The Bright Side (7 page)

in
a
husky
whisper,
was
the
way
he
looked
at
you.
If
you caught
his
eye
walking
down
the
street,
you
didn’t
know whether
he
was
going
to
laugh
in
your
face
or
screw
you senseless
on
the
bonnet
of
the
nearest
car.
Everything
about this
conversation
had
been
shocking
to
me,
but
this
last
bit left
me
slack-jawed.
None
of
my
friends
ever
talked
about getting
screwed,
senseless
or
otherwise.
We
talked
about
so- and-so
being
“a
ride”,
sure,
and
Andrew
Healey’s
arse,
of course,
got
a
regular
airing.
But
by
and
large,
when
we
talked about
boys,
we
talked
about
the
possibility
or
otherwise
of
kissing
them.
It
wasn’t
all
we
thought
about,
no
doubt
–
but
it
was
all
we
talked
about.
I
left
Caroline’s
in
a
funny
mood.
It was
nice,
I
supposed,
in
a
giggly,
gossipy,
girly
sort
of
way
to hear
that
she
had
noticed
Gerry
(to
say
the
least).
But
it
also felt
as
if
something
that
was
mine
and
mine
alone
now
had to
be
shared.
I
was
dead
right
on
that
score.
Caroline
had apparently
taken
great
comfort
from
our
little
chat
and
from that
day
forth,
she
started
dropping
Gerry’s
name
into random
conversations.
Every
time
she
did
it,
some
other
girl would
mutter
that,
actually,
to
tell
the
truth,
don’t
laugh,
she thought
he
had
“a
certain
something”.
It
was
so
strange. They
always
thought
they
were
the
only
one
.

My
return
to
Cleo’s,
which
came
just
after
my
exams,
was not
exactly
triumphant.
I’d
been
back
in
the
game,
as
such, for
about
a
month
before
I
got
so
much
as
a
dance,
and
that was
from
a
sort
of
anti-Gerry.
He
was
tall
(way
too
tall
for
a half-pint
like
me)
and
incredibly
skinny.
It
was
like
putting your
arms
around
a
ladder.
Worse
still,
he
had
the
wispy beginnings
of
an
ill-advised
moustache
and
the
tiniest
eyes I’ve
ever
seen
on
a
human
being.
None
of
that
would
have mattered
–
at
least,
it
wouldn’t
have
mattered
as
much
–
if he’d
been
fun
to
talk
to.
But
he
spent
the
entire
three
or
four minutes
of
our
relationship
telling
me
about
the
time
a
few weeks
previously
when
he
got
stung
by
a
wasp.
Apparently
– and
this
was
a
point
he
was
keen
to
emphasise
–
it
had
really hurt.
There
was
a
happy
ending
to
the
story,
though
–
he’d squished
the
little
bastard
with
a
rolled-up
RTÉ
Guide
.
As
he mumbled
on
and
on,
I
realised
that
I
had
never
been
less attracted
to
anyone
in
my
entire
life.
Several
weeks
later, when
I
saw
Gerry
standing
by
the
bar,
the
first
thought
that
popped
into
my
head
was
this:
that
one
wouldn’t
tell
you
if
he’d done
battle
with
a
frigging
bear
.

I’d never seen him in Cleo’s before – I assumed he’d started going during my leave of absence. He was with a bunch of his mates and, oddly enough, he wasn’t looking his best. Nothing about his physical person had changed since the last time I’d spotted him (coming out of an off-licence, carrying a bottle of whiskey), but he looked … uncomfortable. Out of place. That didn’t stop me staring, though, and while I was staring, it occurred to me that looking out of place in a dive like Cleopatra’s was not necessarily a bad thing. One of the guys he was drinking with was a neighbour of ours named Brendan Hunt. For a brief period around the previous Christmas, he had been my sister’s boyfriend. I wasn’t quite sure why it had ended, but I doubted that it was anything Brendan had done. He’d always struck me as a decent enough sort of bloke. When he caught my eye, he visibly flinched, so I smiled to let him know there were no hard feelings. Then, to my surprise, he beckoned me over. We chit-chatted for a few minutes. Turned out it was one of their number’s birthday. He’d insisted on going to Cleo’s, to the horror of his friends, all of whom considered themselves above such things. Eventually, Brendan plucked up the nerve to ask about his ex. I was halfway through an elaborate lie about how Melissa had seemed a little down lately when Gerry appeared at his shoulder and asked him if he wanted a drink. Brendan declined. Gerry turned in my direction and looked me over, head to toe. What about me? Was I old enough to drink? I would be soon, I told him. Seven months later, we were married with twins on the way
.

CHAPTER
4

If
anyone
had
told
me
when
I
was
eighteen
that
one
day
I’d be
living
in
a
house
worth
half
a
million
euros,
I
would have
said,
“What
the
hell
is
a
euro?”
Then
I
would
have
said, “Wow”.
Sadly,
half
a
million
didn’t
buy
you
an
awful
lot
of house,
not
in
Ireland
in
2006.
Ours
was
a
bog-standard
–
nice, but
bog-standard
–
three-bedroom
semi
on
the
Dublin
side of
Ashbourne,
County
Meath.
Its
best
feature
was
the kitchen, which
was
surprisingly
large.
Its
worst
feature
was
the
bathroom,
which
was
only
just
big
enough
to
accommodate
the
bath,
the
loo,
the
sink
and
one
thin
person standing
stiffly
upright.
The
bathroom
had
only
recently risen,
or
rather
sunk,
to
the
worst
feature
position;
the previous
champion
had
been
our
old
windows.
They
were seriously
grotty.
The
frames
were
half-rotten
and
a
lot
of
the
glass
was
splattered
with
paint.
Two
of
the
smaller
panes
were
badly
cracked
and
all
of
them
seemed
to
be
permanently
dirty.
We’d
tried
to
make
the
best
of
a
bad
lot by
hanging
net
curtains
everywhere
but
had
only
succeeded in
making
the
place
look
old-fashioned
and
shifty.
I
was
beside
myself
with
delight
when
we
finally
got
PVC
replacements
in
2001.
As
soon
as
they
were
in,
I
practically
danced
round
the
house,
ripping
down
the
nets
and
proclaiming
a
bright
new
day.
I
did
worry,
at
first,
about
the front
room
being
exposed
to
the
street,
but
given
our location
at
the
end
of
the
last
cul-de-sac
in
the
estate,
I decided
it
wouldn’t
be
a
serious
issue.
And
it
wasn’t.
Not
for the
first
five
years
or
so. Even
then,
I was
the
one doing
the looking
in
.