1
The trick was to keep moving.
Pope John Paul III worked the crowds in Café en Seine, shaking hands and slapping backs and holding up the exclusive prototype he’d managed to snag. Brilliant, isn’t it? he asked, unclear if it was the phone, the picture, or the Greens’ decision to go into government with Fianna Fáil. Why not all three? John Paul couldn’t be happier – the trick was to keep smiling – and it was brilliant to record every moment of the night. Some of the shite ones he’d delete, where the flash was too bright or the bar too dark or his cheeks strained at the edges. Maybe there was some technology that could airbrush in the perfect smile if you’d messed up in a photo; if this didn’t already exist, he’d have to invent it, he’d write it down on his phone. In the meantime, more drinks – the trick was to keep buzzed; the trick was to pay on credit – and a photo with his brother.
The appearance of Damien Doyle threatened to awaken the black hole inside him, but John Paul had it under control; keep the liver busy and the black hole got confused. Damien had a better suit than he did and a mad grin on his face, hammered out of his tree he was, he could never hold his drink, though perhaps that had changed. Years since they’d had a pint. Had they, in fact, ever had a pint? Cups of tea and strained chat and cans at Christmas, the odd times they overlapped at 7 Dunluce Crescent. Sharing a pint, so, was an historic occasion and even though John Paul had an agenda, there was a part of him that was glad to sit in a bar with his brother (he wished that they could flee the chandeliers and the dark wood and the coffee cocktails and find some old man’s pub where they could chat into the dawn) despite everything Damien had done.
‘Here we go!’ John Paul said, depositing more drinks with a smile.
‘Let me,’ Damien said, fumbling for his wallet and almost falling off the stool with the effort.
‘Don’t even!’ Clodagh said. ‘It’s a small price to pay for your advice.’
Another sin to add to Damien Doyle’s ledger: he was siding with Clodagh.
‘Damien thinks that gold cufflinks are a terrible idea,’ Clodagh announced, as Damien stared at his pint. ‘And he is not a fan of novelty boxers for the groomsmen either.’
A point in his favour: Damien had agreed to be a groomsman, ensuring that Clodagh’s desire for symmetry would be satisfied.
‘I see you’ve been catching up!’ John Paul said, his best gormless grin on.
‘And you can’t be spray-painting peacocks for the lawn,’ Clodagh continued. ‘Bad for the environment, isn’t it, Damien?’
John Paul tried his catchphrase: ‘Ah now, I wouldn’t know anything about that!’
They needed some stunning images if they were to make it into a decent magazine – Clodagh was the one who’d suggested finding golden butterflies and releasing them as confetti, hardly approved by the Green Party, John Paul imagined – but John Paul knew what Clodagh was at, coddling Damien into solidarity, the things we have to put up with!
‘And Rosie can’t have blue hair if she wants to be a bridesmaid,’ Clodagh said, waving her finger through the air. ‘Personally, I love that she’s got her own sense of style but from a colour scheme perspective, I just think it might clash, you know what I mean?’
Damien did, or he pretended to, sitting with his pint like some nodding dog. John Paul relaxed; Damien didn’t want to talk about Rosie, which was fine as far as he was concerned. He didn’t even know if she’d come to the wedding and he hadn’t thought he cared until he felt some powerful stretch in his chest at the idea of the three of them together again; he had to sit down.
‘I’m just glad the Green Party isn’t that extreme,’ Clodagh said. ‘I mean, you have to compromise, don’t you?’
He had to credit her, she was a great veerer of conversations, leading Damien smoothly from how prickly Rosie could be to what a good thing it was that the Greens weren’t going to be kicking up too much fuss.
‘I just think we’re lucky to be free of all these regulations,’ Clodagh said, swooping her hands through the air like she was performing a dance move. ‘I mean, that’s what was holding us back from developing, wasn’t it? Like, haven’t we had enough of people telling us what to do in this country! I mean, I am all for choice: everybody should be able to love who they want.’
Clodagh gripped Damien’s hand; it was magnificent, the way she could keep focus, even when she was pissed.
‘And it’s the same everywhere, isn’t it? All we want is freedom! Nobody should be telling us what to do, do you know what I mean?’
John Paul saw the struggle on Damien’s face – perhaps there were circumstances when a government should tell citizens and corporations what to do and perhaps economic and personal freedoms were different fights – but Damien had had enough arguing that day, all he could manage was a nod. On Clodagh moved, to the blissful deregulation of the telecommunications industry and her success in setting up Fiannix, a nimble operation that would only be possible in a light-touch environment (‘and isn’t that what we all want, a light touch!’ Clodagh said, gripping Damien’s hand and laughing, the best of mates), and by the way, did Damien have any inside information on who might be the Communications Minister, between friends, and the Greens didn’t have any plans to interfere with corporate taxation, did they, not now they were in with Fianna Fáil? She was magnificent, the perfect partner for John Paul; they could conquer continents together.
John Paul remembered to smile. Some gobshite wanted a photo, which meant the pope’s hat went back on; uncomfortable, with the heat of the place. He longed to run away to a less crowded bar or even to slip outside for a fag, but he wasn’t sure that he should leave Damien with Clodagh. Damien was turning the wrong shade of green – he still couldn’t handle his drink – and Damien puking in Clo’s Dolce & Gabbana bag might put a wrinkle in their best-of-friends business. But why did he need to protect his brother? Couldn’t Damien cop on himself and know when to head to the jacks? Damien, certainly, hadn’t protected John Paul, had he? All in the past, John Paul wanted to say, through a hearty back-slap, but his hands had turned into fists. Something was stirring inside John Paul’s chest too and he wasn’t sure if it was the black hole or the oyster tacos or the too many shots or the past, poking away at him, when all he wanted to do was forget.
The trick was to keep moving.
‘J.P., you all right?’
‘Hey, it’s the Irish Pope!’
‘Pope J.P. is in the house!’
He felt completely scuttered, all of a sudden, a miracle that his legs could wobble around the crowds. Jason Donnelly heyyyyed him from across the bar. The chandelier danced down from the ceiling and swirled in front of his eyes. A patterned rug launched from the floor. Fat-faced gobshites chuckled.
‘J.P., are you all right?’ Clo called.
The trick was to say yes, but he hadn’t the words.
The trick was to find a smile, but he couldn’t find the shape.
The trick was to keep moving: out of this bar, away from the past and – most especially – steer clear of the Doyles, because when he thought about it Damien had a lot to answer for.
