Claire Kilroy: All Names Have Been Changed

I thought I’d never lay eyes on him again, and I wish I hadn’t. I opened the front door the next day to find him huddled on the doorstep, his arm crooked protectively under his chin like a broken wing. There was a pouch of purple blood beneath his eye. His lip was torn, teeth were missing, matted black clots studded his scalp. I didn’t look too closely. People on the street hurried past him. They’d been hurrying past him all morning.

I ran upstairs to phone an ambulance, then came back outside to sit with him on the doorstep until it arrived, afraid to touch so much as his finger in case it hurt him more. He had a horror of being touched anyway, a phobia, sparked by God knows what in his childhood. Giz did not regain consciousness during this period. It struck me as inappropriate that I was the one stifling tears, not him. What had I to cry about, after all?

The tune of an ice-cream van lilted past, and, some time later, the ambulance appeared.

‘Name?’ a medic with a clipboard asked me before they took him away, as if he were a parcel to be signed for.

‘Giz,’ I said.

The medic sighed and redistributed his weight. It was all a great trial to him. He inserted his biro into his ear and scratched. ‘Name?’ he said again.

‘Dunno.’

‘Address?’

‘None.’

They rooted through Giz’s pockets for identification. A set of nickel holy medals attached by a nappy pin to the washing instructions of his ratty tracksuit top was all they found.

*

I said goodbye to Faye and Antonia on the same day, or, rather, they said goodbye to me.

Guinevere phoned one morning. Such a long time since we’d spoken. When I heard her voice on the other end of the line, it was Glynn who immediately sprang to mind. Declan, he’s gone , I thought she was going to tell me. I closed my eyes and swallowed, surprised at the force of my reaction. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take of all this. But all Guinevere wanted to know was whether I’d like to join the others in the workshop that afternoon. ‘Just the four of us,’ she said.

I hadn’t been back to House Eight since the night that Aisling fell, presuming it would already be locked up for the year. No one was using it, not any more, not after all that had happened. But the door was open, and up the stairs I went, listening to the sound of female voices floating down. I had to stop halfway up, gripping the banister to compose myself: for a moment, it had been like the old days.

The three of them were sitting by the windows, sunshine streaming through their hair. I had never seen them in summer clothes before. Faye stood up when she saw me. ‘Declan,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad to get a chance to say goodbye to you before I leave.’

‘You’re leaving?’

‘Yes, I’m going home to Clonmel early. My train is at four.’ I had noticed the large suitcase by the door downstairs. Faye put her hand on her abdomen. ‘Declan, I’m going to have a baby!’

‘A baby ?’ I repeated stupidly. I could barely fathom it. It seemed such a bizarre undertaking. This was no time to be thinking of other human beings.

Tears sprang to Faye’s eyes, and she shook her head in wonderment as if she could barely fathom it either. ‘A baby, yes!’ She opened her arms and held me in her embrace, the joy radiating out of her.

‘God, I’m so happy for you, Faye.’

She paused in the doorway of the workshop to take one last look at us. ‘Write,’ she said before she left. And then she was gone. Just like that. It was over so quickly. Her husband was waiting below on Front Square. We sat in silence listening to her descending footsteps, then the front door clicked shut behind her.

The three of us watched as her husband carried her suitcase in one hand and placed the other on her shoulder. You know her husband beats her, don’t you ? He was a big mucker type in a maroon jumper, a Tadhg or a Mossy or a Micky Joe, and seemed a few years older than his gentle, pretty wife, though it might have been just that he was a proper grown-up. Someone had to keep the country running. I hardly knew her, I realised as Faye disappeared under the Arch. And now I never would.

‘Well, that’s that then,’ said Antonia. ‘Back to the real world, I suppose.’

Guinevere walked slowly around the workshop. ‘Look at this place,’ she said. ‘It’s like an empty theatre set.’ She rested her hands on the back of Glynn’s chair, then stooped to open his side drawer, her train of thought momentarily arrested — all our trains of thought momentarily arrested — by simple curiosity. What was in the drawer? How had it never occurred to us to look? All the months we’d sat there.

Inside was a map of Dublin. Guinevere flicked through it before replacing it and pushing the drawer shut again. She moved on, trailing her fingertip along our old desks. ‘It’s so sad to think we’ll never sit in this room together again. I can barely believe it.’

‘I’m leaving Dublin too,’ I announced. Suddenly, everything seemed so final. It had been final for a long time, but it only hit me then.

Guinevere stopped walking and looked up. ‘Oh?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing for us in this country. It’s never going to change. It’s never going to get better. The sow that eats her farrow . I’m off in two weeks. Will you come, Guinevere?’

‘Listen to him!’ said Antonia, as if I’d lost my wits.

Guinevere laughed. ‘What, leave the country with you?’

‘It’s going to get worse here. Any fool can see that. There’ll never be any money, there’ll never be any jobs, there’ll never be any future. We have to get out fast if we want a chance at life. Come with me, Guinevere.’

‘Where to?’ she asked softly, ‘Leeds?’

It wasn’t an outright refusal. I crossed the room and clasped her hand. ‘We’ll go to Paris like Beckett and Joyce.’

Guinevere peeled my hands from hers to peer at the jagged purple scar where the metal pin had been inserted. ‘Iron Nails Ran In,’ she said.

‘I’m being serious. Say yes.’

She lowered her head to avoid my eye. ‘Declan, I have to go now. I only came to say goodbye to Faye.’

‘Be there in two weeks. Meet me outside Front Arch this time two weeks.’ I checked my watch. ‘Three p.m., Wednesday a fortnight. Please.’

She picked up her bag and smiled apologetically before leaving. ‘Goodbye, you two,’ she said.

‘You idiot,’ Antonia scoffed as soon as Guinevere was gone. Fuckhead, she had called me. ‘Don’t you realise that if there ever was money in this country, no writer could afford to live here? Glynn would’ve starved before he even got started. Our literary tradition would perish. You better pray it doesn’t change.’

‘With all due respect, Antonia, I didn’t invite you. I invited Guinevere.’

I instantly regretted the harshness of my tone. There was no call for it, not any more. Antonia dropped her chin onto her chest, where she kept it for some moments. ‘You’re right,’ she said eventually. ‘You’re absolutely right. Don’t let me spoil it for you. Don’t let anybody spoil it for you.’

I frowned at what I assumed was more sarcasm. Antonia reached up and cupped my head with her hands and tilted it down to kiss my forehead, allowing her lips to briefly rest there before angling my face to look into hers. She imparted something of great import and clearly meant every last word of it, the urgency with which her eyes searched mine. All I heard was seashell sounds. Her cool hands covered my ears. This I am sure was intentional. It permitted her the temporary freedom to say what she had to say. Antonia had no freedom in her life. She had never been carefree.