Mr Lynch’s Holiday (21 page)

It wasn’t much of a party when they arrived late afternoon. A bunch of people standing around muttering and looking awkward. Dermot had the idea that no one really wanted to be there. The hostess, Becca, had a kind of wild look in her eyes, talking nineteen to the dozen, laughing so loudly it set everyone on edge.

‘Look!’ she shouted to the assembled guests. ‘Here he is, the man of the hour! I think you’ve all met Dermot – Eamonn’s dad. He’s come all the way from Ireland …’

‘Birmingham,’ Dermot said quietly.

‘… And I want us all to show him that we know how to have the craic!’

People smiled politely, evidently puzzled by this, and then Simon shouted: ‘Crack? Well, I didn’t know it was that kind of party!’

Raimund laughed and said, ‘Will you be handing out the pipes, Rebecca?’

‘Hahahaha – “pipes”!’ said Becca, then shook her head, laughing crazily and repeated just the word: ‘Pipes!’

Dermot smiled and said to Eamonn under his breath: ‘I’ve no idea what’s going on here at all’ – but Eamonn was heading away towards the drinks.

To Dermot’s relief Jean and David came over and rescued him. While he chatted with them about their walk earlier in the day, his eyes wandered to the group around him. An inevitable consequence of working on the buses was a certain knowledge of human behaviour. Ninety per cent of the time
he’d guess a passenger’s destination before a word was spoken. As his bus approached a stop he’d already know who among the queue was the type to cause trouble, and who the type to stand and talk the ears off him for the next forty minutes. It wasn’t a talent he particularly wanted. Most of the time he wished to God somebody would do something to surprise him, say something different just for once, but that wasn’t the way it was. Most drivers were the same, reluctant possessors of a tired kind of sixth sense.

The affluent-looking French couple stood nearby, quite clearly discussing everyone else at the party. A few yards away, Roger was casting glances at the Frenchman and Dermot sensed some issue between them. Rosemary was keeping a close and furtive eye on what Gill drank and Becca was whispering furiously at Ian about something he had failed to do. Simon and Raimund were on the other side of the pool laughing with Cheryl. Dermot thought he’d detected a hint of Geordie in Simon’s voice the other day. It was an accent he liked. He associated it with a driver he’d worked alongside in the 70s called Joey who was prone to quoting poetry at abusive passengers. It made them no less abusive apparently but it gave Joey a tremendous sense of satisfaction and Dermot thought it a shame more people didn’t respond to provocation in a similarly inventive manner. He looked around for Eamonn and finally saw him leaning against the wall on the far side of the terrace, his face a mask, a full glass of wine in one hand, the rest of the bottle gripped tightly in the other.

As the afternoon wore on, others arrived and introduced themselves. He found it a little tiring, the faces and names hard to remember, the range of topics at times bewildering. The music was loud and people were shouting to be heard. Esteban had now joined the party and so had Inga. He saw her chatting
to Rosemary by the pool. He caught her eye and raised a hand in salutation.

He was trapped in a corner with Henri, Danielle and Raimund all enthusing about a sausage, or possibly a beach, he couldn’t quite understand the Frenchwoman’s accent and hadn’t liked to ask her for clarification. He looked across the terrace again and saw Eamonn. He seemed highly animated now, his facial expressions exaggerated, his laughter false. He stood talking to Simon. At a pause in the music, his voice rang out loud above the others: ‘For example I never shaved my scrotum and maybe that might have made a difference. Would you recommend it?’

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ muttered Dermot, he started to head in Eamonn’s direction, but his exit was blocked by Roger.

‘Henry, could I have a quick word?’

Henri gave an unconvincing smile. ‘Of course.’

‘It’s a polite request.’

‘Please go ahead.’

‘I was wondering if there was any chance of you giving up the nocturnal joy rides?’

‘I’m sorry? What are “joy rides”?’

‘The little drives you take in the middle of the night.’

‘Drives?’ He looked at his wife, who in turn shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know …’

Roger smiled and shook his head. ‘Look, we all know you have a big, manly BMW 4x4 and I’m sure we’re all very impressed by it, but I for one would prefer it if you didn’t drive it around in the wee small hours, because it’s a noisy bugger and it wakes me up.’

‘My car?’

‘Yes. Your car.’ He raised his hands in a mime of driving. ‘Brum, brum, in the night.’

Henri laughed. ‘What a strange accusation.’ He looked at
Dermot and Raimund. ‘Maybe it is a joke? I don’t know what it is you think you hear in the night, but it is not me. Or my car.’

‘Look, I’m sorry if this is getting you into trouble with your wife, but wherever you’re going to or coming from, if you could just do it more quietly.’

