A Model Partner

by Seery, Daniel;

  Tom feels pity when he thinks of her now, at her loss.

  And certainly at her loneliness.

  By seven thirty Tom is on a train heading for Dublin.

  As the sky darkens it becomes easy to see the reflection of his fellow travellers in the carriage window. At one point his sight rests on his own reflection. His eyes are sleepy from the drink.

  And sad.

  He brings his hands up to his neck and unbuttons the top button of his shirt. His frame slumps immediately. He lets out a sigh that causes the man beside him to jerk suddenly and knock the book he is reading onto the floor. It lands at Tom’s feet but he doesn’t pick it up.

  He is just too tired.

  Tom is on the chair facing the window in his bed-sit.

  It is a small view and in some ways he can’t help but think that his life is like this view, the life of most people maybe, how they only sees a tiny fraction of the possibilities this world has to offer and even then these possibilities are too far out of reach for most.

  Tom recalls the time he was seeing the psychiatrist. He wanted Tom to go through an obsessive-compulsive inventory to gauge if he suffered from OCD and to figure out how badly his compulsions affected his everyday life. Tom refused. In an effort to convince him, the psychiatrist told him about an extreme case of OCD he had come across, about how a patient in a hospital was so obsessed with cleanliness that they couldn’t even bring themselves to use the toilet.

  ‘This isn’t uncommon,’ he told Tom. ‘This is how much these compulsions can take over. They take your time initially, to some extent your sanity, and then they try to take your dignity.’

  The doctor’s reference has stayed with him long after other advice or recommendations have evaporated from his head. The reason why it has stayed is because Tom has always used it as a sign of hope.

  I’m not as bad as that, he would think. I’ll never be as bad as that.

  There has always been hope. Even during the darkest days of his life. But this experience with the agency and the knock-backs he has had lately, he wonders if he will ever hope again.

  He hasn’t bothered to check his email yet. He knows that Sarah hasn’t been in touch, just as he knows that Fiona hasn’t been in touch despite the fact that his phone is still stuck in his neighbours’ bed-sit.

  He has accepted this.

  He has little choice.

  Tom hasn’t taken the model from the black bag. He will throw it out with the next bin collection. But he has taken Shatner’s head from the bin and cleaned him up. The head now sits on the counter, looking at Tom as Tom looks out of his small window. Perhaps Shatner can become a permanent piece of the furniture, Tom thinks. Perhaps he can sit him in a nice vase or maybe even put him in a goldfish bowl. He toys around with the idea of filling the bowl with water and getting a couple of fish to keep Shatner company. But it is a brief idea. Goldfish are just too dirty to manage.

  He stands, leaves his bed-sit and walks to the bathroom.

  The neighbours are home. He can hear the television through the walls. It is a comedy.

  Mr Walters laughs in time with the audience laughter. Tom listens like he has done on so many occasions. But this time he doesn’t leave when the cold gets uncomfortable. He gets down on his hunkers and rests his head against the wall.

  The minutes tick by.

  Music plays to signify the end of the programme and Tom listens as Mr Walters flicks through the channels before stopping at another programme. Again, it is a comedy, American, the jokes come thick and fast and so does the man’s laughter.

  There is a break for the advertisements, Mrs Walters asking if her husband wants a cup of tea. There is a gurgle in the pipes as the kettle is filled and soon the audience laughter returns.

  Tom listens to a brief conversation about a cousin in England and the price of shoes ‘across the pond’.

  Tom slumps to the floor. He is tired.

  One programme to the next.

  Channel-hopping and snippets of music and talk and engine roars, football commentators, each sound short and cleanly cut off, like the way Tom would hold his hands over his ears as a kid and release it at quick intervals.

  And behind all the noise Tom feels the beat of his heart, steady, filling his head.

  And a question forms amid the beats, broken up like the channel-hopping sounds on the television.

  ‘… ere . . s … t . rin …. ming … f …?’

  ‘Where … that … coming …?’

  ‘… is … ringing … from?’

  Where is that ringing coming from? Where is that ringing coming from?

  It is his phone.

  His phone is ringing. It is in his neighbours’ bed-sit. And Mr Walters is shouting.

  ‘Where is it?’ he booms. ‘Where is the bloody thing?’

  The sound increases momentarily before it stops altogether.

  ‘Hello, who is this?’ Mr Walters shouts, pauses, shouts again. ‘Tom who? I don’t know any Tom. Does a Tom own this phone?’

  Tom is completely still.

  He is afraid to make any noise, afraid to breathe even.

  ‘Who is this?’ Mr Walters demands. ‘Fiona who?’

  Tom feels a lifting sensation in his chest, a rollercoaster-ride sensation.

  ‘Don’t you go anywhere, missy,’ Mr Walters says. ‘I want to know who this phone belongs to. Don’t you dare hang up.’

  There is a pause.

  ‘They hung up,’ Mr Walters says. ‘Can you believe this? I knew there was somebody in this place.’ His footsteps clump around the room. ‘Who do people think they are? Breaking in here and leaving their phones around the place. And cleaning the place up. Jesus Christ, I’ve never seen the sink so clean. Who would break in and clean a place up? I don’t get it. I really don’t.’ His footsteps stop. ‘Fiona. Do you know a Fiona? I don’t know anybody called bloody Fiona.’

  Tom stands and places his palms against the wall.

  He feels like a shaken soda bottle. There are things bubbling inside him, pushing to get out.

  He wants to cheer, sing, jump around the place like a madman, do anything but stand in the spot where he stands now.

  But he doesn’t.

  He controls his actions and he closes his eyes and he feels the coolness of the flat wall against his palms.

  And he smiles.

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank all my family and friends for their support, all those who I have worked with in writing groups, everybody in DCU library, the Irish Writers’ Centre and the Axis Centre.

  A big thanks to Samantha, Gillian and Paul for their encouragement, to Lia Mills for her guidance, Keith Cullen for his literary comment over the years, Miriam Corcoran for her advice, Niamh Boyce for her feedback and Carrie Anderson for her input.

  Thank you Faith, for being so brilliant!

  Thanks to everybody in Liberties Press, for taking on the book and for being so great to work with.

  A special thanks to my Mam and Dad for their unending support. (You are the best.)

  Thanks to Mya and Emma for inspiring me.

  And, of course, thanks to Sonia for everything. But especially, thanks for always believing in me.

  About the Author

  Daniel Seery is a writer from Dublin. His work has appeared in local and national publications including The Stinging Fly and REA Journal and he has worked on a number of public arts commissions. In 2012 he was the resident writer in the Axis Centre Ballymun. He has also written and directed a play, The One We Left Behind, which ran in The Irish Writers’ Centre in May 2012 and in the Helix in August 2012.

  Copyright

  First published in 2014 by Liberties Press

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  Copyright © Daniel Seery, 2014

  The author has asserted his moral rights.

  ebook ISBN: 978–1–909718–44–9

  A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

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