2
John Paul read the room immediately. He was fairly buzzed after a couple of cans of Bulmers but the sight of Granny Doyle sobered him instantly. She was still as stone, hands planted on the sink, eyes fixed on the wall, as Peg shouted in through the kitchen window, a wet and wild thing. If any of Peg’s words made any impression, Granny Doyle’s body didn’t show it; she could have been a statue, there by the sink, the tap trickling into an overflowing saucepan. Peg continued to shout and sob outside; John Paul remained frozen, his eyes fixed on Granny Doyle’s unflinching back.
So Damien had told. An entirely predictable course of events when he thought about it, yet John Paul had never considered the possibility. He felt the shift in the room, the carpet ripped from under his feet, all the furniture of his life struggling to figure out a new arrangement.
‘Get out!’
John Paul started at the sound of Granny Doyle’s roar. She had turned, finally, but it wasn’t Peg she was looking at, but him. She’d never shouted at him before, not with any weight behind the words, and John Paul shook, startled by the rage in her voice. Her face trembled but the rest of her body remained calm and John Paul wanted to go over to her and hug her or tell her he was sorry or turn off the trickling tap but before he could move she let out another shout.
‘I’ve told you now: get out!’
She was exerting all her energy to stay still, he could see that. The cider had made his legs wobbly, so he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to walk over to her and quiet her. A thousand actions seemed possible in the fuzz of his brain, opening the window and letting Peg in from the rain included, but when his legs decided to move, they did what Granny Doyle suggested; John Paul got out.
He leant against the stairs, the cider catching up with him. Minutes passed, the quiet of the house threatening to kill him. The walls seemed ready to come for him too, so he opened the door, not expecting Peg to be out there, but there she was, through the glass of the porch, banging the door of 5 Dunluce Crescent. The Donnellys were definitely home but their door remained closed. Peg battered her knuckles against the wood, Denise! pushed through the letterbox, but the only thing to move were the curtains. Other curtains twitched on Dunluce Crescent. John Paul had the sense that the whole road was watching, peering out at the desperate figure in the wind and the rain, while Granny Doyle stayed rooted in the kitchen, hands either side of the sink while the water continued to run.
Peg turned and saw him. It would have been the easiest thing to open the porch door. A simple slide of the latch and she’d be in. John Paul didn’t open the door. Instead, he stared at his older sister, watching the cogs turn in her brain. You ratted me out, you bastard, her face said and even though he might have cleared things up, John Paul’s head did not shake from side to side nor did his hand reach for the latch. ‘You fucking bastard’, Peg shouted. John Paul waited for a fuck off but Peg was beyond that now, a purer form of hatred sent towards him, an energy that he returned, because how dare she look at him like that?
Then she was gone, disappeared around the corner.
*
John Paul’s legs swayed and he found himself on one of the porch’s folding chairs, staring out at the rain. She’d be back later. Granny Doyle’s temper would cool. She’d forgive John Paul for not telling her too; she’d have to. Curtains shifted next door and John Paul knew that Mrs Donnelly was only too eager for the news of what was happening, though she didn’t show her face. The road was completely quiet, the lash of the wind and the rain against the glass the only sound. Peg hadn’t her coat on, something that Granny Doyle might scold her about, eventually, when everything shifted back to normal and John Paul’s knees stopped knocking into each other.
John Paul walked upstairs, a mistake: the rain would have shaken off his feelings. Rosie was still out, up to who knew what with who knew who; John Paul had an urge to go and thump him – one sister at least he could protect – but the man of the house found his legs leading him to his own room, where a smashed piggybank greeted him.
Peg had cleaned it out. She’d taken all of his Confirmation money and his profits from the cigarette business, something that Peg wouldn’t be facilitating any more. It hit John Paul then that she’d turned a corner she might not come back from; he crouched on the floor and picked up the pieces of his piggybank for the sake of something to do.
Damien appeared at the doorway and wrung out words through tears.
‘I’m sorry.’
John Paul glared at his brother, fists ready to push him down the stairs if it came to it. John Paul couldn’t shout at Peg or Granny Doyle so here was somebody to blame, the poor sap who John Paul had always stood up for; he’d never imagined Damien could do something like this.
So he told the little faggot to fuck off, making every word count, the last he’d speak to Damien, so he resolved, as he flopped down onto the bed and wriggled under the covers, tears threatening him too, but he’d keep them in, steel coursing through his veins, fists balled for a fight, sleep a long way off.
3
The trick was to stay away from 7 Dunluce Crescent as long as possible.
Some days he went back to Jason Donnelly’s to play Nintendo, but even 5 Dunluce Crescent was compromised: the ghost of Peg hung around Denise’s room, beside the cloud of perfume and cigarette smoke.
‘You’re lucky, I wish she’d disappear,’ Jason said, one day when Denise was wrecking his head with her Enya phase, but once he saw the face on John Paul he never mentioned Peg again.
Most days they went deep into the woods of St Anne’s Park. Some days, they experimented: glue, the vodka that Jason stole off Denise, the weed that Keifo’s cousin got them. Some days they brought spray cans and swirled out their immortality in squiggly capitals or wrote glorious revenges against the teachers who tormented them. Some days they sat in some empty ruin that stank of piss and chatted shite about the birds they’d bang and the teachers they’d batter and the glorious goals they’d score that would make even Eamon Dunphy cum in his kacks.
The trick was to always come prepared: a couple of Triple X Mints strong enough to blast away the trace of most things, cider or vodka or weed soon replaced with minty freshness.
The trick was to keep a good distance. Granny Doyle always pottered about in the kitchen until he came home, but if he hovered by the doorway they could get through the chat without her seeing anything.
Or without her saying anything. Granny Doyle’s nose was sharp enough and some nights he was sure she could smell the weed on him. Whatever her olfactory powers, the tongue of Granny Doyle could be silent when it wanted and most days they could make it through the ritual with a nod and a ‘night’ before John Paul stumbled upstairs to copy Damien’s homework.
4
The trick was to keep her happy.
Granny Doyle squinted at the video in front of her.
‘Ah, you didn’t need to be bothering with this nonsense! Where did you get this?’
‘I picked it up at HMV in town,’ John Paul said, which was technically true, though he hadn’t taken it to the till: the trick was to deal in half-truths.
‘We had a half-day,’ Jason Donnelly added, which was also technically true, although their teachers might not have seen it that way.
‘Would you look at the cut of them!’ Granny Doyle said, examining the box. ‘Yer man Flatley prancing about in leather pants and that one beside him, flailing her arms about like she’s drowning! It’s a great gladness that Mammy didn’t have to see this like!’
Granny Doyle was chuffed to bits, though, in her element when she was giving out about something and could dangle some controversy in front of the rest of the porch.
‘I think it’s lovely to see all the young people getting involved in Irish dancing again,’ Mrs Fay said.