‘What has this got to do with my wife?’

‘You tell me.’

‘What? This is making no sense.’

‘I’m just telling you to pack it in.’

Henri’s face changed. ‘I’m not sure if you are deaf or stupid, but I will say it again: I’m not doing anything. And, excuse me, you’re “telling” me? You? Are you the mayor? I don’t remember you being elected.’

Dermot had heard enough. He excused himself as the two men continued to squabble and went looking once more for Eamonn. Throughout the evening he had caught glimpses of him. At one point he seemed to have taken command of the music, which was a relief at first, but Dermot noticed later that it was just the same song he kept playing over and over. Later still he’d seen him talking to Jean, and Dermot had got the distinct impression that Jean had been trying to get away from him. Another time he’d heard him shouting in the distance. Each time Dermot had tried to get to him but Eamonn had either slipped away or Dermot had been pulled aside by someone else wanting to know how he was enjoying his stay in Lomaverde. Now that he was free there was no trace of Eamonn at all. Instead he found Inga sitting on her own by the pool. She pointed to the chair next to her:

‘Hello.’

He sat and closed his eyes for a moment.

‘Are you as drunk as everyone else seems to be?’

He opened his eyes. ‘I don’t think I am, no. I was just listening
to an argument about engine noise which made me think I’ve not nearly had enough to drink.’

She laughed. ‘Oh yes, Roger. He is a funny man. He is always very cross with me because I feed the cats.’

‘I think I heard him mention that.’

‘I’m sure you did. I told him this evening that he should be happy, as they seem to be leaving.’

‘Is that right?’

‘There’s nothing for them here, the few scraps I give them aren’t enough to stop them starving. I told him I’d noticed their numbers declining. I thought he’d be delighted but it just seemed to offend him. He said: “Bloody charming. Like rats leaving a sinking ship!” He was so hurt by their disloyalty.’

Dermot smiled. ‘So, are you enjoying the do?’

She nodded. ‘I didn’t really expect to, but it’s nice. I don’t speak to my neighbours much. With some’ – she looked over at Roger – ‘that’s maybe a little intentional, but with others, well, it’s strange to say in such a small place, but our paths don’t really cross so often and it’s pleasant to speak to them properly and remember that there are good people here.’ She looked at him. ‘How are you finding being the centre of attention?’

‘Is that what I am?’

‘Of course. A new face. Fresh blood. A new audience for the old stories.’

‘Oh, there was I, thinking I was charming company, but I just have novelty value.’

She smiled. ‘Oh dear, I’ve said the wrong thing.’

‘No. I think you have it right …’ He stood up suddenly, his gaze directed at the far side of the terrace. Eamonn was slumped on the floor, his head buried in his hands. Dermot turned to Inga: ‘I’m sorry, can you excuse me?’

He knew then that he should have taken him home hours
ago. He didn’t know what had set him off. He’d been fine that morning when he left him and then seemed a changed man when he returned. He hadn’t been right from the moment they’d arrived at the barbecue, and God knows how much he’d had to drink since then. Dermot walked over and crouched down, as best as he could, beside him.

‘Eamonn?’

Nothing.

‘Eamonn, get up, you can’t stay here like this.’

A long sniff.

‘Eamonn, come on, son, people are looking.’

A muffled response.

‘What? I can’t hear you.’

‘Please go.’

‘Come on, son, let’s get you home.’

Suddenly Eamonn shouted: ‘It’s not my fucking home!’

The terrace fell silent. Dermot felt everyone’s eyes upon them. He turned and tried to smile. ‘I think he’s had a bit too much to drink.’ He turned back and spoke quietly. ‘Come on. You’re causing a scene now. Get up.’ He braced his back and reached out to try to lift Eamonn off the ground, but Eamonn hunkered down.

‘Dad, please, just leave me alone.’

Becca laid a gentle hand on Dermot’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, Dermot, happens to everyone sometimes. Roger! Ian! Come and give Eamonn a hand.’ Dermot was well able to lift his son by himself, but he deferred to the younger men, thinking Eamonn might be persuaded by them.

As they approached though he started shouting louder than before: ‘Don’t fucking touch me! I’m not going back there.’

They ignored him and tried to grab an arm each.

‘Get off me!’

‘Eamonn, don’t be a prick.’

‘Ow! He hit me!’

Ungainly tussling and slapping broke out with all three men at varying stages of drunkenness; a bottle was dropped and smashed on the stone tiles and then a voice rang out.

‘Get your hands off him!’ Cheryl appeared, the setting sun igniting the colours in her tropical-print maxi dress, her pearlized eye make-up shimmering. Ian and Roger stepped back obediently and she stood over Eamonn.

