Walking the Dog

by Bernard Maclaverty

  The disco music stopped and Isobel became aware of smaller sounds – distant coughing, glasses clinking behind the bar, the sneeze as the automatic doors opened and closed. It was now after midnight. The DJ wheeled a trolley containing his turntables and speakers into the lounge to store them for the night. One of the wheels needed oil. It screeched every time it turned.

  ‘Por favor. . . por favor,’ whispered the disc jockey. People in the crowd stepped aside to let him through. But neither Gillian nor the Grandmaster looked up from the board.

  Some people in the crowd – certainly the parents of the two youngest boys and others they had told – realised that Isobel was the mother of the child player. She yawned again but this time tried not to open her mouth. Gillian made a move. The Grandmaster’s fingers went up to his beard as he considered. Isobel felt another yawn rising and proceeded to yawn with her teeth clenched.

  After what seemed an endless pause the Grandmaster moved a pawn. Gillian was now taking almost as long to reply. At half past twelve the Grandmaster smiled and raised his eyebrows at Gillian. He said something in Spanish. Gillian looked blankly at him. The Grandmaster turned and looked around the crowd. He called a girl – Spanish-looking, about twenty years of age, and they spoke in Spanish. The girl turned to Gillian.

  ‘This is my father.’ She put her hand out to indicate the Grandmaster. ‘And I translate for him. My father would like to offer you a draw.’

  Gillian was unsure.

  ‘¡Tablas!’ said the Grandmaster to the crowd. They burst into applause. They smiled and the clapping went on and on. Isobel joined in. Gillian began to blush – it was as if she had only realised now that people had been watching. The Grandmaster offered his hand and Gillian, still not sure, shook it. The old man who smoked the Gauloises struggled forward and slapped her on the back. He said something in Spanish to the Grandmaster who laughed. Gillian got to her feet. Isobel edged forward and said,

  ‘I suppose congratulations are in order?’

  Gillian’s face was sullen – she always hated being the centre of attention. The Grandmaster put his arm around his daughter’s shoulder. His eyes met Isobel’s and he leaned forward to speak. His daughter translated.

  ‘My father says he is very good.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your son. He is very good.’

  ‘It’s my daughter.’ The Spanish girl turned to her father and explained. He seemed embarrassed and apologetic.

  ‘He says he is very sorry – she is very good. Your daughter is very good.’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’ Isobel turned to Gillian who was tugging at her elbow.

  ‘Come on, Mum.’

  ‘How good is that?’ His daughter, her hand resting on her father’s, relayed the question. The Grandmaster shrugged and pushed out his lip.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said in English. His daughter listened to what he had to say then translated,

  ‘He means she is very, very good. In the world. By any standard.’

  ‘Her father was very good at it. He taught her.’ Both the Grandmaster and his daughter looked around, possibly expecting to see the person in question but there was only the eighty-year-old man fussing around the tables.

  ‘But he’s not with us here. Fortunately.’ Isobel smiled. ‘Where can a game like this lead?’ He listened to the question and smiled.

  ‘Nowhere,’ translated his daughter, ‘but she may enjoy it.’

  The crowd had now completely dispersed.

  On the way back to their own hotel Isobel sensed her daughter’s anger. They walked, as always, a little apart – as if they were not with each other. There was something about the way her sandals were slapping the ground.

  ‘And what’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I could’ve won. He’s a cheat.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He was cheating. I was going to win. I could see a way to win. And I think he saw it too – that’s when he offered me a draw.’ Gillian was close to tears. ‘And that was my last chance. Men cheat. Everybody cheats.’

  ‘I doubt very much if that’s true. Besides it’s no big deal.’

  ‘It’s no big deal? It’s no big deal. I’m . . . I. . . oh fucking hell . . .’

  ‘Forgive me not getting worked up about something your father is entirely responsible for.’

  ‘I might have known that was at the back of it.’

  ‘Gillian, he’s a Grandmaster. He could see better than you that it was going to be a draw.’

