The Dramatist (8 page)

“You were saying?”

“Pat’s a good guy. He’s not had it easy. In Bohermore they have a different take on sobriety. They stop drinking and get a bike. Not your textbook therapy but it works for Pat.”

My eyes strayed to the top shelf. Whiskey, brandy, eeny, meeney…vodka schnapps…miney, mo. Tequila, now there was something that did the job, fast, ruthless and efficient. I heard Emmylou’s lyric “Meant to ask you about the war” and snapped,

“There’s a point to this story?”

He was surprised, physically jerked back, said,

“Pat might be in the frame.”

“For what?”

“For the schoolgirl.”

I took a moment, got my head in gear, asked,

“How did that happen?”

Jeff ran his hand through his hair, deep lines across his forehead. When did they happen? He said,

“Pat was seen in the vicinity…And the girl knows him.”

Time to cut to the chase. I asked,

“What’s that mean? Knows him…what am I supposed to infer?”

“She asked him for money one time, for ice cream, and he refused.”

I didn’t see the problem, said,

“DNA will clear him, no big deal.”

Jeff was shaking his head, said,

“I don’t think an actual rape happened. The guards are under enormous pressure to get a result. The likes of Pat, he’ll do nicely.”

I raised my hands, had enough, said,

“Sad story, but shit happens.”

Now Jeff had reached the pass, stalled, then,

“I was hoping, you know, with your contacts, you could maybe make a few inquiries, put a good word in.”

I was truly amazed. Jeff wasn’t a guy to beg, to ask for a favour, but here he was, pleading for something. I wish I could say I was gracious, that I leaped at the chance to dig out my friend. No. I said,

“Aren’t you the guy always busting my balls, saying I have to give up the investigation business? Hell, you’re for ever expressing concern for my well-being, for my sobriety.”

The last word I lashed, then deliberately pushed the coffee cup aside.

Jeff took a deep breath, then,

“There’s talk of a vigilante group in the town, and I’m afraid they might target Pat.”

I let my face register ridicule, and he sighed; disappointment coursed through his body. He pushed back the chair, gathered the mugs, shrugged, said,

“Forget I asked.”

Immediately I felt bad. Fuck, I wanted to score a point, not annihilate him, tried,

“Jeez, Jeff, take it easy, I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. Did I say that?”

His face showed how much he wanted to tell me to shove it, but concern for Pat Young overrode his personal bile. I could see the conflict, the turmoil in his eyes. He squared his shoulders, said,

“OK, anything you can do…would be…deeply appreciated.”

I’d made him jump through hoops and I regretted it. Blame my knee, blame the clergy who’d been in my face, blame the fact I wanted to drink till I howled. The truth is I behave badly more often than I dare admit. I stood up, trying for damage limitation, went,

“I’ll get right on it.”

He gave me an odd look, asked,

“You ever hear of the Pikemen?”

I rummaged through the haphazard store of Irish history, tried,

“1798, the rebellion—weren’t they some sort of secret society?”

He turned to the bar, then,

“The Pikemen I mean aren’t history.”

Then he moved away.

I was coming along the square and the sun appeared. It almost
felt warm. I sat near the fountain and tried to figure out the mess of data I had. Without doubt, I was suffering from information overload. Attempting to list my priorities, I had:

The drug dealer

His dead sister

Synge

Another dead student

Another book?

An abortive rape

Jeff’s friend

The drinking school was in full roar near what used to be the public toilets. After the paedophile scandal, the toilets had been demolished and replaced by metal booths that were pay-to-enter. A wino detached himself from the group, approached. He had startling red hair, two teeth and a heavy black coat. A French kerchief was knotted around his neck. It lent him a raffish air. He gave me an ingratiating smile, his body language assuming the non-threatening pose, said,

“Good day to you, sir.”

English accent with a hint of Tyneside. Maybe it was the sunshine, but the rage I’d been nourishing leaked away. I answered,

“How are you doing?”

He was delighted. I could see his eyes estimating how much my civility was worth. I got there first, asked,

“Where are you from?”

