“And I’m going to do what with this number?”
Her exasperation was audible and she answered,
“If you’re smart, you’ll call. It’s Margaret.”
“Margaret?”
“Yes, I’m as surprised as you sound. What on earth she sees in you is beyond comprehension. I gather your previous encounter wasn’t exactly promising.”
My heartbeat had increased, a wave of near delight swept through me, yet I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Ridge’s obvious displeasure didn’t help. I asked
“She’s interested in me?”
Her derision was clear and she snapped,
“Did I say she was interested? Did you hear me say that? Your ability to jump to conclusions is beyond belief. I said to call her, but if you mess her around, you’ll answer to me.”
“Jeez, Ridge, that sounds like a threat.”
“It is.”
Click.
I did call Margaret and she responded with warmth and, Good Lord, affection. As a young man, I hadn’t been what you could ever term a ladies’ man. Alcoholics have a deadly combination of ego and no self-esteem. It sure confuses the hell out of you. You select a woman who is top of your wish list (ego dictates this), then the lack of self-esteem dismantles every single reason she might ever consider you. So, you move way down the scale and search out the grateful ones. Their gratitude lies in that hardly anyone would ever consider them. Thus the dual damage, the hurt, has piled on already. The whole shabby ritual is preordained to failure. The guys you know, they sneer,
“She’s a nice girl.”
In macho terms, she doesn’t, as the Americans say, “put out”. In other words, buddy, you ain’t getting any. But you go with the flow. Drink conceals the flaws and cracks in such endeavours. Back then, you “did a line”. No, not cocaine. This was before we learned about relationships. You followed the strict rituaclass="underline" brought her to the pictures, then progressed to an evening’s restrained drinking. She’d have an orange or, wow, if she was forward, a Babycham. While at the bar, you hammered in some serious short ones, then took a pint back to sit with her and sip. Moved on to going dancing on Saturday night, the showbands in their heyday. Here the nightmare began in earnest. My generation didn’t dance. The girls could jive and move till the cows came home. The guys poured the booze from prohibited flasks, did the “slow set” and got to lay a hand on her shoulder, perhaps feel the bra strap and be hot for weeks. If you were coerced into joining her for the fast numbers, you demonstrated how child of the sixties you were. Did a series of quirky disjointed twitches without moving your feet and sweated ferociously. It bore an uncanny resemblance to the DTs and may have been the very early rehearsal. Not till Ann Henderson did I ever fall in love. And I blew that to smithereens.
So Margaret and I began to do a millennium version of “the line” of that forgotten era. We went to the cinema, took short walks to the Claddagh and fed the swans.
Galway stuff.
I didn’t tell her about the swan killer. Once, near the church, I saw him leaning against the statue of the Blessed Virgin. And I mean leaning, his shoulder against hers, his legs loose as if he was her buddy. A time there was, the priest would have been out, clipping him around the ear, going,
“Yah impertinent pup, who’s your father?”
Not any more. Priests were so gun-shy they had to keep the profile lower than a wet Monday novena. With the deluge of scandals, the clergy no longer expected the respect of the people; they simply wanted to avoid lynch mobs.
Ronan, of course, waved and Margaret asked,
“You know him?”
How to answer that? I said,
“We’ve met.”
She stared at him, said,
“He’s leaning against Our Lady.”
“He sure is.”
His body shifted and his right arm circled the waist of the statue. Margaret was infuriated, went,
“Somebody should speak to him.”
The plea of our times. As public disorder increases and hooligans become more blatant, the plea goes unheeded. I said, as many do,
“Forget it.”
And we walked on, contributing our own tiny morsel to the vast sea of shirked responsibility that eats at the fabric of decency.
Margaret was forty-five and had been briefly married, to “a cold man”. Her exact words. After two years of ice, she got a separation. I said,
“You’re technically still married?”
She gave a sad smile and an answer that captures the essence of the Irish woman.
“If marriage is about love, then we were never married.”
And didn’t mention him again. How interested was I anyway? I told her of my own disastrous union to Kiki, and I’d even less to say than she did. So we left the marriages in our wake, trailing sadness. I took her to see a John B. Keane play at the Town Hall which she loved. My mind was on Synge and how little of his work I knew. I resolved to get down to Charlie Byrne’s, remedy that.
Bed.
We circled round that issue, wary and apprehensive. I kissed her goodnight a few times and felt her grip me a little more tightly each time. I’d been to her home, a spacious top floor flat in Greenfields. She’d even cooked me dinner, Irish stew, saying,
“I have you down as the meat and potatoes type.”
I didn’t protest.
The only item missing on our programme of dating was the pub, the very basis of most Irish courtship. I figured I’d better deal with that, said,
“We can go for a drink. I won’t be suffering.”
She gave me a long look, then,
“I’m not a big drinker, some wine with meals, but it’s not a vital part of my life.”
I never did get to see her have that infrequent glass but didn’t push it. She did ask,
“Are you afraid of physical intimacy?”
Which is down to the wire. No evasive hints there. I said,
“No, I’m a bit beat up. When I get back to speed, I’m planning on making a move.”
Got an enigmatic smile and she said,
“Let’s get you on that road to recovery.”
She had a friend, a physiotherapist, who agreed to treat me. I began a punishing regime with her and was soon able to discard the cane. My knee was never going to be 100 per cent, but it sure was coming along. The day I ditched the cane, I made love to Margaret. A Friday night. We’d been for a meal, went back to her place, and I made the promised move. It wasn’t a huge success; in fact it was mostly quick. We lay in bed after and I said,
“I’ll improve.”
She had her head on my shoulder, answered,
“You better.”
War with Iraq dominated the news and people became familiar with UN resolutions. Hans Blix was as famous as Bono. The pool run by the sentry in Nestor’s, as to when Bush would invade, had been abandoned. I asked him,
“What happens to all the money in the pot?”
He was staring into his Guinness, snapped,
“All bets are off.”
Pithy. Put it on a tombstone and you were downright ironic. Refunds weren’t mentioned.
The rupture in my friendship with Jeff began to mend and I resumed my visits. The hard chair and table that served as my office were back in action. I heard that Pat, Jeff’s friend who’d been castrated, had been moved to Dublin to be treated there. Sometimes, his fate shadowed our conversations, but we never met it head on.
To my surprise, Cathy asked me to mind their toddler, Serena May. I went,
“Like babysit?”
“Exactly.”
“Jeez, Cathy, I don’t know.”
Cathy had put on weight and it suited her. She’d taken on the role of mother, housewife, with delight. A far cry from the heroin punk I’d originally known. Almost all traces of her London accent were gone. I felt that was a loss. She spoke like an actress who’d determined to pass as Irish. Mostly, she succeeded.
The afternoons and evenings I watched Serena, I felt a kind of tranquillity. The little girl wasn’t walking but she sure could move on all fours. She seemed to know me and sat still as a prayer when I read to her. Dr Seuss, Barney and a shitpile of nursery rhymes. I also read to her in Irish, and if Cathy returned early, she’d say,