by Roddy Doyle
—Good question.
—An’ we don’t know the answer, he said. —Which, in itself now, is a fuckin’ answer.
The pints had arrived. I’d paid for them and the barman had gone back to his hiding place. The stools on either side of us were empty. We were still alone.
—But it sounds like music, he said. —When she plays. It’s good. Not bad at all.
—I interrupted you, I said.
—Yeah, he said. —Again.
—Sorry.
—I don’t blame you, he said. —It must seem a bit bizarre. What I’m tellin’ you. I can hear tha’ – I understand it.
—Did you tell Trish?
—Tell her wha’?
—What you just said. About livin’ a shadow life.
—Well, I did, he said. —Or I tried to. But – not the night I was tellin’ you about.
He picked up his new pint.
—She said somethin’ about my shadow cock an’ where it had been all these years.
I laughed.
—Fair enough, I said.
—I suppose so, he said. —I don’t know if I want this pint.
I picked up my own.
—Has to be done, I said, although I didn’t want mine either.
I tapped his glass with mine.
—The shadow life.
—Don’t get fuckin’ nasty, he said.
—I’m not.
—Okay.
—Sorry, I said. —Go on.
—Will we go in to George’s after these?
—No, I said. —We won’t. Tell me – go on.
—Right, he said. —Okay.
He brought his pint closer to him. He looked at it.
—Like, I felt that way when I saw her in the school – Jessica. The time when I saw her comin’ down the corridor. I wasn’t surprised – like there’d been no gap, no years in between. An’ listen, I’m not addin’ a gloss to it, significance or somethin’, after the fact. But I know as well. It happens. It’s happened to me.
—Me too.
—The head playin’ tricks. The light in a room, or somethin’.
—Or a piece of music.
—Sometimes, yeah – I don’t know, though. I don’t mean nostalgia. Or the other one. Déjà vu.
—I know what you mean – go on. It’s like wakin’ up – a bit. As if your real livin’ has been the dream.
—That’s it, he said. —To an extent. But I’d sometimes feel tha’ way if I was at a meetin’ an’ I’d only been half listenin’ to what was goin’ on.
—That’s my normal state, I lied.
—Yeah, he said. —Yeah. But this wasn’t daydreamin’ or dozin’ off.
—I know.
—It was much –. It wasn’t that at all.
—I remember once, I said. —We were away for a week, me and Faye. About five years ago. Portugal. Just the two of us. In Lisbon.
—Nice.
—It was. But I woke up and the light – at the edge of the curtains, around the edges. It wasn’t that I knew I was somewhere different – the hotel room. I actually thought that it was my bedroom – that I always woke up to this light.
—Yeah –
—Hang on. When I turned in the bed, I didn’t expect to see Faye. Faye was a shock. For a second – just a split second. I didn’t know who she was. My real wife wasn’t there. It felt like somethin’ was pulled out o’ me.
I heard it: my accent was changing, reverting. I was becoming the Dublin boy I’d been when we’d first seen Jessica. And so was Joe; he was well ahead of me. The drink was letting us pretend. The drink was making it easy, and honest.
—Did you know your real wife? Joe asked. —If you know what I mean. In the dream.
—No, I said. —No, I didn’t. I wouldn’t go tha’ far. But it lingered – for days. I even resented Faye. Although I knew tha’ was daft. I’m not sayin’ the experience is the same as yours, by the way. But there are similarities. Aren’t there?
—Absolutely, he said.
I had him going again. He wanted to shove both of my wives out of the way. He wanted to hear himself telling me his story.
—But I didn’t reject Trish, he said.
—I didn’t reject Faye, I told him.
—You forgot about her.
—Only because I was half asleep, and only for a couple o’ seconds.
—I didn’t forget Trish.
—Good man, I said. —Look, Joe – for fuck sake.
—I know, he said.
He grinned – gave me the old Joe.
—What’re we fuckin’ like? he said.
—It’s the drink, I said. —Makes us fuzzy.
—It always did.
—We were better at it, though – back then.
—That applies to everythin’, but – doesn’t it?
—Except cookin’.
—Exactly, he said. —The shite tha’ doesn’t matter. D’you cook?
—A bit, yeah.
—Same here. It’s messin’, really, but, isn’t it? Playin’.
—An excuse to drink.
—That as well, yeah.
An excuse to turn my back and hide, I could have said. An excuse to avoid talking.
—Go on, I said. —We’ll be thrown out before you’re finished.
—Right, he said. —So – anyway. I dismissed it. The feelin’. I kind o’ did. I kept sayin’ to myself, she’s just a great-lookin’ girl from your past – cop on. A well-preserved woman, as they say. We liked them, even when we were kids.
—True.
—D’you remember Missis Early?
—She was probably only thirty.
—Forty.
—A kid.
—Okay. But anyway, I kind of insisted tha’ that was it. Tha’ was what I was up to. Messin’, really. The bit of excitement. I have the number but I won’t be phonin’ her, but I can if I want. An’ it worked.
—Wha’ d’you mean?
—Well – Trish. Jesus. I won’t be salacious, Davy. But I was rock fuckin’ hard. An’ Trish –
—Can I stop you there? I said.
