by Martin Roper
The light’s on in the kitchen. I go up to the bathroom and dry myself, put on a dressing gown I haven’t worn in almost two years, am surprised by the shortness of the sleeves. She’s sitting there with a glass of brandy and a hot-water bottle cradled to her stomach. I can’t bear the silence, the silence of last day.
—Any better?
—No. But no worse.
She manages to smile at herself, at me, at old quotes.
—You were out?
—Yes. It’s pouring.
I look down at the floor, count the tiles. No lies. No lies anymore.
—I don’t want to be scared walking down the street. I don’t want to lose who I am to them.
She starts to cry; a horrible wail, out of her stomach, out of an untouchable pain. She rocks forward on the chair. I look away from her, at the russian doll. Too much said already. Say no more. Say no more. My hands tremble.
—Walk away. Walk away. You’ll be walking away your whole life. Prick. You’re a prick.
I close the door quietly through her screaming.
—Next time, ring her from here. Prick. You’ll get your death of cold walking up that hill in the rain. What would the cunts of America do, then? You twofaced Prick.
I go into the study. A crash. Another one. Flipflap of the cat door. Another crash. She starts to howl. I lie on the sofa and cover my ears. I leap up and run into her as she is hobbling to me.
—What do you want me to do, walk the street in search of them and kill them? It happened. There’s nothing we can do. It’s a sick place. It’s life.
—It’s not about that. Jesus you’ve got better—worse—at changing the subject. It’s over. We’ve ended this so many times. Just go. You’ll have your cut soon enough. Then go. Just go.
—Fuck the money.
Vomit jumps off the bed and goes out.
* * *
I wake to exhaustion. Darkness. For a horrible moment I wonder why the street is so quiet, thinking I am in New York. It’s still night. Not a sound. Not even a gurgle from the water tank. £1,263 for his funeral. More money for Jennings. Great business, have to do nothing but wait. The garden sensor light comes on like a question; a black flash past the window; a light tink on the gutter. The birds are awake, waiting for something to happen. It’s nearly six. I can’t work out if it’s morning or evening. At this time of year it could be either. The sky is untelling. A freight boat out in the bay, small moving lights offering hope like a thick delivery of post. A black flash startles me; I hold my hand up against the expected blow. But it’s just a bird, diving. She lands, pecks amongst the foliage, traps a twig in her beak and rises up. Another tink and teeny scratchings as she finds her place; a flutter, a coo of happiness. There’s a perceptible lightness in the sky but perhaps I’m adjusting to the night. No, it is morning; disc of a sun, no bigger than a penny, slipping palely from the sea. Rising with regal deliberation. It was like this in the beginning. The sun glints and is lost to the hopeless Dublin clouds. I lie down again. We fucked like there was no tomorrow once upon a time. Threw her prosthesis out the window one night because she wouldn’t turn around to me. What fun it all was. No more. No more any of it. I turn over on my side. No more will her lap mold itself into the elbow of my knees. I turn over on my other side towards the back of the sofa and emptiness. No more will I smell her after sleep. In Dorset Street, we had to do it just before eight o’clock in the morning otherwise Mrs. Tweedy upstairs might hear us. Of a weekday morning she’d be up and down to Mass in St. Saviour’s in Dominic Street. Ursula didn’t want her hearing anything and Mr. Tweedy off half the time with Mrs. Arkins from Joseph’s Mansions. We knew by the church bell we had to stop and get up because she’d be on her way back with the Irish Independent and twenty John Player Blue.
She is in the garden, weeding. The electric kettle is hanging by its flex on the trellis. Cutlery is scattered on the lawn, a fork stuck in the grass like a bizarre game. The wooden wine rack caught in the bushes. Vomit is sniffing at the steam iron lying on its wounded side. Wedding presents, all of it. No matter.
—You were on the phone to her last night.
—On the phone to whom?
She nods and keeps weeding.
—I don’t care. Really. Do whatever you like. Out in the open. Hide it. Whatever you like.
—I was out walking.
* * *
Her mother is the first to come. She doesn’t bring Mulvany, for once tactful. Ursula and I are sitting in the kitchen with Muriel. The funeral was horribly quiet. No eager handshaking. I get up to put the kettle on. Muriel gets up too. Ursula’s mother looks at me.
—They’ll want sandwiches, she says, pushing the bag across the table. I look at her, at the bag; cheese, tomatoes, ham, mustard, bread, butter, lettuce. I start making sandwiches. Through the open window, my eye catches sight of the kettle hanging out of the fence. Go easy on the butter, Muriel says. You can tell he didn’t pay for it. I concentrate fiercely on the job. This will all be over soon. Holfy: we will never be like this.
The hall door is shoved in, discreetly. Uncle Aidan. He puts his arms around me, the smell of stale cigarette smoke coming off him. Memory of Ruth. I try not to lean against his solid comfort. He holds me longer than I want and I feel myself stabbed inside. I push away from him.
—What are you doing here?
—Acting the fool. Is the tea on?
I look over at Ursula.
—You need a bit of makeup, he says, his voice going soft. Ursula laughs through a torn voice.
