Floating
by Paddy Lawlor
It was the summer of '85 and the lyrics of The Smiths’ Still Ill cut to his core. Unresolved existential questions about the body and mind. He listened to it intently. It sang to him. It was him. Emmet used his body to protect his mind. A fierce focus. An unrelenting drive on the pitch. To get the result. Searing his every sinew to kick one more point or hurl himself into the path of beastly men twice his size. That day he’d kicked seven points and zipped in to grab a goal at the death. Out there came elation and flagellation. But once the whistle went, the muscles bealed, and that cloud lurking on the horizon came creeping back. The suffering inside, it ebbed and it flowed.
Now lulled by the calm blue waters gently lapping his inflamed feet, Emmet was perched awkwardly on the crumbling edge of the jetty. His sullen face was transfixed on the half-ripples below, while his lithe body – sheathed only by muck-flecked GAA shorts – ached. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the unrelenting waves of agony that swelled within. Sprinkles of seawater glistened on his bowed back as he let out a deep sigh. The swishing spume below soothed his soles but the ritual would only momentarily salve this tormented soul. This self-questioning spirit surfaced worries only he understood, and sometimes didn't.
It was July now. His post-battle routine by the ocean was two months old. It was on May 4 that he had acquiesced to the anxieties eating him up. There was no self-disgust. Earnest to a fault, Emmet was never ashamed of who he was. He had dealt with the whole coming-out experience when he was 17 in a very stoic, forthright and matter-of-fact way. "This is who I am. Take me or leave" was his mantra despite his innate shyness. His parents accepted him for who he was but they still worried.
No, his sexuality wasn't the issue on these scorching, yet lonely days. Instead, the shame and self-loathing bubbled up from that fateful day when he inflicted a life-altering wound on the only one he had ever known intimately.
Eddie was the witty romantic, bursting with a vim and vitality that Emmet had never known to exist until their paths had crossed. Emmet, the introspective, coy country lad who knew farming, GAA and occasionally sailing. Eddie, the music and film lover originally from Dublin. Nine years Emmet's senior, Eddie was 29. He knew who he was, what he wanted and who he loved. But for Emmet, almost 21, that sureness wasn’t quite there.
What he felt was something special, for sure. It was love, but in the three months before their parting, self-doubt seeped into his every pore. Eddie's headstrong belief in their relationship collided with Emmet's brewing maelstrom of doubt, and the two could not be reconciled.
It wasn't that Eddie did anything wrong. It was more a sense of inner unease. Was one's first love the one to settle for, he wondered. Was there more to life than Wexford? Could the big bad world offer him something new and exciting? Jobs weren’t exactly plentiful, especially in these parts.
It took just two months for Eddie to profess his love to Emmet. Clasped together naked in their tent by the dunes in the violet twilight of summer Saturday nights, he'd whisper it softly onto the arch of Emmet's neck, often not even consciously. The hushed, barely enunciated words “I... love... you...” would just tumble out naturally when an almost spiritual surge of affection would overflow. Emmet understood this was no premeditated offering, and sometimes he would reciprocate.
Emerging from his shell more as the relationship blossomed, Emmet was grateful that Eddie helped him become that person. The younger man would gyrate like their idol Morrissey, the ringleader of The Smiths, and do hammy impersonations of the singer's unique croon and flamboyant wiggle. Eddie's heart would dance any time Emmet stepped outside his comfort zone like that, just for him.
In one of those freeing moments, the hulking, proud Gaelgeoir, who fancied himself as a bit of a poet, firmly took hold of Emmet's face, thumbs nestled on cheekbones. Gently staring into Emmet's eyes, a stillness would descend, and in his thick Dublin accent, he'd say: “Tá tú an gaoithín i mo chroí.” “You're the little wind in my heart,” he'd then translate with a boastful wink and knowing smile before the obligatory meeting of lips.
The two had bonded over The Smiths, and Eddie had also introduced him to Echo and The Bunnymen as well as some “oldies” like Patti Smith and Lou Reed. The summer before, all they would listen to on those balmy candlelit evenings was the Bunnymen's latest album, Ocean Rain. The supermarket-brand cider would stir a semi-naked Emmet to twirl, wine glass in hand, repeating romantic lines from The Killing Moon, the album's standout track. “Under blue moon, I saw you, So soon you’ll take me…,” they’d both sing in unison.
