It must have been a good night because Sandra was fuming the whole next day. Des struggled in close to 2 a.m. – had to walk all the way back to Cabra because there were no taxis, it not being a weekend, and the ones that were, weren’t going to stop and pick him up the way he was walking everywhere in a zig-zag. Not like now, where morning noon and night they’re all using them. He’s lost count of the number of wasters and smackheads he’s seen jumping out of a cab to sign on. As for the young ones, they’d hail a jo to go to the bleedin jacks.
Sandra thought he’d been on the razz with the lads. Didn’t believe him when he said he wasn’t. Though it was thick of him to say that because then she thought he’d been off with Avril Dempsey who’d only turned eighteen and was already the local bike. She was climbing the walls, Sandra, three weeks to go till the birth and those hormones driving her doo-lally. That weekend he had to make it up to her by foregoing the pints with the lads and staying in to watch Blind Date and Noel Edmunds with the kids.
After that they went for a jar regular. The jobs were picking up. It’s a seasonal game, he’d end up working it close on twenty year and it’s a fact: people do more moving in summer. Christo knew every pub on the southside. And – something that didn’t tally with Des’ first impression of him – the barmen knew him too.
’Lo, Christo, they’d say, or just give him a nod. He wasn’t doing hardly any dressing up then and Des was glad of that because, even with everything, there’s no Jesus way he’d have walked in with him in all that gear. The job was one thing, but the pub? Fuck no.
Des didn’t know how much the barmen knew. Some of them would give Christo a queer look when they came in, and that vexed Des. What happened to good Christian thinking and Never judge a book by its cover? In fairness, though, they were always polite. No one made any nasty comments, or said anything that could be taken up wrong in any way.
He knew a lot of things, Christo. Once he had a glass or two inside him, he’d open up. Tell Des loads of stuff about poets and dreams he’d had. He was well into the astrology. Talked to Des all about Isabella too and the lovers she’d had. It was a tad spicy, not the class of thing Des was used to hearing. It was different after Bertie came along, but back then people didn’t have lovers. You were either married or you weren’t and if you got restless, you kept it to yourself. There were a couple of young ones, that little Avril Dempsey, who’d do the honours, but not for Des. He wasn’t like some in their area who had a rotten name for messing around. And to be fair to most of Des’ pals, it wasn’t for them either. A decent man wouldn’t do that, go around taking advantage of a young one. So Christo’s stories weren’t the sort of thing he was used to hearing. Still, he listened.
There was a side of Christo that was very on the ball. He knew when Des was uncomfortable or when his mind would start to wander and, almost without you spotting it, he’d change the chat round to something more of a common interest to the both of them, like Everton’s chances in the FA Cup. Before then, Des had thought he’d no interest in football, anything like that. Mad how you can be proved wrong.
04:48
For fucksake. He was almost under when Sandra started it, the old shifting around. She hasn’t been the same since the change. Though that’s the Ronseal too, isn’t it? They wouldn’t call it the change if you stayed the same.
What we know, Mr Maguire, Isabella used to say in her husky opera-singing voice. Is life changes. So we plan. If all fails, plan.
He didn’t take much away from that job, but that advice has stood to him. He’d never have managed the teaching without it. Thirty-five students now, excluding the German – with five coming up for their test. They grade you on your percentages and even though he’d like to see them grade Bertie or Cowen or those other tools sitting on high, his average is eighty percent, and that’s not bad. Do the maths. Four out of the five will hack it while the other poor eejit won’t.
McFadden’s pre-test was two days back. You’re in the twenty percent miss, thought Des. No way ready for a licence. She was looking in the rearview all the time, though he’s told her fuck knows how often it’s the side ones that count.
You won’t see a cyclist in the rearview, love.
She hates being called ‘love’, like it’s an insult, or he’s having a dig at her liberation bollocks. Back in the day, young ones loved it. Made them think you had an eye for them. Sandra included. But now, you give them a ‘love’ or a ‘pet’, never mind a tap on the elbow to help them into the car, and it’s fucking harassment.
