Sometimes he wondered if this new Connor could ever go home. Would his parents be able to love this Connor? He decided that they wouldn’t, they couldn’t. He knew what they thought of men like him. From even before he’d had suspicions about himself and who he might grow up to be, he could remember the comments. Watching a ‘homosexual’ speaking on The Late Late Show, Chrissie, shaking her head sadly, said, ‘Imagine being the poor parents of that.’ Sometimes in his memory Connor recalled that she had even blessed herself, as if warding off the evil spirits of perversion that stalked the earth. He remembered Dan behind the bar discussing a ‘bad death’. The distant relative of a drinker living up in Cork. There had always been talk. Found swinging in the garage. Dan nodded sagely. ‘God forgive me, but a fella like that, isn’t he better off?’ More recently, Chrissie had been listening to a mother on the radio expressing her pride in her gay son. ‘Well, she’s a stronger woman than I am. I don’t think I could love a child like that.’ Connor knew that his parents weren’t monsters. The world they lived in belonged to them and he was the one at fault. Now he had found his own world and he couldn’t see how the two could ever meet.
Once, very early on, he had found the courage to phone home. What was he going to say? Just the sound of his mother’s voice had crushed him flat. He had sunk to the floor of the phone box, unable to speak, the dropped receiver dangling down by his ear. ‘Hello? Hello? Connor? Connor, love, is that you?’ He had wiped his eyes on his sleeve and hung up. It was a bridge he didn’t know how to build. He sent a postcard. It was four views of London. The sort of card his mother might have chosen because it was better value than just one famous landmark. Once sent, he told himself that now they knew he was well and happy. He had told them on the back of the card. That was all they needed to know. What more was there for him to tell them?
The new family tree flourished. Connor may have hated how he had reached this destination, but he had to admit he was so grateful. If he hadn’t been forced to run away, who knows how long it would have taken to become this man? Even in Dublin, he knew he would never have felt this free, so washed clean by the rivers of anonymity that coursed through the streets of London.
He listened to his friends or men he met in bars telling their coming-out stories. Some were horrific and dark, others full of love and acceptance. Connor just skirted around the subject. ‘They’re fine about it now,’ was his stock answer. He couldn’t begin to explain that his banishment involved the deaths of three people. Because he had arrived in London only knowing Matt, there had been no question marks over his sexuality as he launched his new life. Connor was gay. Everyone he met made assumptions about him which he never had to confirm or deny. Connor almost felt guilty. It was as if he had cheated in some way. He had been springboarded into the express lane and missed all the awkward pit stops of telling school friends, people at work and family. It had all been so easy.
Had this life that he was now living been available to him all along? Could that be true?
Barry’s roundabout. The smell of burning behind him. The taste of grass in his mouth. No. This Connor had risen from the ashes of that Connor and there could be no going back.
Melissa packed up her hat drawings and they air-kissed their goodbyes. She was heading off to meet her father, or ‘Daddy’ as she called him, somewhere in the City. Connor got the impression that Melissa would survive even if she failed to set the fashion world alight. He watched her as she cycled away unsteadily, her drawings safely stowed in the wicker basket on the handlebars. It was almost rush hour when Connor stepped out into the cobbled streets of Covent Garden. He didn’t fancy heading back to the ex-council flat in Oval that he now rented with his friends Mark and Daz. The Northern Line would be hideous at this time of day, or at least that was the excuse he gave himself as he headed down St Martin’s Lane. He walked with purpose past the Lumiere Cinema, and then with the speed of a conjuror, vanished into a doorway on the corner of the building. Pink and blue neon spelled out ‘Brief Encounter’. Daz always referred to it as ‘Briefcase Encounter’ because the bar attracted more of an after-work crowd. Connor liked it because it tended to be busy earlier in the evening. With its alien mix of men in suits and curious tourists Connor felt free to cruise and flirt uninhibited by the presence of people he might know.
He headed for the lower basement and ordered a pint. He had done the same many nights before, tapping his foot to the music, casting his gaze around the room to see who was in. Nobody grabbed his attention, so he had begun to shuffle through the crowds towards the stairs when a man at the bar wearing a dark jacket turned around. Connor just stared at him. Not in order to cruise the man but simply because he couldn’t stop looking. The man’s eyes were the same blue as the fancy gin bottle on the glass shelf behind him. His hair was grey and close-cropped, his nose thick and masculine. There was nothing fey about him. He might have been in the wine bar a couple of doors down waiting for his girlfriend. The handsome face grinned. Connor looked over his shoulder. Who was the man smiling at? Looking back, the older man was pointing at Connor, then laughing, he beckoned him over.
‘Drink?’ The man had an accent. American? Canadian? Sometimes Swedish people sounded like that too.
‘I’m fine thanks.’ Connor lifted his almost full pint.
‘A shot to perk things up?’ Another smile. His eyes were unsettling. It was like being observed by a different species.
‘Sure.’
‘Jäger?’
‘I’m easy.’
‘Don’t say that too loudly in here!’
Connor laughed, not because he found the banter funny but because he knew he should. This was a conversation they had both had many times before. The easy back and forth in-between drinks until one of them had the courage to make a move.
