Curran emerged from prison as a rumpled old man, convinced that his job as Chaplin was the cause of his loss of faith.
“Carry me quickly to the last place you remember us being happy together,” was the last thing Curran had written. There it was on the note paper that I took from the envelope on the day we buried him. On the envelope he’d written, ‘To You All You Know Who You Are!’.
He was buried in the one suit he owned, a grey, wool single-breast. He’d popped the note into its inside pocket before going out into town for his last night. The undertakers found it on the Tuesday before the Wednesday burial. As ever, too late for Curran.
The thing with Curran was that he was forever leaving notes about the place. The beginnings of poems and stories, rehearsals for suicide notes. Oftentimes you simply couldn’t tell exactly what he meant.
He had worked for two years on the railway doing a variety of jobs. He was tall and slim, dark, he wore spectacles and what used to be known as stout boots. He was an atheist and a small drinker but only on Fridays.
He was my friend and I was his and I will miss him when it’s all sunk in, been soaked up. Curran emerged from prison in 1882 as a rumpled, old man, convinced that his job as the Chaplin was the cause of his loss of faith. He came directly to my grandiose home to remind me of our childhood together. He impressed on me that his “swiftian descent into religion” was the only reason that my late wife, Mary, was my wife and not his.
To an extent, of course, he was correct.
Mary, Curran and I had revolved around each other before he had taken up the holy orders. Mary had taken up my hand, I think, out of heartbreak. I didn’t care. I adored her with all the adoration I had. Forty years after his death, it rankles more than I can bear that Mary and Curran loved each other so much.
She was my friend and we had this glorious house. We had two children – both boys, now men – both abroad and doing very well. I talk to her ghost about Curran. It’s a relief that I no longer need to hide the fact that Curran murdered her father. She’s got to know by now. I wonder what happened when the three of them got together in the afterlife.
