Love

by Roddy Doyle

  —What did you do?

  —Nothin’, he said. —I just sat there. But then she was scrollin’ through my photographs. Do you take many photographs, Davy?

  —Not really – no.

  —Same here, he said. —I don’t think many of us do, men our age. It doesn’t come natural. So all she found, really, was pictures she’d sent me, herself. The kids, an’ sometimes somethin’ she was thinkin’ of getting’ an’ she was askin’ what I thought, d’you know the way?

  —Yeah.

  —Curtains or a fridge, or whatever.

  Faye had once sent me a photo of a single Weetabix, and the message: Will I buy the pack? I’d been telling her earlier about the busy day I had ahead of me, before I went to work.

  —At least you haven’t been sendin’ her pictures of your penis, said Joe.

  —Trish said that?

  —Yeah, he said. —An’ that gave me a chance to speak. Why the fuck would I do somethin’ like that? To give the girl a laugh, she says. The poor miserable bitch. She wasn’t lookin’ at me – she didn’t look at me the whole time. She was like Carrie from Homeland, totally concentratin’ on the phone. An’ the way she spoke – it was like she knew Jessica. Like she’d met her an’ didn’t like her.

  He was running out of steam. He’d finished telling the story he hadn’t wanted to tell, the event that was – he thought – beside the point. Jessica definitely existed; I knew that now. Trish had made her more real than Joe had been able to manage.

  —What happened then? I asked.

  —Nothin’.

  —Nothin’?

  —Nothin’ much, he said. —Then. But, yeah.

  —Yeah what?

  —We had sex again, he said. —Me an’ Trish.

  —But not that night.

  —Says who?

  —Really?

  —No, he said. —Not tha’ night. But listen, Davy. I was sayin’ earlier. Like, this isn’t about two women fightin’ over me or anythin’ like tha’. Or me havin’ the midlife crisis or somethin’.

  —Midlife?

  —Late midlife, he said. —Fuck off. It isn’t. When I saw Jessica, when I met her again. I thought – I felt. It felt like I’d been livin’ two lives. That’s it, really. I’ve been livin’ two lives. There was my life – the family, Trish, the job an’ tha’. The – I suppose – the official life. An’ there was a shadow life I’ve been livin’ as well – that I’ve only become aware of. Since, like. Since I met her. Because I didn’t really meet her, Davy. I’d been with her all the time. Tha’ was how it felt. What I’ve been tryin’ to say. Honest to God. I wasn’t cheatin’.

  —What did she think about Trish calling her?

  —She didn’t mention it.

  —Did you?

  —No.

  —Come here, I said. —Did you ever tell Trish?

  —Wha’?

  —About Jessica, I said. —Did you ever manage to tell her what happened?

  —Not in one sittin’, he said. —No. Not really.

  * * *

  —

  There were no other customers at the bar when we got there, at half-three, immediately after the holy hour. George was lifting the window blind in the far corner.

  —Gentlemen.

  We sat at our end of the bar, and looked whenever we heard the doors – pushed open by shoulders and shopping bags but not by instrument cases. She didn’t come in. And no one arrived with a violin or cello, an advance party from the college around the corner.

  —D’you get many comin’ in from the College of Music, George? I asked.

  —Oh, we do, said George.

  —Especially on a Saturday.

  —Not especially, no, said George. —But when there’s an orchestra around in the Gaiety, they’d come in, a lot of them, between the matinee and the evening performance on the Saturdays.

  —With their instruments?

  —No, no.

  George laughed – he chuckled.

  —You’d never get a piano through that door.

  He rubbed his hands and walked down to meet two lads who’d just come in. One of them was carrying a record bag.

  —Spandau Ballet is my guess, I said.

  —Duran Duran, said Joe.

  —Fuckin’ dopes.

  —She might be in the orchestra in the Gaiety, said Joe.

  —In the pit.

