‘I don’t believe that,’ Tom says.
Her tears glisten when she smiles.
‘I don’t think I knew you back then, did I?’ she asks. ‘Karl mentioned that you were from his street but I don’t remember ever knowing you.’
‘I was away for a bit,’ he says.
‘And you came back?’
‘I don’t think I ever wanted to leave.’
She smiles again.
‘You’re not married Tom, sure you’re not?’
He shakes his head.
‘A bit of advice,’ she places her hand on Tom’s knee. ‘Keep it that way.’
On the way home Tom considers how important it is for people to have a hobby or an interest. He thinks of Angela, wonders what she replaced her singing with and who she gave it up for. Was it for work or the kids? Did she give it up for Karl?
When Tom was younger he was afraid of his true interests. At the time he wasn’t aware of this fear. He just knew that on some level he wanted to be defined by things that other people thought cool or acceptable. Because aren’t we defined by our interests, he thinks, in the eyes of others at least. Think train-spotting and a type of character jumps into the head. Wrestling, the same happens, guitar player, ice-skater or hunter. Perhaps this kind of association could be used in his form, he thinks.
Especially in relation to hobbies.
Because respect for a partner’s hobby goes a long way in a relationship. It doesn’t have to move to participation but acceptance and understanding is essential.
Tom begins work on a hobby section when he gets home.
The form is really starting to take shape, he thinks.
Chapter 15
Tom is in his neighbours’ bed-sit watching wigs tumble in the washing machine. There are six in total and a hat which was buried at the bottom of the bag. He is feeling guilty. Most of his workday was spent searching for Sarah McCarthy on the PC. Nobody seemed to notice, and if they did notice they didn’t seem to care. He found some tips on the internet in relation to people looking for lost loved ones. But Tom’s information is limited and he has no contact with any of her friends or relatives from that time.
After lunch Tom began to think that head office was monitoring his internet usage in some way. He then started to imagine all the managers sitting around a table.
What are we to do about Tom Stacey’s behaviour?
He dodged the PC for the rest of the day, tried to make up for the lost time and awaited the imminent call from the offices.
It never came.
Tom taps his left hand twice on the top of the washing machine. Almost immediately, he apes this tap with his right hand.
There is a box of dark-brown hair dye on the counter which he has purchased from the damaged-goods section of Riley’s Newsagents. The packaging is battered and opened at the end. The instructions are missing.
Tom can only think of one person who might be able to help him. He rings up the Manhattan Hotel and asks for Fiona. After some mild persuasion she agrees to help.
‘What colour are you thinking of dying your hair?’ she asks.
‘It’s not my hair,’ Tom says.
‘Okay,’ she pauses before continuing. ‘Two questions Tom. Number one, who does the hair belong to? And two, do they know you are dying their hair?’
‘No,’ Tom laughs. ‘It’s not real hair. It’s a wig.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘So, do you know how to do it?’ Tom asks.
Fiona slowly explains the basic steps involved in dying hair.
Tom thanks her and hangs up.
He listens to the rolling of the washing-machine drum and thinks about how the wigs will smell of detergent when they are finished. There is something deeply comforting about this smell for him, like the smell of freshly baked bread or the scent of a rainy day. He feels it is a pity that all hair isn’t so nice-smelling. He recalls the hair of one of his dates from the agency, a hyperactive woman who praised the mediocre restaurant they were in as if it was a five-star establishment and gasped every time the waiter came to the table. She seemed clean to Tom. There was no evident sign of a lack of hygiene in any case. But somehow her hair smelled of compost. It was baffling. It still is baffling, he thinks. Some rational reason for the stench might have made it easier for him to deal with.
The wash cycle finishes and Tom rummages through the wigs until he finds the best one to suit his model. He places it in the sink and pours the dye on top. He massages the dye into the hair, places it on an old newspaper and notes the time.
