Free Lift Home by Andrew Maguire

On the evening of his fiftieth birthday, Martin Conlon stood at the exit of Belfast International Airport, digging though the pound coins in his wallet in search of the wedding ring he’d hidden amongst them. It was reluctant to go on his finger; he twisted it past his knuckle like putting the cap on a coke bottle, or a bolt down a screw, and when he straightened up he thought he could feel the weight of it on his entire body.

Outside, the cold air hit his face like a splash of water after a bad night’s sleep and he was relieved to see his lift waiting for him: Tony Quinn leaning up against the car, staring into the sky at make-believe aeroplanes. Tony noticed him when he was halfway across the zebra crossing, and came to meet him. ‘Two suitcases today,’ he said, as he took one of them, and Martin said: ‘about time we tested out the boot space in this dodgy vehicle of yours.’

Tony’s car wasn’t a registered taxi, and neither were the cars of the three people that worked for him. He ran a small, mostly private, technically illegal operation that rarely went more than twenty miles beyond his own front door, and specialised in taking local people to local pubs. But he always ventured out to the airport for Martin, no question about that. Every fourth Friday. When you’re only home for forty-eight hours at a time, he said, almost six years ago, on that first visit back, why not spend the time with a mate, instead of wasting it on some bollox you don’t even know, who’ll talk shite while he takes the long way home and charges you extra for the privilege.

 ‘How’s the clan?’ Martin asked. ‘They still surviving without me?’

Without Martin at home, the Conlon’s didn’t bother with a car and sometimes it felt like Tony worked for them, as an affordable, full time chauffeur. His usual fares were low – a tank full of red diesel got him through days at a time, and he told his customers: I pass the savings directly on to you – but they were even lower for the Conlon’s, and using him for several short trips a day worked out a lot cheaper than running a car of their own. He never charged the boys more than two quid for a lift out to training, and if possible he worked the trip into another job so he didn’t have to charge them anything at all. He’d ring them up half an hour early, shouting down the phone: I’m heading out there now, on another run. Get yourself outside the front door and it’ll be a few quid saved for your back pocket.

‘Ben’s given up the football,’ Tony said.

‘Seriously?’

‘Well I’m not taking him to training anymore.’

‘Fuck.’

The wedding ring itched. Martin never wore it to work – didn’t like the idea of getting it dirty on site, was sick of worrying whether or not it was still there, under his gloves – but for the first few months he spent in England he wore it everywhere else, put it on as soon as he got back to the hotel or B&B. Then after a while he started to notice it sitting on the bathroom sink when it should have been on his finger, started to find it lying beside the TV at night, when it should have been out with him, at dinner or down the pub. He felt a certain pang of guilt the first few times he noticed it like that. Then the guilt disappeared. He'd get dressed, grab his keys, leave, and never even consider putting it on.

One phone call home a week became enough; a single text constituted a conversation; backgrounds on phones and screensavers on laptops no longer had to be of them. Funny how subtly his family disappeared from his life.

The news came on the radio and Tony asked: ‘what do you make of this craic up at Stormont?’

‘I’d rather not talk about it, to be honest.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘I mean what do we know about it, really?’

‘Say no more. How was the flight then?’

‘It was no bother.’

‘You get used to them, don’t you?’

‘Have you ever been on a plane, Tony?’

‘No, but…’

‘So you know fuck all about getting used to them. Another thing you know fuck all about.’

‘But you know aeroplanes, football, politics, they’re the sort of thing you can talk about, just by having heard other people talk about them.’

His carry-on bag was searched in Stanstead because he forgot to put the small tin of Vaseline into a clear plastic bag. A man explained that Vaseline qualified as a liquid, and Martin decided to nod alone, rather than tell him he knew that but had simply forgot about it. The bag contained all the odd bits and pieces he’d taken with him around England for over six years, and it was like the security man was going through his life with a fine tooth comb, invasively inspecting every inch of him.

Lots of silly things he’d taken to make hotels and B&B’s feel less stale and clinical: the ceramic rabbit from their downstairs toilet; a wooden pencil pot, which had humbly held pens and pencils for school homework’s and mortgage paperwork; his oldest sons under twelve footballer of the year plaque; and a picture frame, with a photograph of all five of them stood next to Mickey Mouse at Disneyland – a happy husband and wife, fifteen year old daughter, two sons, aged eleven and seven

None of these things noticed missing. With him in England, Ciara in Lisburn, and Liam at University, the house, like all their lives, was changing. His hair line, Ciara’s pregnancy weight, Liam’s boyishness, bits and bobs around the house; only natural that as one or two of these things disappeared, they all did.

