Charlie Savage

by Roddy Doyle

  And I’m in rag order, myself. I’m halfway down the stairs in the morning before I’m convinced that I’m awake, that I’m actually alive. There’s an ache in my wrist when I pick up the kettle. I stare at the tap before I remember why I’m standing in front of it with the same bloody kettle. I’ve a piece of paper sellotaped to the bathroom mirror: ‘Your name is Charlie.’ I can remember the rest myself but I need the nudge – every morning and sometimes later – before I go out for a pint. Knowing your own name might not be essential when you’re heading out the door to your local but, in my experience, it makes for a much more relaxing evening. I sometimes wish I was called Guinness. Then I’d only have to remember the one vital name.

  Anyway. The world’s in bits and so am I. But I don’t care. The football’s back and there’s a spring in my limp.

  There’s nothing like the optimism of the football fan in August. He – or she – skips through the drudgery of daily life as if it’s a fairy tale created just for him by Disney. The happy ending is only ninety minutes away – with time added on. History has been wiped. Last season’s disasters – the last decade’s disasters – have been forgotten. This is the year.

  Listen to any Leeds United fan in early August – if you can stomach it.

  –This is the year, he’ll tell you.

  He’s been saying that, once a year, since 2004 when they were relegated, and I’m betting his great-grandad was saying it in 1924.

  ‘This is the year.’ The poor sap will be suicidal by the start of September but he’ll be back again next August, all set for a fresh start in the giddy delights of League One – or the Third Division, as it should be called. ‘I’m telling you, bud – this is the year.’

  August is the month that gets me through the other eleven. I could do a Rip Van Winkle, drop off to sleep for years, and wake up in August, knowing immediately that the football was back. I’d feel it in the bones, or on my skin, before I’d know what had happened to me. The angle of the sun or something – I’d know that Match of the Day was back on the telly before I’d realise that, somehow, I was 127 and that the little oul’ lad staring down at me was my grandson. I’d ask him where everyone else was and how Manchester United were doing – but not necessarily in that order.

  On Saturday nights, August to May, my father shifted a bit in his chair and let me and my brothers get in beside him. He’d have been out for his few pints and he always stopped at the chipper on his way home – two singles to be divided between the lot of us. When I hear the Match of the Day music, I smell salt and vinegar – and my father.

  And I hear him.

  –The reception’s not too bad, lads. We might actually see the match tonight.

  He taught us how to love.

  –Ah, Jesus, lads – Georgie Best. Look at what he just did.

  And he taught us how to hate.

  –Your man, Billy Bremner there, lads. He’s an evil little bollix.

  –Don’t listen to him, said my mother.

  But we listened to every word. We had our da to ourselves on the big chair that was our whole world. He was teaching us how to cheer and groan, to shout, to laugh together and suffer together in silence.

  A well taken goal makes me feel exactly like I felt way more than fifty years ago, when I was squashed in beside my father. A goal by that young lad, Marcus Rashford, or our new lad, Lukaku – and the texts will start arriving from the brothers. Jaysis! 4 F SAKE! How did he manage that?!!!

  –Ah, Jesus, referee! my father shouted. –Where’s your white stick? What is he, Charlie?

  –A stupid bloody bastard, Da.

  –Good man.

  –Don’t listen to him, said my mother.

  I always knew when my father was smiling; I didn’t have to see him.

  –What do you do if a woman smiles at you, Charlie?

  –Run like the clappers, Da.

  –Good man.

  36

  The wife is furious.

  –I’m telling you now, she says.

  She repeats these words every time she opens a press, looks in, and slams it shut. We’re in the kitchen, by the way.

  –I’m telling you now.

  She’s staring into the cutlery drawer. I can hear the teaspoons whimpering. The drawer’s a bit bockety, so she can’t slam it shut.

  –I’m telling you now, she says, and she looks at me. –Whoever took it will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.

  Someone’s after robbing her Flake.

  –I’ll get you another one, I say.

  –I don’t want another one.

  –It’s no bother, I say. –I’ll be back in five minutes.

  –No!

  She takes a breath, holds it – lets it go.

  –No, she says. –No. Thanks.

  I’m being a bit brave here.

  –It’s only a Flake, love, I say.

  She looks at me.

  –I know, she says.

  Then she gives the cutlery drawer an almighty kick.

  She sits down. I think she’s hurt her foot – and her hip. But I know: she’ll wait a while before she’ll admit it.

  –One little thing, she says. –A treat for myself.

  –I know.

  –And it’s gone.

  –I know, I say. –It’s not fair.

  She’s looking down at her foot.

  –Is your foot sore, love?

  –No!

  –Grand.

  –Yes! It’s very bloody sore!

  –Oh, I say. –Right.

  I’d get down on the floor and rub the foot for her but it would seem a bit biblical or something – something the Pope would do. And I’ve a feeling she’d kick me. So, I stay put.

  But it’s terrible, seeing her upset.

  I see an upset man and I’ll know why he’s upset, immediately. His team has lost, his dog has died, he’s just seen the state of himself in the jacks mirror. I can read all men – except myself.