  ‘Don’t say that – I hate when you do that. As if I knew nothing. As if I was too young to know anything. You don’t even know the fucking moves and you’re siding with him.’

  ‘Gillian – please. Your language is deteriorating.’

  ‘You do it with everything – teacher knows best – the doctor knows best – Mum knows best.’

  ‘Not another street scene, please.’

  ‘I hate people talking down to me.’

  ‘And how many degrees have you got? Maybe you could remove my appendix later on tonight?’

  ‘According to you even Dad knows nothing.’

  ‘Brain cells aren’t destroyed overnight, you know. But he’s certainly working hard at it.’

  ‘Oh you – you fucking cow. Why’d you . . .’

  ‘How dare you – how dare you call me that.’ Isobel swung her open hand at the girl’s face. There was the crack of skin to skin. Gillian screamed and ran off into the dark, her sandals slapping the metalled surface of the road.

  ‘Gillian!’ Isobel watched her run from the light of one street lamp through shadow to the next. She followed the white T-shirt and saw her daughter turn down the steps to the beach.

  ‘Bloody bloody bloody bloody hell.’

  The beach café was closed and the beach was in darkness. There was sufficient moonlight to outline the boats and pedalos and stacked sunbeds. Isobel threaded her way through them to the water’s edge. She could see no sign of Gillian. She knew not to shout her name. To the left-hand side of the beach was a jumble of rocks and boulders. She was not sure but she thought she saw a pale patch which could be her daughter. She walked towards the rocks. A cigarette – small as a pinhead from this distance – glowed and went out again. The nearer she got the surer she was it was Gillian. She was squatting on a rock at the height of her mother’s head. She inhaled her cigarette and her cupped hand glowed in the dark. The sea slapped in, in small Mediterranean waves.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Fuck away off.’

  ‘I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have hit you. You are old enough and ugly enough not to be hit..’ Isobel turned her back to the rock and leaned her head against it. ‘That was my own mother’s doing. I swore it would never happen again. I don’t know which was worse – being hit or – having to listen. My mother had the most sarcastic tongue I ever heard. I swore it would never happen to me. But being a teacher doesn’t help.’ She looked up at her daughter. The cigarette glowed again, then came sailing down past her head to hiss out in the sea at her feet.

  ‘Sometimes I say things. Things I don’t mean. Things I’m sorry for afterwards. And I don’t have the courage to take them back. That’s the times I’m most like her. Dearest mother. And I hate myself.’ The cigarette butt was white bobbing against the dark water. ‘If there is somewhere still open why don’t we go and have a drink – talk about this?’

  ‘I said fuck away off.’

  ‘You’re becoming a tad repetitive.’

  ‘You just want to suck in with me.’

  ‘Gillian, please. Do me a favour.’ Her mother gave a sigh and said, ‘You were okay the day you were born but it’s been downhill ever since.’

  At the square a small bar was open. Several tables were still out on the pavement and there was a light on inside. Isobel went in and ordered a glass of wine and an orange juice. An old man with spectacles stood at the counter eating tapas. He stared at her, his jaws revolving. The boy who served her was goodlooking but you
ng. A son more than a lover. Outside she set the drinks on the table and sat down. In the light from the open doorway she could see that Gillian had been crying for a long time – her face looked puffy and sullen. The girl put her feet on a chair, and turned her body away. Isobel offered her a sip of wine but she refused.

  ‘Each generation tries to make a change for the better – however small. To put one particular piece of debris in the bin.’

  ‘Huh – what was yours?’

  ‘My mother and I never talked. Like now.’

  ‘Great. This is just great. What I really wanted. All my dreams fulfilled. Talking to my mother.’

  ‘Believe me, it’s better than taking the huff. We were a family of buffers – for days, weeks on end.’

  ‘I would prefer that.’

  ‘Gillian – I know – I think I know your pain – about how difficult things have been.’

