Mr Lynch’s Holiday

by Catherine O’Flynn

  ‘You might have seen I’d let a little backlog build up, but I’m getting back on top of things now …’

  ‘Yes, I saw you had a few phone tutorials scheduled for today …’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry about the last couple of weeks. I’ve had a few problems, but …’

  ‘… And as you know we randomly monitor the quality of the service our tutors provide.’

  ‘…’

  ‘So I thought today would be a good day to do that.’

  Eamonn was quiet for a while. ‘I would describe today as atypical.’

  Silence.

  ‘I was joking about the phone sex.’

  More silence.

  ‘I’m fired.’

  ‘Correct.’

  He closed the laptop. Walked to his bedroom, climbed into his bed and curled into a tight ball. He awoke hours later to sounds of hammering and the smell of fish fingers.

  31

  After a thorough inventory Dermot was almost impressed to discover that not a single thing in the flat worked the way it should. Nothing. Not a tap, not a cupboard door, not even the toilet seat. It reminded him of his pal Jack Dempsey, who took up DIY in his retirement and just about destroyed his family home. Whenever Dermot saw Jack in the pub, he would ask him what he was up to and the answer was always the same: ‘Making improvements’ – followed by a short nod of the head and a sip of his pint. He managed to hang the front gate backwards on a slope, rendering it impossible to open. Dermot would see the post flung on the garden path whenever he passed by the house. According to Kathleen, Jack’s wife resorted to crushing up her Temazepam in his tea to keep him in his chair.

  For all that Eamonn’s place had been badly put together, none of it, as far as Dermot could see, was really beyond hope. The walls were good enough for a dry climate, the ceiling and floor sound. It wasn’t going to fall down, which he knew was more than could be said for some of those other foreign developments. He’d seen the programmes on the telly: dream homes with cracks right through them; condominiums built on shallow foundations; stucco bungalows sliding down hillsides.

  He’d gone around with a pad and pencil, making a note of everything that needed doing, and it was clear that every one of the problems should have been tackled a long time ago. The initial snags had been allowed to bloom into more serious issues. He found himself underlining words and adding exclamation marks as his incredulity at Eamonn’s inaction mounted. Screws that could have been tightened before cupboard doors started hanging off and hinges became misshapen. Sealant that could have been applied before water pooled on the bathroom floor and the skirting board rotted. Doorstops that could have been fixed before handles made holes in the plaster walls.

  Eamonn had never been handy, Dermot knew that. Some of the pieces he had brought home from woodwork as a boy could almost make Dermot weep. The amount of effort and glue that went into them was heart-breaking. ‘My son’s no labourer,’ Kathleen used to say with pride. But he did not go on to be the doctor or solicitor that she had always assumed he would. Neither she nor Dermot had ever fully understood the different jobs he had done, in part because he never took the time to explain them. They were never anything simple or straightforward that Kathleen could tell the women at church. It was always: ‘Something with computers.’ Or ‘Something to do with books.’

  After Eamonn graduated, Kathleen became increasingly indignant that many of his cousins who had left school with far fewer qualifications seemed to be better off than him. John drove around in a BMW while Eamonn went most places on his bike or in Laura’s old Renault. Brendan had moved into a brand-new, four-bed semi out in New Oscott, while Eamonn and Laura lived in a little Victorian terrace on a tatty road in Moseley. She blamed his employers. ‘Your bosses are taking you for a ride, son.’ ‘You’re too soft, that’s your problem.’ But he would roll his eyes and say that he didn’t want to drive a BMW and he didn’t want to live in New Oscott.

  It was true that he and Laura went away on holiday a lot, but never anywhere that anyone else Kathleen and Dermot knew went. Rainforests and teeming cities, obscure islands and frozen peninsulas. Never once to Florida.

