Father's Music

by Dermot Bolger

  ‘You have a life of your own.’

  ‘With a name like Duggan people don’t always let you live it.’ He tried to blow a smoke ring, but failed miserably and smiled at his own ineptitude. ‘I’d never seen a corpse before.’

  ‘Is it safe for you drive me back to my hotel?’

  ‘You can stay over,’ he said. ‘I mean in a spare bed.’

  ‘I know,’ I told him. ‘All the same I’d like to go.’

  Al rose and hesitated. ‘You said some pretty weird things.’ He waited to see if I wanted the conversation to continue.

  ‘I was stoned,’ I said. ‘I still am, more or less.’

  ‘Yeah. I thought that myself. They made no sense.’ He nodded towards the rest of my clothes neatly folded and grinned. ‘I’m afraid in terms of dry underwear, you’ll have to wait till you get back to your hotel. It’s a disgrace in this day and age with five lads sharing the house, but not one of us is a cross-dresser.’

  ‘Hey, Al.’ He stopped at the door and turned. I wrapped the towel tighter around me for warmth. ‘Al the pal. My minder. Thanks.’

  TWELVE

  AL WAITED OUTSIDE till the night porter found my key. Only when I noticed the man watching me stagger upstairs did I realise how stoned I still was. I tried to walk straight until I was out of sight. My room was in shadow, lit by a shaving light above the mirror which I must have left on that morning. I stumbled forward and allowed myself to fall across the bed. I could have slept like that, face down and fully dressed except for the wet underwear I had discarded. But, after a few moments – although it could have been longer if I blacked out – I forced myself to rise and sit on the stool before the mirror.

  The travel clock told me it was just after four o’clock in the morning. But really it felt as though days had passed since I had left the hotel. I raised my eyes and startled myself. It was like a moment from a dream, seeing somebody else’s reflection staring back. I’d forgotten I had been turned blonde. I examined this alien face in the mirror with the whole world asleep. I felt nothing or, at least, I felt the way I sometimes felt in Tower Records, imagining Bessie Smith sing with the dawn.

  It was the shoes I noticed first, gleaming dully in the shadows. Then the trouser legs neatly creased. I wasn’t scared, merely annoyed at myself for being momentarily surprised. I knew immediately it was Luke. Ever since I had entered the room he’d been watching, a motionless voyeur. Something about my face must have alerted him because he rose from the chair and approached to stare at me staring back at him in the mirror.

  ‘Your hair looks nice,’ he said.

  ‘Fuck you.’ I was suddenly bitter. ‘How did you get in here?’

  ‘Tracey …’ He fingered the bleached hair.

  ‘Don’t touch it!’ I picked up a brush and combed where his fingers had touched.’ ‘You were enjoying it more watching.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Tracey.’ He sat on the bed so that half his face lay in shadow. ‘Some of my family have seen you before. If you were going to Christy’s removal you had to be made to look different.’

  ‘Who said I had agreed to go to any removal?’ I asked. ‘You never discussed anything with me. How many lies had I to tell today? Be honest, you just wanted to parade your English mistress in front of your Dublin pals in the know.’

  ‘It was never like that.’ He sounded genuinely hurt.

  ‘You never looked at me all evening.’ I sounded like a jealous adolescent, but I didn’t want Luke intruding on my space here. I wanted to sleep. I closed my eyes, hoping he might be an apparition, one final chemical from the E. But his voice was real, dragging me awake.

  ‘I knew you were there all evening,’ he said. ‘Within reach and yet out of reach, taking a risk for me. You don’t know the strength you gave me by being there.’

  ‘That’s just talk.’ I forced my eyes open and turned from his reflection to face him. ‘I saw you in action, cool as ice. You didn’t need me. I doubt if you’ve needed anyone in your life.’

  ‘Is that how little you know me?’

  ‘Don’t twist everything into an accusation.’ I was determined not to look away from his staring eyes. ‘You wound me round your finger today, you even changed the colour of my hair. Do you know how violated I felt? That’s something little wifey always refused to do. So tell me, what else does she refuse to do, or can I guess.’

  ‘It’s you who twists everything, always bringing it back to sex.’ Luke hadn’t raised his voice, but he sounded aggrieved. ‘I could get sex off anyone.’

