Pack Up the Moon Read online

  When Clo and Tom had gone, Noel and Seán sat me down.

  “We know we’re in the way,” Noel said.

  I blushed red-hot while attempting to mumble the words “no” and “don’t be silly”.

  “I heard you in the kitchen,” Seán said, smiling.

  I’d been caught. At least they seemed to be taking it well.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, still embarrassed.

  “Don’t be,” Seán said. “We didn’t mean to turn your home into a frat house.”

  Noel smiled at the idea that he of all people would be responsible for turning my home into a frat house.

  “It’s not that,” I admitted.

  “What then?” asked Noel, not because he was insulted – it was just his usual concern.

  “I’m afraid that we’re all relying on one another too much. I mean, how long can this go on? If I get too used to having you around, well, then, what will I do when you leave?”

  And there it was. I’d admitted it, my real concern. I was afraid that if I let my part-time lodgers get under my skin, then it would be too hard to let them go and they weren’t mine to keep. It was simple really. They both smiled.

  “We not going anywhere,” said Noel.

  “Just home,” said Seán.

  They stayed that night and the next morning they left together and I waved them off. I closed the door. Alone again, but it wasn’t so bad.

  * * *

  The next night Clo slept with Tom. She rang me the following morning. He was still there, asleep. She was wired. They’d had a great time. It hadn’t worked out exactly as she had planned. She had forgotten to buy a lighter or matches to light the candles. She’d attempted to light them from the gas oven but only succeeded in covering her hob with wax. The wine tasted like cheese and her meal was an utter failure. Tom arrived to his very stressed girlfriend’s home having picked up a pizza, a reliable bottle of vino and a video. They munched on pizza, sipped on wine and laughed their way through Screwballs.

  “Screwballs?” I didn’t believe her.

  “I know, it’s mad. It’s his favourite film too.”

  I was dumbfounded. He really did share in Clo’s shit movie taste. “Wow!”

  “I know,” she said. “The sex was great,” she went on, “but I don’t want to go on about it because if I do I might jinx it. It’s all about breaking patterns, Em. I’m making changes.”

  “Good for you,” I admitted, not really sure what she meant.

  “Yeah,” I could hear her smiling down the phone line, “I’m going to marry him,” she said with great confidence.

  I agreed it was a distinct possibility that he was The One now that the Screwballs thing had come to light.

  Chapter 15

  Soccer, Betazoids and the Exit

  Seán had somehow found the inspiration he required to return to his book. He concentrated on finishing his first novel, something he had talked about doing since the first day we met. He’d work on his articles, then push them aside and get lost in his book for hours and hours at a time. He didn’t read time anymore, nor did he care, which was especially frustrating if he had agreed to meet you for lunch.

  Noel started taking on extra work. He had some club or social or group to attend almost every night.

  I didn’t really have anything to get lost into, no escape. I just taught the kids, came home, marked some copies every now and again and that was it. I was bored and now that Noel was so busy I was forced into the confession box just to see him again.

  “Hey,” I smiled when Noel pulled back the little sliding shutter.

  He sighed. “So you’re back.”

  “Well, you haven’t been around so much. I just wanted to catch up with you.”

  “You know where I live,” he stated, smiling, because we both knew there was no way that I was ever going to get myself caught talking about famine with Father Rafferty.

  “But you’re never there,” I argued, avoiding the subject of his aging housemate.

  He was beaten and surrendered accordingly. “So how about we take this outside?” he said, before adding, “My ass is numb.”

  Apparently there were all kinds of ways to suffer for one’s God and a numb ass was definitely one of them.

  We went to a coffee shop. It was late in the evening and the coffee shop was full of students. I looked around and smiled at them, the memories of my own college days seeming distant. Noel noticed my contemplation.

  “The passage of time is a funny thing. Sometimes I wish that I could hold on to just one moment, stop time, just for while,” he said.

  I smiled. “I know exactly which moment I’d like to hold on to.”

  He sighed, looking suddenly sad. “Me too,” he said.

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  “Fine.” He smiled again. “Actually I’m glad you came to see me – it saves me a trip.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said intrigued.

  “I was thinking of going away for a while,” he told me.

  I panicked. “Where?” I asked, praying he would say Bray rather than Bali.

  “I’m thinking of taking a sabbatical to travel, see a bit of the world God created. I bang on about it enough – it’s time I experienced it.”

  Now I was really panicking. I couldn’t lose him too. “You want to travel or you want to run away?” I asked, devastated that he was leaving me.

  “Ouch!” he said good-naturedly. “And the answer is I don’t know. But I have to work things out. I can’t keep carrying on the way I am, my heart not in it. I need to find what I’ve lost.”

  I wanted to tell him he was talking rubbish and not to go, that he could work out his problems here, that I would help him, but I knew I couldn’t help and that he needed to get away and find the peace he was looking for.

  “What if you don’t find what you’ve lost?” was my only question.

  “Then I move on,” he said.

  He was doing the right thing. I knew it but it was killing me. “I think you’re brave. I’ll really miss you.” I was smiling, but tears were rolling down my face.

