When I got down to the hospital that morning, I was surprised to find Seánie in the ward with you. He looked tired and stressed and a little run down, but he stood up and smiled when he saw me. I went to shake his hand. He pulled me to him, told me not to be such an anal Irish bastard, gave me a hug. The plastic curtains had been drawn around your bed. The nurse was inside, he explained, changing your clothes.
‘So how was Lourdes?’ I asked him.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘It was really terrific. You should’ve come.’
We chatted for a while, about Lizzie and Franklin coming home, the heat of the summer months, the colourful behaviour of the pilgrims in Lourdes at night. I clocked him looking at me closely and trying to read my face. Seánie knows me well enough to know when things are bad. He kept up the smile, of course, there’s always the smile with Seánie, but I could see his weary eyes flicking over me.
‘Are you after losin’ a few pounds?’ he said. ‘You look like a different man, Billy.’
‘Yeah, I slimmed down a bit.’
‘I’ve lost some hair,’ he laughed. ‘From my head, I mean. But I’m gettin’ more in my nostrils.’
‘It’s an inverse proportion thing,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘I did a lot of thinkin’ in France, Liam. Mullin’ things over, you know. I took a bit of quiet time after the job. Did a retreat. Made a few decisions.’
‘Oh yeah? Like what?’
‘Ah well, I’m gettin’ itchy feet again.’ He looked at his fingernails and sighed. ‘Look, I may as well tell you, keep it under your hat for the moment. But I’m after applyin’ to go back on my travels. I’ve asked for Central America this time.’
The nurse opened the curtains and stepped out. She had a plastic basin in her hands and a blue nightdress folded over her wrist. Your face was shining like a new apple. You were wearing white pyjamas with a red heart on the breast pocket.
‘Now,’ she said. ‘Isn’t Miss looking well in her new attire?’
‘Lovely, yes. Where did she get those?’
The nurse nodded towards Seánie and smiled. ‘Father brought them.’
He was blushing. ‘I just saw them in Dunnes Stores on my way down earlier. They had them on a model in the window.’
‘God, Sean. Thanks. Did you know it was her birthday today?’
‘No, no. Is it? That’s a turn-up.’
‘It’s very decent of you, Seán.’
‘Stop it, would you, Sweeney. It’s little enough chance I get to be buyin’ women’s clothes. Though I suppose the girls down in Dunnes’ll think I’m a bit funny now.’
‘Funny indeed,’ the nurse said. ‘They wouldn’t be the first to think that, so.’
He grinned. ‘Listen to this bad County Kerry rip, Liam. Breakin’ my heart as usual.’
When the nurse had left, Seánie and I sat by your bed in silence for a while. In the corner of my eye I saw him peeping at me. I avoided his stare. Finally he did a bit of throat clearing and coughing, which as you’re aware probably is Seánie’s way of letting you know that he thinks something is up. In the end I had a pain in the neck from trying not to look at him, so I had to turn and face him then, if only to allow my circulation to keep going.
He did his understanding glance.
‘And you Liam? Everything’s been good with you, has it?’
‘It’s been great, Seánie. Everything’s been just fabulous. You wouldn’t believe how great everything has been.’
‘You sure?’
‘Course I’m sure.’
‘OK,’ he said, ‘OK. Just asking.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘No, it’s nothing. Just that I had a strange enough call last night from that copper, Duignan. Something I asked him to do a while back there. But I noticed he kept asking me were you all right.’
‘Well, I’m fine.’
‘Good, good.’ He slapped me across the shoulders. ‘So lookat, will I call up to you tonight for a proper chat?’
‘No, Seán. Don’t do that, if you don’t mind. I’ve something on this evening actually.’
‘Oh yeah, Duignan told me you’re after meeting some bird. I’m always the last to hear all the good news, of course.’
‘Well, I haven’t. I did a while back, but it’s over now.’
He nodded. A bit more coughing. A bit more throat clearing. A bit more staring at his fingernails.
Sometimes, love, I could happily wring that man’s neck.
