I didn’t even know what squalid meant. But I remember the word all the same.
“Has your mother stripped any more sheep?”
That got a good giggle all around. Stripping sheep. Har-de-har-har. Still, I had to speak then. A guy can’t have anyone going on about his mother. I decided to stand up to give me a better chance of escape, or attack.
“I’m not a farmer, Ball. We don’t live in a cave, and my mother does not strip sheep.”
“Oh really? Is that a fact now?”
“Yes.”
They were gathered in a semicircle. Eyes bright, even in the shadow of the trees. I realized then that they’d been drinking. I’d seen this look before, at home in Newford. We had a town drunk, the same as every other village in Ireland. Our particular version always decided to settle old scores when he’d had a few. It looked like the same idea had a hold on Ball.
“The thing is, McCall, that I don’t care about your exact circumstances. A bumpkin is a bumpkin is a bumpkin.”
I was supposed to reply to that, even though it wasn’t a question. Trading insults is like a game of tennis, and Brendan had whacked the ball into my side of the court. The thing was, I didn’t want to play. I decided to try the staring out tactic that was so effective on the soccer field. The thing about that tactic is that on the field, things are more or less even. Here, I was outnumbered ten to one. Me giving Ball the evil eye just made him angrier.
“What’s wrong, farmer? Cat got your tongue? Or a sheep maybe, or a cow?”
I ground my teeth. Whatever I said, he would just twist it to make me look stupid.
“Thing is, McCall, you’ve been getting a bit uppity lately. Not as subservient as you should be.”
Subservient? What self-respecting teenager would use a word like that?
A group of girls had assembled at the opposite bank. They were hanging over the railing, giggling and waving. Ball waved back jauntily. Another wing of his fan club. Here to witness the humiliation of the scholarship boy.
“So from now on,” he continued in a slightly louder voice, so his words would carry, “I would like you to call me sir.”
A disbelieving snort shot down my nose. I’d been concentrating so hard on the mouth that I’d forgotten about the nose.
Ball’s face burned. “Is there a problem, bucko?”
I didn’t move a muscle. Not even an eyelid.
“I said, is there a problem?”
I chanced a shrug. Neither yes nor no.
Brendan chose to take it as a yes. “Good. Let’s hear it, then.”
I blinked. This had gone far enough.
“Just say: That’s fine by me, sir.”
Stupidly I chose that moment to speak. “There’s no need for you to call me sir, Brendan.”
Crickets had been sawing in the trees, but I’d swear even they shut up at that moment. The silence didn’t last long. The downside to being a bully is that even your friends secretly long for your downfall. The girls at the fence laughed hysterically, slapping the bars with glee.
“Good lad, Paddy! You tell that big bully.”
I guessed that I was Paddy. Brendan guessed it too, and made the transformation from sophisticated wit to thug in the blink of an eye.
Before he knew what he was doing, he lashed out with his hand. The fingers caught me across the mouth. It stung, but no big deal. I’d had worse slaps from a fish’s tail. Ball gazed in surprise at his fist, as though it had betrayed him. He’d blown his cool, and in public.
Taking advantage of confusion is a soccer player’s favorite strategy, so that’s what I decided to do. I planted my palms in that loudmouth’s chest and pushed as hard as I could. He keeled over and slid down the bank on his backside. Most embarrassing.
Ball’s gang was on me quicker than hounds on a fox. They were weak enough, never having done a day’s work in their lives. But there were a lot of them and they pinned me to the slopes, mud squelching around my ears.
The girls were still laughing on the fence. We were like theater to them, like a serial at the movies.
Ball climbed back up the slope, slapping the mud from his blazer. He didn’t look happy.
“Ask me to let you go,” he said, swallowing his anger before the audience.
“What?”
“You want to get up?”
I nodded warily.
“All you have to do is ask.”
What was he up to now?
“All right. Let me up.”
Brendan shook his head. “Ah, no. No, no. You have to ask properly.”
