A purring mechanical tone tells him the call is ringing while he sits on the sofa unlacing his shoes. Home from work late, Tuesday night, awkward time to call, and never texted beforehand, almost as if, yes, hoping no one will answer. Duty discharged in that case. Diphenhydramine with a glass of red wine, see what people are saying on the internet. Fall asleep with the lights on for an hour or two if he’s lucky. Wake up again and try something stronger. Watch in claustrophobic dread the passing of hours, scorched feeling in his eyelids blinking. Three in the morning, four, another Xanax, open a new browser tab to type out: insomnia psychosis. psychosis average age of onset. can’t sleep going insane. About to hang up when with a dropping sound the call connects and the voice of his brother is saying: Hello? Oddly normal the way he says that when answering the phone. Makes him sound so adult and reasonable. But what does Peter expect him to say: nothing? Just pick up without a word and breathe audibly into the receiver? Hey, says Peter.
What’s up? Ivan asks. Is this about the dog?
Peter, remembering, massages his forehead with his hand. No, he says, I haven’t heard anything from Christine. Have you?
Oh. Yeah, she’s been texting me. A lot, actually. Complaining.
I see. I’m sorry about that.
Ivan’s voice more familiar now: flat, affectless, and yet communicating at the same time somehow a wary distrust. You haven’t thought of anything we could do, he says.
No, not yet.
Funny thing is that people used to say their voices were alike. Home for the weekend, picking up the old landline with the rotary dial: Is that Ivan? Put me on to your dad, good man. Laughing then: Peter, actually. No, no, don’t worry, I’ll take it as a compliment.
I feel like the texts are getting kind of threatening, Ivan goes on. Like, she is talking a lot about trying to give the dog away, if I can’t take him.
We’ll figure something out, Peter says. Leave it with me.
Ivan is silent for a moment. Then he says: Cool, okay. Is that it?
Sorry?
I mean, are we finished talking now?
Peter closes his eyes. Is this not a good time? he asks.
Uh, says Ivan. Well, for what?
To talk on the phone.
Yeah, I get that. But about what?
Inhaling deeply Peter holds his breath a moment and then releases. Nothing, he says. I’m just calling to say hello.
After a pause Ivan answers: Oh. Then he adds: Okay.
So how are you?
I’m fine.
How was your chess thing, at the weekend?
Again with the note of wariness: Who told you about that?
Sylvia did. Why? Was it supposed to be a secret?
No, obviously. That makes sense she told you. I just didn’t remember us talking about it.
Smoothing his hand over the arm of the sofa, crease in the faded cloth, Peter asks: It went okay?
Yeah.
What was it, a simultaneous?
Right, says Ivan. Ten games.
Ten wins?
Yeah.
Peter smiles now: My brother, the genius.
Hm, says Ivan. Thank you.
Where was it, down the country somewhere?
Yeah, in Clogherkeen. In Leitrim.
Town hall job? asks Peter.
Yeah. It was a nice place actually, like an arts centre. I guess they do different kinds of events there. I don’t know, cultural things. Music or whatever. Some of the staff came to the event, they seemed pretty cool.
Peter’s eyes open again now. Corner of the fireplace, grey against white. Go on, he says. What were they like?
I don’t know. I guess kind of artistic. We went out for a drink afterwards, with the chess people as well. It was fun.
Any ladies present?
Ivan pauses. You mean when we went out afterwards? Ivan says. There was one woman, but the rest were men.
Well, I’m glad you had a good time.
Another pause. Yeah, she was pretty cool, actually, Ivan adds. The woman.
Peter falls still a moment: touched, even pained by this remark, delivered in his brother’s flat monotonous voice. To think I sound like that, or ever did. Also I sang the tenor part in school and he was baritone. That’s nice, Peter says. Ivan gives no further reply. Wonder who she could have been. Local graphic design student on ecstasy, maybe, attending a chess event as a joke. Trapped in conversation with Ivan afterwards, saying aloud: No, yeah, wow, that’s so interesting. Signalling to her friends with her eyes: Save me. Trust him not to notice. She was pretty cool, actually. In silence, Peter gets up and goes to the window. Dark out now, he could let the blind down.
