Bullfighting Read Free Page B

night – just by talking to her. So she’d said, anyway. She was hanging onto him and crying before he really knew what was going on. He just thought it was a bit of gas, whispering into her ear. He even put on an American accent, all that pussy and cock palaver. He was still just getting the hang of it, deciding what part of the States he was from, when she came. He’d never fuckin’ forget it.
    And there were other women. Women liked mature men. He’d read that somewhere, in a waiting room somewhere – the dentist or the doctor. Or it was just one of the things you grew up with. Women went for older men. He’d never believed it. Even when he changed it a bit, to some women, and some older men. He’d always thought it was a load of bollix. He still thought that, even more since he’d started noticing women looking at him, kind of giving him the eye. Not young ones – he didn’t think he could have coped with that, smiling back at some gorgeous monster less than half his age. No, it was mature women, older women – some older women. One or two of them. There was a woman from up the road who always waved at him – she lived on the other side, nearer the shops – and she looked great from that distance. He’d looked up from the pile of newspapers in the Spar one Sunday morning, and she’d been right beside him. He smelt her perfume, and she looked nice up close too. She was dressed up a bit, in the old-fashioned Sunday way. And she blushed when she saw him –
    â€”Hi.
    â€”Hi.
    She looked a bit flustered.
    â€”Great day.
    â€”Lovely.
    He loved that, thinking that, that he’d knocked her off-course a bit, just by being there, older man himself, in the Spar on a Sunday morning. He felt the heat in his own face. He bought his Indo and kind of drifted out of the shop, took his time. He hoped, half hoped, they’d walk back up the road together, and chat till they got to her place, and a little bit more at the gate, then he’d go on to his. But it didn’t happen. He walked home alone, and she passed him in her car and she kept going, past her house. She must have been going somewhere, her ma’s or somewhere. Her husband was driving.
    It was fine. He wasn’t interested in taking it further, and he didn’t think he’d have had the guts. Anyway, another of his friends, Davie, had separated from his missis a few years back and he was living back home with his mother, the poor fucker, because he couldn’t afford to do anything else. But he, Davie, went to a different pub on Sunday nights, where men and women like himself, unattached and out of practice, went. And, after a few months of this, he’d come up with Davie’s Law: All women over the age of forty are mad. He’d announced it in the local, one of their Wednesday nights, and none of them had disagreed.
    Martin was lucky, though. Lizzie was kind of sexy mad. The insanity suited her. She knew it, and that made it even better. He’d never have done anything to wreck it.
    But it wasn’t all great, the getting older business – far from. He’d started grunting whenever he picked something up or bent down to tie his laces, or whatever. He hated it. He’d tell himself to stop. But he’d forget. It became natural. Pick the soap up in the shower – grunt. Start the lawnmower – grunt. He didn’t have to grunt. He was well able to bend over and the rest of it. He asked the lads, and they all did it too.
    And there was the cancer. Not his. He’d never had it. His friend who’d died. Noel. That was cancer. Felt a bit short of breath. Went to the doctor. Straight up to Beaumont Hospital. Came out two days later with the news and the dates for his chemotherapy. He told them about it the day after that, in the local, sitting in all the smoke – this was a few months before the smoking ban.
    Martin didn’t smoke. He never had.