  ‘Then why don’t you?’

  ‘Because I care for you,’ he replied. ‘I care that you stagger in here at four in the morning, pissed or worse. Is this what your life consists of? You almost spent the night conked out, fully dressed on top of that bed.’

  ‘You’re not my Daddy,’ I snapped back, ‘no matter what pack of lies you spin next.’

  ‘I know what I’d do if I were.’

  ‘Just try it!’ I was furious now. With Al I had wanted to be hugged, now I wanted to be left alone. Since I was eleven that’s what I’d had wanted, for people to stop asking me to be someone I couldn’t be any more. I picked up the hair-brush and flung it at him. I thought Luke would duck, but it stuck him above the eye. I was frightened he’d retaliate. It was out of self-defence that I went for him, propelled by an old rage which had nothing to do with him. Luke grabbed my hands tight. I had always hated anyone restraining my hands. I heard the stool being knocked over as we tussled, and then the back of my head hit the bedspread with Luke’s face pressed against mine.

  ‘What’s got into you? For the love of God, calm down, child.’

  I felt his grip loosen. He stared at me, then looked away. I don’t know which of us was more shocked by the word ‘child’. But it was true, he was twice my age. When my mother first visited Ireland he had already been a lad about town.

  ‘Who are you to lecture me?’ I asked, but my anger sounded bogus. I felt jaded and soiled as always after those fits of rage.

  ‘I’m not a bad man,’ Luke replied.

  ‘Then what are you doing here?’

  ‘I never said I was a good one either.’ He let go my hands and lay cautiously beside me. ‘People who think they’re one thing or the other are liars. Nobody does anything for one reason only.’

  ‘You’re saying I’m more than just a cheap lay, eh?’

  ‘I’m not here for sex, Tracey,’ he said. ‘I’m not just here for your sake, although I worry about you. I’m here for myself as well. If it’s selfish, what’s so terribly wrong with that? I’ve done enough for everyone else. There’s nobody in that family who don’t want a piece of me. Solve this, pay for that. It’s been the same all my life. I’m forty-three and I’ve still got my whole family living in my ear, making candles from the wax.’

  He sat up to remove his suit jacket and fold it carefully on the chair. He held his head in his hands as if sick of it all. In the hotel in London I had felt we were inside a bubble that had escaped from the world, but here the world seemed to be crowding in to suffocate us.

  ‘We bury Christy after ten o’clock mass,’ he said, lifting his head. ‘You’d best stay away from the funeral. I’ve been waiting here since half past one. I couldn’t leave without at least seeing you. You’re all that’s kept me going today. I just wanted a moment by myself with you.’

  ‘What does your wife want?’ It was a low jibe, but his words, and the responses they demanded, made me uncomfortable.

  ‘Not a proper husband any more,’ Luke replied. ‘She wants some cosy familiar thing to cuddle up to, watching television. She’s happy. It’s a gift I never had. She has everything she ever wanted. The trouble is that it’s not enough for me. I can’t accept this is all life has to offer. I need something else.’

  ‘The thrill of a bit on the side.’ I drew myself up on to the pillows so the length of the bedspread lay between us.

  ‘Don’t mock me or cheapen yourself. Stop running away.
You know you mean far more than that.’

  ‘I know nothing,’ I said, suddenly honest. ‘Not even why I’m here.’

  ‘You’re here because you need me too.’ Luke reached for my boot. I pulled away at first, then allowed him to place it on his lap. He undid the lace and eased it off. ‘You wouldn’t have come if you didn’t love me. You’d never have allowed your hair to be dyed or risked sitting beside my wife. I love that need in you, because I have it too. I complain that everybody expects me to be Mr Fix-it, but I bring it on my own shoulders. I haven’t the confidence to imagine anyone wanting me just for what I am myself.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I said, feeling him rub my boot gently across my bare sole. ‘You’ve confidence to burn.’

  ‘That’s an act learnt by rote. It was never easy being Christy’s kid brother. I had to be different, because I was never going to match him for strength. Shane understood that as a baby. He became the clown, the street fool nobody would think of laying a finger on. I became the smart one. It was easy once you gained the reputation. It only took bluff. You let people think that you’d everything sussed and they gave you their scams and their money, desperate for your seal of approval.’

