by M. J. Hyland
‘How about that?’ says my father. ‘They are very old, so a bit crusty and worn out. But that just goes to show that they’re authentic.’
My happiness is smashed to pieces. I didn’t notice it before. I was too busy in my excitement. But I notice it now: he is lying.
I am too sad to test him. I cannot believe what he has done again. I want to go to bed, get under the covers, sleep, and have him gone.
‘Yes,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘What a wonderful present.’
‘Not easy to get but, as I say, the holes and general shabbiness show that they are the real thing.’
I have a choice, to cry or to think. I will think.
It is common for the liar to back up his lies with expressions like, ‘Scout’s honour’, ‘Cross my heart and hope to die’ and ‘On my mother’s grave’. My father saying that the shabbiness of the socks goes to prove that they’re authentic is an example of what some books call ‘telltale oath swearing’.
‘How did you get them?’ I ask.
‘I’ve been hunting them down for months. And I finally met a man at work who knew another man in America who bought them in Illinois at an auction a few years ago.’
My father has lied not once, but several times in quick succession, like somebody who has pepper in his nostrils and sneezes uncontrollably.
I am angry and ashamed. ‘They must have been very expensive,’ I say.
‘Yes and no. I wanted to get his shoes. But they would have sent me broke for two lifetimes.’
‘I like the socks better,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re more than welcome, my only son.’
I will need to be more careful this time not to ‘contaminate the scene’ because the lie detector should not create an atmosphere that makes the liar more likely to show signs of stress. Signs of stress might be confused with signs of lying. The lie detector must be neutral and patient.
I must not give him any clue that I know he is lying. I will leave the counterfeit socks alone and turn to something different. I put the socks down.
‘I’m glad they make you happy,’ he says. ‘I’ll leave you to your homework now. All right?’
I sit up with pillows behind my head. ‘Wait, Da. I want to ask something for school.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Did you come the top of your class in your Leaving? Next week we’re doing an IQ test at school and the teacher said if we know our parents’ IQ, it would be helpful.’
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I knocked my opponents to the ground so swiftly there wasn’t a fleck of dust disturbed in the arena. Just like Milo of Croton, I was the winner without dust.’ I smile at him to keep him confident. ‘But what’s your IQ? What IQ did you have to have to get into Mensa?’
‘You know this. You were there when I got the news.’
He rubs his leg, the same way he rubbed his leg when he lied to me about my Easter card.
‘Just tell me again. I’ve forgotten and I really want to know.’
‘One hundred and forty-five,’ he says, his voice harsh and croaking. ‘Over one-forty anyway. And I only need one hundred and thirty-three to get into Mensa.’
He hasn’t even enough intelligence to be silent; to realise that I am setting a trap.
Does he not realise what I can do?
‘It’s been a long time since I had it tested,’ he adds, ‘and it might be due for re-testing.’ This is the liar clarifying and amending until the deception is obvious.
I can hardly believe how bad he is at lying. I don’t understand at all how he can expect to get away with it and why he can’t stop himself. I don’t understand him. He must think I’m stupid.
Being in the room with him is like being alone, like being completely alone, but not as peaceful.
‘Thanks, Da. I’m going to get some milk.’
I get up from the bed, and he follows me into the hallway, the way Crito used to.
‘You’re all right, son,’ he says, patting me on the shoulder, but his face looks tired and sad.
I am afraid he will tell me that he loves me.
31
When I don’t see my mother at school the next day, I know that something terrible has happened. She usually goes past my classroom window at half ten with the other mothers, carrying the milk crates and jam sandwiches, and I usually wave to her from my desk.
I drink my milk and remove the waxy paper from my jam sandwich, but I don’t eat. I decide that I will go home and see what has happened to her.
During maths class, I don’t bother putting my hand up: I walk straight to the front of the classroom and say, ‘Miss? I feel very ill and I have to go home.’
I leave the classroom before my teacher can respond. Unfortunately, she catches me up just as I am about to leave the main building.
‘Young John Egan!’ she says, in her deep, man’s voice. ‘You can’t just walk out of school like this. Come back at once and see the nurse.’
I turn my back on her and double over, as though I’m dying of the pain, and I put my index finger down my throat and produce a reflex strong enough to vomit.
I’m surprised to see how much bread there is in what comes out of my gullet, since all I had for breakfast was a bowl of Ready Brek. ‘I have to go,’ I cry out and I run from her as fast as my legs will carry me.
‘God love you!’ she cries after me, suddenly full of sympathy.
* * *
When I get home, the door is wide open and my mother is sitting on the floor in the hallway. The phone has been pulled from the hall table and it lies next to her legs on the floor, the receiver out of its cradle.
She’s wearing her nightie – the one with the big holes in the armpit and elbow – and her hair is messy. She looks up at me when I walk over to her, but doesn’t speak.
My face feels very cold.
‘Well,’ she says at last, but without looking at me, ‘you’ve told the truth, and now you have no father.’
I am frozen; the blood has rushed from my head and is pummelling through my arms. My arms tingle from my shoulder all the way to the tips of my fingers. This shaking blood terrifies me; it is as though my arms might come loose and fall to the floor.
