“What’s wrong with everyone?” Ivor asked, panicked. “Why’s everyone fighting? I thought this was supposed to be exciting, Dad going on TV?”
“No one’s fighting,” Tricia said.
Billy dropped onto the driver’s seat and slammed his car door closed. Anna also sat in. He found her in the rearview as the other three joined them, and gave her a look that he hoped said everything was going to be okay. She nodded, her lips pressed together. He could tell how brave she was trying to be. How much she wanted to believe him.
As the Corolla crossed the miles, hardly anyone spoke. Anna kept her attention on her phone and Ivor lost himself in his PlayStation. Next to Anna, John’s eyes had closed and his head bopped in time to the music thumping through his earphones.
*
Billy paced the “green room,” a term he’d learned from the show’s producer, in circles. At first he’d thought she was making a joke, but, no, it was the actual showbiz jargon. With his hand, he wiped the sweat from his forehead. Stage fright had resurrected his old cravings with a vengeance, and the tantalizing, spring-green walls inspired fantasies of chocolate-mint ice cream. Worse, the colorful array of food on offer tugged. His stomach bucked to get at the platters of strawberries, nuts, sausage rolls, chicken skewers, iced cakes, and countless chocolates. He reminded himself how little he’d enjoyed the bar of chocolate in the hospital and made a mental note to phone Shaw’s office on Monday, get that referral to a nutritionist.
He wondered who would watch the show. He knew Denis, Tony, and likely everyone else from the factory would. Lisa, too, from London. She’d had to travel again for her job, otherwise, she’d assured him, she’d be in the front row, cheering him on. Yet again his parents had opted to keep their distance. He had to believe they would watch the show from the secrecy of their sagging couch, if only out of curiosity. He’d also told Adam Simon and Jack Dineen he was on tonight. He wondered how many other families in the same post-suicide situation would watch. If the Hallorans would, the family of the double suicide down in Cork.
He followed the production assistant with the big, clownish feet to the edge of the set and waited for her to give the signal. He couldn’t stop sweating, couldn’t regulate his breathing. The too-tight waistband of the army pants bit into him something savage. He resisted the urge to open its button, the assistant looking him up and down again, her continued shock at his fatigues on full display.
Billy was parched, his tongue sticking to his teeth, but he didn’t dare drink anything in case he would need to relieve himself during the show. The show. God. He didn’t know what he would say on camera, in front of the nation. His mind clouded, the thoughts not forming. He didn’t think he could speak. His words seemed to have left him right along with his saliva. The assistant touched his elbow. “You’re on.”
An awful sensation came over him, as if hands were tugging on his heart, trying to drag it out of him. Maybe he shouldn’t have worn the uniform. Maybe he’d gone too far. If he went on this show tonight and sixty-thousand-plus people thought he was crazy, an absolute head case, then everything would be ruined.
The assistant, frowning, urgent, repeated, “You’re on. Go. Go.”
*
Billy lumbered across the set, his heart beating out of kilter. Maeve stood up and shook his hand, invited him to sit down. He could smell her floral perfume, and that, along with his nerves, made him dizzy. She introduced him to the audience. The cameras panned from him to Tricia and the children in the front row. They nodded and smiled, even John. The camera returned to center stage and zeroed in on Billy.
“You and Tricia lost your son, Michael, to suicide earlier this year?” Maeve said.
“Yes. January twenty-first, a Wednesday.” He gestured with his hand toward his family. “The worst day of our lives.”
“Tell us about him?”
Billy exhaled hard. “He was great. And I’m not just saying that because he’s gone. He really was a wonderful son and big brother, and a fantastic lad all round, you know? Everyone said the same things about him. He was a gentleman, good and kind and funny. He’d do anything for anyone. He was a brilliant footballer, too, and we had high hopes he’d play for the county someday and bring home the Sam Maguire. He had a great love of singing and music as well, and was mad about the guitar in particular.” He inhaled with a sharp hiss, hoping to say the next sentence with a clear conscience. “He was also passionate about the farming.” He paused, feeling he had spoken the truth to the best of his knowledge. He struggled to go on. “No one could believe he did what he did. We still can’t believe it. He had it all ahead of him.”
“The whys, and the sense of waste, have to be so hard?”
“Yeah, they are. It’s all hard.”