The First Sunday in September

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The First Sunday in September Page 8

by Tadhg Coakley

‘I did. Won two All-Irelands actually,’ Áine says.

  ‘Wow. In Croke Park?’ Claudia says.

  ‘The very place. Now, for camogie it isn’t full or anything like it’ll be tomorrow. But still.’

  ‘Fantastic. How did you get into it? Camogie, I mean?’

  ‘School, I suppose, and my father and my brother played hurling. Glen Rovers. It’s a big deal on the northside.’ Images of her father come to her. That first time he brought her to Thurles, for the Centenary All-Ireland final. The night she sat her parents down and broke the news, her father trying to mask his sorrow. The poor man gasping for breath only a few years later in Marymount Hospice, willing his life to be over.

  ‘What’s that like? Stepping out onto Croke Park for an All-Ireland final?’

  ‘Pretty cool,’ Áine says. The dressing room before the finals, sick with fear. Sprinting out onto that pitch with her teammates, whom she’d have died for. The relief afterwards, Jesus, the sweetness of it. Followed by the joy and the pride. Goosebumps tramp up and down her neck and arms. She feels her back straighten, her chest rise. ‘Actually, it’s amazing.’

  ‘And you did it,’ Claudia says.

  ‘And I did it,’ Áine says. There is something new in Claudia’s eyes. Áine pays closer attention.

  ‘Well if you did that, do you think you could come over here and kiss me? Like, now?’

  Áine smiles, rises from the armchair and goes to her.

  Áine has to turn the Victorian-looking showerhead all the way around to get any heat. It’s still not hot enough for her. But it’s powerful and she loves a shower to loosen out her muscles before an early morning run. Claudia is a late bird; she’s made that clear. Didn’t even turn over when Áine left the bed and wrote a hasty note. She’ll look in on her before she heads out.

  She closes her eyes as the shower heats up. She presses her head against the shiny blue wall tiles, letting the water scald her shoulders and her neck.

  Áine strolls through a wakening Temple Bar in her red jersey. She is relieved the parting had been so easy and surprised that she asked Claudia for a date in two weeks in Cork. Hurling fans mix with tourists. Traditional Irish music is being piped out of a pub – a slow reel. A large Cork contingent drinks and chats outside The Palace Bar and she salutes two women from Newtown, whose names she can’t remember.

  Mulligans is packed, even though it’s only 12.30, mostly with Cork people. The adults: excited, hopeful, flooring pints. The children: bored, sucking orange and coke out of bottles with straws. There is a beery smell from the place – a warm, fuggy, dimness. Lines of Guinness settle on the counter-top. She weaves her way through the buzz of conversation and laughter and says hello to Johnny Cremin from Newcestown, whose sister used to play with the Cork Junior team. She sees her brother, Kieran, and his wife, Trish, in the corner under the television. Trish’s sister, Maura, is deep in conversation with some old guy with a flat cap. She draws men to her like flowers draw bees – they just can’t help themselves. Áine has always been sorry that she’s as straight as a die. The best ones usually are.

  ‘Yay, Áine’s here,’ Trish shouts and gives her a hug.

  ‘Well, the dead arose and appeared to many,’ Kieran says, and he looks at his watch. Áine can see a glittering in his eye. The pint of lager he’s holding isn’t his first.

  ‘Hey, I was out running at eight this morning, boy.’

  ‘You were, yeah.’

  ‘It’s true. Drink anyone?’

  ‘Same again. Heineken,’ Kieran says.

  Maura extricates herself from the old man and gives Áine a longer hug than is strictly necessary. Maura is a worrier. And clued in.

  ‘How’s my favourite lezzer?’ she says, gaily.

  ‘Not bad, Maura. Got my hole last night, so I’m happy out.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Kieran says. ‘You can’t say that!’

  ‘Why not, if it’s true?’ Áine says.

  ‘Because I can’t be fucking hearing it,’ he says. ‘Now I have that in my head for the day. I’m going to the jacks.’ He slouches off.

  ‘Don’t mind him, the big baby,’ Trish says. ‘Tell us all about it. Was she a lasher?’

  ‘She’s an old student of mine,’ Áine says.

  ‘You’re kidding!’ Maura says. Her eyes sparkle with mischief.

  ‘I’ll tell you all about it when I get a drink, I’m gasping,’ Áine says, feeling at home.