So how are you? Peter asks. How are you feeling?
You asked already. Like a minute ago, and I said I’m fine.
The row of houses opposite with the upstairs windows lit like picture frames. People you can see sometimes. Couple used to live there and that was their kitchen, but empty now he thinks. Made eye contact with the woman once. At night, with the dark street between them like that. Okay, says Peter. Well, I’m glad. Ivan says nothing. A little rain, there must be, because of that man on the street out walking with the umbrella. No marks on the windowpane though. He looks into a streetlamp to see: yes: slow falling mist in waves through the lighted air. Always tell by the streetlamp. Way the water holds the light in falling.
I know things must be difficult at the moment, Peter adds.
Right.
Another silence. Peter unhooks the cord and lets the blind down. Did you and Dad talk on the phone much? he asks.
Sometimes. If I wouldn’t be home for a while, or whatever. He would ask what I was up to. Or we would talk about the dog, things like that.
He wanders back to the sofa while his brother is speaking, leans half-standing against the arm. In silence he waits, they wait, each for the other.
You must miss him, Peter says.
Yeah, I do.
No idea what to say. Feeling cowed. And by what. Honest answer to a simple question. Needle him to say what he feels and then what, shrug your shoulders, too bad. What’s the point. Can’t help you there. Not that Ivan expects help. Doesn’t feel himself to be asking anything, to be giving anything away. No need to conceal what isn’t a weakness. More normal than he is, in that way. Straightforward. Yeah, I do. Miss him. Of course, says Peter. I’m sorry.
Are you okay? says Ivan.
Peter feels the phone hot, glassy against his face. Sure, he says. Do I not sound okay?
No, I mean, I’m not saying if you do or not. I’m just asking.
Well, I’m fine.
Cool, says Ivan. I just realised, you asked me if I was okay, and I didn’t ask it back to you. Or if I did, I don’t remember. I probably wouldn’t have listened anyway. I do that a lot. Like, I’ll remember to ask a question, but then I won’t listen when the person answers. Or I’ll just go the whole conversation not asking anything.
That’s alright.
Yeah. It’s bad manners, though.
I wouldn’t worry about that, Peter says, we’re family.
No, right. I just mean more in general.
Never really know what he’s talking about, do you. Pointless even to try. No idea what he makes of it all, what he thinks you’re talking about, what he’s trying to say, never have any idea. Like talking to the dog. Big intelligent eyes looking back at you, uncomprehending. If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.
Well, I know you’re probably busy, Peter says. I won’t keep you.
Okay.
Glances over at the window again, forgetting he let the blind down. Just a blank white square now, no idea why he did that. Suppose Ivan the lion, or I am. Makes no difference which, or does it.
Listen, do you want to have lunch together at the weekend? he asks.
Hesitation drawn out by the vowel sound: Uh. Then: Yeah, okay. If you want. Nowhere expensive, though, because I’m waiting to get paid still.
Don’t worry, I’ll pay.
And there’s no reason for this, is there? Ivan asks. You’re not like, wanting to tell me some big news in person or something.
No.
You’re not getting married, or anything like that.
Who would I be getting married to, Ivan?
He pauses, and then: No, I don’t know. It was just an example.
Peter for his part also pauses. Well, it’s nothing like that, he says.
Right.
I’ll text you about lunch. Let’s say Sunday. Okay?
Yeah. Bye.
