by David Park
‘What’s wrong, Danny?’ she asks. “You tired driving? Want me to take the wheel?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ he says, watching as she rubs the sleep out of her eyes.
‘We’ll have an early night when we get home. I’m tired, too; it must be all that fresh air.’
When they reach home the light is fading and most of the windows in the condominium are lit up. As they pass the entrance a doorman is helping an elderly woman laden with bags out of a cab while he tries to hold the lead of her small dog. George’s four-wheel drive still sits where it was earlier, but is now a ghostly smudge in the dusk. Within half an hour Ramona is in bed sleeping deeply. He watches her from the doorway for a long time then goes down to the lake and lights a cigarette. The smoke blurs into the grey mist coming off the water as he peers into its depths, tries to see what he must do, but every idea in his head is amorphous and at the very moment when it promises to settle into certainty it swirls away again. Only the sound of the lapping water against the jetty and the reeds remains constant. Normally it calms him but this night it rattles against his senses that even the slow smoke of this final cigarette does not soothe.
There’s a rising wind bending and teasing the reeds, brushing through them and tousling their heavy, weary heads. It’s not too late, he will go up to Father Mulryne’s and try to fix a date, and when he’s there he will decide about the confession, try to read what is best in the clarity of the moment. But when he walks the couple of blocks to the parish house a younger priest opens the door and tells him that Father Mulryne isn’t there. He doesn’t open the door fully and there’s no invitation to linger. As the priest closes the door, he hears himself saying, ‘No problem, no problem,’ and his walk back home is quickened by the thought of slipping into bed beside Ramona. There’s no one about apart from a couple of teenagers playing one on one in the yard of their house, a rusted, broken hoop hanging from above the garage door and papery-winged moths teasing the outside light. The slap of the ball accompanies his steps as he hurries on, drawn by the soft warmth he knows awaits him.
In the following week the weather turns cooler and the campus is filled with the complaints of students who have to dig out jumpers and sweatshirts. But it’s good weather to work in and the spirits of his workmates are high. A barbecue and softball game are planned for the weekend. They take advantage of the cooler air to do some new planting round the new library extension. Maturing palms and trees are brought in by machines, their root balls cradled in hessian and wire, then lowered into the prepared holes. The beds are covered with weed-suppressing membrane and layered with cocoa shells and bark. There is a sense of achievement when it’s finished and the chocolate smell from the shells lingers about their hands and clothes long after they have completed the work. Even Edward jokes around a little, insisting that one of the trees hasn’t been planted straight, holding up his hoe parallel to it, one eye closed like a golfer lining up a putt.
‘I’m telling you, man, it’s out of line. Anybody with an eye can see that,’ he insists, smiling like it’s a good joke when the others argue with him. Eventually Cedric goes and finds a carpenter and borrows a spirit level but they argue about how to take a reading and by the time they decide it’s straight, Edward is laughing to himself and then everyone laughs at hearing him do what sounds so unfamiliar. A group of girl students strolls by, momentarily curious to see what they’re laughing about.
‘Excuse me, ladies,’ Raul says, removing his cap and bowing slightly, ‘could you help us here a second? We need a young clear eye to tell us if this here tree is straight or not. What’s your opinion?’
The girls giggle and shuffle their books under their arms. One steps forward and says, ‘Looks straight to me.’
"Thank you, ma’am,’ Raul says, ‘we appreciate your help.’ And as the students go to walk on, ‘May I ask, just for the record, what your subject is?’
‘Environmental Science,’ she answers as she laughs and joins her friends.
‘Environmental Science!’ Raul says, turning to them. ‘Can’t get any more expert than that.’
‘She wouldn’t know straight if she saw it on her wedding night,’ Scott says and they take their caps off and flap them at him as if beating away a disgusting smell.
‘It’s one of the perks of the job,’ says Raul, ‘working round so many gorgeous chicks.’
‘It’s a tightener, a friggin’ tease, when you can look but not touch,’ Scott suggests. ‘It’s like that scene in Cool Hand Luke where the chain gang are working on the road and they see this babe washing and lathering a car and they’re stood there with their tongues hanging out. Oh man, it’s a friggin’ tease all right. What you say, Danny Boy?’
‘Too busy working, bros,’ he says.
‘Danny only has eyes for one girl – isn’t that right?’ Cedric says, lightly throwing some of the cocoa shells at him. ‘When you gonna make an honest woman of her?’
‘Maybe sooner than you think,’ he says, unsure of whether he should have said it or not as the guys whoop and kick shells at him.
‘Way to go, Danny Boy. And don’t you worry we’ll give you a send-off you won’t forget. We’ll drink every Irish pub dry between here and Miami.’
‘Talking about drink makes me powerful thirsty,’ Raul says. ‘What about a quick one after work? We can go to Pat’s Bar, start getting into practice.’
But he doesn’t have the time or the spare money to fritter away and on the way home from work he calls again at the parish house. It’s the same priest as before who answers the door but this time he opens it more fully. He is wearing a green sweatshirt and from the house behind him comes the smell of cooking and the sound of music.