  For Kathleen and Dermot, Eamonn’s adult life was like a film with a plot they couldn’t quite follow. They tried, but nothing made complete sense, as if they had missed a key scene, or the sound was turned down too low. Dermot was less concerned than Kathleen. There had always been an idea that she and Eamonn were on the same wavelength, that they understood each other in a way that Dermot did not, and yet the opacity of her son’s choices threatened this. Heartbroken though she was when he announced his emigration, Dermot knew that a part of Kathleen was glad that Eamonn was moving to Spain. A friend of a friend’s son had done the same thing. There were programmes about it on telly. It made for a story that was easy to tell and made their son seem like everyone else.

  Dermot didn’t feel any disappointment in Eamonn. He was mildly baffled by his life, but felt, above all, that it was his to live. For Kathleen, the disappointment was not in Eamonn, but in herself. She reproached herself for always saying the wrong thing, for failing to understand him as she felt she should. He’d always been interested in books and films, but if ever she mentioned one she’d heard of, it was never one he was bothered about. He never wore the jumpers she bought him each Christmas. Dermot would hear her testing the water, sending out depth charges:

  ‘Peggy said that Brendan has all the Sky channels – the whole caboodle.’

  A shrug.

  ‘I hear 3D is making a comeback in the cinemas. They’re all doing it now.’

  A grunt.

  ‘I don’t care for that Home Secretary. I think he’s shifty.’

  A roll of the eyes.

  And yet their bond remained. It was to her, not Dermot, that Eamonn had spoken on the phone each week. He could be impatient with her, irritated by her, but there was a certain closeness there that Dermot knew he and his son did not share. In latter years Eamonn had refused to accept how ill his mother was and for her part Kathleen had not wanted him to know. Dermot had heard them discussing the idea of Kathleen visiting Eamonn out in Spain. He wasn’t sure who was kidding themselves more. When he tried to speak to Eamonn about it all he got back was:

  ‘Dad, you’ve been saying she’s at death’s door for years. She’ll outlive us all.’

  He had put his arm around him at the graveside. The first time he had held him since he was a boy. He was all bones.

  He was painting the wall behind the front door, where he had filled a hole, when Eamonn emerged from the lounge.

  ‘Is this ever going to end?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘All this.’ He gestured vaguely in Dermot’s direction: ‘Is that going to make the flat smell?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The paint. It gives me a headache. I don’t want the flat stinking of it.’

  Dermot looked at him. ‘It’s matt, son, not gloss. It has no smell.’

  ‘Good.’ He walked off.

  Dermot finished painting and then carefully laid the brush down and crossed into the lounge. Eamonn lay on the couch, staring at his laptop. Dermot picked up the machine and, without closing it, placed it gently on the other side of the room.

  ‘Dad! What are you doing?’

  Dermot sat in the chair across from Eamonn.

  ‘Back on the buses, you’d get these characters. Young boys in particular. They liked to carve their names in the windows with their Stanley knives, or cut out pieces of the upholstery as if it were prized animal hide, or spray meaningless scribble all over the top deck. What would you call people like that?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Just answer me, if you can. What would you call people like that?’

  Eamonn was exasperated. ‘I don’t know. Vandals.’

  ‘Yes. I’d say that was right. They were vandals. Destructive and shameless vandals. But the thing is, son, they weren’t idiots. They had no respect f
or property, but at least, you’d have to say, at least, it wasn’t their own property.’

  ‘Good, well that’s –’

  Dermot spoke over him. ‘At least they hadn’t spent all their money on a brand-new flat and been too idle to lift a finger to stop it falling apart. They didn’t worry that a spot of paint might give them a headache and then stare at a computer screen all day and night. They didn’t sit in their pyjamas in the middle of the afternoon feeling sorry for themselves.’ He stood up and retrieved the laptop, placing it back in front of Eamonn. ‘No. Someone like that, son, would be a vandal and an idiot.’ He turned and left the room.

  32

  ‘Eamonn.’ She spoke softly. ‘Let’s get out.’

  He smiled. ‘Out where?’

  ‘Away from here. Let’s leave. Let’s not come back.’

  He gave a little laugh. ‘That’d be nice.’