They hang up. Why lunch? Wanting to make an effort, to tell Sylvia, probably. Picking her up from the hospital on Thursday, give them something to talk about while the sedatives wear off. You’re not getting married or anything. After the funeral, when she stayed, he must have thought. Not that anything happened. Not nothing, but not that. They lay in bed together, that was all. He held her in his arms. A certain feeling, yes, but nothing in reality. Can hardly expect Ivan to understand that, considering Peter doesn’t understand himself. Ivan anyway observes and reaches his own mysterious conclusions as usual. The first time he met Sylvia he was, what, nine or ten years old. The selectively mute days. He can talk, Peter told her beforehand, he just doesn’t. At the house: peeling paint, damp carpets, smell of drains. Clothes drying over the range. Ivan’s eyes watching. Don’t mind him, Sylvia, said their father, he’s just shy. Peter chewing and swallowing slowly a slice of dry roast beef. Vinyl-coated tablecloth with a pattern of pears. After dinner, on the cleared table, a game of chess. She had the white pieces. Everyone grateful not to have to talk. My brother, the genius. To this day she still receives every year on her birthday a card in the post with a neatly handwritten greeting inside. Dear Sylvia, Happy birthday to you. I hope you have a great day. Best wishes, Ivan. And the card will have a picture of a bird on it or something. His idea of friendship.
On screen now, a new message from Naomi.
NAOMI: hey handsome
NAOMI: you free?
He taps the banner to open the message and types back quickly.
PETER: Not tonight
PETER: In court in the morning
PETER: Everything ok?
NAOMI: yeah..…
NAOMI: well except this lol
To the second message she attaches a screenshot from her bank account showing that she is seventeen euro in overdraft. Their relationship a kind of moral dilemma. Like right now, his reluctance to talk to her on the phone, difficult to specify, and he can’t go over and see her at this hour, but nonetheless there is something it seems to him unnameably wrong with just wordlessly transferring her some money. Why does he get into these moods, irritable at the idea of having to talk to her, bordering on actually bad-tempered? Why has he only twice ever and both times under the influence of substances invited her to the flat where he lives alone without roommates and could theoretically entertain her whenever he wants?
PETER: I see
PETER: I can make a transfer now if that works
NAOMI: ahhhh thank you
NAOMI: im really sorry, i just need to renew a prescription
PETER: 200 ok?
NAOMI: literally youre a lifesaver
NAOMI: thanks
She plays it out with such consummate skill that he does have to wonder sometimes if he’s even the only one she does this to. Which is funny. To be the only idiot showering her with money he has to work to earn: not much of a distinction, and yet preferable to the alternative. When he was out of town, for instance. Though at least she told him afterwards. Expert in self-preservation. Lazy too.
NAOMI: are you around tomororw night?
PETER: Not sure yet
NAOMI: ok cool
An effort to emphasise that he expects nothing in return for his money, thinks nothing of it, and may not even be available in any case to collect on the debt his money very pointedly does not incur. Then on a purely human interpersonal level she feels hurt and rejected by his coldness, maybe. Someone just seems like they have to be exploiting someone here. But who, and how? He her, financially, sexually. Or she him, financially, emotionally. It can be exploitative to give money; also to take it. Money overall a very exploitative substance, creating it seems fresh kinds of exploitation in every form of relationality through which it passes. Greasing with exploitation the wheels of human interaction generally. Now he feels bad, and actually does want to call her, to hear her gossiping about her friends, or describing what she’s reading for college, to interject occasionally with unsolicited advice or commentary, that kind of thing, but it’s too late. Why does everything have to be so complicated? He knows why. Flashing eyes of two animals through the undergrowth. Yes: what they want from each other.