‘I wish Anuna got more credit,’ Mrs McGinty sniffed. ‘The singers were the real stars of the show, not that infernal tapping: I had a headache by the end of it.’
‘Michael Flatley is welcome to give me a headache any day!’ Mrs Nugent said, grabbing the box from Granny Doyle. ‘Look at those leather pants!’
Mrs McGinty attempted to shatter glass with her tut.
‘Ah, don’t be at me – I’d say half the girls in that choir of yours have their eyes on him as well; sure, all the “nourishing” and “cherishing” they’d be singing about, there’s only one man they could be talking about – they’ll have to get in line, though!’
‘Lord preserve us! This whole country has gone too American altogether.’
‘Well, I think it’s absolutely brilliant to see the country showing a bit of confidence,’ Mrs Fay said. ‘Three Eurovision wins in a row, could you credit it? We’ll be winning the World Cup, yet, George says.’
‘You’ll sort us out, won’t you, lads?’ Mrs Nugent said. ‘Though maybe you’ll take up the dancing too?’
‘He will not!’ Granny Doyle said.
‘They’re crying out for boys, so Clare says,’ Mrs Nugent added. ‘And you’ve a nice long pair of legs: I’d say you’d be very popular!’
Christ! Jason Donnelly said with his eyes, backing as far against the porch window as he could. That lot are even mentaller than my ma, Jason said whenever he had to spend a couple of minutes in the porch, incredulous that John Paul ever lingered there. Ah, but Jason didn’t understand. John Paul loved the craic and the chat of the porch: the jokes with Mrs Nugent and the challenge of making Mrs McGinty smile and the treat of seeing Granny Doyle happy. On her own in the kitchen, she’d be sighing and shuffling, the ghosts of the dead and the disappeared at the windows. The porch brought insulation, chat that could swaddle her, while she sat quiet enough in the middle, content to pass the day discussing the gall of Fiona Brennan (parading about in poms, as if she invented Irish dancing!) and the cheek of a divorce referendum (it couldn’t pass!) and the general goodness of John Paul (a great lad, isn’t he?)
John Paul was a great lad, at least in the porch, where he liked to see himself reflected in the eyes of the old ladies, a boy bringing presents to his grandmother, the kind of figure who might one day summon the future through smiles and dry ice, the breaths of audiences stolen clean from their bodies at the sight of such brilliance: a hero.
5
The trick was to keep distracted.
They found each other at a free gaff in Clontarf, some posh prat’s party that John Paul was only at because Jason had an in with one of the girls. John Paul hadn’t exactly forgotten about Clodagh Reynolds, but he hadn’t spent the years pining for her either. He’d gone far enough into St Anne’s Park with Emer Clancy to shake off the burden of virginity and there’d been bits of fun in various bushes by the coast but the feeling in his chest at the sight of Clodagh Reynolds was something entirely different. She’d graduated from Dior to CK One and John Paul longed to nick a bottle for himself; it was a brilliant thing, a scent that could be worn by a guy and a girl, a sleek glass bottle that could make two people one. By the end of the night he was sure he was wrapped up in some of it: Jason was up in a spare bedroom with some chick from Loreto while John Paul stayed outside freezing his balls off, a small price to pay, because Clodagh Reynolds had shared a smoke, then a whole packet, with him.
‘All right, how about heads you give us a kiss and tails I give you a kiss?’
‘Chancer. How about heads you take a long walk off a short pier and tails you take a bungee jump without a rope?’
John Paul’s turn to laugh.
‘You know it’s the season of goodwill and all that.’
‘What, think you’re some charity case? It’s the second of December, not exactly Christmas.’
‘You’ll have plenty of time to pick me a good present so.’
She was still standing there, a nod to her friends through the French doors: it’s okay.
‘If I throw three heads in a row, you give us a kiss. Whatever you want, just a Christmas peck, no pressure. Tails, I’ll leave you alone, let you go back to the conversation inside: you know, they were talking about breaking out the Scrabble and I don’t want to ruin your night.’
‘All right, hurry up though, I’m freezing to death here, seriously.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Fuck off!’
Heads. Heads. A smile between them, a spark.
Heads.
John Paul put on his best irresistible face, confident and vulnerable at once.
Clodagh examined the coin. She was sharp, a year above him in school, six As in her Junior Cert. Out of his league, but still she stood in front of him.
‘This one’s messed up: it’s heavier on one side where the crest is. It will always land on heads.’
A different face, one John Paul had never made to a girl before: yeah, you’ve caught me, you’ve got me.
‘You fucking bastard,’ she said, giving him a thump on the arm.
‘Fucking’ said softly, the thump a way of bringing them closer. He held her arm there, the two of them looking at each other in the dark. Kissing was different with Clodagh Reynolds, an activity unrelated to ‘snogging’. She controlled John Paul’s excitable tongue, slowed him down to her rhythm, the meeting of mouths somehow new, proof of the brilliance of the whole world, somehow related to the stars in the sky above.
6
They didn’t know what it was; they did know that, for the other, they were it.
7
The trick was to seize opportunities.
John Paul hadn’t been thrilled when Granny Doyle forced him into the Legion of Mary after a school report that even she couldn’t ignore, but he’d found something about the organization that wasn’t a complete fucking waste of time. John Paul skipped the meetings and the rosaries but he loved volunteering at the nursing home on Sundays. He’d turn up, chugging a bottle of Lucozade for his hangover and greeting Mrs Nugent, who was also a volunteer, not that she ever did any work. Damien worked in the kitchen, scrubbing pots with some sour face on him, but John Paul loved serving the lunch to the guests, a familiar joke for each table.
‘What’s on the menu today?’ Mrs Lacey would say, and John Paul would say ‘caviar’, and she’d say ‘in that case, fill me up’, and then they’d laugh as he put a plate of grey meat and boiled potatoes in front of her. John Paul would flirt with Miss Hardy at the next table and Mr Davis would pretend to be jealous: ‘Pistols at dawn,’ he’d say, ‘we’ll have to settle this with pistols at dawn.’ Mr Lally would say something incomprehensible in a thick Cork accent and John Paul would smile and nod, all that was required. Mrs Garvey would say how well he was looking, ask if he was ‘doing a line’ with a young one, John Paul would say he was saving himself for Sister Angela. The nuns were great craic too, teasing him about his wedding plans with Sister Angela and giving him time for a smoke break with Mrs Nugent. He had an idea, actually, that he might get a job there instead of wasting time with school (which was a conspiracy: every teacher out to get him). They could use someone strong to help move some of the auld ones, heavy as heifers some of them were. He could help out in the main kitchen downstairs: it would be a handy bit of money and he’d be able to get a place of his own soon (Clo would love that), especially with the tablet income.
