And it was wrong too – what I told them, about the hereditary health issues and everything. It was blackmail, really. Poor Anne, the day I said that to her in the Vienna Woods. But I wasn’t in my right mind, I wasn’t, and he was my son, too. I don’t like to think about that any more, either.
When I met Sean that day in the hotel – you should have seen him, Roisín – when he walked through the door. Oh, sweet Jesus. He was perfect, he was only perfect, so tall with dark hair and brown eyes like all the Collinses, and he was frightened, trying to be brave, the poor thing, the fear in his eyes. He was only fifteen, just turned fifteen, it was December, a week after his birthday and I was going to bring him a present but the social worker wouldn’t allow me. All I wanted to do was to hold him, just to put my arms around him – if only I could have held him – but the social worker also warned me not to be tactile, so I didn’t. I’m sorry now. Tactile – what a horrible, stupid word. I wasn’t supposed to tell him who his father was, either. No identifying information, she warned me, but that just slipped out, I just blurted it out and he was entitled to know, anyway, he had every right.
And when I walked into the hotel that day, you know what I thought, Roisín? I thought it would be the end of my misery and that I’d have him back, at least in some form. I was sure of it. I knew he wouldn’t be walking out the door with me instead of Anne – I mean, I wasn’t that stupid to think we’d live happily ever after and I’d bring him home to Tim and take care of him forever the way that I was always meant to. Things don’t work like that.
But when I never heard back from him again, not a word, even after he turned eighteen – and I never found out why, I never found out, and I still don’t know why. Well, I tried to console myself: at least I’d had that meeting. At least he saw me and I saw him and I talked to him, and he knows me, he knows who I am and he knows that I exist and that I love him and that I never wanted to give him up, that my father made me and Tim was too young to fight the bully. At least he knows that, even if he never did make contact again and probably never will. At least I have that.
I suppose it’s some consolation.
I had a lovely morning today, really, despite all the nerves. After Tim left, I sat in the conservatory in my dressing gown and drank a nice cup of tea in the sun, and I listened to that beautiful music on Lyric, and thought about you and Sean. I went to nine o’clock Mass and it was Father O’Reilly and he gave a nice sermon about forgiveness, which was a kind of comfort to me because I’ve never forgiven God for what he did to me and I never will. How could I?
After Mass I drove up to the golf club to wish Jim well on the day of his President’s Prize. And Peggy too. I think the golf club saved me, in a way. It sounds stupid, I know. I didn’t want to go at first and Kitty used to have to drag me there, God bless her. But I’m so glad I stuck with it. You know, every time I hit that ball on the first tee, and I put my driver back into my bag, and I’m standing there beside one of my many friends looking down the fairway, I feel like I’m a different person. I do. That today is a new day and that this is a new round of golf and every hole is a new hole, the last one doesn’t matter. The newness of it all lifts my spirits somehow, I can’t explain it. But – and this might sound selfish – even if you were alive, and even if Tim ever did take it up (which he won’t), I wouldn’t want ye there; I’d still want it to be my thing.
Even today, when I wasn’t playing, the buzz around the place and everyone in good humour and the feeling of belonging, and chatting to people, and the sunlight pouring in through the clubhouse windows and all the shining prizes and that beautiful piece of glass that Jim bought in Waterford – it was nearly all too much. I had a lovely cup of coffee and a scone with Peggy, and she was so relieved about the weather and Jim’s decision to play Stableford and not Stroke, and they’ve had such a hard time of it, too, with his prostate, I couldn’t be happier for them. I really couldn’t.
Afterwards, I picked the flowers for you and had the bit of ham and brown bread and potato salad for lunch – Tim will finish that when he gets home. I had to be here during the match in case I’d be tempted to turn on the television or the radio. No, I knew, I just knew I couldn’t be around the house while the match was on – I’d be in bits, imagining all sorts.
