Brian comes to a halt. Our drive is a few feet away.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Eala,’ he says and I can’t believe he’s abandoning me like this.
‘What are you driving yourself these times, Brian?’ Trigger asks.
‘I don’t drive,’ Brian says. ‘You know I don’t drive.’
His voice is shaky. His pained expression worries me. Trigger’s leaning across towards us, pointing a stubby finger at Brian.
‘I told you to get that kid off my son’s back.’
‘I did,’ Brian says and he’s almost pushing me on to our drive.
‘Yeah, well, thanks, but it’s too bloody late,’ Trigger says. ‘The kid’s pissing the bed every night and –’
‘What do you care about dopey little Clem?’ I say. ‘You’ve got him carrying your gear around town. That’s what he was doing the evening he hit Dad, wasn’t it?’
Trigger passes a hand along his shaven head and when it comes down, the hand has become a fist. I keep up a staring match with him and he’s the first to slide away. He fixes his gaze on Brian.
‘Ask lover-boy there what it’s like to hit a wall at forty miles an hour.’
He revs up the SUV and takes off, leaving us a cloud of poisonous carbon monoxide to breathe in. The poison hits my brain at the same moment as the realization does.
‘You were driving the car that crashed into the riverbank wall?’ I say. ‘The speed bumps are here because of you?’
‘I wasn’t driving, Eala,’ Brian says. ‘I was in the car, but I wasn’t driving, I swear.’
I’m not sure I can walk, but I try a step anyway and it seems to work so I try another and another. I’m on our pebbled drive. This can’t be happening to me. I get a few days of love and then this kick in the stomach. I’ve been going out with the guy who’s responsible for destroying my dad’s life, destroying all our lives.
‘If those speed bumps weren’t there, Clem Healy wouldn’t have been cycling on the footpath and he wouldn’t have crashed into Dad,’ I say like a kid slowly doing a simple sum. One plus one plus one plus one.
‘I swear, Eala,’ Brian says, but he doesn’t follow me. ‘I was stupid, a stupid kid acting the rebel to get back at my old man. I got in over my head.’ His voice begins to trail away. ‘I wasn’t driving. I was in the back seat and …’
I stop up. I can’t look in his direction.
‘How does Healy know about this?’ I ask.
‘His son was the driver, the older fellow, Sham,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry, Eala.’
‘It’s too late for sorry,’ I tell him and I make my way up the steps to the front door.
The sky is still celebrating. Great dandelion shapes appear and disappear, appear and disappear. I have trouble getting the key in the lock my fingers tremble so much. I ease the door inwards and close it back without looking to see if Brian is still there. The house is quiet, dark. In the kitchen I want to scream at the paper bag Dad’s tablet bottles are in because it makes so much noise as I open it. Mam’s going to cop on to the missing tabs soon, I’m thinking, but it doesn’t stop me swallowing a few. A downer, a sleeper. And because that doesn’t seem like enough to stop the pain, I pop one of the antidepressants too. I make my way to my bedroom and slip under the covers of the bed without undressing.
I know she can’t really be out there, standing at the end of my bed, but she is. Angie. Watching me, murmuring, and her voice becomes two voices and more and then more. Murmuring. I don’t know what it is the voices are saying, but I’m terrified because I’m certain they’re talking about my future, about Dad’s future, about all our futures. And they know what’s going to happen and they know it’s going to be terrible. And there’s nothing that I or anyone else can do to change it. Everything I’ve done has only made things worse. What more can I do?
I pull one of my pillows close, wrap my arms round it. A hundred Angies are laughing, sneering. Is that a baby you’re holding, Eala; is that your baby?
I’m so afraid.
27
The space inside my head is bigger and wider than the school assembly hall here. All the stuff that bothers me floats in the distance, not gone, but far enough away that I’m not panicked or fearful all the time. Everything has slowed down so much that it feels like the world might stop at any moment. I don’t exactly feel better, but I know that without Dad’s tablets, I’d feel an awful lot worse. Sometimes I do weird things like suddenly talking out loud to myself or maybe standing in the same spot for five minutes, not moving a muscle, not even wanting to, until I snap out of it. Fortunately, I’ve always been alone when I’ve thrown one of these wobblers.