After ten minutes he rinses out the excess dye and dries it using a hair-dryer.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
The sink is pretty messy though. He places the wig on some sheets of newspaper on the table, retrieves a scrubbing cloth from under the sink and works at removing the dye. Might as well clean the whole area around the sink, he thinks, and scrubs behind the taps and the drainer. He throws the stained newspaper in the bin and grabs the empty box from the hair dye. He opens both ends, squashes the box for recycling and crumples the clear packaging which had previously held the dye. An object falls to the floor. It is similar in colour to the semi-transparent packaging which it had been stuck to.
Tom picks it up for a better view.
It is a set of gloves.
Oh.
Tom looks at his hands. They are a reddish brown.
‘Shit,’ he says.
Tom turns on the tap and places his hands under the running water for about five minutes, scrubbing them with soap. It has little effect.
Shit.
He tries the scrubbing cloth normally used for cleaning pots. It doesn’t work either. He rings the hotel reception for help. A man answers and tells him that Fiona has finished her shift for the day. Tom asks about his watch and is told that there is already a note in the diary regarding the missing watch. Tom thanks him and hangs up. He stares at the stains on his hands.
Hair dye washes off. It’s no big deal.
‘It’s no big deal Shatner. It’s just a bit of hair dye.’
He repeats this in an effort to convince himself.
But there is a distant buzzing.
It is continuous. And it is growing.
Tom paces the floor before distracting himself with the wig. He places it on the head of the model.
The hair is long, straight and dark brown with a neat fringe.
‘God, Shatner,’ he says loudly in an effort to drown out the buzzing. ‘You look more like a woman now than you ever have.’
He checks his phone. Five to seven.
The restaurant is booked for eight, for his next date from the agency, Rebecca.
Tom’s clothes are lined up on his neighbours’ bed, his slate-grey trousers, light grey jumper and blue shirt. Tom doesn’t own a tie. Ever since his elastic-band tie in school he has never had a cause to wear one. On occasion, since he joined the dating agency, the notion of a tie has crept into his head but he fears it may add a formal element to the date or may offer an impression that isn’t really true. Besides, he has read somewhere that wearing a tie too tightly around the neck can increase the risk of glaucoma in men. The odds just aren’t worth the risk for him. It would have to be a very special date to get him to wear a tie.
‘God, Rebecca is such an interesting name,’ Tom sits down in front of the model. ‘Swahili is it? Yes, I knew that.’ He motions his hands back and forth as if he is using cutlery. ‘I’d like to say that you are looking particularly beautiful this evening.’
He moves his left hand to his mouth and pretends to chew a piece of food while he scans the model. He has sewed the yellow dress at the rear and it sits much better on the model. The wig really adds a feminine quality too. The arms are still peculiarlooking and the face is unappealing but he is getting there.
‘I love your eyes, Rebecca,’ Tom says. ‘They are certainly one of your best qualities. While we’re on the subject, did you know,’ Tom
retrieves his notebook and flicks through until he comes to a page with the word ‘eyes’ as a heading, a list of facts underneath. ‘Did you know that there is no scientific evidence to prove that sitting too close to the television harms your eyes? Yes,’ he slaps his knee and pretends to laugh. ‘I know. Neither did I. And did you know,’ he glances at the notebook again, ‘that the human eye weighs about twenty-eight grammes and there are little creatures that live on your eyelashes which feed off your skin?’
Bzzzzzz
He frowns, shakes his head.
‘No,’ he mutters and begins to scribble out the last fact. ‘That’s a bit like that whole nit thing.’ He looks up at the model again.
Bzzzzzzz
‘Yes Rebecca, did you know that the number-one cause of blindness in the US is diabetes? Did you know that, Rebecca? Did you? Did you?’ He stands up suddenly and moves to the sink. ‘Jesus, this is a waste of time Shatner, a complete waste of time. I’m reading shite from a notebook about things that nobody seems to want to know about except me. My watch is still missing. My perfect date has the face of a man and my hands are red.’ He holds them up. ‘Red fuckin’ hands Shatner. Jesus Christ.’
