Catherine O’Flynn - Mr Lynch’s Holiday

‘So he was never a real threat?’

‘Not really. I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s arrogance. I knew her better than anyone. But the problem was, I wasn’t so clever. I didn’t like the man and I let that get in the way of things. I should have let him be. Let things run their course.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I went to see him.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Not much. I didn’t have to. He knew well enough. And he did what I knew he’d do.’

‘What?’

‘He skipped off. Moved on. Another parish. A word in the bishop’s ear. His work with us was done. I think they saw him as a high-flyer.’

‘Where’d he go?’

‘Latin America somewhere — it was probably a short cut to being a cardinal.’

‘That’s far enough. Better than you must have hoped.’

‘I don’t know what I hoped. I don’t know what I thought.’

He was quiet for a while.

‘I found a box when I was clearing your mother’s things. Stuffed with his letters. I counted them. A hundred and sixty-one.’

‘What did they say?’

‘I didn’t read them.’

Eamonn looked at him.

‘You don’t even know that she replied. Maybe he was wasting his time.’

‘You know, you can always tell the married couples on the bus. They’re the ones not speaking to each other. Everyone else chats, but the husbands and wives sit in silence. It makes you wonder: are they silent because they know each other’s minds and there’s no need for words? Or are they silent because they’re imagining conversations with other people? Or is one doing one and the other doing the other? Two different silences side by side?’

‘But they were just letters. Nothing real. You and Mom were happy in your own way.’

Dermot smiled. ‘We both thought the world of you, son.’

Eamonn shook his head, wanting more. ‘But with each other. You weren’t unhappy, were you?’

Dermot studied the backs of his hands. ‘I always loved her.’ He placed them flat on his knees. ‘But I’ve been less lonely since she’s gone.’

Eamonn made a big deal of it being his last full day. Dermot found him up and dressed before him in the morning, waiting to embark on a full itinerary. They drove out to a little town on the coast and had breakfast in something that looked like a chip shop but served a kind of extruded doughy thing. Churros , Eamonn called them. He had Dermot say it aloud, making sure he rolled the ‘r’s. They tasted like doughnuts. Dermot said they were nice, but in truth he would always favour a decent fry for his breakfast.

They walked along the front and Eamonn waited on the beach while Dermot took a final swim in the sea. He did breaststroke, slow and steady, watching his arms coming together and moving apart in the water in front of his face. Something eternal in the action. The same eyes seeing the same arms that swam as a boy. The sound of his own breathing. He thought he was never as alone as when swimming. Never so conscious of his own being. Seventy-six years old. He didn’t know what to make of that. He saw Eamonn smiling and waving out at him now and then. He was trying awful hard.

Afterwards in the car Eamonn said that he was sorry.

‘What for?’

‘This past fortnight.’

‘There’s nothing to apologize for.’

‘I’ve been pathetic. I know that. I’m sorry you’ve had to see me like this.’

Dermot shrugged.

‘It was your first time abroad. I didn’t even take you anywhere.’

‘You did so. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed it.’

‘I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m going to change. The other night, the party — that was a wake-up call. I’m going to pull myself together. Turn my life around.’

Dermot looked at him. They sounded like lines he’d heard in adverts. He patted Eamonn’s arm.

In the afternoon they drove to a place in the middle of the desert called Mini Hollywood. It was a tourist attraction and as such exactly the kind of place Dermot imagined that Eamonn would hate. He’d always had a fearful objection to tourists. Kathleen would mention some place Brendan was going to on holiday and Eamonn would say: ‘Full of tourists.’ As if that was that. So it must have cost him something to go to such a place. Dermot knew he was doing it for his benefit.

It turned out it was the place they’d filmed all the old Clint Eastwood films he and Eamonn used to watch together on the telly on a Sunday afternoon. Hadn’t been the Wild West at all, but a desert in southern Spain. Not even Italy. The whole Spaghetti Western name was misleading. Should have been Paella Westerns. Pie-ay-a . That’s how you said it. He’d learned that.

It seemed an unfortunate choice at first. A day out from a real ghost town to a pretend one. He wasn’t sure that tumbleweed was what Eamonn needed to see. They arrived just in time to see a staged bank robbery and a shoot-out. Dermot thought the fella playing the baddie had been miscast. He was more David Dickinson than desperado. It was a bit of fun though. Even Eamonn laughed when Dickinson fell down dead before the shot was fired. Dermot had always enjoyed Westerns, but never John Wayne. Couldn’t stand the man. He used to have fierce lunchtime debates with his mate Ernest about the films of their boyhood. Ernest was loyal to Wayne, but Dermot maintained that Fonda outclassed him in every department. Ernest had gone back to Trinidad in retirement, but each year he sent Dermot a Christmas card with some quote from ‘the Duke’ and Dermot would reciprocate with ‘ain’t no cow country’ — or some other Fonda obscurity.

They took a drink in the saloon and watched young women dressed as gaudy prostitutes perform a high-kicking dance. Eamonn looked across at him.

‘Well, you’ve shown great restraint so far.’

‘In what?’

‘I thought you’d have done it the moment we got here.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The voice.’

‘What voice?’

‘Oh, Dad, come on — it’s the only impression you ever did.’

‘I don’t remember any impression.’

‘You do! You did it all the time when I was a kid.’

Dermot shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, son, I don’t remember.’

Eamonn was incredulous. ‘But you must. That’s half the reason I came here.’

‘What? To hear me do some funny voice?’

‘Yes! I can’t believe you don’t remember.’

‘So, what you’re saying is, you wanted me to do it?’

‘Of course.’

‘Which one was it again?’

‘You know!’

‘I don’t, you’ll have to remind me.’

Eamonn shook his head and then said quietly, ‘Wallach.’

‘What was that?’

‘Eli Wallach. Dad. Can you just do it?’

Dermot frowned. ‘Maybe if I rack my brains.’ Then he leaned in close, pulling back his lips to expose his teeth: ‘“There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend. Those with a rope around the neck, and the people who have the job of doing the cutting.”’

He was taken aback to hear Eamonn laugh. Unchanged since he was ten. A kind of explosive, spluttery chuckle. Dermot looked at him in amazement.

‘My God, son, but you’re an eejit.’

They stopped off for dinner in a small town. A strange kind of restaurant, set way off the tourist track and yet apparently Spanish-themed. It presented a fantasy of the country familiar to anyone who had grown up in Britain in the 1970s, all bullfighting posters, flamenco dolls and sangria. It stopped short of portraits of Franco.

‘I think it’s the Spanish equivalent of a Toby Carvery,’ he whispered to his dad.

‘Very nice,’ said Dermot.

The proprietor gave them English menus.