The going rate imm-9

by John Brady

  “You head back to bed,” he said. “I’ll kip here. That way I won’t disturb you.”

  He shivered, and then grabbed his knee tight to guard against his hand trembling. Brid seemed to be hypnotized by whatever she was staring at.

  “A bit of daylight isn’t going to fix this,” she murmured.

  “Everything looks weird at night,” he said. “Come on, I’ll get you to bed.”

  She shook her head.

  “I can feel it, you know,” she said. “What you don’t tell me. It’s like a big thing here now. Like a big shadow.”

  “Brid. I have no secrets from you.”

  She nodded now, as though she agreed. In the seconds that passed, he began to sense she did not.

  “You might believe that yourself,” she said, quietly. “That’s what I have to think.”

  She glanced up at him.

  “Otherwise, where are we?”

  He grasped his knee tighter.

  “I have enough,” he said. “Enough research, I mean. It’s finished. No more. Tonight was the last of it.”

  She was very still, but he could hear her raspy breathing. She began to get up. The ringing shattered the quiet. He put his hand over the mobile.

  Brid frowned and sat back on her heels. He pushed at the power and held, but one more ring escaped.

  “You’re shaking,” he heard her say.

  “I didn’t know I left it on. Sorry.”

  “Look at you, Dermot. What’s going on?”

  “It woke me up, gave me a fright, love. That’s all, I wasn’t expecting it.”

  She stepped back, and stared at him. A teacher move, he knew, and anger joined his panic.

  “What,” he said. “Will you stop with the, the nanny treatment here? Jesus, this isn’t Abu Ghraib or somewhere, is it?”

  “Something’s wrong, I know it.”

  “I’m half-asleep, for Christ’s sake, Brid. Give me a bit of space here, will you?”

  “This weekend, Dermot. This weekend, we have to talk.”

  “What does that mean? We talk every day. We’re talking now.”

  “Tell me what’s gone wrong.”

  “Nothing! Nothing has gone wrong. Okay?”

  She waited. He took in the silent reproach.

  “Let’s go somewhere,” she said, “just the pair of us. I’ll get Ma to take Aisling for the day.”

  From tears to cool practicality, Fanning thought, all in a matter of a minute.

  “We’ll go down to Dwyer’s Cottage,” she added. “The long way, over Sally Gap. Rain or shine.”

  She was waiting for him to answer.

  “No talk about school,” she said. “I promise. Unless it’s slagging the system. How about that?”

  He was holding his breath, and he wasn’t even aware of it until the floaties showed up in his field of vision.

  “Earth to Dermot? Are you receiving me?”

  He nodded, and concentrated on his breathing.

  “I promise not to nag too,” she said. He tried to smile, but couldn’t. Her eyes were big and clear now, he saw, and full of that teasing tenderness.

  “Great,” he said. “That’d be great.”

  Her eyes flickered with concern.

  “We’ll make it, Dermot. We always have.”

  The turmoil was actually hurting his chest.

  “I know it’s tough,” she whispered. “Working away, trying to get things done. Reinventing yourself, and having to depend on yourself so much.”

  He had to do something tonight: that was all there was to it. Waiting wouldn’t help.

  “You’re a good father,” she said. “And you’re a good husband. You keep it all together. There’s not many can do that. Very few, in actual fact.”

  An image flashed into Fanning’s mind of reaching out and slapping Brid across the face. The shock of it stole his thoughts of Cully, and the puddled footpath where the Polish man lay. He rubbed hard at his eyes. Brid’s face was inches from his when he stopped.

  “Give it to me here,” she whispered, and he felt her hands on his thighs, reaching.

  “Jesus, Brid,” he muttered, and saw her face take on its usual set. She sat back on her heels, and looked sideways at the table. Then she sighed, and got slowly up.

  “Sorry,” he said. “That didn’t come out right, I know.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. She was in teacher mode, he could tell.

  She was hesitating.

  “You know Liam and Susan, how they were, back last year,” she said.

