Those Faraday Girls

by Monica McInerney

  ‘Not at the moment, no. And what about you? Was there life before Rent-a-Grandchild?’

  ‘I was a financial controller in a company in London. Or as Dolly saw it, a jumped-up accountant.’

  ‘Until one day you woke up and thought, no, I’d rather live in New York. So you fiddled the books, stole a million dollars and here you are?’

  ‘No, not exactly.’ To her own surprise, she told him, in even more detail than she had told Dolly. The whiskey had loosened her tongue. After weeks of trying to block it out of her mind, she was relating it for the second time in one day. She described the awful moment of seeing the gun emerge from the man’s bag, the look in the man’s eyes as he put it to his temple. The smell of gunpowder afterwards, combined with the screaming all around her. They were the two sensations that had been the hardest to forget. Some of his blood had landed on her jacket, which had been folded on the chair beside her. She hadn’t noticed it until hours later, after the ambulance and police had gone. She hadn’t taken it home. She’d put it straight in the bin.

  ‘Do you regret resigning?’

  She’d not been asked that before. She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t have stayed there. I was told over and over that it wasn’t anything directly to do with me, but I didn’t feel that way. I still don’t. I feel like it was my fault.’

  ‘I can see how you would think that.’

  At last, someone who understood. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But you’re wrong. It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘I think it is. I’d never been aware that my fun and games with numbers actually affected people’s lives.’

  ‘Fun and games? That’s how you thought of your work?’

  She nodded. ‘I loved working with numbers. Any kind of maths.’

  ‘You said you loved it. Past tense. So you don’t any more?’

  She rubbed her nose. ‘I don’t know yet. I’ve decided not to work in that area for a while. Not while I’m here, anyway.’

  ‘There’s lots of other things you could do, isn’t there? There must be a shortage of people who like numbers and maths. Everyone I ever knew hated them.’

  ‘I was an oddity at my school too. I haven’t decided yet what I’ll do next. I’m living off my savings. When they run out, I’ll see.’

  He nodded. ‘You rub your nose a lot when you’re talking. Did you know that?’

  She stopped it, embarrassed. ‘My mother used to say I’d wear the tip off if I wasn’t careful. It’s a habit I have when I’m thinking hard about something.’

  ‘So it’s a good sign? It shows I’m a thought-provoking conversationalist? That’s a relief.’

  They started talking about his music. He talked about the songs he played – Irish standards, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, all the old faithfuls. She asked how long he’d played guitar – since he was a twelve-year-old, he said, twenty-one years ago now. What was it like to sing in bars? Difficult, he told her, because people didn’t really care if he was there, alive and kicking and singing, or if it was taped music playing. Could he make a living out of it? If he played seven evenings and seven lunchtimes a week, and in the middle of the night now and again, yes, he could. In his current situation, just two nights a week in Irish bars, no, he couldn’t. Which was why in addition to helping his mother out in the office whenever she needed him to fill in, he was also her number one window-cleaner and dog-walker. ‘I drew the line at the Avon selling at first, but I’m not ruling anything out now.’

  ‘And you still live at home?’

  He winced. ‘Maggie, please. I’m thirty-three years old. No, I share an apartment off Lafayette Street with two friends. One’s a doctor so I never see him. The other’s a writer who spends all his time watching TV instead of working on his book, so I see a little too much of him at the moment.’

  ‘Is that your dream? To be a full-time musician?’

  ‘My dream? I don’t think I’ve thought of anything as a dream, especially not the music.’

  ‘So why do you do it?’

  He smiled. ‘Because I can.’

  She remembered something he had said earlier. Normally she wouldn’t ask such a personal question, but this didn’t feel like a normal conversation. It was as if they had leapfrogged from early awkwardness into a kind of intimacy.

  ‘You said before that your hair turned grey suddenly. Why?’

  He swallowed the last of his drink and sat quietly.

  She’d made a mistake. It was obviously more sensitive than she’d realised. ‘Sorry, Gabriel. I shouldn’t have asked.’

