My Dad Is Ten Years Old

by Mark O'Sullivan

  ‘She should put one of those barking collars on him,’ he said. ‘Give him a shock every time he tries to bark.’

  ‘That would be so cruel,’ I said.

  ‘Not much different to what we do to Dad. Zonk him out with tablets when he loses it.’

  ‘To stop him hurting himself.’

  ‘To stop him hurting us,’ Sean said. ‘I mean, I can defend myself. Just about. But you and Tom and Mam?’

  ‘He’d never … He wouldn’t …’

  Argos tried a few more complaints, a dreadful mix of misery and pain.

  ‘Are you going to tell Mam? About Dad going to prison? What he did?’

  ‘Maybe it’s time to,’ he said. Then he turned towards the wall, hid himself away from me. ‘I don’t know. What kind of crap life is this for him? I wish he’d never woken up out of the coma. I wish he’d died.’

  ‘How could you say such a thing?’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ he said and drew his knees up so that he lay like a baby in the womb. ‘We keep dodging the truth, all of us. Dad’s slipping out of control and we’re going, “He’ll be grand; he’ll be OK when he settles.”’

  ‘So, you want to tell her?’

  ‘You decide,’ he says and shrugs. ‘I’ve had it up to here. You’re better at this than I am.’

  I wanted to tell him that I was already in bits. That every day I felt this awful sickness in my stomach, in my bones. That every night I cried without spilling one tear. That I felt sure I was going slowly and quietly mad. That the only time I felt even half sane was when I stole Dad’s tablets and popped them. Or when I was with Brian.

  There’s a gang of seven or eight of us around the table in Brady’s Bar. An easy-going crowd. No hairstyle excesses, no labels, no animal noises, no public groping. All that stuff is available here, but not at our table. The conversation is about albums, bands and I’m totally lost. I haven’t looked at MySpace or YouTube or whatever for months and I can’t even remember where my MP3 player is.

  ‘You’re very quiet,’ Brian says, like he knows I’m keeping something from him. ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘Les profonditées de l’existence.’ The phrase comes unbidden and there’s a bitter aftertaste to it. ‘Something Dad used to say when he went all quiet in himself. I used it in a French exercise before Christmas and Mrs Claffey said it should be “profondeurs” not “profonditées”.’

  Brian’s baffled. It shouldn’t matter that Dad got the word wrong but, stupidly, it does. I sit up straight, blink some sense into my brain.

  ‘Don’t mind me. Had an early start this morning is all.’

  Like father like daughter, Angie’s telling me, with your secrets and lies. Secrets aren’t lies, I tell her. Not always.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go to this party?’ Brian asks. ‘I mean, I don’t mind if we don’t.’

  We’re supposed to be heading later to his friend’s house. I’ve been trying not to think about it. Mam’s at home with only Dad and Tom for company, but when she said this afternoon that she was going to have an early night, it was like she was telling Sean and me to make our own plans. Make that telling me. She wasn’t talking to Sean. She might have done if he’d told her the truth about Argos.

  ‘We’re going to the party,’ I tell Brian. ‘One more drink and we’ll head.’

  As Brian goes up to the bar, I check out the place again to see if Jill is here. No sign of her. I wonder if I’m the reason she hasn’t come to Brady’s tonight. Probably. We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms a few hours ago at the Jasmine Garden.

  Back when we were twelve, we started this tradition of meeting up at the Chinese restaurant on New Year’s Eve. We’d hold over our Christmas presents for each other until then and it was good to have something to look forward to after the thrill of Christmas was over. That first time we decided we’d keep this thing going until we were pure ancient and rotten rich and married with seven children and fourteen grandchildren or whatever.

  Today, I was first to arrive at the restaurant. I was pure wrecked, but who wouldn’t be after having been woken at seven by the screaming and banging at our front door? When Jill came, I knew I was going to feel a hell of a lot more tired. I took one look at her and thought, She’s got more bad news about Win and the sprog.

  ‘Did you have a nice Christmas?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, mad.’

  She didn’t get the joke. How could she? She wasn’t on for smiling anyway.

