by Liz Nugent
I imagine Alice’s expectations were low, so it was remarkably easy to overwhelm her, seduce her, marry her. She yielded easily. Barney never stood a chance. I was better than him. He knew it.
Naturally, everyone expected me to have a wife who was more gregarious, more ‘showbiz’, somebody like Laura perhaps, but they do not know me. Nobody knows me. I chose Alice.
5. Barney
We’d been going out together for about ten months and Alice was doing some flora and fauna illustrations for some nature books. They were very nice, very detailed. She took so much care with her work, examining every tiny vein in every leaf under a microscope in her back room. She was very dedicated indeed. Then her publisher gave her a bound rough copy of a children’s book to read and that was it.
I was there the first time she read it to Eugene. There was a bit about a flying chair in it, and because I had started that game with Eugene, he straight away was hooked on it. He wanted her to read it again immediately afterwards. And again. She thought it was wonderful, and it certainly meant a huge amount to her that it appealed to Eugene.
If you ask me, it was just all right. Even now that the books have sold all over the world, I still think they are just all right. The author’s name was on the cover, Vincent Dax. But when we were introduced to him, he told us his real name was Oliver Ryan. I didn’t get that. If it were me, I’d have wanted everyone to know that it was me who’d written them.
I was there the night they met in March 1982; I’ll never forget it. We were at the launch of the nature book that Alice had illustrated. I always hated those nights because we’d have to dress up and I’d be wearing my suit which was a bit tight and a tie which nearly choked me. Oliver was one of those confident types of guys, in a proper posh linen suit, smoking a French cigarette, tanned and good-looking. He looked like a film star with his dark eyes and his suit. I was standing beside Alice when we were introduced, and I swear I don’t think he even saw that I was there. He was looking at her, I mean really looking at her, and she was doing that cute blushing thing she does. So I pretended to cough but I accidentally made a kind of vomit sound instead, and then I got his attention and he turned towards me, so I put my arm around her shoulder, to give him the hint that she was mine and that he shouldn’t be chatting her up. It was a foolish move. I’d never done it before, we weren’t that type of couple, so my hand just dangled embarrassingly over her left breast and she sort of squirmed. She introduced me as her boyfriend, Barney. I was beginning to feel a bit better, but then he said he had a friend who had a dog called Barney and she laughed, a sort of light, tinkly laugh that I hadn’t heard before, and then he laughed. They were laughing together. So I laughed too, or pretended to, but it sounded fake. If the scene had been in a comic book, the speech bubble coming from my head would have said, ‘Guffaw guffaw.’
I took up smoking. It took me a while to get used to it. I tried to get a tan that summer, but the tops of my ears just burned and I looked stupid. Oliver was really good for Alice’s career though. She did the illustrations for his first book, and it seemed like there could be a few sequels. He took us out to dinner a few times, usually with a few other couples, old college friends of his, I suppose. They were very nice, but I didn’t feel that I had much in common with them. For some reason, they seemed a lot younger than me, and at the same time more grown-up, like. They’d be talking about books I hadn’t read and films I hadn’t seen or politics I’d no interest in. Some of them had been away together on the Continent years earlier. Like Cliff Richard in that film, only not in a bus.
At the end of that May, there was talk of another trip abroad to a Greek island. Apart from the fact that I didn’t own a passport, it was out of the question for me. Uncle Harry had had a mild stroke earlier in the year and was leaving a lot of the workload on my shoulders. Not that I minded. He had been very good to me and my mam. But to be honest, travel wasn’t really my cup of tea. I don’t take the sun that well, and I was nervous around foreigners. To be truthful, imaginary flying is as far as it goes for me. I could tell that Alice really wanted to go, but it seemed just as impossible for her. Her mother was a bit frail and would definitely not be in favour of such an escapade, and there was also Eugene to consider. She couldn’t have managed on her own.
