OUT

Chapter 19

Sunday, November 23rd 2014

The parochial hall seemed to get more and more dilapidated everytime Jack was in it. It reeked of damp and dust. The floor was covered in scuff marks and stains that they seemed to have just given up trying to clean. The paint was peeling off part of the ceiling, and the brick walls painted a dirty beige colour were speckled with blobs of dirty BluTack from posters of years' passed that had long since fallen down. He honestly wouldn't be surprised if the roof caved in on them - what a shit way to go.

'What happened to your face?' whispered Jack to his father, who sat beside him with a gash across his cheek - like a cat had scrawmed him.

'Cut it on barbed wire,' he replied after a few seconds, rubbing the cut gently with his hand. Jack sat in between his father and a woman he recognised from around the village but who he didn't know. His mother sat at the top of the room, lecturing the group who listened intently, some even took notes.

'Both Colin Farrell and Hozier have come out in support of the Yes side...obviously Hozier's Tweet in support of the gay marriage referendum is not good for us. He has just under 100,000 followers so that's a lot of influence. It's really not ideal, especially with Colin Farrell's letter earlier this month too...but it's still early days yet. The wording of the referendum isn't due to be released until 2015 so we have a bit of time to go.'

Jack took out his phone and searched for Hozier on Twitter, he hadn't seen the Tweet. The photo came up immediately of the singer holding up a sign that read "Yes Equality, I'm ready to vote" accompanied with the caption "Remember to register to vote! Please spread awareness". The Tweet had a couple thousand likes. Jack scrolled through the comments which were a mix of support and condemnation of the singer.

'There'll be plenty of media opportunities ahead of the referendum in the spring, so it's important that anyone that is willing to speak on behalf of the "No" side with me, you register for media training at the end of this meeting,' she continued.

Jack stared at one of the far walls, tuning out his mother's voice as she continued to blabber on. There was a poster advertising computer classes for the elderly. He thought about his own grandparents for a moment, all four of them long dead, and wondered what they'd vote for in the marriage referendum. He assumed 'No' - it was a generational thing. They came from a different time. He wondered what he would vote for. Nobody would ever know except for him, but it still played on his mind. He felt guilty voting for either option, although for two very different reasons.

The sudden movement and noise of everyone getting to their feet startled Jack back to reality. He too got to his feet. 'So if everyone could stand against this wall, Patsy is going to take a picture of us all for the local paper. Thanks again, Pat.' Jack's mother divvied out some pieces of white card with 'Vote No' scrawled across them in black marker, and the group of fifteen or so stood together for a photo.

The last time Jack posed for a photo in this hall, he was ten years old and was here for Cub Scouts. He had hated it, but his mother had made him join as a notion because one of the neighbour's kids went. He lasted all of six months there, and remembered bawling crying to his mother after a camping trip in Sligo where it had pissed rain on them for three days.

'OK, smile everyone,' instructed Patsy, as she pressed the button on her tripod-mounted camera and took their photo, the flash half-blinding him, 'perfect.'