But here, here by your grave – the same grave that Tim and I will share with you someday – time stands still. I do get looks with my golfing fold-up seat. God, if anyone saw me they’d think I’m cracked, sitting here hour after hour, like that madwoman in the book by Charles Dickens, covered in dust, waiting for years in her wedding dress for her husband to come. That gave me the creeps when I read it in school. As though I was waiting for you to come back from the dead, to come out of the ground like from another birth, but healthy this time, and that I had to be here to pick my little baby up from the grass and not leave you lying in the cold.
The times I’d wake Tim in the middle of the night and tell him that we had to go to the grave, that you weren’t dead, you weren’t, it was all a big mistake and that if we went to the grave, you’d be there, lying there, just waiting for us, but healthy. I’d be raving at him and he’d have to try to calm me down or get me to take another tablet, or even phone Mary Hannon, my psychiatrist, for help. Which I did a few times, God love her, and the saint of a woman that she is, she took the calls too.
I thought about bringing a book, but that wouldn’t be right, somehow. I prefer just to chat, anyway. But the looks did bother me so here’s what I do now. Whenever I hear a car pull up outside, I get up off my little seat and walk around – people never stay for long and when the graveyard is busy I brazen them out, and then I do sit down again and say the odd prayer, or just breathe like Mary taught me in the hospital, all those years ago. That wonderful woman who saved my life and whom I give thanks for every blessed day.
She had no time for closure, either, and I always admired her for that. That’s an over-rated word. As if being closed somewhere, boxed up and ready for delivery was a good thing. When I think of that word, I think of the moment they closed the little white coffin on you – it was so tiny, Roisín, and you were so small and they still closed you up in it, though I begged them not to. As if being closed is better than being open, or having no hope was better than having some – even if it’s a false hope, who knows? Who knows, anyway? I can’t hope for you any more but I know you don’t mind if I still hope for Sean.
Tim said that Sean was going out with a girl from Glanmire – childhood sweethearts, he heard. Like us? I nearly asked him, but I didn’t because that wouldn’t be a good comparison and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. If they get married, and I know you don’t have to get married to have children – if anyone knows, it should be me – but imagine holding another baby, my very own grandchild, to mind and to feed and to fuss over. You know, nobody will ever call me Mam or Mammy – they just won’t, how could they, even Sean won’t if we’re ever reunited; he’ll call me Evelyn, which is fine – but if Sean and his girlfriend (I wish I knew her name), if they had a baby, then maybe that baby, some day, might call me ‘Granny Evelyn’.
Imagine that, Roisín, wouldn’t that be something? Of course, a baby would make you an aunt, too, and you’d have been a great aunt, I just know it, and a great role model for any girl growing up. You would too. You know, for some reason I don’t see you as the marrying kind, and you’re dead bloody right.
He got the hurling from his father’s side, no doubt about that. He’s the spitting image of your Uncle Johnny. I don’t see you as a camogie player. I’m thinking something to do with art, maybe, like Gretta’s son who works with that company, in – what’s it called again? Graphic design. Something with computers, anyway, but not programming them, designing things on them. Or maybe an artist, a painter or sculptor – something in the arts, I think for sure – I was great at drawing, you know, I won prizes. You wouldn’t be in science or business, anyway. They say that art teacher in Scoil Mhuire is fantastic; she has two or thre
e going to art college every year – you might have been one of them.
I think you’d be a bit rebellious, a bit different from the norm, and I’d be okay with that, too, but maybe not your father so much – he’s a bit old-fashioned. When I think of all the possibilities that would have been open to you, Roisín, the things that young people can do these days, girls especially, the chances we didn’t have in our time, oh, my heart breaks.
And who can blame me if I do talk to you? Who can judge me for that, even if it’s silly oul talk, and probably not good for me, can’t I even have that of you, when I’ve lost everything else? Would anybody begrudge me that? Ah, they wouldn’t, and if they do, well feck them anyway.
