This Is How It Ends (14 page)

T
WO WEEKS TO GO
now to the election and everywhere people were talking about it. It was like a world election.

There was Bruno thinking he was getting away from it all by coming here. He’d wondered would he be able to follow it properly. He’d thought maybe there wouldn’t be much coverage in the local press.

He needn’t have worried.

Everybody seemed to be up for Obama. Obama was the home team. Already, they were claiming him as one of their own. A band no one had ever heard of had recorded a song about him. “There’s No One as Irish as Barack O’Bama.” It was a surprise hit on YouTube.

“It’s embarrassing,” said Addie. “You’d think we’d have the decency to let this one go.”

But Bruno thought it was great. “If only you all had a vote.”

Every shop he went into, every bar, every restaurant, all the talk was of Obama. As soon as Bruno opened his mouth, he’d be asked what he thought. He gave them what they were looking for and more besides.

“What do I think of Obama?” he would say. He would draw it out a bit, working up a momentum.

“I’ll tell you what I think of Obama. I think he embodies the hopes of our nation. I think he may deliver us from the disrepute that has dragged us down in the eyes of the world. I think all we have to do now is elect him. So pray for us, please.”

“He won’t make it that far,” said the barman as he poured Bruno’s pint. He poured it three-quarters of the way up and then he set it down on the draining board and stood back to wait for it to settle. “They’ll get to him first, how much do you want to bet?”

But Bruno didn’t want to bet anything on that. He didn’t want any part of that kind of wager.

The Bradley effect, that was another thing everyone was talking about. Impossible to predict the power of the Bradley effect, that’s what all the pundits were saying. It could be enough to lose him the election. Forget the polls, they were saying. What we won’t know until Election Day is, how many Americans won’t be able to bring themselves to vote for a black man? How many people will go into that booth and look at that name, Barack Hussein Obama, and at the very last moment choose the other guy?

Bruno was reading Obama’s book
Dreams from My Father
again, reading it over slowly and letting himself revel in the possibility, however outlandish it might seem, that a man of this talent might actually get elected to the highest office in the land.

Bruno sat in a corner of the pub, with his pint in front of him, and he read Obama’s book, letting those honeyed cadences cast their magic over him. And he got to a passage he didn’t remember reading before, a passage that had an eerie prescience about it. A passage about some advice the young Obama received from one of the few older black men he knew when he was growing up.

As Bruno read it, he got a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Bruno got shivers down his spine just thinking about it. Just thinking that maybe, just maybe, that rule was about to be broken.

BRUNO IS A BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
fan.

You already know this about him, it’s one of the first things he tells you.

“Bruce is the man,” he says, without a trace of self-consciousness. “I live by Bruce.”

“Never got it myself,” says Addie.

To Addie, Bruce is “Born in the USA.” Bruce is the Stars and Stripes and those lumberjack shirts with the sleeves rolled up over the biceps. Bruce is not something you would ever have considered liking.

“You see, to me, that sounds a lot like a challenge,” said Bruno. “I think I’ve just found my purpose here. Now I know why I’ve been sent.”

“No way!” She was shaking her head. “Absolutely no way are you evangelizing me. I’m actually happy with the music I listen to. I happen to like my music. I don’t feel the need for Bruce Springsteen in my life.”

He had grabbed her iPod off the table where it had been lying, and he was flicking through it.

“Jesus Christ,” he was saying, “you can’t be serious. You listen to this stuff? This is what you listen to every day? How do you manage to get out of bed in the morning?”

“I happen to like depressing music,” she said. “I find it cheers me up. It makes me feel quite cheerful. By comparison.”

“This makes no sense. This makes no sense whatsoever. You need to be on the Bruce program, baby. You might actually start enjoying your life.”

Don’t quote, she was thinking, please don’t quote. But he was off.

“
Roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair
, babe.”

She put her head in her hands in mock despair.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

He calls me baby, she was thinking. He calls me babe and he’s trying to make me listen to Bruce Springsteen and I’m still prepared to go out with him. I must be out of my mind.

“LET’S DO THE LOOP,”
he said to her.

A freezing-cold night, they were wrapped up together for warmth. Addie had her pajamas on, she even had her socks on.

“Winter sex,” he said. “There’s nothing like it. I always think there’s something very sexy about making love to a woman with your socks on.”

Addie wasn’t keeping up. What loop, she was thinking. Is this another sexual favor I promised him?

“You and me and Lola,” he said, “we should do the loop. We should go on a road trip, just the three of us. Discover this fine country of yours.”

“Jesus, I’d better let her in,” said Addie, hopping out of the bed. She’d thrown Lola out of the bedroom. She couldn’t have sex with her in the room, she just couldn’t do it. She’s a dog, Bruno had said, she won’t understand what’s going on. She will, Addie insisted, she won’t like it.

