CHAPTER 9
9
W HETHER IT WAS MY argument about Jacob’s late mother, my suggestion that he would one day be able to express to Rebecca how he’d been present when she most needed him, my refusal to book him a five-night stay in a Dubai hotel, or the exasperated tone of an unimpressed airline representative telling us that the doors would be closed in the next sixty seconds with or without us, Emmet finally agrees to board the plane. Throwing his hands in the air, he offers a series of furious expletives and storms ahead of me, taking his seat without another word.
This time, we’re on opposite sides of the cabin so don’t have to interact during the flight, which is probably for the best. Once we’re in the air, I stand up to look across and see that he’s immersed in another film, a blanket pulled over his body so only his eyes and the top of his head are visible. With the exception of a couple of trips to the bathroom, when we pass by without even acknowledging each other’s existence, neither of us leaves our seats until we land in Ireland just over seven hours later.
It’s early afternoon when we arrive at our hotel in the centre of Dublin. As we’ve been travelling for twenty-four hours, I’ve reserved a room here for the night, so we can rest before undertaking the final leg of our journey. When we step inside, Emmet stares at the two single beds with a frown before turning and asking for his key.
‘Here,’ I say, handing him one of the cards the receptionist gave me when we checked in.
‘What’s my room number?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘My room number. Or is this one mine?’
It takes me a moment to understand what he’s getting at.
‘It’s both of ours,’ I tell him. ‘We’re sharing.’
He drops his head low and groans in despair, as if he can’t quite believe that I’ve brought this latest indignity to his door. He sounds like he’s in actual pain.
‘For fuck’s sake, Emmet,’ I say, raising my voice and allowing myself to grow crankier now that our flights are behind us. ‘It’s just for one night. What does it matter? We’re going to be fast asleep in a few hours anyway.’
‘I don’t like sharing rooms.’
‘You share a room with Damian all the time.’
‘That’s different. He’s my friend.’
‘Well, feel free to go downstairs and book a separate one for yourself if you have a spare €400 in your wallet. But if you don’t, then pick left or right and maybe lay off the complaining for five minutes, all right? Cos I’m tired, jetlagged, and have had enough of it.’
He opens his eyes wide in surprise. This is the first time I’ve displayed any annoyance since shaking him awake in North Bondi some twenty-seven hours ago, and perhaps he’s realized that he’s lost any power he had over me now that we’ve finally arrived on the other side of the world. The truth is, I haven’t the energy for any more of this behaviour. It doesn’t help that the closer we get to the island, the more anxious I’m growing over whether this has been a good idea or not. Particularly as there’s still something I haven’t told him.
We each take a shower and, while I emerge in a towel, planning on changing in the room, he takes his fresh clothes with him into the bathroom so he can dress in there when he’s finished. It displays a curious need for modesty considering I see him in his swimmers on the beach on a regular basis. But it’s different circumstances, I suppose. Lying on my bed, idly scrolling through my emails, I notice his phone charging by the side table and, hearing the sound of running water, I can’t help myself. I reach for it and go straight to his photos. None of the recent pictures are in any way incriminating, although, to my surprise, he’s taken a photo of me while I was asleep on the Sydney–Dubai leg, where I look rather at peace, a half-smile on my face at whatever dream I was having. Moving to his messages, I can see this same picture has been forwarded to Damian, only edited so a drawing of a penis emerges from my forehead, which in turn has led to a series of nonsensical emojis from his friend. Despite myself, I laugh.
When he reappears, fully dressed, his hair wet, I suggest a walk around the city, and he looks at me as if I’ve proposed that we go salsa dancing. I read this as my cue that it would be in both our interests to spend a little time apart, so tell him that, regardless, I’m going out to explore, will probably find somewhere for a meal later and will text to see whether he wants to join me.
‘So you won’t be coming back here first?’ he asks, and I shake my head, happy to leave him in peace.
‘No. And if you’d prefer to just stay in and order room service, that’s fine too. I mean, it’d be a shame to miss out on seeing some of Dublin, but if you need some alone time—’
‘I do,’ he replies quickly.
‘OK,’ I say, knowing exactly how he feels.
‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ he adds as I reach for my jacket, perhaps feeling an impulse towards harmony now that he knows he won’t have to be in my company for a while. ‘In Dubai, I mean. I was just tired. And a bit nervous.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say, not wishing to revisit that moment. ‘I’ll see you later.’
As I leave, I notice a Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the inside of the door and pick it up.
‘Shall I put this outside?’ I ask, and he nods.
‘Thanks.’
Although Rebecca was born in Dublin, and lived there until moving to England in her early twenties, I’ve never been to Ireland before and wander the city centre, glancing idly in the windows of shops, before entering a bookshop, thinking I could probably do with buying a couple more thrillers to get me through the days ahead and the eventual flight home. The gods are clearly intent on tormenting me, however, because as I step inside, I’m confronted by a tower of Furia’s novel on the New Releases table. It’s piled high – it really is turning into a global phenomenon – with a sticker on the front proclaiming that it’s ‘soon to be a major motion picture’, as opposed, I assume, to a minor one.