—Wha’?
He looked like a man who’d been delivering a very good TED Talk.
—Did you not do it, swap phone numbers and meet her, just to add spice to your life? That’s what I’m hearin’.
—I thought so, he said. —That’s what I’m tryin’ to say. At the start I did. I was open to tha’ theory.
—It wasn’t conscious, no?
—Well, okay, yeah – it was. It was my fuckin’ theory. To an extent. But I wasn’t just actin’ the bollix. I wasn’t actin’ the bollix at all.
—But it was workin’ out well.
—Ah, man, he said. —D’you remember what it was like, when you’d fall for a girl. Like, after the first time you’d been with her. After the sex, I mean. The feelin’ – how full you’d feel.
—Spunk eyes, we called it.
—I know, yeah – I remember.
He laughed.
—Spunk eyes, he said, and laughed again. —A head full o’ spunk. But it was like tha’. Like there was milk behind your eyes. You’d drift through the day with an erection an’ a sponge for a brain.
—Overwhelmed.
—Fuckin’ literally. You couldn’t think of anythin’ except the woman. The smell of her – Jesus. Everythin’. You didn’t even count the hours till the next time – it was too fuckin’ mathematical. You were too stupid. There was just – yeh know, like. The cunt.
—Okay.
—It’s funny how we use tha’ word so casually these days, isn’t it?
—I don’t like it.
—Same here, he said. —But anyway, that’s where I was. With Trish. Back in my glory days. I was in love with me wife, for fuck sake.
—Gas.
&n
bsp; —Well –. It was brilliant. But it’s exhaustin’, man, I’ll tell you that for nothin’. We were neglectin’ the kids.
He thought about what he’d said – I saw him – and he burst out laughing.
—Jesus –.
He slapped my shoulder. It was a new one, a gesture – an act – that wasn’t his. Or, it hadn’t been.
The barman was looking across at us.
—Anyway, said Joe. —Back on track. Tha’ was the drink talkin’ again.
He took a breath, held it, let it go.
—But, he said. —I believed in it. The feelin’. I expected somethin’ to happen.
—Wha’?
—I didn’t know, he said. —Somethin’. I wasn’t actin’ the maggot – is what I’m sayin’. But, all the same, I felt I was cheatin’. When I was makin’ love to Trish.
—Cheatin’ on who?
—Trish, he said. —Jessica. Me, even.
—It didn’t stop you, though.
—No, he said. —No, it didn’t. I thought –. I think I thought. It was becomin’ the new normal – or somethin’.
He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t a rogue.
—I wish I’d agreed with Trish, he said.
—What d’you mean?
—When she said she knew I was ridin’ someone else, he said. —I mean, it wasn’t true. Wha’ she said – it wasn’t. But I wish I’d been brave. I denied everythin’. An’ here I am. If I hadn’t denied it, where would I be?
—D’you know?
—No, he said. —But I shut the door too quickly.
—D’you think Trish wanted another woman in the bed?
—It’s not about beds.
—I’m lost, so, I said.
I sounded like Róisín pretending to be Irish.
—What is it abou’?
—I don’t know, he said. —Souls?
—Ah, for fuck sake.
He stepped down off his stool.
—I’ve to go to the jacks, he said. —Back in a minute. Stay there, Davy.
—Your bladder’s the same age as the rest of you, at least.
—Fuck off.
* * *
—
He smiled at Faye – I thought he was smiling at her.
—I’ve heard all about you, he said.
He hadn’t. I’d said nothing to him. I know now: he hadn’t needed to hear anything. He’d have seen me, gazing at nothing, the times I’d been to see him. Looking at my watch, dying to get away.
I’d never been upstairs – in my childhood bedroom – with Cathy. I’d brought her home to meet him but we’d never sneaked in, shoes off, half pissed and giggling. I’d liked Cathy but I’d never had what Joe and myself called the spunk eyes. I’d gone through none of the time in a white daze. She’d needed a boyfriend and I’d do her. I thought that then – I think I did – and it had suited me too. I’d have married her; we’d been well on our way to saying something about it when I sat beside Faye at that wedding.
Faye said I’d do her too. But it was different. She’d actually said it, like no one else could – the crease at the left side of her mouth, the half shut left eye. Faye wanted me. When I was inside her, I knew it was me she wanted inside her. It was me on top of her. It was me she was pulling to her. It was never her face, her shape, an ankle, a hand. It was Faye.
—Nice to meet you, Mister Walsh, she said.
All she was wearing was my jumper.
Cathy had offered to put on the kettle. They’d spoken about their counties – she was from south Wexford, my father was from Waterford – and the people, the families, the farms, they might both have known. He’d said more to Cathy than he ever said to me. He’d chatted to her, with her. I’d watched him respond to the presence, and the attention, of a woman. I was getting to know him. I was making him happy.
—Was Cathy a lesbian? he asked me, a few years ago.
—Cathy?
—The girl you went out with that time, he said.
—I’ve often wondered.
—No, I said. —Not as far as I know.
—I wondered, he said.
—Back then?
