The Colour of Sunday Afternoons

by Robert Gollagher

  It was one o’clock. Moonlight washed softly through the window, coming and going with the passing clouds. Maybe she should get a cat, Jane thought; cats were much more faithful than boyfriends, and far less trouble. A powerful beam of moonlight flooded the room, as if to say how true that was.

  It was odd, Jane thought, as she fluffed up her pillow, that she had met her guardian angel that day. Why a leprechaun? She wasn’t Irish. Come to think of it, the little guy didn’t even have an Irish accent. He was as bogus as any leprechaun could possibly be: clearly, a pretender. And yet, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, she felt powerless but to accept the whole thing as real. And what did he mean by saying her life was on fire? It was all pretty ambiguous. Jane rolled over in bed. There was that darned cramp in her stomach again: irritable bowel. Why did it have to hit her at one o’clock in the morning? She was resting, after all. She found it all very annoying.

  Sleep took away the pain.

  Chapter 5

  It was a Sunday afternoon. Jane sat in her living room, bent over her coffee table, which was hidden under multiple print-outs of the City Hospital computer program. Jane hardly noticed the red hues of sunset which flooded the room through the open front window, nor her ghostly white curtains swaying gently in the breeze. She rubbed her eyes, wearily.

  Margaret Hoffman had been complaining for three weeks. The drug inventory program was ‘too difficult to use.’ It wasn’t enough that Jane had got the program running again, that she had killed the bugs which infested it and thereby prevented further system crashes. The disgruntled Chief Pharmacist had now presented Jane with a list, several pages long, of how the program was to be made more ‘user-friendly.’ And so it was that Jane had lost another Sunday to work.

  Jane turned her attention to her laptop computer. Its screen displayed the source code for the user interface module. Jane wondered if she should recode the module completely. That, she thought sadly, would be a very big job.

  After a few more minutes of restless typing, Jane decided she was too tired to continue. She switched off the computer. With a grunt, she got up and shuffled dejectedly to her kitchen. Opening the refrigerator door proved a disappointment; the empty shelves reminded her she hadn’t had time to shop. Jane felt a twinge of guilt as she turned to the freezer compartment and extracted a solitary TV dinner. After microwaving the meal, she returned to the living room. Finally, back on the sofa, Jane put her feet on the print-outs and balanced the hot meal on her stomach. She chewed despondently on the tiny slices of rubbery meat which were supposed to resemble Steak Diane.

  Jane switched on the big-screen television. She had soon forgotten about work, lost in the sights and sounds of cable news. Last month’s jumbo jet crash was being investigated. Heads were rolling at the airline. In a different story, llamas were becoming popular as investment animals. A financial expert solemnly explained that a lot of capital was required to get into llamas. Jane munched bravely on her steak.

  She changed to the sports channel. Tiny two-person sailboats, sleek and white, were racing around a turbulent harbour. Jane looked fondly at the Laser-class boats. As a girl, she had been a keen sailor. The Laser was her favourite: fast, racy, and exciting. Jane smiled, forgetting where she was, and certainly not attempting to eat the bland peas on her little plastic tray. Then she snapped out of it, switched back to the news channel, and dimmed the volume to a whisper.

  Her mind drifted onto what the leprechaun had said about her life being on fire – it was such a strange thing to say. It reminded her of the advice her dad used to give her about sailing. Making dumb mistakes on the racecourse, he used to say, like getting too far downwind, or approaching the buoy on a port tack when you could have made it on starboard (and had the right of way), was just poor thinking. Poor thinking was like fire: easy to start but hard to stop. Or it was like digging a hole: the deeper you got into it, the harder it was to get out of. Think first, he used to say, think carefully, then decide which way you’re going to take the boat. Jane missed racing. She missed her father, too.

  The muted chime of Jane’s mobile phone interrupted her chain of thought. She grabbed the phone. “Hello. Jane Hamilton.”

  “Jane. It’s Christina. Sounds like we’ve got a bad line.”

  “Hi, Christina. Yeah, but I can still make you out. What’s up?”

