by Roddy Doyle
The sweat was cold.
The taxi turned on to the Howth Road.
—The things we do for love, said Joe.
He started laughing.
—Next week, he said. —Wait an’ see. It’ll all have been worth it.
It made no real sense.
But it was great.
* * *
—
—Does he look like you? I asked Joe.
—Do your kids look like you? he asked.
I’ve been told that my children look like me. I’ve been told they look like Faye.
—A bit, I said. —People say it. Faye says it.
—A bit, said Joe. —That’s the thing. We all look a bit like everybody. Seriously. Get a picture of Whitney Houston up on your phone there. And we’ll find something that makes her look a bit like the barman. Go on.
He was trying to escape. But I did it. I googled Whitney Houston and chose an early photo, pre-The Bodyguard.
—God, she was lovely.
—And the barman fuckin’ isn’t.
We were close now, shoulder to shoulder; we leaned into each other to share the phone.
—His forehead, look.
—Okay, I said. —That’s Whitney’s.
—Look at the way he’s standing – look. He’s definitely one of the Houstons.
—It’s weird, that, isn’t it? I said. —How we inherit the way we walk or something like that. My Róisín walks exactly like my mother did. According to my father.
Joe nodded at the barman.
—Maybe he sings like Whitney, he said.
—It’s not impossible.
—We could start singing ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ and see if he joins in.
—And get ourselves barred.
—Maybe she never died, he said. —She’s a barman in the Sheds.
—Does Peter look like you? I asked.
—Don’t be a cunt, Davy.
—I’m not being a cunt, I said. —I’m trying to remember.
—What?
I shrugged. I sat up, away from his shoulder, from him. I tried to straighten my back – stay straight.
—Some of it’s so vague, I said.
—What?
—Back then, I said. —There are things that are like yesterday.
He nodded.
—Same here – yeah.
—And other stuff, I said. —That must have happened at about the same time. But –. Like, for example. Faye says we did something and I haven’t a clue. No recollection of it. Say, some place we went to. She’ll talk about food we had, maybe – where and what. I can’t remember it but I don’t doubt it happened. Then she’ll mention something else that happened on the same day, same place, and I’ll be there – every detail.
I wanted him to see us both back then, back in George’s, back on the stools – stools like the ones we were sitting on now. I wanted to be there. It was my story too. We’d adored the same woman. It had been a joint decision. A thing we’d made up together. In the space of an evening – food and a few drinks – he’d gone from reminding me of the existence of a woman we’d never got to know to telling me that he might have been the father of her grown-up son. I’d been there at the beginning and this ending wasn’t acceptable.
There was a question I hadn’t asked, a question so obvious I almost burst out laughing.
—Does she say you’re the father?
—Not in so many words, he said. —No. She doesn’t insist on it.
—So –.
He sighed, and I heard him inhale.
—It’s tricky, Davy. Look – just tricky. I’m not doing it justice. The words are letting me down.
I understood what he meant – I think I did. I could feel the solidity of my marriage to Faye, although I couldn’t have explained it. But my children were mine – it was very straightforward. There were events I attended, events I took part in. I fucked my wife and she fucked me. We have two children. She’s the mother; I’m the father. There were miscarriages and an abortion. I ache when I think of my children; they are beyond anything I could put words to. I think of their weight when I first held them, their cheeks, their first laughs, the fat little hands clutching my finger. But there was also blood and shit. My children are facts and Joe’s phantom, middle-aged baby made me fuckin’ furious.
—I have to go for a piss.
* * *
—
We walked down Main Street that first weekend. We weren’t going anywhere in particular – I didn’t think we were. We’d no goal, no destination. Gorey then wasn’t Gorey now. Gorey today is windows full of wedding dresses. Gorey then was fewer and smaller windows, a country town in Wexford trying to be a bit more. Gorey today seems like a suburb of Southside Dublin, somehow cut off from the mainland.
—Just showing you the roots, said Faye as she shut the back door.
She didn’t lock it.
—What’ll you do with the dogs? I asked.
—They can go for their own fuckin’ walk, she said.
—I meant, when you leave.
—Who says I’m leaving?
—You do, I said.
—Do I now?
—Yeah, I said. —You said as much.
—Said as much. Did I say I was leaving this place – in actual words?
—You implied it.
—And tell us, she said.
We were out on the street now.
—Did Gladys Knight sing, ‘I’m implying on that midnight train to Georgia’ – did she?
—Not really.
I loved being with her.
—No, she fuckin’ did not. I never implied on a train in my life and neither did Gladys. Or any of the Pips. It’s downhill all the way, this place, look.