‘I’m sorry, Father Mulryne isn’t here at the moment,’ he says, brushing his hands against his sides as if drying them.
‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’
‘We’re not sure – maybe the weekend. Can I help you?’
‘No thanks, it’s kind of personal.’
‘It’s what we do – the personal,’ the priest says, smiling.
‘Yeah, but I think I need to see Father Mulryne.’
‘I understand. Maybe you’d like to leave a message?’
He hesitates, fumbles for the words but then shakes his head and starts to turn away. ‘Who is it, John?’ a voice calls from somewhere in the house, the words filtering through the music, and he can’t be sure but it sounds like Mulryne. However, as he turns back the door is being quickly closed, leaving him to stare at it for a few seconds, telling himself that he might have been mistaken. At the end of the drive he stops and stares at the house but its curtained windows are still, imperturbable and indifferent to his questions.
He doesn’t want to go straight home and have to report his second failure to Ramona so he drives the short distance to the mall that nestles between the freeway and the hospital. It’s a twilight place, a slowly dying centre, the car park largely empty, probably most of the cars belonging to those who still work in it. Sometimes when he wants to think or be invisible he comes here and drifts past the closing-down signs; the shut-up stores still strewn with abandoned debris and their For Rent signs; those open stores where the weary owners stand in the doorways inviting in a miracle. He doesn’t know why one such place should decline and one should prosper – perhaps it’s the location or the arbitrary whim of fashion, the particular chemistry of the investors – but he’s seen it before and when the decay starts there seems no way back, just a slow haemorrhaging of dreams. Some stores have spread their wares outside on trestles as if insisting on their presence, their determination to never give up, but in the end they too will go.
He goes to the second-hand book store and strolls the aisles, lifting out books at random, drawn by the colours of their spines or the illustrations on their covers. There is one on garden design that catches his eye and he flicks the pages slowly taking in the pictures. A couple of times in the last year he has discussed with Cedric the p
ossibility of some day going out on their own, starting up a garden-maintenance business, even maybe a landscaping service. It’s only talk but sometimes it’s nice to warm themselves at the flame of their dreams and because it remains only in the realm of talk there is no sense of risk or danger. But still all things are possible, he tells himself, and already they’ve done a few jobs for college staff. The start-up costs would not be so great – a truck, basic equipment – but Cedric says it might be hard to undercut the Cubans who already have cornered a big part of the market. A good cheap job done, dollars in the hand, no questions asked – hard to compete. For a second, however, he thinks of owning a business and working in the gardens of the big houses round the lake, making a success of it for Ramona and their child. Maybe even some day owning one of those very houses. He buys the book and walks slowly back to his car and as always, even after all this time, is surprised by how much heat still smoulders in the day.
When he gets home Ramona is full of talk about choices of hospital and health plans. She’s been taking advice from work colleagues who have recently had babies and she has the excited tone of someone who has just been admitted to an exclusive club. Some of them have offered her various necessities and while she is happy to accept she thinks they should buy their own cot. She shows him pictures in a catalogue, each one more elaborate than the last.
‘It would be nice to make one,’ he says.
‘Make one? Out of an orange box? You must be kidding.’
‘They don’t look too complicated.’
‘Danny, you’re turning into a bit of a dreamer. There’s safety regulations and all. No child of mine is going to sleep in a home-made box.’
‘Sorry,’ he says sheepishly. ‘It was just an idea.’
‘You get any more ideas like that, you keep them under your hat. What do you think of this one?’ she asks, showing him another picture. ‘It’s my favourite. You can rock it.’
‘Real nice,’ he says, looking at the draped canopy and the carved animal shapes. He knows better than to ask about the price but thinks he should try to muster up some more private work. Perhaps he could run off a few advertising fliers, pin them up around the campus where the teaching staff might see them. If he could build up a regular clientele with Cedric it could turn into a nice earner and they’re going to need as much money as they can find if they are to give their child everything they desire. He wonders who does the parish house and church grounds but the thought brings back his earlier uncertainty. Watching Ramona turning the pages of the magazine suddenly makes him think he should make the confession. Mulryne has always been good to him, solid, and he knows about Ireland – the real one, not the sickly fantasy of the green-liveried, leprechaun- and shamrock-loving theme pubs. Personally he would rather drink in the backroom of the cheapest juke-joint than wallow in that phoney world of sentimental nostalgia for something that does not exist. A couple of times when too much drink turned his insides bitter he almost stood up and told them so. If anyone can understand, Mulryne will. It’s a risk but he wall do it for Ramona, do it for the child, take whatever penance brings forgiveness. Start with a clean slate.
When the weekend comes he returns to see Father Mulryne. He turns into the street to see the younger priest cycling off on a mountain bike and as he walks to the door he studies the grounds, the straggling bushes that need to be pruned back hard, the long thin fingers of ivy that are beginning to choke the guttering. When he knocks on the door he can hear the sound of a television but no one comes to answer. Something makes him keep on knocking. Out of the corner of his eye he catches the twitch of a curtain and he knocks again, this time more insistently. There is the sound of a lock being turned and then it is Mulryne’s eyes staring at him through the narrow slit in the door. Eyes that are bloodshot and blue-bagged. He has not shaved and there is a thick white stubble lathering his face.
