Call Me the Breeze (21 page)

I didn’t let him finish. Not that I was annoyed with him — why should I be? Because he didn’t know what he was talking about. Maybe once upon a time I would have been. But not now. And not because of zen, either, or anything to do with it. But because I’d
found
myself — through
doing
, through serving and
giving
. Giving myself to others.

And I really didn’t need —

‘
No
!’ I said. ‘No! That’s where you’ve got it wrong, Bonehead! You’ve got it wrong, you hear me? And now, if you don’t mind, perhaps you might care to leave.’

He didn’t say anything after that, just stumbled down the steps and shuffled off across the grass with Mangan’s dog growling after him and Mangan himself at the window, drawing back the dirty curtain. I was on the verge of calling out: ‘No, Bonehead! I didn’t mean it! Please come back!’

I didn’t sleep a wink that night, thinking over what he’d said, alarmed at finding myself wondering was he right. The next morning I couldn’t stop looking at the books and thinking:
Is it shite? All of it
?

‘But no!’ I said. ‘It
can’t
be true!’

It couldn’t be, it simply couldn’t be! For if it was —

The next morning there was a note lying on the floor. It was from Fr Connolly saying the boy band from Dublin had confirmed. I felt a huge weight being lifted from my shoulders and at once gathered up my effects and papers and went into town with a renewed sense of purpose.

What I was most disappointed in that day was that up until then I’d felt so comfortable with Fr Connolly, just sitting there in his living room, sharing generally my take on things, maybe going on too long, which, I admit, perhaps I had. All the same, you still don’t expect it thrown back in your face.

But somehow I don’t think it was that, even if it did play a small part.

No, I think it was more what he’d been hearing in the pubs. What’s most disappointing is that someone of his calibre would listen to those stupid stories, which are essentially parish-pump gossip — in effect, the antithesis of everything we’d been doing. Or trying to do.

Who cared what smart remarks a few malcontents such as Oweny Casey — who would never organize anything anyway! — had made, as regards calling me ‘The Promoter’, ‘Billy Barnum’ and so forth.

Or ‘Paul McGuinness’ — which I think was Hoss’s contribution and which I actually thought quite witty — after U2’s Dublin-born manager, of course!

‘Very well then, Father,’ I said and shook his hand, being as civil as I could about it.

Because there’s no denying, disagreement or not, that I was still grateful. For his showing me ‘the way’. The way of
doing
. Not just
thinking
.

I’d never have anything to do with him again, however. Or the Breakaway festival either. What’s particularly saddening is that I’d discovered, quite by accident, The Seeker’s quote in the T. S. Eliot book — ‘
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place
for the first time
’ — and had been thinking just how ‘salutary’ — if that’s the word — it was that me and Fr C. had gotten together like this and were discovering one another in such a good way. Almost like I was my own father whom he’d known around the time of
The Desert Song
and he was the age-old pal who understood everything you were thinking without ever having to ask. And then it turning out in the end that he understood nothing.

It was ridiculous but, against all the odds, I had one of the most beautiful walks of my life on that occasion, just taking off and rambling across the fields.

It was fantastic out by the reservoir, gathering your thoughts as the wind blew softly, as though it were ancient and had been doing it for ever. And which made me sad. Feeling sorry not just for Bone-head but for poor old Connolly too — who just didn’t get the plot, really, when you thought about it — and writing in my diary when I woke up the next day: ‘
Knowledge is power and Connolly is powerless
’, which was sad, for who wanted to write those words? Not me, but they were what I believed, and if that was the choice I’d made, your roads diverge and there is nothing you can do.

The Arrival of Johnston farrall!

(This appears on a page all by itself lovingly crafted in an absurdly baroque calligraphy totally at odds with the rest of the account, which is scattered over any number of loose-leaf pages.)

