The Misremembered Man (4 page)

In short, she was her father’s daughter, and it took his death and his absence from her life to confirm for her that she had become a walking contradiction. Perhaps now that he was gone, she could finally be the person she wished to be. She pushed open the car door with a fresh resolve. It’s time to change, she thought, and slammed it shut, causing a flock of ravens to bluster free of the garden elm.

In the kitchen she prepared the breakfast she’d postponed in deference to her mother. She had the best part of two hours to herself while Elizabeth got primped. She guessed that the hairdresser could do for her mother what drink, or other indulgences, could do for others. The styling of her hair was one of the few pleasures she had left.

Lydia sat down at the table, spread her napkin wide, poured tea, and smeared her toast with a film of Golden Bee honey from a frilly-topped pot. All at once she became conscious of the solitude, and how it was not a negative quality but one that gave her strength in the calm, bright room. She noted the hush that swelled between the random sounds: the traffic hissing past on the road outside, a child crying faintly in the house next door, the clicking of stiletto heels on a nearby sidewalk. And, nearer still, the thinning whine of the kettle cooling on the stove, the clink of her cup on the china saucer, the thrum of the fridge in the corner, her own sips and swallows.

She became aware also of her mother’s cluttered kitchen and the emblems it contained, snagging for a moment on the nail of a childhood she wished she could forget. It seemed that all the bric-a-brac on walls and shelves hauled her back to the episodes that had put them there. Those things Lydia knew could not be removed until her mother died. Those connections. Those reminders.

The risen Christ looked fondly down upon her from a gilt-edged print on the far wall; an anniversary gift which she’d bought her parents in The Good Shepherd bookstore when she was twelve. The man behind the counter had frightened her. She remembered his hooded eyes and the long white beard, his purple mouth, like a buried bruise. He might himself have been the risen Christ. He had counted the change into her palm with long pale fingers and rasped “Praised be the Lord, my child,” causing her to run for the door.

She remembered her parents’ smiling approval as they unwrapped the picture. Her father had conjured a hammer and nail as if from nowhere and secured it to the wall. And there it had hung, unmoved, for twenty-eight years. She guessed that the portrait of a smiling Queen Elizabeth below it might have hung there just as long, and the fan of souvenir spoons from trips to the coast, and the faded tapestry of birds gliding on their smudged reflections over a pond—its age, whom it had belonged to, she did not know, but she believed it might have been another precious wedding gift.

It seemed that every room in the house had the power to entrap her with some form of sentimental pull.

The sound of the postman at the front door brought her back to the present. She went immediately into the hall and collected the letters lying on the
Bless This House
mat.

There was a bill from the electricity company, a circular from Gallagher’s furniture store (“20% off all Draylon suites”) and a stiff vellum envelope which looked like a greetings card. She trashed the furniture flyer, stuck the invoice in Uncle Sinclair’s wooden cat on the kitchen windowsill, and sat down again at the table to open the letter. It was addressed to her.

It was a card with a gilded edge, a wedding invitation. Lydia saw that it was from an old college friend: Heather Price. Gosh, she hadn’t seen or spoken to her in years.

Lydia reread the invitation with a mounting sense of unease. It was that word “partner” which caused her the most discomfort. All her old girlfriends seemed to be married now, and she was not. She had attended too many of those weddings, knew all too well the embarrassment of being seen in the company of her fractious mother, and the attendant smirks and sly looks that went with the questions: “Any word of you, Lydia? When are you going to give us another big day?”

She returned the card to the envelope, angry at the very thought. Yes, she would go to the blasted wedding, and she would find a man to accompany her—even if she had to hire one for the day! After all, her father was no longer around to censor her every move. And as for her mother: She was not her partner, and was therefore not invited. And, by heavens, she would no longer stand in her way!

Lydia knew what she had to do. She’d look up Daphne at the library and ask her advice. Daphne always knew what to do in such circumstances. She rose, galvanized into action, checked her watch, saw that she had most of an hour left, grabbed her purse and left the house.