When Sean decides to make contact, I think he’ll phone Tim. Sure the company is in the phone book. I can picture Tim coming straight home to tell me. He wouldn’t do it over the phone. I picture myself looking out the front window thinking, God, Tim is home early, I wonder has he news? And he’ll come in through the front door and not the back door and he’ll just stand there and look at me, with tears in his eyes; he’ll hardly be able to speak, and he’ll come to me and hold me and tell me. I can see it all so clearly.
It’s nearly half-past five; he’d surely have rung by now if they won. Oh, God, maybe I should have gone to the church instead of here. But I love it here, too, and I think this is where I was meant to be. It’s so peaceful and calming somehow, especially early in the morning and late in the evening, when the birds are singing.
Someday – who knows when, nobody ever knows – I’ll be put in there beside you, pet. Forever. And my name will be written on that headstone, under yours.
Her mother Evelyn.
Losing
The smell of sweat and embrocation filled the air, the sound of splashing water. Big men moved quietly, to and from the showers, heads downcast. Steam oozed in along the ceiling through the open partition. The treatment table in the middle of the dressing room was heaped with towels, hurleys, bags of sliotars, helmets, a sack of training kit, two medical bags, piles of oranges and bananas, a mound of spare jerseys, five bottle-carriers of water and energy drinks, a box of energy gels, an unopened plastic packet of programmes, a crumpled large white coat.
Cillian McMahon thought he heard a sob from the corner; he did not look for the source. McGrath, the coach, and Considine, the County Board chairman, argued near the door. That prick, Considine, who had tried to get him suspended over the car crash in Lahinch. Who’s great pals with his own prick of a father, of course.
McMahon looked around at the debris of his team. Quinn, the toughest full-back in Ireland, sat beside him, elbows on knees. Keane and O’Connell stared into nothingness, their jerseys off. Lost us the game, those muppets. James Clancy unwrapped endless bandages from around his knee and muttered to himself. Most of the others were shedding their gear. The singing and whooping of the Cork players in the distance could be heard whenever the door was opened.
Doctor Jim, crouched on one knee, stitched a gash over Shane O’Connor’s eye.
‘Keep still, Shane, just two to go,’ he said.
‘Fuck!’ Quinn shouted, coming back to life. He stood up, and peeled off the inside-out Cork jersey.
McMahon opened his laces. The boot on his right foot wouldn’t come off. He had to hold his shin and tug the boot free. He gasped with the pain from his ribs. Probably fucking cracked.
He’d been paid €1,500 to wear those boots. They looked stupid now with their garish lime-green fronts and orange laces. The insoles were completely destroyed. How could blades have done so much damage? He shoved them into his bag, out of sight.
He fought off the raw memories: his four wides, dropping that ball in the first half when he was clean through, being moved off Culloty to corner-forward, the constant mocking of Crilly, the smug look on Sullivan’s face afterwards. He shook his head violently, once, like a horse shaking off flies on a hot day.
He pulled down his right sock to the heel. He tried to pick the cloth near the toes and yank it free but it wouldn’t budge. Instead, he unpeeled the top of the sock with his left hand, wincing at the last, as some skin came away with it.
The sole of the upturned foot was a mess of weeping blisters and bulging sores. The ruptured skin had yellowed and slid aside, yielding the remnants of a watery red ooze. He watched it trickle down towards his heel. The uncovered fleshy patches were a vivid, blotchy red.
He pressed his thumbs into the soft inflammations and felt nothing. He placed his foot on the matted floor and pushed it down hard. He twisted it left and right, breathing through his nose.
The left stocking peeled off more easily. One bulbous swelling covered the ball of the foot, and the skin had come free from the underside of the toes. Dried blood encrusted the nail of the big toe where a Cork player had stood on it. He checked to see if the nail was cracked. Apparently not. A purplish welt, just above the ankle, marked where he’d been hit by a hurley.
He rummaged in the side pocket of his gear bag for the long scissors. Its narrow pointed tip pierced the skin of the blisters that had not already burst. He squeezed them empty with a dull satisfaction, pushing the pale liquid out with his fingernails. It dripped down on the Cork jersey at his feet. He sprinkled medicated powder onto the lesions.
