Charlie Savage

by Roddy Doyle

  Anyway, giving up on the buttons was heartbreaking but forgetting the zip is absolutely terrifying. I mean, what’s next? Do I become the man who spends the rest of his life in tracksuit bottoms, wandering around Woodie’s with his hands down the front of them and his mouth wide open? It’s like knocking on heaven’s door, except I’m afraid I’ll forget to knock. I’ll stand outside heaven with my hands down my tracksuit bottoms, staring at the door – for eternity.

  Then Trump came along and taught me how to grow old.

  Deny.

  –Where are the car keys, Charlie?

  –On the hook – where I always put them.

  –No, they’re not there.

  –Well, that’s the information I was given.

  Deny everything. Trump gets away with it. You can see it in his face if you’re looking carefully – the panic. Any man who has gone to open his fly and discovered it’s already open knows that expression. You can see it when he’s walking ahead of Melania. That’s not arrogance or misogyny. It’s ‘Who’s your woman! And why is she following me?’ Just when the poor lad should be climbing into his final tracksuit he’s somehow managed to become the President of the United States.

  But he’s discovered the way to cope. Deny. Everything. For the next four years.

  –You said you’d put out the black wheelie, Charlie.

  –I never said that.

  –You did.

  –No.

  –You’ve a head like a sieve.

  –Fake news.

  16

  The wife sees my face. She knows I’m going to shout at the radio, so she gets there ahead of me.

  –Blow it out your arse, love, she says to the voice we’ve been listening to.

  But she doesn’t shout. She just talks as if the twit on the radio is with us in the kitchen and she leans across and turns it off. The woman has style.

  –Would you like a few Jaffa Cakes with your tea, Charlie? she asks.

  This isn’t normal. If I want a Jaffa Cake, or anything else, it’s up to me to go foraging. And I don’t mind that. In fact, I welcome it. I can feel like Robinson Crusoe or Bear Grylls while I’m searching the presses for something worth eating that isn’t good for me.

  And that’s the point: that’s why the wife has just offered me chocolate and sponge and orange goo. We’ve been listening to an expert – a doctor. She’s always on the radio and the telly. She’s foreign too, so that allows her to give out about the eating habits of the Irish, because in the country she comes from they only eat cabbage and blueberries and they’re all as skinny as pipe-cleaners.

  Anyway, she’s waffling on about the Irish always ‘snacking’, and how a latte and a muffin – the traditional Irish snack, by the way, going right back to the days when Oliver Cromwell came over and tried to stop us snacking. The latte and the muffin contain more than seven hundred calories, and the Irish won’t stop at one muffin but keep on snacking all day, and that is why we are ‘obese’.

  That’s when I’m getting ready to shout at the radio.

  –We’re out of luck, the wife says now. –No Jaffa Cakes. Someone found my stash.

  There isn’t a biscuit or a cake in the house, so we get dug into a block of marzipan left over from a few Christmases ago. It’s eighteen months past its best-before date but I’m forty years past mine, so I’m willing to take the risk.

  –What is a calorie, anyway? I ask the wife, after we’ve demolished about half the block.

  –A little pain in the arse, she says. –Will we have a glass of sherry with this?

  It’s ten in the morning, too early for beer.

  –I’ll get it, I say.

  –The bottle’s on top of the fridge, she says. –Safe from the little ones.

  Nothing’s safe from the little ones – the grandkids. We even found them in the basement once – and we don’t have a basement. They were digging one, right under the house. They’d made it as far as the Malahide Road by the time I noticed my shovel was missing.

  Anyway, we’re sipping away, being irresponsibly Irish. We have the house to ourselves; even the dogs are quiet and ignoring the world.

  –What’s her name, anyway? I ask.

  –Who?

  –Your one on the radio, I say. –The expert.

  –Dr Eva.

  –Well, I say, –she could do with a few pints and a packet of cheese and onion.

