We present another story from the RTÉ Short Story Competition shortlist 2025 -- read A Spectrum of Sorrow by Angela Finn below.
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Inside the hospice, I wanted to hug her but could not. April sunlight shone through the corner window and fell in lemon pyramids across the bed. It was lunchtime and the ward smelled of soup. She wore navy-blue pyjama bottoms with a pattern of white anchors. I blew her a kiss and shaped my hands into a heart.
A week after the funeral, a letter came to the house letting me know my carer's allowance had ceased.
At the social welfare office, I spoke to an inspector through spit-speckled Plexiglas. She handed me a form and said, next time you come here, bring proof that you’re looking for a job.
Back at the house, dust gathered on the piano, on the ornaments, on the family photos in silver tarnished frames, and on the glass box with the stuffed and faded yellow canary, which fogged up inside when the sun shone. I thought to myself, maybe Travellers have the right idea – just burn the bloody lot. I sat too long at the dining table smoking, idly winding the key beneath the plastic statue of Our Lady who twirled stiffly and clanked out notes of the Ave Maria.
Summer came and most evenings, I sat on the concrete planter outside the hall door smoking. I listened to neighbours and passersby, catching snippets of their conversations. I had no desire to join in. Lanzarote is overrated, said one. Sure the sun isn’t everything, said another. Oh, I love olive oil and chilies. And, keep the faith, I heard Mrs Hannigan say. I listened to the sound of wheels trundling over concrete; buggies, bicycles, skateboards, scooters. On warm evenings, the sounds, right outside the garden, seemed far away. Above the hedge, against the setting sun, I watched as groups of fledgling birds flew in uncoordinated fashion. I wished I could join them.
June was hot and everything in the back garden needed cutting back. Overgrown bushes blocked the morning sun. I walked barefoot around the garden and whenever I stood still, to peg clothes onto the line, or to smoke a cigarette, large brown ants crawled over my feet. I welcomed the nip and sting of their bites. It was good to feel something, anything.
On a bank holiday Monday, I drove to the cemetery with my brother. The heaped soil on the grave hadn’t settled yet. We threw the withered flower wreaths onto a skip nearby and lingered for a while. Afterwards, we bought takeaway cappuccinos from the Spar and walked the wooden bridge towards Dollymount Strand. The tide was out and a warm breeze carried the smell of sea sewage and garlic mushrooms. Halfway across the bridge, we stopped and leaned on the timber railing, looking north towards Howth. A soggy teddy bear, tied to the bridge held a faded, crimson, satin heart. Most of its stuffing had settled at the bottom of its legs. I read out loud the laminated note tied to the railings next to the teddy; a prayer to Saint Dymphna. In the shade of the bridge, the word H E L P was spelled out with rocks and shells. Walking along the strand, our shadows fell before us, long and jagged like Giacometti statues. Wind whipped up dry sand. My jaws were tense and my teeth ground the glassy grains like a peppermill. Later that evening, I sat alone drinking red wine at the kitchen table from a pint glass. Outside, the neighbour’s cat watched me like a television.
By July, I had found a job in a local pharmacy.
You’ll serve customers, help in the dispensary, empty the bins – they fill up quickly, the pharmacist said.
A wall of prescription drugs, arranged alphabetically, went from floor to ceiling, left to right. Aspirin, Anxicalm, all the way across to Zantac, Zoloft. The dispensary space was tight. There was a lot of almost-touching and I did not feel comfortable. The middle rows of drugs confused me most. My index finger hovered over the little boxes as I whispered to myself, l m n o p. On my coffee breaks, I smoked in the yard behind the pharmacy, among the bins and the stacks of flattened cardboard. The smell of chip grease wafted over from Romano’s and made me feel less alone. Back in the dispensary, I poured pills into the pill-counting machine. I stuck labels onto brown plastic containers. I was cautious, I was slow.
I’m getting old waiting, the pharmacist said.
Back home, in a fit of melancholic fury, I ripped the ancient turquoise carpet from the stairs, rolled it up and left it in the garage at the side of the house. The underlay had disintegrated. It turned to powder in my hands.
At the end of July, I phoned an Old Lover I had not seen in years. It was a Friday evening and my loneliness was acute.
It’s you, he said, when he answered.
It is me, I said.
We talked into the night. Before he hung up, he said, be good to yourself, buy yourself flowers. And then, let’s meet up soon.
I treated myself to a bunch of pink Stargazer lilies. Overnight, the buds opened. Thick liquid drops oozed from the stigmas and I found this mildly arousing. I soaked in the bath until my fingertips shriveled. I combed the strands of long wet hair over my face and made a ponytail. The hair was full of split ends. I cut the ponytail in half with a blunt, bird-shaped scissors and hoped for the best.