  Liam was his friend, he thought of reminding her. Had she forgotten?

  “Good ideas, we should go out with them some night. Yes.”

  “I meant Liam, what he did. The time he, you know?”

  Fanning knew immediately. When he was ten, he had seen an accident between a car and a cyclist, on the Clontarf Road. He remembered knowing it was going to happen a few seconds before it did. There was something about the way things were going that made it inevitable, he believed.

  “Brid, don’t start that again. For Christ’s sake.”

  She was not going to let it go.

  “I’m just saying think about it. Please. I mean, you yourself saw what it’s done for Liam, for the whole family. You said so yourself.”

  “I was joking-”

  She stood very still, and he could see the anger turn her face impassive.

  “It saved their marriage,” she said. “That’s nothing to laugh at, in my opinion.”

  Fanning was up out of the chair in one move. She frowned at him. It surprised him that he did not feel rage, so much as an unbearable impatience.

  “You think a frigging counselling session is going to help the situation, do you? Like sharing feelings, and a good cry or two? Screw that. Not going to happen.”

  “Then I’ll go myself,” she snapped. “I’m the one needs it, and that’s plain to see, isn’t it?”

  “Whatever that means.”

  “I’m the one who’s the shock absorber in this family, Dermot Fanning. Or haven’t you noticed? The one who has to bite their tongue. Hold back. Be a saint pretty well, when I feel far from it.”

  “You’re not biting any tongue now, are you!”

  “Oh freedom of speech is only for the creative types, is it? ’Cause they’re the ones make the rules? Oh now I get it — but it has taken me a while, hasn’t it. I’m a slow learner, I suppose. I don’t have that, what’ll we say, flair.”

  “You switch over from being me mother to a… well I’m not going to say it, but all I’ll say is it was faster than I ever saw-”

  “Well I have to be your mother half the time!”

  The words seemed to bounce off the walls for several moments, reverberating in Fanning’s mind. The room seemed very quiet now. He took in the folded arms, the hurt look, and anger.

  “You’re shouting,” he said. “Did you know that, Brid?”

  “Screw you, and this ‘you’re shouting’ crap!” “You want to wake up Aisling. You want her to hear you ranting.”

  “I don’t care if she hears it or not! Why would I worry? She already knows. Children know, you know. They’re not like adults that way.”

  “Adults,” he said.

  “That’s right: adults. Adults hide things, or try to. Or they hide, themselves. They avoid. They run away from things. From people.”

  He glanced at her, and then looked down the short hall, half-expecting to see Aisling there. He wondered if the people next door were listening. Of course they were.

  The furniture looked dull and even ugly now. Even Aisling’s art on the walls looked faded. The whole place looked pathetic, comforting, futile.

  “People do that, Dermot. They let things go on too long.”

  “You mean us, do you?”

  “Of course not. I mean taking care of things, of themselves.”

  “Who needs a shrink when we’ve got one in the house right here.”

  “Stop that!”

  It w
as a shriek. Fanning counted to three before he heard a tapping on the walls.

  “Because change is too scary,” said Brid, her voice ragged now.

  It had never been this bad, ever, Fanning thought.

  He looked around the room, and then picked up the can of beer and his mobile. He took his time walking to the sink, and he poured the can down the drain. The smell coming up from the sink reminded him of when he was ten again, going down to the pub to buy stout for his grandfather in the village near Bansha.

  “Go ahead to your counsellor dude,” he murmured. “And do what he tells you, like a good little girl, and behave yourself.”

  The words hung in the air. He wondered where they had come from, and how they had tumbled out of his mouth with so little effort. He heard the bubbles from the spilled lager still breaking on the stainless steel below. He didn’t turn around.

  “You fucking asshole, Dermot Fanning,” he heard her say in a quiet voice. Then the footsteps, and the pyjama bottoms rubbing together as she made her way back to the bedroom.

