Mr Lynch’s Holiday (17 page)

Dermot called from the front door: ‘I’ll be off now, leave you to it.’

Eamonn looked up from his laptop. ‘Are you going for a walk? Did you want me to come with you?’ Not
Do you want me to come with you?
A linguistic feint. A hypothetical offer. Dermot responded as Eamonn knew he would.

‘No, not at all. You have work to do. I don’t want to get in the way.’

‘I should get on with it really. I’ve let it mount up since Laura went.’

‘You can’t do that – you have to earn your living.’

Eamonn felt a flicker of irritation. It passed as quickly as it had come. The point was inarguable.

‘So … another walk?’

‘I’m not walking today. I’m getting a lift with your one down the way.’

His father had some strange reluctance to use people’s names. ‘Your man’, ‘the fella with the hat’, ‘your one with the limp’.

‘Which one?’

‘The Swedish lady.’

‘Inga?’

‘That’s right. Apparently there’s a big DIY place out off the motorway. She’s off to buy some stuff for her painting and I thought I’d maybe go along and pick up one or two things.’

Eamonn nodded vaguely, having already opened up his work email and become distracted.

‘OK. Well … have fun. I’ll see you later.’

He didn’t notice the door close. He stared at the screen: fifty-three assignments to mark plus the six phone tutorials he had booked in. He headed straight to the kitchen to find some kind of coffee substitute. Since Laura had gone, he’d started speaking his thoughts out aloud, issuing abrupt little snorts at his own internal commentary. He didn’t want to be the kind of person who did such things. He thought consuming less caffeine might help. He settled for a bracing pot of laugh-free yoghurt and returned to his laptop. He thought he’d just write a quick email to her, letting her know what he was up to. He liked to keep her informed. When he’d finished that, gone to the loo, checked the kitchen cupboards one more time, there was really nothing for it but to open up the Beginner-level assignments. ‘Lesson Twelve: At the Shopping Mall’. Robert was looking for a new jumper. The students had to fill in Julia the shop assistant’s half of the exchange.

R: Hello, I’d like to buy a sweater.

J: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

R: That’s nice. Can I try it on?

J: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

R: Do you have it in blue?

J: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

R: No, it must be blue, to match my blue trousers.

J: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

R: Thank you. Goodbye.

Eamonn used to think Robert was a dick, with his weird need to match his jumper to his trousers. But now, post-Laura, he felt a tenderness towards Robert. He saw Julia for who she was. Robert was a man in need of help. He clearly had no idea what he was doing. He’d evidently lost his way in life. But Julia
wouldn’t throw him a line, not even to say: ‘You know, a grey sweater would look fine.’ She’d let Robert carry on searching high and low and when she saw him that night in the bar, on his own, in his matching blue sweater and trousers, she and her girlfriends would laugh remorselessly. Eamonn shook his head. Julia was a complete cow. He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before.

Lenguanet were based in Madrid and had contracts to provide online language tuition to civil servants across several autonomous communities. Students submitted their work online and tutors returned the work marked within an agreed time frame. In the face of massive cuts in government spending, however, many communities were cancelling their contracts and the company were laying off tutors. Having fallen badly behind, it was fortunate for Eamonn that his cohort of Asturian health workers were particularly slow in making their way through the course and that his manager was too preoccupied by the implosion of the company to check up on his activity.

The work was repetitive, enlivened only by the monthly phone tutorials that each student was obliged to complete. Eamonn had sent mails the previous night to his Advanced-level students to arrange slots for the day. He had enough self-knowledge to realize he was currently nowhere near robust enough to conduct Beginner-level phone tutorials. Although straightforward in theory, with the student simply following a script, the reality was different. The students, with effectively no English language at all, understandably found the idea of a telephone conversation with a faceless teacher terrifying. They rarely understood what was required of them, or which part of the script they should read, or even that there was a script.

