The Companion

by Lorcan Roche

He knows what I’m thinking about the book and the tape-recorder because he sees me swallow, and I feel a bit guilty, so when his eyes close I gently brush the stray hair from his face. And that’s when he asks me would I mind staying just a little bit longer. And I say, ‘Isn’t that a crappy-hippy song?’ and he smiles and we sing it together softly, ‘Oh won’t you staaay, just a little bit longer?”

  And sometimes singing is an act of absolute defiance. And as we sing we rise up, slaves in the cotton field, we are showing the colonists and the city (and maybe our fathers) that they may control us, but they will never ever own us.

  Ed is a really awful singer, he sounds like a kitten being strangled and between the catch in his chest, his bad breathing and breath it’s quite an ordeal, but we’re in this together, we’re singing out loud and it’s magic.

  He stops. Exhausted. He swallows. I hope he isn’t going to cry because if he does then so will I.

  He smiles. Then he asks me do I think Dana would have a nice voice, so I tell him yes I think Dana would have a beautiful voice, it would be clear and light, it’d be a wonderful thing to hear in the morning while you were shaving and she was in the shower washing her bits. And I start banging on about how, if he and Dana lived together, they’d be late for work every other day. And sometimes things click into place, he laughs out loud and I’m thinking Why does it work on certain days? What do I bring into the room?

  Of course, the better question is, What do I leave outside?

  Ed wants to know is there any way I could talk him to sleep like I did before, and I feel suddenly small inside because it only happened once, when I was making sure the job would be mine.

  ‘OK. Imagine yourself floating on your back with your arms outstretched in calm blue, bath-warm water.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I dunno. Somewhere off the coast of Thailand. Ko-Samui.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘The moon is smiling down and you’ve just made love to a brown-skinned, rose-lipped, soft-hipped twenty-one year old …’

  ‘A girl?’

  ‘No Ed, a twenty-one year old fuckin’ sail-fish, jesus.’

  ‘OK. OK.’

  ‘A brown-skinned, rose-lipped twenty-one year old girl whose first-cousin was Movita, and whose nipples you can hang wet duffle coats off…’

  ‘Who’s. Movita?’

  ‘She was in the original 1935 version of Mutiny on the Bounty please don’t interrupt …’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Anyway, you’ve just made love to her third cousin twice removed, a complete babe with an ass like a peach and a pussy that tastes like one, yum yum and you can taste her all tangy on the back of your throat, and your skin is still tingling and the water feels wonderful as it laps at you with a million cool tongues, your heart is bursting with joy, your balls are empty of Fear, in fact they’re hanging loose as a goose on the back of the warm water and do you know what you do?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You let out this lovely long sigh …’

  ‘Aaaaah.’

  ‘And you just lie there, suspended. And as you look up at the moon you realize the only thing in the whole wide world you have to worry about is …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not getting salt in your eyes.’

  The door was open the whole time Dana was standing there listening; there’s this weird look on her face, it’s as if she is transfixed or transformed or something tells me when I lift the tea-towel tonight there’ll be more than blueberry ‘n apple pie waiting.

  It’s weird that she has come to me now, weird that the day after I made love to another woman, the day after the kinks in my neck and my shoulders unravelled, the day after the knot in my stomach unfurled, there she is, staring.

  It’s as if she knows something’s been altered inside.

  Feels like I’m lifting the Turin Shroud, not a tea-towel.

  I tell myself it’s very important to read the information slowly because in the past I’ve gotten things all screwed up by getting the details wrong; this one time I had a date outside Bewley’s Oriental Café and I stood like a spare prick in Westmoreland Street for an hour while the girl stood outside a different branch, or so her friends claimed after.

  Here it is. Remember Clever, make sure you get her laughing,

  Love, Ellie.

  Dana’s mobile number, Jesuschristalmighty.

  23

  She is an apparition in white. Drawstring linen pants, with this little tight sleeveless polo on top. Even from a distance you can see the thin, corded veins on her biceps like Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

  She has no jewellery, just a delicate chain round her wrist and on her perfect feet she has these tiny, golden sandals. The burnt copper of her hair is making other women green as we sit she says, ‘There are black circles under your eyes, Trevor. The job is obviously gettin’ to you.’

  I say nothing for a while I just look at her, then she tells me there’s no point pretending I’m one of those big, strong, silent types, she already knows I’m not. But I’m unable to think of anything to say so we just sit in silence, which is killing me.

  After a while she says sorry, she didn’t mean to be rude, she’s just concerned is all. And it’s not that I’m trying to be mysterious, it’s just that I’ve dreamed of sitting opposite her for such a long time now I can’t believe it’s happening; I mean, the whole way over here the rhythm I was walking to was – If she’s not there, it’s not the end of the world, if she’s not there, it’s not the end of the world.

