Carn (10 page)

When the first notices advertising
Purple Pussycat—Ireland’s wildest rock group!
were put up in The Sapphire Ballroom, Sadie Rooney paid them no attention.
She had heard them speak derisively of it at work but it was of no consequence to her, until one evening on her way home from the factory Sadie was startled out of her daydream by a loud Dublin
voice and looked up to find herself confronted by the headbanded figure of a six foot male and his female companion in a long print skirt. They smiled out at her from an assemblage of pots and pans
roped to an orange haversack.

“We’re looking for some place to camp,” they said. “We’re here for the Purple Pussycat gig. We’ve hitched from the city.”

Sadie directed them to the Hairy Mountains and stared after them, a nervous excitement growing in her stomach. She could not sleep that night and no one was more surprised than Una Lacey when
Sadie arrived at the Golden Chip that following night. “Are you going to The Sapphire Sadie?” asked Una. “I thought you’d given all that up.”

“Oh I just thought I’d go and have a look,” Sadie replied.

“They’re a right-looking shower. There’s a gang of them camped out at the Hairy Mountains. A rare looking bunch of madmen if you ask me.”

The band was already on stage when they got to The Sapphire. Goosepimples crawled on Sadie’s back as she watched the singer fall to his knees clutching the microphone like a chalice, the
circling glitterball tossing specks of light on his t-shirt. A howl curled from the swaying mane of heard,
Baby I neeeeeeed you sooooooo baaaaaaaaaaad!
The jiving girls stood back, perplexed
and not far from anger. The drums sent out a throbbing rhythm as the singer, still on his knees, spoke of love and harmony. “How are you tonight, Carn? Are you feeling all right?”

The dancers stood motionless in the centre of the hall. They were dumbfounded. “What’s going on?” they said. “That isn’t singing.” Eventually they cobbled
together whatever rhythm they could and continued around the floor in a half-daze.

Sadie was in a daze herself, almost swooning under the relentless onslaught of male bodies that surged forward at the beginning of each dance. She looked up to see an outstretched arm and a
long-haired youth at the end of it saying, “Dance?”

He told her he was from Dublin and was with the people camping in the Hairy Mountains. They were setting off travelling the following day, he said. This was going to be their last night in
Ireland for a very long time.

“Where are you going?” Sadie asked anxiously.

She knew he was going to London. She just knew.

“Europe,” he said. “First Amsterdam—then who knows?”

His eyes were half-closed as he rolled a cigarette. “There’s five of us. We have no problem making out. We make things.”

He dragged on the cigarette and smiled. He put his arm around her shoulder. The singer lay on his back and howled again.

Cars revved up and sped off into the night. Stray couples courted at the back of the dancehall. A fight threatened and bodies thrust themselves forward. Voices rose and dipped
again, the gathering breaking up raggedly. Sadie Rooney, her back against the pebbledashed wall of the ballroom, stared up at the denim clad youth who said his name was Danny. He tickled her on the
chin and smiled again. “All you need is thirty quid and you’re in,” he said. “Six is a perfect number.” Then he reached in his pocket and said, “I have something
for you.” It was a tiny rabbit’s foot on a leather thong. “I want you to have it. Even if you don’t come, I want you to have it.” She clutched it in her hand and he
kissed her.

They stood outside the Railway Hotel. “We’re leaving at ten from here, this very spot. Promise me you’ll be here.”

“Yes,” Sadie said.

He nodded and then went off towards the Hairy Mountains. Sadie was unsteady with nervousness on her way home. She could not keep her hand from trembling as she spooned the tea into the pot. The
late night deejay played a special request for all the young lovers of the world. At once Sadie found herself retreating to the security of the factory voices and rushing in fear away from them.
Her head was a mass of jumbled wires. The side of her face was numb and her palms were drenched in sweat. The kitchen door opened. Her mother stood there in her dressing gown.

“I didn’t know you were going to be late.”

Sadie stammered awkwardly. “Please ma,” she began. “There’s something I want to ask you.”

Her mother looked quizzically at her and replied, “Hadn’t you the whole day to ask me? A fine time to pick to ask anything when the rest of the Christian world are asleep in their
beds. Go on up to bed before you have him down.”

She closed the door behind her and Sadie just stood in the middle of the kitchen. A lightness came into her head. She put away the dishes and the teapot. Then she switched off the radio and went
upstairs.

She lay there beneath the ceiling and felt as if every drop of blood had been drained from her body. She could not stop her heart from racing.

She lay there until first light. Outside she heard the sound of the first footsteps making their way down the lane to work.

As the sun rose above Railway Terrace, she stared out towards the blunt silhouettes of the Hairy Mountains and saw in her mind the purring van waiting by the Railway Hotel, Danny anxiously
checking his watch, then the sliding door being pulled shut, and as the engine revved up and turned towards the Dublin Road, Sadie began to weep as she cried silently and bitterly to herself,
“I hate you Sadie Rooney, I hate you, I hate you, I fucking hate you!”

VI

Time passed and Carn got into its stride.