The sea breeze softly nipping at his shoulders, now Emmet’s mind drifted back to the time they had first met. Eddie, a fireman, was called out to Emmet's family farm after the chimney caught fire. For months after, he’d playfully call Emmet his “damsel in distress”. Emmet didn't like being feminised normally but he was happy to be seen as the petite, delicate flower in need of rescuing from his burly saviour.
As the ice-cream van jingle tinkled in the background, Emmet fondly recalled his day out in Dublin with Eddie. There was the new Wax Museum, a posh tea and scones in Bewley's Café where they talked about the latest new acts on Top of the Pops that week, followed by a leisurely stroll in St Stephen's Green with a 99 cone - all paid for by Eddie, of course. “My treat,” he’d reassure.
This was no era for public displays of affection like holding hands, even in Dublin, but all that pent-up physical love would be released later that evening when the two would share a poky room in Stoneybatter where Eddie's Aunt Ida lived.
She'd think they were innocently “topping and tailing” in the spare room just as two friends would. Eddie looked younger than his years, so the age gap didn’t raise any suspicions.
Ida really wouldn’t have minded though. She loved her gay pop stars. Prone to the odd malapropism, she once mixed up Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Freddie Mercury, saying in her ‘old Dublin’ accent: “Ooh, that Frankie Mercury is a peculiar fella, but isn’t he very talented the way he struts around… and my God, that voice!”
That one always made the two lovers laugh any time Eddie would re-enact it.
These and other memories were a constant in the weeks gone by for Emmet. But the one that haunted him daily was that last, crushing conversation he’d had with the only love he ever knew. The recurring image of Eddie’s tears trickling down his ruddied cheeks still stung like a salt wound. How could he have done such a thing to this gem of a man who had brought such joy into his life?
It was in the swirling depths of his unknowing that Emmet decided he had to cut loose. Unsure that the feelings he had for Eddie were enough or at the same level as this kind soul's for him, Emmet felt it wasn't fair on either of them to go on. Doubt and uncertainty cut short the best adventure either had ever experienced.
“If you love me then why are you leaving me?!” sobbed Eddie, “What we have is special.”
“I know it is... I just... I... I've had this gnawing feeling that I need to explore more and it's only been in the last couple of months,” an exasperated Emmet almost whimpered.
“Explore? With other men?!” A perplexed Eddie's brow furrowed.
“I... don't know, maybe,” stuttered Emmet, his eyes burning after he'd driven that cold shard into Eddie's heart. “I just think you're so sure of your feelings, about us... and I'm just, I'm not. And I'm sorry... I just...”
“I know I've put on a bit of weight lately and you're like a whippet, is that it? Or is it the age gap?!” Eddie's desperation was growing.
“No, I like how you look. I love when you wrap those big arms around me... it's not necessarily the age thing either... It's just I feel I need to explore more and maybe move to London. My uncle has a pub over there and he has offered me a job whenever I want it.”
The expression on Eddie's sodden face had now changed from bewilderment to horror. His Emmet would be going off to London and would be sleeping around with other men, he thought.
“Have you gone mad? I never saw this coming, Emmet. You know they have that AIDS over there? We're safe here, just the two of us. We were lucky to have found each other... You KNOW that. I know you love me, I've felt it.”
“I do love you, but I don't think it's enough. I don't think it's fair to you, and my head’s all over the place for months with this uncertainty I’ve had.”
“You know that if this is it... if we're over,” Eddie's voice cracked on uttering that last word aloud, before his broad chest heaved in a breath to continue, “this is not about you, or me, it's about us. Neither of us is perfect. But as a unit we were… are! This would be the death of us!”
A necessary silence doused the upheaval for a moment, interrupted only by half-stifled sobs and sniffles from both men.
“I know, and I don't regret ever being with you. The only regret I have is this hurt I'm causing you. We had great times and you're the best thing that ever happened to me, and I'm forever grateful... But you've lived more of your life, and you know what you want. I haven't.”
The tears flowed again as Eddie tried to hide his surging grief in his shovel-like hands.
It was an unedifying pain inflicted in that moment. An anguish Emmet hadn't been able to quell since that day he left Eddie's beachside cottage for the last time.
