I look at this man. This fading man. His spritely joie de vivre gone. Slithering down his face and off his bones like his skin. He catches his breath then sits back in his chair.
Majella, he says. She works in the church. Office administrator. Lets me know the funeral times, the songs the families favour. We always got along well. Always had a joke and a laugh, he says, while I try to hide my horror at what might come next. I asked her if she’d like to come over and try my home brew – this is a few months back, you’d been gone a few weeks, and it would have been nice to have the company. It’s just as well she didn’t because the early stuff was bad, even worse than it is now – and she said no, and then I leave it at that and the next day I’m preparing for the funeral, no sign of Majella, and Father David tells me to come in to his office for a chat and he says to me that Majella is very upset. And there you have it.
I don’t get it. That’s it, I ask.
That’s it.
You didn’t touch her.
I didn’t touch her, he says. I reached out and patted her leg.
Ah for Christ’s sake, Pops, you can’t leave that out, you have to tell me everything.
How the blazes hell do I tell you everything that I consider nothing. If I didn’t consider it nothing then I’d tell you because I’d know it was something. I don’t know what else I might have done. I might have scratched my eyebrow the wrong way and she didn’t like it.
Scratching your eyebrow and touching her leg are not the same thing.
I didn’t molest her fecking leg. I didn’t hump it like a dog. I patted it. Like that, he says, patting the table. One pat, he says. We were sitting down, as far apart as you and I were, no table between us, and I lean across and do that.
I feel Pops’ hand on my leg under the table, one tap.
There, he says. Sorry, your honour. Lock me up for touching a leg. I didn’t maul her backside or anything like that. A gentle hand on her leg, was all, not a sleazy feeling her up.
How old is Majella.
I don’t know. Forty something. Single, has a daughter. Divorced. Lonely like me. I thought we could have a drink, that’s all, I’ll know not to ask again. And I’ll not lay my finger on a fecking thing for as long as I live.
He goes quiet and I can tell he’s embarrassed. I’m embarrassed for him. He admitted he was lonely. I’m not sure if he’s more embarrassed about admitting that or about how he had to leave his job. Though I know he meant no harm, I can see Majella’s point of view. A hand on her leg. An old man’s hand on her leg, the unwelcome hand of an old man on her leg. She was probably being nice to him and it backfired.
Women never used to be so prickly, he says. Are you like that, Allegra.
I think of the men I’ve slept with over my lifetime, after the art classes, just last week, and prickly isn’t a word I’d use to describe myself. Nor is fussy. But I don’t go into that with him, he wouldn’t understand any of that.
Instead I say, It’s called autonomy, Pops.
But all she had to say was no and that was that. She didn’t have to run off and tell Father David.
She was letting you know her boundaries.
We were in a church, Christ of almighty. He covers his face with his hands and shakes his head and I can tell he’s embarrassed. I tapped her knee, Allegra, I was letting her know it was okay, not to be embarrassed, that everything was grand.
That was her boundary.
He looks down at his dinner plate. A bit of lamb fat left on the side, mint sauce mixed with gravy scraped around and starting to harden. A lone pea that never made it.
We sit in silence.
I’ll try and sort the car insurance for you, I say finally, my mind whirring with all the things I need to do for Pops before and after I leave. Round and round, just like the washing machine of his clothes and underwear going on behind me. Give me the details and I’ll take care of it. If I can’t, Gerry might be able to get it scrapped for cash. No point having it sitting there when you can’t use it.
He grunts a response.
Does Pauline know, I ask.
About what.
Any of it.
No.
I’m going to tell her to drop in now and then. You’re not looking after yourself.
Who could after being accused of a thing like that. You know how people talk. It’s disgusting. Don’t you dare call Pauline. She’s busy with the Mussel House, especially this week, April tourists, and she’s only across the water if I need her.
You can’t get to her, you’ve no car.
There’s a car ferry, you’re allowed to walk on it last time I checked. And we have a bridge too, a new invention, did you hear that.