T
ailorstown, a small village in County Derry, had started out with Flynn the grocer, O’Shea the bar owner, Duffy the undertaker, a smattering of dwellings and the obligatory parish church. Over the decades it expanded its buildings and population through the committed efforts of the above-mentioned stalwarts, alongside a steady influx of traders and urban speculators. So the ladies from the shirt factory met the bricklayers from the council estates, and in time the school and every church pew were filled with the by-products of their passions. Tailorstown was a success.

To the outsider, the village was nothing more than a one-horse town leading nowhere, ringed by the peaks of the Slievegerrin mountains, which neither sightseer nor adventurer yearned much to see. Like most small villages, Tailorstown remained unremarkable, of interest only to its townsfolk and the local historical society. A society which had been formed, out of frustration, by a retired school principal, who, after a lifetime of hammering the daylights out of pupils, needed a displacement activity to keep bitterness at bay.

Jamie McCloone unchained his bike from the railings outside the doctor’s office and began pushing it up the main street, the spokes a-glitter and wheels ticking like crickets as he walked. Few people were out and about that fine sunny morning. The mothers were in their kitchens, the fathers at their trades or in the fields, while their offspring ran loose in yards and gardens, enjoying their first few days of freedom from school.

Jamie felt at peace, content for the most part, living in the vicinity of this tranquil place. There were times when he felt like a twig in a river—broken off and insignificant perhaps, sometimes getting caught and tossed in the rough rapids, but eventually breaking free again to be carried along by the great force and flow that told him he belonged. Tailorstown was home.

The morning’s events had lifted his spirits—what with the discovery of the “Lonely Hearts” column, the doctor’s good news, and the prospect of his break at the seaside taking shape—a celebration was called for in the nearest pub. But which one? They were all within spitting distance. He had to think hard since he’d run up tabs in Hickie’s, Doolan’s and O’Shea’s, yet had difficulty deciding which bar had the steepest tally and, as a consequence, might be the least welcoming at that hour of the morning. After a few minutes of brow-puckering uncertainty, he decided on O’Shea’s, because it was nearest and he had a few bob on him anyway, and Slope wasn’t the worst, and…

“Slope” O’Shea—bartender, janitor, cleaner and long-suffering spouse of Peggy—had a disposition to annoy, and could, with drink taken, let slip ill-considered observations on his fellow men. He was in the process of opening the premises, having overslept because of a late night. He was none too pleased at the sight of Jamie in the doorway. His head ached and his stomach heaved every time he righted a bar stool or returned a chair to one of the many tables in the lounge of his establishment.

“Morning, Slope,” Jamie called out. “A fine one, isn’t it?”

He struggled up onto one of the high stools at the counter, hooked his feet under the foot rail, rested his elbows on the blue-veined Formica counter and settled himself.

“Aye, Jamie, not a bad one atall,” sighed Slope.

Due to his calling, Slope had, over the years, mastered the art of initiating and prolonging the mindless conversation. On this occasion, however, he was in no mood for talk. He reluctantly left off the unstacking and pushed open the half-door behind the bar counter. He had earned his nickname from his slouching gait and slow manner, had the stunned, vacant look of a man prematurely released from a mental institution, a man still coming to terms with the fact that a doctor had been crazy enough to let him out; his raised eyebrows and wall-eyed stare seemed permanently focused on some preternatural mishap a little ways ahead.

“Usual, is it?” he asked Jamie’s left ear.

“Aye, and a wee drop of that port wine as well, if you have it.”

Jamie half-rose off the stool to fish the money from his trousers pocket. A few fumbling moments later he slapped down a heap of loose coinage—along with a fistful of hayseeds, a bus ticket, a rusty wing nut, a spent match, the remains of a custard cream—and began to sort through it.

“You didn’t, be any chance, see Barn Conway, did you?” Substitute Potts with Conway.

“Well, I did and I didn’t,” said Slope evasively. “Were you lookin’ him, were ye?”

He placed the Black Bush whiskey in front of Jamie, taking care not to catch his eye—which wasn’t difficult, given his strabismus—slid a jug of water into place beside the tumbler and proceeded to pour the glass of port wine.

“Aye, the bugger owes me three pound…borra-ed it off me a couple a months back.” Jamie trembled an inch of water into the whiskey and took a gulp. “So, ye said there that y’seen him, did ye?”

“Aye, I did but at the same time I didn’t, if you unnerstand me, Jamie?”

