The Marble Collector Part 8

'Sure,' he says simply. Then he looks me up and down like he has no idea who I am, as though it's not his own brother standing in front of him, in a puddle of p.i.s.s. 'Good luck, Fergus.' Then he walks out of the toilet leaving me feeling like absolute s.h.i.t.

His speech is boring. It is the most mind-numbingly boring speech in history. No jokes, just all formality. He didn't reach into his pocket for his speech, all those handwritten pages that I know he spent weeks on and probably practised all night. It is hands down the worst speech ever. No emotion. No love. I could have asked a stranger on the street to do a better job. Which maybe is his point. A stranger, who doesn't even know me.

Gina's ma, the family doctor and the family priest all think he is 'terrific'.

Ma's dressed in the same outfit she wore to Angus's wedding. Something else to Duncan's wedding a few months ago and then back to this dress for mine. It's pea green, a coat, a shift dress and low heels. A sparkly clip in her hair. Her best brooch. Da gave it to her, I remember it. A Tara brooch with green stones. She's wearing make-up, powder that makes her paler and red lipstick that's stuck to her teeth. She isn't dancing. I remember her dancing all night at Angus's. Her and Mattie do a good jive, the only time I ever see them physical with each other. At Duncan's we had to carry her home. Here, she's sitting down, stiff back, a gla.s.s of brandy in front of her, and I'm wondering what Angus said to her. Mattie's watching the girls dancing, tongue running along his lips, like he's choosing from a menu. Ma and Mattie are alone at the round table. All of my brothers and their other halves headed off early with Angus; I a.s.sume he'd told them what I said. Something like telling him not to be a Boggs, pretend to be someone else. But that wasn't exactly what I'd said, was it?

That's fine with me though. I can relax more without them. No one is going to go flying across the room and smashing into a table because of a funny look or an intimated tone.

I go over and sit with Ma and we have a chat. Then as we're talking she slaps me hard across the cheek.

'Ma, what the ...?' I hold my stinging cheek, looking around to see who's seen. Too many people.

'You're not him.'

'What?' My heart starts to pound. 'What are you talking about?'

She slaps me again. Same cheek.

'You're not him,' she says again.

The way she looks at me.

'Come on.' She throws her purse at Mattie, and he jumps to action, eyes off the dancing girls, tongue back inside. 'We're going.'

By midnight my family are all gone.

'Long way to get home,' Gina's ma says, politely, as if trying to make me feel better, but it doesn't.

I tell myself I don't care, I can dance, I can chat, I can relax with them all gone. The hard man, the unbreakable, unbeatable steelie.

She's never been for a ma.s.sage before and so as soon as we arrive at the hotel in Venice she goes straight to the spa. She's glowing, excited, I can tell she feels grown up. We were married yesterday and we still haven't had s.e.x. We partied hard until three a.m., in spite of all the Boggs and Doyles leaving early, the sing-song was in full swing when we left and then we both collapsed in a heap on the bed and had to get up an hour later for a six a.m. flight. Definitely no time for s.e.x, particularly s.e.x for the first time. For her obviously, not me. I sit on the double bed and bounce up and down. I've waited for her for a year, I suppose I can wait for the length of a ma.s.sage. She thinks I'm a virgin too, I don't know what got it into her head, I never claimed I was, but that's how all the people in her life are. They're the following-those-rules type of people and she got it into her head that I am too. I just went along with it, save myself the trouble.

I know how I want to do it with her. The first time. I've thought about it. I want to play Hundreds with her. You draw a small circle on the floor. Both players shoot a marble towards the circle. If both or neither marble stops in the circle then we shoot again. If only one stops in the circle that player scores ten points each time the marble stops in the circle on subsequent throws. Gina never wears a bra, she doesn't need to, and always wears a tight tank top and flares. She doesn't wear make-up, freckles across her nose and cheeks, freckles on her chest bone. I think about kissing them all. Most of them I've kissed already. The first player to reach one hundred points is the winner and the loser hands over a predetermined number of marbles. Only in our game, which will involve white wine because now we're married and grown up, whoever doesn't make it to the circle will have to strip off an item of clothes. She's never played marbles before, she'll keep missing, I'll miss just enough times too to make her comfortable. By the time I reach one hundred, I want her in the circle, naked. But this won't happen, I know. This is just what's kept me going this year while I do the gentlemanly thing and wait. I've never mixed marbles and s.e.x before, and although Gina laughed the first time I told her I played marbles, I want to do this with her, with my wife.