—That priest was full of shite. No offence anyone.
He lights up, looks for an ashtray.
—There’s no smoking here, you.
—I’ll go out, so.
He makes a face at Muriel and goes out into the garden.
We pile up the sandwiches. Aidan hisses at the cats, picks up the kitchen utensils and shouts in the window.
—I haven’t ruined your garden installation, have I?
She looks out in the garden and shakes her head, laughing.
—Is it alright then if I bring in the kettle for a cup of tea before we’re all parched?
He always has the right tone.
Nothing left here now. Nothing.
I visit Medbh and Brefini. They have television now, something they never believed in, that he never believed in his Trinity days when he was all up the workers. She mutes the sound on the box. They have another child whose name I don’t know. I hand the single toy to Una.
—You’re to share that with the baby.
—Her name is Hazel.
We all laugh except Una. She stares at me, a vagueness in her eyes, remembering me. She rattles the toy for sound.
—His name is Lamp Chops. He’s on the telly in America.
She looks again at Lamp Chop and fires him in the corner. Little bitch, applerot of her mother’s eye. Brefini cooks a bit of dinner and no one mentions Ursula. They are going to enroll Una in Irish dancing classes. Brefini plays the piano they’ve just bought so he can play and his daughter can dance along to it. I dislike them, a couple I’ve always liked. I drink most of the bottle of wine I brought and tell them funny stories about New York. Brefini offers to drive me home but I insist on a taxi to avoid any meaningful talk that Brefini might have planned. Standing up to go I see a face I know on the television. Medbh turns and looks at the screen and asks me what’s up. It’s Mr. O’Neill, the Taoiseach’s press secretary, fat-faced, hurrying through a door. Have you not been following it, ask Medbh. He’s great entertainment—one of the brown envelope brigade. Look at the scowl on him.
—He did my father out of money. I don’t need a tribunal to tell me who he is.
I tell the taximan to drive through town in the hope something will show me the Dublin I left. Nothing. The party’s over. O’Neill in court. Maybe Da was right, what goes around comes around. Jesus. Becoming the father. Medbh is the great force in the home, Brefini relegated to husband, father, man to be organised. N
o intimacy between them. How utterly awful to be able to read the life of a couple. Like brother and sister. Maybe it gets that way with all marriages. I tell the taximan to drive out to the old house in Irishtown. A light on and music. I’m tempted to ring the bell, tell them it’s my house—my wife sold it without permission. Just to see their faces.
—Mister, are we sitting here all night?
—Dun Laoghaire.
—You want to go to Dun Laoghaire now?
—No. I want to go to Dun Laoghaire.
—No need to be smart about it.
We drive in silence. He’ll talk. Eventually he’ll talk. I can’t think my own thoughts. I wait for him to talk.
—I got the mother-in-law drunk last night. And she a pioneer.
—Is that right?
—True as God. Injected the oranges with gin. She made a bit of a fruit salad after the dinner. She was hilarious with drink on her.
He lets me out at the pier.
I walk to the lighthouse and look out at the light sweeping the sky. I sit with my legs dangling over the edge. An icy wind blows in. Waves crash and slosh on the granite boulders. Foul sea. Foul wild sea. As good a time as any. The headlamps of a car shine on me.
—Are you alright there, boy?
The Garda Siochána come to pluck me from a wet death.
—Come on, so. Up out of that.
I go home and lie in bed. Imagine Holfy on me. Tonguing me; caressing me out of myself that first night. The shock when she punched me. Holfy knows who I am, what I am. Some women have the instinct of knowing men. Moments shatter. Ursula buying a flash for my father; bringing him up soup she made. His eyes on her; loving the switch to caring daughter-in-law. Knowing nothing of the people around his bed. His left hand is what I remember. Fingers black with nicotine. Lining up butts in the bedside locker in the hospital. The uncontrolled gurgling from his guts. Him falling into a stupor. Feeling death off him as tangibly as I felt it off Ruth. I should have talked to him. I felt sorry for him when I saw how terrified he was of dying. His face full of desertion. It took his fear for me to see him for something other than the misogynistic shit he was. But what use talking. There was never any understanding between us.
A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent. My last image of my life with Ursula is of the cats basking in hypnotic sunshine. Willy is sitting on the bonnet of the car. Vomit is stretched on a branch of the lilac tree. And Ursula is walking back to the hall door. A rather undramatic ending yet an ending nonetheless.
Desire
Even with Kennedy crammed the way it is Holfy is impossible to miss with the green tinsel around her neck. She is watching a man kiss a woman fleetingly, watching him take her hand and her baggage trolley and wheel away their lives. I envy them their easy affection
She has cut her hair and dyed it a burnished copper. A new woman to get to know. No matter what wild thing she does she manages to look stylish. She should look older with short hair—like any older woman trying to look younger. She looks harsh. She has painted her fingernails green, white and gold.
—You look young enough to be my lover.
—You always look the wrong age. Good funeral, was it?
She has misunderstood. I was trying to compliment her but it came out wrong. I tell her about my father’s funeral, about Ursula’s decision to give me a cut of Bath Avenue, the new house in Dalkey, telling her honestly I felt caught.
