After the Argument

Liam and Marco had been planning the trip since they were seventeen. Two weeks driving around the west of Ireland, no fixed plans, no phones at dinner, just the two of them, an old map and whatever the weather decided to do. Every year something had gotten in the way: exams, jobs, Marco's wedding, Liam's broken leg. This year, at the age of thirty-four, they had finally booked the time off.

The argument started on the night before they left, in Liam's kitchen in Dublin. They were packing the car and laughing, and then Marco said, in a voice that was trying too hard to sound casual, that he had some news. He had been offered a job in Toronto. He was moving there with his family in September. He had known for a month.

Liam didn't take it well. He said things he didn't really mean, and some things he did. He said that Marco had always been the one who left, that a month was a long time to keep a secret from your best friend, and that if he was going anyway, there wasn't much point in a goodbye trip. Marco said that Liam had never been able to be happy for anyone else. By midnight, Marco had taken his bag out of the car and called a taxi.

In the morning, Liam sat in the car outside his house for twenty minutes. Then, out of pure stubbornness, he started the engine and drove west. He wasn't going to waste two weeks of holiday sitting in Dublin feeling sorry for himself. The first night of the trip was booked at a small guesthouse in Doolin, on the coast of County Clare, and he decided he would go anyway.

For the first hour, he was angry. He went over the argument again and again, thinking of clever replies he could have made. But somewhere near Athlone, the anger began to fade, and something less comfortable took its place. He shouldn't have said that about Marco always leaving. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't true. Marco had been the one who visited him every day in hospital when he broke his leg. He must have been nervous about telling Liam for weeks. That would explain the strange phone calls and the way he had kept changing the subject.

Meanwhile, about forty kilometers behind him, Marco was driving a small rental car along the same road. He had spent most of the night awake, and at six in the morning he had hired the car without really knowing why. Now he was asking himself the same questions. He should have told Liam as soon as he got the offer. He knew exactly why he hadn't: he had been afraid of this conversation. And Liam must have felt that he was the last person to find out, which, if Marco was honest, he was.

Both of them stopped at the same petrol station near Galway, about half an hour apart, and both of them bought the same terrible sandwich. Neither of them knew the other was on the road. Liam kept thinking that Marco might have flown to Toronto early just to avoid him. Marco kept thinking that Liam couldn't have gone on the trip alone, because that would be crazy.

It was raining when Liam arrived in Doolin, and he went straight to the pub next to the guesthouse. Years earlier, as teenagers, they had promised each other that on the first night of the trip they would sit by the fire in this pub and order fish and chips. He found a table in the corner and asked for a menu. He was halfway through reading it when the door opened and Marco walked in, soaking wet and looking extremely embarrassed.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then Marco sat down opposite him. "I should have told you a month ago," he said. "I shouldn't have said what I said," Liam replied at the same time. They both stopped, and then they both laughed, the slightly helpless laugh of two people who have known each other for too long to stay angry.

They ordered fish and chips. Later that night, they returned the rental car together, and the next morning they drove north along the coast in Liam's car, arguing happily about the map. Toronto, Liam decided somewhere in Connemara, was not really that far. People had driven further for worse reasons.