Dublin Palms

by Hugo Hamilton

  He asked me if I could play the guitar.

  No, I said. Not really.

  He asked me how many children I had, I said there were two girls and one on the way. He pointed to the photo of his own children and said his eldest boy was twelve, he would have to undergo an operation to straighten his spine, it required a metal support, they would need to fly back to Toronto for it. What I took from this is that they would be needing the money. But he didn’t mention it. Instead, we got into a conversation about children, we compared some of the things they said, he said his five-year-old daughter kept going around the house saying everything was ground-breaking.

  He leaned back in his swivel chair and asked me how far I would go to protect my family.

  I smiled.

  It was a strange question, I thought.

  Would I die for my family? he wanted to know.

  I’m a father like any other father, I said.

  His Canadian accent appealed to me. He spoke fast, he didn’t have the patience for small talk, straight questions, straight answers. I admired his ability to eliminate the dross of language, no rambling, no buttering, he could ask a question and answer it in the same sentence to save time. He could speak for you if there was a problem, if you delayed.

  He wanted to know if I would be prepared to kill for my family. It was not something I could answer, but he pressed me on that, would not let it go. You must have a view, he said. As far as he was concerned, I had every right to kill anyone who endangered my loved ones, the history of my country was on my side. What country? I thought, no country I belonged to ever gave me justification for killing. It threw me into a spin of uncertainty, I had no answer, I shook my head.

  Would you take up arms?

  Never. I would not go that far, I said.

  Never?

  Unless I was provoked.

  We both laughed.

  That was a good enough way of leaving it. But then he pursued it further, as if the situation was coming soon and I had to be prepared for that crucial dilemma, would I kill to defend my family?

  No, I said.

  You’re lying.

  I would rather they came and killed us all before I did that to someone else.

  I don’t believe you, he said.

  There was no answer. It was one of those elliptical questions that should be left to philosophers, like angels dancing on a pin, how could you predict your own behaviour?

  What would John Lennon do?

  He’s dead.

  Seriously, I said, do you think John Lennon would have killed his assassin to save himself?

  He took out a guitar from behind the desk and began strumming. It was a nice guitar, I knew people who would give their right arm for it. His mouth was strained as he played. He was biting down on his lips, breathing heavily. It was a song everybody knew – Imagine. Easy, all beginners had it. Even I had mastered it, after a long time. I watched him doing his best. He struggled to get it working. He had the chord sequence right, he had the words, but there was something about the timing, he jumped in too soon, his foot was tapping to another beat entirely. He asked me did I know the song, could I show him? He handed me the guitar across the desk and I gave it a go. But I was no better, I couldn’t get it going either. I was sure I had the hang of it, but somehow it was gone again. I counted the beats, but they came out completely wrong. I handed him back the guitar. We laughed. Neither of us had much rhythm.

  I was late getting back to collect the children. I had the feeling somebody was following me and I kept looking over my shoulder. I was in such a hurry to get to the school, it must have appeared to people on the street that I was running away from someone. They were the only girls left in the class when I got there.

  It turned out I was being followed. Next day, a man who was owed a substantial figure for installing ventilation ducts in the ceiling above the yoga floors, caught up with me – you think I can’t see you.

  The reason I was walking along the seafront had nothing to do with trying to avoid him. I was not feeling well, I was biting granite again. Walking was the only way of shaking it off. I had to keep moving, remembering a storybook that Rosie and Essie had, in which a boy with a stick in his hand knocks the teeth out of two crows, that’s why birds have no teeth. I wanted mine out, my crow mouth.

  The ventilation man had a grin on his face when he found me at the old baths with my head down. The cheque I had sent him was not honoured by the bank because he had left it two months, the funds had dried up. The ventilation ducts were of no value whatsoever, they made the situation with the steamed-up mirrors even worse, Helen had to get one of those window-cleaning swipes on a long handle to keep them clear. He said the problem had nothing to do with his equipment, it worked in all the offices, lots of churches with large crowds of people coughing, sweaty dance halls, damp basement restaurants right around the city, his testimonials were longer than his arm, he said.

  I gave him another cheque and told him to cash it straight away this time. He examined the cheque, he examined me, he looked at the derelict public baths. He said it better work this time or else he would haunt the living daylights out of me, I could hide with the rats in the cubicles where they used to have seaweed baths, he would still find me.

  Some of them were even more aggressive.

  You couldn’t blame them.

  The man who put in the sound system over the yoga floors said he was not leaving any more messages. He pushed his way past me and walked right in with his ladder and removed the lot. He stepped across the women on the floor. They were in the middle of a yoga session at the time, around two dozen legs in the air, the calm, watery music came to a sudden end. Helen explained to them that there was a circuit problem, she continued as if nothing was wrong, kept describing tropical beaches, light coming through curtains, megalithic tombs. I had to go back down later that evening with the cheap pair of second-hand speakers to replace them.