  ‘Of course you can ask. It’s just the grey-hair story is what I’d call a long one. And here we are only finishing the getting-to-know-you stories. If we’re both still standing later, I promise I’ll start on the long stories. Speaking of which, can I get you another drink?’

  He had evaded her very smoothly. Did she want another drink? A combination of the day’s events, a lack of food and the whiskey was making her light-headed. Or perhaps it was the fun of talking to another human being that was having this effect on her. ‘If I have another, I’ll be singing along with your Irish tunes.’

  ‘You’re going to come and hear me?’

  ‘Is that okay?’

  ‘Of course. But in that case, I’m getting you a triple shot. A backing singer might make all the difference to my performance.’

  Somehow, without either of them noticing, three hours passed. They switched from whiskey to beer, alternating turns at the bar. She heard funny stories about his dog-walking and told him stories in turn about Leo’s inventions. They talked about their school days, which led to talk about their families, which led to talk about their fathers. Gabriel’s parents had split up when he was four. He rarely saw his father. Maggie told him about David. ‘A friend of mine calls them celebration fathers. You only hear from them at Christmas and birthdays.’ They talked seriously about that, exchanged thoughts on whether it had affected their lives. Maggie was sure it hadn’t in her case. Gabriel said the truth was he did miss his father. Missed the idea of his father, that was. ‘The real one I’m not so keen on.’ It changed into a light-hearted conversation again when a person at the other end of the bar reminded Gabriel of a man he had worked with once, a sound technician in the TV station he trained at, sparking an anecdote about a newsreader swearing, not realising she was on camera. Maggie was seconds from asking him about that work when he glanced down at his watch. He stood up, looking alarmed. ‘Oh, hell. I was supposed to be on stage twenty minutes ago.’

  They ran. It took them fifteen minutes to get there. Gabriel had trouble keeping the guitar case from crashing into people as they passed. He stopped and apologised every time. Maggie had trouble running and laughing at the same time.

  ‘You go ahead,’ she called. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

  He shouted back his thanks and was metres ahead when she realised something important. She called out again. ‘Gabriel, where are we going?’

  ‘Rose O’Grady’s,’ he shouted back. ‘Corner of Ninth and West Seventeenth.’

  He was waiting out the front by the time she arrived, only a few minutes after him. She could tell by the look on his face there was a problem. A glance into the bar confirmed it. There was someone else playing guitar on the stage.

  ‘You were too late?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘I’ve been fired.’

  ‘But you’re only half an hour late.’

  ‘He’s been looking for an excuse. That’s his nephew up there. I told you, the Irish bar scene in this city is a dog-eat-dog world.’

  ‘Gabriel, I’m so sorry. It’s my fault.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. It’s Dolly’s fault. I blame Dolly.’ He looked up and did a mock shake of his fist at the sky. ‘She told me she always hated Irish music. Music for maudlin, moaning old minnies, she called it. This is her revenge.’

  They were both still panting from the run. They stepped to one side as a group of people arrived, jostling into the bar. Mag
gie was momentarily pushed against Gabriel. She smelt his aftershave or deodorant, a subtle, woody smell, and just as briefly felt his body under the cotton T-shirt. A sudden image came to mind of Angus’s slightly overweight pale body. Then, in another flash, an image of what Gabriel’s body would be like. Tanned and lean. She stepped away quickly, glad of the flashing lights from the bar covering the blush she knew was on her face.

  He hadn’t noticed. ‘I know you’re probably nearly in tears with disappointment at not getting to hear me sing, but can I take you for a meal instead? Unless you have other plans for tonight?’

  She didn’t have to think about it. ‘I’d like that very much.’

  They went to a small Italian restaurant Gabriel knew, back towards Greenwich Village. The streets were filling with people, out on a hot night.

  They were shown to a table to the side of the room, against a window. There was opera playing in the background, murmured conversations all around them. It was like a date. Maggie felt self-conscious. She did what she always did when she was feeling nervous – tugged at her hair, pulling it over her ears.

