Cold Eye of Heaven, The (12 page)

‘Eh, excuse me. That oulfella,' Farley begins, ‘that oulfella just so happens to be me.'

‘O. Well, in anyway there wasn't.'

‘Wasn't what?' Noreen asks.

‘Free drink. I had to buy me own.'

‘Yea, and you can mind your own and all,' Noreen says, pulling Farley over to a seat by the wall.

Faces above him zoom in and out. Sometimes they come down to his level which is better because it hurts his eyes having to look up, it makes it difficult for him to see straight. A jumble of voices:

‘Here, Farley, I thought you didn't drink?'

‘Well, like I take the odd pint.'

‘Jaysus, you're well locked you are now. Here, look at Farley, he's langered he is.'

‘Special. You know, special.'

‘Occasion?'

‘Circumstances. When I was younger I drank, of course I did. I drank a lot, too fuckin much in fact.'

‘And what? Then you gave it up?'

‘After me wife.'

‘I never knew you had a wife – did you know he had a wife?'

‘Ah years ago. Years. Where's Noreen?'

‘At the bar. She's not your wife – is she?'

‘No. No, amn't I tryin to tell you?'

‘And what happened – she left you because of the drink?'

‘Ah no.
No
. Do you know what it is? Me eyes are killing me. They're just.'

‘Here, Jason, Farley is just tellin us about his wife.'

‘You have a wife, Farley? Jaysus, you kept that quiet.'

‘She died but. You fucken eejit.
Died
.'

‘O fuck, sorry. Jaysus sorry, Farley.'

‘No. No. No. Why would you lot be sorry? You were hardly even born. I didn't stop the drink because she, you know,
died
or anything. It took me about a year after and then I didn't touch it
atall
for ages. And now I just sort of
mind
meself like.'

‘Mind yourself? O, you're minding yourself now – are you?' He hears Noreen's voice.

‘You're back!' he says. ‘Noreen's back,' he says to the chap sitting beside him.

‘I see that, yea,' the chap says.

Noreen sits in beside him and pats his arm.

‘Do you know what I want to tell you, Noreen. And you lads too, you lot should know this. Do you know what it is, this? This woman here. This Noreen woman here. Well, she's probably my best friend.
Ever
I mean. Now. I bet none of you knew that. Ah laugh, go on laugh. But it's true now. Yes, it's the truth. The truth, the truth. We never, you know. I mean I didn't, you know, nothing like that, and that's probably a pity, but then it's probably not.'

The weight of his eyelids. He clenches every muscle in his face then gives it an overall shudder. But the eyelids keep pulling it down. He hears Paulie's voice. ‘Jaysus, he's falling asleep.'

‘Ah let him,' Noreen says, ‘just what he needs. Christ but, the weight of his head!'

*

Shuffling, shushing, hishing sounds. He's on a shingly beach. He's in his own little tongue-twister, selling seashells on the shore. Bag after bag, people can't seem to get enough of them, a queue all the way down the strand into the sea; the ones at the front pushing and shoving against his seashelly stall. Weary from all the serving, from all the shuffling of sea -shells into bags, he rests his head on a sea wall beside him. SHHHHH shhhhh SHH – will you? Order! Order!

The wall collapses; his head takes a tumble, something sharp digs into his ribs. ‘Wha? Wha? Where?'

‘Shut up will you – Slowey's making a speech.'

Farley looks around the table. Faces of clerks all turned in the same direction like ugly flowers to the sun. The profiles and side views of people standing in the centre of the floor. Across the way Louis slumped in a chair with his head thrown back. Everyone looking at the back of the room, everyone still. Only the barman moves in his own sphere; busy hands searching, finding, sorting.

Slowey's voice presses down on the laughter: ‘And that's when I knew – that's when I said to meself, Farley now is the man for us. Even the Shannon couldn't keep the fucker down!'

They open their mouths to let out the laughter. Hands clapping, a head turning here and there to glance at Farley. Noreen is giving him a glass of water; to clear his throat – obviously expects him to say a few words.

