Hugo Hamilton - Every Single Minute

She bought only the one sheet, one double sheet. Satin. Plain white. No pillows. The assistant asked about measurements but she said it was just for herself and they allowed for an overhang. The assistant wrapped the sheet in a parcel, with a ribbon. The assistant thanked us like a man and smiled like a woman and coughed like a man with her hand over her mouth.

We had time to spare. She wanted to look at some other things. Things we didn’t need, like kitchen utensils, pots and sets of cutlery. Ceramic knives that she found interesting, and white ceramic frying pans. Imagine doing sausages in that, she said. She went around admiring things, touching everything. She turned to me like a mother and asked me if there was anything I wanted to bring back with me, but I couldn’t think of anything. Honestly. Surely there was something I could do with. A shirt, maybe. A new jacket, something for the wedding. I told her I was all sorted out with my suit. And anyway, the wedding was not even happening. It’s been called off, I told her.

Liam, she said. Do you never buy anything?

I laughed.

You never go to the opera and you never buy any decent clothes, you wear clothes that make you look like an overgrown teenager. Look at that jacket you have on, it’s like something a soccer player would have worn about ten years ago.

It’s kind of stuck to me now, I said.

In the children’s department she was looking at summer dresses. She had to let an assistant know that she was only looking, only having a look, she said, pointing at her eyes.

Then she started asking me questions again, if I knew who Maeve’s real father was. The biological father. Is it who I think it is?

Yes, I said.

Are you certain?

He was my best friend, I said.

You never told me that, Liam.

I’m only trying to figure this out now, I said.

He used to call for me all the time. We’d go out drinking together, let’s do some damage, he would say, you never knew where it would end up. He was very generous, I told her. He was so generous you would have to say it was overpowering, something you’d nearly be afraid of. I always had the feeling that I was in debt to him. He was great fun, no question. Everybody loved him. He would turn up at the door without warning, smiling, saying Ra Ra . The same two words every time. Ra Ra. I can’t remember ever having a real conversation with him. He preferred everything to be erased. Maybe that’s what I liked so much about him, there was no obligation to remember, only to forget. Never look back, he said to me many times. Always walk away. I knew why Emily wanted to escape. Emily had good reasons to ask me to take her away, anywhere away. That’s why I brought her to Milltown Malbay and the seaweed baths and all that swimming in the Pollock Holes and lying on the cliffs to make sure we were not being followed.

How could he remain my friend?

He disappeared as soon as Maeve was born. I thought I was bound to run into him somewhere, sooner or later. Dublin is a small place. The odds were in favour of me seeing him in one of the bars we used to go into. Somewhere, waiting at the traffic lights. Maybe getting a take-away coffee. I told her I saw him once in the foyer at the Abbey Theatre. No, at a concert, I think it was, the Olympia. Long ago. This was well before I found out that I was not Maeve’s biological father. I walked right up to him and put my hand on his shoulder and said how’s tricks? Which was a stupid thing to say, I fully agree. How’s tricks? I don’t know anyone who says that any more, only that he used to say that to me all the time and that’s where I got it from. And anyway, it wasn’t him. I was mistaken, it was somebody else.

He’s keeping out of your way now, she said.

He might be at the reunion.

Maybe you should go, she said. Clear the air.

She held a child’s party dress across her lap and spread it out over her knees with her hands, as if she was going to be wearing it.

I told her I sent him a letter, to his home address. I didn’t think it was right to send an email or leave a message on his phone. I didn’t want to send anything to his office either in case his secretary might open it.

What does he do?

Strictly private and confidential, I said, that’s what I wrote at the top of the envelope.

You don’t have to tell me, she said.

Of course, I said. He’s a barrister.

I told her it was a very polite letter. I didn’t accuse him of being the father or anything like that, because I have no definite proof, do I? I didn’t even link him to Maeve. I congratulated him on his success in the legal world and told him about my daughter having trouble finding her biological father. I think I might have made it sound a bit like a legal letter. I asked him if he could think back and remember anything that might help Maeve locate her real father, if he had any information that might be helpful, that is, then I would be very grateful to hear from him.

And did you?

No.

Maybe he never got it.

She had no intention of buying a dress for a five-year-old girl. She only remembered spilling red lemonade on her favourite dress once and she always wanted to buy the same dress again for the rest of her life.

I told her it was a mistake to send the letter. I was angry with myself for sending it. Angry with myself for letting him know and angry with him for taking my daughter away from me. I wanted to reverse all that, but you can’t, can you? You can’t just knock on somebody’s door and demand a letter back. You can’t walk into somebody’s house and say excuse me, you were not meant to know that. You were not the intended recipient.

You wouldn’t do that, she said.

Out in the country, I said. Near Trim. That’s where he lives now. It’s a bit hard to find at first, the sat-nav sends you all around the world. Beautiful place, with a long driveway and lawns and a tennis court. He has two stone greyhounds on either side of the front door, covered with yellow lichen. There’s a fanlight over the door. The front room is full of bookshelves, wall to wall. A painting of a field of wheat after a storm over the mantelpiece. And the kitchen has black and white tiles, diagonal.

How do you know all that, she asked.

Imagine if I let myself in the back door, I said, through the kitchen. Imagine if I walked right up the stairs. The two of them sitting up in bed, him and his wife. Him reading some legal journal and her reading what? Poetry? And me appearing out of nowhere, in the door of the bedroom. If you don’t mind, I need that piece of information back. About my daughter. Pretend you never heard it.

You didn’t, Liam.

You couldn’t do that, I said. She would puke all over herself with the fright, so she would. She would puke all over the book and the duvet. And him saying, it’s OK Julia, it’s only a friend of mine from school I haven’t seen in years.

You’re not going to do that, Liam.

I’m different now, I said.

When I’m gone, she said.

I swear, I’m not like that any more.

And then I saw myself in the mirror. At first I thought there was somebody watching me. Maybe security personnel, checking me out. But it was nothing more than a mirror in front of me and I was standing there live, in person, not recognizing myself.

It was the shoes I noticed first. They were just like mine, I thought, only a bit more shabby-looking in a place where everything was new. And the trousers, bunched up over the shoes. I looked second-hand. I was in my own world, a bit lost, maybe, not sure if I was in the right place, that kind of expression. I could see myself in all honesty, nothing hidden, the way other people see me. I was not being anyone but myself. I recognized the nose, the crooked nose, more broken in reverse. I could see for the first time how I ended up. This is what I had ended up looking like, this reflection, standing in a department store in Berlin with a parcel under my arm and a sheet inside. I looked found-out.