by Roddy Doyle
—Same here. Does Faye?
I looked at him.
—No, I said. —Does Trish?
He shook his head.
—No, he said. —But you never know. She might have had Joe Is a Cunt tattoed to the back of her neck or something. In Mandarin or Latin.
—She was there, anyway, I said. —Jessica.
—She was, he said. —She got there before me. She was sitting at one of the tables, with a pot of tea.
—Did she stand up when you got there?
—What?
—Did she stand up?
—Why?
—Politeness, I said. —Tradition – formality. Although it’s usually the man who does that – is it?
—No, he said. —She didn’t. There was none of the formal stuff.
That was what he’d been trying to say.
—It was like we’d never been apart, he said.
—You were never together, I told him.
—Okay, he said. —And that’s not strictly true either. And anyway, the woman doesn’t have to stand, does she? It’s the man’s job – I think you’re right. Holding the door open and stuff like that. Used to be, anyway. It might cause offence these days, though. Opening a fuckin’ door.
It was a good place, Wigwam, a cool place. But they were easily the oldest people there; they had decades on everyone else. He noticed it; she said nothing. He ordered a coffee, an Americano, paid for it, and sat. He sat beside her. The table was too wide, so he wasn’t going to sit opposite her. It would have been like a job interview.
—Or a parent–teacher meeting, I said.
—There you go, he said. —Love stories begin.
He got in behind the table and sat beside her. She kissed him. On the cheek.
—Now this sounds mad, he said.
—Go on.
He felt he was living his real life.
—Like, the minute I sat down, he said.
It wasn’t that he was suddenly waking up. It was nothing as dramatic as that, nothing that made him angry or giddy. It was just that: he sat down. It was her weight beside him, and her warmth, beside him and against him. It felt familiar and right. It was an emptiness filled; it had always been this way. This was how he felt. He was in the rest of his life.
I was looking at him. There was no twitching. He wasn’t shredding a beermat. He looked well in the pub light.
—But, he said. —This is the gas bit.
—What?
—I couldn’t remember her name.
—She told it to you – when she phoned you.
—Yeah, but I put George into my phone. I told you that. And I didn’t change it. I never have. But – there
– I couldn’t remember her fuckin’ name.
—That is weird.
—I know, he said. —In a way.
He had a theory: he didn’t remember her name because he didn’t have to. He was fairly certain he knew it all the way to the café. He’d parked in the Arnotts car park.
—I thought you said it was near where you work? I’d no real idea what Joe did for a living. ‘In the bank’. That job description described nothing any more. I knew he’d done a degree at night, ten years or so after we’d left school, and that he had a master’s too. I knew he’d been ‘in the bank’ since 1977 but I didn’t know what, or where, that meant. Or which bank, or what type of bank.
—What was near where I work? he asked.
—Wigwam.
—Yeah – true. But I needed the car. Immediately – immediately after. I was going to see Holly. She’d a match over in Booterstown. I can do a lot in the car – work, like. It’s all talk – the phone. Anyway, let’s not get bogged down in the car park. It doesn’t matter.
That was one life. The job, the car, the daughter. He’d been in that life as he crossed Abbey Street and watched the Luas approach from the Jervis stop, as he walked into the café. He knew her name, the woman he was meeting. He knew her first name; he remembered it. Then he didn’t. Because he didn’t have to remember it. He was where he was supposed to be, beside this woman. This was his life.
Jessica.
The name was there. A few minutes later.
—But it didn’t pop up in my head, he said. —Do you know what I mean?
—Yeah, I said. —I do.
—It was like my own name, he said. —Just there.
—Okay. Did you get to the match?
—Yes – yeah. Yeah. Of course.
He smiled.
—I was late. But I was always going to be. I was aiming for the second half.
—Did she win?
—You’re a terrible bitch, Davy, he said. —Yeah, she did. She scored two goals. In the second half. So I got to see both of them.
They’d stayed in the café for an hour and a half. She had to get home.
—Is she married?
—No.
—Was she?
—Yeah. But years ago. Back around our time. That era, like.
—So she was young when she got married.
—Yeah, he said. —That wasn’t unusual, though. Back then.
She’d lived with a man for years, after the marriage. Or, he’d lived with her; it was her house. She had a daughter.
—Is he the father?
—No, he isn’t. That was a different guy, again.
—Okay.
—It’s not as – what? – as frantic as it sounds, he said.
—I don’t think it was. We’re talking about decades.
—Okay, I said. —And she’s in Holly’s class, is that right? The girl.
—Same year, he said. —Not the same class. Except for one or two subjects.
—And how’s that?
—Not too good, he said.
—Hardly surprising.
—No, he agreed. —Holly refused to go to school for a while. And she wouldn’t talk to me. It wasn’t great.
—How is it now?