  ‘Ours was nice too,’ she said. ‘But sort of sad.’ And Angie was groaning, Here we go again. I tried to head Jill off.

  ‘I’ve something for Richard,’ I said.

  A mistake. The mention of Richard made her tearful. She opened the gift-wrapping on his present. I’d gone out of my way to come up with something different for the baby. A little white T-shirt that I took to the shop where Dad got his ‘Housewife of the Year’ apron printed up. My slogan went, ‘Rock On/Little Richard’. I got them to print on a cartoon guitar between the lines. I don’t know why I went to so much trouble. Jill choked back the sobs.

  ‘It’s … so … lovely,’ she said.

  ‘Little Richard? D’you get it? The singer, like, from the sixties? The black guy?’

  She nodded, covering her face from the other diners. Her tears left me cold. I focused on the menu. The descriptions of each item turned my stomach. Food was the last thing in the world I wanted. She dried her eyes with the linen napkin from the table. A few sniffles and she was ready to roll.

  ‘Win’s got everything fixed up,’ she said. ‘The Lone Parent Allowance, the apartment, the crèche in college, so … so she’ll be taking Richard back to Dublin next month after all.’

  ‘Well, it’s worked out then, hasn’t it?’ I said, but for some stupid reason I felt sad about it too.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jill said. ‘But we got so used to having him around, it’s pure torture letting go.’

  The stifling, spice-filled air was getting to me. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to eat. I knew if I stayed there another minute I was going to throw up. Suddenly, I was standing and the restaurant floor swayed beneath my feet. Her look of concern made me feel even worse.

  ‘You know something?’ I said as evenly as I could. ‘It’ll be such a relief when that child is gone because I’m sick to death of hearing about him and Win.’

  ‘Eala,’ she said. ‘You’re on something, some kind of downers. I can tell by your eyes.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my eyes,’ I snapped but, in fairness, she had a point. I could see two of her.

  ‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ she said, calm as you like. ‘You’re pure out of it.’

  I couldn’t think of a smart answer, so I left her sitting there. Only now do I remember that we never exchanged our presents. The earrings I bought for her are still in my bag.

  ‘Eala?’

  It’s Brian. The noise of the crowd in Brady’s sweeps back into my brain and I don’t catch what he says next, but it’s so urgent that he grabs my hand and yanks me upwards to his side. His friends can’t figure out what’s going on either.

  ‘We have to get out of here fast,’ he says, his head snapping from side to side as he surveys the packed bar.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Trigger Healy’s over at the counter.’

  ‘So? Why should we run from that scumbag?’

  ‘Because I know he’s going to get on to us over Sean.’ He’s getting impatient with me. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘But Sean doesn’t follow that dumb kid any more.’

  ‘That’s not the point, Eala. Trigger doesn’t forget and he doesn’t do forgiveness either.’

  He takes my hand and I follow. Someone taps me on the shoulder and I spin round. Derek. He’s holding his pint at a precarious angle and his heads’s floating about like a balloon on a string. Tanked out of his tree, he is.
r />   ‘I can’t wait to get my head on your lap,’ he smirks. The last scene in West Side Story. The hero’s dead and Maria holds him and sings and cries and whatever.

  ‘Make sure you wash the lice out of your hair first,’ I tell him.

  Brian feels the drag of my delay and looks back. He throws Derek a filthy look, but I move on and we make it through to the door.

  26

  Outside on Friary Street, I’m trotting to keep up with Brian and it feels ridiculous. The cold air meets the alcohol in my brain and I stumble.

  ‘Take it handy, Brian.’

  He eases up as we turn off Friary Street into the town square. I realize we’re heading the wrong way for the party.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m not up for this party, Eala, do you mind?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I tell him, but I don’t want to head home yet either, and that’s the direction we’re taking. Some New Year’s Eve we’re having. I’m half afraid of what I’ll find when we reach our street. Another squad car or Martin’s Mercedes or an ambulance outside Mrs Casey’s. We’re on the Long Mall and right by her sweet shop.

  ‘Can we sit down for a minute?’ I say and don’t wait for an answer.

