inspiring show in the garden. It inspired my grandfather to write a song about the season, which he performed during a very uninspiring show in the village hall. 'Autumn, You're a Lady' got a lukewarm reception from the audience, which he blamed on the cat-balancing act he had to follow. No cats were balanced.


My cousin Charlie bought a van, and he joined a Van Appreciation Society. They used to meet on weekends and appreciate each other's vans. Sometimes they put things in their vans just to see how much you could put in there.


He met a woman called Imelda there, and she told him about the Rain Appreciation Society she was a member of. They liked to stand in the rain. They stood in fields, or they walked around in ever-increasing circles, through whatever pool of water that appeared in their path, however deep it was. They'd wade their way through it and get to the other side with wetter feet, but happier in the head. When they went to bed they loved the sound of rain on the roof. They loved to open the curtains in the morning and see a watery world outside. Many of the society's members wore glasses to see the rain drops up close on the lenses, and to see the whole world altered through a tiny drop of water. They rarely used umbrellas. A hood was all they needed. They held their meetings in the rain. They never kept minutes because the paper would get wet, and the only thing they needed to write was 'It rained and we appreciated it'.


Imelda could close her eyes at any time and imagine the rain -- the sights and sounds were all recorded in her brain. She could form any rain-soaked scene in her head. She thought it was much better than the drink-soaked scenes in the heads of friends. Drink kept them indoors when they could be out in the rain.


They also liked to lean in the rain. Sometimes they leant to the left and sometimes they leant to the right. They also leant backwards, but rarely forwards. They'd just see the ground if they lean to the front, and they left that to their friends in the Ground Athletic Association, who always look down. They also leant on each other. One couple got married after eight years of leaning on each other in the Rain Appreciation Society.


For years there had been a good relationship between the Rain Appreciation Society and the Ground Athletic Association, but Imelda told Charlie that tensions had been rising lately. The Ground Athletic Association started using Sports Flakes, a type of fake snow that fell much quicker than normal snow. Each flake had the company logo on it, and each one was exactly the same. They looked at the ground as the Sports Flakes fell, and it made the ground more interesting.


The Rain Appreciation Society were horrified by this. Not only were they abandoning the principle of appreciating the ground for what it is, they could have used rain if they wanted something that fell quicker than snow. They said they'd seen rain on the ground thousands of times and it had lost its appeal. This infuriated members of the Rain Appreciation Society.


Imelda's brother, Barry, had been playing chess with a friend of his called John. Their game reached a stalemate, but neither of them were prepared to accept a draw.


Barry's nephew had been building a Lego model of something (he wouldn't know what it was until it was finished). The model was on the ground in the living room. When Barry saw it he added another piece to it, after carefully considering where to place it. John picked up a piece and he took even longer to think about where to put it on the model. He smiled after adding the piece. Barry picked up a red brick. He stood back from the model and looked at it. He paced the room as he thought about it. After fifteen minutes he placed the piece on the model and said, "Aha!" to John.


They kept adding pieces, and they forgot about the chess. Neither of them knew the rules of this game, but they both knew that the other player's moves were intended as an attack on their own position. It started to get serious when Barry balanced a spoon on the model and said, "Check."


After carefully considering his response, John put a bigger spoon in it. Barry then put a candle on the model, and John tied a piece of string around the candle.


Imelda had seen this new game, and it gave her an idea to attack the Ground Athletic Association. "We just have to do something that seems like an attack," she said to Charlie. "It could be anything at all, as long as they interpret it as an attack on them and their lack of principles. This is how we can take a stand."


Imelda, Charlie and a few other members of the Rain Appreciation Society went to one of the Ground Athletic Association's practise sessions. "This is what we think of the way ye sold out," Imelda said. She tied a candle to a fence post and said, "So there!"


She left with her fellow Society members. The Ground Athletic Association stood in silence for a few minutes before someone eventually said, "Wait a minute. They insulted us."


Imelda and Charlie went back to her house. Her delight with their attack evaporated when she saw Barry and John fighting in the garden. She realised that this was the ultimate outcome of a series of attacks and counter-attacks when neither side knew what they were doing. Tensions would rise, and they'd reach a point where putting a spoon on a piece of Lego wouldn't suffice, and only violence would express the way they feel.


The Ground Athletic Association responded to the candle on the fence post by putting the candle in a bucket. Imelda and her friends responded to this by digging a hole. The Ground Athletic Association put the bucket with the candle into the hole.


Tensions grew with each attack and counter-attack, and they found themselves on the brink of a fight. Some of them thought that fighting would be much better than looking at rain or at the ground.


The two groups met, but just as violence was about to break out they were distracted by the sight of Barry chasing John. John ran all around them, then around a tree and back around them again. The chase came to an end when John tripped. The spectators were expecting violence -- that was all they could think of at the time -- but Barry just gave John an ice cream. After pausing for a while to get their breaths back, the chase began again. This time John took a twenty-cent coin from his pocket and chased Barry.


Exhaustion had ended their fight earlier in the day. When they were too tired to hit each other, Barry took a chocolate bar from his pocket and gave it to John. When John took it, Barry said, "Check." John tried to give Barry a cigarette lighter, but he ran away.


The need for violence faded amongst the Rain Appreciation Society and the Ground Athletic Association as they looked at Barry and John chase each other just to give each other presents. They enjoyed just looking at the chase. "This is what we all do," Imelda said. "We look at things, and we say, 'Look at that.' It doesn't matter who wins or loses, or what equipment we use. As long as we enjoy looking that's all that matters."


She got John and Barry back to the chess board with a similar speech. She told them it was all about looking, not who wins or loses. So they returned to chess, but this didn't last long because they preferred chasing each other to give each other presents.


The moose's head over the fireplace has been making the decisions on adjustments to a Banzai tree we got from the wife's uncle. He says he got it from a seven-foot tall woman he met in a taxi. I was looking forward to cutting bits off it, but the moose's head always looked as if I was about to do something regrettable every time I went to cut it. I doubt very much that I'd regret trimming a Banzai tree, but I never went ahead with it anyway. I kept making attempts until he approved of my decision, and then I finally went ahead with the cut. I've made many adjustments through this process, and the tree is starting to look like the antlers on the moose's head, which I think is confusing the surprised-looking hen in the painting.