Life Without Children: Stories by Roddy Doyle

Author:Roddy Doyle [Doyle, Roddy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

The Funeral

The last days had been hard. The last day, the day of the funeral, had been very hard. The Irish do funerals well, they say. Death doesn’t frighten the Irish. They know all the right words. He was a legend, a saint she was, a saint, he did great things for this place, I’m sorry for your troubles, I used to love meeting her, he’ll be missed around the town. They know how to sing. They know how to get drunk. They know how to stay polite for the day. If there’s genius, if there’s a national flair, it’s in the ability to get rat-arsed and remain civil and cute, to let go and hold back. To wait.

Except for one fuckin’ eejit.

Bob was awake.

There hadn’t been a proper funeral, and he hadn’t been at it.

He wasn’t the fuckin’ eejit. That was someone else.

His wife, Nell, was asleep beside him. He was in his own bed. It shouldn’t have surprised him – he’d been nowhere but home for months. But it did surprise him. He listened to her breathing, the slight, lovely snore. He found his phone where he always left it. Under the pillow, under the edge nearest his side of the bed. He’d slept all night. There was daylight across the ceiling. The traffic was missing. There were no cars passing outside. The lockdown quiet.

There wasn’t a hangover. He’d earned one; he remembered that. He’d been drinking for days. But he felt great. Free, somehow – and clear. In his lungs, in his head. He’d get up quietly. He’d make the coffee, he’d scramble eggs. He’d stick on the radio; he’d take in the news. Precise bits of Covid-19, the stats, the new language. He’d get back into the life.

He was drunk. Still drunk. Lightly drunk. Ballet dancer drunk. He was at the bottom of the stairs before he knew he’d been on the stairs. The descent had been effortless. More than that – miraculous. Forgotten. Weightless. He checked the man in the dressing gown. It was him. He looked back up the stairs. He’d come all that way. His sore shoulder wasn’t sore; the pinched nerve had gone away. He was in the kitchen. He threw open the fridge door. It felt like weeks since he’d looked inside it. There were one, two – there were seven cartons of milk. There were tomatoes. There was half a lemon. There were eggs – there was a box. There were eggs in the box – five eggs. He was up and running.

His phone hopped on the counter. He grabbed it. Afraid it would jump onto – into – the gas, under the pot he’d just put there for the eggs. He lifted the pot, dropped the pot, singed the sleeve of his dressing gown. Boy, he was drunk. He could smell the cotton, if it was cotton. He could smell something else, something important. Hair – he’d singed the hair on the back of his hand. He turned off the gas.

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