A Model Partner

by Seery, Daniel;

He runs this statement through his mind again, likes the way it feels, the idea of it.

  My Sarah.

  He shakes his head and forces a laugh. And he tries a different search engine.

  ‘It can happen anytime,’ Karl says. ‘A midlife crisis, ye know.’

  ‘I’m only thirty-four.’

  ‘Ye can hit a midlife crisis any time between thirty and fifty. It depends on how long you’re going to live.’

  ‘That’s a load of crap.’

  ‘The longer you live the later you have a midlife crisis.’

  ‘Are you being serious here? Please tell me you’re taking the piss.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘So a midlife crisis is based on some kind of clairvoyant skill that your body has.’

  ‘Look, I’m not saying that your body knows when you’re going to get hit by a car or anything like that. I’m just saying that your body knows when you are going to die of natural causes. That includes cancer and shit.’

  ‘That means that I’m going to die at sixty-eight.’

  ‘Hey, don’t blame me. I didn’t come up with the rule. So are you going or what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Tom begins to hear Anna’s voice in his head. You have to get out more, she had said. The way she said this, like he was a slow or stubborn child.

  You have to get out more Tom, ignore the little things Tom.

  Look both ways before crossing the road Tom.

  You have to eat vegetables or your pancreas will rot Tom.

  You have to get out more Tom.

  ‘What time does it start?’ Tom interrupts the pair.

  Dave looks at him quickly and then looks to the ground.

  ‘You thinking of going Tom?’ Karl asks.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  Karl bounces on his heels for a moment.

  ‘It’d probably kick off at about eight,’ he says.

  ‘You think it’d be all right to go?’ Tom asks.

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure it would,’ Karl says.

  Dave keeps quiet.

  Tom hasn’t been out with work in a long time. Nor has he been asked. He knows that the accusation has played a large part in this, the accusation from two years ago, from Tara Sheedy, the woman from Administration, a slightly overweight lady but with bumps in all the right places, pretty face, plain clothes, shy manner, the type of woman that Tom at first believed was well suited to him, the inoffensive and nice type of person. The pair seemed to get on okay. Fair enough, they had never sat down and talked in depth about any specific topic but she always smiled when she saw him, those high cheekbones of hers raised even more, enhancing her prettiness. And she laughed when he tried to be funny and replied when he spoke so he figured that there may be something there. He began to look for other signs, tried to read things in her movements, the way she would wave at him, hidden words in her sentences.

  Then, Tom watched a wildlife documentary on the tiger beetle, a metallic green insect found in woodland areas. Apparently, after mating, the smaller male beetle rides around on the back of the larger female beetle to dissuade other suitors. There was something inspiring in this, in the way that the beetle didn’t have to fight or carry out some flamboyant dance. He didn’t have to use force and it mattered little how big he was. All he had to do was get things out into the open and then cling on to the beetle to let her know he was still interested. Tom decided he was going to ask her out. For a meal or a drink, he thought. Well, maybe not a drink. She might think he was just trying to get her drunk. But he was going to do it.

  He saw flashes of her the following day. She was in the canteen with a large group, joking and laughing. She was walking with a supervisor across the factory floor. Whenever doubt washed over him he would envisage that little beetle clinging on to the female’s back for dear life.

  Hey look at me and my Missus. Check me out up here, riding around the place like I’m the king.

  And he would get another bout of courage.

  He spotted her with a pile of papers after lunch. He knew she was heading to the small photocopier room to the right of the toilets. He followed her, all the while trying to compose himself, going over the best way to approach it.

  Tara, I don’t normally do things like this …

  Tara, I think we’ve been getting on really well …

  Tara, there’s something I want to ask you …

  Tara, I’ve been watching you …

  Tara, I think I love you …

  His palms were damp, his fingers slipped on the handle as he tried to get into the room. He was aware of heat at his cheeks and sweat at his brow. He eventually managed a clumsy entrance. Tara was on her knees loading a photocopier tray with paper. She turned slightly to see who had walked in. There was little room to manoeuvre so Tom stood directly above her, looking down. His words deserted him and he was momentarily stunned by a blind panic.

  She stood up and then he found his voice.

  ‘Tara,’ his words were croaky. ‘There’s something that I want to ask you.’

  Her mouth was smiling but her eyes said differently.

  Be brave. Be the insect. The insect.

  ‘I was just wondering,’ he stammered. ‘If you were free this weekend.’

  He could see her face dropping before he had even finished the sentence. But he couldn’t stop himself now. The words were in full flow, rolling, filling the space about them.

  ‘If you would like to do something with me. It’s up to you, ye know, I’m easy. There doesn’t have to be drink involved if you don’t want.’

  She was moving toward the door.

  ‘It’s completely up to you.’

  She was opening the door.

  ‘If you just want to go to the cinema or out for a meal,’ Tom said.

  But she was gone. And he was left without a reply and the knowledge that the photocopy room might not have been the best place to ask her out. An image entered his head of that little beetle sliding from the back of the larger one.

