When All Is Said(67)

My piss is unreliable as usual. Of late it’s become erratic, threatening to flood its banks one minute and refusing to squeeze a drop the next. I stand at the urinal waiting for it to make its mind up.

‘Get out to fuck,’ I order. And for once in its life it obeys, flows like the Shannon, in a flash flood. A good omen, I think.

After, I stare down at the Armitage Shanks sink, letting the water flow for far too long, not wanting to look in the mirror just yet. But when I eventually lift my white fluffy mane, it is my father that greets me. It’s not the first time. As the years have gone on I’ve noticed him creep into my face more and more. Sunken cheeks and high forehead. But it’s mostly in the eyes. Grey marble beads of wisdom. I stand as tall as I can and smile. And then I reach my hand to touch the cold glass.

‘You’ve done mighty, son,’ he says, ‘mighty.’

It takes me by surprise, so much so my eyes sting, and I know if I’m not careful tears will force themselves out, making a spectacle of me. Enough of that now, I think, as I shake my head and make for the door.

On my way back up the corridor to the foyer, I wonder what would happen if I shouted out my intentions to the world. At the double doors I dance a shuffle as I manoeuvre my way through the couple coming in the opposite direction. Still got the moves. What would happen, do you think, if I leaned in to whisper in their ear to tell them of my plans, would they believe me? Would they whip out their phones and ring 999? Or would they simply smile and walk away from the drunk old raving fool?

On I go, overshooting my turning for the bar, my feet bringing me to stand once more at the picture of Hugh Dollard, in the foyer. He still looks nothing like the man I remember. What might he say were he to know that tonight I’ll sleep in the room that was once his? And that everything that was ever dear to him is now mine. I sway back and forth, my hands still in my pockets, thinking of my victories all over again.

‘Did you know Great-uncle Timothy?’ a voice asks me, interrupting my simple pleasures. I look around and see a face that I’ve not seen in years.

‘Hilary?’ I say, ‘Hilary Dollard?’

‘Dollard was never my surname, not even before I married Jason. It’s Bruton, please.’ She gives me a tight-lipped smile that suggests friendliness, but you can never be too careful. She’s got her daughter’s eyes, though, or Emily has got hers, whichever way round it might be. Soft brown. The generations washing away the Dollard sharpness. Oh, but all the Dollard ghosts: Amelia, Rachel, Hugh, Thomas, are there in hints, around the mouth and her cheekbones, diluted down into something … kinder. Thin, vulnerable, grey hair surrounds her face.

‘Mr Hannigan. I don’t think we’ve ever formally met.’

She gives me her hand. Unlike when I refused her husband’s, I take hers now and hold it. When she finally pulls it away she sits on the couch and watches the suited and booted men pass by. She bends her head to those who say hello like she is the Queen of Rainsford, which I suppose in a way, she is.

‘I thought I’d come and see the place in full swing, as they say.’ She gives me a smile that, again, seems genuine and pats the seat beside her.

I move towards it, but stay standing, so she must look up at me.

‘I will not bite, Mr Hannigan.’

‘I stopped being afraid of you Dollards a long time ago.’

‘Is that so?’ she says with a laugh. ‘I rather hoped we haunted your dreams.’

I look at her and can’t help but smile, I can imagine why Jason Bruton fell for her.

‘I’d take a nightmare any day, if it meant I could sleep. I haven’t been doing much of that lately,’ I say, finally sitting beside her.

She glances over to me and smiles the smile of a fellow sufferer before looking down at her hands, her face becoming serious.

‘Since the day Jason died I don’t think I’ve slept one full night unaided. In the beginning I would bolt awake thinking it must have been something I did that caused him to get so ill.’

I look at her but she doesn’t turn to me. We sit in the awkwardness of our silence for a moment, while all around us the place bustles. A man carrying a keyboard comes through the front doors and makes his way to the back corridor. I think of rising to assist him with the double doors but know my knees would not let me get there in time and so I watch him put his back to them and push his way through, nearly knocking over a young one coming from the other side with an unlit cigarette. They laugh at their near collision and she skips past him, smiling broadly as he and his keyboard squash back against the door. I see him delay his exit and watch in appreciation of the girl’s departing figure.

‘Pretty aren’t they?’ Hilary says. ‘Girls these days. They seem prettier than in our day. Taller. Definitely taller.’

I laugh at the compliment of her thinking we are the same age. I must be at least twenty years her senior.

‘You said “Timothy”,’ I say.

‘Pardon?’

‘Timothy, you said “Great-uncle Timothy”. Your man there in the picture. Emily told me it was Hugh Dollard, Thomas’s father.’ My mouth feels dry and I think of my whiskey sitting waiting for me on the bar. At least I hope it’s still there and Svetlana hasn’t cleared it by now.

‘No, that man there was Hugh’s younger brother, Timothy. I never met him myself. I simply wondered as you were looking at him for so long if you knew him from all those years ago before he left?’