How the fuck could you have dropped that ball? It just doesn’t happen.
Then Ruth. The first time was at Joe’s party in that little bedroom. How many times since? Too many to count. Eleven. Maeve, the looper at Christmas, twelve. Shouldn’t have done that, really; it was bad form – she was totally out of it.
The water went cold and shouts came up from the other cubicles. Typical. He dried himself down and returned to his place on the bench. He patted his feet with his towel and sprinkled more powder on them. He dressed himself slowly in his tracksuit and hoodie, instead of the suit they were supposed to wear. Fuck them.
‘Jim, will you look at Cillian’s feet. They’re in bits,’ Lynch said to the doctor who was flexing and icing James Clancy’s knee.
‘They’re fine,’ McMahon said. ‘Just a few blisters. They’re fine, Jim.’
Murphy put down the knee and gave Clancy the ice pack. ‘Leave that on for ten minutes more. If it starts to burn, take it off. Have you got Nurofen?’
Clancy nodded.
‘Here, give me a look,’ he said to McMahon.
McMahon sighed and lifted his two feet to the bending doctor. What a fucking nightmare.
‘Just a few blisters.’
‘That’s more than just a few, Cillian,’ the doctor said. ‘What are you putting on it?’
‘This stuff. I got it from the chemist.’ He handed the doctor the tin.
‘Hmm, I’ll give you something on the bus. Don’t pull off the loose skin. Have you clean socks?’
‘I was just going to wear the trainers.’
‘No, if these get infected you’ll be in trouble. You might need an antibiotic too, we’ll see tomorrow. Rest them as much as you can. Keep them as dry as possible.’
They departed the dressing room in dribs and drabs. Most people left him alone, as he hobbled by, with his hurleys and gear bag.
Out in the tall tunnel where the bus was parked, straggling Clare supporters – mostly players’ friends and relations – stood still, in clusters, bereft.
One little girl, with a blue ribbon in her hair, ran up to him and asked: ‘Are you hurt, Cillian, are you hurt?’ Her cheeks were red from crying. She wore one saffron sandal and one blue.
‘No, no, I’m fine. We’ll be back again next year. Don’t worry, sure you won’t?’ he said.
‘I won’t, Cillian. You’re great, Cillian. I love you, Cillian.’
‘I know you do. I know that. What’s your name?’
‘Saoirse, Cillian. Saoirse Keane.’
‘Thanks for all your support, Saoirse. We’ll be back again next year, don’t worry.’ He patted her on the shoulder and smiled.
At that, the girl burst into tears and hugged him, her head banging into his ribs. Her mother had to peel her off.
Shallow breaths.
The mother, a dark-haired woman he thought he knew, smiled at him and nodded. The pity in her eyes enraged him. He shuffled to the bus and cast his bag and hurleys into the luggage compartment. He had forgotten to tape the hurleys together and they clattered and slid along the smooth surface.
No sign of him. Better to get it over with, but not in front of other people.
He thought about the time his father had hit him, after he gave cheek at his Confirmation. It wasn’t a clean shot, but the shock of it stunned him – he’d never been punched before. He remembered being frozen rigid in terror as he lay on the ground, staring up at the towering figure above him.
‘What did you just say?’ his father had hissed through gritted teeth. Overcome by fear, McMahon had jumped up and run away. Why he went to the Clearys’ house he never really knew, but he had been glad of the kindness and sympathy. He could vividly remember that small kitchen, and he, sitting there in his good clothes, crying like a baby, while Mrs Cleary wiped his nose, tried to calm him down and get him to eat a biscuit.
His mother picked him up half-an-hour later in tight-lipped silence. Took his side, of course. Could she ever, just once, stand up to him?
He flopped into the bus seat, put his back against the window and lifted his two feet off the floor.
That mad bitch Chloe in Galway. Twelve, no, thirteen. The American, Tara, fourteen. Only head, but still, she was a model so have to count her. His mind drifted back to the game. He closed his eyes, and fought against the images. Michelle, that married one from Cloghroe. She did half the team, but she was a good ride, in fairness. Fifteen. There was at least one more, but he couldn’t remember.