Unlike the edition I saw in Sydney Airport, this one is resplendent in hard covers and bears a different jacket. As I study it, a young woman pushes a trolley laden with books towards the next table.
‘Have you read that?’ she asks, and I shake my head. ‘We can’t keep it in stock.’
I glance down. There must be thirty copies here at least, so clearly they can.
‘What’s it about?’ I ask.
Of course I know exactly what it’s about, but I’m interested to know how she’ll describe it. I remember Furia once telling me of a creative writing tutor who had asked this question of his students about the books they were writing, but insisted that they reference neither the plot nor the characters in their reply. She turns her head in the direction of a staircase, giving my question some thought.
‘I think it’s about selfishness,’ she says finally, then nods, apparently satisfied by her response.
‘It’s a love story, I assume?’
‘Why would you think that?’ she asks. ‘Because it’s written by a woman?’
‘No, because most novels are.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘I do,’ I say. ‘Art is generally about love, one way or another, don’t you think? Every book. Every song. Every film. All of us trying to live with it. Or get over it. Or wonder why we’ve never had it. Not necessarily love in a sexual sense. Love between parents and children. Love for a place.’
She remains silent, considering this. Her expression suggests she’d like to contradict me but can’t quite decide how.
‘Who’s the selfish one anyway?’ I ask. ‘In the book, I mean.’
‘They all are,’ she replies. ‘The main characters – she’s a drover, which is—’
‘I know what a drover is.’
‘You’re Australian?’ she asks, and I nod. I might not have been born there, but I have permanent residency, after all, so I consider myself a native now. ‘I can hear it in your accent,’ she tells me. ‘Anyway, she breaks up a marriage. Although it was an unhappy marriage.’
‘And that makes it OK?’
‘Well, it’s more complicated than that. There are three people at the heart of the story, and they hurt each other at every turn. But they’ve all been hurt themselves in the past so, somehow, we forgive them. In the end, the reader just wants everyone to survive and be happy. And of course there’s the unreliable narrator, which is what everyone talks about.’
‘And do they?’ I ask.
‘Do they what?’
‘Survive.’
‘That would be giving it away.’
‘I just want to know if things work out for them,’ I say. ‘A writer once told me that was the reason she wrote fiction. To give people happy endings.’
‘Sorry, no spoilers,’ she tells me. ‘You’ll have to finish it to find out.’
I arrive back at the hotel much later than intended, check on Emmet, who’s in a deep sleep, before going down to the bar, sitting with Furia’s book before me, unable to open it. I drink more than I should – perhaps my body is out of sync after the last couple of days – before eventually making my way a little unsteadily towards the lift. I suspect that, tomorrow morning, I might regret not having gone straight to bed.
It’s been many years since I’ve slept in the same bedroom as my son, and I find his presence strangely comforting. He’s sleeping in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, his right arm slung over the side of the bed, his left leg sticking out from beneath the duvet. Part of me feels slightly disconcerted by how beautiful I find him. There were moments in his childhood when I found him so utterly perfect that it was difficult not to weep when he came running towards me. When I would bring him to Nippers, I would study his small body and fear that I was fetishizing his splendour. I wanted him to stay that way for ever, never to change. And it seems as if it’s only now, in moments of repose, when he’s not being a pain-in-the-ass teen, that his childhood flawlessness is momentarily restored.
I suppose I looked like him once, long ago, too. Utterly innocent.
Maybe that’s why Freya chose me.
It’s just gone noon when we check out and, happily, Emmet has woken in good spirits, while I, on the other hand, feel a little rough. He seems almost excited when we board the train at Heuston Station, heading in the direction of Galway.
‘Don’t,’ he says when he sees me smiling.
‘Don’t what?’ I ask.
‘You’re thinking about my trains,’ he says, and I laugh, despite myself.
‘Yes,’ I admit. ‘Those bloody things.’
At the age of five, only a year after Rebecca left, Emmet became obsessed with toy trains, constructing an elaborate system of railway lines that ran around our home, carriages, signals, tiny buildings and miniature figures everywhere. Every birthday and Christmas, it was the only thing he wanted. It was a harmless hobby, although I had to make my peace with how much of the apartment they took over. And then, one day, about three years ago, I came home to find his entire collection disassembled, boxed up and placed for sale on eBay. He sold it to a collector for a surprisingly large amount and I found myself missing them afterwards. For all my professional training, it took a while for me to recognize that their loss signalled the end of a special period in our lives. When I suggested this to him a few weeks later, he buried his head in his hands and pleaded with me, for the thousandth time, not to psychoanalyse him.
‘Here’s the difference between you and me, Dad,’ he said. ‘You see me selling them as a sign that I’m getting older, which means you’re getting older, so you’re thinking about your mortality and the fact that, one day, you’ll die. While, for me, it’s much less complicated. I just want a better board and a couple of hundred dollars in my bank account for the summer.’
‘Wow,’ I said as I tried to take this in.
‘And I didn’t even have to spend seven years in medical school to figure that out,’ he added with a grin.
