Jack
I MANAGED TO GET MYSELF out 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 only treating 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.
And I think about how different all of this would be if I had been married to you. I should have proposed the moment I met you. I had the ring in my pocket the day you died. Imagine.
Tom puts a pint in front of me, widens the circle to let me into the group. I smile along with what the men are saying, doing what I can to remain present.
Anna hated me when I gave up the fags. She said I was like a dog. She was the one like a dog when I told her your news. Looking back, perhaps it all reminded her too much of Mammy, dying as Peggy came to life. Maybe she was afraid the same thing would happen to you.
‘Holy God swapped Mammy for Peggy. Didn’t he?’
We used to all say, smiling, as though that little line would make things alright. The day she died was so silent, despite the new baby crying. It was the deepest silence I’ve ever known. And while the rest of us slowly let the sound back in, I don’t think that Anna ever did.
‘How’s your sister getting on, Brendan?’
‘Oh, Tom, I keep out of it. It’s the Bon Secours one day and then the Sacred Hearts the next.’
Perhaps we didn’t give Anna enough time to grieve Mammy before making her a mother to Peggy. Perhaps I shouldn’t have celebrated Peggy so relentlessly. It was only so we didn’t grow to resent the child who suddenly made parents of us all.
‘I suppose a nun is a nun, at the end of the day.’
‘Try telling her that. The decision has her driven demented.’
It was happy news, you being pregnant. I know we weren’t married, but we would be married.
Sure everyone knew we weren’t far off it.
’Twas just that things came in the wrong order.
Baby first, marriage second. I don’t understand why people get their backs up about that sort of thing.
It sickens me, actually. There were too many good things tarnished by a pregnant woman without a ring on her finger.
Despite all my odd feelings towards god, when I think of the baby I am compelled to bless myself. In ainm an athar, agus an mhic, agus an spioraid naoimh. Isn’t it strange, what your emotions draw you to?
I’m ready to go home, I can’t keep up with what these men are saying. Just as I am about to suggest it, Tom says to Bill,
‘Sure we’ll have one more for the road, will we?’
All the men agree, and so I am staying put.
But it’s alright, because Teresa stands before me again, this time without her cigarettes, but with a bag of buttermints. I take one from her, and smile. Turning away from the lads, I take a deep breath of her.
‘I’m Jack O’Leary.’
‘I know.’