‘You go away,’ he said, looking around, ‘and somehow you imagine life stops in your absence. You know it’s stupid to think that, but deep down you do. Let’s get the hell away from here.’
But all day desolation seemed to follow us. Almost every old haunt of Shay’s had changed, often just slightly, but enough to make him feel not quite at home. That night as we drank our way through the city streets, now deserted and sullen under the torrent of rain, there was something manic about Shay. Wherever we stopped he picked up old friends until there were ten or twelve of us on the pub crawl, drunkenly crowding in from the wet streets. The crowd was as large as the night he went away, only now Shay got annoyed when people left. The night had to go on at all costs. At closing time he ordered a taxi and brought four of us up to Mick’s flat. We knocked for ten minutes before Mick came down.
‘Party time,’ Shay shouted, thrusting the bottle of whiskey into his hand. The girls in the flat above banged on the ceiling when Shay turned the record player up full blast. He wandered upstairs to try and lure them down. A stream of abuse came through their door and when I went up a few minutes later I found that he had somehow hauled an old wardrobe across the landing to block their door in the morning.
The storm grew again throughout the night. The Royal Canal flooded in the midlands and a wall collapsed in Cork, killing a man sheltering under it. I thought of the youth huddled in his blanket near Christchurch, of all those night-time figures I had seen while driving the Plunkett brothers.
We left Mick’s at five in the morning. Cables and phone wires had snapped and hung down at street corners. It was nearly impossible to walk straight in the wind, yet Shay strode ahead of me drenched in jeans with his light jacket open. We reached Rathmines Road as the lights turned green and a taxi began to move off. Shay darted forward with his hand out and then did something that I had never seen before. He hesitated and instinctively reached into his back pocket to check he had money before waving his hand again. He was too late, the cab was gone. We headed towards town, looking for another one. He zipped his jacket up and walked beside me in silence, suddenly preoccupied, wet and unhappy.
Plunkett spent the next afternoon sniping at me. Normally if he was going to remain in the garage he would tell me to wander off and I’d sit over a newspaper in the coffee shop down the village. But when I arrived at lunch-time he shouted from his office for me to wait beside the car. I sat outside waiting for two hours, watching the mechanics find excuses to wander out and enjoy my discomfort. I thought he was just angry but later, from our brief snatches of conversation as I drove between sites, I realized that he was jealous. He tried to maintain the stony silence but finally his curiosity overcame him.
‘When did you leave home?’ he asked.
‘A few days ago.’
He was silent again for a while.
‘Who’s this flatmate?’
‘Just a friend.’
‘What sort of friend?’
For the first time I knew that I had him. I shrugged my shoulders quizzically, smiled and didn’t reply. He glowered out of the window until I thought he was about to put his fist through the glass. I drove on, suddenly feeling strong, enjoying his discomfort. That night in Mother Plunkett’s Cabin he made his offer. The house was too big for him alone. Why not move in with him instead? I could have my own rooms, bring my own friends in if I wished. It would be straight friendship; he would not come near me. I asked him what people would make of it.
‘You can…tell them…something…tell them you’re my shagging butler.’
When I started laughing he got furious. I could tell them whatever I wanted, he roared. He would take my mother’s account off his ledger. I could name my salary, I wouldn’t even have to work for him. I could go to university, study anything I wanted, he’d pay my fees. As long as I just gave up that flat and came to live with him.
For four months he had bullied his way into my life with that utter self-assurance. And I had cowered, terrified of his every word. He had been invincible, a man with no weaknesses, no feelings, knowing nothing of pity or mercy. Now, seated across from me at that table, while the strains of Country and Western music filtered in from the lounge, he suddenly looked like the tired sixty-year-old man he was. For the first time I realized how little happiness I had witnessed in his life. I had seen his success every day: the strokes pulled, the by-laws bent, the money which kept accumulating in his Isle of Man bank account. But it had ceased to mean anything to him; most of the time he was like a ship on auto-pilot. To hundreds like my mother, he was a deity who controlled their lives, but to those that mattered he was, at best, his brother’s brother. Even Patrick often looked embarrassed when he turned up at official receptions. The State driver once told me that when they called in on their way to certain functions he was instructed to knock on the door and inform the minister instead that he would be late for some routine departmental meeting in case Pascal decided to go in as well.