The tablets were a great trick: textbook example of seizing your opportunities. It had started with Mrs Flannigan. The daft old duck kept getting lost so John Paul escorted her to her room and there she told him about all the extras she had. A favour to her; that was how it started. John Paul didn’t even keep any of the money himself, just wanted to help her because of how bare the room was and how happy she was with the frames for the photos of the grandkids. A small cut the next time, commission. It was easy enough – lots of tablets lying around, expired, no longer needed. John Paul made sure none of them were dangerous. Many of them were basically fancy paracetamol and it was a joke selling them off at schools. It was even easier at clubs; young ones would give you fifty quid for a Tic Tac if they thought it was E. Taking the tablets from the dead residents didn’t sit entirely right with John Paul. But better him than the grasping relatives, those creatures that popped up when one of the rooms emptied, when they would have been hard pressed to find the nursing home on a map before. John Paul was doing people a favour, no harm to anybody, a little extra cash for himself, his own apartment on the cards soon, a place Clo would love; he’d get her a welcome mat in zebra print.
*
But then some fucker called Plato intervened.
Clodagh had started at Trinity; it was inevitable that she’d have a different crowd, no matter the promises to wait for John Paul as he finished sixth year. But then she’d devoured Plato’s Symposium under a tree one afternoon, going over it with her highlighter, tracking the rungs of Plato’s ladder of love. Or, Diotima’s ladder of love, Clodagh supposed: Diotima, the woman who gave the best speech about love in the book, who had no need for a lover, who would definitely be played by Meryl Streep in the movie. Love, according to Diotima, was about transcending the physical, moving from sex to an appreciation of beautiful bodies, to an appreciation of beautiful customs, on and on, up and up, rung by rung, until you were on top of a ladder looking across a wide forest, gazing up at the beauty of beauty itself. It was related to the theory of forms, that was what the lecturer had said: there were abstract forms that were invariably superior to their cheap manifestations in the material world – no chair could be as perfect as the idea of a chair, no beautiful boy as worthy of admiration as beauty itself. Clodagh felt something stir inside her, beyond her body or mind: who needed a boyfriend when there was philosophy?
So, Plato was the cad responsible for the first sundering of Clodagh and John Paul. Or, perhaps, more prosaically, it was Niamh Rooney, the floozy from the Gaeltacht who John Paul claimed meant ‘nothing at all, Clo, I promise’.
It didn’t matter to Clodagh that she was breaking up the gang. The nights they’d spent together – Clo and J.P. and Jason and Dee, even their names in synch – were nothing to Clodagh, she probably didn’t remember the night at the Plex when they’d raced down the bowling lanes until they were kicked out or the time they did mushrooms in the Wicklow mountains until Jason swore he saw a bear, something he still hadn’t heard the last of. Or the afternoons in Clodagh’s bedroom when they lay on the bare floorboards and looked into each other’s souls. No, Clodagh didn’t care: she had her own Trinity friends, didn’t mind that John Paul could hardly hang around after Jason and Dee like some third tit.
So Clodagh was the domino that set it all in motion. John Paul might not have punched Rory O’Donoghue otherwise. The reasons were 80 per cent frustration and 20 per cent altruism; Damien would always be a stupid sap who never thanked his brother for what he did. Things might still have worked out okay – the trick was to keep moving – and the mood might have shifted, John Paul continuing on at the nursing home, looking to pick up work there.
And then Damien, fucking Damien, told the nuns about the tablets and ruined everything.
*
The trick was to disappear.
If John Paul got deep enough inside the duvet he might just manage it and his head would be free of any thoughts about the expulsion or Clodagh changing her phone number or whatever the police might do.
‘John Paul!’
Granny Doyle couldn’t leave him be.
‘Open the door, I’m carrying a tray!’
‘I’m not hungry!’ John Paul called from the depths of the duvet.
‘I’m after making rashers.’
Go fuck your rashers off a cliff, John Paul almost shouted, because all he wanted was a spliff and to disappear. If he pretended to be asleep she might just deposit the tray and shuffle back downstairs. No such luck. She was determined to get in the door and that was when it happened: the tray dropped, rashers and tea tumbling to the floor and landing atop a pyramid of clothes. John Paul clenched his eyes: if he pretended he couldn’t hear she might just fuck off.
‘Get up out of bed, would you!’
Up the duvet came, wrenched with surprising force.
Granny Doyle dropped it on top of the ruined breakfast and the clothes: what did it matter?
John Paul curled into a ball, shocked at this sudden exposure. How dare she! Barging in, while he was in boxers and T-shirt, a creature not fit for her eyes, definitely not ready for daylight.
‘Some light and fresh air, that’s all you need,’ Granny Doyle said, wrenching open the curtains. ‘Come on, now, up out of bed before I drag you!’
The tablets had broken her. Mrs Brennan’s stolen loaves and Mr Kehoe’s smashed windows could all be brushed away with boys will be boys, but here was something that she couldn’t deny. The whole street knew: Mrs Brennan fat with the gloating; Mrs McGinty shadowed with the thought that the Legion of Mary had been compromised; Mrs Donnelly keeping Jason safely inside, for her children made it through their Leaving Certs. Granny Doyle looked at the pathetic creature curled in front of her and saw him for what he was: another bitter disappointment the Lord had sent to test her.
‘Come on now, get—’
‘Don’t touch me!’
John Paul surprised himself with the rage in his voice; it was her fault though, for pulling off the duvet, him practically naked. He managed to stand.
‘Just chill, all right, there’s no hurry, is there?’
‘Plenty of things for you to be getting on with: you can start by cleaning up this mess!’
‘I will!’
‘A waste of good bacon, that is.’
‘I didn’t ask you to make it, did I?’
This hurt her more than anything: what use was she if she couldn’t feed him? John Paul wanted the words back as soon as he saw her face – he would have knelt down on the ground and gulped the tea from the carpet – but then the guilt got at him and the only thing he wanted to do was rescue the duvet and hide inside it.
‘This room is a holy disgrace!’
John Paul shrugged. Damien had moved into Rosie’s room – what was the point of keeping things tidy?
‘Once you’ve got this done we can get you sorted in another school.’
‘There’s no point: it’s all a load of bollix.’
Granny Doyle found the thunder in her voice.
‘What did you say?’
There was no use pretending any more.
‘I said it’s a whole heap of bollix and I don’t want anything to do with it.’
Granny Doyle had her hand raised before she stopped herself. He almost wished she would slap him.
‘You’ll watch your language when you’re under this roof.’
‘Or what?’
