Mr Lynch’s Holiday (14 page)

He walked down her road, but when he reached her door he hesitated and turned back. At their lunch together she’d spoken about her painting, how it helped clear her mind, focusing just on colour and texture, forgetting all the other things in her life. He’d asked her then: ‘I’d imagine it would put you off, would it? Having someone there watching you paint. Seeing how you do it.’ She thought about it and he saw that he had put her in an awkward position, so he answered for her: ‘Oh it would, it would, I’m sure. Very distracting, having someone in the way.’

She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think so. With some people, yes, but I don’t think you would disturb me.’

‘I just … I know nothing about it, really. I’ve never seen anyone paint. I’d be interested to see how it’s done, like.’

She had smiled. ‘It would be my pleasure.’

But now he wasn’t sure what he had been thinking of when he made the suggestion. He had been easy in her company, had drunk a little too much of her wine and let himself be carried away. What did he know about painting? Why would she want some ignoramus sitting there, watching her and making idiot comments? Better to be suspected a fool, he thought, than open your mouth and prove them right.

He was walking back up the hill when he heard a voice calling his name.

‘Hello there.’ Esteban was sitting on a plastic chair in the
shade of his security cabin. ‘Are you exploring again? Another empty house?’

Dermot shook his head. ‘No. No particular destination in mind. Just fancied a wander.’

Esteban smiled. ‘“Just fancied a wander.”’

‘I felt like a walk.’

‘Yes. I understand. If there is no hurry, join me, please.’ He disappeared into his cabin and returned with a stool, which he sat on. ‘Here,’ he gestured at the chair, ‘please, sit.’

Dermot did as he was told.

Esteban was silent for a moment and then said, ‘I worry that maybe I sound stupid the last time we meet.’

Dermot looked at him in surprise. ‘Not at all.’

‘“Your country is so wonderful. I love Ireland.” All these things. I sound like a child.’

‘It was nice to hear it.’

‘It’s a long time since I was there and I have happy memories. It’s so different to here, so green of course, so … different. Perhaps I think everywhere is better than here.’

Dermot looked around at the deserted estate. ‘I’d say it must be awful dull for you.’ He saw from Esteban’s face that he had not understood and he tried again. ‘The days must be very long. There’s nothing to do.’

‘I check cameras. I read books.’ He smiled. ‘I speak to everyone to practise English.’ He hesitated. ‘Yes, the days are long.’ He was silent for a while. ‘But it is a job and not everyone has a job. Most of my friends?’ He blew air from his mouth. ‘
Nada
.’

Dermot shook his head. ‘It’s a terrible thing.’ He thought for a moment. ‘It was the same when I was growing up back in Ireland. Nothing to do. No work. No opportunities.’

Esteban lit a cigarette. ‘My mother did not want me to take
this job. She never trust the people who own it, the developers. They have a very bad reputation here. When they were building it, they did not do things in a good way. Everything cheap. One man, a worker, died. An injury to his head, bricks fell, he had no protection.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘No. It’s not what they tell people when they come to buy their houses. The man’s family, they never got the money, the compensation. It was all bad. Some people have superstition about this place, said it was bad luck to work here, bad luck to build here.’

‘Is that what your mother thought?’

‘No, my mother, she’s not like that. But she did not trust the developers. She said they would not pay me. She was right in the end.’ He flicked a plastic bottle top into the road. ‘Mothers are always right, aren’t they?’

Dermot smiled. ‘Always.’

‘So when you were in my situation, you left your country, you moved to England?’

‘I did.’

‘To London, “where the nightlife is unequalled”.’ Dermot looked at him and Esteban laughed. ‘I always remember that sentence from my schoolbook.’

‘Ah, right, no, not London. Birmingham. The nightlife in Birmingham, well I’d say it was equalled, but it was good enough for me.’

‘And for me too, I’m sure.’ Esteban blew out smoke. ‘I think about it often.’

‘London?’

‘Leaving.’

‘Do you think you will?’

