The Black Stuff by Niall Foley

Niall Foley has been harnessed as a barman, labourer, clerk, lecturer, security guard, salesman and journalist – and several other functions. He currently lives in Edinburgh, and is happiest when unshackled and alone in a room with a desk, some paper, and a pencil. (And maybe a radio for the football scores.) Born in London, Niall is Irish. But we don’t have time to go into that here.

 

The Black Stuff

 

By Niall Foley

After we swam, and as we navigated a path back to our cubicles through slips of fizzing kids and slow delicate bundles of elderly flesh, the lifeguard raised his hand to stop me.

“Your tattoo,” he said, his voice a beacon from another place among the shrieks and splashes that echoed from wall to wall. “It’s deadly, man.”

“Thanks,” I said. The Celtic cross on my right shoulder bluer than black was dappled with water.

He lifted his sleeve to reveal the same tattoo on similarly freckled skin.

My girlfriend laughed.

“I know why I have it,” he grinned. “It’s the cross of my family name, Flynn. What’s your excuse?”

“I just picked it out from what they had,” I said. “Whereabouts are you from back home?”

“I’ll leave you two to bond,” my girlfriend sighed. But as she walked to her cubicle she turned and smiled with almost maternal encouragement.

 

Flynn – Flynner – was a Monaghan man who had moved to Edinburgh four years earlier. As we chatted reflections of light from the pool danced on his face and lit his red beard. He was all motion; a wink to a young black mother carrying her baby, a brief but firm handshake with a grey-haired military type, a slap on the back from a bull-necked Indian man. Three boys ran between us on the wet tiles yelling their lungs out. “Stall the ball lads, it’s dangerous,” Flynn called after them, and they obediently skidded to a giddy walk.

All the while I stood in shadow, my swimming trunks like cold plaster smothering my thighs. A draught from somewhere swept across my back.

“Anyway,” I said with a slight shiver.

“Right, I’ll let you get on so,” said Flynner. He shook my hand firmly. “By the way,” he said then, “are you a Celitc fan? I’m heading to the match tomorrow with a few mates and we’ve a spare ticket.”

“Sounds good,” I said, the words escaping from my mouth.

“Dead on,” he grinned, gripping my hand tighter. “We’re gonna have a few scoops on the train and hit a few pubs Gallowgate way before heading to Paradise. It’ll be great craic. But it’ll not be too mad or anything because the missus is coming. I’ll leave my number on the front desk. Give me a shout before twelve tomorrow.”

“I will,” I said.

“Slán,” said Flynner.

Then we shook on it for a third time.

 

“I’m glad you made a friend,” my girlfriend teased, later. She was preparing a salad with this thing she’d bought. Put the wet lettuce leaves in the cylinder and around it whirrs, shaking all the water off. “Will you go?”

“I don’t know,” I said, fingering the Post-it with Flynner’s phone number.

“You wanted to go to a Celtic game with someone, didn’t you?”

“I know, but…”

“What?” she said, silencing the spinning galaxy of salad.

“You know,” I said. “There’ll be booze.”

“Love, we’ve been through this,” she said, an edge of weariness in her tone. “You don’t have to drink.”

You see, my girlfriend wasn’t Irish.

“Sure I don’t have to drink.”

“You don’t have to drink,” she said.

Sure.

 

I’m not an alcoholic. To call myself an alcoholic would be an insult to the real alcoholics, the committed ones who let go job, home, and family for the gargle. But I’ve come close. I’ve drank. Days, sometimes weeks when the inside of my head amounted to little more than sugar in water. Eaten and sloshed. A dark, soggy mess.

 

So strolling home with the Sunday papers and a smoothie after a night of troubled sleep I send Flynner the text I knew I always would.

The phone bleeps an instant reply but I don’t check the message until later.

Of course, it’s all fine. He understands. Another time.

 

When I saw Flynner again he was on reception duties. He didn’t notice me at first and I hung back while he dealt with a babble of scowling women carrying yoga mats. He saw me and gave the thumbs up and then waved to an Asian young thing who had been poured into the Lycra she wore, Flynner all the while telling the yoga women that they were damn right to be unhappy and that he was going to book them in for a free class because that’s the least they deserved.

I watched him.

Unshaven. Pale. Crooked teeth. A surprising roll of beer belly mushroomed over the edge of the desk, the build of a sportsman gone to seed.

None of it mattered. He had that gloriously attractive quality of being perpetually at ease in himself. And when the women moved on they smiled and thanked him, their posture a little better for having spoken to the mighty Flynn.

We shook hands.

“Hell hath no fury like the Pilates gals when Bodypump runs over,” he grinned.

“Sorry I couldn’t make the match that time,” I said. “Some family stuff came up.”

It was a lame excuse that just came to my lips, but he rolled his eyes sympathetically.

“Kids,” he said.

“Actually no,” I said, surprised. He wasn’t that much younger than me. “Do you have kids?”

“Two, and a third in the oven. Married three years now. What about you and your fair maiden?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

“Engaged?”

“Not yet.”

I handed him my membership card and he swiped me through.