Bzzzzzz
He moves to the window and rests his head against the glass.
The buzzing seems to loop toward him.
‘Red fuckin’ hands,’ he mumbles.
From this vantage point Tom can see the entrance to the apartments across the street and the row of balconies nearest to the entrance. A woman appears on one of the balconies.
Tom raises his head quickly.
The buzzing stops suddenly.
‘Shit,’ he says and pushes himself away from the window.
He hurries into the centre of the room.
‘Where are they Shatner?’ He scans the area around him. ‘The binoculars?’
He spots them next to the phone and scrambles across and hauls them by the strap.
He returns to the window.
The woman is hanging clothes on a line. A T-shirt conceals most of her frame but Tom can still make out her bony arms. When she steps to the side he has a better view, blurred slightly but good enough for him to understand that it is certainly her, the grey-eyed woman.
He counts the number of windows below hers and calculates that she is on the sixth floor.
He makes a note of this in his notebook.
‘Would you believe that, Shatner?’ he says and scratches his chin with a red finger.
Tom meets his date in a restaurant in Drumcondra. There are dull edges to the room and a badly painted Romanesque mural on the wall. Each seating area sits in a pale, misty arc of light. Tom has arranged the table so the seat faces the door and the water jug and condiments in some way hide his dyed hands.
Tom drinks too much wine.
By the time the mains appear, chicken linguini for him and steak well-done for her, Tom is drunk. It is that drunkenness that comes with trying to conceal drunkenness, the awkward, self-conscious type of drunkenness. His pose is one of stiffness in the chair, his expression forced to one of blankness in an effort to hide the effect of the drink. All this makes him feel more drunk. It enhances his natural clumsiness and he is so self-conscious that he hardly tastes the food. He is surprised when she orders another bottle of wine.
It’s going well, he thinks. Or is it? It must be.
She knocks a small round potato from her plate and it rolls across the table. The lack of comical reaction makes Tom think that she is as drunk as he is.
‘I don’t even want to be here,’ she says, out of the blue, as if she is sharing a piece of a conversation which up to that point had been between her and her alone.
Tom’s mouth is full so he can’t reply. He doesn’t really have a response in any case.
‘It’s my friend from work. She’s worried about me,’ she drags out the word ‘worried’ so it contains elements of irony and sarcasm. ‘She should focus on her own relationship, if you know what I mean.’ She smiles. The wine has stained her teeth. ‘No offence or anything but why would I sign up to a dating agency? Seriously. Why?’
She glides her open hand downwards, from chest-height to midriff, to emphasise what she has to offer and Tom recalls one of those shows he watched as a kid, those game shows like The Price Is Right where some scantily clad woman would stand in front of a large washing machine and do exactly the same type of action.
She takes the napkin from her lap and rolls it up.
‘I know that there are certain types of people that need dating agencies and she must think I’m one of them.’ The knuckles on the hand which grips the napkin whiten momentarily. ‘Am I completely wrong? Have I been deluding myself? Be honest here. Am I one of those people?’
Tom takes a mouthful of wine. He keeps the glass tilted at his mouth even when he has finished drinking. She continues to stare at him.
‘I don’t think you are,’ he says when he has eventually put the glass down.
‘I didn’t think I was,’ she picks up the knife and fork and attacks her dinner again.
She has little square teeth like a terrier, Yorkshire or Jack Russell, Tom hasn’t decided yet.
‘So what’s your story? How long are you signed up with the dating agency?’
‘A few months.’
‘Yeah,’ her sight moves from Tom to the right of the table.
‘I was on my way home and I thought,’ he shrugs his shoulders, ‘why not give it a go.’
‘Yeah,’ she sighs as a waiter with tight trousers walks past.
‘It’s hard to get out and meet people sometimes, ye know?’ Tom says.
