Beneath the Earth (2 page)

I wanted to stay with the Days but I couldn't. They were a halfway house, a place for boys like me to go in an emergency situation. Sarah was kind and efficient but her job was to prepare me for wherever I was going next. George talked to me about football. I didn't understand; he didn't care. He kept trying. Eugene didn't seem to mind having another boy in the house. He confided in me that he wanted to be a priest, a strange profession for someone our age. He said that he felt a calling inside him. Sarah and George Day asked me whether I wanted to talk about Rachel and Peter and I told them no, that I didn't.

I knew from my social worker that Rachel had been brought to a clinic where she was being treated for alcoholism. After that she was brought to a second clinic, where she was treated for depression. My social worker said that my sister's death had affected Rachel badly. She asked me whether I understood about Peter. Understood what, I asked. It doesn't matter, she said, consulting her file. Understood what, I asked again. I'm sorry, I spoke out of turn, she told me. Rachel is in hospital, my social worker told me. She has a long road to recovery. Would you like to see her, she asked me. No, I said. My social worker told me that was probably for the best, as Rachel wasn't emotionally equipped for visitors yet. Then we're all happy, I said.

I asked Sarah Day whether I could stay with her, George and Eugene, and she shook her head. You know that you can't, she told me.

I was brought to a house in Drumcondra to live with a family whose name was Grace. There was another foster child there, an angry girl named Chloe who refused to talk to me. My new foster parents took no interest in either of us. They had a son, Francis, nine years old, who did nothing but play video games and told me that I was there so the state would pay the mortgage. He pretended that I didn't exist, even though we shared a bedroom.

I excelled, however, in school. I was naturally gifted. My teachers took a particular interest in me. I overheard my English teacher telling my mathematics teacher that I had a tragic back-story, as if I was a character in a novel. I sat quietly in class, I did my homework, I answered questions politely. And of course I was good-looking, and adults prefer attractive children. Even if they are not looking at them with sexual thoughts in their mind, I noticed how the teachers were instinctively drawn to the attractive boys and girls. They sought our approval. They wanted us to like them.

The possibility of a scholarship was raised with me. There were certain grades that I needed to achieve. I felt certain that if I studied hard, I would achieve what my invigilators required. I succeeded. At my school graduation the headmaster brought me on to the stage, clutched my arm and declared me a triumph over adversity. The parents applauded. I felt nothing. A reception was held afterwards – tepid soft drinks and supermarket party food. On the way home I made my way through a park where two boys accosted me, asked me whether I had money, told me they wanted whatever I had. I fought them and hurt them.

A woman phoned. Do you meet women as well as men, she asked me. Yes, I said, even though I never had. There was a long pause. I could hear her breathing. I'm lonely, she said eventually. They're all fucking lonely. Yes, I said. Are you clean, she asked me.

She didn't want me to come to her home. She said she'd book a room in a hotel where the elevators didn't require a key card and I could come straight up.

I followed the corridor around to her room. I knocked on the door. I could hear her standing on the other side. I waited. She opened the door. Hello, she said.

She was wearing a heavy white bathrobe, the kind you only find in hotels, and smelled of bath salts. I could see steam on the mirror of the bathroom through the open door and knew that she had prepared herself for me. I feel ridiculous, she told me. Don't, I said. I've never done something like this before, she told me. I have, I said.

She sat down on the bed. She was trembling. I felt irritated. She should have come to terms with her decision before calling me. She beckoned me over and asked me to sit next to her. She stroked my face and ran a hand through my hair. She kissed me. Her mouth tasted of white wine. I thought of Rachel. She took my hand and placed it inside her bathrobe. My hand settled on her right breast. My fingers reached underneath to cup it. Her head moved slowly back and she closed her eyes. She moaned a little, a sound filled with a mixture of despair, shame and longing. I felt no excitement. I worried that I would not be able to perform.

She lay back on the bed and asked me to take my shirt off. She loosened her bathrobe and I understood that she wanted me to help her untie the knot. When it came apart I stared at her body for a few moments before looking at her face again. Whatever unhappiness had brought her here, she was very beautiful. I began to feel aroused on a purely physical level. I stood up, undressed and began. She did not, I think, enjoy it very much. She was too nervous. She was on the edge of excitement but could not quite bring herself there. I ran my tongue across the indentation on the fourth finger of her left hand and she pulled away, shaking her head. Don't be cruel, she said.

