Lizzie laughed loudly whenever Kavanagh said something funny, or whenever he said anything at all really, funny or not. The drunker she got, the more frequent and intense her glances became until she was openly fixing her eyes on him. Then she would ask him for cigarettes that she never smoked when she was sober, or stumble in her heels and steady herself by grabbing his arm – any excuse to make contact with him. Towards the end of the night the couples would pair off, and he and Lizzie would be drawn together, two ends of opposing magnets. Her perfume was sweet and fruit-heavy, the smell reminding him of the overripe strawberries he had picked during summers in Wexford. Their alliance was one of discomfort. She was always shivering, leaning in to him. They pawed at each other, hands groping, fingers finding their way through layers of clothes, flimsy cotton defences, buttons and zippers. She let him touch her, cupping her breast under her top, his hand roaming down the front of her jeans, but she never touched him back.
The first time he rode her was on the floor of a dark room at a house party. He hadn’t known it was going to happen. They were kissing and next thing they were on the floor, still frantic and half-dressed for fear someone would come into the room, their hips grinding. He had carpet burns on his knees. It was only afterwards that he thought about protection. The condom he had been carrying in his wallet was still there, untouched. There were a few other times after that. Once in the back of Dave’s car after they drove home from a night out. This time he had got johnnies from the toilet in the nightclub, and he fumbled with the wrapper in the darkness of the car. The last time was up against a wall coming home from the pub when he had decided not to be with her again. He had barely talked to her all night, but when he was leaving she trotted after him in her heels.
‘I’m just gonna go home,’ he said.
She had grabbed him, pressed her mouth against his. She was fumbling with his trousers, grabbing at him.
‘Here?’ he said. ‘I don’t have any …’.
‘It’s fine.’ Her breath hot on his neck. ‘Just pull out.’
He told himself afterwards that he had pulled out, but he knew that even in his drunken haze there was no pulling back when every atom of his being was charging forward, forward, forward.
He remembered the plummeting sense of horror he had felt when she had looked at him, her face wet, tears mingling with snot. ‘I’m pregnant. I just took the test.’
His life stretched out before him, images of drudging around town, of his family’s lack of surprise, this only confirming all of their beliefs and expectations about him.
‘Do you love me?’ she asked him, and the look she gave him was raw with need. He managed a nod. It was all he could muster and she accepted it, grabbed it while it was on offer.
‘It will be fine. It will be fine,’ she said to him, or maybe to herself, he didn’t know which.
And he fled soon afterwards. Called his cousin Peadar and told him he was getting money together for college, was there any strawberry-picking work going? And he took off to Wexford without saying a word to her. He called her from a payphone. Her voice sounded small on the other end.
‘You were supposed to come with me to tell my parents. You said you would.’
She was right. He had expected her to be angrier, to ball him out of it, but she just sounded small and lost. He felt inexplicably angry. It was churning away at him. He was unapologetic, indignant. ‘I thought we’d need money. I’m working here for you, making money for you and … the baby.’
‘When can I see you?’
‘I’ll be up the week after next. I’ll call you, okay?’
After what had happened happened, he tried to justify it to himself. He would convince himself he would have come back and faced up to things. He would gloss over that evening in his mind when he and Peadar went out on the town. It was Leaving Cert results night and he had got enough points to go to art school in Galway. Peadar would be doing repeats, but he couldn’t give a flying fuck and they were both drinking cider and it was a hot summer night, like being abroad. Nobody was wearing coats. The girls were in their short skirts. They met up with some friends of Peadar’s and they were all buzzing with plans to head off to college. Peadar’s friend Julie asked him for a cigarette and he rolled one for her. She giggled all the time and found reasons to touch him. She twirled a lock of blonde hair around her finger and looked at him from beneath long dark lashes. He didn’t even fancy her, not really, but he wanted to fuck Lizzie out of his system, erase her with this other girl. Afterwards, in the bushes, he clung to her, this stranger, sticky and terrified.
When he rang Lizzie the next day, she sounded far away as static crackled over the line. ‘I lost it. I lost the baby.’