The bus edged out of the huge gate and away from the stadium. A group of Cork supporters jeered them as they passed.
Sully’s scoring goals, he’s scoring goals.
Oh to, oh to be, oh to be a Rebel!
Lose-ers, lose-ers, lose-ers.
Back pressed against the window, McMahon swallowed hard, his mouth dry. He had forgotten to bring a bottle with him, despite Jim warning them about rehydration.
He glanced to his right and saw Dave Hogan take a sip from an energy drink. Hogan, whom Ruth had invited to her Debs, and gotten off with a few times after the Leaving Cert. Hogan had been the first to have sex with her – McMahon had wheedled it out of her that night when she was high on Es in Vicar Street. She’d done it with some other guy too – she wouldn’t say who – in first-year, before she was going out with him. He’d stormed out of the gig, she stumbling after him, whining. ‘Cillian, Cillian, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said. I’m sorry, Cillian, I’m sorry.’ Staggering down Christchurch in her high heels. Hardly spoke to her the following day while she sniffled and whispered to her ‘friend’ Leah. Leah who hated him because he told her she was frigid when she would only give him a hand job that time Ruth had gone home for the weekend. Fucked Ruth’s brains out that Sunday night too when she got back. She likes it rough.
He took his phone from his tracksuit pocket and looked at it. He almost turned it on to see his Twitter feed, to find out what his 48,000 followers were saying. Bound to be some support there, at least some people would appreciate what he’s done for the county. He twirled the phone in his hand and licked his lips. He really needed some water. Maybe he should text his agent, Nick Connolly: he’d know what to post. Something apologetic, but about pride in the jersey too. #betternextyear #wewillbeback. Maybe something to remind them of all the scores he got in this year’s championship: 1–2 in the first match against Cork, and probably the goal of the year; 1–6 against Offaly who’d played with a sweeper; seven points against Limerick and they double-marked him; 1–5 against Tipp including a goal in the last two minutes to win it; 1–4 against Waterford in the semi – no way would Clare even be in the final only for him. No fucking way.
And one point today. One point.
The bus pulled up at the hotel drop-off area and the players trundled out.
I am not going to take any shit from him. Not this time.
McMahon had to climb into the luggage compartment on his hands and knees to rescue his scattered hurleys. Nobody offered to help him either, the bastards. He wondered if he could get a punctured lung from one of the cracked ribs. When he stepped out onto the ground, he thought his feet might buckle under him.
Two lines of people on the hotel forecourt clapped the players as they trudged past. He saw his parents and Ruth among them. His father, in his good suit, head and shoulders above the other two, was stony-faced. His mother, in a stupid flowery dress, kneaded her hands in front of her. Ruth, her blonde hair highlighted by the Clare jersey, stood to one side.
McMahon walked forward, head bowed. He stopped in front of them. He tried to look up but couldn’t. He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, and he was pulled into an embrace. The stubble of his father’s chin grazed his forehead as he cried. His mother was upon him now too, her breasts pressed into his back. The pair enfolded him. Ruth stood to one side, her head bowed.
His mother made a strange shushing sound he had never heard before. He could smell that sickly sweet Fleur De Lys perfume she wore.
‘I�
��m sorry,’ he tried to say, but the words came out as a whine.
His father stood back. McMahon looked up and saw him glancing right and left at the crowd.
‘Not your day, Cillian,’ his father said, loudly, and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Not your day. Stand up tall, now.’
McMahon took a deep breath, nodded and turned away to enter the hotel.
A few minutes later, sunk in a lobby sofa, he turned on his phone. He took a deep breath as an array of tones came through. He looked around for Nick. No sign of the fucker when he needed him most. He scrolled down his recent calls made and selected Nick Connolly Agent. He listened to it ring and go to Voicemail.
‘Nick, where are you? I need to get a Tweet out but I’m not sure what to say.’
The text messages were mostly sympathetic and requests for interviews – fuck that, no way was he talking to the media, not even Clare FM. He didn’t read the mail – he knew they would be from his Twitter feed, Cork people rubbing it in, or all those hater-losers who knew nothing about hurling. He looked at the symbol of the white bird on the blue background. His thumb twitched, hovering over it. He put the phone back in his pocket. James Clancy’s father, John, came over to shake his hand and commiserate.