  ‘If you’re trying to hide your ears because of me, don’t,’ Gabriel said in a conversational tone. ‘I like them. They suit you.’

  Maggie went red again. ‘Sorry,’ she said, fighting the temptation to pull her hair over them again.

  The food was delicious, the wine was good, the conversation lively. They talked over each other now and again, finishing each other’s sentences, finding things in common, making each other laugh.

  He apologised for telling a long story about a hitchhiking trip he’d once taken. ‘I should have saved that one up for another night. You’ve heard every funny story I know now. I’ll have to go away and write some more before we meet up next.’

  She disguised her pleasure at his words. He wanted to meet up again? ‘No, there’s still one story you haven’t told me. Two, in fact.’

  ‘Two?’

  ‘I wanted to ask why you stopped working as a cameraman. And you promised to tell me the one about your grey hair.’

  ‘That’s right, so I did.’ He stirred the sugar into his coffee.

  He wasn’t smiling, she noticed. ‘Gabriel, I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me.’

  ‘You don’t have to apologise. It’s just I don’t talk about it very much.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I’d like to. It’s probably time I did.’

  Gabriel began to talk. Yes, he had been a cameraman, up until two years before. He’d been working in TV since he was eighteen, fifteen years ago now. He’d started as a runner on one of the New York-based news programs, getting the job through a friend of his mother’s. A year later he started training as a studio cameraman. That had led to a job as a trainee cameraman on local news programs when he was twenty years old, then he moved to the network’s Washington office. He’d gone freelance after that, taking jobs wherever they came up, travelling constantly. He did documentaries, music videos and the occasional advertisement even. He liked it that way, he said. He started getting work outside of the US. He went to Venezuela for a documentary. To Argentina to film elections. Then three years later he took a permanent job as a news cameramen with one of the cable TV networks.

  Three months into the job he was sent to the Middle East, his first time in a war zone. Everyone told him it sounded more dangerous than it was. The footage on the bulletins was often dramatic, but there were days when nothing would happen. The producer would be the one out hunting down stories, he was told. There’d be a lot of waiting around in his hotel.

  That’s how it was for the first two weeks, he told Maggie. Then, two days into week three, a big story broke. A leader of one of the opposition parties was assassinated, sparking tit-for-tat killings, riots and demonstrations. An American soldier was killed. Gabriel was in the midst of it, working all hours, every day.

  ‘It went from nothing to everything, all at once, eighteen-hour days, no breaks. We barely had time to edit pieces before we were out getting another story.’

  ‘Were you scared?’ Maggie asked.

  He shook his head. ‘It was like getting a shot of adrenaline after all the waiting around. It was exciting. One morning we got word there was something big going on in the centre of the city. An attack on the American embassy, we were told. For once it was true. We heard the explosion on our way there, and then sirens and screaming. We got there, and it was mayhem: people bleeding, bodies on the ground, a water pipe gushing, the smell of gas —’ He stopped. He wasn’t looking at her now, but fidgeting with the sugar packet on the table.

  ‘We went right to work. I started filming general scenes, while the reporter and our interpreter began talking to bystanders, trying to find out what had happened. I was walking away from the building to get a wider shot when a second explosion went off. Right in front of the embassy. Right where I had been. Where our reporter and interpreter still were.’

  Maggie didn’t speak. Gabriel had now folded the sugar sachet into tiny pieces.

  ‘They were both killed instantly. They didn’t have a chance. The people they were talking to were killed too. Another six died later from their injuries. I got hit by something, I don’t know what. Something sharp. But it was nothing compared to the others. At least a dozen people were killed that day, maybe more, I never found out for sure.’

  She noticed then he was rubbing at a scar on his left arm. ‘Gabriel, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It was chaos, Maggie. Complete chaos. The producer and I were lifted out of there. I had a week of medical treatment, some counselling. Then suddenly I was back in Washington, back to normal life. Except it wasn’t normal. I’d turned into a different person.’ He looked at her then, as if coming out of a daze. ‘Maggie, I’m sorry. Why am I telling you this?’