I’m not at the assembly hall for rehearsals. I’m here because this is where Dad and his five-a-side pals used to play. And tonight is his big comeback. He’s not over the moon about it. Coming over here in Martin’s car, he hardly spoke a word even to Alan. Sean stayed home. If I hadn’t found a way to get a plentiful supply of Dad’s tabs, I probably wouldn’t be here either. I never imagined I’d make such a clever thief.
Mam had to go to a conference in Kilkenny last Thursday, so I told her I’d bring Dad’s prescription to the shopping centre pharmacy after school. I knew Dad had enough tablets for the rest of the day and for the next morning. So when I got home, I took one of the downers and stashed the new supply of tablets in my wardrobe.
I was already feeling a little spaced out when Mam got in. I told her I’d been in a few shops down at the shopping centre after the pharmacy and must have left the bag in one of them. I said I’d gone back to each one, but couldn’t find the tablets. At first she was thick at me, but I soon won her over. I worked up a few tears. I called myself names. I said I wished he didn’t have to take all that stuff anyway. I didn’t even feel guilty for lying. I still don’t. At least Mam has someone to hold her, someone to hold on to.
‘Don’t blame yourself, Eala,’ she said. ‘We’ll sort it out. Don’t worry.’
Dad and Martin and the others have been playing for five minutes or so. Dad hasn’t been doing very well. His yellow, retro Brazil jersey is already soaked with sweat. When the ball comes near him, he freezes or gets his feet in a tangle and scuffs his shot. It’s like his sneakers are three sizes too big for him.
The other men are as bashful and afraid as Dad is. You can tell they’re trying to keep the temperature of the game in check They don’t want to hurt Dad or make him feel useless. They give him all the time he needs on the ball. Twice, Martin has managed to get him in front of goal with no one to beat and twice he’s missed. Beside me, on the bank of seats at the back of the hall, sits Alan. He’s a straight talker. Too straight.
‘Jimmy’s not very good, is he?’ he says. He’s already told me that Dad’s carrying too much weight and asked if he’s ever actually played football before.
‘He’s doing the best he can,’ I say. ‘He used to be very good.’
‘He should think about retiring.’
‘You don’t have to be pure brilliant at something to enjoy it.’
He thinks about that for a while. Out on the court, the play has slowed down to a crawl. Dad is over at the far side and he’s talking to Martin. I can tell by his body language that he’s had enough. Martin walks away from him and, as he passes by one of the others, he says something I don’t catch. Pat Dillon is chubby and red-faced and about ten years younger than Dad. He looks at Martin, uncertainty written all over his face.
‘But you have to recognize your limitations,’ Alan says, picking up where I thought we’d left off for good. ‘I never try to play Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu or, say, Liszt’s Après une Lecture du Dante. I don’t have that kind of dexterity or focus now. If I try, I get frustrated and then I don’t want to play anything.’
Martin passes the ball and Dad gets in his usual pickle when it reaches him. Pat Dillon runs over and takes the ball from Dad and shoulders him for good measure. Dad
reels like he’s sliding back along a capsizing deck. Martin dives in and hits Pat with a crunching tackle. Suddenly, the real game is on.
They’re hitting each other for sport out there. Except for Dad, of course. He’s standing like a traffic cop in the middle of Mumbai or wherever. Some place anyway where there are no rules of the road or nobody bothers much with them. It’s like Martin and all Dad’s old pals are working out their feelings about what’s happened to Dad the only way they can. Love is weird. Men are weird.
‘A marked heightening in tension,’ Alan says aloud, but to himself like he’s reading a news bulletin or something. ‘The situation may get worse before it gets better.’
It’s like a game he’s playing to distance himself from the physicality that’s breaking out big time on the court.
‘They’ll run out of steam in a few minutes,’ I say.