  He wiped them away and held my face in his hands. “I love you, Emma,” he said.

  “I love you too, Noel,” I responded.

  We hugged and over his shoulder I saw the students sniggering and whispering about the priest and his girlfriend. If only they understood his position, maybe his pain wouldn’t be such a joke.

  * * *

  Clo decided we weren’t spending enough time together as a group. She organised a night out.

  “Dinner, a movie, a few drinks,” she said.

  “A movie,” I repeated. “Don’t you mean a film?” I enquired sarcastically.

  “Em, get with the times. Everyone calls films movies these days. Jesus, you’re such a granny!”

  I laughed. “I’m twenty-seven,” I pointed out.

  “That’s the problem,” she counselled. “So, are you in?”

  I enquired as to who was going.

  “You, me, Tom, his friend Mick and Seán.”

  I wasn’t convinced. “Seán said he’d go?”

  “Yes,” she replied firmly.

  “OK, so this is not you and Tom trying to set me up with his friend?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, Em, always so suspicious! Nobody’s trying to set you up. It’s just a night out.”

  I phoned Seán. He confirmed he would be there so I agreed to go.

  We had arranged to meet in a pizza place at half six, just in time for the early bird menu, as Mick kept reminding us. Seán was late. I was beginning to think he wasn’t coming and this caused great personal concern as Clo and Tom were still at the fawning phase and Mick was boring the arse off me.

  “You know what the greatest thing about Generations is?” he asked.

  I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Cultural diversity,” he stated and slapped his hand on the table as he spoke to emphas
ise the importance of it.

  “Really?” I smiled while trying to grab Clo’s attention. This was difficult. Tom was whispering into her neck – she was miles away. I was stuck. I looked towards the door. It wasn’t opening.

  “You see the Star Trek crew had a Vulcan but that’s it. The rest were human. Generations has a Klingon, a Betazoid, an Android and Colm Meaney, which is so cool. After The Commitments, he’s really got out there and made something of himself. I mean, where are the other fuckers?”

  “Good question,” I said while sneaking another look at my watch and planning to punch Seán’s face in. Half an hour and fourteen Star Trek Next Generation plotlines later he arrived.

  “Sorry, I’m really sorry, I got caught up,” he announced as he pushed in beside me, much to Mick’s annoyance.

  “This is Mick.” I smiled at him.

  They shook hands.

  “Mick was just telling me all about Star Trek, The Next Generation,” I said, smiling.

  Before Seán got a chance to comment, Mick asked him if he liked Star Trek.

  “No, I think it’s a load of bollocks,” he said, smiling.

  Mick was thankfully quiet after that.

  We went to see a Silence of the Lambs rerun at the IFC. I sat between Seán and Mick. Mick started to whisper in my ear – he was a talker. I hated talkers. I mean, what’s the bloody point in going to see a movie if you’re going to talk the whole way through it? It was driving me insane so I kicked Seán. Mick started whispering again, telling me some bullshit fact about serial killers.

  Seán leaned across me. “What? You’ll have to speak up. I can’t hear you.”

  Mick sat back uncomfortably. “Nothing.”

  “Shit, sorry, I thought you were saying something.”

  Seán smiled at me while I tried to hide my grin. Mick didn’t whisper after that.

  We went for a drink, insisting it would be a quick one. Mick was tired so he went home. I sighed with relief. Once in the pub, after the movie post mortem was completed, Clodagh and Tom announced they were moving in together. I couldn’t believe it, it had been so quick, but I was happy for them.

  “Why not? We could all be dead tomorrow.”

  Seán and I congratulated them and stayed on to celebrate their good news. They left together and we shared a taxi home.

  “It’s a bit quick,” he thought aloud.

  “When you know, you know,” I replied.

  He looked out the window. “How do you know, Emma?”

  “You just do,” I responded.

  “When?”

  I was confused. “What do you mean?”

  “When do you know?”

  “You just do.”

  He remained quiet for the rest of our journey. I looked out at the passing lights and daydreamed about being Clarice Starling and kicking Hannibal Lecter’s ass while Seán sat silently looking ahead. Obviously, I hadn’t a clue what I was talking about.

  * * *

  A month later my parents held a going-away party for Noel. They had a banner in the sitting-room that read “Bon Voyage, Noel”. There were vol au vents, sausages and sandwiches everywhere, making it difficult to find a place to sit. Seán, Clo and Tom came. Anne and Richard were meant to but he got the flu and Anne was playing nursemaid. I looked around the room at my parents’ and Noel’s friends, the banner and the food. It reminded me of the inheritance party and I thought of John for maybe the first time that month. The guilt made me feel a little weary. I needed air. I went into the garden.

  Seán followed.

  “Missing him already?” he enquired.

  “Noel? No, he’ll be back,” I responded, not turning to face him.

  He walked over to me. “I’m nearly finished the book.”

  I asked him for the fifth time that week if I could read it.

  “Not for a while. You’ll be the first though,” he assured me.

  I wasn’t content with this and begged on the basis that he was nearly finished. I was dying to see what kept him locked away for hours on end. He thought about it for a minute.