There was nothing to say after that. He never went to see her, used starting college as an excuse. When he moved to Galway, he came home as little as possible. When he did come home, he avoided their usual haunts to avoid bumping into her. He heard shortly afterwards that she had a boyfriend, a local guy, and later still that they’d had a child together.
*
Kavanagh let himself into the house and the dog bounded over, barked, ran in circles and jumped up and down.
‘Hi, Kitty.’ He reached down to pat her black and white head. The dog’s full title was Kitty O’Shea the Third, but she didn’t seem to mind the abbreviation. Her predecessor, Kitty O’Shea the Second, the dog they had growing up, had met with an unfortunate accident under the wheels of a four-by-four. Kitty O’Shea the First was a sheepdog they had as children who drowned in one of their neighbours’ slurry pits. Of course, Kavanagh didn’t find this out until years later – his mother had told him the dog had run away to join the circus. She couldn’t use the standard line about the dog going away to live on a farm because they already lived on one.
Their farm had never been a moneymaking venture. It was more about the tradition of the place. His father and his grandfather had both been teachers, and the farm had been passed down. They kept a few cows, some hens, and some geese that Kavanagh had been terrified of as a child. In fact, all of the animals had been terrifying to Kavanagh. They seemed to be biding their time until they could tread on him, run at him or bite him. It was not his farm but theirs. They were horrified by his presence. The geese hissed at him. The hens flapped. The cows looked at him out of the corners of their eyes with deep suspicion. Only Kitty O’Shea, the black and white dog, seemed happy to see him.
‘I’m ho-ome!’ Kavanagh called as he removed his key from the door and threw his rucksack down in the hallway. He had wanted it to come out breezy and lighthearted like in a film, but the words got caught in his throat and came out sounding strange. He coughed loudly to cover his embarrassment.
‘Joe?’ called his mother. ‘Is that you? We’re in here.’
He walked into the front room where his mother and brother were sitting in front of the fire. His mother was propped up on the sofa with cushions behind her, and his brother was sitting in his father’s armchair, the TV guide in his hand, glasses at the end of his nose.
‘Joe!’ said his mother. He went over to her and kissed her on the cheek.
‘The prodigal son returns, hah?’ said his brother.
‘How are you, Mam?’
‘I’m grand, Joe. Colum and Anne have been taking care of me. Anne hasn’t let me on my feet at all.’
Anne was a no-nonsense woman who worked at the local nursing home. She seemed to dislike Kavanagh even more that his brother did.
‘Lucky you.’ He exchanged a look with his mother and he thought he caught a glimpse of merriment in her eye. ‘How are you feeling? Are you in pain?’
‘No, I’m on painkillers, Joe. Strong ones. I’m a bit zonked out to be honest, but I feel fine, really. Sure amn’t I spoilt rotten here? Lady Muck.’ She pointed to a box of chocolates that was beside her on the table. Kavanagh reached over and grab
bed them and handed them to her. She took one and offered them to Kavanagh. Take a few I’ll have them all eaten now if you don’t take them off me.’
Kavanagh ate a chocolate and put them back on the table. He sat down in the rocking chair, and the dog ran over to him. He stroked her head, and she lay down on her back.
‘Ah, Kitty. You missed me, didn’t you?’ he said, rubbing the dog’s belly.
‘You’re lucky she remembered you at all.’ Colum nodded towards the dog. ‘I’m surprised she didn’t attack you, a stranger coming in the door.’
Kavanagh continued to rub the dog’s belly, not looking up at his brother. ‘Well, at least someone’s happy to see me.’
He wished Colum wasn’t there. He was always saying shit like that: just enough of a dig to let you feel it, but not enough to call him on it. If he did, Colum would plead ignorance, say it was a joke, or worse, call him ‘over-sensitive’, that word he had come to dread when he was growing up. Colum was like the mosquitoes in Chiang Mai: a small annoyance Kavanagh would bat away at the time and think nothing of, but that would resurface later as an itch that would scratch and torment him, one that he couldn’t help but pick at.
