‘What’ll I do with you, at all, Dinny Young?’
‘I can think of a few things.’
‘I’m sure you can,’ Helen said. ‘I think your daughter takes after you. What did she do only go over to Darren O’Sullivan and ask him out to dance.’
‘She what?’
‘Trooped over to his table and asked him to dance, the little rip, in front of everybody. Some Facebook Challenge, apparently.’
‘Jesus Christ, that rubbish. I’ll have to have words with her. What did he do?’
‘He didn’t know what to do. Coach’s daughter and all that. His girlfriend saved the day, and they all went out on the floor.’
‘Jesus, we’ll have to watch her.’
‘Don’t I know,’ Helen said. ‘It’s her Debs next summer. And then college.’
‘Tell me, what did you get up to yourself, on your Debs?’ Dinny smirked.
‘Hmph,’ Helen said. But a smile squeezed out of her.
‘I don’t remember you putting up much of a fight, either,’ Dinny said.
‘Anyway, that’s exactly what I don’t want her to be doing.’ Helen glanced across the dance floor.
‘Maybe the Poor Clares would have her.’
‘Jesus, it’s not funny, Dinny. We’ll have to sit down with her.’
‘You’ll have to sit down with her, I’m not doing it.’
‘Coward,’ Helen said.
‘Now you have it,’ Dinny said, and he looked down into her big blue eyes. ‘Lady, the day I met you was the luckiest day of my life.’
‘And don’t you forget it, buster,’ she said, smiling, and she kissed him again.
In the bedroom, just before 2 a.m., Holly phoned her mother in high dudgeon. Helen, who was about to get into the bed with Lilly, talked her down. Dinny sat on the side of the smaller, adjoining bed, listening to his voicemail. Lilly was sound asleep; she’d gone off the moment her head touched the pillow. Helen threw her eyes up at him and pointed to the phone. After she hung up, Dinny asked her what the problem was.
‘Oh, she’s just fed up she’s missing out. Lilly passed on that Facebook Dance Challenge to herself and some others and she doesn’t know what to do.’
‘Jesus, what is it with that Facebook?’
‘Ah, sure she hates to miss out. I’ll go over to Dundrum in the morning and get her something,’ Helen said. She switched out the light, lay on her back and snuggled down. ‘Oh, and another thing. Apparently you’ll have to introduce herself and Ciara to Darren O’Sullivan tomorrow night, they need their jerseys autographed.’
Dinny shook his head and sighed.
‘Lovely,’ he said.
‘Kiss me, you fool,’ Helen whispered.
He leaned across, kissed her deeply and sat back on his bed.
‘Love you, boy,’ she said in a faraway voice. She turned away from him.
‘Love you, too, boy,’ he said, and he looked across at the two forms in the bed, two neat breathing mounds, with two dark swathes of hair flowing out from under the covers. He pictured Holly in her bed in O’Keefes’, hopefully with her phone turned off now. He set his alarm for 6.15 a.m. He would have to do more interviews in the morning with the radio stations.
He’d had enough of the voice messages – mostly media requests, however they got his number. He plugged the phone into the wall, put it on silent, turned off the light, slipped under the covers and rested his head back on the pillows. At times like this he wished he drank, really drank, so he could let loose and just conk out.
The first time his head goes under the water it’s neither shocking nor distressing. He just lifts it above again, moves his long skinny arms and legs and begins to swim. His teacher, Brother Iggy, brings them swimming to the pool every Thursday, so he can already swim the breaststroke and the doggy paddle. He can nearly do freestyle, but he has to practise more. He learned how to float the very first day. You’re a natural, lad, Brother Iggy said.
The shout is sharp and he turns towards it. Michael is being carried away on the current. Dinny swims downriver towards him, but the water is moving so fast. It takes him ages to reach Michael and when he does, he grabs a slippery arm and his brother turns to him.
‘Help me, help me, Dinny,’ Michael half-whispers. He is panicking, Dinny can tell, his eyes going way up in their sockets as he puffs and wheezes.
He is sinking.
Dinny feels the slap of a flailing hand and he feels a kick in his stomach. In shock, he lets go. He is gasping for air himself now, the kick winding and frightening him.