  —But listen, he said. —There’s no way she’s playin’ in a panto. I’m not havin’ it.

  —There wouldn’t be a cello in a panto, would there? I said. —An orchestra.

  —No, said Joe. —Probably not.

  I’d never been to a pantomime. I’ve been to quite a few since then. There were seven or eight years when our kids loved going to the panto at Christmas, the trip to the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon, the dinner before, ice-cream during the interval. Faye loved it too.

  —Timmy Mallett, she said once.

  We were just home, in bed, after going to Aladdin.

  —You wouldn’t know whether to bring him home or kill him, she said.

  She sighed, and put her hand on my back.

  —Kill him for me, David, she said.

  —Is that an order?

  —I think it is.

  —Now?

  —No rush, no. Just, before next Christmas.

  —Opera, maybe, I said to Joe.

  —That’d make more sense.

  —I’ve never been to an opera, I said.

  —Same here.

  —Will we go?

  —What’s the point? said Joe. —The best part of it will be under the stage.

  —Our girl.

  —Sawin’ away in the dark.

  —It can’t be dark, I said. —They’d have to be able to read the music. Wouldn’t they?

  —Would they not just know it off by heart, like the singers?

  —Don’t think so.

  —Our bird would.

  —I kind of like the idea of her readin’ the music, I said. —And turnin’ the page.

  —Okay.

  —Maybe even wearin’ reading glasses.

  —Ah, no, said Joe. —Fuck that.

  —No?

  —Well, maybe. Okay – black ones.

  —No lenses.

  —Cool.

  —Would she be smiling as she plays? I asked.

  —No, he said. —No. Geniuses don’t smile.

  —She’s a genius?

  —Definitely.

  —She’s mad then.

  —Grand, said Joe. —But she’s not drinkin’ this afternoon, so she can’t be that fuckin’ mad.

  There was a short period, a few minutes at about half-four, when there were no women at all in the room, just men.

  —What’s the story?

  —Don’t know.

  —Maybe it’s the future, said Joe.

  —Wha’?

  —A world withou’ women.

  —Bleak.

  —Uncomplicated.

  —Fuckin’ bleak.

  We could pretend that women complicated our lives. There was no one there to sneer.

  We’d started our second pints when I realised something.

  —I haven’t eaten since Thursday.

  —Serious?

  —Yeah, I said. —No breakfast yesterday. An’ no lunch. I forgot me sandwiches an’ I went to buy the Joe Jackson album, an’ I had to leg it back to work by the time I’d stopped talkin’ to your man in the Sound Cellar. Then a few pints after work an’ I fell asleep in front o’ the gas fire at home. An’ then we came straight into town. An’ no fuckin’ breakfast.

  I didn’t tell him about the girl from work, the girl who’d smiled at me earlier in the day, or how I’d stood beside her in the pub – Hartigan’s – and hoped she’d talk to me, say something and then I’d be able to tal
k to her; how I’d left after seven pints, five pints after she’d left.

  —You slept in front o’ the gas?

  —Till abou’ two. I woke up sweatin’ – Jesus. Wringin’. Then –

  —Did your da not wake yeh?

  —He never goes into the front room if I’m in there.

  I’d often seen him – the darkness made by his feet – on the other side of the door. The feet would stay there a minute, then go.

  —Does he think you’re with a bird or something? Joe asked.

  —Don’t think so, I said. —But anyway, I’m fuckin’ starvin’.

  We left.

  —Back in a bit, George.

  —Ah, now.

  We went to the Coffee Inn on South Anne Street, for spaghetti bolognese. Food always felt like a waste of money. But I liked the place – packed with more of the people I wanted to be. We had two pints in Kehoe’s, two in Neary’s, two more in Sheehan’s. It was a different part of the day, a different life, when we got back to George’s.

  I was alone, outside. Joe had been with me, beside me, on Chatham Street. Then there’d been no room on the path. I’d gone out on the road, back onto the path. I’d lost Joe, but hadn’t noticed.

