The Breezes

by Joseph O'Neill

  ‘You can’t smoke here, Johnny. It’s a health club. I’m sorry, I should have told you.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ I said. I glanced around the room. I was the only man who didn’t have freshly combed wet hair and who wasn’t wearing a suit.

  The food arrived. I ordered another bottle of beer.

  We started eating. ‘It’s been a while since we’ve done this,’ I said. ‘I hardly know what to say.’

  ‘I know, Johnny, I’m sorry.’ Angela said, ‘I’ve missed you, you know. You’re looking very handsome.’

  I said, ‘I was so worried on Sunday night, I was so worried that something had happened.’ I touched her leg with mine. ‘Things haven’t been easy,’ I said. ‘We’ve had some bad news. Pa’s been fired.’

  She looked at me, clearly upset. ‘I know, it’s terrible,’ I said. I sighed. ‘He’s not taking it well, you know. It’s knocked the stuffing out of him.’

  ‘Johnny,’ Angela said. ‘Johnny, I …’ She reached across the table and took my hands in hers.

  A bleeping noise suddenly emanated from under the table. Angela reached down and retrieved a mobile telephone from her briefcase. She spoke briefly with the caller, then said, ‘I have to go, my love.’ She rose to her feet.

  I said, ‘But we haven’t finished our food.’

  I stood up and followed her to the till. Once outside in the sunshine, we kissed, and it was wonderful to feel her ribcage pressed against mine and her moist, giving mouth. I held her by the waist and said, ‘We’re all right, aren’t we?’ She blinked affirmatively. ‘When are we seeing each other again? Does it have to be Monday? Can’t it be sooner?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be in Waterville for the rest of the week,’ she said. ‘But I’ll try,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you, darling.’

  I walked her back to her office and watched her disappear through the massive revolving door. I caught a bus home, feeling a little better about things. Then I thought, how come she never told me she had a mobile phone? Why don’t I have the number?

  I became aware of a needling pain behind my right eyeball.

  The bus reached my stop. I alighted and walked heavily home. Peace and quiet. That was what I needed now. Rest.

  Rosie was back. She was sitting in the squalor, smoking a cigarette. She had kicked off her shoes but, this detail apart, she was in full uniform – hat, scarf and all. Steve was in the kitchen.

  I remained standing on the threshold of the sitting-room. I toed aside some pieces of smashed crockery. ‘Well?’ I said. ‘What are you going to do about this?’ I kicked at a paperback, sending it fluttering against the wall.

  ‘I’ll clear it up,’ Rosie said flatly. She switched on the television and stared intently at the images of an afternoon game show.

  ‘Well, just do it soon,’ I said. I made sure, by the tone of my voice, that she understood that I was serious.

  At this point, a choice of action presented itself. I could either go to my bedroom and slam the door behind me in my displeasure; or, having said my piece, I could be amicable and try to foster an atmosphere of goodwill, love and harmony – what is sometimes known as a family atmosphere. I had a headache. I chose concord.

  ‘So, what’s new?’ I said.

  Rosie changed channels with a jab of her thumb.

  I restrained myself by walking through to the kitchen. ‘How’s our hero?’ I said, switching on the kettle.

  ‘OK,’ Steve replied, mumbling. He pointed questioningly to his mouth, which was full of cheese and bread.

  ‘That’s OK,’ I said, ‘help yourself.’ I opened the refrigerator. A segment of beef tomato, raspberry jam, margarine. No milk. I rose tiredly. Steve yes, milk no. In the chaos of the universe, certain things remained fixed.

  I abandoned any thought of making myself a coffee and a sandwich and headed for my room. Just as I was about to exit, I turned and said to Rosie, who had not moved from her seat, ‘So when are you going to start? Are you just going to sit there while the rest of us have to put up with this –’ I shouted the word – ‘this shit?’ I scooped up half of a plate with my foot and with a swing of the leg sent it flying against the wall, where it broke into still smaller pieces. ‘Just who the fuck do you think you are?’ I shouted.

  Rosie stood up. ‘How dare you? I clean this place up every time I come home. You and him just sit here all day doing nothing. I’m always clearing up after you, always.’ Her voice grew high-pitched. ‘You should be clearing this up, it’s about bloody time that you did something for me for a change.’

