Jack
BELOW IN DOYLE’S. THE EVENINGruns away from me. At last, a decent way to pass my time. Half the parish arrives down at the pub on Saturday nights. Young people, old people, married and single, with company and without. Everyone is here, the air thick with bodies, with laughter and smoke. The normal tide of melancholy that comes to pull me away in the evenings has not been able to find me. The small glints of happiness that have been so scattered seem to all be coming at once, shining all around me. I feel a part of the town suddenly; everybody knows my name. For the first time in a long time, life isn’t galloping on ahead of me. I can keep up with the pace of things. It feels good.
I finally introduced myself to our landlord, the doctor. I served him two pints of Beamish and a bottle of orange. He’s sound enough; I can’t see why Tom is so spooked by him. Imagine, I might never have met the man if I didn’t take this job. I feel lucky, I do.
‘You’d never take out that bin, would you, Jack?’
Teresa asks, brushing past me. Working with her isn’t what I expected it would be; her long looks, the suggestive sucking of sweets and the smoke of her cigarettes settling in under the collar of my shirt. Rather, she has taken charge. Calling out orders, not taking it easy on me, paying the customers a mile more attention than she pays me. She talks to the locals as though she invented them. Seeing this new side toher makes me want to show her all the sides to me.
I do as I’m asked. I take the bin out the back, and wonder who will put Peggy to bed tonight, and how well she will sleep without me. Looking out onto the lonely street, I let out a breath, cold and white. And I realise how far I have come. I didn’t expect to see you in the empty street, I didn’t want to. Isn’t that funny? All this time, I’ve been waiting for you to appear in empty spaces. Lately, I’ve found that I’m alright with emptiness. Come here to me, darling, if you can call down, then you should. Not so that I can see you, but so that you can see how well I’m doing without you. I think you’d be proud of me.
‘Come on, dosser!’
Teresa calls from behind me. A smile revealing her bottom teeth, her hand reaching out for me. Beckoning me back in. Closer to her. The light of the pub snuffed out as the back door closes behind her. The laughter inside, dampened.
The quiet of the night.
Teresa before me. Shrouded in the amber glow of the stained glass of the door. Trembling stars, heavy moon. Softly, she smiles. Look at how far I have come.
A surge of emotion, a gratitude for being alive, a desire to feel her, all come together to pull me nearer to her. So near that I can see the coating the mint humbugs have left on her bottom lip. The earth beneath me softens. I feel like myself, and a night breeze brings me into her. Something that has had a vice grip on me lets go. And I kiss her.
Meeting her mouth, I feel I am the whole night. Each shade of its darkness, the gossamer stretch of cloud and every glossy star. She and I, a small nebula by the bins. Everything twinkling.
And even when she puts a space between us, and you make your way back into my thoughts, the earth remains soft. I remain solid. Not melting into a panic, not collapsing from guilt. I don’t merely feel fine.Rather, I feel alive. I think I had forgotten that I am still alive, and that I must live.
As she heads back inside, she turns to look at me. Teresa, by the light of a Saturday night. Reaching her hand out to me once more, bringing me back inside with her. All night, the stars outside tap on the windows, wanting to be let in. Wanting to be a part of me again.
Anna
NOTHING IS WORKING OUT THEway that Tom promised it would. The person I used to be never gave way to the person I am supposed to be. My trouble was supposed to run off me, instead it has run to find me.
Betty wants space from me. Like everybody always wants space from me. Like you and Milly and Catherine and all the rest of them. Why isn’t anybody happy to be close to me? Why doesn’t anybody seem to love me on the same frequency that I love them? I want to get it right. I want to move on and live a nice life, like everybody else. All I do now is block out the thoughts of you. Of what happened. The heat with which I needed you. The reasons you are gone. I block them all out, and yet they crawl unnamed across my skin. All the time. Creeping across my eyelids, your hair and body and hands, always just out of sight. Felt but unacknowledged. As though you are still struggling through your last breath. As though I could stop it all.
Tom coughs, attention seeking. I am brought back to the table, where I didn’t realise I was sitting. Peggy leaning against my chair, biting her nails. He has something sad to say, I can see by the sad smile on his face.
‘I was saying my prayers last night, and I forgot Daddy.’
He almost laughs when he says it, as though it’s the only way hecould force it out of his throat. Peggy blesses herself. Just for a second, I am grounded. I am sitting with my brother as he tells me something painful, as he tries to make it into something that he can swallow. I forget whatever I was just thinking about. We are together. He forgot to pray for Daddy. Another person wouldn’t care much about that sort of thing, but I can’t imagine all the ways that it would kill Tom. He hangs onto Daddy’s death the most.
‘I said my prayers twice last night, don’t worry.’
I say, smiling, lying and hoping he will accept it. Better that than to tell him that I haven’t said a real prayer in donkey’s years. Maybe that’s my problem.
That’s the sort of admission that would send Tom into shock. The sort of thing you go to hell for, I’m sure. Then, I’m sure I’m heading to hell anyway. Probably myself and Jack and Tom will all end up down there, still looking up at you and Mammy and Daddy. Nothing will really change.
I would never tell Tom this, but hell is of no real concern to me. It’s heaven and its furies that I am most afraid of. Never once have I been made to feel like god is decent or clear-thinking. As far as I can tell, god is impossible to please. If I get to heaven, I fear I would perpetually feel like an unwanted guest in his house. No, you’re not there at all. You’re somewhere altogether better. Somewhere with soft music and honeyed lights. Without rules and without worship. I imagine you are somewhere very free.
Ah, but poor Tom. He’s mad for god and praying and all. And once he’s happy, who cares? It’s probably not a bad thing to have somebody praying for me.
‘Can we make some decorations now?’
Peggy asks, leaning into me further. Jack has spent every evening since Saturday down in Doyle’s. It’s taking a toll on her, not to havehim around. It’s taking a toll on me, to have to look after her so much more.
‘There’s paper in the dresser, and Sellotape.’
She goes to fetch them, and against my will I spend the evening with her, making decorations for Tom’s thirtieth birthday party. A party that he decided to throw, and which I will do all the cleaning and baking and decorating for.
Tom
