—Why?
—I shouldn’t be doing it. I’m not the right – I don’t believe in it.
She was going to go home at the weekend, and tell her family – her mother and her brother – about her decision and about the interview, and the abortion. Then she was going back to London. She was a Londoner, she said.
—I don’t like this place, she said.
She meant the Government Buildings around the corner. She meant Dublin. She meant Ireland.
She stood up. She held out the newspaper she’d been reading when I’d arrived.
—Do you want it?
—No, thanks, I said.
—It was nice talking to you, she said.
She died five months later.
7
I’d been coming to the pub later, making myself stay in the apartment a bit longer. I’d sit and force myself to write a page, sometimes two pages – I’d started five short stories. Then I’d go down to Donnelly’s. I’d stare at one of the televisions – women’s golf, Spanish football – and hope and dread that Fitzpatrick would come up behind me and slap my back. I’d seen him do that. I’d seen him in among other men, before he’d make his way across to me.
I didn’t like him. I really didn’t like him. He made me nervous. And he bored me. I hated it when he stood too close, or when he sat back, right in front of me, and scratched his crotch or walloped his stomach. And I couldn’t remember him. He’d been in school with me; I didn’t doubt that. But I couldn’t see him when I thought about those years. He sometimes sat beside me in the pub and I tried to feel it, him beside me, to the left or to the right of me, forty years before. I saw myself sitting at a desk; I felt the heat of the room, or the cold; I saw the book – Irish, history, Soundings – open in front of me. I could remember, or assemble, those details. I could look around at faces I remembered, or just names. My memory was some sort of Brecht play; I was surrounded by surnames and nicknames scrawled on placards. Moonshine, Doc, Toner, Gaffney. Tom Jones, Patch, Super Cool. But never Fitzpatrick. He was in among the faceless. I didn’t like him but I wanted to remember him. I wanted that bridge. Really, I wanted to be in among the men. To feel myself settle, to feel that – somehow – I was back.
There were some empty stools at the bar. I took one and waited for Carl. He was chatting and laughing with another barman. They were looking at something on Carl’s phone. Then he saw me.
—Jesus, sorry.
—No problem.
—Your man here was distracting me. The usual?
I nodded.
—Cool, he said.
The Guinness tap was right in front of me.
—Summer’s over, he said.
—Seems like it today.
—I stuck the gas fire on this morning for a bit, he said.—Didn’t want to, but.
—You’re getting old, I told him.
—Must be.
He was thirty or so, I guessed. Older than my son, but not much older. He had the beard and – I was guessing again – when he wasn’t in his black work shirt, he wore plaid. I couldn’t see any tattoos but I was betting there was a small one on his chest or on one of his legs.
He put the pint on the tray.
—You meeting your brother tonight? he asked.
—What?
—Are you meeting your brother?
—My brother?
—Is he not your brother?
—Who?
I sat up straighter so he could see me properly. He was mixing me up with someone else. His mind was still looking at whatever had been making him laugh a few minutes before.
—Sorry, he said.—I just thought you were brothers.
He had my pint back under the tap; he wanted to get out of this conversation.
—Who? I said.—Who’s my brother?
I was smiling. I was safe here; I didn’t have a brother.
—I just thought, he said.—I kind of took it for granted. The dude you’re always with.
—Fitzpatrick?
—If that’s his name, yeah.
If that was his name? Fitzpatrick was a regular; he’d been coming into this place for a long time before I’d arrived. I’d seen him in among the locals. I’d seen him looking at the women. I’d envied him.
—Ed, I said.—Fitzpatrick.
—Grand.
—He’s not my brother.
—Cool, said Carl.—No offence. Here you go.
He lowered the pint in front of me. He hesitated – stopped before the glass made contact with the wood and flicked a beermat under it. I remember all this. He put the pint on the mat and waited a second before he took his hand away from the glass. I handed over the fiver.
—Thanking you, sir, he said.
The till was behind him.
—What made you think we were brothers? I asked his back.
—I don’t know, really, he said.
—We’re not alike, I said.
He turned and looked at me.
—No, he said.—No, you’re not.
He put the change beside the pint. He looked along the bar to see if there was anyone wanting his attention. But it was still quiet.
—I’ve a brother, myself, he said.—Only a year and a bit between us. Actually, I’ve four brothers.
—Christ.
—And three sisters, he said.—A fuckin’ madhouse, man. But this brother, the one nearest me. Darryl. We were ringers for each other when we were kids. We’re not now, like. But when – up to about seventeen or eighteen or so. If he was here now, beside me here, you’d see we don’t look like each other. But people who don’t really know us still know we’re brothers. When we’re together, like.
He shrugged.
—That’s all, he said.—That’s all I meant. You seemed like brothers. The way when you’re together.
—Okay, I said.—But we’re not.
—Cool.
—We were in school together, I said.
—Oh – grand.
—Years ago.
—Cool, he said.—That might be it then. Being in school, like. Old buddies and that.
The place was filling. He left me alone.