The problem with McFadden is she thinks she’s better than she is. He’s spent hours, days, years – and that’s no exaggeration, he’s coming up to seven now at the instruction – explaining and showing her kind the basics, but it just doesn’t go in. They don’t know how to feel, they don’t know how to do. They want it all broken down for them, in words.
Then I do this, Mr Maguire, and then?
It’s not Maths, he tells them. It doesn’t work like that, a then b then c. It’s timing, it happens at once, you’ve got to feel it. I’ll tell you what to do as it’s happening, you just do it, and you’ll see, you’ll remember.
He was going to start telling McFadden that at the pre-test, but he couldn’t bring himself. It would be a waste on that young one’s ignorant brain. If there is a brain there. Letting on she’s a cleverclogs with her Interior Design job – she wouldn’t know clever if she met it on the street and it give her a slap. Just like Bogey used to do to the girls in the old films. You wisecracking me, sweetheart? he’d say. And bang – a belt. Didn’t do them any harm. Sweet as pie afterwards, all over him in their tight skirts and them stockings with the lines up the back.
Clever, shite. Edel, his youngest, only twenty and blazing through that psychology degree, she’d wipe the floor with McFadden in the brains department in a snap.
She was all in black at the pre-test. A sweater that left nothing to the imagination – though thanks be, there was no show there. No stockings but black leggings, tight too, like a glove. Hair loose in front but done up at the back so he could see her neck, a light brown colour, like a mushroom. Glasses with a black rim, not bad, though he’s never been partial to the four-eyes. Her lips dark red.
A change in season, he thought.
While she was grabbing at the gearstick and making a hames, yet a-fucking-gain of putting it into third, he clocked the ring. Left hand, fourth finger in. A sparkler. Engagement. And not a word to him. He gave her a hard right turn up Maxwell Road, Rathmines. Very narrow and she tends to go wide. She panicked, too much gas, up too soon from the clutch, they shot around, a Honda Civic – metallic green, oh-four reg, flash but would have been a sight flasher if it was oh-five or six – had to do a sharp swerve not to get hit. A young fella was driving, mid-twenties. Des got a glimpse of snazzy suit, slick hair, put him in mind of Jason when he was working for that estate agents. Honked like a bastard, he did. Raging in a way Jason would never. Des braked for her, a little later than he should have, just so she could see what went wrong.
Live and learn, Sandra’s always saying. Practise what you preach, that’s what Des prefers.
She’d been happy enough for the first couple of months. It got him out of bed, and out from under her feet and, even better, out of Holy Joe’s poker sessions. But after Jason was born, around the same time the work picked up, she started getting antsy. He wasn’t home enough to help with the kids’ homework. There was a mountain of odd jobs needed doing around the house. Who was going to do all that if he wasn’t there? No matter how many extra spons he laid on the table, it was never enough. Then she started at the business lark. How he’d be doing much better if he ran a van of his own. Why didn’t he do that, start saving and then they could move on, instead of wasting it on a sunshine holiday?
Des told her it was their first sunshine holiday ever. He’d been looking forward to it ever since he’d booked it in May and there was no way after all that work lugging other people’s stuff around h
e was going to get himself in debt trying to run a business of his own. Now everybody’s used to setting up their own businesses, they even have special courses for every scrounger and junkie on the giro, but in that day, nobody had money, and worse, nobody had courage. And if you did try to set up something for yourself, they’d be down on you like a ton – the taxman, the welfare, the health board – no cushy allowances, no way José, and as for your two-weeks’ holiday paid by the scratcher, you could kiss that goodbye.
What made it worse was all his stamps were used up by then, so he was back on Assistance. No laughing matter. All the lads were in the same boat, except Arthur Regan the cute hoor, who’d talked himself into a part-timer spray-painting in a mechanic’s shop. No sooner than Sandra finally gave up on the van, up again with her like fucking Lazarus on another whinge. Why didn’t he get himself a decent, ordinary job with a regular payslip like Arthur, instead of snivelling around taking backhanders in someone else’s van? It was coming at him all quarters. Sandra had a vicious tongue in those days. But there was no way he was going back on the holiday.