“I can’t do the loop,” she said as she climbed back into the bed. “I’d love to, but I can’t. I have to be here for my dad. I have to cook his dinner for him. He can’t be left alone in the house. In case he needs something during the night, I need to be here. And anyway, what would we do with Lola? Most places don’t allow dogs.”

But Bruno wasn’t that easily put off. He came up with another plan instantly.

“What about the spokes of the wheel?” he said. “We could do the spokes of the wheel. We could pick places within reach of here. We could do day trips. That way we would be back here every night.”

Addie was thinking about it.

“Lola would like that,” he said, and at the mention of her name Lola jumped up and came over to the bed, resting her chin on the duvet and narrowing her eyes at them.

“You’d swear she knows what we’re talking about,” said Addie.

“Of course she knows what we’re talking about!” said Bruno. “We’re talking about
trips
, we’re talking about
walks
, in the
countryside
.”

“Stop it,” said Addie. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to get her on your side. You’re ganging up on me.”

“I have a guidebook back in my room,” he said. “I can do some research.” He broke it up into two words, he called it re-search. “I can identify suitable destinations. I can rent a car, I’ll be your chauffeur. You won’t have to do anything. Just come along for the ride.”

“Do you know what kind of places are within reach of here?” she asked doubtfully. “You’re talking about the midlands,” she said, watching his blank expression. “You obviously don’t know about the midlands.”

“We could go up the coast,” he said cheerfully.

“Louth,” she answered. As if that were all you needed to know.

“Down the coast?” he ventured.

“Wicklow, Wexford. The Irish Sea.”

“OK, OK,” he said, bowing to her superior knowledge. “But there must be somewhere within reach of here that’s worth visiting. Let that be my quest. I’ll find us somewhere worth visiting.”

So she bowed to his blissful ignorance, to his endless enthusiasm.

“OK,” she said. “At the weekends, if I can persuade my sister to check on my dad, we’ll do the spokes of the wheel.”

BRUNO GOT CRACKING
on his plan straightaway.

He started compiling playlists from iTunes. He started downloading them from his laptop onto blank CDs.

He delved through the back catalog, choosing, oh so carefully, tunes that would reel her in. Old Bruce, new Bruce. Obscure Bruce and less obscure. He knew his way around this. He was confident she would not be able to resist.

Bruno was a missionary now. He was a man on a mission. He had checked out the sound track of her life. He had taken it in with one glance down her iPod directory. The way she had her life story set up, it was a weepie. It was a fucking tragedy, sad beginning, sad middle, sad end.

One look through her iPod and Bruno had made a decision. I am going to turn this into a feel-good movie.

A
REN’T YOU GOING
to tell me where it is we’re going?”

“Nope.”

“Come on, you have to tell me where we’re going.”

“No, ma’am. It’s a mystery destination. You’ll find out when we get there.” He sounded like a U.S. Marine.

The route he was taking was ominous. Along the quays and through the Phoenix Park, he had Bruce Springsteen blaring out from the car stereo.

He wouldn’t let Addie speak.

“This is extraordinary rendition, you know. I feel like I’m being taken to a secret prison in Cavan.”

“Just listen,” he said. “You’ve got to give it a chance to work on you.” As if it were a pill.

So she sat there like a prisoner. There was nothing for it but to listen.

“I know this music,” she roared. “I just don’t like it very much.”

But Bruno ignored her. He was singing along silently, bobbing his head from side to side as he drove, mouthing the words.

Coming up to the roundabout in the middle of the park, Bruno spotted the Stars and Stripes ahead of them. The flag was flying high in the sky above the gates to the American ambassador’s residence, stunning against the blue sky. The Irish tricolor was flying from the opposite gatepost, the dear old dowdy tricolor.

With Bruce Springsteen’s husky voice blaring out from the car radio, Addie couldn’t deny it, it was a moment.

Bruno smashed the heel of his hand down on the horn and started to sing along at the top of his voice.

“
Come on up for the rising
,” he sang. “
Come on up for the rising tonight.
”

His voice was hoarse with emotion, it was almost contagious. If Addie had known the words, she might even have been tempted to sing along.

Instead she leaned her head back against the seat and looked out the window. A weird strip of mist was hanging over the ground, just a few feet high. It was hovering over the grass without actually touching it, like a band of static. Rising out of it, the antlers of hundreds of deer, their bodies lost in the mist. They looked like creatures materializing out of a time warp.

She would have liked to say that to Bruno but she couldn’t hear herself think.

FORTY MINUTES LATER
, twenty miles inside the County Meath boundary and another ten tracks into the Bruce Springsteen introduction CD, Bruno pulled the car over.

“This is our first stop.”

“What? But there’s nothing here.”

“Oh, but there is.” He gestured to the house right beside them, a pebble-dashed bungalow painted a sickly mint green. “The home of our country cousins. We’re invited for tea.”

