When Love Comes to Town (20 page)

“I don’t think that,” Neil protested weakly, aware that Becky’s fuse was close to explosion point.

“All they can talk about are their dicks,” Shane growled.

Neil rested his hand on Shane’s sleeve but it was abruptly shrugged away. He wanted Shane to stop; after all it was Sugar’s second home that he was criticizing.

“Maybe that’s where the term
dickhead
comes from,” Sugar muttered, and both Neil and Becky laughed. Shane didn’t speak again until they reached Leeson Street. Without a word of good-bye, he hopped out of the car and slammed the door. As soon as the car drove off, Sugar and Becky burst out laughing. But Neil was sorry that he had joined in the ridicule of Shane. It was cruel, he decided; he’d have to call him in the morning and apologize.

Sugar dropped them to Neil’s house, and despite Becky’s strenuous attempts to lure him inside for coffee, Sugar refused. Even Neil couldn’t persuade him.

“I’m sure you two have plenty to chat about,” Sugar said before he drove off. Neil couldn’t understand it; if he got an opportunity to get inside Ian’s house, he’d be in like a shot. Maybe Sugar’s passion for him had waned because of Shane. Deep down inside, he felt a twinge of disappointment, realizing that he liked being admired by the older man. Then he put himself in Sugar’s shoes and imagined how embarrassing it would be to meet a friend’s parents if they were the same age as you.

Just as Neil was pouring two glasses of his dad’s homemade wine, his mum wandered into the living room in her dressing gown. A warm glow lit up her face as soon as she spotted Becky.

“I thought I heard you coming in,” she said, smiling at Becky.

“Hiya, Mrs. Byrne,” Becky did her best to speak clearly.

“How’s the au pairing going?”

“Oh, don’t talk to me,” Becky moaned.

“Don’t mind her, she loves it,” Neil said, pushing the ashtray behind the armchair. His mum sniffed. “I don’t smell something burning, do I?”

“That’s my cigarette,” Becky lied, and Neil spotted the faintest flicker of a smile cross his mum’s face.

“Mum, look,” he said, holding his wrist up in the air to display his watch. The loudness of his voice brought a wince of surprise to his mum’s face.

“I got my watch back,” he added slowly, concentrating on every syllable this time.

“Oh, did you?” His mum was delighted as she took hold of his wrist to inspect the watch. Then she furrowed her brow. “That’s not your watch,” she said.

Neil pulled his hand away and took a closer look at the watch. “Isn’t it?”

“It looks like it all right, but it’s definitely not the one I bought for you,” his mum insisted. “They must have got it mixed up.”

Neil shook his head slowly. Uncle Sugar and his heart of gold.

“Listen, I’m exhausted, I’ll say good night,” his mum said, backing away toward the door.

“’Night, Mrs. Byrne,” Becky said.

“When are you coming home again, Becky?”

“The end of summer.”

“Well, look after yourself now.”

“’Night, mum.”

“Don’t you stay up all night,” she said to Neil.

“We’re going up to bed now in a minute, but I doubt that we’ll get much sleep,” Neil said, nudging Becky.

“Dream on,” Becky retorted.

His mum smiled. “I don’t know where we got him from,” she sighed before leaving the room.

Becky smiled when Neil explained about the watch.

“That man’s an angel,” she whispered.

“I can’t keep it,” Neil insisted. But he knew that he would have to. Uncle Sugar would never accept it back. He would definitely have to call him and thank him. But he had more important things to talk about now. He had waited eagerly to ask Becky this question.

“Well, what d’you think of him?” he asked, turning to face her.

She leaned back in her armchair, dipped her finger into her wine, and stirred it around slowly. “He’s very good-looking, all right.”

Neil was delighted. “Ignore his behavior tonight, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen him pissed.”

Becky just nodded noncommittally. Neil refilled the wine glasses and proceeded to reiterate all the good times Shane and himself had had together, though Becky already knew the details from his numerous letters.

“This stuff is dynamite!” Becky laughed, holding her glass up. Neil laughed, but he was disappointed at her obvious attempt to change the subject.

They began to talk about the other events of the night, but the shadow of Shane lurked constantly below the surface. Eventually there was no more they could say about Uncle Sugar or Gladys and Penelope or any of the others they had met in the pub. They were on to their second bottle of wine, and Becky seemed to have to force her jaws open as she spoke.

