Letter from Lizzie today. Coming home next month.
Postcard from Erin in the envelope. Asking after M. Poor kid.
L’s letter says ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ is Erin’s favourite story now. One night recently Franklin asked her why.
‘Because it reminds me of Aunty Maeve.’
Came up here to the attic a while ago. Safe up here, nesting among the oak beams. Will never think of looking up here.
Sunday 24 July 1994
The Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
206–160
Week 29
VESTMENTS
Green+
HOURS
Proper; Psalter Week 3
MASS
Proper; Gloria; Creed; Preface: Sundays, 29–36
Ex. 19: 1–2, 9–11 16–20; Ps. Dan. 3; Mt. 13: 10–17
Moses is called to the mountain.
No masses for the dead, except funeral masses, are permitted today.
Anniversary of the episcopal ordination of Most Revd William Lee,
Waterford and Lismore, 25 July 1993
Patron: St.Declan.
Thought for the Day: Even the Lord fell three times.
Attic. Have pushed tea chests of books over the trapdoor so he can’t open it. Appalling heat up here. Found stinking dead rat under rafter.
Funny the heat. Fibreglass insulation looks like dirty old snow.
Monday 25 July 1994
The Feast of St James the Apostle
207–159
Week 30
16th Week in Ordinary Time
VESTMENTS
Red
HOURS
Proper; Te Deum; Psalter Week 4 at day hour
MASS
Proper; Gloria; Preface: Apostles 64–65
2 Cor. 4 4: 7–15; Ps. 125; Mt. 20: 20–28
The first of the apostles to die for Christ
No masses for the dead, except funeral masses, are permitted today.
Patron: St James.
Thought for the Day: You’ll always hurt the one you love.
This morning there were three rabbits down the back, snuffling around in the hollyhocks. Watched them from the kitchen window while I waited for the kettle to boil.
Went out to the garden. When they heard me coming they froze and then darted away into the thicket. I looked down at him. Had his feet and calves wedged through the bars on the roof – hanging there. Actually hanging upside down with his arms folded. Not moving at all. Just hanging there like some weird bat.
Inside again I walked around the house for a while. Feel cooped. Place has been getting on my nerves so much the last few days. When all this is over – will it be over? how will it be over? – have to get someone back here to fix the place up. Or maybe I’ll just sell after all.
NB: That day last winter the estate agent came to the door saying he had a client looking for a house just like this. An American? Told him no, but he made me take his card anyway. Said he always had buyers for places like this.
Decided to get out for a while. Walked down to Dalkey feeling thirsty. Bad case of the shakes. Got some food and a few bottles of wine.
Wonderful to get out of the house. On the way down the avenue the smell of mown grass. Buzzing bees everywhere. Gust of wind came billowing down the railway cutting, carrying dust and soot. Outside the vintage car shop a beautiful slim Beamer being polished by an athletic-looking youngfella in boxers and a vest. The tar on the road melting in the sun. Could feel the heat through the soles of my sandals.
In the supermarket the air-conditioning on at full blast. The place so cool and pleasant, I could have stayed there for ever. Got a trolley and began to stock up. Young women everywhere, in tight shorts and T-shirts and bikini tops. I’m wandering around when something odd happens. I notice this guy I think I know from the old days. I don’t quite remember him at first. He’s certainly aged a bit and his hair is quite thin, but I definitely know him.
There he was, poking through the cold meats in the delicatessen section, looking grubby and tired. Walking with a limp. Turned around and headed in the other direction.
Walked around the fruit and vegetable section looking at all the strange fruits they have. Kumquat and mango, star fruit and pawpaw. A yowling kid sat in a rocking train engine, turning the wheel like he was trying to twist it off. Two shop girls chatting and laughing by the biscuits. Kept thinking about the man I saw in the aisle. Started to bother me. Was about to go and look for him when it occurred to me – probably just some sad bastard I got drunk with once. Big deal. Just another drinking companion, probably wouldn’t even remember me anyway. Went and got some Cokes, a fat litre bottle of 7-Up, one of mineral water, three bottles of white wine, a naggin of vodka. Ten minutes later pushing my trolley around a corner by a pyramid of fruit cans when I practically bumped into him. Stared at me, looking startled.
