This Human Season Page 31

  ‘You’ve been at the sherry.’ He put his hand on her bum and pulled her to him for another kiss.

  ‘Oh aye. I’m feeling a wee bit loose, so I am.’

  From the kitchen he could hear the radio and Nat King Cole, chestnuts roasting . . .

  His son came out of the kitchen with a glass of beer, watching them dance together, his father with his arse jutting out, his knees bent, gracelessly moving with Angie between the two walls of the hallway.

  ‘Merry Christmas. I get my sense of rhythm from you, clearly.’

  His father wheeled Angie round, kept her in the crook of his left arm, stretching out his other arm to touch Mark’s shoulder and he guided them both into the kitchen, joining in with Nat King Cole, in a false baritone.

  On the table he saw that there were three settings, a small vase with a red rose in it and mismatching, cracked-handled knives and forks. There was a paper table-cloth with hundreds of fat-bottomed Santas capering up the sides.

  ‘Merry Christmas – to you.’

  Two filled glasses of beer were on the table. There was a gravy boat with gravy oozing out of its beak. On the kitchen counter sat Pyrex dishes covered with upside-down dinner plates.

  ‘Oh my bloody Brussels sprouts,’ said Angie, running to the cooker. She turned off the gas and took the steaming saucepan to the sink and drained it. Steam gushed up all around her and a farty vegetable smell filled the room.

  ‘All right Mark,’ said John, taking up a beer. ‘Good health, son.’

  ‘Cheers. And thanks. To both of you. I can’t believe you’ve bought me a Walkman.’

  ‘Angie, you gave him the coat and tapes . . .?’

  ‘Aye, John, I did. As per instructions.’

  ‘It was too much.’

  ‘We’re glad you like them,’ said Angie, popping a small piece of stuffing into her mouth.

  She had taken the tin foil off the turkey. John rolled up his sleeves and stepped forward.

  ‘Now I’m home.’

  Mark went out of the room and came back with two wrapped presents, which he put beside each of their place settings. He sat at his place while Angie ladled and forked and turned this way and that to get the plates filled. She switched off the radio, leaving a shred of turkey meat on the dial.

  John was swaying from the waist as he carved, repeating in a comic operatic voice, ‘Merr-rry Christmas to – you!’

  Mark had to move the gifts a little as she set the plates down. ‘Oh you shouldn’t have love,’ said Angie, picking hers up. She opened it.

  ‘What did you give her, Dad?’

  ‘She’s a lucky woman, got me, doesn’t need presents.’

  ‘Tight bastard,’ said Angie, fondly. ‘Well he’s got me the car though.’ Taking off the wrapping she saw that there was a pale box with French perfume inside. ‘It must have cost a fortune, Mark.’

  ‘Is it all right?’

  She got up and leant over to kiss him, trailing the end of her long beads in her gravy.

  ‘Dad,’ Mark said, grinning, nodding at the present in front of John.

  ‘I’m not good at presents. You open it.’ He handed it to Angie.

  ‘No John. It’s for you.’

  ‘Let’s eat first.’

  ‘Open it,’ insisted Angie, giving him a kick under the table.

  He took it in his hands, starting to unwrap it. Inside was a long thin box. It was a jewellery box. He fumbled for a while, trying to click it open, his face lengthening. Angie helped him. He took out of the box a navy blue, leather-strapped watch.

  ‘It was my grandfather’s. It’s an Omega from just after the war. I had a new strap put on it.’

  ‘I don’t wear watches.’

  ‘You do now,’ protested Angie. ‘It’s a lovely present. So special.’

  ‘Right, you’d best keep it though.’ He passed it back to the boy.

  ‘It’s for you.’

  ‘It’s too much.’

  They looked at each other, then Mark got up and walked out of the room. They heard the stairs rattle and shiver.

  ‘John, please tell me why you can’t say thank you to the lad?’

  ‘Let’s just eat.’

  ‘Not without him.’

