Mr Lynch’s Holiday (15 page)

It reminded Dermot of bars in Ireland. A TV flickering in the corner. Stools up to the counter. Bags of crisps served on a plate. It was called El Rincón. He asked Inga what it meant and she told him: The Corner. Nothing fancy about it at all.

He had been restless that evening in the flat, unable to settle. He was standing on the terrace, watching the sky darken, when the buzzer sounded. Her invitation as welcome as it was unexpected.

It was a forty-five-minute brisk walk along the dirt road into San Pedro – a good preparation for a cold beer. When they got there, Inga introduced him to Luis, the barman, and ordered a couple of Cruzcampos.

‘Just in time,’ she said, as Luis turned up the volume on the TV.

Dermot looked up to see two teams lining up on a pitch. ‘Is there a match on?’

Inga laughed.

He took a sip of his beer and noticed that the scarf she was wearing had something written on it.

‘Helsingborg,’ he said slowly.

She turned and smiled. ‘My team.’

‘Oh, right. A football scarf.’

‘Of course. What did you think?’

‘I just thought it was a scarf – you know, women often wear scarves.’

‘Not like this! You must have thought I looked mad.’

‘Not mad, no. Hot, I thought. Even allowing for the sun going down, I thought a woolly scarf could be hot.’

She looked back at the TV. ‘Luis always has the big matches on here. It’s the only place I can see them.’

Dermot saw the flags at the bottom of the screen and realized that the match was between Sweden and Spain.

Inga carried on talking. ‘Perhaps you could become a temporary supporter of Sweden, given that your own side failed to even qualify.’ She glanced at him, waiting for him to take the bait.

‘Did they?’

She laughed again. ‘Oh, very good. I’m sure it didn’t hurt at all.’ She turned back to the screen. ‘No one in Lomaverde is interested in football. That’s why I asked you – it’ll be nice to have some intelligent conversation about it.’

Dermot was quiet for a while, drinking his beer. It wasn’t long before Inga turned from the screen and peered at him. ‘You weren’t making a joke, were you?’

He looked down at his hands.

‘You don’t know anything about football?’

He shrugged. ‘The truth is, I don’t know where that Aston Villa bag came from. It’s got me into all kinds of bother over the years.’

‘Oh no, Dermot! Why didn’t you say?’

‘I didn’t know we were coming to watch football. Anyway, I don’t mind. It’s a nice change.’

‘But I said we’d be able to see the TV in the bar.’

‘I just thought you liked TV.’

‘And wearing woolly scarves?’

He shrugged. ‘I take the invitations I get.’

She kept apologizing. He didn’t know what for. In the end he told her to please just watch the match and let him drink his beer, and she did.

He was content enough to look about the place. He studied the pictures hanging behind the bar: a signed photograph of a
basketball team, a poster of a red sports car, and a small picture of the Virgin Mary with a black face. She seemed to be watching him, her expressionless eyes following his each time he took a drink.

There was an odd selection of food on offer. A glass display case on the bar was filled with bags of crisps and two boxes of doughnuts. Next to the till was a large jar of olives. He eyed the murky contents with suspicion. He’d eaten one once. He’d thought it was about the worst thing he’d ever had in his mouth. He’d thought if people would eat them they’d eat anything.

Away from the bar and the buzz of the television two women of around Kathleen’s age sat at a table playing cards, drinking something red and fizzy that came in small bottles. On another table a little girl, presumably belonging to someone, sat drinking a chocolate milkshake and colouring in a large picture of a palace. Dermot thought of Nagle’s place in Ennistymon, people slipping in and out without much thought, using it like an extra room of their house. He wondered if Eamonn had ever been to El Rincón. It might be nice for him, getting out of the flat, a change of scenery. He could always bring his laptop for company.

Inga seemed unbothered at being the only Sweden supporter in the place. She shouted at the TV a couple of times and laughed occasionally with Luis and some of the other Spanish fans. When the game finished she apologized to Dermot for her team’s defeat. ‘It wasn’t a game to convert you, I fear.’

‘Is that what you were hoping to do?’

‘I thought you might see the light.’

‘I’ve never been much good at that.’

She took off her scarf and blew her fringe from her forehead.

‘Are you a regular here, then?’ Dermot asked.

‘It depends what football’s on. I don’t come that often, but I know Luis now and one or two others.’

‘I got the impression that there was some bad blood between local people and you all up there.’

