A thing to love about Mark: he was trying to be serious, even with glitter all over his face.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘I think glitter suits you.’
‘Don’t get me started. I can’t think of a better symbol of modern Pride than indestructible plastic crap being scattered everywhere. Maybe the Greens can release a pamphlet.’
For once, Damien did not want to talk about the Green Party. Lying beside Mark, he felt a dizzying sensation, like the first time they’d tried poppers together, eye to eye, Mark squeezing each nostril shut as Damien inhaled, pores opening wide as pupils dilated and cocks pumped and mouth met mouth; only this was better, because the chemicals were natural.
‘I prefer direct action: maybe somebody should lick it off.’
A thing to love about Mark: his belly button the perfect shape for a tongue.
‘You’re a dirty fucker.’
‘And you’re a miserable bastard.’
What else was a tongue for if not to touch?
*
To talk, unfortunately.
As soon as he got home from work, Damien knew that Mark was pissed.
‘The question is: how do you queer history?’
Mark poured another glass of wine and pondered the drawing in front of him. ‘The problem with history is that it’s just a catalogue of reproduction.’ Mark held up the family tree he’d scrawled. ‘See, it’s all Mary meets John and out they pop seven little leaves. Family trees are another hetero-normative tool to lay claim to “the natural”.’
Damien went to the sink and poured two pint glasses of water; it was hard enough to follow Mark’s train of thought when he was sober.
‘And history’s the same shite, back from the epics onwards – sons singing the great deeds of their fathers, the only way to ensure a legacy is to have a fuck-load of children so some of them will survive the arrows. The problem with history is that it’s all about mitosis.’
Damien took a long gulp of water.
‘Mitosis is basically some shite romantic comedy where pollen is played by Matthew McConaughey and he’s off on a quest to find Kate Hudson, who plays the stamen or whatever and they’re dividing cells like goodo, leaves popping up everywhere, except for the dud ones, the Johns who don’t find their Marys, or the Kates who have no time for their Matthews. The rest of the story speeds along, but these poor leaves are left stranded, the odd uncles and the spinster aunts, and who the fuck knows who our queer ancestors were or how many rainbow leaves are hidden in our trees? Even Ma gets all quiet when I ask her, oh Uncle Tom was only a wee bit strange, she’ll say, and there’s no way of knowing, and that’s the problem.’
Mark reached for his wine glass in triumph as Damien put the water beside him. The problem, Damien realized, was with the whole concept of family trees, which bore little resemblance to either the science of tree reproduction or the tangle of real families. He would not say this yet; Mark had stumbled upon another thought.
‘But meiosis – meiosis is different. Meiosis is also natural.’
Damien edged the water closer to Mark’s hand.
‘You want us to reproduce asexually?’
Mark shooed away the brambles of confusion with his hands.
‘No, no! It’s about alternative ways of reproducing. Ideas. Or legacies. Or, I don’t know, memories. People to tend to the weeds on graves. See, queers don’t need to adopt children –’ (Damien saw her in a flash, the little girl who would straddle Mark’s shoulders and smile when Damien read her stories to sleep, there and gone in a blink) – ‘we need to look after our own. Like, there’s all these empty stools in gay bars, where arses that wiggled away to Madonna should be sitting, because there’s a whole missing generation that AIDS snatched away and we need to … remember them.’
‘Here, drink this.’
Mark gulped the pint in one go.
‘And that’s why Pride is important to me. It’s about acknowledging – celebrating – our queer family. Which, fuck knows, can be as annoying as any biological family. But Pride is a way of remembering. Or it should be. Could be. Would be. Family’s important, you know?’
Damien knew what was coming. He went to clear up the dishes. He didn’t care that he would be the one to wipe Mark’s sausage-grease, he’d do anything to avoid this conversation. But Mark was drunk and holding a picture of a family tree; there was no escape.
‘I think you should tell her.’
Damien let the frying pan puddle onto the countertop and picked up one of Mark’s many mugs to wash. He reminded himself that he couldn’t be mad at Mark’s messiness at that very moment; he couldn’t avoid a conversation by picking a fight.