‘Yeah,’ she turns back to Tom. ‘It’s a complete waste of time all right. You don’t seem like the others I’ve gone on dates with though.’
Tom raises his eyebrows.
‘You’re all-right-looking for one. Not that I’m into you,’ she holds her hands up. ‘I want to be honest there. I don’t fancy you.’
Tom is unable to meet her gaze.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she asks. ‘It’s nothing personal. Ye know, it’s just my opinion.’
‘No, I don’t mind. I’m grand.’
‘You don’t look grand,’ she says.
‘No really. I’m grand. You’re just being honest.’
Tom forces himself to eat another forkful of pasta. There is a quiet lull in the conversation. Tom breaks it with a question.
‘Do you think that most people are honest?’ he asks.
She shrugs and slurps back a large mouthful of wine.
‘Would you say there is a way of telling if they are?’
‘What’s the point?’ she asks. ‘Honesty makes people miserable.’ She picks up the stray potato and takes a bite. ‘Can you think of one time when being honest has ever worked out in a positive way?’
He frowns and scratches his head for a moment. ‘I don’t know.’
She holds the potato a couple of inches from her face, her mouth open to reveal those little white teeth. ‘You see? I told you. Dishonesty, you’ll see a hell of a lot more of that in your life than honesty.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Tom says. ‘People have morals.’
‘Morals,’ her voice rises. ‘What kind of a person are you?’
‘There has to be balance,’ Tom says. ‘It makes sense. Things work because of a good system. If you introduce a negative it has to be swallowed up by a positive. That’s mathematics.’
‘You’re talking about yin and yang.’ She quickly pours herself a glass of wine. It almost reaches the rim. She moves her legs to the side of the table, crosses them. She rocks her foot up and down rapidly. ‘Fuck yin and yang.’
Jack Russell, Tom thinks.
The dessert menu arrives. It steals her attention. He is silent while she reads the menu over and over and makes grunts of indecision and small hopeful noises when she comes across something agreeable. When the waiter approaches the table she orders a black coffee and a slice of chocolate cak
e.
‘I suppose I’m being a bit harsh,’ she says. ‘Some people are honest. They’re usually the people who are cleaning up when the dishonest have finished their dinner.’ Her hands drop to the table. ‘Are you taking notes?’ she asks.
‘A few,’ Tom shows her his notebook.
‘Why? What for? What happened to your hands?’ She leans forward, excited. ‘That looks like the dye the banks put on money boxes. Are you a robber?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Have you robbed a bank?’ she inches towards him and knocks the remainder of a glass of wine over the table.
‘No, it’s just hair dye.’
‘Oh,’ she exhales as she leans back. ‘Hair dye. Great.’
The waiter returns with the chocolate cake and places it on the table, turns swiftly and leaves.
‘I hate when they do that,’ she complains when he is gone. ‘I want my coffee at the same time as my cake. That’s the whole point in ordering the two of them together.’
‘Yeah,’ Tom says.
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Why are you transcribing our conversation?’
‘I’m just doing some research. A kind of scientific survey.’
‘Science is a load of crap,’ she says.
She rotates her plate a number of times, anticlockwise, stopping when she finds an angle she likes. She then takes her spoon and skims a tiny piece from the edge of the cake and brings it to her mouth. She rests the spoon in her mouth for a few seconds before removing it clean. She slowly returns to the cake and scoops another tiny amount. She continues this act of methodical enjoyment, unaware of his gaze or of anything else around her, gradually working her way along the outer edge of the dessert before moving inwards.
Tom still has a full glass of wine. His head is a bit light, his stomach a bit sick. He chooses to drink water over wine.
‘Of course, for that yin and yang stuff to work everything in the universe would have to agree on what is good and what is bad,’ she mumbles, examining her spoon. She turns it over, studies the concave side before swiftly licking it. ‘I mean, what one person deems honest might not necessarily be honest for another.’
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