Eamonn would answer the phone to the sound of a stranger hyperventilating. Random words – some English, some
Spanish – would start coming at him like stray bullets. He would tell them to look at the script, would try to reassure them, but his English outpourings only made them panic more. Sometimes, against the rules, he attempted to speak to them in Spanish, but his Spanish was so poor that it either went entirely unnoticed or caused even greater confusion when they spoke Spanish back to him. The calls generally descended into both student and teacher throwing out words they did not themselves fully understand and which could not be understood by the other. Latterly Eamonn had adopted the approach of grimly ploughing on through the script regardless of the students’ utter incomprehension and mounting anxiety. It was a gruelling and baffling ordeal, a kind of anti-communication, and the perfect inoculation against any desire to learn a foreign language.

Within each call, though, there was a small epiphany. No matter how rocky the crossing, how fraught the previous nine minutes had been, there was always a brief moment of connection at the very end. Eamonn would say ‘Goodbye’ several times until the student heard and recognized it. The student seized upon the word like someone adrift at sea for weeks – both because they had finally understood something and that what they had understood was that their ordeal was almost at an end. There was always a second of stunned silence and then a flurry of reciprocal goodbyes. Despite himself, Eamonn found something moving in the moment, the pure thrill of communication against the odds; he felt much as he thought Alexander Graham Bell must have felt as he made his first ever phone call. In his current emotionally raw state, though, Eamonn wasn’t sure he could withstand that instant of redemption and hope without bursting into tears.

As it was, the calls with the Advanced students were bad enough. It was the responsibility of the tutor to keep the
conversation going for twenty minutes. Often it wasn’t a problem, the students loved practising the language and were happy to chat about whatever came into their minds, but Eamonn was aware that he was failing to return the conversational ball.

‘So … José María … what have you been doing since we last spoke?’

‘Well, actually, it has been a very interesting time. My wife and I went on a fascinating holiday.’

‘Oh, good. Good. That sounds nice. I’m glad you did that.’

Long pause.

‘Would you like to know where we went?’

‘Oh. OK, yes – that would be great.’

He saved Encarna till last. He found something quite intimidating about her. It wasn’t just that her English appeared to be the equal of, if not superior to, his own. It was more that she seemed to be humouring him, as if she were the one being paid to make small talk. He found this impression confusing and unnerving.

‘Hello, Eamonn, it is Encarna.’

‘Hello, Encarna. How are you?’

The sound of smoke being exhaled.

‘So-so.’

‘OK. Good. So how did you find Unit 18?’

‘You want my honest opinion?’

Eamonn could think of little he wanted less. ‘Of course.’

‘I thought it was ridiculous.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Why must we read such stupid articles? Always a silly thing from the newspapers. A funny story. I don’t even think this one was true. This woman from Korea, who ends up in Torquay rather than Turkey? Please – it’s preposterous.’

There was a pause.

‘Yes. You’re right. It’s bollocks.’

He heard Encarna laugh for the first time. ‘Bollocks. That’s the right word for it.’

‘Encarna, why are you doing this course?’

‘I thought it might be interesting.’

‘And has it been?’

‘Not really. Not until now.’

‘Why now?’

‘Because now we are really communicating. We are finding out things we want to know. We are not talking about the weather in Scotland, or Christmas shopping on Oxford Street, or … what was it? … morris dancers.’

‘Those fucking morris dancers.’

She laughed again. ‘Exactly.’

‘You have a nice laugh.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I wish I heard it more often.’ Eamonn felt slightly out of control, as if he were reading a script someone else had written.

‘Really?’

‘We should do this more often. A proper conversation. Maybe I could visit you?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Maybe we could meet up sometime? I could come up to Asturias. You could show me the grass and the cider.’

‘Erm … we’re a long way from each other.’

‘You sound sultry. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that. It’s probably the fags.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You’re right, too far. Anyway, what’s so fucking special about grass and cider? Jesus, I could go to Hereford for that. Fucking morris men!’

‘Eamonn, are you OK?’

‘I’m just saying, it’d be nice to do this more often. To talk.
On the phone. Have you ever had phone sex?’

‘Eamonn! I think this isn’t a good day for you.’