‘So, you’re feeling okay, Mam?’
‘Ah yeah, Joe. Sure I’ll be back on my feet in no time.’
‘Well, I’m here now for the next few days. If you want me to do anything around the house just let me know.’
‘The windows need cleaning,’ said Colum. ‘And the gutters need clearing.’
Right …’ said Joe.
‘Ah no, sure that can wait until the weather is warmer, Colum. Just relax, Joe. It’s nice to have you home.’
Chapter 25
Stevie could hear Gavin from down the hallway as she walked towards the postgrad room.
‘And I must insist that I think creating a fully operational medieval slingshot is a perfect use of my time … health and safety? Oh, for God’s sake! That’s all you hear about these days. I tell you, they were more forward thinking in medieval times. We are positively regressing.’ He thundered past with Adrienne at his heels. He was wearing a snot-green T-shirt printed with the slogan ‘Archaeologists: Can you dig it?’
‘Um, hi, Gavin. Doctor Bodkin wants to see you in her office.’
‘Oh, marvellous. Here.’ Gavin placed the clunky wooden weapon into Adrienne’s arms. ‘Mind this, will you? Don’t touch that lever, whatever you do.’
Gavin bounded towards Dr Bodkin’s office. Modern weaponry was dishonest, that was how he saw it. You shouldn’t kill anyone unless you could look them in the eye and let them know who was doing the killing. He was horrified – horrified! – by modern warfare: snipers, drones, fighter jets and bombs. There was a cowardice to it. He lost interest in military history with the invention of the gun. He liked He liked plucky swordsmanship and battle yells of death or glory!,. He liked maces, crossbows, slingshots. Yes. To attack someone with one of these weapons was no accident. No oops, I didn’t mean to pull the trigger. No heat-of-the-moment my hand slipped nonsense. There was no question about the intent, no hiding behind anything. It was altogether a much more honest business. The Gardaí didn’t have guns. That was a good thing. Did the country run wild? Not really. Besides, you should never underestimate the power of a truncheon. People did not want to risk getting battered over the head with that. It was both painful and unseemly. All the same, times It was strange to think that if he were a medieval man, he would be wed by now and perhaps he would have children, maybe even grandchildren. Modern women were very … orange. He wasn’t sure what to make of them at all.
‘Do you need some help?’ said Stevie as Adrienne wrestled with the contraption gingerly.
‘Em, sure, if you could take … em …’. Stevie reached out and helped Adrienne support the weight.
Stevie laughed at the absurdity of the whole thing. ‘What is this? Jesus!’
Adrienne looked at her with a hurt expression. ‘He’s quite brilliant, you know.’
‘Who?’
‘Gavin!’ It was the loudest word she had ever heard Adrienne say.
‘Is he?’ said Stevie. ‘Oh yes, I’m sure he is …’.
‘Geniuses are seldom recognised in their own lifetimes.’
‘Mm hmm.’ Stevie cast about for something that was non-committal but inoffensive. ‘That’s what they say. Yup. They sure do.’
They placed the weapon with great care down on one of the desks. Suddenly academia appeared to Stevie as something that was the last hope for those who couldn’t function in the real world, damaged souls who paced university corridors instead of psychiatric wards. As ridiculous as Adrienne and Gavin appeared to her, was she that different? She was one of them too.
‘How was your meeting with Dr Bodkin?’ Adrienne asked.
‘Yeah, it was okay. She was talking about this conference coming up at Trinity she wants us to go to.’
‘Did she talk to you about your critical assessment?’
‘A bit, yeah. I’m still working on it.’ The truth was that the more Stevie read the various research on sheela-na-gigs, the more confused she felt, not less. She kept waiting for one clear pathway to emerge through the forest of ideas and theories, but they all sounded plausible to her in some way.
‘I have mine here.’ Adrienne patted a hefty tome of printed sheets on the table in front of her.
‘Wow,’ said Stevie.
‘I hope it’s okay. I’m hoping it can be my first chapter and that I can present it to the graduate research committee.’
