In a perkier voice she added, ‘But we can meet up as soon as I get back. I do want to see you, it’s just … I’ll only be gone a little over a week.’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
Jen said goodbye. Now the empty day loomed ahead: all those hours, a grimy crater into which depression and boredom always poured. There was only one thing for it: to get fucked.
I called Rez. His voice was heavy and slow, like he was drugged.
‘I think I’m stayin in,’ he said. ‘I start the new job tomorrow anyway. I just want to hang around here today. Sorry.’
For fuck’s sake. Maybe he’d been fighting with Julie or something. I hid my irritation, hung up and called Cocker.
‘I’m in town now gettin stoned with Kearney,’ he said when he picked up. ‘He’s after bookin a cheap last-minute flight to Boston. He leaves tomorrow. He says his ma paid for most of the ticket, just to get rid of him. Can’t blame her. I told him I’d pay for a euthanasia job for him if he’s up for it. Stall it in, we’re headin out to that big hill up on Killiney. I’ve got a lovely eighth here. Hopefully it won’t piss it down, though, with these skies.’
My intention had been to avoid Kearney until he left for the States but I wasn’t going to sit in today and do nothing. One more session before he went away was neither here nor there.
‘I’ll be there in half an hour,’ I said. I could hear Kearney singing operatically in the background. We hung up.
I sat next to Cocker on the DART. ‘What do ye think is up with Rez?’ I asked him as we came out of the city.
‘What do ye mean?’
‘Well, I don’t know, it’s just that half the time these days he seems miserable, ye can’t even talk to him. When I gave him a ring this mornin he sounded like he could hardly speak, ye know? Like he was fuckin miserable. Sometimes he seems normal and then he’s great craic but a lot of the time now he’s that way, all gloomy-like.’
‘But it’s just cos of Julie,’ said Cocker. ‘They haven’t been gettin on at all.’
‘No, even before that. He’s always frownin and goin off on his own. He just seems dead edgy, or cagey, or whatever the word is.’
‘Yeah,’ said Cocker. I thought he was going to elaborate, but he just muttered, ‘Nicholas Cagey.’ Then he turned to look out the window at the passing coastline.
Kearney was sitting in front of us. I could hear relentless techno played at full volume on his headphones, but he must have been listening with only one ear because he turned around to face us.
‘Maybe he is depressed,’ he said.
‘Why would he be depressed?’ I asked.
Kearney grinned. ‘I don’t really know. Possibly cos he’s a willy master. As gay as a pink doorbell.’
‘Give it a rest, Kearney.’
‘I’m only messin with ye, Matthew. I’m only messin with ye. I’m only messin with ye. I’m only fuckin messin with ye. Rez is a fuckin quality fella. A-One, boss. I reckon he’s a saint or the second comin of Jesus Christ. I’m goin to name me first three sons after him. The fourth one will be named after Gay Byrne.’
‘What about yer daughters?’ said Cocker.
‘Riverdance,’ said Kearney. ‘And Slán Leat. If I have a third, I won’t give her a name. I’ll lock her in the attic and throw her slabs of meat.’
‘God help any kids you’d ever have,’ said Cocker.
Kearney grinned again, taking it as a compliment. He was known to be anti-life, pro-compulsory-abortion. He turned back around in his seat.
‘Do you reckon Rez is depressed?’ I said to Cocker.
‘I don’t know. He was in great form the night of the gig, when we were flyin on them pills. Well yeah, he got a bit quiet-like, and then goin on about weird stuff. There’s always this stuff about reality or whatever. It’s like he’s obsessed or something. But … ah, I don’t know. Fuck it. He’ll be grand.’
The train bombed along and a few minutes later we reached Killiney Station.
We got off the DART and walked along a spiralling road that petered out into a muddy track that took us to the top of the hill. We drank whiskey and watched the dark clouds swarm in on the city from the sea. From up here Dublin looked like one enormous suburb, a dreary sprawl of semi-detached houses, electricity pylons and new roads leading to new suburbs, to roundabouts and Atlantic Homecare superstores. I wondered if every other place in the world seemed so dismal to the people who lived there.
‘So how’s this new job goin?’ Cocker asked.
‘Grand. I mean, I’ve only done one day, but already it’s the easiest job I’ve ever had. Total lack of responsibility. It gives me time to, like, ponder things.’
He laughed and said, ‘You’ll end up like Rez.’
‘He’s startin a job as well, tomorrow.’
‘Yeah I know. Doin night security work at some office block out in Citywest.’
‘No way.’ I’d assumed he’d be working in a supermarket or a garage. I pictured Rez sitting alone all night in an empty building in some deserted business park. ‘It sounds like something from Fight Club,’ I said. ‘I’d say that’s the last thing he needs, though. He seems to be gettin weirder the more time he spends on his own like that.’
Cocker shrugged. ‘Well, he says he’s lookin forward to it. He has a big stack of books he’s goin to read up there. He says it’ll give him time to think and write.’
I snorted. ‘What’s he goin to write?’ Really I was envious: I should have thought of being a writer first. Maybe I could be a musician instead. Or an artist.
‘Mostly just more of that stuff he’s always scribblin, I suppose,’ said Cocker. ‘His philosophy. All these essays he does write — he has tonnes of them by now. But apparently he’s writin some kind of book as well. All about our lives. Something like that.’
Kearney sniggered. ‘The world is really holdin its breath for that one.’ He handed me the shot he’d just poured. ‘Here then, let’s drink to Rez’s new job as nightwatchman, and to my departure for the pussy farm that is Boston. Total fanny holocaust it’ll be.’
We lit cigarettes and felt the kick of smoke in our throats, laughing and looking down on the city. It didn’t feel like it was our city, or our country, or our people. I scrolled my blurring eyes over the sprawl and felt a loathing for all of them, the fuckers who lived down there and raised their families, worked their jobs, asked no questions and listened to Joe Duffy or Gerry Ryan or whoever-the-fuck-else. As the whiskey pulsed into my brain, the hatred kept gushing out of me, laying waste to the city in a crescendo of contempt. Ecstatic, I wanted to drink myself into the ground, into total oblivion, and let all those cunts do what they wanted.
‘What are ye up to this weekend?’ I asked Cocker some time later. Kearney was off throwing stones towards the town. ‘Do ye want to meet up tomorrow?’
‘I’m workin tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Yeah, but after that?’
‘Eh, actually I’m goin out …’
I waited.
‘I’m headin out to meet another couple of friends. I mean, like, ye wouldn’t really know them.’
‘What, is it a party or something?’
‘Sort of. Not really a party, just a little thing. It’ll probably be crap.’ He laughed weakly and looked at the ground. He said nothing more.
Now Kearney was standing a bit down the hill, pissing and waving it from side to side, giggling to himself. It looked like he was pissing all over Dublin. ‘God is in his church!’ he roared. ‘God is in his church! How does yer garden grow?’
Turning to me, Cocker pointed at Kearney with his thumb and said, ‘Here, this boy is really off his nut, do ye know that?’
‘Of course I know that.’