Bullfighting

Table of Contents

 

 

THE COMMITMENTS
THE SNAPPER
THE VAN
PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA
THE WOMAN WHO WALKED INTO DOORS
A STAR CALLED HENRY
OH, PLAY THAT THING
PAULA SPENCER
THE DEPORTEES
THE DEAD REPUBLIC

 

RORY & ITA

 

BROWNBREAD
WAR
GUESS WHO'S COMING FOR THE DINNER
THE WOMAN WHO WALKED INTO DOORS

 

THE GIGGLER TREATMENT
ROVER SAVES CHRISTMAS
THE MEANWHILE ADVENTURES
WILDERNESS
HER MOTHER'S FACE

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in 2011 by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

Copyright © Roddy Doyle, 2011 All rights reserved

 

“Recuperation,” “The Photograph,” “Teaching,” “The Joke,” “Ash,” “The Dog,” “Bullfighting,” and “Sleep” first appeared in
The New Yorker
; “The Slave” (in longer form) in
Speaking with the Angel
, edited by Nick Hornby (Riverhead, 2001); “Blood” in
Stories: All New Tales
, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio (William Morrow, 2010); “The Plate” in
The Guardian
; and “Animals” in
The News from Dublin
, edited by Joseph O'Connor (Faber and Faber, 2011). “Recuperation” also appeared in
New Dubliners
, edited by Oona Frawley (New Island, 2005) and “The Joke” also appeared in
The Faber Book of Best New Irish Short Stories 2004 – 5
, edited by David Marcus (Faber and Faber, 2005).

 

Publisher's Note

These selections are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

 

Doyle, Roddy.

Bullfighting and other stories / Roddy Doyle.

p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-51412-2

I. Title.
PR6054.O95B85 2011
823'.914—dc22

2010053424

 

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

Dedicated to Ronnie Caraher, Paul Corcoran and John Sutton

H
e walks. Every day, he walks. That was what the doctor had said. All the doctors. Plenty of exercise, they'd told him. It was the one thing he'd really understood.

—Are you a golf man, Mr Hanahoe?

—No.

—Hill walking?

—No.

—Do you walk the dog?

—No dog.

He'd buried the dog a few years ago, in the back garden.

—We'll have to get you exercising.

—Okay.

He walks now, every day. Sundays too. He hadn't even liked the dog. He walks, the same way. Except maybe when it was a pup, and the kids were younger. Every day, the same way. The way he went the first day. Up the Malahide Road.

Hanahoe walks.

When the dog died the kids were upset, but not upset enough to go out in the rain and dig the grave. The dog had been dying for years; the kids were living most of their time outside the house. It had been up to Hanahoe.

He starts at the Artane roundabout, his back to town, facing Malahide.

He starts.

He'd have waited till it stopped raining, but it didn't seem right, and it had been raining for days. So he dug in the dark. It was easy work, the ground was so wet. The spade sank nicely for him. And he dug up a rabbit. He saw it in the torchlight. A skeleton. He'd buried the rabbit years before: before the dog, after the goldfish.

It takes him ten minutes to get to the Artane roundabout but he doesn't count that. The walk starts, the exercise starts, when he's on the corner of Ardlea Road and the Malahide Road.

He had meant to tell the kids about the rabbit. He threw it back in, on top of the dog. He'd meant to tell them about it the next morning, before work and school. It was the only time they were all together in the house. But, he remembers now as he walks, he never did tell them. And he didn't throw the rabbit in. He lowered it, on the spade, and let it slide off, onto the dog. He forgot to tell them. He thinks he forgot. He's not sure.

There are other places he could walk. There are plenty of places. He could get in the car and drive to St Anne's or Bull Island, or the path along the coast, or even out to Howth. But he doesn't. He's not sure why, just certain that he won't. But that's not true. He does know why; he knows exactly why. It's people. Too many people.

He got out of the habit of talking. As the kids were getting older. He put a stone slab, left over from the patio, over the dog's grave, and then remembered that there was no dog now to dig it up. There was no need for the slab. Another thing he was going to tell the kids, and didn't.

