Audio: Roddy Doyle reads.
Once, years ago, when the children were children, someone had asked Alan if he had any—children. And he’d said no.
He hadn’t expected to say it; it hadn’t been part of a plan. It wasn’t a woman he was talking to. It wasn’t the possibility of sex that had pushed him to say it. He remembered it as a choice, a junction, yes or no. And—just the once—he’d gone for no, and for the rest of the evening he’d been a man with no children.
It had been dreadful, really, having to constantly remind himself that he had no kids. Because that was what he had been, for more than two decades—the man with kids. From the second he woke to the point in the night when he stopped knowing that his eyes were closing, he’d been that man. And the evening he’d denied it he’d still been that man, out for the night with no witnesses, but still up past his neck in four childhoods.
It felt like the worst thing he’d ever done. For years. He’d been Peter in the Garden of wherever, denying four little Jesuses. He knew that if it had been a woman and the denial had led to sex, he’d have shouted something as he was coming—in a room off a room, in the back of her car. He’d have groaned it. I’ve four kids. He’d have yelped their names in order of age, from the youngest up. Then Lizzie—she’ll be doing her Junior Cert next year!
But there hadn’t been sex.
And now he actually was the man with no children. They weren’t in the house. They weren’t in his head when he woke. Their names on the screen when his phone rang were often a shock; nothing in the house or in the rhythm of his day was a reminder. They were gone.
He wasn’t a father.
What was he? A sixty-two-year-old bachelor. With a wife. And she was a sixty-year-old spinster, with an occasional husband. They’d become brother and sister, somehow.
That was shite—just nonsense. He was feeling hard done by, sorry for himself. Or he wasn’t—not now. He had felt that way for a long time. When he realized that he wasn’t needed anymore, needed in the way that had defined him to himself for so long. When his youngest girl had shouted at him to shut the bathroom door. When he’d stood outside on the landing and felt like an intruder, a boor, a dangerous man. He’d fallen into something that he thought now might have been depression—he didn’t know. He’d waited outside, afraid to move, terrified that he’d lost his child because he’d opened the door while she, Lizzie, his youngest, his baby, sat on the toilet. He wanted to be there when she came out. He wanted to be ready with something apologetic and funny. But he saw it, the big, dejected, wet-eyed man blocking the exit, filling the landing with himself. He went down the stairs and—he knew this—he was a different man when he got to the bottom.
But that night—back to that night when he’d said he had no children. He’d done nothing with it. He’d gone home. He’d checked on the kids. He’d gone to bed and slept. He’d been up before everyone in the morning.
But it had been a moment, that night—a different life out in front of him, if he’d wanted it.
And now: it’s another one. Another moment.
He’s in England—he’s in Newcastle. He’s just off the phone to his wife, in Dublin. The pubs have been closed at home, and the cinemas and the theatres. The schools have been shut for a week. Social distancing is a phrase that everyone understands. It’s like gender fluidity and sustainable development. They’re using the words as if they’d been translated from Irish, in the air since before the English invaded.
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But he’s in England, and it hasn’t happened yet. There are no yellow-and-black warning signs. The pubs are roaring, the streets are packed.
—When are you home, Al? Sinéad had asked him. Remind me.
—Sunday, he’d said.
He didn’t tell her that the bar downstairs was wide open and mad in the early Friday afternoon, full past the walls with a stag party, about thirty drunk men in “Hawaii Five-0” shirts. Knocking back double and treble shots in pint glasses. Sweating, coughing, wheezing men, barking, and whacking one another. They’re from Belfast, he thinks. It’s going to end in tears. It’s going to end in blood.
The taxi-driver from the train station had put it all in its place.
—The coroona carry on, he said. It’s a lood a shite.
Alan had laughed, but he’d opened the passenger window to let some air in. In the hotel foyer, he didn’t want to put his hands on the counter. He didn’t want to hand over his debit card. He wasn’t going to get into the lift. It had just opened behind him. Six or seven of the Belfast/Hawaii lads poured out, clutching phones and pint glasses. He’d carried his case up the stairs.
He wants to go home; he needs to get home. But there’s something else in him, too: he’s loving it.
It’s a moment. He knows. He can stay here. He can disappear. Into England. Be the man with no children. No country. The man with nothing at all.
He washes his hands for—he’d be guessing—fifteen seconds. He wipes the door handles with a towel. He wipes the handle of his case. He opens the case and takes out what he’ll need—a shirt, socks. He wipes the handle again. He throws the towel in the bath. He takes it out and hangs it on the door. He sits on the bed. He looks at the remote control on the table beside the bed. He doesn’t touch it.