  I don’t remember experts on the radio when I was a kid. There were just people who knew a bit more than the rest of us. There was a man who used to read out the prices of cattle. Friesians and Charolais – cows that sounded like American cars. He’d list them off like a poet – the marts, the breeds, the price per hundred-weight. But he wasn’t what you’d call an expert. He was just a chap who knew his cows.

  I don’t know when the experts arrived; I didn’t notice. Now, every show has to have at least one of them, every day. A fitness expert, a financial expert, a holiday expert – a gang of chancers and know-alls, all telling us there’s only one true path.

  But the ones who really get on my wick are the doctors.

  –That word, ‘obese’, I say now.

  –What about it?

  –What happened to all the other words? I ask.

  –Like ‘chubby’, says the wife.

  –Exactly, I say. –And ‘plump’.

  –Nice words, she says. –‘Pleasantly plump.’

  –Even ‘stout’, I say. –A stout man can be attractive.

  –And a woman.

  –Definitely, I say.

  –‘Ample’, says the wife. –Would you object to a woman described as ‘ample’, Charlie?

  –God, no – never. Or ‘well upholstered’.

  –A ‘big’ man, she says.

  –Or a ‘fine’ girl, I say.

  –There used to be a word to suit every shape, says the wife, and she pushes the last bit of marzipan over to me.

  I push it back – enough is enough.

  –Then the doctors take over the radio, I say. –And all of a sudden we go straight from thin to obese – there’s nothing in the middle.

  –You’re either perfect or a disaster.

  I lift my sherry.

  –Well, I’m with the disasters.

  –Hear hear, she says. –What’re you doing later?

  –Gym and a few pints.

  –Lovely.

  17

  We’re having a bit of a family dinner – the wife and her two sisters, a husband and a partner, and myself. The partner is new-ish. I’m not sure if he’s even the partner or still just the boyfriend; I don’t really know when one thing ends and the other thing starts. But it feels a bit odd to be calling a bald man with a brand new hip the boyfriend. So, partner it is.

  Anyway, it’s a kid-and-grandkid-free zone for the evening, so the crack is good and the food – Carmel’s famous chilli con carne y rashers – is dynamite.

  Paddy, Carmel’s husband, is sound. I’ve always liked him. He has one of those faces. He doesn’t have to talk – although he does, a lot. But Paddy can express things with his eyebrows that would take the rest of us thousands of words. It’s one of those big, loose faces. And it’s always been like that. I’ve known Paddy since he was nineteen and his face has always been a bit spectacular, or arresting. But I’m probably not doing him justice; I’ve been told he’s a handsome man.

  Now that I think of it, it was Paddy himself who told me that.

  Anyway, we’re sitting around the table when the youngest sister’s partner announces that he’s off to Prague in a couple of weeks.

  –Death or teeth? says Paddy.

  –What?

  –That’s why you’d go to Prague, isn’t it? says Paddy. –Either you’re getting the teeth done cos it’s too expensive here, or you’re having a gawk at Prague because it’s on your bucket list.

  –My daughter lives there, says the partner.

  –Oh, says Paddy. –Grand. Give her my regards. It’s funny but, isn’t it? The
bucket list thing.

  And that gets us going.

  You find out you’re dying and, seconds later, before you’re over the shock – before you’ve even had time to be shocked – you sit down and start writing out a list of the things you want to do, the places you want to see, before you kick the bucket. And, while all of us agree that the whole idea is daft, Carmel finds a pen and tears the back off the cornflakes box and we get motoring on our list.

  And it’s boring – it’s really boring.

  –Hands on the hearts now, says Paddy. –Could you really give a shite about seeing the Taj Mahal?

  I don’t have to put my hand on my heart.

  –No, I say. –All it would do is remind me that I’m dying.

  –Because that’s the only reason you’d be standing in front of it in the first place?

  –Yeah.

  –No, says Carmel. –I really want to see it.

  –So, why don’t you? While you’re healthy.

  She shrugs.

