by William Wall
He means it too. What’s not generally known about my dad is that he carries grudges All The Way To The Bank And Back. One of these days he’ll do something and when he does it will mean Money and probably Politics. Politics for Dad is just capitalism by other means.
3
He took his jacket off in his study and threw it on the floor. He was seriously pissed about Dan Kelleher. When he came out his face was the colour of Heinz Ketchup. Which is crap. I hate it. My mam puts it on everything more or less.
Make me a cup of tea, Suzy. I’m parched.
Did you hear about the real estate agent who sold a two-story house, Dad? The first story was fake and the second story didn’t hold up.
He looked at me. I had the kettle in my hand. It’s not an electric kettle. It’s one that goes on the hob. Like I want my family to get an electric kettle like everybody else in Ireland but they say they are wasteful of money. Some electrician guy told them. My life, I swear.
That’s cat, Suzy. Your jokes are really cat. Only you’re so good at school, I’d march you straight in there this very minute.
Cat = crap in Dad Language.
Some English fucker blew me out of the water.
What did you bid?
One point seven. That was just an opener and that fucker Kelleher knew it too.
What did the English guy bid?
He won’t say. But he says starting at one point seven it would take me ten years to get up as far as the English guy and Miss Corry wants a quick sale. He consulted with her and she just said take it. What kind of a way to sell a house is that?
What do you think he bid?
By the sound of it he was easily over two mill. Maybe two point two.
He’ll probably turn out to be a relation of the Kellehers.
I could see my dad thinking about that.
They have relations in Birmingham all right. But I’d say they’re not up to it.
The kettle boiled. It has a whistle thingy up its arse. Or down its throat, whichever way round it is. I made him a pot of tea. We still had Christmas cake. He likes the cake and I like the icing. He was doing something on his phone all the time, taptapping, swiping, taptapping. He looked like a blackbird, the way they stab things. A blackbird is a violent bird never mind his song. His song is beautiful.
Dad, I said, Dad.
He shook his head.
It’s just gone, he said. Some fucker bought it out from under me. I can’t believe it. They have sold on it on their site.
Dad, drink your tea.
He looked up at me. Squinting a little. How come I never noticed that his eyes were slightly off, the left one not exactly in line with the right?
Kelleher is putting the Castlemartin package together. I saw what he’s at. It’ll be big. Three, four hundred units, executive-style houses, a block of apartments, more maybe. Over my dead body. Over. My. Dead. Body, Suzy.
Dad, just let it go.
He finished his tea in one gulp. It must have burned his throat. He looked a bit stunned for a few seconds then he got a glass of water and drank it all. He stood in front of the window. It was raining. One of those sharp winter showers like someone throwing gravel at glass. Pins and needles for houses. He was going grey at the back and around the edges. Thinning too, a light circle in the middle of his head right at the top. Like a monk. Well, a monk starting out before he got the whole thing shaved. If that’s what they do. Or do they just wear hats? Maybe hats make you bald, or else bald men wear hats. Old bald men do.
Ah Jesus, he said.
That was all. I was worried about him. He looked grey now. It was like the tea was way too hot. Like his throat was blistered and he couldn’t talk any more. Like there was a fire in his chest burning him from the inside out.
4
And he went out without saying goodbye. I heard him driving off.
Then my mam came home. It’s like one of those silent movies where they go in one door and out another. The Three Stooges whatever. Except just two.
Where is Dad?
He went out.
He texted me to say he was here.
He was but he went out again. The house is gone.
I know. I can’t believe it, it only went on the market on Monday, the Kellehers are behind this, mark my words.
I pointed at the teapot. It’s fresh enough, want me to pour you a cup?
Why are you home today? There’s nothing wrong with you.
Tea and cake, I said.
I’ll tea-and-cake you if you don’t go to school tomorrow, Miss.
I will, Mam.
She stared at me. Sometimes I think she’s wondering who I am. She was wearing her Max Mara suit. I have to admit my mam can look pretty cool. My friend Holly said she was a milf. I seriously wonder about Holly sometimes. She could be bi or lesbian. But she liked Ed Sheeran. I have nothing against gays. In fact we used to have a gay friend, a boy who was in our Primary. He turned out to be gay by about fourteen, but Holly and me always knew. He had four sisters. Anyway, the three of us palled around a lot, but in the end his family moved away. They went to Australia because the dad lost his job.
Once, in Primary, Miss Daly said, Holly, what’s your full name? Holly said, Holly. The teacher said: But what’s it short for? It’s not short for anything, Miss. Holly, what is your full Christian name? I’m not a Christian, Miss, my parents are hippies.
It was true too. Her parents lived in a cottage with an acre and they raised all their own food, vegetarian of course, although Holly eats meat when she’s not at home, and totally organic. Everybody called them The Hippies. I used to let Holly copy my homework and I’d show her where to put in mistakes. Once she found a robin with a broken leg, she picked him up with both hands and carried him home. I would not touch a bird, ew, I swear, the idea of touching something with feathers. I would die before I would do that. Holly tells jokes. I don’t know where she hears them. Maybe she makes them up. What do Waterford people call Viagra? Willy Power. I don’t get it. She tells me that William Power is a common name in Waterford. I still don’t get it. I googled it and William is not actually all that common. Power is a Waterford name all right.
