Evenings and Weekends

by Oisín McKenna

For the first time in close to forty years, she sings. For the first time since she stopped going to Mass with her poor dead mam, she sings. She sings as if Cher herself was wailing from deep down inside of her belly. She sings and sings and nobody cares. The men at the bar who were staring into the dregs of their pints before she began are still staring into the dregs of their pints now. The teenagers at the back, dressed all in black and so much like her second son, continue looking at their phones and taking small conspiratorial sips from their vodka Red Bulls. The floor is still sticky; the room still smells of booze; people still stumble in and out and the sound of dual carriageway traffic still revs around the room. The dual carriageway itself remains unchanged too. There are still the cars full of people; there are still the places they could go; there is London, Europe, anywhere.