In the morning, hiss of the iron, buttered bread roll, milligram of alprazolam, blue tie or green. Stands at the dining table rearranging his papers while the coffee cools, thoughts running rapid with broken phrases, details of argument, streams diverging and recrossing, hands clammy touching the pages. The point of law. To raise the question of. His briefcase then, bitter aftertaste, overcoat, and outside the chill wind of October moves through the leaves of trees. Wide grey streets around the Green, buses slowing to a stop, wheel and cry of gulls overhead. Leaves rustle over the park gates. Barred windows of Ship Street then and the vans reversing. Blue clearing in the white clouds, rain-washed cobbles. River dissected by the glitter of sunlight, Grattan Bridge. Copper stepped saucer dome over Portland stone balustraded parapet, dirty green cap in daylight, the Four Courts. Feels the effects by the time he’s inside, dressing: slow serene feeling beginning in the hands and feet. Breathing settles. Thoughts grow orderly and sequential, facts arranged in place, stately procession of claims and counter-claims. That’s not actually recreational, Naomi told him once. Like, you can get a prescription if that’s what you’re using it for. Along the corridor, scent of cleaning fluid, overheard voices. Even medicated he feels it: the white light of his own righteousness. Clear luminous certainty. In the courtroom, flow of speech unhurried, precise, inexorable. Admitting no contradiction. Familiar command almost perfect, yes, and pleasurable even, and then over. Changes his clothes again, eats lunch, answers a few emails. Something to do with the dog, he remembers: leave it with me, he said, and seemed to mean. Walking under sunlight by the river alone. Classes in the afternoon. Satisfaction of performance wears off with the milligram. Judges idiots anyway. Whole system corrupt, the Gonzaga cohort, revolving door. Death of his own illusions: desire to fight for something, all his sacred rage directed and useful for once. Late nights drafting and redrafting, visions of triumph, vindication, clients crying and embracing. His purpose in life recuperated. Six months later gets back some three-page irrelevant judgement full of errors. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. And his colleagues. The men frantic with insecurity, rehearsing the same old jokes in increasingly strained voices, desperate to catch the senior’s eye. The women, nearly worse: giggling along. Oh my God, lads, you cannot say that. The meaningless lives people live. And afterwards, oblivion, forever. Futile rage at nothing. Directed one way or another, what’s the difference. On the boardwalk by the river a little girl wearing a leopard-print hat, eating an ice cream cone. Thought rises calmly to the surface of his mind: I wish I was dead. Same as everyone sometimes surely. Idea occurs, that is. Remembering something embarrassing you did years ago and abruptly you think: that’s it, I’m going to kill myself. Except in his case, the embarrassing thing is his life. Doesn’t mean he wants to really. Or even if he does, not as if he would do it. Just to think, or not even think, but to overhear the words inside his own head. Strange relief like a catch released: I wish. Deepest and most final of desires. Something bitter in it too, luxuriously bitter, yes. And why not. Why doesn’t he, that is, if the idea is so consoling. Oh, for other people, of course: to protect them. Other people prefer you to suffer.
Through the damp cool quiet now of the front arch he passes. Inside, the open square: golden sunlight, autumn. Birds circling. The sky a glass bowl struck and resounding. The old life, here. Carrying on without him always. Young people with books in their arms, laughing. First taste from the world’s full cup. Everything beginning again. Aesthetic splendour he remembers: evenings in the back dining room, dusk settling over the tennis court outside. Voices through the windows. Lamplight. Walking her to the library under the trees. Live again one day of that life and die. Cold wind in his eyes stinging like tears. Woman much missed. She could be around, he thinks, might run into her. Drop by one of her lectures. Sexuality and the Origins of the Novel. Seeing her tomorrow anyway. Tell her he talked to Ivan after all. Upstairs in the toilets now he swallows another pill with a mouthful of water from his bottle. Sour. Overheated classroom. Out the window, thin white edge of the campanile. Students yawning, sipping from paper cups, fingernails clicking on keyboards. Laughing politely at his jokes. Dressed up in tweed and satchels. Clothes so new they’re still creased where the shop had them folded. Himself too, once. Live again one hour of that life.