Gina is worth the wait. She's gorgeous, any fella I know would do the same. She's too good for me of course. Not too good for the me that she knows, but for the me that she doesn't know. The part of me she knows is some man I've concocted over time. He's good with people, patient, polite, interested. He doesn't think everyone she introduces him to is up themselves and he wouldn't prefer to top himself than have a conversation with them. It's better being him, he makes life easier for him and me. But he's not me. I try to keep her away from my family as much as I can; whenever her and Ma talk I break out in a cold sweat. But Ma will never say anything, she knows the deal, knows that I'm in way over my head, but she wanted me to marry her just as much as I do so she could tick me off her list, another of her boys taken care of. Gina's only met Angus briefly, at the wedding; he's living in Liverpool and he can stay there, but Duncan, Tommy, Bobby and Joe are okay in small doses. She just thinks they're always busy. Good enough.

She knows one of my brothers died, thinks Hamish drowned. Well he did, but she thinks it was some freak accident. I plan on keeping it that way. Hamish's problems were his own but I don't want him bringing that into my new life. Gina's sweet, she's nave, and she judges people. She'd hear a thing like that and she'd look at me different. She'd probably be right. Not that I'm trouble, I'm always on the right side of the law, but I'm not the lad who promises to play croquet with her granddad. Thank G.o.d her dad's dead and her granddad's not far from it.

I chose Venice for the honeymoon. I've wanted to come here since I saw a doc.u.mentary about the Murano gla.s.s factory, an entire island dedicated to making gla.s.s is an island I want to if not live on, at least visit. I don't have much money, in fact we have very little to spend here at all, but I'm not leaving this country without a pocket full of marbles one way or another, whether I have to beg, borrow or steal. This honeymoon is being funded by Gina's granddad who couldn't help but step in when he heard we were going to Cobh for our honeymoon. Pick anywhere you want, he said. Anywhere in the world. Gina was hoping for a week in Yugoslavia because that's where one of her friends went on honeymoon, but I managed to talk her into three days in Venice instead. Yugoslavia we could maybe some day afford by ourselves, Venice we couldn't. Venice is a real escape, an adventure in another world. She bought it, because I meant it. I don't care about her grandda helping me out, giving me money. I'll take any helping hand offered, it doesn't hurt my pride. If I don't have it, I don't have it; if someone wants to give it, then I'll take it.

I pace the small room; it's not the most luxurious hotel, far from it, but I appreciate being here at all. I'd sleep anywhere and I can't wait to get out and explore.

I thought I'd be knackered from last night but I'm hopping. I'm eager to get moving. I don't know how long a ma.s.sage is but I'm not sitting here in this room when there's a world out there waiting for me. I don't think Gina will want to spend much time looking at marbles, not in the way I want to, so I take my moment now and slip away. I don't have to go far before I see the most incredible marbles I've ever seen in my life. They're contemporary art marbles, definitely not for playing with, they're for collecting. I'm in such awe that I can't move from the front window. The salesman comes outside and practically pulls me in, he can see the l.u.s.t written all over my face. Problem is I have the l.u.s.t for them but not the money. He answers question after question that I throw at him about every aspect, allows me to examine the works of art under a 10x loupe so I can see the skill of the artist. They are clear handmade gla.s.s marbles with elaborate designs captured inside. One is clear with a green four-leaf clover trapped deep inside, another is a goldfish that looks like it's swimming in bubbles, another has a white swan in a swirl of blue sea. There's a vortex, a swirl of purple, green, turquoise, green storms that corkscrew to the very centre of the marble. It's hypnotising. Another is of an eye. A clear marble with an olive green eye and black pupil, red veins trickle around the sides. I feel like it's watching me. Another is called 'New Earth' and it's the entire planet, every country created inside, with clouds on the outer layer. It's a work of pure genius. The entire planet captured in a four-inch marble. This is the one I want but I can barely afford one, let alone the collection. The cost of one is the amount of money I have for the entire three days.

