Clare had moved over to make room for him. ‘You’re looking marvellous,’ she said.
‘Why wouldn’t I, with all it cost?’ he said, laughing. ‘Can I get your ticket? Two to … are you going home or are you off to reform the world somewhere?’ He paused as the conductor waited.
‘Home,’ she laughed at him. ‘You haven’t changed Gerry, they didn’t knock the spirit out of you.’
‘No, only the spirits,’ he laughed happily, and handed her her ticket like you would give it to a child. ‘Here, take this in case we have a fight before we get home and you and I separate.’
‘Are you on your way home now from … you know?’
‘Yes, just released. They gave me back my own clothes, a few quid to keep me going and the names and addresses of people who might take on an ex-con …’ He laughed, but stopped when he noticed that Clare wasn’t laughing at all.
‘Wouldn’t you think Emma … ? It’s awful to have you coming out on your own, like this.’
‘I wanted to. Emma said she’d come in the car after work, your Des said he’d come for me in a taxi, Brother Jack, the ray of sunshine, said he’d arrive and escort me home after work, Father Vincent said he would come with a pair of wings and a halo and spirit me home … but I wanted to come home on my own. You could understand that, couldn’t you?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Clare, managing to get some lofty superiority into the two words.
‘Well, how’s everything been, out in the real world?’
‘Quiet, a bit quieter without you.’ She didn’t smile as she said it. She said it as though he were a dangerous influence, someone who had been upsetting people. There was ill-concealed regret that he was back in circulation. He smiled at her pleasantly as if he hadn’t understood her tone. He had to be very calm, no point in becoming touchy, no seeing insults, fancying slights, imagining hostilities; no running away to hide because people were embarrassed about his treatment; no rushing out to console himself because the world didn’t understand. Nice and easy.
‘Ah, if that’s the case we’ll have to liven it up a bit. A quiet world is no use to God, man or the devil, as they say.’ He left the subject and drew her attention to some demolition work they could see from the bus. ‘Hey, that reminds me,’ he said cheerfully, ‘did you hear the one about the Irish brickie who came in to this site looking for a job …’
Clare Kelly looked at him as he told the story. He looked slimmer and his eyes were clear. He was quite a handsome man in a way. Of course it had been years since she had seen him sober so that made a difference. She wondered, as she had wondered many times, what people saw in him; he had no brain whatsoever. In between his ears he had sawdust.
She smiled politely at the end of the story, but it didn’t matter to Gerry because the bus conductor and three people nearby had laughed loudly. And he was really telling the joke to them as much as to Clare.
* * *
He was pleased to see the flowers. That was very nice of Emma. He put his little case down in the sitting room and moved automatically to the cupboard under the music centre to pour himself a drink. He had his hand on the door when he remembered. God, how strong the old habits were. How ridiculous that in all those weeks in the hospital he never found himself automatically reaching for some alcohol, but now here at home … He remembered that nice young Nurse Dillon saying to him that he would find it hard to make the normal movements at home because he would be so accustomed to connecting them with drink. She had said that some people invented totally new things to do, like drinking Bovril when they came in to the house. Bovril? He had wrinkled his nose. Or Marmite, or any unfamiliar beverage, like hot chocolate. She had been very nice, that Nurse Dillon, regarded the whole thing as a bit of bad luck like getting measles; she had even given him a small Bovril last night and said that he might laugh but it could well come in handy. He had said that he was such a strong character he would go to the drinks cupboard and pour the bottles down the sink. Nurse Dillon said that he might find his wife had already done that for him.
Gerry opened the doors. Inside there were six large bottles of red lemonade, six of slimline tonic, six of Coca Cola. There was a bottle of Lime Cordial and a dozen cans of tomato juice. He blinked at them. It was a little high-handed of Emma to have poured away all his alcohol without so much as a by-your-leave. He felt a flush of annoyance creep up his neck. In fact it was bloody high-handed of her. What did all this business about trusting him, and relying on him, and not pressurising him, mean if she had poured his drink away? There had been the remains of a case of wine, and two bottles of whiskey there. Money to buy things didn’t grow on trees.
