‘Jesus Christ! Why didn’t you call me last night?’ Davy asked.
‘Good question,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. Didn’t want to bother you, I suppose.’
The truth was that it hadn’t even crossed my mind to contact Davy, or my parents, or Sadie, or any of my other friends. I had retreated behind the walls of my tower and recovered as best I could. On my own. Like I always did.
Davy shook his head.
‘That’s bullshit, Finn,’ he said. ‘Promise me, next time, you’ll call.’
‘Next time my car is burnt out, I’ll definitely call,’ I said.
Davy’s face was like granite.
‘That’s not what I meant and you know it. I know our relationship has got more complicated in the last while but …’
‘It’s not a relationship,’ I said.
‘Whatever it is.’
‘It’s not going to happen again.’
‘That’s what you said last time,’ he said.
‘It’s what you said too, if you recall.’
‘I recall.’
Davy had messaged me around 10 a.m. to ask if I wanted to go for a run. I had replied, saying that I was still in bed but awake and that he could call by for coffee if he wanted. We didn’t bother with coffee, as both of us had probably known we wouldn’t, and I didn’t bother telling him about my car until he was putting his jeans back on. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Anyway, I was due at my parents’ house for Sunday lunch and I needed to get going. By now they knew that I was on an unscheduled holiday from work and, as usual, my mother was worried. Her anxiety levels would go off the scale once she heard about my car.
‘Do you want me to drop you over to your parents’ house?’ Davy asked.
No, Davy, that’s the last thing I want.
But I’ve just had sex with you for the third time in a week.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You can drop me over. Thanks.’
My words came out in a whisper, and Davy said nothing but I think he knew how hard it had been for me to say yes. He took my hand as we walked out of the lane and on to Barrack Street. I let go first as we approached his car.
My parents lived halfway up Gardiner’s Hill, on the left side of the road. It was so close to the primary school that, when I was a pupil, I could be home for lunch almost before the bell stopped ringing. And it was near enough to the corner shop for my mother to stand at her gate and watch little me walk there and return with a litre of milk or my dad’s Evening Echo.
‘You have to give the child a bit of freedom,’ my dad used to say, as I got older.
There was no talking to her. In time, I realised that she was different to other mothers, that her anxiety about me was bound up so closely with love that she was no longer able to tell the difference.
Dad was an electrician with the ESB, a well-paid secure job. With an only child and a small mortgage, my parents could afford to take the ferry from Ringaskiddy to Roscoff every summer for a fortnight in France, when many of my school friends would have thought themselves lucky to get a week in a caravan in Youghal.
But the job had risks. On stormy nights, when Dad was called out on repairs, Mam would bank up the fire with coal and she and I worried together. No matter how late it was, we would wait up, for the sound of the key turning in the door, and for her to help him out of his yellow oilskins and towel-dry his hair in front of the fire. I wondered about that, about how it was that these were my happiest childhood memories. Not Christmas or birthdays, but times when tragedy was imminent, and averted.
When I got to the front gate, Dad was in the garden, though it was November and there was little for him to do. He had a pair of secateurs and was snipping at a square-cut box hedge. Grey-haired and blue-eyed, he moved like a much younger man even though, like Mam, he was seventy-two. Living on Gardiner’s Hill kept them both physically fit.
‘I thought you’d be inside setting the table,’ I said.
‘No need. Sure you’re here now. How’s my girl today?’
‘I’m great, Dad. How about yourself?’
‘I’m as good as ever. Divil a fear o’ me. Though I can’t say the same for herself.’
‘The form is bad with her?’
‘Not too bad. Sure you know yourself. But who have we here?’
He was looking over my right shoulder. I turned around to find that Davy had followed me. Without being invited. This was going too far, I thought, but I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of my father.
‘Dad, this is Davy, a friend of mine. He’s just dropping me off, he can’t stay.’
‘Ah, I’m not in that much of a rush,’ Davy said.
I wanted to give him a kick.
‘That’s great altogether. Sure if you’re in no rush, come in and meet herself.’
Dad turned and walked towards the front door.
‘I’d love to,’ Davy said.
I made a face at him and went into the house. He followed me, laughing softly.
My mother was in the dining room at the back: west facing, it had double doors giving out on to the garden. The house was on the part of the hill that shelved higher than the houses below it, so the garden had a southerly aspect too. Sometimes I wondered why I’d moved to the other side of town when the mountainous northside had all the best views, and a lot more sun. A visit home always reminded me why. I loved my parents, but having the river between us was healthier.