Michael disappears under the surface. The current drags him away, down to the pools where it’s really dangerous and they are not allowed to go. Dinny is afraid and starts to cry. He treads water but the current has caught him too, so he turns and swims away towards the shore.
People are lined along the grassy bank. His mother and father and Granny Bridie and Grandad. Auntie Sheila and Uncle Dick and some people he doesn’t know. Brother Iggy and some of his class. The Under 12 hurling team in their jerseys, all looking at him. He sees Helen and Lilly and Holly, with Sean Culloty and Darren O’Sullivan behind them, towering over them. He stands up in the shallow water. He walks towards them, crying and shivering, dripping water, his togs clinging to his bony thighs, his toes squelching down into the soft mud of the shore.
His father screams at him. ‘Get in, get in, Dinny!’ His father grabs him and pushes him back. His face is puce raw, misshapen in anger, spittle flowing from his mouth. He waves his hands. ‘Get in, get in!’
‘I can’t, I can’t,’ Dinny sobs. ‘I can’t.’
‘Get in, get in, Dinny,’ his mother shouts. ‘You have to save him.’
His father pushes him again and he falls into the water. It should be shallow but it isn’t and his feet aren’t on the ground any more. Now he can’t swim either. Whatever he does, however much he moves his arms and legs, he’s sinking down, down; his body won’t stay afloat. He swallows a huge gulpful of water. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe.
He felt arms around him. The sound of a familiar voice.
‘It’s okay, it’s okay, Dinny. You were dreaming about poor Michael again.’
It was almost pitch dark, but he could see Helen’s face, the crinkle around her eyes. She smiled at him and touched his cheek. He gasped for air, he sucked it into himself, lungfuls of it. His heart raced, hammering in his chest, like the heart of the stunned blackbird he’d picked up off the ground outside the window last winter.
‘It’s okay, love. You had a nightmare.’
‘What happened? What’s wrong?’ he heard Lilly say from the other bed.
‘Okay, okay. I’m okay,’ he said and he sent Helen back to bed. The touch of her hand on his cheek.
He didn’t feel okay, though. He could still see the disgust in his mother’s and father’s eyes, as they stood on the grassy bank, urging him to go back in the water and save Michael.
He dragged his mind away from it and back to his day. To those moments just before the final whistle, when it dawned on him that it was true, they had really won, it had happened. He felt again the surge of relief that had swept through him as the whistle blew and all hell broke loose. He smiled.
He knew now that it would be his last time – he would no longer be involved. It was over. He’d help Helen out around the house, give Lilly some grinds, do that MA he’d been promising himself, maybe go for a principalship – he should, the girls would be going to college soon.
It was enough; time to move on. He’d done his bit.
And did that change things? Did that make the win a Frank O’Connor moment? He thought again about his three sleeping women, two in the next bed and Holly in her friend’s house in Douglas. He thought about the graves in St Gobnait’s Cemetery in Mallow: Michael’s and his parents’.
And he decided, yes, the final whistle today was a Frank O’Connor moment, and one that he would look back on for the rest of his life. Not because Cork won, but because it marked
the end of his hurling days.
Maybe It Won’t Be So Bad
That N-Bomb didn’t do notten for me, hardly no buzz at all. Waste of ten Euros. Only after making me fuckin’ frazzled or something. All shaky, like. I hear someone running up behind me on the path but when I turn around there’s nobody there.
It’s getting dark, too. They’re gonna be closing the park soon. Even all the Poles are after going home. There’s still some kids in the playground so I’m not the last, but still. At least I have this seat, don’t have to sit on the ground and get all wet.
The river, it isn’t moving any more. It’s like glass, like you could walk over it to them gardens on the other side. I wonder could I? Them big weeds by the water look weird, like there’s something crawling around in there. Loads of maggots or something. It’s probably just the wind, but still. There’s a kind of squishy, sucking noise coming out of it. It’s giving me goose bumps and I’m all itchy. Total rank, like.
Fuck him, anyway.
He knew I didn’t want to.
‘If you loved me you’d do it, Emma. It’s only a ride, like,’ he says to me the first time.
I goes: ‘No fuckin’ way.’
‘It’s only this once, I swear to God.’
When he copped on that wasn’t working, he flipped, like. Then he was fuckin’ raging.
