THE HORIZONS seemed too narrow: everything seemed cramped, hemmed in, somehow. And there was too much bloody traffic. Still, Conor thought: this is Belfast. Even if it’s not the same Belfast you left behind, he added to himself.
He swung his Land Rover into a parking space outside the Cherry Tree pub, killed the engine and wound down the window. He could hear music coming from inside. A young lad with a ribbon-wrapped present under his arm walked by and went in through the rear door of the pub; before the door swung closed, Conor heard voices, music, laughter. Sounded like a good do. He wondered which voice was Ella’s.
Felt like his necktie was strangling him. Not used to it. He loosened his collar button uneasily and glanced at his reflection in the rearview. Look at yourself, Maguire, he thought – white as a sheet. What’s to be afraid of? What’s the worst that could happen? Two months ago you were handling a lion that came out of its anaesthetic earlier than it should’ve – and now you’re scared to death by the thought of a teenage girl’s birthday party. Get a grip.
But he couldn’t deny it. Again he glanced in the mirror – scared, and old. Hair starting to grey at the temples. Crow’s feet creasing the skin around his eyes. You look, he thought, like a middle-aged man. You look like a father.
He’d chatted to Ella a few times over the web. But how much can you learn about someone that way? – especially when you’re in an internet café in the arse-end of Mombasa and too busy fighting with a dodgy dial-up connection and shooing away the kids trying to sell you postcards to listen.
His daughter, he’d painfully come to accept, was practically a stranger to him. And then there was Christine. God only knew how she’d react. It was a miracle she’d even agreed to have him there.
Gathering up his card and gift – a handmade necklace he’d picked up in Nairobi – Conor struggled to think of the positives. Well at least his own family wouldn’t be in there. The Maguires didn’t stoop to socialising with Protestants. Hadn’t his own mother stayed home the day he married Christine? ‘That Prod woman’ was one of the nicer names old Mags had for Conor’s ex-wife.
Not that he wasn’t looking forward to seeing that crowd later on – his ma, and Martin, Robert – maybe his sister Patricia would be up from Cork, even. But he was glad they weren’t here. There was enough potential for trouble already without adding the Maguires to the mix.
He got out of the car and took a breath. Shot his cuffs, straightened the lapels of his corduroy jacket. Here goes nothing, he thought.
A thumping bass beat rattled his eardrums when he stepped through the door of the pub. That’d take some getting used to, after the deep quiet of the savannah. He paused and surveyed the room – God, it was full of kids.
Only they weren’t kids. They were sixteen, seventeen, like Ella – they were young men and women. Wondering who this jetlagged old bastard is that’s just come in through the door. He couldn’t see his daughter, so he headed for the bar. A pint would take the edge off his nerves. He pushed his way through a crowd of laughing young people: a redhead in a black minidress, an Asian guy with a punk haircut and chainstore suit, a blonde in a blue halterneck, a skinny guy with glasses and bottle of beer…
‘Guinness, please, pal.’
He leaned on the bar and watched the barman draw the black beer into a straight-sided glass. Now you know you’re home, he thought. You had a job on even getting the stuff in bottles out in Kenya. He was lifting the glass to his lips when the girl in the blue halterneck half-turned, and he caught her profile. His stomach flipped.
Christ Almighty. Ella.
Conor had half a second to notice with angry disapproval that the skinny kid in the glasses had his right hand resting in the small of Ella’s back, and another half a second to tell himself not to be so stupid, that she wasn’t twelve years old any more and that he’d given up his right to play the protective dad quite some years ago.
And then she saw him, came to greet him, Ella, his daughter, a perfect smile splitting her freckled face, a delighted shriek ringing out even over the racket from the sound system. She threw her arms round his neck – and Conor thought: what the hell were you so worried about, man? As he held her close he could smell her perfume, something fresh, delicate, a grown-up’s scent – but beneath that he could smell her: her skin, her hair, her own scent, the way his daughter used to smell, all that time ago.
With her hands on his shoulders, Ella took a step back to look him full in the face. She was a beautiful girl, he could see that. A beautiful, seventeen-year-old girl with his wife’s blue eyes and his baby daughter’s smile. She was lightly made-up. God, the rows she and Christine had had over the lippy and eyeliner his daughter had pinched from Chris’s dresser, when she was eleven. And she was tall, taller than Christine. Her hair was styled in an asymmetric fringe, the rest of it collected with a slip at the back of her head.
‘I’m so glad you came,’ she said.
‘Hello, Ella. Happy birthday.’
‘Look at you, Dad – with your tan. Call yourself an Irishman? Where is it you’ve been again? Marbella?’
‘Close. Exclusive little resort you wouldn’t have heard of.’
‘Ooh, some chichi spot full of the filthy rich and fabulous, was it?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Rich widows and cocktails on the veranda?’
‘Try vultures and endemic malaria.’ He grinned. ‘Hell, it’s good to see you, darling,’ he said.
Ella nodded and blinked and he saw her pinch her lips together, gulping back a sob. He reached out a hand, but Ella had turned away – and now she had the skinny kid by the elbow, and was saying, with a sudden forced bubbliness, that his name was Kieran, that he was her boyfriend, and Conor found himself shaking the skinny kid’s hand.
‘Hi, Kieran,’ he said, doing his best to be friendly. This was uncharted territory.
Kieran’s shake was confident and unhurried. ‘How about you, Mr Maguire,’ he said. ‘So you’ve been away?’
‘Yes, I have.’ Conor said, tucking his hands into his pockets. He felt daft talking about it. ‘Africa. Kenya. I’m a vet,’ he added.
Ella slapped his arm. ‘You needn’t sound so apologetic about it,’ she told him, with a what-are-you-like wave of her hand. To Kieran she said, ‘He’s a great vet. You have to be, don’t you, Dad, to treat, you know, lions, cheetahs, bloody elephants…’
Conor shrugged. ‘They’re all asleep by the time I have anything to do with them,’ he said. ‘I don’t chase them down personally.’
‘Makes a change from goldfish and guinea pigs, anyway, I bet,’ Kieran put in, and Conor laughed – but a part of him cringed, waiting for the question, waiting for Kieran to ask: so why’d you leave?
But Kieran only swigged his beer and said, ‘Africa, so. Not been there yet.’
‘But you’ve travelled?’ asked Conor, happy to change the subject.
‘Oh sure, sure.’ Kieran winked, startlingly. ‘Wanderlust,’ he said. ‘Itchy feet. I’ve been places, all right. Italy. The States.’ He paused for a beat. ‘Portmuck.’
Ella laughed. Conor was surprised to find that he’d finished his pint. That was the nerves. He might even start to enjoy this party, after all.
‘You’re looking beautiful, Ella,’ he said. ‘You look…’ he paused, thought twice, and then said it anyway, ‘you look like