Bullfighting (18 page)

—Grand.

—Good.

—Good pint.

—Thanks.

—Do you like the work?

—It's alright, says Ben.—Yeah. Yeah, I like it.

—Good, says George.—That's good.

He hears the door open behind him. He looks down at the dog. She stays still.

—Good dog.

Ben goes down the bar, to meet whoever's just come in.

George loves the dog. Absolutely loves it. She's a Cavalier. A King Charles spaniel, white and brown. George loves picking her up, putting her on his shoulder. He knows what he's at, making her one of the kids. But she's only a dog and she's doomed. George watched a documentary on Sky:
Bred to Die
. About pedigree dogs. And there was one of his, a Cavalier, sitting on the lap of a good-looking woman in a white coat, a vet or a scientist. And she starts explaining that the dog's brain is too big—
It's like a size 10 foot shoved into a size 6 shoe
. The breeders have been playing God, mating fathers and mothers to their sons and daughters, siblings to siblings, just so they'll look good –
consistent
– in the shows. Pugs' eyes fall out of their heads, bulldogs can no longer mate, Pekinese have lungs that wouldn't keep a fly in the air. And his dog has a brain that's being shoved out of her head, down onto her spine.

He leans down, picks up the dog. He can do it one-handed; she's close to weightless.

Ben is back at the taps. Pulling a pint of Heineken for the chap at the other end of the bar.

The dog on George's lap is a time bomb.

She's going to start squealing, whimpering, some day. And that'll be that.

He won't get another one.

—Remember Simba?

Ben looks up from the glass.

—I do, yeah. Why?

—I hit him, says George.

—You never hit the dogs, Da.

Ben looks worried.

—No, says George.—With the car.

—With the car?

—I reversed over him.

—Why?

—Not on purpose, says George.—I was just parking. Fair play to Ben, he fills the glass, brings it down to the punter, takes the money, does the lot without rushing or staring at George.

He's back.

—Why didn't you tell us?

—Well, says George.—I don't really know. Once I saw it wasn't one of you I'd hit, I didn't give much of a shite. And the chance was there, to drag him out to the road. And once I'd done that, I couldn't drag him back – you know.

—Why now?

—Why tell you?

—Yeah.

—I don't know. I was just thinking about it – I don't know.

—It doesn't matter.

—I know, says George.—But it would have, then. When you were all small.

—No, says Ben.—It would've been alright.

—Do you reckon?

Ben looks down the bar.

—Listen, he says.—We all knew we had a great da.

George can't say anything.

His heart is too big for him, like the dog's brain. The blood's rushing up to his eyes and his mouth. Him and the dog, they'll both explode together.

H
e couldn't really remember life before the children. He couldn't feel it as something he'd once lived. It was too far away, and buried. Something as simple as walking down the street – he was always a father. Or looking at a woman – he was a father.

He had one child left. There'd been four, but three of them were up and running, more or less their own men. They were all boys, still teenagers. But they weren't his any more. Except for the youngest. That was Peter. Peter still held Donal's hand. Except when there were people coming towards them, boys or girls his own age or older. Then he'd let go, until they were around the corner.

And Donal knew. One day soon he'd open his hand for Peter's, and it would stay empty. And when that happened he'd die; he'd lie down on the ground. That was how he felt. After twenty years. Independence, time to himself – he didn't want it.

—You'll have your own life, someone had told him.

—I have my own life, he'd said back.—I fuckin' like it.

He'd never felt hard done by – he didn't think he had. He'd loved the life, even the stress of it. He'd be knackered tired sometimes, red-eyed and soggy, only vaguely aware that he had a name or even a gender, and still he'd think,
I'm alive
. Making a dinner he knew none of them would eat, or charging in to Temple Street Hospital with a wheezing or a bleeding child, or standing at the side of a football pitch, in the pissing rain, twenty miles from home, watching one of the boys trying to make sure that the ball didn't go anywhere near him. The boys had been the rhythm of every day, even when he was sleeping. He woke before they did, always. None of his lads had ever walked into an empty kitchen first thing in the morning.

There was once, he was changing a nappy. Carl's – Carl was the second. They were at Elaine's mother's place. It was a Sunday afternoon. He had Carl parked in front of him, on the edge of his changing mat, his arse in the air, right over Elaine's ma's white carpet. He pulled the nappy out from under Carl and the shite jumped free of the nappy, a half-solid ball. Without thinking, Donal caught it – his hand just went out. The nappy in one hand, the shite in the other, Carl's arse hanging over the carpet. And he couldn't wait to tell everyone. He knew he had his story.

The stories – twenty years of them.

They already seemed stale. They'd been over-lived, dragged out too often. He'd start talking, even thinking, and he'd feel the camera lights, the heat. He'd imagine he was talking to a studio audience, selling something, trying to convince them. But there was nothing dishonest about how he felt. Empty. Finished. The stories, his memories, were wearing out and there was nothing new replacing them. His whole fuckin' life was going.

He watched telly now with Peter. A film on Sky Movies.
Little Man
. It was dreadful. This tiny little black guy was pretending he was a baby – Donal didn't know why; they'd missed the start – staring at a woman's tits, trying to grab at them. It was absolutely dreadful. But Peter was laughing, so he did too.

—Should we be even watching this, Pete?

—It's appropriate, said Peter.—I checked.

—But he wants to have sex with the woman.

—So do you, said Peter.

—Okay, said Donal.—Fair enough.