‘She won’t want to know.’
‘It’ll be a weight off you.’
‘I feel fine.’
Damien knew that if he turned around he would see Mark’s face screwed up in incredulity, or worse, pity; Mark, of course, had come out to his mother at sixteen, when there was just the two of them in the house, which she’d nearly kicked him out of, but she hadn’t, ultimately, because who could win an argument with Mark? Now the two of them were as tight as thieves, talked to each other in a way that Damien could never fathom, Mark egging on his mother to try online dating, the two of them laughing raucously at the results. Mark had talked to his mother about teenage loves, while Damien had been pining over Rory O’Donoghue, so far in the closet he was practically in Narnia.
‘I can come. Or you can go on your own. Or phone her. Or write a letter. Or do nothing at all; it’s your choice. I’m only trying to help, because I hate seeing you carry this. It’s armour, but it’s also a weight: lugging a giant wardrobe everywhere you go.’
Damien might have snapped, if Mark hadn’t been standing beside him then, his voice lovely and tender and pissed.
‘I’m out to everybody who matters to me,’ Damien said. ‘She’s different; you don’t understand.’
Mark’s hand against Damien’s cheek: let me.
‘She said I was moving to a “den of iniquity” when I told her I was moving to the Southside.’
A small smile from Mark: well …
Damien sighed. He saw the porch of 7 Dunluce Crescent looming across his day, some ghost of Rory O’Donoghue sauntering down the cul-de-sac.
‘I couldn’t care less what she thinks at this stage. Honestly.’
A look from Mark, his eyes as fiercely focused as ever: well then …
Damien sighed. There was the future in front of him – the Greens with a chance of getting into government, ten seats within reach if only they knocked on enough doors and wrote enough blogs – but here was Mark, dragging him back to the past.
You’ll go back, Mark’s eyes said.
‘Fine,’ Damien said, though he felt far from it.
2
Nail Polish (2007)
Mrs Fay fumbled with the keys at the porch door.
‘Oh, dear, it must be one of these! George was always the one who kept track of these things – he could tell just by looking at the shape of it, imagine! – but, oh dear, they’re all the same to me.’
‘You’re grand, no rush,’ Damien said.
‘It’d make you long for the day when you could keep the door unlocked, but when you read the papers now, oh, it’s terrible, isn’t it?’
‘It is indeed,’ Damien managed.
‘She’ll be having a nap, that’s how she can’t hear us. I’m the same, away to the world once I close my eyes – oh dear, not this one either – and this weather would wear you out, wouldn’t it? Not that I’m complaining, isn’t it lovely to have the bit of sun?’
Damien was preparing a press release about the relationship between global warming and Ireland’s record heat wave and while remaining cautious about the difference between weather and climate, he was sure that some of the impacts of global temperature rise would be far from lovely, further proof that it was time to have the Greens in government.
‘It is indeed,’ he sa
id.
‘Oh dear, I can’t remember which is which, don’t tell Helen! She’s always after me – you’ll forget your own name, she says and how could I forget Audrey Hepburn? I say but she doesn’t laugh like George did …’
‘Do you want me to try?’ Damien asked, gently taking the keys.
‘Oh yes, dear! George always spoke very highly of you, you made a great impression that time you brought the statue to our house with the Legion. Isn’t it brilliant to see young people doing a bit of good in the world? George said – did I tell you we met in the Legion? – and isn’t it a shame that you wouldn’t read about that in the papers … oh, look at that, you’ve got it, I knew you’d be able to do it!’
Damien slid open the porch door, not stepping in, yet. He left his hand by the door, hoping that Mrs Fay might say something about his nail polish. Words might not be necessary, then. Perhaps he should have chosen a shade other than peach. Perhaps he should have placed an earring in his left ear. Perhaps he should have draped himself in a Pride flag, for, as Mark was fond of telling him, gender and sexuality were different things, not that Mrs Fay had anything to say about either of them.
