Paul Murray - An Evening of Long Goodbyes

‘It is,’ I’d say. ‘Anyway, there’s Pongo McGurks and I, policeman’s helmet in my —’

‘It’s so old .’

‘ — hotly pursued by the local cricket team —’

‘And this , God, this must be really, really old…’

It’s difficult to steer a conversation when one’s interlocutor is constantly bouncing up and leaving one’s field of vision; though having said that, even when she sat still nothing I said to her appeared to have any effect. Blue-chip anecdotes, the ones I reserved for occasions such as this, met with the same implacable indifference as the food: ‘… and then the morning she passed away — I remember it quite clearly, though I couldn’t have been more than five or so — Father came out with a terrible, ashen face. He didn’t speak; he just handed me a little shaving-mirror. Granny’d had the nurse bring it to her especially so she could give it to me, even though the doctors said she didn’t recognize anyone any more —’

‘Why did your Granny have a shaving-mirror?’

‘Well it had been Grandfather’s, I think I told you that, if you’ll cast your mind back to a minute or so ago —’

‘Oh right,’ she’d respond, chewing. ‘So, did she get better?’

‘No, as I said, that was when she died, you see…’

‘Oh right.’

And then the terrible silence until I could summon up another, anecdote after anecdote like swine driven over a cliff, tumbling down and down into the dizzying blue void!

‘Well, let’s talk about you,’ I said finally, as people are less easily diverted when talking about themselves.

This proved to be disastrous.

‘Well, I went to school in Holy Child,’ Laura began, ‘which you probably know all about from Bel. It was brilliant, I had such a laugh. I wasn’t into arty stuff like she was — I would have loved to’ve been able to, like, just sit around in cafés all day smoking and being arty — but I suppose I’m just naturally practical, like my future has always been really important to me. Like you have to think about getting a good job and stuff.’

‘You do,’ I said. ‘You really do.’

‘Anyway, after my exams I got into Business and Technology in the Smorfett Institute —’

‘Isn’t that where they did all those experiments on monkeys?’ I interjected.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s actually one of the best IT solutions centres in Europe.’

I didn’t fully understand what this meant, other than it had to do with computers and entailed lots of ‘opportunities’; but whatever it was, upon graduating she decided to look for something more ‘people-oriented’. ‘I like people,’ she said.

‘Who doesn’t?’ I said.

As such, she continued, she was naturally drawn to the high-octane world of insurance.

‘Excuse me a minute,’ I said. Suddenly feeling rather dry, I went into the kitchen and took a fresh bottle of Fetzer from the cooler. I suppose I must have remained standing there for longer than I realized, because Mrs P asked me if I was all right.

‘Master Charles, the dinner is okay? The food it is nice?’

‘What? Oh — yes, yes, Mrs P. Bravo. A tour de force.’

‘You look like you are tired.’

‘Me? Not at all, raring to go.’

‘But you are rubbing the eyes…’

‘Oh, just taking a breather, you know… I say, Mrs P, have you ever heard of anyone choking on an oyster?’

‘On an oyster?’ She gave this some thought. ‘No, Master Charles, an oyster I don’t think is possible.’

‘That’s what I thought. Oh well, never mind. Once more unto the breach, I suppose…’ I took the wine and returned to the dining room. Laura smiled as I seated myself and then began telling me about the relationship she had been in during this exciting period in her life. It was quite serious; in fact they went out for almost five years.

‘Five years ?’

His name was Declan. He was manager of a service station on the Bray Road. ‘He was doing really well,’ she said, ‘the money’s really good in forecourt retail and he was in contention for another service station, in Deansgrange. But we just wanted different things, you know?’ They had parted ways six months ago when Declan decided to give up his job and go to Australia for a year: ‘It’s great out there!’ Laura said. ‘Imagine, Christmas on the beach! Wouldn’t that be mad!’

‘Why didn’t you go, so?’ I asked, beginning to wish that she had.

‘Oh, it was really sad,’ she mooned, ‘like I was really sad about it for a while, cos like I really loved him, he was so nice and funny and just loads of crack to be around —’

‘Loads of what?’

‘But, like, it’s all very well for him to just give up his job and go off and have a laugh for a year, but you know, I have responsibilities. I didn’t want to let everyone in work down. And as well, I’m a woman, you know?’

There was a pause here that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with; eventually I said, ‘Oh yes?’ in a tone that hopefully conveyed interest but not surprise.

‘Well yeah, so like, I felt I had a responsibility to myself too, and to all the women that have been repressed over the years, to build a stable career for myself. I wasn’t going to give that up just for some man .’

I drank my glass of wine in one swallow and poured myself another. ‘You felt a responsibility to all the women who hadn’t been allowed to work in the insurance industry?’ I said, just in case I’d missed something.

‘Yeah,’ she nodded vigorously, ‘and do you know, Charles, it was completely the right decision. Like, I was really upset about Dec, but the people in the company have been so good to me. It’s like a family to me now. And it’s been so fulfilling to me in terms of expressing myself as a person. I got promoted nearly straight away, I’m a Team Leader now, even though I’ve only been there a year. At first some of the girls were jealous and they thought it was just because I went to Holy Child, but now we’re all best friends and a really good team and we just have such a laugh.’

‘Congratulations,’ I cut in. ‘You know, I wonder if we ought to —’

‘And I get a car and a phone and if I make my bonus there’s this gorgeous apartment — well, it’s in sort of this bad area but there’s like a security guard and electric fences, so it’s fine — I’m maybe going to move into with this girl from work. It’s such a good job. Like I envy Bel being, you know, an actress and having so much free time and stuff, but I love having the security and the opportunities, and there’s good holiday pay too —’

‘Holidays,’ I seized desperately. ‘Did you go anywhere nice for your holidays?’

‘Oh yeah,’ her face lit up and at last she took off her jacket and propped her elbows on the table. ‘Like last year me and some of the gang from work went to Greece — oh, it was mad, we met this great bunch of lads, Irish lads, you know — oh, they were mad. One night, right, it was tequila night in this Irish pub we’d go to and we were all locked, anyway suddenly the lads came in and tore off our T-shirts —’

‘How awful!’ I cried, bidding for the feminist vote.

‘We were breaking our shites laughing,’ she continued, ‘God, I’ve never drank so much in my life, practically every night we used to end up on the beach watching the sun come up, drinking vodka…’

‘Corinth?’ I gasped weakly. ‘Minos?’

‘What?’

‘What?’ I said in a strangulated, despairing whisper.

There was a silence, and I looked at Laura — really looked at her — and had the sudden impression that I was having dinner with a simulacrum, a knock-off . I felt like the man who buys the box of genuine wartime memorabilia at auction, and brings it home to discover, under the first layer, piles and piles of shredded newspaper.