A Model Partner

by Seery, Daniel;

Tom sweeps around the furniture and thinks about how he is going to miss the bed-sit. He tries to memorise the layout of the space, mentally absorb the atmosphere so he can carry it around with him long after he leaves. He leans his chin on the sweeping brush and looks through the large window. He will miss this window more than anything else in the bed-sit.

  Shatner is slumped on the floor next to the sink in a bad condition and Tom doesn’t have time to fully rectify the issues with the model before his meeting with the agency. Nor is he planning to break the appointment.

  Because he never breaks appointments.

  Unthinkable.

  In fact, he will probably arrive five minutes before the agreed time because equally Tom hates to be late. Punctuality is important for him and he believes it is important in a partner too, so important that he has reflected it in his form.

  For some it is easy to regard lateness as a nuisance but once time is gone it is gone for good and lateness can have a knock-on effect on the rest of the day. Just say, Tom thinks, the partner he chooses is habitually late. He imagines that all those lost minutes would merely pile up over the years until he becomes completely crippled with the notion of wasted time and unable to focus on anything else in life. No, he thinks, that just wouldn’t do.

  He sweeps the floor of the kitchen area next to the model. Shatner is no longer the clean, whole specimen she was before the fall. She has lost her legs, a clean break around the midriff. It is possible to balance the upper half on top of the legs but it has an instability that may cause him problems at his meeting with the agency. The right side of the face has caved in. The right arm had snapped off too but he has rectified this problem with a dowel screw. Surprisingly, the nose is still intact. As is the left ear.

  Tom decides that he will manoeuvre the wig to hide as much of the bad side as possible and he will angle Shatner away from the women when revealing her. One good thing about the accidental split is that the model fits nicely into two black refuse bags, meaning she is easier to carry.

  For every dark cloud, Tom thinks.

  Tom begins to return all the photographs on the walls to their original position. His phone rings as he is doing this. It is Garda Harry.

  He has an email address.

  Tom writes it down in his notebook.

  Sarah89@CMmail.ie

  He repeats it a number of times to ensure he has it correct. When Garda Harry hangs up Tom places the notebook on the edge of the settee and holds the pages open with his phone so he can see the email address. He glances at the opened notebook frequently as he finishes fixing the photographs. His stomach dances, his head is light. His hands shake as he pulls cushions from the floor and throws them onto chairs.

  He stops at one point and stares at the opened notebook, as if some deeper meaning is going to show itself from the address. It is a link, he thinks, to his past and to a part of his life that has been buried in the recess of his head.

  Eventually, he returns to the task of untidying the place.

  The large cushions for the sofa are still in the corner of the room. He uses both hands to lob them onto the sofa. His phone slides from the top of the notebook and lands on the inner side of the armrest.

  Tom surveys the room, his feelings a mixture of nostalgia and compulsion to clean.

  The room looks the same as when he first entered, the floor a bit cleaner maybe, he thinks, the sink too. He takes the door off the latch and closes it behind him before the impulse to straighten the cushions becomes unbearable.

  It is at the exact moment when the catch locks that he remembers his phone is still inside.

  Jesus Christ.

  From: Tom_Stacey@glooble.ie

  To: Sarah89@CMmail.ie

  Subject: Hello

  Hello Sarah,

  I’m not sure if you remember me. Memory is funny like that. For some, the big events in their lives might be non-events in others. I don’t think I’m unforgettable but I have a feeling you might remember me, you know, the same way that you’d remember a certain type of sweet you used to eat as a kid or even one of your toys. Not a doll though. I don’t think I’m as memorable as a doll. That’s if you played with dolls of course. For all I know you weren’t into dolls at all. You could have been into tennis or fancy paper or anything really. But that’s not what I’m getting at here, what I’m getting at is that you might remember me. I hung around with you and your two cousins for a bit. My name is Tom Stacey. I lived in the back of horsebox in the car park of Ryan’s pub with my granda for a short while. We were pretty close, you and me, in my head at least, but that’s all about that memory stuff again and for you it might not have been the case at all. But if it was the case and if you’re interested in catching up, I’d love to, meet up even. Maybe?

