As soon as we all got back into the flat Ma kicked things up a gear, to punish us for leaving her to her own terrifying devices. She was doing ferocious things to vegetables and issuing orders at warp speed: “You, Carmel-Jackie-Carmel-whoever-you-are, get them potatoes started—Shay, put that over there, no, you simpleton, there—Ashley, love, give the table a wipe for your nana—and Francis, you go in and have a word with your da, he’s after getting back into the bed and he wants a bit of company. Go on!” She smacked me across the head with a dish towel, to get me moving.
Holly had been leaning against my side, showing me some painted ceramic thing she had bought in the Christmas Village to give Olivia and explaining in detail how she had met Santa’s elves, but at that she melted neatly away among the cousins, which I felt showed good sense. I considered doing the same thing, but Ma has the ability to keep nagging for so long that it borders on a superpower, and the dishcloth was aimed in my direction again. I got out of her way.
The bedroom was colder than the rest of the flat, and quiet. Da was in bed, propped up on pillows and apparently doing nothing at all except, maybe, listening to the voices coming from the other rooms. The fussy softness all round him—peach decor, fringed things, muted glow from a standing lamp—made him look bizarrely out of place and somehow stronger, more savage. You could see why girls had fought over him: the tilt of his jaw, the arrogant jut of his cheekbones, the restless blue spark in his eyes. For a moment, in that untrustworthy light, he looked like wild Jimmy Mackey still.
His hands were what gave him away. They were a mess—fingers swollen huge and curled inwards, nails white and rough like they were already decaying—and they never stopped moving on the bed, plucking fretfully at loose threads in the duvet. The room stank of sickness and medicine and feet.
I said, “Ma said you fancied a chat.”
Da said, “Give us a smoke.”
He still seemed sober, but then my da has poured a lifetime of dedication into building up his tolerance, and it takes a lot to put a visible dent in it. I swung the chair from Ma’s dressing table over to the bed, not too close. “I thought Ma didn’t let you smoke in here.”
“That bitch can go and shite.”
“Nice to see the romance isn’t dead.”
“And you can go and shite too. Give us a smoke.”
“Not a chance. You can piss Ma off all you want; I’m staying in her good books.”
That made Da grin, not in a pleasant way. “Good luck with that,” he said, but all of a sudden he looked wide awake and his focus on my face had got sharper. “Why?”
“Why not?”
“You were never arsed about keeping her happy in your life.”
I shrugged. “My kid’s mad about her nana. If that means I have to spend one afternoon a week gritting my teeth and sucking up to Ma, so Holly won’t see us tearing strips off each other, I’ll do it. Ask me nicely and I’ll even suck up to you, at least when Holly’s in the room.”
Da started to laugh. He leaned back on his pillows and laughed so hard that it turned into a spasm of deep, wet coughing. He waved a hand at me, gasping for breath, and motioned at a box of tissues on the dresser. I passed them over. He hawked, spat into a tissue, tossed it at the bin and missed; I didn’t pick it up. When he could talk, he said, “Bollix.”
I said, “Want to elaborate on that?”
“You won’t like it.”
“I’ll live. When was the last time I liked anything that came out of your mouth?”
Da reached painfully over to the bedside table for his glass of water or whatever, took his time drinking. “All that about your young one,” he said, wiping his mouth. “Load of bollix. She’s grand. She doesn’t give a fuck if you and Josie get on, and you know it. You’ve got reasons of your own for keeping your ma sweet.”
I said, “Sometimes, Da, people try to be nice to each other. For no reason at all. I know it’s tough to picture, but take it from me: it happens.”
He shook his head. That hard grin was back on his face. “Not you,” he said.
“Maybe, maybe not. You might want to keep in mind that you know just under shag-all about me.”
“Don’t need to. I know your brother, and I know the pair of yous were always as like as two peas in a pod.”
I didn’t get the sense he was talking about Kevin. I said, “I’m not seeing the resemblance.”
“Spitting image. Neither of yous ever did anything in his life without a bloody good reason, and neither one of yous ever told anyone what the reason was unless he had to. I couldn’t deny the pair of yous, anyway, that’s for sure.”
He was enjoying himself. I knew I should keep my gob shut, but I couldn’t do it. I said, “I’m nothing like any of this family. Nothing. I walked away from this house so that I wouldn’t be. I’ve spent my whole life making damn sure of it.”
