The Bright Side

by Alex Coleman

  This was said in a challenging tone, with more than a hint of pride.

  I said, “Do you expect me to be impressed?” Robert’s face soured. “You? No.”

  Sensing trouble, I changed course. “What happened then?” “Bouncers bundled in, I was bundled out. I got in a taxi and went home.”

  “And this was on Monday night?” “Yeah, why?”

  “Nothing. I just didn’t know people went to night-clubs on a Monday night.”

  He tossed his head back. “Jesus, you never listen! It isn’t a night-club, it’s an after-hours drinking club!”

  “But you know what I mean. You’re still out at one in the morning. Don’t people have jobs any more?”

  He ground his teeth at me but didn’t bother with an actual reply.

  “So what about RTÉ?” I said then. “When did they find out?”

  “Yesterday. Paper rang them for a comment.”

  “Probably would have been better coming from you,” I ventured.

  “Well, I wasn’t out there, was I? I’m not shooting anything until tomorrow.”

  “Still, you could have called them.”

  He rubbed his hands over his face and tented his fingers. His lips moved but no words came out.

  “I’m sorry, Robert,” I said. “I don’t mean to be critical.”

  He dropped his hands to the table. “No, you never do, do you?”

  I took a couple of slow breaths. “Have they been in touch? RTÉ?”

  “There are messages. Which I haven’t returned.” “That’s a great strategy.”

  He made no reply.

  I tried again: “What do you think they’ll say?” “How the fuck would I know?” he boomed. That tore it.

  “Maybe I should just go,” I said quietly.

  He gave the tiniest of shrugs, which I took to mean that he agreed. I got up from the table and waited for him to get up too, or to at least say something. When he didn’t, I turned and walked to the door.

  “See you soon,” I said as I turned the handle. “Yeah,” he said from his seat. “See ya.”

  CHAPTER 19

  When I got back to the car, I was shaking so badly that I didn’t think it wise to get behind the wheel. Instead, I walked around the corner and up onto Baggot Street, where I went into the first coffee shop I saw. I ordered a pot of tea for one and the unhealthiest-looking bun they had. There was a free table by the window. I took a seat there and in the next hour rose only once, to get more tea. At about two-thirty or so, a short, doughy man came along and sat at the next table. He was a carpenter, I guessed, or maybe an electrician he had a tool-belt on him at any rate. As well an apple and a bag of crisps, he had before him an enormous baguette that, as far as I could tell, he’d asked the assistant to stuff with every filling available. He read The Sun as he ate, holding the paper up so unnaturally high that I wondered if he was doing it deliberately to annoy me. Every time I glanced across and saw Robert’s face, the corners of the mouth turned down, the eyes narrowed and the nose twitched, just as they did when he was launching another jibe my way. The carpenter didn’t seem remotely interested in the story; he’d taken one look at the headline and moved on to the inside pages. But that was no comfort to me. I could easily imagine what he’d thought when he saw the headline: Another overpaid so-called “celebrity” wanker throwing his weight around. Boring. Somehow I think I would have preferred it if he’d read the story avidly, muttering to himself and shaking his head in disgust. If Robert was going to be a tabloid-fodder thug, I thought, let him at least be an interesting tabloid-fodder thug. That was no longer my main concern, in any event. Apparently, Robert’s recent change of attitude towards me had been a mere blip. The very moment he had problems of his own, we were back to square one, me and him, as if nothing had ever happened. It was a poor day indeed, I couldn’t help but think, when your son’s humiliation on the cover of a national newspaper wasn’t even the worst thing that happened to you.

  I had finished my second pot of tea and was contemplating going for a third when my phone rang. It might be Robert, I allowed myself to hope. Calling to apologise. But it wasn’t Robert.

  “Jackie O,” said a voice so familiar it was like getting a call from myself.

  “Nancy!”

  “None other. Je suis back de Paris depuis about an heure.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Fan-tas-tic. That was my fifth trip, and I love it more every time. You have to go, Jackie. You just have to, that’s all there is to it. Light a fire under Gerry and pack a bag tonight.”

  My voice failed me. “Jackie? Are you there?” “Yeah,” I whispered.