  He held my boot as if weighing it, then let it fall.

  ‘All day I’ve been living out that old lie,’ he said. ‘But I don’t feel clever or tough. I’m like a shell hollow with grief.’

  Luke took away his hand that was cradling my foot, but left my bare sole nestling on his crotch. It was my move. I closed my eyes. So often the memories of that laneway suffocated every feeling within me at times like this. Now, almost involuntarily, I fought against it, brushing my toes tentatively against Luke’s arm.

  ‘You did well,’ I told him. ‘The way you handled everything. I was proud of you.’

  ‘I’ve years of practice clearing up after Christy,’ he replied.

  ‘Was Christy really broke when he died?’

  ‘Thugs always make up stories, trying to sniff out if there’s money lying about they can pretend they’re owed. If there is, Christy took its whereabouts with him.’ Luke lifted my other boot and undid the lace. ‘There isn’t even an insurance policy.’

  ‘How could he get such a big house, if not for cash?’ I asked. ‘What bank would give him a loan?’

  ‘The house is in my name.’ Luke gripped my foot as though I was going to pull away. ‘The bank thinks it’s my second home. I was the only one with audited accounts to show them. Margaret had her heart set on the place, it was the only way to get Christy’s family in there.’

  ‘So you were his landlord. You’re actually putting them out.’

  ‘You don’t want to understand.’ Luke relaxed his grip on my foot, defying me to take it away. ‘I simply set up the deal so he could pay the mortgage through my account like a rent. But the house was his in everything but name. I never made a penny from it. Now I haven’t the money to keep his family living there any more than Margaret has. But the place has doubled in value. The profit will go to her and the kids to buy a smaller house.’

  ‘What else do you own?’

  ‘Only banks own things.’ He eased my shoe off and ran a finger along my calf. ‘People like to kid themselves into thinking they do.’

  ‘What do you own on paper then?’ I wanted this reckoning to strip away the layers of lies and see who I was really dealing with.

  ‘My house in London,’ Luke replied, ‘and the two shops there. In Dublin there’s Christy’s home, a half share of Shane’s video store and the lease on some scuttery flower shop I set up for two of my mother’s sisters. That’s how families are, the webs get tangled. You’re lucky, you never need to talk about yours.’

  His voice and hand were still, introducing a pause where I might talk. But, although physically there was nothing we hadn’t done, or tried to do, in that Edgware hotel room, my past felt too raw to reveal. I needed Luke to keep believing I had come to Dublin for his sake only.

  ‘You’re rich,’ I said, turning the conversation back to him.

  ‘What does rich mean?’ Luke asked. ‘Years ago I gave my Da money to buy our family home off the Corporation. It’s where we all started and it’s still the only building some bank can’t foreclose on if I ever stop living off my wits. Everything else is just a house of cards.’

  The phrase made me think of big bad wolves. His finger traced a pattern, over and over like a hypnotist, on the sole of my foot. I wanted to lie back and sleep, yet something made me fight against this spell.

  ‘It doesn’t add up,’ I said. ‘The papers say that Christy pulled off the biggest robberies in the state.’

  ‘Newspapers never give the full picture,’ Luke explained. ‘Their owners wouldn’t be comfortable with that. The biggest robberies in Ireland are done by beef barons and accountants burying millions in black holes. They’re sentenced to dine for Ireland and serve life sentences in the social columns.’ Luke lifted his finger from my sole wearily, sensing I was keeping him at bay. ‘Christy’s heyday was a decade ago, but let’s say someone robs half a million. He can’t do it alone. There’s a dozen greedy bastards to be paid for their time and silence. Accountants can make money reappear at full value. But, for your small fry, half a million isn’t worth a wank till it’s laundered. He might get lucky but there could be a glut of cash on the market. Either way, he’s at the mercy of some fence and if he’s not smart – and, God knows, Christy was dumber than most – not only will the fence clean his money but he’ll clean him out as well.’

  ‘Who was Christy’s fence?’