He’s become an anxious man. Not today—not just today, after talking to Sinéad and scrolling through the news from Ireland. He’s been constantly checking his watch, checking the calendar, checking the day, checking everything—for years now. He’d look at Sinéad’s expression. Was she happy—was she happy with him? He wondered if he was talking to himself, after he’d become aware that he was hissing as he walked uphill, counting the gates to his own gate. Was he doing it out loud? He would put a shirt beside a pair of jeans on top of the bed at home and wonder if they clashed, if he could wear them together—to the shops, to the pub, downstairs to the kitchen. He didn’t remember caring about that when he was younger. His parents had died; he was the oldest person he knew well. This pleased him and kept him awake. He’d left the back door open; he’d forgotten to leave out the black wheelie; he’d forgotten the name of the animal that built the dams. In the nature program he’d been half watching before he came up to bed.
This is his chance. He’s ready to go.
He’s forgotten the name of that animal again.
This is the chance to sweat out the fear, to join a new life. He’ll go down to the lads in the hotel bar. He doesn’t have a “Hawaii Five-0” shirt; nothing in his case will remind anyone of “Hawaii Five-0.” There’s a pink shirt. He’s already worn it. He won’t smell it first. He’ll just hold it by the shoulders and give it a snap, scare some of the creases out of it. He’ll order three gins in a tumbler and slip in among the lads. He’ll talk if he needs to; he’ll put on the accent that irritates Sinéad when they’re watching the news. There’s a wee riot. He’ll work out if they’re Catholics or Prods. He’s on his way, already his new self.
Beaver.
That’s the bucktoothed fucker that builds the dams.
He’ll need a name when he goes down there. His own name is probably neutral, but he doesn’t want it. Mick, Mike, Pete, Stu, Jim, Dave, Shamie, wee Beaver—he hasn’t a clue. They all feel like land mines. He’ll bypass the lads and head straight out into Newcastle.
He takes off the pink shirt and puts on the last clean one. He takes his passport out of his wallet. He’ll put it in the case, in the bag with the dirty laundry. He should bring it with him, fling it into the Tyne, slip it into a bin. If he’s being serious, that’s what he should do.
He’s out of the room. He stops the door with his foot. He checks that the room key is in his wallet. It is—he’s on his way.
He’s smiling. He’s made himself smile. This is him not being himself.
The lift doors slide open. The lift is empty. He steps in. The heat, the smell of aftershave, thrown on by men who haven’t shaved. He holds his breath, he leans on nothing, presses the button with his elbow. It’s only two floors. He’s forgotten not to get into the lift. He’ll use the stairs from now on.
From now on? He won’t be staying here. He might not come back. There’s a couple of shirts, a jumper, his passport, the case. That’s all that’s up there. And his iPad—it’s on the bed. He can feel the warmth of the men on his skin, he can see their breath—the droplets—in the air in front of him. He feels the lift stop, the little jolt. He’s out, sideways, before the doors are fully open. He can inhale now, if he’s careful. He hears the lads in the bar; he hears glass hitting the floor tiles.
More sliding doors—he’s out. He can breathe. This air came over the North Sea; it’s too cold for any virus. He’s on a hill above the river. As far as he understands, he’s not actually in Newcastle; he’s in Gateshead. Newcastle is the other side of the river. He can see his route there. Across a road, around a building site, over a wide car park, to steps that he’s sure will bring him down to the river and the pedestrian bridge he can see shining below him. He can see plenty of people on the Newcastle side, but it’s quiet here. There’s no traffic at all on the road; there’s no one working on the building site. The car park gives him the creeps. Old potholed tarmac; there are only four or five cars parked in space for hundreds. One of the cars starts just as he’s walking past it. He doesn’t look through the windscreen. He doesn’t look back, and the tires don’t crunch over the tarmac. He’s at the steps down to the river.
He checks his phone. There’s a message—from Sinéad. He won’t stop here. He’ll wait till he gets somewhere, a pub or something, where he can read it properly and answer—if he answers.
Of course he’ll answer.
He mightn’t.
He’s crossing the river. This is the bit where he should be lobbing his passport into the water. And his phone. Into the river without breaking stride. Whistling “Fog on the Tyne.” The river will still be there when he’s coming back—if he’s coming back. His boarding pass for the flight home is on his phone. Everything is on the phone. The bank, the passwords, the photos, the life. He’ll have a few pints and a pizza, then decide.
He’s crossing the bridge and already planning on crossing back over the bridge, returning before he arrives. He’s slowing down; he can feel it in his legs. The doubts and the dread—they’re turning him back. It’s familiar. It’s been going on for a long time.
Drivel.
Sentimental, self-pitying drivel.
He stops halfway across, but not to turn back. It’s the other bridges. The five, maybe six metal bridges that span the river. They’re great—they’re beautiful. From where he stands, if he shifts slightly they seem like one elaborate bridge. He gets out the phone, takes a photo. He deletes it and puts the phone back into his pocket. He doesn’t want the photo or the urge to send it. He’s moving again. The energy’s back in his legs. He’s in Newcastle now—officially.