—Bill, isn’t it? Bill Sweeney?
—Billy, actually.
—It’s Phil. Phil Fortune. I was a friend of Grace’s. We met once or twice.
—I know who you are.
Held out his hand. Thought about this for a moment before taking it.
—Well, this is … How’s life treating you, Bill?
Told him fine.
He smelled of drink and stale cigarette smoke. The collar of his shirt dirty. Grubby tie with parrots on it. Saw then that his shopping basket was almost full of that cut-price own-brand beer. He’d put an Irish Times over the top, but I could see there must have been two dozen cans. It was just after eleven in the morning.
Metallic bong sound and a woman’s voice came over the crackling loudspeaker. Special offer on ice-cream. Then the tinny music starts up again.
—And the girls? They’re keeping well too, are they?
—Maeve isn’t, no.
—Oh well yes, yes, of course. Any change there, Bill?
—No. No change.
—I meant to drop in and see her a few times. Never got round to it. She’s still down in St Stephen’s, is she?
—It’s like I told you already, Phil. There’s no change.
Shook his head and did a bit of tongue clicking.
—Well, things are great for me, Bill. Well, I say great. Up and down, you know. I was in England for a while. Things didn’t work out for me businesswise. I was into the property thing over there for a while. Got the old fingers burnt a bit though. Negative equity.
—Really.
—But I’m living up in Ballybrack now. Knackeragua, you know. HA HA HA HA, ah no, it’s not too bad. With my sister. I don’t think I’ll be there for long though. I’ve got plans. I was thinking of getting into this internet thing. Selling it. I reckon it could be big over here, you know the way the Irish love to talk? I mean, on that damn thing you get to talk to people all over the world. You’re a salesman, aren’t you, Bill?
—Yes.
He tried to laugh.
—Well, I might have to look you up for a few tips. On selling. I’m sure you’d be able to help out a novice like me.
—I sell satellite dishes. That’s what I know. Not much else.
His lips worked against each other.
—Yeah. But that’s technology too, isn’t it? And selling’s selling, isn’t it? You see, my thing’s people, Bill, I can see that now. And selling’s all about people, Bill, isn’t it, really? Selling’s all about making people happy?
Clearly more fucking drunk than I thought.
—No, Phil. It isn’t. It’s all about selling things.
Whites of his eyes flecked with thin broken veins.
—Yes. Well. And listen, how’s the golf, Bill? Going around under a hundred these days?
—I don’t play golf.
Confused gawp.
—Don’t you play golf, Bill?
—No, Phil. I’ve never played golf once in my whole life.
His face a deep shade of pink. – I thought one of the girls told me you played golf, no? I could have sworn one of them said the old
man was never off the green, no? I was going to invite … I was just thinking, maybe some time, that you and me … I mean, I thought the girls once said …
Shook my head and interrupted him.
—Wrong girls. But then I suppose you must meet a lot of girls on your travels.
He looked at the floor and nodded.
—Oh well, never mind then, Bill. See you around some time then.
—Not if I see you first, you prick.
Laughs. —What? What do you mean, Bill?
Went up close to him.
—Fuck you, Phil. That’s what I mean.
Sighs and looks into his basket.
Turned around and left him there, staring at his beer cans and surrounded by whole shoals of shrink-wrapped smoked salmon.
‘Bong’ went the bell over the speaker.
Bong. Bong. Bloody bloody bong.
Came home and straight up here but didn’t have the heart to start into the drink.
Enough for now. Going up to sleep in the attic. Goodnight. Over and out.
