My head is drunk on hormones, stomach full of blood and wind. A cartoon drawl echoes over the Tannoy: paging passenger… My vision blurs as I scan the crowd in the arrivals hall. What if he’s not here? What if he is?
I see him then, second line from the front in the crowd. On his phone, eyes jittering, roaming. This is how I remember him. He looks up, waves, smiles in mega wattage, the smile he used to crank up when he had to.
I move towards him. He takes a step back, appraises me. I am covered in goose pimples and sweat.
Hello daughter, he says. Looking beautiful, as ever.
I wish I wasn’t wearing my too-tight jeans and crop-top.
He goes in for an awkward hug.
Well, welcome to Texas! He beams.
His teeth are bleached, all traces of coffee and Guinness erased.
He takes my suitcase and my carrier bag without asking. I feel strangely bereft without them.
He speaks into the phone as he walks away and I follow. Hi Darling, I’ve got her. We’re on the way back. About an hour, okay? Big kisses. He disconnects.
Who the fuck is Darling?
You did know, right? He throws over his shoulder.
I shake my head.
Her name is Lianne. She’s smart, like you. He nods, like that settles something.
How long? I am talking to his back.
Oh, about five years now.
About the same length of time since I last saw him.
He stops, takes out a packet of minty-fresh-breath chewing gum and pops one in his mouth. He rolls it around, sucks on it and chews hard in a way that makes his jaw click. He looks like a cow with faraway eyes, chewing cud. A flash of Mum telling him for God’s sake to stop masticating. He always looked like someone who would rather be somewhere else.
We walk through a revolving door, down a flight of escalators and out into a car park where an intense wall of heat and light slams up against me. I do my best to focus on the bulk of his broad sweating back which stops outside a shiny black 4×4. The car sits diagonally across two parking spaces. The man who was my father back in Dublin would never have been seen dead in one of these fuel-guzzling monstrosities (a favourite he would swear at drivers, particularly fat-cats in their suits. School uniforms for conformists.)
Bleep. The automatic sensor. I laugh.
Something funny? he says.
Nice car, I say.
A radio station blares such shitty muzak that I double-check to make sure this is, in fact, the man who was my father back in Dublin. He said to the voice on the other end of the phone: I’ve got her. Maybe I was being kidnapped, sold into slavery. Which seems more palatable than the fact that this is the same man who drove a fifteen year old Mini the last time I saw him, with Dylan blaring out the crummy windows that wouldn’t roll up, so that we were permanently rain-spattered in the back, my brother and I, as we fought to sit in the central aisle where no one wants to sit. This beast is all air con, leather and shine, with tinted windows tightly shut. He places his phone in the hands-free bracket and swipes the screen. She answers, I miss you. They only spoke about two minutes ago. Her voice is a little girl’s whine. The car is full of her, and I find myself pressing my body against the centrally locked passenger door, willing myself to shrink, to dissolve into the hard plastic.
Are you hungry? he asks, staring straight ahead at the road.
I answer that yes, I am hungry –although I want to throw up– because maybe that would buy me more time before meeting Darling with the little girl’s voice.
Take your pick, he says, waving his hand in the general direction of the Dunkin Doughnuts, Wendys, Texan Steakhouses and Taco Bells that flank the sides of the wide, flat, perfect tarmacadam roads.
McDonalds, I say, as I see a familiar yellow M flash before us.
That’s my girl.
Memories of our Ronald McDonald family outings with balloons, chocolate shakes, rubbery beef, ketchup, and puke weirdly comfort me. The flatlands roll on by, until at the next intersection, he pulls the car into the right, and we are in a drive thru. He’s on his phone again: I’m at Mackers. My peasant daughter has decided she wants a burger. He side-winks at me. Can I get you anything? The voice makes a disgusted sound and warns him off the perils of eating horse meat. Don’t worry baby, I wouldn’t dare.
He proceeds to order and eat two Big Mac meals – mine and his. I see now why there’s a pouch where his chin used to be.
We steam straight on ‘home’ sharing a few words back and forth.
Him: Are you tired? You must be tired.
Me: I guess so, yes. That was one word for it.