‘I told him you would, are you going to make a liar out of me? He’s Patsy Coughlan’s brother,’ he says, leaning over me, grabbing me by the arm, pointing to the bedroom where yer man was waiting. His face all red, his eyes bulging out of his head. I knew he was going to hit me. I’d a desperate bruise on my arm, after.
So I done it. And it was mank.
If he loved me, he wouldn’t make me. He owes them money. That’s why he done it. I knew it wouldn’t be the last time. The next time won’t be either.
Then he gave me shit about it for ages. Did I come, did I like yer man doing it to me and all the rest. Shouting and roaring at me, all coked-up.
I think he might be after breaking my finger too; it’s all bent. Hurts like fuck.
They’ll all be wasted in the pub, celebrating the win. Full of it. Mam’ll be shitfaced at home too, no point in going there ’til she’s conked out.
If I could have one more, maybe just one of the small green ones, that’d get me down slow, like, later. I’ll be okay again, tomorrow.
Something weird about that garden over there. Looks like there’s people standing there, under the tree, staring over at me. In that other one too. I dunno, is that statue moving?
Nearly all the lights are on in them gaffs now. God, they’re massive. Imagine having a garden that big, going all the way down to the river. They probably have servants and all. Imagine living in one of them – loaded, like, with Sully, having your own car and everything, maybe a swimming pool. I know Sully’s not rich or notten, but what if he was?
I’d love to have gone today. Imagine going to the game with a real boyfriend. Somebody nice, like. Or with Sharon and Megan, maybe, and meeting Sully after the match, asking for his autograph or something and he brings me back to his hotel with the team. Oh. My. God.
Going to the match on the train, having a few cans like everyone else, and walking to the stadium. Couldn’t be that far. Zoe and her brother done it for the semi-final. Tickets were, like, only €40 or something. Singing on Hill 16 with all the others, watching Sully score them goals and the whole thing. Sully’s scoring goals, he’s scoring goals. Singing all the way home on the train, out of it, having the laugh.
That’d be class.
‘Darren Sull’s only a bollox,’ he says the other week when we were watching the semi-final on the telly. Darren blanked him on North Main Street and he’s fucking savage over it. He probably looked for a sub off him, too. I seen him do that before. It’s embarrassing; he has no shame.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad in Auntie Karen’s this time, she wouldn’t be at me, like, constantly. None of her business, anyway, though if I was staying with her it would be, I suppose. I’ll be eighteen in November; I can do what I want. Maybe if I went to London, I could get well away from him. Eddie could put me up ’til I found my own place. Might even let me stay full-time – he is my brother, like. Well, half-brother.
I could get a job somewhere nice, maybe. Lanzarote. In a pub or something and meet somebody nice. Somebody I could just get wrecked with, who didn’t know what I done. Lie on the beach reading my magazines, getting a real tan. Not the fake shit, even though the stuff I robbed in Brown Thomas is the best ever.
I wish Nana Betty didn’t die. I wish I was, like, ten again or something, and she was making me ham sandwiches for my tea and giving me tickles, and telling me stories, putting me to bed. Bringing me down to Madigan’s to get lollipops and packets of sherbet and sticking the lollipops into the sherbet and licking it off. It’s stupid I know but I can’t help it.
At least I have my tattoo to remember her by. Fucking delighted now I got that done, even if it did cost me a fortune. Sharon says I should get one to match on my other arm but no way, like.
I’ll have to go soon. I can’t hear no kids no more. I’ll wait ’til yer man comes to lock the gate. That guy on the bridge is standing there for ages and he was looking at me when he walked past.
Maybe it won’t be so bad in the pub. Some of them might be gone home. His last Snapchat said he’s after going back to the flat. Well, his last one before my phone died.
Maybe Roy will be around and I can get something off him. Roy is nice. Maybe I can just take a yoke with Roy, get a nice buzz on, have a couple of vodka and Cokes or something and then head off home. That’d be nice.
It’s getting creepy. Doing my fuckin’ head in. All them people over there and that sucking sound, and I keep thinking there’s somebody behind me on the path.
