Take Cocker, leaning against the wall the other day, smoking a cigarette — it was stylized, he had learned that from telly and films. Or Jen, raising an eyebrow and smiling as she walked away from Matthew one night — that was straight off the telly as well, probably from Sex and the City, or Friends, or something. It was a cheap imitation; there was nothing genuinely enigmatic or seductive about it. Was there? Rez couldn’t tell. He had begun looking around at the people in his life — his ma and da, Michael and Trisha, his friends, Julie — and seeing them more and more as unreal, sinister, holographic entities, hardly human at all. Then, with rising unease, he had begun to look at himself in the same way. He had turned his gaze inward, but found no depth or substance, only froth and fever. There had arisen in him the weird and inchoate sense that he was a centreless chaos, becoming self-aware.
Whenever the anxiety threatened to engulf him, he would tell himself that surely the best way to deal with this was to try and talk to someone about it, to communicate what he was going through. Maybe even Julie could help him.
Later that afternoon the two of them took a DART out to Howth, to walk along the cliffs. It had turned into another dull, windy day. Fatigue weighed heavily on Rez. He wanted to sleep and sleep and not wake up for days.
As they walked away from the town, through the heather and scrub, high above the sea, he told Julie he had been barred from attending the graduation.
‘What, even you?’ Julie said.
‘Yeah. They sent letters out to our parents. I mean, Foley likes me cos I read books, so I thought I’d be alright. But no, I’m barred as well. Me ma and da are goin mad.’
‘But the school will be sorry they barred ye when they see how well ye do in the Leavin Cert …’
He gave a cheerless laugh. ‘I doubt it, Julie. Honestly, I think I’ve probably failed half the subjects. I know ye don’t believe me, but ye’ll see for yourself soon enough.’
Her voice was strained with anger. ‘I don’t see how you could fail, Rez. You’re so smart …’
‘But I just … I told ye, I just couldn’t concentrate. All year. I … there’s too much goin on in me head.’
She pulled away, sick and tired of hearing it. He didn’t blame her. He couldn’t even say what he meant. An older guy with a moustache and a shaved head approached them on the trail. Rez happened to glance up at Julie as they passed him: she caught the guy’s eye and smiled faintly, not realizing Rez was watching. Rez said nothing.
Julie suggested they stay for the sunset, and watch the darkness drift in over the Irish Sea. They sat on a perch and waited. Rez didn’t want to be there. These days, situations like this always made him miserable. He wished there was a switch he could flick to turn his mind off, and he’d sit there and look at the darkening sky, untroubled by doubt or rumination.
‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’ Julie murmured, lying back to enjoy the panorama of crashing waves, cliffs, and the dissolving day.
Rez sniffled. ‘I don’t know, is it?’
‘What do ye mean? Of course it is. Just look at it.’
‘I am lookin at it. It’s just, I don’t know if I can see it properly.’
‘Is there something wrong with your eyes?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me eyes. Well, there is and there isn’t. I mean …’
He was determined to articulate what was in his head. Otherwise the isolation would suffocate him. He tried again.
‘When ye look at it, are ye not just thinkin it’s beautiful cos ye’ve seen so many pictures of sunsets in magazines and car ads and everywhere, and ye’ve been told that they’re beautiful? Do ye know what I mean? Is it like an automatic thought, like ye look at it and ye think, “Ah, a sunset, it’s beautiful,” but really ye feel nothing? Or even worse, maybe what yer really admirin is yerself, sittin there and bein all cinematic, starrin in something like a film or a novel or whatever. Or like ye’re sayin to yerself, “This is what an experience looks like,” only ye’ve never really had one — just the experience of not experiencin anything at all. Ye know?’
Julie was shaking her head. Her voice was low, almost hostile. ‘No, Rez. It’s gorgeous.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think ye get what I’m sayin, I —’
‘I do get what yer saying, but I don’t agree. I look at the sunset, and the sea, and I like it. I think it’s gorgeous. It’s very simple, Rez.’