And I realized how much Pascal craved respect, not among the cowering housewives or the traders he did business with, but in places he would always be excluded from. His own money and his brother’s position might allow him to glimpse inside, but he would always remain the awkward figure in the monkey suit, ignored by the crowd discussing the symphony in the concert hall bar. He was still talking, low and earnestly, still making promises. There was nothing I could not be. I could do medicine, law: he would pay for any course I wanted. If I hadn’t the points he’d bribe my way in. Partly it was the whiskey talking, but I think he suddenly wanted his youth back, wanted the chance to live his life again through my life; to bury the poverty of his youth, the suitcase and the train ticket in that station in Kerry. His eyes were more manic than the night he had chased through the hallway, but they had bulged with strength then. Now they were jaded and pathetic.
‘Been working all my life,’ he said. ‘But for what? For who? I held you on my knee Francy when you were just a child. Your father had come down to me. I took him on. I was jealous, wanted a son, but without some bitch round my neck, getting in my way. I’ve been trying to show you…my world…all you can have.’
He lowered his head, then lifted his eyes again. I could barely make out his voice above the noise his staff made, anxious at his presence, trying to show their worth.
‘I know it,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m frightened by it…I’ll die alone…for what? A jumped-up nephew who won’t even cry…people who’ll lose their fear…forget. I want to be remembered, Francy, just come and live with me. This time we’ll have the suits, the respect. No more scraping around like I did, or your father. Don’t leave me, do you hear, waking at night by myself.’
I don’t know how much of my courage was due to Shay’s return, but that moment was like a cloud lifting from a mountainside, giving me my perspective back. I wasn’t lost any longer. I rose from the table. He pushed his chair back, as though afraid I was going to strike him. Behind us the barmen were clearing out the last drinkers. Two lounge boys stood near the door clapping irregularly to annoy people, while a tape recording of the fire drill repeated loudly. He shouted words I was unable to hear in the noise. I knew if I didn’t do it while I felt this strong I might never have the courage again. He shouted again.
‘Anything you want, just don’t go. Damn you, don’t leave me! I’ve built all this, for what…I own…you can’t just leave…I’ll die…what’ll I do when I die?’
I reached in my pocket for the car keys and, throwing them on the table among the empty glasses, turned and walked towards the door. I kept waiting for him to come after me, I could almost feel his hand gripping my shoulder to swing me around. But when I reached the door I could see his reflection through the glass panel, still slumped at the table with the half-empty bottle. For the first time in my life I felt sorry for him as I pushed the door open and walked out into the night air.
It smelt so pure, so fresh. I remembered again my father in that hospital bed, how I had longed to carry
him out beneath the stars. I had felt a numbness since his death. Each day walking into that garage I had been shamed by his memory. But that night, as I walked through the sleeping fields towards the outskirts of town, I seemed to sense him, not quite beside me, but somehow near at hand, at ease at last. I had no idea how I would feed my family or keep the flat on, but for now nothing mattered. I was discovering what it was like to feel clean again. Shay was sitting up in the kitchen when I got home. He was still hung-over, slightly ashamed at his madness the previous night. He had rigged up a soft light in the corner that took away the harsh look of the walls. A record was playing. He had a joint rolled which he offered to me. I sat across from him and grinned. He looked closely at me.
‘Hey, you don’t look shit any more, Hano,’ he said.
‘I quit working for Plunkett.’