I met the Old Lover on a rainy Saturday. We drove over the wooden bridge and sat in the car, waiting for the rain to stop. When the clouds broke, the grainy landscape looked like a Japanese woodcut; grey sea, mauve clouds and a pale lavender sky above the purple mass of the Sugar Loaf. Sure you could be looking at Mount Fuji, the Old Lover said. We walked north along the strand. The shallow pools in the sand ridges had the appearance of dirty tweed. My phone rang.
It’s probably the pharmacist, I said.
Just ignore him, he said, and I let it ring out.
On the Monday, the pharmacist gave me a pep talk. When a customer comes through the door, smile. And if you’re already smiling, smile harder. And please, don’t fold your arms like that, he said, it looks defensive.
All day long, the fluorescent light on the makeup stand flickered incessantly and my eyes stung. The makeup stand looked cheap and ugly, its black plastic surfaces sloppy with testers, bent mascara brushes, congealed foundation and broken lipsticks. The drugs for severe pain were kept in the safe; methadone, morphine, OxyContin, Oxynorm.
There’s only one key to that safe, the pharmacist said, don’t ever lose it.
Everything is here, if ever I need it, I thought. I counted the cash before we locked up. Everything added up perfectly. Well done, the pharmacist said, winking. I’ll hand in my notice when the time is right, I thought.
In the run-up to Christmas, I detached from the world. I watched a woman with honey-dyed hair pocket packets of makeup while waiting for her prescription. I said nothing. I handed her the green form to sign. Thank you love, she said. Happy Christmas, I said. A tipsy old man came by looking for heartburn relief. He was humming Raglan Road. I once drank with Patrick Kavanagh, he said. When he walked outside the shop, the bottle of Gaviscon slipped from his hand and I did not go outside to help him.
I spent Christmas alone. The Old Lover was in London visiting his sons. I popped some stolen Xanax and drifted in and out of sleep. During a feverish episode, the soft grey carpet in my bedroom rolled back and the floorboards beneath lifted and split. When I woke, I scrolled groggily through my phone messages. The words seemed to fall off the screen. I have no obligation to keep on living, I thought, and that was a comfort.
On an icy February morning, I sat with a grief counsellor in a damp church hall drinking milky coffee. For a long time, she said nothing and I could not say what I wanted to say. Try to write it all down, she said. I went home and could not write a single word.
In March, when the neighbour’s cat dragged a dead magpie into the front garden, a family of magpies came to mourn. They lined up on the electricity wire and screeched mournfully. The cat hid in a gap in the hedge.
When April slipped into May, I waited for the Old Lover in the narrow street outside his flat. It was compost bin day and there was a sickly-sweet smell of rot. An obese cat with a coat that looked like a1970s swirly carpet walked the low narrow brick wall and fell off and I almost laughed. We drove to the cemetery and I bought flowers at the entrance. One of the graves had red tinsel draped around a tombstone. The tinsel caught the sunlight and from a distance it looked like the grave was on fire.
The things people leave for the dead, I said.
In the Old Lover’s flat, there were photographs of his sons. I’m not sure about this one, he said, picking a framed photograph off the mantlepiece. The hair, he said, it’s very different. He poured me a glass of red wine form an opened bottle. It tasted like sherry. Why don’t you stay, he said. I lingered in his bathroom for a while, wondering if I should. I fixed my makeup and turned on the little transistor radio on the window ledge. Richard Ashcroft was singing a sad song I had not heard before.
In the morning, it was me who brought up the termination.
I told my mother a few years ago, I said.
He lit two cigarettes and handed me one.
She must have said, that bastard from London, he said.
No, she didn’t, I said.
I lay curled on the bed. He brought me a cup of coffee and a bowl of strawberries in a glass dish. The strawberries were overly ripe, dark and bloody looking.
I need some time alone, I said. I’m going to go for a long walk.
On the strand, a grey heron mooched for food in the dunes. I walked past a memorial I hadn’t noticed before. There was a hunk of driftwood next to a surfboard, painted with a black and white chequered pattern. There was a tall chrome lantern with a lit candle beside a glass vase, filled with fresh white roses. I stood for a while taking in the carefully arranged objects. I looked down at the sand, at the brown and white feathers, the crab carapaces, the broken pink claws, the half-buried blue surgical masks. As I walked upwards, into the dunes, a swarm of hawk moths flew giddily in all directions. I felt lightheaded, and momentarily, the weight of my sorrow seemed to lift and I sensed it flying skywards, like a spectral bird.
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About The Author: Angela Finn, from Dublin, is a final year PhD student at the School of English, Dublin City University, with a particular interest in hybrid literary forms. She won the 2020 Madrid Desperate Literature Short Story competition and was the 2022 recipient of the Iron Mountain Literature John McGahern Award.
Listen to the RTÉ Short Story Competition 2025 stories nightly on Late Date from Monday 13th 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 24th October - tickets are on sale here.