‘So, you’re not talking now?’ my mother says, her face crazy. ‘Has the cat finally got your tongue?’
I am frightened and want to stop this. I want to sit down on the floor and do something to comfort her. I swallow and try to wet my dry mouth so that I can speak.
‘What’s happened?’ I ask. ‘Where’s Da?’
She wipes her nose with the sleeve of her nightdress. ‘I rang him at work.’
She tells me that she called the factory and that the foreman told her he could only reach a man on the factory floor in case of an emergency. She had to say that there was an emergency.
‘What kind of emergency did you say there was?’ I ask. ‘What did you say?’
‘Never mind what kind of emergency. I had to embarrass myself and invent something and then listen to the foreman call for your father on the loudspeaker, ‘Michael Egan. Michael Egan. To the office for an urgent telephone call.’ Then your father came to the phone puffing and panting and I told him what you told me yesterday, and do you know what he said?’
‘No.’
I don’t want her to be on the floor like this. I want her to stand up. She shouldn’t be on the floor in her torn nightie.
‘He said, “Well, do what the boy says, then, if you believe him. Go ask them yourself.” And then he hung up in my ear.’
‘So?’ I say.
She thumps her fist on the floor and her fist makes a dull sound because of the carpet.
‘And so, I went up there. I went up there in my nightdress. I could smell the booze when the women answered the door. And I asked her about your father, and do you know what she said?’
‘No.’
‘She laughed and said, “He’s a good screw, yer one!”’
I almost fall. I can’t focus. She shouldn�
��t say this to me. She shouldn’t say this. I reach out for the door behind me, to get away from her crying, angry, horrible voice. I am afraid of what she will say next. ‘I’m going back to school,’ I say.
‘You are not going back to school! You will have your nose rubbed in this. Go and pack your father’s things. He’ll be here for his suitcase at three o’clock.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’
We are silent. The baby crying in the next-door flat seems to get louder and more panic-stricken. I look at the phone next to my mother and want it to ring. I want the woman upstairs to say she was only messing. I want this to be over. I want to be right and I want to be wrong.
‘Why?’ I ask again. ‘Why do I have to pack his suitcase?’
‘Because I’ve asked him to leave. You wanted me to believe you, and now I do. You should be happy. Now that you’re after having your way.’
I need to go to the toilet. ‘But I only meant the truth to come out.’
‘And what did you think would happen when the truth was out?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, wishing we could sit in the kitchen and talk in a normal way, instead of doing this in the hallway.
‘You don’t know?’ she says. ‘You don’t know?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry?’
We are silent again and somebody outside kicks an empty can all the way along the corridor.
‘Go pack a suitcase for your father, and a suitcase for yourself, if that’s what you feel like doing.’
She lifts herself up from the floor, walks into her bedroom, and shuts the door behind her.
I go to the toilet and then I walk around the flat for a few minutes. The wedding photograph on the dresser has been removed and in its place there is a box of tissues. I still have something like a feeling that if I wanted to I could make everything go back to how it was; I could change things back. I think about calling my grandmother and asking her whether she will come and live with us a while, patch things up with my father, or let us come back to Gorey.
On the way, we could stop at a fairground or Duffy’s circus. And there might be a miniature steam-train and pony rides and people dressed up as animals. I wouldn’t want to leave.
All four of us could stop in at a circus and eat candy floss and watch the lion tamers and tightrope walkers, and I could sit between my father and grandmother. When they put their hands on my lap, I could make it so that they held each other’s hands instead.
I go to the phone and ring Granny’s number in Gorey. There is no answer. I put my hands over my eyes and lean against the sink. When I feel calmer, I walk out to the hallway and stand outside my mother’s bedroom door and I wonder if she wants me to leave with my father. I go to my room and sit on my bed and I bash my legs with my fists so that I will have bruises there tomorrow.
The apple box for puppet shows has gone. I rush to the kitchen to see whether it’s in the rubbish bin and there it is, and on the kitchen table there’s a note from my mother to my father, written on airmail paper:
Michael
Take the things belonging to you and leave. And when you’ve a place to stay, make sure you tell your son where you are.
Helen.
I take the note with me and go back to my bedroom. The baby crying in the flat next door is louder. I put my fingers in my ears and lie face down on my bed. I want to leave, but I also want to stay. I want to be in two places; here with my mother, and away with my father, and I want to travel with him wherever he goes. Perhaps we could go back to Gorey together and I could see Mr Roche again.
I close my eyes and fantasise about living with my father in that hotel near the gates of Phoenix Park, the hotel near the zoo. Or we could stay together in a fancy hotel, like the Shelbourne; a hotel with a concierge who wears a coat and tails and I could go down to him and ask questions whenever I needed to. We could order dinner from room service and eat on our laps in the big bed in our hotel room and have breakfast brought to us on a trolley, and go downstairs at night and sit in the bar and eat crisps and I could drink red lemonade and we could watch the big television there.
