When Love Comes to Town (18 page)

An empty beer can narrowly missed his head as he cycled past Sachs Hotel in Donnybrook. His bike wobbled precariously when he looked around and saw three drunk blokes laughing at him.

“Wankers!” he shouted when he was safely out of reach. The drunks roared abuse after him. Cycling through the night like this reminded him of his Saturday nights of old. Rather than go to Hollies he used to head off aimlessly on his bike, just so his parents wouldn’t think he had nowhere to go. It was a strange time of night. The streets would be deserted. Everyone seemed to be packed into the pubs. He would hear the clamor as he cycled past. Sometimes he went to the cinema, but on one occasion he plucked up the courage to go into a pub in Milltown. And while he sat there sipping his pint, he kept looking at the door and then at his watch, to give the impression that he was waiting for someone. He vividly remembered one couple who was sitting across the lounge from him. Both were in their forties, and they had probably paid a baby-sitter so that they could get out for a drink together. During an hour or so of watching them, he didn’t see them exchange one word, friendly or otherwise. It was sad, he thought, but at least they had each other to be bored with. Then, three local couples around his own age squeezed in beside him. He soon became conscious that he was the main focus of their whispered conversation, so he gulped back the remainder of his pint and left. It was times like that that finally drove him onto the gay scene. But they were a thing of the past now.

He reached Hollywood Nights, stopped his bike on the opposite side of the road, pulled the peak of his baseball cap down to cover his face, and watched the swarms piling into the nightclub. He recognized a number of them. But still he felt no temptation to join them. He took Becky’s letter from his pocket and read it again. Her impending weekend home cheered him up. Then his heart froze. He had forgotten to tell Shane about his free house. A burst of adrenaline pumped through his weary limbs as he turned his bike around and began to pedal furiously. He had to get to Leeson Street before they switched nightclubs.

The drunks were nowhere to be seen when he sped through Donnybrook. On he pedaled, past all the familiar buildings, over the little bridge, and right into the teeming nightlife. Hoards of wild revelers packed the street now. People were shouting and screaming, car horns hooted, drunks staggered on the pavements, police cars cruised down the street, and taxis double-parked. Neil stopped to lock his bike to a set of railings. A decrepit old woman was begging on the pavement. All the nightclubbers ignored her as they passed. But Neil could see flickers of embarrassment cross some of their faces. Maybe, like him, they saw their mothers in the poor woman. He must be a poet, he thought; that was the sort of thing poets thought about. Another problem soon presented itself though. The thick-necked bouncers insisted that he was too young for their nightclub. It took him a couple of minutes to convince them that he wasn’t going to stay in the club, that he only wanted to get an urgent message to his brother. Such was his insistence that some of the other nightclubbers began to plead his case for him and the bouncers eventually relented.

He strolled into the dimly lit cauldron of pumping dance music, ignoring the waitress’s attempts to get him to buy wine, inspecting faces. A sharp dagger of pain stabbed right through him when he saw them kissing. They seemed to be glued to each other, Shane and Geraldine, lost to the world in a snug overlooking the dance floor. A bottle of wine sat in an ice bucket on the table in front of them. Minutes passed. Neil wanted the ground to open up and swallow him. His life was in tatters. But then his heart surged. The kissers surfaced for air and Shane spotted him. He was coming over.

“What’s up?” Shane had to shout over the music.

Neil struggled to prevent his voice from wavering.

“Forgot to tell you,” he said, forcing his lips into a smile. “I’ve got a free house tomorrow.”

“A what?” Shane stumbled, moving his ear closer to Neil’s mouth.

“A free house…My parents are going to a wedding in Limerick. They won’t be back till late.”

“Ach, great, I’ll come by,” Shane beamed, clapping Neil on the back.

“Any time in the afternoon.” Neil was struggling to contain himself. He wanted to fling his arms around his Adonis. Instead he returned Geraldine’s friendly wave. Their conversation was cut short by the arrival of some other drunk college friends of Shane. Neil sidled away unnoticed.

His heart was singing as he skipped up the steep steps out of the dungeon nightclub. The bouncers gave him a vacant stare when he tapped them on the shoulder and announced his departure. The old lady grabbed hold of his hand when he gave her his last fiver.

“God bless you, love,” she whispered in a husky voice.

