J. Gregson - Brothers

Jim OConnor was enjoying himself. He hadnt eaten much tonight, not compared with what hed shifted back in his rugby days. Hed had a couple of glasses of burgundy with his sirloin, but his head was perfectly clear. He didnt want to get drunk, because he wanted to enjoy the evening. That meant having all your senses alert and missing nothing of what was going on around you. He had a speech to make, too, but he was trying not to think too much about that.

He could see everything in the room from his position at the centre of the top table. He wasnt talking very much, because he was in a reflective mood. Some people probably said he was self-satisfied, but he didnt have to consider what other people might say nowadays. And you were allowed to savour what youd achieved. Surely that was permissible on an occasion like this. Hed come a long way from the Irish village where hed started. It was surely only right to pause once in a while and consider what hed achieved.

The rugby had been the start of it. There was no doubting that. Forty-three times hed played for Ireland, twice hed toured with the British Lions. It had opened doors to him; those were the years when hed met important people, when hed appreciated just what might be possible for himself in the future. He was only forty-six now and hed played until he was thirty-one. Yet the rugby years seemed to belong to a different life and a different man.

Sarah was looking good tonight. Shed been right to go for the deep crimson dress, when hed wanted her to settle for a brighter red. It set off the long, lustrous black hair she still gathered into a ponytail behind her slender neck. Not too many women in their forties could get away with a ponytail, shed told him. Well, it set off the bare shoulders above her dress perfectly. She might have a few laughter lines around her eyes now, but it was appropriate for her. That was a point of agreement between them: he didnt like mutton dressed as lamb and Sarah had no use for Botox.

She glanced up at him, almost as though she knew that he was thinking about her. You all right, Jim?

Sure I am. More than all right. The brain is an unpredictable and sometimes an inconvenient instrument. For some reason, his words flashed him back now to his first real girlfriend in Dublin, who had called him Seamus and thought the sun shone out of him. For a moment, he wanted the innocence of those days, wanted again to be that young man who knew little of the world but still had it all before him.

Moira had been the good Catholic girl his dead mother would have wanted for him, and for a little while he had thought she was perfect. Shed said she didnt want to sleep with him, not until they were certain it was serious. Hed had her though, with her back up against the wall behind the dance hall, thrusting at her urgently, ignoring her pleas to be gentle with her. It had been just narrowly on the right side of rape, he thought. But Moira would never have accused him of that; she would have thought it was her fault for leading him on. The convent had taught girls things like that, in the old days.

Jim OConnor wondered where Moira was now. He hoped she was happy and well. He had a sudden wish to find her, to give her money, to let her have some small part of what hed achieved, for old times sake. But you couldnt turn the clock back. He was indulging himself even to think of those times. He hadnt thought of Moira for years well, months, anyway. Better to kill off such thoughts than indulge them. Each man kills the thing he loves. It had been a fellow Irishman who said that. He hadnt thought of him for years, either.

He wondered why he had wandered into this melancholic mood, when hed been happily congratulating himself upon his achievements only a moment earlier. He glanced over his shoulder at the toastmaster, resplendent in his bright red jacket or ridiculous, according to your taste. Ridiculous, Jim decided. A toastmaster had no function until he announced the speakers, but how could he blend discreetly into the background, wearing clothes like that? The man moved forward, as if he had taken OConnors glance as an invitation to speak. Do you want the speeches before or after the coffee, Mr OConnor?

Before. They wont be very long. Ill see to that.

He stood up, moved round the table until he stood behind his daughter as the waiters prepared to serve the desserts. Its bombe surprise for sweet, Clare. At least, thats one of the options. I put it in for you.

He wondered why he needed to say that, then realised that it was just an excuse to talk to her, because she had arrived late and they had scarcely spoken at the beginning of the evening. Clare looked up at him, then laid down her knife and fork together on her plate. There was no need for that, Dad. Its your evening, not mine.

Of course there was no need. I wanted to do it, thats all.

He was aware of the young man shed brought from university beside her, looking down at his plate with a small, supercilious smile. He had spots still on his forehead; his wrists were thin as they poked out from jacket sleeves which were too short for him. Hed have been no use on the rugby field, this scrawny specimen. Jim wondered whether theyd slept together yet. He tried not to think of his daughters lithe young limbs wrapped around this fellow. It didnt seem long since hed watched her unwrapping her birthday presents as a seven-year-old.

You want me after weve finished here tonight, boss?

OConnor started at the voice in his ear. It was Steve Tracey, of course. Jim glanced past him, saw the chair he had pushed back from the table behind him. He had moved softly, as big men often do, and Jim hadnt heard him rise. Now he wanted to reject him, as if his presence and his question cast a shadow over the innocent celebration this was supposed to be. But that wasnt fair on a loyal servant. Tracey had been with him almost from the start, rising from simple heavy to the director of the small group of hard men who enforced security.

Jim forced a smile, kept his voice neutral. I shant need you or anyone else to look after me tonight, Steve. This is a social occasion, not a business dinner. Were among friends.

If youre sure, boss. Steve Tracey looked round at the noisy, laughing tables as if searching for some hidden menace. He could see none. He looked back at OConnor uncertainly for a moment, then nodded and moved back to his chair. Within a moment, he was laughing loudly with the rest of the table around him, working hard to be anonymous. The boss didnt like his security to be obvious.

Jim OConnor went back to his seat and fingered the card in his pocket which carried the notes for his speech. He pulled it out and looked at it; surely it couldnt be a sign of weakness to show you wanted to be well prepared to speak. Public speaking wasnt something he was good at he was going to say as much in his first sentence. Then hed make that reference to James I knighting a loin of beef here and making it sirloin. Theyd all know the story, but hed explain thats why theyd had sirloin tonight and then slide in the joke hed prepared.

He thought of that funny old poofter James I, passing through here to London and his coronation as the first Stuart king of England. And then his daft son had caused a civil war and brought Butcher Cromwell and his fierce Ironside army to Ireland. Three and a half centuries later, The curse o Crummell on ye! had still been one of the fiercest oaths in his village he hadnt known what it meant, when he was a boy. There went that brain again, diverting him from the present, when he was trying to concentrate on his speech.

They were serving the desserts now. He took a spoonful of his bombe surprise and raised it with a smile towards his daughter a few yards away. She didnt see him; he was left waving the spoon awkwardly in front of his face and feeling ridiculous. He put the ice cream and meringue hastily into his mouth and looked again at his notes. He was going to welcome them all here, explain that it was twenty years since he had come to the Lancashire town of Brunton and founded his business. Hed picture himself to them as the naive young man he had certainly not been, so as to imply how far hed come since then. Hed emphasize how good Brunton had been to him, then say modestly how he hoped that what he had brought to the town had also been good for Brunton.