Afterwards, she didn't invite me to take a shower. She went into the bathroom while I dressed and only when I knocked to say that I was leaving did she come out. She had been crying. She handed me my money. You have my number, I told her and left. I went for a beer in a nearby bar where I saw a boy from my schooldays sitting in the corner with his arm around a girl. Once, several years before, he had approached me at a party and told me that I had beautiful eyes.

I met a girl and tried to like her. She worked in a café I often visited. She told me she was from Hiroshima. I didn't know people still lived there, I said. Oh yes, she told me. Has your family lived there a long time, I asked her. No, she said. Her parents were both from a city called Masuda in the Shimane Prefecture. But they moved to Hiroshima in the 1980s after their marriage. I was intrigued by this idea. I asked her would she like to come for a walk with me some evening and she said yes.

I'm not accustomed to dating. I'm not even accustomed to sex, outside of my job. I have no interest in it. The boys in my class at the university talk of little else, perhaps because they get so little. The girls hold back, not for moral reasons but because they enjoy the power they have over the boys. I can understand this. Feeling desired can be a very potent force.

The girl's name was Hamako, which, she told me, meant child of the shore. She had come to Ireland to study medicine but discovered quite early on that she had no aptitude for the subject. She was frightened by the cadavers. She hated the smell of formaldehyde. She didn't care for blood. She wasn't even particularly interested in helping people. She said that she couldn't tell her parents she had left the course because they would be furious with her and insist that she return home.

Don't you like Japan, I asked her. No, she told me. It took me years to escape. I'm never going back. But what will you do, I asked her. What I am doing, she said. I can waitress for a year or two, save some money, then move somewhere else. Anywhere that isn't Japan.

The third time we went out, she took me to the beach in Killiney. I'd never been before but she came regularly. She knew a family who lived nearby and twice a week she would take their dogs for a long walk. Why can't they walk their dogs themselves, I asked her. They're too busy, she said. Besides, it's easy money for me. We called on the family and for a moment I thought I recognized the man who opened the door but I was wrong. I‘d never seen him before. He seemed pleased that Hamako had a boyfriend, even though I was not her boyfriend. He asked me many intimate questions about my family life and my studies at the university. His wife forced me to eat a slice of shop-bought cake and drink a cup of herbal tea that tasted like flowers. Their house was decorated with Japanese art and furniture. There were ink paintings on the walls featuring women in black and white kimonos, their hair held up with combs and pins, and a woodblock print of two kabuki actors performing before an audience of skeletons. Hamako didn't seem to want to leave, nor did she show any interest in taking the dogs for a walk.

Have you heard Hamako play the piano, the man asked me, and I shook my head. Oh no, don't ask me to, said Hamako in the kind of voice that made me realize that this was one of the reasons we were still here. Ask her to play, the man said to me. She can play if she wants to, I said. I'll play, said Hamako quickly, and she sat down before it, raised the lid and did some finger exercises in the air before starting. She was adequate, nothing more, but the man and woman applauded enthusiastically at the end. Isn't she wonderful, they asked me. They watched her as if she was their own child. She could do no wrong. I looked around and saw that there were no pictures of children to be seen anywhere. They asked me whether I could play a musical instrument and I shook my head. They asked if I could visit any city in the world, which one would I choose. I stopped talking. Another hour passed. I was invited to stay for dinner. I stood up and left.

When I returned home, I found a message waiting for me on my voicemail from Hamako telling me that she had never been so embarrassed in her life, that she had brought me to meet people who were important to her and I had behaved abominably. She said she wasn't sure if she wanted to see me again and that she would have to give it serious thought. She told me not to contact her again, that if she wanted to talk to me then she would be in touch. I deleted the message. She texted a few hours later in an advanced state of outrage and once again told me not to contact her. I deleted the message. When I woke the next morning, there were two messages, both quite abusive, and a third arrived during the day. I threw away the SIM card and bought a new one. It wasn't my work phone so it didn't matter and very few people had the number. Only my former social workers, who called me occasionally, and I informed them of the change.

