Bullfighting

by Roddy Doyle

  So, on with the gloves. Yellow Marigolds, way too small for me. I have to force them on but the only alternative is picking him up with my bare hands and that possibility doesn’t even occur to me. So, I’m all set. I turn to face him. But, God, I feel very exposed. I’m only in my dressing gown. This one here is new, from herself for the anniversary. Eighteen years. I got her a brooch. Doesn’t sound like much but it’s very nice.

  Anyway, it wasn’t really the dressing gown. It was the feet. I was in my bare feet. I hadn’t bought these yokes here yet. The slippers. I know the rat was dead and not particularly interested in biting my toe or having a look under my dressing gown. But, still, I didn’t feel ready for battle. Even if the enemy was dead and stiff. I hated myself then. That was the lowest, really. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do what I was supposed to do. I stared down at your man on the floor. In under the pull-out. He was lying on his side. No teeth showing, no grimace, you know, nothing like agony or anger. He was just quietly dead. But I couldn’t bend down and pick him up. I just couldn’t do it. My home, my pull-out, my family, my little son next door in the sitting room, this bastard had come into my home – how is another story – and I couldn’t just bend down, pick the cunt up and throw him in a bag.

  I really let myself down.

  Then I did it.

  Just like that. I bent down. I put my hand around him. He was stiff, solid, like wood or metal with a bit of weight on it. Or one of those Transformers toys, but heavier. And I could feel him, even with the gloves on. Cold. Cold and hard. I couldn’t feel the hair, thank God. I dropped him into the first plastic bag. And I tied it at the top. Into the next bag, and the next one, and the next, and into the black bag. Then I took him out to the shed. It was cold out there, and still a bit dark, like now. But I still did it, in my bare feet. Just to have him properly out of the way. And I came back in here.

  And then – and I’m a bit proud of this – I decided to go ahead with my coffee. Mission accomplished, the worst was over. I’d just carried a dead rat from here to there. I’d sorted out the problem, done what I was supposed to do. I opened the kitchen door again, and I realised that I was still wearing the rubber gloves. So I was taking them off and deciding what to do with them when he came in looking for his breakfast.

  And that, I suppose, is what really got me thinking. Really thinking. Not just reacting to the crisis, getting rid of the rat. It went beyond the rat. The rat isn’t really involved.

  That’s my arse. Of course the rat’s involved. The rat’s to blame.

  It’s hard to explain.

  Look. I never owned a pair of slippers in my life. Now, I fuckin’ need them. I got these ones in Clery’s. They’re alright. They’re grand. But I never wanted them. I never fuckin’ wanted them. I never wanted to be a man who wore slippers. I always liked the feel of the house under my feet. Get into a pair of slippers and you’re fucked; your life is over. That’s what I’ve always felt, since I was a teenager and my father got a pair from our granny and he put them on, sat down in his chair in the corner and never got up again. I mean, he did get up. He went to work, he went into the kitchen and up to the jacks. But that was it: he was old. It got to the point where he wouldn’t say hello when he came home from work. He wouldn’t acknowledge the family, my mother, until after his feet were safe inside the slippers. We weren’t getting on at the time. A bit like me and my eldest now, actually. And everything I hated about him, about myself, about everything, I aimed at those slippers. And now here’s me, after buying my own slippers. I’ve no one to blame but myself. And the rat.

  But it’s not just the rat and the slippers. Not really. Look it, I’m forty-two. I don’t mind. I was forty-one last year, I’ll be forty-three next year. I’m not the worst-looking man in the world. There are lads that work with me ten years younger, and they’re in bits. I’m Leonardo DiCaprio standing beside some of those cunts.

  And I read. I’m interested in the world. I still get excited about things. I still love watching her brushing her teeth, for example. I still want to go over and clean her mouth out with my tongue, just like I wanted to, and did, from day one. And she still knows it. And other things too.

