Cold Eye of Heaven, The (19 page)

‘Would the cod be fresh?' he asks Filangi.

‘What you fuckin think?'

‘Right, just the chips and the spice burgers so.'

He sits on the window ledge and picks up a newspaper, a few days old. On the counter there's a collection box showing a picture of starving African children. In the paper an article on the hunger strikers which he reads or half reads; anything rather than think about Kathleen, sitting by the fire, waiting on him. The smell of the food begins to fill his head and even though he knows he can't be hungry, he is. Farley tries to imagine what it must be like, starving to death, watching your own flesh melt away, feeling your stomach shrink, your eyesight dulling, the bones shoving to get through your skin. And he wonders if it makes any difference if you do it by choice, or if you have no choice in the matter. Does it hurt any less? Does it hurt any more?

Filangi comes to the counter, dark circles all the way down to the
middle of his cheekbones. ‘Salanvinegar?' and seeing as how he has the plastic bottle already poised, Farley agrees.

A big fat brown bag sits on the counter, he pays, sticking the change down into the slit on top of the Africans' collection box and noting the hollow sound of the coins as they drop.

She laughs when she sees the size of the bag. ‘Jesus, Farley, there's only the two of us.'

The two of us – O Christ. She has the fire built up, the coffee table all set out; two places side by side so they both have to sit on the sofa. Knives, forks, plates, bread buttered and cut into half-slices on the plate, like the way Martina used to do it. Salt and vinegar in glass bottles. In the dim light the fire-flames are long and vivid and he feels a sudden loneliness for all he's been missing; soft light, a good fire, the arrangement of bread slices on a big plate.

She opens the bag and picks out a chip, rolling it around in her mouth until its heat settles down. Then she takes a few more chips out, blows on them, puts her lips around them and mumbles something that he can't make out.

She sits down on the sofa, puts the bag on the coffee table and rips it up the middle. ‘What else have we here – are they? Are they spice burgers?'

‘I remembered you used like them when you were a youngone.'

She looks startled, as if he's said something to hurt her. She swallows and stands up. ‘Farley,' she says, ‘Farley, I—'

He puts up his hand to stop her. ‘It's only a fuckin spice burger, Kathleen.'

‘No, it's not that. It's—'

He doesn't want to hear anything. He doesn't want to know what's on her mind. He takes a step back, begins to turn away. ‘Look, I better, you know – just go.'

‘Ah Farley,' she says and this time he looks at her. Her hand reaches out, a jewel of a tear in one eye. ‘Ah Farley.'

He takes a step back to her. ‘Ahh, fuck it in anyway,' he says and grabs her.

Her lips are like food; warm, soft, vinegary, her face slick with tears. And in the long second of time that passes between clamping his mouth on hers and waiting to see how and if she responds, he is acutely aware of the room shifting and turning around him; the smell of the chips as they tumble to the floor, the shadows of firelight crawling up the wall, the lights from the tree bleeding into each other, her hands clawing at his shirt and pulling him down on top of her, and in the corner Kirk Douglas in a dress, miming.

Back in his own house he sits in the dark; too many photographs along the mantelpiece; too many eyes to catch his. He drags the Superser in from the kitchen, stares into its honeycomb heat for a while, inhales its gassy breath. He turns the telly on, then off again; opens and closes this book, that newspaper. He decides to try a bit of music instead; the Beethoven tape that he got in the library. But it's too much, Jesus, way too much and if he listens to any more of it his heart could explode. He makes tea. Then he eats all around him; sandwiches mostly, nearly a half a sliced pan's worth. He's ravenous but can't tell the difference between cheese and jam. All he can taste is salt and vinegar. In fact, that's what he'd love now: chips. But he can hardly go back down to Filangi's – supposing he started asking questions? Why you here again? Who you buy for now? Who you buy for last time? Since when you start eatin the spice burger – huh? He's like a murderer now, afraid of every move he makes, of getting caught out in lies he hasn't even told yet.