It takes everything I have to walk away and it's the walking away that fires the salesman into action. The best negotiator is the one who is always willing to walk away and he thinks I'm hustling him, which I'm not, I would sell my house for this collection if I had a house. We have to live with Gina's mother for a year while we save up for a deposit for a house. To even be thinking about buying any of these marbles is pure ludicrous and I know it. But. I feel alive, the adrenaline is rushing through my body. This is the only good side of me, the best side of me and she doesn't know it. Looking at these marbles, I vow right here to be faithful to her and I don't mean not sleeping around, but to let her see the real me for the first time. Show her this marble, show her the biggest and best part of me.

I buy a clear marble with a red heart inside. It has corkscrew swirls of deep red, like drops of blood captured in a bubble. I bargain hard and pay almost half of what he was asking for. It's still too much money but it's not just a marble for me, it's for Gina, an offering of who I truly am. It means more to me than the ceremony yesterday and words that I didn't feel in my heart. This means something to me. This is the scariest, bravest thing I have ever set out to do in my adult life. I'm going to give her this heart, my heart, and tell her who I am. Who she's married.

The seller wraps the heart in bubble wrap, then places it in a burgundy velvet pouch, pulled closed by a gold plaited tie and gla.s.s beads that I can't help but admire. Even the beads on the pouch are beautiful. I push it deep into my pocket and return to the hotel.

When I get back to the room I can see she's been crying but she tries to hide it. She wears a bathrobe which is tied tightly at her waist.

'What's wrong? What happened?' I'm ready to punch someone.

'Oh nothing.' She wipes her eyes roughly with the sleeve of her towel until the skin around them is red raw.

'It wasn't nothing, tell me.' I feel the anger pumping through my veins. Be calm or she won't tell you. Be the patient, understanding fella who listens, don't go thumping people. Not yet.

'It was just so embarra.s.sing, Fergus.' She sits on the bed and looks tiny on the big bed. She's twenty-one years old. I'm twenty-four. 'She touched my ...' Her eyes widen and the anger leaves me and I feel a laugh rising.

'Yeah? Your what?' My fantasy game of Hundreds comes to mind. She's on that bed, in the robe, my wife.

'It's not funny!' She throws herself down, covers her face with a pillow.

'I'm not laughing.' I sit down beside her.

'You look like you're going to,' she says, voice m.u.f.fled. 'I just didn't know a ma.s.sage was so invasive. I didn't wait all this time to have s.e.x to have a four-foot Italian mama maul me before you.'

And on that I have to laugh.

'Stop!' she whinges, but I can see her smile buried beneath the pillow.

'Did you like her hands on you?' I tease her, my hand travelling up her leg.

'Stop it, Fergus.' But she means the teasing, not the touching, because for the first time she's not stopping me. I have to do it now though, I have to show her the marble now, so that it's me that she meets, it's me that she makes love to for the first time, not him.

I stop my own hand from travelling and she sits up, confused, hair all in her face.

'I want to give you something first.'

She moves her hair away from her face and she looks so sweet, and so innocent right at that moment that I take a mental picture of it. I don't know it now but I'll try to recall it in the future at the moments when I feel like I've lost her, or hate her so much I can't help but look away from her.

'I went for a walk around. And I found something special for you. For us. It's important to me.' My voice is shaking and so I decide to shut up. I take the pouch out of my pocket, remove the heart from the pouch, my fingers trembling. I feel like I'm giving a part of myself to her. I've never felt like this before. You married me yesterday but today is the first time you've met me. My name is Fergus Boggs, my life is marked by marbles. I unwrap the bubble wrap and I hold it out in my palm. Her reaction first, then my explanation. Let her take it in, drink in her drinking it in.