They clinked their glasses and downed their shots.
‘What the fuck was that?’ Connor stuck out his tongue in disgust.
‘Jägermeister. You didn’t like it?’
‘It’s like medicine!’ The two men laughed.
Timothy, ‘call me Tim’, was working on an opera at the ENO. He was a set designer, based in London, but he worked all over the world, mostly Europe and North America. In response Connor felt a little inadequate describing his work at Radish. ‘I’ve been there a while now, so I get to pick and choose my shifts. The money’s OK. I like it.’
Another round of drinks. Connor wanted to kiss beautiful Tim but he sensed that was not how Tim liked to play this game, so he stood by the bar like a gazelle at the watering hole feigning a limp, hoping the lion would pounce.
‘Would you like to grab some dinner?’
This was not normally part of the ritual. Connor wasn’t sure what to say.
‘If you have plans or whatever, don’t worry. I’m just enjoying our talk is all.’ The smile. The eyes. Of course he was going to have dinner with him. ‘My treat.’
Connor threw back the last of his pint and walked out of the bar enjoying the eyes following Tim and then the glances to see who had been the chosen one.
II.
Time was a great healer. That was what Maureen Bradley had been told her whole life, but now, eight years since her heart had been broken, she knew it wasn’t true. Time might be able to numb, it could distract, but it was incapable of truly fixing anything. Being able to open the wardrobe and catch sight of Bernie’s wedding dress hanging there like a ghost, without bursting into tears, might have been seen by some as progress, but for Maureen it felt as if her heart had calcified, her memories turned to ice.
She thought about Frank. Her big strong Frank. He’d never be right again. It was as if Bernie had taken all the love he had to give. When Maureen had told him about her breast cancer diagnosis the year before last, she had been so worried about how hard he would take it, but Frank had been dry-eyed throughout. ‘We’ll get through this too, pet,’ he had reassured her with a tight smile and squeezed her hand. Maureen had thought she would never want to see her
husband weep again but on that awful day, some tears, even a quivering lip, might have helped her feel more loved or worthy of saving at least. It had been completely different when their youngest, Connie, had got married. Frank had cried so much he couldn’t say his few words. Their son Kieran had to step forward and read his speech for him. They had tried to pretend he was weeping for Connie, but everyone knew his tears were for Bernie. Maureen had felt awful. Poor Connie, her special day taken over by her dead sister. Why couldn’t he have been strong for the daughter he did have? She had tried to scold him afterwards, but she couldn’t. He looked so pathetic, perched on the edge of the sofa, his big back bent over, swiping at his tears with his tie. Dee Hegarty’s funeral was the same. Maureen had to go by herself leaving Frank at home apologising through sobs. Maureen tried, she really did, to be understanding, but she couldn’t prevent herself from resenting him. His grief robbed her of her own. When he fell apart, she was left with no choice but to hold him together. He had hardened her, and she couldn’t forgive him for it. Maureen thought about her own funeral. Would Frank weep at that? She doubted it.
Ellen Coulter was also thinking about time. How did some people have so much of it? Caroline O’Connell had Linda in a wheelchair and yet she was always coming into the surgery asking them to put up posters for endless meetings and charity fundraisers. Then there was Kate Sweeny next door, three kids, a husband, a Montessori school to run in the extension, and still, she was out tending to her hanging baskets or polishing her gleaming letterbox. How did they have so much more time than her?
Ellen had thought things might be easier when the kids started school, but it was just as bad. In the mornings, she managed to drag a brush through her hair, now cut short in a style which she knew made her look like her mother, but it was easy to look after. Then wrapped in her oversized dressing gown to disguise the weight she hadn’t managed to lose since childbirth, she headed downstairs. She made packed lunches and put cereal in front of the children before Martin ferried them away. He liked to drop them off at the school gates personally. A public display of hands-on parenting. Wasn’t he a great man? When he came back, he never even came into the house. She only knew he had returned when she heard his voice in the surgery talking to Angela, the new receptionist who had replaced little Dee Hegarty. Hearing him talk through the wall was when her day started to fall apart.
She would put the kettle on for coffee. While that was boiling she put the breakfast dishes in the sink, because the dishwasher was still full from last night. She noticed yesterday’s paper on the counter. She carried it through to the living room to put on the stack by the fireplace. The dust on the coffee table caught her eye. She went back to the kitchen to get a duster but once there she noticed food stains all down the side of the bin. She should wipe them off while she thought of it. Down on her knees the state of the floor couldn’t be ignored. This room needed a good sweep. The kettle must have boiled but she wasn’t sure when, so she put it on again. She sat for a moment waiting for the little click, but she found that her attention drifted away. Imaginary conversations that she knew she would never have with Martin. Scenes played out in her mind of other days she thought she might live in another life. Buenos Aires. A glass of red wine in her hand, guitar music drifting across the dusty square. She was having lunch with someone, but she wasn’t sure who. France. That’s where Martin had taken her on their honeymoon. The ferry to Brittany. Such a disappointment. The weather had been awful. Endless rain. The whole place was just like Ireland but with smellier cigarettes. It wasn’t really France at all – that was clearly somewhere else that Martin had conspired not to take her for fear she might have enjoyed it.