—Still not great. A bit better. I texted her a while back – last week, I think. And she answered. Fuck off x. But that’s Holly – all over. She answered, that was the thing. First time in – Jesus. Months. Anyway, I look at the x a couple of times a day. Only one x, mind. It used to be two.
He wasn’t joking. I wanted to ask him about Jessica’s daughter. I wanted to dig away at him. But I didn’t; I restrained myself.
—What did you talk about? I asked him.
—That’s the thing, he said.
—What?
—We didn’t, he said. —Talk. I mean, we did. But we didn’t catch up, if you know what I mean. We didn’t fill in the years. Kids, partners, jobs – there was nothing like that. Or the school – the girls’ school, like. We didn’t mention the place at all.
—What did you talk about then?
I wasn’t believing him. This strolling in and out of different lives – I wasn’t having it. He was sitting beside me and there was only one of him. He’d been having an affair, he’d been caught, and he was trying to make something mystical or inevitable out of it. It was boring.
—Like I told you, he said. —It was just like we’d always been together. I don’t really remember what we talked about. Just – stuff.
—Fuckin’ stuff?
I came back to Dublin to see my father but I knew I’d keep doing it after he died, a couple of times a year. I loved speaking like a Dubliner. It felt like physical exercise.
—I honestly don’t remember, he said. —She was reading a book – when I came in.
—And you spoke about that?
—I think so, he said. —Although she said she’d got it in Eason’s for her kid – the daughter.
—What’s her name?
—Hanoi.
—Are you serious?
—Yep.
>
He shrugged; he grinned.
—The kid hates it, he said. —She tells everyone it’s the Irish for brilliance.
—Bright kid.
—Yeah.
—Do you get on with her?
—I do, yeah, he said. —We –. I suppose we kind of keep a distance. But I like her.
—What was the book?
—What?
—The book Jessica was reading.
—A school book. Chemistry, I think.
—She was reading a fuckin’ chemistry book?
—Flicking through it, he said. —Killing the time.
—Were you late?
—No, I wasn’t, he said. —I was bang-on. I’m never late. Ever. Anyway, she said she’d been in Eason’s and she’d bought a pen as well, and she showed it to me.
—For fuck sake.
—That’s my fuckin’ point, he said. —It was like we’d seen each other earlier and there wasn’t much filling in to do. Somehow, like – I knew she’d have the book.
—Come on –
—Just calm down, he said. —I’m telling you, that was what it felt like. Felt, not facts. But there now – she knew what I do for a living.
—Facebook.
—I’m not on Facebook.
—You’ve always worked in the bank.
—Yeah, but she never knew that – I don’t think. But she did. In Wigwam.
I told him what I was thinking.
—It’s kind of boring, Joe.
—I know, he said. —That’s my point as well. I think. It’s boring if you’re looking in the window at it but not when you’re inside.
—So you swapped one kitchen for another one.
—You don’t understand.
—No, I agreed. —Is she better looking?
—Ah, stop, for fuck sake.
—I don’t fuckin’ understand.
—She is, by the way.
He shut his eyes like he wished he hadn’t spoken.
—It felt –, he said.
He picked up his pint, and put it back down.
—It felt like I’d come home, he said.
—In Wigwam?
—Fuck off, Davy, he said. —I’m wasting my fuckin’ time. It’s impossible.
He picked up the pint again and brought it to his mouth.
It was my round – I needed something to do, to get away from Joe’s face and the urge to whack it. I was looking at the barman, waiting for him to look my way. He was in the passage between the lounge and the bar, hiding there, looking down at his phone. I wasn’t a local; I didn’t want to interrupt him.
The barman was standing to my left. Joe was on the other side of me and he took advantage of the back of my head; I wasn’t looking at him as he spoke.
—I’d always been with her, he said.
The barman looked up. I lifted my glass. He nodded and took two empty pint glasses from under the counter.
—Okay, I said.
I didn’t care. I knew Joe – or, I thought I knew Joe. We’d end the night with his story, not mine. I didn’t care about either of his homes, the new or the old. Or him. I was here, listening, because I used to know him. Old times’ sake. But it wasn’t enough; I knew that. I looked at the barman filling our glasses. I took my phone from my pocket and checked it. I had it on vibrate but I was worried I’d miss a call or a message. There was nothing on the screen.
—There were two things she told me that kind of caught me on the hop, said Joe.
I put the phone away, leaned back to get it deep into my pocket, and looked at him.
—What were they?
—She’s dyslexic, he said.
—Really?
—Yeah, he said. —She was flicking through the book, like, and she mentioned it.
—How? Should you not’ve known that already, if you’d been with her all along? Like you said.
—I didn’t mean that literally.
—Okay.
—You know that.
—Okay.
—So, anyway, he said. —She said she envied Hanoi and I asked her why.
—That was brave.
—What d’you mean?
—Middle-aged women hate younger women, I told him.
—Their daughters, though?
—Oh, yeah.
He shrugged.
