Catherine O’Flynn - Mr Lynch’s Holiday

He cast a sideways glance at Eamonn. A ghost in a cap. An unearthly glow around him where the sunlight bounced off his white skin. He’d inherited the pallor from his mother, a soft, milky tone apparently impervious to the strongest sun. Dermot’s own skin was a complex mottling of red and brown. He had a flash of his hand, dark and covered in hair, resting on Kathleen’s white brow. He heard again the muted pipe music, felt the carpeted hush of the funeral parlour all around him and turned his thoughts to something else.

‘Work going well, is it?’

‘Yeah … OK … you know. Up and down.’

Dermot couldn’t ask more without revealing that he couldn’t remember, or possibly never really knew, exactly what it was Eamonn did. It was enough anyway.

They followed the road as it wound its way down through the development, zigzagging lazily back and forth in wide swathes. He was used to the confusion and noise of Birmingham streets: UPVC porches, leaded plastic windows, swaying buddleia, stone cladding, paint-daubed wheelie bins, gnarled pigeons, dead cars, decorative pampas, monkey puzzles and feral privet.

Here all was hushed, planned, discreet. His eyes took time to adjust, to identify the basic features. It was a good ten minutes before he noticed that every window and door was shuttered. He thought at first that it was a way to block out the sun, but gradually he picked up on the general air of desertion. It put him in mind of the old Sunday-afternoon matinees on the telly, cowboys riding into empty Mexican towns. He and Eamonn used to watch them together. Squat men with big moustaches asleep under their sombreros, church bells clanging in the distance, heat haze blurring a stranger’s approach.

Slowly he started to discern a difference between the houses that had never been occupied and the handful that had but were currently empty. A dead potted plant on a patio here and there, an occasional nameplate under the buzzer. He noticed that the ones showing some evidence of habitation also had signs on their gates or on their shutters. The signs were in different colours, but always the same two words. ‘ En Venta ,’ he said aloud. He guessed at its meaning. He wondered if Eamonn had a destination in mind.

From a distance everything had looked pristine and controlled, but now, as they walked, he began to spot instances of disrepair and chaos. Cracks in pavements and fault lines along the road. An electric cable snaking along the street. Lawned verges overgrown and weeds at their perimeters. He saw the empty swimming pool, strewn with grit and pine needles, a stray cat curled up in the corner. He had already noticed plenty of jobs he could do at Eamonn’s place. He thought again of Castle Vale. It had taken longer for the cracks to show there.

He knew something of the workings of places. The daily rhythms, the ebbs and flows. He was familiar with the different heartbeats of the suburbs, the inner ring, the outer ring, the windblown regeneration zones. All with their separate pulse points: the Asda, the job centre, the bookies, the daycare, the mosque, the cemetery, the school. Lomaverde appeared to have no such places. Neither had it, as far as Dermot could see, any people wishing to get to or from anywhere. Given the absence of passengers and destinations, the lack of bus stops at least seemed less surprising.

Towards the lower part of Lomaverde the development became more ragged. Six dwellings stood half completed. He took in the abandoned cement mixers, piles of breeze blocks and sacks of sand. The road continued down past them for a hundred or so yards before coming to an abrupt end. Beyond the final kerb the land reverted back to scrub, the hillside dropping away to the sea. They walked to the furthest point on the road and stood together, gazing out at the horizon.

It was a while before Eamonn spoke. ‘So there you go. Lomaverde in all its glory.’

Dermot nodded. He got the picture. He’d read about places like it in Ireland. ‘How many of you are there?’

He waited while Eamonn counted in his head. ‘Fifteen. Permanently. All foreigners like us. Maybe another twenty or so Spanish owners. Second homes. They don’t come much, only to dust and air them for potential buyers.’

‘Are there any of those?’

‘Not so many, I suppose.’

Dermot looked around at the half-finished houses. ‘What’s happening with these?’

‘Hmmm …’ Eamonn seemed intrigued by the question, as if he had never considered it himself. ‘I’m not really sure.’

‘Well, is any work being done on them?’

‘No, not now. Not for a while really.’

‘A while.’ Dermot nodded. ‘How long would that be, then?’

‘I suppose … it must be about nine months. Last September — that’s when we heard the developers had gone bust. And vanished.’

‘Right.’

‘Not really been much in the way of maintenance since then either. I hear the sprinklers at night sometimes still. I suppose someone forgot to turn them off. Sorry. You’re not really seeing it at its best, been a while since anyone cut the grass. It used to be … you know … short. All that.’

‘Is there any prospect of it ever being finished?’

‘Well … I think … not currently, no.’

Dermot rubbed his face with his hand. ‘Can I ask how much are you in for now?’

Eamonn screwed up his face. ‘Pfffffff — hard to say really.’

‘Roughly, like.’

‘Roughly … roughly — I’d say the mortgage is somewhere in the region of a hundred and two thousand euros now. We put down a big deposit.’

‘Right.’

They were silent again for a while before Eamonn turned to Dermot and gave him a small smile. ‘Ours was the third property to be bought. We got in early. Before the rush.’ He paused. ‘Mom always thought I was cleverer than I was.’

Dermot said nothing.

Eamonn kicked a stone out over the hillside. ‘Still, it’s not so bad. I mean, it’s a nice place. Quiet. Plenty of time to think.’

Dermot looked back out at the horizon. A distant ship was heading towards Africa. He remembered something in his pocket and reached for it. He held a small paper bag out to Eamonn. ‘Do you still like these fellas?’

Eamonn didn’t seem to hear him.

‘Coca-Cola bottles? Is that right? Do you still eat them?’

Eamonn turned slowly. ‘Cola bottles?’

‘That’s right.’

He peered cautiously into the bag as if it contained spiders. ‘I haven’t eaten them since I was about ten.’

‘Seemed to remember you eating them sometimes when you came out on the buses. Devil to find now, they are. Can’t get them round the corner any more. I found these over in a place in Shard End the other day. Thought maybe you were missing them.’ Eamonn just stared at him. ‘Maybe you’ve gone off them. You don’t have to have them if you don’t like them any more.’

Eamonn reached out and took one. He held it up to examine it. ‘No sugar on it.’

‘No, had an idea you preferred the ones without the sugar on.’

Eamonn brought the sweet slowly to his lips. ‘I do.’

Dermot nodded. ‘Good. I’m glad I got them, then. That’s something I got right.’

It was a large flat, not much furniture, tiled floors. The sound of his father busying himself had been filtering through his bedroom door for the past two hours. Footsteps this way and that, washing up, kitchen cupboards opening and closing. Before that he had heard him go to the toilet at midnight and again at three. Eamonn must have slept briefly, then, as he’d thought it was Laura in the bathroom, and he’d experienced a moment of peace before he woke fully and his thoughts became jagged and unmanageable once more.

He had dreamed he was holding a baby with shining eyes. The baby had spoken and he had called to Laura in amazement, but she had not come, and he could not tear his eyes away from the face of the infant to look for her. Awake he felt the ache of the baby’s absence but now he saw that it had not been a baby in the dream at all, but a fluffy kitten, and the banality seemed only to compound the loss.