At some point she would snap out of her own head and remind herself of all the things that needed doing. The beds. She would make a start with the beds and then she could tackle everything else. Heading for the stairs she came across the dirty games kits from yesterday dumped in the hall. She retraced her steps to put those in the washing machine, but she found there was a load in it from yesterday that needed to go in the dryer but that was waiting to be unloaded as well. She remembered her coffee. Then she would glance at the clock on the cooker. Nearly time to take coffee through to the surgery and she was still in her dressing gown. She sighed. It was never right. Always a forgotten teaspoon or a chipped saucer. It was as if she did it on purpose. Certainly that’s what Martin seemed to believe, but she honestly didn’t. Even if everything did pass muster, he would still look at the small plate of shop-bought biscuits with undisguised disappointment. Every single day. Would you not get over it by now? If baking had been so high on his list of priorities when it came to choosing a wife, maybe he should have asked before the wedding rather than afterwards.
‘No, my mother never taught me. She doesn’t bake either!’ and it was true, but Dan, her father, had savoured the slices of crayon-pink Battenberg she served up with the Sunday tea as if she had. ‘Oh Chrissie, that is lovely.’ Ellen had never considered her parents’ marriage worthy of note but now that she was in one of her own, she couldn’t help but compare it to theirs.
When she’d met Martin’s mother before the wedding she had seemed a fairly nondescript little woman. Her hair was always ‘just so’ and she dressed nicely but it was Dr Coulter who had done all the talking. Now it transpired that the senior Mrs Coulter had in fact been some sort of superwoman all along, starching and baking her way through life. After the wedding Martin’s parents had moved to a sleek newly built bungalow out on the coast road. It was the sort of house Ellen would have liked for herself. Bright and filled with simple modern furniture, rather than the high-maintenance museum of Victoriana her in-laws had left behind for the newlyweds. The dark mahogany furniture with its scrolled legs and carved edges seemed to produce its own dust. No matter how much time Ellen and Mr Sheen spent together, the very air seemed thick with it. Martin trailing a finger along the sideboard in the hall and then raising his eyebrows as he glanced at her, made her want to scream.
In the beginning she had hated the feeling that she disappointed Martin, but as the years slipped by she had grown to just hate Martin’s disappointment. She had never been a wife before, why would she instantly know how to do everything? ‘I don’t see what’s so hard. I’ve got you a front loader and a dryer. It’s more than Mammy ever had, and she managed!’ As much as Ellen tried not to cry, sometimes she couldn’t help herself. Wouldn’t a husband comfort his wife? Martin left the room.
She still remembered the love. It wasn’t so long ago, after all. The kisses, the compliments, his desire; she had to remind herself that she hadn’t imagined them. It had been real. The change was so abrupt, she doubted herself. The young bride wondered what she had done wrong. What had changed? Confused, she had asked Martin why he seemed standoffish?
‘We’re married now, Ellen. Things are different.’
It was as if he felt that in the simple act of saying ‘I do’ at the altar he had completed his side of the bargain, and now every other aspect of their marriage, all the effort, was down to Ellen.
She remembered sitting in the car as they had driven away from their reception. She had never been happier than in that moment. The guests cheering, the clatter of cans tied to the car, her father with his arm around his mother who was laughing and crying at the same time. It really had been her special day. For once the film was about her and she was its worthy star.
Her mother had tried to have a conversation about the honeymoon, but a horrified Ellen had blushed and blustered her away. She knew enough, the basics anyway, and how hard could it be when the whole world did it? Martin’s tight embraces had promised so much. Sometimes when he pressed himself against her in the car, Ellen felt his sense of urgency. She had visions of their passion being unleashed on their wedding night, but like every other part of their relationship it was not what she had imagined. They had spent their first night together in an old manor house surrounded by giant pine trees on the cliffs beyond Roscoff. It had r
eminded Ellen of the protestant rectory in Mullinmore, though she didn’t mention this to Martin as he struggled with the bags in the driving rain. They had a lovely meal – well, a French meal, bits of it were too mysterious for her to attempt, but Martin ate everything, ‘Très bien’-ing each enquiry from the waiter and sounding like a distressed cow as he ordered ‘moules’. Ellen had found it endearing, watching him make such an effort to impress her.
Afterwards they had sipped brandies in the bar. In Ellen’s case, it was just one sip. The fumes of it had been enough to make her feel slightly nauseous. The manageress was a rather severe woman and Ellen could remember her standing at the bottom of the stairs with a shelf-like bust and red glasses hanging on a chain around her neck, bidding them ‘Bonne nuit!’ with a wink and a throaty laugh.
Upstairs, it had all begun as Ellen had foreseen. The kisses, the way he took off her bra and touched her breasts, how he had moved himself between her legs, but once they were naked, he had sort of stabbed at her. Eventually he had managed to get himself inside her and appeared to have reached some sort of climax. For Ellen it was just painful. When he rolled off her, panting, he noticed the tears in her eyes.
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