  ‘Fine.’ John pushed his plate aside. ‘I’m going to take a walk. It’s too stuffy in here.’

  Angie stood up, lit a cigarette and stared out of the back window.

  ‘What do I see in him?’ she said to herself, cheek at the cold glass.

  Chapter 56

  The turkey was sitting steaming, surrounded by roast potatoes, the vegetables were covered. Kathleen had put the small table from the kitchen in the front room, covered it with a cloth and laid out five places with crackers. She was watching the Top of the Pops Christmas show. Aine was on the floor and Father Pearse was sat with a small glass of the beer he’d brought with him. When Liam and his father came in, Kathleen asked Aine to turn off the TV. They all sat at the table. Sean was too much on the one side of his chair, arms hanging, chin loose.

  Father Pearse carved and Liam served them all a glass of lemonade. Sean asked for a beer.

  ‘It’s a fine bird,’ said the priest.

  ‘Ach, I’ve forgotten the gravy,’ said Kathleen, getting up. ‘Pull the crackers or something.’

  ‘And a beer for your husband while you’re out there.’

  Aine offered one end of her cracker to Liam and he held it with limp disdain.

  The father served the turkey around, starting with Sean.

  ‘Get started,’ called Kathleen from the kitchen.

  ‘Go on then,’ said the father. ‘Do as your mother says,’ and he uncovered the vegetables and served the potatoes too. Sean gave him a long stare.

  ‘Shall I serve you, Sean, or will you do it yourself?’

  Sean got up with a grunt and went to the kitchen. Father Pearse shrugged, sat down and offered his cracker to Aine.

  Kathleen had the kettle on the boil and some gravy granules in a bowl. The kitchen was steamy; her hair was damp and her apron messy.

  ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’

  He was looking at her. She looked up and saw that he seemed to be moving in and out of himself. His cheeks inflated with a suppressed burp. She shook her head.

  ‘I didn’t know the priest was coming to dinner.’

  ‘Well it’s a nice surprise then.’

  ‘Are you having him, as well?’

  Her back stiffened. ‘No, just the turkey. Keep your voice down.’

  ‘They’re all talking about you down the pub. Do you know that? Are both of those children mine?’

  She carried on stirring. ‘Voice down.’

  ‘I want to know. How many men have there been?’

  ‘Och get out of my way.’ She went to the kettle for more water. He grabbed her upper arm. ‘Is Aine mine?’

  ‘Ah, now you see there’s only me who knows that for sure.’

  He went to put a hand on her other arm but she pulled away and stood back from him, grabbing a ladle from the counter top and holding it up as if to hit him.

  ‘Dirty whore!’

  Suddenly Father Pearse came between them with his hands up, and Sean grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket.

  ‘Come on now, the pair of yous.’

  ‘You two-faced fat fucking cunt of a man.’ Sean was swaying back and forth, concentrating on staying still. He pushed past the children at the kitchen door and took to the stairs. Kathleen ran after him.

  ‘The only cunt of a man here is you! You’ve ruined another Christmas you useless bastard, I hate you!’

  ‘Don’t say that Mummy!’

  Father Pearse put his hand on Aine’s shoulders. ‘Let’s eat the dinner your mother has made.’

  They sat and said a prayer of thanks for the food and then the plates were passed around. After a while, they heard the sounds of Sean snoring. When Kathleen served the pudding, the father clapped his hands with exaggerated bonhomie.

  ‘I’ve ne
ver seen the like of this. What a lucky old fellow.’

  ‘Father, please forgive us for the performance on this day of all days.’ Father Pearse demurred, a ripple passing through the birthmark on his brow. ‘None of it is easy.’

  She looked at Liam whose spoon was lying on top of the custard-covered mound, balanced like the needle of a compass. ‘Eat your pudding love.’ She reached towards him with her fingers. He flinched. Aine and the father set to eating, onerously.

  Suddenly Liam took his mother’s hand and kissed it.

  ‘Bless you love. Thank you for that,’ and she looked at him with her eyes pricking, then ate her pudding.

