— Taste tha’ now, Bimbo, said Jimmy Sr.
He held his mug out for Bimbo to take. Bimbo took it, and sipped.
— There. Isn’t it lovely?
— Oh, it is, said Bimbo. — It is, alrigh’.
— Bet yeh regret you didn’t get a mug of it for yourself now, wha’, said Jimmy Sr.
They went home after that.
They did something every day nearly. The weather was weird. It was lovely one minute; they’d have to take their jackets off, and even their jumpers. And then it would start snowing — it would! — or hailstoning.
— Snow in April, said Bimbo, looking up at it.
He liked it, only he was cold. They were in under the shelter at the pond in St Anne’s Park. Bimbo didn’t want to lean against the wall because he could smell the piss; it was terrible. They had Gina with them, in her buggy.
— It’s mad alrigh’, said Jimmy Sr.
— It was lovely earlier, said Bimbo.
— That’s righ‘, said Jimmy Sr. — It’s the fuckin’ ozone layer; that’s wha’ I think’s doin’ it.
— Is April not always a bit like this? said Bimbo.
— Not this bad, said Jimmy Sr. — No.
He made sure that Gina’s head was well inside her hood.
— The greenhouse effect, he said.
— I thought tha’ was supposed to make the world get warmer, said Bimbo.
— It does that alrigh’, Jimmy Sr agreed with him. — Yeah; but it makes it go colder as well. It makes the weather go all over the shop.
— Yeh wouldn’t know wha’ to wear, said Bimbo. — Sure yeh wouldn’t.
He put his hands up into his sleeves.
— Yeh’d be better off goin’ around in your nip, said Jimmy Sr.
They laughed at that.
— At least yeh’d know where yeh stood then, wha’, said Jimmy Sr.
— I’d need shoes though, said Bimbo.
— An’ somewhere to put your cigarettes, wha’.
They laughed again.
— I’m never happy unless I have me shoes on me, said Bimbo. — Even on a beach.
— Is tha’ righ’?
— Or slippers.
Then it stopped. And the sun came out nearly immediately and it was like it had never been snowing, except for the snow on the ground. But that was disappearing quick; they could see it melting and evaporating.
— I love lookin’ at tha’ sort o’ thing, said Bimbo.
— Yeah, said Jimmy Sr.
He checked on Gina. She was still asleep.
— Just as well, wha’, he said. — She makes enough noise, doesn’t she, Bimbo?
— Ah sure, said Bimbo. — That’s wha’ they’re supposed to do at her age. She’s lovely.
— Isn’t she but, said Jimmy Sr. — If the rest of her is as good as her lungs she’ll be a fine thing when she grows up.
They got going. They had a read of the newspapers in the library, to get in out of the cold, on their way home. But they had to leave because Gina started acting up.
They didn’t meet much at night; once or twice a week only.
— Look, said Bimbo one morning.
He took something out of a brown envelope with a window in it.
Jimmy went over and turned so he could see it. Bimbo didn’t really hold it up to him; he just held it.
It was his redundancy cheque.
— Very nice, said Jimmy Sr.
Bimbo put it back in the envelope and went into the kitchen and gave it to Maggie. Then they went out.
Bimbo put a lot of the lump sum into the house. He got aluminium windows for the back; they already had them in the front. And he put his name down for the gas conversion, the Fifty-Fifty Cash Back. Jimmy Sr helped Bimbo put new paper up in his kitchen and Veronica went through him for a short cut when she saw the paste in his hair and he told her how it had got there. He had to promise to do their own kitchen before she’d get off his back, but they didn’t have the money to buy any paper or anything so it had been an easy enough promise to make.
They went out to Howth as well sometimes, and had a walk down the pier and along the front. They were going to get fishing rods.
Then a great thing happened. Bimbo helped out a bit with Barrytown United. He just went to the Under 13 matches cos Wayne, one of his young lads, was playing for them now; he was usually the sub, and Bimbo minded their gear and their money for them. And he sometimes drove some of the Under 18s to their matches, and home again. Anyway, he got a chance of two tickets to one of the World Cup warm-up matches, against Wales, in Lansdowne.
— Not two tickets exactly, he explained to Jimmy Sr.
— Wha’ does tha’ fuckin’ mean? said Paddy.
— Was I talkin’ to you? said Bimbo. — We get into the game for nothin’, he told Jimmy Sr, — but we have to do a bit o’ stewardin’. Nothin’ much though.
— Wha’?
— I don’t know, said Bimbo. — Exactly. Are yeh on?
— Okay, said Jimmy Sr.
— Ah good, said Bimbo.
— They’ll fuckin’ lose, Paddy told them. — Wait an’ see.
— Fuck off you, said Jimmy Sr.
Jimmy Sr loved soccer but he hadn’t been to a game in years, and now he could go to an international for nothing.
— The tickets are like gold dust, he told Veronica.
They got the DART straight across to Lansdowne. Jimmy Sr had Darren’s Ireland scarf on him. Darren still went to all the matches but he didn’t bother with the scarf any more. So Jimmy Sr had it.
— How many stops after Amiens Street is Lansdowne? Jimmy Sr asked Bimbo.
Bimbo looked up at the yoke with the stations on it over the window.
— Eh — three—, said Bimbo. — Yeah; three.
— Good, said Jimmy Sr. — I could do with a slash.
They’d had a pint in the Hikers; just the two.
— We’ll have one when we get there, said Bimbo.
— Grand, said Jimmy Sr. — No hurry.
— There’s a big jacks under the stand.
— Grand, said Jimmy Sr.
When they got to Lansdowne they had to put on these white jackets with Opel on them and they followed this fat fella, and he brought them up into the East Stand and what they had to do was show people where their seats were. It was easy. You’d want to have been a fuckin’ eejit not to have been able to find your own seat. He slagged Bimbo; said he’d buy him a torch and a skirt so he could get him a job in a cinema. — Can I help you, sir, he’d heard him saying to one fuckin’ eejit who couldn’t find his seat.
Then they went down to the side of the pitch just after the game started, inside the barriers — it was great — and they watched the game. It was a shite match, woeful; but he enjoyed it and the weather stayed good. He took off his Opel jacket and the fat fella told him to put it back on, but he said it nicely, so Jimmy Sr did put it back on. Coming up to full time the fat fella told them to turn around and face the crowd and stop any young fellas from climbing over the barriers when the whistle went. Then Ireland got a penno, and they had to watch that; and that gobshite, Sheedy, missed it — Southall saved it — and he turned back, and the crowd went fuckin’ mad, and he turned back around and the new fella, Bernie Slaven, had scored a goal and Jimmy Sr’d fuckin’ missed it. He had to watch it on the telly later on that night. He didn’t know why he’d faced the crowd anyway; there was no way he was going to try and stop anyone from climbing over the barriers. They could chew their way through the barriers for all Jimmy Sr cared; it was none of his business. He enjoyed the whole day though. Mick McCarthy came over near to where himself and Bimbo were just before the end to take one of his famous long throws and Jimmy Sr nodded at him and said Howyeh, Mick, and McCarthy winked at him. He was a good player, McCarthy, a hard man.