Jack
WHAT A FINE THING IT was, to drink and laugh, and to touch people.
To spin around the hall with the locals as though I was one of them.
I was so bright in the hall, so full of life.
Teresa was full of life. A fine thing indeed.
But now, walking home, I feel the sweat on the back of my neck growing cold.
Anna is gone quiet. I feel I want to go quiet, too, and preserve what happiness I have left within me.
‘You were very cosy with Teresa Doyle, weren’t you? I was half jealous of you.’
Tom has been careful all night not to seem drunk, but I can tell that he has taken more drink than what suits him.
He isn’t the type to admit to the jealousy that he always feels.
He is the type to admit to false feelings to please people.
Tom pretends to hold back tears at funerals, and breaks into pieces over a deceased person he never really cared for.
Recently, he has pretended to be thrilled for Peggy’s small achievements in school when I know he struggles to determine her age.
I have to wonder how much of the pity and patience he has shown me was put on.
It’s hard to know if he has any sincere feelings at all.
It’s silly, because I’m sure he only said it to upset me, but this is just another reason to feel guilty over the whole thing with Teresa.
Tom has never had a woman. He’s desperate to have somebody in his life like that.
Somebody he doesn’t need to share, somebody who will always let him come first, you know?
And here I have a woman that I might not even want, throwing herself at me.
Oh, but she was pretty tonight. Like she is pretty most nights.
‘Era you can have her. I was only passing away the time.’
Isn’t that cruel? I am often shocked by how casually callous I can be. Teresa isn’t mine to be offering. Remind me, what was it that you loved about me?
‘Her mother is dead five years, you know. She might be good company.’
Tom says, as though a dead mother is enough to have in common with somebody. And although it makes my heart twinge for Teresa, I don’t let it stay in my head long.
Anna is far enough away in her thoughts that we will probably get away with this conversation.
I’m not really sure what Tom wants me to say.
Why did he mention Teresa Doyle at all? Does he want me to supply him with some sordid details of what we did?
I could be disgracefully honest with him, and still all he would learn is that I am too afraid to move on from you, and even more afraid of my unrelenting urge to try.
He offers the details of his own evening sparingly.
Partly, I suppose, because there are so few details to offer.
I saw him talking to Linda McManus for a little while, but all the while there was a yard between them.
Of course, he hadn’t the neck to ask Linda to dance, and so she probably felt her time was wasted. That’s only conjecture, now.
I become more free with my account of the evening. Sure I’ve nothing to hide. I didn’t do anything of any real consequence. And still, my stomach sinks when I tell him which women I danced with, and the way he slaps my back in praise.
‘So you were dancing with five or six different girls, were you? I’d say you had them all charmed.’
His tone is so false, as if he doesn’t believe me. I don’t need him to believe me. This sort of chat is so childish, I almost wish that Anna would start listening and give out to us both.
‘Sure you have to be charming, Tom, the girls love it. You must know that.’
I speak without looking at him. This carry-on is driving me mad.
I want to give him a puck, to tell him he doesn’t know a thing about women, and that everyone can see it.
Tom loves to say that I’m mad for the women.
That I’m a flirt and a playboy and whatever else.
The truth of it is, I’m just not afraid of women the same way that he is.
And he uses that against me. That’s all.
Sure you were the only woman I ever had any real time for.
He knows that, and so he must know how this hurts me.
‘Teresa might have given you a kiss goodnight by the sounds of it.’
He says, under his breath. Maybe to him, this is just fun.
Maybe he thinks it’s just harmless jeering, and that I am playing along.
But I think I’m about to cry. It’s as if he has opened me up and looked inside me, chosen to ignore all the space you take up and to illuminate the small space that Teresa has occupied.
He is forcing me to confront the piece of me that would have loved a goodnight kiss off Teresa.
The part of me that no longer yearns for kisses off you.
It’s inappropriate. It’s tasteless. And just as I pull my arm back to puck the back of his head, Anna interrupts.
‘She did not. That girl has more sense than to be kissing an eejit like you.’
Her tone is vacant. As though she doesn’t even realise she is speaking.
Like snapping at us is just muscle memory.
She goes back to not hearing us, ignoring us, whichever it is.
Thanks be to god for Anna. We walk on in silence, and I become horribly lost in the complications of kissing a person. Of touching and knowing a person.
‘I let a few people know that we’ll be having a party for my thirtieth. Just so ye know.’
Tom is almost sheepish when he says this. Not like him.
Minnie Keane is just about awake when we call in for Peggy, who is wide awake.
‘Where’s my girl?’
I call, maybe a bit louder, a bit more inebriated than I would like to sound.
She rushes out to us, hugging my waist. Although she has the energy for walking, I need something besides my thoughts to focus on, and so I carry her home on my back and ask her about her evening.
She wants to know about the dance. It’s nice to be the older one, so I can dismiss the questions I can’t handle.
She tells me about the other children that were there, which ones she plays with in school and which ones she didn’t know.
Her little voice growing tired. As we approach the cottage, she pretends to fall asleep so that I won’t make her walk.
‘Will you carry me up the hill, Peg?’
I ask her, and fear she can smell the drink off me. She laughs, forgetting that she was pretending to be asleep.
When we get home, we lie down and I pretend to go to sleep.
As though the dance never happened. As though we weren’t out at all and Tom didn’t ask me those questions.
Every now and again, he kicks a leg or taps his fingers against his chest. Just moving, I know, but I can’t help receiving it as plotting.
As menacing. As an attempt to annoy me. Would he not just go to sleep?
It’s a shame when you get to know somebody so well that you look past the best in them.
Predictably, these sweet and unwelcome thoughts of Teresa come to me.
Just about the way that she looked this evening.
Curls hardened with hairspray, and the way her cheeks met her eyes when she smiled, creating creases in her powder.
Charming, in its own way. I wonder if I will always be confused by feelings like this, or whether they will one day be welcome.
I wonder when I will catch up to the life that started the moment I lost you.
God, it feels like only a minute ago that you were here with me.
Tell me, where does lust fit into grieving? Things might be easier if I had never met Teresa. Then I might not have been forced into the possibility of moving on.
Perhaps it would be easier if we had been married.
Or if I was a woman. Then I could just put on a black shawl and be the Widow Jack forever.
I suppose that comes with its own set of problems. I wish I had realised how easy I had it when you were still with me.
I close my eyes, and there you are. A strange, liquid light, moving before me.
Trapped under my eyelids. Always changing. Always here.
Tom coughs. Do you know what – this is terrible, but – often, when we settle down to sleep, I am overwhelmed by the thought that I will wake up to find the three of them dead.