  With the bowls in the sink, and the father’s glass filled, she left them to The Sound of Music and went upstairs.

  Chapter 57

  When John Dunn walked into the spare room, his son put something hastily out of sight into the suitcase beside him. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

  ‘Angie. She’s waiting for us.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be right down.’

  ‘Right. Thank you for the watch. It’s just that, well, like I said, I’m not very good at presents. It’s me that should be giving the presents anyway.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’m not used to all that. Angie knows how I am. I told you, I didn’t have a family to speak of. When I left I said to myself, well that’s that, bollocks to them, that’s all done with now. I turned my back on it all. I never saw any of them again, Mark.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that. I mean, am I supposed to be impressed at how hard you are or something?’

  ‘I can’t help who I am, Mark.’

  ‘Maybe I was stupid to think that we’d just get to know each other and that it would be easy. This girl I know, she said to me to be careful, that there was a reason you weren’t around.’

  ‘Let’s finish our dinner. Have a drink.’

  ‘Mum never knew you at all, did she? It was just a quick . . .’

  ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Yeah but you haven’t changed, have you? I mean you said yourself, the other night, that there was something wrong with you. Even Angie says she hardly knows you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You say you’d have been a father to me. But we’d have had to know each other first, wouldn’t we? You and me, we’re just pretending. Why? What’s the point? What are we doing it for?’

  John sat down on the bed, pushing the long bag backwards behind him, facing the 1930’s dresser with its drawers that would no longer shut, all of them slightly ajar.

  ‘Mark. You and I, we’re a world apart. That’s not even a question I’d ask myself. Who am I? In the army it wasn’t who you were as a person, but what you stood for. All right it was a bit different when you got to be a corporal because you had to make sure the job was done. But I never thought about much at all until I came back over here in ’74. That was a hell of a tour for me. When they said I was coming back again in ’76, I couldn’t believe it. Why? I kept asking myself. But I made it right. It’s life that’s made me who I am. It’s different for you. You probably do know who you are. But I don’t know many men who do. Then the other thing is you’ve got to know what’s right, as well, you’ve got to have a sense of it. If you don’t, you can do bloody terrible things.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  John looked in the mirror of the dressing table and saw them both there. His boy’s face was an improvement on his. He saw how his right eye was always crooked in a mirror. His own was thin, dropping, and slightly ugly. He hadn’t trimmed his nose hair in a while, his eyebrows were overgrown and he had large dark pores over his nose and lower face. His eyes looked tired and useless, there was just a tiny light glowing in the middle of them.

  They had been waiting for this. The boy in his room and at his desk, at the bar, on the ferry, thinking, What if there’s something about him that afterwards I wish I didn’t know? Here was the place they’d been travelling to; they’d arrived.

  ‘Listen, I’ll tell you something about me, Mark, that way you can’t ever say you didn’t know and the rest of it can be your choice. On that second tour, in ’74, they put me out on the streets for a few weeks before I went into screening. You don’t know who’s going to have a pop at you when you’re out there. Being REME I was a bit of a Jack of all trades. I knew everything about all of the equipment, I repaired it and I operated it. If I wasn’t fixing an APC, I was driving it. This one day there’s me driving, six men in the back, me and the sergeant up front, and we drive it round some of the back streets up by the Falls Road, up and down, clearing people out the way and the fellas in the back are ready to jump out and snatch anyone they’re told to. We go down one street and there’s a protest march in front of us. A priest is leading it, and there’s men and women alongside him, walking, arm in arm, up towards us. At the sides a few people on the pavements are shouting this and that and we slow down. A petrol bomb is lobbed in and hits me on the shoulder. It went out when it was chucked but it douses me in petrol and smashes on the floor. I was treading the glass under my feet. From the back I hear the men start shouting; the tyres are on fire. I look ahead and the priest is waving his arms, trying to calm things down, or to tell people to sit down, I don’t know what, but I remember his face, like he knew what was going to happen and the boys in the back are banging on the partition and screaming and the sergeant says to me, “Drive on”.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘I drove on.’

