Page 3 of Calling Frank O'Hare

Fred dropped a stick at his feet. It was a big solid thing, a broken branch from an oak tree. Its shape reminded Frank of a rifle. He picked it up and tossed it, sending the dogs bounding after it. A scene popped into his head from eons ago. Him, Martin, Finn, and Billy Mac with their stick rifles. Baby paras shooting down the soldiers. Naturally, the soldiers were imaginary. Pretending to be the enemy was against the rules.

The sound of yapping and shouting broke his absorption. Some way off, the dogs were trying to make friends with a little fluffy thing, one of those breeds with a big head and very little going on in the legs. Its owner, a young woman, picked it up and tucked it under her arm. It didn’t stop it barking. A second woman was flapping her arms at Fred and Betty who seemed to be trying to make up their minds whether this was some kind of game that didn’t involve the throwing of sticks.

Frank attempted a sprint in their direction, conceding that it probably looked more like a slow jog to an onlooker. Eventually he reached his destination, flushed and out of breath. ‘Sorry. They’re quite harmless. It’s their size puts people off.’

The woman with the dog under her arm shot him a look. Then she smiled. ‘It’s Mr O’Hare, isn’t it? You taught me A-level English.’ Frank couldn’t catch her name over the little dog’s noise but she did look vaguely familiar. ‘I don’t suppose you remember me, it was fifteen years ago.’

‘Of course I do. I never forget the good pupils,’ he said, searching his memory banks for a name.

‘Well I certainly wouldn’t forget you. You were my favourite teacher. Are you still at the college?’

‘Yes, still there.’

‘God, that’s dedication that is. I’d better take this noisy madam away. So nice to see you again.’

‘You too.’ Fifteen years? Jesus.

Fred batted Frank’s leg with the rifle stick. Old pupils and childhood games. The past is never far away. Frank clipped the dogs’ leads onto their collars and followed the two young women along the path, keeping a distance suitable enough to rule him out as a stalker.

‘Ooh you were my favourite teacher,’ said his former pupil’s friend in a namby-pamby voice, obviously not realising it was carrying now the barking had stopped.

‘Well he was. All the girls fancied him. He was actually quite hot,’ said the ex-pupil.

Quite hot eh? He had no idea. Foolish, vain and entirely inappropriate as it was, he couldn’t help being a tiny bit impressed with himself.

‘Not that you’d know it now,’ she said.

And with that, Frank’s bubble felt a little pin prick and burst. So that was him then. The man who used to be quite hot. Not even fully hot. Not then, and certainly not now.

He veered off the path before the last vestiges of his pride were shattered to smithereens. ‘C’mon dogs. Fish and Chips. And drink. I need a drink.’

3

Ma and the mother of all hangovers.

Day two of the Easter holidays had not begun well. Frank had woken that morning with the mother of all hangovers and a feeling that something catastrophic was on its way. To say he felt crap was quite the undersell. A long shower and strong coffee had barely revived him. He really shouldn’t have drunk that much last night.

As he watched the dogs doing their morning tour of the garden he heard a ping coming from the living room. It took some locating but eventually he found his phone behind the cushions on the sofa. Netta had messaged him:

‘Looks like I had a missed call from you last night. Did you mean to phone me? Sorry, it was really late when we got back. Too late to call.’

Frank closed his eyes and put his sore head in his hands. Had he phoned her last night? He racked his brains and then wished he hadn’t when he recalled a drunken attempt to convey his love for her. Please God, don’t let him have left a message. He checked the length of the call, about two minutes. Probably not long enough to say anything stupid. He muttered a thank you to the air and tapped out a reply:

‘Sorry, must have pocket dialled you.’

‘Okay, no problem. I’ll ring you later. Love you x.’

He eased himself back against the soft cushions, grateful to have got away with it. Then he noticed he’d had a message from Siobhan in the early hours of the morning:

‘Are you on the pop? Get yourself off to bed and stop messaging me, you dickhead!’

Oh. A quick scroll through the messages he’d sent to his big sister during his spell of inebriation confirmed that he’d had a drunken rant which, in a nutshell, stated that Martin was a moronic arsehole, Finn wasn’t much better, and Frank would definitely not be going anywhere near either of them. He made a mental note not to drink alone again and went into the studio.

He pulled up a tall stool in front of yesterday’s half-done painting. It was an old bar stool, salvaged from a minor refurb at the Hope and Anchor, a pub he frequented far too often. Mostly on account of it belonging to his friend, Adrian. He was painting a landscape, the inspiration coming from a photo Netta had taken a few years back. It was a beautiful sunset on the western shores of Scotland. She’d wanted to take him there and show him the colours. He’d have loved to go and experience that clarity and those colours himself, but there was a problem. One that he wouldn’t admit to Netta because he was a cool guy who took things in his stride; Doogie lived there. So Frank made do with a photo and his imagination.

He mixed up the first colour he’d be working with, adding bits of yellow and brown to get a perfect egg-yolk gold. His head was still throbbing and he felt mildly sick, but it was okay. He’d be fine once he got into the painting.

He laid down the paint in long, thick strokes and thought about his night of lonesome debauchery. He should have gone to the Hope and Anchor and had a few beers, traded a few insults with Adrian, maybe had a game of darts. But no. Instead, he’d sulked on his sofa waiting for Netta to call, with only three dogs and his old records for company. He’d started with Van Morrison, for old time’s sake, he was a Belfast boy all after all. The Undertones came after that, followed by a rather sorry musical journey through Frank’s past. It was probably the Undertones that had set him off messaging Siobhan.