Dad has broken into a run. Not a very quick run and it looks sort of aimless because he keeps changing direction in his efforts to follow the ball. His damp jersey is melded to his skin. Martin gets the ball to him. Dad waits for the tackle to come in, lowers his shoulder and sends the tackler head over heels with an almighty jostle. He finds Martin with a pass and Martin scores. They give one another a high five.
‘This is becoming unpleasant,’ Alan says. ‘I’ll wait outside.’
‘It’s only a game, Alan,’ I tell him, but he hurries away as quickly as his stick allows and I know I should get out of this place too.
Dad’s flying now, knocking fellows over in his determination to get to the ball first. I look over at Martin. He’s making no effort to calm Dad down. He knows what happened at Christmas. He knows what might happen here.
‘Jimmy, take it handy,’ I shout.
He’s knocked Pat Dillon over at least three times. A builder and strong as an ox, Pat’s getting fair thick. And Dad runs into him again. He pushes Dad in the chest. In my head I’ve jumped to my feet and shouted at them to stop. In reality I’m still sitting here trying to get my motor to start. Not the first time this has happened after I’ve knocked back some of Dad’s tabs.
‘What did you say?’ Dad demands of Pat Dillon and pushes him roughly.
‘Nothing, Jimmy.’
‘I’m losing the run of myself, am I?’
I make it on to the court as Martin tries to intervene. Too late. Dad steps up to Pat Dillon and plants him in the chest with a headbutt. I’m rooted to the spot and thinking, That’s the famous Zidane headbutt from the 2006 World Cup Final, as Dillon goes down and stays down. Dad follows through with his foot and catches him in the stomach. His next kick misses the builder’s head by inches. There’s one last brutal kick to the shoulder before Martin finally pushes Dad away.
‘He started it,’ Dad says. ‘I didn’t mean to …’
Martin leads him off, talking quietly to him, calming him down. Pat Dillon gathers himself and climbs to his feet with a little help from the other players. He holds his shoulder and grimaces.
‘I’m sorry, Pat,’ I say.
‘It’s not your fault, girl,’ he says.
‘You won’t report him, will you? To the Guards like? Please don’t.’
Strong as he is, the pain’s so intense he can’t answer me. He heads towards the dressing room, helped along by the others.
‘The collar bone,’ someone says. ‘I think it’s gone.’
I catch a glimpse of Dad slouching in by the dressingroom door, dragging his foot every few steps. All at once, I remember why that walk seemed familiar from the first off. The Zidane DVD.
It’s a documentary film called Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait where seventeen cameras follow his every move throughout the course of a game in 2005. He’s playing for Real Madrid against Villareal. At the Bernabéu. The cameras often focus on his feet and catch that odd dragging of the toe of his boot along the grass every few steps. I stand in the middle of the court, trying to make sense of all this. I can’t breathe in this place for all its high spaces. I head to the main door and get outside. Alan’s leaning on his stick over by Martin’s car, his back to the school buildings, talking quietly to himself.
The night air is cold. Frost sparkles on the wide grass margins under the avenue lights. Above me, the bare branches of trees finger the sky. We’re deep in winter, but a few leaves still rustle up there. I wonder if every leaf has to fall before a tree can begin to bud again. Martin emerges from the assembly hall. He’s talking to someone on his mobile. Mam?
Dad is next to step out into the night. His tall man’s stoop is more exaggerated than usual. Some of the others follow, downcast as students who’ve got their exam results and have all failed. When Pat Dillon appears, his arm strung up in a temporary sling made from a towel, I head over to the car.
‘Who were you talking to?’ I ask as Martin approaches and beeps open the Mercedes. Dad’s standing there, his head lowered, avoiding our eyes.
‘A client,’ he says warily. I don’t believe him.
‘Is Pat going to make a complaint to the Guards?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Martin says. ‘But you can never be sure. He’s going to lose a month’s work at least so he’ll be out of pocket big time.’
‘Which is your stupid fault,’ I tell him.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I thought it’d be good for him to work off all that frustration he must feel, all that pent-up energy that’s building up in him.’
He gets in the car. Dad and Alan pile into the back seat and I sit beside Martin. He steers us out by the school avenue. We’re on the road out to Alan’s house in Borris before anyone speaks.