  “Jane, I had a call from Margaret Hoffman, at home.”

  “On a Sunday?!”

  “Afraid so. She wants to know when you’re going to have those revisions finished on the drug inventory program. I know it’s a pain, Jane, but do you think you could have something finished by tomorrow? She’s such a big client.”

  Jane sighed. “Yes ... I’m working on it now. I’ve been stewing on it all day. I think I can upgrade the data entry system and have a trial version in place for her tomorrow. At least something.”

  “That’s great, Jane. Okay. Oh! Looks like my memo on the quarterly objectives must have stirred them up at Head Office. There’s a fax coming though now, from the GM. Better go. Thanks, Jane. See you tomorrow.” Christina was in a hurry to hang up.

  “Right. See you then.” Jane put the phone down. She wasn’t really happy about this kind of thing happening on weekends, but what could she do? Pushing the now-cold TV dinner to one side, she sat up and switched on her laptop once more.

  It was going to be a long night.

  The light had long since disappeared from Jane’s window. It was midnight. Jane was still sitting on her sofa, staring into the laptop as if it held all the answers to life. She was making real progress. A few more hours and she would have the program working well enough to show Hoffman.

  The telephone rang again. This time it was her home phone, a cordless unit which sat neglected next to a lamp by the sofa.

  Jane extended its aerial and said hello.

  It was Lilly. “Jane! Where are you? Where were you? We missed you.”

  “What?” Jane was puzzled.

  Lilly was mad. “The video night! We were all supposed to be getting together at Bill’s place tonight, don’t you remember? Little Janie even stayed up to see you. You never showed. What’s wrong with you, Jane?”

  “Oh, I completely forgot. Lilly, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. How could I just forget?”

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. Finally, Lilly spoke. She sounded concerned. “Janey, what are we going to do with you? This is the third time you’ve done this, this year. When are you going to slow down?”

  “Slow down?” said Jane.

  “Yes, slow down. I’ll bet you’re working right now, aren’t you? I’ll bet you’re typing away at that computer of yours on some important project. Am I right or am I right?”

  “Well ...”

  “Aha!” Lilly exclaimed. “I knew it! Now, if you didn’t come because you had a hot date with a Paul Newman look-alike, or a younger Sidney Portier, we’d forgive you. That would be style. That would be class. Janey, sitting at home work-a-work-a-working all weekend is not style. It’s not class. Don’t you know it’s Sunday?”

  “Yes, but ...”

  Lilly was determined. “No buts! But nothing! Now, if you don’t meet us for coffee this Wednesday night, I will personally come over and pluck the chips out of that laptop of yours, one by one, and feed them to my goldfish. Do we have a deal?”

  “Deal,” Jane said. “Okay, okay. Deal. I’ll be there. In fact, why don’t you come over to my place and I’ll make you and Bill dinner?”

  “Okay. Maybe there’s hope for you, after all. Well, say goodnight to your silicon boyfriend for me. Don’t forget he turns into a pumpkin at midnight! Bye.”

  “Bye.” Jane knew Lilly was right. She was working too hard. But this program simply had to be finished by the morning. Jane would have to pull an all-nighter.

  Time goes very quickly when you’re programming. In fact, before Jane knew it, it was three-thirty in the morning. Monday morning. In a few short hours she would ha
ve to be at the office. At least she had finished the job.

  Jane switched off the computer, then the television, which had been inanely murmuring the news all night, and headed for the bathroom. A few splashes of cold water on her face helped a little, but she still felt like a wreck. She traipsed down the passage to her bedroom, took one look at her bed, without bothering to change, and fell, face down, onto it.

  Sixty seconds later, she was asleep.

  Joe looked around the empty reps room. It was Sunday morning. Sensible people were still in bed. And where was he? At the office. In a suit. There was so much to organise for the Cardiac Society meeting; three weeks of hard work had gotten the ball rolling, but now the deadline approached. Seated at his tiny desk, Joe looked over the meeting timetable and the instructions from Dr Jefferson. They were pretty daunting.