  ‘That may be the three quarters of a million pound question.’ Luke shrugged. He was tired of talking, his mind already turning to his duties at the funeral in a few hours time. ‘There are things any kid finds tough: the fact your parents fuck or your kid brother is smarter than you. It rankled with Christy, he hated coming to me for anything. I never wanted to know his business but he wouldn’t tell me anyway. He loved the notion of having the perfect fence nobody else could get to. Whoever he was, he played along, nursing Christy’s ego as he fleeced the poor fucker. If Christy was crazy enough to rob that security van, you can be sure some fence who never took a risk in his life is sitting on the money now.’

  Luke’s fingers were poised inches away from my sole. The withdrawal of physical contact was even more hypnotic. It felt like a foretaste of separation. Decide, his fingers seemed to say, you either want me as I am or you don’t. Suddenly I ached to feel his fingers caress me. The only memories of Dublin I wanted were of Luke. I couldn’t bear to think of the loneliness without him.

  ‘Walk away while you still can, Luke.’ I was surprised at how scared I sounded. ‘You’ve done enough for your family.’

  He gripped my foot again, lightly fondling my calf as far as he could reach under the leg of my ski-pants. I wanted to forget everything execpt the feel of his hand. I wanted us to be back in that London hotel.

  ‘All I want is Christy buried and his house sold,’ he assured me, ‘I’m out of the equation then.’

  ‘No revenge.’

  ‘I walked away from that years ago,’ he said. ‘When you get older you find that the one thing which never changes is the future. It’s boringly predictable. Christy was always going to get killed, just like Margaret will drink the money from the house until she chokes on her own vomit. Christine will go after revenge, taking on whatever cheap crook is rumoured to have plugged her father. I can almost book my next ticket home. She’ll be laid out in a coffin in the same funeral home.’

  My throat ached and my voice started to slur again. I closed my eyes. The after-image of the room spun like a spider’s web. Luke’s voice droned on.

  ‘People say it’s in the blood, but that’s horse-shit. It’s how you cope with the lure of a name. My Da’s two brothers started it. Ghost cattle-men in the forties, terrorising the docks in the Animal Gang. Their reputation followed us when we moved out from the tenements. It never mattered that my Da had nothing
to do with them and worked all his life. We were still Duggans. Break that name up and in some language the letters spell trouble.’

  ‘What about Al?’ I forced my eyes open.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Luke moved up beside me, his hand running down my back to fondle my bottom through the ski-pants. ‘He was closer to Christy than I’d have liked. Al’s a problem. He’s not tough, he doesn’t look clever and yet he’s nobody’s clown.’

  ‘Maybe he’s just himself.’

  ‘Then he should get out, because people in Dublin will never let him be.’

  I didn’t want to worry about Al or anyone any more. I rolled onto my back and Luke’s hands found my breasts through the sweat-shirt and paused. I remembered the wet bra I had discarded. His fingers went to slide under my waist band and I stilled his hand. I opened my eyes to find Luke watching me.

  ‘You liked Al, didn’t you?’ I searched his face for jealousy but it didn’t show. ‘It’s okay. Don’t try and hide it. One day you’ll outgrow me, I know that, even if you don’t. Just promise me this, you’ll invite me to your wedding.’

  His face was so serious I had to laugh.

  ‘Did I ever tell you that sometimes you’re full of shit?’ I said.

  ‘I’m serious,’ he said. ‘Now let’s go to bed. I have to be gone before seven.’

  ‘I’m very tired.’

  ‘I never said I was looking for anything,’ he replied. ‘You sleep if you can. I just want to lie with my arms around you.’

  ‘It won’t stop at that.’

  ‘If you want it to, it will.’

  I started getting undressed, then stopped. I didn’t want him to see I had no knickers on either. I turned my back and slipped my top off and then my ski-pants, sitting on the edge of the bed with the blankets bunched up behind me. I was in the bed before I turned. Luke was still half dressed and watching me.

  ‘Al’s a quick worker,’ he said.

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Luke. Nothing happened.’

  Luke didn’t reply. He turned off the shaving mirror light and I heard him kick his shoes off, then his trousers being folded across a chair. I could sense the warmth of his body before his hand reached across to take my breast. I wrapped my legs around him. I knew his need was as genuine as mine. Behind our differences we were two of a kind. Black sheep who’d never mastered the whys and wherefores of ordinary life. If I had taken risks for him, then he had also taken risks for my sake. This was the moment I had been hoping for all day.