  ‘Well, let’s just walk away.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give the keys back to the agents. People do that.’

  ‘They do, and they lose their deposits, everything they invested.’

  ‘We could start again.’

  ‘Over a hundred and eighty thousand pounds.’

  ‘It’s just money.’

  He laughed.

  She didn’t.

  ‘But you’re the one who’s always saying everything’s OK. “We have each other.” “Give it time.” You know, all that upbeat, positive stuff you do so well. You’re the one rattling out the novel. I thought you were fine.’

  She held his gaze. ‘I am.’

  His face changed and he rolled back on the pillow. ‘It’s me. I’m letting the side down.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with letting the side down. You’re really not happy here.’

  ‘I’m just adjusting.’

  She hesitated before speaking again. ‘I think you had higher expectations than me.’ She paused. ‘Unrealistic expectations.’

  ‘What, the writing?’

  ‘Partly that.’

  ‘Well, what else?’

  ‘I don’t want us to fight.’

  ‘We’re not fighting.’

  ‘I’m worried we’re about to.’

  ‘Why don’t you just say whatever you want to say?’

  ‘You thought you’d be a different person here.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘And I don’t know why you wanted that. I loved the person you were.’

  ‘“Loved”?’

  ‘I still love you, but I’m worried about you. I don’t think this place is good for you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, Eamonn, come on. You’re not yourself, you’re lost.’

  ‘I’m just getting used to it.’

  ‘You need stuff around you to rub against. There’s nothing here.’

  ‘While you have such a rich interior life …’

  ‘I’m not saying all this so that you can sneer at me.’

  He closed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She was quiet for a while. ‘You have no one and nothing to pick apart here but yourself.’

  He had his head turned away from her, his eyes screwed shut. He tried to control his breathing. When he looked back at her he forced a smile he did not feel, affected a lightness in his tone.

  ‘I thought you were writing about Goya, not studying GCSE psychology.’

  But she remained serious. ‘If we’ve made a mistake, we can admit it and walk away. There’s no virtue in punishing ourselves.’

  ‘Laura, honestly, it’s fine. I’m sorry if I’m grumpy sometimes. I’m finding my feet. The fact is we’re living in a beautiful place, we have each other, we have total freedom. How could anyone be unhappy? Only an idiot would consider that a mistake.’

  She looked at him for a long time, searching his face for something, and finally gave up. She flopped back on the pillow and sighed. He leaned over her.

  ‘Why has that made you sad? I thought it would make you happy.’

  She seemed resigned. ‘I know you did. I know you did.’

  33

  The toll motorway was abandoned. Signage in every tunnel warned them to keep their distance from other vehicles. They had driven over ten kilometres and were yet to see another car. He had been up and out early that morning, managing to recharge the car’s battery with David’s help, and that had felt like an ambitious and successful start to the day. But now, as he sped along the empty road, he could think of few experiences that could engender such a sense of loneliness.

  The trip was his way of an apology after the incident with the paint. His father had seemed surprised and pleased by the suggestion and Eamonn hoped their argument was forgotten. It was a rare and unsettling thing to see Dermot angry.

  In the early days he and Laura had often taken daytrips and excursions to places near and far. But, contrary to expectation or logic, as he had grown disenchanted with Lomaverde he had also grown increasingly reluctant to leave it. Laura would suggest escapes to cities, the distraction of other human beings, of bars and museums, even of traffic, but Eamonn knew that they would have to return, and in that way seemed to drag Lomaverde and its attendant atmosphere of failure and despair with him wherever he went.

  Sometimes, sitting on the terrace, he’d see a distant plane passing mutely overhead and he would be filled with the urge to spell out SOS in patio furniture. The sense that they were stranded – isolated but also captive – was at times overpowering. He would try to remind himself of all the people who would give a great deal to be where he was at that moment, to remember that he was free to come and go as he wished and could rejoin the wider population by just walking to the nearest town, but it rarely convinced. And now, the silent motorway seemed to confirm his worst fears, leaving the troubling impression that the wider population had fled. The passing landscape provided no comfort. Arid hills flattened out into vast agricultural planes encased in plastic, interrupted only by the occasional bright green, intensively irrigated golf course. Everywhere were sun-bleached advertising hoardings for new towns and developments just like Lomaverde, and the horizon was scattered with motionless cranes.

