Surviving Michael (20 page)

It’s been a long, long time since the five of us, I mean the four of us, were so genuinely ecstatic together. Not since we were kids and Ray Houghton headed the ball past Peter Shilton in the Euro Finals in Stuttgart in 1988.

He can be a lucky bastard sometimes, Danny. Even with his limp and all. That night when we first met Ruby, I was the one who spotted her first. And when I heard her American accent, I thought it was dead sexy. She told me she was from California and I told her that she didn’t look like a Californian. Either way, I would have put money on me taking her home till she starts talking to Danny and then leaves me high and dry. I’ll never forgive him for that. There aren’t too many birds who look like her and are sound as well. I should know. My dream is to have two girlfriends who are also into each other and the three of us can share a house. It’s not as easy to find as you might think. For now, I’d settle for a gorgeous babe who’s also a bit of craic. That’s what Danny has and he doesn’t even know it. It’s like I’ve been playing the lottery for the last twenty years and he wins it on his first try. Looks now like he’s lost all of his winnings. It can happen to the best of us. Sorry, mate.

NOW IT WAS my turn to insist that they follow through with their consequences for the dare. It being Sunday evening, the two lanes of traffic aren’t as busy as you’d expect. We drove to the Tallaght exit of the M50 and now stand side by side on the hard shoulder watching the sporadic flashes from the headlights of the cars. It’s only when you stop do you notice how fast everything is going by.

That noise. That rush of sound. Ever growing and then blasting in your face. Then fading and gone. The ephemeral sound of speeding metal as it punches through the air. Like being at a race track. A guaranteed death almost as quick as a bullet if you were to step into that sound’s path. All the years I listened to it. Dreaded it. And then created it.

It was a Sunday as well when I had my big crash. I told all the doctors, the investigators, my parents and anyone who asked that I blanked out. Possible memory loss from the accident, they said, and I nodded. But I remember. I remember everything.

It was near the end of the season. All my dad talked about was the next season. Improving the car. We’ll do better, he said. We’ll try harder, he said. ‘We’? I couldn’t face it. Another year? I was struggling to cope with each weekend. Each race. Now another year seemed insurmountable. An insurmountable wall.

I dropped back down the field. 5th. 7th. 10th. I could see him in the pits screaming. Going mental. When I reached the end of the straight, something inside of me just gave up. I didn’t steer the car into the wall. I just let go. Relaxed my grip. I quit. And for that second or two, it felt so good. There was silence. I wanted to destroy the car. To put it out of its misery. So I just let go.

I hit the wall. I ended it all. Ended its despair and gloom and smashed into my insurmountable wall. My dad had always told me to be one with my car, and for those few moments before the crash, I finally bonded with it. Two inmates. Two allies. Holding hands as we jumped off the cliff.

A rackety old truck shrieks by and breaks me out of my daydream, and then fades away.

‘They’re going very fast, aren’t they?’ Liam says. We all turn and look at him.

‘So who’s going first?’ I ask them.

‘I’m not,’ Charlie says quickly.

‘Well, I’m fucking not either,’ Liam says.

‘Come on,’ Nick says, taking a last drag from his cigarette, ‘we’ll all go together.’

’We’re all going to die together,’ Liam says.

Nick had explained to us in the car on the way here - ‘It’s very simple, lads. We each have to walk from one exit of the M50 to the next. It’ll be about a mile walk. But not on the hard shoulder. We have to walk in the middle of the motorway. Along the white dotted line. Against the direction of the traffic.’

‘Will we run?’ Charlie asks.

‘Run where?’ Nick says.

‘If we run through the traffic instead of walking. Does that count?’

‘That’s worse,’ Nick says. ‘Come on, we’ll walk quickly.’

There’s a break in the traffic and without another word, Nick steps out into the slow lane. Charlie and Liam, like two children clinging to their mother in heavy rain, cower behind him. Almost immediately, a car starts flashing his lights at them as he passes them in the fast lane.

‘Fast lane,’ Nick calls out, and they shuffle into the next lane, Charlie and Liam following like the carriages of a train. A van blasts his horn and flashes his lights at them as it passes by.

The road seems clear, and I hear Nick call out, ‘come on, faster. There’s nothing coming.’