When I saw the notice advertising the creative writing classes in the window of the Scotsfield Hotel, a couple of months after the row with Connolly, the last thing I thought was: ‘This is something that is destined to change my life.’ But that was exactly what happened, for in some ways Johnston was, when it came to creative things and attitude, not in his way all that different from Bono. For a start he
looked
cool, although he worked in the bank — he had just been posted from Dublin — with this fancy embroidered paisley-style waistcoat and his shoulder bag stuffed with books and papers. It was as though he wasn’t just a writer, but, if he’d wanted, could have made a very good sort of
‘up-to-the-minute’ psychologist as well. Just considering things patiently as he listened to your story and said: ‘No! No, please go on!’ whenever you became self-conscious. But also being able to encourage you when you felt like giving the whole thing up. There were people there who, if it had been anyone else who was running the show — ‘The Moderator’, he called himself — would hardly have lasted a week. Somehow he got around them and coaxed them back in. ‘You must remember to relax and let the creative juices flow,’ was one of the things he liked to say. Another one was: ‘Fuck syntax and spelling! It’s what you’ve got to say that’s important! That’s all I want to hear!’

And, boy, did he want to do that! Sometimes we’d be there until midnight in the back room of the pub, just reading our poems and scratching out stories, then off to his house to drink vodka and beer! You want to see the amount of books he had there, and I’d thought
I
had books. It could be difficult at times, though, it’s true. Because when you’d come back to the caravan, loaded up with booze, what you’d think was: ‘No, Bonehead is right! I’m fooling myself reading all these old books! There’s only one writer in Scotsfield and it fucking well’s not Joey Tallon!’

Then, at the next session, Johnston would say: ‘
Everyone’s
a writer, Joey! I’m telling you, you can do it!’ and then what would happen? Off you’d go again, thinking you were Shakespeare and Milton all rolled up in one, with a dash of James Joyce thrown in for good measure. Speaking of which, sometimes Johnston wore a flower in his buttonhole, which didn’t please some people at all. Coming out of the hotel after a class one night, I overheard Austie saying: ‘Look at the cunt! I’ll kick his “truth” down his throat! Him and his fucking flowers!’

But Johnston didn’t care — just strolled off down the street, with his head in the air as if to say: ‘Now don’t disturb me! Can’t you see I’m otherwise occupied with the creation of a masterpiece?’

Which was the great thing about the country generally now, and you only had to look at people to notice it. Gone were the days when everybody had their head down saying: ‘Not only am I not engaged in the creation of a masterpiece but the likes of me — why, it is only with the greatest of difficulty I can tie my own shoelaces I’m such a near-simpleton!’

Even old Boo Boo had turned around and learnt some fabulous new tricks, having come through the wars and now well established as one of the most promising record producers in Dublin. I met him one day
on a flying visit from the city and he told me he’d introduce me to Bono some time. ‘I really liked his music in prison,’ I told him. I hated that word ‘prison’. Even with someone like Boo Boo it made me kind of sick to say it.

‘It healed me, I think. It was a real big help.’

‘Whenever you’re up, give me a call and the three of us will go out for some beers.’

‘Did you ever hear of Thomas Merton?’ I asked him, but he shook his head.

‘I read all about him in the library. I saw in the paper that Bono likes him. So does Merv, incidentally,’ I added.

‘
Ciao
,’ said Boo Boo, ‘I’ll check him out,’ and drove off in this big flash motor — an Alfa Romeo, I think it’s called.

I couldn’t believe it when Johnston Farrell told me that he’d gone to school with him — Bono, I mean. I nearly fainted when he said it so casually.

‘I just can’t believe what is happening,’ I said.

‘Tell me your plans for your story, Joey,’ he’d say, ‘
The Story of Me
, as I’ve heard you calling it,’ and we’d head off down to Austie’s, as everybody still called it, swanky cocktail bar or not.

At first I was a little bit hesitant, but gradually I began to open up. He told me he thought it might make a great treatment for a film. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but over the next few weeks he explained. He used to take notes himself, just jotting down bits as I was speaking. After a few jars, of course, it’d be hard to shut me up, especially when I’d start thinking about Jacy. I’d see all these things that I used to see when I thought about her — the interstate and Iowa and shit — and it would get me all choked up. But Johnston was canny — he’d just look away when he saw me get like that, and when it had passed he’d turn back. You would have trusted him with your life, that Johnston Farrell.

Only for him, I don’t think I’d ever have found the courage to face the truth about Mona and admit that I’d lied about her. I thank him for that as well. And for explaining to me also that in a way what I’d said about her
wasn’t
lying. Because, for me, in a special way she
lived
all right.