Took him a moment to regroup—money was his primary purpose, but a little banter might increase the tally—then a frown as another thought hit. He asked,

“You’re not a social worker, are you?”

I moved my cane to the other hand, said,

“Hardly.”

His body relaxed and he sat beside me. The odour from his clothes and body was a potent mix of urine, dirt, misery and Buckfast. I tried not to gag, and he said,

“I’m from Newcastle.”

“You and Kevin Keegan.”

“And Alan Shearer, don’t forget him. He’s a good one, gave me a fiver once to mind his car.”

“Why did you come to Galway?”

The question perplexed him. The school called to him, impatience in their tone. He was taking far too long to score. The whole strategy was hit and run. I didn’t really care why he’d come, but it was now vital to him. He screwed his eyes, then,

“I heard the government gives money for everything. If you have dogs, you can even claim for them.”

I decided to save him the ritual and took out a few notes, handed them over. He quickly stowed them in his coat lest I change my mind, but principally so the school wouldn’t see the amount. Loyalty is not a top item on the agenda of the street. Clouds began to move across the sky and I stood up.

He asked,

“If I may be so bold as to ask, what happened to your knee?”

“A guy beat me.”

He knew that song and nodded, past beatings registering in his eyes. He looked all of twenty years old and he asked,

“Did you beat him in return?”

“Not yet.”

He savoured that, and then I asked him,

“Why didn’t you get a dog?”

“Oh, I did…I ate him.”

“He had seen people who had hanged themselves, stuck a shotgun in their mouth or blown themselves to bits
Somehow he had learned to endure what he saw and put it aside.”

Henning Mankell,
Sidetracked

YES
.

The vote was in and Ireland had ratified the Treaty of Nice. It was the first time we’d voted on a Saturday, the second time we’d voted on this issue. The way was now clear for expansion, and a slew of new countries could join the European Union. On Shop Street non-nationals were smiling and saying “Hello.” Usually they kept their heads down, looked seriously depressed. I used to blame the weather.

I was en route to visit my mother. I stopped at Griffin’s Bakery and bought an apple tart. As always, there was a queue. A man said,

“The Washington sniper hit again.”

A flurry of speculation and, as is the Irish custom, talk switched back to politics. A woman said,

“That Nice Treaty, it will damage our neutrality.”

Another older woman, silent till now, said, a note of wistfulness in her voice,

“Them Nice biscuits, they’d a grand bite.”

Grattan Road has always been the poor relation of Salthill. It has a beach but the sewers run dangerously close. Even on the sunniest day, an air of greyness hangs over it. The nursing home was in a secluded street, way back from the sea. I had to ask for directions. An elderly man with a cloth cap was sitting on a bench, peering out at the horizon. When I asked him, I thought he didn’t hear me and was about to repeat myself when he cleared his throat, spat a wad of phlegm dangerously close to my shoe. He said,

“You don’t want to go there, son.”

Son!

The ever-present rage, continually simmering, near surfaced. I wanted to shout,

“Listen, you dozy bastard, get with the game.”

He looked at me, yellow tinges at the white of his eyes. His nose seemed to have collapsed. He asked,

“Know what age I am?”

Like I gave a fuck. I said,

“I’ve no idea.”

He cleared his throat and I stepped clear but the hawking didn’t follow. Maybe he had nothing left. He answered for me.

“Too bloody old, that’s how old I am. I live with my daughter, she hates me, I have to be out all day. Do you know how hard it is to kill time?”

I knew.

Then he shot his arm out, frayed cuffs beneath a check jacket and…cufflinks. How old is that? Finger pointing, he croaked,

“The kip you want is over that way, second turn on the right.”

“Thanks.”

I felt a need to reach out, touch his bony shoulder, offer some comfort. But what kind of lie could I peddle? I left the apple tart on the seat beside him but he ignored it.

He asked,

“You have family in that hole?”

“My mother.”

He nodded, as if he’d heard all the awful stories. I turned to go and he said,

“Son.”