Home is a McMansion with a pool in an estate full of other McMansions: stucco, fake-turrets, a fountain in the neatly mowed lawn, and a sprinkler spinning and lightly sprinkling. I wonder why – the grass doesn’t look real. I think of our two-bed semi-d in the estate with all those other semi-ds. The room I shared with my brother bifurcated by a black marker pen down the middle. The garage doors here are controlled by the same bleeping device that opens the car doors, and, as I’m soon to discover, the pool cover. Our father with a pool cover. I can’t wait to tell Trev all about this. I wish he was here with me now. He play-punched me the last time I mentioned I was planning on visiting Dad. I could do with some friendly thumping now to distract from the spectacle of the New Woman standing at the back door, leaning against the door frame.
Welcome to our home, honey!
I go to shake her hand before she pulls me in for a hug. My body doesn’t want this.
I’m shown to my room by The New Woman, which is ensuite with a Rainforest Shower and sunken bath, big enough for four. As soon as I’m alone, I pour a bath and slither out of my too-tight jeans. I lower myself into the hot water and press a button which spurts jets. The waves of cramps have been hitting me, so I have been barely able to breathe. Now I am just one big wave.
The New Woman speaks through the door: Your dad and I are going out for a quick bite. You want to join us?
No thanks. I think I’ll just rest.
Good call, honey.
The next morning the sky that greets me is blue and huge. My head is hammering.
Good morning. Sleep well? Your father’s gone out to play a round of golf.
Those nine-hole assholes with balls plugged up their arses, who only ever use golf as an excuse to escape shrewish wives and demanding kids, and perhaps to visit their mistress whore if they had enough imagination, and ‘balls’ to do so. Hohohohoho, he’d chuckle to himself at his brilliance and their stupidity, and Trev and me would join in on these rants and laugh ourselves into spasms.
I notice a half-finished cup of coffee on the white marbled island. He must have been in a rush to leave. The fridge is covered in magnets: Home is where the heart is/Good vibes only/Today is a gift.
Lianne says she has to go out for a while but to make myself at home. I spend the morning padding between the fridge, bulging with salmon pate, blue-veined cheeses, saucissons, pickles, dill, mayo, mustard, chutney and the cupboards with posh crackers, gourmet potato snacks and rye breads. I ram it all down my throat. I eat and I eat and then I get into the pool. My painfully bloated stomach makes sinking seem a possibility. I was never any good at swimming anyway. I lie on my back staring up at the unbounded sky. I have never seen such a concentration of blue. Not even a streak of a cloud.
I hear the bleep of the garage door. I climb out of the pool, cover myself with a towel, and stand under an umbrella.
Yoohoo. Oh look at you all pink and hiding out from the sun!
I stick my tongue into a welter in my cheek.
I see you had a feast, she says, and I wonder does she have CCTV footage of me ramming the food into my mouth, and then I realise I pretty much emptied the tubs of pate and pickles.
Uh, yeah. Sorry about that.
I imagine your growing days are over. You’d want to be careful.
I must remember to stuff my face every opportunity I can get. I am twenty-one, firm and toned, in contrast with her miserly forty-something aerobicized skinny ass.
I peel away my towel and reveal my lithe, fertile body. (Can she see I’m wearing a tampon?) I walk to the deep end of the pool and tip up onto the balls of my feet, arms stretched above my head, back arched, poised to do my best swan-like dive. A spasm in my calf muscle causes me to lose my balance and I hit the water stomach-first at an angle that slaps and stings. When I surface, she is there, at the pool edge wearing a look of mock-concern. Ouchy, she says before she turns her back and click clicks in her peachy pumps with the neat little heel onto the marble floor in the kitchen.
Want a Martini? she shouts.
Sure, I say, though when confronted with the green olive on the cocktail stick in the top of the glass I don’t know what I’m meant to do with it. I watch her carefully, dipping and sucking, and finally swallowing.
We sit side by side in our bikinis, sipping our Martinis and my eyes land on a scar on her toned but loose-skinned stomach, running from her belly button to below the top of her bikini bottoms. Oh fucking typical. A tummy tuck or lipo, or some such shit. It’s a really bad job though. She notices me staring. Ovarian Cancer, she says. At your age. Do I imagine it, or does she smile as the word hysterectomy tumbles out of her mouth?