'What is this?' she says, her voice flat.

I look at her in surprise, heart pounding in my throat. I immediately start to backtrack, back-pedal, hide in my sh.e.l.l. The other me starts warming up in the wings.

'I mean, how much was it? We said we wouldn't buy each other anything here. We can't afford it. No more gifts, remember? After the wedding? We agreed.' She's barely looked at it, she's so annoyed. Yes, we did agree, we promised each other, but this is more than a piece of jewellery, it means more to me than the ring she loves so much on her finger. I want to say that but I don't.

'How much did this cost?'

I stutter and stammer, too broken and hurt to reply honestly. I'm caught between being him and being me, I'm unable to focus on being one.

She is holding it too roughly, too harshly, she moves it from one hand to the other too carelessly, she could easily drop it. I feel tense watching her.

'I can't believe you wasted your money on this!' She jumps up from the bed. 'On a ... on a ...' She studies it. 'A toy! What were you thinking, Fergus? Oh my G.o.d.' She sits down again, her eyes filling up. 'We've been saving for so long. I just want to get away from living with Mum, I want it to be just you and me. We budgeted for this trip so carefully, Fergus, why would you ...?' She looks at the marble in her hand, confused. 'I mean, it's sweet, thank you, I know you were trying to be kind, but ...' Her anger starts to calm but it's too late.

She places her hands on my cheeks, knows that she has hurt my feelings though I don't admit to it. I will take it back I tell her, I will gladly take it back, I never want to see it again ever in my life, to be reminded of this moment when I offered my real self and I was rejected. But I can't bring it back because she drops it, by accident, and its surface is scratched, meaning it will never have a perfect heart again.

On my journey back from Cavan to Dublin I can't help myself slipping into my mind. My driving is clumsy, I have to apologise to other drivers too many times, so I lower the window for the fresh air and sit up.

Aidan is on loudspeaker in the car. I needed to call him, to root myself with my life. Talk to somebody real.

'So you're looking for the missing marbles now?' he asks after I fill him in on everything that's happened so far today, apart from the mug-throwing incident, and I hear the squeals of delight as the kids have a water fight in the background.

'I don't even know if it's about the missing marbles any more,' I say, suddenly deciding. 'Finding out about Dad seems to be much more important than finding the actual marbles. It started with them and it opened up more questions, big gaping holes that I need to fill. There is a side to Dad that I never knew, there is a life he led that he kept from me and I want to discover it. Not just for me. But if he can't remember it, how can he ever know that part of himself again?'

Aidan leaves a long silence and I try to read it. He thinks I'm crazy, I've finally lost it, or he's jumping around with jubilance that I'm newly energised. But his response is calm, measured.

'You know best, Sabrina. I'm not going to tell you not to. If you think it will help.'

He doesn't need to say any more, I understand what it means. If it will help me and, as a consequence, us.

'I think it will,' I reply.

'Love you,' he says. 'Try not to let any more men kiss you.'

I laugh.

'Seriously. Be careful, Sabrina.'

'I will.'

The kids shout down the phone to me, love you, miss you, poo poo, wee wee head, and then they're gone.

A blonde woman delivered the marbles. I will delay my visit to Dad for now. I need to find the blonde woman who delivered the marbles, the woman who knows the man that I don't, and there is only one woman I can think of who fits that description, who agreed to meet me as soon as I called.

She's sitting in the darkest corner, away from the window, the light, the buzz of the rest of the cafe. She looks older than I remember, but then she is older than I remember. Nearly ten years have pa.s.sed since we've seen each other, almost twenty since I saw her first. She's still blonde, her hair one week over its last needed colour, the greys and brown showing at the roots. Ten years older than me she is forty-two now, I always thought she was so young, but so much older than me. Too young for him, but still much older than me. Now we could look the same. She looks bored as she waits and I wonder is the boredom hiding the nervousness beneath, anxiety that I feel as soon as I see her. She sees me walking towards her and she fixes her posture, lifts her chin in that proud move and I hate her all over again like I always did. That self-righteous b.i.t.c.h who thought everything she wanted was automatically supposed to be hers. I try to calm myself, not allow the anger to bubble over.