‘Eamonn. What are they doing to you, sweetheart?’

He looked up at her with ceramic-puppy eyes. ‘Cheryl. Help me.’

‘It’s OK, honey, I’m here.’ She turned to Dermot. ‘I’ll take him back to ours for a bit, give him some coffee and a shoulder to cry on. He’ll be fine.’

Dermot hesitated. ‘If that’s what he wants.’

‘Come on, Eamonn, let’s go next door.’

He struggled to his feet, resisting the assistance of Roger and Ian. As Cheryl linked her arm through his to steady him, she turned and whispered something to Roger.

Dermot watched her lead his son away. He wished he’d carried him home when he’d had the chance.

He was sitting on a bed in a dimly lit room. He was waiting for someone to return, he was pretty sure of that. He couldn’t remember who they were or where they’d gone but he thought it was OK.

It was nice in the room, dark and soft. Everything was good in there. Apart from the music. Something awful was piping through from somewhere. A terrible noise. A constipated saxophone, trying over and over again to void its bowels. He was in danger of sobering up. Unpleasant shards of memory were starting to jab at him.

He needed another drink. He hoped that’s what he was waiting for, that any minute now someone would enter the room with something tall, cool, refreshing and alcoholic. Not
calimocho
though, he felt quite strongly about that. There had been some indefinite period of time spent in a bathroom, cold tiles on his face, someone holding his head, comforting him as he vomited the filthy combination of red wine and coke. ‘Fizzy sick’ – he remembered thinking it important that he repeated those words over and over again, turning around, trying to speak between retches, as if the person gently holding his head needed to know, as if the words might help with some diagnosis.

Sparse, asynchronous glimpses of the evening now started to flash in his mind. Jean and Rosemary practising some dance steps. Someone trying to convince him of the benefits of Reiki. Lionel Richie’s voice. Roger’s hand on Becca’s leg. ‘Everyone you meet, they’re dancing in the street.’ Somebody sobbing.
His father’s voice. Gill threatening to do a handstand. Endless Lionel. David dancing on his own. ‘All Night Long’. Shovelling
gambas
into his mouth. His father’s face in the crowd.

The saxophone had stopped. Now there were synthesized pan pipes playing the song, the inevitable song. He sang quietly: ‘I’d rather be a hammer than a nail.’ He lay and pondered. Would he? It was quite a conundrum. It was a song he had previously loathed, played on an instrument he detested, but now he reconsidered. The sound was soothing, the lyrics challenging, maybe even profound. Hammer or nail? Who could say? He’d wasted so much of his life sneering. Maybe this was the start of his re-education. Pan pipes. Synthesized pan pipes. What the hell was wrong with them? Why couldn’t things be easy and nice? ‘El Cóndor Pasa’. There was so much he could learn from the condor. What exactly were the virtues of difficulty and cynicism and just constantly …

The door opened and Cheryl walked in. He smiled.

‘How are you, sweetheart?’

‘I like your music.’

‘Oh. Thank you.’

‘Can I borrow it?’

‘Ask Roger, he has it wired up to come into all the rooms; I think it’s just random tracks from his computer.’

‘Amazing.’

‘You look better anyway. Here.’ She handed him a drink.

His worst suspicions were confirmed with the first sip. Iced water. He put it down on the side table. ‘Thanks.’

She looked at him. ‘Oh, Eamonn, what are we going to do with you?’

He had an image in his mind of Cheryl doing something with him while Roger watched in the background. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I just mean, how can we help you?’

‘Oh, right.’

She sat next to him on the bed. He could smell her perfume, something heavy and sweet. He looked at her legs stretched out beside him. Her feet looked soft and delicate, imprisoned in the cage of her high-heeled sandals.

‘Is Roger home now?’

‘No, he won’t be back tonight. He’ll crash out on their sofa. He normally does.’

Now he saw Roger and Ian taking turns with Becca. There was something wrong with his head. Everything was turning to pornography.

‘Eamonn, you need to come to terms with Laura’s departure.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘OK, but you’re not handling it very well; look what happened tonight. Sobbing on Jean’s shoulder. Shouting about circumcision. Constantly playing Lionel bloody Ritchie.’

He put his head in his hands.

‘Look, I’m not trying to make you feel bad. Everyone gets drunk and makes a fool of themselves sometimes, and you’ve got more cause than most, but I just want you to know that if you ever feel you need to talk, you can talk to me. I’m actually a pretty good listener.’ She squeezed his leg.