Very, very upset he went out to the kitchen and put his hands on the sink deliberately to relax himself. He looked at the plug hole. Without a word of consultation she had poured about twenty pounds’ worth of drink down there. Then his eye fell on a box in the corner of the kitchen, with a piece of writing paper sellotaped to it. ‘Gerry. I took these out of the sitting room cupboard to make room for the other lot. Tell me where you want them put. E.’ His eyes filled with tears. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and sniffed as he struck the match to light the gas to boil the kettle to make his cup of Bovril.
* * *
Mrs Moore had rung once or twice during the day, but there had been no reply. That Emma and her precious job. What was she except a glorified typist? Just because she was in Montrose, just because she had sat at the same table as Gay Byrne in the coffee shop, and walked down a corridor with Mike Murphy, just because she had given Valerie McGovern a lift and had a long chat with Jim O’Neill from Radio Two, did that make her special? Oh no, it didn’t, just a clerk is all she was. And a clerk with a heart of stone. The girl had no feeling in her. Wouldn’t any normal person have taken the day off to welcome her husband back from six weeks in hospital? But not Emma. The poor lad had to come back to an empty house.
‘Ah, there you are, Gerry, how are you, are you feeling all right now, did you have a good rest?’
‘Like a fighting cock, Mother, grand, grand altogether.’
‘And did they give you medicines, injections, did they look after you properly? I can’t think why you didn’t go to Vincent’s. Isn’t it beside you? And you have the Voluntary Health.’
‘Oh, I know, Mother, but they don’t have the course there. I had the whole course, you know, and thank God it seems to have worked. But of course, you never know. You’re never really sure.’
‘What do you mean you’re not sure, you’re all right! Didn’t they have you in there for six weeks? Gerry? Do you hear me? If you don’t feel all right, you should see someone else. Someone we know.’
‘No, Mother, I’m fine, really fine.’
‘So what did they tell you to do, rest more?’
‘No, the contrary in fact, keep busy, keep active, tire myself out even.’
‘But wasn’t that what had you in there, because you were tired out?’
‘Don’t you know as well as I do what had me in there? It was the drink.’
His mother was silent.
‘But it’s all right now, I know what I was doing to myself and it’s all over.’
‘A lot of nonsense they talk. Don’t let them get you involved in their courses, Gerry. You’re fine, there’s nothing the matter with you, you can have a drink as well as the next man.’
‘You’re not helping me, Mother, I know you mean well but those are not the facts.’
‘Facts, facts … don’t bother with your facts, with their facts up in that place. The fact is that your Father drank as much as he liked every evening of his life and he lived to be seventy, Lord have mercy on him. He would have lived to be far more if he hadn’t had that stroke.’
‘I know, Mother, I know, and you’re very good to be so concerned, but, believe me, I know best. I’ve been listening to them for six weeks. I can’t touch drink any more. It’s labelled poison as far as I’m concerned. It’s sad, but there it is.’
&
nbsp; ‘Oh, we’ll see, we’ll see. A lot of modern rubbish. Emma was explaining it to me. A lot of nonsense. People had more to do with their time when I was young than to be reading and writing these pamphlets about not eating butter and not smoking and not drinking. Wasn’t life fine in the old days before all these new worries came to plague us, tell me, wasn’t it?’
‘It was, Mother, it was,’ said Gerry wearily.