I saw her with Dad when I was fifteen years old. It was before my parents separated. He introduced me to her less than a year later. I was supposed to think they'd just met, that this was the beginning of a beautiful new relationship for him, that I was to be supportive and happy but I knew that he'd been with her all along. For how long I don't know, but I never said a word. He hadn't just lied to Mum, he had lied to me too, because he looked at me and said the same words. Lies.

They were drunk at lunchtime when I saw them and every time I pa.s.s the same restaurant to this day I get the same feeling in my stomach and see them all over again. People don't know that they do that to people when they do the things they shouldn't. Hurtful things are roots, they spread, branch out, creep under the surface touching other parts of the lives of those they hurt. It's never one mistake, it's never one moment, it becomes a series of moments, each moment growing roots and spurting in different directions. And over time they become muddled like an old twisted tree, strangling itself and tying itself up in knots.

I was off school early to go to the dentist, one of my many train-track appointments to try to get to the bottom of my internal cheek bleeding as they scratched and sc.r.a.ped as I talked and chewed. I remember my mouth throbbing as I walked down the road, tears in my eyes from frustration because another cruel boy made another cruel joke at school that day and I was tired of laughing and pretending I didn't care. It was then that I saw Dad. In a fancy restaurant in town, one of the expensive ones with tables outside that I was too embarra.s.sed to walk by. At fifteen, feeling eyes on me from every corner of the street, my head was bowed, my cheeks already pink, my walk self-conscious, but I couldn't help it. When you try hard not to look at something it means you'd have to poke your own eyes out to stop you from looking at that something. So I looked up at all the eyes that I was afraid were looking at me and laughing, and I saw him. I actually stopped for a moment and somebody crashed into the back of me. It was only for a second and I moved again, but I saw enough. Him and her in a table by the window, drunk face, drunk eyes, quick kiss, hands groping under the chair. I didn't say anything to Mum about it because, well, they were so bad at that stage I thought maybe she knew, thought that the woman was the reason, or at least one of the reasons for things being so bad. I never said a word about seeing them together, even when I was introduced to her months later in that fake made-up rehea.r.s.ed introduction as if they'd just recently met. I always hated her.

Regina.

It made me think of the word v.a.g.i.n.a. She was just that. Every time I heard her name, every time I had to say her name, I was all the time hearing and saying v.a.g.i.n.a. I called her it once by mistake. She laughed and said, 'What?' but I pretended she'd misheard. She giggled to herself thinking her hearing odd and funny.

And now here I am face to face with v.a.g.i.n.a. And I have to ask her for her help, something I hate to do but it's necessary. She is the only lead I have, she is the only woman I know that was in Dad's life for the longest amount of time who could have had access to his personal belongings, his apartment, the blonde woman who delivered the marbles to Mickey Flanagan's house, who could help solve this mystery.

We don't hug or kiss when greeting, we're not old friends, not even acquaintances, not even enemies. Just two people who got twisted together.

She works at the hair salon next door to the cafe we're in, the same hair salon that Mum and I have avoided going to for almost twenty years. I called her from the car, after Mickey's phone call, and don't know what I was expecting but I'd come up with a few guesses. She could straight out tell me to never call her again. She could politely p.a.w.n me off, suggest a date in the future that kept changing. I didn't expect the instant agreement to meet. She was about to take a coffee break, she could meet me in thirty minutes. I wasn't prepared for that. Twenty minutes on the phone with Aidan explaining it all and I'm still not prepared.

'I really appreciate you agreeing to meet with me on such short notice,' I say, as I sit down and take off my coat, feeling like that awkward fifteen-year-old again with her eyes on me as I clumsily hang up my coat on the back of the chair. 'I'm sure it came as a bit of a surprise to you.'

