by Roddy Doyle
–How’s all the family?
–Grand. Yours?
–Grand, yeah – not too bad. Any more grandkids?
–One or two – maybe three.
–You lose track, don’t yeh?
–I kind of do.
–Great pub.
–Smashing pub.
We say it every year. We feel at home here; we feel it’s ours. The atmosphere is good but they don’t overdo the Christmas shite – the decorations and that.
Still no sign of Chester. Still we say nothing.
We never talk about the old days but, still, they’re there. We never talk about the schooldays – the mitching, the beatings, the crack, the mad Christian Brothers. We never talk about the girls we used to fancy – well, hardly ever. And one girl always gets a mention.
–D’yis remember Eileen Pidgeon?
–Oh, God – stop the lights.
I say nothing.
Still no sign of Chester.
We don’t talk much about the past but we know: it’s why we’re here. It’s why we hug, why we grin, why we put hands on shoulders. It’s why we slag each other unmercifully, why we get serious when we talk about our kids.
Still no sign of—
–Ah – for fuck sake!
It’s Chester. Fat and kind of magnificent, filling the door.
–My fuckin’ flight was delayed.
–Ryanair?
–Fuckin’ Luftwaffe, he says. –You could see the fuckin’ bullet holes in the wings.
He’s been out of the country for forty years but he still talks like he’s from up the road. Which he is. Which we all are. And we’re together again – like we’ve always been.
Perfect.
51
Pint?
It’s the text I’ve been waiting for all day. I’m into my coat like Batman into his – whatever Batman jumps into when he’s in a hurry. And I’m gone, out onto the street – through the letter box; I don’t even open the door.
–Seeyis!
And I’m pawing at the pub door before I answer the text.
He’s there already, alone. My buddy, Martin. And there’s a pint sitting beside his, waiting for me.
It was Martin who texted me but, to be honest, after a week locked up in the house with the grandson’s toys and the daughter’s lectures, I’d have jumped at the chance if Mother Teresa had texted me. A few pints with Mother Teresa? Ah, the crack. I read somewhere that she was a Manchester City supporter. Although, now that I think of it, that might have been Liam Gallagher. He’s a ringer for her when he has his hood up.
Anyway. It isn’t Mother Teresa – or Liam Gallagher – who’s waiting for me. It’s Martin. And I’m glad.
We go back, me and Martin. Back to when I was a much younger man and I came in here one day for a slow pint, before I went home to tell the wife that I was out of work.
November the 8th, 1993.
I was sitting there on my own, wondering what I was going to tell her, how I was going to say it, what we’d tell the kids – trying to stay calm. Resisting the urge to have another pint, and another, and another. Failing.
–Another pint, please.
When Martin was suddenly beside me – or, I noticed him for the first time.
–Alright? he said.
–Yeah, I said. –Yeah – actually, no.
I didn’t know him. I’d seen him at the side of the football pitch on Sunday mornings with the other fathers and mothers, watching our kids get mucky. I’d seen him coming and going around the place – but I’d never really spoken to him before.
–What’s the story? he said.
–Ah, well, I said. –I’ve been let go off the job.
–Bad, he said.
–And I’ve to go home now and tell the wife.
–Bad.
–Yep.
–I don’t fuckin’ envy you.
He said nothing for a bit. Neither did I. I looked at my pint settling.
–I don’t want to, I said then.
–What? he said.
–Go home.
–I know, he said. –But it has to be done.
–I know.
Again, we said nothing for a bit.
He broke the silence.
–I’ll say this, just, he said. –If we’d been here like this a couple of years ago, I’d have been feeling really sorry for you – I’d have had nothing to say, really. Now, but—. There’s work out there. You’ll be grand.
He was right. I was back in work in a fortnight and I was never unemployed again. Then, there, sitting beside him – I don’t know why – I just believed him.
He watched me finishing my pint.
–Seeyeh, he said.
I knew what he was doing: he was sending me home, to do what had to be done.
I stood up.
–Seeyeh, I said, and I went home.
I’ve thought about it since, that first time I spoke to Martin. He was like your man, Clarence, the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life, when he persuades Jimmy Stewart that his life is worth living. I wasn’t suicidal or anything; I wasn’t getting ready to fling myself into the Liffey. But it was good having him there beside me, at that moment.
We watched that film five times over the Christmas. The daughter loves it and, I have to admit, so do I. Especially your woman, Donna Reed. I always end up wishing I was Jimmy Stewart running home in the snow.
And Martin looks quite like Clarence these days – the same nose and all.
We sit and say nothing. We’re good at that. We’re in no hurry. We’re happy enough in the silence.
He speaks first.
He puts his pint back down on its mat.
–How was your year?
–Shite, I say.
–Same here, he says.