  “What’s wrong? Are you all right?” “Can I come over?”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Can I come over?” I repeated.

  “Of course you can, but I’m not home yet, I’m at David’s. I’ll be back at about five. What is it?”

  “Five,” I said and hung up before I set myself off.

  I had time to kill now, but the prospect of returning to Melissa’s – and the “Lar Lar Lar” song – was not an appealing one. Instead, I decided to go take a walk on Sandymount Strand. I had some vague idea at the back of my mind about the restorative powers of sea air; the word “bracing” figured in my deliberations somewhere. The word “freezing” did not, alas, but those were the conditions I found when I arrived. Although I began to regret my choice of time-killer within seconds of leaving the car, I did manage a quick stroll (more of a jog, really). I texted Melissa along the way, letting her know that I wouldn’t be home for a while and would explain how it went with Robert when I saw her. As I added the bit about my current location, I imagined her sympathetic reaction – Poor old Jackie, all alone in the fading light on a cold, deserted beach. A curious shiver ran through me, nothing to do with the weather. I hugged myself even more tightly and tried to think about something else.

  The walk didn’t last long in any event. I ended up killing most of the time just sitting in the car, staring out to sea – still trying to think about something else.

  When we first met in Ashbourne, Nancy liked to say that with her travelling days now behind her, she would never again live in a city. “Concrete’s not for me,” she liked to say, as if she lived in a quaint farmhouse in the middle of nowhere rather than a large housing estate in a fairly busy commuter town. Her attitude began to change not long after I moved in (coincidence, I hoped). Suddenly, there was a lot to be said for city life. There were theatres and clubs and restaurants, for a start, and you had a sense of being at the centre of things. Why, anything could happen in a city! Nancy was pushing forty at the time, so I didn’t take her very seriously. Over the next couple of years, she wheeled the idea out once in a while and didn’t put up much of a fight when I shot holes in it. On that hot summer’s day in 1994, when she announced that she was finally going ahead and doing it, I simply didn’t believe her. She’ll snap out of it soon, I thought, when the For Sale sign went up. It’s a phase, I told myself, when she quit her job. I don’t think the penny dropped with me until we were standing by the kerb, having our last official hug as neighbours, while the removal men worked in the background. She vowed to stay in touch, but I didn’t believe that either. It was one of the happiest surprises of my life that she kept her promise. If anything, we became even closer because it required a bit of an effort for us to meet up; she seemed to appreciate it when I made the trek into town and I know I was grateful when she came out to visit me.

  The house she’d bought in Dublin was smack in the middle of a terrace in Crumlin. It wasn’t much to look at – or smell – when she moved in, but over the years she’d gradually turned it into one of those small-on-the-outside- surprisingly-spacious-on-the-inside sort of places for which young professionals were now paying an arm and both legs. She achieved the transformation by more or less gutting the joint, knocking a wall down here, moving a bathroom there. This was another aspect of her personality that I found admirabl
e – her ability to think long-term. It drove me insane to have a plumber in for half an hour; Nancy had every tradesman in Dublin through the house over a period of several years, but she was able to keep her eye on the prize. And, I had to admit, she had indeed made the most of city life. Forty-something (now fifty-something) or not, she was out more nights than she was in, and the job she’d found shortly after the move – she worked as a doctor’s receptionist seemed to give her real pleasure. I was glad for her, genuinely. But I still wished we were neighbours.

  She was already on the doorstep as I parked the car that Wednesday afternoon. I waved out at her with such enthusiasm that I almost clipped the Mondeo that I was planning to get in behind. The near-miss played havoc with my confidence and it took me quite a while to get myself into position. I glanced across the street occasionally as I fought with the steering wheel like Johnny Weissmuller battling a rubber crocodile and could see that she was torn between sympathy and hysterics.

  “You’ve had your hair cut,” she said when I finally came through her front gate. “Don’t worry. It’ll grow back.”

  We busied ourselves with small-talk until we were settled on the sofa with tea and biscuits. This was an old tactic of Nancy’s. In times of crisis, she always liked to ease herself in. I usually found that comforting in itself. On this occasion, however, she used the word “romance” about eight times – that was not so comforting. I tried not to change my expression when she did so. It wasn’t easy.