‘Yeah,’ he muttered, more unsure of himself than ever. Maybe it was just him, maybe his mind was fucked up. He felt terrible. He couldn’t even enjoy a fucking sunset. Julie made everything so simple. That was why he liked her, he reflected. He drew her in and squeezed his body against hers. The evening was getting chilly. He kissed her cheek and she put an arm around his waist. He could feel her heat coming into him, protection from the chill that drifted in over the Irish Sea, cold and insidious as doubt, as questions.
He spoke into her ear. ‘Julie, don’t listen to me. I’m just … I just need to get me head clear, that’s all. Don’t mind me.’
She exhaled in frustration. ‘But Rez, you’re always like this now. What’s wrong with you? You’re not the way ye used to be. You’re like a different person. How come we never laugh when we’re together any more? You always used to make me laugh, but now it’s always this analysing, all this weird stuff. Jesus, Rez, I’m starting to feel lonelier when I’m with you than when I’m on me own. I —’
‘I know, Julie. I said I’ll snap out of it, I’m just —’
‘But when are ye goin to snap out of it, Rez? It’s ever since ye started gettin all those books from yer cousin. I know ye look up to him and ye think he’s cool. And there’s nothin wrong with that, but —’
‘I don’t “look up to him”,’ he said gruffly, pulling away. ‘Jesus. Just cos I like talkin to someone about books and films and stuff, ye have to make me out to be some kind of child. For fuck’s sake, Julie.’
‘But it’s not only that, Rez.’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘Here we go again.’
‘I know ye hate me sayin it. But I mean it, Rez, ye smoke too much. It’s messin yer head up. Some people can handle it and some people can’t, and you just can’t. It’s makin ye … it’s makin ye into a different person than ye were before. And I don’t like bein with ye as much.’
‘Don’t say that, Julie. I don’t smoke that much. Just a joint or two in the evenin, that’s all. What else am I supposed to do? I just like it. Dope is my thing, it’s not some big deal. It’s just for listenin to music and helpin me think about things.’
Her voice was low and she looked dead ahead, across the sea. ‘Listen Rez, do whatever ye want. I’m sick of havin the same argument over and over.’
They fell silent. Most of the daylight had drained away. Rez felt Julie shivering at his side. He leaned into her again and buried his face in her hair, breathing her in. ‘I don’t feel anything any more,’ he whispered into the pulse of her neck, a dry sob caught in his throat.
‘Shhh,’ she replied, stroking his head, looking out to sea.
10 | Matthew
I groaned and pulled the covers over my head. It was Tuesday morning and I was still fucked from the long weekend. My ma was banging on my bedroom door. Dull light filled the room and I could hear the muffled tune of an ice-cream van out on the road. Eventually I willed myself into getting up.
I drank tea and watched telly for a while, though I couldn’t concentrate and my ma kept at me to go and look for a job. Then she had to go out. Although I’d had a full night’s sleep, I was still affected by the pills: little things irritated me more than usual, but I kept having these surges of euphoria and intense emotion, triggered by random memories or whatever happened to be on telly — even a car ad or the benign smile of a celebrity chef. I watched a few music videos, hoping Christina Aguilera would come on, or just some decent band. In one of the videos, from a rubbish American indie band, four tousle-haired guys were walking down a lane in slow motion as an apocalyptic sunset blazed behind them. There was an old woman standing nearby, with a trolley full of what looked like chicken heads and voodoo paraphernalia. A deranged grin crept over her cracked face. She started to giggle, then it looked like she was choking. An expression of horror came over her, as if she’d peered into the depths of hell. Then one of the band members put his hand on another’s shoulder and looked intensely into his eyes. He smiled. His face turned into a frog. At that moment, I had a vision of Kearney smashing the junkie’s face. I heard the crack, felt the surge of pain as if it were my own bones being broken. I scrambled to change the channel, calming down only when the screen glowed with a soothing Pringles ad.