  Another man lost his patience completely and began threatening me, asking if I knew what happened to people’s knees in Belfast. He had red hair and a black beard, I thought that was a contradiction, like myself, two people in the one person. He was owed a small amount on tarring the car park, I had given him two thirds and said he would get the rest when the job was finished, as agreed. He said he had friends. It was not something you could ignore.

  The smaller the amounts owed, the more trouble they caused. Some of them tried getting it from Helen, then they came back to me with redoubled force. They started coming to the house, some of them got paid, some of them went away with hard promises, one of them called me a scumbag, one of them arrived with a dog, a terrier barking at me in the doorway.

  One of them sighed when I told him I had no money even to get sandwiches for school lunches.

  This is a howl, he said.

  I had no idea what he meant. A howl? He turned and spat behind him. In his language that might have indicated a show of disgust, in my mother’s language it meant there was a funny taste in his mouth, in the native language he was measuring the distance between himself and the rosemary bush.

  The biggest problem was not knowing what they were like. I knew nothing about their families, their mothers, their backstories, their private lives. I knew them only by their names, what they were owed, what they had on me. Now and again I found out somebody liked sailing, or rugby, things I knew nothing about. One of them spoke about golf like there was wisdom to be taken from sport. One of them spoke like a priest, he was owed money for office equipment, he said it was morally unforgivable to possess even so much as a box of staples not paid for, I was in danger of losing my soul.

  One evening the doorbell rang, it was two men from the Latter-day Saints, they left me a leaflet.

  Another evening, I heard the doorbell ringing only to find nobody there. I was hearing things, making up creditors that didn’t even exist.


  The exposed location of the house, the steep slope going down the driveway must have made them feel taller. It made me look inferior whenever I answered the door. The underground expression in my eyes, living in hiding. I had brought my family down into a burrow. It seemed no accident to me that a short story had already been written about the enemy getting inside the burrow. Despite all defences, the place of maximum protection is invaded. The door is left wide open. Terror walks right in, it will make itself at home and sit down in silence with the family at the table. Everything I feared was dwelling with me in the house, my burrow was no longer safe.

  The most difficult of the creditors had nothing to do with the current business but with the premises we had before, the damp studio by the seafront. Bardon. The man with white hair, corrugated. He was polite at first. He came well dressed, in a good suit, brown lace-up shoes. He stood in the café admiring the décor, the lively city atmosphere, women coming in with their sports bags over their shoulders, dressed in tracksuits and colourful runners, ponytails, sweat bands. He liked the European look of the place, the soft lighting, the beat of the music, people having coffee and cake after their sessions.

  The car park was full, he came on foot.

  Strictly speaking, he was owed nothing. We were forced to break the lease a couple of months early because the place was so damp, there was water on the carpet, people stopped attending the classes. He had a new tenant lined up the day Helen moved out, he didn’t even repaint. Morally, he had no right to demand any money. But that made no difference, there was no hope of getting him to drop it, he had his bills to pay – please don’t test my patience.

  We tried explaining to him that our business was in difficulties, once things improved a bit, I would be more than happy to settle, fair is fair, I said. He had no time for that kind of language, wherever I picked it up – fair is fair? No matter how much I practised these phrases in my head, they came out false, he saw through every word. He accused me of being sneaky and full of shit, he had a way of raising one eyebrow while keeping the other one level, a facial question mark.

  He said he could do untold damage to our business, his wife might spread the word among women around the area that we were a fraud. There was nothing I could think of that might get us into a friendly conversation, I knew his wife’s name was Marjorie, but that got me nowhere, he didn’t want a chat.

  He began coming to the house. He rang the doorbell one night when I was putting the girls to bed. Insisted on having a word, inside. I didn’t offer him anything. I found it frightening that he came on foot, like he didn’t want his car to be seen close to the house. I told him I was busy with the children, but he was happy to wait in the living room. He looked around and remarked on how nicely I had done up the place. I thanked him. He didn’t intend it as a compliment, only as proof that I could pay him what he was owed.

  He confronted me with the children present. He raised his voice. The girls were afraid. I told them everything was fine. I brought them back upstairs and they stood on the landing watching through the bannister rail.

  I had some money on the table in the breakfast room, it was there to pay off somebody else. I thought of paying off part of what Bardon demanded, but he had frightened the children, it would have been wrong to give it to him. I told him I had nothing, we were completely broke.

  I’m sorry, I said.

  He refused to leave.

  I told him he was threatening me in my own home.

  He thought about that and moved back out to the hall. I opened the door wide, he turned around and came up face to face. I was certain he could see the money lying on the table behind me, but he stared right into my eyes.

  You will pay, he whispered – German bastard.

  He pointed his finger into my chest, then he walked away, the door was left open. There was a delay before the impact of his finger threw me backwards against the wall. It felt as though there was a hand gripping my jaw, reducing my mouth to an oval nought.

