When All Is Said(60)

She didn’t reply but moved a hand to her chest as her eyebrows rose and her forehead concertinaed.

‘Well, now, I’m sure I didn’t mean to offend you…’

‘No,’ I said, leaning down to her, ‘but you did.’

I turned from her then, and watched the bingo caller play with his balls, setting them up at the top of the room while your woman decided what to do with me. Rocking back and forth on my feet, I concluded that even if it was my wife’s divine intervention that had me there with these people, eviction was still fine by me.

‘They’re just about to start,’ she said finally, her words having lost their earlier confidence. ‘David, take Mr Hannigan up like a good man.’

I know her eyes watched me as I made my way to the back row, where I sat on my own at the edge. I felt old that day, son. Looking around, watching those white-haired men and women with their dried-out, droopy skin, and teary eyes and fading clothes, wasting away the afternoon with neon highlighters. I don’t know how I managed to sit as long as I did. I didn’t even bother marking down the numbers, just pretended every now and again. I’m sure David noticed, standing to the side, running up and down, doing the checking of those who called ‘house’, shaking their books in the air like they were drowning. Mostly, I rubbed at the floor with the sole of my shoe.

Before half-time, he came over and bent to my ear:

‘I have to get the tea now, Maurice, alright? But I’ll sit beside you after. I reckon if we play our cards right that box of Roses is ours. Bags the hazelnut whirl, though,’ he said, patting me on the shoulder. I nodded.

When the bingo caller announced the break, my fellow senior citizens passed by, getting a good look at the new boy. Some smiled. I looked away, unable for it. Unable for the lie of a man I would have to become to make my way into their circle. To be accepted, to belong. But here’s the thing, son, I only ever wanted to belong to one person and she wasn’t in that room. And in my heart I knew that even if I was a man comfortable with all the small talk it would take to break into that new life, I didn’t want it. I simply did not want it.

I took out my phone to check a few non-existent messages as they milled about the table. David there among them, smiling and laughing, scratching his head. Filling cups, pouring milk and offering biscuits. And when I was sure he was far too distracted to wonder about me, I left. Got into the Jeep and drove straight home. Locked the doors and drew the curtains.

David called round a couple of times after. Some talker. Entertained me with his life story: Eamo and Deco and Gizzo, his mates back in Dublin.

‘Drugs,’ he said, ‘that’s all they’re into now. Selling drugs. Wasn’t me. Had to get out, man.’

I told him bits about you. Not much, but bits. He was calling you Kev by the end.

‘So is Kev planning any visits home?’ ‘How many kids does Kev have again?’

‘Two,’ I said, ‘Kev has two.’

But after a while I didn’t answer the door any more. Couldn’t face him. Knowing how desperate he was trying to keep me connected to this world, when I wanted nothing more to do with it. I knew for sure then, I had no other choice but to find your mother.





Chapter Six



10.10 p.m.

Final Toast: to Sadie

Midleton Whiskey

I’ve left the best ’til last in every way.

Svetlana places my final drink down in front of me: Midleton, you can’t fault it. Majestic stuff. I look at it like she has just handed me the keys to a new harvester. It’s the autumn colours that get me. It’s the earth of it, the trees, the leaves, the late evening sky. Its smell, so full of life that it catches in my throat before it’s even touched my lips, sending a shiver down my spine.

Do you know it gives me a dead shoulder every time I drink it? Sounds mad, I know. I’m convinced it doesn’t go down my throat at all but creeps along the muscles of my neck, over to my shoulder, numbing it. Doesn’t do it with any other brand, mind, knows when I’m on the good stuff. I asked the Doc, the new one – Taylor, what that was all about. He told me cutting back was the only cure he knew of.

‘I didn’t ask for the cure,’ I said.

‘Drink isn’t the way to deal with loss, Mr Hannigan,’ came his reply.

Loss – what does he know about it, I ask you? He’s barely out of nappies for Christ’s sake. I’d say the closest he’s ever come to loss was his virginity, and even at that I can’t be sure he’s old enough. No one, no one really knows loss until it’s someone you love. The deep-down kind of love that holds on to your bones and digs itself right in under your fingernails, as hard to budge as the years of compacted earth. And when it’s gone … it’s as if it’s been ripped from you. Raw and exposed, you stand dripping blood all over the good feckin’ carpet. Half-human, half-dead, one foot already in the grave.

Jesus wept.

Sadie liked to have a sip of the good stuff herself. She wasn’t much of a drinker. But she always made an exception for Midleton at Christmas. Who in their right mind wouldn’t, eh?

So, the simple truth of it, son? The reason for me sitting here on my own talking to myself is her, how could it not be. I want your mother back. Plain as. I can’t do it on my own any more. I never dreamt the day I met her that there would come a time when I’d find it hard to breathe because her toothbrush no longer sits beside mine in the green, sorry – avocado, I always got that wrong, apparently – tumbler on the bathroom sink or because I can no longer hear her giving out when I set the fire wrong in the grate or that there is nothing – no breath, no heartbeat when I stretch my hand to her side of the bed in the morning. But I can’t. I can’t. And now it’s time to sort this mess of the last two years out and find the woman that claimed my soul the day we met.