–You’ve had your ups this year, I remind him.
I’m thinking of Eileen Pidgeon. I’m thinking how unfair it is, that a Clarence-the-angel lookalike can have a torrid affair with the elderly woman of my dreams.
He doesn’t disagree with me.
–It evens out, but, he says. –The good shite and the bad shite.
–It’s all shite, I say. –Is that what you’re saying?
I love a bit of philosophy.
–It is, he agrees.
–I’m with you.
We sit there, together. Like two men in a stationary lifeboat. We’re going nowhere and we really don’t need saving. We won’t be wishing each other a Happy New Year. We don’t do that stuff. But I’m glad he’s here beside me.
52
I hate the new year. Actually, I hate everything new. Nearly everything. Clothes, music, recipes, neighbours – the list is probably endless. And the exceptions – babies and hips – they just prove the rule. The vast majority of new things are a pain in the arse, especially the new years.
I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t have a new year. I’m not stupid. I know that the earth orbits the sun and I accept that we have seasons and that your man, Shakespeare, was on the button when he said if winter comes, then spring is probably tagging along behind it.
Grand.
But it’s the whole Year Zero thing that gets on my wick. Every 1st of January, we’re expected to become new people.
We were out on the street at midnight on New Year’s Eve. It’s excruciating, having to shake hands with, and even hug, people I can’t stand. But the wife makes me come out with her.
–Stop whingeing.
–I’m not whingeing.
–Here’s your jacket – get up.
Anyway, one of the neighbours, Brendan, was hugging me – a bit half-heartedly, in my opinion. A half-hearted hug is even worse than a full-blooded one, I think.
Anyway.
–What are you giving up? he says.
–What?
–For the new year, he says. –What are you giving up?
–It’s not bloody Lent, I tell him.
–Well, it’s no more junk food for me, he says.
You should see the state of this chap. He looks like a greyhound that never caught up with the rabbit. I don’t know what he sees in the mirror – because he’s hardly there. I’m not sure I’m even talking to him in the dark. It might be just an optical illusion in a lemon-coloured jumper. Anyway, I never saw a man more in need of a couple of crisps – and he was giving them up. Because it was the 1st of January.
By the way, I saw him in the Spar yesterday and he was hovering close to the Pringles.
Anyway.
It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when the only thing you expected from the new year was a hangover. Now, though, we’re expected to alter our bodies and – even worse – the way our minds operate.
I’ve been living with my mind – my brain, my personality, whatever you want to call it – for more than sixty years. And we’ve been getting along fine. There have been off-days and weeks and one godawful decade, but, generally speaking, me and the mind have managed to get this far without too much aggro or damage. If my mind suggests a pint, I’m often in agreement. If the mind gives me the nudge and tells me to say something nice to the wife, the timing is generally spot-on. And what I say to her – ‘Your hair’s nice’, ‘I’m with you, love – it’s not fair’, ‘It’s your brain I fell in love with, not your cooking’ – the mind has usually delivered something apposite and even – once or twice – wise. And devious.
So, anyway. I’m content enough with my mind, in a happily miserable kind of way. The memory isn’t what it used to be, but I can’t blame the mind for that; we both decided not to bother with the fish and the cross-words. And what do we actually have to remember? A few names, our own name, our team, the colour of the front door, the difference between the dishwasher and the washing machine. That’s about it. And my mind – I’m reluctant to call it my intellect – is well up to that.
Anyway. I’m happy enough with the mind I was given and I’ll have no problem accepting its guidance, all the way up to my terminal breath. ‘Keep the mouth shut there, Charlie – you’ll be a better-looking corpse.’ The body and the mind – we’re in it together for the last stretch of the long haul.
But, no.
Apparently not.
Apparently, I’ve to become more optimistic.
–Your outlook’s too bleak, like, says the daughter.
–Bleak doesn’t cover it, love, says the wife. –He’s windswept and desolate.
–So is the Wild Atlantic Way, I tell them. –And the tourists are flocking to it.
–Well, there’s no one flocking to you, buster, says the wife. –The head on you.
–What’s wrong with my head?
–New year, new man, Dad, says the daughter. –You should start giving yourself daily done wells. Love yourself, like. What did you do well today?
–Oh sweet Jesus, I say, and I leg it up to the bed. And I congratulate myself as I climb in.
–Well fuckin’ done, Charlie.
The wife gets in a few hours after me.
–Come here, I say. –You don’t want me to change, do you?
I wait.
–Do you?
She puts her hand on my back and pats it.
That’s a No. I’m safe for another year.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Fiona Ness, Ben Hickey, Fionnan Sheahan, John Sutton, and Lucy Luck.
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Copyright © Roddy Doyle 2019
Jacket illustration © Laurie Avon
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First published by Jonathan Cape in 2019
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