Da’s eyebrows shot up sardonically. “Listen to him. Are we not good enough for you these days, no? We were good enough to put a roof over your head for twenty years.”
“What can I say? Gratuitous sadism doesn’t pop my cork.”
That made him laugh again, a deep harsh bark. “Does it not? At least I know I’m a bastard. You think you’re not? Go on: look me in the eye and tell me you don’t enjoy seeing me in this state.”
“This is something special. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
“See? I’m in bits, and you’re loving it. Blood tells, sonny boy. Blood tells.”
I said, “I’ve never in my life hit a woman. I’ve never in my life hit a child. And my kid has never in her life seen me drunk. I understand that only a seriously sick sonofabitch would be proud of any of those, but I can’t help it. Every single one of them is proof that I have sweet fuck-all in common with you.”
Da watched me. He said, “So you think you’re a better da than I ever was.”
“That’s not exactly bigging myself up. I’ve seen stray dogs who were better das than you.”
“Then tell me this and tell me no more: if you’re such a saint and we’re such a shower of shites, why are you using that child for an excuse to come around here?”
I was headed for the door when I heard, behind me, “Sit down.”
It sounded like Da’s own voice again, full and strong and young. It grabbed my inner five-year-old around the throat and shoved me back into my chair before I knew what had happened. Once I was there, I had to pretend it was by choice. I said, “I think we’re more or less done here.”
Giving the order had taken it out of him: he was leaning forward, breathing hard and clutching at the duvet. He said, on short gasps, “I’ll tell you when we’re done.”
“You do that. Just as long as it’s soon.”
Da shoved his pillows farther up behind his back—I didn’t offer to help: the thought of our faces getting that close made my skin crawl—and got his breath back, slowly. The ceiling-crack shaped like a race car was still there above his head, the one I used to stare at when I woke up early in the mornings and lay in bed daydreaming and listening to Kevin and Shay breathe and turn and murmur. The gold light had faded away; outside the window, the sky over the back gardens was turning a cold deep-sea blue.
Da said, “You listen to me. I haven’t got long left.”
“Leave that line to Ma. She does it better.” Ma has been at death’s door ever since I can remember, mostly due to mysterious ailments involving her undercarriage.
“She’ll outlive us all, just out of spite. I wouldn’t say I’ll see next Christmas.”
He was milking it, lying back and pressing a hand to his chest, but there was an undercurrent to his voice that said he meant it at least partway. I said, “What are you planning on dying of?”
“What do you care? I could burn to death in front of you before you’d piss on me to put me out.”
“True enough, but I’m curious. I didn’t think being an arsehole was fatal.”
Da said, “My back’s getting worse. Half the time I can’t feel my legs. Fell over twice, the other day, just trying to put on my kacks in the morning; the legs went out from under me. The doctor says I’ll be in a wheelchair before summer.”
I said, “Let me take a wild guess here. Did the doctor also say your ‘back’ would get better, or at least stop getting worse, if you went off the booze?”
His face curled up with disgust. “That little nancy-boy’d give you the sick. He needs to get off his ma’s tit and have a real drink. A few pints never did a man any harm.”
“That’s a few pints of beer, not vodka. If the booze is so good for you, what are you dying of?”
Da said, “Being a cripple’s no way for a man to live. Locked up in a home, someone wiping your arse for you, lifting you in and out of the bath; I’ve no time for that shite. If I end up like that, I’m gone.”
Again, something under the self-pity said he was serious. Probably this was because the nursing home wouldn’t have a minibar, but I was with him on the wider issue: death before diapers. “How?”
“I’ve got plans.”
I said, “I’m after missing something, along the way. What are you looking for off me? Because if it’s sympathy, I’m fresh out. And if you want a helping hand, I think there’s a queue.”
“I’m asking you for nothing, you stupid little prick. I’m trying to tell you something important, if you’d only shut your gob long enough to listen. Or are you loving your own voice too much for that, are you?”
This may be the most pathetic thing I’ve ever admitted: deep down, a speck of me clung on to the chance that he might actually have something worthwhile to say. He was my da. When I was a kid, before I copped that he was a world-class fucknugget, he was the smartest man in the world; he knew everything about everything, he could beat up the Hulk with one hand while he bicep-curled grand pianos with the other, a grin from him lit up your whole day. And if ever I had needed a few precious pearls of fatherly wisdom, it was that night. I said, “I’m listening.”