‘No, no it’s not, you’re right, but when is? Can’t sit around waiting for a good day to come along, can we? Never get anything done.’ There was silence at the other end of the line. ‘I was joking about the phone sex. I don’t even understand what it is.’

‘Please stop talking about it!’

‘I’m not talking about it. I’m just saying it was a joke.’

‘I won’t have phone sex with you!’

‘Well, you keep mentioning it –’

The line went dead. He was still staring at the image of the red telephone receiver when a new call came through on his headphones. The screen showed the caller identity as Francesca, his manager at Lenguanet.

‘Hello, Francesca, I’ve been meaning to call you.’

‘Hello, Eamonn.’

‘You might have seen I’d let a little backlog build up, but I’m getting back on top of things now …’

‘Yes, I saw you had a few phone tutorials scheduled for today …’

‘Yeah. Sorry about the last couple of weeks. I’ve had a few problems, but …’

‘… And as you know we randomly monitor the quality of the service our tutors provide.’

‘…’

‘So I thought today would be a good day to do that.’

Eamonn was quiet for a while. ‘I would describe today as atypical.’

Silence.

‘I was joking about the phone sex.’

More silence.

‘I’m fired.’

‘Correct.’

He closed the laptop. Walked to his bedroom, climbed into his bed and curled into a tight ball. He awoke hours later to sounds of hammering and the smell of fish fingers.

After a thorough inventory Dermot was almost impressed to discover that not a single thing in the flat worked the way it should. Nothing. Not a tap, not a cupboard door, not even the toilet seat. It reminded him of his pal Jack Dempsey, who took up DIY in his retirement and just about destroyed his family home. Whenever Dermot saw Jack in the pub, he would ask him what he was up to and the answer was always the same: ‘Making improvements’ – followed by a short nod of the head and a sip of his pint. He managed to hang the front gate backwards on a slope, rendering it impossible to open. Dermot would see the post flung on the garden path whenever he passed by the house. According to Kathleen, Jack’s wife resorted to crushing up her Temazepam in his tea to keep him in his chair.

For all that Eamonn’s place had been badly put together, none of it, as far as Dermot could see, was really beyond hope. The walls were good enough for a dry climate, the ceiling and floor sound. It wasn’t going to fall down, which he knew was more than could be said for some of those other foreign developments. He’d seen the programmes on the telly: dream homes with cracks right through them; condominiums built on shallow foundations; stucco bungalows sliding down hillsides.

He’d gone around with a pad and pencil, making a note of everything that needed doing, and it was clear that every one of the problems should have been tackled a long time ago. The initial snags had been allowed to bloom into more serious
issues. He found himself underlining words and adding exclamation marks as his incredulity at Eamonn’s inaction mounted. Screws that could have been tightened before cupboard doors started hanging off and hinges became misshapen. Sealant that could have been applied before water pooled on the bathroom floor and the skirting board rotted. Doorstops that could have been fixed before handles made holes in the plaster walls.

Eamonn had never been handy, Dermot knew that. Some of the pieces he had brought home from woodwork as a boy could almost make Dermot weep. The amount of effort and glue that went into them was heart-breaking. ‘My son’s no labourer,’ Kathleen used to say with pride. But he did not go on to be the doctor or solicitor that she had always assumed he would. Neither she nor Dermot had ever fully understood the different jobs he had done, in part because he never took the time to explain them. They were never anything simple or straightforward that Kathleen could tell the women at church. It was always: ‘Something with computers.’ Or ‘Something to do with books.’

After Eamonn graduated, Kathleen became increasingly indignant that many of his cousins who had left school with far fewer qualifications seemed to be better off than him. John drove around in a BMW while Eamonn went most places on his bike or in Laura’s old Renault. Brendan had moved into a brand-new, four-bed semi out in New Oscott, while Eamonn and Laura lived in a little Victorian terrace on a tatty road in Moseley. She blamed his employers. ‘Your bosses are taking you for a ride, son.’ ‘You’re too soft, that’s your problem.’ But he would roll his eyes and say that he didn’t want to drive a BMW and he didn’t want to live in New Oscott.

