The Holy City (5 page)

— Ballymore, she said — she'd gone and done it again, got the name wrong. It sounds so much like this little village I knew in Bangladesh …

That was the last straw.

— Look here, Pandit, I said, I've just about had it with all this. So how about you and your Birkenstocks just take off and you can tell Dr Mukti I said that if you want to. How about you tell your fellow countryman that? Because the only reason I agreed to these sessions with you is because he specifically asked me to. As if there was something special about you.

— I think we conclude our session now, she said.

As I sank my hands in my pockets and shrugged.

— Suits me, Mrs Vindaloo.

For a lot of people, even yet, the sixties tend to represent a magical, almost fairy-tale period of history.
The Ronettes, Ray Charles, Yuri Gagarin, I'm Backing Britain!…
There seems no end to its imaginative, hopelessly irresponsible, deliriously childish wonders.

Even myself, in spite of all that has happened, I can still locate in those years the fondest of remembrances, which I continue to treasure. Things were so completely different then — almost exotic, even in Cullymore.

In May 1969, I had bought myself a state-of-the-art Bush record player, which provided me with many wonderful hours of entertainment. There was nothing I liked better than lying there in my bedroom in the Nook, thinking to myself that now at long last we had found a way out, that the decade of the sixties was destined to be our escape route, the road to liberation from the likes of Dr Henry Thornton and his fading, disappearing, antediluvian world. With the iconic poster of
Sergeant Pepper
on my wall, I'd peruse the sleeves of my LPs over and over. I had the Turtles and the Yardbirds and the Troggs but, best of all, the Kinks.
Any new album that came out, I made it my business to purchase it directly. Things were going so well with the supermarkets that money at that time was no object at all. I filled the Nook with artefacts and curios. A black-and-white Raquel Welch poster with
You Only Live Twice
beside it, whorled in red just above the door, with 007 looking menacing but impossibly glamorous. Then there were all the clothes. It was like the Nook had been moved to Carnaby Street. I had begun to think of myself as a kind of Ray Davies. Ray, of course, used to play with the Kinks and I was fond of his dry English irony and did my best to imitate him. Even down to buying myself a candy-striped blazer.

And the ladies, of whom I have as yet spoken little, generally, I have to say, seemed to approve. Some of the female out-of-towners who came to the Mayflower said that they thought I might be from London. They couldn't believe it when they heard I was from Cully-more, they told me, becoming nervous and eager to please. They were always making excuses to come out to the cottage.

— Gosh, you have so many records.

I'd give them little presents, a badge or a brooch with a film star's picture — Terence Stamp or maybe David Hemmings. Then we'd dance to the Troggs or the Beatles or Amen Corner. I really do have the most affectionate memories of that time.

— It's the sixties, I guess, and the old world is dying! It's
goodbye to the cold and formal Protestant ancient world, goodbye to Henry Thornton and all that crazy, outdated bullshit! I'd say.

Not that it made a lot of sense to my guests. Who just wanted to dance to Lulu and Clodagh Rodgers. Or anyone else I might care to put on.

— Real gone, I'd say, and it's kooksville, babe! And now it's time for some Herman's Hermits!

As we did the Watusi in and out of some chairs.

— No milk today, my love has gone away!

— Chris McCool, you're a crazy guy!

— Maybe I am, doll, but you — you're the mostest!

I hadn't been down to Wattles Lane for some weeks now — I was afraid to actually go near it, to be honest, such was the strength of the feelings I'd recently been discovering within myself. Looking back on it now, that was probably the single greatest mistake I had ever made — capitulating to those emotions in the way that I did and permitting myself to return to Marcus's house. Maybe I'd just been unlucky. If I hadn't had the misfortune to meet his mother in the Five Star that day. She had specifically invited me down, you see, and I'd been arguing with myself all of the previous night about it.

I mean I knew it was risky. But then I'd think: What difference does it make? He's an ordinary seventeen-year-old boy, for heaven's sake. One who just happens to have an interest in the higher things in life, like I do myself. We have
shared interests. That's it. That's all there is to it. It's as simple as that.

So I managed, I suppose, to talk my way out of it. Or into it, perhaps, to be more precise. I nearly choked then when I met him on the street. I had just been leaving in eggs to the supermarket and was coming out whistling when I saw him standing there, as the Beatles say. He was carrying his satchel of books and staring in the window of the Green Shield Stamp shop. That, in itself, was hardly an act of any great note and it was only when I became aware of the object of his attention that I reacted. For it was a lady's nightdress at which he was staring. One I'd noticed in that window before, extravagantly described as being
edged in black lace, shimmering in frosted ice-cream pink. Come to Dreamland,
the attached card read.
It's soft and it's wonderful. Where the most romantic of dreams begin.

It seems difficult to believe that now — almost forty years later — I would, quite by chance, find the exact same item, on the internet. