‘I told you. You’ll miss your stop. Go.’
He straightens up, nods his head stiffly, and disembarks.
Less than a minute later, he reappears, outside on the platform, eight or ten feet away. With the seconds they have left, he simply stands, peering through the carriage window at her. A group of people, in drifting past, have to part in order to overtake him, but he doesn’t even register their presence. In isolation, he looks the way a man made newly homeless might. His coat hangs unbuttoned from his frame, and all his strength has been sucked away by the growing lateness of the hour. A ridge of his hair bristles back along the right side of his head, either from the snugness of the pillow, the pull of the Coney Island wind or from her raking fingers. His eyes are small and hard, fixated, and his face sags with all that has been lost.
Beyond the glass, he now has become the ghost. Caitlin waves, but he only returns a stare, as if he has lost the ability to move, as if the capture has been that complete. But just as the doors of the train hush closed again, the spell slips a little and he raises his fingers to his lips. When he lowers his hand, he attempts a grin, maybe so that she’ll get to remember him well, or perhaps think him, in some small way, brave. But the subway’s smutted air tastes hard, and the result looks pained.
Then, all at once, the train stirs and begins to crawl ahead. She rises from her seat and presses herself palms flat to the glass, attempting to stretch the moment. As she is drawn forward and away, she can see that he is saying something. Not shouting, but calling out. She watches the shift of his mouth, trying to make some sense of its silent shaping, but it is already too late. Not caring now about the tears that have begun to fall, or who on the train or the platform might see, she stands and waves a hard and broken-hearted goodbye.
Acknowledgements
This novel had a long, slow gestation, and I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge those who helped coax it into being.
Firstly, my editor, Robin Robertson, for seeing in this novel what I most dearly hoped was there, and for taking a chance on me when no one else wanted to know. Robin, and also Monique Corless, Jane Kirby, Sam Coates and all the wonderful staff at Jonathan Cape and Vintage, helped knock it into the shape of a book, and set it loose on the world, with an enthusiasm and attention to detail that has overwhelmed me.
It feels right to remember my good friend Andy Godsell, sadly now long departed, but a poet of considerable promise and potential. Many years ago, we started out together on the long and winding writing path, and he still feels connected to everything I write.
In the years of drafting this book, more of them than I care to count, I have to acknowledge my friends, Pete Duffy, Martin McCarthy, Brian Whelan, the Julianos, Pawel Huelle, Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Shoko Kanenari, Emilio Bonome, Emma Turnbull, Luo Xue Wei, Julia and the lovely Schwaninger family, for the support, texts, feedback and chat, and for telling me what I needed to hear, even when I knew it wasn’t yet entirely true.
I am grateful also, to the O’Halloran, Murphy and O’Callaghan families, for the continued support and interest in my writing.
I owe deep and dearest thanks to John and Janet Banville. One August evening, while reading in Kinsale, my low ebb caught the sunlight, and when the greats praise your short stories the song carries weight. Their kindness is a gift I’ll treasure always.
Ying Tai Chang showed up in a lot of these pages. She is half the soul of this story, and probably the better half.
And finally, my family, who live my writing with me. Martin, Kate, and the two best things that have ever happened to us, Liam and Ellen; Jazz, Yann, and my best friend, Irene – my pillars, confidantes, and most trusted supporters; and my parents, Liam and Regina. Nobody could hope to know two more nurturing, giving, good-hearted people.
About the Author
BILLY O’CALLAGHAN is the author of three short story collections—In Exile; In Too Deep; and The Things We Lose, the Things We Leave Behind, which received the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Award and was selected as Cork’s One City, One Book for 2017—and the novel The Dead House. His story “The Boatman” was recently short-listed for the 2016 Costa Short Story Award. He lives in Cork, Ireland, where he was born and raised.
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Also by Billy O’Callaghan
In Exile
In Too Deep
The Things We Lose, the Things We Leave Behind
NOVEL
The Dead House
Copyright
MY CONEY ISLAND BABY. Copyright © 2019 by Billy O’Callaghan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Jonathan Cape, an imprint of Vintage, Penguin Random House UK.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Cover photograph © Acclaim Images
Digital Edition APRIL 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-285658-6
Version 02092019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-285656-2
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