Read Online Gone by Martin Roper - Free Book Online Page A

window sill. The knicker elastic is cutting into her flesh; the hairs on her legs standing with the cold.
    â€”They can see you from here.
    â€”Who?
    â€”The tennis players.
    â€”Big thrill.
    She dresses and does herself up. She closes the hall door quietly when she leaves. The clutch grinds as she reverses out the drive. I stand in the hallway surrounded by the tremendous silence of her leaving. A moment later the doorbell rings. A couple of children stand in the porch, red faced and breathless:
    â€”Can we have our ball back, mister?
    They step inside to wait. I go out into the back and search for it. Willy and Vomit are fighting on the grass.
    â€”Where is it? Where’s the ball, girls?
    The voice that comes out of my mouth is calm. I get the DART into town and go into Scanlon’s. Three morose pints. Two men arguing at the bar. It is. I’m telling you it is. You know what your problem is. I’ll tell you what your problem is. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about—that’s your problem. I walk home in the rain, enjoying that pathetic fallacy of it all without an umbrella. The phone is ringing when I get to the front door. She’s probably gone to her mother’s to bitch and that cunt has filled her with superwoman confidence about her life. I pick up the phone and say hello as dourly as possible. It’s Gerry, telling me it’s now or never. Shit or get off the pot he says. I hate that phrase. Ursula doesn’t come home that night and she doesn’t phone. I wake up, feed her cats (already the dividing up—it floods in unbidden) and stare out at the rain dripping off the gutter. Fuck it. Fuck her. Fuck whatever anyone thinks. I walk into town and buy the ticket to New York. I walk back as if in a parade, wanting to be on view to the world with my new resolve. That night I root the television out of its box and plug it in. I sit watching it but I’m only waiting for her to phone. Every hour that passes and she doesn’t phone is an hour more to tell myself I’m right in going. I hate that I need her to push me into a decision but sitting there I know this is the way I am. I leave the television on so the locals think someone is in and go to the pub for a bottle of whiskey. No messages on the machine when I get back. I pour a drink and the phone rings. Isobela saying she’s going tomorrow, looking for a lift to the airport. I tell her my wife has left me and there’s no car. Poor baby, she says, from two women to no women. I tell her I’ll get a bus out with her. Bus, she says, with disgust. Taxi. I get taxi. Get taxi then, I say. We both laugh and say goodbye. Come visit she says. No, I say. Okay Irish, she says. Be happy. I tell her I’ll write to her from New York.
    Two more days pass and no sign from her. If she expects me to phone her she can go to hell. She did the walking out. Come Saturday whether she’s there or not I’m going. The cats can starve. I sleep little on the Friday night, cursing her. I was sure she’d be home by the weekend. The cats wake me meowing at the bedroom door. I feed them, take my suitcases down to the hall and walk around the house one last time. The note is on the kitchen table. It’s going to take some time. I need a break. I’d take the cats but you know they hate being moved. I’ll be in touch. It’s a strange feeling, realising she had been in the house while I was sleeping, in and out like a thief. Need some time. I’ll give you time baby. I call Medbh, and Brefini answers. I ask them to pass on a message to her. After I put the phone down I realise how forced my voice was, controlled and clipped. That it has come to this, a terse message through friends.

New York
    New York, New York. Life exploding. Hot dog stands, pretzels, bagels, rocketing subways, yellow cabs, jazz twentyfourseven on the radio, Liza Minnelli advertised the length of a bus, summer