Christo had been late that morning. Des was worried he was in a mood, or worse, a dress – but Isabella said no, quite the opposite: he was having a shower. A shower? Des said. Very la-di-da. You didn’t have showers then, except after football.
They were sitting in the kitchen downstairs, Isabella smoking a long black fag. She smoked one every morning, Christo had told Des, but no more than that. Terrified of losing her voice – though the opera days were long gone and she was only on the cabaret scene then. She was made-up, perfect, like always, wearing her black shiny dressing gown. Underneath a white silky thing, half-top, half-dress, see-through so, if Des wanted to, he could have made out the shape of things beneath. Her hair was in a double wave, out then in then out again, very Loren, and at one point she turned away to look out the window and Des saw she had the same eyelashes as Christo.
She was asking him about the summer and his plans, and he told her he was thinking of a trip away because of Sandra and the kids; he’d never brought them anywhere farther than the caravan park in Brittas.
Ooh, said Isabella. Away?
So Des mentioned Spain, and how his cousin Eddie’s sister-in-law had said it was very exotic, though the food wasn’t up to much, and Isabella cracked this great husky laugh. She said something in Italian which sounded a bit vulgar, and then said: No. You must go to Italy, Maguire.
What happened to the Mister, Des was wondering, though the dropping of it had made him feel warm inside, like that secret they were holding together had got denser, like that rock he’d seen on the telly being melted in a volcano’s belly. And she was already telling him where to go, what travel agents, the best hotels at a good price, all that jazz. He got the tickets on the QT, not a word to Sandra, and laid them on the table. He almost laughed at the gob on her. Surprised was not the word.
And mirror, indicate right, look out of your window, not too much. Mirror, clutch up. Hold. Hold. Give it some gas, over your right shoulder. Let it up. More gas, and into the right mirror and—
Fuck.
06:02
Off like a light for forty winks and now he’s awake again. Is there no justice, he thinks. And tells himself he can’t hear a husky voice saying, None for the wicked, Maguire.
When he filled in the form for the hollyer, the young one at the Assistance hatch – from Cavan, lacking in the looks department, but sharper than the Donegal yoke, they always put the clever ones on Assistance – gave him a load of grief. The nerve, because he was entitled to it. Had he any other income? No, he said. Why was he taking the family to Italy? Relations, he said. Where was the travel money coming from? A loan from his uncle, he said. Bulling because they hadn’t been hassling Holy Joe, who was doing odd jobs as a mechanic, and was way more flash with the cash than Des.
The summer was at its peak, so hot you couldn’t breathe. Christo and himself would be wringing with the sweat, backs and arses glued to the front seat of the van. On their breaks they’d be shirts off, lying in Herbert Park, chewing the fat, throwing crumbs to the birds. Christo was really coming out of himself. Had this mad sense of humour that it took a while to get, but once Des got it, he’d be bent double with the laughing.
They’d just finished a break and were comparing tans while pulling on their shirts. Des was a reddy colour – he could tell he’d be sore that night – but Christo was a dark even brown, like the best sort of toast.
Jesus, said Des. Your daddy a nignog or what?
It just slipped out, one of the things the lads would say to each other on the potato farm. Christo looked at him odd and Des thought, oh fuck I’ve crossed the line.
He was trying to figure out how to say sorry when Christo let out a laugh and punched him in the stomach. Not hard, just messing.
Des grabbed his wrist and over they went, rolling on the grass. Jesus, it was hot. Christo had his tee-shirt on by then, an old Pink Floyd one torn at the arms, but Des was still bare. He still had his hair in those days and didn’t look his age, hadn’t yet gone to seed with the belly and all, and he had this funny thought, just for a second, that the people watching would think they were – you know.
Because what with the long hair and all, Christo looked like a – well, a bit like – a young one.
