I wiped my lips and pushed my plate away.
‘But you haven’t even —’ I said. ‘And after we’ve driven all this way?’
‘I know.’
‘Is there something you want to tell me?’
Outside, hoarsely, someone started up a verse. A guitar rasped into life a half a beat behind it.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Dani said. ‘I’ve had it up to here with all these fucking sad songs.’
I crossed the room and sat on the edge of her bed. She stared into her lap, hair covering her glasses. I brought my ear down close to the mattress and looked up into her face. She laughed but her eyes were dull.
‘Are you mad at me?’ I said.
‘Mad at you? Why would I be?’
My daughter drew her knees up to her chin and stared out the window. I followed her gaze over rooftops, past chimneypots, along the pier and westward, out over the sea.
Graduation
Martin Cleary, in suit and tie, carried two takeaway coffees across the square. The morning was fresh and bright — suitably collegiate, Martin thought. The water in the canal basin shimmered as it only ever did before noon.
Ronan rose from the bench by the door of Martin’s apartment building and accepted with two hands the cup his father offered.
‘Get that down you,’ Martin said.
Ronan raised the cup to his lips. He was freshly showered but his hangover showed in red eyes half-screened by a curtain of lank hair. On his feet were a pair of motorbike boots he swore would not appear in the photographs. One of Martin’s dark suits hung loosely from his shoulders.
‘Good night, then?’
‘I think so.’
‘It was good to be able to put you up. Less so to be woken at three in the bleeding morning. Where were you?’
‘Haven’t a breeze.’
‘You drink too much.’
‘So do you.’
‘Maybe,’ Martin laughed. ‘But I’m too old to change.’
They set off together down Pearse Street, Martin leading and Ronan looking around him at the collage of broken-down pubs and new sandwich shops that made this part of Dublin.
‘Have you spoken to her yet this morning?’
‘Texted. But I’ll ring her when I leave you.’
‘Did you tell her you’d missed your bus?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And what did she say about you staying?’
‘What do you think?’
They entered the college through the wrought-iron gate on Westland Row. Ronan led the way past the stone steps and oak doors of the Physiology and Zoology buildings. In a green space bordered by apple blossoms, two bearded boys were throwing a frisbee. Nearby a cluster of students in dark gowns led their families to the deck of the cricket pavilion. The girls wore clicking heels. The boys slouched with their hands in their pockets. The parents linked arms.
‘Do you have to pick up your gown and all?’
‘Yeah.’ Ronan drained his coffee cup and threw it, hit a metal bin with a clang from ten feet. ‘But I have one reserved.’
On the tree-shaded benches by the cricket pitch, tourists in windcheaters huddled over maps. Martin and Ronan passed beneath the granite edifice and gothic windows of the Old Library building and continued on into Front Square, where Martin savoured the sensation of well-tended grass, white-columned buildings and glinting cobblestones. He reached out and ruffled Ronan’s hair, at once regretting it as his fingers caught.
‘You need a haircut.’
‘I know. I meant to get one but I ran out of time.’
‘Do you have time now?’
‘I suppose. Do you know somewhere close?’
The barbershop Martin used was in a basement room of gilt mirrors and soft leather couches. It smelled of scalp and shaving foam. There was only one other customer in the place.
‘This one, Keith,’ Martin told the barber as Ronan climbed into the chair.
Keith nodded and tied the cape around Ronan’s shoulders. ‘How do you want it, so?’
In the mirror Ronan’s eyes met Martin’s for a moment. ‘Short,’ he said. ‘I suppose something clean and … something short.’
The electric shears buzzed as Keith went to work, dropping lengths of hair over Ronan’s shoulders to the floor. The barber filled a water bottle and sprayed the top, then sliced in with a long-bladed scissors. When he was done, Martin felt as though he could make out more clearly some of his own features in the boy’s reflection. Ronan had his father’s chin, his father’s nose, his father’s eyebrows framing Anne’s dark eyes.
‘Cheers, Keith,’ Martin said as he paid.
‘See you again.’
They stepped out into the light. Grafton Street was getting busy. Ronan checked his phone and nodded in the direction of the college.
‘Look, I’d better get going.’
‘Exam hall, right?’
‘You know where that is?’
‘I’ll find it.’
Ronan tilted his head and squinted up at his father. ‘Look, will you sit with her?’
‘I imagine so.’
‘Good.’ Ronan nodded.
‘Here, do you need some money?’
‘You’re grand.’
‘Just let me buy you a few scoops later.’
Martin took a hundred-euro note from his wallet. Ronan’s eyes widened. He laughed.
‘How much do you think I can drink?’
‘Go on, I said. Just take it.’
Ronan eyed the money. ‘Thanks. And for the couch. And the coffee.’
‘Listen —’
Ronan tugged at his lapels. ‘And the lend of the suit.’
‘Of course, my pleasure but —’
‘And the haircut.’
‘Any time.’
‘I suppose I’ll look good in the photos for you now.’
Ronan made to go but Martin took his hand. In an hour they would be together again but they would not be alone. With the hair gone, Martin could see more clearly the angular set of Ronan’s jaw, the hard lines of his cheekbones, the height of his forehead. He had small ears, a small mouth, lines already at the corners of those dark eyes. His Adam’s apple, nicked from shaving, seemed enormous. The suit fitted him poorly but still he looked great. He was a man, entirely himself. Martin couldn’t keep from blurting out:
‘We don’t look that alike, you know.’
Ronan frowned. ‘I know.’
‘No,’ Martin said. ‘I mean, I feel that sometimes we do … But a lot of the time … It’s not there is what I mean. Sometimes I don’t see it.’
‘Yeah.’ Ronan looked away over his shoulder.
‘I used to think you looked more like your mother.’
‘No, not really.’
‘No, you’re right, not really.’
A liveried doorman smiled as he admitted Martin to what Anne called the Temple of Mammon: a high-ceilinged lobby with marble floors and brass fixtures. Martin asked a girl promoting store credit cards where he could find the watches and followed her directions across the lobby and down the stairs. He paused at the near end of an L-shaped counter and bent to peer in at a selection of women’s watches, studying their jewelled faces and imagining how the blue felt of the boxes might feel against his fingers. Without realizing, he had begun to slide back into the past as he had sworn that morning he would not. He stopped himself, moved away from the women’s section and along the length of the counter to the far end, where the men’s watches were housed. His preference was for a very simple gold piece with a notched face and a dark brown strap, but he knew it wasn’t right. The right one was a chunky steel affair with a clever-looking double clasp and a square face with no marks at all for the numbers.
Emerging into Grafton Street, Martin spotted Brian Glennan struggling towards him through the afternoon crowd. Brian was a balding, gangly man who stood at a great height that made his approach visible over long distances.