  Dave stands and announces that he’s heading outside for a smoke. Karl shoves one hand in his pocket and saunters over to Tom’s desk, picks up a stapler and fidgets with it. He begins the effort of taking back the stapler but stops, withdraws his hand. He looks at the blank space on the desk where the stapler had been sitting.

  ‘You really going to head out with us on Friday?’ Karl asks.

  ‘Why not?’ Tom shrugs.

  ‘It’s not like you.’

  ‘I just need to get out. You know yourself.’

  ‘You want to get a bit shitfaced?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Happy days,’ Karl looks to the ground for a moment, nods his head slightly as if debating something. ‘The lads are good craic, ye know. They’re a little bit messy sometimes. But it’s all just for the laugh. You know what they’re like, don’t ye?’

  ‘Yeah, of course.’

  ‘Good,’ Karl says. ‘It should be a bit of a laugh.’ He places the stapler on the desk and moves off. ‘Make sure you bring your drinking head with ye,’ he says before disappearing behind a partition.

  Tom fixes the stapler back into position and then renews his search for Sarah on the computer.

  He discovers a website called Find Them where ‘a staff of trained professionals will work tirelessly to find the lost loved ones in your life’. It states in bold writing that they only charge when they find the person. Tom thinks it won’t hurt to enter Sarah’s details. He fills in an online form. The machine tries to resist by hanging for long spells. It gives Tom time to think. He recalls how he was called into Lionel Gatt’s office the day after he asked Tara out. Gatt is the company director, bloated around the edges, a body which has the soft look of an overfed baby but with a saggy face the colour of faded copper. He doesn’t talk to the floor staff much but he regularly drinks with the lads from the offices, most of whom are at least a decade younger than him. Gatt imitates their appearance, wears a similar hairsty
le, dresses in the same clothes. Tom consistently has this image of the man being dragged toward an older version of himself, scrabbling at anything in hands’ reach to try to stay a moment longer with his youth, his nails bending outward and snapping under the force of his resistance.

  He folded his arms and explained, in a sombre tone, that a serious complaint had been made against Tom. He went on to say that they were getting all sides of the story before they would deem someone guilty of sexual harassment but Tom could tell by the way he refused to make eye contact with him that he had already made up his mind on the matter.

  Most of the women in the factory banded together after the accusation. Tom was the enemy and they weren’t shy about displaying their distaste at his presence. Some refused to have any dealings with him at all and he was forced to have a go-between for work-related queries. In the canteen he sat on his own and if he ever happened to find himself beside a group there was always a space between him and the nearest person and talk was rarely directed his way.

  Even now, some years later, the stigma of this accusation has never left Tom, even after the whole embarrassing story came out about his misguided quest for a date and despite the fact that Tara herself laughs about the incident. And she does laugh about it because he has heard her joke about the incident, about how she only attracts the ‘nutters’. All it took was an embarrassed woman, a few lines on a complaint form, a scene that played out differently for two people and Tom was alienated from the rest of the workforce. He will probably never be accepted back into the group but he understands, in some ways, certain people are easier to exclude than others.

  He received a letter some months after the incident, outlining that the company had decided to keep the issue in-house under the condition that:

  ‘Mr Tom Stacey’ hereby agrees to only communicate with ‘Ms Tara Sheedy’ when in the presence of a member of HR with the understanding that the third party is briefed on the incident in question.

  It also expanded on this by stating that the complainant insists that she wants ‘as little contact as possible’ with Mr Tom Stacey and recommended that Tom carry out three sessions with a psychiatrist trained in this area, the cost of which will be deducted from his wages. They were hour-long sessions facilitated by Doctor Bill Duggan. After three sessions the psychiatrist recommended that Tom attend more of the same. The company agreed and Tom found himself attending these sessions for six months.

  In the beginning the psychiatrist seemed to think that Tom was suffering from depression.

  ‘Would you say you are depressed?’ He asked Tom.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Okay Tom.’

  He would scribble notes in an expensive-looking ledger with a wine cover, notes which seemed more detailed than the succinct answers Tom offered.

  Tom couldn’t help but think of one of those daytime programmes presented by a medical professional, Doctor Phil or one of those American shows. He began to have the notion that they were filming his sessions and that Doctor Bill or Bill Duggan or Doctor Phil even, whatever he preferred to call himself, would watch afterward and try to pin some tag on him, manic depressive or sexual deviant or any tag that he just so happened to pick from his latest edition of the Collins Dictionary of Crazy-ass Psychotic Disorders. Tom would scan the room, seeking out a blinking red light, or would listen for the whirr of a recording device.

  But he had to keep going back.

  ‘You say you’d like to meet the right woman and settle down Tom. Why is that?’

  And it was eating into his wages. He was forced to end his subscription to New Scientist and he had to survive on potatoes and beans for the majority of the week. This was bad but what was even worse was that he was starting to side with the psychiatrist in believing that a problem existed.

  ‘You say you would like to be a husband and a father Tom. Is that because you have no role now? Tell me Tom, about your role? What is your role?’

  ‘A service technician.’

  ‘No Tom. In society. What is your role?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘As a man, Tom. What is your role as a man?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Tom shook his head. He fidgeted with his sleeves and he imagined the camera blinking in the corner. ‘I don’t know what my role is as a man.’ And he looked up at the psychiatrist and returned the question. ‘What is my role as a man?’