—So you’re rich. Good, take me to dinner. It took three hours to get to the airport to collect your ungrateful ass.
We go uptown to Café Luxembourg but I don’t enjoy it. Holfy drinks a lot and I ask her what’s wrong.
—Did you see your wife?
—You insist on calling her that. It’s like an accusation.
—It’s called reality.
—We met. She’s fine.
—And?
—And nothing. I told her it’s over, that we’ve ended it too many times before. She came to the funeral which surprised me but it shouldn’t have. She never liked my father but she does have a fine sense of propriety. That’s something I never liked in her—too many admirable qualities.
—Won’t make that mistake again.
—Nope. Bitches like you all the way from now.
She laughs and I’m relieved. We have our banter again, our ease with each other. That night, in her bed I decide I like the haircut. I judge too quickly. She will always be more sophisticated than me. There are two kinds of people: those who can’t balance sunglasses on their head and those who can. I must tell her this.
* * *
I wake up and am uneasy. It takes me a long moment to realize that Holfy is crying. She is sitting on the floor with her back to the bed, watching television. People are laughing on the television, drinking out of champagne glasses outside some brownstone. Holfy’s laughter coming from the television. I look at the clock on the floor: after four in the morning. And now for Whitman, her voice says from the television. There she is. Like everyone else she is wearing a flapper-style dress. The video of her wedding. Robert is quoting Whitman. It’s the first time I’ve seen it and seeing him with her, seeing them laugh together, turns me into an imposter in her life. I have never seen or heard her cry before. I put my hand on her stomach. Her crying worsens.
—It’s so hard, she says.
—Yes.
She punches the mattress.
—I loved him.
I don’t know what to say to her.
—I miss Robbie.
—It’s past, I say. It’s over.
She nods furiously; empty words of solace. It is not past—it’s present. Its in her body.
It’s not over. It’s never over.
Do you know how it feels to lie in bed at four o’clock in the morning with your heart beating in your chest as if you had run a race and all it is, is fear you didn’t ever love me. Do you know how deeply such fear strikes? My heart thumps so fast, I think it’s going to stop, think it can’t keep up with itself. Probably you feel that way when you’re inside her. I don’t know who she is but I know you’re gone. I knew it when you came back for the funeral. Part of me wanted to do it with you. Stupidstupidstupid me. I felt sorry for you because I knew you were upset because he was dead and you were still angry with him. I could sense her off you. I knew you’d put it into another woman. You really know nothing. Or maybe you know an awful lot. I opened to you, took you into me. Mornings at my desk I would feel the cold dribble of you leak from me and I would clench my muscles to hold you a moment longer. I have learned something new. I have learned my own hand. It’s a far better lover than ever you were.
The rehearsed interest in your voice. You listened so attentively to me. But your tone of voice talks deeper to me than words ever can. I listened attentively, too. Three thousands miles away and I heard it in your voice. And I saw it in you, too. Saw you take the breath needed to say the words. I heard the voice come up and out of your gut, out of your tight throat. I saw you clutch the phone and close your eyes and say I love you Ursula. You needed to say my name. You never needed to say my name before. Your words are hollow. Your words rattling and clanging in a metal pail clattering on the cobblestones. I couldn’t be with another. I’ve never even thought of what another man would be like. My eyes were never off of you. When we parted in the morning at the end of Baggot Street, and I turned the corner, I had to stop myself from looking back. I knew you were still sitting there in the car, looking at me and not looking for a gap in the traffic. I knew your eyes were burning into me and wanting me to turn and I never did. For ten years I never did. I felt, if I turned around and looked at you the violence of my love would be a gunshot. The traffic would screech to a halt, the buses would stop coughing fumes. Baggot Street would be hushed to silence; people would lean over O’Connell Bridge and stare, dumbfounded, at an unflowing river. The gulls in the sky would stop crying and falling and rising up on the air and the grey sky would lighten and the rain woul
d be switched off and people would stand there with awe-opened mouths at the buckling power of my love for you. And when I walked into the office and said Good Mornings and heard Good Mornings coated with Isn’t she nice but a little dull, I would turn and look at them and their faces would drain of colour and the telephones would stop ringing and the faxes would stop sliding out and the photocopiers would go quiet, the air-conditioning would go quiet, the clocks would no longer tick on the walls, the watches on their wrists would no longer tick. My love, if I ever carried my love for you openly on my face, would have stopped the world from turning. My tremendous, unreciprocated, love.
What you have soiled for some other woman’s Yes. Yes is the longest word. There is only one Yes. Yes screams with certainty. Yes is what you put on my finger in the chapel in Trinity College. Yes defines everything. Yes is the creation of love, of beauty, what we were. After the first Yes there are no other Yeses. After Yes, everyone else becomes a joyous No. You have made us a No.
The money from Bath Avenue is through. £144,000. They liked the sound of tennis. Imagine, they paid that and they didn’t even see the roses in bloom. The price is a good omen—not only is the market on the up—144 is a Fibonacci number.
