by Helen Cullen
It gave him comfort, though, to know that she resented her mother enough to lash out but respected her too much to ever let it go too far. Of that he was sure. She flirted with the line, but never crossed it. Jeremy reassured him all the time: the girl was going places.
A few minutes past midnight, she told him she was tired and would see him in the morning. He leaned in to give her a kiss good-night, but she had already turned her face away and it landed on the back of her head. She hesitated but then kept walking.
That night as he lay in her single bed, touched by the perfect creases in the blue duvet cover that exposed its brand-newness, he closed his eyes and listened to her quietly strumming the guitar next door.
She hummed along, but he didn’t recognize the tune.
Later Sive staggered out to the kitchen in search of a glass of milk. The door to her bedroom stood ajar, and she eased it open a touch more to peek around its edge. Her father was sitting upright in her bed, the case of her demo cassette in his hand, her tape deck on his lap and her yellow fuzzy headphones perched on top of his curls. His eyes were closed, and he rocked back and forth in time with the music, frowning, fist clenched. She saw tears gathering in the creases around his eyes and stepped back into the hallway.
She wanted to go to him but could not. Who was that man who looked like her father?
It frightened her to think of what lay beneath his quiet paternal care, what memories lingered of a life before her, before she and her siblings had come along, of what the reality of his life was now. She remembered sitting with Jeremy one night after he came to her gig in Spitalfields. Gordon and Rose’s parents had surprised them by coming along. They made an embarrassing quartet dancing at the front of the stage that mortified her bandmates, but that sucker punched her. “You know every time you perform, every time you’re brave and brilliant and bold,” he’d said, “that is your mother coming out in you. The older you get, the more you’ll understand her.”
They sat on a fire escape, shivering in the bitter November frost, and Sive buried her head in his shoulder.
“But what if I do? And have to pay the same price?”
Jeremy lifted her chin to look her in the eye. “You won’t,” he said. “These are different times and you are the best of her. And the best of your dad. Don’t underestimate how much of him is in you, too. The genes you’ve inherited from both form an impeccable cocktail so that you can embody the best of both. A perfect combination. Just like they were. Although it took me a while to see that.”
Sive raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh? I thought you three were always the best of friends?”
Jeremy shook his head and gazed at the traffic for a moment.
“It took me a while to accept her, because I felt like she was stealing your father away from me. And I had no one else back then.”
“So, what changed?”
Jeremy drained the dregs of his glass and waited a minute before continuing, as if considering whether to keep speaking at all.
“You know I lost my partner, Fintan?”
Sive nodded. “But not much about it.”
“Well, in the late stages I was struggling on my own over here and your mam turned up on my doorstep. Without me ever asking for help. Your dad was working so hard at the time and couldn’t leave the studio, and so, even though I’d always been pretty awful to her, she came. And she looked after me, while I looked after him. And brought me back to stay with you after he died. I don’t think I’d be here now if it weren’t for your folks.”
It was strange to think of the secret life of her parents. The interior world of Murtagh Moone remained a mystery to her; it seemed not somewhere for his daughter to tread. She wasn’t ready to meet him, yet, but hoped she could one day. He had come all of this way to see her; that meant something. Didn’t it?
With her glass of milk, she slunk back to bed, mortified to think of him listening to her lyrics.
She slipped into bed behind Rose and rested her cheek against her bare shoulder blade.
That night her dreams were full of the sea.
She woke up with her eyes sealed shut by salt; she had been crying in her sleep.
Dublin: 2011
“YOU DON’T NEED to tell me how big they are, but if you put them in the Olympia now, the next step is The Point and that’s too much of a jump. Keep them in Whelan’s and let the crowds mob Wexford Street. Roddy, Rod, can you hear me?”