  The light on Butt Bridge is blinding after the darkness of the pub. Halfway across, Áine turns to the river and shouts: ‘Up the Rebels!’ She wants not to be nervous, she wants the three pints to have calmed her down.

  Gardiner Street Lower is full of light and colour. The crowds thicken as they make their way up the hill and into Mountjoy Square.

  ‘Maura, if I could meet somebody like you, I’d be laughing. I’d be set up for life,’ Áine says. She has her arm around Maura’s shoulder.

  ‘You will too, sure,’ Maura says. ‘Give it a small bit of time.’

  ‘Oh, time is running out, girl. Tick tock, tick tock.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m taken, remember?’ Maura says, showing her wedding ring.

  ‘How is Gary?’ Áine says, after a pause. She never knows whether to ask or not. Maura is normally the one to bring up his chronic depression whenever she wants to talk about it. But Áine can’t not enquire, either.

  ‘Oh, you know. Up and down. Actually I must try him again, his phone doesn’t seem to be working.’ She takes out her phone, presses the screen and holds it to her ear. After a few seconds she sighs, presses the screen again and puts it back in her bag.

  ‘No joy?’ Áine says. Maura shakes her head.

  ‘How are Jenny and Cass?’

  ‘They’re fine, altogether. Look,’ Maura says, and shows her the phone screensaver. Two beautiful girls, the image of their mother, grinning in T-shirts and shorts on a beach.

  ‘Awww, that’s lovely, Maura,’ Áine says. ‘God, Jenny is getting tall.’

  ‘She is.’ Maura smiles. ‘They’re all hyped up about the match. Wanted to come with me.’

  ‘Next year, maybe.’

  ‘Yeah. Next year,’ Maura says. She looks down. ‘Anyway, let’s win this today first.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Kieran. ‘Oh to, oh to be, oh to be a rebel!’

  They all sing lustily. Others around join in.

  As they make their way down Fitzgibbon Street, her first sight of Croke Park is a punch in the stomach. A hollowed-out, tight feeling stays with her all the way down Jones’ Road. The others leave her at the barrier to go to the Cusack Stand. She is in the Lower Hogan.

  Inside the ground, she drinks some water and tries to calm herself. She says hello to old camogie comrades and their families. She eats a sandwich with a cup of tea and it stays down. Everything is a bit blurry, too bright and too loud – as if she were hungover. She buys a Heineken and stands near the bar and reads the programme. Larry and Stephen Murphy from Mallow, who are drinking pints of Guinness from plastic glasses, recognise her and start up a conversation. One of them nods to her as a nervous-looking middle-aged couple walk by.

  ‘See them?’ he says. ‘That’s Sean Culloty’s mam and dad. Michael and Anne.’

  She takes them in. The man is low-sized but fit-looking in a sports coat and grey pants with an incongruous pair of walking shoes. The woman, who has short hair and glasses, wears a light summer dress, with a red cardigan around her shoulders. Her face is flushed.

  Áine tries to imagine how they are feeling. When she goes to her seat, she notices that the Cullotys are three rows behind her. She wonders if it wouldn’t be better to watch the match on TV, in the hotel across the road. She tries to take it all in, to be present.

  A few minutes into the second half, she realises that she can’t follow the ball. The noise is too loud. The sun is too bright. She’s hemmed in all around. What’s the fucking point of it all? Her knees hop up and down. As if they do not belong to her, as if they are on somebody else
’s body. She looks at them, willing them to stop. She shoves her elbows down against them.

  She presses her face into her hands and runs her fingers through her hair. The man beside her indicates something to his wife. The couple switch seats.

  ‘Are you okay?’ the woman says. ‘What’s wrong, love? We’re still in it.’

  Áine tries to speak but words won’t come. She nods instead. She doesn’t want to look at the woman. Clare score another point and there is a groan from the Cork supporters around her. She does that stupid thing, waving at her own face, as if that will stop her tears. She swallows.

  ‘I’m okay. I’m okay,’ she says, breathlessly. But the woman knows better.

  ‘Do you have anybody around belonging to you, love?’ she asks.

  ‘No, I’m fine. Honestly,’ Áine says and makes the mistake of looking at her.

