Nick Laird - Modern Gods

He parked outside the house and went down to the yard, fed the dogs, then went in and had his own tea of a gammon and a half, a couple of eggs, some boiled potatoes. His sister Majella was in fine form; she’d sold three engagement rings in two hours and Francie Lennon had told her she was in line for a proper bonus. She kept winding him up about Veronica, who she said he should really think about asking out. What was wrong with him? She was a pretty girl, and it wasn’t like he had them queuing up outside his fucken bedroom door. A little later, in the shower, he made his list. The bad: this weird raised redness round the mole on his thigh, and the length of the fence he had to bitumen tomorrow down by McAleer’s. The good: Portrush with the boys next Saturday night, and Damon’s uncle having that caravan they were going to crash in on the site behind Kelly’s nightclub. The crack would be mighty altogether. Altogether mighty. It would be something else again. And it also meant skipping Mass on Sunday. Oh, he could handle that!

He got to the bar before Hugh turned up. It was unreal why Hugh insisted on him arriving at 6:30 p.m., when he himself never bothered showing up till a quarter to seven. If he wanted him to open up he would, he would be happy to, but he was fed up to the back teeth with sitting out in the car, watching an empty Tayto’s crisp bag scraping across the tarmac, waiting on Hugh to show his fucken face.

Two of the barrels needed changing, which meant Seamus D hadn’t bothered closing up properly. Plus, the drip trays in the lounge bar hadn’t been washed out. It was best just to get on with it. Stickiness. Stickiness here by the Tennant’s mats. Stickiness here on the top of the mixers fridge. Lazy fuckers. He rolled a barrel of Tennant’s in from the store, then a barrel of Murphy’s. The band was to arrive at 7:30 p.m., and Hugh was mucking around with the lights for the stage. He flicked on the tap for the Tennant’s and heard the air whistling out, and then a low gurgle, and caught the splutter of foam with a pint glass.

The Cotton Mountain Boys—Derek and Padraig and Alfie—had a combined age of two hundred and something, and they offset their different plaid lumberjack shirts with the same black leather waistcoats and bootlace ties. It was slow starting off, but around 8:00 p.m. or so a whole pile of customers arrived at once, and by 8:15 p.m. the place was packed. The Boys were doing “The Gambler” and the chorus had been gradually taken up by the customers, so when they got to “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em” for the third time, the whole place joined in and you could feel it go through your body, the sound of it. Then they started on the one about the man who’s constantly sorry or something and Derek’s voice cut through the pub like a hot knife. The man could still hold a note, no doubt. Paddy was reaching up for a few empties on top of the quiz machine when it started, the shouting, and that sound like firecrackers. He felt a sharp pain in his shoulder and looked down to see the sleeve of his blue shirt gone dark with wet.

It must be him. Short and severe with his hand held out. Unimpressive, Liz thought. Blotchy stonewashed jeans and a black fleece. She shook the hand and immediately afterwards swung the bag round on her shoulder and unzipped it, but a small dog did not poke its head out. She put her fingers in and stroked the skull until Atlantic gave a thin disgruntled moan and her squirrelly head arose, eyes half shut. Stephen, startled, laughed and cupped Atty’s head in his hands. Tattoos on his wrists. A gold signet ring.

“Hello, och, who have we here?”

Liz set the bag down and the dog hopped neatly out. Stretched her front legs, her back. When Stephen tried to pet her from above, she pushed her soft nose up into his fingers, pulled back, and looked at him a little formally, then gave the fingers a confirming swipe with her pink clean tongue.

“They let you take him on the plane?”

“Sort of.”

As the dog began olfactory investigations of the column they stood beside, Stephen gave a little grimace of pain.

“He’s not about to piss on that, is he?”

“It’s a she. We should head outside.”

Liz looked at his profile as they tramped down the corridor to the exit. The small sharp nose that reached from his small round face seemed permanently primed for smelling something foul in the atmosphere. There was a slight anxious squint to his whole aspect and an awful softness in the large brown eyes. Some neediness or base want. Alison always had a weakness for weakness. But Liz had nothing against him. That was the phrase she held up in her mind for Stephen. I have nothing against you. You seem fine. Your fingernails are short and clean. You wear an analog watch with a white face and a black leather strap. You seem like hundreds of men I might walk past: shrunken, tired, aligned to some faction that has suffered defeat.

For his part Stephen noticed the sandals, the black nail varnish on the toes. It was none of his business. And he had nothing against her, no, nothing against her. Bit trendy, no doubt. And a bit smart in herself, definitely. And from all those stories Alison had told him, a bit of a loose cannon. But she was his fiancée’s sister, and would be treated well by him. He hadn’t expected the dog. And that rucksack had seen better days—as had she.

The light of Ulster traveled not by particle or wave but by indirection, hint, and rumor. A kind of light of no-light, emanating from a sun so swathed in clouds it was impossible to tell where it lurked in the sky.

As they drove, Liz stared dully out the window. This hour was the strangest. The car functioned like a decompression chamber, adjusting the body to the new density surrounding it, to the element of Ireland. The rain that came in off three thousand miles of ocean left the land so verdant, so lush, that the light reflecting back into the sky took on aspects of the greenness, a deep virescent tinge. It was not raining, but it had been, and the land they drove through was waterlogged. One low field outside Antrim had a pair of swans riding across it as if on rails, cutting metallic wakes. This filter of light made the scenery seem a kind of memory, already heavy with nostalgia. She thought of the peeled, bare light of New York, its blues and yellows, its arctic sharpness and human geometries. Here the day was softened, dampened, deepened. The light was timeless—in the sense that midmorning might be midafternoon. Ten a.m. in May could be five p.m. in late November.

“Great you were able to come back for the wedding.”

“Aren’t I the good sister?”

“Ah now you’re both good.”

Liz hadn’t meant it as a comparison but now that he’d taken it that way, she didn’t much like his response. It gave him too much of a role in their lives. Who did he think he was? Who did he think she was?

“Everyone’s good in their own way,” she replied. Which seemed petty, so she added solemnly, “Alison’s one of the best, really. She’s there with Mum and Dad at all times.”

“Your dad seems a bit better.”

“That’s good … How’re you getting on with all of them?”

“Good. No, good, I think.”

When Kenneth’s first stroke occurred four years ago, Liz had intended to fly back to Dublin to see him but had, in the end, skyped instead. There was not enough time before the heart surgery and she had no money, and was just starting her teaching load for the term, and no one could have expected her to drop everything. She sent him an e-card with a gif of a tree frog in a fez singing “I hope you’re feeling better, better, better” to a jazzy little break beat. He underwent quadruple bypass surgery, and she came home three months later for a long weekend. If he got his words wrong sometimes, if he moved with stiff languorous gestures, as if he were underwater, still he seemed all right, or mostly all right.