It was my idea. I went to Alice’s mother myself and suggested it. I would come by every day before work and help Eugene get washed and dressed and bring him to the remedial centre where he spent his days. Mrs O’Reilly would collect him herself and then I’d come over after dinner and help get him settled, take him on a quick imaginary flight in the chair, read him a story and get him into bed. She wasn’t too pleased by the idea initially, but I eventually managed to persuade her that Alice deserved a break after all her years of minding the mad fella. We broke the news to Alice together. I was very proud of myself. I don’t go out of my way to do a lot of things that aren’t in some way for me, but I was doing this for Alice and, I suppose, so that she knew how much I loved her, without me having to say it. I’m useless at that soppy stuff.
Those three weeks were the longest of my entire life. Eugene was no problem. He whimpered a bit at bedtime because I didn’t read the stories like Alice did, but he really was very good. I missed Alice myself, more than I thought I would. So much so that two days before she was due back, I shut up the garage early and took myself into the Happy Ring House on O’Connell Street and bought a diamond engagement ring. I’d been saving up a long time, without really knowing it myself, and the fella in the shop was very helpful. It wasn’t a massive diamond, just a small flat one on a thin gold band. The fella in the shop said it was discreet. I think that’s probably polite for small.
I was expecting her back on the Saturday night. I was all prepared to go and collect her, but her mother said one of the gang was giving her a lift home from the airport. By Sunday evening she still hadn’t rung. The engagement ring in its velvet box was burning a hole in my pocket. I decided to go round.
Mrs O’Reilly answered the door. I remember thinking how lucky it was when she put me in the formal sitting room and told me Alice would be with me shortly. I didn’t want to propose over the kitchen table in front of Eugene and the mammy.
When Alice came in and avoided looking at me, suddenly I knew there was something terribly wrong. Even though her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, she looked beautiful to me then. Her skin was a kind of goldy-brown and her hair was lightened auburn by the sun. She had freckles I’d never seen before. For a minute, I felt that it was all going to be OK, that whatever was wrong could be solved by the box in my pocket.
‘Barney,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry.’
I knew instantly by the way she said it that she meant she was sorry for me. She was apologizing to me. How stupid could I have been? I felt an instant pain deep in my gut. I was actually winded. Somebody else. Oliver. Alice and Oliver. I had delivered her into his arms to prove how much I loved her.
‘Oliver,’ I said. Not a question.
Why in the name of Jesus didn’t I cop that sooner? He was hardly inviting us out to dinner for my company. I’d thought it was to do with work, but how could it have been when they rarely discussed work on those nights out? Still, even if I had guessed he liked her, I’d never have thought that she was into him. She was my girlfriend, after all.
The Happy Ring House wouldn’t give me my money back. I ended up swapping it for a brooch for Mam’s birthday a few months later. For a long time, I was very sad about the whole thing. I had had it all planned, you see, down to the three children and the extra room I would build on to our house for Eugene with his own record player so he could dance when he wanted. I hadn’t thought of a future without Alice. I was raging with jealousy and wondered if they’d slept together already. Probably. Oliver was some operator, but I fecking helped him. I couldn’t bear to see either of them for months after that. A couple of weeks after we split, I removed the spark plugs from Oliver’s car when I saw it parked outside Alice�
��s. And then, like a smack, in December I got a wedding invitation in the post with a note attached from Alice, saying she’d perfectly understand if I didn’t want to come, that she’d always be fond of me and that she’d never forget my kindness to her and Eugene.
Mam made me go. ‘Hold your head up high,’ she said, ‘and don’t let that snobby bitch think that you’re not good enough.’ I’d never heard her say the word ‘bitch’ before, but Mam took it as hard as I did myself. I’m sure she’d thought we were going up in the world. I never thought Alice was a bitch.
The wedding was quite small. Oliver had no family there. I thought that was peculiar myself. Maybe he hadn’t got family, but it’s unusual not to even be able to rustle up an uncle or a cousin. They didn’t go for the big fancy hotel reception. I was grand until they exchanged vows in the church, and then I went to pieces. Susan and DIY Dave took me out and gave me a proper talking to. Then there was a good dinner in a restaurant in town owned by some gay fella friend of Oliver’s. I don’t know how I made it through the meal. I probably wouldn’t have gone at all if I’d known it was such a small wedding. I wasn’t really able to get lost in the crowd. I did get to chat to Alice on our own for a bit. She looked gorgeous and I told her so. She tried to tell me that I’d meet the right person one day. I smiled and nodded and wished her and Oliver the best.
