Mrs O’Reilly answered the door. I remember thinking how lucky it was when she put me in the formal sitting room and told me Alice would be with me shortly. I didn’t want to propose over the kitchen table in front of Eugene and the mammy.
When Alice came in and avoided looking at me, suddenly I knew there was something terribly wrong. Even though her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, she looked beautiful to me then. Her skin was a kind of goldy-brown and her hair was lightened auburn by the sun. She had freckles I’d never seen before. For a minute, I felt that it was all going to be OK, that whatever was wrong could be solved by the box in my pocket.
‘Barney,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry.’
I knew instantly by the way she said it that she meant she was sorry for me. She was apologizing to me. How stupid could I have been? I felt an instant pain deep in my gut. I was actually winded. Somebody else. Oliver. Alice and Oliver. I had delivered her into his arms to prove how much I loved her.
‘Oliver,’ I said. Not a question.
Why in the name of Jesus didn’t I cop that sooner? He was hardly inviting us out to dinner for my company. I’d thought it was to do with work, but how could it have been when they rarely discussed work on those nights out? Still, even if I had guessed he liked her, I’d never have thought that she was into him. She was my girlfriend, after all.
The Happy Ring House wouldn’t give me my money back. I ended up swapping it for a brooch for Mam’s birthday a few months later. For a long time, I was very sad about the whole thing. I had had it all planned, you see, down to the three children and the extra room I would build on to our house for Eugene with his own record player so he could dance when he wanted. I hadn’t thought of a future without Alice. I was raging with jealousy and wondered if they’d slept together already. Probably. Oliver was some operator, but I fecking helped him. I couldn’t bear to see either of them for months after that. A couple of weeks after we split, I removed the spark plugs from Oliver’s car when I saw it parked outside Alice’s. And then, like a smack, in December I got a wedding invitation in the post with a note attached from Alice, saying she’d perfectly understand if I didn’t want to come, that she’d always be fond of me and that she’d never forget my kindness to her and Eugene.
Mam made me go. ‘Hold your head up high,’ she said, ‘and don’t let that snobby bitch think that you’re not good enough.’ I’d never heard her say the word ‘bitch’ before, but Mam took it as hard as I did myself. I’m sure she’d thought we were going up in the world. I never thought Alice was a bitch.
The wedding was quite small. Oliver had no family there. I thought that was peculiar myself. Maybe he hadn’t got family, but it’s unusual not to even be able to rustle up an uncle or a cousin. They didn’t go for the big fancy hotel reception. I was grand until they exchanged vows in the church, and then I went to pieces. Susan and DIY Dave took me out and gave me a proper talking to. Then there was a good dinner in a restaurant in town owned by some gay fella friend of Oliver’s. I don’t know how I made it through the meal. I probably wouldn’t have gone at all if I’d known it was such a small wedding. I wasn’t really able to get lost in the crowd. I did get to chat to Alice on our own for a bit. She looked gorgeous and I told her so. She tried to tell me that I’d meet the right person one day. I smiled and nodded and wished her and Oliver the best.
It annoyed the shite out of me that Oliver never even saw me as competition. He never acknowledged me as Alice’s boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend. I was beneath him. That’s how he made me feel back then. I know better now.
Mrs O’Reilly said I’d always be welcome in their house, and Eugene said he missed me and he was sorry if he’d done something bad and could we be friends again. I swear that fella would break your heart. They should have explained it to him, instead of treating him like an eejit. I did call in to the house after that, and I’d take Eugene out for a drive on the odd Sunday. I even taught him a few things. I think Alice and her ma had stopped trying with Eugene after a certain point, but I didn’t see any reason not to try and help him, so after a few months with me, he could eat his own dinner with a spoon if I cut up the food for him, and he learned to wipe his chin after I gave him a ‘magic’ handkerchief. Mrs O’Reilly was delighted with me. She told me one night that she thought Alice had made a mistake with Oliver, but as soon as she’d said it, she tried to unsay it. I suppose she felt it wouldn’t help anyone to say it, but I was glad because it helped me.
The reality is that Oliver had money and style. He was becoming an internationally successful writer, and I was a mechanic with a sideline in second-hand cars back living with my mam in the Villas. She needed a bit of looking after, and Susan had gone. I was never in a university in my life. Oliver, the bollix, would treat her right, I thought, even if he was a bit high and mighty. They moved into town after they married and so we didn’t see each other for a few years, but when Mrs O’Reilly died, they moved back into her family home with Eugene and I’d see them around the place. They got friendly with that one off the telly who’d since moved in next door to them, Moya Blake. That seemed to settle it for me. Moya was totally Avenue and they were her new mates. Lah-di-dah, if you know what I mean. It’s not like they ignored me though. Oliver usually nodded and Alice looked guilty, but eventually there was a bit of a thaw. I tried not to bear a grudge. It was fecking hard work, I can tell you.
I had to keep my distance from Eugene then. I explained that Alice was home now to mind him and I wouldn’t be calling in any more. I thought he understood. Oliver and Alice never had children. That was strange. I always thought Alice would be a great mum, but I supposed she wasn’t able to or something. She was no longer any of my business and I never asked.
The one thing I could never figure out was that they sent Eugene away to live in St Catherine’s on the far side of town. I was really, really shocked at that. Alice didn’t give me much of an explanation when I asked, but John-Joe in Nash’s told me on the QT that Oliver had said Eugene had become very difficult after the mother died, and they had no choice but to put him in a home. I would still have the craic with him when I saw him on the road, but he’d put on a fierce amount of weight and looked a bit miserable. Still, I’d never have thought they’d put him in a home. If you ask me, that’s a great shame. I called in a few times and offered to take him out for the day from the home, but Oliver warned me that I should just forget about him and that asking after him just upset Alice. Oliver said it wasn’t a good idea to go and visit him, that he wouldn’t recognize me and might get aggressive with me. The poor fella, I couldn’t believe he’d do that, but Oliver insisted and, I must admit, at the time I thought Oliver knew about things more than I did myself.
I never imagined that I’d be able to hold Alice’s hand again, or that I’d have Eugene back in my life, but it’s a funny old world and no mistake.
6. Michael