This deserved a slap, he was asking for one, standing right in front of her, taunting; if she was going to fuck around with his morning, she could learn her lesson.
‘Just mind your language.’
Granny Doyle was backing down but all John Paul could see in every direction was red flags; the fight was coming whether she wanted it or not.
‘Or what? You’ll kick me out? Two down, two to go, you’ll have the house to yourself in no time!’
These were words he definitely wanted to take back, as soon as he said them; he didn’t even need to see the collapse in Granny Doyle’s face to know that he’d gone too far. They never talked about Peg or Rosie. Usually, John Paul did the opposite, bringing home a stream of chat to keep things light. Until he’d gone ahead and shoved her face in it: she should slap him to the ground, maybe he’d disappear then.
Granny Doyle walked to the window very slowly.
‘I don’t know what’s gotten into you.’
This is me! John Paul longed to yell, but he was out of words now.
Granny Doyle yanked at the edges of the curtains. She’d already opened them, but clearly they could go further, off the poles if necessary.
‘Fresh air and a decent amount of light, that’s what you need! It’s indecent to be keeping the sun out at this hour. You’ll clean up that mess and then we’ll sort you out.’
She turned and saw him still gawping at her.
‘And get dressed, would you! And a bath! You stink.’
She couldn’t hide the disgust in her voice.
‘You’re as bad as your father, do you know that?’
This was the slap she was capable of. John Paul thought he might topple over. Rage he could take but the sadness of that sentence was too much: he needed the curtains shut, the duvet around him, all sound to disappear. That was the trick he hadn’t mastered – the ability to disappear – though he had an idea how; he’d do it in the bath the next day. The trick was to stay ahead of the game, to get out before you got done.
8
‘Ah no, don’t worry, love: sure we’ll say a prayer to Saint Ultán!’
Mrs Nugent tittered and went to light up another cigarette. John Paul helped her with the flame, difficult with the winter wind on Clougheally’s beach. He had another fag too; this was a rule, no limit on the amount he could light up to get through the day.
Mrs Nugent continued to extol Saint Ultán’s virtues.
‘Don’t I always say, you’re better off praying to one of the more obscure ones! Can you imagine what Saint Anthony’s phone lines are like and poor Saint Jude, I’d say the man needs a saint of his own. No, no, pick some fella that nobody’s ever heard of, says I, and I’ll tell you what, Saint Ultán has never once not found me keys! I’d say he’s glad of the work, wouldn’t you? Don’t worry, love, he’ll find your phone!’
Whatever, John Paul’s shrug said. This was another rule: not caring. To care too much was dangerous; caring could lead to razor blades pressed against skin.
John Paul pulled down the sleeves of his hoodie; if he couldn’t wear a duvet, he’d hide here instead. Another rule: always cover his wrists. You’ll have sick scars, Jason said, when he came to the hospital, aiming for the old jokes, faltering when he saw that wouldn’t work. Dee was worse, floods of tears and shite streaming out of her, Clodagh to blame, definitely, she’d turned right snobby since she’d gone to college, but Dee would be there for him – for ever! – which only made John Paul long to tell her that he’d never really liked her and that her highlights looked shit. The deep of him was dark, that was the problem. He could cover the scars with his sleeves, but there was a black hole inside him; it would swallow him, eventually.
‘I tell you, we’ll comb this beach later,’ Mrs Nugent said. ‘We’ll find it!’
Whatever, John Paul’s exhalation of smoke spelt, though underneath his fuck this world face, his heart gave a tiny twist, a pea bothering a princess; he did want to find his missing phone because it had all of Clodagh’s old texts saved. It didn’t matter that she had a new phone with a zebra-case and the capacity to store picture messages from whatever Trinity twerp she was seeing; in his saved messages on the Nokia 3110 Clodagh Reynolds professed her love for John Paul Doyle in ALL CAPS.
‘Janey, maybe I should get Saint Ultán to sort out this weather,’ Mrs Nugent said as the drizzle started. ‘Doesn’t he know I came to Clougheally to get my tan?’
Whatever, John Paul’s shrug wanted to say, though he coughed a laugh out too. Mrs Nugent had the trick of it, she had the words to pierce through the armour and tickle that blackened heart of his. She was the only one who knew what to do, playing penny poker with him and going for strolls and knowing when to keep the chat in the air and when to let silence settle and – crucially – always having a packet of fags at the ready. He couldn’t bear the gaze of the Doyles, looking at him like he was saviour of the family or the scourge of it, depending upon whose eyes were involved. Mrs Nugent saw him, the worst of him, and still thought he was worth looking at, a task that should have been Clodagh’s but she hadn’t returned his gaze when he’d thrown pebbles then rocks at her window and her eyes hadn’t known where to look when she’d come to visit him in the hospital, for all of five minutes; it would have been better if she’d worn sunglasses.
‘Should we head back?’ Mrs Nugent asked, looking up at the clouds.
John Paul didn’t answer, but his legs led them to a bit of the cliff they could shelter under. He couldn’t face the house; the Doyles would be waiting there and one of the major rules was to avoid their gaze. Aunty Mary clearly blamed him for the presence of the lot of them in her house, disturbing the curated quiet of her Christmas and New Year’s. Damien didn’t know where to look, spent all his time in his room, wanking to the Virgin Mary or listening to the Corrs, who the fuck cared. Granny Doyle was the worst. She was in early in the morning, yanking the curtains open. Go on and mow the lawn, would you? I’ve a list of messages for you to get. Mary needs the gutters cleaned, come on now, up out of bed, we’ve no time for this. She’d already decided that what John Paul had done in the bath was taboo, ‘a little accident’ the preferred vocabulary for the events of late 1997.
John Paul fumbled for another cigarette, every second without it a terror and a torture, the wind out to get him, until Mrs Nugent cupped her hands and then – relief! – the pins and needles in his head stopped.
Mrs Nugent leant in for a light and let out a titter.
‘I hope you haven’t dragged me over here to seduce me: what will Sister Angela say?’
John Paul managed a laugh.
Oh, there’ll be murder, he might have said once, but the sentence was stuck.
‘Sure, we won’t tell her,’ Mrs Nugent said.
They were all asking for him at the nursing home, Mrs Nugent had said. Even the nuns. Who’d petitioned to the guards on his behalf: he’d have some community service to do, though that was what got him in trouble in the first place. Sister Angela had sat with him in the hospital and she hadn’t a word of judgement. They could say a prayer, she’d said, and they had, ‘Our Fathers’ and ‘Hail Marys’ stones that he didn’t need to think about, the familiar words helpful in quieting his mind.