  Let me know what you think,

  Take care and talk soon (hopefully)

  Tom Stacey

  Chapter 33

  The contents of Tom’s black refuse bags rattle and shift as he walks into the agency. He places them to the right of the door and uses his two hands to control the displacement. When the bags have settled he opens one and feels around until he finds the personal profile reports he has been working on. He closes the bag, stands and places a report in front of each woman. The reports are nicely bound with a neat blue edge and a clear cover on the front.

  Tom moves the chair in front of the desks so it is in line with the door, and sits down.

  Martha immediately begins to flick through one of the reports while Anna claps her hands together.

  ‘You were taking notes, Tom,’ she says.

  ‘Sorry?’ Tom is confused.

  Anna points to the ledger.

  ‘“He seemed distracted as soon as he got there,”’ she reads. ‘“About twenty minutes had gone and I noticed he had a notebook. I think he was writing down what I was saying.”’

  Anna offers him a look of dissatisfaction. ‘I’m disappointed, Tom. You can’t take notes during a date. Surely you know that by now.’

  ‘She was drunk,’ Tom says.

  ‘That’s no excuse.’

  ‘And she was married.’

  ‘What?’ Anna’s voice rises an octave. ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘She was,’ Tom nods.

  ‘No, no, no,’ Anna slides her folder across to Tom. ‘You’re wrong Tom. You’re completely wrong.’

  ‘Her husband rang during the date.’

  ‘That’s crazy talk Tom. Look,’ she rotates the folder on the desk and points to a tick-box marked ‘single’. ‘You see that Tom?’

  ‘Maybe she lied.’

  ‘She wouldn’t lie. What would she lie for?’

  Tom looks across to Martha. She is skimming through the pages, paying little attention to the details. She stops.

  ‘What is this, Tom?’ she asks.

  ‘It’s to help find a match. It’s what we talked about.’

  ‘But it’s all nonsense. Animals and loyalty,’ she flicks further on. ‘Specific details on your sense of humour. A rating scale for levels of interest in hobbies. What are we supposed to do with this?’

  ‘It all makes perfect sense.’ Tom sits forward in his chair. ‘Pick a section. I’ll explain how it makes perfect sense.’

  ‘I’ll be honest and tell you right away that it doesn’t look like something we can use.’

  ‘Maybe when you read the whole thing,’ Tom says.

  ‘Look, Tom,’ Martha shakes her head slowly. ‘We couldn’t give a form like this to the ladies. It’s only relevant for you. That would mean the girls would have to fill out two forms, the normal form we use and then,’ she makes quotation marks with her fingers, ‘the Tom form.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Tom asks.

  ‘Then everyone would have to have their own specific form. Everyone would end up filling in hundreds of forms.’

  ‘But they’d have more of a chance of finding their perfect match.’

  ‘It’s just not workable.’

  ‘It’s
workable for me,’ Tom stresses. ‘It will help me find my match. Surely that’s the point of the agency.’ He looks to Anna for a reaction.

  She merely sticks her bottom lip out sadly, bats her eyelashes and looks to the desk.

  ‘But you asked me what I was looking for. The last time I was in this office. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Tom,’ Martha’s voice is stern.

  ‘Didn’t you ask me what I was looking for?’ he repeats.

  ‘Tom.’

  ‘This form will tell you.’

  ‘Look Tom,’ Martha folds her arms. ‘We’ve been meaning to talk to you about your membership.’

  Anna reddens and bows her head.

  ‘I think it’s time for honesty on the matter,’ Martha continues. ‘I don’t know Tom. It just seems that you aren’t getting what you’re after with this agency.’

  ‘But that’s why I have that form.’

  ‘We all seem to be of a different opinion as to what a good match is for you. So maybe it would be best if—’

  ‘Hang on,’ Tom interrupts. ‘I’ve one more thing to show you.’

  ‘Tom, we need to discuss this,’ Martha says loudly.