But isn’t he the bad party? Isn’t he the cause of this trouble? Yes, this trouble is my father’s fault and I won’t go with him. I’ll stay right here, where I am, with my mother. It’s not her fault. He should leave us alone and cause us no more trouble.
At three o’clock, my father comes home. I hear him before he opens the front door, talking to somebody outside. I get up and go out to meet him. He’s with Uncle Jack and Uncle Tony and they’re all wearing blue overalls. I don’t like seeing my father in overalls; I prefer him in his black suit jacket and a white shirt. Without a suit jacket, some of his personality is lost, because he can’t deliberately fasten his buttons the wrong way and he can’t wear one sleeve turned up and the other down.
‘You’re here,’ he says. ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’
‘I was sick,’ I say. ‘I came home early.’
‘He’s always sick, isn’t he?’ says Uncle Jack to Uncle Tony, as though I’m a dog that needs putting down.
‘I’m not always sick,’ I say.
My father leaves and goes into the bedroom. Uncle Jack comes to me and hugs me. I look over his shoulder at Uncle Tony, who is putting the phone back on the hall table.
‘Let’s go into the kitchen and make ourselves a nice strong brew,’ says Uncle Jack.
‘All right,’ I say.
I sit down at the kitchen table. When Uncle Jack has finished making the tea, he comes and stands over me. He puts his hands on my shoulders and stares down. I hate it when people tower over me like this. He could just as well have sat beside me.
‘Get off me!’ I say.
‘Easy does it,’ says Uncle Tony. ‘He’s only trying to help.’
‘I don’t need help. I know what’s going on. I’m the one who told Mammy the truth.’
They look at each other. They know about my role in this. They must know about my gift for lie detection.
‘Well, then,’ says Uncle Jack, making himself at home in my mother’s usual seat, ‘you’ll not be needing us to fill you in on the birds and bees.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I know all about it.’
‘You’ll be staying here, I suppose,’ says Uncle Tony as he looks in the cupboard for something to eat.
‘Yes. But I’ll be able to change my mind and go with Da if I feel like it.’
‘Sure you will,’ says Uncle Jack.
‘Any biscuits in this establishment?’ Uncle Tony asks.
The front door slams. My mother has gone.
My father comes into the kitchen when it’s nearly dark. Nobody has turned the light on, and he looks old and sad, his mouth turned down, his eyes smaller. ‘Right, so,’ he says. ‘It’s time I was off.’
‘Better pack up this party then,’ says Uncle Tony.
My father smiles and bends down towards me. He gives me a peck on the cheek and whispers, ‘It’s all right.’
His breath is rotten. I smile back at him but I want him to stand away from me. I’ve never smelt such rotten breath. What if this is the last time I kiss him? What if this is the last I see of him, and my final memory is of his rotten breath?
‘Where are you going to live?’ I ask him.
‘With Uncle Tony, and there’ll be a spare cot for you whenever you feel like visiting. So shall we not get maudlin in saying goodbye, because we’re not really saying goodbye, and just …’
‘Just what?’ I say. ‘You mean you won’t say goodbye and just leave instead?’
My father stands back and looks me up and down. ‘You’re an odd mixture, you are, of little boy and a grown lad. Which am I speaking to now?’
I hang my head and feel embarrassed for feeling embarrassed and want him to go.
‘What will your phone number be, then?’ I ask in the toughest voice I have.
‘It’ll be the same as my number,’ says Uncle Tony.
>
‘Oh, yeah,’ I say.
‘Well, then …’
‘Right, so …’
‘Bye now, John.’
They leave.
I go to my room and get under the covers and wait there until I hear my mother come home. She goes straight to her room.
I make a fresh pot and bring it to her.
She is sitting up in bed with the radio on, the volume turned up loud. ‘Has he gone?’ she asks, although she must know he has left.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, what now then?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say.
‘I don’t suppose your father gave you any money?’
It sounds to me like she said ‘the fecker’ and not ‘your father’ and so I feel confused and don’t answer straight away.
‘Well, did he?’
‘He did. He gave me a tenner, and Uncle Jack and Tony gave me five more each. And Granny can send some money, can’t she? So we won’t be poor.’
‘Being poor is the least of our worries.’
‘That’s good, then, isn’t it?’
She shrugs, and smiles weakly. ‘Will you go to the chipper and get yourself something? I’ll not be cooking.’
‘All right. What do you want?’
‘Just go. And when you’ve had your tea, do your chores.’
In the morning my mother calls the school headmaster and tells him that I have a fever and won’t be in for a few days.
‘Stay in, please, but don’t make too much noise. I’m going to bed for a while,’ she says.
‘But you just woke up.’
‘I’ve been awake all night.’
I follow her into the bedroom and stand next to her by the bed. ‘Did you know that if you don’t sleep for eleven days in a row you will die?’ I say.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Not sleeping will kill you faster than not eating. Most human beings can last twelve weeks without food.’
She is like another person, her voice so flat, her face creased around her mouth.
‘How many days without water?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know.’ She takes her dressing gown off, and closes her eyes. Her head falls and her teeth scrape together.
‘You nearly fell asleep just now. Standing up!’