“Yes?”

“You want to do your mother a favour?”

Did I?

Tried,

“Yes.”

“Put a pillow over her head.”

I’d met literally thousands of people, and that’s allowing for
Irish hyperbole. In my years on the force, I encountered every type of

Trickster

Con man

Villain

Rogue.

And the years after I met the

Sad

Lonely

Depressed

Dispirited.

But few reached me like that old man. A song stirred in my memory, an early Emmylou, where she wails, laments, “A River for Him”.

If Johnny Duhan was the lyrics of my life, then she was the melody. As I approached the nursing home, my heart sank. It was the curtains on the front window. Hanging from a dropped rail, they were dull brown. As a man, I’m not really supposed to notice if they were clean.

I noticed.

They were lighting. That’s a Bohermore expression, lighting with the dirt. The name, St Jude’s, was on the door. The J had disappeared so it read:

“St ude’s”.

The patron saint of hopeless cases all right. I rang the bell, heard keys being turned. The sound was remarkably similar to Mountjoy. A middle-aged woman opened it, asked,

“Yes?”

Terse.

She had the severity expression down cold. If they were ever searching for a dominatrix, here she was. As if she’d simply moved right along from her previous incarnation as a warden at the Magdalen Laundry.

I said,

“I’m here to see Mrs Taylor.”

She was wearing a heavy tweed suit, thick-soled black shoes that a nun would kill for, her hair held in some kind of mosquito net. The look in her eyes was icy and measured. She asked,

“Who are you?”

“I’m her son.”

She didn’t scoff but came close. The door was still only half open and she rasped,

“You haven’t been before?”

I wanted to shove the door, storm in. It went without saying this woman and I would never be friends, but even tense cordiality wasn’t likely. I said,

“If I’d been here before, would we be having this conversation? But then, who knows? Maybe this rigmarole is a regular process.”

There, the lines were drawn. This was a woman who didn’t often get cheek or, as I felt she’d have put it, impertinence. I could see how close she was to slamming the door. I asked,

“So, can I see my mother or am I going to need a warrant?”

She gave my cane a look of scorn then opened the door, a mound of post at her feet. They looked like bills. The Final Demand variety. I’d seen enough to recognise the envelopes. I moved by her and the smell hit. A blend of ammonia, old clothes, urine and Wild Pine. The latter is the air freshener of choice in institutions. Sold by the truckload and made in Taiwan, it is cheap and odious. Once you’ve encountered it, you never mistake it for anything else. It has a cloying sweetness that sticks itself to everything. It’s worse than any smell it poorly attempts to disguise. I remembered my first dances, in the showband era. Woolworth’s had a branch on Eyre Square, now occupied by Supermac’s. Their speciality was a sixpence bottle of perfume. Every house in town had claim to at least one bottle. The dancehalls were electric with the aroma.

I noticed a huge vase of flowers and put out my hand.

Plastic.

Of all the horrors of commerce, these are among the worst. On a par with the three flying ducks that adorned the walls of a thousand households. I turned to her, asked,

“And you are?”

“Mrs Canty. I’m the matron.”

I nodded as if I gave a toss. She said,

“Your mother is in room seven.”

She seemed on the verge of more but stifled it, said,

“If you’ll excuse me, the home won’t run itself.”

She stomped off, hostility trailing in her wake. I found room seven, the door open, and, taking a deep breath, I went in. Using my cane, I was no advertisement for the outside world. The room was dim because the bulb had the lowest voltage. Last time I experienced that was in my bedsit hovel on Ladbroke Grove, “Madame George” as my theme song.

There were three cots—you couldn’t call them beds—metal frames pulled up alongside to keep the occupants in or help out, I didn’t know. I approached the first, a woman of vast years, on her back, her mouth open, spit leaking from her mouth. The second held my mother. She was propped up on pillows, her eyes open. Since I’d last seen her, she had deteriorated to a huge degree. Her once lustrous black hair was white and lank. The eyes focused and she whispered,