by Maeve Binchy
* * *
Gerry’s mother was seventy-three, and there had never been any scandal in her life before and there wasn’t going to be any. She had reared five boys on her own. Three of them were abroad now, all of them making a good living; only two were in Ireland, and of those Gerry was easily her favourite. A big innocent bear of a man without a screed of harm in him. He worked too hard, that was the problem and in his job, Gerry had told her often, the best place to meet clients was in pubs. A grown man couldn’t sit like a baby in a pub, drinking a pint of orange juice! Naturally a man had to drink with the people he talked to. They wouldn’t trust him otherwise. His health had broken down from all the anti-social hours, that’s what he had told her. He had to go into the nursing home for six weeks for a total rest. No one was to come and see him. He would be out in the first week of May, he had said. Now it was the beginning of May and he’d be home, as right as rain. That’s if anyone could be as right as rain in the house his precious Emma ran for him. Stop. She mustn’t say a word against Emma, everyone thought Emma was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Keep your own counsel about Emma. Even her son Jack had said that Emma was a walking saint. Jack! Who never noticed anyone …
* * *
Jack Moore woke up that morning with a leaden feeling in his chest. He couldn’t identify it for a while. He went through the things that might cause it. No, he had no row going on with Mr Power in the showrooms; no, he had no great bag of washing to take down to the launderette. No, there had been no bill from the garage for his car – and then he remembered. Gerry came home today. Insisted on taking a bus home in his own time, no, he didn’t want anyone to collect him, didn’t want to look like a wheelchair case. Anyway, he had to start taking control of his own life again. Jack knew that the visit to the nursing home was going to be a big talking point, a drama, a bit of glamour, just like losing his driving licence had been. Gerry had held them spellbound with his story of the young guard asking him to blow into the bag. The jokes that Gerry had made had cracked a smile even in the Gardai. It hadn’t done any good in the end, of course, he had been put off the roads for a year. Emma had taken twenty-five driving lessons in ten days: she had passed her test. She drove the car, remembering to take the keys out of it when she was going to leave both the car and Gerry at home. Emma was a saint, a pure saint. He hoped her children appreciated her.
* * *
Paul and Helen Moore woke up and remembered that this was the day that Daddy came home. They were a lot more silent at breakfast than usual. Their mother had to remind them of the good news. When they got back from school their Dad would be sitting at home as cured from his disease as he could hope to be. Their faces were solemn. But they should be cheerful, their mother told them, everything was going to be fine now. Dad had gone of his own choice into a place where they gave him tests and rest and therapy. Now he knew that drinking alcohol for him was like drinking poison, and he wouldn’t do it. Paul Moore was fourteen. He had been going to go and play in his friend Andy’s house after school, but that wouldn’t be a good idea now. Not if a cured father was coming back. He never asked his friends to play in their house. Well. It was only one day. Helen Moore was twelve; she wished that her mother didn’t go on about things so much, with that kind of false, bright smile. It was better really to be like Father Vincent who said that the Lord arranged things the way the Lord knew best. Father Vincent believed that the Lord thought it was best for Dad to be drunk most of the time. Or that’s what it seemed that Father Vincent thought. He was never too definite about anything.
* * *
Father Vincent woke wishing that Gerry Moore had a face that was easier to read. He had been to see him six times during his cure. Gerry had ended up the most cheerful patient in the nursing home; he had nurses, nuns and other patients agog with his stories of the people he had photographed, the adventures, the mistakes corrected just in time, the disasters miraculously averted. Alone with the priest, he had put on a serious face the way other people put on a raincoat, temporarily, not regarding it as anything to be worn in real life. Yes, Gerry had understood the nature of his illness, and wasn’t it bad luck – a hell of a lot of other fellows could drink what he drank and get off scot free. But he would have to give it up. Heigh Ho. But then the priest had heard him tell stories about photographing film stars on location, and meeting famous people face to face. Nowhere did he seem to remember that he hadn’t done a book for four years, nor a proper commission for two. He had spent most of his time drinking with that friend of his from RTE, the fellow who was apparently able to get his work finished by twelve noon and spend the rest of the day in Madigan’s. A hard man, poor Gerry used to call him. Des the hard man. Father Vincent hoped that Des-the-hard-man would be some help when Gerry got out of all this. But he doubted it. Des didn’t look like a pillar for anyone to lean on.