“I’m sorry, Neil,” she said, her blurred eyes struggling to focus on him, “but I don’t like him.” Then, by way of apology, she held both her hands up in the air drunkenly.

“I know that,” Neil replied calmly, hiding his despondency.

“I wish I could say that I do. But I don’t. Sorry to have to say that. But you know I can’t lie to you,” she mumbled.

“But what is it you don’t like about him?” Neil asked.

Becky swayed as she leaned forward to pour another two glasses of wine. “For one…He has zilch sense of humor.”

“Yes, he has,” Neil protested.

“Well…” she continued, “he keeps it well hidden then …”

“That’s unfair, you hardly know him.”

Becky mustered her thoughts together. “I just don’t want to see you hurt, Neil.”

Neil said nothing.

“I mean, who’s this Geraldine one? You said you saw them kissing, didn’t you?”

“That doesn’t mean anything. Sure, I chewed the face off Yvonne Lawlor last Sunday, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but you didn’t invite Yvonne Lawlor to stay in your house for a week, did you?”

Neil had difficulty focusing on Becky’s face. “She’s gone to Portugal for two weeks,” he said, recalling the delight he had felt when Shane told him.

“So you’ll do for two weeks then,” Becky countered cruelly.

“Thanks a lot.” Neil was angry.

“I’m sorry…” Becky draped her arms around his neck, but Neil shrugged them away. Then she dipped her finger into her wine and eyed him carefully.

“If he does swing both ways…avoid him like the plague.”

“What’re you on about?”

“My brother Jimmy once had a bad experience with a bi,” Becky went on. “He said that they were usually emotionally immature—that they couldn’t stay in relationships for long—and that they treat their various partners like shit.”

Neil felt crushed.

“Anyway, you’re not in love with him, Neil.”

“I am.” Neil’s voice was barely audible.

Becky sighed. “You’re not, he’s only a replacement for Ian.”

“If only it were that simple,” he replied, wishing his world wasn’t so mixed-up. Why couldn’t he just have an ordinary romance like Tom and Andrea? Or even Gary and Trish. Why did he always have to keep everything so hidden? Why was he born this way? It’d be better if he’d never been born.

Becky hugged him when she saw the tears rolling down his cheeks. She kept squeezing him tightly and insisting that she had only said what she had said because she loved him.

But even Becky couldn’t understand how he really felt. No one ever would. They’d always just see him as the grinning idiot who liked to keep himself to himself. They’d never realize how much he had to offer. They wouldn’t want to. And not for the first time that summer, he wished some mad scientist somewhere would press a button and end it all gracefully.

The colored barbeque lights seemed to be dancing around in tiny little circles. Neil was lying flat out on a hay bale, staring up at the starry night sky, listening to John Lennon’s soul-baring lyrics. Somewhere near him, Gary was telling a joke. “Did you hear about the queer whale? He put his mouth over the submarine’s periscope and sucked out all the seamen.” And Shane joined Mal and Tony in whoops of laughter.

He doesn’t want to be seen sitting with me, Neil thought. And if I was standing with them, you can bet that Gary would’ve been staring at me when he told that joke, watching for my reaction. “Will you just relax and enjoy your secret admission to the rhyming couplets?” Secret my eye. Our arrival was greeted by raised eyebrows; don’t think I didn’t notice.

“Who’s your hunky friend?” Yvonne Lawlor asked. “Bit of all right,” her pal Carmel said. But of course they were suspicious and I felt like shouting, “Oh girls, I’ve got to hand it to you, you’re so per-fucking-ceptive.”

Hey, you’ve got to hide your love away

You said it, John, you said it. All the fun of the fair, but still I don’t feel a part of it. Oh shit, I wish I hadn’t drunk so much. There’s Tara’s father, standing on the porch of his mansion, watching all his daughter’s friends with disdain. Probably wondering why the hell he should have to spend his hard-earned cash on these gobshites. The hassles of having a socialite daughter who’s turned eighteen. Wait till her wedding day.

Loud, drunken yelps and cheers rose from the crowd when Mick Toner tossed another hay bale onto the crackling bonfire. Neil sat up and focused on the glowing faces, drinking their free beer and chomping their free hamburgers, all watching the flames spark and shoot up into the blackness.