Bong
PART III
Chapter Thirteen
Maeve, when I think back now on those dreadful days, those seemingly endless nights of roosting like a mad bird in the sweltering attic, I hardly even recognise myself. Certainly, when I read over what I wrote at that time, the sensation is one of scrutinising the posthumously discovered confessions of some depraved monster who, in another time, would have been led lurching through the streets in chains for the horrified amusement of the innocent. Although only four months have passed, those scrawled chaotic pages seem to come from another life. I mean this literally, by the way; I do not exaggerate at all when I tell you that I read them now as though they were written by somebody else. And yet they were not. They were not. There is my handwriting, there are the inky smudges of my own fingerprints on the pages. To deny them would be like denying my own child. What happened over those two weeks in July I set before you now, real and unchangeable, a collection of actions and choices that are as much a part of me as the poisoned blood in my veins.
The morning after I wrote that last page, I remember waking late in the dark attic, with the weird confluence of the wood’s sweet aroma and the chemical stench of fibreglass all around me. I was very hot. I climbed down. In the kitchen I tried to shave, although it was difficult to hold the razor steady. The windows were open and the room was flooded with clean light. I remember that I happened to glance out and notice that the rabbits I referred to in my diary were back in the garden. I let a roar and they hopped away, down towards the stream. I filled the kettle. What then? I suppose I must have opened the fridge and begun to unpack the shopping which was still in its bags from the day before.
That was when I saw it. There, on the kitchen table, was a Polaroid snap. Leaning against the teapot with the image turned away from me so that I could not see it. I was curious. I tried to figure out how it could have got there. Your Instamatic was still up in your room, I could have sworn it. I picked up the snap. It was wet and grey. As I held it in my fingers, an image started to form.
It was him. Quinn. Naked, his eyes wide, his protuberant canine teeth grimacing up at me. I ran to the window and looked down at the aviary. I saw the rabbits under the apple tree. From behind, a gloved hand clamped across my mouth.
‘Homer,’ he whispered. ‘Are you comin’ out to play?’
In a split second he was on me, punching me hard in the small of the back, swift, efficient jabs at the bottom of the spine. He hooked his arm around my neck and said nothing at all as he began to choke me, breathing very hard, kneeing me in the backs of the legs. I felt the air being squeezed out of my lungs. He got his hand around the front of my crotch and tried to rip open my trousers, flung me face down on the floor, stamped on my back. I must have managed to turn myself around then, because I saw his stubbled, purple face above me. He was panting harder. He had your hockey stick in his hands.
‘Any last requests, Homer? Before I brain yeh?’
I lunged at his legs and tried to knock him over. He staggered backwards against the stove, then ran at me, kicked out at my chest, sending me sprawling over the floor again. I hit my head on the leg of the table and knocked off my glasses. When I tried to take a breath I was sure that he had broken my windpipe. He looked blurry and shapeless, out of focus.
Then I heard my own voice as though it belonged to someone else. It sounded weak and frightened. ‘Fuck off then,’ I croaked. ‘Go on. You win.’
He took a step forward and kicked me hard in the side. A bolt of pain shot through my chest.
‘What did y’say to me?’
‘I said go. Just go on. Get out.’
He laughed out loud and wiped the sweat off his face. ‘But y’don’t realise, Homer,’ he said. ‘I’m grand here.’
He threw down the hockey stick and his eyes ranged around the kitchen. ‘I like it here, Homer. This is great. Lovely place y’have.’
He started to walk around the bright room then, pressing switches, trying the knobs on the Aga, turning the taps on and off. He opened the cupboard under the sink and took out the toaster. He put it on the kitchen table.
‘You’re nicely set up here, Homer. I’ll give y’that much.’
He picked up the hockey stick and began battering into the toaster with it, thumping again and again until the screws shot out and it lay in a mangled heap.
‘Was that guaranteed, Homer?’
I said nothing. He took a swing at me. My vision flashed as the stick connected with my kneecap.
‘Answer me, Homer. Was that guaranteed?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, gripping on to my knee now, mouth dry with agony.
‘Why don’t yeh?’
‘I just don’t. I mean I can’t think.’
