The First Sunday in September

by Tadhg Coakley

  Maureen Dunlea is asleep.

  Alan Dunlea is awake.

  No point in mulling it all over again. We are where we are. He’d known for months, long before Diarmuid eventually sent him to the neurologist. The handwriting, the dry eyes, the tremor, the change in his walk. Even Paddy had spotted his walk that day he called into City Hall to meet some of the old gang. Alan Dunlea is no fool.

  The facial masking did throw him, though. The idea that he will recede behind an expressionless cold face, rigid and unmoving. What would be the point in living beyond that? As if he were trapped behind a mask, like his father after the stroke. People walking around you and talking about you as if you weren’t there.

  God, the way that girl in the chemist looked at him when he chatted her up last week. As if he didn’t even exist. That’s what’s happening; he’s become invisible to them, something to pity. The same with Sarah yesterday, the shock in her eyes when she copped on.

  It’s all over.

  Would he have the guts to kill himself before he gets too bad? He isn’t sure. What defines ‘too bad’ anyway? When he can’t walk any more? When he can’t talk? Wipe his own arse? No, Alan Dunlea isn’t afraid of dying.

  In the meantime, he must get on to Johnny O’Sullivan, the builder, to renovate the sitting room into a bedroom, for when he can’t manage the stairs. Shouldn’t take too much, really. They like to make a big deal out of it, but he still has his marbles, they won’t cod him. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

  He’ll miss the hurling, though. Days like today don’t grow on trees.

  God, those summers at wing-back, with Billy at corner-back behind him and Cash in goal. Nobody could get past that Rockies back line. Not even The Glen. Not even Ring. Those evenings on Church Road, training. Balmy evenings. Blue skies. He could run forever those days. Forever. Himself and Billy.

  Alan Dunlea is asleep.

  The Pride of Kilbrittain

  ‘The best match I ever saw Liam Óg play was that Under 21 semi-final against Na Piarsaigh,’ Paddy Horgan says with authority to the others in the Skoda Octavia. He is glowing and giddy from the win. Clondalkin is dense with traffic, despite their quick getaway from the parking spot on the North Circular Road.

  His pride when it was Liam Óg’s turn to lift the cup. What an achievement for a small club like Kilbrittain and Liam Óg deserved the moment too, the way he had dedicated himself to his hurling. My God, how Liam Senior and Carmel must be feeling. He couldn’t wait to see them, to congratulate them.

  ‘Lord save us, he was only mighty that day,’ Willie says from the back seat. ‘Your man Sullivan didn’t get a sniff of the ball.’

  ‘He carried the whole team on his shoulders. I never saw leadership like it.’

  ‘He played great today too. On McMahon as well, for most of it,’ Donie says, checking his two side mirrors.

  ‘He did,’ Willie says.

  ‘He never loses the cool. That’s fierce important.’

  ‘That’s down to you, Paddy,’ Willie says.

  ‘What? Oh, Jesus, no. No, no, no.’ He squirms in his seat.

  ‘Indeed and it is,’ Willie says. ‘Weren’t you drumming that into him since he was ten? Didn’t you train him at Under 12, 14, Minor, Under 21 and Intermediate? And for Carbery, too?’

  ‘Ah, no, no. You either have it or you don’t.’

  ‘Paddy, today is your day too, boy,’ Donie says, and taps him on the arm.

  ‘I don’t know. I did my bit, I suppose,’ he says, the words stumbling from his mouth.

  ‘Indeed and you did,’ Willie says. ‘And everybody in the parish knows it.’

  Paddy looks out the window. He breathes slowly through his mouth, his lips pursed.

  They are quiet for a long time after that.

  Sheila met a man from Fermanagh shortly after she moved away, and they now have three children. They still live in London, near White Hart Lane, apparently. She sent him a lovely card when his mother died.

  One day he bumped into her outside Kelly’s Supermarket in Ballinspittle – she was pushing a buggy and had a small boy in tow. It was in August 1999.

  ‘Hello, Sheila, it’s Paddy.’

  ‘God, Paddy, I know that, you don’t have to introduce yourself.’

  ‘How are you? And who’s this young man?’

  ‘This is Eoin. Say hello to Paddy, Eoin.’