  Dermot broke the silence. ‘It’s a lovely bit of road, eh? I wish there were more like this back in Brum.’

  Eamonn smiled weakly in agreement.

  ‘Did you hear they wanted to put cycle lanes along the Stratford Road?’

  ‘No.’

  Dermot nodded, his eyes wide with incredulity. ‘Yes. The Stratford Road. Did you ever hear anything like it?’

  Eamonn was unsure what response was required.

  ‘I said to Sammy, “Sure there’s not enough room for the cars let alone the bikes!”’

  Eamonn turned his head briefly. ‘I think that’s the idea. Prioritize bikes … and buses.’

  ‘Jesus, you wouldn’t want more of those lunatics weaving in and out of the traffic.’

  ‘But they wouldn’t have to weave in and out because they’d have their own lane.’

  ‘Everything has to be green now, doesn’t it? That’s the latest fad.’

  ‘It’s not really a fad, is it?’

  ‘Like the last thing, what was it? “Nouvelle cuisine”.’

  Eamonn stared ahead. His father had read an article about nouvelle cuisine at some point in the 1980s and had never really gotten over it.

  They drove to the small town of San José and found somewhere for lunch. When Eamonn had visited the restaurant before with Laura the place had been bustling, but now, on an early-season Tuesday lunchtime, the only other diners were a nervous-looking German family sat in the corner. He couldn’t think of a single other occasion on which he and his father had eaten in a restaurant together.

  ‘They’ve got all kinds of fish, or they do chicken if you’d prefer; it says with chips, but I’m sure they could do it with boiled potatoes if you want.’

  Dermot pointed to the menu: ‘Doesn’t that say “paella”?’

  ‘Yes it does.’

  D
ermot closed the menu. ‘I’ll have that.’

  Eamonn looked at him. He had never seen his father venture as far as a hamburger, much less anything more exotic.

  ‘Paella? Do you know what it is?’

  Dermot tutted. ‘I’m not a complete ignoramus. Of course I know what it is.’

  ‘But you don’t eat seafood.’

  ‘There’s me thinking I grew up eating mussels and whelks and seaweed.’

  Eamonn looked at him doubtfully. ‘What about the rice, it’ll have stuff in it. Mom was always careful to never give you spicy food.’

  ‘That’s because she couldn’t stand the smell. I worked alongside men from Pakistan and the West Indies all my life, do you think I never ate anything spicy?’

  Afterwards, they walked over towards Playa de los Genoveses. He had noticed that his father had developed a habit of launching into anecdotes halfway through, as if the story had been running in his head for some time before he started to speak.

  ‘She kept saying she was getting fat. Her skirts didn’t fit her any more. She’d give out about it, asking me why she was putting on weight when she wanted to lose it. As if I had any idea. To be honest I’d barely noticed. I thought anyway that just happened to women as they got older, got a bit thicker round the middle. I knew better though than to say a word. It would have been bad enough agreeing she was putting on a few pounds without telling her it was because of her age. I knew to keep my mouth shut.’

  ‘You’re talking about Mom, right?’

  Dermot looked at him as if he were simple. ‘Of course. Anyway, then she got ill. A tummy upset of some sort that wouldn’t go away. She’d always been terrible for avoiding doctors, said she saw enough of them at work. She told me it would clear up by itself.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘I had no idea. One day I got home from my shift and there she was lying on the bathroom floor. Her face green. I’d had enough. I took her up to the surgery myself, her protesting all the way.

  ‘I’d never set foot in the place before. I felt like her gaoler dragging her in to see the doctor. Left to her own devices though I knew she’d say nothing.