  “You won’t like it. It centres around a soccer team …”

  Oh Christ, I’m going to have to read a soccer book!

  I must have drifted off for a few moments because although his mouth was moving I wasn’t really registering the words.

  I can’t believe I haven’t thought about John for so long.

  “You didn’t hear a word I’ve just said,” he challenged.

  “Soccer?” I said. “A soccer team in a small country village,” I continued hopefully.

  He smiled. “Don’t worry – you don’t need to be Alex Ferguson to enjoy the story.”

  “Right, great, I can’t wait.”

  Who the hell is Alex Ferguson?

  * * *

  Everyone left and there we were, a family standing in front of one another wondering who would cry first. Noel’s flight left at ten. It was seven and the hours were counting down way too fast for my poor mother. She made herself busy cleaning plates while I swept. Dad and Noel went into his study. They were there a while. Mom was trying not to cry.

  “He’ll be OK,” I tried to reassure us both.

  “He’s heading into the frigging jungle,” she said, a tear escaping her brimming eyes.

  “Cuba is hardly the jungle.”

  “Bloody Communists.”

  “Mom!” I called out, distressed at her inability to embrace a PC attitude.

  “It’s uncivilised.”

  “Jesus! You don’t know anything about Cuba,” I said, disgusted.

  “And you do,” she noted sarcastically.

  She was right. I hadn’t a clue but I wasn’t about to let her racism stand. “It’s got some nice beaches,” I mumbled trying to remember something from The Travel Show.

  “Great. He can die on a nice beach.”

  “Now you’re just being silly.”

  “Am I?” she asked shrilly.

  “He’ll be fine,” I said, sorry I’d opened my mouth.

  “That’s all we can hope for. He’s only ever been to Spain on a family holiday and even then he had the runs the entire week. Why couldn’t he just stay in Europe like everyone else?”

  I exhaled and shook my head much like I did when my class disappointed me.

  “You know I’m right,” she said. She sat down at the kitchen table. “Why couldn’t he be like a normal man and get some young one pregnant and have to marry her like Mary Matthews’ son. He has three kids now and he works in the bank.”

  She was crying so the word bank came out as “baaa … ank”.

  “He has to do what he feels is right,” I said, not believing it because like my mother I wanted him to be like Mary Matthews’ son too.

  “Do you think he’ll ever come back to us?”

  “Of course he will.”

  I put away the brush and sat beside her, putting my arm around her shoulder.

  “I just wish life wasn’t so hard,” she said in the small voice she had left.

  “Me too, Mom,” I said, hugging her. “We all do.”

  * * *

  The airport was a nightmare. Mom cried openly. I was trying to hold it together, but it was too hard. My brother was leaving me. Who would listen to my shit now? Who would have the answers, even if I didn’t like them? I missed him already and he was standing in front of me trying desperately to grin. I knew he was excited, but I could also feel his fear. I wanted to wrap him up and take him home. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for my mother.

  Dad was stoic. He shook hands with his son and patted his shoulder. “I’m proud of you, son.”

  Noel smiled at Dad and hugged him tight. “Proud of you too, Dad.”

  Dad nodded the way men do.

  Noel took Mom in his arms. I hadn’t noticed how strong he looked until he enveloped her.

  “I love you, Mom. I’ll make it home for Christmas.”

  “You promise?” she cried out while fixing the collar of
his jacket. Old habits die hard.

  “I promise.”

  We watched him walk through the glass doors that would lead him to Cuba and away from us. He waved one last time. Dad smiled at him and then he was gone. I turned to see my father dissolve in front of my eyes. Tears fell down his face and he made a noise I’d never heard before. He put his hands to his face and the tears streamed through. My mother put her arms around him and they stood there hugging one another.

  “We’ll see him at Christmas,” she said.

  My dad nodded like a small boy. I stood by, heartsick. We all walked to the car and we drove out of the airport in silence.

  I got home to find Leonard eating a plastic bag. I wrestled it out of his mouth. He minced out of the room, disgusted that I’d interrupted his idea of a perfectly reasonable snack. The lights were off. I left them off and turned the TV on. I remembered the way that Noel had called over when Anne and Richard went to Kerry. He wanted to ensure I’d be OK. Now he was gone and there was no one to call around.

  Another one bites the dust.

  He loved Queen. I smiled.

  My brother could have been a really great homo.

  Chapter 16

  The Pox

  Anne rang. Richard and she were trying for a baby. There was only one problem: they’d been trying to get pregnant for months and nothing was happening.

  “Do you think I should get tested?” she asked.

  I remembered Noreen the biology teacher in my school had been trying two years before she had her little girl.

  “No, it’s way too soon. It just takes time,” I said confidently.

  “I don’t know – we’ve been doing everything possible.”

  I argued that results came with time. Besides, I felt that if there was any testing to be done it should be on both of them.

  “What? You think that there’s something wrong with Richard?” she asked defensively.

  “No, I didn’t say that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with either of you, but if you are going to get tests what’s the point in testing only one of you?” I answered panicking. I wasn’t in the humour for an argument.