This is the stretch that Hanahoe has chosen. Starting outside the old folks' flats. Mount Dillon Court. He's never seen anyone coming out of there. Old or young – a milkman or Garda, a daughter, grandchild. No one. And that suits him. He'd stop looking if he saw anyone.

—Do you get down to the pub at all?

—No.

—The golf club?

—You asked me that the last time. No.

He used to. He went to the pub now and again. Once a week, twice. Sometimes after mass. She came too. He thought she'd liked it. He'd always thought that. A pint for him, something different for her. Gin and tonic, vodka and something, Ballygowan, Baileys. She'd never settled on one drink. And he doesn't remember ever thinking there was anything wrong with that.

He walks past the old cottages. They're out of place there, on the dual carriageway. He walks beside the cycle path. To the newer houses. They're on a road that runs beside the main road. They're well back and hidden, behind old hedges and trees. If people look out at him passing every day, he doesn't care, and he doesn't have to. He doesn't know them, and he won't. He walks on the grass. The ground is hard. It hasn't rained in a long time.

He wears tracksuit bottoms. She bought them for him. They were in a bag at the end of the bed when he got home from the hospital. Champion Sports. Two tracksuits. A blue and a grey. He doesn't wear the tops. And he won't. He doesn't know when she moved into their daughters' bedroom; he's not sure, exactly. It was empty for a while. After the eldest girl moved out, and then her sister. And then she'd moved in, after a few months. He has trainers as well, that he got himself after he came home. The first time he went out, up to Artane Castle. There was no row or anything when she moved into the girls' room. He doesn't think there was. He woke up one night, and she wasn't there. And the next night he felt her getting out of bed. It was too hot, she said. The night after that, she said nothing. The night after, she went straight to the girls' room. A few years ago. Two, three. The trainers still look new. She never came back to their room. And he never asked why not. He's been wearing them for a month now. They still look new-white. It annoys him.

Past Chanel Road. Past the Rampaí sign. He's at the turn-off for Coolock. He looks behind, checks for cars. He's clear, he crosses. Chanel to the left, the school. The kick-boxing sign on the gate pillar. Juniors and Seniors, Mondays and Fridays. They'd nothing like that when his kids were younger. Kick-boxing. Martial arts. Skateboarding. Nothing like that – he thinks.

Hanahoe crosses the road.

—Are you a joiner?

—What?

—Do you join? Clubs. Societies.

—No.

—No, yet, or no, never?

He doesn't answer. He shrugs.

He used to be. He thought he was. A joiner. The residents, the football. Fundraising, bringing kids to the matches. He did it. He did them all. He'd enjoyed it. Then his sons stopped playing, and he stopped going. Less people to talk to – it just happened that way. He didn't miss it at the time. He doesn't miss it now.

He passes the granite stone, ‘Coolock Village' carved into it, ‘Sponsored by Irish Shell Ltd, 1998'. He's behind the petrol station, the second-hand cars, against the back wall. Behind the chipper, and Coolock Glass. A high wall, there's nothing to see. To his right, the traffic. Too early for the rush, but it's heavy enough. He wonders what kick-boxing is like, what kick-boxing parents are like. He hasn't a clue. He's at the church now, the car park. There's nothing on – funeral, wedding – no one there. He enjoyed the football. He liked the men who ran the club – he remembers that, he remembers saying it. There was a trip to Liverpool – the car, the ferry. Three kids in the back, another father beside him. That had been good. A good weekend. Liverpool had won. Against Ipswich or Sunderland. Some team like that.

He's doing well. He's not tired. It's hot. It might rain. Another high wall, the backs of more houses. He has to bend under branches. Southampton. A bus passes, knocks warm air against him. Liverpool beat Southampton. The bus swerves in, to the stop in front of him. A woman gets off. She walks away. She's faster than him; he won't see her face. She wears trainers, like his.

He stopped going to mass. She still goes. As far as he knows. He stopped going when the kids stopped. He's coming up to the crossroads. There's one of the Africans there, selling the
Herald
. Walking between the cars at the lights. He's never seen anyone buy one. But the Africans are there, every day.