by John Boyne
“I wouldn’t have thought there’d be too much fraternization between the business lads and the arts lads,” I said finally.
“Why not?” asked Liam, looking at me as if he could scarcely imagine a more idiotic remark.
“Different types of people, I suppose.”
“I don’t see why.”
“We’re only friends because your son here stole a girlfriend from me and then some wanker from Sociology stole her off him,” said Jimmy. “And we bonded, as they say, over our mutual indignation.”
“Fair enough,” I said, laughing.
“Sociology students are the worst,” he continued. “Bunch of fuckin’ knobs. What kind of plank wants to become a sociologist anyway? It doesn’t even mean anything. What the fuck are you supposed to do with a Sociology degree?”
“He didn’t steal her off me,” said Liam grumpily. “And I didn’t steal her off you. She’s a twenty-year-old woman, not a piece of chattel.”
“She’s a slutbag is what she is,” said Jimmy, shaking his head. “A dirty little slutbag who’s working her way through the lads in Trinity like shit through a goose.” He seemed more incensed over the break-up than Liam did and I wondered whether this was typical of my son’s approach to girls. I didn’t want him to be as useless with relationships as I had been at the same age but nor did I want him to be as cavalier as his uncle. As role models, I felt that both Julian and I had failed him.
Liam and I hadn’t met in the immediate wake of Julian’s death, which probably should have been how we entered each other’s lives. And although I could hardly be held accountable under the circumstances, I regretted that I hadn’t been able to fulfill his uncle’s last wish of me—that I would be the one to call Alice and tell her that her brother had died. I would have done it as soon as Bastiaan and I had got back to our apartment that night but of course we never made it there, and around the time that I was being rushed into surgery, a nervous Garda was arriving at the house on Dartmouth Square to deliver the news himself. When I emerged from my coma a few weeks later to find Ignac sitting by my bed ready to deliver bad news of his own—that Bastiaan was not only dead but that his body had been returned to Holland, where Arjan and Edda had given him a private burial without me—I could scarcely give any thought to my promise, so consumed was I by depression and grief. Ironically, around the same time, Ignac broke up with Emily, whose lack of compassion in the face of a family tragedy had been enough to turn him off her once and for all. Every cloud, as they say.
In the end, I waited several years, until I had recuperated, until the trial had come to an end, until I had returned to Dublin, to contact Alice, writing her a long letter to explain how sorry I was for the way that I had treated her all those years before. I told her how circumstances had found me in the same place as Julian in New York during the last week of his life and how I had been with him when he died. I wasn’t sure if this would provide any comfort to her but I hoped that it would. And then, finally, I mentioned that, perhaps without meaning to, Julian had let slip to me that our one night of intimacy had resulted in a child. I understood why she’d never told me, I said, but I would like to meet our son if she agreed.
Not surprisingly, it took her several weeks to reply. The letter I eventually received sounded as if it had been written and rewritten many times before she’d committed to a final draft, and the tone in which she wrote was one of utter detachment, as if it had taken a great effort on her part even to remember who I was, which was, of course, impossible considering we were technically still married and had a child together. She told me that Liam had asked about me over the years, that he’d shown a natural interest in the identity of his father, and that she’d told him the truth: that I had left her on our wedding day, humiliating her in front of all her friends and family, but that she had said nothing to him about what she called my “tendencies.” I didn’t want to inflict that on him, she wrote. It was hard enough for him growing up without a father without his having to deal with that too.
She added that she was uncertain about my meeting him and would prefer to discuss the matter in person, and so one Wednesday evening after work, anxious and uncertain how the encounter might go, I met my wife of nearly twenty years in the Duke public house, laying eyes on her for the first time since our wedding day.
“There you are at last,” she said when she walked in, fifteen minutes late, and found me sitting in the corner with a pint of lager and a copy of that day’s Irish Times. “I thought you said you’d be back down in a few minutes?”
I smiled; it was a good line. She looked incredibly beautiful, her long dark hair now shoulder-length and her eyes glowing with as much intelligence and wit as they ever had.
“Sorry, I got a little sidetracked,” I told her. “Can I get you a drink, Alice?”
“A glass of white wine. Large.”
“Any particular kind?”
“The most expensive that they have.”
I nodded and made my way to the bar. When I brought it back to the table, she had taken my seat by the wall, giving her a view of the room and demoting me to the stool opposite her. My drink and newspaper had been moved too.
“Your hair’s a lot thinner than it used to be,” she said, taking a sip from her drink and ignoring my attempt to clink glasses. “You’ve not exactly gone to seed but you could stand to lose a few pounds. Do you exercise much?”
“It’s not that easy,” I said, nodding toward my crutch, which she must have overlooked, and she had the good grace to look a little abashed.
“We should have gone to the Horseshoe Bar really, shouldn’t we?” she said. “Picked up where we left off? The last time I saw you was in there. You were working the room and looked as happy as I’d ever seen you.”