* * *
It had been fine for a while. When Gerry and Emma got married he had a good career. There was a lot of money to be made from advertising in the sixties: one day it had been a bottle and an elegant glass, another it had been a consultation about photo-graphing new banks, the sites, and personnel, the buildings. He had known all the agencies, there was no shortage of work. Emma had been so enthusiastic about his work – she had said it was much more vibrant and alive than her own. She had taught book-keeping and accountancy for beginners in a technical school. She never called it a career; she had been delighted to leave it when Paul was expected, and she had never seemed to want to go back when Helen was off to school and out of the way, and that was a good seven years ago. Now that the bottom had fallen out of the market in advertising and there were no good photographic jobs left, Emma wasn’t able to get back into teaching either. They didn’t want people who had opted out for fifteen years, why should they? That’s why she was up in the television station doing typing, and thinking herself lucky to get the job.
They had said in the nursing home it wasn’t very helpful to look back too much on the past; it made you feel sorry for yourself, or wistful. Or else you began to realise what had happened was inevitable, and that wasn’t a good idea either. You started to think you had no responsibility for your actions. So let’s not think of the past, the old days when life was fine. He made the Bovril and took it, sniffing it suspiciously, into the sitting room. Hard not to think of the old days. A picture of their wedding in the silver frame, laughing and slim, both of them. His own father and both Emma’s parents, now dead, smiled out more formally. His mother had looked confident, as if she knew she would be a long liver.
Then the pictures of Paul and Helen, the series he had done; they looked magnificent, people said, on an alcove wall, a record of the seventies children growing up, turning into people before your eyes. But they had stopped turning into people photographically about five years ago. The children seemed stuck in a time warp of his making.
He looked back at the wedding picture and again he felt the prickling in his nose and eyes that he had felt when he read Emma’s note in the kitchen. Poor girl, she was only a girl, she was only thirty-nine years old and she had been keeping four people for two years on a typist’s salary. That’s really what it boiled down to. Of course, there had been the odd cheque coming in for him, the royalties from some of those coffee table books; a little here for a print he’d taken from stock for someone’s calendar, a little there for a permission to reprint. But he had cashed those cheques and spent them himself. Emma had kept the family. God, he would make it up to her, he really would. He would make up every penny and every hour of worry and anxiety. He wiped his eyes again, he must be big and strong. Gerry Moore was home again, he was going to take over his family once more.
* * *
Emma hadn’t liked to make a phone call while the office was quiet. It was too important a call, she couldn’t suddenly hang up if she felt that people were listening to her. Anxiously she watched the clock, knowing that he must be home by now, wishing that she had done more to make the place welcoming, mentally ticking off the shopping she had done at lunch time; she was going to make them a celebratory meal. She hoped he wasn’t regretting his decision to come home alone; going back to an empty house, to a changed lifestyle after six weeks in a hospital, it wasn’t such a good idea. To her great delight the office filled up with people and she was able to turn her back and call home.
‘Hallo?’ His voice sounded a little tentative and even snuffly, as if he had a cold.
‘You’re very welcome home, love,’ she said.
‘You’re great, Emma,’ he said.
‘No I’m not, but I’ll be home in an hour and a half and I can’t wait to see you. It’s grand you’re back.’
‘The place is great. Thank you for the flowers and the card.’
‘Wait till you see what we’re going to have tonight – you’ll think you’re in a first class hotel.’
‘I’m cured, you know that.’
‘Of course I do. You’re very strong and you’ve got a terrific life ahead of you, we all have.’
His voice definitely sounded as if he had a cold, but maybe he was crying – she wouldn’t mention it in case it was crying and it upset him that she noticed.
‘The kids will be in any minute, you’ll have plenty of company.’
‘I’m fine, I’m fine. You’re very good to ring. I thought you couldn’t make calls there.’ She had told him that the organisation expressly forbade private calls in or out. She had said this to stop him ringing when he was drunk.
‘Oh, I sneaked one because today is special,’ she said.
‘I’ll soon have you out of that place, never fear,’ he said.
She remembered suddenly how much he hated her being the breadwinner.
‘That’s great,’ she said. ‘See you very soon.’ She hung up. He sounded grand. Please, please God may it be all right. There was a man in RTE who hadn’t touched a drop in twenty years, he told her. A lovely man, great fun, very successful, and yet he said he was a desperate tearaway when he was a young fellow. Maybe Gerry would be like him. She must believe. She must have faith in him. Otherwise the cure wouldn’t work.