Back across the river then for a meeting. Expelled from the warm somehow private interior of the college, his mind and body unprotected. Raw feeling. Ordinary drab greyness of the city. How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. Gary wants to know is he around, get a drink, dinner. Naomi texts him: plans tonight? To go on like this, just for the sake of other people, and anyway who. Not her, God knows. Better off if he actually did it. Nor Sylvia. She wouldn’t want him to suffer on her account. Principle of her life, practically: to demand nothing of anyone. Least of all him. Long low mirror behind the bar reflecting silver the passing traffic on the street. Typographical errors he notices silently on the printed menu while Gary is telling an anecdote about the Workplace Relations Commission. Broccolli. For Ivan, probably, he thinks in the end. Couldn’t do it to him, in reality. Propriety rather than affection. First your dad and then your brother: no. Even if you didn’t really like the guy, still. Convincingly now he laughs aloud at a punchline he has not heard. Classic, he says. A few others arrive, another glass, two, and gradually the feeling softens. Thoughts wash slowly in and through, lap of water on shore. Not a bad lot, Gary and the others. Doing their best. Tired and frustrated as he is. Give each other a hand when they can. Ray asks if Costigan is around and Gary says no, he’s in London. You know his wife’s pregnant again. Didn’t know actually. Must drop him a line. Sent a nice card for the funeral, decent of him. You having another? Drink too much and he’ll be hungover tomorrow at the hospital. Embarrass her in front of the nurses. Slips phone from pocket: after nine already. He swipes a text and hits send, finishes his drink. Heading off, are you? Tell the lovely Naomi we said hello. Coat buttoned. Cold dark air of the river carrying him through the streets. Eyes wet again in the wind. To go on living just for Ivan’s sake, imagine. Too depressing to think. Every morning waking up, every hour spent at work, every miserable meal prepared and eaten alone. All for a younger brother he hardly speaks to. Not as if he asked. Nor anyone else either. Delusional perhaps to think anyone cares whether he does or not. Not their fault. His own failures, mistakes he has made, people he has let down. Self-disgust. Defeat. Making bank transfers while she’s in the shower. Forget about it. Her all-destroying pain. That suit at the funeral. And his father. Final agonies. Inevitability of death. Meaningless existence, false scaffold of morality assembled around nothing. The final permanent nothing that is the only truth. Sliding doors open up before him, the Spar on James’s Street, and in the bright interior he feels his head pounding. Light chattering noise of the radio. Taps to pay for a bottle of whiskey and a tray of donuts wrapped in plastic. Thank you, thanks.
Outside, he texts from the corner. Sees the light in the door as it opens. Hand on the frame, dark nail polish. Not hers: Janine’s. Plump pretty face smiling. Come on in, she says. Oh my God, did you bring donuts? Down the hallway together. Bright sweet scent of her perfume. Yeah, I didn’t know what the vibe would be, he says. On her cheekbone a small dark mark in a heart-shape: silver sticker. We love you, Peter, she says. In the kitchen, bare limbs glistening, thick fragrance of smoke, spilled alcohol. Naomi on the countertop in a leather miniskirt, laddered tights, legs swinging. Her supreme desirability. Every man she passes on the street, he thinks. Helpless fantasies of doing what she lets him do to her. Friends by her side, laughing, as always. Low lights, loud shudder of music. She catches sight of him now across the room. A look exchanged. Sucks her lower lip, smiling, friends forgotten. Slips down from the counter as he approaches. Hello lover, she says. Semi-sheer blouse she’s wearing, thin under his fingers as he leans in to kiss her. Taste of vodka and lemonade. Her back against the counter. Carelessness of youth. To see her so beautiful and so happy: sentimental feeling. Wonders sometimes what her friends must think of him. Competent, intimidating, the grown-up. Or lonely, desperate: the absolute cringe, imagine. Male friends jealous maybe. The sheer blouse, her perfect pointed breasts. She’s talking to him now, her voice garbled and swallowed by the noise. What? he asks. Exaggeratedly she pronounces: How was court. He lifts his eyebrows. Oh, it was fine, he answers. Thank you. Her fingers in his hair, the back of his neck. Did you win? she asks. Feels himself smiling, his hand on her hip. For today, yeah, he says. She laughs, pink tongue, flash of silver. So sexy, she replies. The tray of donuts is opened, passed around, and she pulls one apart with her fingers. Her friends are talking about undercover guards. She swallows one soft sugared piece of donut and offers him another, which he eats. When you ask them if they’re undercover, do they have to tell you? her friend Seamus is asking. Peter feels the others looking to him. No, he says. They don’t. One of the girls, Leah, says: I thought it was in the law they had to. Eating another piece of donut he answers: There are no laws. Seamus laughing. What do you do for a job, then? he says. Smiling, tired, Peter answers: I tell lies. Naomi playing with his fingers. Music throbbing like a migraine. Drunk enough to dance with her, he wonders. Life perfect and everlasting until the end of the song.
