A New Ulster 77

Just Another Day! (Mark Scallion) “Have a good day�she closed the door, watched through the crouched rear window of the Beetle the skinny upper half of his frame flanked on top by rich sideburns, the indicators patiently tapping their fingers on the road until the exhaust let out a few expletives and the car sighed as it trudged down the Shore Road skirting the city, sniffling over the Lagan on to the arm of industry that reaches into Belfast Lough like a crab claw, down Queens Road under the hateful eyes of the cynical cranes to Short Brothers where each day with head down he wiled away, counting.

Cavehill in the west yawning over her, unhelpful, useless, she steps along Fortwilliam Park, its garaged abodes and well suited trees providing little comfort on her way to the Dominican College, the guttural craw of more late afternoon hours lost waiting in childless rooms with the bell well settled, only the odd squeak of cleaners to provide sparse melody, until his coming at six, all been well, to return to the embryonic days of family life in Randalstown.

Across from the school gates torn and tattered Bearnageeha boys jostle and bay like Foxhounds without a master, their presence re-invokes stark memories of a few months before when on the way to Philomena's on the Cliftonville Road, unwittingly she drove into their morning stoning of passing buses, rubble and flint laden looping cascade formed an unintended whizzing guard of honour as she tried to scream, infant Gerard gurgled in the back seat.

Grateful for the simplicity of sedate pony-tailed adolescents her chalked integers like new born stars illuminate the blackness as morning rotates, timetable check reveals a free class segwaying into lunchtime, the perfect opportunity to scout the city's stores.

Permission neither granted nor requested she alights the bus on the Antrim Road, the descent south sees an exponential rise in crumble, corrosion, worded walls, passing patrols.

Mindlessly soon she is dancing along Royal Avenue doing a right hand star with the surly stacked sandbags, a do-si-do with a rotating rack. Caressing, straightening, stacking, looking backwards into mirrors. While examining groomed lifeless forms on Castle Street the nervous pane rolls a reel of folk lunching, grocery gathering, absorbing bag searches,graduates of the University of acceptance.

Littlewoods on Ann Street she is drawn to tweed skirts that exude unassuming assurance, the professional assistant points the way to cubicle, declares advice, sizes merely a call away. As the items pile up on the tiny floor space her uncertainty prompts a shout out for help. Deep in self assessment she realises her sweet voice went unheard so she repeats her request but it does not resonate. Unperturbed and restored to her original state she opens the flimsy door to find a suspended starkness has invaded the furrows between the coats and blouses some of which lie unconscious, overturned with limbs contorted on the carpet tiles.