“Did I?” I asked, doubting this. “Really?”
“Yes, you did.”
“OK.”
“And then I never saw you again.”
A long silence.
“Well, at least I made it up the aisle that day,” she continued finally. “The previous time I didn’t even get that far. It was what I liked to think of as progress. My hope is that next time around I’ll get to the end of the honeymoon.”
“I don’t know what to say to you, Alice,” I said, unable to meet her eye. “I really don’t. I’m extremely ashamed of what I did to you. It was cowardly and cruel and heartless.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“The man you’re talking to,” I replied, choosing my words carefully. “The man you’re talking to is not the man who walked out of the Shelbourne all those years ago.”
“Isn’t he? Because he sure as hell looks like him. Only less attractive. And you didn’t walk, you ran.”
“I can’t excuse my actions,” I continued. “And nor can I atone for what I did to you, but I am able to look back now, all these years later, and see how my life was always going to reach a moment where I would have to face up to who I was. Who I am. Of course, I should have done it long before, and I certainly should never have dragged you into my problems, but I didn’t have the courage or maturity to be honest with myself, let alone with anyone else. But on the other hand, my life is my life. And I am who I am because of what I went through back then. I couldn’t have behaved any differently, even if I’d wanted to.”
“Do you know,” she said, her tone hardening now, “I never thought I’d lay eyes on you again, Cyril. I really didn’t. And if I’m honest, I hoped that I never would.”
“I’m assuming that there’s nothing I can say to make any of it better?”
“You assume correctly.”
“You have to understand that—”
“Just stop,” she said, putting her glass down loudly on the table. “Just stop, all right? I’m not here to rehash the past. I’ve put it behind me. That’s not what we’re here to talk about.”
“Well, you started it,” I said irritably.
“Can you blame me? I think I have the right to a li
ttle anger.”
“I’m just trying to explain, that’s all. If you knew what it was like growing up gay in Ireland in the fifties and sixties—”
“I’m not interested in any of that,” said Alice, waving this away. “I’m not a political person.”
“It’s not politics,” I said. “It’s about society and bigotry and—”
“You think you had a terrible time of it, don’t you?”
“Yes. I do.”
“And yet if you’d only been honest with everyone from the start—with Julian, with me—then all of this trouble and heartbreak could have been avoided. Not just mine, but yours too. I don’t doubt that you had difficult times, Cyril. I don’t doubt that you suffered the unfairness of your condition—”
“It’s not a condition—”
“But my brother was your best friend. And isn’t that what best friends are for? Confiding in?”
“He wouldn’t have understood,” I said.
“He would have if you’d told him.”
“I did tell him.”
“You told him five minutes before you were due to marry me!” she said, laughing out loud. “That wasn’t telling him. That was trying to sabotage the marriage so he’d give you permission to walk away. Which you still could have done then, by the way. You could have simply made a run for it, like Fergus did.”
“How could I have done that?” I said lamely. “It would have been history repeating itself.”
“Do you think what you did was any better?”
“No, of course not.”
“It was worse by far. Look, I hated Fergus for what he did to me but at least he had the guts not to go through with something that he didn’t think was right for him. You couldn’t even do that.”
“So I’m worse than he is?” I asked, surprised by the comparison, for in my arrogance I had always believed that he had behaved badly while I had my reasons for what I had done.
“Yes. You are. Because I gave you an out.”
“What?” I asked, frowning at her.
“You must remember. We were out for a drink and I knew there was something wrong, I just didn’t know what. I was too naïve to guess. Nowadays it would be obvious, I suppose. Whatever it is, just tell me—that’s what I said to you. I promise that it will be all right. If you had told me—”
“I tried to tell you,” I said quickly. “Several times. The first night we met, as adults I mean, I thought I could tell you.”
“What?” she asked, dumbfounded by this. “When?”
“The night Julian was going off traveling with those Finnish twins. I was about to tell you and—”
“What are you talking about?” she cried. “That was before we even started dating!”
“I was about to tell you,” I repeated. “Only we got interrupted by your brother. And then another time, over dinner, the words nearly came out but something inside me wouldn’t let them. And even a few weeks before the wedding, we were in a bar together and a man came over to ask for your phone number. I was about to tell you but suddenly he was standing there, talking to you, and when he’d gone the moment seemed to have passed and—”
“Christ, you’re such a shit, do you know that?” said Alice. “You were a shit back then and I can see that you’re a total shit still. A selfish, arrogant, conceited shit who thinks the world has done you such a bad turn that you can do whatever you like to get back at it. No matter who you hurt. And you wonder why I didn’t tell you about Liam?”
“If it’s any consolation, my life after I left you wasn’t easy. It got better for a while but eventually—”
“Cyril,” she said, interrupting me. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t care. I have no problem with your way of life, I really don’t. As it happens, I have several gay friends.”
“Well, good for you,” I said petulantly.
