“I think I’m a bit shy.”
“Me too.”
“Oh are you, Jack? I’m delighted.”
A waitress came and we ordered up a storm
Chow meins
Dim sum
Sweet and sour
Then the waitress asked,
“To drink?”
I got right to it, said,
“I’ll have another Coke... Ann?”
“Oh, Coke for me too.”
After she’d gone, Ann said,
“That’s it, your eyes, they’re white.”
“White?”
“No, I mean... clear.”
“It’s OK, I know what you mean.”
A silence. Then she said,
“Should I ask or... leave it alone?”
“I’m new to this myself, but sure, ask away.”
“Is it difficult?”
“A bit.”
Then the food came and we moved on and away. I liked to watch her eat. She caught me, asked,
“What?”
“I like to watch you eat.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“I’d say so.”
After, we took a walk down Quay Street. She linked my arm. Among good gestures, it’s right up there. At Jury’s, we stopped and she said,
“I have to go to the cemetery now. I go every day, and on such a wonderful day, I’d like to share it with Sarah.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Would you?”
“It would be a privilege.”
Caught a cab at Dominick Street, and we were no sooner settled than the driver asked,
“You heard about the scene on the square?”
Ann said,
“Oh, wasn’t it awful?”
I said nothing. The driver, of course, was contrary, said,
“People are fed up with the guards and the courts. They’ve had enough.”
Ann was having none, said,
“Oh, surely you don’t condone what happened.”
“Listen, ma’am, if you saw the yokes that get in here at night and the carry on of them.”
“But to set fire to a person.”
“Weren’t they the same pups doing that to winos? Even the guards know that.”
“All the same.”
“Now, ma’am, with all due respect, if something happened to your child.”
RECIPE FOR THE UPBRINGING OF A POET:
“As much neurosis as the child can bear.”
We walked to Sarah’s grave in silence. She was no longer linking me.
More’s the Irish pity. I could have done with it most then.
The grave was incredibly well kept. A simple wooden marker with her name. All round were
Bears
Snoopy
Sweets
Bracelets
And arranged in formation.
Said Ann,
“Her friends. They’re always bringing her things.”
I think that was the heartbreaker of all. I said,
“Ann, let her have the roses.”
She lit up.
“Really, Jack, you don’t mind? She loves roses... or loved. I can’t get the tense right. How can I consign her to that awful one, the past?”
She laid the roses gently down and then sat near the cross. She said,
“I’m going to have POET put on the stone. Just that. She wanted to be one so badly.”
I wasn’t sure of the etiquette of the dead. Did I kneel or sit? Then, I realised Ann was talking to her child. Soft, easy sounds that reverberated against my soul.
I backed away. Started to walk and nearly collided with an elderly couple who said,
“Grand day, isn’t it?”
Jesus. I kept going and arrived at my father’s grave. I said,
“Dad, I’m here by default, but then... aren’t we all?”
No doubt, I was raving. If Sutton saw me, he’d have force-fed me drink. The headstone was up and that’s the worst. It’s so final, no more appeals. Least while it’s only the plain cross, it stays temporary.
Ann arrived behind me, asked,
“Your dad?”
I nodded.
“Did you like him?”
“Oh God, I did.”
“What was he like?”
“Well, I don’t think I ever wanted to be him, but I did want to be liked the way people liked him.”
“What did he work at?”
“On the railways. Those days, it wasn’t a bad job. Every evening round nine, he’d get his cap and go for a few pints. Two pints. Some nights he wouldn’t bother. The test of an alcoholic is, if you take two daily and leave it at that. Me, I’d wait the week and have fourteen on Friday.”
She gave an uncertain smile.
The talk was on me now. Rabid.
“When I joined the guards, he didn’t comment except, ‘Mind it doesn’t lead you to drink.’ Then when I got bumped, he said, ‘The manner of your departure befits you better than past glories.’ Early on, in Templemore, an instructor said, ‘We can safely assume Taylor has a bright future behind him.’ What you’d call a ‘gas man’. He’s a minder for the taoiseach now, so he got his just desserts. My father loved to read, was always on about the power of print. After he died, a fella stopped me in the street, said,
“Your father was a hoor for books.”
“I should have put it on his stone. He’d have been happy with that.”
Then I was near spent. But a thought or two to stagger home. I said,
“I have a friend, Sutton. He used to wear a t-shirt that read:
IF ARROGANCE IS A BLESSING
BEHOLD THE HOLY CITY.
Ann didn’t get it, said,
“I don’t understand it.”
“Nor would you understand him. I don’t think I do either.”
Ann asked if I’d like to come visit her house. I said, sure.
She lived in Newcastle Park. Right by the hospital. A road comes out from the mortuary and it’s named the Mass Path. I don’t know could I walk that too often.
The house was modern, bright, clean and comfortable. It had the lived-in look. She said,
“I’ll make some tea.”
Which she did, emerging with a tray piled high with sandwiches. Good old-fashioned type with thick crusty bread, lashings of ham, tomato, butter. I said,
“God, those look good.”
“I get the bread in Griffin’s. It’s always packed.”
After a second cup of tea, I said,
“Ann, I have to talk to you.”
“Oh, it sounds ominous.”
“It’s about the investigation.”
“You’ll need money. I have more.”
“Sit down. I don’t need money. I had a... pharmaceutical windfall, so don’t worry. Look, if I told you the man responsible for Sarah’s death was dead, could you be satisfied with that?”
“How do you mean. Is he?”
“Yes.”
She stood up, said,
“But nobody knows. I mean, she’s still classed a suicide. I can’t leave her friends, her school, believing she did that.”
“OK.”
“OK? What does that mean, Jack? Can you prove the truth.”
“I don’t know.”
It meant I’d have to go after Planter. If she had agreed with what I proposed, I’d have left it alone.
I think.
But Sutton certainly wasn’t going to let him off, so I don’t think I had any choice.
“I haven’t any morals to preach.
I just work as closely to my nerves
as I can”
Later in the evening, we’d gone to bed. I was as nervous as a cat. Told her, said,
“I don’t think I’ve ever made love sober.”
“It will be better, you’ll see.”
It was.
Round midnight, I got dressed and Ann asked,