  I was not going to take this. I picked up a hard green apple from the fruitbowl and hurled it as hard as I could two feet or so wide of her head at the far wall. With a splat, half of the apple disintegrated, leaving a wet patch and debris on the wallpaper. Steve took cover behind the opened door of the fridge. ‘Do you think you can fuck up the whole flat and expect us to say nothing about it? You fucking terrorize us with your fucking moods, you smash up these plates given to the both of us by Pa, plates which I fucking own, and you don’t give a shit! You just do it without a fucking thought for anyone else! Well, here,’ I shouted, grabbing a framed photograph belonging to her which had remained on the bookcase, ‘here, I don’t give a shit either.’ I stamped repeatedly on the photograph, pulverizing the glass and wrecking the snapshot of a suntanned Rosie on holiday in Spain.

  ‘Stop it,’ she said, ‘stop it, Johnny.’

  I kicked the photograph aside. I was close to tears myself. I said, ‘Rosie, this is the kind of crap which you put us through the whole time. Look, just look at what you’ve done: you’ve completely wrecked the flat! I mean, are you crazy or what? Maybe you should see a doctor, I don’t know. Do you think this is normal? What’s the matter with you?’ There was a quaver in my voice. Rosie was hunched forward on the edge of the sofa, sniffing and pointing her face at her toes. Had her hair been long it would have fallen before her face, but now that hiding-place was gone. ‘You can’t go on like this,’ I continued, speaking more gently. ‘You’ve got to start giving some thought to what other people are going through. You’re not the only one with problems. Everybody’s got problems. Look at Pa: did you know that he’s been fired?’ Rosie stiffened. ‘That’s right, Pa’s been fired,’ I said. ‘At this moment he’s lying in bed with the curtains drawn, and you don’t even know about it.’ My voice was hoarse. ‘Oh, yes; and Merv Rasmussen has died.’

  I went to my room and dropped face-down on the bed.

  That was at four in the afternoon. When I awoke, still in my clothes, it was seven in the evening and the window was a faint pink rectangle. My headache had gone and the house was quiet. I moved slightly, turned the pillow over to its cool side and closed my eyes again.

  The telephone began ringing. I tensed. I was not going to answer it because it had to be Devonshire. I could picture him at the other end of the line, the brutal contours of the blazer, the fury mounting each time a bleep of the call went unanswered by me, a pipsqueak whom he had done such a great favour.

  Nobody picked up the phone. The ringing stopped as the answering machine was activated. I got out of bed and went to play the message. ‘This is Whelan,’ the voice said, ‘of Whelan Lock & Key. I’m ringing to say that I can come round this Saturday, if you like. Thank you.’

  A shriek of laughter came from Rosie’s room. The door crashed open and my sister stumbled out, still laughing dementedly. A rolled-up sock flew at her from the bedroom, flung by her boyfriend in a parody of violence. Rosie was clutching a copy of the Crier and pointing convulsively at the photograph of Steve. Unbalanced in her merriment, she plunged on to the sofa and smothered her gleeful screams into the cushions. I started grinning, too, because Rosie’s laughter is air scooped from the lungs and expelled in the purest, most infectious note of hilarity, and also because the sight of her animated is always in itself a relief and a joy.

  ‘Look,’ she said, her eyes wet, ‘look.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I thou
ght you knew. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?’

  She could barely speak. ‘Man of the Month,’ she whispered, shuddering with mirth, ‘Man of the Month.’

  Steve came in, tucking his shirt into his trousers and sheepishly smiling. Rosie pointed at him, uttered the words ‘Man of the Month’, and started shrieking all over again. Her haircut wasn’t bad at all, I thought, once you got used to it.

  ‘Get me the phone, my hero,’ she said to Steve, who complied. Still chortling, Rosie ordered a pizza supreme and six beers for delivery. ‘My warrior,’ she said, handing him back the telephone. ‘We’re going to celebrate the fame which you have brought to this house. Now get me the duvet,’ she ordered, ‘and bring me the TV guide.’ Steve obeyed, and the two of them settled down on the sofa face to face, their legs interlocked beneath the quilt.

  The room, already oppressive in its disarray, shrank with their happiness. I put on my jacket. ‘I’m going to Pa’s,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave you two lovebirds to get on with it.’