  I let go of his hand and park myself on the window sill of the shop. Brian sits beside me. He puts his arm over my shoulder. With his shaven head and broken nose and the small scar under his left eye he could almost pass as a bouncer if he changed into a black suit and got himself an earpiece. Except for his eyes. The windows to the soul. But eyes can change too. Dad’s have. More like shutters than windows.

  I can’t put away the memory of how indifferently Dad looked at Mrs Casey as she stood on our doorstep this morning. We could see the outline of her frail and tiny frame inside an almost see-through nightdress. A dash of lipstick, hastily applied, made an anguished mask of her face.

  ‘Don’t you know what it’s like to be alone?’ she said to Mam. ‘To have nothing, nobody, not even a dog to protect you?’

  Mam tried to bring her inside to calm her down, but Mrs Casey refused. I tried to bring Dad away from the door, but he wouldn’t budge either. Sean managed to get him a few feet back along the hallway.

  ‘We didn’t touch your dog, Mrs Casey,’ Sean insisted, but I already knew he was lying and Mam was beginning to cop on too. ‘And, anyway, he’s better off dead than being tied up all day every day in your back garden.’

  ‘The Man did it,’ Dad said, which only added fuel to the flames of Mrs Casey’s distress.

  ‘I know what you’re up to, Mr Summerton,’ the old woman said, pointing a bony, accusing finger. ‘You were forever on to me about moving to a smaller house. Don’t deny it. And now you’re making my life a misery trying to drive me out. You beat my dog and then you poisoned him and you’re always watching me, always …’

  ‘Mrs Casey, please,’ Mam pleaded. ‘This has nothing to do with Jimmy. He was always good to you, you know that. And if he ever suggested you should move, it was out of concern for you is all.’

  ‘I’m taking this further and no Guards will persuade me against it this time,’ Mrs Casey said. ‘I won’t be driven from my home by anyone.’

  ‘No one’s trying to drive you from your home, Mrs Casey,’ Mam said.

  ‘And you’re in on it too,’ the old woman insisted. ‘I know you work up in the health centre and those nurses and that Indian doctor fellow want me to go into a home and you’re helping them get me out. I’ve lived in that house all my life and I’ll die in there just like my Raymond did. If only he was around to deal with you people.’

  Mam laid into Sean after Mrs Casey left. She was terrified that the old woman might get a stroke or something after the upset she’d had. She still is. Sean refused to own up to killing Argos. I knew why she wanted to hear that confession so badly. I weighed in too.

  ‘Don’t you get it, Sean? If it wasn’t you, it was Dad. And it can’t be Dad, right? Dad couldn’t do stuff like that, right?’

  ‘That stupid dog was driving the whole street crazy,’ he said. ‘Any one of the neighbours could’ve done it.’

  All day I’ve been trying to avoid the thought of Mrs Casey ringing the Guards and the ISPCA or whatever and the terrifying consequences. Terrifying if Sean is the guilty one. Terrifying times ten if it’s Dad. We haven’t heard anything yet, but I feel certain that we will. The few drinks I’ve had have lost whatever pleasant effect they had on me. I’m back to being cold sober. Very cold and very sober.

  ‘It must be close to midnight,’ Brian says and I check the time on my mobile. There’s a message from Jill.

  ‘Twenty to.’

  I read the message. NEXT YEAR WILL BE BETTER. JILL.

  ‘Is that Sean?’ Brian asks.

  ‘No. It’s Jill.’

  ‘Does she know about us?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I say.

  ‘If she tries to diss me, Eala, don’t believe a word she says. Or Win either.’

  ‘Why should they diss –’

  He draws me closer and kisses me. His hands begin to move along my back, my stomach. I’m light-headed again, but more pleasantly. Some people pass by. A middle-aged couple, power-walking and tut-tutting. I don’t care. We come up for air.