  ‘Hello,’ the boy mumbled, in an English accent, squinting up at him.

  ‘And who’s this?’ Paddy said, leaning into the buggy. A sleeping, angelic-looking baby was framed by the pale pink material inside. One chubby little hand clutched a plastic ring with some clowns attached. Her chest rose and fell, at what seemed like an alarming rate, under a white babygro with the smiling face of a tiger on its front.

  ‘That’s the boss, Anna. She rules the roost,’ Sheila said. Her hair was different. Cut short, with a fringe. Jet black. It made her seem exotic. She had three earrings in her left ear. Her eyes were bright and she was tanned and fit-looking. She wore a tight black polo neck, although the day was warm, and jeans turned up at the bottom over bright red Doc Marten boots. She’d come into her own.

  He pulled in his belly, which had been pressing against his tatty old jumper. He thought of his fine head of hair receding fast.

  ‘She’s lovely,’ he said. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Just turned nine months,’ Sheila said.

  ‘I don’t know who Eoin is like. Tim, maybe?’

  ‘Oh, he’s more like his father’s people. Don’t do that, Eoin.’

  She reached out and put her hand on Paddy’s arm.

  ‘Paddy, I was so sorry to hear about Denis. I only heard a while back. How is he?’

  ‘He’s fine, I’m sure. He’s in Australia now. Well, I better be going.’

  He was about to say he had somewhere to go, or somebody to meet, but the truth was that he didn’t. He smiled at her and she smiled back. Eoin had picked up a small stick and was pushing it against the side of the buggy. Paddy got into the car and drove straight to The Cross Bar and drank twelve or thirteen pints and fell in a heap in the toilet and woke up at home, never finding out how he got there.

  Paddy nods off on the Naas Road, despite his emotion. He wakes at the Portlaoise toll gate, embarrassed that he slept so long. He foosters in his pocket for some change.

  ‘I have it here, Donie.’

  ‘I have a Euro,’ Willie says from the back.

  Cora is sleeping. It’s still bright, though there is a redness in the sky to their right, as the sun drops towards the west.

  ‘Do you want to stop in Cahir or Cashel for a bite to eat, Donie?’ Paddy asks as the car accelerates away from the toll gates. ‘Or a cup of coffee?’

  ‘I’m not sure. How are ye feeling?’ Donie says.

  ‘We’re fine. Sure we’re not driving. Are you okay, Willie?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ says Willie. ‘Whatever the driver wants, now.’

  ‘Yerra we might keep going so. Herself won’t eat on the road anyway. Larry will surely do a sandwich for us when we get there,’ Donie says.

  ‘Oh, he will,’ says Willie. ‘Maybe even a burger. He’ll replay The Sunday Game too, sure.’ He rubs his hands together.

  Looking after the minor teams was his favourite. The young lads were so eager to learn and to hurl, those days. They had some great players coming into their prime.

  ‘Liam Óg O’Callaghan, what do you do if your man hits you a belt off the ball?’ he asked one evening at training. A drizzle fell on them as they stood around in a circle after a tough session, preparing for the county final against Blackrock. He walked back and forth in the middle of the group, with a sliotar and hurley in either hand, his socks pulled up over the bottom of his pants. The boys were fit and healthy and keen and bursting with promise.

  ‘I keep my cool and work harder,’ Liam Óg said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Paddy said.

  ‘And John Long, what do you do when your man score
s a goal on you?’

  ‘I keep my cool and work harder.’

  ‘You do. Okay, an easy jog on the spot, I don’t want ye getting cold.

  ‘Seamus Cahalane, what do you do after you score two goals?’

  ‘I keep my cool and work harder.’

  ‘You keep your cool and work harder.

  ‘Larry Boyle, what do you do when the ref books you for something you didn’t do?’

  ‘I keep my cool and work harder.’

  ‘Tony O’Sullivan, what’s the most important ball?’

  ‘The next ball.’

  ‘Jerry Lynch, what do you do when your man spits in your eye?’

  ‘I keep my cool and work harder.’

