We present another story from the RTÉ Short Story Competition shortlist 2025 -- read Kazakhstan by Kevin McDermott below
The shortlisted stories will be broadcast nightly from Monday 13th October on RTÉ Radio 1's Late Date.
About Kazakhstan, Kevin says: "in this story, a son’s Kazakh girlfriend brings new life and the wonders of the night sky into the world of a grieving husband. The birth of our first grandchild in March was certainly an inspiration. The ongoing war in Ukraine is there in the background, as is Robert Lepage’s beautiful play, The Far Side of the Moon".
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Out of the blue, that big galoot of a son of mine makes an announcement.
"I have a girlfriend," he says.
"That's great news," I say. "Do I know her at all?"
"No."
"No? Where’s she from?"
"She works on the deli counter, in the supermarket in Rathangan."
"The deli counter?" I try to sound neutral. "Were you in getting a breakfast roll?"
"Something like that."
"Well, I’m glad for you. Really. Is she nice?"
"You can judge that for yourself soon enough. I’ve invited her over for dinner on Sunday."
"For Sunday dinner? Seriously?"
"If that’s all right?"
"Are you cooking?"
"I thought we might do a Sunday roast, like Mam used to do."
I bristle. "It won’t come within an ass’s roar of your mother’s. You know that?"
"But we can try, can’t we?"
I sigh. "I suppose we can."
**
The two dogs and the horses keep me going. And the odd call from a neighbour asking me to check a sick animal.
I never liked the small animals. Left that side of things to the young ones. Give me a big horse in an empty field, with plenty of fresh air. Knock them out and operate under a blue sky. Never happier.
The plan was for me to retire while the going was good, and for Ellen to quit the teaching and we’d see the world. What we saw was the inside of St Vincent’s. And a consultant apologising as he gave us the worst news. And Ellen thanking him.
John was just finishing his degree in Business Studies. Afterwards, he hung around while all his friends headed to Australia or Canada. And he the brightest and the best of them. And before I knew it, he’d set up a contracting business, cutting silage, mowing fields, spreading slurry, trimming hedges. The whole shebang. Showed me the business plan. And I knew, in my heart, that he’d done it to keep an eye on me. For fear of what I might do, or might become, if left on my own. He’s a good one, that son of mine.
**
I go all out for the Sunday dinner. Tell John to leave it to me. Clean the place like it hasn’t been cleaned in months. Go to the butchers and pick a lovely cut of ribeye. Dig the spuds and cut a head of cabbage. I even buy a jam roll and make a trifle – no jelly, just the sponge, a tin of fruit cocktail and a good dollop of sherry. Cover the lot in Bird’s custard and top it with cream. The Great British Bakeoff, eat your heart out. I make the effort for John but mostly for Ellen. I’m not going to let her down.
**
John arrives in with his girl. She is small and slight. She reminds me of a newborn calf trying to find a foothold on this earth. She has calf-eyes, big round pools that you could lose yourself in.
"Da, this is Lara."
She holds out her hand. I take it and shake it gently.
"That’s a lovely name," I say, "like Doctor Zhivago."
She looks confused and turns to John.
"Please …?"
It’s only then I hear the accent.
"Where are you from, Lara?"
"Kazakhstan."
"Kazakhstan! Be the hokey! And there was me expecting you to say Nurney or Mountrath."
"Lara’s a bit shy about her English," John says.
"And my Kazakh isn’t the best," I reply, with a laugh. "And my Russian’s no better."
It surprises John -- me knowing that much. I have a pal, you see, a Department Inspector, who did a stint in Kazakhstan, advising the government. He loved it out there. Loved the women in their fur coats and fur hats, with their dyed-blond hair. He was paid in cash, every week, the money stuffed in a brown paper bag. The whole enterprise, he says, felt shady. But there was no shortage of money. Oil flowing out and dollars flowing in. And we meet at the mart and have a cup of tea while he regales me with stories – attending the ballet in Astana, skiing in the Urals. And in my head every woman in Kazakhstan is Julie Christie, and I picture myself and Ellen on a horse-drawn sled heading to a dacha in the Ural mountains, to the strains of a Balalaika.
There’s little conversation over dinner but I feel a current of sympathy between us, me and John’s girl from Kazakhstan.
**
The Sunday dinners become part of our routine. Bit by bit Lara’s English improves and I learn more about her.
She has a degree in astrophysics from Moscow’s Institute of Physics and Technology. I’d say it’s a safe bet that she’s the first astrophysicist to work behind the deli counter in Rathangan.
John is smitten. And I understand why.
**
"Do you know," I say one Sunday after dinner, "that Genghis Khan’s father was a Kazakh?" I’ve been googling all week trying to find some interesting tidbit to share with Lara. She smiles.
"I picture him on one of your Kazakh ponies, riding off to conquer the world." And then, jumping up like a teenager with ADHD, I say, "Would you like to see our ponies?"
**
I know the moment she walks into the stable that she has a gift. The way she whispers to the horses, the way she nuzzles their noses, the calm way she has of moving around them, always keeping contact, always talking to them.
"You’re a natural," I say. And then, on a whim, "Come on," and I lead her to the tack room and get a saddle for the mare, Kilmashogue.
"Da, Lara’s not dressed for riding. And Kilmashogue is a big animal."
"There’s boots, jodhpurs, back protectors, hats -- everything she needs in that box there."
"Mammy’s gear?"
I nod. "It’s all there."
"Are you sure?"