‘Go on in, that one must be for the front door. She’ll be asleep upstairs, so she will. It wears you out, the heat. And the chat. Don’t be worried about waking her; I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to see you, feels like years since you’ve been here! Go on in, dear, go on in …’
Damien hovered by the door, wary of historical precedent and the last time he’d told the truth to Granny Doyle.
3
Trócaire Box (1992)
Damien stepped inside the porch and met Granny Doyle’s gaze.
‘That fella not got a home to be going to?’
She was staring at Rory O’Donoghue, who was still standing by the gate, his eyes on Damien.
‘Why’s he loitering outside?’
‘He’s in the Legion of Mary too,’ Damien should have said, a perfectly innocent explanation available – they’d just said the rosary with the Fays – but he couldn’t find the words, his heart racing at the thought that Granny Doyle could read minds.
Granny Doyle released a snort when Rory finally started to walk home, his step too close to a skip for her liking, the kind of boy who’d hold funerals for butterflies.
‘You wouldn’t want to be getting too pally with him.’
Damien felt all the red in his body rush to his cheeks. Was he too pally with Rory O’Donoghue? Before his Confirmation, he’d been glad to have a friend in the Legion of Mary. We’re the Incredible Legionnaires, Rory joked, as they delivered the statue of the Virgin Mary to a different house each week, like superheroes with rosary beads. Rory had an arch way about him so Damien was never sure when he was being serious – he couldn’t tell if Rory had genuinely complimented Mrs Fay on her potpourri earlier – but he was a friend, Damien’s only friend, and before his Confirmation, Damien had looked forward to their weekly chats.
But then the rear end of Ruadhan Kennedy-Carthy had disrupted Damien’s universe. Even as he tried to focus on the Second Glorious Mystery (The Ascension! This physical world and all its temptations transcended!), he was aware of Rory’s buttocks pushing against his jeans as he knelt over in prayer. Rory’s gentle smile was worse, puncturing the calm of the Fifth Glorious Mystery (The Coronation of Our Lady! You’re a good boy, Damien Doyle, she’d say, from her castle in the clouds) and opening a well in Damien’s chest, one whose depth he could not sound, where bright creatures twittered towards the sunlight.
‘What are you doing standing there, are you going in or out?’
Damien managed an ‘Actually …’
Granny Doyle swivelled to look at him properly and Damien balked under her X-ray vision. She probably knew already; wasn’t it best to get the words into the open? He couldn’t afford to keep loading his Trócaire box up with twenty pences, and thinking about Rory O’Donoghue’s smile must be worth at least fifty pence and he’d never be ascending anywhere with all the secrets inside him and—
‘Well, what is it?’
Damien swallowed.
‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
But then he couldn’t do it! Not to Peg, who had taught him to read and always answered his questions carefully. You’re very good at reading, Peg had told Damien, once, and he’d clung to the praise and powered through a record number of books for the Readathon. He couldn’t do it!
Yet something had to be done. Granny Doyle’s eyes bore into his soul. He wouldn’t be surprised if she could see his thoughts; she’d be reaching for the bleach in a moment, if there were any mercy in the world.
‘What is it?’
The words caught in Damien’s throat: he couldn’t do it to Peg!
‘For the love of God, would you ever spit it out!’
But there was Ruadhan Kennedy-Carthy shuffling into Levis, robbing Damien of all the change from his pockets. The breadth of Damien’s blush sent fear into Granny Doyle’s heart.
‘Is it John Paul?’
‘No! It’s …’
Damien couldn’t say it, not standing in the porch with who-knew-who watching, the Geoghan kids coming back from school and Mrs Brennan pulling out of her driveway and the words stuck inside him, jabbing.
‘Is it that sister of yours?’
‘No, it’s not Rosie …’
That was where Damien told Granny Doyle, in the pause after ‘Rosie’. The pause gained weight at an exponential rate, gathering gravity until it seemed to bulge against the windows of the porch. ‘Or Peg’ became an impossible utterance. Granny Doyle parsed the pause; she knew. Damien felt as if he might be flattened by the silence.
‘I saw something I shouldn’t have.’
