When we finally arrived at Dad’s workshop I parked up and kept the engine running, expecting him to collect the wood, put it in the boot and head straight home, but he said he needed a hand. I turned the engine off and hoisted myself out of the driver’s seat.
It was early evening, so all Dad’s workmates had gone home and the place was deserted.
‘Give me a hand with this shutter,’ Dad said, crouching down to remove the padlock in the middle and then hunkering down to the right-hand corner. I hunkered down to the left. We gotour fingers under the shutter and pushed it up over our heads. A blue car was parked in the middle of the open space inside. I looked at Dad; his workmates weren’t supposed to park their cars in the workshop.
‘Ford Focus,’ he said.
‘Who parked it in there?’ I asked.
‘I did,’ he said. ‘We didn’t get to do presents on your birthday but I had these wrapped up for you.’ He brought a small black box with a shiny blue bow on it out of his pocket, flipped it open and took out a set of keys.
I knew I should have felt something but I didn’t feel anything; I hadn’t in days.
‘Do you like her?’ Dad said, trying to look into my eyes.
I knew the answer but I couldn’t speak.
‘She’s yours, son,’ he said with a step closer to me. ‘She’s all yours.’
I looked up into his face.
I started to cry.
Before my knees gave way Dad swooped in and caught me in his arms.
I couldn’t stop.
No red lights.
As those tears poured down my face and onto Dad’s shoulder, he kept saying:
‘It’s alright, son, it’s alright. It’s alright.’
The pain was everywhere. Behind my eyes, in my throat, my chest, my stomach. Everywhere. My lungs were trying to snatch quick breaths any time the pain lulled, but when it rose and swarmed all over me again I seemed to get stuck on empty. I couldn’t breathe in. I was scared. As the pain eased, my lungs finally released to take the chance to fill then, on the release, my throat took the chance to wail. The terrible sound echoed off the walls of the workshop and bounced back, panicking meeven more when I heard it; it sounded like a wild animal caught in a snare. I was clinging to Dad until my pain switched into fury and I started banging my fists off his chest. Screaming. Dad grabbed my wrists. I stomped on his feet to let go and pushed him away. With the distance between us I stood hunched over, gasping in huge breaths.
As the pain juddered out of me and the strain in my throat weakened into a dull ache and I began to breathe without the feeling of coming up from underwater, Dad came close and stood still until I looked into his searching eyes; trying to make sense of me, his confusing son, the son he had never understood. He was so close that I swear I felt a warmth coming from his chest. My hand came up and touched him there to see if I could feel it. I didn’t. All I felt was his heart; beating as strongly as the pulse in my throat. He put his hand on the back of my head, pressing the wet hair flat, causing trickles of sweat to run down the sides of my neck. We stayed like that, as if we were trying to tell each other something. Something we’d never told each other before and something we didn’t tell each other then. Not in words.
But I heard him.
Maybe he heard me too.
Our hands fell to our sides.
I walked over to the bonnet of the Ford Focus and ran my hand across its smooth, cool surface. I walked around and stopped at the driver’s side and stared in at the wheel. I heard a jangle. I looked over at Dad holding the keys up between his finger and thumb.
I raised my hand.
He clasped the keys in his fist, drew it back and launched them into the air. They sailed towards me in the gloom and, this time, I caught them.
53
At night, in my new car, I’d drive to the top of Bishop’s Hill. From the viewpoint up there I could look out over the glow of the whole town below. On those nights I’d wind down my window and breathe in the cool summer air. I’d get out and lie on the bonnet, like they do in those American teen movies, and gaze up at the stars. I’d stare for hours and wonder at the notion of constellations; mythical gods existing in the sky, traced out by imaginary lines, looking down upon us mere mortals. But knowing that those gods and their tracings were only there because some old Greek men had thought them up hundreds of years ago took the magic away. Men who couldn’t help but look at the mess above and immediately try to make sense of it, make meaning, because it’s hard to sit beneath all that mystery up there and feel so small down here.
Lying on the bonnet looking up, stars scattered everywhere, I saw no patterns, no designs, no sense. I closed my eyes to shut them out.
My own little night sky inside.
One by one, I painted a constellation across the darknessof my eyelids. Each individual star was a moment in my life, a moment with Ronan, that meant something. By the time I’d finished it was almost blinding. It was so bright that when I opened my eyes the world seemed so dark. So bright that the whole starry sky above didn’t compare.