He wonders how she's feeling now; ashamed like he is? Exhilarated? One minute full of regret, the next skidding over the moon? Has she been telling herself, like he's been telling himself, that it's never going to happen again but at the same time knowing that when it does all the bad feeling will instantly melt, just while it lasts, just till the next time? Is she thinking already with the sly scheming mind of the adulteress?

*

He's on his way up to bed when the phone rings. Farley jumps. He thinks about ignoring it, but then supposing it's her? He looks at his watch, just before midnight. Hardly. He goes out to the hall, his hand darting towards and away from the phone as if it's on fire. In the end he just snatches it.

‘Well, you bastard, what do you have to say for yourself?'

His heart bounces. ‘Hello – eh, who's that?' he says.

‘What do you mean who's that? Who the fuck do you think it is? Well, you're some dark horse – wha? You think you know someone – wha? You work alongside them for twenty year and you think—'

‘O,' Farley says.

‘Yea – O, you sly bastard. Did you rob a fuckin bank or what?'

Farley closes his eyes, feels his heart slow down; deeper on the drop, like a yoyo.

‘Ah, you know,' he says, ‘I thought you could do with it.'

‘Me? Ah no, not me. No more me. It's
we
now, you and me, Farley. If you're sure about this – absolutely sure, then we'll go down to the solicitor's the day after tomorrow and… Seriously, Farley, seriously now. I can't begin to tell you what this means to me. We'll get it all down on paper and—'

‘I don't know, Frank. Once you start involving solicitors they'll cream it off in fees and there could be tax issues on top of that. Best keep it between ourselves.'

‘Well, I—'

‘And one more thing.'

‘What's that?'

‘I'd prefer if we kept this quiet. I don't want Jackie and the Ma and that finding out.'

‘Alright so. If that's what you want. You're sure now about the solicitor's?'

‘Yea, I'm sure.'

‘A gentlemen's agreement then?'

‘A gentlemen's agreement.'

‘Alright so, if you feel you can trust me.'

‘Of course I trust you.'

‘And I can, and always could, trust you.'

‘Yea,' Farley says, ‘yea great. That's great, Frank. So we're partners then?'

‘Partners? Are you fuckin joking me now or wha? Listen, I'm divorcing this one beside me in the bed, I don't care how fuckin gorgeous she looks lyin there and I'm marrying you tomorrow. Ye budgie. You fuckin life-saving budgie. You know what? I never backed a winner all day, and I came home feeling like, well, I don't know what and then Kat gives me your letter and. And I'm hanging up now in case I make a fuckin show of meself here. But Farley, I won't forget this day. I'll never forget this day. Wenceslas wha?'

‘What?'

‘Good King Wenceslas. The feast of Stephen.'

‘Goodnight, Frank,' Farley says, the words swelling up in his craw.

He waits for Slowey to hang up the phone, then comes back into the parlour and turns on the television. A late-night news report of a torch-light march through a night-time city that could be Dublin. Hundreds of people singing hymns and walking along with candles in their hands. And he stands watching for a while, the river of small wobbling lights move down a boulevard that could be O'Connell Street, and the occasional close-ups: a ruddy-faced child, a woman in a woolly hat, a priest wearing gloves. He can't make out what the banners say but has a mind that it's something to do with abortion. And he thinks to himself he'd better make an appointment to have his eyes tested because they really have been giving him trouble lately, words disappearing or tricking across the page. And if he can't see the banners properly and he can't work out for certain if the city is Dublin and if all he can see is Slowey lying in the bed beside Kathleen, and all he can do is wonder if she's wearing the same pyjamas, or maybe something else, or maybe nothing at all. Then yea, he probably needs glasses.

IN HIS SLEEP FARLEY
stirs, turns away from the noise, the darkness he senses around it. He's been dreaming about the child again, about carrying her in his arms through a series of connecting rooms. Showing her off. It reminds him of a swanky hotel, this place – say the Shelbourne. A foyer with sofas and chairs by a fireside, a small bar tucked off to one side, next a lounge leading into a conservatory; potted plants and well-dressed women sipping tea. Finally, glass doors to a terrace overlooking a lake. So no – not the Shelbourne.