Mam saw Davy, but said nothing until she had kissed me. Once that was out of the way, she started to scold me, but for show, rather than with any real intent.
‘Finn, you’re very bold, why didn’t you tell me you were bringing a visitor?’
‘Mam, this is my friend Davy,’ I said.
‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Fitz,’ Davy said.
I choked back a laugh. Mam wasn’t going to like being called ‘Mrs Fitz’.
‘My name is Doreen.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Doreen,’ Davy said. ‘I just dropped Finn over, don’t worry, I won’t be staying long, I don’t want to intrude.’
She smiled.
‘Intrude my eye. Nobody ever intruded in this house.’
Which wasn’t quite true.
‘You’re staying for your lunch and that’s that,’ Mam said. ‘Tell him, Jim.’
‘I wouldn’t argue with her, if I were you,’ Dad said. ‘Many a man has tried and failed. I gave up years ago myself. ’Twasn’t worth it.’
‘Would you listen to what I’ve to put up with, Davy? Sit down there and Jim will get you a drink.’
‘No thanks, Doreen, I’m driving and, em, I don’t drink anyway. But I’d love lunch.’
I could see my mother weighing up what Davy had said. On the one hand, being a careful driver was a positive. On the other hand, being a teetotaller raised questions. If you want to find the alcoholic in the pub, the old joke went, look for the man drinking soda water. Her mouth tightened by a few millimetres, and she double-blinked. She was thinking about it. But when it came down to it, women liked Davy, and Mam was a woman with an eye for a good-looking man.
‘That’s settled so,’ she said.
She smoothed her thick, grey, curly hair, the only part of her she had never been able to control, and nodded. She had decided to approve of this development. For the present.
Davy had that easy way about him and, with him as my wingman, the laser was off me. I batted away questions about my job easily enough, and slipped in the burnt car as something that was conceivably accidental or, at worst, the work of a serial arsonist. Having Davy there also meant that I could defer telling my parents about Deirdre. And I could defer asking them the question that had been gnawing at me since I’d found out about her: had they known that I had a sister? I had been in the care of the Health Board. It was inconceivable that the social worker responsible for me didn’t know that my birth mother had had another baby. But had she told my parents – my foster parents, as they then were? And, if she had, why had they never told me? I didn’t want to think about what the answer to that question might be.
Like I didn’t want to think about what I was going to do with the information the DNA test would throw up on whether Deirdre and I shared a father.
The same way I didn’t want to think about what had been happening between Davy and me, and how feeble my ‘we’re not in a relationship’ protests had started to sound.
I didn’t have the headspace to think about any of that. And I didn’t have the time.
At around four, Davy drove me into Coughlan’s Quay Garda Station. Mainly I wanted to meet Sadie, if I could, but it was also a good opportunity to get my car insurance claim form signed and stamped by the duty Garda.
I didn’t say much to Davy on the trip in, but I had a lot on my mind. For all my bravado, the arson attack had left me seriously rattled. And, along with the fears for my own safety, I had money worries. Between the cost of the DNA tests, and getting a new car, and my various trips to Dublin, I was going to be flat broke unless I managed to persuade Gabriel and the rest of the partners that I was safe to let back to work. And tonight was the Film Festival closing ceremony, the first time in years that I wouldn’t be there. Knowing I wouldn’t be welcome made me sad. But I felt worse about the loss of my friendship with Alice. I hadn’t heard a word from her since our fraught encounter after the Jeremy Gill workshop. I would send her an email, try to mend fences.
Grumbling along underneath everything was the guilt I felt about Rhona’s death. No matter how often I told myself that Gill was the perpetrator, that he carried all the blame, I was certain that, if it hadn’t been for my investigation, Rhona would still be alive.
‘I’ll wait for you,’ Davy said.
‘Thanks but best not,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be. I might have to wait a while for Sadie. I know she’s on duty but she might be busy.’
And she still knew nothing about my non-relationship with Davy. I was waiting for the right time to tell her, if there would ever be a right time to tell my best friend that I’d been having a thing with an ex-cokehead with a criminal record.
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, go on. And, you know, we have to try and get things back to normal between us.’
Davy replied with a kiss that reminded me why that wasn’t going to be easy.