The sound of silence was one of the things Joseph Gormley most appreciated since he moved to the country. No sirens, no horns, not even the distant sounds of overhead planes. He sat and read ‘L‘Etranger‘ by Albert Camus while sipping expensive Ethiopian coffee he had bought in a small artisan café the day before. He was living the life he felt an English lecturer should live. His living room was filled to the brim with the literature of Bronte, Dickens and Joyce, his three favorite novelists. A pile of records sat neatly piled in the corner beside a retro record player his father had bought him for his 12th birthday. At the bottom of the pile and looking rather dusty were the records of Michael Jackson, Led Zepplin and ACDC but as the pile went up the music got more classical and 1980s pop icons were soon replaced by the classical music of Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. All around the room were symbols of a more sophisticated life, a life far away from the one spent in inner city Dublin.
Joseph was abruptly interrupted from his reading about the absurdity of life by a loud knock on the door. He felt the familiar feeling of dread that one might feel when they hear the news that their annoying aunt who constantly asked overly personal questions was coming to stay for a week. The first knock was followed by two much louder ones that made Jasper his tabby cat scatter in the opposite direction of the door. ‘Ah How ya Joey’, Joseph felt the thud of a permanently oil stained hand on his perfectly ironed Italian linen shirt and winced as if someone had just trod on his foot. ‘Ah, hello Patrick, how are you?’ ‘Ah, you know, can’t complain, bud, can’t complain. Look, I’m gonna cut to the chase bud, I need somethin from ya.’ Joseph looked hesitant and was prepared to reach for his wallet when Patrick continued. ‘The plumbin’s going really well, I mean really fuckin well, bud and I’m thinking of doin it alone, ya know, setting up me own business?’ Joseph’s eyebrows were raised and he stopped looking around the room for a distraction. ‘Oh, well that’s real..’ ‘Yeah, I was on to the bank there the other day and dey said they’d give me a loan no bother’. ‘That’s good news Patrick but ehm….what do you need from me?’ ‘ I need an adjacent bud, you know for me business name, I want it to really stand out ya know?’ ‘A what?’ ‘An adjacent, ya know, one of those fancy words?’ ‘You mean an adjective, right?’ asked Joseph. ‘Yeah, one of those,’ replied Patrick.
Joseph was about to make some sort of excuse so he could return to Camus in peace but he could imagine his mother’s reaction if he refused to help his little brother. She might be bed ridden in St. James but if she found out little Patrick was mistreated in any way she would be on the bus and banging on his front door ready to scream his house down. ‘So, I suppose we could start by looking in the dictionary’. Joseph pulled a dog-eared Oxford dictionary from in between copies of ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘Jane Eyre’. He casually, halfheartedly, scrawled down suggestions on a piece of paper, each one being rejected by Patrick. The light in the room started to dim with time and the once perfectly tidy room was now strewn with books and scrap pieces of paper. Joseph was now being as particular as Patrick with regard to the chosen adjective. Ulysses, which Joseph regarded as the greatest piece of literature ever written now lay cast aside. ‘For feck sake Joyce, you can’t come up with one decent fucking adjective???’. These outbursts became more and more common, surprising both himself and Patrick. Joseph wasn’t exactly sure why or when this change of mindset took place. His initial plan was to find some common adjective suitable for a plumbing company and send Patrick on his way. Maybe it was just the whiskey they had at lunchtime or maybe just an inner competitiveness Joseph didn’t know existed, but this wasn’t a chore anymore, he now had to find the adjective and it had to be perfect. After hours of searching and an affirmation from Joseph that Bronte was now a ‘useless cow’ they decided to have dinner. They had a bag of chips each from what Patrick called ‘the best fucking chipper in Ireland’. Joseph had anticipated Patrick requesting some form of alcohol and so had planned to open a cheap bottle of Merlot that lay untouched in the back of the cupboard but instead opened a 50 euro bottle from the Bordeaux region and poured two generous glasses. They sat outside taking large gulps of wine and stuffing their faces with chips. ‘I’ll tell ya what Joey, I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, these chips are fucking outstanding’. Joseph froze. He nearly choked on his chips and his expensive wine spilled onto his Italian linen shirt but he didn’t care. ‘Say that again’. Patrick looked utterly bemused. ‘I just said the chips were outstanding……’. ‘That’s it, that’s the adjective, outstanding!’ . He jumped up, smashing his glass in the process and ran to the living room. He scribbled down ‘Paddy’s outstanding Plumbing company’ on the back of an envelope. He handed the envelope to Patrick who stood looking at it for a long time. ‘So what do you think?’. Patrick put down the envelope to look at his brother. Tears welled in his eyes and quickly started to roll down his face. He was just about able to mutter a chortled ‘thank you’. For the first time in 35 years the two brothers hugged, e mixing ugly sobs with even louder and uglier cries of laughter. ‘We should visit Mam together tomorrow,’ said Patrick, and they both agreed, as ACDC blared in the background.
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