Dillon looked at the screen of his phone; the photo of Roddy wearing a green cowboy hat was frozen on it. He slid his finger across the glass to clear the image and tossed it onto the bed, where Grace was still sleeping, or pretending to sleep. He knew she avoided him in the mornings so that he wouldn’t ask what her plans were. She liked to start the day sipping espresso while diligently reading the emails and MSN messages on his computer for clues of other women. Not that he cared. There wasn’t anyone else, not at the moment; he didn’t have the energy. He wasn’t sure how things had escalated so quickly with Grace from flirtation to this virtual cohabitation in only three months, but he needed to reverse engineer that terrible lapse in concentration as soon as possible.
Dillon looked around his studio apartment, so recently the image of minimalistic virtue, and cringed at her clothes scattered around the bed, her tennis racquet lying on the sofa and the cardboard boxes containing the miscellaneous contents of her old life waiting impatiently by the door. He didn’t know which was worse, the sight of those boxes, or the thought of her unpacking them. A muffled snore wafted over from her pillow; she mumbled something about a tax return and rolled over on her back, her hair still secured in the silk turban she wore to stop it from knotting while she slept and a strip to clear her blocked pores stuck across her nose.
Her ballet company, Dance Theatre of Queens, was in hiatus since the managing partner had declared bankruptcy during their run at the Gaiety. Somehow the dancers were still getting paid, but once this contract finished in April Grace’s plans seemed a little vague. Her visa ran out then, too, so maybe that would be an easy solution. He hated her accent; it reminded him too much of his mother, softened though her twang had become by her time in Ireland. Or at least it reminded him of what she sounded like on the VHS tape he had of her playing Desdemona. It was difficult to hear her voice any other way now in his head; he had accidentally recorded her Desdemona voice over his memory of how she had really spoken. Was she really only gone six years?
“Diiiilllllll,” Grace croaked from the bed, waving one long, muscular leg at him without opening her eyes. “Waaaaaaatttteerrrr.”
He snapped his MacBook shut and pounded across to the kitchen, where he grudgingly filled her a glass. The pristine chrome fittings pleased him as he turned the tap. That cleaner was worth every euro he paid him. He plonked the glass down on the hardwood floor beside the mattress where Grace lay. Her hand reached out to find it and knocked it across the shining surface. Dillon cursed and started to mop it up with the towel he had draped over the radiator earlier. “You can get it yourself this time. I’m late for work.”
Grace sat up in bed, kohl eyeliner smudged around her eyes, and prodded her forehead gently with her fingertips. “Don’t be mad, Dilly. It’s only water.” She reached out to ruffle his hair, but he snapped his head back and retreated to the bathroom to toss the towel in the laundry basket.
“What time will you be home this evening? Will I cook us something?” She sat with her legs crossed, watching him as he packed his Alexander McQueen leather satchel.
“Don’t bother. I have a show at Vicar Street, and I’ll need to take the band somewhere afterward.” He filled a second glass of water and brought it back to her. She gulped it down in two big, thirsty mouthfuls, her teeth chattering from the cold.
“Will I come down? Who is it?”
“No one you’d have heard of. Electro stuff. Why don’t you meet the girls and see if there’
s any news? You shouldn’t just hang around here all the time.”
Grace flopped back down onto the mattress and pulled a pillow over her face. Dillon crouched beside her for a moment, hesitated, then kissed her on her exposed hip bone. “I’ll call you later,” he said, lifting his fixie bike down from its rack to escape from his own home.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he grimaced to see his father’s name flash up; he had no photo saved for him, but he stared at the stock-image silhouette until the call disconnected. He could picture his father standing in the hallway at home waiting for him to answer, but felt no desire to speak to him. His new life in Dublin was at such odds with his roots on the island. Sometimes he wondered how he had scrambled his way into this quasi-glamorous job as a promoter for the biggest entertainment agency in the country, booking talent for nightclub appearances and convincing international bands to include Ireland on their European tours. It certainly hadn’t been discussed as a career option back in his Christian Brothers school in Galway, but the best advice he ever received had come from his mother: don’t wait for someone else to offer you the life or job you want; you need to make it happen for yourself. He didn’t like to think about how his mother had learned that lesson, what she’d sacrificed for that piece of wisdom. Mossy told him their father was impressed by his career, that he would love to hear more about his job, to share stories of his own adventures in music in Dublin in the seventies, but Dillon wasn’t interested.
