The Umbrella

The missing something that had been niggling him all the way down the road was not the litre of milk, nor a phone call to Edco - he'd already called - and whatever it was, it had slipped out of mind between entering the shop and leaving three minutes later. He paused outside taking a look up at the sky. A drizzle had started, not heavy, but enough to - and that was what was missing, the umbrella. A feeling of frustration with the slow sponge of memory gripped him. These little incidents could only become more frequent with age. He racked his mind to reckon up all the other slips of memory over the past couple of months. Always very minor incidents; he could shrug them off one by one. This introspection was unhealthy; there was no perceptible decay of his mind, what nonsense. If something was important enough to him he would not forget it. Ergo, his umbrella was not very important to him.

Nylon rain jackets were more his style. In this windy city umbrellas were a liability. The hallway amphora in his parents' house held half a dozen wind-twisted skeletons, not to rest in peace but to be brought out 'in an emergency' and put to use. Half an umbrella can still hold off the rain, far better to be dry. They might laugh at you along the street but you'll have the last laugh. And so on: parent talk. You don't shake free of it, even in your mid-thirties.

But he had liked the sleek black look of his umbrella. It was the unfoldable type, long, with a crook and a steel spike. It was only the foldable ones that turned their ribs inside out at the first gust. A solid one-piece black umbrella without connotations or pretensions, that was what he had lost. There comes a time in life when you begin to look like an eternal bachelor if you go around with a red rainsheeter sticking wetly to the back of your head and flapping in the wind. He could suffer the extra bother of carrying an umbrella around all day. It was stylish to walk with it.

Still, he had hesitated before buying. It would be one more item to remember every time he was out. He knew already that some day he would leave it behind him in a restaurant or pub and it would not be there when he went back. But not to buy it for that reason would be like admitting senility. He would just have to learn to remember, his memory was as good as the next man's, and if some time in a year or two it was left behind, then he would have gotten a decent life span out of it.

He chose the classic design, almost three times the price of the bright convenient foldable models. The metal spike was two inches of black rustproof metal. The handle was dark varnished hardwood. He liked the feeling of buying a well-designed functional object. It was something neutral and stylish to carry into the staffroom on a rainy day. And he never did leave it behind him by accident. He'd had it almost two years now.

Gone now, he reasoned, still standing there outside the shop, newspaper clasped under his arm where the umbrella should have been, throwing a glance back inside to see if by some chance he'd left it down when he was searching his pockets for change. But nothing there, it was on the bus without a doubt, wedged along the side of the seat.

The day had started dull and watery and he'd been around town to take at look at some French books, but hadn't bought any after all. He'd walked to the city centre, as he usually did, a twenty-minute stroll, but just as he was starting home a bus came rumbling by. He checked the change in his pocket and caught up with it running, jumped on, shaking out his umbrella, yes, he remembered, there was no doubt he had it in his hands then. It particularly annoyed him that he'd been using the umbrella. His memory didn't have the excuse that the umbrella had been wedged under his arm until it faded from consciousness. It was plain and simple absent-mindedness.

Less than useless to ring the lost property office, if such places still existed. The only thing would be to somehow hop on the bus further down the route. He wasn't too familiar with the bus system, but he was pretty sure the terminus was just a couple of streets down, and then the bus would return the same route. He'd seen the buses parked there, four or five of them sometimes, the drivers standing backs against the wall for a smoke. It was at least reasonable that the bus would park and wait ten minutes, and then return by the same route, maybe with the same driver.

He turned back up the direction he'd come. A few paces towards the main road and the idea grew more plausible. The bus would be almost empty, just as it was when he got off. Even if he jumped on a different bus coming from the terminus the driver could, if he was friendly, radio back and ask the driver to check the last number 8 to pull in. He broke into a jog, feeling energy now, something concrete he could do, it was rarely he ran, rarely he needed to, and once he started he fell into a pace and it felt good.

There were a half dozen people waiting at the bus stop, so nothing had passed yet, and there it was down the long street, just turning the corner and this was probably only the second stop on its route. A city-bound 8, though of course it was not necessarily his 8.

He let the other people get on first and pay their fares.

"Sorry, I got off this bus just a few minutes ago I think it was this one. Was there an umbrella left on it?"

"Not that I've seen," said the driver, still holding back the clutch.

"So I wonder if it's on it, I was sitting down at the back."

"Go down and take a look," said the driver suddenly making a decision and he let out the clutch and the bus pulled away.