  ‘I’ll call him tomorrow,’ Rosie said. ‘I promise. I’m just not up to it now. I’ll call him first thing.’

  16

  I arrived at the house to find that my father had finally got out of bed. He was sitting downstairs in the living-room in a vest and pyjama bottoms, a can of Heineken in his hand. The curtains were drawn and the room’s darkness was relieved only by the luminosity of the television, a fifteen-year-old black-and-white portable which he had brought down from the spare room. He was watching football. I recognized the team in dark-and-light: Rockport United. It was a programme about last Sunday’s game.

  I fetched a beer, too, and took over an armchair on the other side of the room.

  They were showing Ballybrew’s fateful last-minute free kick. The picture froze just as the kick was about to be taken. The analyst, a distinguished former international, drew a white arrow from the ball to the corner of the goal. ‘This is where Burke is aiming – to the goalkeeper’s, Taylor’s, left. That’s at least thirty-five yards away. Now, unless you’re Koeman or Cantona or one of the other great strikers of the ball, your chance of scoring from there is very remote indeed. I question the need for having a wall there at all.’ The analyst paused for emphasis. ‘Now take a look at what happens next.’ Burke hoofed the ball in slow motion. ‘The ball hits the wall, deviates to the keeper’s right and ends up in the back of the net. There.’ He circled the ball. ‘So if Burke’s kick had gone as intended, there would not have been a goal, because the keeper had his left corner covered and would have saved it. And if United had not been extra cautious and had not put a wall in front of the kicker, there wouldn’t have been a goal either.’ We were returned to the studio, where the three members of the panel were grinning ruefully. ‘Sometimes you just can’t win,’ the analyst said, laughing.

  ‘Rubbish,’ Pa said forcibly. ‘They’re just rubbish. I’ll never waste my time on that team again.’ He looked at me. Threadbare silver stubble sprouted from his soft face like grass in poor soil. ‘You want another beer?’ I shook my head. Barefooted, he went to the kitchen to help himself. His toenails, hard, shining curves in the half-light, needed cutting.

  The curtains were billowing. I went over to investigate.

  ‘Pa, the windows are completely broken. Anybody could walk in.’

  ‘What do you want me to do, call that clown Whelan? Anyway, what does it matter? If somebody wants to come in here, that’s fine by me.’ Pa fell into his chair with a fresh can. ‘As far as I’m concerned, they can all come in and help themselves. I mean it.’ He made a sweeping gesture. ‘The TV, the chairs, the lot. It’s all theirs.’

  I didn’t react.

  Fresh figures appeared on the television: athletes, lining up on their blocks for a sprint. Down they went, into a crouch, waiting. The starting pistol cracked, then cracked once more. A false start.

  Perhaps it was just the light of the television and the shadows it pooled in the sockets of his eyes, but my father’s pale face looked ghostlier than ever.

  ‘Have you eaten, Pa?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘I’ll make you some soup, if you like. I think I’ve seen some onion soup somewhere.’

  ‘Son, I’m not hungry.’

  The sprinters crouched once more. Crack. This time it was for real. They ran as fast as they could for a hundred metres.

  It was all too dismal. ‘What about Steve, eh?’ I said, pointing at the discarded copy of the Crier on the floor. ‘Who would have thought it?’

  Pa took a sip from his can and shrugged. ‘It’s all phoney, all that Man of the Month stuff. It’s all done to sell newspapers.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘but still …’ Jesus, I had never known him to be so negative. ‘I just think that it’s great for Steve, that’s all. I don’t know, maybe this is the break he’s been looking for.’

  ‘Getting your picture in the papers doesn’t mean a damn thing. Look at me, I’ve got my photograph all over Rockport.’

  I said, with an actual flicker of conviction, ‘Maybe this will be the turning-point for him; maybe this will give him the push he needs.’

  Pa gave a dry laugh. ‘John, let’s not kid ourselves any longer about Steve: the boy’s a complete washout.’

  Hold on, I felt like saying, I’ve never deluded myself about Steve; you’re the one who keeps saying what a great guy he is underneath it all.

  ‘I think you’re being harsh,’ I said. ‘It’s not a small thing, what he did.’

  ‘The fellow’s a halfwit,’ Pa said. ‘Otherwise what would he be doing with Rosie?’