It was true that he and Laura went away on holiday a lot, but never anywhere that anyone else Kathleen and Dermot knew
went. Rainforests and teeming cities, obscure islands and frozen peninsulas. Never once to Florida.

For Kathleen and Dermot, Eamonn’s adult life was like a film with a plot they couldn’t quite follow. They tried, but nothing made complete sense, as if they had missed a key scene, or the sound was turned down too low. Dermot was less concerned than Kathleen. There had always been an idea that she and Eamonn were on the same wavelength, that they understood each other in a way that Dermot did not, and yet the opacity of her son’s choices threatened this. Heartbroken though she was when he announced his emigration, Dermot knew that a part of Kathleen was glad that Eamonn was moving to Spain. A friend of a friend’s son had done the same thing. There were programmes about it on telly. It made for a story that was easy to tell and made their son seem like everyone else.

Dermot didn’t feel any disappointment in Eamonn. He was mildly baffled by his life, but felt, above all, that it was his to live. For Kathleen, the disappointment was not in Eamonn, but in herself. She reproached herself for always saying the wrong thing, for failing to understand him as she felt she should. He’d always been interested in books and films, but if ever she mentioned one she’d heard of, it was never one he was bothered about. He never wore the jumpers she bought him each Christmas. Dermot would hear her testing the water, sending out depth charges:

‘Peggy said that Brendan has all the Sky channels – the whole caboodle.’

A shrug.

‘I hear 3D is making a comeback in the cinemas. They’re all doing it now.’

A grunt.

‘I don’t care for that Home Secretary. I think he’s shifty.’

A roll of the eyes.

And yet their bond remained. It was to her, not Dermot, that Eamonn had spoken on the phone each week. He could be impatient with her, irritated by her, but there was a certain closeness there that Dermot knew he and his son did not share. In latter years Eamonn had refused to accept how ill his mother was and for her part Kathleen had not wanted him to know. Dermot had heard them discussing the idea of Kathleen visiting Eamonn out in Spain. He wasn’t sure who was kidding themselves more. When he tried to speak to Eamonn about it all he got back was:

‘Dad, you’ve been saying she’s at death’s door for years. She’ll outlive us all.’

He had put his arm around him at the graveside. The first time he had held him since he was a boy. He was all bones.

He was painting the wall behind the front door, where he had filled a hole, when Eamonn emerged from the lounge.

‘Is this ever going to end?’

‘Sorry?’

‘All this.’ He gestured vaguely in Dermot’s direction: ‘Is that going to make the flat smell?’

‘What?’

‘The paint. It gives me a headache. I don’t want the flat stinking of it.’

Dermot looked at him. ‘It’s matt, son, not gloss. It has no smell.’

‘Good.’ He walked off.

Dermot finished painting and then carefully laid the brush down and crossed into the lounge. Eamonn lay on the couch, staring at his laptop. Dermot picked up the machine and, without closing it, placed it gently on the other side of the room.

‘Dad! What are you doing?’

Dermot sat in the chair across from Eamonn.

‘Back on the buses, you’d get these characters. Young boys in particular. They liked to carve their names in the windows with their Stanley knives, or cut out pieces of the upholstery as if it were prized animal hide, or spray meaningless scribble all over the top deck. What would you call people like that?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Just answer me, if you can. What would you call people like that?’

Eamonn was exasperated. ‘I don’t know. Vandals.’

‘Yes. I’d say that was right. They were vandals. Destructive and shameless vandals. But the thing is, son, they weren’t idiots. They had no respect for property, but at least, you’d have to say, at least, it wasn’t their own property.’

‘Good, well that’s –’

Dermot spoke over him. ‘At least they hadn’t spent all their money on a brand-new flat and been too idle to lift a finger to stop it falling apart. They didn’t worry that a spot of paint might give them a headache and then stare at a computer screen all day and night. They didn’t sit in their pyjamas in the middle of the afternoon feeling sorry for themselves.’ He stood up and retrieved the laptop, placing it back in front of Eamonn. ‘No. Someone like that, son, would be a vandal and an idiot.’ He turned and left the room.