Your Father Sends His Love (23 page)

‘I've got a buyer for the Corby Trouser Press,' he said.

‘What's that?' his father said. ‘What?'

‘The Corby Trouser Press. I've got a buyer for it. Three grand, I think. Maybe more, I don't know.'

‘That's great, son,' he said. ‘Great.'

David sat down at the table as usual. But Paul was fussing and knocked a tray to the floor. It made a loud clang as it hit the tiles.

‘Is something burning?' David said and pointed at the oven.

‘Oh shit,' Paul said and wrapped his hands in oven
gloves. He opened the oven door and smoke stole out. When it cleared, the top of the shepherd's pie was sooty black. The smoke alarm was triggered. The noise was hectic. Paul stood on a chair and disarmed it and stood looking down on David. Deanna noticed David's heart rate was marginally higher, felt it rise and fall back to normal.

‘Sometimes, Dad,' David said, ‘you really are a bloody idiot.'

Paul got down from the chair. He stood with his hands gripping the kitchen sink. He was breathing heavily.

‘Don't talk to me like that,' Paul said. ‘Don't you dare talk to me that way in my own house.'

‘Don't act like a bloody idiot in your own house, then,' David said. He got up and put on his jacket.

‘And where do you think you're going?' Paul said. ‘We haven't had our lunch yet.'

‘I'm not eating that shit,' David said. He picked up his coat and walked out the door.

Deanna dropped the link. David Collins had been calm throughout. Calm and detached and yet. She saw the anger in Paul. The rage as David left. She went to the bathroom and was sick. She ran water and washed her face. She went back to the uLINK and stared at the interface. She was frightened to link him again. Even if David now stayed calm, she was not sure she could take
it. She sat at the uLINK all afternoon, but did not connect. She just sat there, looking at the interface. For a long time, she couldn't think of anything to do that didn't involve David Collins.

Eventually she went for a walk, out into the communal gardens. She had a flavoured water sitting out on a cafe's terrace, and watched lovers and friends walk dogs or stroll towards the river. Everyone was talking. At all the tables around her, people talking and laughing. She left her drink and headed home.

She had a long bath. She dried herself and without thinking went straight to the uLINK. She accessed the saved experiences and selected a series of Sundays. Iterations without a hint of drama or conflict.
David Collins has moved from premium level one to premium level two
, the interface said.
Please add credits to continue.

During the week she was struck down by a migraine, a migraine that lasted six days. A week of her bed, a week of sweats and shivers, a week without him. She told herself it was her body's way of telling her to stop. A side-effect of the linking. She hated her body. She hated what her mind was telling her.

By Sunday she was better, the pain lifting like morning mist. She woke early, before sunrise, and showered and
washed her hair, exfoliated, toned, moisturized. She made coffee and drank it watching the sunrise. Then she turned on the interface.
David Collins has moved from premium level two to premium level twelve
, the interface said.
Please add credits to continue.

At the height of her fame, Shirelle had made it to premium level twenty. Deanna didn't know how many levels there were, but that was the highest she had ever seen. She looked at the interface again. Premium level twelve. She swore vengeance on the uLINK people. They were bleeding her dry. She'd heard about people running up debts they couldn't pay, but couldn't imagine how. The terms and conditions were clear.

3.17 – The cost of an individual link can increase due to demand, either by an individual's personal usage or by increased interest from the uLINK community. You will always be informed of any change in pricing for a link.

Even after a week without him, they knew she would pay. She added the credits and linked him as he woke, as he walked from bedroom to bathroom.

It was a typical Sunday. She linked him take a shower, read a manual, walk to his father's house. Paul greeted him as usual, but paused before closing the door.

‘So, how are you, son?' Paul said. ‘Winning?'

‘Fine, Dad. You?'

‘Fine.'

She linked David drink his beer. There was a long and static silence. Paul drank his beer. She linked David Collins sitting at the table.

‘If it's money,' David said, ‘you know the answer.'

‘They fired me,' he said. ‘Someone had it in for me. That bastard Murphy. He's had it in for me since I got there. They said I didn't follow procedure. They said that I was sloppy. Me! That the team wasn't performing as projected. He had it in for me from the start, from the beginning—'

‘Someone's always got it in for you. Always. It's never you, is it?'

‘You weren't there. You didn't see what he—'

‘The answer is no. How many times no. How much do you owe me already? Tell me. How much?'

Paul turned to the stove. He took the pie from the oven and set it on a trivet to cool.

‘And you call yourself a son?' he said.

‘I don't call myself anything,' David said.

All week she linked David Collins and for the whole week his heartbeat barely rose from normal. He reconstructed several new machines, of which he sold two without pleasure. He ate his dinner at the cafe and swam in the municipal pool.