This was better: Damien was the one who should be confessing. The weight Damien needed to get off his chest was all about what he saw. What he couldn’t stop seeing. If he could tell somebody about Ruadhan Kennedy-Carthy, perhaps oxygen would return.
Granny Doyle, though, had no interest in Damien, her voice sharp and solid.
‘When?’
She disarmed him with direct questions. ‘On the morning of my Confirmation’ slipped out easily and then ‘where?’ was answered with ‘upstairs’ until ‘who?’ could only have one answer; Granny Doyle understood the rest, or most of it.
‘Was John Paul with you?’
This was what she cared about most: the corruption of John Paul Doyle. Damien hadn’t a lie in him.
‘Yes.’
(And Rosie too, though she didn’t count.)
Granny Doyle gripped the sides of her folding chair. She couldn’t credit it. Not for a minute had she suspected it. A bookish thing with dangerous ideas, Peg Doyle had always been that, yet Granny Doyle had never imagined she’d do something as brazen. The cheek of the little hussy! In what used to be her bedroom! In front of the Sacred Heart of Jesus! In front of the triplets! Exclamation marks abounded in Granny Doyle’s head, slicing away at her. Here was one cut: John Paul had known! And not a peep out of himself, full of chat that very morning, while all these weeks and months he’d known. The whole house had, the walls even, a conspiracy against her, all started by that one, who’d been a great help over the years, she couldn’t deny it, and now – after everything she’d done! – this. Granny Doyle scanned the street. What if somebody else had seen the chancer escape? Her friends would have told her but you couldn’t count on the Donnellys and the Brennans, there’d be plenty who’d be glorying at this piece of gossip. They might have known all these months, whispering away at her, while she shuffled off to the shops and picked up John Paul’s favourite biscuits, like some fool. Rage tore at her. There in front of her was Damien, the only one who’d told her, yet the sight of the trembling thing filled her with disgust.
‘Go on up to your room now.’
Damien stood still. She hadn’t said thanks. She hadn’t said you’re a good boy, Damien Doyle. No word to say that he had done the right thing. Outside, there was no s
ense that life had changed. Mr Kehoe hacked at his hedge. Some young lad washed Mrs O’Shea’s windows. Jason Donnelly arrived home next door, dribbling a football. He nodded at Damien, only because he was John Paul’s friend, but Damien felt something swell in his chest and then the football drifted away and Jason had to bend down to pick it up and Damien’s eyes zoomed to his shorts, like a horribly precise missile, and Damien knew he was cursed. It didn’t matter that he had told the truth; it was too late.
‘Go on upstairs now.’
Damien caught the fury in Granny Doyle’s eyes. He had to warn Peg. He’d dash out the door and run to Nolans supermarket or Peg’s school or wherever she was and make amends. He could be brave. Once, he’d jumped off the rock in Clougheally and not looked down. Damien knew he had to leave the porch but the door he reached for led inside; there was nothing he could do for Peg now.
He waited for Granny Doyle to come upstairs.
She didn’t.
He concentrated on disappearing.
He didn’t.
The afternoon passed. Drizzle came, then a downpour. Peg came home. Words followed. Shouts threatened to split the house in two. Damien hid in the bathroom. He heard Peg’s stomp up the stairs, though he daren’t open the door. He heard the banging and breaking of things, though nobody knocked to see if he was okay. He wasn’t.
And then Peg was gone and she didn’t even knock for her toothbrush.
A bomb might have exploded in the top floor of the house; that was how it felt to Damien, pressed up against the bathroom door. Granny Doyle stayed downstairs, pots clanged, the radio on. They might have been on different planets. Damien heard John Paul come home, more shouts. He stayed in the bathroom, the stairs impossible. He wondered, perhaps, if he might live here for ever; the sink was certainly convenient for tears, which had finally come, in an awful racking rush.
John Paul made it up the stairs, eventually. Damien ventured into their bedroom. John Paul was on the floor by his smashed piggybank. Peg had raided Damien’s Trócaire box too, not that it mattered, for Damien deserved it. John Paul looked up and knew from Damien’s face what had happened.
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