  ‘It’ll only take a minute,’ Tom stands.

  Martha looks to Anna and aims her hand at Tom and exaggerates her annoyed expression.

  Anna shakes her head and shrugs.

  Tom quickly drags the bags to the left side of the room. He turns and stands with hands on hips.

  ‘I don’t suppose you could both sit over on the far side of the room?’ he asks.

  They remain silent and remain seated.

  ‘Okay, it’s not essential,’ Tom nods, hurriedly removes the contents from the bags and begins to assemble the model. He hasn’t even finished balancing the upper part onto the bottom part when Martha asks him to leave.

  ‘Hang on,’ Tom says and rapidly steadies the model.

  Surely if they see her in one piece they’ll change their minds, he thinks.

  Surely when the dress is covering the legs again they will give him a bit of time.

  Surely when the scarf is hiding the gash between head and neck they will calm down and listen to him. Or when the wig is on, when it conceals the fractured and smashed side of the face, surely they will see what he has been trying to do.

  But the more he rushes the harder it is to keep the two pieces together.

  And Martha has raised her voice. She is demanding that he leave.

  Tom stops what he’s doing and looks at Martha. Her face is pale and she holds the phone receiver in her hand.

  ‘I’ll call the guards Tom!’ she shouts.

  To Tom, he feels as if he is the only person in the room who is calm and in control. It is like watching a scene in a soap opera, he thinks, witnessing a fictional car crash where all the actors are freaking out and overreacting and he is on his settee slowly shoving popcorn into his mouth.

  Anna starts to scream and Tom’s cool demeanour is broken.

  He decides it would be best to leave the building. He roughly shoves the two parts of Shatner into the bags and crashes out of the room.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  He takes a deep breath when he gets outside, glances back, half-expecting Martha and Anna to come charging out with pitchforks and burning torches in their hands.

  His back and palms sweat. It causes the material of the bags to slip from his grip. The left one drops first, opens to reveal Shatner’s head, caved in and scratched and deformed.

  Tom has this vision of the model lumbering towards him like the monster in Frankenstein, a deep voice booming around him.

  Was I a monster, a blot upon the earth from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?

  What was he thinking? He should never have brought her to the agency in this state.

  Tom wipes his palm on his trousers and retrieves the bag.

  He walks. From one street to the next, the bags swinging with his movement, striking him on the shins at times. Past market stalls and street artists. Tracksuit-wearing young men with grey skin and rattling Styrofoam cups. To an internet café beside a junction in the road.

  The place is practically empty. The heating is too high, the air an uncomfortable itchiness on his skin. He takes a seat facing the door, tries to calm down before using the computer.

  Calm.

  Calm.

  His hands shake slightly as his fingers flitter across the keyboard and his breathing is quick as he logs into his email account.

  There is only one new email in his account.

  It is from a woman.

  It is from Sarah McCarthy.

  Chapter 34

  Wednesday morning.

  Tom goes to a department store. He walks up and down the aisle of shirts, reading and rereading the sizes. Each shirt is folded inside clear cellophane so they all appear to be the same size. A staff member approaches him, a young girl in her early to mid twenties, foreign accent, high cheekbones and nice complexion. She offers to help and when he declines she moves to walk away but pauses and smiles.

  ‘I’ll measure you if you like,’ she says.

  And he nods and soon she has a tape measure curled like a belt around his chest. He reddens when she moves up to his neck. This redness doesn’t dwindle until minutes after she has left him beside a row of shirts that are his size.

  He picks a blue shirt, matches it with a pair of grey trousers and a navy tie with orange zigzags cutting from left to right. He pays for them at a till partially hidden amid piles and racks of clothes. He leaves the shop and swaps the clothes he wears for his new attire in the toilets of a fast-food restaurant two streets over.

  ‘Moonlight Serenade’ plays on the speakers set into the ceiling above the sinks and he can’t help but think that it is playing for him. He pictures himself outside an apartment block singing this very song to an opened window.

  He knows that things are going to work out this time.

  He just knows it.