He sat back on the bench and pressed his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
I’ll give it good and hard to Ruth later.
He smiled at the prospect. At least he had that to look forward to.
Opening his eyes, he noticed James Ryan, an old rival of his, glaring at him from across the dressing room.
‘Glad someone thinks it’s funny. One point, was it?’ Ryan said.
McMahon put his hand on his hurley, stood and moved forward.
‘Oh, you’re going to use the hurley, are you? Fucking pussy,’ Ryan said, advancing.
McMahon dropped the hurley, and pressed up to Ryan, face to face. They pushed their foreheads against each other.
‘Fuck you, what did you ever do in a Clare jersey? Can’t even make the team,’ McMahon said.
Mick Lynch, the full-forward and captain, came between them, a giant paw on either chest.
‘Back off, you two. I said back off! We win together and lose together, and that’s an end to it. Sit down, Cillian. Go and have your shower, you. Show a bit of pride, for fuck’s sake, ye’re like Rathkeale knackers the pair of ye. Young will be here in a minute and we’re not going to make a show of ourselves in front of him.’
McMahon sat down, his heart racing. He stood up again, removed his togs, sat back down and put his towel on his lap. Clarecastle shithead, shouldn’t even be on the panel.
Dinny Young, the Cork coach, entered the room with the Cork County Board secretary and they shook hands with their counterparts. Tall, tanned and fit, with short greying hair, the man looked sombre, almost apologetic.
‘Lads, I won’t keep ye a minute. The last thing ye want is a speech from me. We know what it feels like to come out of the wrong side of tight matches, we’ve lost our share of them over the past couple of years.’ He took a deep breath and extended his open hands before him.
‘But we’ve learned a lot from those defeats: how it can make us stronger. And so can ye. Ye won the All-Ireland last year with an amazing display and ye can do that again. Don’t doubt it for a minute,’ he said, looking straight at McMahon.
‘As far as I’m concerned, each one of you has a lot to be proud of today. I know the individual sacrifices that you have made to get Clare to this final and you deserve the utmost credit for that. You can all hold your heads high when you leave this dressing room. I believe, and I know I speak for every Cork person when I say this, that you have done your families, your clubs and your county proud – whatever today’s result. And anyone who says different hasn’t a clue what they’re talking about.’
Young shook hands with a few players near the door and left the room, to half-hearted applause.
Cork langer, th
inks he’s Barack fucking Obama.
The speech reminded McMahon of what his father had said to him under the Mackey Stand after the Under 21 final two years before, when they’d lost to Limerick. In front of some of his teammates, too.
‘Ye let yereselves down there today. No fucking pride in the jersey. Beaten by that bunch? Pathetic.’ He had spat out the final word, and turned away and walked out through the open gate, with her, his so-called mother, waddling after him. Didn’t even offer a lift home, or a kind word. And him on crutches, with a suspected ankle fracture. Couldn’t train for three weeks.
Fucking showed you, last year. Wasn’t pathetic then, was I? Five goals and twenty points from play, 1–5 in the final!
He stood up, shuffled his feet into his flip-flops and began to count the women that he had fucked in the previous twelve months. Nadine, that Dub in the back of the car, she nearly pulled the cock off him. One. Emma, who pestered him on Snapchat, then threatened to post that picture on Facebook if he didn’t answer her – the bitch. Two. Rachel, from Kilkenny, three. Megan, the hippy, four. Jade, the rich bitch, five. Sarah, from Drogheda, six. The other Sarah, mad for it, anal, the works, seven. He should look her up again next year; she could be a regular when Ruth wasn’t around.
He stepped into the shower cubicle and had to put his hand on the wall when the water met the soles of his feet. That one from Wexford, eight. The two that weekend in Doolin, Caitlin and Kylie, or was it Khloe? Ten. He put his head under the flow of water. He took shallow breaths to relieve the stabbing pain in his chest.
The First Sunday in September Page 10