Mondo Desperado (12 page)

After that, Dympna’s life changed dramatically. Now, instead of rambling wet-eyed through the night-time streets pursued by the heartlessly persistent laments of reedy organs, casting her
eyes longingly over beautiful silks and satins she knew she would never own, wondering where it was love might be found, she was being driven everywhere in a stretch limousine almost as big as the
street she had been born in, with Kiernan showering presents on her and pecking her on the cheek and telling her she was the most beautiful woman he had ever set eyes on and how every day he
thanked God for ‘sending him his little angel from heaven’. Before, finally, eventually, slipping to his knees to ask her to marry him. A request which, reluctantly, she had to turn
down with the words: ‘I’m sorry, Kiernan. But I have evaded my responsibilities for long enough. I must go! Back to Barntrosna where my ageing, abandoned mother awaits!’

Of course she did, which is why three days later the bells were ringing out over Dublin City and a radiant Mrs Dympna McSwiggan was standing in the doorway of a cathedral showered in paper bells
and horseshoes, endeavouring without success to stifle her giggles as her new husband kissed her yet again, the boisterous cacophony of tin cans and old boots following them all the way to the
airport.

Sometimes, adrift on her lilo in the months that followed, Dympna would fancy she could hear familiar squawks that were not unlike those which had been known to emanate from a certain chimney
corner in what was now the long ago. But beneath the hot, burning sun of Tuscany it was impossible to say.

As it was to be certain that the weasly, slender-moustached visage which occasionally formed itself on the blue wobbling water belonged to that of a man she had once known as Dermo Slattery.
Which was why Dympna simply put these occurrences down to the heat, and, draping a towel about her bronzed and slender frame, would chuckle softly as she strolled across the terrazza towards the
villa and into the outstretched arms of her cigar-chomping, wolf-grinning husband.

Pats Donaghy had always harboured notions of becoming a world-famous writer but to say that he found himself speechless and utterly flummoxed when it actually happened would be
what you might call the understatement of the century. It all began one Saturday some three years ago now when he was coming down the stairs. A letter lying in the hallway caught his eye. His first
inclination was to ignore it completely and go on about his business and have his breakfast. But something drew him back. He hesitated for a moment and then began his journey towards the mysterious
white rectangle of paper. It bore none of the hallmarks of the customary missives cursorily dispatched to him by the likes of
Reader’s Digest
and Quality Book Club. Disdainfully, he
tore it open. ‘Gasp!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s about my novel!’ And so it was. His latest work, on which he had been labouring for almost two years –
A Kalashnikov
for Shamus Doyle
– had scooped the Buglass-McKenzie Literary Prize!

‘What madness is this?’ he asked himself. ‘Pats Donaghy, are you in your right mind at all? Who with any wit is going to give you all that money for a bit of a book?’

He feared that all those nights wrestling with the formless shadows of his fevered imagination had finally taken their toll.

He went inside and bit his nail as his mammy poured him a cup of tea. He resolved to make no reference whatsoever to his momentary delusion in case she might say:

—Will you stop this nonsense now, Pats, or you’ll get what’s coming to you!

But just then the door burst open and his sister Nabla burst in.

—Mammy! Mammy! Did you hear the news? she declared hoarsely. Pats has won a big prize in England!

She threw her arms around her brother and cried:

—I’m proud of you, Pats Donaghy!

Pats reddened a little and lowered his head.

—Would you look at the cut of me! his mammy cried out. I can’t go to England like this!

But that night in bed she said that she was proud of him. She tickled his ear and whispered:

—Maybe one day you’ll write a little book about me, will you, Pats?

—Oh, Mammy, Pats said and she laughed and he laughed and then all he could remember was Mammy in his dream coming charging down Charing Cross Road with all her Fenwick’s bags
shouting:

—Yoo hoo! Wait for me, Pats!

*

At last the big day came and they were off to London. Shoots McGilly with the one eye drove them to the station. He said he had met plenty of English people and in his opinion
there was nothing wrong with them. Nabla said:

—Oh, Pats! I think I’m going to have a fit in this aeroplane!