A few days later I was on my way back to the house after work when I decided to call into SuperNova Electrics down in Dalkey village. We’d just had our new catalogues delivered from the printer that afternoon and I wanted to look after the local shops well.
You can guess, of course, where a good salesman would stand on the issue of how to look after his local shops.
I got a space in the church car park and walked down Castle Street in the evening sunlight. The village looked lovely with the sun reflecting gold in the shop windows, but I was in a bad mood. Frankly, what with Quinn’s absolute refusal to compromise on his nocturnal television extravaganzas, the sleep situation had got out of hand; by now I was only sleeping three or four hours a night, if I was lucky. Work was suffering too, I could not hide it any more; O’Keefe and I had had several big and so far unresolved rows. What bothered me more was that I had also argued badly with Liam that day. He and I had rarely crossed swords before.
When I got to the SuperNova shop, I did what the good salesman will always do, I went to check the window display first. They had our posters and cut-outs, fanned-out stills from the brochure and leaflets. They had even set up one of the new dishes on a little revolving plinth. It all looked wonderful. Then I happened to glance up through the window. I almost fainted. He was in the bloody shop. Quinn, I mean. I could see him through the window! He had a newspaper in his hand and was talking away nine to the dozen to the girl behind the till, leaning in close to her and laughing. For a second or two I stared at him. He was jabbering and cracking jokes. I ducked into the alley beside the supermarket. What the hell was he doing now?
When I emerged from the alley a minute later I saw him up ahead of me, walking slowly along the street. The little pup was casually strolling down the main street of Dalkey now, bold as brass, and wearing my overcoat! I followed for a while, but kept my distance. Just in front of him, two policemen came out of a shop. He walked boldly straight past them with his head held high.
Suddenly I noticed Mr Pollexfen from the residents’ association bustling along the pavement towards me. He had on his serious expression and was walking as though he had a corn-cob stuck up his backside. I could tell that he wanted to talk to me. Your mother used to say that Mr Pollexfen geared up for a conversation the way an oil-tanker gears up to stop.
‘Ah, Sweeney,’ he said. ‘How’s tricks?’
‘Sorry, Jack,’ I said. ‘I’m in an awful rush.’
‘Yes, Sweeney, but lookit. Something will have to be done about those knackers up in the back field. They make more noise than an army.’
‘Yes, Jack. Can we talk about it again?’
‘One of them exposed himself to my mother the other week. It isn’t right, Sweeney, I tell you, and it isn’t decent. She’s eighty-two years old.’
‘Awful, Jack, I know, but listen …’
‘They say they’re down on their luck, but I notice they’ve damn plenty of money for drink all the same. Now look, I’ll call up to you tonight to discuss it, shall I? With a few of us from the committee?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I mean, don’t do that, Jack, if you don’t mind. I’ll call up to you.’
‘They’re only bloody animals, is what I say, Sweeney, really they …’
I walked off leaving him in mid-flow. Up ahead of me, Quinn passed the church car park and the Queen’s pub and kept going. One of the policemen turned and stared after him, then said something to his colleague. I stopped dead. But after a moment they shrugged and simply walked on. They
passed me by and both nodded a hello. Half-way down the main street, Quinn stopped and looked up at the castle tower, shading his eyes. I caught up with him and hissed his name.
‘Ah Homer,’ he said, ‘how’s she cuttin’?’
‘What are you doing down here?’ I dragged him into the castle doorway.
‘Where in the name of holy fuck are we, Homer?’
‘We’re in Dalkey, all right? Dalkey. There. Now you know.’
‘Dalkey? But y’told me we’re down the countryside.’
‘Yes. Well, I was lying. We’re in Dalkey.’
‘Where Bono lives? Out of U2?’
‘Well, that’s really Killiney,’ I said. ‘But yes. Basically.’
‘Jaze,’ he said, looking around. ‘And I thought we were in some little kip down the country. It doesn’t look like Dublin, does it? Bleedin’ Dalkey.’
‘And what were you doing in SuperNova, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Tryin’ to find out where I was.’