  ‘Right. Remember that next Sunday. Whatever happens, and I mean whatever, you keep your cool and work harder. The next ball is the only ball. Two slow laps to wind down. Sean, put some ice on your face when you get home. Training again Thursday night, seven on the dot. Last man here does twenty press-ups.’

  The boys dispersed to the sideline and began the jog, Liam Óg leading them out. Paddy strolled towards his friend, Liam Senior, who was standing with two other men near the goal.

  ‘Good session, Paddy?’ one of the men said.

  ‘Very good,’ he replied. ‘Great bunch of young fellas.’

  It’s dark when they pass the old house, derelict and shadowy behind the cypress trees. They are all wide awake now, nearly home. Willie has just finished a rendition of ‘The Men of Beare’. How he remembers all the words, Paddy doesn’t know.

  After the water tank in the attic burst, he just moved out and left it there. No point in wasting good money after bad, sure the place had gone to the dogs. The kitchen was a complete mess and he didn’t have the energy or the interest to do it up, with his mother and Denis gone. When he sold the twenty acres to J. P. Mulcahy, the Cork builder, for a housing development, he bought old Mrs Raftery’s cottage at the bottom of the hill and renovated it. The work kept him busy all that year, which was just as well after he was laid off when Dairygold closed the Co-Op to build apartments.

  It all belongs to NAMA now, of course, though he takes no pleasure in that. He’s just glad he didn’t have to get another job, but sometimes he thinks he might be better off if he did have something to occupy his time. The winter days are fierce long and the pull of The Cross Bar is often too strong to resist. Only for the dogs, he’d be banjaxed altogether.

  He doesn’t train teams any more after the young fellas began giving him cheek a few years ago. They were laughing at him behind his back so that was the end of that. No amount of cajoling by the chairman or anybody else could change his mind. He misses it sometimes, but what’s done is done. It’s a young man’s game now, anyway.

  He bought two apartments in Cork city and a small house in Ballincollig on the cheap and he rents them out, so that gets him on the road from time to time. He joined Bandon Golf Club, but it was hard on the old back, and a couple of women chased him off completely after they took a shine to him when he ended up playing in the mixed foursomes. He hasn’t the heart to cancel his subscription, though it’s money down the drain.

  He thinks of Denis when they pass the pier. A few boats are moored nearby. The reflections of the lights from Courtmac across the bay glint on the water. He taught Denis to swim there, one summer, amid tears and snot and storming off and tantrums. He must have been only seven or eight, but he learned, eventually, and was like a fish after a few weeks. The little skinnymalinks, with his black hair and freckles.

  He wonders if Denis ever thinks of him, when he’s swimming on Bondi Beach or wherever he lives these days. He wonders if Denis is a husband by now. A father. That would make him an uncle. Sheila’s lad, Eoin, is nineteen. Almost a man. He doesn’t know if her third child is a boy or a girl.

  The pub they are bound for will be hopping on the Sunday night of a Cork All-Ireland. It will be familiar and comfortable, full of friends and neighbours, celebrating the honour of the club having a player on the team. The porter will be creamy, and the replay of the match will be rousing. Larry will be fussing about his kingdom like an old hen around her farmyard.

  After the pub, Donie drops him off at the cottage. They shake hands and arrange to meet up the following evening for the team’s homecoming in Cork city.

  The dogs bark as he approaches the house. The security light comes on. They jump up on him in welcome when he opens the garage door and he gives them a rub and lets them run around the yard.

  He switches on the kitchen light, closes the door and fills the kettle. He walks down the hall and sits in his old armchair. The warm days bring out a smell in the living room, but he doesn’t know what it is. Something gone off. He knows now that he won’t sleep. He looks at the dark television and reaches for the remote. Something changes his mind. He glances at the drinks cabinet, but decides against it.

  A breeze has picked up. He can feel the draught behind him, through the window that he’s been meaning to fix. His mother’s old clock ticks on the dusty mantelpiece. Yesterday’s Examiner is scattered across the small table.

  TJ scratches at the door and whines to get in – she’s the home bird. Pooca would run around all night, barking at foxes, real or imagined.

  He rises wearily from the armchair as the kettle comes to a boil and clicks off. The car keys are on the hook of the hall stand.

  The dogs hop into the back of the Land Rover in a welter of sniffing and panting and wagging of tails. They are excited. They know their destination.