  The girls ran down and closed the door.

  I slapped my own face. It was like a primitive religious belief that something self-inflicted could beat off what was outside my control. The grinding sound inside my head was like the fires of an opera we heard as children, swelling with emotion, flames around my mouth, each tooth a piece of melting steel. I went down on one knee, like the photographs of my father’s time when men took out a handkerchief and placed it on the street, kneeling for the Eucharist going by. My pious head went down to meet the foot of the stairs, my voice creeping along the hall.

  The girls asked me what was wrong. I didn’t want them to know. I said I was trying to remember something. I got up and made them cocoa, they could have a biscuit each. I brought their mugs upstairs and put them on the windowsill. I sat with them, counting the lighthouse.

  A while later, the doorbell rang again, I thought it was Bardon coming back. It was another man, less well dressed. He was holding a mug towards me, it had a flowery design, heavily stained, would I mind making him a cup of tea. I was so delighted he was not looking for money, I asked him to come inside, into the breakfast room. I got him to sit down while I put on the kettle, I took out a plate and gave him two of my Mennonite cookies. He was staying in a caravan not far from where the café was. I gave him the mug of tea, no sugar, just a whisper of milk. Rosie and Essie stood at the door. He smiled at them. They saw me smiling. They clung to the door frame. I didn’t want him to think we were going to watch him as though we had never seen anyone eating biscuits before, so I brought them back upstairs.

  Take your time, I said.

  Thanks.

  You’re welcome.

  I didn’t want to be seen swiping the money on the table out of his reach. The money I could have given Bardon was better spent given to this man, I thought. I took a note from the pile and put it under his plate, left the rest where it was.

  The girls wouldn’t sleep. They wanted to stay up until Helen got back. They kept asking me what the man wanted, was there a story in it for them. He was a man who kept moving all his life, I told them, he lived in different parts of the country, I heard him on the street one night singing a song – I’m a true-born travelling man.

  When he was leaving, I heard him in the hallway, calling up the stairs.

  Search me, he said.

  It’s all right, I said.

  We heard the front door closing.

  They wanted to sleep in the bath, I said – no way. They wanted to watch TV – no way. They kept jumping from one bed to the other, shouting – way no way no way.

  I couldn’t calm down either.

  There was a building bruise on my arm and they asked me how it happened. I told them it was the thumbprint of a polar bear I met walking across the golf course, they examined it closely, the shape of a purple coin. The polar bear had gripped me by the arm, he was in a hurry, he asked me if I was the father of two lovely girls with pyjamas that had giraffes and zebra designs, they looked at each other. I pointed at the harbour, he was getting on a ship with three masts heading for Brazil. We were all welcome to come, our entire family, we could bring our toys.

  That was no help. They started packing right away. I told them it was only a story, but they refused to sleep. I had lost faith in my own fantasies and went along with theirs.

  How much did they know?

  Did they pick up things they could not name? Like me, worrying about glass breaking, trains on fire, houses crumbling? Was it in their dreams? They sometimes woke up at night and crept into our room, two ghost daughters breathing quietly in the dark, inches away from my face. My love, my anger, my teeth, my episodes of panic, my inability to conceal myself from my own children.

  Helen came back late. The girls saw the headlights of the car shining into the hallway and bolted down the stairs. She came in with an envelope. She put it on the hall table and embraced them, said she
would give them cocoa and a chocolate biscuit. They’ve already had that, I said. They told her a man was shouting in the house. They said another man lived in a caravan and he ate two biscuits. They said a polar bear left a bruise on my arm.

  I had a look at the document in the envelope. Another writ. A creditor going after Helen personally instead of the company. I put it back in the envelope.

  All I could think of was to put on some music. Something upbeat. Nothing serious, nothing weighed down with reflection. Something warm and easy, with lots of love and sha-la-la. The live recording, with the audience erupting in a spontaneous cheer when their home town is called out. A large creature made up of tiny human voices rising in a single roar of emotion. Thousands of hearts taking off like a flock of starlings, how do they know when to change direction all at once?

  The music filled the house. It went up the stairs all the way to the roof. It went out the front door, up the street, maybe as far as the shops. It went down under the floorboards with the pipes and the wiring and the silverfish, down with all the layers of dust and memory.

  Helen came in. She put the girls sitting on the couch with their cocoa and home-made biscuits. She stepped into the middle of the room and started dancing.

  Her eyes were closed, shoulders moving, spinal column straight. Her hands were turned flat down. Her hips were swinging as though she was standing on a flotation device. Her belly was keeping her upright, without being pregnant she might have come crashing straight into the fireplace or shot off towards the window, maybe fallen on top of the girls with their cocoa. Her body had attached itself to this big round cargo. Her arms and legs, her face, her smile, her apple breasts, the wild movements she made in circles around the room – every part of her was stuck on to this coming baby. It gave her gravity, balance, it stopped her from spinning away uncoordinated.