  I could not believe what I had heard.

  ‘Don’t look so shocked, Johnny,’ he said, pronouncing my name with a touch of mockery. ‘Would you want her as your girlfriend? All that screaming and shouting and selfishness?’ He tilted the last drops of Heineken down his throat. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking,’ he said. ‘I’ve been sorting things out in my mind and seeing things as they are. See things as they really are,’ he said. ‘And I’m telling you, Rosie’s no good.’ He began to extend the fingers of his left hand one by one, numbering. ‘She’s selfish. She’s mean-minded. She’s unloving. She doesn’t give a moment’s thought either to me, or to you, or to Steve, or to anybody else.’ He flicked his hand dismissively. ‘Those are the facts.’

  ‘She’s your daughter.’

  ‘So? She’s nearly thirty. She can’t ask us to suspend our judgements for ever. She takes and she takes and she takes. She never gives. Do remember what she said when I asked her to come and visit Merv? Do you remember?’ Pa made a noise of disgust. ‘She exploits everybody around her. She manipulates us all with her unhappiness.’

  ‘She doesn’t mean to be unkind,’ I said. ‘You think that she wouldn’t change if she could?’

  He stared at the television. ‘I don’t know,’ he eventually said tiredly. ‘I don’t know anything any more.’ He kept staring. A long-distance race was now in progress, the athletes bobbing along on the inside track.

  I noticed a card on the floor. It was an invitation to the cremation of Mr Mervyn Rasmussen, taking place the next day.

  ‘Are you going to this?’ I said. There was a silence. ‘I’ll come with you, if you like,’ I said.

  Pa asserted suddenly, ‘You spend years, your whole life, making a family, a home, working, and then …’ He clicked his fingers, making a small sound. ‘What’s the use.’

  He was beginning to sound like me.

  I said, ‘You’re bound to feel low. You’ve gone through a terrible patch which nobody deserves. The job, Merv Rasmussen, Jesus, even Trusty …’

  ‘I don’t care about the dog. I could get another dog tomorrow. They’re all the same. They’re just dogs.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Anyway, I’m better off without her. All she’s ever been good for is …’ He motioned tiredly at the carpet.

  Around the track the runners went and then around once more. A small group broke free at the front.

 
Hoarsely, Pa said, ‘I prayed for him, Johnny. I lit a candle for him.’ He swallowed hard.

  I felt angry on his behalf. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘You did everything you could.’

  ‘It’s not right. It shouldn’t happen.’ He hesitated, his face a grimace. ‘Where is God in all of this. Where does He fit in, Johnny?’

  I knew the answer to that one, but I was not going to tell my father. Although, for the sake of his own well-being, I had wanted him to be more realistic about things, I didn’t want him to be too realistic. I did not want him finishing up a no-hoper like me, good for nothing but inaction in the daytime and the shakes at night.

  I stayed the night at Pa’s, in my old bedroom. The window, set in a dormer in the rear roof of the house, gave upon the same old silhouettes of the dunes, and the bookshelf was as ever piled with the ancient, battered hardbacks of the adventures of Tintin. I threw my clothes on the floor, climbed into my childhood bed and worked through the books one after the other, summoned utterly to the familiar, funny, inextinguishable otherworld of Red Rackham’s Treasure, The Broken Ear and The Crab with the Golden Claws. Time and again Tintin found himself in a tight spot from which, time and again, by hook or by crook, he slipped. Take Tintin in America. Every page ended with the boy reporter and his dog, Snowy, in a jam of one terrible kind or another: falling over a precipice, trussed up for a lynching, bound to a rail track with a train approaching, tossed into Lake Michigan with a dumbbell tied to his feet – these were the hottest waters imaginable and yet somehow, wonderfully, Tintin always escaped.

  Lights off. It was so quiet I could hear the sea arriving and rearriving on the strand half a mile away.

  This was the room where I had first started making chairs. Even now there remained some wood shavings ingrained at the edges of the carpet, beyond the suck of the vacuum cleaner. What a crazy idea that was, that I might build a life around such an activity. I turned, and the murmur of sheets in my ear momentarily replaced the murmuring of the waves. Maybe things would be different if I had a decent job, one like Angela’s, a job which impacted on people’s lives …