  ‘Tell me about your compulsions,’ the Doc asked one time, legs crossed, the ledger on his lap, a voice which was soft but confident. ‘How much do they affect your day-to-day life?’

  They are my life, Tom almost said, but thought better of it.

  ‘They’re more of a nuisance than anything else,’ he lied.

  The psychiatrist stared at Tom waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t the psychiatrist nodded his head slowly and scribbled something in his ledger which Tom couldn’t make out.

  ‘Tell me about your past,’ he nodded his head slowly and waited for Tom to speak.

  Chapter 4

  Tom wasn’t aware of the concept of death when his mother and father were involved in the accident. He wasn’t aware of anything much except drinking, sleeping and filling nappies, and even then it is difficult to say how aware an eight-week-old baby is of these instinctive actions. But as he moved through adolescence he would sometimes find himself thinking about them, at times imagining what had caused the accident, at other times picturing how differently his life would have turned out if they had never planned that short weekend break to the country, one that Tom’s grandmother would have encouraged them to take, one which they probably embraced with the reluctant excitement that new parents so often feel when they are getting a break from the recent additions to their lives.

  It was a fire that took them, a hotel on Lampton Avenue, a fire that would also claim the lives of an elderly couple from Sweden and a used-car salesman from Galway. It was years later when Tom found out these details, looking at the online archives of Irish newspapers in a library in the city centre. The news had made the front page of all the national newspapers the day after the accident, the following day it was relegated to page five or six in a couple of the papers, and then it disappeared altogether, the record of their demise fleeting and seemingly all the more pointless from its briefness.

  In his younger years in school Tom noticed that he was treated differently by his peers, separated, isolated even. Thinking back, Tom wonders if there was a sense of curiosity at his predicament, the fact that his situation was similar to so many of the fictional stories threaded through the lives of these kids. Didn’t all the characters in the stories they read lack parents? From the fairytales of the brothers Grimm to the books by Roald Dahl. Or perhaps, for some children his orphanhood awakened an emotional stew of fear and disgust. Perhaps they believed it could be thrust upon them if they got too close to the boy, like a rare contagious condition that he was somehow in control of. Perhaps his very presence conjured up horrible images for the other children, the bloody and dismembered corpses of their own parents scattered about the work surfaces of their kitchen, crushed beneath a rectangular yellow skip, smeared across the bonnet of a van or the image of mother and father’s blue and bloated faces shimmering in the water at the bottom of a lake.

  Whatever the reason, the result of all this was that he wasn’t very popular during his years in school. Outside school he latched on to a large group of boys on the estate but he would be hard pressed to call any of them friends and his attachment to the group was more physical than emotional.

  Tom’s grandmother passed away when he was fourteen. Up to that point his grandfather had been driving long-distance haulage for a transport company in East Wall, disappearing for long stretches and on average spending only every second weekend at home. For the rest of the time it was just Tom and his grandmother in the house, her busying herself in the kitchen, hanging out washing, getting him to lift his legs so she could sweep under him as he lounged in front of
the television. When he couldn’t see her he could hear her, clattering cutlery or bumping around upstairs, thumping the steps with a brush, or the intermittent sound of splashing water as she squeezed out a mop.

  She was a grandmother with what Tom would deem to be a typical grandmother appearance, small and round in the way that cuddly beings often are, a preference for dresses and scarves with coloured floral design, rosy cheeked and pleasant smile, an appearance that he would be reminded of whenever he spotted a colourful Russian doll in the years following her passing. Her flushed cheeks enhanced the homely aura of her. Tom and his grandfather never considered that the flushness could be due to the fierce pressure her heart was under. She complained of back pains on the Wednesday. She was dead on the Thursday, the result of a massive coronary. She was buried in a cemetery close to the airport, lowered into the earth with the sound of a Boeing 747 shrieking overhead.

  On the day of the funeral the neighbours commented on how mature Tom was in dealing with the loss. In truth he wasn’t dealing with the loss. Tom had always looked on his grandmother as if she were his own mother. He never considered life without her around. After her death he felt as if he was drowning in emotions. He felt disorientated and confused. More often than not anger would rise to the surface. And when it did he would allow this anger to flood his other emotions and go looking for distractions to stop him thinking about the loss.

  Tom started smoking. He didn’t even stop to think about it. He just bought ten cigarettes, some brand that he’d seen in American shows on the telly, and smoked two in a row without feeling ill, enjoying the head buzz it gave him and the feel of it in his hand. He stopped getting haircuts. His hair grew long, not in any style or particular direction. He had already come to terms with the fact that his hair follicles were independent creatures in their own right. They each liked to follow their own course, which resulted in his hair having a blackberry-thicket feel about it.

  Tom began to skip school and wear the same clothes for days in a row. His grandfather badgered him about the state of his room, advised him to put the stuff he really wanted in a box and get rid of everything else. Initially Tom thought this was because his grandfather felt some need to take on his grandmother’s role after she died. This wouldn’t turn out to be the case at all.