Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies

He went for the door, and Tony would have gotten up and knocked his head clean off his shoulders if it wasn’t for the fact his mother was there, and the counsellor, a right old man’s arse in a skinny shirt and a nose only just long enough to look down.

‘That’s your answer when I say you’re no angel, is it? Walk away?’

Ryan turned back. ‘You didn’t even ask me where I was, boy. Where’re you staying, Ryan? Who are you with? What’re you up to? Nawthin’. Is it that you couldn’t give two shits or you’re afraid I’ll start talking about what drove me there?’

‘You think I don’t give two shits? I’m in here for you, you little bollocks.’

‘You’re in here and you’re supposed to be getting better when you’re still damn sure there’s fuck all wrong with you.’ His eyes were shining; the chin was starting to go. ‘And d’you know what? I never told no one. About you. And if I had done, where would you be? Not in here complaining coz you’re sober; you’d be behind the fucking high walls.’

The door rattled on its hinges as he slammed it.

‘Does anyone want to go after him?’ asked the counsellor.

‘Oh, trust me,’ said Kelly, ‘he won’t be part of the recovery.’

Back out into the car park, one foot after another and blinking desperately, as if every drop squeezed was poison. Ryan had just cleared his vision when he reached Joseph and the car, but he was still sniffing salt and slime back down his throat as if his life depended on their sustenance. Oh fuck, that was no good at all. Not when the very act of leaving home was meant to cure him of that childish weakness that only his father could twist out of him. He could build a customer base whose appetite for smoke, coke and yokes was matched only by their inability to keep their wallets shut; he could live on his own and trick sales assistants into giving him naggins of whiskey; he could strip his girlfriend gently and fuck her hard but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out how to move his triggers so his father wouldn’t know how to yank them.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Joseph said, as he got back into the car.

Ryan took the spliff out of the glove compartment and stuck it in his gob.

‘He’ll never change,’ he choked. ‘He’ll never fucking change.’

Joseph is on Paul Street, busking. That lad has balls, like. He just toddles down there with his guitar and lays the case on the ground in front of him and off he goes, belting out anything from rebel songs to shit that’s in the charts. I don’t know how he does it. I’d be mortified just singing in the shower.

It’s Saturday lunchtime and town is jointed. I go in with Karine and we get milkshakes in Maccy D’s and then slink round the corner to watch him. He’s doing a cover of ‘Gold Digger’. He’s got a daycent voice and there are a couple of girls shaking their arses and giving the air the old sexy one-two. The sun’s out. One of the girls removes her jacket and whoops, provoking the evil eye in an ould fella shuffling past. If I was being a prick I’d tell her that Joseph’s ould doll has just had a baby girl and that there’s no point waving her tits at him coz he’s too fucking tired to notice.

Leigh, they called the baby. The christening’s next month. I’m gonna be the godfather. Joseph swears he didn’t just ask me because I’m half Italian.

Karine stands in front of me and backs her arse right up against me so I take my hands out of my pockets and join them round her waist.

‘He gets better every time I hear him,’ she says.

There’s a bunch of people sitting outside the pubs and outside Tesco. Some of them are singing along. There’ll be a few bob made today.

‘Did y’ever think of coming down with him?’ Karine says, and she twists in my arms to stare at me.

‘Me?’

‘No, the fella behind you. Yeah you!’

‘With Joseph? Busking? G’way outta that. All I play is piano and I don’t think they’d let me drag one of them out into the square.’

‘You could sing. You’re way better than he is.’

‘I am in me shit.’

‘You’re really good. You’re a proper musician, like. I don’t know what you’re doing selling dope. You could go for X Factor .’

‘You’re shaming me now,’ I tell her.

‘Hasn’t he asked you?’ she says. I slide my hands up along her arms and down again and press up against her arse in a fit of gall; I’m wearing trackies, though, so it’s probably not a good idea to think too hard about her arse.

‘He’s said it a couple of times, like.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘What d’you think I said? I said what I’m saying to you now.’

‘You were really good at music at school, is all.’

‘Can you imagine me?’ I tell her. ‘Caterwauling away and lads I do business with rubbing their eyes and wondering who put what in their weed? Imagine what Dan Kane’d say to that?’

The joke flatlines. ‘I like to think there’s more to you than Dan Kane.’

‘There is,’ I tell her. ‘Loads more.’

‘Oh, you reckon so too, do you? For a while there I was thinking it was only me.’

‘Well it’s not, all right? I’m just…’ But I can’t think of what to say. Joseph finishes the song. People cheer. He catches my eye and I give him the thumbs up and then quietly I go, ‘There’s no choice, like. I either do a bit for Dan or I go home, and I can’t go home.’

‘Jesus, Ryan, d’you really think you need to explain that to me? I know that, like! That’s not what I’m saying.’

‘You’re saying I don’t fucking sing enough?’

‘I’m saying I didn’t start going out with you because you could get yokes.’

There’s frost now. It’s like I’ve said the wrong thing and it’s like she’s said the wrong thing and we’re just a bit out of whack, just enough to notice but not enough to fight over. She folds her arms. I move my hands back down to her belly but I don’t let go; there’ll be a real fight now if I let go.

‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been decades since my last confession.’

‘Decades?’

‘Oh, aeons. Can you imagine what a burden it’s been, Father? Carrying all that sin around, like saddlebags on the back of an ass?’

‘Well… You’re here now. It’s the contrition itself that’s important, after all.’

‘Yes, and there’s sins here I’m only dying to be rid of. Ready?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I killed a man.’

‘… Are you joking?’

‘Do I sound like I’m joking? What do I sound like? A sixty-year-old woman, if your ears are sound, forgive the pun. Do you think that’s how the bingo brigade get their kicks? Confessing crimes to priests?’

‘When did this happen? How did this happen?’

‘It was a long time ago. Didn’t I tell you I hadn’t been in decades?’

‘But it’s playing on your mind now.’

‘I live on my own and one day a man broke into my flat. I crept up behind him and hit him in the head with a religious ornament. So first I suppose God would have to forgive me for killing one of his creatures and then he’d have to forgive me for defiling one of his keepsakes.’

‘And did you involve the Gardaí?’

‘Indeed I did not. You’ll have to add another Hail Mary on for that. I didn’t involve the Gardaí at all; instead I called up my son and he cleaned up the mess on my behalf.’