Addie’s eyes widened in horror.

“Oh Jesus. This
is
extraordinary rendition. This is torture. I don’t want to visit any of my cousins, you know I don’t want to visit my cousins.”

She was repeating it because she couldn’t quite believe it. She felt trapped. She felt like she’d been outwitted, outsmarted, boxed into a corner. How to explain how little she wanted to call on her long-lost cousins in a pebble-dashed bungalow outside Navan? For a moment, she considered refusing to go in. She thought about waiting in the car, she thought about walking back to the nearest town. She wanted to be a child again. She wanted to have a tantrum, cry and wail, beat her fists so as not to have to go.

“I should never have helped you,” she said. “I should never have shown Hugh that bloody photograph. I should never have pestered him for their names.”

She was sitting in the passenger seat, her arms crossed stubbornly over her chest. She felt like locking all the doors. She wanted to barricade herself in.

But Bruno was already getting out of the car. He was opening the hatchback to let the dog out.

“I’m sure they won’t mind if Lola comes too.”

AFTERWARDS, OF COURSE,
Addie would feel so guilty.

They were so nice. They’d gone to a lot of trouble. There was homemade brown bread and a fruitcake. The best china was out, and there was a freshly ironed tablecloth on the kitchen table. When you went to the loo you could tell it had been scrubbed. A brand-new bar of soap on the sink. The Hoover marks were still visible on the carpet in the hall. They’d had a busy morning, preparing for their American visitor.

When they arrived Addie had hung back. She had imagined herself as peripheral to the whole situation. The way she looked at it she was just coming along for the ride. But Bruno introduced her to them and they fell on her. They were so glad to see her! They hugged her and they held on to her like she was one of their own. They stood back and studied her face.

“She has a look of Auntie May, doesn’t she? There’s no denying her, she’s definitely one of ours.”

“I can’t believe it, where have the years gone? The last time you were here you can’t have been more than six or seven. We brought you out to show you the puppies. The dog had just had puppies. Do you remember that?”

Addie didn’t have the heart to tell them that she had no recollection of them at all. She never even knew they existed. She looked desperately over at Bruno for help. He was hovering down on the ground, delving in his bag for something, a gift he’d brought with him. Addie’s head was spinning with it all, the rush of their emotion. She asked for directions to the bathroom.

I’m a snooty cow, she thought to herself as she washed her hands. I didn’t want to meet these people. I think I’m better than them. I deserved to be put in my box.

She dried her hands slowly on the pristine white hand towel before venturing back out.

There were two of them. Two sisters, Mary and Theresa. Addie wasn’t concentrating properly when they introduced themselves and she forgot immediately which one was which. One of them actually lived in Navan, she explained, but she’d come over especially. She made it sound like the trip was four hundred miles rather than just four.

They were daughters of one of the women in the photo. Which would make them first cousins of Hugh’s, could that be right? How come Addie had never heard of them? It didn’t make any sense.

“Of course you’re the only Boylan left,” said one of the cousins to Bruno. “It was all girls on our side of the family, after our brother died. There was no one left to carry on the name.”

“That never occurred to me,” said Bruno. “You’re right, I’m the last of the Boylans!”

He had this rapturous expression on his face.

“We’re relying on you now,” said one of them, “to keep the name alive.” They nudged each other and nodded at him.

“Now,” said the other one.

Addie cringed. But Bruno was lapping it up. Leaning forward over the table, he was making no attempt to conceal his delight.

Addie looked over his shoulder to see where Lola was.

“She might like to go out into the garden,” they’d said as soon as they saw Lola.

The two of them agreeing with each other.

“Oh yes, I’m sure she’d prefer to be outside.”

Meaning they didn’t want her in the house. Which was a relief to Addie, because as soon as you looked around the living room, as soon as you took in the delicate tallboy stacked with china ornaments, and the lace doilies on the side tables, and the antimacassars on the backs of the couch and the chairs, you
knew
it was not a good idea for Lola to be in the house.

Addie could see her now. She had a clear view of her out through the glass kitchen door. She was cruising around the garden, sniffing wildly at the flower beds. She was circling, like a circus horse in the ring. Round and round in ever-decreasing circles, which only ever meant one thing. Now she was whirling, round and round three times, and then she was squatting, squeezing out an endless turd, right there in the middle of their lawn.

Addie leaned forward to help herself to another piece of cake. She pretended not to have noticed. She tried to concentrate on what it was they were saying.

They were all peering over the photo Bruno had brought with him.

“That would have been taken just before he went to America,” said the older one.

“They were heartbroken he never came back. Mammy and Auntie May. They doted on him, you know.”

“Yes,” said the younger one. “There was always the hope that he would come back.”

Bruno reassured them.

“He always wanted to come, you know, it was a dream of his to come.”