There it is, coming out of the weeds, sliding on the grass, coming towards me. Slinking, like a snake or something, or a huge slug, fuckin’ rotten, but I can’t look away. I can’t move; I’m, like, frozen solid. Somebody is in the garden across the river but I can’t shout, I can’t open my mouth. I can see more of them; there’s thousands of them, all crawling over each other, making that sound. It’s like slurping, like some oul fella with no teeth slurping soup or something. Sucking it up into his mouth. They’re coming at me. Jesus fuck. I can feel my hands on the seat but I can’t move them. They’re getting closer but I can’t do nothing. That slurping sound is getting louder. I can hear something else now; I think it’s me, moaning. The first one is after reaching me. It’s crawling up over my Superstars around to the heel, I can feel it. Jesus. Up under the back of my leggings and up my leg. It’s wet and cold, all slimy and everything. The other ones are after reaching me now. They’re crawling up too. My legs are shaking but I can’t get up. I can’t move or nothing. They’re after going up under my leggings, up behind my knees and up the inside of my thighs. Some of them are outside my leggings; I can see them. They’re getting faster. I can’t move. Jesus God. They’re crawling. Sliming. Up.
I jump off the seat and run around it and I feel my thighs and I hit them but there’s nothing there, or at the back of my legs. I look at the ground and there’s nothing there. I stamp my feet on the path. I’m panting, kind of whining, I can hear myself. I feel sick. I look at the big weeds and they’re just weeds being blown by the wind. I look at the grass; there’s nothing.
It still feels like there’s something on my legs but I walk around a bit and press my hands against them, up and down, and the feeling goes away. I’m kind of shivering with the fright, shaking like a dog after getting wet, but I take a deep breath and get the bottle of Coke out of my bag and have a sip. I get my pouch but my hands are shaking so much I know I won’t be able to roll up. I don’t have no weed anyway.
I hear yer man with the keys walking along by the railings.
‘We’re closing up now,’ he says.
I pick up my bag and walk to the gate. There’s no one on the bridge. Aft
er going through the gate I just stand there. What if he’s still in the pub? What if he was lying and he’s there with one of them? I don’t want to.
‘Are y’alright, girl?’ the man with the keys says.
I turn around.
‘I’m not doing that no more,’ I says to him. He looks at me stupid, from behind the gate. He has a roundy face with thick glasses and long black hair. He bends down to get a better look at me through the bars.
I start walking. It’ll take me half an hour at least to get to my Auntie Karen’s in Friar’s Walk. My bag isn’t heavy. I only have a few things in it since I took my hoodie out. My long T-shirt for bed. A toothbrush and toothpaste. The picture of me with Nana Betty in the small frame. My Tom Ford shades. My pouch of Amber Leaf, my lighter and my skins. My lip gloss and the good fake tan. A fold-up hairbrush. My iPhone and my Beats. Spare knickers and my Adidas leggings. My other Cork jersey, the new one with the Chill logo and the number 14 at the back. My purse with €40 and some change. A packet of tampons, a couple of hairbands and my phone charger.
Them railings look weird, like they’re moving alongside me or something. I’ll be okay when I get to the Western Road.
Alan and Maureen Dunlea are Awake
Alan Dunlea is awake.
He should be tired after his long, full day. At ease with the satisfaction of a win, somehow snatched out of nowhere. How, exactly, he isn’t sure yet. He reaches for a simile. Comparing apparently unconnected concepts is one of the exercises in that book he bought five years ago, on his retirement: How to Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease with the Power of Your Mind. What about: Like clutching the flailing hand of a child who has fallen over the edge of a cliff? No, too dramatic.
He remembers how the national anthem affected him before the match. He thinks it is the first time he cried since Billy’s funeral. He knows why too. Alan Dunlea is no fool – it could well have been his last one.
It is quiet in the bedroom of his old house, Stella Maris, in his old estate, in Ballinlough. He can’t hear any traffic from the South Link road. Good. Maureen is breathing easily, rhythmically, beside him. When she has a cold she snores. Or when she has had wine and cigarettes late in the evening, but that’s rare these days. Since the diagnosis in March, they have both been abstemious (him from whiskey, she from wine). Not that they ever drank that much, anyway; although he used to worry about her when the boys were small, when she’d be on her own with them in Derrynane.
The First Sunday in September Page 13