I follow them, walking along the hard shoulder as they quicken their pace. I can see a single headlight charging towards them.

‘Slow lane,’ Nick calls and they sidestep to the right as the bike whizzes by them.

A car, not too far behind the bike, starts flashing his lights at them.

‘Car,’ Nick yells. With that, Liam, his head still buried behind Charlie’s jacket, steps to his left. Charlie grabs him and pulls him back, just as the car flashes by within a few inches of him.

‘What are you doing?’ Charlie screams at him.

‘He said there was a car coming,’ he yells back, pointing at Nick.

‘I didn’t say to change lanes,’ Nick shouts.

Liam’s face is flushed red. ‘Just hurry fucking up, will you? We’re not out here for a Sunday stroll.’

‘How can I go any faster with you two hanging onto me,’ Nick yells at him.

A car races past them and blows his horn.

‘I’m just saying to walk a bit faster.’

‘Do you want to go first, then?’ Nick says.

A van moves from the slow lane into the fast lane to avoid them.

‘No, I don’t,’ Liam says, ‘just put a bit of pace into it, will you?’

‘Right then,’ Nick says, and walks behind both of them. ‘You fucking lead.’

Charlie, now in front, screams at both of them. ‘Shut the fuck up the two of you,’ he yells as another motorbike flies by. ‘Now, come on,’ and he turns as if leading a troop into battle.

‘Fast lane,’ he calls out and they dutifully follow as he quickens his pace.

They move from left to right a few times, like advancing soldiers on a battlefield.

‘Slow lane,’ Charlie orders. Another car shoots by.

I see the truck before they do. A massive thing. It has a slanted roof on the cabin and has lights, like fairy lights, running along every edge of its front. It doesn’t even look like it will fit under the bridge.

Charlie sees it and orders them to switch lanes.

Only then did I see the second truck overtaking it, and moving even faster. They switch lanes again, but the driver must have seen them as he starts furiously flashing his headlights at them.

One of them blares his air horns at them and the original truck slams on his brakes and smoke comes off his back tyres. It didn’t have much effect, as both trucks are now head to head looming down on them like wild animals running side by side.

Charlie, Liam and Nick freeze. They have moved into the centre of the road and seem unable to move. I try to shout at them. To tell them to get off the road, but I’ve no voice. Panic has overtaken us all. They hold on to each other as if they’re falling off a cliff.

Both trucks blare their horns again in unison. Charlie starts to scream, and then they all start screaming. The scream rises and seems to come from some primordial place inside of them.

The full force of the trucks’ lights turns the road into daylight. All of their mouths are open and their eyes closed. It looks like a photograph. All three of them caught in a camera’s flash.

Then a torrent of noise and darkness, as if they stepped through a waterfall and into a cave with only the sound of the crashing water still audible. Both trucks flash by them on either side, like freight trains, in what only lasts for a few seconds but feels like a full minute.

I instinctively cover my face with my hands. When the trucks have passed there is a disturbed stillness in the air, like someone has slammed a door in your face. I open my eyes to see the three of them still clinging to each other tightly, and more embarrassingly, still screaming their heads off. I feel faint, and allow myself to fall backwards onto the grass verge.

They limp their way off the motorway, and Charlie drops down beside me. Liam is still gripping Nick. He turns and pushes Liam away, and Liam steps back, a little embarrassed. Charlie looks at them and starts to smile. Nick takes out a cigarette and with a shaking hand, lights it.

‘I’m going back to the car,’ Liam says, breaking the silence, but when he starts to move, his legs don’t budge. He falls forward onto the road and cracks his head off the ground.

‘Owwww,’ he yells out and puts his hands to his head.

THE BOISTEROUS MEN, mostly single, are starting to peter out slowly after a day of watching sports and drinking. I hate this shift. I hate their eyes on me. Their barbaric questions. Their banal comments. Their insinuating smirks. They are steadily being replaced by couples with expressionless faces sitting side by side; taciturn until after their second drink.

There must be a word when we feel a multitude of emotions at the same time. If there is I don’t know what it is, but that’s exactly how I feel when I see Danny walking through the door. Relief, fear, anger, joy, love, sadness, hope, despair. And all at the same moment. Like different fruit sprouting from the same branch of a tree.