It was hard to argue with that assessment.
Now, as this real-life train makes its way across the country, through Kildare, Tullamore and Athlone, we’re at ease with each other, chatting about inconsequential matters. Only as we pass through Ballinasloe, with less than an hour to go, do I dare to ask how’s he feeling now about seeing his mother.
‘Fine,’ he says, non-committally.
‘Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Don’t whatever me,’ I say. ‘It’s complicated being a parent.’
‘Sure.’
I can see from the expression on his face that his anger with Rebecca is what’s making him try to provoke me. It crosses my mind that he’ll probably be a father himself one day and, when that happens, he’ll be good at it. Each year as he’s advanced through the Nippers colours, from red to brown, he’s shown himself to be particularly concerned with looking after younger children, encouraging them, watching out for their safety in the waves and lending them a helping hand whenever needed. It’s one of the things that makes me think his idea of becoming a lifeguard is a good one.
It was only six months ago, during that conversation, that I told him about his Aunt Emma, who drowned off a Wexford beach when Rebecca and her parents were holidaying there decades earlier. He was shocked by this revelation – he’d never even known that she existed – and I could see that it left a deep impression on him. Later that day, he phoned his mother to ask about her and she refused to engage in the conversation, insisting that Emmet return the phone to me, when she read me the riot act.
‘He’s our son,’ I told her. ‘He had to know sometime.’
‘You didn’t tell him anything else, did you? About why she did it?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Do you think I should?’ she asked, her tone softening.
‘Well, not over the phone.’
‘Obviously not.’
‘But maybe next time you see him?’
There was a lengthy silence.
‘I don’t want to bring that darkness into his life,’ she said. ‘You haven’t brought yours into his either.’
‘Maybe he needs to hear it,’ I suggested. ‘So he can understand both of us better. He’s not a child any more.’
As I’m recalling this, out of the blue, Emmet says, ‘Dad, there’s something I need to tell you.’
‘Go on,’ I say, snapping back to the moment.
‘It’s about yesterday evening.’
‘What about it?’
‘When you left me alone in the hotel.’
My mind spins in a dozen different directions. I know I was gone far longer than expected – and, in the end, I never bothered to text him, assuming he would contact me if he wanted to meet – but surely nothing untoward could have taken place during my few hours of absence.
‘What about it?’ I ask nervously.
‘It’s just …’ He hesitates and takes a deep breath. ‘The thing is—’
‘What? Just spit it out.’
‘I nearly …’
I’m ready to shake him now to get whatever it is out of him.
‘Nearly what? Just tell me.’
He looks out the window, shakes his head, then turns back, looking down at the table that separates us and scratching it awkwardly with his thumb.
‘I nearly had a threesome.’
I’m not certain that I’ve heard him right. How is that even possible? He knows absolutely no one in Dublin. And he’s only fourteen. The same age I was when—
‘All I needed,’ he adds, ‘was two other people.’
There’s a few moments of silence before he bursts out laughing, collapsing back in the seat, his knees pressed up against his chest. It takes me a minute to get the joke and, when I do, I can’t quite believe that he’d prank me like this, but I find myself laughing too, unable to stop. Tears roll down both our faces and some of the other passengers turn to look at us in irritation. I would like to preserve this moment for ever. The two of us, on this train, heading towards Galway, laughing over the silliest joke I’ve ever heard in my life.
‘God, I miss the beach,’ he says a little later, looking out as the green fields pass us by. ‘My body literally feels like it’s drying out.’
‘I miss it too, actually.’
‘I will never live anywhere but Sydney.’
I expect to feel pleased by this declaration but, as much as I want to keep him close, I also want him to explore the world, something that I’ve failed to do in my life so far. A thought occurs to me that I still could. No matter what Emmet says, I’m not Jurassic. I’m only forty. So I’ll be forty-four if and when he goes to uni. That’s still young.
‘There are beaches in other countries,’ I tell him. ‘I’m pretty sure the oceans stretch around the planet.’
‘Long term, I mean,’ he replies. ‘When I’m really old and settling down. Like, twenty-seven or whatever.’
I stifle a laugh.
‘Well, at least we’re going to an island,’ I tell him. ‘You can probably swim there.’
‘Can I ask you something?’ he says.
‘Sure.’
‘Furia.’
‘What about her?’
‘Do you think …’ He pauses and bites his lip as if he wants to ensure that he phrases this exactly right. ‘Do you think that if you’d never met her, then you and Mum would still be together? And that she wouldn’t have abandoned me?’
I’ve never heard him use this particular word before to describe his estrangement from Rebecca. Would he prefer to lay all culpability for his parents’ break-up at Furia’s feet? I can’t say that I blame him, but I don’t want to lie to him either. It would be unfair to both of them, and to him too.
But it’s not the time to answer.
‘Can we have this conversation another time?’ I ask him. ‘It’s a long story, and we’re too close to Galway. But I will talk about it with you, I promise.’
He sighs, then nods his head, before taking his AirPods out, putting them in his ears, and looking out the window. I silently curse myself. I’ve fucked up again.