People's Choice Award: The Building of Widows

By Emma Gallagher

EXCERPT:

What I see

     This window is mine, is large and is full of tree. In summer it lets slow light through and I look right into its heart. It holds all the birds and each night they destroy the well-kept cars beneath them with their droppings. In winter it's grey, it's all grey, the three-storied houses and the road and the skies. This wind's brought branches down and yesterday one fell across a parked car which gathered a crowd. On the street below there's some young one kicking at the rubbish bin. Throws his smoke into the gutter and he stays there right amongst the rain and the fizzy cans, staring back into the convenience store, in protest against someone, or the weather. In winter there's only ever Shelagh's red raincoat moving slowly in the mornings, the occasional caw of her laugh.  I don't know where they'll take her. She seems to like the streets and walking. Assailing people. Following them, 'How're ya! How're ya!' When Shelagh smiles you see more of her lost teeth and decayed gums and the long hairs on her face.

Family

     Niall visits on Saturdays. 'Are you in?' he calls. And now he knocks on the hallway wall. 'Did you hear someone's coming to take away your woman downstairs?'

     'The brother.'

     'You heard, then.' He's shaking the rain from his jacket. 'The whole building is in great excitement.'

     'Lynda's been on tenterhooks all day.'

     'I'm sure she has.' He's looking out the window at my poor great tree. 'They need to cut that. Look at it'

Shelagh

     Shelagh stole my mail again this morning. The box was empty. Maybe she's taken it with her on her walk, tucked into a pocket of her wheelie bag. It's beyond me how she manages to get her hand in the slot. She'll have been in the foyer in her raincoat with her hand in the fingers and all at my mailbox, with the smell of her.

Last month she took an envelope that had a cheque in it, and I only got it back because Lynda saw the pile of stolen mail sitting on a shelf in Shelagh's bathroom cabinet, when she was getting evidence to petition the Health Board. All unopened. So it's not for the money, it's for the pure devilment in her own head.

     Despite everything I admire her slyness.