She was right. We were walking down a hill, towards a crossroads.
—Even coming back up, it’s fuckin’ downhill.
—You’re not happy here, I said.
She snorted.
She stopped.
—And do you think now, David, that if I leave – if I leave, pack a case and actually leave – it’ll be because of you, and this will make me a happy girl?
—Yeah.
—God love you.
The town – this end of town – was quiet, although there were cars and vans passing us, slowly. I could see people down the hill, below us. It was late afternoon, getting dark, already cold. We were outside a shop that had a pyramid of jars of blackcurrant jam in its window.
She moved again. I went with her. She found my hand. That thrilled me.
—Where’s your shop? I asked.
—Wait now – wait. Till you see.
She stopped again.
—I’m making a prediction, she said. —One day – one day – there’ll be traffic lights at this crossroads. Watch out for the tractors now.
We ran across the street, although we didn’t have to. The traffic wasn’t moving.
She let go of my hand.
—Look now, she said. —There.
She pointed across the street. The shop was twice the width of the other shops, to the left and right. The name was big and red, above – across – both window displays.
—Your surname’s Devereux, I said.
—There now, she said. —You’ve had your hand on my arse and only now you find out that the arse is called Devereux. It’s shocking, so it is. What’s the country coming to?
She took my hand again.
—What happened your mother? I asked.
—What d’you mean, like?
—How did she die?
She let go of my hand and pointed across the street again.
—The shop?
—It’s not a shop, she said. —I told you. It’s a department store
.
—And it killed your mother?
—I’m blaming it, anyway, she said. —It’s more interesting than cancer, sure, isn’t it? A woman in a man’s world, David. A woman takes over the man’s world. She was made for the job – and she wasn’t. It killed her – they killed her. She wasn’t wired for it, so she wasn’t.
She was holding my hand again.
—The cancer only came skipping along behind it, she said. —I could blame my dad for dying, I suppose. And leaving her with the fuckin’ thing. Come on.
—We’re not going in?
—I’ll never go in, she said. —Which, now, is a pity. Cos I loved it in there. Being in there with Mammy. In under everything. Watching her. I loved it. But, sure.
—Will you sell it?
We were heading back up through the town.
—When the probate’s sorted, I will, she said. —Sounds medical, doesn’t it?
—Probate?
—Like something with veins.
* * *
—
I stood at the urinal, then at the sink. No one else came in. The toilet was near the back of the pub. There was a smoking area a bit further back; I’d seen the sign for it. I could go out there – there might be a gate, a way to escape without going back in and past him. I’d leave my jacket – and my wallet; I didn’t care.
But I’d just needed the time. The minute alone. I hated what Joe was at, but it was intriguing, perplexing – familiar. The things we say and don’t say, the things we tell and don’t – I knew what he was doing.
I checked my phone. There was nothing.
I went back out – back in.
* * *
—
I separate us. I sit alone in George’s. Joe isn’t beside me. I watch her at the table. I see the cello case, leaning against the wall, under the window. I decide it’s hers. She’s beautiful. She shines. I don’t know why I think that – she shines. It could be that there’s nothing physically outstanding about her, except, perhaps, her hair. The words about her arse and tits – banter, bravado – frightened lads. I’m alone now. I’m not in competition. I’m not reining back jealousy or desperation. But she is beautiful. She does shine. She has a pint of lager in her hand. Her fingers are long. She puts the pint down. She stretches – I want to shout. Her head goes back, her hands reach for the ceiling. I can see an inch of white tummy – it’s not a stomach. Her head is back, she’s not listening to her friends. She lowers her arms – she changes shape, becomes smaller, fuller. She smiles at her friends – she’s back. Sorry. She grins. I see her teeth. And I’ve already heard her voice. Southside Dublin.
This didn’t happen.
Nothing like this happened.
She sat at the table with her friends, the other musicians – the music students, whatever they were. She had her back to the window. She wasn’t beautiful. She was gorgeous. And she didn’t shine. She was human – she was gorgeous. I remember that. Flesh and blood – legs, arms, neck. I remember her lifting her arms to stretch. I remember groaning. It was theatrical but it was real. Joe was beside me – Oh, for fuck sake. He can fuck off; he’s not there. I’m alone. I was alone. I was looking across at her; there was no running commentary. Thirty-seven years ago. She was gorgeous. I was in love with her. In love with what I made her. She stood – she wasn’t tall – and came over to me. She stood beside me while she ordered her drink – Point of Horp, George, please.
—Point of Horp, Joe whispers beside me. —For fuck sake.
I push him away again – he’s not there.
