Metropolitan Lines Issue 2 - Brunel University

Magilligan
by Johanna Yacoub
Employment
Henri Magilligan, a short
stocky man, seemed to stand
at a lop-sided angle to his
surroundings. One shoulder sat
lower than the other. One leg was
shorter than the other. His left arm
hung farther down his body than his
right arm. This right arm, visibly
smaller, tucked itself into the
waistband of voluminous but
threadbare jodhpurs bunched up by
frayed baling twine slotted through
their waistband. He counteracted
the discrepancy in his legs by
keeping the longer of the two limbs
slightly bent and positioned a foot’s
length to the front. His head,
topped by a burning bush of ginger
hair, was graced with an off-centre
crescent smile which wrapped itself
around his face. He appeared to
have all his teeth.
It was six thirty in the morning.
The grate had been cleaned and the
fire made up, but not yet relit. The
room was cold. A gunmetal sky
threw its dark cloak over the
chateau and the gusting wind
clattered the shutters against the
wall on either side of the long
windows. Jeanne had lit the oil
lamps. Generator fuel was in short
supply and electricity was only
switched on for visitors.
André twisted an old regimental
scarf into a makeshift turban to
protect his sensitive skin from the
ferocious draught howling along
the corridor. He’d wound his body
in a Berber camel hair burnoose, a
souvenir of colonial life. Examining
himself in the mirror, he recollected
the day he’d met Alexia, the spirited
cavalry charge and the mock
capture of Abdel Kadir. ‘Poor Abdel
Kadir,’ he thought. ‘Even you
looked better than I do now. Who’d
have thought I’d end up like the
monster in Frankenstein.’ Then he
wheeled himself unaided from the
bedroom, allowing Alexia to return
to her room and change. As she
scuttled past Henri, she paused,
gawped, looked with incredulity at
Jeanne and fled.
They’d had a difficult night.
André had grown accustomed to
the hospital beds and found the soft
mattress unsettling. His wounds
were tender and every accidental
movement in the bed painful. He’d
woken frequently, each time
disturbing Alexia. The enormity of
their problem had sunk into her
head. She was ready to grab any
straw within reach with both hands.
‘The name Magilligan,’ began
André in his quiet voice, ‘it’s not
exactly French....? Are you...were
you a member of the armed forces?’
Henri wrinkled his face in
concentration, glanced briefly at
Jeanne, then replied,
‘Do I look like a soldier? I’ve
great skill with horses and I did
offer myself but neither your lot nor
my lot were interested. They’ve
already got enough horse copers
and no-one detected the fighting
potential in me. So, the answer is
no, I was not in the armed forces.’
André hesitated, as if
reconsidering his tactics. He started
again.
‘I’m trying to find out if you’re a
deserter.’
‘I was never in the army to run
away, Sir.’
‘Magilligan, if that is your name?’
André, confused, stopped. He
wasn’t sure what he was trying to
ask this odd-looking little man. ‘It’s
not a French name yet you speak
12
postgraduate fiction
French like a Frenchman. What if
you’re a spy?’
He regretted the question as
soon as he’d asked it. ‘He’ll think I’m
paranoid,’ muttered André to
himself, but Magilligan seemed
unperturbed by the insinuation.
‘My grandfather was the
Magilligan. Irish, but I never knew
him. Drank himself to death before
I was born.’
Magilligan looked at André and
raised his bushy eyebrows as if to
deny any involvement in the
inebriated downfall of his forefather,
then let them subside to their
natural resting place above his vivid
blue eyes. André threw a fleeting
look of bewilderment at Jeanne,
whose face remained expressionless.
‘My grandfather and father
worked with the racehorses at
Chantilly. I can ride as well as
anyone but the gaffers wouldn’t let
me race, so I stayed a stable lad.
Chantilly’s closed now, as you
know. My mother, God rest her
soul, had relatives near Chalons. I
found farm work, Sir.’
Remembering the main thrust of
André’s investigation, he added as
reassurance,
‘Nobody would take me into the
espionage. I stick too much to
peoples’ memories.’
‘Do you know this man well,
Jeanne?’
André manoeuvred the chair to
face her. She nodded and was about
to speak when André swung round
again to Henri.
‘I’m looking for a valet; a very
personal valet. I need a man to help
me with the basic functions of
living.’
André removed his hands from
under the blanket and held them
forward, as if for inspection. The
fingers on his left hand were fused
Metropolitan Lines Summer 2008