And Bolger can’t help resenting that. Which he knows is absurd, because apart from anything else, the old man is in the clutches of some form of dementia these days, not quite Alzheimer’s, but not quite anything else they seem willing to name either. He floats in and out of focus. One minute he’s the acerbic old bollocks he’s always been, cutting you down to size, and the next he’s slumped in a chair and staring vacantly at the wall, or worse, at you – decades of the unspoken, and the unthinkable, suspended terrifyingly in mid-air between you.
When Bolger gets out of the car he is greeted by the director of the home, Mrs Curran, a severe matronly type in her mid-fifties. They exchange a few words on the steps. When they go inside, the first thing that hits Bolger is the smelclass="underline" a combination of permanently on heating, cooking odours, carpets and – there’s no other way of saying it – old people.
Mrs Curran leads him down a corridor to the lounge. This is a large room with perhaps a dozen sofas and armchairs spread about. There is a fireplace, a TV mounted on a high shelf and a sectioned-off area with four card tables in it.
Mrs Curran indicates an armchair on the far side of the room.
The old man is sitting alone, facing a window that looks out onto a rolling lawn and the nearby hills.
Having engaged in small talk up to this point, Mrs Curran lobs a curve ball at Bolger. ‘I should warn you… Liam is in a very, shall we say, isolated place of late. He’s fine really, and seems quite tranquil in fact, but he has very much retreated into himself.’
Bolger acknowledges this with a silent grimace.
He makes his way through the maze of sofas, half of which are occupied. He greets people as he passes, but is unsure if anyone is noticing him – and not who he is, but at all. When he gets to the window, his father looks up and nods a hello, as though they’d last seen each other half an hour ago.
Liam Bolger is in his late seventies and suddenly looks it. As always he’s wearing a suit and tie, but today this old, familiar suit looks too big for him. He seems small in it, shrunken, even since the last time they actually did see each other, which was what… about two or three months ago? At Una’s. A birthday?
Bolger pulls an armchair over and angles it so that he’s half facing the old man and half facing the view. He sits down.
‘How are you, Dad?’
There is no reply.
Bolger glances out the window. It’s an oppressive afternoon, dull and overcast. The autumnal view is lovely, but it needs a few shafts of sunlight to animate it. And that’s not going to happen today.
‘I spoke to Una last week,’ he says, and immediately feels stupid for saying this, as though speaking to his sister were an actual piece of news.
It’s not even true.
The old man turns to him and their eyes meet.
In the next couple of seconds, Bolger feels a rapid succession of things: he feels accused, rebuked, ridiculed even. He wants to say, ‘What?’
‘They’re in the cupboard,’ the old man whispers.
Bolger leans forward, as though he’s been thrown a lifeline, something he can work with.
‘The cupboard? What’s in the cupboard, Dad?’
The old man’s watery eyes widen, revealing crimson rims. He doesn’t look tranquil at all. He looks terrified.
‘That’d be telling you.’ He shakes his head. ‘Do you think I’m a fool? That’s what they want.’
Bolger swallows. He’s lost here. He says nothing. He studies the old man’s face and sees flickers of himself, flickers of Frank. He thinks of the questions he came out here to ask… and all of a sudden asking them seems about as plausible as asking a two-year-old to explain string theory.
But he decides to ask them anyway, to throw a curve ball of his own. Maybe it’s a brutal thing to do, but he figures he might be able to shock the old man up onto some higher level of awareness.
‘Dad,’ he says, hunching forward, ‘I want to ask you something. The night… the night Frank died, was he responsible for what happened? Did he cause the accident?’
There.
He remains hunched forward, tense, waiting for a response.
The old man stares at him.
Bolger feels strangely liberated. They’ve never talked about this before. In fact, all they’ve ever talked about over the years is constituency stuff, or the North, or Gaelic football.
But as the seconds tick past, Bolger begins to suspect that nothing is going to happen here, that the grenade words Frank and accident might still be lying on the floor of his father’s mind, undetonated.
‘Dad?’
‘They’re in the cupboard, you eejit. I told you.’
Bolger sighs. He leans back in the armchair, resigned, impatient.
‘What are, Dad?’
The old man bends forward.
‘The paratroopers.’
The word is delivered in a loud whisper, and with such urgency and desperation that Bolger is alarmed. But what can he do?
After another twenty minutes or so, most of which passes in silence, he stands up. He says goodbye, trying hard to make leaving like this seem normal. He avoids eye contact with anyone as he crosses the lounge area.
Walking back to reception, along the corridor, he is upset and distracted, and has to make a huge effort to compose himself when he hears someone calling out his name.
‘Hello Gina, come in.’
Claire Flynn holds the door open and Gina steps into a narrow hallway. The two women proceed through a door on the left into the living room. Claire takes Gina’s jacket, invites her to sit down, offers her something to drink – coffee, tea. It’s all very formal and awkward. Gina can hear voices from another part of the house – young voices. The girls?
‘I’ve been drinking coffee all day,’ Gina says, ‘so maybe just a glass of water?’
‘Fine.’
Claire retreats. Gina sits down in an armchair and looks around. It’s an attractive room, with wooden floors, an old-fashioned fireplace, a coffee table and a very comfortable three-piece leather suite. It’s also very much a family room. There are a couple of beanbags, bookshelves in an alcove and a home cinema system in the corner. From what she can see the DVD collection is dominated by Disney and Pixar titles.
There are double doors leading to another room, but these are closed.
Claire returns carrying a glass of water in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. Gina reaches up and takes her water. Claire steps backwards and sits on the sofa, nestling in at one end, resting her mug on the edge.
‘So,’ she says.
Gina nods and half smiles. She takes a sip of water from her glass. This is the first chance she’s had to focus, to get a proper look at Claire Flynn, who’s probably about the same age as Gina is, but seems slightly older. Is this because of that extra little touch of seriousness and maturity that comes – Gina imagines – from being a married woman and a mother? And now a widow? Maybe. She’s a redhead in any case, pale, with freckles and green eyes. It’s a very particular look – and Gina’s prepared to bet that if she gets to see either of the daughters, it’s a look she’ll see replicated. Dermot Flynn, as she remembers – a little uncomfortably now – was fairly nondescript-looking, featureless.