“The point is that this has got nothing to do with your being gay,” she said, leaning forward and looking me directly in the eye. “It has to do with you being dishonest. Can’t you see that? Anyway, I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in discussing this with you, do you understand me? I don’t want to know what you’ve been through since you left Dublin or whom you’ve been with or what your life has been like. I don’t want to know anything at all. I just want to know what you want from me.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” I said, keeping my voice low in order to show her that I was not looking for an argument. “But now that you mention it, I suppose I’m a little surprised that you had a child by me and never bothered to let me know.”
“It’s not like I didn’t try,” she said. “That afternoon, when we were in the Shelbourne, I told you over and over that I needed to talk to you in private. I even phoned you when you were upstairs in the room and told you to wait there for me.”
“How was I to know that’s what you wanted to talk about? No, once I was gone you could have—”
“And how would I have contacted you, even if I’d wanted to?” she asked. “I don’t remember you leaving a forwarding address with the concierge as you ran screaming out of the hotel.”
“All right,” I said. “But there were plenty of people who probably could have tracked me down if you’d really wanted to. Charles, for example.”
She softened a little at his name. “Dear Charles,” she said, her expression filling with warmth.
“I’m sorry?”
“Charles was very good to me. Afterward, I mean.”
“No, I meant my adoptive father, Charles,” I said. “Why, who are you talking about?”
“That’s who I’m talking about.”
“Charles was very good to you? Charles Avery? Are you kidding me?”
“No,” she said. “The poor man was absolutely mortified by what you’d done. He kept apologizing to people on your behalf and telling me over and over how you weren’t a real Avery, not that I cared much about that at the time, but even afterward, over the weeks and months ahead, he stayed in touch, making sure that I never wanted for anything.”
“I’m astonished,” I said after a lengthy pause as I tried to digest this. “I don’t have any major issues with the man, but he’s never shown a moment’s compassion or consideration toward me in my lifetime.”
“And did you ever show any toward him?” she asked.
“I was just a child,” I told her. “And he and Maude barely noticed me.”
She laughed bitterly and shook her head. “You’ll forgive me if I find that rather hard to believe,” she said. “Anyway, I was sorry to read in the papers that he’s back in prison. It’s been years since I’ve spoken to him, but if you’re in touch please pass on my good wishes. I’ll always be grateful to him for how he behaved in the couple of years after you did your disappearing act.”
“As it happens, I saw him not so long ago,” I told her. “He’s only got a few months left in Mountjoy. He’ll be out soon enough to cheat The Man from the Revenue yet again.”
“He’s too old to be in there,” she said. “They should let him out on compassionate grounds. A man with that much kindness inside him deserves better.”
I said nothing but ordered a couple more drinks from a passing bar boy, finding it almost impossible to reconcile the Charles in whose house I had grown up with the Charles that she described.
“I suppose you’re right, though,” she said eventually. “I could have found you if I’d wanted to. But what would have been the point? Julian told me what happened in the sacristy that morning. He told me who you were, all the things that you’d done, all the men that you’d been with. What would have been the point of me going looking for you? To have some type of sham marriage with a homosexual? I’d like to think I’m worth more than that.”
“Of course you are. I don’t know what else I can say.”
“If you had just told me. If you had just been honest—”
“I was very young, Alice. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“We were all young
,” she said. “But we’re not so young anymore though, are we? You’re on a crutch, for God’s sake. What’s that about?”
I shook my head, not wanting to get into it with her. “I had an accident,” I said. “My leg never healed. Anyway, did you meet anyone else? I hope you did.”
“Oh that’s very good of you.”
“I mean it.”
“Of course I met other people,” she said. “I’m not a nun. Do you think I was sitting at home every night mooning over you?”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it.”
“I wouldn’t get too excited if I was you. Nothing ever came of any of them. How could it have? I was a married woman with a child and a missing husband. And it’s not as if I could get a divorce in this godforsaken backwater of a country. And so no man would ever stay with me. Why should he when I couldn’t give him a family of his own? You stole that whole part of life from me, Cyril, I hope you realize that.”
“I do,” I said. “I do. And if I could go back in time and change things, I would.”
“Let’s stop talking about this,” she said. “We both know where we stand on it. I need to know something else.” She hesitated now and I could see her expression grow more anxious than angry. “When Julian was dying,” she said, “why didn’t you get in touch? Why didn’t you tell me? I would have been out to New York in a heartbeat if I’d known.”
I looked down at the table and picked up a beer mat, trying to balance it on one corner as I thought of an answer. “To begin with, there was very little time,” I told her. “I only found out that he was in the hospital a few days before he died. That was the first time I saw him. And the second time was the night he passed away.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. What were you even doing there?”
“My partner was a doctor in Mount Sinai. He was treating Julian. I was a volunteer. I visited patients with no families.”
“Julian had a family.”
“I mean patients who, for whatever reason, had no family present. Some had been disowned by their families. And some didn’t want their families there. Julian was in the latter group.”
