The Paris Review

It seemed that he had neglected to buy Christmas presents for the missus and Gerard Jr.

“I was going to go up to the shopping center,” says he. “I lost track of time.”

It’s easy to see how that might happen. Chips didn’t have a watch and generally marked the passage of time by the number of pints he’d drunk. This “internal clock” so to speak usually served him very well, but on a night like tonight, when there were pints flying around the place, flaws appeared in the system. The Polish lads from the tire place had sent over a round, then the bookies came in and bought another—I’m not complaining, mind, I’m just saying it was very disorientating to a body’s internal-clock system. It was the type of thing could happen a bishop, but at the same time I knew his missus might not see it that way and his nibs was in a right lather. What made matters worse was that last year hadn’t he done do the very same thing. He’d had to sneak off to the petrol station on Christmas morning while herself was cooking the turkey, and all they had left by way of presents was a rake of low-sugar chocolate for diabetics. For the young lad he just went to the ATM and took out sixty quid.

Well there were ructions that Christmas Day, you may be sure. Mrs. Chips was no fool, and furthermore quite a highly strung individual as very beautiful women often are. His nibs had had more than a few low-sugar diabetic chocolates thrown at him and that was getting off lightly. This year he mightn’t fare so well, particularly as the house was already up in arms after the dog went missing.

Rudy was the name of the dog, after the brilliant footballer Rudy Gullit. Like his famous namesake Rudy the dog was black, though the similarities ended there as he was no great shakes at football, or at least he had no more than the usual dog-level of skills. Still he was always ready for a lick of the hand, and as Chips would say, if dogs could drink, you knew Rudy’d be the kind that would always get his round in. A week ago, however, he had disappeared. Myself and Wu had done a search of the whole neighborhood—posters on the lampposts, the lot—and not hide nor hair of him could we find.

It was a real mystery, and it was also a tragedy, because by that time Gerard Jr. had developed a very close relationship with the dog. Gerard Jr., though he was named for his da, took more after his mother, in terms of being a delicate, sensitive sort. He wouldn’t be the type of young fella you’d take to kick a ball around the park, I mean, because if you did what’d happen would be that on the way he’d see a pigeon with a manky foot, or get splashed by a lorry, or Spar would be out of Maltesers, and then the waterworks would start. That lad did his fair share of crying. The -slightest -provocation and he’d be in floods. Rudy though had clicked with him instantly, and through palling around with the dog and taking it for walks and so on Gerard Jr. had started acting a bit more normal recently, which was a real relief for his da, who had been worried as you would yourself that the lad was going to be some sort of mentalist or a poofter. Now with the dog gone the lad was in a state. That’s why it was so important Chips find the lad a thoughtful present that would cheer him up and stop him crying for a bit, except now of course he couldn’t, because the shops were shut.

All around us songs were being sung and rounds being bought, but our little corner was under a real cloud. I was damned if I could see a way out from it either. And then I look up and who’s there standing over our table but your man Head-the-Ball.

Close up he wasn’t as young as he’d seemed at first. The ends of his mouth turned up, as if he was secretly having a laugh to himself, and he had these eyes that were as pale now as to have for all intents and purposes no color at all. Or, I’ll tell what color they were, they were the color of those mints, Fox’s Glacier Mints, a kind of a very pale yellow-green—a grand -color in a mint, but when you see it in a chap’s eyes it’s another matter entirely and it gave me the willies. He stands there a minute still as a statue, staring at Chips with the minty eyes and the laughy face on him. And then he says, “Any of youse lads interested in buyin a bike?”