Why should any of them want to hurt me? Mick Toner is mad. I could tell him. “Hey, Mick, I’m gay and you’re mad, so let’s be pals.” Knowing Mick, he’d probably just say, give us a smoke and it’s a deal. But Mal and Tony, they’d pick me up like a bale of hay and toss me onto the bonfire. And I wouldn’t cry or scream as the flames rose up all around me. No, I’d just stare out at them all like good old Joan of Arc or whoever, and my sad eyes would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Po-faced Shane is flashing a dirty look in my direction. The pull-yourself-together big brother look. But still he keeps his respectable distance. Nice friendly grin for everyone. That’s it, Neil, can’t rock the boat, can we? I’m gay! Imagine if you screamed it out in your best Daphne imitation. Tara’s happy jolly birthday barbeque would grind to an abrupt halt. Snogging couples would surface for air. Give them all something to really talk about. They’d probably just say, “Tell us something we don’t already know, Neil.” There must be others here the same as me. Maybe they’d all come out. “Yeah, funny you should say that, Neil, so am I.” And we’d all join hands and dance “A Ring around the Rosy” around the bonfire.

Hey, you’ve got to hide your love away

The colored lights are whizzing around in circles now. Stomach is swirling. Drunken howls as the swimmers plunge into the floodlit swimming pool. Well-fed bodies tucking their bulky knees up into their chests to do cannonballs, drenching the shrieking onlookers.
Maybe you should join them. Sober you up. Yeah, maybe I’d drown. Floating round and round, facedown, staring at the silent blue-tiled underwater world. Wonder how long would pass before any of them’d notice me. “Hey, look at Neil, he’s drowning and we’re all enjoying ourselves. God, that’s a laugh, isn’t it?”

Neil leaned forward, opened his legs, and felt his fragile insides heave violently. It was as though a volcano was erupting inside him. Torrent after torrent of spewy liquid kept gushing up from the darkest recesses of his stomach, spreading like molten lava across the neatly clipped grass. Sweat dampened his forehead, his head was spinning, his whole body shivered, and he wished that he was at home tucked up in his bed with his mum holding a damp sponge to his forehead like she had done when he was a kid.

“You all right, Byrner?” Mal asked with uncustomary tenderness, draping his arm around Neil’s shoulder.

“He’s puked his ring up!”

That’s it, Gary, tell the world.

“You’ll be okay, Neil,” Trish said, wiping his face with a tissue after the volcano had eventually subsided.

“Nothing like a good puke,” Gary laughed.

Hands lifting me up now. Mal looks concerned. Maybe I’ve misjudged him all these years. But don’t think my bleary eyes don’t spot your judging looks as I head off with good old Shane, who’s going to end it with me soon. Why don’t you say all those things to my face? “Who’s Byrner’s friend?” “Yeah, who’s the granddad?” “Pair of bum boys if you ask me,” someone will no doubt say, and you’ll all laugh your cruel laughs and feel superior.

And the things you say about me will make you all so glad that you’re together, all safely the same. So you think, anyway. Ah, c’mon, stop staring at us and get back to the things you do. Shoot those cans, shout till your tonsils rattle, talk about the upcoming festival, kiss your rhyming couplet, and tell them the great things you’re going to do. How you’re going to go to college, and after that you’re going to get a job in the financial center or wherever, and then you’re going to buy a flashy car with electric windows and a big house with a swimming pool, just like Tara’s mansion. A big world where there’ll be no room for embarrassing friends like me
…

But you’re all going to end up in your semi-Ds, pretending to be happy with your little electric lawn mowers and your dishwashers, and your smart timer-lights to trick the burglars. Bored out of your brains. And when it’s all over, we’ll all end up in our wooden boxes, rotting deep in the soil. All so fucking crazy and predictable. So why should you look down on me? Wish I didn’t feel so low.

On our first proper date, Shane and I went to a restaurant for a meal. It felt so funny, finding something that every other couple seems to do without even thinking so nerve-wracking. Anyway, there we were, sitting facing each other at the small table, pretending to be relaxed, when Shane spotted a girl he knew from college. He waved over to her but she just looked right through him, and when he kept trying to attract her attention, she turned her back on him like he wasn’t there. Talk about being put in your place. Of course, we made excuses, like maybe she didn’t see you waving, or maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. But her look said it all. We accept you and all that but just don’t try and raise your heads above a respectable level, please.

After the meal, we sort of drifted back toward Shane’s flat and sat there babbling away like two nervous kids for over an hour, doing our own little bit for cross-border relations, until he finally plucked up the courage to cross the room and place his hands on my shoulders.