He knows this dream well, knows the feel and shape of it, although he also knows that later he will only remember it in shadow. As if it's all gone on under black water, figures shifting about, river wrack and slithers of unidentifiable movement. Times when he's woken to a wet pillow and skin stinking of sweat. Times when he's pulled himself up out of bed and looked in the shaving mirror and found waiting for him there a stained face and red-veined eyes – he's known it was on account of that disremembered dream. Because it always leaves him that way, with a drained heart and the face of a drifter.

This time the dream is different. This time he can see it so vividly; every detail, every face, buttered in light. And the child of course. Always
the child. The thing is, he feels so bloody happy. Not just content but over-the-moon sort of happy. Ecstatic, he'd nearly go as far as to say. He doesn't want to lose this feeling, to spend the rest of the day pining for a few watery shadows. He could stay here for ever, but for that noise on the far side of the dream, tugging and pulling at him; trying to reel him in.

Farley resists, keeps himself weighted, digs his heels down. He feels himself roll back into the dream. A moment of pure elation. The child – he just loves this child – is the centre of everything; the dream, this hotel, his body even. He hears himself say as much to the various faces he meets on the way: ‘I can see now what all the fuss is about, this huge love for a child – but you know now, they might grow in their mothers' wombs but they crawl right out of their fathers' hearts.'

People smile, nod indulgently, a hand comes out here and there to touch the child's head as they pass by.

She's his little girl; four maybe five years old, gingham dress, two little bunches of hair over each ear. She lies on his shoulder, sucking her thumb, light and yet solid; a warm pillow in his arms. He comes into a long bar, a marble counter running down one side, the elbows of men in evening suits, scaffolded along it. He hoists her and stands her up on the middle of the counter where she makes a sort of a speech to the men, answering questions, throwing out witty asides. She can talk about anything this youngone – politics, philosophy, religion. This youngone is really something else. And he's so proud of her; so proud that he has to stop himself from blubbering. Laughter and applause surge around her feet, the force of it all lifts her into the air. He opens his arms and she falls down into them, surprising him then with her sudden weight.

He moves to the next room. People sitting at tables grouped around a piano. ‘Here – would you like my little girl to play something for you?' he asks, shifting her up into the crook of his arm. Again, there are silent smiles and slow nods. It's taken him a while to notice this – they only ever speak to the child, not to him. And here's something else he's beginning to notice – each time he leaves one room and passes onto the next one the child seems to be that bit younger. Younger and smaller. But the mad thing
is, the thing he doesn't quite get: she has also, somehow, grown heavier. She plays the piano, the little hands milling up and down the keys, she graciously bows her head to the standing ovation. When he goes to take her from the piano stool she's shorter, chubbier in the knee, more like a two-year-old now although her mind is as clever as it was when she was the size of a five-year-old. She slips off the stool, glides under his legs and she's off at such speed that even at a sprint he has difficulty catching up with her. He scoops her up in his arms but finds himself stumbling because of the weight of her. Heavier again. They come into the conservatory; a dome of hatched light overhead, ahhhs and uuuuhs of admiration from the tea-sipping women, and this time when he looks at the child in his arms, he sees a baby of maybe six months old.

A baby who weighs a ton. A baby still talking and laughing and enthralling the crowd. The hair is gone, showing a tender skull, the pulsing bulge of a fontanelle, a few frail curls at the nape. The dress, miles too long for her now, hangs over her feet. The heft of her makes his arms burn. He asks if she'd like to sit down on a sofa, maybe stand on the table so all the ladies can see her. And she guffaws and says, ‘Don't be so stupid – how can I sit or stand – I'm only a baby!' All around him people are laughing and this is beginning to distress him now, because it's not funny. Not in the least. Out on the terrace two nurses wander about and a man in a grey suit stands looking out at the lake, a stethoscope glinting on the end of a chain around his neck. He decides to take her out there, see if maybe they can throw any light on the matter. Because she can't get any smaller. Fuck – if she gets any smaller! But he can hardly move now, her weight dragging him down, right down until he's moving along on his knees. The knees give, he topples over and suddenly he's lying on his back on the floor, the baby beside him. He looks up and sees a ring of big faces looking down at him.