He went to the kitchen press and produced the bottle of champagne. The only glasses we had were two pint ones we had stolen in town one night. He fetched them, worked the cork off the bottle slowly with a cloth so that it made little noise when it popped. The liquid fizzed along the edge of the glasses.
‘It doesn’t matter how broke you are,’ he said. ‘That family are dirt. When you touch them you become dirt too, dirty inside and that’s not easy to wash off.’
I didn’t want to ask him any questions. I picked up the glass Shay handed me. He had not drawn the curtains. The night outside was a rich, deep blue. I could make out the shape of the old Protestant church and, stretching beyond it, the pinpricks of light burning in a thousand homes. The suburb seemed to enclose me, with its continuous cycle of life. We touched pint glasses, swallowed deeply.
‘Welcome home, Shay,’ I said.
He put his head to one side, grinned quizzically at my nervous euphoria, then lifted his glass to touch mine lightly again.
‘Welcome home yourself, kid,’ he replied.
Your tale doesn’t end and mine begin. Your life flashes past intermixed with mine. A profusion of images I can make no sense of I smell of clay, I dream of earth, I have no name for this place. The last faces I remember are a young couple in the ruins. I open the window to throw cigarettes down and turn, knowing I have finally come home. I never slept so deeply before, only it wasn’t like sleep but like falling forever down a tunnel of light, hazy as an after image when you close your eyes.
Then my body crumples awake into an unbearable silence. It is all embracing, filling my ears as I try to sense what is wrong. Is it the silence that wakes me or is it a final shout? I call Hano’s name as I wake, no longer even able to hear my own breathing. The room is as it should be, sunlight penetrating the curtains. I cross the floor naked to pull the cord open, gaze at the Triumph Herald back in its old spot. I know no reason to be afraid but my hands tremble as the silence sweeps me again. Everything outside is immobile, slotted neatly in its place – the twin barber poles jutting up from the power station, the unplanned jumble of estates. All that’s missing is movement and noise. I walk to Hano’s room, try to be casual as I push the door in. The blankets are thrown off hurriedly but the sheets that I touch feel as cold as death. The flat door is still locked so this has to be a joke. I search every corner for a sign or a note. The television carries a blanket of static, the empty airwaves hiss on the radio bands. I try to phone every number I know, but not even the speaking clock answers.
I know that I must be dreaming but still my eyes are mesmerized by the locked door. Will it open or am I trapped inside? ‘Go to the door,’ I tell myself, ‘just open it and you will laugh at this irrational fear. Something has happened that you have slept through. There are friends outside who will tell you.’
My keys clank loudly as I draw them out. Six steps to the door, through the hiss of static from the television, the unanswered beep of the telephone. I wipe sweat from my palms against my shirt, draw in my breath and twist the key round. With a faint click the handle turns under my hand. I press the timer switch and make my way down.
Everything outside is in its place, that crooked street looking the way I love it after dawn. Becalmed trees search for a breeze in the graveyard. The metal bridge betrays no iron creak; no birds sing on the telegraph poles. Traffic-lights shift colour like a medium trying to summon cars. Nothing seems more desolate than their futile cycle. It must still be dawn I tell myself. Hano has vanished for a joke, the station’s gone off the air. Somebody soon is bound to appear: an office cleaner as grey as stone; the obligatory old man on a bone-shaker bike. Then I turn to look back up and see Hano at the window. His hands are spread against the glass, his shoulders white, his hair still tossed from sleep. And he is looking over my shoulder towards the middle of the street. I gaze up at him in purgatory and know that he is staring through me.
On the next Monday I joined Shay in the queue under the ornate ceiling of the Victorian labour exchange. I still couldn’t think how to tell my mother what had happened. On Tuesday I went home with whatever money I had, dreading the scene I would have to face. She was in the living-room with bills spread in front of her on the table. I closed my eyes and when I opened them she was looking up with the trace of a bemused smile on her lips. I had forgotten what her smile looked like. It made her look younger and suddenly I saw why my father had chosen her thirty years before. She beckoned me over, searching to find the words in her excitement.