It annoyed the shite out of me that Oliver never even saw me as competition. He never acknowledged me as Alice’s boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend. I was beneath him. That’s how he made me feel back then. I know better now.
Mrs O’Reilly said I’d always be welcome in their house, and Eugene said he missed me and he was sorry if he’d done something bad and could we be friends again. I swear that fella would break your heart. They should have explained it to him, instead of treating him like an eejit. I did call in to the house after that, and I’d take Eugene out for a drive on the odd Sunday. I even taught him a few things. I think Alice and her ma had stopped trying with Eugene after a certain point, but I didn’t see any reason not to try and help him, so after a few months with me, he could eat his own dinner with a spoon if I cut up the food for him, and he learned to wipe his chin after I gave him a ‘magic’ handkerchief. Mrs O’Reilly was delighted with me. She told me one night that she thought Alice had made a mistake with Oliver, but as soon as she’d said it, she tried to unsay it. I suppose she felt it wouldn’t help anyone to say it, but I was glad because it helped me.
The reality is that Oliver had money and style. He was becoming an internationally successful writer, and I was a mechanic with a sideline in second-hand cars back living with my mam in the Villas. She needed a bit of looking after, and Susan had gone. I was never in a university in my life. Oliver, the bollix, would treat her right, I thought, even if he was a bit high and mighty. They moved into town after they married and so we didn’t see each other for a few years, but when Mrs O’Reilly died, they moved back into her family home with Eugene and I’d see them around the place. They got friendly with that one off the telly who’d since moved in next door to them, Moya Blake. That seemed to settle it for me. Moya was totally Avenue and they were her new mates. Lah-di-dah, if you know what I mean. It’s not like they ignored me though. Oliver usually nodded and Alice looked guilty, but eventually there was a bit of a thaw. I tried not to bear a grudge. It was fecking hard work, I can tell you.
I had to keep my distance from Eugene then. I explained that Alice was home now to mind him and I wouldn’t be calling in any more. I thought he understood. Oliver and Alice never had children. That was strange. I always thought Alice would be a great mum, but I supposed she wasn’t able to or something. She was no longer any of my business and I never asked.
The one thing I could never figure out was that they sent Eugene away to live in St Catherine’s on the far side of town. I was really, really shocked at that. Alice didn’t give me much of an explanation when I asked, but John-Joe in Nash’s told me on the QT that Oliver had said Eugene had become very difficult after the mother died, and they had no choice but to put him in a home. I would still have the craic with him when I saw him on the road, but he’d put on a fierce amount of weight and looked a bit miserable. Still, I’d never have thought they’d put him in a home. If you ask me, that’s a great shame. I called in a few times and offered to take him out for the day from the home, but Oliver warned me that I should just forget about him and that asking after him just upset Alice. Oliver said it wasn’t a good idea to go and visit him, that he wouldn’t recognize me and might get aggressive with me. The poor fella, I couldn’t believe he’d do that, but Oliver insisted and, I must admit, at the time I thought Oliver knew about things more than I did myself.
I never imagined that I’d be able to hold Alice’s hand again, or that I’d have Eugene back in my life, but it’s a funny old world and no mistake.
6. Michael
By the time we were in France, I was terrified of my homosexuality but had convinced myself that it was a phase I could grow out of. Even though I had never envisioned my future as a happily married father, I had always assumed that I would get married, father some children and do what was expected of me. But that summer, it became impossible to keep my true desires buried. I wanted Oliver. But I couldn’t tell him. Homosexuality in Ireland wasn’t decriminalized until 1993.
My bunk was next to his in the dorm. I knew when he was sneaking out to meet my sister in the night. To my shame, I once followed them and watched as the moonlight glanced off the contours of their graceless humping. Not at all what I had expected. I had read Lady Chatterley’s Lover twice. Well, some of it. I had gleaned that sex was an earthy kind of thing, but somehow in my mind I expected it to be balletic. In reality, it looked base and animalistic. Definitely more Joyce (I had read bits of that too) than Lawrence. I felt like quite the pervert; firstly feeling lust for a man, and secondly watching my sister in the act. Shame on me.