  He knew he had to do something now. He switched his mobile back on and waited for the Unlock prompt. He couldn’t go back into the bedroom for a change of clothes. His shoulder bag was by the door, though. He opened the washer/dryer, and pulled the clothes out onto the floor. It didn’t matter now. There was a T-shirt, and the white dress shirt, and knickers. It took him a few turnovers of the clotheslines to find a second sock.

  His fingers didn’t seem to be working so well. He thumbed his way slowly to the Recent Calls. There it was, Murph’s number. Though he had expected it, the shock surged through his chest and down his limbs. He switched off the mobile again.

  He looked in his wallet, and checked that he had the two tenners and the twenty that he had yesterday. Movement in the window brought his eye over. It was himself, his face shadowed by the flaring light coming up from the table lamp. The row had actually happened. Aisling might be awake right now, about to cry out.

  He had no plan. It was a few hours yet before the city would come to life proper, and he could figure out what to do. He would wait until he had a spot somewhere in the city centre, and then phone Cully. So things had gotten out of hand, and someone had been hurt.

  Cully’s two arms up in the air, like a dancer, stomping.

  He clenched his eyes as tight as he could. Colours came and went quickly. He opened his eyes, and tiptoed to the door. There were gloves and a folded-up umbrella in the shoulder bag. Fanning paused, and considered the laptop again. It would be an impediment. He folded the shirt as best he could, and slid it into the bag, along with the phone.

  The door squeaked, he remembered, but only after it was about halfway opened. He squeezed the handle hard and opened the door, working his way around it before it had swung too wide. He turned the key before he pulled the door behind him.

  Chapter 44

  The haloes around the street lamps seemed to pulsate as Fanning walked through the muggy air. He heard no traffic, but there was a low, background hum to everything. A cat walked back into a driveway, pulling its shadow with it under a car. The car windscreens reflected any light in filigree; the tiny on-off lights of their burglar alarm lights put him in mind of dragonflies. A dull shine from the roadway kept pace with Fanning, fading and then strengthening as he went from light to light. The electricity transformer at the end of the avenue buzzed as it always had, from the first time he had noticed it when they had moved in.

  He began to listen to his own footsteps, and the shoulder strap rubbing against his jacket. Soon, he felt a rhythm set in. The nausea had disappeared, but in its place was a numbness. He should be panicking, he knew. It both satisfied him and unnerved him that he was not. Other than to get away from the flat, and to head into the city centre, he could still not come up with any plan. He thought of Bus Aras, and the long-distance buses that’d be lined up there soon, idling as though raring to be on their way out of Dublin and headed for every corner of Ireland.

  Aisling was actually fascinated by trains. She had been thrilled as much as scared when they had watched the DART rumble by at Merrion Gates. She had twisted around in the buggy, he remembered, reaching frantically for him when the level-crossing gates descended and the tracks began to tick and hum with the weight of the approaching train. And then she had surprised him by pushing him away. She had caught sight of the train, and was captivated. Was that peculiar for a girl? It was just sexist to think like that.

  He wondered if she were awake now. He saw her in Brid’s arms, and Brid rubbing her back to console her. Was Brid thinking what he was thinking now: what the hell had happened? How had this come upon them so suddenly? And did she too wonder if this was it, and that there was no going back? What was said was said, and it had been brewing for a while? She’d be right to say that, Fanning knew, and now a week ago — a day ago even — seemed to him an impossible distance.

  A small van sped by on Bird Avenue. He looked at his watch: a quarter to four. There’d be some light by six, he hoped. He passed the shops, glancing through the shutters at their dim, yellowed interiors. This was the newsagent’s with all the crap that attracted Aisling, the one place he avoided when he had her with him. Three or four sessions of tears were enough: she’d want things he knew he’d have to refuse her — the sweets, the cheap, crappy toys and baubles pouring in from China.