—Okay, he said. —But, no. It was the reading she envied. She can’t really read.
—Faye can read, I told him.
—Yeah, he said. —So can Trish.
We laughed. It felt like the first time we’d laughed that evening; I thought it might have been. It was like a new sound, a new feeling.
—What was the other thing? I asked him.
The barman was approaching with the pints. I was rooting in my jacket for my wallet. It was stupid, bringing a jacket. The heat – the last thing I’d needed was a jacket. But I hadn’t been thinking when I’d gone back to the house to shower, to change, after I’d phoned Joe earlier. I’d been given permission: I was escaping for a while, a couple of hours.
I’d stopped carrying cash in my trousers pockets. Some years back – maybe ten – I’d noticed that I was hitching my trousers every time I stood up, and often as I walked. I’d seen a woman at work looking at me, and looking away. I’d blamed the coins and the keys. So I’d banished them from my trousers, everything except the phone. Now, as I put my hand into the inside pocket of my jacket and found it empty, I was anxious enough to assume that the wallet was gone. Drink had never made me relax; it had never made a different man of me.
The wallet was in the second inside pocket. Joe waited while I took out a twenty. A bookshop loyalty card and a couple of petrol station receipts slipped out with the money. He tried to catch them but they fell onto the tiles. I gave the twenty to the barman.
I was drunk.
—Thanks.
Joe handed me the receipts and the loyalty card and sat back up on the stool.
—She has a son as well, he said.
—Jessica has?
—Yeah.
—Older, younger?
—What?
—Than the girl.
—Older.
—And what’s his name? I asked. —Bangkok, Rangoon?
—He has a daughter, said Joe. —His name’s Peter.
—Peter? I said. —That’s a bit fuckin’ conventional –.
There was something he’d just said; it had slipped away but it rolled back.
—He has a daughter – you said.
—Right.
—So, I said. —Your girlfriend’s son has a child.
—Yeah.
—She’s a grandmother.
He nodded.
—You left your wife and kids for a glamorous granny.
He nodded again; he was pleased. I’d been bored; I’d told him. He knew I wasn’t bored now.
—Looks like it, he said.
—Same father?
—Sorry?
—Is what’s-his-name’s –
—Peter.
—Peter – is Peter’s father the same as Hanoi’s?
—No, he said. —There’s a big age gap. He’s much older.
He put his new pint on the beermat. He drew a line with a finger, down through the condensation on the glass.
—I think I might be, he said.
I knew what was coming. I’d known it – somehow – all night. I’d slipped into his new life too.
—Might be what? I asked.
—His father.
—Are you?
—I think so, he said. —I might be.
—For fuck sake.
* * *
—
—I will never, ever give you a gran
dchild, my daughter, Róisín, told me a few years ago.
She was eighteen, and joking. I’d just told her I wouldn’t give her the money to go to Berlin for the weekend. I laughed – I always laughed when Róisín wanted me to laugh. But I believed her. I felt no loss; there was nothing being whipped out of my arms. I looked at Faye but I wasn’t sure she’d heard.
—Your lovey-dovey thing with Róisín, she’d said once, a few years before. —What’s that about?
—It isn’t about anything, I’d said. —I don’t even know what you mean.
—It gives me the sick, she said.
—I’m her father.
—You are.
—Fuck off, Faye.
—Nice.
—Well, yeah – fuck off. What are you even saying?
—Nothing, she said. —Me? Nothing. You’re spoiling her.
Róisín was, I think, fifteen. We’d been watching Mean Girls together. She’d been watching; I’d been watching her watching. She leaned against an arm of the sofa and draped her legs across mine. She wouldn’t let me look at my phone or iPad. I watched her getting ready to laugh; I watched her silently recite lines that were about to be delivered.
—How many times have you watched this thing?
—More times than I care to remember, she said.
Róisín is English, born here, in Wantage. She had only one living grandparent in Ireland, my father. But she liked the Irish phrases. She collected them. She liked her name – she liked the fadas, the accents on the ‘o’ and the ‘i’. She liked the trouble they caused in school and elsewhere.
—The lady asked if I was an Arab, she told me one evening when I picked her up after swimming.
—What lady?
—The lady at the swimming pool. When she asked me to spell my name.
—The swimming teacher?
—The lady behind the glass.
—Why did she want to know your name?
—I had to give her the envelope.
—The swimming money.
—Yes.
—She thought your name was Arabic? Syrian or something.
—Yes.
She giggled.
—The fucking eejit, she said.
—Now now.
There was a rule: she was allowed to say ‘fuckin’ eejit’ now and again, but only when she was alone with one of us and only when the situation – the fuckin’ eejit – warranted it.
We laughed.
She made me laugh. Just as her mother had – and did. Although they were very different. Their senses of humour couldn’t sit in the same room. It had been like that since Róisín had started talking, probably before. But I might be making that up. I am making that up.