  –Too far, she says.

  We go through the list and admit that we couldn’t really be arsed going to any of these places. Kilimanjaro, Table Mountain, Timbuktu, Rio, Bombay, the Amazon, the Arctic, Ballybunion – we put a line through everything.

  –Are we happy enough where we are, so?

  –No.

  –It can’t be just places, says the wife. –You don’t live your life just so you can see Niagara Falls.

  –What then, love? I ask her. –What should we do? What is our purpose in life?

  –Ah, Jaysis, says Paddy. –What have I started?

  The women leave before we can go too deep into the philosophy because their band, the Pelvic Floors, have a late-night gig in the Workman’s, on Wellington Quay.

  –So, lads, says Paddy, after he hears the front door closing.–We don’t really want to climb Everest or see the Swinging Gardens of Fort Apache.

  –Nope.

  –We need a new list, he says.

  He picks up the pen.

  –Sophia Loren, he says, and he slowly writes the name on the cardboard.

  –I think she’s dead, says the partner.

  –She’s not, is she?

  –I think so, yeah.

  –I don’t care, says Paddy. –She’s on the list.

  –Hang on, Paddy, I say.

  I don’t normally like googling. There’s nothing worse than the bore who takes out his phone when you’re all having a great time trying to remember the names of all the players who played for both Liverpool and Everton. But this is Sophia Loren we’re talking about.

  I look up from the phone.

  –She’s alive, I tell them.

  –Brilliant, says Paddy. –That’s a relief.

  –She was born in 1934.

  –Grand, says Paddy.

  I do the sums.

  –She’s eighty-three, I say.

  –Yeah, says Paddy. –So?

  He stares at me. An eyebrow rises, and falls.

  –Right, he says. –This is what I’m writing. Sophia Loren 1958.

  –Hang on, I say. –What age were you in 1958?

  –Six, says Paddy.

  –This isn’t a bucket list, Paddy, I protest. –It’s a different kind of list altogether.

  He stares at me again. The eyebrow rises, and stays up there.

  –Make your own bleedin’ list then, he says.

  And that’s where the problems start – because I do.

  18

  I haven’t been down to the local in a while. Various reasons: a bad cold, a broken tooth, determination to get through all of Season 6 of Homeland without anyone telling me what happens. But I’m there now – in the local – and I’m sitting beside my pal, the Secret Woman.

  –Do you have a bucket list? I ask him.

  He surprises me.

  –Yeah, he says. –I do.

  –Do you, really?

  –I just told you I did.

  –What’s on it? I ask him.

  –A bucket.

  –What?

  –A bucket, he says again. –I need a new one.

  He picks up his pint.

  –And a trowel, he says.

  –Jesus, I say. –For a man who secretly yearns to be a woman you’re a bitter disappointment.

  –Listen, Charlie, he says. –I’ll just say this and then we can move on to the football. After my wife died, the only thing I wanted was for her to come back. But she didn’t and she couldn’t. But it’s still the only thing that’ll ever be on my bucket list and it’s never going to happen. What about you?

  –What about me? I say.

  I’m such a dope, such an insensitive eejit – talking about death and bucket lists with a man who’s been grieving in front of me for the last two years.

  –What’s on your list? he asks.

  –Ah, nothing, I say.

  –No, go on, he says. –Tell me.

  –Well, I say. –I wouldn’t mind going to Shelbourne Park.

  –To the dog racing?

  –Yeah, I say. –Exactly.

  –Why don’t you? he says. –I’ll come with you.

  –Because, I say. –This sounds stupid now. I’d be afraid I’d die.

  I’ve never been superstitious. At least, I didn’t know I was. I’ve broken a few mirrors in my day and it’s never worried me. Except that one time when it was my forehead that broke the glass – but that’s a different story. I’ve never minded stepping on cracks in the pavement and I regularly open umbrellas inside the house – when I’m playing Mary Poppins with the grandkids and it’s my turn to be Mary. I proposed to the wife on Friday the 13th, standing under a ladder. At least, she was standing under it. So maybe she got the bad luck.