  ‘I’m pure paranoid tonight, Eala,’ he says. ‘Had a major blow-up with my old man this evening. I’ve been applying for apprenticeships all over the place, but with this recession, I’m having no luck. I mean, how crazy is that? I can go to university and study architecture, but I can’t get a start as a carpenter. Course, my old man says all I’m doing is making excuses for loafing around. So I lay into him over Grandad, which is how these rows always go … I shouldn’t be bothering you with this.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  And Angie’s in like a flash, warning me again. That’s his trick, Eala – cry on your shoulder to soften you up and then …

  ‘When we moved up here, Grandad missed us big time. So he came and stayed with us for a few months. That was when he built the crib in the cathedral. But he didn’t settle here and he went back down. Two months later he died. A heart attack and nobody to call an ambulance for him. If we’d been there, he mightn’t have died. I never forgave my old man for that. He says black, I say white. That’s the story of my life. That’s what has me so messed up.’

  ‘You don’t seem all that messed up to me,’ I say, chasing away the gnawing sensation in my stomach with a joke. ‘Apart from the haircut, that is.’

  ‘I can’t wait for them to head off to Morocco next month. Give my head a break for a few weeks.’

  Brian stands up and takes my hand. We head down towards my street. His arm over my shoulder, the heat of his body warming me, the stubble on his chin brushing against my forehead every now and then, feeling good. In the distance I can see that there’s not one light shining in our house. Not even the one over the front door. Mam’s forgotten to turn it on. Mrs Casey’s house is in darkness too. There’s no ambulance, no squad car and Martin’s Mercedes is nowhere to be seen.

  I have no idea how Martin managed to wangle his way into Dad’s room earlier in the evening, but I do know how he managed to emerge half an hour later with the Wii console in his hands. I wish I didn’t. We sat waiting in the kitchen, all four of us. We could hear the scuff of feet, the groans of exertion, the occasional ominous silence. We couldn’t tell if they were fighting or playing a match. Then it ended and we listened and tried to figure out if it was both or only one of them who climbed the stairs from the basement. And it was only one of them.

  So Martin’s standing there at the kitchen door. The tail of his white shirt is hanging out, the sleeves rolled up. His forehead’s covered in sweat, but he’s dead pale. He’s holding the Wii console a little away from him like it’s a dead rat or something. He comes in and drops it on the kitchen worktop.

  ‘I challenged him,’ Martin explains. He’s leanin
g against the wall like he’s out on his feet. ‘Winner gets to keep the Wii console. I couldn’t think of any other way.’

  He looked at me and I could tell he knew what I was thinking. I was glad he’d got the console from Dad, but I hated him for it.

  ‘He was so devastated, I had to offer him something,’ Martin said then. ‘I promised I’d bring him to play five-a-side with the old gang.’

  Mam was too grateful to object, though she clearly had her doubts.

  ‘I’ll take care of him, don’t worry, Judy.’ He changed the subject before she could change her mind. ‘By the way, who’s Alan? He wants Alan to come along too.’

  Later, as I crossed the landing from Sean’s room, I saw their shadows, Mam and Martin’s, stretching out from the sitting room and along the carpet in the hallway. Actually, it was one shadow. Maybe he was only comforting her.

  From the far side of the river comes the sound of a dull, heavy thud like a rock falling into a quarry and it startles me. I press closer to Brian. A long whistling whine follows and we look up at the sky that runs riot with shapes and colours. We don’t notice the black SUV until it pulls up beside us. The blacked-out side window slides down and Trigger Healy grins so widely, his shaved scalp wrinkles.

  ‘Happy New Year, lads,’ he says and Brian steers me away towards our house. Trigger reverses by the edge of the footpath, keeping up with us. ‘I was going to buy you a pint in Brady’s, Brian, but you scuttled off fair fast.’

  ‘Leave us alone,’ I say. Brian stares straight ahead and I’m disappointed he doesn’t stand up to Trigger. He’s scared stiff. Maybe he owes Trigger money from his dopehead days, I’m thinking.

  ‘Eala,’ he whispers. ‘Don’t.’

  The SUV reverses over the speed bump by our front gate. Inside, Trigger wobbles like a lump of jelly.

  ‘These speed bumps are cruel, Brian, ain’t they?’ Trigger says. ‘Wreck the old suspension, they do. Good thing I have the Hummer and not one of those old Honda Civics. Fierce low on the ground they are, aren’t they?’