“Naw, I don’t!”

Jamie wiped a hand across his mouth and stared at Slope. If there was one thing he disliked it was being made to look foolish. Slope read the disquieting signs and reveled in the knowledge that he was provoking the farmer. Since McCloone’s appearance, his hangover, just about bearable, had begun to throb with a dogged intensity.

“Well, it’s like this,” Slope explained, “a boy came in here the other night and I thought it was him…had the same head on him as Potts. But, when I got up on him, begod, it wasn’t him atall.”

“So ye didn’t see him then?”

“Well, you know, Jamie, when you put it like that, a suppose a didn’t.” He then added casually: “But if a
do
see him, I’ll tell him you were lookin’ him, so a will.”

There followed a sore silence in which Slope celebrated his tiny victory and Jamie sat with feathers ruffled, unable to let go.

“Why didn’t you say that at the start, then?” he demanded.

“Say what at the start?”

“Say that you hadn’t seen Conway atall atall!”

“Well, a
didn’t
, because as I told you before, I
thought I’d seen him, didn’t I
?”

Jamie would have left it at that had Slope not grinned in that triumphal, point-scoring way which so incensed him. He desperately wanted to say, “Well, maybe you should get yourself a pair of glasses, you squinty-eyed frigger.” But he knew that voicing such an observation would most likely land him outside on the street. Since he really did want another drink, he decided to change tack and irritate Slope by talking about his planned vacation by the sea.

He took another gulp of the whiskey while the barman’s skewed logic and crazy eyes roamed about looking for a purchase on what his customer might say next.

“Could be doin’ with it now,” Jamie said, as if their convoluted exchange had never taken place.

“Could be doin’ with
what
now?”

“The three pound Conway borra-ed off me.”

“And what’s the big hurry with the three pound? Christ, it isn’t as if you’re gonna starve if you don’t get it.”

“Well now, the doctor sez that I need to rest meself by the seaside with me sore back, and the three pound would be useful, so it would, for the wee holiday.”

Jamie’s statement had the desired effect.

“What?
You
need a holiday? God, your whole bloody life’s a holiday.” Slope gave out an adenoidal snort and returned to his chores. “If you had a bloody bar to run and kegs to haul about all day, you’d know about backs.”

“I’ve got lambago,” Jamie protested, “and the doctor sez I have tae rest.”

“Lambago me arse! That’s the big drum the Prods bate the bejayzis outta on the Twelfth, isn’t it?”

Jamie ignored the weak joke and continued his attempt to win a sympathetic ear.

“It’s true a man of my time a day needs to be takin’ things easy,” he said, pushing the empty whiskey glass aside and reaching for the port wine. “And you know I’d need-a be givin’ up this stuff too.” He stared into the glass, trying—and failing—to work up a sense of guilt for this indispensable, daily indulgence. “But sure what would a body do with hisself if he didn’t have it, like?”

He threw back the wine in one fiery gulp, thumped the glass down and belched. A hot glow flushed his neck and face and he experienced a rush of pure bliss for one heady minute. He swayed slightly on the stool and wiped his mouth.

“Another wee one a them, Slope, if you please.”

The pub owner, wanting desperately to be rid of him whilst simultaneously wishing to remain reasonably civil, finished his tidying and went back behind the counter.

“Only if you have the money for it, Jamie.”

He slapped a dishcloth on the counter and began to wipe it with slow circular motions while Jamie fiddled like a shove-halfpenny player with the slew of coins before him. To Slope’s disappointment, he came up with the correct sum, and another glass of port wine was duly placed before him.

Slope shook a cigarette from a crumpled pack and lit it. He was aware that the farmer wanted one too, but thought he’d make him suffer the indignity of having to ask for one.

Jamie shifted uneasily on the seat. He had purposely left his cigarettes at home, lest Dr. Brewster find them on his person. Now he was dying for one.

“Y’wouldn’t have another wee one a them on you, would ye, Slope?”

A tense silence followed as the two sucked greedily on the cigarettes and released lungfuls of smoke into the air. This was an uneasy silence that stretched like a rope between them, held taut through years of resentment and remembered injury. But each needed the other: Slope needed the custom and Jamie needed the drink. On this frayed logic their relationship somehow worked.