  She says ‘Let’s start over again’ so I stand up and walk away a bit. When I come back she says ‘Hello stranger’ with a big smile; it makes all the other stuff go up in smoke. And I remember when I was in sea-scouts we were sitting around this open fire singing like little Joseph Locke’s, ‘We’ll make a bonfire of our troubles and we’ll watch them blaze away,’ except my voice started to break and this grizzly old fucker who used to bring us canoeing told me I’d have to think about leaving, which I didn’t want to because I quite liked sitting there with my cares going up in smoke, but everyone was staring. And all the way home I sang out loud like a goose honking, till finally I had this brand new voice; I’ll tell you one thing, it took my old fella by complete surprise.

  She asks me to tell her all about myself, but I’m not a fuckin’ eejit, so I say ‘You go first’ and she says ‘OK, let’s see, I’m focused, I’m hard-working, I’m dedicated, I guess I try to stay, you know, emotionally detached’, then there’s a pause before she adds ‘with my clients’, and I can feel my balls descend, like the wheels of a jet-plane coming in to land.

  She says she is probably a little bit serious. She likes men, but for some reason she can’t quite understand, they seem a little bit afraid of her.

  Still I say nothing, and the longer you leave it the harder it becomes.

  She smiles and asks me what I did on my day off this week so I tell her ‘Not a whole lot, just walked around looking at stuff in art galleries and shop-windows, nothing to write home about really.’

  ‘I love to window-shop. Did you see anything you like?’

  ‘Nah, not really.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘Well, there was this one thing.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  She leans in a little, perfume overpowering.

  ‘You know that Hare Krishna thing in the glass box, on the inside there are these clay figurines of men and women who eat meat, people with pig-heads and pig-faces and little pig-tails uncurling from underneath these excellent little pinstripe suits?’

  ‘I’ve seen it. Why?’

  ‘Well I just fuckin’ love that yoke, I don’t know why. Anyway I tried to buy it but the Harries were having none of it. One of them got quite upset actually, he started doing that waving-away thing like …’

  She’s smiling and shaking her head she says I’m avoiding my part of the deal, she wants to know something concrete about me and I have this overwh
elming desire to say I am not like you, I am not made of stone, but I don’t, obviously.

  ‘OK. Where do you want me to start?’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘Not a good place to begin.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t particularly like them. Except my mother. And she’s not with us any longer.’

  ‘You’re parents are divorced?’

  ‘She’s not with us. As in, she’s dead.’

  ‘Oh shit. I’m sorry, Trevor. You nursed her, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  There’s a long pause as she pours herself a glass of water the cinnamon stick inside the jug swirls, like turd from a big fat eel.

  ‘Let’s talk about things that make you happy …’

  ‘Alright.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I like finishing work and having somewhere to go, you know,

  somewhere specific.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I like counting out clean new notes at the bank.’

  ‘Hey, who doesn’t?’

  ‘I like putting on a pair of old trousers and finding money in the arse-pocket, but I suppose everybody likes that too. Eh, I like putting on a new white shirt, especially if I have a hangover. My mother used to say, A close shave and clean white shirt fools nearly all of the people all of the time.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I like animals, except, you know, moles, voles, weasels, stoats and ferret-like creatures. I especially like the smell of puppies. Eh, I like people who are a little bit different, you know people who don’t spend their whole life trying desperately to fit in with the so-called “normal” ones.’

  And I nearly do that awful inverted-comma thing where your fingers turn into squiggly caterpillars and you look like a prick with ears.

  She lowers her voice and looks straight into me.

  ‘What else do you like?’

  ‘Eh, I like beautiful women who don’t necessarily want to go out with beautiful men …’

  ‘Corny. What else?’

  ‘Physical work. The kind that makes you really tired and sore in your arms and back and shoulders. But not in your brain, do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes. Unfortunately, however, with my work, the brain can get very taxed too. ‘Specially after a session with you-know-who.’

  ‘Right. Sorry. Eh, working outdoors. Burning stuff, you know logs and felled trees.’

  I’m losing it a little here, I’m thinking of my second-last day in Ireland where I cleared my mother’s overgrown garden; I worked from dawn till dusk and ended up with a bottle of my old fella’s vintage wine watching cowboy-sparks ascend from a bonfire, I swear I saw her face smiling down, I swear I heard her whisper, Remember to turn the moment round.

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Feelings you enjoy.’

  ‘I enjoy the peaceful feeling that floods through you after you’ve pushed yourself hard in the gym.’

  ‘You’ve been working out too much.’

  ‘How can you work out too much?’

  ‘You’re holding your head at a funny angle which means your traps or rhomboids are stiff, which would indicate you’re lifting heavy weights, tearing muscle-fibres, then not giving them time to repair. Take a day off, do something different. Go for a swim. You can swim?’

  ‘I can swim a mile in rough sea in less than thirty-five minutes.’

  ‘Only because you have those.’

  She looks down at the table, I’m hoping she will place hers on top like she did when we met for the very first time, but she just runs a finger down one of the veins, suddenly I feel like talking again.

  ‘I like old people who sit beside you on the subway or the bus and make you laugh. I like people who make you forget.’

  ‘People who make you forget. You like books?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What’s your favourite?’

  ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning.’ It’s by a guy called Laurie Lee and it’s a wonderful evocation of childhood. What’s wrong?’

  ‘You sound like you’re two hundred years old. An evocation. How old are you anyway?