‘Unlucky, Cillian – ye gave it everything,’ he said.
‘Thanks, John,’ McMahon said. He leaned back into the sofa and closed his eyes.
He heard his father’s adamant voice behind him.
‘He was fucking useless, Dick, couldn’t do one thing right.’
McMahon put his face in his hands, slumped forward and rocked his body, pressing his fingers into the bone around his eye sockets. The wild rushing in his ears was like the pounding of a storm. It blocked out all the noise in the lobby. He fisted his right hand and pushed his thumb into his ribs, right into the cartilage, until he could push no further.
Where the fuck is she with that key?
He rose and walked towards the hotel reception. Ruth and her sister Jessie were standing behind a pillar. Ruth held both her hands in the air and said: ‘I can’t, I just can’t.’ Jessie was trying to calm her.
‘Can’t what?’ he said. ‘Did you get the key?’
Ruth froze. She put her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wild. Her nails were painted saffron and blue, every second one.
‘Oh, nothing, Cillian,’ Jessie said and smirked. She always did have the hots for him. ‘Sister stuff.’
He walked to the lift and Ruth followed. He’d get it out of her later. He recalled what he’d heard his father say to Dick Lonergan in the hotel lobby and he closed his eyes. He leaned into the corner of the lift and banged his forehead against the wooden panelling. Ruth gazed at the door of the lift. She began to cry.
‘Jesus, what is it, now?’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ she mumbled. She stopped crying and wiped her cheeks. Her face hardened. McMahon glared at her – it was always about her.
Ruth fumbled with the key card at the door of their room before pushing it open. She held the door for him as he shuffled in and dropped his bag. She placed his hurleys against the wall and put her case on the ground by the wardrobe. They stood there in an awkward silence. Ruth rushed to the bathroom and closed the door.
Don’t tell me she’s getting her fucking period.
McMahon sidled up on the bed and groaned. For sure his ribs were cracked. He let his head sink down into the soft deep pillows. He looked at his phone again. Where the fuck was Nick? He scrolled through some of his Twitter feed – mostly abuse. He turned off the phone. He was exhausted.
Losers and haters, what do they know?
He looked down at his runners and imagined the bloodstains on the white sports socks underneath. He wanted her to see them. He wanted them all to see his feet in ribbons. In fucking ribbons. He wondered if he should get her to take a photo of them for Instagram, but he could only do that if they’d won. He clenched his teeth. At least she would see them.
God, he was tired. So tired. He closed his eyes, letting the exhaustion take him.
Ruth comes back into the room.
‘Will you take off my runners and socks?’ McMahon says. ‘I need to put powder on them. Doctor Jim said I have to. It’s in my bag. And will you get me a drink of water?’
She drops her Pandora bracelet on the glass table. She loves that stupid bracelet. She opens the side zip on his bag and takes out the tin of powder.
She kneels on the bed and undoes his laces. Her hands tremble, her nails are saffron and blue. Saffron and blue. She lifts his left leg by the calf and removes his runner. She does the same with the right leg. She unpeels a short sock, blotched red, and keens.
‘Oh Cillian. Oh God, oh God,’ Ruth says, her eyes full of tears. She removes the other sock.
He feels a deep satisfaction.
This is what I do for my county. This is what I do. For my county. They don’t know. They haven’t a fucking clue.
Ruth lifts his feet again, one by one, and puts a towel beneath them. She slides the ends of his tracksuit pants up to his shins. She twists the top of the tin and sprinkles the white powder out, concentrating hard. She shakes the tin up and down, her blonde hair waving, her breasts juddering. She shakes and shakes, and the powder falls like snow. It falls and falls. It gives off a faint antiseptic smell as it drifts down and covers his feet, his poor feet, in a high white mound.
She slides off the bed and puts the tin on the sideboard by the TV. She pours water from a complimentary bottle into a glass and puts it on the bedside locker. She sits in the armchair by the TV, gazes at him and waits to be called.