The sun struck hotly through the large, flyspecked window, making Jamie’s eyes water and revealing Slope’s slapdash ministrations with mop and cloth. Outside, a truck roared past on its way to Killoran. Jamie felt the vibration of its velocity under his elbows; Slope felt a similar sensation in his crepe-soled feet. In its aftermath, someone wolf-whistled loudly, and on the heels of its quivering end-note, the door opened and in shuffled Miss Maisie Ryan in her orthopedic sandals, come to collect her money from the Padre Pio charity box Slope kept on the counter.

“That son a Minnie Sproule’s is gettin’ to be a awful cheeky ruffian,” she complained, shutting the door and giving off wafts of camphor balls and peppermint. She placed a gingham pegbag on the counter.

“How are ye, Maisie?” Slope placed his smoke in an ashtray.

“Not so good, Mr. O’Shea, between me hips and me bunions I’m nearly kilt, but sure I offer them up at Mass every morning. That’s all a body can do.” She turned her attention to Jamie.

“And how are you, Jamie? Didn’t see you at Mass lately.”

“Naw, I was in bed with me back, Maisie. The doctor says it’s lambago and I have a heap-a tablets to take.”

Slope upended the box and began to count out the money, building careful towers of nickel and copper like a croupier at the gaming table, while Maisie looked on and Jamie eyed Maisie. What he saw was a bull terrier in a tweed coat, wearing a pair of highly reflective double-sighted eyeglasses. The glasses made her eyes look huge in her pillowy face, and her small mouth spent most of the day pursed in scorn. On her head was the inevitable knitted cap, pulled well over her ears despite the summer heat.

She was a dedicated churchgoer, devoted do-gooder, and throbbing artery of village gossip. She sharpened her tongue on the loose lives of others and judged each member of the community by the dazzling light of her own unattainable standards. Slope rarely attended church, but was excused because he was a married businessman with money, which in Maisie’s book was equated with respectability. Jamie, being a poor bachelor with a drink problem, was a target.

“Maybe if ye spent more time in church than the pub, Jamie, then God wouldn’t give ye the sore back to start with,” she piped triumphantly.

“Aye so…” He pretended to ponder this with a serious air, thinking to himself what a nosy oul’ bitch she was.

All at once their attention was diverted by a rap on the window, and the trio turned to see the disagreeable face of local bad-boy Chuck Sproule grinning in at them.

“Hey’ya Maisie?” he hollered. “Hey’ya, Jamie. Be givin’ the oul’ accordjin a squeeze on Sa’rday night, will ye?”

“Get down-a that window, Sproule, or I’ll come out an’ knock ye off it!” Slope warned.

“Hey’ya, Slope!” Sproule’s head disappeared momentarily from view and then shot back up again. “Hey, Slope,” he shouted, “blessed are the squinty-eyed for they shall see God twice!”

Slope dashed to the door and yanked it open, but by then young Sproule had taken off like a whippet down the main street.

The bartender banged the door shut and returned behind the counter, his face flaming. Jamie put a hand to his mouth, stifling a grin.

“There’s nothin’ funny about it, McCloone!” Slope glared in his general direction.

“I’m gonna ’ave a word with that rascal’s mother,” said Maisie, casting a hostile eye at Jamie. “But then his father spent most of his days in the pub, and a wild dog never reared a tame pup, as you well know, Mr. O’Shea.”

“You’re right there, Maisie!” Slope deposited the money into the pegbag, “There ye go: six pounds and four pence.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. O’Shea.”

“Tell ye what would fix Jamie’s bad back, Maisie,” he added, addressing a spot north of Maisie’s eyebrows, “a good rub-down with one a your relics. Have him leapin’ about like a billy goat. Have you got one a them handy?” He grinned, exposing a fence of broken teeth, the legacy of a customer he’d insulted some months before.

“I’ll thank you not to be coarse, Mr. O’Shea.”

She turned her back and stooped to stuff the collection money into a plastic shopping bag. Jamie had a sudden urge to flex his left leg and kick her big, tweed arse. But it was only a thought.

“Cheerio then,” she said, turning to face him. “And I hope to see you at Mass when your back’s mended, Jamie.”