She smiled at that. ‘“Bad blood” – I like that, very melodramatic, very Gypsy’s curse.’

‘Is it not the case?’

‘I don’t think so. I think maybe it’s a fine line sometimes for people between isolation and paranoia. Some people down here are unhappy with the development, or unhappy with the developers, but I don’t think they hold us personally responsible. If anything, I think we puzzle them. Why did we come? What were we hoping for? In our big homes and our funny woolly scarves.’

He smiled. ‘Have you always been a fan?’

‘Not always. I was never that interested in it as a young girl. I followed the local team in Norrtälje, but half-heartedly. When I met Anders though – my ex-husband – he was very keen, used to go to matches most weekends. I had an idea that I should try to share his interests. I’d pretend to be very enthusiastic about upcoming games. Memorize facts about certain players.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘It’s no wonder he thought me a fool.’

Dermot said nothing.

‘It’s OK. He was right.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘It’s hard to look back. My stupidity, you know?’ There was a long pause. She shook her head. ‘I have to be kind to myself now. That woman was punished enough.’

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

‘Dermot, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m saying this. I wonder, am I trying to give you the worst evening of your life?’

‘I don’t mind at all.’

‘It’s ridiculous. You have what my mother called a “listening face”. It must be a curse.’

‘It’s not.’ He looked around the bar. ‘You seem quite at home here. Are you glad you came to Lomaverde?’

‘I am. Is that surprising?’

‘I get the impression not many people are.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’ She hesitated. ‘Can I tell you a secret?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m glad Lomaverde has failed.’

He looked at her.

‘Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not glad about the unhappiness it has caused others, of course not. The people who can’t sell their houses, the people who lost money, the workers who never got paid properly, all the disappointments. I’m sorry for all those things.’

‘Of course.’

‘I came here expecting the same as everyone else. A new community, a fresh start in this beautiful place.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘My marriage was over. Thirty years of trying to turn a blind eye, of thinking my husband would change. That felt like a big mistake, a terrible waste of time. I thought I could come here and lose myself in a new place.

‘But imagine somewhere in which everyone is like that. So intent on happiness, on living a fairy tale. They have not emigrated from places with no work or money to a place with jobs and opportunities. No, they have left comfortable lives in search of somewhere even better. It’s a kind of greed, don’t you think? And if you’d have said that to me two years ago, I’d have said, “So what? Why not be greedy for happiness? What’s wrong with that?”

‘Shall I tell you what’s wrong?’

Dermot nodded.

‘Disappointment. That’s what’s wrong. If you’re greedy for happiness then you will always be hungry. You can’t just say happiness is in a certain place and move there, it doesn’t work like that.’ She put her hand over her mouth. ‘My God. “If you’re greedy for happiness then you will always be hungry.” I sound like a fortune cookie. This is all obvious, old as the hills. You know all this already.’

He gave a little shrug. ‘Maybe.’

‘The point is, no one would want to admit to their disappointment, it would be something shameful, something hidden. Imagine living in such a place? Where failure or regret or despair are inappropriate, where such feelings are not allowed, don’t fit with the blue skies and the sunshine. I would have lasted six weeks.’ She exhaled a long plume of smoke. ‘But that isn’t how it worked out. Instead Lomaverde is a failed dream. Do you know the word for it in Spanish?’

He shook his head.

‘“
Ciudad fantasma
” – a “ghost town”. It sounds beautiful, don’t you think? It is a melancholy place, crumbling at the edges, and I find that I love it. It’s a place where you can admit to mistakes, you have no choice but to. I think the lack of people makes it more human.’ She paused. ‘Is that mad?’

He took a drink of his beer and thought back to his childhood. Exploring empty cottages with Dominic, a certain exhilaration buried in the sadness, a sense of familiarity in the unknown. He saw she was waiting for an answer. ‘It’s not mad. I like it there too.’

She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Shall we head back?’

‘If you like. I’m sorry your boys didn’t win.’

‘It’s OK. It was good to see the game anyway. For all that he took away, my husband gave me three wonderful things: my son, Magnus, my daughter, Pia, and my love of football.’

‘You still love it, even when you lose?’

‘A good defeat can be better than a bad victory.’

‘Can it?’

She laughed for a long time at that. ‘You really know nothing about football, do you?’