Da pulled himself up, painfully, in the bed. He said, “A man needs to know when to let things lie.”
I waited, but he was watching me intently, like he was expecting some kind of answer. Apparently that was the sum total of enlightenment I was going to get off him. I could have punched myself in the teeth for being thick enough to look for more. “Great,” I said. “Thanks a million. I’ll bear that in mind.”
I started to get up again, but one of those deformed hands shot out and grabbed my wrist, faster and a lot stronger than I had expected. The touch of his skin made my hair stand up. “Sit down and listen, you. What I’m telling you is this: I’ve put up with a load of shite in my life and never thought about topping myself. I’m not weak. But the first time someone puts a nappy on me, I’m gone, because that’s when there’s no fight left where winning would be worth my while. You have to know what to fight against and what to leave alone. D’you get me?”
I said, “Here’s what I want to know. Why do you all of a sudden give a tinker’s damn about my attitude to anything?”
I expected Da to come back swinging, but he didn’t. He let go of my wrist and massaged his knuckles, examining his hand like it belonged to someone else. He said, “Take it or leave it. I can’t make you do anything. But if there’s one thing I wish I’d been taught a long time back, it’s that. I’d have done less damage. To myself and everyone round me.”
This time I was the one who laughed out loud. “Well, color me gobsmacked. Did I just hear you take responsibility for something? You must be dying after all.”
“Don’t fucking mock. Yous lot are grown; if you’re after banjaxing your lives, that’s your own fault, not mine.”
“Then what the hell are you on about?”
“I’m only saying. There’s things went wrong fifty years ago, and they just kept going. It’s time they stopped. If I’d’ve had the sense to let them go a long time back, there’s a lot would’ve been different. Better.”
I said, “Are you talking about what happened with Tessie O’Byrne?”
“She’s none of your bloody business, and you watch who you’re calling Tessie. I’m saying there’s no reason your ma should have her heart broke for nothing, all over again. Do you understand me?”
His eyes were a hot urgent blue, crammed too deep with secrets for me to untangle. It was the brand-new soft places in there—I had never before in my life seen my da worried about who might get hurt—that told me there was something enormous and dangerous moving through the air of that room. I said, after a long time, “I’m not sure.”
“Then you wait till you are sure, before you do anything thick. I know my sons; always did. I know well you had your reasons for coming here. You keep them away from this house till you’re bloody sure you know what you’re at.”
Outside, Ma snapped about something and there was a placating murmur from Jackie. I said, “I’d give a lot to know just what’s going on in your mind.”
“I’m a dying man. I’m trying to put a few things right, before I go. I’m telling you to leave it. We don’t need you causing trouble around here. Go back to whatever you were doing before, and leave us alone.”
I said, before I could help it, “Da.”
All of a sudden Da looked wrecked. His face was the color of wet cardboard. He said, “I’m sick of the sight of you. Get out there and tell your ma I’m gasping for a cup of tea—and she’s to make it a decent strength, this time, not that piss she gave me this morning.”
I wasn’t about to argue. All I wanted was to grab hold of Holly and get the pair of us the hell out of Dodge—Ma would blow a blood vessel about us skipping dinner, but I had rattled Shay’s cage enough for one week, and I had seriously misjudged my family-tolerance threshold. I was already trying to decide on the best place to stop, on the way back to Liv’s, so I could get Holly fed and stare at that beautiful little face till my heart rate dropped back into normal range. I said, at the door, “I’ll see you next week.”
“I’m telling you. Go home. Don’t come back.”
He didn’t turn his head to watch me go. I left him there, lying back on his pillows and staring at the dark windowpane and pulling fitfully at loose threads with those misshapen fingers.
Ma was in the kitchen, stabbing viciously at an enormous joint of half-cooked meat and giving Darren hassle, via Carmel, about his clothes (“. . . never get a job as long as he’s running around dressed like a fecking pervert, don’t say I didn’t warn you, you take him outside and give him a good smack on his arse and a nice pair of chinos . . .”). Jackie and Gavin and the rest of Carmel’s lot were in a trance in front of the telly, staring slack-jawed at a shirtless guy eating something wiggly with a lot of antennae. Holly was nowhere. Neither was Shay.