‘God, maybe we should ask Saint Ultán for some feathers,’ Mrs Nugent said, blinking as the rain found a way to move sideways. ‘I’d say they’d come in handy here, though poor craters, wouldn’t you be wanting more than feathers to get through three hundred years in this place?’
She looked out at the boulder where the Children of Lir were said to have huddled as swans, the same rock that the triplets had dived off into the sea together, back when they were eight and oblivious, incredible that a leap from such a piddly little thing could have seemed so terrifying.
‘Though who knows what Clougheally was like back then,’ Mrs Nugent continued. ‘Maybe it was hopping: jammers with tourists and theme parks and discos to rival Dublin.’
John Paul coughed out a laugh.
‘Tanning salons,’ he said, surprised at the words coming out loud.
Fuck it, though, wasn’t he only seventeen and the world ahead of him? He’d climbed up onto that rock once, back when it had scared the shite out of him; he could get out of this hole. He didn’t need a Leaving Cert or Clodagh Reynolds. Wasn’t there nothing that John Paul Doyle couldn’t do?
‘Hookah bars,’ John Paul said, earning a laugh from Mrs Nugent.
Talking about shite would be a rope to climb up. This would be another rule. Keep things light and breezy. Avoid the dark.
‘One of them inflatable slides down to the sea,’ Mrs Nugent said.
He wouldn’t rummage around for some missing phone; he’d get a new one with his own fancy fucking cover.
‘Bouncy castles on the beach,’ John Paul said.
He’d pick himself up. Keep going. The trick was to keep moving.
‘Them toadstools with the waterfalls that they have at Mosney,’ Mrs Nugent said.
The rule was not to look any of the Doyles in the eye.
‘A big casino at the edge of the cliff,’ John Paul said.
He’d keep things light. The trick was to avoid Clodagh Reynolds and Granny Doyle. The rule was not to care too much.
‘Ah, they would have had great craic altogether,’ Mrs Nugent said, laughing. ‘I’d say they asked to stay here another three hundred years.’
9
The trick was to keep things light.
‘Isn’t this the most ridiculous contraption you’ve ever seen?’ Granny Doyle asked the porch, thrilled.
‘It’s all the rage,’ John Paul said, holding up the bright purple and yellow toy for display.
‘Go on, say hello, they have their own language – Furbish!’
‘A load of nonsense it is,’ Granny Doyle said, chuffed. ‘He’s even trying to teach it my name, aren’t you?’
‘Oh lovely,’ Mrs Fay said.
‘Lord preserve us! The better to call out your name when it murders you at night,’ Mrs McGinty said. ‘Those eyes have the devil inside, I’d swear on it!’
‘Furby reeeeesha,’ the Furby said.
(Mrs Nugent didn’t say anything, because she’d died earlier in the year, Saint Ultán fuck all use in the face of cancer. A shame – Mrs Nugent would have loved the Furby, a successor of sorts to the Tamagotchi that she’d borrowed from one of her grandchildren, back when she was still alive, leaning forward on her chair and trying to get a rise out of Mrs McGinty by mentioning electronic poo.)
‘Mind you, you’d want to be careful what you say in front of them,’ Mrs Donnelly said, sitting in Mrs Nugent’s chair. ‘You wouldn’t know what they’d repeat. Denise is processing very sensitive information at the bank: did I tell you she got a promotion?’
‘So you mentioned,’ Mrs McGinty said.
‘She’s run off her feet, so she is,’ Mrs Donnelly continued. ‘And did I tell you Jason has a summer internship at the Central Bank?’
‘You did.’
‘Off to Amsterdam for the weekend, he is, isn’t that brilliant! Mind you, that kind of schedule wouldn’t be for everyone, it’s very demanding. I’d say you’re happy in the building site, aren’t you, John Paul?’
The trick was not to let the likes of Mrs Donnelly get to him.
‘I am.’
‘Well for you, like father like son!’
The trick was to punch something, as soon as he could.
‘I always say, once you have your health, aren’t you doing grand? Mind you, I wouldn’t say no to a weekend in Amsterdam either, ha!’
Mrs McGinty stiffened in her chair.
‘Goodness gracious, if you don’t take a breath this poor contraption will never get a word in.’
John Paul grinned at the width of Granny Doyle’s smile. The Furby had done the trick; it would keep her happy for days. Damien had moved out and John Paul did some night shifts as a kitchen porter, so the Furby might make her less lonely in the dark. He could get a different job, Granny Doyle said, but that wasn’t what he wanted: the trick was to keep his distance. The trick was to keep her content with bits of plastic, because the things she asked for (love; time) were too much for him to trade with now.
The trick was to keep things light.
‘Furby meeesho dooopla,’ said the Furby.
‘There you go,’ John Paul said. ‘Isn’t it already trying to say Doyle?’
10
The trick was to keep smiling.
People can hear your smile over the phone, his team leader said, like a wanker. He left John Paul alone, though; his stats couldn’t be argued with so he could bounce as many stress balls off the ceiling as he wanted. John Paul didn’t need to finish school to sell shit to people. Selling phone plans turned out to be mostly about the chat and John Paul could switch between banter like a pianist, sound as a pound for the students, flirty hiyas for the mammies at home, God blesses for the auld ones, all business when he needed to be, the weekend rates to Warsaw at the tip of his tongue.
Smiling was useful for the part-time promotions work he picked up, too. Most of the staff were girls with blonde hair and a thick layer of fake tan and self-belief, but John Paul did well too, grinning at festival-goers as he handed out free ice cream samples or cajoled them into filling out a quick survey or asked them if they wanted to enter a draw to win a car. He was a natural, his manager said, before she slept with him.
Smiling was helpful too for when he slept with some of the promotions girls; it did well to look happy as they Maniaced away on the dance floor or Woo-hooed up and down in some field that was meant to be a festival. A smile can stretch as big as a black hole, that was what he liked to think, dancing fiercer and faster if he felt any dark feelings bristling inside. Pills were great at keeping his mouth fixed in its Time of My Life! position, I love you, I do easier to say with some tabs inside.
And smiling got him up and down Dunluce Crescent. Bat away Mrs McGinty’s tut with a grin. Smile like he couldn’t be happier when Mrs Donnelly asked if he knew Jason was off to Slovenia. Grin like his teeth might crack when he saw Jason’s 00 licence plate. And smile and nod at whatever Granny Doyle said.
Would he not make it to Mass with her in the morning?
Would he not stay for a bit of dinner?
Would he not get a job with more regular hours?
No, John Paul said, as he nodded his head and grinned, he’d catch the evening Mass or pick something up in town or look for something else soon, all unfortunate events, but the great thing about a smile was that it made everything you said seem positive, even a refusal. Refusing Granny Doyle was absolutely necessary; the trick was to keep everyone at a distance, he couldn’t forget that.
