SIGNING ON:A mystery benefactor means a night out. But the old extravagance feels dumb
IN THE NIGHT the dog barks, just once, and not particularly loudly. The unemployed man moves to the window, remembers he no longer owns a motorbike, no longer lives in gangland. Sees nothing suspicious. Returns to bed. In the morning a white envelope inside the door. He opens it: €500 in fifties. A note: “You did me a favour once. I doubt you’d even remember. But I never forgot.” One of those smiley symbols favoured by text generations.
Something about the handwriting. A relative? Former student? He’d helped more than a few. One distinct possibility: an intelligent, smiling young man whose mother had died weeks before his finals. The student had crumbled but with encouragement, and some generous marking, passed. Raised eyebrows among the faculty androids (one of whom referred to students as educational units). Machines. Utterly incapable of inspiring; eminently capable of sly self-preservation.
Later the young man’s name began featuring in the credits of some decent documentaries. The unemployed man had felt justified. Proud.
***
He shows the money to his wife. Wonders aloud who it might be. She says they live on an island; everyone knows everybody else’s business (or lack thereof). They agree it is easier to figure out who didn’t drop off the cash. The list of people who know only too well their circumstances, and who wouldn’t consider dropping off €20, is, she says, much more remarkable.
They agree to take €100 each. The remainder will pay off gas and phone bills.
***
Ages since he was in town with money. He examines some breathable, water-resistant gear for the bicycle, baulks at the price: it’s not like he’ll melt in a downpour. Is about to buy a novel, remembers his library card. In a second-hand shop finds a pristine Roxy Music LP to replace one the baby got her mitts on. Enjoys two beers, watching different races stroll by: their new address is alarmingly homogenous. Decides to buy flowers from a street trader he used to frequent, every Friday. Thought ya’d emigrated, she says. Not quite, he responds. She is perceptive: Ya signin’ on, love? He nods. She smiles, which seems inappropriate, until she announces, mostly for the benefit of the trader next to her, “I’d find plentya work for a big fella like ya . . . An’ I don’t mean doing the dishes, neither.”
She gives him white orchids, half price. He returns home with €65. Happy but vexed, vaguely, by how casually he used to drop €100 every other Saturday: dumb.
***
His wife had booked a half-hour massage, bought a decent moisturiser. When she hears he still has money she organises a babysitter.
Lovely to be going out again.
***
Difficult to pay €30 for a Montepulciano that’s €5.99 in the shops. Impossible to pay €15 for tiny coffees, jaded chocolate cake. The waitress is pushy, indiscreet. Broadcasts to the restaurant at large: “No starters”; “Half carafe of house red”; “No desserts”.
Come time to pay he makes his announcement: “No tact. No cop on. No tip.”
His wife finds it disconcerting that he can let no slight, real or imagined, go uncommented on. (He finds it disconcerting that people digest so much crap, daily, from the State, mass media, vested interests, “experts”, fools.)
***
He cracks a few jokes for the shrink. Who, perhaps mindful of previous dark sessions, suggests the patient might be experiencing a false high. It is good they have moved, and secured for their daughter a place at a reputable school. But not being in a gym? Exercising alone? Was it perhaps shortsighted to sell the motorbike? After all, it provided necessary “solace”. The patient wonders if the shrink has any idea what “broke” really means. (Still, you can’t blame him, nor thousands like him.)
The patient explains he has bought a pushbike. The shrink suggests a cycling club. Not likely: he joined one, years ago. Spent most of his time out front, avoiding oxygen-wasting blather, middle-class one-upmanship.
Prefers the sounds of wind, tyres on Tarmac.
***
The shrink writes out the prescription, and, for a moment, the unemployed man believes he recognises the handwriting. A State-funded psychiatrist secretly reimbursing an unwaged patient? Not impossible. (Yeah, and pigs might fly. Bankers get jailed. Enda’s job strategy succeed. And Elvis turn up, alive, and kicking, in Killybegs.)
The writer of this column wishes to remain anonymous. His identity is known to the editor