“Please let me up.”
“No, farmer boy. Properly. Call me sir.”
So that was it. He was still sticking to the original plan.
“Get lost, Ball.”
You could almost see the confusion spinning around his head. Brendan had gotten his own way for the last sixteen years. And here was some farmer standing up to him, metaphorically speaking. And in front of the girls. He placed a dripping shoe on my chest.
“Say it, McCall!”
“You’ll be deep in your cold grave, Ball.”
That was a good one. My mother always said that when Dad asked her to bring in the coal.
“I’m warning you, McCall. We’ll give you the thrashing of your life.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. These boys weren’t going to thrash anybody. Not enough to scare anyone from a Christian Brother college.
Ball saw it in my face. He knew I wasn’t worried about a few punches. A new strategy was called for. He leaned down, his mouth close to my ear.
“Here’s what we’ll do, farmer boy. Either you call me sir right now, or we take off your trousers and throw you in the river.”
I nearly laughed again, but then I remembered the girls. Hanging on the railing, dying for some amusement. Even the thought made me blush.
They had me. Ball sniffed victory.
“It’s up to you. Personally, I hope you refuse.”
It’s different for country boys. It was then, anyway. We didn’t know girls. We didn’t have the Dubliners’ easy way with them. I’d have been mortified to have to dance with one, never mind slosh around a river in my underwear.
“Let me up, Ball,” I grunted. I tried for threatening, but all I managed was borderline desperate.
“Let me up—what?”
I sighed. Which was worse? The word or the river? I chose. The wrong choice, I think now, and have thought for fifty years.
“Let me up—sir.”
And the sound of their laughter still echoes inside my head. . . .
The image above Lowrie’s head dissolved in a cloud of colored light.
“Did you ever think about just getting on with your life?” asked Meg. “Forgive and forget, that sort of thing.”
Lowrie’s lip stuck out like an infant’s. He’d been nursing this particular grudge for fifty-three years, and wasn’t about to give up on it now.
“It’s ages ago, for God’s sake. Before loads of stuff was even invented.”
Lowrie didn’t answer. He couldn’t, with all the other passengers on the train. He didn’t have to. Meg didn’t need her limited telepathy to read the message shooting from his eyes.
“Okay, okay,” she sighed. “I’ll shut up and do what I’m told. But I’d just like to register an official complaint, in case there’s anyone listening upstairs. I do not agree with flattening old people, and I’m only following orders.”
She could see it was working. Lowrie was growing uncomfortable with his own wish. But he would-n’t give in. Not just yet. No problem. She had hours of nagging left in her.
THEY RODE THE TRAIN RIGHT TO THE FERRY PORT OF Rosslare. Twelve months a year, the small town was hopping with Americans looking for their roots, Dutch tourists looking for hills, and New Age mystics searching for leprechauns. In this company a man talking to himself seemed the epitome of normality.
“We could have come here first, you know,” complained Meg. “It’s only down
the road from Newford—where you live, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I know,” replied Lowrie. “I prioritized the list. In case I . . .”
“In case you what?”
“In case I, you know, didn’t make it.”
“Oh.”
They walked in silence for a while. Then Meg had a thought.
“How do you know where this man lives? Have you been stalking him or something?”
Lowrie shook his head. “No. Dear old Brendan had his face in the local paper a few years ago. He retired down here after an illustrious career in the city. Bought a famous cottage. Used to belong to James Joyce’s grandmother.”
“What does ‘illustrious’ mean?”
“That doesn’t matter. You know all you have to.”
Meg tutted. “That other Lowrie didn’t last long. Where are all the adieus and the madams now?”
“I’m sorry,” apologized the old man. “Just thinking about that man sets my blood boiling.”
“I know the feeling,” said Meg, seeing Franco’s face in her mind’s eye. Now, there was a head that needed punching.