  Joe switched on his computer and downloaded his e-mail. Sure enough, there were several messages from Biopharm’s Conference Department. Could Joe send an updated list of Cardiac Society members, in plain text format? Could Joe visit the hotel and inspect the audiovisual facilities before Tuesday? The requests went on.

  Joe screwed his face into a scowl. He typed rapidly, punching in replies to each of the messages. This, he thought with little conviction, is going to be a great day for sales. He gripped his chest as a sudden stab of pain spiked behind his breast bone. That’s odd, he thought. Affirmations are supposed to help, not hurt. He decided to get some coffee.

  As he wandered over to the tiny office kitchen, Joe thought about the leprechaun’s warning, that his life was on fire and that he had to do something about it. Stupid leprechaun! Joe already had a busy job to do – he had a living to make. He didn’t need facile advice from loopy angels. He switched on the kettle and collected ingredients to make a very poor cup of instant. As the water boiled, he decided to try some more affirmations.

  “Every day,” Joe muttered, “in every way, it’s getting better and better.”

  His chest burned again.

  Sighing heavily, Joe poured his coffee, added three spoons of sugar in a vain attempt to perk himself up, and headed back to his desk. This was going to be another entire Sunday lost to work, no matter how many affirmations he said. He tried humming a jazz tune, instead: Summertime.

  That reminded him. The band. He would have to call them and cancel practice for today. Joe had to admit that right at that moment he would much rather have been with the boys, playing a little Hoagy Carmichael or Wayne Shorter, than sitting in this grey office putting the good oil on his prospects for promotion. He put the thought aside as he reached his desk and sat down again. He had worked long and hard to get where he was and he wasn’t about to give it all up now.

  The desk phone rang, startling him. Who could be calling him at the office, nine o’clock on a Sunday morning? He picked up the receiver.

  “Joe,” came Paul’s voice. “It’s me.”

  “Paul. What are you doing this weekend? Are you going to tell me her name? It’s not another actress, is it?”

  “Joe, I am an actor, myself. It’s a fine profession. So please don’t say, ‘It’s not another actress, is it?’ Show a little respect.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Joe. “So, do I know her?”

  “Her name’s Cynthia. You remember, I told you I was doing a little Shakespeare for fun, with the local drama group?”

  “Oh, yes,” Joe quipped. “Much Ado About Nothing, wasn’t it? Or was it, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy?”

  “That’s Woody Allen, Joe, not the bard. If you must know, it’s The Merchant of Venice. And as for the pound of flesh ... don’t even ask.”

  “Sorry, Paul. I’m just jealous. I’m sitting here in the office and you’re having a wonderful time with a beautiful actress. Hey, maybe you might even get to like her.”

  “Please! Don’t mention the C-word! Committed relationships are for sedate types such as yourself. We adventurers don’t speak of such things.”

  “Sometimes,” said Joe, “I think your perfect woman would be a plastic doll. What’s wrong with a little commitment? I mean, you could start by trying a whole month with one girl. How does that sound?”

  “My, we are in a bad mood! Look, we’re going on a picnic. We thought you might like to come along. Sue’s coming, with that boyfriend of hers. What his name?”

  “Alan.”

  “Yeah, right. Come on, you know it’ll be fun. How many times do I have to tell you ...”

  “I know,” Joe groaned. “All work and ...”

  “ ... no play ...” Paul continued.

  “ ... makes Joe a dull boy.” Joe finished. “What about all play and no work. What does that make Paul?”

  “Popular,” said Paul. “And available.”

  Joe laughed. “All right, all right. But I can’t. I have to finish this work by tomorrow. I’ll see you Wednesday, at squash. Okay?”

  “Okay, man, but I’m telling you, you have to ease up a little on the work. Sue will have a field day, when she hears you’re working today. You’re going to get an earful on Wednesday, you know that?”

  “I know. See you.”

  “See you,” Paul replied.

  Joe put down the phone. He was jealous. Paul seemed to have a new girlfriend every few weeks, each one more glamorous than the last. For a split second, Joe wondered if he should succumb to Dr Jennifer Tyson, after all.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, he thought.