  But I’m forty-two. I’m middle-aged. That’s a mathematical fact. In fact, more than half my life is over. So my eldest told me, which was fuckin’ charming. The last time she said anything to me. Something about statistics they were doing in school. But, really, it was because I won’t let her watch Trainspotting. It’s a good film but she’s still too young. That was what I told her. Next year, probably. Which I thought was reasonable. It’s a good film, like I said. But there’s too much in it that’s not – okay, suitable. Unfortunately, that was the word I used. ‘Suitable.’ Her face, Jesus. It hurt. Maybe I’m just being stupid; I don’t know. She’s nearly seventeen. Anyway, that was when she informed me that my life was more than half over.

  But that’s not the point. Middle age. The midlife crisis. Whatever you want to call it. I was forty-two when I saw the rat. I’d still be forty-two if I’d never seen it. Okay, I’m after getting myself a pair of slippers but I don’t believe that they have evil powers. They haven’t made me grow old all of the sudden.

  No.

  What has really rattled me, what has changed my life, to the extent that it’ll probably never be the same again, is the question that came into my head when the little lad came into the kitchen wanting his breakfast.

  —Cry-babies, he says.

  That’s what he calls Rice Krispies. It’d break your heart. Bright as a button.

  —Cry-babies, Dada.

  And me trying to take off the rubber gloves.

  What if?

  That was it.

  What if. What if he’d been the first one to come into the kitchen? What if he’d picked it up? What if it hadn’t been dead? It goes on and on, backwards and forwards, right through everything. There’s no end to it. It won’t go away and it’s not going to go away, and I don’t know if I can cope.

  I’ve never been a great sleeper. I don’t know about when I was a kid. I don’t remember. I suppose I was normal. But since then, especially in the last few years, I’ve got by on very little. Even in the days when I drank a bit, I still got up early, even when my head was hopping. I never liked lying in bed. I’d go down to the kitchen and stick my mouth under the cold tap until I could feel the water negotiating with the hangover. That was as much of a cure as I needed, until a few years ago and I began to feel it a bit more. I’ve always managed on four or five hours’ sleep. And I rarely feel the lack.

  I don’t drink at all now. I gave up a couple of years back. I just gave up; nothing dramatic. I’d no real taste for it any more. Not that I was a big drinker. Just the three or four pints. That was what I settled down to after I got married and the kids started arriving. Not every night either; a couple of times a week. Then once a week. And then I stopped going altogether. I got lazy. I’d go down to the local and the lads I knew, the ones I really liked, wouldn’t be there. They’d gotten lazy like me, I suppose, and there was one of them died. The hangovers, with the kids and that, they just weren’t worth it any more. Especially when the lads stopped coming down – after Frankie died, really. Enough was enough. If we go out for a meal, me and her, I’ll have a glass of wine but I’m just as happy with a 7-UP.

  But back to the sleep thing. The night after I found the rat, I slept as much and as well as I usually do. I just slept. I didn’t dream about rats, as far as I know, and I didn’t wake up screaming. I just woke up. As usual. I felt a bit robbed, as usual, with the feeling that I could have done with an extra half-hour. I grabbed the book from beside the bed and got up. I went through the whole routine, exactly as I’d done the morning before and every morning before that, going back years.

  But it was different. There was the world of difference. I turned on the lights as I came down, which I usually wouldn’t have done. But you’d expect that, after the shock I’d had the day before. I gave the door over th
ere an almighty clatter before I came in. Again, that’s only to be expected. Even though I knew there were no more rats. The pest control lads had given the place a good going-over the day before. I’d had to go to work but she told me all about it when I got home and when I’d phoned her earlier during the day.

  —They’re up in the attic, looking for droppings, she says when I phoned her the first time.—Nice enough fellas.

  As calm as anything. It annoyed me a bit. The thing didn’t get to her the same way it got to me. Mind you, to be fair to her, she never saw the fuckin’ thing. And, to be fair to me, I did. Anyway, by the time I got home she was an expert on rats and mice. The world’s foremost fuckin’ expert. No, that’s not fair.

  Anyway.

  —They’re neophobic, she says after I said I’d go up the attic to see if the poison had been touched yet.—They’re scared of anything new, she says, even though I could have worked it out myself.—So there’s no point going up. They won’t touch it for a few days, until they’re used to it being there.