* * *
Des Kelly woke up at five a.m. as he always did. He slipped out of the bed so as not to wake Clare: he had become quite an expert at it over the years. He kept his clothes in a cupboard on the stairs so that he could dress in the bathroom without disturbing her. In half an hour he was washed, dressed and had eaten his cornflakes; he took his coffee into his study and lit the first cigarette of the day. God, it was great that Gerry was being let out of that place at last, the poor divil would be glad to be out. He’d been up once to see him and he’d known half the crowd in the sitting room, or half-known them. Gerry wasn’t well that day, so he’d scribbled a note to say he’d called. He’d felt so helpless, since his automatic response had been to leave a bottle of whiskey. Still, it was all over now, and no harm done. Pumped all the poison out of him they had, told him to lay off it for a bit longer, then go easy on it. Or that’s what Des supposed they told him, that made sense anyway. If you got as reached by the stuff as poor old Gerry had been getting there over the last few months, it was wiser to call a halt for a bit. What he couldn’t stand was all this sanctimonious claptrap about it being an illness. There was no fitter man in Dublin than Gerry Moore. He had been a bit unfortunate. But now he had time to take stock and get his career together, well, he’d be back on top in no time. That’s if know-all Emma, you-name-it-I’m-a-specialist-in-it Emma, didn’t take control of him and crush any bit of life that was left in him right out of him. Gerry would need to watch it: with a friend like that creeping Jesus Father Vincent, with a coffin-face of a brother like Jack and with know-all Emma for a wife, poor Gerry needed a couple of real friends. One of the few things he and Clare ever saw eye to eye about these days was what a mystery it was that a grand fellow like Gerry Moore had married that Emma. Des sighed at the puzzle of it all and opened his file: he always got his best work done at this time of the morning.
* * *
Emma woke up late. She had hardly slept during the night but had fallen into one of those heavy sleeps at dawn. She was sorry now that she hadn’t got up at six o’clock when she was so restless; the extra three hours weren’t worth it. She tumbled out of bed and went to the handbasin. She gave herself what her mother had called a lick and a promise. She smiled at the way she had accepted the phrase for so long and never questioned it until today. Today of all days she was up late and examining her face in the mirror musing over what old childhood sayings might mean. She pulled on her pale blue sweater and jeans and ran downstairs. Paul and Helen looked at her as reproachfully as if she had handed them over to Dr Barnardo’s.
‘We had to get our own breakfast,’ said Helen.
‘You’ll be late for work,’ said Paul.
‘The place looks awful for Daddy coming home,’ said Helen.
With her lip well bitten in to stop her shouting at them Emma managed a sort of smile. They had managed to spill water, cold and hot, all over the kitchen. God almighty, it’s not that hard to fill an electric kettle and then to pour hot water into cups of instant coffee, is it? She didn’t say it, she didn’t ask the rhetorical question which would result in shrugging and counter-accusation.
They had trailed coffee powder, buttered the sink as well as their bread, there was a line of crumbs from the toaster … calm, calm.
‘Right, if you’ve had your breakfast, you head off, and we’ll have a celebration supper tonight. Isn’t it marvellous?’ She looked brightly from one to another.
‘Why didn’t you get up in time, Mummy, if it’s such a marvellous day?’ Helen asked. Emma felt that she would like to slap her hard.
‘I was awake most of the night and I fell into one of those heavy sleeps just a short time ago. Come on now, hoosh, you should be gone …’
‘Will the celebration supper last long? Can I go over to Andy’s afterwards?’
