‘I s’pose.’
‘Remember, Michael,’ says my mother, ‘how much John used to love those colour-by-number books? Oh, and Fuzzy Felt. Remember how he loved that?’
‘I didn’t love Fuzzy Felt,’ I say. ‘I hated it.’
They laugh.
‘I know what I liked and what I didn’t like. You must be confusing me with somebody else.’
They are still laughing, and my mother is trying to make me feel jolly by tickling me under the armpit.
‘Don’t!’ I say.
After what she has been told, I don’t understand her happy mood.
I leave as soon as I’ve cleared my plate and go into the living room to watch television. I have the volume on low so that I can still hear them talking.
They talk about the central heating, about the flat being too hot, the fact that the fridge always stinks, the cost of petrol, whether oil might run out one day, and the size of Phoenix Park; whether it is the biggest city park in the world.
I know it is. ‘What are we having for dessert?’ I call out.
‘Peanuts!’ shouts my father and they both laugh.
I go back into the kitchen. ‘I have to go to the dentist again next week,’ I say. ‘I have another sore tooth.’
I want his sympathy. But I won’t get it.
‘Jesus,’ says my father, ‘you’d be the only child on the face of the earth volunteering to go to the dentist.’
‘I don’t mind,’ I say. ‘I like the dentist.’
‘I think he likes Dr O’Connor because the man wears a fancy suit and speaks so nicely,’ says my mother. ‘He’s like a lawyer who gives advice to teeth.’
They laugh at my mother’s clever joke, and I pretend to laugh too. I will never be a person who is left out of things.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘A lawyer who gives advice to teeth and who makes you pay through the nose.’
My father grins and holds out his hand for me to shake it. I hold out my hand and we shake hands for a good while. It’s an odd thing, and I’ve not noticed it before, but he has skin as soft as my mother’s.
I go to the bedroom with its smell of rubbish and lie on the bed. On my stomach, on my side, on my back, it doesn’t go away. There’s a sad sickness in my stomach when I think of Brendan and I miss him and can’t stop myself from imagining him with Kate and laughing together, laughing at me, and I lie on my back and it’s the same thought over and over … in the darkness and the sadness with the blackness on my backness … in the darkness and the sadness with the blackness on my backness.
I turn over onto my stomach and my father knocks on the door. I tell him to come in and he sneaks in on tiptoe as though he is a cat burglar. He closes the door quietly behind him and sits on the end of the bed.
I close my schoolbook and sit up cross-legged.
He sits next to me, his legs over the side. ‘Hey, fish-face,’ he says. ‘We haven’t had a good chat for a while. How are you?’
‘What?’ I say. ‘But we talked in the middle of the night.’
‘Well, I’m sorry about that. I’d had a few drinks and you know how I am. I’m not an expert at drinking. I’m sorry I woke you. I shouldn’t have.’
‘That’s OK.’
‘I remembered your present this time.’
I see no sign of any gifts.
‘But when I give it to you, I want you to forgive me for forgetting your presents so many times in the past. Will you do that? Now that I’ve remembered, will you forgive me?’
It’s too late, I think, but give me the present and let me see how good it is. ‘OK,’ I say.
He takes a pair of enormous brown socks out of a paper bag. ‘Well, son, here you are! I’ve a pair of famous socks for you and you can make a puppet out of them or whatever you want.’
He is grinning and so pleased.
I hold the brown socks. They are huge, have several holes in both left and right toes and a big hole on the left heel and are thin and almost see-through in places around the foot.
‘I don’t get it.’
He speaks slowly.
‘These socks belonged to the tallest man who ever lived. These were a pair of socks worn by the tallest man in the world.’
I am amazed. My mouth falls open and my eyes water. ‘Robert Pershing Wadlow? These belonged to Robert Pershing Wadlow?’
‘Yes, thats the one. They’re a size 37AA foot. Eighteen and a half inches long,’ he says. ‘He wore them in the last year of his life. They were among his final possessions and kept by his father.’
I sit up straight, happy, astonished, but mostly happy. I hold the socks up and examine them. The foot of one sock runs almost the length of my arm from elbow to the end of my index finger. The whole sock is as long as my arm.
‘How about that?’ says my father. ‘They are very old, so a bit crusty and worn out. But that just goes to show that they’re authentic.’
My happiness is smashed to pieces. I didn’t notice it before. I was too busy in my excitement. But I notice it now: he is lying.
I am too sad to test him. I cannot believe what he has done again. I want to go to bed, get under the covers, sleep, and have him gone.
‘Yes,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘What a wonderful present.’
‘Not easy to get but, as I say, the holes and general shabbiness show that they are the real thing.’
I have a choice, to cry or to think. I will think.
It is common for the liar to back up his lies with expressions like, ‘Scout’s honour’, ‘Cross my heart and hope to die’ and ‘On my mother’s grave’. My father saying that the shabbiness of the socks goes to prove that they’re authentic is an example of what some books call ‘telltale oath swearing’.
‘How did you get them?’ I ask.
‘I’ve been hunting them down for months. And I finally met a man at work who knew another man in America who bought them in Illinois at an auction a few years ago.’
My father has lied not once, but several times in quick succession, like somebody who has pepper in his nostrils and sneezes uncontrollably.
I am angry and ashamed. ‘They must have been very expensive,’ I say.
‘Yes and no. I wanted to get his shoes. But they would have sent me broke for two lifetimes.’
‘I like the socks better,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re more than welcome, my only son.’
I will need to be more careful this time not to ‘contaminate the scene’ because the lie detector should not create an atmosphere that makes the liar more likely to show signs of stress. Signs of stress might be confused with signs of lying. The lie detector must be neutral and patient.
I must not give him any clue that I know he is lying. I will leave the counterfeit socks alone and turn to something different. I put the socks down.
‘I’m glad they make you happy,’ he says. ‘I’ll leave you to your homework now. All right?’
I sit up with pillows behind my head. ‘Wait, Da. I want to ask something for school.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Did you come the top of your class in your Leaving? Next week we’re doing an IQ test at school and the teacher said if we know our parents’ IQ, it would be helpful.’
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I knocked my opponents to the ground so swiftly there wasn’t a fleck of dust disturbed in the arena. Just like Milo of Croton, I was the winner without dust.’ I smile at him to keep him confident. ‘But what’s your IQ? What IQ did you have to have to get into Mensa?’
‘You know this. You were there when I got the news.’
He rubs his leg, the same way he rubbed his leg when he lied to me about my Easter card.
‘Just tell me again. I’ve forgotten and I really want to know.’
‘One hundred and forty-five,’ he says, his voice harsh and croaking. ‘Over one-forty anyway. And I only need one hundred and thirty-three to get into Mensa.’