‘Seriously though…' Slowey restarts and they all fall quiet again, ‘on behalf of myself and Kathleen – who unfortunately couldn't be with us tonight but sends her very best – on behalf of the family and the company, which of course is really another branch of the family, I'd like to wish Farley all the best for the future and to thank him for his loyalty and friendship over the years. To Farley!'

‘To Farley! To Farley, Farley. Good man Farley, sound man Farley, Farley, Farl. Faraway Farley.'

A parting in the crowd and he can see Miriam's hairstyle pushing
through. Her father's voice follows her. ‘This is a little something; a little token if you like from all the cast and crew to see you on the way.'

Miriam behind a large gift-wrapped box smiling away at him.

Farley clumsily gets to his feet. Silence.

She's smiling at him nervously. ‘Uncle Farley,' she says, her eyes bright with drink or unshed tears. ‘I hope you like it – it was Ma's idea. A sound system. Ma said now that you'll have more time to listen to your music, you might as well listen on something decent.'

‘O,' he says, ‘O, now.'

Speech! Speech!

He looks around the table at Paulie, Jason, skimpy Brenner. He looks back at Noreen, smiling encouragement. He looks down the room at Slowey standing in his golf jumper, and he sees the smooth naked crown of Tony's head by his elbow. Then he looks at Miriam, the parcel full of ribbons and bows that she probably put there herself.

‘Speech! Speech! Speech!' An uproar of tinkling glasses and banging feet.

Farley nods and coughs down into his throat. Silence again.

‘You can…' he begins, ‘you can all…' He rubs his nose and looks down at his feet. Then he takes a breath. ‘You can all. You can all probably tell I'm too drunk to make a speech. But thank you for coming; for the present, for the great night, and for getting me so locked I probably won't remember a bit of it. Thanks, Miriam, thank you, sweetheart.'

He gives her a kiss and she's telling him now that she's going to leave the present behind the bar for him.

‘Jesus,' Noreen says when he sits back down. ‘For a minute there I thought you were goin to say somethin else.'

Farley looks at her. Behind him someone is singing ‘I left my heart in San Francisco'. ‘I'll be back in a minute,' he says.

He crosses O'Connell Bridge, feels himself give a semi-stagger but manages to pull himself up just in time. When he gets to the other side he rests at the wall and looks back over the river. The leaves are barely up so
he can see through the trees; the Bachelor's Inn, the light from its upstairs windows, the dark pattern of movement against it. He cannot imagine that, up to moments ago, he was part of that gathering, that someone else, someone he will never know, could well have been standing right here on Aston Quay just as he is now, looking across the river and watching through the window, wondering what was going on, and what sort of people were up there, and who was it all for anyway?

He turns and continues along the quays past darkened shops and rows of parked cars and cars rolling towards him out on the road. The further along he gets the fewer cars and the only people he passes now are stragglers at different levels of drunkenness, and a couple in a doorway sucking the faces off each other.

At the Four Courts bridge a man leaning over the balustrade attracts his attention; a fat little bloke dressed head to heel in red and white, scarf, monkey hat, jersey. The man looks up as Farley is about to pass by. ‘Excuse me, mate?' he calls after him, ‘would you have a cigarette please?'

‘Sorry, don't smoke,' Farley says.

‘Are you sure?' he asks in a pleasant sing-song accent, not Irish. ‘Only I'd really love one – you know.'

‘Sorry.' Farley looks at him. ‘Are you not freezing with no coat on you?'

‘Are you not?' the man answers.

Farley looks down and realizes he's forgotten his coat.

‘I suppose I am,' he says. ‘You don't mind me askin where are you from?'

‘Cardiff.'

‘Cardiff? What are you doin here anyway?'

‘O, you know, over for the match like.'

‘But the match was last week'

‘Still trying to find my way home.'

They stand and look at each other for a few seconds.

‘Well, night so,' the little bloke says and waddles away.

‘Yea. Goodnight.'