The security worker slid his arm down the tight pouch on the front of the suitcase and pulled his hand out, holding the wedding ring. He held it out like he couldn't possibly put it back, like no one would ever put it in such an undignified place on purpose, and that now that it was found, Martin would react with relief and appreciation. Martin took it, and as the man finished checking the bag he wondered for the first time what he was supposed to do with all these things when he got back to Belfast.

'Your birthday present is in the glove box,' Tony said.

Martin opened it and found a tin of Tennents.

‘But it's your job to keep an eye out for police. I don’t want you caught drinking tins in my car.'

'It's not like you've a taxi licence to lose.'

The can was warm in his hands, but he'd had a pint in Stanstead and two beers on the plane, so it made little difference. As they drove in to Belfast he stared out the window and drank, noticing changes that might have come in the last four weeks, or in the last six years. Goal posts and trampolines vanished from front gardens; signs that children he’d never met had grown up without him knowing.

'Help yourself to them,’ Tony said. ‘Should be another one down the back of the passenger seat if you reach round.’

'One more drink and I’ll be dying for a smoke.’

‘Well the cigarettes are under the sun-visor.’

‘It’s like a debaucherous treasure hunt in here, Tony. But sure call into the club and we’ll get a proper pint.’

‘I’m on strict orders to get you home,’ Tony said; but he only said it because he thought he had to, not because he wanted Martin to listen.

When they pulled up outside the golf club, Martin took a twenty pound note out of his pocket and threw it down in the box by the gear stick.

‘Don’t be daft, I told you it’s a free lift,’ Tony said as usual.

'Get away with that. Take it before it's drank.’

‘That’s what I love about lifting you, Marty. It might only be once a month, but it’s always just after pay day.’

His boss took him for a pint the day he told him. They sat at a low table in luminous vests, with a day’s work still written on their faces. Two beers, two menus, and the boss’ cigarettes spread out between them. The packets of cigarettes changed every day, but always looked the same, an inseparable part of him, like his grin. He was one of those people that didn’t smile a hundred times, but had one smile, practiced to perfection, ready for all occasions. Martin didn’t try and match it; he never felt like he had enough control over his own face.

Information seemed to come fast: Martin’s role in the current project was near finished, and when it was, he wouldn’t be starting another one. He’d get a redundancy package, they all would, all the lads being let ago. If it didn’t have to be like this, then it wouldn’t be. But it does.

A horrible word, Martin thought, redundant. No privacy in it. All about large consortiums and big businesses. Markets and economies. Society as a whole. He’d rather be sacked or fired in isolation, be left to it, with the world still spinning around him, so no one would notice him slipping out.

‘Did you text her?’ Martin asked.

‘Yeah,’ Tony said. ‘Told her traffic was brutal and she could add half an hour to what I’d originally said.’

There was a copy of the Belfast Telegraph in front of them, familiar faces on the front page.

‘You know I did actually see a couple of them a few weeks ago, near our building site by Westminster. I walked passed them as they were heading towards parliament, a few of the big hitters like, over from Stormont for a day out, or a chat with the big boys, or whatever the fuck it is they do.’

‘You say hello to them?'

'It was weird, I nearly felt like I should. Like when you were a cub and saw someone you just about recognised from your school out in the real world. Even if you never spoke to them in school, you felt like you had to say hello, cus out in the real world you had this thing in common. It was a bit like that. But no, I didn’t say anything.'

Tony laughed, and Martin sat forward for a moment and paused.

Martin might have said: A birthday, a wedding anniversary, a christening. I can talk through the last few years of my family life like you talk through a day of taxi runs.

Martin might have said: You know, when you’re only home once a month, you notice things about each other that you wouldn’t notice if you saw each other every day. Gaining weight, wrinkling faces, slow transitions that suddenly stand out at monthly intervals. So when I show up tonight, do you think she’ll notice a secret on me that wasn’t there before?

But he didn’t say anything. Instead, Martin gave Tony a small smile and Tony gave him one back; a swift but meaningful exchange that explained Martin wasn’t going to say anymore and Tony wasn’t going to ask him to. They would simply keep doing this, whatever this was, sitting here, passing minutes and hours, in the way they’d been doing since Tony had lifted Martin at the airport, because that’s what Martin had asked him to do, is how Martin was asking him to help.

They sat in silence for another five minutes and then Martin said: ‘OK, we best get on, hadn’t we?’

……………….

Andrew Maguire has an MA in Creative Writing from the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, and is employed at South West College, where he writes and edits the blog, Way Out West, which won best blog at the 2017 European Digital Communication Awards in Berlin. He’s a primary organiser of the Omagh Literary Festival, Honouring Benedict Kiely. His short fiction has been published in journals including Blackbird, The Honest Ulsterman and The Bath Flash Fiction Anthology.

Twitter: @maguireandrew