On the rare occasions he visited the island, his cashmere jumpers, Italian leather boots and luxurious winter coat made him look more like a tourist than a native. It was hard to picture him ever having been a boy there, and he fully embraced his new identity as stranger when he was in the company of his father. It wasn’t just that he blamed him for not saving his mother, although that certainly was enough to fuel his resentment; Dillon also struggled to forgive his father for how he had shut down after she was gone. Was it his responsibility to try to connect with his only remaining parent? He thought not. It made him feel like an orphan, and by the time Murtagh was revived enough to notice how long it had been since he’d last hugged his son, Dillon was out of reach.
Dillon strode through Temple Bar, trying to decide if he should wait things out with Grace or finish it now. He was composing the perfect exit speech in his head when a figure ran out of the Irish Film Centre and knocked him into the street.
“What the hell?” he shouted as he regained his balance.
“Dillon? Mother Mary of God. Is that you, Dillon Moone?”
He looked up to see a woman with auburn hair tied in a bun on top of her head staring at him with big green eyes; she was wearing a white chef’s coat and black-and-white-checked trousers; on her feet were pink Converse trainers.
It took him a second to place her, and then he spluttered out a nervous laugh that surprised him with its force.
“Molly Bracken? What are you doing here?” he asked. “Trying to finish me off after all these years?”
She held her arms out for a hug, and he planted an awkward kiss on her ear before pulling away. His phone rang again, but he muted it and shoved it back in his pocket.
“I didn’t know you were living in Dublin,” he said. “You finished cookery school, then?”
“Nothing gets past you, eh?” she said, smiling. “Only the past six weeks, but I’m designing a new menu for the Irish Film Institute in there. All local produce, nice organic ingredients. You should come in some evening.”
Dillon stepped back to allow a man pushing a vintage pram to squeeze between them on the narrow path.
“Well, I work in the evenings a—”
“It’s grand,” she said. “I was just being polite. Don’t look so worried. I wasn’t proposing marriage or anything.”
He snorted and spontaneously leaned in for another hug, surprising both of them.
“Do you get back to the island much?” he asked.
“More than you do, I hear.” She smiled. “My mam hasn’t been well, so I go every second weekend now. My little sister, Sinéad, and I alternate. Do you remember her?”
“Sort of,” he said, frowning. “I’m sorry about your mam. Wow, it must be years since I’ve seen you.”
She stepped away from him. “Not since your twenty-first, when you dumped me and then got off with Sorcha Clarke in the middle of the dance floor.”
He stood perfectly still, hands in his pockets, and focused on a point over her head.
“Yeah, that wasn’t my finest moment. I’m sorry, Moll,” he said. “You didn’t deserve that.”
She put her hands on her hips and chased his eyes with hers.
“I didn’t,” she said, “but it doesn’t matter now. I hope you’ve found a better philosophy.”
“Philosophy?” he asked, waving at a friend as he sped past on a moped.
“Hurt first,” she said. “That’s what you told me—hurt first.”
Dillon grimaced, shoving back thoughts of Grace as he met Molly’s eyes.
“Well, my heart’s still intact, if that’s what you’re asking?” he said. “No damage done.”
“It wasn’t, but I guess, good for you!” She gave him a little wave and carried on, calling back over her shoulder, “See you around, Son Night.”
The past colliding with his carefully curated present was unsettling.
He dreaded to think what Molly thought of his abstinence from the island.
And how much it might mirror how his mother would feel to see him rejecting his father.
Maeve had always liked Molly, called her “a good egg,” his mother’s favorite term of endearment.