  ‘It’s fine, please, go on.’

  ‘I stayed in Washington for another few months but it just got stranger. Harder. I’d got scared. I’d lost the ability to be detached. Even with soft news stories or interviews with politicians, I was jumpy. If I heard a car backfire I’d be a mess. We had a big memorial service for our reporter and I had to leave halfway through. I kept thinking about the interpreter too. I’d only known him slightly, but he was my own age; we liked the same music; I’d promised to send him some CDs. But he was dead, and if I hadn’t walked away when I did, I’d have been dead too. I should have felt like the lucky one but I felt guilty. I got obsessed with news stories about similar events. All the fatalities and the near-misses. One Monday morning I woke up and I knew I couldn’t do it any more. I was a liability in the studio and out in the field. This had started to happen.’ He gestured to his hair. ‘I turned grey in less than four months. The doctor said maybe it was coincidence. Mom said her grandfather went grey as a young man too. Maybe it wasn’t connected, I still don’t know. That same day I went into work and resigned. I moved back here, Mom took pity on me with some work, I started singing in bars for extra money. And that’s where I am now.’

  ‘Have you worked as a cameraman since?’

  He shook his head. ‘About a year ago, I thought about it. I went in to see a friend here in New York who works at NBC. I was in the newsroom, listening to the gossip, talking to the camera crew and it happened again. I got scared. Not only of what I might film and what I might see, but fearful of what I might get wrong, what I might miss. You can’t do a job like that if you’re scared.’ He blinked, as if he could hardly believe all he had just said. ‘So there it is, Maggie. The whole messy story.’

  ‘Why is it messy?’

  ‘It’s not exactly a heroic tale, is it? I’m hardly the brave, fearless news gatherer.’

  ‘It must have been terrible. I can understand exactly why you had to leave.’

  He leaned across and almost absentmindedly took her hand, just for a moment. ‘Thank you for listening.’

  She touched his hand in return. ‘Thank you for telling me.’

  It was nearly midni
ght by the time they left the restaurant and started walking back towards Maggie’s apartment. It was still warm, the streets still filled with people. They were two blocks away when Gabriel realised he’d forgotten his guitar and they had to go back to the restaurant to get it.

  ‘Hardly a dedicated musician, am I, leaving it behind as easily as that?’

  ‘Perhaps you should switch to being a concert pianist. You wouldn’t forget a Steinway so easily.’

  ‘I could buy a little cart and pull it along behind me,’ Gabriel suggested.

  ‘That’s the big disappointment of the evening,’ Maggie said. ‘You got fired and I didn’t get to hear you sing.’

  ‘Fired from one job only. I’m playing tomorrow night.’

  ‘You are? Where?’

  ‘I’m not telling.’

  ‘I’ll ring every Irish bar in the city.’

  ‘There are thousands of them and I sing under a fake name.’

  ‘Really? What name?’

  ‘Bono,’ he said.

  They were walking through Washington Square Park when she stopped. ‘This is a perfect setting. Sing for me now, then. In Dolly’s memory.’

  ‘Here? In public? Without the benefit of inebriated customers to cheer me on?’

  ‘I dare you.’

  ‘You dare me?’ He laughed. ‘As in, we’re both eight years old and in that case I dare you to, I don’t know, eat a snail?’

  ‘That’s it.’ She laughed too. ‘If you sing, then I’ll eat a snail. And I hate snails.’

  He held out his hand. She shook it. ‘Deal,’ they said in unison.

  They stopped at a bench and he took the guitar out of its case and took a seat. Maggie sat down next to him, watching as he placed it on his knee, strummed it, once, twice, then tweaked a tuning peg. He ran through several chords.

  ‘You can play. That sounded great.’

  ‘No, it didn’t, but yes, I can actually play. I take requests too. What would you like to hear? Maudlin Irish, sexy Spanish or a cross between the two?’

  ‘What would that sound like?’

  ‘This.’ He played softly, singing the words to ‘The Wild Rover’ to a Spanish flamenco tune. Maggie started to laugh.