©Louise Keel

Raw. Slapped in the face by life. Again.

Not only had he lost the lot, but now, it seemed he'd lost the plot too. The tears just kept generating and scaling down his face like hot sea water, and they wouldn't stop. He could feel the burning, humiliating state of his skin, tightening and swelling with each wave. The row of cans of tomato soup in front of him just dissolved in streaks of colour.

Shit. Why now? Why in the middle of the supermarket? He could just make out that people were staring at him. A trolley went passed and a little, pale finger pointed at him, and a little voice said “That man's cry-ing mummy…that man's very sad…”. Yes, that man's very sad. A stupid, lumbering sad git falling apart in front of the tinned soup in Tesco. He had to get out of here. Abandoning his empty trolley mid-aisle, he stuck his sore face down and made for the exit door.

Cold air. A fortifying blast of traffic . A darkening sky. A short cut through the park that smelled of dog shit, and out onto the High road to the Eagle pub, hoping he wouldn't see anyone he knew. Comfort in the stewed stale beer smog that hit him as he pushed through the door, he got himself a whiskey, and made for his favourite table by the window at the back. It was an old pine table thick with the waxy sludge of beeswax and beer, and he'd often had that fantasy of carving his name in it, or some silly statement of being here, as you would on a school desk. He also used to come here with her. With Ruby. Before the children came along. And after, on the rare occasions they ever left the house.

His face was still feeling tight, but the burn of the whiskey made it feel ok to be on fire, he could just merge the redness of pain with more of the same. Sitting here was strangely calming. It was as if he could still look up and there she would be, smiling with all her dark mystery, and then laughing with her deep throaty truckers laugh. He'd never lost that feeling of wanting to be her man, the one she looked at in that way and the one she'd link arms with and take home at the end of the night. He knew that eyes were always possessing Ruby, from dark corners of rooms, from bar-stools and brushers by, but that's what charisma is like. It funnels in all and sundry- and he had just had to grow used to it.

Marriage hadn't changed a thing. They'd had a wild and glorious windy and sun-blanched day in a registry office near Ruby's hometown in County Clare . Her family had been disappointed that the Catholic wedding they felt would bless them properly hadn't happened, but had come together on the day sure not to miss the party of all parties which had taken them all on a pub-crawl the whole length of the local town. Her Dad had passed out and been carried upstairs to sleep it off in the living room of Gerald, the publican of the last drinking establishment they had been to. Her Mum, from whom Ruby had got her looks-and her dirty laugh, had wept and loudly proclaimed him-Graham, the captor of her daughter's heart and the blow-in English bastard who was taking her Ruby away-to that foreign land over the sea. Then she had taken Graham aside, and in a whiskey laden stage whisper she had said “ you look after my girl Graham. Every man in this whole town-and every man that ever layed eyes on her wanted her. Make sure you know how God has blessed you, and just you make sure you make my girl happy.”

Later, in the early morning light, in their honeymoon bed, he had looked at Ruby, passed out in sleep, and with her dark hair matted to her face and the sulphurous dawn light brushing the contours of her body, and he had thought that even though he'd never believed in a God, Ruby was the blessing all non-believers should be sent to test their capacity for faith. And he was going to make this woman happy for the rest of her days.