The hottest summer for years came to the town. Through the open windows of the terraces wafted the smell of atrophying innards, along with the sound of tapping hammers but not a soul complained
for it was James Cooney’s message that business was booming, and as the new extension of the Carn Meat Plant inched its way along the hill overlooking the town, the housewives and children
went contentedly about their daily tasks, secure in the knowledge that all was well. And getting better. For, on the day the final rivet went in, the Turnpike Inn hummed with the news that forty
new workers were wanted on the spot by James Cooney. And so Benny Dolan, along with his schoolmate Joe Noonan, found himself in the head office being surveyed up and down. The foreman wiped
bloodstained fingers on his apron and said, “You’re Dolan. Your father and me went to school together. A wild man in his day, eh? I’m only codding you son. Do you see that woman
below in the yard? you’ll be working on the line with her. Maisie Lynch is her name. Half daft but there’s no harm in her. Divides her time between here and the mental. If you have any
trouble, see me.”

He threw them overalls and caps.

Maisie Lynch stood back with her hands on her hips and rasped at them, “Youse needn’t think youse’ll slack here! I’m in charge! Do youse hear that?”

“Right Maisie,” said Benny.

In the afternoons, the streets buzzed. The jukebox played in the Golden Chip, workers horseplayed throwing salt and sugar across the tables. The Turnpike Inn began to sell coffee and steak and
kidney pies. Benny and Joe became friendly with the older workers, throwing darts and playing cards. They went drinking with them every Friday after work, stayed until closing time and emerged
swaying and singing. “Good man young Dolan, you’re a good one. Your father was out there when the real fighting was going on!” They sang rebel songs all the way home, cursing
England and British Imperialism much to the amusement of the smiling sergeant who was taking up his position outside the barracks to observe the patrons on their way to The Sapphire. Across town
another voice echoed, “Fair play to James Cooney and to hell with the railway. What good is a Mickey Mouse railway to anyone? Carn’s flying now and nobody can say different. Here we go,
boys, and let anyone stand in our way. Fifty quid of a bonus this week and I don’t care who hears it!”

When Benny arrived into work complaining of a hangover like the rest of them, Maisie Lynch twisted up her face and said, “If you’d do your work, it would be more in your line. Do you
think I’m going to pack all these by myself just because you’ve spent your night pissing your money up against Cooney’s wall? Well you’ve another think coming. You young
people have it too easy, that’s what’s wrong. When I was your age, do you know what I had? I hadn’t even shoes on my feet. You don’t know what hardship is! Pack them hearts
and less buck out of you!”

“That’s the stuff, Maisie,” called someone from the yard, “you tell them. The smell of a barman’s apron’d knock them.”

“I say Maisie,” called another voice, “would you take it?”

Maisie screwed up her face. “Take it? Take what?”

“Six inches. Thick!”

Maisie flung her cap on the floor and disappeared into the toilet, muttering to herself.

“Jesus,” said Joe Noonan, “what a spot.”

By the end of his first month Benny felt as if he’d been in the factory for years. The summer stretched before him. He felt there was nothing he couldn’t do.

When the new motorcycle shop opened, he spent his evenings after work admiring the machines, chatting with the young mechanic who had moved from the north to avail himself of the new prosperity.
They discussed brand names and maintenance at length. In the end Benny settled for a Yamaha 750 c.c. and took it for its maiden run all the way to Bundoran in Donegal. Joe Noonan cheered as they
roared up the main street watched by gawping children and sullen adolescents. They bought a six-pack of beer and lay on the strand with straw hats over their eyes. “Hey amigo, she some
machine, no?” said Joe with a broad grin.

“Si senor,” answered Benny, “she cost me mucho dollar.”

The local football stadium, for years choked with weeds and scored with graffiti, now, thanks to a donation from James Cooney who had recently become the club sponsor, sat
proudly in all its refurbished splendour at the top of the town. This new-found interest in the club seemed to fire the players with a new dynamism. After years of abject failure and poor
attendances, the mightiest teams in the province suddenly began to fall before them. Each week the Pride Of Carn Marching Band circled the returfed pitch proudly before the match. The supporters
followed their heroes to all corners of the country, carousing until all hours in distant towns. Una Lacey’s father, Pat, the club’s newly-elected president, took most of the credit for
the team’s success. From the moment he had taken over, all troubles that had for so long seemed to dog the team, melted into thin air. Pat Lacey had the Midas touch when it came to management
and organisation of the team—there was no one in Carn who would argue with that.

“There is nothing that Carn Rovers cannot do,” he cried after yet another victory as he waved to the jubilant crowds on the terraces. “We are going to conquer all before
us.”

From the window of the photographer’s shop, the ever-growing pyramid of trophies reflected their boundless pride back at the people. The team became known as Lacey’s Lions. And
wherever the flag-decked coaches went, Joe and Benny followed on their decorated bikes chanting, “Rovers Rovers” as they roared through the wideyed villages of the midlands.

Every week, as his victorious team made their way to the dressing room, Pat Lacey was joined by Father Kelly and James Cooney and, as the cheers rose to the sky, the people felt indissolubly
bonded together by their faith in these men who now could no wrong.

One warm Saturday in early July, Benny and Joe set off at the crack of dawn to watch their team ride over Drogheda United like a mighty wave. They stood in the market square whirling scarves as
the dejected supporters of the vanquished team slunk home through the dusty streets.

By the time they got back to Carn, the weekend festivities were in full swing and they shouted, “Hey you guys—look out! Carn’s Hell’s Angels are back in town!”

They parked the bike outside the Turnpike and went inside where a group of women were cheering as one of their number, a mature red-cheeked woman, bumped and grinded on a table, pulling her
dress coquettishly above her knee. They clapped along frenziedly as Joe said to the barman, “We hope you no gringo senor. You know what we do weet gringo? We keel heem.”