There is a crack in everything… but does the light get in?

I went out for a run, taking my usual morbid route – the good old loop around Drumragh graveyard.

The summer sun was strong in the sky – it was some evening. But as usual, the McDonald’s bags rustled in the hedges, and the light breeze blew losing scratchcards across the road.

Heading toward the graveyard, I came across a white-haired woman wearing an orange raincoat…

In her left hand she held a bin-bag. In her right, a litter-picker. She was deeply involved with a hedge which she was trying rid of rubbish.

‘Fair play to ye’, I thought, as I ran past pretending I didn’t see her.

Coming back home, there she was again; this time about 100 metres up the road from where I’d first blanked her.

Feeling more social from the endorphins, I shocked myself when I shouted, “The council must be paying quare overtime!”

My remark caught her attention, but her scrunched countenance betrayed she hadn’t a clue what I’d said.

I repeated the line twice more, each time losing confidence in its off-the-cuff funniness, until, by the time she had reluctantly removed an earphone, I wished I hadn’t opened my mouth.

“I don’t do this for the council, she said, with the emotional detachment of a Russian hitman.

She was willfully missing the jocular intention of my remark.

“I don’t do it because litter doesn’t look nice either.

“The people responsible for this disgust me,” she glared.

‘Typical’, I tutted inwardly. ‘You stop to be sound to some auld doll and, before you know it, she’s got you profiled as some nefarious-fly-tipper’.

“It’s revolting,” she added, redundantly.

This aul wasp had made me the enemy.

But even though I knew I was innocent, such was the power of her contemptuous gaze, I still started to feel like I had done something wrong.

My body started secreting ‘shame’ chemicals as though I’d just been caught doing something awful.

Here I was; a lifelong bin-user, and this aul bat was giving me a big litter-bug-beamer as though I hadn’t used a waste receptacle once in my whole life.

Like a wily boxer who detects the subtle stiffening of their opponent’s legs, she must have spied my reddening jaws. My body had betrayed me and she stepped in to capitalise.

“It kills animals,” she said bluntly. “Farm animals eat rubbish and die. It destroys the habitats of all kind of wildlife.”

Her accusatory tone had caused my inquisitive spirit to sour.

The transient guilt was subsiding, and a reflexive animosity was trying to take the reins.

“Wise up, Emmet,” I rebuked myself. “This is an auld woman. Compose yourself, man!”

“Well, fair play to ye,” I said, trying to find my cool.

I then asked her name and where she was from. She asked if I was a cop.

“’Araid not,” I said, half-toying with the idea of telling her I was actually a murderer who ‘really enjoys how peaceful these backroads are’.

I resisted.

“I only stopped because I was wondering why a woman would go out of her way to pick up rubbish that other people can’t even be bothered binning themselves,” I commented amicably.

Her guard dropped slightly, and the ghost of a smile came across her face, revealing teeth to have never known Haribo.

“Sure it keeps me out of the pub,” she said. Not quite funny but an improvement.

Then, suddenly – and somewhat inexplicably – she became expansive, using her litter-picker to gesticulate.

“You meet people out here (litter-picker aimed at me). You get out in this (litter-picker pointed at sun). And you get to do something that might make a difference (litter-picker depositing empty packet of Tayto cheese and onion in bin-bag).”

Pleased with how far our relationship had come, and also realising I was interrupting her favourite pastime rather than providing a welcome break from her community service, I said ‘fair play to you’ for about a sixth time (*previous ‘fair plays’ have been redacted for the benefit of the reader*), and headed on my way.

After a few steps she shouted after me, “Leonard Cohen! That’s what I’m listening to! Leonard Cohen!”

I turned, saying nothing, just grinning and nodding to indicate my approval.

“There is a crack in everything, and that’s how the light gets in!” she shouted.