  He was by the window when he sensed more than saw a small flicker on the glass behind him. When he looked across the road, there was only the bus shelter in its dome of light. He moved on, but the panic had set his heart racing. He thought about legging it over through the campus at Belfield. Between the buildings and the acres of playing fields and trees, here’d be no end of places to lie low until it got bright. One of the cafeterias might open early, even, and the coffee there would have to be pretty vile for him not to buy it. With a bit of daylight and a dose of caffeine, things would be clearer. But there’d be a hell of a lot of phoning to be done to even get a start on sorting out this mess.

  Fanning swore quietly: his mobile had been losing its charge.

  He took it out of his jacket pocket and switched it on; stopped after a few more paces, waited for the battery indicator to show up. There was only a quarter left. His thumb found the power button again, but he hesitated. If Brid were trying to reach him, if she had realized what she was doing to him… He keyed in the password, and pocketed the phone again. A taxi passed on its way out of town.

  He crossed the Goatstown Road and set his mind on the half-hour or so it was going to take him to get into town. Soon his stride returned, and a jittery alertness that had replaced the panic took over. Everyone, every married couple, had gone through this and worse, he decided. It was just that they didn’t talk about it. The dark night of the soul, he could call it.

  He felt the familiar reflexes returning to him then, the urge to make something of this disaster. A short film — not like Bergman stuff, that godawful Cries and Whispers — about a crisis between a man and a woman, and a child involved. The ground has been shifting under this couple. Because of that comfortable cowardice that sets in a marriage, neither acknowledges it. They have invested too much in it, they’ve made too many deals, and compromises. They have hacked off too much of the people they would have been. Somewhere deep in their minds each knows the truth: that though to want to walk away from one another, it would only remind them — unbearably — of what they have lost. Fault Lines — there was the working title right there. And, he could work in the newcomer-to-Ireland angle, the catalyst that gets it started: she works in an office where a new employee is a refugee, and she meets the woman’s husband. She falls for him. But it’s nobody’s fault, it’s just the humdrum pain of being alive, and there are no answers. Unflinching, that would be the word.

  Breen would see it, and would jump at it.

  This was crazy. He was doing his escapist thing again, like he had done since he was a kid.

  He sped up. He felt the soft slap of his s
houlder bag against the small of his back, a reminder of his student days. There was a light on upstairs in one of the houses coming up to the traffic lights, and a shadow passed against the blinds. Hearing a baby yowl, he slowed to listen, and then resumed his stride.

  He had some excuse for giving that idiot a few kicks, that Polish guy. The way he had been carrying on, the language out of him! And then, pulling a knife on him? Anyone with a brain would have high-tailed it out of there of course: called the Guards right away. But that was cocaine, he supposed, the belief that you could do pretty well anything. The guy was probably stoned already. How else would he have had the nerve to walk up to a parked car and ask for dope?

  Fanning skipped across the road and gained the footpath on the far side. Another taxi drifted by. He thought to the hours ahead, and the dawn that would slink in so unspectacularly under all this cloud. There was nothing much heroic about this, was there. He thought of the narrow road with the hedges that met the main road, the nearest the bus would get to the farm. Aisling thought the sheep were pets they kept forever there, just like the farm cats.

  He almost missed the short ping of a message. The strange compulsion that he mocked in others exerted its hold on Fanning too however, and he quickly found his way to the short, misspelled message: outisde ur place call me NOW.

  Chapter 45

  Minogue’s dream about a phone ringing interrupted by Kathleen. In a sleepy voice that gave way to alarm, she said: “That’s our phone.”

  He was wide awake in a moment, up on his elbow. Ash-grey morning light. It was just gone six. He saw the fright on Kathleen’s face, and he began to calculate what time it was with Daithi Minogue, resident of California, USA. Ten o’clock, was that a dangerous time over there?

  He did not consider clothes, but made his way hurriedly to the stairs, steeling himself. Freeways full of impatient people, short-tempered people with guns, drugs, earthquakes, serial killers and drifters, and people going postal, and wildfires.

  The answering machine had taken over, but had just started the announcement.

  “Ignore that thing,” he said into the receiver. “It’ll be over in a few seconds. Stay on the line. I’m listening.”