Hand on Naomi’s elbow, Janine is saying: Did you tell him about that letter?
What letter? Peter says.
Get him to look at it, will you?
Naomi pulls her face down into a grimace. It’s in my room, she says.
Strangely her room is empty. Bed unmade, noise vibrating the floorboards. His coat he takes off, hangs up on the wardrobe door. Walls revolving gently in slow circuits around his eyes. Sits down on the bed while she looks through papers on her dressing table. Yeah, we got another one of these, she says. His head pounding as she hands him an envelope. It doesn’t matter, she adds. I just told the others I’d tell you.
Blinking in the half-light he lifts the torn flap. Court order instructing vacation of property. Dated 22/09.
Right, he says.
Sitting down cross-legged beside him, long glossy hair thrown over one shoulder. Is it bad? she asks.
He screws his eyes shut and opens them again: text wriggles and darkens on the page. Yeah, it’s bad, he says. I don’t know. I’ll read it properly tomorrow.
She takes the letter back and looks it over herself. Drunk, or you’re back on the Xanax? she asks.
Eyes closing again he lies down on his back, saying: Both.
He feels or hears her looking at him. You’re not supposed to do that, she says.
Pointlessly he lies: It was just a half, I took it ages ago.
Her hand he feels on his forehead, pushing back with gentle fingers his hair. You want to sleep it off? she says.
So close to her he feels she is somehow himself, same person, both down in the dark together. No, he says. I can’t stay.
She lifts her hand away. Why not?
I have something on in the morning.
Work?
No, he says. I’m seeing a friend.
Soft click of her tongue detaching from the roof of her mouth. Your friend Sylvia, she says.
Opening his eyes he sees her looking down at him. Yeah, he answers.
You’re always seeing each other.
Are we?
Bright and cool Naomi’s eyes. Do you fuck her? she says.
He looks up at her a moment longer. No, he answers. A long time ago, but not anymore.
Slowly as if in a mirror she nods her head, looks down at the letter again.
Do you care? he asks.
Without looking up she laughs. Well, I’m not trying to get chlamydia, she says. So yeah, to that extent, I care.
He turns his gaze up the ceiling. Bare unlit lightbulb. Don’t worry, he says. If you get it, it won’t be from me.
Toying with a folded corner of the letter, her fingers. Are the two of you getting back together or something? she asks.
Why, he says, are you worried you might have to find a job?
Without hesitating she lets out another cackling laugh. Yeah, because right now I’m surviving on, what is it. Two hundred euro you’ve given me in the last six weeks?
Despite himself he smiles. Okay, he says. Point taken.
I don’t know why I bother. You’re not even nice.
You don’t like nice people.