She was real. A great-looking woman. I wouldn’t have called her a woman back then – a girl is what she’d have been, back when I was still a boy. She was one of a line of girls and women that myself and Joe declared ours in the years we hung around together. Gorgeous, real, but not for us – impossible. And that was the point – the impossibility. We invented them. We had the raw material, safely on the other side of the bar, the window glass, the road. We’d make them up, give them traits, habits, urges. We even gave them names. We’d been doing it for years.
After the girl in George’s, we never did it again.
But my point is: I was there. I was there too. I saw her too. I fell for her too. I never even got to know her name – too.
* * *
—
—What happened after Wigwam? I asked him.
—More Wigwams, he said.
—You met her again.
—Yeah, he said. —Yeah. I did.
I was calm again; it didn’t matter. I’d be going home soon, to England. I’d tell Faye all that had happened. She’d put down her book, she’d look at me over her reading glasses; she’d take them off, put them on her head. She hadn’t really known Joe. But this was a story. She’d love it.
They’d met again.
—Four days after.
A pub this time – he couldn’t remember which.
—How come?
—I just don’t.
—You remember everything else, I said.
—Let’s say it was Harry Byrne’s, he said.
—Was it?
—Let’s say it was, he said. —It probably was. It was, once – definitely.
—Does she still drink Harp? I asked.
—What?
—She used to drink Harp, I said.
—That’s right, he said.
He laughed.
—I’d forgotten that, he said. —Jesus.
He looked down the bar, to the line of taps.
—Does Harp still exist? he said.
—They still drink it in the North, I think.
—Do they?
—I think so – yeah.
—That’s gas, he said. —But anyway, no. She had a glass of Merlot. I think. Red – some sort of red. I don’t think she drank it. She just had it in front of her.
—A point of Horp, I said.
—What?
—That was how she used to pronounce it.
—Is that right?
—Yeah.
—Okay, he said. —I can’t remember that.
It was late afternoon, the second time, on his way home from work.
—I know what you’re thinking, he said.
—You don’t.
—Okay, he said. —But I think I do.
—Okay.
—You think we had a couple of drinks – for the Dutch courage. And then we went somewhere. Howth summit or somewhere – for a smooch. In the back of the car.
Earlier in the evening I’d thought exactly that. Or a hotel room – that was more likely. He’d slept with the woman of our dreams thirty-seven years after we’d put the thought into our heads. Now, before he spoke, I knew I was wrong. It hadn’t happened – the hotel, the back of the car. But I didn’t know what had happened. Nothing had happened. But that, I knew, wasn’t it either. This was a different kind of story.
And that was it, I thought. It was a story. Not an account, or a long boast. Joe was telling me a story.
* * *
—
—How come I do it all? Faye said once, after she’d moved to Dublin.
—What d’you mean? I asked her.
We’d been living together for two months. We were lying on the bed. It wasn’t housework and it wasn’t money – I didn’t know what she meant.
—I do most of the talking, she said.
—Yeah, I agreed. —You do.
She said nothing. I wasn’t worried.
—If we were in a film, I said. —You’d get up on your elbow now. You’d make sure your tits were covered by the sheet and you’d stare at me before you said your next thing.
She laughed.
Faye rarely laughed. It was another thing I loved about her. It was always a surprise. And a victory.
—That’s what I mean, she said.
—What?
—I’m the one who’d normally have said something like that, she said.
—True, I said.
—Why, though?
—It’s you, I said.
—It’s me?
—Yeah.
—So, then – what’s you?
—I’m the one who loves you for it, I said.
—Is that right?
—Yeah.
—I like that, she said. —Oh, I do like that.
And she did. For a long time. Maybe she still does.
—I’ll marry you now for saying that, David, she said.
—Will you?
—I will, she said.
—Good.
—And we’ll see how it goes.
—Grand.
—You can kiss the bride now, David, she said. —Anywhere you want.
* * *
—
They met twice a week at first. She didn’t ask about his family. Joe asked her nothing. He thought – the way she sat, the way she looked at him, and didn’t look at him – he thought she thought, he already knew. There was nothing to ask, no years to fill in. He thought.
—She was a cheap date, so, I said.
The drink was talking. It was the night’s second energy. I was enjoying myself again.
—Hang on, said Joe. —Hang on. Listen – I looked up the word salacious – a while ago there. I googled it. I’ve been hearin’ the word all me life and I knew what it meant, and I didn’t – exactly. If you know what I mean.
—I do.
—So I googled it and read the definitions and the synonyms and all that. And this isn’t salacious or crude or prurient or indecent. Or anythin’. What I’m tellin’ you. And it won’t be.
—Great word, though.
—Granted. Brilliant word. Gives me the horn.