  She is maybe mid-fifties and her face is lined as though she has been years out in the sun. A smoker. The strained look of a mother. She puts a hand on Áine’s shoulder. Áine grabs her jacket and bag.

  She sidles out, stumbling past the row of supporters. Some of them grumble as she blocks their view. Clare win another free. She runs up steps and down steps onto the open area outside. A young man with a high-viz jacket sweeps papers and empty plastic glasses along the ground. She rushes past, towards the exit. The main exit gate is still closed and she realises with horror that she might not be able to get out. The turnstiles are closed too. She runs up to two men with peaked caps and walkie-talkies.

  ‘I have to get out. I have to get out,’ she says. They look at her with alarm.

  ‘Go over there, love. Go down them steps, right? There’s a gate there and they’ll let yez out,’ the older man says. She runs to the gate and a fat man quickly opens it and stands aside.

  The metal clangs behind her. She forms her lips into an ‘O’, willing her heart to slow down. She leans her head back and exhales deeply, savouring the surge of freedom, of escape. The panic has been replaced by a sore emptiness, what you feel after a long bout of retching. She wipes her eyes and turns towards the railway bridge. A cheer spews from the ground. The street is almost empty. A flag seller, smoking a rollie, scrolls on his phone. A huckster stocks up on bottles of soft drinks.

  Áine buys a bottle of water and drinks from it greedily. She turns right before the bridge behind Hill 16. It looks like a dead-end and she is about to turn back when she sees the little opening of a tunnel. She continues on underneath it. Two guards, standing at the entrance, watch her closely. She walks under the railway line and down the narrow path between the backs of houses and lock-ups on one side and a high wall almost covered with briars and small trees on the other. There is a groan followed by a hush from inside the ground. An explosion of sound and the Cork fans on The Hill chant: ‘Rebels! Rebels! Rebels! Rebels!’ over and over and over. She drinks more water and staggers on.

  At the end of the path, two boys in tracksuits with gelled hair and hopeful moustaches lean against a van.

  ‘Any cigarettes, missus? Got a Euro for a sandwich?’

  She ignores them, looking for something to give her bearings. The road she’s on brings her back into the stadium, and not towards the city. She turns around and stumbles and begins to cry.

  A sustained tumultuous roar erupts from behind her and she quickens her pace. Two nearby guards look at a phone and one shakes his head and says: ‘Those Cork fuckers.’

  At a junction there is a shop with the sign ‘Daybreak Store Clonliffe Road’ and she knows where she is. Her phone gives several beeps. Text and Facebook messages. The last is a text from Claudia.

  Enjoy the celebrations!

  She looks at another one, from Sinead Moriarty, her friend in Boston.

  Looking good now, Culloty is some man. Sully’s on fire.

  She stops walking and opens her Twitter feed.

  @GAAOfficial #AllIrelandHurling Cork 2–14 Clare 1–13. FT #nowherelikeit #rebelsabu

  She laughs into her hand, through the tears. She leans against a car. She turns right onto Ballybough Road. An ambulance, siren blaring, screams past her. Her phone beeps and beeps and then rings. She looks at the number. It is a 001 number not in her contacts.

  ‘Hello,’ she says warily.

  ‘Hello, Áine. It’s Suzie.’

  Her feet stop.

  ‘Áine? Áine? Can you hear me?’

  ‘Hello,’ she manages.

  ‘I just wanted to say congratulations. I was listening on the radio. Are you delighted?’

  Huge cheers in the distance. Another ambulance screams past.

  ‘Áine? Can you hear me? Is the line bad? That sounds like an ambulance. Is everything okay?’

  ‘Everything’s fine. Just an ambulance going past. You know Dublin.’

  ‘How are you? Are you thrilled?’

  Áine moves the phone away from her ear and looks at the screen. Suzie says something she cannot hear. Áine holds her thumb over the round red symbol with the white phone in its centre. She presses it.

  Áine is on Summerhill going past more flats. She wonders why she has a stitch in her side. The phone rings again. The same US number. She presses ‘Reject’. She switches off the phone. She holds onto a high green railing. There are crows in the waste ground behind it. Clare fans walk past. A teenage girl glares at her. Miraculously, she sees an empty taxi on Gardiner Street. She waves and it stops. She almost falls into it.

  ‘Clarence Hotel,’ she says. She leans back into the headrest and closes her eyes.