*

Farley looks down over the bridge into the water. The river bristling away from the sea. He slips his hand into his inside pocket and is grateful for the small miracle he finds there: his glasses. He pulls out an envelope. He opens it and removes the folded photograph. Then he puts on his glasses and holds the picture under the light. The Sloweys on Michael's communion day. He returns the picture to the envelope, rests his hands over the parapet of the bridge for a moment and then begins to tear the envelope into shreds. Farley watches the confetti of paper bobbing on top of the dark oily water before bucking out of sight under the bridge, under his feet. He turns and staggers westwards along the quays towards home, bumping his arm at intervals as he passes beside the endless wall of Guinness's. It's darker up here, darker and colder than it is in town; the street lights are feeble. Across the road he can barely make out the outlines of parked-up trucks. A leftover brasser steps out of the shadow, throws him a look then dismisses him with another and turns away. He keeps going until two small moons of yellow light pop out of the darkness, a sign on the top blazing yellow. Farley steps out onto the road and raises his hand. ‘Taxi!' he cries.

HE SETTLES HER INTO
her little nest – duvet, pillows, shawl for her shoulders. She knit it herself, only a few months ago, when it was still safe enough to leave her with needles. The remote control is at her right hand; the phone, if she bothers to answer, a short stretch to her left. He tries to foresee the day through her eyes; all the small things she may need or later regret not having asked for – tissues, pencil case, copybook, a magazine showing more pictures than words.

‘Tell me again,' she says.

‘Tell you what again, Ma?'

‘Tell me who? Who's coming?'

‘Jackie. Jackie will be here around one.'

‘I call him John.'

‘Alright, John. John will be here around one o'clock.'

‘Not the curly one?'

‘Who's the curly one?' he asks, placing the small basket of treats on the table.

She smiles when she sees them. ‘Club Milk, Jelly Tots, banana,' she says. Even if she never eats them, their presence at least seems to bring her some pleasure.

She comes back to the curly one. ‘You know, her with the…' she lifts a crooked index finger and begins dotting it around her cheeks, ‘the beans all over her face.'

The girl with the acne. ‘Jeanna? No, she's taken the day off.'

‘Good, because she makes me dinner
too
early and I don't like when it's
too
early.'

She lifts a lock of hair from her temple, smugly tacking it behind her ear and he can see in that girlish gesture that she's pleased with the sound of her sentence, the correct alignment of words, the musical use of the
too
.

‘You see I don't be hungry.'

‘I know.'

‘Only babies eat their dinner at that time.'

‘Right,' he says, going out to the scullery.

‘The other one – the fatty?'

‘Carol.'

‘Yea, her. She makes it at the right time, but then she eats the half of it herself.'

‘Carol won't be coming any more,' he shouts back to her.

‘Why?'

‘Well, it seems she doesn't like being called names.'

‘Who calls her names?'

He comes back in with two tumblers; one of orange juice, the other water and he can see she's confused by the idea of Carol and the name-calling. She gives him a sheepish look.

‘The orange juice is in the orange tumbler,' he says, lifting it first to show her, ‘the white one is the water. Orange for orange. White for white.'

‘O, that's very clever,' she says, ‘who thought of that? The other one?'

‘Do you mean John?'

‘Who's John?'

‘Jackie. No, he didn't think of it. I did.'

‘Hah!' she says. ‘As if!'

He checks the tightness of the lids, sees that the little beaks are facing the right way, then lays them on the table. Now at the window-cill he picks
up his mug of tea and, standing with his back to the window, regards the infrastructure of her diminished world – the sofa where she lies; the foot-stool beside it; the bridge of the coffee table; the two little avenues of access at either end of it, for lifting her in and out of her nest. The sweet shop of medication on the shelf in the alcove. And the telly of course; all roads lead to the telly.

‘Well, I better be going.'

‘Why?'

‘Because somebody has to work, seeing as the rest of the country seems to have the day off.'

‘Why?'

‘The match. Ireland play Romania today – remember I told you? The World Cup?'

‘Ah no. Not that why.'

He waits while she throws out her driftnet and pulls in her catch of words. It's the questions, he notices, or the lead into them anyway; the whys, whats and whos, that cause the most trouble.

‘Who? Who else?
Who
else will be here?'