  ‘Old enough. What’s your favourite book?’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘Wuthering Heights?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Catcher in the Rye?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Captain Corelli’s Fuckin’ Violin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell me, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘It’s L’etranger by … what’s the matter, you don’t like Albert Camus?’

  She’s one of those people that say Al-bear as opposed to Albert, if it was Ed it would be totally unfuckinforgivable.

  ‘I can’t stand Camus. Especially L’etranger.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of the first sentence.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘This an exam?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘“Mother died today or was it yesterday.” End of interest in main character, I mean how could you not know when your mother died?’

  ‘I think that what Camus is trying to …’

  ‘Bollocks. All that existentialist shit, it’s pretentious twaddle. Sartre, Beckett, Baudrillard, Lacan, Derrida, Barthes, Merleau-Ponty, all the fuckin’ beret-wearers, they do my head in.’

  ‘They do my head in. Can you elaborate as to why?’

  ‘I’m just not into that whole benign indifference of the universe shite-ology.’

  ‘So what do you believe?’

  ‘For starters, I don’t believe for one second that we’re specks of dust, pointless dots. I believe we’re major miracles, marvellous accidents, miniature gods with reason, logic and understanding shot into our core.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. I believe it’s all out there, the spectacle of life, the wonderful, absurd, amazing theatre of existence. I don’t mean traffic-jams or promotions or who you’re going to consume your corn-fed Thanksgiving turkey with, I don’t mean tiny lives of barely suppressed rage and eternal nagging doubt eating away at your soul and cricks in your neck from looking over your shoulder to see who is coming up behind you on the fast-track to fuckin’ nowhere. I believe it’s our duty to burn bright, I believe it’s a pity we eek out these miserable little existences in air-conditioned offices and cars and fast-food restaurants where everyone’s always pissed off, or in some sort of permanent relationship meltdown.’

  It’s possible my voice is carrying a little because all of a sudden she is looking at her Roman-sandals, fuck her, she asked.

  ‘I believe it’s a tragedy that we spend our lives glued to Lazee-Boy recliners watching crappy game-shows hosted by cheesy guys who probably cheat and beat on their wives. Or else dream of having sex with pre-pubescent Scandinavians. I believe in Chance and Fate and Destiny, but maybe they’re these really ancient old guys who don’t have great eyesight anymore, and they can’t tell us apart, and unless you’re standing on top of Macchu fuckin’ Picchu shouting out your name, unless you’re at the bottom of the ocean laughing at the twisted colours of tropical fish, unless you’re in Alaska on the longest day of the year and the light of the Aurora Borealis is making fat-fuckers in plaid trousers whisper softly as if they were in Chapel, or better still in Love, unless you’re out there doing things, experiencing Life, helping people, unless you’re actually living instead of sitting there in your black beret smoking Gitanes cigarettes sipping absinthe, screwing sad prostitutes and slowly dying, then nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing fuckin’ terrifying will happen, now will it?

  She’s muttering something about not realizing I’d been to Peru or Alaska, except she’s saying it quietly, as if she doesn’t want me to continue and in the corner of my eye I see this poker-thin guy with a dodgy cravat at the next table; he leans in to whisper something to his partner, Dana sees it too.

  All of a sudden the skinny guy stands up, he starts to applaud and the elegant black lady sitting with him says, ‘I believe
I recognize that speech, it’s Edward Albee, is it not? Are there any tickets left? We were also wondering, Have we seen you in something before, we have, haven’t we? My husband believes it was Clifford Odets’ Rocket to the Moon? Last year? Off-Broadway.’

  Her cool hand is on top of mine suddenly she is laughing with them now she is patting my hand as if I were her possession, good boy, heel.

  And I should dislike her intensely, but for the life of me, I can’t.

  She smiles and takes her hand away. She says: ‘You need to understand something Trevor, OK?’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Nothing is going to happen tonight. I’m very old-fashioned and when I say old-fashioned, I mean old-fashioned.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  Strange thing is, I mean it.

  For someone not much bigger than a bird Dana is a really good eater, you can see she really enjoys her nosh although she’s one of those ridiculously careful chewers which means each forkful of her key lime pie takes an age and I’m finished nearly ten full minutes before her which kind of puts the onus on me to be the Light Entertainment Committee (weird the way routines establish themselves right away in relationships, not that we have one, alright?)

  She pats her mouth with her napkin, five, six, seven times.

  ‘Tell me about your mother.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I could easily dissolve into a lump of goo. That’s why.’

  ‘You guys were close?’

  ‘Peas in a pod.’

  ‘And Ed? You and he are very close now. His mother says she’s never seen anything like it, she says he … what?’

  ‘Can we change the subject. Please?’

  ‘OK.’

  A long silence during which I’d love to have some wine to lower.

  Eventually she says: ‘Have you ever been in love?’

  ‘Once. I loved this actress. I saw her in Berkoff’s Salomé.’

  ‘Sorry. Over my head.’

  ‘It’s a play based on a story from the Bible. She played Salomé, the daughter of Herodias who dances for the King and when she is asked what she wants in return, she says, “The head of Jokanaan”.’