He kept his head buried. He felt the weight of her hand on his thigh. Normally he would move his leg, find an excuse to gently brush her hand away. Always polite. It had been hard work, constantly policing the borders of their relationship with Roger and Cheryl; this pressure he felt from them, low level, almost imperceptible, but constant. He pondered now the nature of that pressure, the intent within. It wasn’t simply sexual, it was something wider, looser, impelling them to let go, a call for Eamonn and Laura to abandon themselves; to what, he wasn’t sure, as he had always fiercely resisted. He thought of
the condor again. The wise bird. The old Eamonn was always resisting, always putting barriers between himself and simple, uncomplicated pleasure: pan pipes, trashy TV, wife-swapping.

‘Have you fallen asleep?’ she asked gently.

He lifted his head from his hands and looked at her. ‘You’re beautiful, Cheryl. I know you know that, but you are.’

She gave a half-smile. ‘I was once.’

‘You still are. You have an incredible glamour.’

‘Not glamorous, please. Only grannies are glamorous.’

‘Something powerful about you. Something different.’

She looked at him and he felt something change in the room.

‘Does he appreciate it?’

‘Who?’

‘Roger, does he know what to do with you?’

She gave him a strange look.

He reached down and slid her hand up to his crotch. ‘I do.’

‘Eamonn.’

‘It’s OK.’

‘I think I should get Roger.’

Eamonn was unsurprised. ‘He likes to watch, doesn’t he?’ He moved his face closer to hers. ‘The old Eamonn would have said no, but the new Eamonn …’ He shrugged. ‘It’s all about letting go.’

Cheryl stood up. ‘Eamonn. You’re very drunk.’

‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘I’m calling Roger.’

He smiled. ‘I’m going with the flow.’

She ignored him and started searching for her phone.

‘I know I’ve resisted in the past, sent out the wrong signals.’

At this Cheryl turned and looked at him. ‘Resisted what exactly?’

‘You and Roger. I know how you must see us. Repressed.
Uptight. I don’t know why I’ve fought against it so hard. Not tonight though, I’m past all that, tonight you can have me.’

Cheryl laughed. ‘I can have you? Listen, sweetheart, there are only so many allowances I’ll make for alcohol and a broken heart.’

He stood up and held her hands. ‘I’m saying it all wrong, but you know what I mean. One night. Come on.’ He tried to push her back towards the bed, but she freed a hand and delivered a powerful punch to his nose.

He fell back, holding his nose, a terrible sobriety lapping at his shores.

‘Listen, Eamonn. You’re drunk. I’m trying to keep that in mind, but you’re making it difficult. I need you to hear what I’m saying. You have fantasies about me, fine, whatever, you’re not the first, you won’t be the last, but that’s just what they are, fantasies, and they don’t interest me at all. Maybe Roger and I like to flirt, we like to play our little games, but I thought we were all adults and we knew the rules. Jesus, it’s not the fucking 1970s, Eamonn. I do not and never have thought of you as …’ she trailed off, as if unable to even put the idea into words. ‘I just don’t think of you in that way. Now, you’re upset, but you’ve done your crying now and you need to stop being a boy and start being a man. Laura’s left you. Deal with it. Move on or get her back.’

Eamonn still had his head buried in the pillow when Roger came in.

‘What’s going on?’

She spoke quietly. ‘Eamonn got a bit confused.’

Roger walked over to the bed and, with a small cry of effort, lifted Eamonn over his shoulder and left the room. Dawn was breaking as he carried him up the road.

‘I thought better of you, Eamonn. I mean, I’m not going to hold it against you, don’t worry about that, but I’m just
surprised and I suppose disappointed. I mean, if you marry a woman like Cheryl, you know there are always going to be pricks who want a piece of her. That’s how they think, like she’s a fucking cake and they can just take a slice. No understanding, no respect, she’s just a body to them. Those kind of men, they don’t even like women, not really. I never thought you were that type, to be honest. I mean, we’ll forget about this, we’ll put it in the past, you can’t carry these things around with you, especially not in a tiny place like this, seeing each other every day, but just now, while we’re clearing the air, I’m just saying, well, I don’t know, I suppose you’re not the man I thought you were. I’m damn sure your father raised you better than this.’

There was the sound of the buzzer and a few minutes later his father’s voice through the intercom. Roger dumped Eamonn on the ground in front of the door just as Dermot was opening it.

‘Sorry to wake you, Dermot. ’Fraid it didn’t work out at ours; thought he’d be better off back home.’

‘Right.’

‘Do you need a hand getting him in?’

‘No, I’ll be fine.’

Eamonn kept his eyes closed as his father dragged him into the lobby. He lay completely motionless while Dermot went upstairs and returned moments later. He offered no resistance as a pillow was pushed under his head and the blanket placed over him.

‘Night night, son.’

He felt his father wipe away a tear that was making slow progress down his cheek and then everything went black.