One last story for the file:
So do you, he says.
Peter was ten. Donal was forty-eight. So were his friends. He liked the precision of that: all his friends were forty-eight. It was the best thing about Ireland, about Dublin anyway; he could still see the men he'd grown up with. He'd gone to school with lads who'd moved to Canada, the States, even South Africa. But no one he knew had ever moved south of the Liffey. They'd either got out of the country or stayed put. And Donal had been lucky. He'd walked out of school in 1977, and straight into a job in the civil service. A few years later, the jobs weren't there. But Donal had never been out of work. And his friends were like him. They lived in houses a few miles from where they'd all grown up. They could walk to the pub. It wasn't the same place where they'd had their first pints, but that place was only two miles away.

They met up once a week. All four of them, or three of them, or even just the two. It was an open kind of arrangement, but a bit more organised since they'd started the texting a few years back.
Pub? Ye. 9.30? Grnd
. Donal never felt tired on Thursday nights. He'd be away on holidays – in France, say, or Portugal, or Orlando, in the States – having a great time. But on the Thursday, wherever, he wished he was at home, on his way up to the pub.

It had always been like that. There was once, early on with Elaine, they'd been on the bed, in his flat. She'd just poured a melted Mars bar into her navel. And she caught him looking at his watch.

—Have you something more important to do?

—God, no. Fuck, no. This is brilliant.

The hot chocolate had burnt his tongue a bit and he'd felt a little bit sick. But it had been great. He could still remember her stomach under his tongue.

—This is the first thing I've eaten since me breakfast, he told her, and she laughed and he could feel that too, rippling her skin, lifting her. He'd held her – he told her this years later – he'd held her hips to keep her on her back, so that none of the melted chocolate would drop onto the sheet, because it was the only sheet he had and he didn't want her to know that. He ate the chocolate, cleaned it all up, and then he didn't care what way she ended up. It was up to her.

His friends never talked about sex, or health. They never had. Or problems – they didn't really talk about their problems.

Other people didn't really get it. Especially women. Grown men getting together like that, as if it was weird or unnatural. Or a bit silly.

—Are you meeting the lads tonight?

—I'm not answering, if you're going to sneer like that.

—Like what?

—The
lads
.

She'd even asked him once, when he was putting his shoes on.

—What use are they?

—What?

—The lads, she'd said.—Your friends.

—What about them?

—Why are they your friends?

—I'm not answering that.

—Don't be so touchy, she said.—I'm curious.

—Well, stay curious.

—I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything.

—Why do I have to defend myself?

—You don't.

—I have to explain why my friends are my friends. Why the fuck should I?

—Don't, if you don't want to.

—I never ask you about your friends, he said.

—I
know
, she said.—You don't even know their names.

—I do.

She smiled.

—I
do
, he insisted.—There's Mary and—

—Stop, she said.—Listen. I suppose what I'm wondering is. What do you talk about?

He looked at her.

—Football, he said.

He knew she'd hate the answer.

—Is that all?

—No.

—What else? she said.—Help me here.

He didn't know what else to give her. He didn't know how to explain it. How what they talked about wasn't important. How they could sit and say nothing much, for most of the night. And he'd still come home feeling great.

Appreciated.

—Jokes, he said.

—You tell jokes.

—Yeah, he said.—If we've heard any new ones.

—That's nice.

She wasn't sneering.

—Mind you, he said.—You never hear jokes these days. It's all e-mail stuff. No one makes up jokes any more. Like stories, you know.

She nodded.

—Can I go now? he said.

—Go on.

He smiled. She smiled back.

 

He was the first in. Their usual table was free. He nodded at the barman, raised one finger. He always liked that. The fact that he could order a pint without talking. He'd been coming here for years. The barman was Polish. He'd only been working here for three months or so, but he knew what Donal's order was, and Donal had never had to tell him. The Poles were great.

He sat and looked at the snooker on the telly. He hadn't a clue who was playing. He didn't know either of the players. They looked younger than his older kids. Hair gel, and little rectangular ads stitched onto their waistcoats. They looked too young to be out in the world on their own, millionaires already, more than likely.

He was out of touch. He knew it.

The lounge girl came up with his pint in the centre of her tray.

—Thanks, said Donal.

—Of course.

She was Lithuanian, as far as Donal remembered. Or Latvian. A lovely young one, lovely attitude.

He gave her a tenner. She gave him his change, and he gave her back some of it.

—Thank you.

—You're grand.

Donal felt the draught, and saw Gerry closing the door behind him.

The lounge girl was waiting.

—Will you like another pint of Guinness?

—Great, yeah. Thanks.

He felt a bit uncomfortable with her. She was a woman and a girl – that was the problem. And the attraction. And the problem. He'd have been happier with a lounge boy.

—Fuckin' cold out there, said Gerry.

This was how it happened. They arrived in a clump, from one man to four inside a minute or two. As if they'd been hiding behind the bushes outside until one of them made the move and went in. Or something, an instinct, told the four of them to get up from the telly and go, at the same time every Thursday.

Donal watched the other two, Ken and Seán, wrap the wires around their iPods and put them into their jacket pockets. He decided again; he'd get an iPod.

—What were yis listening to? he asked.

—Springsteen, said Ken.

—The new album?

—Yep.

—Any good?

—His best since the last one.

The young one brought the pints. Donal paid her, and tipped her again. He'd given her €4, for one round. It made him feel seedy, and generous.

They'd have four pints. They might go to five. Four was automatic. The fifth was always a decision. It used to be more. They used to drink all day, days in a row, weekends drunk, into work on Monday, drunk. Donal and Gerry had gone twenty-four hours once, in Majorca. They'd found a bar that would let them drink till daylight. They'd had breakfast – Traditional English Breakfast – on the way back to the apartment. He remembered being surprised that he could hold the knife and fork.