  She puts a brave face on it in the hotel lobby. Luka is away collecting another car so she will have a long wait. Baptiste notices her strain.

  ‘Did you win the match?’ he says. Ze match.

  ‘Yes, yes we did, actually, Baptiste. Up the Rebels.’

  ‘Always, up the rebels, Áine,’ he says, smiling. He is a very handsome man. Áine sits in one of the large soft armchairs and manages not to turn on her phone for ten minutes. Until she can manage no longer.

  Two missed calls from the US number. A new voicemail message. She almost activates it. She scrolls down through the texts, her Facebook and Twitter feeds. Her friend Gillian Power has posted a selfie on Instagram with Sean Culloty, however the hell she got to him. The message reads: ‘two legends’. Trust Gillian.

  Another text comes through. Maura.

  Galtee Inn in Cahir for steaks? (hope it went ok)

  Suddenly there is only home, the need to be home. Hurry up, Luka. She puts away the phone. The battery’s at eight per cent.

  A heavy-set Corkman comes through the hotel door with a beautiful young boy in a Cork jersey.

  ‘Cheer up, girl,’ the man says, passing towards the bar. ‘We won!’

  She smiles up at him. ‘We did, indeed,’ she says. She smiles at the boy. ‘Up the Rebels!’ she says.

  He grins back and punches the air with two little fists. ‘Yesss,’ he says.

  The traffic out of the city is brutal, but at least her phone is charging. On the Naas Road, she presses the Voicemail button and holds her breath.

  ‘Hi, Áine, I keep getting cut off. Maybe reception is bad there, or maybe you don’t want to talk to me. Look, I just wanted to call to say congratulations. I know how much it means to you. I wish I could be there with you. I really do. I,’ Suzie pauses and sighs. ‘This is my new number. Ring me back if you can. I’d love to talk. I’ll be travelling a lot, in China mostly. So … you have my email too, the gmail one is best. Bye, Áine. Bye.’

  Áine replays the message and sniffles and looks for a tissue in her bag but there are none left. She leaves out a wail that frightens her. She almost drives into the car in front, which has slowed. She blows her horn relentlessly at it.

  Her phone beeps again, another text message. At the next stoppage, she checks it.

  Well? Cahir for shteak and shpuds?

  She smiles and sniffles and taps on the screen.

  C U there. Mine’s a big fat fillet.

  A r
eply comes back immediately.

  You’re a big fat fillet.

  Áine laughs.

  Angels

  Is this really happening?

  Are you here, sitting in front of the TV, right now, this minute, waiting for the match to start, drinking can after can of beer? Or is it somebody else, not you?

  Did you do that? You couldn’t have.

  Do what?

  Did you take a pillow to Jenny and Cass upstairs, after drugging them? Like you’d planned for weeks. Was that you?

  Ah, but it was. You did. Or did you? You’re not sure. How can you not be sure of something like that?

  The girls are in their beds upstairs. You’re almost certain of it. You look around the room – well, they’re not here, where else could they be? You crushed up the Halcion tablets first thing this morning, with the mortar and pestle, when Maura left to go to the match. You cried as you were doing it, the sound of the tablets cracking like dried bones. Then you sprinkled the powder into their hot chocolate. You did.

  You did.

  You try to remember if you put the pillow over their precious sleeping faces, or if you just stood there with it trembling in your hands, walking back and forth at the end of the beds, talking to yourself. The clear morning sunlight flowed through the window, reflecting off the creamy pillowcase in your hand. You remember that powdery smell in their room. Their little chests rising and falling as they slept. Jenny’s left leg bent funnily under her. Cass’s Star Wars ‘tattoo’ of that robot on her forearm. Her strawberry blonde hair spilling down over her face. Those pink Frozen pyjamas that she insists upon wearing, night after night – with the Disneyfied, doe-eyed, heart-shaped faces of those sisters, Anna and Emma. Or is it Elsa?

  Did you right Cass’s hair and straighten Jenny’s leg before you took the pillow to them? You can’t remember. You must have.

  You do know that Jenny walked groggily up the stairs and you did carry Cass up to the bed after the hot chocolate. That is definite. They are in their beds. That’s for sure.

  The pencil feels heavy in your fingers as you try to write some words in the notebook. But no words will come. What words are there, anyway? And what good would they do her?

 

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