Des was grabbing onto his wrists. The skin was very soft. Bone hard underneath, but soft on top. He would remember that.
But God – no.
It wasn’t as if – ah, no.
Then the musical clock went, from the castle-y church on Clyde Road. Time to go.
He should have been keeping an eye out. He knew that shower were sniffing around. He should have been more careful.
They must have followed them all the way to the house they were working at. Dunville Avenue, Ranelagh. Moving to Raheny. Even took a few pictures, including a couple of tasty ones of Des pocketing the cash from Christo.
And that’s what he got from the Cavan girl, the next day down on the Navan Road when she was supposed to be handing him out his holiday money. A bent finger, a Come over to Hatch 16, please, Mr Maguire. Her voice wasn’t too loud but he got nosy looks from everyone in the queue.
Over at 16 and she slid them out onto the ledge, one by one. Pictures, eyewitness accounts, you name it. He had to act the eejit to get out of it, say it was only the one job. Then she said they’d been following him for a month. He said it was a friend – that part was true, wasn’t it? – that he was helping out, he’d done it for free all the other times.
She raised her eyebrows in that Oh yeah? look they’re all trained to do. He milked it, played the gobdaw, told her he’d nothing better to do, he was taking it hard being laid off with no opportunities, a father of four with a young wife, if there was no steady work he needed to do something worthwhile with his time and – trump card – his pal was a bit on the handicapped side so he’d felt obliged to help him out.
He felt bad about saying that last bit but it seemed to work. Arthur Regan grilled him afterwards, said he couldn’t have thought of a better line himself.
Can you prove it’s true? she said, but Des could tell she’d already bought it. They didn’t have other pictures of him getting the wad from Christo. So he said, not too cheeky but confident, Can you prove it’s not true? Then he said, Look, Martina – that was her name – if it’s going to cause problems, I have the solution. I won’t help out my pal any more. She nodded, chewed the pen, thinking – he could see the old sprockets going around behind the glasses – then she said: Mr Maguire, if you require continued financial service from the State, you’d be wise to follow that course of action.
Sandra was fit to be tied. Lamb of Jaysus, how many times does a woman have to say I told you so? Point taken. But oh no, she had to keep reminding him how she’d known it was a rotten idea, and so on and so forth. Des had always thought of himself as a mild-mannered man, never hit a living thing in his life, but on top of everything in the last couple of
days, the heat and all, he’d had enough. He knew if he didn’t get out of that house he’d kill her.
Christsake, it was only a fucking job.
07:00
Five hours. The birds are singing now, in time with Sandra’s snores.
It felt strange, coming over in the evening. Sandymount strand was blue and white, striped from the shadows of the houses across the road. Fingers, he thought. The long arm of the law, said Christo, when Des told him. He was good at that. Finding a different angle to a normal everyday thing.
Isabella wasn’t there, so Des broke the news to Christo on his own, in the wooden kitchen downstairs. He seemed calm. Des wasn’t expecting that, though he wouldn’t be able to tell you why. Okay, said Christo, and went to the drinks cupboard at the side of the room and took out a big bottle with green stuff inside. Three-quarters empty. Des didn’t catch the name; it sounded foreign, like crème de menthe. Christo poured them a glass each. It didn’t taste like crème de menthe. That was a mot’s drink but this stuff was hard, liquorice mixed with paint stripper.
It will help us to forget, said Christo, and knocked his back. Then: Excuse me, one moment.
Des knew what was coming next and really wanted him not to do it. He should have stopped him, he thought afterwards, though he didn’t know how he could have – or maybe he did – but he didn’t. While he was gone, Des poured himself another glass of the green stuff.
He didn’t look as brutal as Des thought he would. He’d left the wig off and Des was glad they hadn’t knocked back too many because even the make-up was alright, not as much as usual. He had on that white silky thing Des had seen on Isabella, with a slip underneath and faded jeans. It looked good on him. He looked sort of in between the way he usually looked in all the rigout and the way he looked when he was just Christo. He poured them each another glass. Des felt his belly go on fire.
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