He stood in front of me then, trying to balance the stick on one finger, all the time watching it, jerking his arm from side to side as it threatened to topple. ‘Homer can’t think. Homer can’t think.’ He let the stick fall into his hands. He grinned at me.
‘Well I’m gonna give y’somethin’ to think about in a minute, Homer.’
He jerked open the cupboard beside the chimney of the Aga and began to pull out the stacks of crockery. The plates and dishes shattered on the tiles. When he started frenziedly stamping on the broken pieces I saw that he was wearing a pair of my shoes. He jumped up and down, smashing the wine glasses and tumblers. He took the hockey stick and battered wildly around himself until the perspiration was streaming down his neck.
‘I fuckin’ like it here, Homer,’ he panted. ‘This is fuckin’ Disneyland.’
He put the stick on the table, pulled out a chair, swivelled it around and sat, arms on the backrest. He stared down at me then with a kind of stony fury.
‘What d’y’say now, Homer?’
‘I told you. Go on, just go. I won’t call the cops if you leave.’
He screwed up his face and simpered. ‘I won’t call the cops if y’weave, I won’t call the cops if y’weave.’ Then he grinned. ‘Yer pathetic, Homer. Y’know that? And yer borin’.’
He turned away from me and went to the sink. He ran the tap and splashed water over his face. ‘Homer can’t think. Homer can’t think. Well dear dear, boys and girls, isn’t that a good one now.’ I tried to get up and make for the door but he ran and kicked my legs from under me. He stood on my hand, grinding his foot from side to side until I howled with pain. I yelped and pleaded with him to stop. Finally, when I was almost in tears, he got off me and stood chuckling with his hands on his hips.
‘Please just go,’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘But I’m not goin’ anywhere, Homer. I told yeh, I like it here. So I’m gonna stay. Isn’t that nice?’
I could not speak, the pain in my hand was so bad. He picked up the hockey stick and shouldered it, like a soldier on parade. His turned his face to the warm light which was pouring through the kitchen window.
‘I’ve a few things to tell y’n
ow, Homer. Make yerself comfortable there. Right so, let’s see. Well now, the night y’nabbed me, I was on me way down to get a taxi to Dun Laoghaire, Homer, and wait for the boat to England. That’s why I’d me clothes with me. I was headin’ to London. And d’y’know why I was doin’ that, Homer?’
‘Why?’
His voice came breathless. ‘Because the local hardchaws were after tellin’ me to split, Homer. The RA, out in Bray. The boys of the old brigade thrown me out. Found out who I was. I mean, there I was a few weeks ago, Homer, up Bray Head one night with the mott, gettin’ dug into each other, and anyways, up they come, the two Provos and they’re open for bleedin’ business, Homer, if y’get me meanin’. Talk about coitus fuckin’ interruptus.
‘Told me the Irish fuckin’ Republican Army was puttin’ me outta the country. An expulsion order, they call it. Heard I was dealin’ smack. And they don’t like that, Homer, the laughin’ boys, don’t like it at all. Told me I’d two days to leave the shamrock fuckin’ shore, Homer, or they’d stiff me.’
He laughed. ‘In fact that time you and Flynn jumped me, I thought you was them. Some RA-heads, youse two, what? Some pair of fuckin’ desperadoes, Homer. Like bein’ mugged by Laurel and Hardy.’
‘Who wanted you out? Who did you say?’
‘The Provies, Homer. The local RA out in Bray.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I said. ‘They don’t have the IRA out in Bray.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh do they not? Right so. Homer’s the expert.’
He put the hockey stick on the table and jerked up the front of his T-shirt. A thick purple X-shaped welt was slashed across his chest. Down the slender abdomen and around his hairy navel there were more scars, criss-crossed patterns of cuts and jags.
‘See that, Homer? Well, that’s where I got the visit that night. Told me I’d get more if I wasn’t out of Ireland by the end of the week. Stanley knives, Homer. Y’ever been cut with a Stanley knife?’
I said nothing. He kicked me hard in the shin.
The Salesman Page 25