  ‘Did you hurt anyone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How can you be you sure?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Did you stop and see?’

  ‘No. I know because I heard it.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘I don’t know. One, two, three – I don’t know.’

  ‘What do you mean? What happened afterwards?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He looked at his hands on his knees. ‘I just heard the sound of it, felt it underneath the tyres.’

  ‘What about the sergeant? Didn’t he tell you, wasn’t there a report?’

  ‘No. The sergeant never spoke to me. If he saw me, he looked away.’

  ‘But you killed people?’

  ‘Nobody knows. Not even Angie. I’m sorry. Believe me. I wish I hadn’t.’

  Chapter 58

  He was lying on his side with his hands out in front of him. He woke with a shock, opening one eye and looking around, as if recovering from a parachute landing into enemy territory. He tried to swallow.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she said.

  ‘I shoved the priest.’

  ‘Aye, you did.’

  ‘I wanted to hit you.’

  ‘Aye, I know.’

  ‘I called him all manner of words.’ He sat up. ‘I get these pictures in my head of you with other men. God almighty, it’s true I’ve gone and fucked up the entire day.’

  He rubbed his face.

  ‘It’s true, Sean, you know. There have been other men.’ He closed his eyes.

  ‘But those children are ours, yours and mine.’

  ‘If I ask you who and when I’ll be angry, and I won’t be able to do anything about it, so I’m gathering myself up, Kathleen, not to ask you.’

  She saw the wrinkles at either side of his eyes that criss-crossed with the bags underneath his eyes, made a grid. She saw the arable-grey stubble of his cheeks and chin, the large pink landscape of his forehead lined with four or five west-east tracks. His eyes were the same as when they had met, but more diluted; his lower lashes were pale, like Aine’s.

  Outside a passer-by was whistling as loudly as he could, a rousing, swelling noise. For what reason?

  ‘I’m going to change. I’m going to take the pledge and give up the drink and I’m going to find myself a new line of work. We’re going to put some money aside and we’ll go for a trip to Donegal or wherever we fancy.’

  She sat beside him. ‘I’ve to try and change as w
ell, Sean.’

  ‘No. I love you. I always have, Kathleen. I always will. I don’t care.’ She put an arm about him and with her face on his shoulder she looked across at the dressing table with the small white Madonna, the ornaments, photos and bits and bobs that told the story of her married life and she wondered if she didn’t love him at all. They had fought together.

  When they went downstairs, Father Pearse was asleep in the armchair, paper hat askew, and Liam and Aine were looking guilty. Aine was holding the microphone and Liam switched off the tape recorder.

  ‘Father Pearse farted,’ said Aine, her cheeks struggling. ‘We’re trying to get another one on record.’

  Sean gave the priest a nudge with his knuckle, under the chin.

  ‘What the devil is it now?’ said the father, opening his eyes.

  ‘Father,’ said Sean, stooping over him, his tone thick as the gravy. ‘I want to take the pledge.’

  ‘And I’m fecking Julie Andrews,’ said the priest, closing his eyes.

  Chapter 59

  Angie’s beads were in a small heap next to her plate. The kitchen was filled with cigarette smoke, the food was cold. It was close to ten o’clock. Nobody spoke. The Christmas crackers were pristine.

  ‘That was great, Angie, thanks.’ Mark put his knife and fork together.

  ‘Would you mind if I called my mum? I’d like to say Happy Christmas to her before she goes to bed.’

  ‘Of course not love, go ahead.’

  John carried on eating, using his fork, elbow on the table.

  They heard the whining drone of the apparatus after each number, as the dial swung back to its place of rest.

  ‘Did you apologize?’

  He looked up, his fork leaving his mouth. ‘In a manner.’

  ‘I don’t know what got into you, he was giving you a gift, probably it’s his most treasured possession. It broke my heart to see him have to get up like that and walk out. You went and undid all the good work you’ve put in.’