* * *
Paul came home first. He shuffled a bit when he saw his father sitting reading the Evening Press in the big armchair. It wasn’t just six weeks since he had seen such a scene, it was much longer; Dad hadn’t been round much for ages.
He put down his books on the table.
‘You’re back, isn’t that great?’ he said.
Gerry stood up and went and put both hands on his son’s shoulders. ‘Paul, will you forgive me?’ he asked, looking straight into the boy’s eyes.
Paul squirmed, and flushed. He had never been so embarrassed. What was Dad saying these awful corny lines for? It was worse than some awful old film on the television. Would he forgive him? It was yucky.
‘Sure, Dad,’ he said, wriggling away from the hands. ‘Did you get the bus home?’
‘No, seriously, I have been very anxious to say this to you for a few weeks, and I’m glad to have a chance before there’s anyone else here.’
‘Dad, it doesn’t matter. Aren’t you fine now, isn’t that all that counts?’
‘No, of course it isn’t. There’s no point in having a son unless you can talk to him. I just want to say that for too long this house hasn’t been my responsibility. I was like someone who ran away, but I’m back, and it will all be like it was when you were a baby and don’t remember … but this time you’re grown up.’
‘Yes,’ said Paul, bewildered.
‘And if I make rules and regulations about homework and helping in the house, I’m not going to expect you to take them meekly. You can say to me, what kind of sod are you to be ordering us about, where were you when I needed you? I’ll listen to you, Paul, and I’ll answer. Together we’ll make this a proper family.’
‘I wouldn’t say things like that. I’m glad you’re home, Dad, and that it’s cured, the illness bit, honestly.’
‘Good boy.’ His father took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘You’re a very good boy. Thank you.’
Paul’s heart sank. Poor old Dad wasn’t in good shape at all, maybe his mind had gone in that place, talking all this sentimental crap, and tears in his eyes. Oh shit, now he couldn’t ask to go over to Andy’s house. It would cause a major upheaval and maybe his father would burst into tears. God, wasn’t it depressing.
* * *
Helen went into t
he presbytery on her way home in order to speak to Father Vincent.
‘Is anything wrong?’ The priest immediately assumed the worst.
‘No, Mummy keeps saying there’s no crisis, so it must all be fine, but I came to ask if you’d call in tonight on some excuse. If you could make up some reason why you had to call …’
‘No, child, your father’s coming home tonight, I don’t want to intrude on the family, you’ll all want to be together. Not tonight, I’ll call in again sometime, maybe in a day or two.’
‘I think it would be better if you came in now, at the beginning, honestly.’
The priest was anxious to do the best thing but didn’t know what it was. ‘Tell me, Helen, what would I say, what would I do? Why would I be a help? If you could explain that to me then I would, of course.’
Helen was thoughtful for a moment. ‘It’s hard to say, Father Vincent, but I’m thinking of other times. Things were never so bad when you were there, they used to put on a bit of manners in front of you, you know, Mummy and Daddy, they wouldn’t be fighting and saying awful things to each other.’
‘Yes, but I don’t think …’
‘It mightn’t have looked great to you, but if you weren’t there, Daddy would be drinking much more and saying awful things and Mummy would be shouting at him not to upset us …’
The child looked very upset; Father Vincent spoke quickly. ‘I know, I know, and a lot of homes that sort of thing happens in. Don’t think yours is the only one where a voice is raised, let me assure you. But you’re forgetting one thing, Helen, your father is cured. Thank God he took this cure himself. It was very hard and the hardest bit was having to admit that he couldn’t handle drink. He now has admitted this and he’s fine, he’s really fine. I’ve been to see him, you know, up in the home. I know he didn’t want you children going there, but he’s a new man, in fact he’s the old man, his old self, and there won’t be a thing to worry about.’