When I ask, he rolls his eyes. But he surprises me with an honest answer.
‘I used to think of it often. New York. Boston. Philadelphia. Those kinds of places. The big wide skies and the skyscrapers.’
He looks up at the sky. It’s years since he talked about leaving Ireland. I thought he had it all forgotten. But perhaps it’s lingering inside him. I didn’t expect this.
‘Wouldn’t you feel lost, so far from home?’
I would feel lost without him. Tom is one of the great weights in my life. He keeps me on the ground. I can’t believe the idea is still in his head.
‘I would. Absolutely.’
He smiles. I can’t understand why that would make him smile. The idea of being one little Irishman among a million Irishmen amongmillions of Americans. Such startling insignificance.
We come into the warmth of the house. Tom blesses himself. Jack is nudging the fire back to life, telling a fairy story of some sort to Peggy. I realise now that he must be the one who taught her ‘Weila Waile’. I suppose he thought that was funny. I suppose he didn’t consider how it would reflect on me. I think sometimes we have to remind ourselves that Peggy is a person, not a pastime.
Jack
I MANAGED TO GET MYSELFout of the house and down to Doyle’s pub, where Tom said he would meet me at six. But ’tis twenty-five past now, and there’s no sign of him.
Just as I draw up a sigh, Teresa Doyle passes me and my breath halts. The same green dress she wore in John Moore’s front room. The same eyes, glinting for a second as she moves by. I sit up straight. I want to talk to her.
It’s shocking to think that I should want to talk to a girl when this time last year I didn’t think I would ever speak to anybody, ever again. When only last Christmas I was gearing up to become a father. How fast it all changes. If I think about it for too long, I feel taken over by a panicked happiness, as though you have just told me that you were pregnant.
Teresa pauses before me, the bar between us, looking at me while she touches a match to her cigarette. She puts the box between us.
‘Help yourself.’
Her voice comes with an unexpected rasp. A small thrill. And I hate that I have to push the box back to her.
‘I’m not a smoker anymore.’
She looks embarrassed. I feel embarrassed. You’d think that my greatest regret was telling Anna you were going to have a baby. But,to be honest, my biggest regret is giving up the smoking. Things are very bad when a man can’t even enjoy the brief peace of smoking a fag. There are times when I feel as though everything within me is about to boil over, out of my mouth and eyes, and I wish to god that I was in the humour to smoke a fag. But you didn’t like smoking, and so I didn’t like it, either. Then there are rare times like this, when a pretty girl puts a box of Carrolls in front of me, and I have to refuse her. Rather than staying to chat, she takes the box back and goes to clear glasses from the tables. I breathe in the smoke she left behind, and get nothing from it.
At last Tom lands on, giving me a shy wave from the door. Behind him comes Bill, and as soon as they’re in, several other men flock to them. Teresa appears again, ready to pull their pints. She looks at me only once. I want to apologise to her, but I’m not sure what I would be apologising for.
‘Jack, how’s the form?’
Bill asks, before Tom has even opened his mouth. Now that Tom is here with all of these men, I realise I am here on my own. I wonder what Bill thinks of me, the unemployed brother, drinking alone.
‘No complaints. How are things working out with himself?’
‘He’s a credit to ye.’
Bill laughs, and calls for a round of drinks. Rather than facing all the men he has met, he turns to me again.
‘And what would be your trade, Jack? If you’re anything like your brother, I could get you sorted with a job very fast.’
Tom’s face stiffens, like I’ve taken his favourite toy for myself.
‘Oh, a bit of everything. But I worked in the pub most often. I could pull five pints a minute.’
It’s easy to make Bill laugh. He’s easy to read; most people are. The flush of Tom’s cheeks deepens. Right now, he hates me. But I’m onlytreating him the way he treats me. He turns to the other men and starts reciting a joke or a limerick, something unfunny that will earn him a few seconds of attention.
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
Bill says to me, before turning back to his group, laughing along with Tom’s fooling. I don’t need Bill’s attention. I just wanted to remind Tom that I could take it away from him, if I wanted to.
And once more, I am on my own.