  At the bend above Garretstown Strand, his car lights, just for a moment, sweep down over the foaming waves and he is glad that the tide is almost fully in. He pulls up in the usual place and lets the dogs out. They race off, the smell of rabbits and strange birds pulsing through the night air.

  It’s windy now, as it often is here. He walks to the wall and looks out into the dark sea. The night is overcast, not a hint of a moon or a star. The engine makes a slight ticking sound as it cools. A farmer has spread slurry that day, on the field beside the strand. A light in one of the houses up on the hill comes on and goes off. He hauls himself back up into the car. He is suddenly tired.

  His phone, on the dash, buzzes with a text. From Liam Óg.

  I kept my cool and worked harder.

  Paddy Horgan smiles and types a reply.

  You did. I’m proud of you.

  He opens the window and listens. The sea seems quiet. The tide might have turned. There is only the faint sound of the waves on the sand, on the rocks beyond. He thinks he can see a hint of morning light to the east but surely it’s too early.

  He closes his eyes and listens as the waves gently flow and ebb, flow and ebb on the shore.

  Can You Talk?

  Two wine bottles stood on the table before Conor Dunlea – one empty and the other half-empty. He lifted the half-empty one to pour another glass, thought about it, and put it back down. The clock said 02:45 and he had work at 08:00. He flipped his passport over and over against his thigh – gold harp and gold writing on a purple cover. He opened it and studied the photograph again.

  He looked out the window of his apartment, at the docked boats far below, faintly lit and indistinct in the mist. At Bermondsey Quays, restored, across the river; at Deptford further on, and Peckham beyond to the south. The lights of London City Airport were dimmed this late. He placed the passport on the table, picked up his phone and turned it on. He searched for a number in his contacts and pressed it. He listened to the American ringing tone until it was broken.

  ‘Hello?’ his brother Tony said.

  ‘Tony? Tony? Can you talk?’ Conor said quietly. Sarah was asleep in the next room and he didn’t want to wake her. He didn’t want her to hear this conversation, of all conversations.

  ‘How’s the going, boy? Jaysus, you’re up late. Still celebrating?’ Tony said. Conor could barely hear him with the din in the background. Tony was obviously in a bar. His accent lilted towards mid-Atlantic, a fact
that irritated him when pointed out. A week at home in Cork cures him, but he reverts when he gets back to New York.

  ‘Ha, now that you mention it. But not for the reason you think, actually.’ Conor hesitated. ‘I’m going to be a father.’

  ‘What! Did I hear that right? Sarah’s expecting?’

  ‘Yeah, she just told me today.’

  ‘Woah! Congratulations, bro. Conor, a dad! Jesus!’

  ‘I know. Crazy isn’t it?’

  ‘How? I don’t mean how, I mean: is it a surprise?’

  ‘It was to me, anyway.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Well, I thought she was on the pill. It wasn’t planned, like.’

  ‘Oh. Is there a problem?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. It’s just the timing. I wasn’t,’ he said, inhaling and exhaling, ‘expecting it.’

  ‘Right. Okay.’

  ‘Can you talk now? It sounds a bit loud there,’ Conor said.

  ‘One minute and I’ll ring you back. I’m in Molloy’s; I’ll just go outside. One minute.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Conor stood up, swayed for a moment, and walked carefully past the low armchairs and the green coffee table, his slippered feet silent on the thick pile. He checked that the bedroom door was closed as he passed and made his way into the kitchen. He leaned against a counter-top from where he could keep an eye on the door.

  He looked back through the kitchen hatch. The wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling Sherwood cabinets dominated the living room. On their left, over the low bookshelves, hung the hand-signed Lichtenstein print As I Opened Fire.

  He breathed slowly in and out, as Julie, his therapist, had taught him.

  In: A new beginning; Out: A letting go.

  In: A new beginning; Out: A setting free.

  He turned on the tap, took a glass from the open cupboard and filled it. He took a long, slow drink. He felt his heart beat high up in his chest. It seemed as if it had been racing all day, before, during and after the match.

  The phone rang and he answered it.

  ‘Are you out with people?’ he asked. ‘You sure you can talk?’