When Love Comes to Town by Tom Lennon Page B

Anyone home? he felt like shouting. Long time, no see. Compose yourself, will you. Kneel down and say a prayer. Like what? Please God, give me seven straight A’s on my finals? Or, please God, just make me straight? Make me happy? That’s it, as a birthday present, make me Mister Happy again. Turn back the clock, make me twelve years old again.

Chapter Five
    T he night of his birthday, Neil avoided all his friends and went for dinner in Liam’s apartment in Rathmines. He knew it would cause a hassle, especially after all the birthday cards he received, and the ultra hip shirt that Gary and Trish gave him, but he wasn’t in the mood for pretense. Tonight was a special night. A night for honesty. The summer evening buzz in Rathmines fascinated him. This was student town. Carefree bicycles with two, sometimes even three, people on board whizzed past him, blatantly ignoring traffic lights and one-way signs. Music blared out of shops and passing cars. Old world three-story houses sat next to tacky fast-food restaurants with glaring neon signs. Each street corner seemed to have its own slick twenty-four hour shop with bored-looking assistants sitting at computerized cash registers. Plastic bags filled with rubbish sat in little clusters at gateways, and every doorway had columns of anonymous doorbells. Empty beer cans, chip bags, cash withdrawal slips, and burger wrappers littered the pavements. But the people here looked and behaved differently to the people he knew in Blackrock. These were country kids, who seemed to specialize in wearing clothes and hairstyles that were a couple of years out of date. Country kids whose hard-pressed parents probably fretted and worried about them. Neil liked the way they didn’t seem to care about their appearance, unlike his own friends, who spent hours in front of the mirror before they’d even venture out to the shops.
    He stopped outside a record shop to listen to the song his mum had sung at Kate’s wedding.
    Now the harbor light is calling
    This will be our last good-bye
    The clear female voice left a lump in his throat, just like his mum’s rendition had done when he was thirteen. She had ruffled his hair when she came down off the stage, but she must have noticed the glistening in his sensitive eyes. It had been the same that morning when she had given him the watch for his birthday. He had smelled her familiar perfume as she leaned forward hesitantly and kissed his cheek. Then she put her arms around him and gave him a tentative hug. His eyes were definitely glistening as he grinned awkwardly and thanked her. “You don’t look a day over sixteen,” she said jokingly, and inside him, the volcano was rumbling, bursting to tell her the secret that had mounted the invisible barriers between them. But, as always, he mumbled an excuse and made a hasty retreat upstairs to the safety of his bedroom.
    The high standard of Liam’s spaghetti Bolognese surprised Neil, and after a few glasses of red wine a warm feeling glowed inside him. All his anxieties were replaced by a pleasant vagueness.
    “Try it, Neil,” Jackie insisted, handing him the joint that Liam had rolled carefully. Neil hesitated; he had taken a few pulls from a joint at a house party once, and he still had a vivid recollection of the half-hour he spent leaning over a toilet bowl afterward. Ever since, the smell of the stuff had been enough to make him nauseous.
    “Go on, it’s your birthday,” Liam said, smiling. Both he and Jackie were wearing odd shoes for the occasion. Neil put the joint to his mouth and pretended to take a drag. He leaned back on the tatty sofa bed as he exhaled, hoping that the others wouldn’t notice the absence of smoke.
    “Good, isn’t it?” Jackie enthused.
    “Cool,” Neil said in his hippie drawl, bringing a burst of drunken laughter from his dinner companions, especially Jackie. Neil knew she was delighted that he had come for dinner, and he was delighted himself when Liam and