It seems obvious, looking back now, that they must have known I was gay. I wasn’t particularly camp in my behaviour, but my obvious lack of interest in the local damsels might have aroused some suspicion. On a stifling night towards the end of July, after several jugs of the local wine and a few puffs of a sweet-smelling cigarette from one of the locals, I could contain myself no longer. We were playing an old innocent childish game of Truth or Dare, although we had rechristened the game ‘Truth or Drink’. When asked a direct personal question, one had to either answer honestly or drink two fingers of wine from the jug. It was once again my turn, and one of the girls asked which of them I would like to kiss. I think now it might have been a leading question. There was an expectant hush as they awaited my response. Around the brazier, in front of all gathered, I threw my arms around Oliver with abandon (gay) and wildly declared to the assembly, ‘I am in love with Oliver!’
Laura smacked me in the face. Oliver laughed. His laughter hurt me more than the slap. Laura pulled me out of the tent, cursing my drunkenness. She was absolutely furious with me, insisting that I was making an utter fool of myself. I couldn’t be a gay. Dad would kill me. It was immoral. Father Ignatius would be scandalized. What was Oliver going to think? Et cetera, et cetera.
I don’t remember going to bed that night, but the next morning I woke in my bunk early with a sense of horror, fear and shame. I turned towards Oliver. He was lying on his back, hands behind his head, facing me.
‘Don’t be a queer,’ he said. ‘I dislike queers, filthy bastards.’
I turned away in misery and blinked furiously to keep the tears at bay.
‘You just haven’t found the right woman yet. You need the ride. That’s all that’s wrong with you. Bloody virgin. Leave it to me. I’ll get you fixed up.’
He bounded out of bed, reached over and tousled my hair, and flicked his towel towards my arse underneath my sweat-drenched sheet. If he was trying to turn me off him, he was doing a spectacularly bad job. I decided to go along with the charade, however. After all, Oliver disliked queers.
&
nbsp; Oliver pointed out that Madame Véronique was a widow. Widows, he said, were notoriously ‘sex-mad’. Plus, she was French, and therefore sexy. He didn’t think that the fact she was twice my age should be an impediment. Oliver encouraged me to get closer to her. Offer to help out in the kitchen at mealtimes, compliment her on her clothing, her hair, and so on. Ludicrous, I know, but it meant I could confide in Oliver, spend time with him.
Unsurprisingly, Madame was utterly baffled by my attentions. But what a marvellous woman! She taught me everything I know. In the kitchen.
She aroused my palate if nothing else. Ireland in those days was a gastronomic wilderness. Parsley sauce was considered the height of sophistication. Here, I learned that boiling was not the only way to treat a vegetable; that pastry was an artist’s medium; that meat could be smoked, cured, grilled and braised; that herbs and spices added flavour; and that garlic existed.
My culinary education started by accident. Literally. When I presented myself at the kitchen door offering assistance that first morning, I witnessed the very event that was to shape my future. Anne-Marie, the elderly kitchen helper, tripped and fell on her way to the sink while carrying a large tray of freshly made brioche, breaking her right arm in the process. It wasn’t a terribly bad break – there were no bones piercing skin or anything like that – but it was obviously painful. She yelped in agony and an enormous fuss ensued. The doctor from the village was sent for. Anne-Marie was brought to the local hospital and we didn’t see her again for the duration of our stay. As I was already on the scene, and the show had to go on, Madame demonstrated what needed to be done with the brioche (sprinkle with water and pop into the oven), and seconded me to kitchen duties for the rest of the week. What bliss. I was a quick learner, and by the end of that day I had prepared my first vinaigrette, steamed six fresh trout (steamed!), roasted a sack of carrots and sautéed some courgettes. Of course, it was some time before I could whip up a sauce velouté or produce my own peach barquettes, but I took to it like a canard à l’eau. Madame was an excellent teacher, but, if I may say so, I was an excellent student. Besides, I was indoors doing work I actually enjoyed, and though the heat could be monstrous with two ovens going, it was still better than sweating it out in the fields.