‘I don’t know. We always think it’s better somewhere else.
The green grass – that thing. Maybe it’s an illusion. I work here. Lomaverde. Even the name is a lie. I see the people who live here. Are they happy?’

Dermot shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure what they were looking for. They didn’t come here out of desperation. They weren’t looking for jobs. Not like those poor souls in the boats the other day.’

Esteban sighed. ‘People struggle to survive. It can make them do wrong things. Things people know are not … good idea.’

‘Risk their lives.’

‘Yes, that, but other things too.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Things that are not in the law, you know? The black money – there is a lot of that.’

‘Black money?’

‘Hidden. The government doesn’t know. Illegal.’

‘Oh, right. Of course. It happens when times are hard.’

Esteban blew out smoke and Dermot looked at him.

‘Can you drive?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, there’s an option.’

‘What’s that?’

‘In England. They always need bus drivers.’

Esteban laughed. ‘Maybe one day.’

‘Why not now? It’s easy these days, step off a plane, no need for visas or permits. Your English is good enough.’

‘Getting there is easy, but leaving here, I don’t know. My cousin, he is a few years younger than me. We grow up together, he doesn’t speak English. I’d feel bad leaving him here. And my mother, we’re good friends. If I go she has only my dad. He is nice man, but he doesn’t talk much.’ He threw his cigarette on the ground. ‘Maybe I’m a coward.’

Dermot was silent for a while. ‘I never thought much about all that.’

‘About what?’

‘I never stopped to think what I was leaving behind. I thought if I did that I’d never get away.’

Esteban shrugged. ‘Perhaps you were right.’

In the first few months he’d spent his afternoons making notes about his novel. Some days he thought he had too many ideas and other days not enough. Some days the scale was too ambitious, other days too narrow. One week he was convinced it would be first person, present tense, the next week it was multiple viewpoint, past historical. In the densely packed document entitled ‘Scope’ there were twenty-eight different themes he thought the novel would touch upon. The main character was a hospital porter called Wayne, or possibly a banker called Justin, or a child detective called Pip, or maybe all of them and more in a literary maelstrom of fragments and traces that would be far greater than the sum of its parts. And throughout all these vital, preliminary considerations and crucial decision-making stages came the steady tap-tap-tap of Laura’s keyboard.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

‘OK, I guess.’

‘You seem to be writing a lot. You’re like Ernie Wise bashing out a play a night.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘I thought you’d be doing research first.’

‘Well, I do a bit of both each day. I think if I spend too long thinking about it, I won’t ever actually write it.’

He said nothing.

As the weeks passed, his notes folder expanded.

She asked him eagerly: ‘Is there anything you can read to me?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘But it’s going OK?’

‘It’s OK.’

‘I mean, you have actually started and everything?’

‘It depends what you mean by “started”. I mean, how do we define “the start”? I’m not sure that we can.’

After a while he stopped adding to his notes and shortly after that he stopped opening the folder. He found the contents unsettling. A tangled knot of half-ideas and desires with no discernible beginning or end. A list of resolutions and ambitions. He sat and stared at the folder icon on his desktop and listened to Laura’s tap-tap-tap day after day until he finally realized his mistake.

‘Laura!’

‘What?’

‘I’ve had a breakthrough.’

‘Amazing.’

‘I haven’t been writing a novel.’

‘No?’

‘No. I’ve been writing about a novel.’

‘Isn’t that a start?’

‘No. It turns out that was the work I was engaged upon. I’ve written thirty thousand words about a novel. Now I’ve finished.’

‘Aren’t you going to write the novel itself?’

‘What? And spoil it?’

‘Eamonn. Come on. Don’t do this.’

‘Do what?’

‘You’re attacking yourself. Giving yourself a hard time. What you’re trying to do is insanely hard. It’d be crazy if you didn’t get stuck sometimes.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘I’m not doing the same thing. You’re doing something more ambitious.’