  Tom keeps the top button of the shirt closed even though it presses into his Adam’s apple, and tries his best to put a decent knot in the tie. She is worth a tie, he thinks. She is worth the risk of glaucoma.

  But the tie is a struggle. It is continuously short at the front end, the knot always too tight. He returns it to his bag. As he leaves the shop he considers if he should ask someone to help him tie it, opts against it and soon decides that perhaps a tie isn’t that important.

  My Sarah doesn’t go in for ties and suits and cravats, my Sarah doesn’t care for stuffy gatherings of a formal nature. She is a simple girl, my Sarah is, a girl of simple tastes.

  Tom gets the 10 AM train to a town near Rossboyne, heads about half a mile east to a small roundabout, takes the first exit, continues straight until he reaches a second roundabout and takes the second exit. According to the directions, if he was driving, it should take him seven minutes to reach the pub.

  But he is walking so it takes a lot longer.

  Mud from the road-edge stains the hem of his trousers. His shirt catches on wild brambles whenever he is forced to avoid any approaching cars. He bends down to tie his shoelace at one point and leaves a muddy print at the back of his trousers from the foot which trails his bended knee.

  Tom reaches the town at eleven thirty, two hours before he is due to meet Sarah.

  Ryan’s b ar is smaller than he remembers, the interior refurbished with wine-coloured leather seats and a shiny black bar. He buys a pint and sits as close to the door as he can.

  The television is on. It shows horse-racing. One race is exactly the same as the next to him.

  One thirty comes and goes.

  There is no sign of Sarah.

  Tom clumsily flips a beer-mat over and over between thumb and forefinger, noticing how his hand shakes when he tries to concentrate on the task. A number of patrons come in for lunch and he stares at each one, his stomach flipping like the beer-mat, his head arched to the side in an effort to see if anyone is trailing behind.


  He then gathers all the beer-mats on the table and places them in a neat pile, waits until he is finished his pint before visiting the toilet. He takes his bag and coat with him. The toilets are clean and empty, smell like mild bleach. He hurries when washing his hands for fear of missing her. When he returns there is a couple sitting where he had sat, a child squirming in a high-chair beside, blonde hair and a mouth full of small, square teeth. The child looks at him and Tom looks away immediately. He takes a seat at the bar nearest the door. He is self-conscious in this spot, nervous. He consumes his pint quickly.

  Tom begins to think there might be another entrance to this place. He starts to believe he may have missed her. At two fifteen he asks the barman if there is another entrance to the pub.

  ‘Not to the public,’ the barman says without looking at him.

  The football starts at three.

  At three fifteen Tom asks the young girl who is collecting the glasses if there is another entrance to the bar. She tells him that there is not. Tom asks her if she knows if Sarah McCarthy is dropping in. The girl says that she doesn’t know a Sarah McCarthy and moves behind the bar.

  By four Tom has had his fill of drink. By half four he is walking from the pub.

  He stands in the car park for a time and thinks about his grandfather. There is a blur of feeling when he sees him in his head, a hazy warm glow in the centre surrounded by a weak halo of light. It is the same when he thinks of his grandmother. Tom wonders if this is how everyone he knows will be remembered. Not individual scenes or actions which they have carried out, just a distant glowing warmth, growing if still alive, fading when dead. Until eventually they disappear altogether.

  He hasn’t thought about his grandfather’s death in a long time. It’s not that he has avoided it. He has merely compartmentalised it in an area deep within his brain, a box in a basement, dusty and warped. If he opened it now he would probably only find a plain watch and a painting of a fat woman, he thinks.

  But still, there must be a hole. How else would the buzzing have escaped from the box?

  He hears it now, the indicator stuck in a downward position. And a coldness passes over him that has nothing to do with the breeze at his back. He blinks then and sees her face, Mary. And he imagines what her boy would have looked like before he died. He imagines him with black wavy hair and a smiling, pleasant face. William, a popular twelve-year-old boy, who probably played hurling and fished and liked to skim stones on the stream and dream about where his life would take him before cancer took him instead.