Joseph O'Neill - The Breezes

But then I don’t hold myself out as promising fatherly material. Although, at the beginning, we toyed like every new couple with the notion of a baby and tried out names for fantastical offspring, I’ve since made my position clear: I’m not bringing another soul into this world, not if I can help it. As far as I’m concerned, the Breezes have reached the end of the line. I said so in terms only three months ago: this is where the Breezes get off.

‘But why?’ Angela said. ‘Why, my darling?’

We were seated at that table there and had just finished eating. I pushed at my empty plate and picked up my glass of red wine. ‘It’s not justifiable,’ I said. ‘When you look at what’s going on, when you consider how, how, you know, how …’ My voice broke. I speechlessly waved my hand and drank a mouthful of wine. ‘I don’t know, Angie, bringing some poor defenceless kid into the world just so that we could have something to do with our lives …’ I looked into the blues of her eyes. ‘I just don’t think I’m cut out for it,’ I said. ‘So many things can go wrong. I mean, look at Pa. Look at what he goes through. I just couldn’t take it.’

‘Johnny, he’s happy. You could do a lot worse than have what your father has.’

‘That’s what worries me.’

She filled my glass. ‘But without a family, what have you got?’ There was affectionate tolerance in her face as she humoured me.

I said, ‘You’ve got a clear conscience, because you haven’t inflicted life on anybody.’

She saw I was serious and came over and sat on my lap, her left arm hooked around my neck, her lips brushing lightly against my brow. ‘Really, Johnny? Is that how you really feel?’

I nodded. I was holding her tightly by the waist, my hand against her skin beneath her blouse. Her skin is always so warm.

‘But things aren’t really that bad, are they? Hmm?’ She kissed the corner of my mouth. ‘Don’t look so glum. Come on, cheer up, you’re making me feel sad.’ I stayed seated, holding her, drawing strength from her heat.

She said, ‘Johnny, it’s not good. It’s not good.’

Like a deer emerging from forest into a space of light, a truth enters a mental clearing: there is no way that Angela will ever become a Breeze.

I crush out my cigarette and go to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water. Then I remain standing there like a man recovering from a run, both hands pushing against the edge of the work surface, head down, shoulders hunched.

I go to the lavatory. I wash my hands. I find myself back in the empty living-room.

When I telephoned her at work on Friday, I didn’t press her for a timetable of her movements this weekend. I wasn’t going to ask her to account for her activities — why should I? Angela would go her way and I would go mine, and we would meet up at her flat at nine o’clock.

So why isn’t she here?

She could, I suppose, be working. This past fortnight has seen her going flat-out on one of her projects — don’t ask me which one — and in fact I haven’t laid eyes on her for a week. Every time I have rung her at the office to fix something up, an obstacle has arisen.

‘I don’t think so, darling, not tonight. I’m working late.’

‘OK,’ I say. ‘How about tomorrow night?’

‘Darling, I’m working tomorrow night, too. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. And I just wouldn’t be any fun, I’d just come home and flop out.’

I swallow my disappointment. I cannot bring myself to say anything. These are not easy times and I need her. I need every hand on deck.

Angela detects my upset. ‘How’s work going?’ she says.

‘OK,’ I say shortly. ‘Same as ever.’ There is a silence as I compose myself. Then I say, ‘Well, then, how about …’

She interrupts me. ‘I’ve got to go now,’ she says in the flat voice she uses when someone comes into her office. ‘Speak to you later, OK?’

That is how it has been all week.

She could be seeing someone else. At this very moment she could be seeing another man.

No. There is no way that she would ever two-time me. Not Angela. If there’s one person in the world I can bank on not to let me down, it’s her. I know her: she’s not the type to cheat. She’s open and straightforward. Any time that there has been a problem, she has come straight out with it.

But maybe she has changed. Maybe she has hardened, like her body. This year, thanks to her work-outs at the fitness club, Angela’s physique, like land visited by a glacier, has been smoothened, transformed from soft bumpy terrain into an unfamiliar plain of muscle. Normally, of course, this would be cause for erotic celebration and renewal; but there’s something aloof about that revamped body — the taut, independent stomach, the unmalleable buttocks, the tense, untrembling thighs — which makes me nervous. That body is under new management, and I’m not the reason why.

It doesn’t bear thinking about.

But then, right now, what does? This afternoon — does that bear thinking about?

Too shaken up by the incident with the midget to drive the car, Pa let me chauffeur him home. ‘Just take it easy on the gear changes,’ he said as I removed the keys from the pocket of his anorak. He eased himself into his seat with difficulty and tiredly strapped his belt across his chest. ‘Go slowly,’ he said, then fell back and closed his eyes. By the time I had accelerated into the main road and found a niche in the traffic, he was fast asleep. He sat in a sideways slump, his head knocking slightly against the shivering window, his breath expelled in a slow, regular gasp. I felt a warm gladness that he was slumbering there, in the comfort of his car, that he had found a secure respite from the day’s brutalities. He looked so vincible, with his cornered shrunken body and his powerless hands. When we get home I’ll run him a hot bath and make him some soup, I decided. Yes, and maybe I’ll fix him one of those salami and gherkin sandwiches that he likes. Then, with beers at hand and the Sunday newspapers scattered about and Trusty nuzzling at our feet, we’ll settle back and watch the United game on TV. That should see him right, I thought.

About five minutes later, Pa woke up.

‘Can you hear that, Johnny?’

I said, ‘Pa, take it from me, there’s nothing wrong with the car, all right? Now go back to sleep.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘not the car. Listen to that.’

Then I heard it, too: the sound of the crowd at Redrock Park, its cries and handclaps amplified by the acoustical stadium and carried by the wind over rooftops to Pa and me, sitting in a car almost a mile away. I lowered the window a touch. We love United , they were singing, We love United, we do, oh, United, we love you. And then, euphorically, Here we go, here we go, here we go …

‘Just listen to that,’ Pa said. ‘What an atmosphere. And there’s still half an hour to go before the kick-off. Look at those crowds,’ he said, pointing to groups of fans walking quickly across the road. Studying his watch, he said, ‘We’ll be home in five or ten minutes. For a quick wash and a bite before it starts.’ For a moment we continued to look at his timepiece with the built-in referee’s stopwatch, figuring out his schedule, and then with a vigorous rubbing of hands he exclaimed, ‘Johnny, I can feel it in my bones, we’re going to win today, we’re going to win!’ He looked at me with a grin, and when I caught his eye we both burst out laughing. ‘That’s right!’ Pa said, joyously assuming a hillbilly American accent, ‘we’re going to whup their asses, boy!’

I drove on through the familiar bends of the road home, amazed at how swiftly my father had recovered from the morning’s degradations. Just twenty minutes ago he had been spat in the face and insulted, and less than an hour before that he had been sexually assaulted by a terrier and publicly reviled. Yet here he was again, restored to enthusiasm. Was there no limit to his resilience?