'I was waiting for you to call,' she says, matter-of-factly. 'No, not waiting. Expecting,' she says. She's wearing an oversized black cardigan pulled down past her hands like she's cold, but it's not cold, it's a beautiful day and I realise she's nervous.

'Why's that?' I ask, picturing Mickey Flanagan's wife on the phone, grasping the receiver in two hands in her house, in urgent hushed tones telling her, She knows, Regina, Sabrina knows that you were here and that you delivered the marbles. She's on her way to you now.

'I don't know,' she says thoughtfully, taking me in. 'You were always an interesting little one. You always looked like you had a lot of questions but never asked any of them. I used to wait for you to ask, but you never did.'

'I don't think I was looking at you in any particular way because I wanted to ask you questions,' I say, and her smile drops a little. 'I knew you and Dad were together before they separated, I saw you both in a restaurant long before ...' I pause for her reaction. 'I had a hard time listening to your lies. I could tell you both enjoyed it.'

This gives her a surprise, a little jolt, and she sits upright. Then she smiles. 'So is that what this is about? Letting me know I didn't pull the wool over your eyes?' She asks it as though she's amused, not an ounce of apology or disgust with herself. I don't know why I expected there should be.

'No, actually.' I look down, add a sugar to my cappuccino, stir it, take a sip. Centre myself. I'm here for a reason. 'As you know, there are a few things that Dad doesn't recall.'

She nods, genuinely sad.

'So sometimes I have to contact people in his life to see if I can fill the holes.'

'Ah,' she says, humble now. 'Anything I can do to help.'

Breathe. 'Did you know about his marble collection?'

'Did I know about his, what now?'

'Marble collection. He had a collection. And he played marbles too.'

She shakes her head, her forehead wrinkled in a frown. 'No. I never, we never ... marbles? The things that children play with? No. Never.'

My heart drops. I thought. I really thought ... 'Did you deliver boxes to a house in Virginia last year?'

'Last year? Virginia? Cavan? No, why would I ... I haven't seen Fergus for almost five years, and even when we were together we were more off than on. We weren't exactly platonic. We just met up occasionally when, you know ...'

I don't want to know their reasons for meeting, I don't need to hear it, it's clear already. I'm so disappointed, I just want to grab my coat and go. There is no point to the remainder of this conversation, no point in finishing my coffee.

Maybe she senses this. Tries her best to be useful. 'Do you know one of the reasons why Fergus and I broke up for good?'

'Let me guess,' I say wryly. 'He cheated on you.'

She takes it well, it makes me not want to throw any more at her as I feel it cheapened me and not her.

'Probably. Though that wasn't the reason. He was so secretive. I never quite knew exactly what he was doing or where he was. And not because he didn't answer a question but because he'd answer it and somehow I'd realise that, after listening to him, I still didn't know. He was vague. I don't know if it was deliberate, but to pin him down was to confuse him, annoy him, seem like a nag, which I never wanted to be, but he had the ability to make a person a nag, because he never answered, he never really explained. He didn't understand why I needed to know so much. He thought there was something wrong with me. I did wonder if he was cheating on me. And the thing is, I didn't care, we didn't have that kind of relationship, but it bothered me that I couldn't get answers. So I started following him.' She takes a timely sip of her tea, enjoying it as I hang on her every word. 'And I realised after a very short time that he was not as exciting as he seemed. He was going to the same place all the time, or at least most of the time.'

'Where?'

'He was going to a pub.' She arches her eyebrow. 'He loved to drink. Boring, isn't it? I was hoping it was something else. I followed him for two weeks. And one time ... oh my G.o.d, it was so funny, he almost caught me!' She starts laughing and I can tell she's settling down for a long chat. But I don't have the time.

I finish my cappuccino.

'Regina,' I say, hearing v.a.g.i.n.a in my head. 'Which pub was he going to?'

She stops, realising I'm not here to listen to her detective stories into my father's behaviour. She's back to how she was when I entered. Bored. Unhappy. Disappointed nothing in her life lived up to anything it could have been. Waiting for the people she hurt in the past to make an appearance and spice up her life, make her feel powerful.