Every Single Minute by Hugo Hamilton Page A

then we got up again. We got dressed and went downstairs, I don’t really know why. I think we just wanted to be awake. We thought it was a waste to sleep in Cork. We didn’t talk, but I knew what my brother was thinking and he knew what I was thinking. We agreed without agreeing, saying only the least words necessary. We left the room and went down the stairs to explore, I suppose, that’s what we called it without saying the word.
    We walked through the reception, out the door. I think we wanted to see the street in darkness, the front porch of the hotel with the lights on, one missing. We wanted to see people, anybody out there smoking, the smell of cigarettes in the open. The air in the street at night. Our own breath like smoke. And cars going by. Guessing by the headlights and the sound of the engine what model it could be, particularly motorbikes, what CC they were and what the maximum speed was on the speed dial.
    And as we were standing there, we saw a man and a woman coming out of the hotel together holding hands. It took a few seconds to realise that we knew them. There was my aunt, walking towards us. I thought she must be coming to tell us to go to bed, we had no permission to be out there on the street. The man she was with was wearing a light-grey suit, so we didn’t recognize him at first. It was my father’s brother, the Jesuit. Even though he was not dressed as a Jesuit, we knew it was my father’s brother because we recognized his face and his voice. He had only recently been at the funeral of my uncle, my aunt’s husband, a few weeks before that, saying Mass for him.
    I was sure they must have seen us standing next to the railings. We were so obvious. I could think of no excuse for being out in the street after we had already said good night. But then they passed us by. I suppose they were not expecting us to be there. Even though my father’s brother looked straight at me, in the eyes, he didn’t recognize me, he thought we were just boys at the railings.
    My aunt was smiling. Her smile was full of sadness and happiness, if you can imagine that. When I saw my aunt at the funeral of her husband, my uncle, she could hardly walk, she had to be carried, people holding her arms on both sides. One of her shoes came off on the steps and they had to put it back on again for her, because she had no feeling in her feet, they were not even touching the ground any more. I could see what grief was and I was confused by it. I didn’t understand how it could be so close to happiness as well.
    Maybe grief and happiness were the same thing, I thought.
    My father’s brother, the Jesuit, put his elbow up in the air and she slipped her arm inside, hooking. That’s what we saw, my brother and me. We saw them walking away, arm in arm. We saw them stopping at the end of the street. My aunt leaned her head against his shoulder and they disappeared. I had no thoughts in my head only does he have sweets in his pocket. That’s what my brother was thinking about as well, both of us thought everything together, identical. Did my father’s brother have sweets in his left pocket when he was walking away with my aunt on his arm, wine gums usually? We didn’t say anything to each other. We couldn’t tell anyone, not my mother, not my father, not the Jesuit, not my aunt, not even ourselves. We were afraid to be found out. We didn’t know what to do with the information, so we pretended that we saw nothing, only cars and people passing by. We went back upstairs and put our pyjamas on and tried to sleep, side by side, he was always taking the blankets.

17
    She’s worried about Buddy. We’re at the Berlin Wall and she turns to ask me if Buddy is all right. She wants me to tell her what Buddy is feeling right now. She wants to hear me say that he’s doing fine, he’s lying down with his snout laid out on the floor and his ears up for the tiniest noise, staring at the door, waiting for her to walk in so that he can jump up