  ‘Like fuck, you do.’ Isobel put her hand out to touch the girl’s arm but Gillian pulled away and began to search in the pocket of her shorts. She took out a packet of Gauloises and a book of Hotel Condor matches. She tapped a cigarette on the table and lit up.

  ‘That’s another thing we should talk about.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Smoking.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it kills people.’

  ‘Good.’ She inhaled deeply and blew two streams of smoke down her nose. ‘That’s what it’s for.’

  ‘Remember the sticker on the front door – My Mum’s a smoker buster. It was the hardest thing I ever did – giving it up. To please you.’

  ‘Gee – thanks.’

  ‘We can get around to talking about stealing from old men some other time.’

  ‘I didn’t steal them. He just left them on the table.’

  The man who’d been eating the tapas came out of the doorway and wandered up the cobbled street a little unsteadily. There was a cricket nearby ringing at great volume.

  ‘That’s your story.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ Gillian yelled. Then she started laughing. ‘I mean the insect – not you, Mum.’ Her mother smiled.

  ‘My own mother used to say that it gave her great pleasure to say to people “This is my daughter”. Well tonight I understood that. I think I even blushed at one point.’

  ‘Are you taking the piss? Is that sarcastic?’

  ‘No. I felt proud of you. Maybe for the first time.’

  ‘But it was Dad taught me. Nothing to do with you.’

  ‘I felt proud of you despite the fact that the chess was his doing. The Glasgow grandmaster. I suppose you can’t wait to tell him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘About the draw.’

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘Gillian – help me to like you.’

  ‘But I don’t want you to like me. I hate myself – how can anybody else like me.’ Her chin began to flex and the girl cried again. ‘The whole thing is so fucking stupid. Five years of fucking stupidness.’

  Isobel put her arm around her shoulder expecting her to flinch away but she did not. She felt the shakes of her crying and patted her shoulder.

  ‘Where’s the calamine?’ she said and smiled. They both sat for a long time not saying anything – the night filled with the sound of crickets.

  THE FOUNTAIN-PEN SHOP WOMAN

  Your man sent his fountain-pen away to be repaired. The fountain-pen shop woman said it would take ten days. The flange and the barrel had somehow become detached and the whole ensemble was liable to flood the breast pocket of his summer linen jacket at any minute. He felt relieved that the responsibility of serious writing was removed from him for the best part of a fortnight. Of course he could work in pencil or biro but it was not the same thing as the oul fountain-pen.

  How and ever, when the ten days was up didn’t he return to the fountain-pen shop only to find that there was a charge for the repair of the instrument which, the leaflet had said, was guaranteed for life. The fountain-pen shop woman said,

  ‘How can anything to do with writing be guaranteed for life?’

  A SILENT RETREAT

  The game was almost over. A boy coming in from the wing chipped the ball over the goalkeeper’s head and it bounced between the posts.

  ‘For Godsake Declan. What are you playing at?’

  ‘Me? Where’s the full backs. I’m out narrowing the angle.’

  ‘Godsake.’

  At the back of the school playing-fields the jail wall was so high it created echoes. In the trees around the pitch starlings were making metallic noises with occasional swooping notes. It was getting dark. Because it wasn’t a real match the boys wore their own kit – and just knew who was on which side.

  ‘Next goal’s the winner.’

  The ball had bounced across the track and Declan hopped the fence and kicked it out from there. A voice said,

  ‘Bloody eejit.’ Declan looked round startled. There was nobody there. Only the B-Special on guard duty at the foot of the jail wall. ‘You were too far out. You should never let anybody chip you like that.’ It was the B-Special. In all his years at the school Declan had never heard one of these guys speaking. Yet they were always there, day and night, at the base of the thirty-foot grey brick wall. They’d worn a track in the grass pacing up and down. Declan looked over his shoulder.

  ‘D’you say something?’

  ‘Yeah. I said you were too far out.’

  ‘Says who?’ .

  ‘Says me.’

  ‘And what would you know about it?’

  ‘More than you think, sonny boy.’

