Page 94 of Things We Never Said
‘MrSpock?’
‘It’s what I call him when he gets all logical on me,’ April explains.
‘At the risk of being called MrSpock,’ Ronan repeats, ‘I’ve never been much of a believer in being led by your mind.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Sean says.
‘It’s your mind,’ Ronan says. ‘It’s your organ, and waiting for it to be ready for something is a bit like waiting for your own hand to pass you a cup of tea instead of telling it to just do it.’ He reaches, theatrically, for his beer to demonstrate this. ‘Or a bottle of beer,’ he adds.
‘I’m not sure I’m following you,’ Sean says.
April, who catches his eye, rolls her eyes again.
‘If it makes sense for you to do it, because, a) it’s the perfect place for you – your words not mine, Sean; and b) you need to move, because this place is too big; and, c) it’s at a good price, then change your mind. Tell it you’re ready. Don’t let some nebulous biochemical process in your head make the decision for you. Your brain is a tool. And you’re the one in control, Sean. Or at least, you should be.’
‘Now, that, you see,’ April says through laughter, ‘is one hundred per cent Ronan. I told you he’d be irritatingly logical. But in the end it comes down to what it always comes down to. Do you want to decide with your head or with your heart?’
Sean nods. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, I suppose that is what it boils down to. My head says move, but my heart says I’m not ready.’
Ronan laughs genuinely. ‘Your head or your heart?’ he repeats.
April pulls a face. ‘Yes, MrSpock. His head or his heart.’
‘Well, as far as I’m aware,’ Ronan says, swigging at his beer bottle and looking vaguely smug, ‘one of those two things is a biochemical computer, the most powerful computer on the bleeding planet and designed specifically for thinking. And the other one’s a pump. So I know which one I’d favour for making decisions.’
‘A pump,’ Sean repeats, grinning and nodding. ‘That’s good. I like it.’
Sean sleeps badly that night. He dreams tortured dreams of heavy limbs that refuse to respond to his orders, arms that won’t lift bottles of beer or cups of tea, legs that won’t walk ... He dreams of queues of people that never seem to advance, and forms that for one reason or another cannot be filled. And, because of all the beer, he has to get up four times to pee.
But when he wakes up in the morning light, the decision, despite his tiredness and despite the hangover, is clear. Perhaps Ronan’s beer oracle works after all.
When he gets downstairs, April is already up, eating the remains of last night’s pizza.
‘Oh, hi Dad,’ she says. ‘Ronan’s gone out for a run. So, what are we up to today?’
Sean shrugs. ‘I don’t know what you’re up to,’ he says, ‘but I think I’m buying a flat.’
Snapshot #28
Printed digital photo, colour. A man and a woman are sitting on an old grey sofa beneath a large, roofed porch. They are raising their glasses and smiling falsely. They are quite possibly mouthing the word ‘cheese’.
It is Sunday evening and April and Ronan have just left.
Sean has placed the printed photo on the table and is caressing it gently with one fingertip as he struggles to remember.
His mind, though, isn’t playing ball. It keeps drifting to other things, to yesterday’s flat purchase, or to April’s coming baby, or to Ronan’s cheeky Irish humour, or to Catherine’s affair. Anything, in fact, except this photo.
He sits for almost half an hour trying to summon specific memories before he slips the cassette into the machine, but with the exception of a few facts, such as the town where they stayed – Fayence – and the fact that there had been a pool, it’s all gone. The house had probably been lovely, he thinks. There had been noisy cicadas by day and even noisier frogs by night. And he remembers the sofa in the picture and the rainstorm. But that’s it. It’s not a lot from a ten-day holiday. But then, this was no ordinary ten-day holiday.
Cassette #28
Hello Sean.
It’s been three weeks since the last tape – at least three weeks – and, to be honest, I can’t even remember what the last one was about. But I don’t suppose it matters much. They’re all just episodes, really.
These have not, as you know, been good weeks for me. The trial I was in has been interrupted because I’m not the only one, it seems, who can’t take these doses of titty-bitty-marzipan, as we all call it around here.
That was my invention, by the way. Are you proud of me?