  I stood outside. I looked in the window. The door glass – both doors, both panes – was frosted, with a clear, round section just below eye level, a porthole. I had to bend slightly to look in.

  She was in there, among the friends. I looked at the men around her. If I’d had a marker, I could have drawn on the window, followed their eyes, mapped them, circled where their gazes intersected. On her face, all of them on her face. And – somehow – on my face, my eyes reflected in the glass watching her.

  She scratched her neck. She pulled the neck of her jumper down, slightly. She scratched a point above her collarbone with just one finger, then patted the jumper back into place. She looked at no one in particular – no man or woman. She was alone. She didn’t see the map.

  Joe was beside me. Looking through the other porthole. Seeing what I saw. We stayed out there. For minutes.

  * * *

  —

  —Does she still play the cello? I asked. His answer surprised me.

  —Yeah.

  —Does she?

  —Yeah, he said. —Every day.

  * * *

  —

  All women were mad. Faye told me that. And I believed her.

  The sun was bright outside; the curtains seemed to have disintegrated. My father was downstairs, in the kitchen. He was making no noise. I pictured him sitting at the kitchen table, tea and Saturday’s Independent in front of him, looking at the door to the hall or at the ceiling. He was smiling, shaking his head.

  We were in my old bedroom because we hadn’t been able to stop a taxi the night before and the house had been nearer than our flat, and I wanted him – I didn’t tell Faye this – to see her. I think now too: I wanted to provoke him. To be difficult. To amuse him. I wanted to give him something to tell other men, if he spoke to other men. Give him the chance to smile and raise his eyes to heaven.

  —A lot of the men are too, she said.

  —Mad?

  —That’s what I’m fuckin’ talking about, David.

  She slapped my chest.

  —You should be bloody listening.

  —I am.

  —Yes, she said. —Mad. A fair few men are. But not necessarily in a good way. Almost never.

  Faye was at her funniest, her most interesting, most entertaining, before sex and after sex. I don’t think I ever correctly anticipated what she’d say. But when she spoke, when she started giving it the full Faye, I knew there was going to be sex. I wanted it and she wanted it.

  —Mad men are bad men, she said.

  —Am I mad?

  —No, she said. —But I’m working on it. But not really. I like you kind of sane, so I do.

  Women were mad.

  She’d point them out. The hints, the clues – the eyes, the clothes. The walk, the hair, the gaze. There was madness in them and on them all.

  —And you’re mad, I said.

  —I’m the fuckin’ Queen of the madness, boy, she said. —Or I will be, by the time I’ve finished.

  It was mascara, or a pair of tights, or dark eyes behind a curtain of hair. The attempts to stand out or fit in. Madness was the destiny of all women, she said, so it was best to claim it before it claimed you.

  —My mother tried not to be mad, she said as we lay in bed in my old bedroom. —She tried so hard, she ended up being some kind of a man. She beat the men at their own game. When Daddy died, they thought my Uncle Jim would step in. Daddy’s little brother, a real Devereux, like. It was in the blood and all that fuckin’ nonsense. But Mammy wasn’t having it. She’d always thought the shop was a bit shite and she wanted to give it a go. Make a proper place out of it. And she did. Uncle Jim and the rest could all fuck off.

  I was listening for sound from downstairs. I wanted my father to know that I wasn’t alone, that there was a naked girl beside me. That I was fine. That I was happy.

  —Cathy isn’t mad, I said.

  —Oh, she fuckin’ well is, said Faye. —And I haven’t finished telling you about Mammy.

  —Go on.

  —The good’s gone out of it now.

  —Go on.

  —Well, said Faye. —You know about ladies’ men?

  —Yeah, I said. —Kind of.

  —You wish you were one.

  —I don’t.

  —Liar, she said. —You’re a big fuckin’ liar. You do so.