‘What?’
‘Well, y’can’t walk up to somebody and say sorry, darlin’, have y’got the right town please? I’m after been lookin’ around all the shops for a clue. But I couldn’t see anythin’.’
‘You asked that girl what town this was?’
‘Yeah. And then I invited her up to the house later for a jockey’s breakfast.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The jockey’s breakfast, Homer. A rasher and a ride.’
‘You invited her up the house?’
‘Course I did. Told her to bring a friend too. I mean, I’m after bein’ cooped up for an age, Homer. A man has his needs, y’know.’
His face crumpled into laughter. ‘Look at the mug on yeh, Homer. Of course I didn’t. And of course I know where we are, y’dipstick. I saw it written on yer post weeks ago.’
‘Smart, aren’t you?’
He pointed to his feet.
‘Down there for dancin’, Homer’.
He tapped his head.
‘And up here for everythin’ else. Now come on, are we goin’ home or what? It’s nearly time for the tea. The girls’ll be along up shortly.’
He stalked off quickly ahead of me, swinging his arms from side to side and softly singing to himself.
At half-past seven that evening we were in the kitchen making boiled eggs when the row broke out. I was simply trying to tell him that you don’t put the eggs in the pot until after the water has boiled.
‘Me hole,’ he said. ‘I know how to boil an egg, Homer.’
‘You don’t. You’ve put it in too early.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘That’s not how you boil an egg,’ I told him. ‘That’s all I’m saying.’
‘Leave off, Homer, will yeh? Don’t be such an aul’ woman.’
He poked me hard in the ribs and I pushed him back. He grabbed the soft part of my forearm and pinched hard at me, laughing, twisting his fingers until I yelped with pain, then he shoved me away from him with such force that I crashed into the table, upsetting the cups and the milk jug. He threw back his head and laughed again, louder this time.
‘Were you born fuckin’ stupid,’ I say, ‘or did you have to fuckin’ practise it?’
His smile froze. His glistening face suddenly whitened with anger. He picked up the pot with the eggs and flung it across the kitchen into the sink. Then he turned and glared at me.
‘You’re one bollocks sometimes, Homer, do y’know that?’
‘Well, at least I’m not stupid as well,’ I said.
He snatched up a milk bottle and took a step in my direction. ‘What did you call me?’
‘You heard me.’
‘Say that again, y’little fuckin’ cunt.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I won’t.’
He pointed the bottle at me. ‘When are you goin’ away again?’
‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘To Galway.’
‘Well, I’ll be gone when y’get back. Don’t worry.’
‘Good,’ I said.
He stormed out to the garden and I saw him through the window, kicking at the bushes.
Later that night I knocked on his bedroom door and went in. He was lying on the bed, reading a newspaper and smoking. Needless to say, the radio was on. I saw then what he had been doing with the photographs from the Sunday magazines. There they all were, sellotaped in rows to the walls. Pictures of skeletal supermodels pouting on catwalks, three or four of footballers embracing and laughing, another of a sioux chief with a feathered head-dress that reached all the way down to the desert ground. A white map of Ireland with the border marker in red. A diagram of the London tube system. A six-inch emerald shamrock cut out of an advertisement for Aer Lingus.
‘Look,’ I told him. ‘If you need a place for a while, it’s all right. You can stay.’
‘No, it’s fine. I’m goin’ in the morning.’
‘I said you can stay if you want.’
He whipped over a few pages of his newspaper. He reached into his breast pocket and took out a biro. He bit the lid off and began to do the crossword.
‘I said you can stay,’ I told him.
‘Yer all fuckin’ heart,’ he said, and went back to the paper. I found myself staring up at the pictures once again. There in the middle of the wall was a black and white photograph of the Statue of Liberty with, I suppose, an emigrant family in the foreground, a mother and father in grey rags, arms around each other, a scrawny toddler sitting on a trunk and waving his hands in the air. I went to leave.
‘Here, Homer,’ he said. ‘You know the difference between a raw egg and a good ride?’