  I see an upset woman – I’m mystified. I haven’t a clue. But I try my best.

  –Is it the change, love? I ask her.

  –What?

  I’m already regretting this.

  –Well, like, I say. –Is it the change?

  –Jesus, Charlie, she says. –I’m sixty!

  She laughs but it isn’t a happy sound – at all.

  –Why didn’t you ask me that – Jesus – years ago? she asks.

  –There’s only the one then, is there?

  –One what, exactly?

  –Change.

  She stares at me.

  –Just the one, so, I say. –That’s handy enough, isn’t it?

  This time her laugh actually sounds like laughter – her laughter. It’s my favourite thing about her. The first time I saw her I thought she was lovely. Then she laughed and – Christ – I felt like I’d been thumped in the chest by an angel.

  Anyway, she’s laughing now because of something I said, and that makes me the happiest man in the kitchen. I’m alive – I’m the same man I was forty years ago, making the same woman laugh.

  But she’s not happy – I can tell. She’s going to say something. There’s a little crease just above her right eyebrow that shifts slightly when she’s getting ready to talk. It’s been joined by a few more creases since the first time I noticed it, but I still know the one to look for.

  –I just feel – I don’t know, she says now. –A bit hard done by.

  I know how she feels. But I don’t say that. I learnt that lesson years ago.

  Thirty-seven years ago.

  –Oh Christ, I’m in agony! she screamed.

  –Same here, I told her.

  She grabbed my arm and squeezed. We were in the Rotunda and she gave birth to our eldest ten minutes later. If you look carefully, you can still see the bruises on my arm.

  Anyway.

  –And I’m right to feel hard done by, she says now.

  –You are, I agree.

  –I’m not a s
elfish woman, Charlie, she says.

  –No.

  –Sure I’m not?

  –No, I say. –You’re – listen. You’re the least selfish person I know.

  She smiles.

  –I hid that bloody Flake so I could have it while we were watching Riviera, she says.

  Riviera’s a load of shite but I keep the review to myself.

  –It’s silly, I know, she says. –But – . Some louser’s after stealing it and it’s not bloody fair.

  The house was full earlier, countless kids and grandkids. She fed them all. She was the perfect granny, the perfect mother. I’d nearly cried, looking at her with the grandkids.

  –It’s crap, I tell her.

  I take her hands and lift her from the chair. I hug her and kiss the side of her face.

  –I love you, I tell her.

  She slides her hand into the back pocket of my jeans and squeezes my arse – or, where my arse used to be. And she feels something in the pocket.

  –What’s this? she says, and she takes it out.

  Oh, shite.

  It’s the Flake wrapper.

  37

  I’m in the jacks.

  Not at home – in the local. Anyway, I’m in there. And I’m – I’ll use the formal expression – I’m urinating. Now, normally I wouldn’t be telling you this and you, I’m sure, would be happier if I wasn’t. But there’s a chap standing beside me and he isn’t – urinating, that is. He’s making a film.

  I’m just standing there, minding my own business. Staring at the wall. And humming. Knowing me, knowing you – ahaaaaaaa—! Counting the tiles. When I’m aware that there’s someone beside me. I don’t look but I’m assuming it’s a man. You get the odd girl straying into the Gents but she usually cops on quickly and she never, ever strolls up to the urinal unbuttoning her fly.

  Anyway, like I said, I’m aware of someone beside me. Nothing unusual there – there’s room for three good-sized men, as long as they’re not doing the hokey-cokey.

  But this chap is talking – and not to me.

  In the world of the urinal silence is golden. I know, there are men who are incapable of silence. If they’re not talking, they’re groaning. The unbuckling of the belt, and a groan. The unbuttoning/unzipping of the fly – a groan. The search for the little brother – groan. The meeting of the waters – groan. It’s not age-related. If he’s groaning when he’s ten, he’ll be groaning when he’s ninety. And there are men who think they’re commentating on Match of the Day. ‘Here we go – yes – !’ I know a chap who comes into the jacks humming the theme music from The Dam Busters, getting louder as he gets nearer to the urinal. He’s been doing this two or three times – and, as he gets older, five, six, seven times a night – every night, since the film came out in 1955.

  So, silence is rare in the pub jacks but it shouldn’t be like Paris between the wars; philosophy and bullshit should be left outside beside your pint. When your fly’s shut, you can open your mouth. That’s my philosophy.

  But, anyway, this chap beside me is different. He’s not groaning and he isn’t trying to get me to chat about the rain or Newcastle United. I look to my right, very discreetly, and see his phone. He’s holding it up to his face with one hand. And he’s yapping away.

  I can tell: he’s not talking to anyone in particular – he’s not skyping his kids in Canada. He’s only about thirty, and he has the hair all the young lads have, gelled so hard it might be made of wood.

  –So, yeah, he says. –Now I’m in the toilet of a – like – genuine Dublin pub!

  And – I swear to God – he points the phone down at the channel.

  I jump back. Have you ever zipped up your fly and jumped back at the same time? It’s not easy – it should be an Olympic event. But I manage it without cracking my head against the hand dryer. A Dyson, by the way.