  “So,” she said, as I reached for the Garfield mug that she always gave me when I called around, “tell me.”

  I drank some tea and placed the mug on the floor by my foot. There didn’t seem to be anything for it but to come right out with the big news, the kicker-offer. “Gerry had sex with our next-door neighbour.”

  Nancy didn’t even blink. At first, I put it down to her legendary calmness and was more in awe of her than ever. Then I realised that she thought I was joking, and was waiting for me to tell her the real story.

  “I’m not kidding, Nancy,” I felt obliged to say. “He did the woman from next-door. Lisa. I caught them at it, Friday lunchtime. Saw them through the window, like in a Carry On film.”

  Her eyebrows slowly started creeping towards her hairline. “I’ve moved out,” I went on. “For a while at least. I’ve been staying with Melissa.”

  At last, Nancy found her voice. “This is a gag,” she said. “No,” I insisted. “It isn’t.”

  “But …”

  “There’re no buts about it.”

  She took a moment to let it sink in. “I don’t know what … I mean … how could he?”

  “Quite easily, by all accounts.”

  As usual, Nancy was wearing a cardigan and as usual, its sleeves were far too long. When she raised her hand and placed it over her mouth, only the tips of her fingers showed. This gesture, performed against the background of her elfin frame, gave her a suddenly child-like appearance. I felt as if I’d just told a little girl that there was no such thing as Santa and it wasn’t looking good for the Tooth Fairy either.

  “Now don’t you go getting upset,” I said, as her eyes moistened.

  “Gerry?” she bleated.

  “Gerry. He said it was just the once.” “Gerry?”

  “Yes! For Christ’s sake! Gerry!”

  She put both hands – or sleeves rather – over her face and started to cry for real. A couple of seconds later, I joined her. She edged along the sofa and grabbed me around my neck, pulling me towards her for what turned into a hug but started out as a head-butt.

  “I’m so sorry!” she wailed. “Me too!” I wailed back.

  We stayed in that position for a while until my arched back began to ache and I pulled away.

  “I feel like such a shit,” Nancy said then.

  I dabbed at my cheeks with the backs of my hands. “You? Why?”

  She gulped. “David asked me to marry him.” “What? No!”

  “Yeah.”

  She tugged her left sleeve out of the way, revealing a fairly hefty rock on a platinum ring.

  “Nancy!”

  We resumed the hug, and the crying.

  “I’m sorry,” she sniffled into my shoulder, “but I had to tell you. I couldn’t sit here and not tell you …”

  “Don’t apologise,” I said. “It’s wonderful news.” “But Gerry …” she said and then became incoherent.

  When she calmed down again, I said, “I take it you accepted the proposal?”

  I felt her nodding. “And have you set a date?”

  She drew back from me and shook her head. “Not yet. David wants it to be soon, though. Anyway – never mind me. What are you going –”

  I held up my hand to interrupt her. “No. Tell me about this first.” In my head I added: So we can get it out of the way. I was happy for her. Of course I was. I’d met David several times and he was a lovely man, warm and gentle and caring everything Nancy deserved after a lifetime of getting turned over by losers and sociopaths. But I hadn’t even told her about Chrissy and Robert yet. We had a lot to get through and I wanted her full attention.

  “Honestly,” I said. “Tell me.”

  “Jackie, are you sure –” “Go on. It’s OK.”

  She sighed. “He did it on our first night – what was that – the Friday.” Her face crumpled as she realised that Friday had been a pretty big day for me too.

  I did a little reassuring. “I want to hear it, Nancy. Really.” “OK. OK, but I’ll be quick. Hang on, wait ‘til I get a tissue.” She got up and disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two wodges of kitchen roll, one for her, one for me. We attended to our noses and she started up again. “We went out for dinner, which was wonderful. Oh, Jackie, the restaurants – I’d forgotten what they were like. You feel like you’re in a romantic movie, a good one, an old-fashioned one, not some jokey sex thing with, I dunno, Cameron bloody Diaz. David was kind of fidgety all throughout, but I didn’t pay much attention. He hates flying and we’d had a few bumps on the way over, so I put it down to that. Then, when the meal was finished, he said we should go for a walk along the Seine, which we did. It was so beautiful, beautiful buildings, beautiful boats, beautiful Parisians strolling past. He kept taking my hand and giving it a little squeeze and then letting go, you know, really nervous. I asked him if he had something on his mind and he said no, his dinner wasn’t sitting right, which I found hard to believe because the food was sensational. So light, but full of flavour, you know?”