“That’s okay,” he said with a grin, moving away from her before she had time to kiss him. A fiver! Even for a poet, he was mad! But what the hell. His bike seemed to find its own effortless way home. What did it matter that Shane was kissing Geraldine, he thought. Sure, hadn’t he bonked the brains out of Yvonne Lawlor last March? It was silly worrying about it. Things like that didn’t really matter.

Bright sunlight streamed through his bedroom window the following morning. Birds were singing, the foghorn sounded way out at sea, a dog was barking somewhere, and church bells rang in the distance. It seemed as though all the lazy Sunday morning sounds were celebrating the arrival of the special day. He was curled up blissfully in bed, resisting all temptations to caress his morning glory, when his mum came into the room.

“What time were you in at last night?” she asked, feigning annoyance.

“Early enough.” His voice was husky from all the previous night’s cigarettes.

“You want your head examined, going out on your bike at that hour,” she added, prodding him gently.

“I only went down to Andrea’s house,” he lied.

“Well, you know what the doctor said.”

Neil groaned. “Are you going now?”

“No, I don’t think I’ll go, love,” his mum said, sitting down on the side of his bed and tenderly pushing his hair back off his forehead.

“Why not?” Neil asked.

“Ah, it wouldn’t be fair to leave you, so your father’s going to go down on his own.”

Neil had to struggle to control his mounting panic. “Don’t be silly, I’ll be all right,” he assured her. All his plans were in jeopardy.

“Ah, no, I couldn’t leave you here on your own,” she sighed.

Neil thought quickly. “Gary and Trish and a few of the others are coming over later,” he said, avoiding his mum’s concerned gaze.

“Oh, are they?” his mum’s frown eased.

“Yeah, we’re going to watch videos. So you needn’t worry, I won’t be on my own.”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right, love?”

“Mum,” he drawled, cocking his head sideways and looking at her as though she were a simpleton.

“Well, I’m going to prepare some food for you,” she said, standing up, “and I want you to eat it.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he promised, making the shape of a cross on his bare chest.

“And don’t forget to go to Mass,” she added as a parting shot.

Neil raised both his arms toward the ceiling, threw his head back, and closed his eyes in silent celebration.

Neil stood at the doorway, waving to his mum and dad as they reversed out of the driveway. Clenching his fists in jubilation, he watched the car drive off out of sight. It was time for action stations. He got the vacuum cleaner out and gave his bedroom a quick run-over, tidied away all his scattered clothes, hid the teddy bear at the back of his sock drawer, and put clean sheets on his bed. Then he vacuumed the living room and the hallway, removed all the photos of himself as a child from the mantelpiece, took his dad’s classical records out of the cabinet and left them stacked neatly on the floor beside the record player. He couldn’t wait to witness Shane’s reaction when he saw them. He smiled as he placed a bottle of his dad’s homemade wine strategically on the table. Uncle Sugar had taught him something after all. Get them drunk and have your wicked way.

After lunch, Gary and Trish called and he told them that he had to go into the hospital for a check-up.

“On a Sunday?” Gary was surprised.

“Hospitals don’t close on Sundays,” Neil replied with a laugh.

“There’s a free concert in Blackrock Park,” Trish said.

“I’ll try and get down there later,” Neil said, feeling a little guilty at the way he was treating his friends.

“Mick Toner’s band is playing,” Gary said.

“Oh God,” Neil laughed. “All-ticket, I presume.”

“There’s a rumor that Sinead O’Connor might be making a surprise appearance,” Gary said.

“Fuck off,” Neil grinned in disbelief.

“And the Hothouse Flowers,” Trish added.

“Are you serious?” Neil’s eyes lit up. He knew Trish never spoofed.

“That’s the word on the street,” Gary added.

“I’ll definitely make an appearance then,” Neil assured them, deciding that he’d drag Shane down to the park with him. Why not join all the rest of the happy couples?

“We’ll be in the usual place,” Trish said before she and Gary said good-bye.

At four o’clock there was still no sign of Shane. Neil phoned telephone inquiries to check that there was nothing wrong with his phone. His hands were shaking when he eventually phoned Shane’s house. The girl living downstairs answered. She plodded slowly up the stairs and rapped on his door a number of times. Then Neil heard the footsteps clomping down the stairs again.

