Paul Murray - An Evening of Long Goodbyes

‘After tonight, she can have a nice long rest,’ I said. The hoard seemed to produce a light of its own, a very old light that pulsated and whispered through it –

‘After next week she’ll be out of a job,’ Bel muttered, and looked at her watch. ‘Are you finished? I should get going.’

‘Oh, okay, thanks for helping,’ scrambling over to take her arm, ‘and you’ll be back for tonight, won’t you?’

‘Yes, probably — why are you looking at me like that?’

‘No reason, I just think it would be, you know, nice to see you…’

She arched her eyebrows sceptically. ‘All right, I’ll try. But I have to go.’ Outside the van crunched up the driveway. ‘Shit!’ She span off upstairs. I listened to her clatter back down and grab her coat from the closet, greeting Frank at the door and disappearing in a happy rush of conversation; and for a moment longer I stood rocking on my heels as if I’d been hit over the head. Tonight, I told myself, taking a breath: there would be time to talk tonight. Now, with an hour or two yet remaining, I returned to my lonely wandering through the house, from room to empty room, with butterflies in my stomach and the light blurring and gleaming along the edges of everything I looked upon as if calling out to me goodbye, goodbye –

The telephone was ringing downstairs. ‘Eh, hello, is that… C?’

‘Oh blast it, MacGillycuddy, what is it this time?’

‘I just called to make sure we had it all clear for tonight.’

‘We’ve been over it a hundred times , of course it’s all clear.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘So you’re positive you want to do it this way?’

‘Yes, I’m positive — look, MacGillycuddy, can’t you just accept that this is how I’m doing it, and stop trying to change my mind? One doesn’t just wander into these things, you know —’

‘Right,’ he said again.

‘I’ve given it considerable thought, and symbolically speaking this seems by far the best way of tying everything up.’

‘Grand. And that’s your final decision?’

‘Yes.’

There was a ruminative pause. ‘I mean, you’re sure you don’t want to drown, for instance?’

‘ Drowning — what, I’m just going to fall into the sea, am I? What’s that going to make me look like?’

‘Well, put it this way, it’s late, you’ve had a few drinks — no inconsistencies there, if you’ll allow me — you announce you’re going for a quick stroll around the clifftops to clear your head. Cliffs now, for the death-faker they really are a godsend, you should be aware of that. Anyway you don’t come back, and the next morning we discover your pocket-watch on an overhanging branch —’

‘M,’ switching the phone testily from one hand to the other, ‘it’s my death, all right, and if you think I’m going to have everybody I know saying, Oh, poor Charles, pissed again, what a shame — it’s important to get the tone right, do you see?’ The man had simply no idea about tone. ‘It has to be poignant . This is a death that has to give people pause, to make them reflect, reconsider their values , realize that I was right and they were wrong. In terms of—’

‘Symbolism, yes, yes,’ MacGillycuddy interrupted, ‘certainly, yes, you do have to be concerned about that. But another thing you have to be sure about is whether it’s realistic, y’see the police —’

‘ Realism?! ’ I repeated incredulously. ‘When will you people let up with your damnable realism? Isn’t a man even allowed to die , without having to worry about whether it’s realistic or not?’

‘Follies don’t just explode , though.’

‘Of course they do, things are always exploding.’

‘Yes, but usually for a reason and not just because —’

‘There’ll be a reason,’ did he take me for a fool, some limp-wristed fop with no clue as to how the world worked and why things exploded?

The idea had come to me only a few days before, as the builders were explaining their latest strike — something to do with the government inveigling the country into NATO while the Dail was closed for summer holidays: ‘The whole thing’s a fuckin disgrace, Mr H, specially after what’s just been happening. Partnership for fuckin Peace me hole, we’ll be keeping missiles in our back gardens and learnin how to bomb hospitals I s’pose —’

‘Yes, I, um…’

‘Well, see you later. Oh, by the way, we haven’t finished hooking up the gas yet, so don’t start any fires in there or anything, ha ha! Bye.’

I explained all of this to MacGillycuddy. ‘So you see, it’s quite plausible: it’s late, I go out to the Folly to have a quick look at it before going to bed, I unwittingly start a fire of some kind, and then boom! I’m blown to smithereens. As far as anyone knows it’s a gas leak. It’s perfectly convincing. It probably happens every day, that sort of thing. I don’t see what you’re so worried about.’

‘All right,’ MacGillycuddy said heavily, ‘all right. I’ll make the preparations.’ And he named the time at which I, Charles, should be in the Folly should I wish to be exploded with it.

‘What about the other matter?’ I went on. ‘The Frank Trap, you know what you have to do?’

‘Yes, be outside the drawing room at —’

‘Not the drawing room, damn it, the dining room! Everything’s in the dining room, there’s nothing in the drawing room, what’s the point of filming that?’

‘Okay,’ he said slowly, ‘so I’m outside the dining room from eleven o’clock, and if he takes anything —’

‘Oh, he’s bound to take something, the man’s got all the restraint of a Thessalonica streetwalker —’

‘— and then I give the film to your sister, is that right?’

‘Yes, anonymously , she can’t know who made it. This way I’m simply presenting the facts, I’m not breaking the pact — we have this pact, you see.’

‘Ah right…’ Outside, dusk was settling; it wouldn’t be long now till Laura arrived. We went briskly over the remaining details, relatively minor matters — he’d procured some cash for me, and booked the plane ticket under an alias. ‘Why Chile, anyway?’ he asked.

‘The wine, obviously.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s not without its teething problems, a certain youthful rashness, but it shows all the signs of coming into a resplendent adulthood.’

‘Oh,’ he said again, and then, after a pause: ‘Look, if I don’t see you, all the best, all right? Seriously.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, rather touched; and the receiver clicked dead in my ear.

Once again I felt that icy hand grip my stomach. There was no going back now; that click had sounded the end of my salad days. My exile from Amaurot had effectively begun. For an instant I panicked: where would I go? What would I do? Did they have croissants in Chile? But it was only an instant. MacGillycuddy was right, one had to be positive; and in a way it was exhilarating, having one’s life so full of machination and subterfuge. Perhaps this was how all those people felt, filing off to their offices and their jar factories every morning. To them, every day was a new adventure. And soon, of course, I would be taking my place among them; soon I would be far, far away from here, set free of all my cares, and nothing that happened would matter to me any more… Although in spite of my best efforts, a part of me was already nurturing a dream of the day in the misty future when I would return: creeping across the lawn in Fidel Castro beard and combat fatigues to peep in through the curtains of the drawing room, where Bel and Mother — older, silver-haired — paused at their needlework and wistfully recalled the noble son and brother for whom a place was still kept at the fireside; and then took up their cloths again, safe and secure in the grand illusion I had bequeathed them…