8
The interview with Aileen Clohessy was published six days before the referendum. A sitting TD, daughter of a junior minister in the Cosgrave coalition, a member of a party that was recommending that the country vote Yes for the rights of the unborn child, had revealed that she’d had an abortion. And she’d disappeared, back to England.
I was being claimed by both sides. I enjoyed the attention; I knew I was being talked about, and I liked it. I liked saying the word – abortion.
The first time I went into a radio studio, on a panel with four other people who’d clearly met and discussed tactics before I arrived, I said nothing. I didn’t get a chance and I didn’t really care. The presenter was covering for the regular tyrant and he was terrified of the man sitting to my right, Father Tom Prendergast.
Prendergast put his big – his huge – hand on my shoulder.
—I think it’s great, he said, —young lads expressing their opinions.
His thumb went in under my collarbone. I was appalled, and then amused; this man who sang and laughed on The Late Late Show, behaving like a big thick in a schoolyard. He kept pressing until the green on-air light went on.
It wasn’t that I said nothing of note that first time. I said nothing at all. The other four were veterans and buddies. The unborn were well looked after. But I wasn’t cowed by Prendergast, or frightened. I was just raw. The presenter never asked me a question. He looked at me once during an ad break, and smiled.
But the fact that I was in the studio and referred to and thanked several times seemed to be enough. I was asked back. And I spoke. And caused outrage. I had to move out of my mother’s house
. Someone painted a cross on the front door and wrote ‘Killer’ on the step with the rest of the red paint. One of the neighbours was helping my mother get the paint off when I came home.
—Look what you’ve caused, said Missis McCarthy.—Yeh pup.
She was sweating and furious.
—What happened? I asked my mother.
—It’s not too bad, she said.—It’s coming off.
—It shouldn’t’ve been put on in the first place, said Missis McCarthy.—Bastards.
They were both on their knees, side by side, facing the front door. The cross was gone but there was a smudge, a stain, where they hadn’t been able to lift off all the paint. It wasn’t red any more; it just looked like dirt.
I couldn’t stay.
—The neighbours are grand, said my mother.—It wasn’t anyone we know.
—How do you know, Mam?
—No one we know would do something like this, she said.—They’d have too much respect for your father.
She smiled; her eyes filled.
—Why did you have to talk about that, Victor?
—What?
—Abortion, love. Of all things.
—There was a referendum.
—And it’s over, she said.
—The woman had an abortion, I said.—That’s why I’m asked about it.
—You don’t have to be there to answer them, she said.
—I thought you liked it.
—Not when you’re talking about bloody abortion, she said.
—Do you think it’s murder? I asked.
—Now he asks me, she said.—No. I don’t. But I won’t be jumping up and down telling people that.
—I’ll go, I said.
I was earning money. I had the deposit; I’d have the rent at the end of every week. I liked the idea of being banished.
—You’ll come and visit, she said.
—Of course.
She smiled. She cried.
—I am proud of you, she said.
—Thanks.
—So is Tilly.
She was talking about Missis McCarthy.
I took the record player and a lamp.
And I met Rachel. She sat down beside me outside a studio in RTE.
—You’re the backstreet abortionist, she said, before I’d looked up from my book, A Confederacy of Dunces.
I looked at her.
—Aren’t you? she said.
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I look at that sentence and I hate it. But it’s honest. I gawked up at her – I must have been gawking.
—So, she said.—What are you in for?
—Round-up of the day’s papers, I told her.
—You’re not reading them, she said.
—I don’t need to, I said.
She laughed.
I can still hear it.
—It’s the same shite every day, I said.
We could hear the weather forecast – always a male voice back then – from the speaker above our heads. I was on next.
—What about you? I asked her.
Rachel was unusual thirty years ago. She’s a national treasure now, but only because she was odd back then and had to fight. I think she was taken aback when I asked her why she was there. Taken aback, and pleased.
—My business, she said.
I thought she was telling me to mind my own.
—I’ll be chatting about my business, she said.
—Oh.
—Yeah.
—What is it? I asked.
—It’s boring, she said.
—What is it?
She laughed. She put two fingers on my arm.
—It’s catering.
—Great, I said.
We felt the air shift to our right as the outer door to the studio opened.
—Victor, a jaded voice sighed from inside.
We grinned at each other; we knew we were better than this.
—Break a leg, she said.
—I probably will.
—Will you wait for me? she said.—After you’re finished.
I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. But I had to. It was the proof I’d needed. I’d become someone else.
—Yeah, I said.—Great.
That was the morning I announced that I was writing a book.
—Oh, ho, said the presenter, Myles Bradley.—We’re in trouble, are we?
—You are, I said.
—What’s it called, so?
—Ireland, I said.—A Horror Story.
—What’s it about?
—Everything that’s wrong about this country, I said.
—It’s a pamphlet, said Bradley.
—A house brick.
—And packed full of our faults, is it?
—It will be.
—Good man, said Bradley.—We need a good bashing. That’ll be a book worth waiting for, I’m sure.