‘No. What?’
He never took his eyes off the newspaper. ‘Y’can beat a raw egg,’ he said.
A few nights later, at about ten o’clock, I was in the kitchen washing some dishes when a sudden movement out in the garden caught my eye. It was very dark that night and a few minutes earlier it had begun to rain quite heavily. But when I looked out I thought that I could see someone moving around in the shifting shadows down behind the apple tree. A stocky man dressed in black clothes. He seemed to be slowly circling the aviary and looking into it. I called out for Quinn, but quietly. I knocked on the wall of the living-room but he did not come. I knew then that he must have been upstairs.
I switched off the kitchen light and looked out again. The glass misted. But when I rubbed the steam away I could see him again, I was certain of it, directly beneath the apple tree now and staring into the grass. I crept to the back door and opened it as quietly as I could. The rain was falling hard. From above me I could hear water gurgling in the gutters. When I got out on to the steps I could not see him any more. I moved cautiously forward, down the steps, until I set off the security light. The blazing white beam flooded the garden. There was nobody there. I told myself that I must have been imagining it.
I went back inside, made some coffee and brought it in here, to the small room. I tried to write for a while, enjoying the sound of the rain sputtering against the window. By then, writing these words to you was the only thing that could give me relief, that could turn off the hot light inside my head and switch the cool light on. I would write every night for several hours, until my hand ached, and that seemed to melt away the tension of those mad days. But it bothered me that night, what I thought I had seen in the garden, I could not stop thinking about it. I went into the living-room where he was now watching the television.
‘Were you out the back a while ago?’ I asked him.
He shook his head.
‘I saw someone in the garden. Definitely. Are you sure it wasn’t you?’
‘Course I bleedin’ am. Jesus, Homer.’
‘Well, I saw someone out there not half an hour ago, I’m telling you. A man.’
‘Was it one of them knackers from the field?’
‘I’d be surprised if it was. They never come in here.’
He shrugged and peered back at the television screen. ‘Musta been a ghost, Homer. Y’
must have a guilty conscience.’
‘For God’s sake,’ I sighed. ‘Do you have to call me that?’
‘What?’
‘Homer.’
‘Oh yeah. Sorry,’ he said. ‘I meant Marge.’
‘Who the blazes is Marge?’
‘She’s Homer Simpson’s auld lady, y’dipstick. D’y’know nothin’?’ He giggled. ‘The gas thing about you, man, is y’look like Homer but y’act like Marge.’
As I went to leave I noticed something that struck me as odd. ‘How come your hair is wet if you haven’t been outside?’ I asked him.
He touched his head. ‘I had a shower,’ he said. After a moment.
Every evening around that time I would come back from the office to find him hard at work, painting a patch of wall, heaving blocks about the place, nailing down loose boards, varnishing doors. He fixed the toilet and made it flush properly, cleared out the kitchen drain, got the long ladder out of the stable and dug handfuls of rotting leaves from the gutters. One day he mixed up a mess of plaster on the back steps and filled the cracks in the concrete. The next morning he asked me to bring him home some special kind of textured paint for exterior stone which he had seen in a magazine. We spent four long hours painting the rockery steps that night, Quinn kneeling on the concrete, me making strong tea and toasted sandwiches, and walking up and down the garden to keep the security light clicking on after it had got dark.
What he did in the garden you would not believe. It is still not perfect by any means, love, but if you saw it now you would be amazed. In the space of a week he trimmed back the hedges, weeded out the flower-beds; he got the bamboo poles out of the old wigwam and sawed them into neat halves to trail the wild ivy. He mixed up more plaster, smashed a load of old bottles and fixed pieces of the glass into the top of the back wall. Then he dug the ditch a few feet deeper, so that if anyone did manage to climb in, they would at least not find it an easy stroll up to the house. And every night when he had finished working he would simply come up into the kitchen, eat a bit – either sausages or a mound of toast – watch the O. J. Simpson trial for a few hours and then go to bed, usually without having hardly said a word to me.
The Salesman Page 32