He watched Molly walking away; the memory of her walking ahead of him up the pier road on the island made his stomach flip.
He opened his mouth to call her name but swallowed it.
His phone was ringing.
He answered it and strode onward up Crow Lane.
Hurt first.
Galway: March 2012
SOMEDAY SOON, TOMÁS vowed, he would empty the basement of the university’s flotsam and jetsam: the crates of damaged folders stacked imperfectly; the unsealed cardboard boxes with crumpled paperwork erupting through torn seams and inefficient brown adhesive tape. The magnolia floor tiles were sticky underfoot, the original color revealed only when an old filing cabinet was shoved into a new position. A fluorescent blue liquid congealed beneath the furnace, snaking in ominous streams beneath a tower of wicker wastepaper baskets.
Mossy peeled his trainers from the floor with each tread, edging around the obstacles in his path so as not to disrupt a single item and trigger an avalanche of chaos. The dust tickled his nose, already antagonized by hay fever, and he released three epic sneezes. He scanned the room, his eyes flitting over a red crate of lost umbrellas, broken chairs, venetian blinds rolled and tied with their own cords; cracked blackboards leaning at an angle against the dirty window, burst purple velvet cushions with their insides showing, a black plastic bag tied with Christmas tinsel. All fallen soldiers of administration abandoned here and illuminated by a solitary swinging yellow bulb. It hummed. Attracting a moth that circled it relentlessly. A surge of students trampled past the window, singing along to The Lumineers’ “Hey Ho,” which blasted through tinny speakers. He smiled to think of Kalindi in the kitchen that morning dancing with the kids to that same song while trying to pack her briefcase, simultaneously eating a slice of dry toast and brushing her hair. He remembered how he and Dillon had often danced with their mother in much the same way.
It was for Kalindi he had braved the basement, hunting for a unicycle she wanted for reasons undisclosed. Convinced one was down here somewhere, he continued his hunt with more enthusiasm and tried to ignore the faint scratching noises he could discern in the corner of the room.
While he hunted, Kalindi was leaving a slice of carrot cake in a dispo
sable container on his desk in the research library. She scribbled Don’t forget to eat on a pink Post-it note and stuck it on top. As usual, his desk was perfectly tidy: three photo frames all lined up in descending height—the black-and-white print of him and Dillon on the beach with their mother, Sive crawling toward them; their twin babies, Maya Maeve and Ajay Deepinder, sitting on either side of Murtagh wearing Galway football jerseys and diapers; their wedding day at Chelsea Registry Office in London.
Kalindi picked up their wedding photo and grimaced. She hated that dress now, how frumpy it made her appear. They looked relaxed and happy, but she knew it belied the anxiety she felt as the photo was taken. Their wedding hadn’t been spontaneous, but it had been extremely small. Just her Aunt Rupi and Dillon as witnesses, and a Polaroid photo shipped with a long letter back to her parents in Bengal. The children were two now and had still not met their naana and nanee, although she held them up to the camera on her computer whenever they attempted to Skype. At least they had Murtagh, and he doted on them as if he knew he had to compensate for all the other missing grandparents.
It was little surprise to anyone Mossy had chosen to become a librarian; no one expected much chitchat in a library, and it allowed him to spend time with his best of friends, Flannery O’Connor, Jane Austen, Hemingway and the Brontës. It was, however, a great delight for his father when he discovered that the security of his sanctuary had been invaded by Kalindi, the kindest of girls, fiercely intelligent, who took pleasure in walking across acres with him, equally comfortable in deep conversation or companionable silence. She understood the homesickness that filled his heart; his for a home that could never exist again; hers for one that continued on in her absence. Mossy, or Tomás, as Kalindi always called him, had the good sense to marry her as soon as he possibly could. When Murtagh had heard about the wedding, he decided not to be hurt by his own absence. He understood; it was easier to have few people there than suffer the acute pain of just one missing person.