Dermot sat on the futon apparently engrossed in one of his library books. Like many autodidacts the spread of Dermot’s knowledge was eccentric. Eamonn had long since stopped being surprised by the things that his father knew or took an interest in: Serbian heraldry, sheep husbandry, the films of Barbra Streisand. His knowledge, though broad, was shallow, usually just one documentary or book deep. He held his sources in great reverence, taking as gospel almost everything he read, assuming the author’s word to be the last word. Eamonn found his habit of quoting as fact the crackpot opinions of long-forgotten commentators often exasperating.

He bent down to read the title:
Home Computing for You and Your Family
. The cover showed a sinister-looking middle-aged man in tinted glasses, beckoning two children towards his enormous desktop computer.

Eamonn sat down next to his father. ‘Good read is that?’

Dermot looked up. ‘It is. Very interesting.’

‘Has the Internet been invented yet?’

Dermot thought for a moment. ‘They haven’t mentioned it, no.’

‘Right.’ He carried on staring at the cover for a moment before remembering what he’d come to say. ‘So, I asked around, and apparently the nearest church is in Poliver.’

‘I see.’

‘I don’t know the times of the services, but there’ll be one on at some point this morning.’

‘Oh yes, it’s Sunday, isn’t it? I’d lost track of the days.’

‘I’ll charge the car battery up and drive you over there. I could come in with you if you like. Obviously it’ll be in Spanish, so I could help you with the words – otherwise you’ll be standing up and sitting down at the wrong bits and you’ll get sent to hell.’

Dermot smiled. ‘Ah, no, honestly. Don’t go to any bother. There’s no need for that.’

‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ll find a bar and get a beer instead.’

Dermot turned a page. ‘No, I mean, there’s no need to go at all.’ He examined a flow chart. ‘I don’t really do that any more.’

‘Don’t do what?’

‘The whole churchgoing business.’

Eamonn laughed, as if he’d heard a joke. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I just don’t.’

‘Since when?’

‘I suppose since your mother died.’

‘You don’t go to church?’

‘It’s not such a big thing.’

‘Oh. I see.’ Eamonn considered this for a while. ‘So, you lost your faith?’

‘You make it sound more dramatic than it is. I didn’t lose my faith.’ He scratched his head. ‘I just stopped going to mass.’

‘But you still believe in God.’

Dermot was silent.

‘You don’t believe in God?’

‘Now, Eamonn, you sound like a priest.’

‘But you were always religious.’

‘I used to go to church each week with your mother, I’m not sure that’s the same thing.’

Eamonn was quiet for a while. ‘I knew she went on about it more than you, but I still thought you believed in it all.’

‘Everyone I knew growing up went to church, believing had nothing to do with it, it was just what you did. Your mother, though, she got more into that side of things as she got older. It just wasn’t worth upsetting the apple cart and making a big song and dance about it.’

‘Didn’t you feel a bit of a hypocrite, standing there every week?’

‘I wasn’t forcing anyone else to believe. I didn’t care when you threw it all in. Did you really think that everyone there attending church was thinking about Jesus’s blood?’

‘I suppose not.’ He was silent for a while, considering the implications. ‘I think I’ll make a drink. Do you want something?’

‘A cup of tea would be great.’

He stood with the box of tea bags in his hand and called through the hatch: ‘Do you remember old Father Maguire?’

‘How could I forget him? The hours I suffered listening to that voice. Honest to God, put a horse to sleep he could. That man was a terrible bore.’

‘I was wondering, when did he start at St John’s?’

Dermot thought for a minute. ‘I don’t know. In the 70s sometime. Your mother would have known. Why?’

‘Do you remember when I came home for Mom’s funeral and you asked me to go through the photos?’

‘I do.’

‘There was a pack of photos I couldn’t work out. A couple had Mom in, maybe on a parish trip somewhere. There was a group shot on a ferry, probably early 70s. Then there was a whole load of the same bloke. They weren’t all from one roll of film, lots of different shapes and sizes of photo, but all the same guy.’ He paused. ‘He was wearing a dog collar.’

Dermot said nothing.

‘I suppose he’d be the priest before Maguire, would he?’

Dermot had got up and was looking out of the window. ‘I don’t know.’

‘A youngish guy. Fair hair, big, wide grin? Would that be right?’

‘That sounds like him.’

‘Do you remember his name?’

Dermot took a while to answer. ‘Walsh. His name was Father Walsh.’

‘Oh, right. Well that solves it, then.’ Eamonn frowned and then laughed. ‘So why did Mom have so many photos of him?’

He came out of the kitchen with the tea, but Dermot had gone.