  Anyway. Outrage isn’t something I feel very often. Or, if I do, I’m usually enjoying it – if that makes sense. There’s nothing like a bit of well-managed outrage to get the blood going.

  But this – here in the pub jacks – is genuinely outrageous. It’s an invasion of – well, everything.

  –What are you at?! I yell at your man.

  –What? he says.

  He looks genuinely baffled. And that’s the problem – that’s the wall between this young lad, about thirty, and me, more than twice his age. He sees nothing wrong in filming himself – and me – going to the jacks in a pub toilet and I don’t have the words to even start telling him that it’s about as wrong as it gets. I’d do a better job trying to explain the rules of hurling in Japanese. He’s grown up filming everything, and being sent everything. If I ask him to, he’ll flick through his phone and show me the birth of his nephew, the death of his granny, the vomit he woke up beside at the Electric Picnic, his girlfriend, his boyfriend, his breakfast, his Holy Communion – everything.

  I see it at home, my kids trotting after their kids with their cameras. And now the grandkids are toddling after the parents with their cameras.

  –G’anda, ’ook!

  It’s the daughter’s little lad and he’s holding up her iPad; there’s something I have to see.

  –What’s this? I ask him.

  –Poo!

  He’s right. I’m looking at a photo of his first independent poo.

  –Good man, I say. –Did you do that all by yourself?

  –Yes!

  I should be appalled but I pick him up and hug him.

  I look now at the young lad in the jacks.

  –I’m not an Equity member, son, I tell him. –And neither is my langer.

  I walk out without using the Dyson.

  38

  The wife’s been warning me all week.

  –Don’t say anything, Charlie. Just don’t say anything. That’s all I ask.

  Her cousin is coming to the house, with her wife.

  –Her wife?

  –I told you about her, she says. –Olive. She used to stay with us for the summer holidays. She’d get the train and ferry from London, by herself. I told you, Charlie. Remember? She’s gay. She had to get on the train and ferry all by herself.

  I do remember. She’s told me before, about her cousin from England who came to Dublin to stay with her auntie and uncle and her cousins for July and August, because her father was dead and her mother worked in a car factory and followed her over for the last two weeks of August, and they’d all go to Skerries until the cousin – Olive – and her mother went back to England, back to work and school.

  So, I know the story and I know the cousin is gay. But the way the wife is telling the story now, there seems to be a connection I’ve missed before.

  –Are you saying she’s gay cos she went on the ferry? I ask her.

  She stares at me.

  –Cos I’ve been on the Holyhead boat myself a few times and it’s never had that effect on me.

  Normally, she’d laugh. Well, maybe not laugh. She might just smile, or lift one side of her mouth – I like that one – or whack my shoulder and call me an eejit. But she walks away.

  She’s nervous.

  And that annoys me. It’s like she’s blaming me for something that hasn’t happened yet – that isn’t ever going to happen. I’ll open my mouth, put my foot in it, insult the woman. But I know: I won’t. Her cousin is gay and married to another woman, and I couldn’t care less.

  I took the word ‘normal’ out of my vocabulary years ago and put it up on top of the fridge, along with the chipped cups, the flask with the missing lid, the iodine tablets the Government sent out to protect us from nuclear fallout and every other useless thing that we never get around to throwing out. I know: there’s no such thing as normal – or, what we used to be told was normal – and I’m happy enough with that.

  Mammy, daddy, four, five, six or seven kids and a dog. That was normal when I was a kid. That was our house, actually. That was everybody’s house – unless you started looking. Then you found the daddy who worked somewhe
re far away and never came home, or the mammy who wasn’t dead but wasn’t there. Or the house with no kids. Or the house with the grown-up son who never left and never had a girlfriend. He’s a bit light on his feet. Or the house that had two women living in it – friends. That was my road before you got to the corner. Normal has always been complicated but we couldn’t say that out loud until a few years ago – about the same time the Government sent out those iodine tablets.

  So, the wife warning me to behave myself – it’s not fair.

  My best friend, Martin, identifies as a woman and he’s having some kind of elderly torrid affair with the woman I kissed when I was sixteen, and she – Eileen Pidgeon – seems to be all over him because he’d rather be a woman but he’s a man. And he tells me all about it while we both drink Guinness, which has been the exact same since 1759. That’s my normal.

  I’m just on my way to have it out with the wife when she walks back into the kitchen.

  –There’s another thing, she says. –Olive’s wife is transgender.

  –Ah, Jesus, I say. –I’ll need a geometry set and a dictionary to sort this one out.

  This time she smiles, or tries to. But she still looks a bit nervous – a bit sad.

  –We weren’t really nice to her, she says.

  –What?

  –Olive, she says. –We weren’t nice to her. When we were kids, like. We gave her a terrible time.

  –Why?

  –Well, she says.

  She holds the back of one of the chairs with both hands. The table is set, ready for dinner.

  –We resented her, for a start, she says. –All the fuss, you know. Olive this, Olive that. And she was English – even though she did all the Irish dancing and that. But – we. No—. I sensed she was different, you know. A bit different – even then. And I – I bullied her. That’s it. I bullied her.