  For someone who didn’t want to tell the story, she wasn’t long getting into it, I thought but didn’t say.

  “Anyway. We could see the Eiffel Tower way off in the distance and next thing I know, David pipes up that we should go and see it right then. I didn’t want to because I was knackered and besides, we had it on our itinerary for the Sunday afternoon – you know me and my lists. I said all that to him, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He got almost angry about it, which was out of character for him. So I gave in, not very graciously, and off we went on the Metro – which, by the way, is great. Really efficient.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “It never crossed my mind that he was going to propose, I swear to God it didn’t. We’ve only been together for six months. So up we went, anyway, up the stairs out of the Metro station and Jackie … it doesn’t matter how many times you see it, the Eiffel Tower is something else altogether. First time I saw it, which was thirty years ago – Jesus Christ, thirty years – I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought it was going to be like the Statue of Liberty, which is just, you know … so what? It’s a big statue, whoop-de-doo. But the Eiffel Tower is amazing, really, really amazing. You don’t appreciate how massive it is until you’re right up next to it.”

  “Suppose not,” I said, just for the sake of saying something. I was beginning to regret letting her go first.

  “We walked around for a while, sat on the grass for a while, watched the light-show – they do this amazing light- show on the
hour, the whole thing fizzes, it’s gorgeous.”

  “Hmmm,” I said again.

  “And then I said we should go up, you know, get the view. But David wouldn’t. He doesn’t like heights of any kind, it’s not just the flying thing. And I got kind of stroppy because it had been his idea to go over in the first place and what’s the point, I thought, if you’re not going to go up the bloody thing? So we got into a kind of a row about it. There were all these other couples walking around cooing at each other and there’s me and him with our hands on our hips having a right old go. Well, I was the one having the go, really, he was just standing there looking lost and befuddled. Then I said, ‘What’s the matter with you? You’re being really odd.’ And that’s when he did it. Dropped to one knee and all, started fumbling around in his pocket. You know what? I still didn’t get it. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

  “A wee bit,” I said.

  “But it’s the truth! I was staring down at him, wondering if he was having some sort of fit. Then he produced the little box and opened it and said, ‘Will you please marry me?’ I said, ‘Will I please what?’ It came out kind of sarcastic, but I didn’t mean it that way. He said, ‘Uhhh …’ – this big long ‘Uuuhhhh …’ – and then he said, ‘Marry me?’ I nearly asked him to say it again. But I didn’t. I just said ‘Yes, I will.’ Then I dragged him to his feet and we had the best kiss of my life, which is saying something.”

  “Wow!” I said.

  “I haven’t even started yet!” she trilled.

  Jesus Christ, I thought. She hasn’t even started yet.

  Fifteen minutes later, Nancy had filled me in on every detail of her remaining time in Paris. The Louvre was “breathtaking”. Versailles was “stunning”. The Champs- Élysées was “thrilling”. I almost told her that I knew all of this already because I was fortunate enough to own a television set. But I didn’t. She was excited, which was perfectly understandable, and that was all there was to it. Still, I could have done without the unnecessarily (and for Nancy, uncharacteristically) graphic descriptions of their weekend bedroom activities. Truth be told, I became quite angry as she launched into her third – third! – tribute to David”s “tenderness” and “attentiveness”. For once in our relationship, I was all too aware that in little more than a decade’s time, Nancy would be a pensioner. And besides, try as I might, I couldn’t help but conclude that she was being insensitive. I was glad I had come out without my watch because she would undoubtedly have caught me looking at it – several times. Although the story of the trip to Paris seemed to last almost as long as the trip itself, Nancy eventually came to the bit where she and David parted at his house in Maynooth.