I had this image in my head of him sitting alone somewhere, so I’m surprised to see Nick, Liam and Charlie walking in after him. It was only when he’s sitting down that I notice their blond hair and the cuts and bruises on their faces. The other three are talking in whispers among themselves, but Danny is staring down the other end of the bar. I know what he’s looking at before I even lean forward to confirm that it’s Ricky.

I love working with Ricky, but I know that our comfort around each other sometimes pisses Danny off. Ricky can be very tactile, and it doesn’t help being squeezed behind such a small bar for a ten-hour shift. Ricky loves women and women love Ricky, but once a girl is ‘off the market’ as he calls it, then that’s it for him. Charlie says that when an average looking guy goes out with a beautiful girl, most of them can’t handle it as there’s a perpetual streak of jealousy that’s aggravated whenever a younger, better looking or funnier guy gets her attention for even a moment.

Always a girl to grab the bull by the horns, I walk straight over to them. As I approach the table, I hear Nick ask Liam what they’re supposed to do with a penguin once they have it. I imagine it’s some euphemism for drugs and hope Danny hasn’t gone down this road.

‘What happened to you guys,’ I ask, trying to keep it as casual sounding as possible.

They all go quiet, then look down at my stomach. I place my arm across it.

‘What do you mean?’ Liam asks.

I ignore him and turn to Danny. ‘I have ten minutes,’ I say and walk away.

I hear him getting down from his stool and his footsteps behind me as he follows me into the small staff canteen behind the bar. The florescent bulbs fill the room with harsh light. I fill the kettle but don’t switch it on, and I tell him that I don’t want a scene. I tell him that I can’t afford to lose my job. Not now.

‘Just tell me who the father is,’ he says.

‘Let it go, Danny. Please. At least for now.’

‘Okay, then, I’ve come to a decision.’

He puts his hand out and leans against the fridge.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’m listening.’

‘But I’ll give you some time to think about it, if you want to.’

‘I’ll do anything. I promise. Tell me,’ I say.

‘We’ll stay together and put all of this behind us, on the condition that you get rid of it.’

I can’t help but lift my hands up to my face. I feel vulnerable and overwhelmed and I start to cry behind my fingers. I hear Danny walking closer to me, and I feel his hand on my shoulder. He takes my hands away from my face and holds my tear-soaked fingers.

‘Please,’ he pleads.

I look up at him. I look up into his big sad brown eyes.

‘I can’t,’ I tell him.

The color drops from his face, and I can almost hear his blood, like rain, falling down through his body.

‘Please, Ruby,’ he begs me. ‘I don’t want to lose you. I still love you.’

He is forcing himself not to cry. I turn my hands in his grip and squeeze his hands tightly and look hard into his eyes.

‘And I love you,’ I say, but then loosen my grip on his hands and let go, gently stroking his fingers as I do and take a deep breath before continuing. ‘But I can’t do that. Not what you’re asking me. I know I’ve done a terrible thing and you’ve every right not to forgive me. But as awful as I feel and it’s so hard to explain and I’m sure so hard for you to understand, but...’ I place both his palms on my stomach and although my eyes still hold my tears, I smile. ‘...but I’m so happy to be having this baby.’

I reach out and stroke his arm.

‘This is my baby now, and I’m its mother. I’m all it has right now. And it feels so wonderful to have it growing inside of me. And I know it’s wrong, but I’m so happy. I can’t explain it, and I never thought that I’d feel like this. Maybe it’s just the hormones or the chemicals or some trick of human evolution to get me to accept the baby, but I already feel so much love for it. I wish so much that it were your baby, but there’s nothing I can do about that now.’

Still smiling, I take his hand and, moving slowly, press it against my stomach. I can feel him resist.

‘I can’t,’ he says shaking his head.

‘No, but we can, Danny. You and me.’

He continues looking at his hand on my stomach.

‘What would people say?’

‘Who gives a fuck what people would say?’ I say loudly. ‘This is between us, Danny. Only us.’

I squeeze his hands tighter against me.

‘Listen to me,’ I say with more determination. He looks up at me

‘I’ve spoken to the father, and he agrees that you can adopt.’

He tries to pull his hands away from me, but I hold on to him and pull them back.