I stopped frequenting Hamako's café and months later, when I thought enough time had passed that I could eat there again, she was nowhere to be seen. I asked what had become of her but the waitress who served me didn't know. Perhaps she had gone travelling after all. Or perhaps she'd returned to Japan.

Sometimes men phone, then hang up. Ten minutes pass, then they phone again. Their confidence has built up. Maybe they've written down what they're going to say. I saw your profile online, they tell me. Are you available tonight? What time are you thinking of, I ask. As soon as you can make it, they say. They don't want to wait. They're in the mood, they have the urge, they hate themselves for it. They just want to do it so they can get on with their night. That's when they call me. Or boys like me.

Sometimes they block their number and when I answer, before they can say a word, I tell them to call back with an unblocked number. And then I hang up. Sometimes they call back. Sometimes they don't.

They might ask if I know someone I can bring with me. No, I tell them. There's no one you can call, they say. No. There's plenty of other lads online, they say, I thought you might all know each other. No. There's a long pause. So you don't know anyone, they say. No. All right, they say, come on your own. And I go on my own.

Only once did I go with someone else. Or rather there was someone else there when I arrived. This was in the early days. I couldn't have been doing it more than a few weeks. The boy was younger than me, maybe sixteen years old. Wild-eyed, probably on drugs. I came in and he was sitting on the sofa with his pants around his ankles. He barely looked up at me. His eyes were locked on a cat that was stretched out before an open fireplace, purring with contentment. Sit beside him, the man said. I sat beside him. Put your mouth on him, the man said. I put my mouth on him. Hit him, the man said, and I was going to say no but he must have been speaking to the boy because he roused himself, slapped me hard across the face and I fell off the sofa in surprise. I stood up and walked over to the man. Give me my money, I told him. But you haven't done anything yet, he said. I have so many ideas for the two of you. You're both so beautiful. Give me my money, I repeated, staring directly at him. He gave me my money. I left. I saw the boy another time near the canals in Baggot Street.

Sometimes they like to abuse me, verbally. They tell me how dirty I am. They say that I'm a nasty little scumbag. They tell me that I love it, the things that I do, and usually, when they're dribbling their bitterness, I'm thinking about an exam I have to take or whether I have enough milk in the fridge for breakfast. You're a disgusting fucking whore, they tell me. A filthy little cocksucker who takes it up the ass. You like the taste of it, don't you. I do, I tell them. I don't care. I'll say whatever they want me to say. It means nothing to me.

Once, I told someone. A boy from my class at the university who was gay and who'd made it clear that he was attracted to me. We were spending too much time together but it's not often that I make a friend. He asked me whether I had a girlfriend and I told him I wasn't interested in girls. I could see the desire in his eyes and didn't want to lose him. I didn't want to hurt him either. I considered sleeping with him, just to make him happy, but I don't do that for free. I told him how I made my living and he must have thought I was joking because he started laughing. I shrugged, looked away, and he sat back with a frown on his face. Are you serious, he asked me. I am, I told him. I'm not going to pay you, he said, offended. I never asked you to, I said. You've been leading me on, he said. I haven't, I told him. I like you. But he stopped liking me after that, which was probably easier for both of us.

Another time, I got a call from a man who grew aggressive when I said that I wouldn't be able to be there for an hour, maybe a little longer. Can you not come sooner, he asked, as if I should be at his beck and call. His voice was familiar to me. I thought maybe he'd called me before. I can't, I told him. I can be there in an hour, maybe a little longer. Well try, will you, he said. I waited an hour, maybe a little longer, and then I showed up. I rang the buzzer for his apartment on the outside wall. He lived in a good part of the city, a part I often find myself visiting. He kept me waiting in the cold. There was a camera above the buzzer and I put my finger across it. I didn't want him looking at me when I couldn't see him too. Finally, he answered. Another five seconds and I would have walked. Who's that, he said. It's me. About fucking time, he said. The door buzzed and I thought about going home. I had a bad feeling about this. I prefer nervous men to angry men. I went up a flight of stairs, then another, then another. I found the door. I put my finger across the spyhole. I knocked. He kept me waiting again. He opened it and looked at me. Jesus fucking Christ, he said, putting a hand across his mouth in shock. I started laughing. I'll leave you alone, Peter, I said. I walked away. I went home. I wiped his number.