‘Ornament,’ she says.
‘Don’t bend your book,’ says my father.
‘OK,’ I say.
‘And you’ve hardly touched your sandwich,’ he says.
‘I don’t want to touch it,’ I say.
My mother taps my hand. ‘Did you leave half your sandwich uneaten just so you could say that?’
‘No.’
‘Then eat it.’
But the bread is stale now and it’s six o’clock, time for tea. My mother stands up and looks out the window. The snow has stopped falling. She wipes her hands on her jumper and puts a pot of water on the range. She opens the fridge and removes a package.
‘Do you want this?’ she asks my father.
He rubs his chin and doesn’t answer. He shaved his beard off yesterday and his shaving has revealed a dimple; a dark vertical slot in the flesh on his chin. He has been rubbing at it all day as though he hopes to flatten the crease.
‘Michael, do you want this for tea or not?’
He looks at the package. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I’d prefer kippers.’
‘We have none,’ says my mother. ‘We have no kippers.’
My mother hates to cook.
‘Then I’ll have that fish ’n a bag,’ he says.
‘That you will, then,’ she says.
They smile at each other, with a smile that is different from the one they use for me. What my father calls fish ’n a bag is a meal cooked in boiling water: a square piece of fish in a clear plastic bag full of white sauce.
‘Can I hold it?’ I ask.
‘If you really want to,’ says my mother.
I take the bag from her and squish the plastic, which is soft, like wet felt. ‘It feels like that goldfish I won at Butlins,’ I say.
‘Come here to me,’ says my father, and he hugs me, but his arms are pressing hard against my neck, and his grip is too tight.
‘Stop hugging my neck,’ I say. ‘It hurts.’
‘Give the bag of fish here,’ he says.
I give him the fish ’n a bag and he fondles it. ‘I’m going to have to disagree with you,’ he says. ‘This bag feels more like a bag of snot than a goldfish.’
My father laughs, and I laugh, although I don’t like it that he has compared my dinner to snot.
My mother confiscates the fish and puts it in a pot of water. I face my father.
‘Da, can you tell me a story?’
‘What kind of story?’
‘Any kind.’
My father clears his throat and sits up taller in his seat before he begins. ‘Very well. Here’s the story of Tantalus, who was sentenced by the gods to stand in water up to his waist. In winter the water was cold and in summer it was too warm. When Tantalus got thirsty and his mouth was very dry, he bent down to the water to drink and the water evaporated, and when he got hungry and reached up to the branches which were laden with delicious fruit, the branches lifted the fruit, and both food and water remained out of his grasp. And this happened to Tantalus for …’
‘A few days,’ says my mother, ‘as punishment for not washing his hands before tea, and then he sat down to a feast of roast chicken and chocolate ice-cream and he never went hungry or thirsty again.’
He smiles and says, ‘Wash your hands.’
As I wash my hands I see Tantalus licking his lips as he reaches down for the water. On the way back to the kitchen I go to the big bookshelf in the living room where my father keeps his reference and textbooks. I look in the encyclopaedia until I find the pages I need. There is Sisyphus with a red exclamation mark next to his name. I put that mark there last year. I go back to the kitchen.
‘Tantalus is a lot like Sisyphus,’ I say. ‘You could say that both of them suffer in the same way.’
My father laughs. ‘Did you remember that while you were sitting on the toilet?’
‘I wasn’t on the toilet. I was only washing my hands and that’s when I remembered.’
I look carefully at his face. He is not laughing at me, so I join in.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I could clearly see Sisyphus pushing the boulder up a big hill and the boulder rolling straight past Sisyphus and back down the hill. I could see Sisyphus standing there, watching the boulder roll down, all sad and silent, and then pushing the boulder back up and the boulder rolling back down where it came from, over and over again. I think he must feel just like Tantalus.’
‘Straining to get the big brown thing where you want it to go,’ says my father, laughing until there are tears in his eyes.
Now my mother is laughing. ‘Good God,’ she says, ‘somebody get the poor man a glass of water.’
I jump up and get a glass of water for my father and when I sit back down my mother kisses me on the nose to thank me. ‘You’re nice to have around,’ she says. ‘I think we’ll keep you.’
‘Good,’ I say.
When my father has finished with the water I see that the buttons of his jacket are done up the wrong way. He does this on purpose, and it’s often a sign of good humour. I lean over and reach for the top button.
‘May I fix your buttons?’ I ask.
‘No, no!’ he laughs. ‘You’ll ruin my crooked and disarming looks.’
He’s in the mood for button-fixing and so I go around the table and grab for the second button. He shouts and laughs.
‘Get off me, fish face! Get off me!’
‘Only four buttons left!’ I shout in return.
I manage to undo one more button and then he gets up and goes to the window. He stand and looks out, his face suddenly serious; no more playing.
‘Christ almighty. I thought she was back early.’
‘Is she?’ I ask.
He’s talking about my granny, his mother, who’ll be back from the Leopardstown races on Tuesday. I’ve only two days left alone with them.
‘No,’ he says. ‘A false alarm.’
We sit down and he returns to reading.
I face the dresser so that I can look at the black-and-white portrait taken on their wedding day in 1960. My father was twenty-seven then, and even more handsome than he is now because his hair was longer. My mother was twenty-six. She is just as beautiful now.
Nearly all of Wexford parish knew of my parents’ courtship and the way each broke off an engagement to be with the other. I’ve heard that there was nobody who did not stop to stare at them as they walked down the street: they were like movie stars.
They look happy in the photograph, my father behind my mother, four inches taller than she is and making her smaller. I like the way they cut the cake together, my mother’s hand over my father’s, both holding the long, white-handled knife.
I’m not handsome, too lanky, and my nose is already too big for my face. It must be hard for my parents to look at me, wondering whether there’s any hope that I’ll turn out to be as good-looking as they are.
I return to the Guinness Book and read on page 398 that the record for being buried alive in a ‘regulation’-sized coffin is held by an Irishman by the name of Tim Hayes. He was buried for 240 hours 18 minutes and 50 seconds. He came up for air on 2nd September 1970. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of him. Perhaps I could meet him one day.
It is nearly seven o’clock and I’m getting bored. I put my foot on top of my mother’s foot and she pulls her foot out from under mine and puts hers on top. We go back and forth until my father looks at us and shakes his head. I don’t let him see that I’ve noticed, but this slow head-shaking stops my mother straight away and she stands up and looks at her watch.
‘You’d better get it over and done with,’ she says to my father. She’s talking about Crito’s kittens, who must be killed before my grandmother returns.
‘In a minute,’ he says.
‘Please do it before somebody starts giving them names,’ says my mother. ‘And, John. You stay here with me.’
‘I don’t care,’ I say. ‘I’m going to help this time.’