They made their way to the outskirts of the village, past an almost interminable line of bed-and-breakfasts. The afternoon sun was making a watery effort to burst through gray rolls of cloud. Perched atop a hill, like the Psycho house, was Ball’s cottage.
“Spooky,” muttered Meg, shivering.
“Spooky?” chuckled Lowrie. “What sort of ghost are you?”
“One who’s not happy bopping old geezers.”
Meg decided to turn the screws a bit. “Would you prefer a straight nosebreaker? Or maybe a few kicks in the kidneys when he’s down?”
“I don’t care.”
“What about a headlock till he begs for mercy?”
Two red spots were rising in Lowrie’s cheeks. “I’ll leave that to you, will I? You being the expert on matters criminal.”
Meg swallowed a grin. All according to plan.
There were crazy-pavement steps running up to the cottage. Lowrie was taking his time mounting the slabs. A slick layer of sweat shone through his sparsely covered scalp.
“Second thoughts?” inquired Meg innocently.
Lowrie rubbed salty beads from the creases around his eyes. “No. No second thoughts.”
“Sure?”
“Certain!”
Lowrie took a shaky breath and forced himself to calm down. It’d be an awful shame to have a heart attack right here on Ball’s doorstep.
“Listen, Meg,” he said. “Here’s my idea. I go in, introduce myself, remind him of that day in Westgate, and ask him to call me sir. When he refuses, as I’m certain he will, then you take over my body and let him have it right on the snobby upper-class jaw.”
“Ten-four, Captain. I just hope I don’t kill him.”
Lowrie started. “Kill him?”
“You never know. I don’t know my own strength, these days.”
“I don’t want you to kill anyone.”
“What? After what he did to you? It’s the least I could do.”
Lowrie stopped climbing. “Don’t mess around. A little punch on the chin. That’s all I want. No killing, maiming, or marks.”
“I’ll do my best. No promises, mind.”
Lowrie continued up the path, his step slightly less determined than usual. A maelstrom of emotions clouded his aura. Fear and doubt spliced with hate and regret. A powerful concoction.
The door was aluminum. Out of place in the salt-weathered brickwork.
“That’s typical Ball,” muttered Lowrie. “The old door probably wasn’t good enough for him.”
“Are you going to spend all day admiring the architecture or are we going to get this over with?”
Lowrie flexed his fingers, reluctant to ring the bell.
“Well?”
“Okay, okay. This isn’t easy for me.”
Meg knew exactly what he meant. Facing your demons was no picnic. Especially if your demons seemed to be half-human, half-hound from hell.
Lowrie reached up a shaky finger.
“All right, you old fool,” he admonished himself. “He’s just a man. Just a man.”
Then the door opened. Lowrie jerked backward guiltily, almost tumbling head over heels down the crazy-paving steps.
“Very elegant,” muttered Meg.
Brendan Ball stood, shaded by the door frame.
“Yes?” he inquired hesitantly. “Who is it?”
Lowrie worked up his courage, swallowing half a century’s bile. Tell him, go on, tell him!
He never got the chance. His old adversary placed a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles over rheumy eyes.
“My God. It can’t be! Lowrie McCall.”
Lowrie nodded, unwilling to trust his voice.
“I don’t believe it. Lowrie McCall. Well, come in, for heaven’s sake.”
Ball bustled down the hallway, gesturing over his shoulder for Lowrie to follow.
“Oh, he’s a real pig,” commented Meg. “Asking you in like that. The nerve of some people.”
Lowrie aimed one of his vitriolic orange gazes at Meg’s head, and followed Ball into the house. They emerged in a sitting room. All polished wood and glass.
“Can you believe it?” said Ball, pointing at the television screen. “I was just watching you on video.”
Lowrie’s head was freeze-framed on the monitor. “Well, sit down, sit down. Now what can I get you?” Lowrie sank into an antique leather-trimmed armchair. If Ball hadn’t invited him to sit, his legs probably would have given out anyway.
“I’d like a . . . glass of water, if you have it.”