—No, he said. —No, no. The thought wouldn’t have occurred to me back then.
—Same here, I said.
—Did you ever think it, yourself?
—No, I said. —No. I didn’t.
—Would you think it now? he asked.
—Why would I?
—Well, he said. —With what we know now. And the same-sex marriage referendum and all that. And she was a Bean Garda too, remember. So, there’s that as well.
—I don’t think she was gay, I said.
—Right.
—I don’t think wearing a uniform indicates you’re gay – if you’re a woman.
—Back then, though.
—I don’t think so.
—Well, I liked her, anyway.
—So did I.
—Do you ever hear from her?
—No.
—I liked her.
—Yeah.
He sat up when he met Faye. That was the big thing. He sat up.
No – he stood up. My father stood when Faye stood in front of him in my blue jumper, at the opposite side of the kitchen table. He walked around to shake her hand.
—It’s very nice to meet you too, he said. —I’ve heard all about you.
He turned, walked back around the table, and sat. He looked at Faye, the nineteen-year-old girl standing in his kitchen – my mother’s kitchen. I thought his face was melting. It was shifting, sliding – something was happening to it. I thought he was going to do what I’d just told Faye I’d never seen him do: cry.
But that stopped.
He sat up. My father was a man and there was a woman in the room. He sat up – and I knew my father like I hadn’t known him before. I could imagine him now with my mother – holding her, being with her, kissing the back of her neck. I saw what he’d lost and I loved him.
Then something happened. The man fell from his face – the admiration, the longing. He looked at me. He stared, then looked away. He pretended to read the paper. He waited for us to leave.
* * *
—
—You’re crap at this, Joe, I told him.
He was back from the toilet, back beside me.
—Crap at wha’?
—Explainin’ yourself.
—I’m not, he said. —Fuck off. Seriously, though –. Davy –.
He looked at his pint.
—I don’t want this, he said.
I picked up mine. I drank, took an inch off it.
—I haven’t been fair to Trish, he said.
—You left her.
—That’s not the point, he said. —Fuck off. Although it is.
—Wha’?
He picked up his pint.
—Despite her anger, he said. —Whatever. I was the one tha’ made the move. Left, you know. She didn’t tell me to. But anyway –.
—Wha’?
—It’s the salacious thing again, he said. —I’ve been makin’ a bit of a joke of her, haven’t I?
—I don’t know, I said. —I don’t think so.
—I have, he said. —Yeah, I have. It’s not good. I love Trish.
—Okay.
—I do, he said. —Tha’ doesn’t stop. I tried to tell her.
—Did she listen?
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He knocked back more of his pint than I thought he would.
—But when I met up with Jessica, he said.
—The first time?
—First, second, all the times. I knew this was my life. I felt at home.
—So you said.
—Literally, he said. —At home.
—Where were you?
—I told you, he said. —It doesn’t
matter. It was bein’ with her. I was at home. Finally, Davy.
—Finally, Joe?
—Finally. Yeah – finally. I’m tellin’ you how I felt. I know it sounds feeble – I can’t do anythin’ about tha’.
—What about your other home?
—Look, he said. —I’m just tellin’ you what it felt like. It’s not – I don’t know – it’s not a chessboard. Or Monopoly. Houses an’ property. An’ it’s not logical, I know – believe me, I know. Or maybe even sane. But it’s how I felt.
—What’s home? I asked him.
—Wha’?
—What d’you mean by it? I asked. —Me – it’s the house. Faye and the kids. The house and the people in it. And the years we’ve been in it. The whole history. My father’s house – it’s not home. Not now, any more. I hate bein’ there.
That was true. I hated sleeping in that house. I hated waking up in it, knowing where I was. It was always a shock.
—It’s a big word – home, I said.
—Yeah.
—So, wha’ d’you mean by it?
—Well, it’s hard, he said. —If we’d been here a year ago –
—Exactly a year ago.
—That’s right, yeah. A year. If it was a year an’ a day ago, then. I’d be agreein’ with you. Every word. Trish an’ the kids, in the house. Tha’ was home.
—Not now?
He didn’t answer. He took his phone from his pocket, looked at it, put it back in his pocket.
—No, he said. —I wish –. But I don’t know.
I took my own phone out and looked at it.
Nothing.
—I don’t know, he said now. —I used to think tha’ was good.
—What was?
—Sayin’ I don’t know, he said. —I used to think it was a sign o’ somethin’. Maturity. An’ equality. Trish said it once. After one o’ the kids asked me somethin’ an’ I said it. I don’t know, I mean. She said, A man admits he doesn’t know. We laughed. I thought it was great. Liberatin’ or somethin’. An’ it was. In work as well. Because I’ve been there so long. It doesn’t really matter what I say, I’ll do the job anyway. I said it at a meetin’ once. Lads, never be afraid to admit you don’t know. Their faces – Jesus.
—I can imagine.
—Trish said I was overdoin’ it, he said. —Like I was claimin’ it as a philosophy or somethin’. Some lifestyle bullshit. An’ I was – in a way. But she said the kids were startin’ to think I was just thick. An’ a proper dad should be a cranky know-all. But, anyway. Now, it kills me.