‘No. That’s not it. I’m not cut out for this.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’m not the literary type, am I? I mean, look at us. Your father has written books, your mother has papers published in journals. You grew up with this kind of stuff. What the fuck do I know? I’m not from that background.’

She stared at him for a long time. ‘Please tell me you’re not turning this into a class issue.’

‘I’m not turning this into a class issue. I’m just saying you have a confidence and I suppose a sense of entitlement. Why shouldn’t you write a book? You know you can do it. I know I can’t.’

‘Why does this feel as if you’re attacking me?’

‘I’m not attacking you.’

‘All I’ve ever done is encourage you.’

‘I know, just as your parents encouraged you all through your life.’

‘Will you stop talking about my fucking parents! It’s not their fault that you’re not writing your book.’

‘No, I know, it’s mine. I’m useless.’

‘Jesus. Do you know how tiring this is?’

‘I’m sorry if I make you tired.’

‘It’s fine that you show no interest in what I’m writing. I never expected you to.’

‘I do show an interest, I’m always asking you how it’s going.’

‘Only so you can gnash your teeth and beat yourself up. You’re not actually interested. After all, historical fiction isn’t your “cup of tea”, remember? But that’s fine, I’m OK with that. And it’s even fine that you can’t be happy for me that I’m getting on OK, that I’m finding it interesting and rewarding. But yes I find it tiring, wearing, deadening that I have to constantly reassure you, to prevent you mentally self-harming. And I find it more than tiring, I find it pathetic, predictable and
ultimately repellent that everything always comes back to the ridiculous, enormous chip on your shoulder.’

‘“Repellent”,’ he repeated.

She looked into his eyes. ‘Why are you fucking everything up?’

She entered his bedroom without knocking.

‘Come on, Eamonn. Daddy’s waiting to take you, he wants to get back and watch his programme.’

Eamonn was staring at the bed. ‘Why are those there?’

‘They’re your clothes, Eamonn, for goodness’ sake! I’ve laid them out for you.’

Item one: brown wool blazer, generous lapels; item two: white polycotton shirt with stiff, similarly generous collar; item three: brown corduroy trousers, slightly flared; item four: blue tie.

‘They’re the clothes I wore for Gerald’s wedding.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But I’m going to a party tonight. Not a wedding.’

‘Well, you need to look smart.’

He had an indistinct image in his mind of how the other boys might be dressed. He saw ripped 501s. Hooded tops. Baseball jackets.

‘No one will be dressed like this.’

‘Like what? Smartly, you mean? Of course they will. You’re going to a girl’s house. Her parents will expect you to have made an effort, you can’t just go out in your old jeans. Anyway, I’ve seen young boys your age out in ties and smart trousers –’

‘Not like these!’ It came out too loudly. He saw his mother’s face change.

‘Oh, I see. Are these not good enough? Are you embarrassed
by the clothes we buy you? Not expensive enough for your friends?’

He sat heavily on the bed and started to take off his shoes.

His father peered at the house from the driver’s seat.

‘How did you say you know this girl?’

‘She’s a friend of someone at the girls’ school.’

His father nodded slowly. ‘I’d say her father has a good job, living on a road like this. What does he do?’

He shrugged. There were many, many things Eamonn wanted to know about girls, what their fathers did was not one of them.

‘Well, you’d better go now. It’s five to seven, you don’t want to be late.’

Eamonn got out of the car, but remained standing by the passenger window. His father mouthed at him: ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’ll wait for you to go.’

His dad leaned over and wound the window down. ‘I thought I’d wait here till you were in, check it’s the right place, the right night. You don’t want to be turning up in your finery on the wrong night. That would be a terrible faux pas.’

He put on his posh English accent. Eamonn used to find it funny.

He sighed. ‘It’s the right house, it’s the right night. Dad, please …’

‘All right, all right. I get the message. You want me gone. Not getting in your way with the young ladies, is that right?’

‘Dad!’

‘OK, son. Just be ready at ten.’