Ball clapped his hands delightedly. “Of course, old buddy, of course.”
Lowrie blinked. Old buddy?
“Be with you in a sec.”
And Ball was gone, darting off into the kitchen, like some slightly arthritic whirlwind.
“I’d like a glass of water if you have it,” mimicked Meg. “What sort of revenge visit is this?”
“He’s taken me by surprise, that’s all,” spluttered Lowrie.
“You were expecting a sixteen-year-old, I suppose?”
“No, of course not. I was expecting . . .”
Lowrie paused. His ghostly partner was right. He had been expecting a sixteen-year-old. Maybe not the face and body, but certainly the attitude. He’d never for one second dreamed that he’d be recognized, never mind invited in.
Ball swept back into the room. A tray of cakes balanced on a jug of iced water.
“Mister Ball . . .” began Lowrie.
“No! Not another word until you’ve refreshed yourself. Your face is the color of a beetroot, and at our age you have to be careful about these things.” Ball patted his own chest. “Believe me, I know.”
Lowrie nodded, gratefully accepting a crystal tumbler of water. He drained the entire glass before speaking again “Heart trouble?”
Ball nodded. “Triple bypass last year. Nearly shuffled off the mortal coil. One hell of a wake-up call.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You too?”
“Afraid so. I need a donor. But I’m at the bottom of a list.”
Ball seemed genuinely saddened. “Oh, but that’s terrible. Perhaps I could make a few phone calls?”
Lowrie shook his head. “No, thank you . . . uh . . .”
“Brendan.”
“No, thank you, Brendan. There are four AB negatives waiting in Ireland. The other three are young people.”
“I see.”
Both men were silent for a moment. Heart disease was a real conversation stopper.
“I’m glad you called, Lowrie,” said Ball eventually.
“I’ve been meaning to look you up, actually.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” The old man took a deep breath.
“Since the operation, I’ve been thinking. About a lot of things. About the past.”
Lowrie was stunned. This was too much. Ball
was like him. Just like him. Could they both have changed so much?
“There are a lot of things I regret not doing,” he stared fixedly at the floor. “And things I regret doing.” Ball ran a thin finger around the rim of his glass.
“Things have been bothering me, Lowrie. Things I have to make amends for.”
“Brendan, there’s no need . . .”
“No, Lowrie, please hear me out. I made myself a promise, lying there in the Blackrock Clinic, that if I ever got on my feet again, there were a few people I’d have to talk to. You were one of them.”
There was a word for this, thought Lowrie. Synchronicity.
“Something happened a long time ago,” continued Ball. “You probably don’t even remember it.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” muttered Meg, but Lowrie was so engrossed that he barely heard her.
“In my younger days, I was incorrigible. I know we had great times, and that one tends to forget the bad times, but there were bad times too.”
Lowrie nodded. They hadn’t been erased for him.
“I remember one summer’s night. Our final year, when I grievously embarrassed you in front of a crowd. Made you call me sir. You have no idea how many nights that terrible act has come back to haunt me. I lie awake cringing at the memory. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Now?” asked Meg. “Do I let him have it now?”
“No!” blurted Lowrie.
Ball nodded, crestfallen. “I understand. No need to explain.”
“No, Brendan, I mean—there’s no need for forgiveness. It was a lifetime ago. I barely even remember it.”
“Oh, you fibber,” chuckled Meg.
“It’s good of you to say that, Lowrie. But we both know how terrible that night was.”
Lowrie sighed. “Yes, Brendan. You’re right. I do remember. It was a terrible night. I often think it affected my entire life.”
“I knew it,” said Ball, dropping his head into shaking hands. “You had every right to seek me out. Take whatever revenge you will, I have no right to object.”
Lowrie placed a hand on his shoulder. “That’s not why I’m here. That incident really was nothing. And if it affected me for so long, it’s because I allowed it to. I only came to look up an old . . . friend. Nothing more.”
Ball peered out from between his fingers. “Really?”