‘What you want, Danny?’ he asks.
‘I need to talk to you.’
‘It’s not a good time. Is it important?’
‘It was kinda. Yeah, pretty important.’
Mulryne hesitates, then opens the door and without inviting him in walks off down the hall towards the kitchen. He is wearing a white vest and baggy beltless trousers. On the kitchen table is a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a single glass. In another room somewhere a television is playing.
‘You look a bit rough,’ he says and then thinks it’s not the type of thing you say to a priest.
‘Rough as a bear’s arse,’ Mulryne says, slumping on a chair at the table, the empty glass directly in front of him. ‘You want a drink?’ and when he shakes his head, he says, ‘For God’s sake have a drink, Danny.’
So he sits at the table and watches as Mulryne fills his glass. The priest’s bare arms are white-haired, muscular, the blue veins at his wrists raised and dark against the paleness of his skin. They are drinking out of fine-cut glass tumblers, light blushing the contents as they raise them to their mouths.
‘You’re not well?’ he asks, feeling the whisky flame the back of his throat.
‘No, I’m not so good,’ Mulryne says, tipping his head back slightly to drain the glass quickly, then filling his glass again. ‘Been on a bit of a bender.’
‘Sometimes a bit of a blow-out does no harm,’ he says, trying to work out what are the right things to say.
‘That’s right, son, it gets things out of your system. Except this time it isn’t working very well.’ He rubs his stubbled cheeks as if shaving them with the palms of his hands. ‘I had a father who liked a drink. Meek and mild he was during the week and then every Saturday night he got bluttered and would have fought the devil. We used to hide when we saw him coming. Once we’d all had enough and after he hit our mother we ganged up on him, got the jump on him and tied him to a chair. He was cussin’ and screaming what he’d do to us all when he got free but we paid no heed. And in the morning, Danny, after he’d slept all night tied to the chair, up he gets, washes and changes his clothes and away to early mass. When he comes back he makes us all our breakfast and fries up lashings of bacon in the pan.’ There’s a moment of silence as he dwells on the memory then says, ‘Terrible thing the drink.’
Perhaps out of respect for his observation, the priest sips this glass more slowly, once holding it up to the light as if it is a vintage wine. ‘I’m thinking of taking a trip back to Ireland,’ he says. ‘I still have a sister in Dublin and a couple of cousins in Donegal. She tells me though that you’d hardly recognise the place. Big lot of changes everywhere and apparently you couldn’t afford to buy a house for love nor money. Even somewhere you couldn’t swing a cat goes for megabucks. I like the idea of Donegal – you ever been there, Danny? I went once as a young man. Had a bit of a sweetheart – before I was a priest of course. Well I think it was,’ he says, suddenly bursting into a raucous laugh that seems to shake his whole body. ‘Beautiful place, Danny. Beautiful beaches, beautiful deserted beaches.’ He rubs his eyes with the tips of his fingers. ‘You ever think of going back?’
‘No, never.’
‘Nothing there for you, Danny?’
‘No, nothing there. Everything is here for me now,’ he says and thinks that this is perhaps the moment to raise the purpose of his visit but before he can speak Mulryne stands up, runs some water at the sink and splashes his face. He looks around for something to dry it with but seeing nothing pulls up his vest and uses it, then sits down again at the table, seemingly oblivious to the spreading bruises of damp left behind. There are still droplets shining on his cheekbones.
‘Have another drink, son,’ Mulryne says and before Danny can refuse he is pouring it into his glass. ‘You’re a bit of a dark horse, Danny – where he comes from, where he goes to, nobody knows. Ask me no secrets and I’ll tell you no lies – isn’t that right, Danny?’ He touches the side of his nose with his finger.
He decides that he should go but when he tries to speak, Mulryne moves his finger to his lips. ‘Shush, son, shush. You’re
a good lad because you’re not always jabbering on like some of them do. You keep your own counsel and that’s the way it should be with a man. Listen, can you hear that?’ The only sound is the chatter of the television. ‘You know what that is, Danny? It’s the sound of nothing, just an endless jabber that means nothing in this world, filling people’s heads with mush so they can’t think straight any more.’ One of the droplets runs down his cheek and for a second it looks as if he is crying.
"Why don’t I put some coffee on?’ he says and Mulryne waves his hand vaguely in the air in a slow gesture of indifference. But he goes ahead anyway and brews up some strong black coffee, hands it to the priest.
‘You think this will make me feel better, Danny?’
‘I don’t know, can’t make you feel any worse.’
‘You know that song by Simon and Garfunkel? “The Sound of Silence” it’s called. Good song, Danny; you know it, son?’ And when he nods, ‘That’s wrhat I like to hear more than anything – the sound of silence. Sometimes when the church is empty I go into the confession box, try to hear it. You know what I’m saying, son?’
He nods again and drinks some of the coffee in the hope that the priest will follow his example.
‘Do something for me, Danny,’ Mulryne suddenly says, stretching out his hand across the table towards him. ‘Go and turn that bloody thing off.’