He climbs up a street from the river. There’s a gang of big women coming at him. They’re all big, all in black skirts and T-shirts, with pink sashes across their chests, and big pink bunny ears. There are seven or eight of them; they’re singing a song he doesn’t know. It’s a hen group, although it’s hard to pick out the hen. One of them shouts just as they reach him.
—Tracey wants some cock!
She’s not looking at him as she shouts. It’s not a threat or an invitation.
She does it again.
—Tracey wants some cock!
—She fooking does, too!
They’re around him, almost going over him. He can feel their heat, the mass of them; he can see the eyeshadow sliding down from the eyes, the shining cheeks. It’s early evening. The droplets they’ll inhale tonight—they’ll be dead in days. Here lies Tracey. She wanted some cock.
Sinéad has told him that social distancing has become almost natural at home. She’s told him about the polite slalom that walking down the SuperValu aisles has become in the week that he’s been gone. Not here, he’ll tell her—he wants to tell her. There’s no distance between the bodies here.
There’s another gang of women—they’re not girls, they’re way too old for girls—charging down the hill. It’s all hills, this town. They’re in pink this time, with black sashes and no ears. A more sedate group. They’re not shouting for cock.
There’s a pub across the way that looks promising, one of the BrewDog places he’s read about. He’ll wait till the pink hens pass before he crosses. He should be following them, he thinks. This is supposed to be his new life.
He’ll need cash. He’ll have to go to an A.T.M. He’ll have to tap the silver buttons with a finger. He’ll have to push his card into a slot that infected stags and hens have been rubbing and coughing on all day. He’ll have to do it—touch things, breathe sweat. He really should follow those women. The pink or the black gang. He should follow them into whatever bar they commandeer and dive right in. They’ll pour their drinks over him. They’ll sit on him. They’ll probably kill him.
He’d stood in another hotel room a few days before—he thinks it was in Manchester—and looked at himself in the mirror as he came out of the bathroom. He saw his father’s legs. Just for a second, they weren’t his, Alan’s. He was sitting on sand beside his brother—they were in Cahore, in Wexford—and he was looking at their father as he walked up from the sea, and he came closer and closer and he stopped in front of them and Alan looked through his father’s legs as a black dog and three children ran beside the water, from his father’s left ankle to his other one. His father’s legs were the door to the sea. They were pale—it must have been early in the summer—and they were hairless, unlike his arms and his chest, and there was a line like a river, a blue vein, running down one shin. He stood in front of the hotel-room mirror and saw that vein in his own leg. He almost looked behind him, to watch his father coming out of the bathroom. His father had been dead for seven years. They were his own legs, but he’d become his father. You’re a ringer for your dad. People had said it at the funeral. It’s fuckin’ uncanny. He had the legs of a dead man. I’ll say this, an old friend of his father’s had said that day, beside the hearse. He held on to Alan’s hand, and wouldn’t give it back. You’re not half the man your father was. I’ll leave it at that.
He looks in the pub window. The place is nearly empty. It makes no sense. Both sides of the street are heaving, but there are only two punters inside. They’re together, a woman and a man—close to his age, he thinks—but they’re not talking. He looks away, and back to the window, in case it’s a trick of the light, the late-afternoon sun hiding a line of people sitting at the bar. But no—there’s no change. It’s still just the two in there.
It’s his kind of place, a quiet pub in a mad town. A few weeks ago, even yesterday, he’d have been straight in—straight in on his father’s legs. He’d have been looking through the menu for an I.P.A. with a daft name that he could photograph and send to his family and a couple of friends. To remind them—and himself—that he wasn’t where he normally was. He’d have opened Google Maps and checked the route from the barstool back to the hotel. He’d have ordered his pint—Born to Die, or Clockwork Tangerine—and he’d have quickly convinced himself that it made good sense to eat there, too, a burger or a pizza, and he’d have been back in the hotel before dark.
The pull of the empty pub is strong. But he resists and moves on up the hill, on his own legs.
He’d have e-mailed the kids. He’d have made sure they all got their own message. He’d have written the one, then adjusted it for each—a verb, a noun, a musical reference. He’d have spent half the night cutting and pasting. One pint was the limit for that kind of work.
But he’s the man with no kids.
He could turn back. Not to the hotel, to the BrewDog pub. A slow pint of Punk I.P.A.—what a name; fuckin’ hilarious—and a photo home, the family WhatsApp: Are the pubs shut over there? xx.