The following Sunday, Deanna agreed to meet her father at the same restaurant as before. They sat at the same table. Her father was late arriving. He was dressed with precision.

‘Well hello,' her father said, leaning down to kiss her. ‘How are you?'

She saw concern on his face.

‘Is everything okay?' he said.

‘Everything's fine,' she said. ‘I was just trying to remember what I had the last time we were here.'

‘The fish is good here,' he said. ‘You probably had the fish.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Probably.'

They talked politely. Him most of all. He talked of his job, of lunches he had eaten, of the people from her past he had seen. She kept the conversation going. They shared a starter.

‘We split up,' she said. ‘That man and me.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry to hear that,' he said. ‘I could tell something was up. I could just tell. From across the room.'

‘I'm fine. I don't want to talk about it. I just wanted you to know, that's all.'

She had not known it was over until that moment. She expected to feel something afterwards. Guilt, perhaps, remorse, a sense of mourning. But no. A statement of fact. No more.

Her father ordered another glass of wine and she put her hand over her glass. She let him talk. She let him describe losing her mother, the old story coming out again. His long, sorry, romantic tale.

There were tables north, south, east and west of her: north and south with four diners; east and west with two. Her father absent, she toyed with her napkin and heard someone say the word Collins. She heard it again from the west and then from the north, from the south and then the east.

. . . he can't survive . . .

. . . but surely someone would do something . . .

. . . police can't, not without proof . . .

. . . you sort of can't blame him . . .

. . . he's a monster, if I raised a child like that . . .

. . . but I hear the father's involved . . .

. . . he started the rumours . . .

. . . to get the cash, to get his hands on his cash . . .

. . . it's clever when you think, really, getting all those followers for something that might not happen . . .

. . . it will happen . . .

. . . I find it so sad . . .

. . . I'd ban it. I've said it before . . .

. . . we'll be home, don't worry . . .

. . . they say it's the ultimate trip . . .

. . . it's the hype I can't stand . . .

Deanna stood. She was still holding the napkin as she walked out of the restaurant.

Shirelle had once said to Declan that you feel the weight of the links. Feel them at the back of your neck, like bees: like a swarm of bees. She scratched the back of her neck as she told him this. Scratched and said: ‘You can feel the pressure. Like they're pushing and pushing until your whole head's just filled with bees. Buzzing with them.' Deanna had thought it was just the drugs. But she could link it in David Collins too.

Deanna linked David Collins walk the streets to his father's house. She linked him scratch the back of his neck, linked the pressure where once there was none. His heart rate was up and she could feel the agitation, the agitation in his arms and legs. She linked his rangy, erratic steps and saw his father's face at the door. Hair greyer. Face more ashen. His arms open: come on in.

She linked the smell of the shepherd's pie. They all linked it. She linked him hear his father say, ‘So, how are you, son? Winning?' and she linked David reply. They all linked it.

She linked him drink his beer. They all linked it. She linked him sit down at the table and eat his pie. She linked him loading the dishwasher. They all linked it.

She linked the kitchen knife entering his gut. The twist of it. The blade cold and the flesh burning. She linked him looking at his father's face, blood on it, blood everywhere. Arterial spray. She linked the blade being removed, and then entering the gut again. She linked David Collins bleeding, the blood pooling on the floor. They linked the pain, the astonishing pain. They all linked it.

She linked him watch his father standing, bloodied, a face gone from rage to terror. She linked David Collins smile. And then there was nothing.

Deanna's link went down then. Everybody's link went down. Deanna heard the music. Everybody heard the music. Deanna saw the credits roll. Everybody saw the credits roll. Deanna thought of David Collins and Deanna began to cry.

Deanna cried and it was glorious.

THIS IS NOT A TEST

Because he loved her still, in the end he let her win. It was not a battle of wits: she had just decided that it was time and once she'd decided, he had just the pretence to go through: the changing of the subject, the grudging acceptance, the putting off of the booking. He delayed and prevaricated, made his excuses, and then they were at the airport, and then on the plane, and then in the air.

Don never discussed home with Maggie, only with patrons and holidaymakers. They'd sit at his bar and tell him he had it right: away from the weather, the people, the traffic. They'd tell him they wanted to pack it in and sell up like him, to open a bar by the beach like him, drink free-poured vodka-tonics all day long like him. Holiday talk. Sun-drunk talk. Drunk-drunk talk. Sentiments as forgettable as a round of drinks. He'd smile. Pour them shots. Empty salty popcorn into plastic-wire bowls. Tell them they were lucky to be able to go home. To leave Cyprus. That he missed home so much. No, seriously.
I do, I miss the old place. Then laugh. Laugh and slap his hand on the bar.