—I hope so.
—Good man.
She drove me into town. She had a small, red van that smelled new, with Meals on Heels printed on its sides and back door, with a phone number.
—Great name, I said.
—Thanks.
I watched her feet on the pedals; she’d taken her shoes off. I watched her hands, her long fingers, gripping the wheel. I watched her put her black hair behind her ear. I watched her ear. I watched her mouth as she spoke and when she was waiting at the traffic lights. She only spoke when the van was moving.
—When will the book be out? she asked.
—When it’s written, I said.
I had decided, before I got into the van: I wouldn’t spoof, I wouldn’t lie. I wouldn’t embellish or diminish. I’d only come up with the title half an hour before but I was going to write the book. I was going home now to start. Because I was sitting beside her.
—What about you? I asked.
We were at traffic lights somewhere along Morehampton Road, so I watched the impact of the question on her before she answered. The impatience, the shoulders pushed slightly forward, willing the lights to get a move on – that stopped. The beautiful, comical twist at the side of her mouth changed direction, or shape. She was shocked, and delighted. For a second or two, I felt I was watching a nature programme, Attenborough whispering in my ear: Note how the female responds when asked a question about herself.
The lights turned green, and she shoved the van forward.
—What about me? she said.
—Your business, I said.—How does it work?
I’d heard her while I’d been waiting outside the studio. But Myles Bradley had spent most of the ten minutes flirting with her. Here’s a lovely lady and she’s not going to be talking about fashion. I’d heard her laughing, and I knew now that it wasn’t her real laugh. I’d heard the real thing three or four times in the van, in the time it had taken us to get from Donnybrook to Leeson Street. Rachel laughed like a man. I don’t mean she sounded like a man – Jesus, no. But she threw her head back, even in the car seat, and guffawed. She gave it the full ‘ha ha ha’, not the ‘hee hee’ she’d delivered when Bradley thought he was charming the tights off her in front of the nation.
—How does it work? she repeated my question.
—Yes, I said.
—Well, she said.—It’s – You know when you’re at a wedding?
—No, I said.
—You’ve never been to a wedding?
—No, I said.—Not yet.
She grinned.
—Really?
I thought I’d got away with it. She’d missed ‘Not yet’. But she hadn’t, she told me later. She’d thought I was stupid, sweet and lovely.
—Really, I said.—Never been to one. Funerals are my speciality.
—Well then, she said.—You’re given a choice of maybe two main courses. Usually fucking chicken.
I was in love.
—But, she said,—we allow the client to have an open choice. We don’t give them a list or a menu. We let them make their own menu.
—Who’s ‘we’? I asked.
She laughed. She knew I was already jealous.
—Well, she said.—‘We’ is actually me. I was told I’d sound less like a psycho or a ruthless bitch if I said ‘we’ instead of ‘me’ or ‘I’.
—Who told you that? I asked.
—My father.
—Oh.
—He’s a prick, my dad, she said.—But it makes sense. ‘We’ says it’s a bigger operation than it actually is at the moment, and that it’s backed by more experience. ‘We’ says I’m not just a little girl playing recipes in the kitchen. And I can hide behind it.
But she didn’t.
—So ‘we’ is me for now, and I’ve a pool of girls who I can call on when I need them.
—Do you do weddings? I asked.
—No, she said.—Women prefer to be told what to do when it comes to their weddings. Their mothers become involved.
—Mothers are bad, yeah?
—God, yes. A fucking nightmare.
She laughed again, head back, as we chugged out onto Stephen’s Green.
—What about you? she said.—What’s your mum like?
—Great.
—Boy’s answer, she said.
I laughed. I know now: I didn’t laugh much until I met Rachel. It’s corny but true. I only laughed when other people were laughing. But now I started laughing. I started laughing, and she joined me.
She stopped outside the Unitarian Church.
—Well, she said.
—Well.
—Are we going to see each other again?
—Where are you going now? I said.—I’ll give you hand if you want.
She laughed.
Rachel doesn’t laugh on TV. I love that about her. She’s always kept that back. No one who doesn’t know her knows that Rachel laughs.
—You’d better get home, she said.—And finish your book.
She was looking straight at me.
—Or start your book.
Last time: she laughed.
* * *
There was once – this was just after we’d moved in together – we were still fucking long after the music had stopped. It was early evening, some midweek day. Our metal-framed windows, a line of them right along the long wall, were all open. The odd shout, the odd car horn and bus braking, the tick-tick of the needle waiting to be lifted off the record, our grunts – these were the sounds. Grunts – I’d stopped saying anything long before. Rachel too – nothing like a word had passed her lips. She was on her back, on the mattress – half on the mattress. Her legs were wrapped around me, up at my shoulders, and her fingers were on my back, my arse. I cried out. It was the roar of an animal and I loved it. Later. I could make this sound; it was in me. I owned it. And I owned it because the woman beneath me, the grunting, sweating animal that was pushing herself against me, had given it to me.