The cottage looks down on Inch beach and I know my dad or Kelleher the auctioneer would give their right hands to have the selling of it. It is a desirable residence in spades – not the house, the first thing a developer would do would be to level it. They’d level it with Holly and The Hippies inside if they thought they could get away with it. They tend to see the law as an Unfortunate Accident that prevents wealth creation. Like, ever hear a developer defending a forest or a green field?
5
Go on so, make a fresh cup, my mam said. And before the tea was even drawn Dad texted from the car to say that it was two point five mill and that he wouldn’t have been able to go there. My mam read me the text, which was like an achievement because he never uses punctuation. 2.5 mill some English celeb I couldn’t go that high he blew me off so much for buy Irish you would think Kelleher would have some f***ing loyalty so much for support your own. Like in texts my Dad won’t say fucking. Like it’ll be all ***. But he’ll say it in words all right.
Your dad is very upset about Ballyshane, she said.
I said I knew.
I hate when he gets like this.
I knew that too.
I’m worried about what he’ll do.
I shrugged. I know I shouldn’t shrug, I’ve been warned, but sometimes a shrug is all there is. What can you say? My dad will do whatever he wants. You can’t talk to him. My mam is the last person that could say anything. She has like two registers, as my English teacher would say, normal and ballistic. Usually I can shrug invisibly. It’s like my shrugs take place in a parallel universe or a different reality, nobody notices, I shrug and everything is the same before and after. But today she saw me. She pointed her finger at me.
Don’t you shrug at me, Suzy Regan. If your father has a heart attack I know who to blame.
; I burst into tears. I legit hate tears. My mam took one look at me and made that face that says, How did I give birth to something like you?
Just do what you’re told and go to school tomorrow. He has enough stress.
She got up and walked out. I heard her peeing then flushing in the downstairs toilet, sound-proofing in my house is shit Even Though We Have Gold Taps, then running water, the front door slamming. Then she was gone. Outside it was a February day which is meant to be the start of spring and idk but things did look a bit crisper, like there was life starting deep down. But it was a cold blue day and the sky was hard as ice. It looked like it might shatter and fall in. It would lacerate the world and all who sailed in it. The broken glass of the universe falling on our hearts like love.
6
So, OK, this is not going to be a confession. But you know, I was seventeen and I dreamed of what it would be like to have a man inside me. I tried some things, you can imagine, or you’ll have to imagine, because this is not turning into anything like that. So get over it. And it’s not going to be like History either, no jigsaw puzzle pieces falling into place. Maybe sometime in the future, like after the Leaving or something, I’ll be able to look back and say, Now I understand it. But I doubt it. Because we are not Living Through History, like Miss Leahy the Religion teacher says. Instead we are Living Through Random Shit, which is what Miss Regan, aka Me, says.
But what I’m trying to say is I was ready for something to happen and it did. But picture my surprise when it turned out not to be about sex. Like when you’re in the teenage-girl demographic you think the only thing that can happen is like losing your virginity to a Harry Styles lookalike. I legit wanted to lose it to Harry Styles from One Direction when I was fourteen. I would have settled for losing it to a fan even.
But the first thing that happened was that my dad’s heart was broken. It must have been breaking for a long time, or holding together too hard. Just because it wasn’t what I was imagining, but some kind of like total car crash in which people died not me, doesn’t mean it wasn’t something. I tell myself: Never forget this. What happens every step of the way.
But I will forget it. As you do.
7
So idk why property is such a big thing for my dad. Like who would endure heartbreak for a fucking desirable res on circa whatever acres? But you have to think it is a Georgian house with a fanlight over the door. And those windows you can walk through. Old Miss Corry told me: The Corrys have been here for two hundred years. She said it like she was standing up for herself, like I was the enemy. This was at the time when I did the project for Local History. The Corrys were the project so like I Get It. But then I’m not The British. The British were the only enemy Ireland ever had. How could I be the enemy ffs. Anyway We The Regans have been here for two hundred years too But We Never Had A Fanlight. My dad’s ambition was to put that fanlight in the family.
So the English guy moved in.
I expected there would be architects and renovations, new central heating, solar panels, works on the grounds. That’s what celebs do, right?
But the old guy just moved in and expelled the rats. He had a housekeeper that he brought with him from England. She bought food in the local supermarket a few times and then she discovered Aldi. People said she had a real Eastenders accent, but I don’t think there’s an Eastenders accent. And if there was nobody around here would know it. It’s just anything English that doesn’t sound like Shakespeare or the Queen. The Queen of England To Be Precise, as Holly says. I knew someone was in Ballyshane before anybody because I saw the smoke from the heating boiler. There was a lot of smoke. I said to Holly, They need to get that boiler serviced. We could see the smoke from the school bus.
It might blow up, she said.
I could see she would like an explosion.
