Fit Month for Dying Read Online Free PDF Page A

table. Fancy glass candle holder. Like getting ready for a séance.”
    â€œI don’t know much more about it than you do.” Greg, annoyed by being pestered, rests his papers on his knee. “An old Druid custom, I think. And the Irish kept it up. Like she said, something about lighting your way to heaven. But it’s been done away with for ages now. At least for the most part, it’s been done away with. Some people may still keep it up.”
    â€œThen why? Why is she doing it?”
    â€œShe doesn’t believe it’s been done away with, that’s why.” Greg remains edgy. “People mostly die in hospitals now. So she doesn’t know the custom’s dying out. And it’s been years since she sat at a deathbed.” Greg picks his papers back up. “Just go along with her about the candle. It might help her. And it can’t hurt him.”
    Without answering, Danny rummages around in the carton of Black Horse for two more bottles. Clutching both of them with one hand, he uncaps one for Paddy and the other for himself. “A bunch of horseshit. That’s what it is,” he pronounces. He takes a mouthful of beer, swallows it and looks at Paddy, who is beginning to doze off again.
    â€œSome hope of lighting your way to heaven, eh, Paddy?” he says, reaching over with his free hand to tweak Paddy’s grey-socked foot. “Eh, Paddy? Might work out in California. But not in Newfoundland. Not on this bloody rock. That damn candle will gutter out just from the wind that’s whistling around the window casings in Dad’s room. Like I said downstairs, what you need here is a smudge pot. Like they use on the highways. Won’t even go out in a hurricane.”
    He tweaks Paddy’s foot again, this time more roughly.
    â€œListen to me, Paddy! Don’t you dare fall asleep! Listen to me! When I’m dying I want you to get me a smudge pot. Two if you can get hold of them. I could use an extra bit of light to find wherever the hell it is I’ll be going.”
    He laughs at his own nonsense. “Yes siree, imagine that! Old Danny Boy all lit up, and not on Black Horse. And on his way to paradise, no less.” He holds his bottle over his head like a beacon. “I hope there’s a brewery up there. Lots of Black Horse. I’m not going otherwise, I’ll say ‘Let me stay on this damn rock. That’s hell enough.’”
    â€œShh, Danny!” Greg warns as Danny’s voice rises. “How many times do I have to tell you, you’ll wake Mom, even if she has a couple of those pills into her. She’ll be up and tearing strips off all of us.”
    Once more we all fall into silence, so much silence in fact that I become conscious of my own breathing. With every gust of wind the house gives a little, making the ceiling light swing back and forth on its long cord. In this slanted, naked light the rows of water lilies race up and down the wallpaper, forming grotesque shapes. To distract myself and to calm my nerves, I concentrate on these shapes. But the concentrating only unravels my nerves. In each contorted, gruesome configuration I can see the face of Death. In fact, Death is so present, it is as if there are now five of us in the hall waiting for Hubert’s last breath. I know Danny, too, feels this eerie presence because he fidgets constantly, pulling the pillow out from underneath him, hauling the sleeves of his sweater down around his hands, glancing towards Hubert’s room. Finally, he declares in a voice starting to get thick and fuzzy from the beer. “I don’t give a shag, Greg, if we wake up everyone in the Cove, we’ve got to do something or before this night’s over we’ll all end up in the Mental. If we keep listening to that poor devil in there choking to death, we’ll end up as crazy as old Madeline Fitzpatrick. We’ll be hearing voices coming out of the piss