‘I’d overpaid him. That’s what they said. Can you believe it? I don’t know Francy, I think your daddy up in heaven must be looking after us. I prayed to him to explain these bills to me and now I can pay them all.’
She had the look of a kitchen girl who had woken to find herself a pantomime princess. I made her go over it all: how she had gone to the garage with the usual weekly payment and had been made to wait on the stairs for a quarter of an hour before Plunkett sent word down that her account was paid in full and she was due a refund of one hundred and fifty pounds. She took the money from her handbag and counted it out again like a child with sweets, and even when I told her I had stopped working I don’t think she really took it in. I tried to give her my money but she refused it.
‘You’ve been the best son I could ever ask for, Francy. You keep it for now. Enjoy yourself.’
After the wildness of that first night I had begun to see how Shay had changed after his seven months in Europe. He had grown serious, more inward. Before he would have been out almost every night, but now he was more at ease in the flat with the door locked on the outside world. Some days he was still the same Shay, trailing the flex of the electric kettle out the window at the convent girls and cooking excessively hot chilli. One night he phoned up a man across the street and impersonated his outraged neighbour complaining about his wife’s infidelities while he was at work. When the man slammed the phone down Shay immediately phoned the other neighbour and reversed the process. We took our seats behind the lace curtain to watch the two figures storming out into the street to roar abuse at each other. Their wives came out and dragged them in. When I got up Shay was sitting smoking and staring down at the empty road. He leaned his chair back after a while and asked me to describe Pascal Plunkett. I called out details from the kitchen.
‘I think he wants you back,’ Shay said. ‘He’s been sitting across the road in a car staring up here for the past ten minutes.’
As soon as I pulled the curtains aside the engine started and I could see only the tail-light moving down to the carriageway. Shay stubbed his cigarette out and went into his room without asking any questions.
There were parts of each other’s recent past which we instinctively knew not to ask about. In the first few days I had plied him with questions about Europe and when no answers came I realized he had to tell or not tell me in his own way. The memories he chose were selective: a junkie who tried to knife him off Dam Square; two teenage German girls who wanted to lure him off to bed when he had arrived in Essen after travelling for days and just wanted to sleep; the usual intimidation from the British police at customs; the sun rising over
Danish orchards as he climbed a ladder to work. But always the memories came from the early months when everything was a new adventure.
One night we called into Murtagh’s for the first time since he returned. The top part was closed off; the long-haired singer finally redundant. We both grew silent when Justin Plunkett came in towards closing time and we refused his offer of a drink. He went to the bar anyway and returned with three large brandies. Ten minutes later I saw Shay discreetly rifle the pockets of my jacket before slipping past Plunkett to the bar. I had only two quid and knew Shay hadn’t much more. If he bought a round we would have to walk home. Justin raised his hands in protest when Shay returned with the drinks.
‘That was just my present Seamus. There’s no need, I know you’re not working, man.’
‘I’m doing okay,’ Shay replied curtly.
I was relieved that Justin didn’t mention me. I had no idea if he knew that I had worked for his uncle. I had always just been Shay’s sidekick; I wasn’t even certain if he was aware of my name. We finished our drinks quickly and left.
We walked across town, up along Capel Street and through the jumble of ruins that had been Ball’s Alley and Parnell Street. Watchmen in huts surveyed the last few cars parked on the uneven gravel where houses once stood. A hot smell of grease and vinegar came from the chip shop left standing by itself. A man tried to sleep in what was once a doorway; a deranged woman in slippers wandered happily by herself. We walked past the Black Church and through the park where a canal had once run. The flour mill was deserted now; the wives and children back among the lines of estates; the workers on the dole swapping memories of jail. The long, straight road home was ahead of us now, past the ominous black railings of the cemetery.
The Journey Home Page 23