  I won’t be asking her.

  Anyway. The point is, I’ve never been superstitious. But ever since we started compiling our bucket list – myself and the wife and her sisters and the husband and the partner – I’ve been feeling a pain in my chest. Or, the threat of a pain. Even though it was only a bit of crack and we soon got bored with it.

  I can’t get the bucket list out of my head.

  –That’s madness, Charlie, says the Secret Woman, after I tell him why the greyhounds frighten me.

  –I know, I say. –It’s daft – I know.

  The bloody bucket list.

  I lie awake half the night, worrying. Waiting. For the heart attack or the stroke. It’s beating away, like a drum in a room down the hall.

  –What else is on the list? the Secret Woman asks.

  –I’d like to paint, I tell him.

  –Pictures?

  –Yeah, I lie. –I’ve always wanted to paint.

  It just came into my head. I’ve never thought about painting – not even when I was doing art in school. I’d paint an apple and an orange and a vase – I think it was called a still life – and I’d think about Saturday’s football and the young one who worked behind the counter in the Mint – but never about the paint.

  –A night class? says the Secret Woman. –Is that what you want?

  –Kind of, I say. –Yeah.

  Here is a list – another bloody list – of the very last things I’d want: a nuclear war, a bad dose of leprosy, a night class.

  I blame Paddy, the brother-in-law.

  It was harmless enough while we were just making a list of the places we’d like to see. But when he changed it – when he wrote ‘Sophia Loren’, I realised something. The bucket list isn’t about wishes; it’s actually about regret.

  ‘Regrets I’ve had a few but, then again, too few to mention – out loud.’ That’s what Frank Sinatra should have sung if he’d wanted to be honest.

  Don’t get me wrong. I don’t for a second think I’d ever have had a chance with Sophia Loren, even if she’d lived on our road. ‘Here – Sophia! Charlie Savage wants to know if you’ll go with him.’ But back then, when I was a kid, I had my own Sophia. She worked in the Mint after school and her name was Eileen Pidgeon.

  –W
hat else is on your list? the Secret Woman asks me.

  –Well, I say.

  I take a breath. The heart is hopping.

  –There was this girl.

  –Ah, Jesus, Charlie, no, he says.

  I shake my head.

  –Too late, I say. –I’m meeting her on Friday.

  19

  I blame Facebook.

  1990: A man well into his autumn years remembers a young woman who won, and broke, his heart when he was sixteen and he wonders what she’s like now – and he keeps on wondering, now and again, until he hits the far end of the winter years, and dies.

  2017: A man in his autumn years remembers a young woman who broke his heart when he was sixteen and wonders what she’s like now – and looks her up on bloody Facebook, and finds her.

  –Jesus, Charlie, says the Secret Woman when I tell him that I’m after arranging to meet Eileen.

  –I know, I say. –I know.

  –What sort of a gobshite are you? he says.

  –A complete and utter one, I say.

  –Bang on, he says. –What happened?

  –Well, I say. –I think I pressed the wrong yoke.

  Eileen Pidgeon was my girlfriend when I was sixteen, not far off fifty years ago. I held her hand twice and kissed her once. My eyes were shut at the time and I’ve a feeling I missed her mouth. I think now, looking back over the decades, that I was kissing Eileen’s cheekbone, wondering where her tongue was, and that the wet sensation on my chin was Eileen’s tongue wondering where my mouth was. I slid my hand in under her jumper as well, but I’m not sure if I trust that memory either. If I’m being honest, my hand might have gone under my own jumper.

  But anyway. We went our separate ways soon after – later that same day, actually – when I found her behind the coal shed with my brother Pat. She broke my heart, that young one. She also left a fair-sized dent in my self-respect because Pat was a year and a half younger than me and he had to stand on an inverted coal bucket to – very successfully – reach Eileen’s mouth.