My stomach, bright red from the water slap and the earlier sunburn is starting to show signs of bruising. I didn’t know you could do such a thing: bruise yourself by hitting water.
You alright there honey? she asks.
I nod and make my way back to the pool’s steps and slowly wade in, covering myself in all that water.
Sucker for punishment, she says.
I force myself to go under once more, more carefully now. I submerge.
I’d like to show you off to some friends, Dad says later that evening.
Fuck. I’m expected to be sociable.
The restaurant is vast, all plush red leatherette and faux mahogany, with chrome lighting and ceiling fans. There are booths to the sides and big round banquette tables in the centre. We pass by an aquarium just as a hairy hand dips in and picks up a giant live crab whose claws are tied. We approach our grand, round table in the centre of the room where I am seated at the pinnacle. The light is so bright, everybody’s teeth seem blue. My wet hair is dripping onto my dress making water marks on my breasts.
Dick and Ange arrive: Oh my isn’t she Darlin’.
Then Doug and Babs come in, Babs squealing about what a dark horse Dad is. You didn’t say she was such a Cutie pie. You sure she’s yours?
Then, a surly man with nicotine- stained fingers and teeth, who is introduced as Dan, sits with a grunt and barely a glance at me. I decide I like him best.
Dad doesn’t look at me. I am seated to his right and Lianne to his left, burbling in his ear. His hand is resting on her thigh, and I imagine him tracing her scar with his fingertips. I try to engage Surly Man in conversation. He keeps excusing himself to make a call.
Addicted to the net, says Babs. He never meets them, not a one. It’s all cyber projections. He wouldn’t know what to do with a real woman.
They all have a story to tell about recently divorced Dan who hit the bottle, and the net, hard. I know that when I excuse myself to go to the ladies, I’ll be the subject of their clacking. I can’t imagine what Dad would say. It really is rather inconvenient, probably, or she just wouldn’t give up. I could imagine Lianne adding her story of the ravening Irishwoman’s appetite and her car-crash of a dive, stomach-first.
Ouchy, I think I hear her say to the gathering as I return to the table.
I order a tenderloin steak. I’m no longer a pescatarian, having seen the hairy hand descend on the stunned creatures in the tank, in bondage. This hunk of meat is far from tender, and so huge it hangs over the edge of the plate. I ambush the bloody flesh with my serrated knife, and tear into it gustily.
Hungry again? Lianne’s voice.
I look at her with a mouth full of meat and smile openly, revealing mashed up saliva and steak. Her delicate nostrils flare as her dainty foot in its white kitten-heeled mule strokes my father’s leg under the table. Up and down, up and down, she rustles, allowing me a full-frontage view.
This old man is a randy goat in bed, she announces to the table, who all laugh, except Dan and me. She strokes the back of her hand on my father’s cheek. I continue to hack and to chew, mouth open. Dad is looking at me now. Go on Dad, I dare you. And sure enough, he leans in and whispers in my ear: Maybe you could close your mouth when chewing. I lock eyes with him then and, in a perfect imitation of him chewing gum, I close my mouth and munch noisily. Chomp, chomp like the greedy little calf I am. My jaw cracks, just like his.
That night I can’t sleep. At home I’d masturbate for a kind of release, but here, in my father’s home there’s no way that’s going to happen.
Hi Sinead. You up there, honey? Dad’s voice calls out to me the following day. I’m in the bedroom, reading Bonjour Tristesse. Reading French, even when I don’t understand it all, makes me feel a little less intense, a little less alien.
Yes, I shout down.
Want to go out for lunch? Just you and me?
OK. Give me a few. I put the book in my bag.
You look well, he says as I come down the stairs. Sleep well?
I nod, sensing this is what he wants.
Where would you like to go? We have the best restaurants here. Anything you like at all, just tell me.
A veggie place? I say.
He laughs. This is Texas, and you want veggies?
Uh-huh.
OK. I believe there’s a place downtown. I’ve never been, but it looks authentically crusty enough.
What music do you like? he says, as he fiddles around with the car radio.
Dylan, I say, hoping to break through.
You’re so retro, he says.