With a thin banging noise the door of her room comes open and her friends appear: Janine, two girls he doesn’t know, some guy. Are we interrupting? one of the girls says. Your phone’s ringing, Janine says to Naomi. Tosses the lighted screen to her quick nimble hands catching. Yes, you’re interrupting, says Peter to no one. Naomi answers the phone, standing up from the bed, turning away. Hey, she says. What? Say again. Music louder with the door open. Naomi paces around, covering her other ear with her hand. Voices shrieking laughter outside. Janine sitting down on the mattress beside him, if you don’t mind, picking up the folded letter. I can’t hear you, Naomi is saying into the phone. Wait one second. And through the cluster of people in the doorway of her bedroom she weaves an exit without looking back. Did she show you this? Janine asks. Peter looks down at the letter. Head aching. Yeah, he says. I haven’t read it yet, I’ll look at it tomorrow. Guy leaning against the wardrobe door, lighting a rollie, smiling. So how do you guys know each other? he asks. Peter, apparently addressed, looks at Janine, who presses her lips flat. Back at the guy then. Sorry, who are you? Peter says. Everyone awkwardly laughing. I live here, the guy says. Jesus Christ. And what to do now, just wait until Naomi decides to get off the phone and come back, if she ever does. While around him her friends go on laughing: at him, presumably. Tremble of futile anger. How do you guys know each other. Know of course what he’s talking about. One of her fans. Spent enough money maybe to level-up to real life. Girlfriend experience. What they must think, laughing. Actually we met in a bar one night after Christmas, he could say. She asked for my number. Walked her home afterwards, talked about her living situation, profile she had up on the website. Harmless flirtation, that was all. I was seeing someone else anyway. Just enjoyed the attention. Exchanging looks. Text messages afterwards, meeting up now and then on nights out. Nothing happened. I told a friend about her at the time, showed her some of the pictures, she said I was playing with fire. I thought it was an overreaction. I guess we danced together, maybe I bought the drinks. Complicated little game. Intelligence in her eyes. All the other men who wanted to talk to her, ignored. Kind of intoxicating the sense of power. Like a drug. Contest for dominance: each to make the other give in, confess. On the doorstep one night she asked me to stay. Shivering in her fake-fur jacket. She asked me. What do you want me to do, I said, break up with my girlfriend? She said yes. I told her I would think about it. Stupid situation. Let things get out of hand. Became kind of infatuated with her, or whatever. I mean, for God’s sake, she was twenty-two. Also legally homeless, and borderline what you might call a sex worker. Obviously when you put it that way, yeah. Peter, I told myself, you’re a lawyer, you’re in your thirties. Your dad is in cancer treatment, you have responsibilities. Don’t wreck your life for this girl. She doesn’t care about you, it’s just a game. Think for a second. What would people say. Your friends, family. Your reputation. Useless to reason by then of course. Blood no longer reaching the brain. Mouth just wet for the taste of her. So anyway, yeah, I ended things with the girlfriend. Good-looking woman, by the way. Mount Anville girl, associate at a consultancy firm. Her dad’s a judge, I often see him around. Not to worry. Colleague of mine she’s seeing now, engaged any time I expect. House somewhere off the South Circular maybe. Meanwhile I’m lying here on a mattress in a filthy illegal squat beside the hospital while Naomi is taking a phone call in another room. That’s it, that’s how we know each other. Oh no, the cancer treatment was unsuccessful, thanks for asking. He died.
Where are you going? says Janine.
Putting his shoes on he answers: Out.
You’re only after getting here.
Takes his coat from the corner of the wardrobe door, says nothing.
What will I tell Naomi? Janine asks.
Upstairs and outside alone. James’s Street in the dark. He hails a taxi, climbs inside. Twenty past ten. Baggot Street, please, he says. Thanks. And taps at his phone: Can I drop by? He’s had worse ideas. Head to the hospital together that way and he can wait with her during the thing. The epidural. Makes sense now that he thinks of it. Put off for a while the inevitable grim silence of the flat. Involuntary recollections. Do you fuck her. I wish. Passing the stone portico of St Audoen’s, the quick light vibration of her reply: Sure, I’m home. First taste of peace he has had all day. Affecting suddenly. Wants to close his eyes into the feeling. Idea of her there, in tranquil solitude, reading a novel maybe. Pays in cash, with tip, clambers out onto the street. Key he finds in his pocket, up the staircase, linoleum marked with bicycle tyres, and with the second smaller key he opens her door.
In the dim hallway, warm scent of cooking oil, a little music playing quietly. Emperor Concerto, he thinks: the nocturne. Entering the main room he sees her, standing over the sink, with her back to him. The music and hiss of the tap. In the doorway he stands and watches: her straight shoulders, small hips, hair golden-coloured under the fan light. Her quiet well-organised existence. Sure, I’m home. Drunk and chaotic he intrudes as usual. And why. Are the two of you getting back together. Just me, he says aloud. Without turning she answers in her low beautiful voice: How did the hearing go this morning? He summarises briefly the oral argument. Pleasant, amusing. Begins to feel almost sober. She’s drying her hands on a tea towel, smiling. Grey lambswool sweater. Tortoiseshell clasp in her hair. The confusion and noise of the other place dissolving, kind of bad dream you have when delirious. Waking into the peaceful quiet of her presence he feels himself at rest.