‘Yes!’ snapped Emma. ‘When supper’s over you can do what you like.’
‘Is Father Vincent coming to supper?’ Helen asked.
‘Heavens, no. I mean who would have asked him, why do you think he might be here?’ Emma sounded alarmed.
‘Because he’s often here when there’s a crisis, isn’t he?’
‘But this isn’t a crisis. This is the end of the crisis, Daddy is cured, I tell you, cured. All the awful things about his disease are gone, there’s no need for Father Vincent to come and be helpful.’
‘You don’t like Father Vincent much, do you?’ said Helen.
‘Of course I do, I like him very much, I don’t know where you got that idea. It’s just that he’s not needed tonight.’ Emma was wiping and cleaning and scooping things into the sink as she spoke.
‘Would you say you like Father Vincent less or more than you like Dad’s friend Mr Kelly?’
Emma put her hands on her hips. ‘Right, is there anything else you’d like to do before you go to school? Play I Spy? Maybe we could have a few games of charades as well or get out the Monopoly? Will you get yourselves …’
They laughed and ran off. She ate the crusts of their toast, rinsed the cups and plates and ran from the kitchen into the sitting room. The children had been right, it was a mess. She took a deep breath and made a big decision. One hour would make all the difference. Please God, may she get someone who was understanding and nice, someone who realised that she wasn’t a shirker.
‘Hallo, is that RTE? Can you put me through to …’ No, suddenly she hung up. It was bad enough having one in the family who let people down: she had never missed a day since she had got the secretarial job in Montrose, she was damned if she was going to miss even an hour today. She swept up the worst of the untidiness, shoving newspapers and magazines into the cupboard, gathering any remaining cups or glasses from last night. Gerry wasn’t one to notice what a place looked like.
She threw out the worst of the flowers and changed the water in the vase; then she took out her Welcome Home card and wrote ‘from all of us with love.’ She propped it up beside the flowers, ran out pulling the door, leapt on her bicycle and headed for Montrose. Because she was a little later than usual there was more traffic, but she didn’t mind, she thought of it as a contest. She would fight the cars and the traffic lights and the bits that were uphill. She would think about nice things, like how she had lost a stone and a half in two months, how she could fit into jeans again, how someone had really and truly thought she was a young woman, not the forty-year-old mother of teenagers. She thought of the great sun-tan she would get in the summer; she thought that she might get highlights in her hair if it weren’t too dear. She thought of everything in the world except her husband Gerry Moore.
* * *
Gerry Moore was going to be a great loss in the nursing home. The nurses all told him that and so did the patients. The doctor had his last chat with him that morning and said that in many ways he had been one of the most successful patients who had ever done the programme because he had refused to let it depress him.
‘You’ve been in such good form all the time, Gerry, you’ve actually helped other people. I must admit at the start I was less than convinced. I thought you were just marking time to get out and get at the stuff again.’
‘Wouldn’t I have to be half mad to do that?’ Gerry said. The doctor said nothing.
‘I know, I know, a lot of the lads you get in here are half mad. But not me. Honestly, I know what I’m doing now. I just have to change my lifestyle, that’s all. It can be done. I once had a lifestyle, a grand lifestyle, without drink. I’ll have one again.’
‘You’ll be in here lecturing to us yet,’ the doctor laughed.
Gerry had a dozen people to say goodbye to: he promised he’d come back to see them. ‘They all say that,’ people said, yet people believed that Gerry Moore would, he had that sort of way with him.
Nurse Dillon said she was surprised that a man like Mr Moore with so many friends of his own didn’t want anyone to come and collect him. Gerry had put his arm around her shoulder as she walked him to the door.
‘Listen here to me, I’m thinner, I’m much more handsome, I’m a sane man, not a madman. I’m a great fellow now compared to the way I was when I walked in – so don’t you think I should go home my own route and let the world have a look at me?’
She waved at him all the way to the end of the avenue. He was a gorgeous man, Mr Moore, and actually he was right, he did look fabulous now. You’d never think he was an old man of forty-five.