‘Can we have some music?’ Alan asks, as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened.
Martin turns on the radio. A Country and Western song. The usual love-gone-wrong crap.
‘I’d prefer some real music, if you don’t mind,’ Alan says.
Martin switches channels, gets two no’s from Alan and then a yes. An orchestral piece and even more mournful than the C and W.
‘Mahler’s Ninth Symphony,’ Alan informs us. ‘Fourth movement – the Adagio.’
‘And there was me thinking it was the Eighth,’ Martin says, smiling at me, which makes my blood run cold.
I don’t see the man who used to spoil me rotten in him any more. I see a young man watching jealously as Dad came on the scene to swipe Mam from under his nose. I see a middle-aged, divorced man who reckons Dad’s accident has given him a second chance. I’m thinking that he brought Dad to the five-a-side and encouraged Pat Dillon to get him all riled up so he’d flip again. The more often Dad flips, the more likely it is that Mam will give up on him. Great trick, Angie says.
‘No, the Ninth,’ Alan says. ‘The Eighth is essentially a choral work. Personally, I prefer Brahms’s German Requiem on the choral side although the finale of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony is stupendous …’
Alan rambles on until we mount the steep drive into his parents’ house. It’s a renovated two-storey farmhouse painted white and it glows in the spotlights scattered about the front lawn. His mother waves at us from the front window when we pull up. I don’t wave back. The view of her there, small in the window frame, the room softly lit behind her, is like a painting. I bet she doesn’t need tablets to find the serenity I see in her expression. Not now that she’s about to dump Alan in the residential house in Limerick.
‘Well,’ Alan says as he unbuckles his safety belt. ‘That was an interesting evening, but I won’t be coming next time, thank you.’
‘Neither will I,’ Dad says.
‘See you, Alan,’ Martin says, like he wants him out of the car rapid.
The light comes on over the front door. Alan’s father is there, pure beaming like his son is six years old and coming back from someone’s birthday party. The trembling has started up inside me again. I need one of Dad’s tablets. More than one. Martin rolls down his window as Peter Foran approache
s. He’s wearing a multicoloured woollen sweater that I imagine his wife patiently knitting, a work of meditation.
‘Hello, Martin,’ he says and leans in towards the open window. ‘Eala, how are you?’
‘I’m grand.’
He’s peering in at me too keenly like he knows I’m far from grand. Or maybe he simply can’t see me clearly in the half-light. I remember the French phrase Dad gave me to describe a distinguished and wise older man. An éminence grise. And I’m thinking Dad can never be an éminence grise now. Peter turns his attention to Martin.
‘We can never thank you enough,’ he says. ‘It might’ve taken years of fundraising to get what you’ve given us.’
Martin gives a quick sidelong glance at me, guilt written all over it.
‘It’s the least I could do,’ he shrugs and he’s clearly relieved to hear the back door open and Alan getting out.
‘How did the game go, Jimmy?’ Peter asks, leaning closer in by the side window.
‘It was rubbish.’
‘Not as bad as all that, I’m sure.’
‘Worse,’ Dad insists and Peter laughs, thinking it’s meant as a joke.
‘We should go,’ Martin tells Peter. ‘We’re running late already.’
‘Of course. Thanks again, Martin. See you at the next meeting.’
We head back into town. I’m wondering if Martin’s given a whack of money to the Head-Up Centre. Make some impression on Mam that would, wouldn’t it, Martin? The road glitters with ice. Each time a car or lorry approaches, I’m certain it’s going to crash into us. My heart’s skipping beats. Relax, Angie tells me, you’ll soon be downing some of Jimmy’s tabs. I see the headbutt again and the sickening kicks and I’m thinking, The Man isn’t Dad himself or some imaginary stalker. The Man is Zidane. I’m sure of this, though I don’t know what it means.
‘Alan doesn’t pull his punches, does he?’ Martin says.
‘At least with him, you know where you stand,’ I answer.
‘Eala?’ He’s acting all, like, shock horror, but I turn to the side window.
My Dad Is Ten Years Old Page 17