How are you feeling about tomorrow? he asks.
Hanging up the towel, she faces him. Fine, she says. Nothing to worry about.
Quietly they look at one another. Love at times indistinguishable from hatred. What they represent to one another: unsatisfiable desires. And yet she held his hand through the funeral. And tomorrow at the hospital he’ll be there, bored, nervous, as always, checking his phone. Yeah, that’s me. I mean, no, sorry, not her husband. There isn’t. Like, I am with her, but we’re not. Relationship mutilated by circumstance into something illegible. Platonic life partnership. Living separately of course. That way he can chase after other girls, piss money up the wall, embarrass himself, get home drunk at four in the morning without waking anyone. And she can get some work done without the distracting physicality of his body in her small apartment, sheer size of him, his too-carnivorous appetites. Perfect team they were once before everything, he remembers. Made it look easy. Voices resonating precisely in the air, glittering with the pace of thought, light free leaps over covered ground, each clause catching and deepening again the argument, yes, made him laugh sometimes for sheer joy. To be in the presence of her intellect: lifted into finer air. Still feels that way. Admires her in that way still, beauty of her mind. Not only that. It was for her he called Ivan last night, he thinks, dragged himself through the conversation, whatever use that was. For her, wanting her approval. Cases he takes on to impress her, difficult thankless unpaid work. To earn her respect. All the good in him, what little there is. Trying to be loved by her. His morality. Principle of his life. She looks back at him. He touches her hip with the palm of his hand. Despite everything. Death, nothingness. For a moment longer they look at one another, knowing without speaking. Finally he kisses her. Warmth of her mouth accepting. Draws her closer, weight of her frail slender body cradled against his. She can tell of course that he’s been drinking, knows probably where he’s been. Must wonder what he’s really here for: repentance, maybe. Bless me for I have. Not like that, he wants to tell her. Why then. Terror of solitude. Pissed off with his girlfriend. Delusion of time regained: young again, and in love, promise of happiness, don’t speak. No, not that, not only. Simple need to be with her. Broken and defeated, wanting the consolation of her nearness. To be closer and closer he thinks until no longer separate. Her back against the kitchen countertop. Last time he ever talked with his father, in the ICU. Nurse in and out keeping an eye on the oximeter. Late hot afternoon in August. How is Sylvia? She’s good. Asking after you all the time. She’d love to be able to visit herself. Ah, she’s a great woman. Tell her I’m thinking of her. He lifts off her sweater now: thin t-shirt, soft white cotton bra. Kisses gently her throat. Frightened of his own clumsiness. Hands too large and brutish-looking. Takes pleasure in it usually. Terrible to think. Her mouth he kisses again. Fingertips under her t-shirt. Her eyes closed, she says faintly: You know I can’t … He answers: Yeah, I know. Pauses. Her face flushed. I’m not hurting you, am I? he asks. She lets out a helpless breath, half-laughing. No, she says. It’s nice. To give her so little, he thinks. Simple almost innocent pleasure of affectionate touch. That she would let him. And for what reason: his desire, or her own. What lives they have been leading. You’re not getting married, or anything like that. Not too late, he thinks, is it. To try after all. Life they could live together. Not the one they wanted, but the one they have. Waking at night to feel her familiar weight beside him sleeping. Is that not enough. To say when the nurses ask: Yes, that’s me. A sigh at her lips. Young and radiant he remembers her, in some hot curtained hotel room overseas. Lying naked with her chin in her hand, reading poetry. Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then. When life was perfect. It was once. To let go of her now better for them both maybe. Sylvia help me. I’m sorry. His name she murmurs and called to her without thinking he answers for once honestly: I love you. I love you too, she says. He closes his eyes. Exhausted, drunk, ashamed. Wanting forgiveness. Take back everything. Live the right life.