He stood waving, unconvincingly, until his father was gone and then took cover from the house in front of the high hedge.
He pulled off his tie, took off the jacket, undid his top shirt button and looked down at himself. Still the flared cords. Still brown. He looked agricultural. A lost young farmer cast adrift from the 1970s. He tucked his trousers in his socks.

He emerged from behind the hedge and walked up the drive. He had taken no notice of the house when his father pulled up, but now it loomed large ahead of him, looking like something out of a horror film. It was old and pointy with bits of plant growing all over it. A couple of balloons hung from an enormous brass handle, smack in the centre of the front door. They didn’t appear to have a doorbell so he snapped the heavy letter box instead. He had to do it a few times before he saw a shadow appear on the other side of the stained glass.

The door opened to reveal a short man with a beard, a glass of wine in his hand and a puzzled look on his face.

‘Oh. Hello. Are you here for Laura’s little soirée?’

‘Yes.’

‘I almost didn’t hear you there. Why on earth didn’t you ring the bell?’ He reached out and pulled a circular brass knob, setting a series of bells jangling somewhere further in the house. ‘Come in, come in.’ He glanced down at Eamonn’s ankles. ‘Did you come on your bike?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Right. Well, I’ll let Laura know you’re here. I think she’s in the beauty parlour at the moment with one of her coterie.’

Eamonn waited in the hallway. It reminded him of church. Tiled floor, heavy wooden furniture, framed pictures everywhere, though none, as far as he could see, of Jesus or the Virgin Mary. Footsteps came hammering down the stairs and then stopped abruptly.

‘Oh. Hello.’

Eamonn looked up to see the girl whose house it was. He had never spoken to her directly before.

‘Hello.’ He pushed a box of Roses at her.

She took them and looked at his trousers. ‘Did you come on your bike?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where are the others?’

‘Who?’

‘Jonathan Parker and the rest of your gang?’

‘Aren’t they here?’

‘Not yet.’

‘But they all live round here, don’t they?’

‘I suppose so. Don’t you?’

‘I live in Erdington.’

‘I don’t know where that is.’

Her mother appeared from a door. ‘Laura, what are you doing? Don’t keep your guest standing in the hallway. Take him into the party room.’ She turned to smile at Eamonn. ‘Hello, there. Nice to meet you …?’

‘Eamonn.’

‘Eamonn. Isn’t that a lovely name, Laura?’

Laura was non-committal. ‘He’s come on his bike. From Erdington.’

‘Goodness! You must be absolutely exhausted.’

He followed Laura into a dark room with loud music playing. He smelled the girls before his could see them. A sweet combination of hairspray, teen perfume and something spiced. He made out their shape in the corner, four or five of them, their perms stiff with Shockwaves gel, like a pride of lionesses, swaying slightly to the sounds of Bros. One separated from the group, Harriet, their leader, the one
who spoke to Jonathan. She had a plastic cup in her hand.

‘Do you want some punch? It’s got Martini in. Kate’s already completely drunk.’

Trying to find the bathroom later he opened the wrong door and found her parents instead. He was shocked to see them eating their tea so late. They sat at a large pine table, with a bottle of wine open between them. There was music playing, a man with a terrible voice singing over guitar. Eamonn thought the scene looked like something from the telly. A programme on after the nine o’clock news, where men and women shouted at each other and then took their clothes off and got into bed together and his mom would get up and turn the TV off, saying, ‘That’s enough of that.’

Laura’s mother stood up. ‘Hey, Eamonn. Are you OK?’

‘Sorry. I was looking for the toilet.’

‘There’s one by the back door.’

He noticed there were bookshelves even in the kitchen. There was no way they could have read all the books they had. Her father caught him looking at a shelf.

‘Are you interested in psychiatry, Eamonn?’

‘Erm … yes.’