He alights on some country and western crooner, see how ironic I can be, and sings along. I don’t even try to engage; I just stick my nose against the window and squash it against the pane. Nothing to see out there anyway, beyond concrete roads and nail bars and steakhouses and burger joints. I don’t know how he lives here, this man who used to love swimming in the Irish sea in any weather and climbing hills, all muck and sweat and high on nature.
The heat haze outside has a presence, a shifting, menacing quality. It has weight and substance. The sky overhead is too vast, too uncontained. None of it seems real.
Is this to your liking then? he says. ‘Downtown’ turns out to be a suburban mall, with a stab at a European sensibility. Cool, huh? The restaurant is dark and smells of incense and disinfectant. Cheese on everything. Lovely, I say, as I order a burrito, no cheese. Are you one of these vegan types? the waiter asks. I’d like to be, I say, but it’s hard, and he looks at my father and they both suppress a laugh.
So, how’s your brother?
Why don’t you ask him yourself?
He won’t talk to me these days.
Don’t give up on him, I say.
How’s your mother…? His eyes glaze over.
She has to clean houses.
His phone rings. He looks at it, lets it ring out.
I have to waitress four nights a week on top of college work, I want to say.
The phone rings again. He looks apologetic.
I’d better go check on her. He stands. She gets anxious when left alone.
I look down at my refried beans, a congealing brown gloop.
Why don’t you treat yourself to something nice, honey? This is the best mall in the area. Cool leather stuff.
He throws a fifty-dollar bill on the table.
I’ll be back for you in a couple of hours, OK?
He’s gone before I answer.
I swipe my phone with shaking hands.
Trev?
Sis? You okay?
Trev?
I knock over my iced coffee as I try to smooth out the bill.
Yuh. I’m here you weirdo. How’s the old man?
I don’t know him.
It’s been five years. What did you expect?
I don’t know that I want to know him.
Well, I guess you had to go that far to find that out.
I start to laugh. I’m bankrupt. I used all my savings to come here.
Steal from the fucker, before you leave.
I’m going straight to the airport now.
I fold the fifty in half.
Shit. That bad?
I hear myself exhale.
How much will a return flight cost you?
No idea. But I have an overdraft of 3,000. That better cover it.
I’ve no card. Sorry.
I know.
Call me when you have times and stuff.
Not that he’ll meet me. It’s not his style.
Will do. And Trev?
Yuh.
Just…
He laughs, sounding exactly like Dad, the old version.
I know. And he disconnects.
The taxi driver quotes 35 dollars to get me to the airport. No luggage? No. No coat? No. He tries some small talk which doesn’t exactly catch fire. Have a nice day y’all, he says to me as I leave. Hope you find him! I hand him the folded, stained fifty-dollar bill. Keep the change.
I go straight to the Aer Lingus desk. Say it’s an emergency. The woman is really kind. Which is unexpected and makes me cry. She offers me a tissue, which makes me cry even more. She gets me on the next flight back, with just a change of flight fee.
It’s cold on the plane and the air hostess offers me a blanket. The pain in my stomach is intense. Period cramps and something else, sharp and stabbing. I wonder if I have internal bleeding. I pull up my t-shirt and look at my purple, yellowing belly. Ouchy. Laughter bubbles out of me, caustic, a front for something else. The guy to my right looks at me.
Hope you don’t mind…? he says
I don’t, I say.
How on earth did you do that to your stomach?
A water slap.
A huh?
A wall of water.
In Texas?
I laugh and he laughs and the woman to his right says, Do you mind?
He leans in and whispers, Weirdly cute.
A memento, I say.
It’ll heal, he says.
Maybe, I say, as I take my book out.
You studying French?
Yes, and politics.
Brains and beauty!
He orders a whiskey and soda and peanuts. He offers me a drink.
I’ll have what you’re having.
The woman to his right asks the air hostess to be moved.
I look at the guy. He’s older, not unattractive, wedding ring.
Tell me all about you, he says.
I start. All the things I wished I’d said to my father. About college, how hard it is, my grades slipping, the waitressing, how much I had to work since he’d stopped supporting me, about Tom and our on-again-off-again thing – why was that? – about Trev and his drinking and Mum’s drinking and my worry for them. I don’t stop talking until I realise the man has fallen asleep.
I open the book. The words, musical notations like little spiders scuttle across the pages. I press my fingers down hard, squashing them.