“Well, it wasn’t to be, I suppose. Still it’s sad all the same, that they never got to see each other again.”

“Sure they thought they’d have all the time in the world. Doesn’t everyone think that?”

“Well, they’re all together now, please God.”

There was a reverent silence as they contemplated this. Then one of the cousins perked up. She gave a little squeak of excitement.

“Nora came! Do you remember that, Mary? That was a big thing for them. The presents she brought! When would that have been?”

“God now, I’m trying to think. Wait now…”

“I’ve letters from her somewhere. She used to write to Mammy. I must try to dig them out for you…”

Addie’s attention was wandering. She was studying the pictures on the wall. An uneven clutch of framed photographs, each one showed a different young person in a cap and gown standing in front of a mottled studio backdrop. The roll of parchment held awkwardly in the two hands. They were proudly displayed, those photographs, hung in the kitchen for maximum exposure. It occurred to Addie that her own graduation photograph was lying in a box somewhere. Hugh didn’t set much store by architecture as a qualification.

The family tree was spread out on the table now, and they were all poring over it.

God, this is boring, Addie was thinking. She felt like she was in Mass. She felt like she was in a Latin Mass. The boredom was almost physical.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Lola digging up the grass, scrabbling like a cartoon dog to cover her tracks, sending clumps of grass and earth flying backwards between her rear legs.

“That’s right,” one of them was saying. “Your grandfather would have been James. He would have been a brother of our grandfather’s. John Boylan, that was our grandfather. You have it right.” She tapped the page with her index finger.

“There’s a few things I need your help with,” said Bruno. He was squinting down at his notes. “Your father was Michael, isn’t that right?”

They both nodded enthusiastically.

“Daddy’s name was Michael Daly,” said one of them eagerly. “And May’s husband was a Lynch, Seamus Lynch.”

Bruno was scribbling it all down in his notebook.

“And Kitty’s husband, what was his first name, do you happen to know?”

A look between the two sisters, Addie caught it immediately.

“Kitty’s husband,” said one of them mechanically.

“Yes. Murphy was his surname. Hugh’s father.”

They had both of them glanced over nervously at Addie. Now they were staring back down at the family tree. From where Addie was sitting she could make out the upside-down question mark that Bruno had inscribed beside her grandfather’s surname.

“The first name escapes me. Can you remember it, Theresa?”

“Not for the life of me.”

Bruno’s pen was hovering over the page. As they were talking, he found himself tracing over the question mark again. Now it appeared to have been written in bold. It stood out like a sore thumb.

“He’s gone a long time.”

“I’m not sure we ever met him.”

Bruno looked up at the two sisters.

“My father talked about them all, you know. He often spoke of them.”

“They were so proud of him. They were always telling people, our cousin Patrick went to America. Did very well for himself over there.”

She turned to Addie.

“They were proud of your father too. A doctor in the family, isn’t that what everyone wants?”

There was something in the air again. Some tension, Addie couldn’t put her finger on it.

“It meant a lot to Mammy, that he came back for the funeral.”

Addie was lost now. She didn’t know who they were talking about. They must have noticed her confusion.

“Auntie May’s funeral. It meant a lot to everyone that your father came back.”

The other one was nodding.

“She was a mother to him. She was the only mother he ever knew.”

And Addie nodded as if she understood. She nodded and she smiled, even as the questions were forming in her mind.

“Your mother was very good about visiting her. She used to be very good about coming back. She always brought you girls with her. It meant so much to Auntie May, to see you girls growing up.”

A wisp of a memory, dancing around the edges of Addie’s mind. Boiled sweets, a round tin of them. A clip being placed in her hair. Face powder, the soft pink smell of it when you leaned in for the kiss.

“She was a lovely woman, your mother, we were all very fond of her.”

To her horror, Addie found the tears welling up in her eyes. She was overcome by everything she didn’t know, by all the things these women seemed to know about her. She didn’t remember any of it. She felt as if she’d walked into a room and suddenly people were jumping out from behind the couches and the curtains and they were shouting, surprise! She wanted to cut and run.

Bruno must have noticed her distress. He came to her rescue.

“While I’m here, I’d very much like to go visit the graveyard. I’d like to see the family plot.”

The two cousins went into a flap.

“Oh yes,” they said, “you must go to the graveyard. We can give you the directions.”

“It’s hard enough to find, unless you know where to look. We’ll have to write it down for you.”

Bruno opened the notebook again.

“Please God there are no weeds, it’s weeks since we were out there.”

There followed an endless series of directions. They were still issuing clarifications as Addie and Bruno stood up to leave.

“Make sure to come back now, next time you’re here,” said the older one to Bruno as they were saying good-bye.

“There will be a next time,” said the other one decisively.

They kissed Addie and held her close as they said good-bye. But they didn’t pass on their regards to her father. And they didn’t urge her to come back. She only realized that as she climbed into the car.