“He’s gone out,” she announced in a weary voice and hung up before Neil even had time to thank her. But it didn’t matter, his Adonis was obviously in transit on his hunky mountain bike. He switched off the black-and-white afternoon matinee and stood by the living room window. A couple of the local kids were playing soccer in the road. Neil wanted to join them but couldn’t leave the telephone unattended. Five o’clock came and went. After he changed his T-shirt for the third time, Neil phoned Shane’s house again. The phone rang and rang. Then, the dreamy Belfast accent answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Ach, how’s the man?” Shane sounded badly hungover.

“Why aren’t you out here?” Neil tried his best to sound jocular.

“What?” Shane was puzzled.

“My free house.”

There was a pause before Shane answered. “Ach, Jesus, I completely forgot!” he exclaimed, and Neil felt like screaming.

“Well, it’s not too late, they won’t be back for another five or six hours.”

Neil felt crushed when Shane explained that he had already made arrangements for the evening, but he felt worse still when Shane said that he was going up to Belfast in the morning and wouldn’t be back down to Dublin until Friday.

Neil wheeled his bicycle through the outskirts of the large crowd that sprawled on the hillside around the lake in Blackrock Park. It was a natural amphitheater. A young four-piece rock band was playing on the small man-made concrete island in the middle of the lake. Everyone seemed to be shirtless as they basked in the last of the day’s hazy sunshine. Then, the entire crowd did the wave to a passing city-bound DART, practically drowning out the band. A couple of drunk young guys lowered their shorts and bared their backsides to the amused train passengers. Across the bay, the hill of Howth shimmered in the heat haze. Yachts bobbed up and down on the frothy sea.

As the crowd settled down again, he spotted Gary,Trish,Tom,Andrea, and a couple of others, languishing in the usual spot, way over on the other side of the park. Like Neil, they were all wearing shades and baseball caps. Then Trish poured some beer onto Gary’s bare chest and the pair of them started to wrestle playfully on the grass. Watching them, Neil realized he had no desire to join them. It’d be just like the spare prick days all over again. A girl laughed and shook her head drunkenly when he asked her if Sinead O’Connor or the Hothouse Flowers had made an appearance. Neil fidgeted with the bangle on his wrist while he glanced over at the crowd gathered outside the public rest rooms. He wondered if Bushy Mustache was on duty. Certainly having a bumper day if he was, he thought, as he wheeled his bicycle back toward the road.

When he got home, Neil opened the bottle of homemade wine, wincing when the bitter-tasting liquid touched his palate. Rocket fuel, Gary had once called it. Now he wished he had gone over and joined Gary and the others. In keeping with his mood, he put on Kate’s Leonard Cohen tape. He wanted to feel depressed. All the gentle lyrics of love and despair seemed to have been written especially for him. Gazing out into the back garden, he drank slowly and methodically, aware of the tingling sensation that was weaving its way through him. Speaking aloud, he reenacted his telephone conversation over and over again, and the more he had to drink, the more favorable Shane’s responses became. By the time he had finished the bottle, his Adonis was sitting alongside him. He began to worry about his sanity. “Oh Jesus,” he muttered, “I’m out of my face.”

He went upstairs to get his address book. There was only one person in the world that he could speak to now.

“Bonjour,” Becky answered in her dreadful French accent, and Neil burst out laughing.

“Neil!” Becky exclaimed.

“Bonjour, madame,” he spluttered.

“You’re locked!” she screamed into the phone. But he could hear the delight in her voice.

“I’ve been stood up,” he slurred.

“What?”

“He never showed up.”

“Northern Joe?”

“Yep.”

“Is that why you rang me?” she gasped incredulously.

“Well, yeah…And I just wanted to tell you that I was thinking about you.”

Becky’s voice softened. “Ah, Neil, you’re so sweet.”

Neil swallowed the lump in his throat. “Can’t wait to see you,” he muttered, blinking back the tears of self-pity. Why was his life in such a mess?

“Can’t wait to see you,” she whispered tenderly, and the tears started to flow freely. But while he told her about his afternoon of waiting in vain, he realized that maybe things weren’t as bad as he thought. Becky assured him that he had a long way to go before he matched her for time spent waiting by phones. She even jokingly suggested that he join her in France, that that would put the skids under Northern Joe. After that, the conversation became livelier. Becky told him that she had been to London to see her brother Jimmy, and that Jimmy had invited Neil over to stay with him and Jamie.