  Joe tried not to yawn. It was five-thirty, that same afternoon, and he was talking to a very boring hotel manager. Joe wished, fervently, that he didn’t have to check the hotel on a Sunday. It was bad enough, having spent all day at the office, without being stuck in a conference room, putting up with the private lecture he was now getting.

  “And this,” said the young hotel manager, a slick-looking man in the loudest tie Joe had seen for two decades, “is our System 2000! The finest AV equipment available. Quadraphonic sound, digital video, and just look at the size of this radio mike!” He held up a tiny button, the size of a split pea.

  “Impressive,” said Joe, completely bored.

  “The LCD projection device casts a cinematic image onto the big-screen you can see here. We’ve had medical conferences before. The doctors loved it!” The kid looked pleased with himself.

  “Uh, yeah. It looks great. Thanks. I’ll be in touch tomorrow with the final numbers.” Joe shook the manager’s hand and made a beeline for the elevator.

  Ten minutes later, after paying a hefty fee in the underground parking lot, Joe was on the road, driving home. It was sunset. The ruby sunburst made the horizon into art; the tired city seemed almost beautiful.

  By the time Joe made it home, it was dark.

  At midnight, an empty pizza carton on the dining room table beside him, Joe was putting the finishing touches on the handouts for the Cardiac Society meeting. At last, he switched off his computer and surveyed the wasteland of crumpled paper that littered the table and most of the floor. Not a bad day’s work, he thought grimly, for a Sunday.

  He decided to play a little jazz before he hit the sack. He went to the refrigerator and got out a beer, popped the can and took a swig, sauntered into the living room, and finally sat down at the piano and switched it on. After balancing his beer on a nearby chair, Joe began to play some Hoagy Carmichael. Skylark was the tune. Joe was far too tired to sing, but as he began to relax, his hands painted a beautiful tune across the keyboard and into the air around him: waves of comforting sound, of chords and colour, rhythm and melody. Joe played for quite a long time, because tomorrow was Monday morning, something he was trying very hard not to think about.

  Half an hour later, as he finished the last few bars of Denny Zeitlin’s beautiful lullaby, Quiet Now, he decided it was time to retire. Joe switched the piano off and wandered into the bedroom, leaving the beer can where it rested, half-full.

  Soon his clothes were nothing but an untidy pile next to his bed. He pulled on a pair o
f Donald Duck boxer shorts, a present from an old girlfriend, and lay down as if he were drugged, suddenly unconscious.

  The sound of Joe’s snoring echoed through the apartment.

  He was dead to the world.

  Chapter 6

  Jane was in her kitchen when she heard the doorbell. She closed the oven and went to the front door. It was Wednesday night – she was expecting Bill and Lilly over for dinner. Sure enough, when Jane opened the door, she saw her two best friends smiling at her.

  “Sorry we’re late,” said Lilly. “Bill, here, was late picking me up.”

  “Actually,” said Bill, “what Ms Punctual isn’t telling you is that she kept me waiting for fifteen minutes while she changed her dress. Anyway, Leslie sends her apologies. She’s got a Rotary meeting. The kids are with Katherine.”

  Jane ushered her friends inside. “Never mind. Come on in, you guys. I’m just finishing in the kitchen. Take a seat in the dining room, at the table.”

  Jane reappeared shortly. “Can I get you guys something to drink?”

  “I’d like some wine,” said Lilly.

  “Mineral water,” said Bill.

  Lilly prodded Bill in the arm. “My, we are getting old, aren’t we? I let you out of my sight for a while; the next thing I know you’re married, with two kids, and drinking mineral water. Soon you’ll be playing golf.”

  “Very funny,” said Bill. “And I suppose you’d prefer it if I were an alcoholic? What about that ex-boyfriend of yours: Mickey? Now, he could qualify ...”

  Jane was horrified. “Guys, guys! Truce! What’s gotten into you? I’ll get the mineral water.”

  “Maybe you’re right about Mickey,” Lilly whispered to Bill, once Jane had left the room. “He was a no-hoper. That’s why I ditched him. But he was great in bed. What can I say?”