‘Mind yourself as you go your own route,’ she called.
* * *
His own route. Now where would that have taken him in the old days? Stop remembering, stop glorifying … a taste was only a taste, it wasn’t anything special. He knew that. Stop glamourising it all. These pubs, the ones he might have dropped into, they weren’t welcoming corners where friends called him to join their circles; some of them were sordid and depressing. If ever he had got talking to anyone it had been a sour depressed man who might have looked at him with suspicion. It was only when he got back nearer home that he would find people he knew in pubs. Friends. Stop glorifying it. It had not been a constant chorus of ‘There’s Gerry, the very man, come on over here, Gerry, what’ll you have?’ No, it hadn’t been like that. People had avoided him, for God’s sake, in the last months. He knew that, he had faced it. People he had known for years. Boy, was it going to come as a shock to them when they saw him with his big glass of Slimline Tonic and a dash of angostura bitters, the non drinkers’ cocktail. Ho, they’d be surprised, never thought old Gerry Moore had it in him to change his life.
Gerry walked to the bus stop. He had a small overnight case. He hadn’t needed much in the hospital, just his dressing gown and pyjamas and a wash bag, really, a couple of books and that was it. Why had his suitcases always been so heavy in the old days? Oh, of course, booze in case he would ever be caught short, and gear for work. No more attention to booze EVER again, but a lot of attention to work. He was looking forward to spending a good month sorting himself out and seeing where he was, then another month sending out mail shots offering specialised work. By midsummer he should be back where he had been, only better. A bus came and he got into it. Happily, he reached into his pocket and got out the money Emma had brought him. He hadn’t wanted money but of course he had been admitted to that nursing home penniless; she had given him money for tipping and taxis or whatever he needed. He hated taking her money, he hated that more than anything.
He got off the bus in the City Centre. Other people were walking about normally, it seemed to him; they had no problems and big decisions. They looked vacantly into windows of shops, or screwed their eyes up against the sunlight to see whether the traffic lights were green or red. A few early tourists strolled, everyone else seemed to bustle a bit. He looked at them wonderingly; most of them would have no problems handling a few glasses of spirits, a few pints, a bottle of wine with their meal, yet a lot of them wouldn’t even bother to. He saw with annoyance a couple of Pioneer Pins pass by; that Total Abstinence in order to make reparation to the Sacred Heart always annoyed him deeply. Nine tenths of these fellows didn’t know what they were giving up. It was as if he said that he’d give up mangoes or passion fruit, somet
hing he’d never tasted. The Lord couldn’t be all that pleased with such a sacrifice; the Lord, if he was there at all, must know that these Pioneers were a crowd of hypocritical show-offs. Easy, easy. Stop thinking about drink as some wonderful happiness creator. Don’t imagine that a drink suddenly turns the world into an attractive technicolour. The world’s fine now, isn’t it? He didn’t want a drink this moment, did he? No. Well then, what was the problem?
He caught the number ten with agility just as it was about to pull out. There right in front of him was Clare Kelly. ‘The lovely Clare … well, aren’t I steeped?’ he said with a mock gallant manner that played to the rest of the bus.
Clare was embarrassed and irritated to have run into him. Gerry could see that. She was a distant, cold sort of woman, he had always thought. Full of sarcasm and the witty answer. Gave poor Des a bloody awful time at home. Des had nothing to say to her these days, he had often told that to Gerry. He had said that he and Clare didn’t actually talk, have real conversations; there was always a state of war, where one or the other was winning. Nobody could remember when the war had been declared but it was there, in private as well as in public, putting each other down. Not that there was much in public these days. Clare didn’t have much time for her husband’s friends. Des preferred it that way. Let her have her meetings and her own life, let her laugh and sneer with her own friends, mock and make little of people. That suited him fine, Gerry had been very sorry for Des, the best of fellows. No matter what things went wrong in his own life at least Emma didn’t mock him.