‘That’s not until the end of the year though,’ said Stevie, more to reassure herself than anything else.
‘Oh, I know, but it’s better to get a head start on it. If they think your research isn’t going anywhere they can recommend that you don’t continue on to second year.’
‘Yeah, well there is that.’ Stevie glanced at Adrienne’s stack of papers and found herself shaking her head and laughing, although she wasn’t quite sure why. Adrienne looked at her in surprise, then also started to laugh.
Adrienne stopped laughing abruptly. ‘Do you like poetry?’ she blurted out, looking at Stevie and fidgeting with her sleeve.
‘Em, yeah sure. Some of it.’
‘There’s a reading on this Friday in the college bar. It’s Bardic poetry.’
‘Oh …’ said Stevie. ‘Great. Are you reading?’
‘Yes, I do a bit of writing, you know …’ said Adrienne. ‘I just … I don’t know if anyone will show up.’ She looked at Stevie with sad eyes, her caterpillar brows furrowed.
‘Oh, sure, well count me in.’
‘Okay. Thanks, Stevie.’
Chapter 26
Kavanagh found his old bike in the shed. He spent the best part of the morning working on it. He brushed off the cobwebs and evicted a family of spiders that had taken up residency on the handlebars. He filled a basin with hot soapy water and gave it a good wash. One of the tyres had a puncture, so he used the repair kit to patch it up. He oiled the chain and pumped up the tyres.
He brought his mother a cup of tea. ‘Mam, I’m gonna head into town for a bit. Can I get you anything?’
‘How are you getting in? Your brother’s on his way down. Sure hang on and he’ll give you a lift.’
‘Nah, that’s okay. I got my old bike up and running. Gonna take her for a spin.’
‘That heap of rust in the shed? Jesus, I thought we’d thrown that out.’
‘Can I bring you some more chocolates?’
‘I’ll turn into a bloody chocolate at the rate I’m going.’
‘The paper?’
‘Oh, the paper would be good. Thanks, love. Take the money from my purse.’
‘Would you stop,’ said Kavanagh. ‘Sure it’s only a paper.’
He wa
s on the verge of saying it’s the least I can do, but thought it best not to point out how little he had, in fact, done.
It was exhilarating to be back on the bike, out in the cold air. His father used to give him a lift to school when he was in first year. Kavanagh would look around furtively as he got out of the car for fear of being seen arriving to school with old ‘Spittalfields’. That summer he stayed with his cousin Peadar in Wexford and picked strawberries. They would come home in the evening to his aunt’s house, exhausted, with backs aching and fingers stained red with juice. He saved up enough to buy himself a second-hand racer, just like the ones the cyclists in the Tour de France used. From then on he didn’t need to take a lift to school with his father. He set off every morning on the bike before his father left the house, rain or shine, to cycle the six miles to school. Every day he set his stopwatch and tried to beat his personal best time. It was a game he played where he was his only competitor, pushing himself to go faster and faster as the muscles in his legs burned and his lungs felt like they would explode. He loved the wind in his ears, his legs going a mile a minute. There was nothing better than speed. His father would beep and wave as he overtook him on the road and Kavanagh would cycle even faster, pumping his legs so fast he felt sure he’d take off into the air.
Kavanagh parked his bike by the church railings and locked it with his old rusty U-lock. He walked towards Madigan’s, the village newsagent where he used to buy penny sweets as a young lad, and later tobacco and cigarette papers as a teenager. He saw that the old sign was no longer outside the shop and the ubiquitous Centra was there instead – sad, but not surprising. It was rare to see an independent corner shop these days. The red of Spar and yellow and green of Centra had colonised the old façades. He picked up a copy of the newspaper and bought himself a pack of tobacco. Jesus, there really was nothing for doing in this town. Should he just cycle home again? He sat on the wall beside the church and rolled himself a cigarette. Just like old times, he thought to himself, when they would hang around and scope out the girls, trying to inject some drama into their humdrum lives, filling in the hours and days until they were old enough to leave.
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