The following week Eddie requested a transfer to the Dublin Fire Brigade and arranged to stay with his Aunt Ida in the city until he got his own place. Wexford and Emmet were too intertwined for him to stay.
There was one more phone call to Emmet to let him know about his departure. It was a courtesy call but also a sort of last-ditch effort to try to win him back. Clinging to a faint hope that his Dublin move might prompt a rethink, Eddie knew by the monosyllabic answers that it was a lost cause. Emmet waited for Eddie to hang up before clenching his watering eyes shut and whispering, “I love you” down the dead line.
The scorching 33C heat and sea breeze had now completely dried all the droplets off Emmet's back. As he stood skimming a thin, dark stone into the shimmering turquoise expanse, a familiar voice emerged through the din of gulls swarming the jetty.
“There you are, in your usual spot,” Granny Betty called out as she shuffled closer. “Fine day, how'd the match go?”
“Thanks, Granny.” Emmet took one of the tuna and mayo sandwiches she’d prepared, smiling with a brief glint of gratitude in his eyes. “It was grand, we won anyway... here, sit down on my changing bag.”
Betty, a small, frumpy woman in her early 70s, gingerly took a seat with a little help from her grandson, and letting out a sigh as her arthritic limbs settled from her exertions.
“I can't stay for long but Emmet, I know you're not yourself lately. Is everything OK? The chemo has taken a lot out of your poor mother. But she's turned a corner now. Would you not maybe take that trip to London to see if you’d like it? Uncle John would be glad of the extra pair of hands.”
“Yeah, I've been thinking about it, Gran,” he replied uneasily.
“How's your friend, what's his name again, Eddie? I haven't seen him in a while. Isn't it amazing how ye became friends... A house fire...” she chuckled, “started by your eejit Da.”
“He's gone. Went to Dublin to work there.” Emmet averted his gaze.
“Riggghhht, would you not go and visit him so?”
Rummaging through her bag, Betty took out a crisp tenner. “Here, take that. You have the whole weekend ahead of you. No more sulking. Get up and see Eddie out of that. He'll turn that frown upside down,” the wizened widow cajoled with a bashful nudge.
“Ah Granny, no, there's no need... I don't... think he likes me anymore.”
“Would you give over! You were like two peas in a pod. Now get yourself a train ticket and get up and have a wild time in Dublin,” she urged, shoving the note into Emmet's lap before rising to her feet. “I'll see you, Emmet. You know where I am.”
Emmet waited until Granny Betty waddled out of sight before gathering himself and slung his changing bag over his semi-burnt shoulder.
Overnight, he mulled over her idea of paying a surprise visit to Eddie in Dublin. He thought about all the what-ifs, the biggest worry being that he would hurt Eddie again.
He visualised himself knocking on that red door of Aunt Ida's house, but fretted about what exactly he would say if Eddie answered. Would he cause both of them more anguish? Would it be worth that risk? The memory of when they made love for the first time swelled to the fore as he drifted off into the soundest of sleeps that only a busy summer Wexford day can gift.
Sunbeams broke through the Venetian blinds the next morning, coaxing Emmet awake. It was 9.25am and hope was in the air as the gulls squawked in the distance and the youngsters from next door milled around on trikes and filled Tonka trucks with seashells and stones.
Brushing sand off his old schoolbag, Emmet slowly packed one set of clothes including the Calvin Klein boxers that Eddie bought for him that time he visited fire-brigade friends who moved to New York. Checking his wallet, he carefully placed the tenner his granny gave him next to the 20 that had sat there for weeks.
After packing a ham sandwich and an apple, Emmet arrived at the station, with a rush of conflicting thoughts washing over him as he tentatively edged towards the kiosk.
“Are y'all right there, lad? Can I help you?” said the ticket man in that inimitable sing-songy Wexford lilt.
“Em, yeah, I'm OK, thanks,” he stammered.
Caught in a sudden fugue, Emmet swivelled and bolted towards the doors.
Just as he was about to exit, he immediately recognised the chords emitting from the station's radio. Then Ian McCulloch's voice. It was Echo and the Bunnymen, The Killing Moon. “Fate up against your will. Through the thick and thin. He will wait until... you give yourself to him.”
Time stood still before Emmet broke his reverie, propelling himself confidently towards the ticket booth.
“One open return ticket to Dublin, please.”
“Right you are, lad.”