Good old Ruth, she does what she’s told.
McMahon woke. Noelle! How could he have forgotten Noelle? The pair of tits on her. Sixteen. He knew it was sixteen, not bad for one year.
Bet you never pulled sixteen women in one year, you useless old dickhead.
He glanced to his right towards the armchair to beckon Ruth, but she wasn’t there. The room had darkened and grown cool. The bathroom door was ajar, the light off. He raised his head and winced as the pain slashed through his chest.
He looked at his feet, throbbing now. His runners were still on. There was no glass of water on the bedside locker, no tin of powder on the sideboard and no bracelet on the glass table. Ruth’s case was no longer beside the wardrobe.
‘Ruth?’ he said, his voice querulous and sharp.
There was no reply.
‘Ruth?’ he said again, more wistfully.
He slumped back on the pillows and clamped his eyes shut. The only sounds he could hear were his own untidy breathing and the hum of traffic in the distance.
A Pure Dote
Later, Nuala would wonder why it was always the bloody keys that Gerry kept losing. They ended up being found in the usual places – pockets or door-locks or the ignition. At first, she hadn’t taken much notice of it; he was busy, they were all busy. So what if he’d become a bit forgetful, even at forty?
One evening, when he was going to a match, she saw him in the hall staring at the keys as if he didn’t know what they were or what to do with them. It was then that alarm bells started ringing. She knew they were in big trouble on their way to Mrs O’Connell’s funeral that wet Friday night in October. When he was driving through Buttevant and he asked her where they were going.
Oliver, the GP, was matter-of-fact.
‘It isn’t looking good, guys,’ he said, and she had always hated that word ‘guys’ and the way people used it. People aren’t ‘guys’; she isn’t a ‘guy’. ‘Don’t call me a “guy”, you asshole,’ she wanted to shout in his face but, of course, she said nothing.
‘But you never know. There could be a simple cause and if there is, the neurologist will find it,’ he said, and he washed his hands of it. They never went back to him. What a cold fish for a doctor, a horrible man, and she doesn’t say that often.
Neurologist. The word alone is frightening, drawing up an image of a brain in a dish. But Nuala realised quic
kly that fear was a luxury she could not afford, so she didn’t countenance it. Whatever about feeling it from time to time, he would never see it in her eyes, she decided – and he never did, either, and never will.
Oliver had not used the words, but the neurologist (a kindlier man than the GP, she had to admit – he had seemed sorry for what he was telling them) didn’t hesitate in that cold office in Bishopstown.
Early onset dementia. Early. Onset. Dementia.
And that was that.
‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me?’ Try telling that to someone diagnosed with early onset dementia in the prime of his life, with a wife and three young kids and a mortgage. Try telling it to his wife and children, his friends and family. Then you’ll know what hurt is. Nuala knew what hurt was. Hurt was the love of your life turning into a helpless child, so that you have to look after him every day and sleep beside him every night and feed him and wash him and change his nappies day in and day out – the fine man you gave your heart and soul and body to – now a statue, a nothing, a mockery. Hurt was watching your children grow up without a father, but having to care for a shadow of a man who should be caring for them. Hurt was having to fight and fight and fight with strangers, day-in and day-out, for every entitlement, every support, waiting on phone lines, standing in queues, filling out online forms, swallowing the shame of the hand-outs she never in her life expected that she would be forced to accept. She would take the sticks and stones any day.
Oh, Gerry was brave, he was her brave man. His first fear was Huntington’s and Pick’s because they were hereditary and he was thinking about the children. When he had all those tests done and they were negative, he drew breath.
‘I might be lucky,’ he said one night in front of the fire. ‘I might not have given it to them.’
She smiled. She hadn’t felt lucky in a long time, but she knew she was and always would be. She took his hand and said, ‘We’ll face it together, all the way, boy.’
She sang a verse of that Johnny Cash song he liked, and he joined in. Later, they went upstairs and made love. In hindsight, she knew that was the night Jack was conceived, as sure as God. Sometimes you just know. Madness, of course, to have Jack when they did, but she wouldn’t send him back and he the image of his lovely father.
The First Sunday in September Page 11