11
Rules, though, were made to be broken, especially when life could be like a fairy tale, Clodagh Reynolds at the Trinity Ball, auburn hair tied up, gorgeous as ever, one gold heel trapped in the cobblestones. It had to be Fate, because John Paul was only escorting one of Jason Donnelly’s mates, her name already forgotten, because their love wasn’t fated; they weren’t like Ross and Rachel from Friends.
‘Clo,’ John Paul shouted, her heel in his hand. Then she turned and he smiled and all the lights in Front Square flashed fluorescent at once; it was a wonder there wasn’t a power cut.
Clodagh couldn’t help returning his smile, because there was John Paul in a tux, her heel in his hand, an excellent occurrence as she was a bit pissed and she’d left her bag with the spare shoes somewhere, and the cobblestones had always been out to get her, had probably been laid in the 15whatevers with the express purpose of thwarting Clodagh Reynolds, except that, actually, they were her friends, the equivalents of fairy-tale mice, bringing John Paul back to her, her heel in his hand, her name on his lips, bright lights transforming all the stones. Clodagh knew then that it was tough titties for Marcus and whoever John Paul was escorting; she was going to shag John Paul, preferably in the Provost’s garden, and that was that.
12
The trick was to bring her offerings, bits of plastic to keep her distracted. Then, instead of ‘I don’t know what you’re at with Clodagh Reynolds again, do you not remember (… the little accident hung in the air, unsayable)’ Granny Doyle would hold up the purple coin-holder and say: ‘Ah, what is this nonsense!’
John Paul could write the script.
‘Goodness, don’t they think of everything!’ Mrs Fay would say.
‘No proper punt would fit in those tiny holes,’ Mrs McGinty would say. ‘The only thing you can trust the European Union to make is a mess!’
‘Mind you, won’t the euros be very handy for the travelling?’ Mrs Donnelly would say, as if any of them ever went beyond the Howth Road. ‘Did I tell you that Jason’s off to Thailand?’
Thank you, Granny Doyle would have to say, instead of will you be home tonight? or are you sure you can trust that one? or did I tell you Grace Fay broke up with her boyfriend, a lovely young one she is, she was always very fond of you. John Paul would be down the drive before she got any of that out, headphones in the ears before he reached the gate, leaving Granny Doyle with the sad circle of plastic to hold coins she didn’t want – not that it mattered, because the trick was to keep moving forwards.
13
‘What about that one?’
Clodagh rolled her eyes: I’ve told you.
‘I know, I know,’ John Paul said. ‘Even-numbered postcode. But Croke Park is crying out for regeneration. It might be funeral homes and flats now, but give it a decade and you’ll get vertigo from the skyscrapers.’
They were in the Gravity Bar of the Guinness Storehouse, the city laid in front of them. John Paul moved around the curved glass window and pointed towards O’Connell Street.
‘That one?’
Clodagh folded her arms; she wasn’t going to be moved by John Paul’s dimples. Finding the right apartment was a serious business – she had a colour-coded spreadsheet and the property section of the Irish Times marked up – and she didn’t have time for John Paul’s messing.
‘We’d have a great view,’ John Paul said.
‘I’d chuck you off the fucking top.’
‘Very well situated for amenities.’
‘Every shade of fast-food vomit on our doorstep!’
‘And it would only cost what, a couple of mill?’
Clodagh rolled her eyes but she couldn’t resist a tiny smile; she was powerless against the dimples of John Paul Doyle. She turned to beckon to Jason Donnelly, who sleeked over with his latest girlfriend.
‘Tell J.P. we’re not moving into the Spire!’
Jason Donnelly laughed and raised up his pint of Guinness in salute. Jason already had a couple of ‘properties’ alongside some consultancy job in the Irish Financial Services Centre that John Paul didn’t understand; ah, but he was sound, even if he went by ‘Jay’ now.
‘Niche,’ Jason said. ‘You could probably carve out some space in the middle.’
‘Prime real estate!’ John Paul said. ‘And it’s not like they’re using it for anything: stupid cunts built a giant telegraph pole and you can’t even walk up to see the view. That’s what we can do, Clo, we’ll charge people to …’
Clodagh was already deep in conversation with Jason’s girlfriend.
The smile froze on John Paul’s face as he gazed at the Spire. It would be great to live inside, he thought, madly; it could be a cocoon for the two of them, where nobody could find them, all sleek and steel and perfect. Better at least than the task of actually finding an apartment, the numbers involved terrifying, even with Clo’s parents helping; it was enough to stir the black hole inside him.
John Paul remembered to smile.
‘My round,’ he said, even though Jason could probably have bought the bar if he wanted.
‘Or I could swipe us a couple of fresh ones,’ he added, eyeing the many nearly full complimentary pints that tourists, content with a sip and a photo, had abandoned.
‘Ha,’ Jason Donnelly said (he was sound, even if he said ‘ha’ instead of laughing), so John Paul laughed and headed to the bar, ignoring the criminal waste of good Guinness and the chance to pull a fast one. They weren’t thirteen and knocking about St Anne’s Park any more; the trick was to grow up.
Or, the trick was to grow up in the right direction, towards a Southside postcode and another property to rent out in Marino and a Friday night where they could stand above their shining city and watch the sun gleam against the glass as they thought about where next they might descend, like gods.
The trick was to have aspirations.
The trick was to pay by credit card.
The trick was, whatever the situation, to always say Cheers!
14
‘Cheers!’ John Paul shouted, clinking his flute against Clodagh’s.
Careful of the couch! stuck in Clodagh’s mouth; she would not turn into her mother.
‘Cheers!’ Clodagh said, sitting down into the couch and looking at the magnolia walls in front of them.
Not for the first time, John Paul threw the keycard up and down in the air. It was sleek and aerodynamic and nothing like the chubby keys that opened 7 Dunluce Crescent. Clodagh sipped her Prosecco; she wouldn’t tell him to stop. Not for the first time, John Paul admired the couch.
‘Amazing, isn’t it!’
Cream and classy, the type of couch that would recoil before a patterned carpet.
‘It’s great!’
‘Admit it: you were worried when I said I’d ordered something.’
‘I wish you’d asked me—’
‘Because you thought I’d deck out the place like a Batmobile or something—’
‘I did fear the presence of a ping-pong table.’
‘There’s still space!’
Clodagh took another gulp.
‘But this is perfect, isn’t it? The Platonic ideal of a couch!’
The trick was to have aspirations. John Paul had googled the little book that had sundered them, the first time, and he thought he had the measure of Plato.
‘I don’t know if that’s exactly what Plato had in mind when he said there was an ideal form of everything.’