  All I’d wanted to do was prove that I wasn’t too scared to go up. I just wanted to do something useful, after running off to work earlier and leaving her flicking through the Golden Pages.

  —Did they take the rat with them? I said.

  —What rat? she says.

  —The rat, I said.—The fuckin’ rat I found this morning.

  —Oh, she said.—No.

  So that’s what I did. I got rid of the rat. I went for a walk. With the black bag. No bother. I went looking for a skip. And there was one just up the road. So, into the skip with the fucker in the black bag. I shoved it down under some of the rubble, to make sure no kids pulled it out and started messing with it. I could feel it under the layers of plastic and I didn’t mind a bit.

  But that’s not the point. The point is – I don’t know, exactly. What I used to take for granted, I can’t take for granted any more. I used to be able to walk across the floor here without giving it a moment’s thought. And now I can’t. I have to think about it. I have to prepare myself. I have to casually search the floor. I have to get down on my knees and check under the presses, knowing I’ll find nothing. My mornings are ruined. It’s as simple as that.

  But there’s more to it than that. It’s the ‘what if’ thing. That’s the real point. What if it had been Sunday morning, early, and Match of the Day had been on. I’d have sat down to have a look because I hardly ever watch it on Saturday nights any more. It’s hard to get worked up about millionaires half your age. Not that I begrudge them the money. Anyway, I’d have sat down and the little lad would have strolled on into the kitchen. It doesn’t bear thinking about. But I’ve thought about nothing else. And it goes way beyond that. Everything. Fuckin’ everything is polluted by it.

  I wait up every night when the eldest goes out, till she comes home. And I was just getting used to it. I was capable of falling asleep before she came home. I’d wake up when I’d hear her key in the latch, but I’d be back in bed, not an embarrassment to her, before I’d hear her feet on the stairs. Now, Jesus. Last Saturday I sat on the stairs, in the dark. I know – like any normal father. But it isn’t. It’s desperate. I had to nail myself to the stairs to stop from going out to the street or driving to the disco, or whatever it’s called – the club she said she was going to. It’s not that I don’t trust her. I don’t. But I do, if that makes sense.

  It makes perfect sense. I trust her. I’m happy, was happy to let her out, to have her own key and the rest of it. And I’m absolutely positive she abuses that trust. She drinks. I know. She might even be doing the Ecstasy and that. And, yeah, sex, I suppose. And I really don’t mind because that’s part of the package as well. Part of the contract, giving her a longer leash. And as long as she doesn’t stroll into the house with a smell of drink on her and say, ‘Sorry I’m late, I was riding a chap with a car and a ponytail,’ I don’t mind. What isn’t said didn’t happen. She knows; we know. She’s finding her feet. We’re here if she needs us.

  But now, fuck. I’m on the verge of giving out to her because she looks good. As if she’s to blame for being an attractive young one, as if it’s anything to blame anyone for. I was never like that. I was always proud of her, always. But now I’m terrified. I remember the first time we let her go down to the shops by herself. It was a real event, that day. She was so proud of herself, you know. She was just eight. I’ve always loved that, giving them the opportunity to be proud of themselves. If it was now though, I wouldn’t let it happen.

  Anyway.

  She – my wife. Jackie. She’s worried about me. Which is about the only thing going for me at the moment. It proves something – I don’t know what. Love, I suppose. I see her looking at me and I want to shout at her to leave me alone but I’m grateful for it as well.

  I don’t know anything any more. I don’t seem to. I’m getting pains in my chest. And my arms are stiff when I wake up. Numb. I remember in a film I saw when I was a kid, The Birdman of Alcatraz, the warden, your man from The Streets of San Francisco – not Michael Douglas, the other one. Your man with the nose. Karl something. He had a pain in his arm – Karl Malden – and Burt Lancaster, the birdman, knew that he was going to have a heart attack. I remember being fascinated by that, that a pain in your arm was a sign that there was something wrong with your heart. It was great. And my father, of course, he wanted to know if a pain in your arse meant you were going to have a brain haemorrhage. This was before he got the slippers. But anyway. What do two numb arms mean? Two heart attacks?