Here’s his chance, though. He’ll find a Wetherspoons, walk right into the happy hour and death. He’s sweating. The hill is a killer, never mind the virus. He doesn’t want to get used to the words and the terms, their meanings and consequences—covid, cluster, at-risk, asymptomatic. He doesn’t want the carefulness. This way is freedom, back home is boredom and terror. He can walk up this hill to the life he never had, or walk back down to the life he doesn’t want. He’s still feeling exhilarated, although he has to check first. He believes what he’s doing—he does. He’s still out in the air, though. He’s socially distant. He hasn’t burrowed into the crowd. He’s a bit manic, and tired. And a bit feverish, maybe. His throat is dry. But that’s from the climb. He’s anxious.
This is what he has to stop. The roll call of the adjectives. The running commentary that comes with everything he does and thinks. The self-assessments that have always crippled him. You’re shit, you’re weak, you’re just not good enough.
Is he anxious now, though? He isn’t. He thinks he isn’t anxious. But he isn’t sure. He doesn’t know what time it is. He doesn’t know the name of the street. He could turn back and go straight down to the river and he’d see the hotel on the other side. But that’s not the point. He’ll turn a corner soon, and another—more than likely. And he won’t note them, or care. He’s bringing his sense of direction—it’s good, it’s reliable. But he won’t be using it.
There’s a rubbish bin up ahead.
He takes out his phone.
The bin’s overflowing. There are wasps bopping around it. At this time of year? At this time of day? He pushes the phone down, under a squashed McDonald’s bag, and further down. He lets go of it. He makes himself walk away. It’s the hardest thing he’s ever done.
But he’s done it. He’s done the mad thing.
They were at a party, about a year ago. But he couldn’t tell anymore if it was a party or just a group of people standing around in the same house.
He’d said it to Sinéad on the way home in the taxi.
—Was that a party, was it?
—What?
—Were we at a party there?
He could see the driver’s eyes in the rearview, looking away.
—What d’you mean? she asked.
—Well, he said. Parties. They used to be obvious.
They’d met at a party. He’d caught her as she started to fall backwards down the stairs with a bottle of Heineken in each hand.
—But tonight, he said. For fuck sake. Is it our age?
—No one vomited, she said. Is that what you mean? Is that what you’re pining for?
—Kind of, he said. It was just a bit of a nonevent. Wasn’t it?
—I enjoyed it, she said.
—Did you?
—Not really, she said. No.
—No, he’d said. Me, too.
—We missed “Succession,” Al.
He laughed.
The man of the house had wanted to show Alan his desk. Alan hardly knew him; they met maybe twice a year. He knew him because he was married to Orla, who had gone to school with Sinéad’s sister. He didn’t have his number or his e-mail, and he had to remind himself of the man’s name—Geoff—every time they were about to meet. It had occurred to Alan tonight that Geoff had done the same thing, half an hour before they arrived. He’d asked Orla what Sinéad’s husband was called. He remembered women’s names; it was the men who were vague. But Geoff worked at home—Alan hadn’t a clue what he did—and he’d got himself a desk that allowed him to stand as he worked.
—That must be some fuckin’ desk, another of the husbands said. Do you have to ask its permission if you want to stand up?
—I have a back thing, Geoff told them, and some of the other men nodded. They had back things, too.
Alan had gone upstairs to the toilet, and Geoff had followed him up.
—I’ll show it to you when you get out, he said, as Alan shut the jacks door.
—Grand.
He’d spent a good while washing his hands, and there was no sign of Geoff when he came out. There was no one on the landing. But he heard the voice.
—Alan?
—Yeah?
—I’m in here.
There was an open door to Alan’s right. He went to the door and looked in. There was a long desk—it looked like a delicatessen counter—almost across the width of the room. There was a laptop, closed, and a lamp. There was Geoff. There was a mattress in one of the corners.
—I sleep there, Geoff said.
He looked at Alan.
Alan said nothing. He looked at the desk. He looked at Geoff. The man knew no one. He’d no one else he could tell. Alan remembered the walls. They were pink. It had been a daughter’s bedroom.
He didn’t tell Sinéad. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t have got past the walls. He’d have cried.
—Will we watch it when we get home?
—It’s too late.
—Go on, Al, she said. Be wild.
—O.K., he said. A bit of it. I might fall asleep.
—That’s permitted.
He’s got rid of the phone.
He’s happy with that. It seems enough—the act, the protest. He turns and heads back down the street. He’ll have the pint in the BrewDog pub. He’ll order a pizza, a spicy one that will make the back of his head sweat. He’ll go back to the hotel. He’ll go up the stairs to his room. He’ll wash his hands for twenty seconds. He’ll take his shoes off and get up on the bed. He’ll use his iPad to change his flight to tomorrow morning. He’ll call Sinéad on the iPad. He’ll tell her he lost his phone. He’ll tell her his new flight details. He’ll tell her what he’s seen and heard tonight. He’ll tell her that Tracey wants some cock. ♦
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