  They were separated by a distance of twenty or thirty feet. The B-Special was up on a low terracing of grass. It seemed a stupid distance to continue talking. Declan looked over his shoulder to check which end of the field the ball was.

  ‘I used to be a talent scout,’ said the B-Special.

  ‘Aye, that’ll be right.’

  ‘Naw, seriously.’

  ‘Who for?’

  ‘A club across the water.’

  ‘Bollicks.’ Declan vaulted the two-stranded wire fence and ran into his goal. The cold was really getting to him now. He wanted to jump up and down, to slap his arms, but he was conscious of being watched. He didn’t want to look foolish, jumping about like a kid for no reason. Lights came on in the top row of windows in the jail – the Republican wing.

  One night they had heard the prisoners from there shouting and rattling metal things against their windows. Tin mugs, it had sounded like. That was bad. Thinking about them in there. But what was worse was knowing the prisoners could hear them – playing football – shouting when they scored – arguing about whose throw-in it was. People were really annoying about these things – throw-ins and corner kicks. This was what carried into the jail. Bickering. People who could go home for their tea or walk down the street or do anything they liked – people who were free – arguing and bickering.

  A guy in a Celtic shirt led a charge out of the gloom and connected with a shot. Declan leapt and got his fingertips to it, deflecting it for a corner. Somebody slapped him on the back as he lay in the mud.

  ‘Saved, wee man.’

  What if the guy was a talent scout? Had he seen that? The corner was taken and the ball cleared.

  After a while there was a bit of shouting and a ragged cheer at the other end.

  ‘Is that it?’ Declan called but nobody paid any attention to him. The boys began to move away. He could hear the twang of wire and the scuffling of boots on the cinder track as they made their way down to the classroom where they changed.

  ‘Thanks for telling me,’ he shouted at them. Still they ignored him. He ran back to the goalposts to collect his cap with his money rolled in it.

  ‘Hey, c’mere.’ Declan looked up. It was the B-Special again.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said c’mere.’

  Declan scissor-stepped over the wire fence and paused at the foot of the embankment. The B-Spe
cial said,

  ‘I wanna ask you something.’

  Declan waited.

  ‘Come up here.’

  Declan looked round. The others had disappeared. Away in the distance a light came on in the Nissan hut classroom. He dug his studs into the grassy slope and moved up a bit.

  ‘I’m not gonna bite you.’

  Declan shrugged in the darkness.

  ‘The thing I wanna ask you is – that’s a Roman Catholic school, right? Well answer me this. There’s Roman Catholic priests in there, right? I see them walking round the track.’

  Declan nodded, still waiting for the question.

  ‘D’you smoke?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The B-Special reached into his pocket. The material of his raincoat sleeve made a kind of whistling noise as it slid against itself. Declan could see the pale cigarettes sticking out of the packet offered to him in the darkness. His hands were dirty but the mud had almost dried. He reached over and took one. There was a metallic clunk and a Zippo lighter flamed.

  ‘Maybe I’ll keep it for later,’ Declan said.

  ‘You’ll fuckin smoke it now.’ Declan didn’t know whether the man was joking or not. He lit Declan’s cigarette and one for himself. In the light from the Zippo Declan saw that the man had a thin black moustache. He looked far too young.

  ‘My question is this – these Roman Catholic priests – what do they do for sex?’

  ‘They don’t do anything. They’re celibate.’

  ‘What age are you, son?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘If you believe that you’ll believe anything.’

  ‘I am. I’ll be seventeen in March.’

  ‘Naw – I mean the celibate item.’

  ‘They don’t get married or anything.’

  ‘It’s the anything part I wanna hear about.’

  ‘They give themselves to God. To being good.’

  ‘And those black dresses they wear –’

  ‘Soutanes.’

  ‘Whatever you call them . . . All them buttons – walking round the track with their hands behind their backs. Or in their pockets, more like. Are you trying to tell me those guys do nothing. And they have equipment the same as the rest of us.’