But she didn’t. Didn’t it turn out she knew one of the hostesses – a Maureen Fletcher from Blessed Martin de Porres Avenue.

—God, isn’t it gas! exclaimed Maureen with her hands on her hips. The places you meet people!

—I’d say there’ll be a big crowd in London tonight, mused Nabla, and Maureen agreed.

—There will indeed, Nabla, she said.

Meanwhile Pats and Mammy went on chatting away about all the things they were going to buy in London. She told him she had always known he was going to be a famous writer ever since the time he
got nine out of ten for his composition ‘Gathering Blackberries’. (
The Angelus Bell was ringing as we came over the hill, our faces smeared in purple blackberry juice and our billy
cans glinting in the sun.
)

—Laws! cried Pats. When I think of it!

—I was always proud of you, son, she said, but I won’t rest until you write a little book about me.

—Don’t worry, Mammy, Pats promised, and she gave a little wiggle, I will.

And would you believe it – ten minutes later they had landed in Heathrow!

*

Mammy and Pats were in room 245 and Nabla had a room to herself on the second floor. Pats hadn’t been so excited since the day of his first communion. Outside, the lights
of Shaftesbury Avenue winked at him and said: ‘Wotcher, Pats – you’re in the dosh now, ain’tcha?’

And it was true, wasn’t it? All thanks to two people – Mammy and Shamus Doyle.

What was it the
Times Literary Supplement
had said about him?

The modern Irish novel is in safe hands at last – take a bow, Mr Donaghy!

They had even printed a little piece of his humble effort. It was the part where Shamus vows to Cait that he will never kill again.

It goes on and on like that and then in the end Shamus says:

And she says:

Meanwhile, however, his old friend One-Shot Danny McClatchey has been dispatched by the organization to see that he is terminated with extreme prejudice – but listen! What am I talking
about! thought Pats as he munched the duvet.

*

—
And now – the winner of this year’s Buglass-McKenzie Prize, Mr Pats Donaghy!

Pats was as nervous as a kitten, making his speech. He kept thinking of the whole town in front of their tellies going:

—Would you look at Donaghy! Just who does he think he is!

So he made sure to thank everybody in the town and especially Shoots McGilly for driving them to the station. He said it was wonderful to be in London: ‘The city that never sleeps!’
he said. ‘And I can assure you I didn’t sleep last night – ha ha!’ he laughed.

He went on to talk about Madame Tussaud’s and how much his mammy had liked being in Selfridge’s and John Lewis and all the places they had been that day. And he especially thanked
the sponsors Buglass-McKenzie for making it all possible. When he said that, they all began to clap, and one of the critics took over and said that Pats’ writing was at the cutting edge of
the new Irish urban realism. He said that
A Kalashnikov for Shamus Doyle
was a bullet up the backside of literary complacency. When she heard that, Mammy said,

—The language of him, Pats!, but she was only joking.

Then they had lots of wine to drink and they met a man and a woman who said:

—Will you say awfter again for us, please.

So they did. They said:

—After we leave here, we’re going back to the hotel.

They thought this was a great laugh altogether and said:

—Have some more wine.

—Aaahfter! they kept saying, but they couldn’t say it as good as Pats and Mammy and Nabla.

Then it was a taxi and home to bed for everyone. Mammy was wearing a nightdress she had bought in Janet Reger’s. She said,

—I must look a sight, but Pats said,

—You do not, Mammy, you look radiant.

—Oh Pats, she said, and Pats said:

—Mammy, do you know what I’m going to do with the money, I’m going to bring you on a world cruise. She said,

—And Nabla as well? But Pats said:

—No, Mammy, just you.

Little did he know at that time just how true those fateful words were to prove, for hardly had they gone two miles in Shoots’ hackney car after he had picked them up at Dublin airport
(‘There youse are!’ he had cried with a wide sweep of his cap) when a flock of sheep appeared out of nowhere and swept straight across the road.

