I went to a pub and asked for a job. Playing a few tunes, enough material to tell the public about my life in Ireland in between the music. I had to be a bit of a glamorous bird, standing there with my stories, a tittering phoenix rising from her self-induced ashes.
Sam went to England at the end of his summer holidays. Apparently his daddy had found a way to make money, and I thought it would be okay for him to spend some time with his father.
I went through my routine for the tourists – you lot – and waited for his return to our rooms, feeling more and more as though I was turning into a ghost.
The knock on the door at four in the morning. They must be back, I thought.
It was him, without our child. A suffocating sense of panic. Where was my child?
Sit down, woman, he said, just sit down. He had sold his paintings, he said, for a lot of money. Took Sam to that boarding school with the horses that he always wanted to go to. Paid for the remaining school years, gave the child money. They had gone to the Races and had a few bets, yes, and the boy had got drunk with him. First time. Had a tattoo put on his bum, right near the inside of a cheek. A Star of David, you know, so he can shite on it when he has the runs. Went to the races the next day. Lost the rest of his money. As usual. He laughed about something. I had never known where it went. The money. On betting. Spent talent, blown away. There was surely somewhere he couldn’t find me. Or, like my father, did I need to suffer in order to achieve? Mistress Pain I had called love.
If I murdered him I could turn him into an angel, maybe. If I killed myself would I become one?
Quite coldly I put the question to him. It all seemed logical to him. As a Jewess, my soul would simply travel to another body. Imagine, you can be like all of those great violonists: Jasha Haifetz, Ida Haendel, Izak Perlman, Shlomo Mintz. That’s what you wanted, hey? You could have been as good as them, that’s what you think, hey? Well here’s your second chance, sweetie, take the jump. I started to kick him and he ran.