He made his way down the aisle. It was a long single-decker bus jointed in the middle. Hand over hand he proceeded tall and purposefully towards the back where a young blond cherub sat with a brolly in his hands, daydreaming, the smooth handle pressing into his cheek. Feeling the vibrations passing up through it.

"Excuse me, can I take a look at that umbrella?"

The boy shot up straight. In an instant his face hardened, the blissful look gone. He pushed the umbrella down below his knees.

"Why?" he asked sullenly.

Right, you little fucker, do you really think you can get away with this, not twelve years old, clean-dressed, not a homeless under-nourished waif. Pink-cheeked and baby blond hair still on him.

"Because I think it might be mine. I left an umbrella on this bus about ten minutes ago and it was very like the one you're holding now."

"This is my one," said the boy looking straight ahead.

"I just want to see the label and then I'll know." The boy didn't reply, just sat there, still a touch of the cherub about his fatty cheeks. Was there a blush there?

"It's mine," he repeated.

"Yours?" said the man, as though to say, I think very much not my young friend, the kind of camp thing that his class had grown to love. Or if not love, at least they laughed. The boy remained tight-lipped looking ahead of him, just a passenger sitting on a bus.

"What's your name?" says the man, and his voice is almost trembling as his mind races through a dozen possible actions he can do before he reaches the end of the question. The boy turns his shallow blue eyes on him.

"Boy," he says coldly.

"Do you know what job I have during the day? Do you know who I am?" he says so the kid will maybe think he's a policeman or a bus inspector off-duty. And the kid answers, at least he does that much, he's not cool enough to sit it out in silence.

"No," he says.

Right, the man turns on his heel, goes back to the top of the bus. Get the driver to intervene, maybe his down-to-earth voice will talk some sense into the kid, or give the go-ahead to wrench the umbrella out of those chubby hands if it comes to that. Though he feels sick at the thought of a scene.

"A kid back there has it. He won't even let me see the label. A cheeky little brat. I'll just grab it off him I think . . ."

"Fuckin hell," breathes the driver wearily and slows down the bus, but it's because of a bus stop coming up. "Hang on a minute," he says, meaning he'll get out and sort it out but he has to pull over first. The doors fly open, the people are cramming out. And there's the little boy squeezing by, right by him in the aisle not an arms length away, seems like he's really stupid enough to think he'll get away with it.

"This is him," the man says grabbing the boy easily, without even a struggle, smooth and decisively, holding the shoulder and upper arm, but then he sees the umbrella lobbed out of the bus, clattering in the gutter among the people stepping off, and a lank blond youth scuttles over to pick it up. An accomplice.

He thinks fast: what's he going to do now, bring the kid to the police? Shake him up until the other returns? Smack him around his wet little mouth? Of course not. Give him a short lecture on what kind a brat he is? Search his pockets for some kind of ID? So he just releases the kid, who springs away and zips out the door.

"See that? See that? They've just robbed my umbrella just like that." The driver leans over to get a good hard look at the kid and the older one he's walking off with.

"Scum," he pronounces judgement, says nothing more, he's said his piece.

"Little brats. I can't believe it." They both stare out at the two, and they're walking, just strolling away with the umbrella, they know the way it works, the older one telling the younger, he can't prove it's his, keep walking calmly he can do fuck all. We're just minding our own business.

The bus driver is still shaking his head. With one bound the man jumps from the bus and dashes at the two. They back off but don't run even though they've a chance, they're young and fast and in all honesty he just wants to chase them, he wants them to run off, to shout thieves after them, he's not up to a fight with the bony but hard-as-nails seventeen-year-old, maybe even older.

And now things happen very quickly. He grabs the middle of the umbrella and the kid is still hanging on. The older one roars at the man, threatening to burst him, knock his head off, batter him to pieces if he touches the boy.

"I'm not going to touch him," he says, and he's cold and clear now, showing no fear, not in front of this kid, he knows his muscles are up to it, that teenager is not going to knock him to the ground, not going to throw the first punch. He swings the kid. Like it's a game, the kid hanging on, legs about to lift in the air.

He tires of this and tries to talk reason into the boy. It's only an umbrella, the kid doesn't even need it for god's sake, the driver can confirm he left it on the bus if they go to the police. But the kid is not interested. The older boy hovers around them, shouting 'leave him alone' every so often. There are people on the other side of the street but they're not concerned.