  I don’t give a fuck about anything any more. I really don’t. I’m reading this one here. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. It’s good, you know. It’s very good. And I couldn’t care less. I’m reading it because it’s what I do. I’m just doing it. But I don’t care. She used to like that about me, the opposite, you know. She always said it. My enthusiasm. She loved the way I listened to music. I leaned into it. I really listened. I never noticed, but she did. And it was the same with books, and everything really. There was once she made me read in bed, out loud, while she got on top of me, and I read right up to the second before I came. It wasn’t easy, hanging on to the right page. It wasn’t a hardback, thank Jesus. The Slave, by Isaac Bashevis Singer. What a book that was. I’d never read anything like it before. Or since. It made me regret that I wasn’t a Jew, because of the way the main lad, Jacob, struggled to hold on to his Jewishness all through the book. He was the slave in the title. The peasants were trying to get him to eat pork, to do everything that was against his beliefs. She noticed how excited I was getting, sitting up in the bed, and she asked me what was so good about it. So I read her a bit. About a party up in the mountains. Poland, this was, four hundred years ago. Jacob was sent up there in the summer months to look after the cattle, find them grass among the rocks, and the only other people there with him were the village freaks, the products of brothers riding the sisters and the rest of it. Granted, the writer expressed it a bit better than I can, but you get my drift. So I read her a bit. I can’t quote it exactly but they were all rolling around in the muck, grunting like pigs, barking like dogs, howling, pissing on the fire, hugging the trees, stretched out on the rocks, vomiting, screaming, roaring.

  —It’s just like our wedding, she said.—What’s it about besides that bit?

  —Well, it’s a love story, I said.—It’s fantastic.

  —Find us a different bit, she said.

  So I did. Where he describes Wanda, this peasant girl that Jacob loves. And that’s when it happened. I got through a page and a half, which wasn’t too bad because it was very small print and long paragraphs. Anyway, I came and she collapsed on me.

  —Ah look it, I said.—I’ve lost me page.

  She laughed and cried, you know the way, and kissed me.

  —That’s the one, she said, into my ear.

  Meaning, she’d be pregnant. She took the book out from between us and looked at the cover, at the writer’s name.

  �
�We’ll call him Isaac, if it’s a boy, she said.

  It wasn’t anything, actually. Not that time. But that’s how important it was to me, reading, music, even the job. I loved tiles. Holding them, lining them up. The word ‘grout’. Everything.

  She gave me the job of naming the kids. She knew I’d give them names that meant something. That had a bit of magic in them. So the eldest is Sarah. That’s the name Wanda changed her name to after she ran off with Jacob, in The Slave. She read the book last year, the eldest did, and I think she was pleased, even though it’s very sad in places and Sarah has a hard time of it. She said nothing, but I think she liked it, the link there, you know. Then there’s Oskar, from The Tin Drum. She wasn’t too keen on him being named after a dwarf but I persuaded her that if our lad got up to half the things that Oskar does in the book then we’d never be bored. Then there’s Mary, from Strumpet City. She’s a great fighter, Mary in that book. And we thought we’d go for something a bit more Irish, even though it’s not strictly an Irish name. But, anyway, she’s Mary. And the little lad is Chili, after Chili Palmer in Get Shorty. He’s actually named after me, Terence, because we knew he’d more than likely be the last and she said we should name him after me and my father. I didn’t mind. I quite liked it, actually. Even though I’ve been reading books all my life and I’ve never come across a hero or even a baddie called Terence. But, anyway, we usually call him Chili. And that’s Chili in the book, not John Travolta in the film, good and all as he was.

  Anyway, the point is, I haven’t always been the miserable poor shite you’re looking at. And, really, it wasn’t too bad until recently. I’m just so tired, you know. And then this thing.

  How it happened was, we got up together one Saturday morning and found the kitchen flooded. Water all over the shop. But we couldn’t see where it was coming from. I turned it off at the mains and we found it, the source of the leak. There’s a rubber pipe that runs from the cold tap to a tap outside on the wall. A mouse had eaten into it. The plumber, a pal of mine, showed it to us when he was replacing it. The teeth marks.