‘Plato didn’t have the internet! No way Plato could plonk his arse on this baby and say that some idea of a couch is better.’
‘Plato didn’t have an arse.’
‘Of course he did! Aren’t they all falling over each other trying to sit beside Plato?’
‘That was Socrates,’ Clodagh said, although she wasn’t sure; she’d transferred into business and economics after first year, for the best, as she wasn’t sure that philosophy would be much use in setting up a telecommunications empire.
‘Whoever,’ John Paul said, pouring more Prosecco into their glasses and giving Clodagh’s arse a playful pinch. ‘The moral is that there is an ideal couch on earth: you just have to find the right arse to share it with.’
Clodagh stood up.
‘Keep the seat warm, will you, I’m going to go and see if I can find this Plato fella; I hear he’s a ride.’
John Paul grinned, a proper smile that came from somewhere deep inside. The trick was to find smiles like these and capture them; if he could sell something to produce genuine smiles he’d be a millionaire, could buy a warehouse of couches and spend the afternoon fucking Clodagh Reynolds across each and every one.
15
The trick was to seize every opportunity.
‘I’ve had a brilliant idea,’ John Paul said, diving down beside Clodagh on the couch in Lillie’s Bordello.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, okay, this is a bit mad.’
‘Shocking.’
He ignored this, the idea too brilliant to be contained.
‘What if I became a pope?’
Maybe it was the coke or maybe it was the espresso martini from earlier but John Paul was certain this idea was a keeper; it was destiny, in fact. Pope John Paul II had died the other day and John Paul saw the empty space, as clear as a wall crying out for a billboard. He heard the fuss in Granny Doyle’s porch, Mrs McGinty indignant that the shops wouldn’t be closing for a national day of mourning. He saw the shock of the young Poles in the call centre, where he was now a centre manager; whatever their feelings about the Church, they had affection for the first Polish Pope, may he rest in peace, and here was the gap that John Paul was born to fill. Ireland was due a pope but not one who bothered about Mass or sins or all the shackles they’d shaken off; no, it was time for a new pope for a new millennium and John Paul had an idea for a video in his head – getting baptized in his boxers with a bucket of ice chucked over him – and this he knew he could sell. Selling nothing was his speciality and here was something, an ideal form for the ages. The idea was clear in his head – brilliant! – but he wasn’t sure how it came out, because Clodagh had her forehead wrinkled from trying to understand.
‘You’re serious?’
‘I am,’ John Paul said immediately.
‘Pope John Paul III?’
John Paul beamed; the trick was to have aspirations.
‘Exactly.’
16
The trick was to seize every opportunity.
There was Pope John Paul III blessing the opening of the Dundrum Shopping Centre and there he was in Waterford steering a tall ship into port and there his mitre was in Down, bobbing outside Hillsborough Castle as Mary McAleese met the Queen and there he was in Tralee, anointing the edgier Roses in the Sacrament of Hotness, until they stripped him starkers, only a well-placed bouquet to keep his modesty.
The Official Miracles of John Paul Doyle courted controversy. Pope John Paul III walked on water buoyed by natural gas or ‘healed’ Jason Donnelly of his Man U support or performed exorcisms on people with poor phone plans. Ah, now, I wouldn’t know anything about that! the catchphrase for whenever he got into hot water, but that was seldom; he was good at judging the temperature of the zeitgeist, as adept as any Beyoncé or Steve Jobs (or, why not, any Michael Flatley or Mary Robinson). Pope John Paul III was achieving his goal – ubiquity! – and he was chasing history’s heels, like Forrest Gump with a better business plan.
So, inevitably, there was Pope John Paul III at Fianna Fáil’s tent at the Galway Races, ignoring the hippies protesting against a gas pipe outside, elbows edging instead against the Very Important, as he promised to bless a new complex of condos and professed that he wouldn’t know anything about running for office and turned to the camera with a huge grin to say: ‘Now where do I collect the award for Best Hat?’
17
The trick was to throw up when necessary.
John Paul found his reflection in the bathroom mirror: much better. The floor stayed put under his feet. He’d be grand; of course he would. Damien, on the other hand, was making a right production out of getting sick in one of the other stalls. John Paul longed to bang on the door and tell him to stop retching and groaning and get it over with – he’d feel much better! – but it wasn’t his job to look after his family.
No, his job was to smile, which he did, a gracious grin for the prat in the suit who didn’t get that the bathroom wasn’t the place for pictures. The price of fame: he was happy to pay. John Paul smiled at his reflection; against all odds, he’d made it.
‘Pope J.P.’s in the house! Wasssupp!’
It was Jason Donnelly, barrelling into the bathroom as if he owned the place. (There was a chance he did.)
Ah, but he was sound, even when he put on an American accent.
‘How’s the form?’ John Paul asked.
‘Cracking. You sure you don’t want me to set you up with Gosia’s mate – you seen the legs on her?’
Jason had half of Eastern Europe rotating through his bedroom and he was sure to let you know it; ah, but he was sound.
‘I’m grand,’ John Paul said, holding up his engagement ring. ‘And anyways, I’ve got an appointment with your ma later!’
‘Ha!’
Damien emerged from the stall; John Paul had forgotten what a magnet Jason Donnelly was for him.
‘Damo Doyle! What’s the buzz?’
Damien nodded, concentrating on keeping in the vomit as Jason slapped his back.
‘Congrats, congrats! Have to say, I never thought I’d see the Greens getting into bed with Fianna Fáil!’
‘I guess it’s worth keeping your options open.’
‘Ha! A man after my philosophy! I think it’ll be good for the country, though, all this sustainability stuff is very on brand.’
Damien looked like he might vomit over Jason Donnelly’s one-thousand-euro suit; a dark part of John Paul wanted him to.
‘You’ll have to get Damo’s deets for the stag do,’ John Paul said, before Jason got going about sustainable investment funds and the need to keep the red tape snipped.
‘Sure thing,’ Jason said. ‘Have to get you some carbon credits too, ha!’
‘Right,’ Damien said.
It took a moment for it to sink in.
‘Wait, where are we going?’
John Paul caught Damien’s eye before Jason answered. He had to play this carefully. His best innocent expression. Ah, now, I wouldn’t know anything about that! The truth, or part of it, for John Paul did want Damien to come – he was surprised by the force of this feeling – and despite the dangers of the black hole and all the rules (don’t dwell; stay away from the Doyles; the trick was to keep moving) there was a part of John Paul Doyle that wanted nothing more than for the lot of them to be together again, happy.
Jason answered Damien’s question, his accent ready.
‘Get ready, baby, cause we’re going to New York city!’