‘We took Laura to the Freud Museum last summer and she seemed most unimpressed.’ He pushed a chair back with his foot. ‘Come in, why don’t you? Join us. Emily’s made this wonderful tagine and we can’t finish it.’ Eamonn was about to say that he’d already had his tea, but then the father added: ‘And I know for a fact Laura won’t touch it. She’d much rather fill her face with the rubbish that McDonald’s churns out.’ Eamonn liked the idea of appearing more sophisticated than that. He made his way over to the table.

‘I don’t really like McDonald’s.’

‘No, we’re not huge fans either. Don’t really see eye to eye with their way of doing things.’

Eamonn shook his head. ‘They put gherkins on everything.’

The mom served him up a bowl of something that looked really bad and he started to worry that he had made a mistake.

‘So, Eamonn,’ Laura’s father said, ‘tell us all about your interest in psychiatry? Are your parents in the field?’

He didn’t see how the questions were connected. Then he remembered the clothes he was wearing – the agricultural look – there was some terrible misunderstanding.

‘They’re not farmers. They live in Erdington. My dad’s a bus driver.’

There was a moment’s silence and then both parents burst out laughing. Eamonn’s face flushed and the food in his mouth felt slimy and alive. He pushed his chair back to stand.

‘Oh, Eamonn,’ said the mom, ‘you are a real character.’

He manoeuvred the foul, mangled slugs to the side of his mouth. ‘Thank you for the food.’ He started walking quickly to the door. ‘I’ll go to the toilet now.’ And he fled.

When he got back to the party the impasse between the boys and girls seemed to have been broken. Everyone now sat in a circle, with an empty bottle of cider in the middle. He was told where to sit and listened while Jonathan and Harriet bickered about the rules.

‘If it points at a girl and it needs to be a boy, then it’s the boy sat to her left.’

‘No! If it does that, we spin again.’

‘Well, we’re going to spend all the time just spinning the bottle.’

‘The main thing is that you have to kiss whoever it points at. You can’t chicken out or say you don’t fancy them.’ At this there was much terrified laughter.

‘Can we just get on with it?’ said Matthew Goldsmith.

‘Come on, girls. Matthew’s bursting. He can’t wait for a big snog.’

On the fourth spin the bottle pointed at Eamonn. After a couple of subsequent misfires, a girl called Emma was picked out. He avoided looking at her face to see any sign of disappointment.

He used to be around girls all the time. Playing British Bulldog, searching for worms, swapping dirty jokes about Batman. In two years at boys’ school they had become distant and exotic. When he saw them they were changed – bigger and burdened with mysterious freight – magazines and bangles and electric-blue eyelashes. He glimpsed them only occasionally. He missed them.

No words passed on their way to the armchair. They banged teeth several times before the angle was right and an airtight lock was formed between their mouths. With his eyes tightly shut Eamonn felt weightless, flying through the darkness, travelling through her mouth and out into the universe. They clung to each other, deaf to everything and everyone, the world forgotten.

It was she who broke away first. Someone was calling his name and finally she had looked to see who it was. Eamonn found himself beached back in the physical world, Wet Wet Wet playing, his lips stinging, his head woozy, an urgent voice saying: ‘Your dad’s here. You have to go.’

He looked down at Emma, her face was closed and unreadable, but he could still taste her in his mouth.

‘See you around,’ she said, like someone delivering a line.

‘See you around,’ he repeated.

He found his jacket where he’d stuffed it in a corner and went out to the hallway. His dad was standing in the spot where he had stood and waited earlier.

‘Where in God’s name have you been? I’ve been knocking the door for fifteen minutes. Are her parents not in?’

Eamonn hurried his father out before he was seen or could say anything to anyone. The sound of the front door slamming brought Laura’s mother to an upstairs window. She opened it and leaned out, calling: ‘Bye, Eamonn. Nice to meet you. Put the bike in the boot, have you?’

‘Bye. Thank you,’ Eamonn said as he pushed his father towards the car.

‘What bike is she talking about? Have they given you a bike?’

‘No.’

‘Seems like a madhouse to me,’ Dermot said as he got in the car. ‘You’d think they could spend some of their money on a doorbell.’