“Sorry again about the match,” I said. “Let me know the next time something’s happening.”

“Actually,” he said, as I was about to climb the stairs, “the kids and the missus do karate on Wednesday nights. I’m thinking of watching the Champions League somewhere local if you’re around?”

“I’ll give you a call,” I said, and up I went.

 

But on the Wednesday the guilt was upon me all day before I had even done anything.

My girlfriend was making dinner, putting salmon fillets into a steamer I’d bought for her birthday.

“You don’t have to go,” she said.

“But I said I would.”

“Or you can go, and not drink,” she said.

My girlfriend wasn’t Irish.

I could just picture Flynner at the bar. He drains his pint and I walk in the door. Good timing you lucky bastard says he what’ll it be says he. Just a mineral for me, I say. Ha, right, says he, and will you be wanting a straw and a bag of crisps with that, young gosun? Two pints of Guinness please there barman.

So I took my phone out of my pocket and sent the text.

 

A week passed before I went to the gym again. I was on an exercise bike when Flynner came in and spotted weights for one of the steroid-ridden gym rats who only see their own reflection in the mirror.

When Flynner was alone by the water-cooler I went over.

“Alright,” I said and put out my hand. He shook it limply. “Hey,” I said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the pub the last time.”

“No problem,” he said and took a step away.

And in that one step I realised what I was. An Irish bullshitter. The kind you meet all over the world.

I’d met one in Edinburgh not long before. From Swords in Dublin. He’d been a gard but transferred to the police in Scotland to be with the woman. He thrust his card on me promising I email him.

I did.

Of course, he never replied.

And that was me, now. A bullshitter.

“Flynner,” I said, “What time do you finish on Saturday?”

“Three,” he said.

“Look, I’m not drinking right now. But there’s a new café just opened on the high street. We could grab a coffee. Would you be up for it?”

He waited for me to say only kidding, see you for a pint.

I didn’t.

“Why are you off the booze?” he asked.

“I’m training for a marathon,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. I was. It just wasn’t the reason I was off the drink.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Alright,” he said.

 

“You have a date! It’s so cute,” my girlfriend teased. “You guys are so sweet.” She was mixing bread dough with this machine her parents had bought her.

“Please don’t say it’s a date,” I said, “that’s not funny.”

She snapped the machine off and scooped out the mix. “Stop being so machismo. Two men can meet for coffee in an entirely heterosexual, non-gay way, you know?”

Like I said, my girlfriend wasn’t Irish. She didn’t understand our ways, how we make connections. We’ve travelled the world but we wouldn’t have gotten far without the bit of pull, the leg-up, the quiet word. And the quiet word is always spoken over a pint. It’s the glue that binds.

 

To my surprise Flynner was already in the café and sitting by the window when I got there. It was quiet inside and there were tablecloths and plates and napkins.

“It seems more of an eating place, man,” said Flynner.

“You hungry?” I asked.

He shook his head.

The waiter didn’t seem to mind that we just ordered coffee. And though it felt awkward at first, to tell the truth it wasn’t too bad. It was okay. It was nice to meet someone.

“How was work today?” I asked.

“It was fine,” he said. He kept glancing at the women across from us, two attractive thirty-something’s with shopping bags standing attentively at their heels.

“Do you get to use the gym equipment when you’re not working?” I said, just to ask something.

“Yeah. We get to use everything for free.”

The waiter came with the coffees and a selection of biscuits. I dipped an apple and cinnamon cookie into my drink.

“That’s not going to help with the marathon,” said Flynner.

“It’s okay,” I said, “I’ve got a new personal trainer.”

The women next to us laughed. Loudly.

“Personal trainer, that’s good,” said Flynner, ignoring them. “Is that Marathon specific, or for general fitness?”

“For general fitness,” I said. I tried to ignore the continuing giggles but my cheeks burned and my forehead itched. I glanced at the women and they looked away but couldn’t stop laughing.

Then Flynner got a text. “Shit,” he said, “I’m sorry man. The eldest has a sick bug and now they’re all at it. I have to go.”

“No problem at all,” I said.

“Here man,” he said, standing, “I owe you for the coffee.”

“It’s grand,” I said, “You can get me a pint sometime.”

“Aye, sound. A pint,” he said. We didn’t shake hands. When he got to the door he shouted “Good luck with the personal trainer,” and I turned just in time to see him wink at the women. They smiled at him.

Three fourteen. He barely touched his coffee.

The waiter came over and asked if I wanted anything else and I said just the bill and me jacket there chief. I got up to go and smiled at the women and said have yourselves a grand evening ladies but they didn’t say anything.

Outside was all smoke from an ashtray smouldering in the doorway of a pub.

The burning trailed me into the gloom where everyone was fixed on the glowing screen and the staccato urgency of the football commentator. I pulled up a stool at the counter and the barman turned and nodded to say, what’ll it be?

Pint of Guinness and don’t spare the horses, I’ve a whore of a thirst on me, said I.

Pionta Guinness says he and slaps down the tap sending the black stream hissing into the glass.

Turned out he was from Clare and I had a hell of a night.