Of course Holly doesn’t do science. I told her diesel boilers don’t explode. As far as I know. Idk I’m not sure. But then she prefers the idea of the explosion. Holly has a strong sense of justice. She would have been throwing bombs at kings once upon a time, but she def would not throw herself under a horse. When she gets mad she gets a red line above her left eye. That is a mark from where she was hit by a see-saw when she was a child. Someone jumped off just as she was jumping on. She had stitches and concussion. She always says she doesn’t remember whether she had concussion or not because she had concussion. Which is true when you think about it. Like it’s just hearsay, the concussion.
That evening I walked The Dog up to Ballyshane. I like the bare trees. Winter still, never mind the calendar. They are as pale as bones in the moonlight. The dark is not scary.
All the lights were on. Miss Corry always closed the curtains, she liked her privacy, I suppose you get used to it when your residence is set in circa two hundred acres with a tree-lined drive. But the English guy didn’t give a shit. I could actually see him sitting in a room with a glass of something in his hand, watching the telly. English people drink gin and tonic. My guess is that he was just under five feet tall. I’m not tall myself but he would be six inches smaller than me at least. He was like a rasher of wind, as my grandad used to say, he was so thin. You wouldn’t think someone as thin as that would be able to stand up. He was about fifty per cent bald and the bald place was really shiny.
Even outside the window I could feel the heat. My mother would kill him for keeping the place so hot. She says it’s unhealthy and bad for the environment. My mam doesn’t give a flying fuck about the environment as a matter of fact, but she hates people to be comfortable. My house is always cold unless my mam is cold and then it’s too hot. My dad just says wear a sweater. Like sometimes I wear two. And I have been known to wear a woolly cap in bed. My life I swear.
I took a pic from fairly far back with the flash turned off. It was OK. I WhatsApped it to Holly. Guess where I am?!!?
She replied: OMG dont get caught.
It was cold and The Dog already peed on every bush and brick on circa two hundred acres/circa eighty hectares and it was time to go, and I wanted to go because, although I am a natural-born snoop, it gets a bit boring after a while unless people do things. A murder would be nice. But something made me stay a bit longer and sure enough something interesting happened. The door opened. The housekeeper came in. She was a lot taller than the English guy, taller than me too, maybe six feet. She had big bones and big hands and a flat ass. She wore skinny jeans, a skin-tight silky T-shirt and high boots and I just knew she was a man. Even though she could wear those high boots like a model, even though she moved like a model, even though she did not do a single thing that was like gay or something, I knew she was a man. She had that perfect English complexion. In that instant I fell in love with her skin. I wanted it. I would wear it like a suit of designer clothes. In the lamplight I could see that it was flawless.
She went and sat on another chair. They spoke to each other for a second, then turned their eyes on the telly. There was nothing to say they were in love but I knew they were. They sat there like an old couple watching the six o’clock news.
I did not tell Holly.
It’s not that I don’t tell Holly everything, it’s just I don’t think she’s ready for things sometimes.
8
And tbf nothing much happens in our lives, Holly and me, just a lot of talk. Boys have sports. All the boys we know play hurling and football. I don’t know if they talk about us but we talk about them a lot. And when we’re not talking we’re texting or WhatsApp. It’s not that we fancy them. It’s just they’re there, and they’re something else, and they don’t go to my school which is all girls so we hardly ever actually talk to them. But one thing did happen to Holly. Going home from school once she was attacked by two boys. They tried to pull her into a field. She didn’t go. But she said they tried to get their hands up her skirt and stuff. Like you see. Lucky for her a car came along and she legged it. Holly is fast. She does athletics. They could have caught her too but they were afraid they would be seen from
the car. This happened when she was nearly fourteen. She was an early developer. She was the first girl in our class to start to show on top. And now she’s a bit big. She says she’ll get breast reduction when she’s working. Anyway, she says she thought they were bottlers and nothing would have happened but idk. That’s how it happens.
We were in Tesco’s café and we saw Jason and Helen, who are a couple, passing a cigarette around mouth to mouth. Maybe the café does not belong to Tesco idk but it’s next door. They didn’t even kiss or hold hands. They just stood in the cold and smoked. And when it was finished they stubbed it out in a flower pot and went indoors again. Is that supposed to be love? If so it is not for me or Holly. Holly said she would never marry because marriage is a bourgeois institution. Well, I said, I’m pretty bourgeois and I’m not going to marry either.
Holly had a turkey BLT followed by strawberry flan and I had an apple turnover. Holly asked me if I fancied Jason and I said no way. And I hate smoking. What if it was some celebrity who smoked? Some actor? Or Niall Horan? Or… I stopped her right there. Do not mention Niall Horan in my presence, and smoking is an absolute no-no, it is so just ew. She giggled. Her dad smoked marijuana or hash, I’m not sure which and she said she liked the smell of it. He never smoked it when I was around but the smell sort of lingered a bit. It was nice actually. I’m not against soft drugs. Holly gave me all the cream from her strawberry flan and I gave her the walnuts from my apple turnover. She just wanted the flan part. We had one pot of tea between us. The girl gave me a look when I asked for two cups.
Holly is lactose intolerant. It gives her Flatulence and Bloating. She is embarrassed by it. Her tummy sounds like a gunfight in an empty barrel. But since she gave up lactose she was totally normal.