The Bright Side (12 page)

It
would
have
helped
a
lot
–
obviously
–
if
one
of
us
had said
something
to
bring
it
all
out
into
the
open.
But
we didn’t.
We
just
sat
back
and
let
things
fester
between
us.
In the
days
following
the
double
funeral,
I
would
sometimes catch
her
looking
at
me
out of
the
corner
of
her
eye. I
never
swivelled
round
and
asked,
“What?”.
I
knew
what?
As
time went
on,
the
dirty
looks
became
less
of
regular
occurrence and
then
disappeared
entirely.
Nevertheless,
the
damage had
been
done.
We
called
each
other
less
frequently
and, even
when
we
did,
we
seemed
to
run
out
of
conversation within
minutes.
Then
Melissa
stopped
calling
me
at
all. Feeling
rejected
and
small,
I
cut
back
even
more
on
my
own calls.
Before
long,
we
were
speaking
no
more
than
once
a month.
I
slowly
came
to
accept
that
it
would
take
quite
a while
before
we
were
back
on
track.
But
I
didn’t
think
we were
talking
about
years
.

The bottom line is this: when I decided to call on Melissa that Friday the 13th, I didn’t do it because I thought it would help me. I did it because I thought it would help
us
.

Melissa
and
Colm
lived
in
Dublin
–
Ranelagh
to
be precise.
Even
if
we’d
been
on
proper
speaking
terms,
I
don’t think
I
would
have
visited
their
house
very
often.
It
was
just too
depressingly
beautiful.
And
huge
–
the
sort
of
place
you pass
and
think
“Now
who
the
hell
lives
there
?”
As
it
was,
I’d only
been
over
maybe
half
a
dozen
times.
It
had
been
quite a
while
since
the
last
occasion,
which
was
my
excuse
for driving
straight
past
the
front
door
on
this
one.
After
I’d hastily
reversed
and
parked,
I
took
a
moment
to
compose myself.
My
number
one
concern
(apart
from
my
headache and
the
obvious)
was
that
Niall,
Melissa’s
three-year-old, would
be
having
one
of
his
episodes.
He
had
been
a
late arrival,
but
the
joy
his
parents
experienced
at
his
birth
had quickly
been
replaced
by
anxiety,
frustration
and
exhaustion. Niall
was
one
of
those
babies
who
got
everything
.
Jaundice,
measles,
impetigo,
whooping
cough;
it
was
like
he
had
The Big
Book
of
Baby
Illnesses
and
was
working
his
way
through
it, ticking
them
off
as
he
went.
I
think
it
was
harder
on
Colm than
it
was
on
Melissa
–
it
didn’t
seem
right,
somehow,
that a
consultant
cardiologist
should
be
the
father
of
such
a perfect
poster-child
for
ill-health.
The
last
time
I
had
spoken to
Melissa,
about
a
month
previously,
she’d
reported
that Niall
was
currently
quite
healthy
by
his
standards,
being
host to
nothing
more
than
a
low-grade
flu,
but
that
his
physical state
was
no
longer
the
main
concern.
“He’s
gone
nuts”
was the
way
she
put
it.
I
tried
to
reassure
her
that
all
toddlers have
tantrums.
She
interrupted
and
sneered
that,
no
offence, I
didn’t
know
what
the
hell
I
was
talking
about.
A
tantrum was
whinging
and
maybe
rolling
around
a
bit.
When
the mood
took
him
–
and
it
frequently
did
–
Niall
was
given
to
outright
hooliganism.
He’d
demolished
toys
and
eaten
picture
books.
He’d
painted
carpets
and
superglued
locks. He’d
savaged
every
curtain
in
the
house
with
a
pair
of scissors
that
neither
Melissa
nor
Colm
had
ever
seen
before. He’d
smashed
innumerable
pieces
of
crockery
and
ruined several
pieces
of
consumer
electronics,
some
of
them
by throwing
them
through
windows.
Taken
on
their
own
merits, these
would
have
been
instances
of
bad
behaviour.
What raised
them
to
the
level
of
“episodes”,
apparently,
was
the way
the
child
screamed
throughout.
It
was
like
“a
cross between
a
dentist’s
drill
and
a
horny
cat,”
according
to Melissa.
On
one
occasion,
during
a
standard
room-wreck, he’d
screamed
so
loudly
and
for
so
long
that
he’d
lost
his voice
for
two
days,
only
to
resume
screaming
–
and
room-
wrecking
–
as
soon
as
he
got
it
back.
She
blurted
all
of
this out
in
a
rush
and
seemed
to
immediately
regret
doing
so. Nevertheless,
the
information
had
lodged
in
my
brain.
Our conversation
was
going
to
be
weird
enough,
I
thought, without
that
kind
of
thing
going
on
in
the
background.
With a
sigh
so
heavy
it
was
really
more
of
a
groan,
I
climbed
out
of the
car
and
crunched
up
the
gravel
path
to
Melissa’s
door. Not
wanting
to
ruin
my
surprise,
I
left
my
suitcase
in
the boot
.