"Never surer."
**
Kilmashogue is a thoroughbred, a failed racehorse that I took off a trainer rather than see her sent to the slaughterhouse. She made a decent hunter and she’s as gentle as they come. Ellen loved her. And I love her on account of Ellen.
You should see Lara on Kilmashogue. The old mare holds herself like a Lipizzaner. And Lara guides her around the ring whispering encouragement, her hands quiet, sitting upright, communicating with her legs against the mare’s flanks. And seeing them I almost believe in the existence of Centaurides.
John looks at the two of them in wonder.
"Genghis Khan. I told you."
**
And for the first time since Ellen died, I look forward. Every Sunday I have Kilmashogue saddled and groomed, ready for Lara. And I straighten my back and pull in my paunch when I go to greet her.
**
"What will you do?" I ask Lara, one Sunday. "You’ll hardly spend the rest of your life behind the deli counter."
"We’ve plans," John says.
"Plans?"
"Yeah. Me and Lara."
Lara smiles.
"Big plans."
"Well, are you going to tell me?"
"We’re going to open a Dark Sky Park on the Bog of Allen."
"What?" I say, my brain whirring, but not getting the hang of it at all.
"A park where you can see the stars. We’re in discussion with Bord Na Móna, and the National Parks Service."
"And we’ll build a planetarium," Lara adds.
I look at the two of them and I am not sure if I see two fools or two visionaries.
"A Dark Sky Park," I repeat.
And then he’s off, my son, John, the big galoot, the best and brightest who stayed behind to look after his old man. The words flowing from him like poetry -- stars and constellations, the Milky Way, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn – "the whole panoply of the heavens." My son speaking in tongues. And Lara beaming at him, the pair transfigured by love, and the beauty of the universe. Their happiness is infectious.
"You must bring me out some evening and teach me about the night sky," I say, trying to match my tone to theirs, suppressing any trace of cynicism or disbelief.
**
It’s an evening in February, after sunset.
"Put on your coat," Lara says. "Time to show you the stars."
And out the three of us traipse to the furthest field. They stand on either side of me.
"Let’s find Venus," Lara says, "the brightest light in the sky. That’s your marker."
I nod.
"There," she says, pointing and guiding my gaze towards the planet, "do you see it?"
"Yes."
Lara’s in her element. She helps me to identify Orion, with the star Betelgeuse high to the left and in the middle the three bright stars of his belt.
"Orion is fated to chase the Pleiades across the sky." Lara speaks the words slowly and I know she’s rehearsed them.
Those Greeks might have been great for joining the dots, but there’s no way I can make out the constellation of Taurus. Still, standing there, looking at the heavens, I begin to see patterns. The Plough is as clear as can be and Lara shows me how to find Polaris from it.
"Look, there it is, the North Star, directly above the North Pole."
I’m spellbound. I think of star-gazers in Kazakhstan staring in wonder at the same sky. How all of us, on the planet, live under its canopy. Faced with such beauty, I wonder how we humans can be so savage, so murderous to each other. And I hope that the starry sky brings a measure of solace to the inhabitants of all the places in the world, where violence and hatred reign.
"When Lara was small, she wanted to be an astronaut," John says.
Lara laughs. "It might still happen. Russia has a spaceport in my country. Many of its famous cosmonauts are Kazakh."
"There could be Kazakh cosmonauts orbiting the earth on the international space station, flying over us, as we speak. How mind-blowing is that," John says.
**
I know before they tell me. A cow in calf, a ewe in lamb, a mare in foal. I always knew, long before the farmer knew. I don’t know how. But I did.
And I know now that Lara is carrying a child. "Our grandson," I tell Ellen. "I’m sure it’s a boy. Imagine, we’re going to be grandparents."
And when they tell me, I feign surprise, though the delight is not feigned.
**
I worry about the birth. Lara is such a small whiff of a girl. She tells me that her little star-boy will be a dancer, or a conductor, such is his non-stop movement. She invites me to feel him under the taut skin of her belly. I do so, shyly.
John and Lara surprise me a few weeks before the due date. They have settled on a name. Their son will be called, Donal, after his granddad, after me. That night I cry, tears of love and sorrow. I miss Ellen.
**
As the time approaches, I dream of him, our grandson, floating in his infinite, tiny universe, our little Kazakh cosmonaut, tethered to his mothership.
In another dream, he is a merman, swimming in his sub-aquatic world, the sole citizen of his own Atlantis.
I wake and tell Ellen my dreams.
Each night now I watch the moon and the stars, picking out the constellations as Lara has taught me. And I imagine an old man like me, in the Southern Urals, or on the coast of the Sea of Azov, staring at them, too. Does he reach out, as I long to do, to take them from the sky, to hold them tenderly in his hands and keep the day, and all that it will bring, at bay, until gentleness returns to our world, where a child might be born in hope?
And I think of little Donal, our Kazakh-Irish astronaut. And I shout to the heavens.
"Live. Live. Live."
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About The Author: Kevin Mc Dermott is a Wicklow-based writer. He has written six YA novels. His stories and poems have been published in journals in Ireland, the UK and the US. He is a Fulbright/Creative Ireland Professional Fellowship awardee and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UCD.
Listen to the RTÉ Short Story Competition 2025 stories nightly on Late Date from Monday 13 October (full broadcast schedule here). Tune into Arena for interviews and updates, and join us for the live Arena/RTÉ Short Story finale in the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire on Friday 24 October -- tickets are on sale here