"Get away from me big man. Stop feeling me. I don't want to show you my mickey." And now he almost lets go in amazement, where the fuck did this boy spring from? Though he's still a stupid kid. His pretence is laughably obvious. The man tries again to talk sense into him, telling him not to be stupid, the police are on their way, he told the bus driver to call the police. But he doesn't curse.

"I recognise the label now," he says. There's a tiny white tag near the tip. The kid is not interested in arguing. He hangs on and on, keeping up his call of 'let me go', while his older companion looks increasingly indifferent, as long as he can keep swearing, I tell you I'll knock your fucking head off if you touch him, I'll break your nose.

Someone is passing by, a young woman in tweeds and high boots.

"Excuse me. Do you have a mobile phone? Can you call the police please?"

"I'm sorry, I don't have a mobile," she says and looks from him to the little kid to the umbrella between them. Like two dogs fighting over a bone. She smirks. A grown man wanting to call the police over an argument with a twelve-year-old child.

"Thanks anyway," he says pleasantly, and she walks on.

And so they circle again. The older kid has his mobile phone out, he's ringing a friend of his, he says, a big brother who'll be here in three minutes. Just three minutes and he'll be here to sort you out. You better let him go now 'cos they'll be here in a minute.

And the man thinks, that's where you've made a mistake, that's where the couple of grey hairs and the long rain coat fool you too much.

"Is that right?" he says calmly, "is that the way it is?" then momentarily lets go, and turns to power a punch straight in the middle of the youth's face. He hears a breathed Ugh, the youth staggers back like a toddler then sinks to the ground between two parked cars. The man grabs hold of the umbrella again, the kid hasn't moved, he's just standing there staring. But the boy still doesn't let go, he's screaming let me go, help, help. The man swings him to and fro, whatever way he wants, round and round and the kid hangs on. He's not going to punch a kid, no way, but the kid doesn't know that, he can't know that, and yet he's still hanging on, he's a cat with the claws in, a dog that comes back to the fight when his back legs are broken. With a sick feeling in his stomach the man lets go.

"Have it," he says. The boy backs off. He doesn't run. He understands, he knows he's won. The umbrella is bent, the metal shaft kinked. But the kid still stands there. He knows.

Well that kid certainly has a strong belief in finders keepers losers weepers, the man thinks, but he's not really thinking that, his thoughts are slipping down a dark alley to a place that smells of piss and puke. Yep, I sure as hell wouldn't like to be that kid's teacher he tells himself, as he will tell his girlfriend of eight years later that evening. He walks away, as quickly as he can without running. The older one might jump up and fight back, throwing gangly fingers into his eyes, biting and kicking. Or a knife might be taken out.

He steals a look back. The teenager is still sprawled out, holding a hand to his face, thinking maybe it's time to get to his feet. The man stops in surprise. He's never punched anyone before, not smack in the fleshy nose, and he never expected the youth to fall like a log. He walks away less quickly, but still, when he turns the corner he breaks into a run, to get rid of energy, and turns the next corner again, and the next, taking a long and circuitous route home.

It was a week or more later when he was rooting around a local bargain store. It was half past five. There were some things to pick up on the way home from his school. A set of cardboard folders, a roll of black plastic rubbish bags. There are jogging shoes on offer, but he takes one look and sees they are cheap thin-soled imports and he puts off the idea, he'll get a good pair in a sports shop, go out twice a week to the Phoenix Park. Then he sees the bruised face, purple spilling out under the skin up to the eyes, a petrol-blue school uniform and a school crest. He lowers his head but then he thinks, what the fuck, what the hell do I care, what's he gonna do, will he look for another punch in the nose? And he stands tall where he is, taking a good long sideways look at the battered face. The discoloured blood had crept under the skin and faded from purple to a livid yellow at the edges. The right eye was sunken in at the bottom of a fleshy pit. Well someone hit you with one hell of a knockout punch, he says to himself. The youngster looks up from leafing through the records, looks absently in the man's direction, then his head jolts back down again like it's jerked on a string. The man half-whistles to himself as he reads closely the cover notes on one record then another. He edges closer down the passageway, working his way through the section of old vinyl albums, until there's no way out, he's right beside the teenager. He stands there and he's not even sweating, he can feel the tense heat from the scrawny youth, sees the spotty back of his neck, until the latter, face hidden behind an old vinyl double album, squeezes past him with a barely audible 'excuse me'.