—Look out! cried Shoots as he spun the wheel. There was a sickening thud and when he came round Pats saw that Nabla was dead.

—Mammy! he cried out.

—Pats! Is that you? she replied.

—Yes, Mammy, it is! he wept, relieved.

The sad part about that accident was that Shoots was killed too.

*

After that, the grief was too much for them to bear. Everywhere they went about the house, they were confronted with memories of Nabla: her forget-me-not pinafore, the holy
pictures and her pink squashy house slippers. Despite repeated cancellations, her copy of
Woman’s Way
continued to arrive like some persecution from beyond the grave. In the end it all
became too much for both of them so they sold up everything they owned and moved away from the town.

*

They found Dublin City very much to their liking – except perhaps for the smelly O’Hare family, who became their first neighbours when they lived in temporary rented
accommodation on the Miami Towers Estate. There were fourteen of them and four pit-bull terriers – Norman Bates, Pancho, Elvis and Dirty Den. Mr O’Hare worked in the local crisp factory
but had been made redundant and turned to selling wellington boots from a stall by the side of the dual carriageway. As he said himself:

—Booted out and sellin’ boots!

Noeleen was the young girl of the family, and a very pretty young lady she was too, if a trifle curt in manner, as Pats discovered one day on his way home from Waterstone’s with a copy of
the
London Review of Books
. He stopped for a moment to chat to her about school and the approaching exams, only to be taken aback when she said:

—Never mind about school – do you want a jump or not?

He demurred and hastened on his way.

Then there was Nialler, who stole cars and raced them up and down the dual carriageway. He had quite a selection in his front garden. Rarely a day passed but he greeted Pats in the traditional
manner of the estate:

—Howya, Bukes! I’ll buke your bleedin’ bollix in!

It was just as well none of them could read, Pats would often reflect. He shuddered to think what their reaction might have been if they’d found out just what he’d been up to all
those nights with his ear to the wall while they were having their colourful, expletive-speckled family debates; especially when Noeleen got in the family way and it turned out to be
Nialler’s! There certainly was a lot of consternation in the abode of the O’Hares that evening! It took Mr O’Hare almost two hours to bear the truth out of the miscreant with the
Krooklok.

—Didja?

—Wha?

—You know wha!

—Did I wha’, Da?

—Don’t fukkin’ didja wha’ me!

It got so bad that Mrs O’Hare could bear it no longer and began to fling the remnants of the evening meal – half-eaten batter burgers and sodden chips – at the man she had
married in St Anne’s Church, Raheny, twenty-two years before.

—Leave him alone, Da! she snapped, as another salvo whistled past his ear. He wiped the ketchup off his chin with an expansive sweep of his forearm and snarled back at her.

—Don’t hurt the girl, Jim, for the love and honour of St Joseph!

Mr O’Hare landed a punch in the middle of his daughter’s forehead and faced his wife defiantly.

—DON’T FUKKIN’ TELL ME WHAT TO DO! JA HEAR ME, RIGH’?

But happily it was all resolved in the end, with the contrite Nialler being dispatched to the Italia Bar for a dozen stout and some drugs for himself and Noeleen. And, as the singing and dancing
started – ‘Here we go! Here we go! Here we go!’ and ‘Olé! Olé! Olé!’ the head of the household was heard to gaily whoop atop the gas cooker
– the unfortunate pregnancy was all but forgotten. As Mrs O’Hare put it, after a nip or two of sherry:

—I don’t care if the little fucker has four eyes – he’s still an O’Hare, righ’, Nialler?

And Nialler said:

—Righ’, Ma! as Elvis, Norman Bates, Pancho and Dirty Den sang background vocals to Mr O’Hare’s impromptu Pavarotti.

*

Unfortunately, Mammy and Pats never did get to see the baby as they were notified shortly afterwards that the building work had all been completed and they were free to move
into their new sixteen-bedroomed property overlooking the sea in the salubrious suburb of Dalkey in south Dublin. But the story of the wonderful O’Hare family was far from over . . .