  —Am I not one already?

  —You’ll do me, David, she said. —Mammy became a man’s lady.

  I’d no idea what my mother had been like, if men had liked her or if she’d enjoyed the company of men. I had nothing to help me. Just her with me. I couldn’t recall her out in the world.

  —What d’you mean? I asked Faye.

  —She was one of the lads, she said. —She really took to it. And they let her – they loved it. She drank with them, she went to the race meetings. She’d have seduced their wives if she could’ve. And maybe she did once or twice, I don’t know. When I was out at school. But no, not really – I don’t think that. That wouldn’t have been on. So, she seduced the lads instead. And she lost it, somewhere.

  —Lost what?

  —The sanity.

  —Oh.

  —But, said Faye. —When was the last time you changed these sheets, by the way?

  —Well, I don’t live here.

  —Ah, Jesus, she said. —It could be years.

  —No, I said. —I don’t think so – I don’t know. A few months.

  —They look worse.

  —I slept here at Christmas.

  —Fuckin’ Christmas? That’s nearly a year ago – Jesus.

  She slapped the bedclothes.

  —Fuckin’ dust, she said. —My God. But there’s no girl smell off them anyway. So there’s that, at least. You’re the lady’s man elsewhere, David, but not in this leaba. But Mammy. There was a time, a point, when she was happy mad.

  —What’s happy mad?

  —In control of her own madness. She decided, I’ll ride him – for the crack. Before he decides he’s been riding me.

  —Are you serious?

  —I am, David.

  —How d’you know this?

  —I’m an observant lassie, so I am. And there was only the two of us in the house. After he died – Daddy. And she was happy.

  —Because he died?

  —No, she said. —Not really that. She cried a lot – I remember that. I’d hear her just before I’d walk into the kitchen or something. And she’d stop when she saw me. She’d wipe her eyes, and smile, call herself an eejit. She was fuckin’ devastated. I’m pretty sure she loved him.

  —I never heard my father cry, when my mother di
ed.

  —Ah, sure, that’s only natural, she said. —I could never like a blubbery man.

  —I’ll remember that.

  —You’d better.

  —I will.

  —And it doesn’t mean he didn’t, she said.

  —I don’t think he did.

  —Nevertheless. Mammy tried to hide it – kind of. Your dad might have succeeded.

  —Okay.

  —Anyway, I think it caught up with her or something, she said. —And she died, God love her.

  —Was it not cancer?

  —That’s just the official version, she said. —She thought she was beating them at their own game – the lads. The best of Wexford’s economic fuckin’ wonders. But really, all she was doing was riding. It disappointed her, David. And then some.

  She sat up.

  —Let’s go meet him, so.

  She dropped off the end of the bed and found my jumper on the floor.

  —Will he like me? she asked.

  I watched her pull the jumper over her head.

  —I like your stink, David, she said. —It’s nice and manly.

  —Thanks.

  —Now get up, she said.

  —He’ll love you, I said.

  * * *

  —

  —Is she any good? I asked Joe.

  —I think so, he said. —Yeah, she is. It’s one of those instruments though, isn’t it?

  —What?

  —The cello, he said. —It’s hard to tell if it’s bein’ played well or not.

  —Is it?

  —When it’s alone, he said. —By itself. No violins or flutes or whatever.

  —Is that right?

  —Ah, yeah, he said. —Definitely. Like a bass guitar or somethin’. At a gig. Did you ever enjoy a bass solo?

  —No.

  —Same here. If he’s good, grand. Just don’t play a fuckin’ solo to prove it.

  —I’m that way with guitar solos too now, I said.

  I hadn’t been to a gig in years. I’d suggested to Róisín that we go to Arcade Fire together, in London, a few years ago. She didn’t even laugh at me. Although she let me buy two tickets, for herself and a friend of hers who I never met.

  —Fuckin’ unbearable, said Joe. —Are solos even a thing any more?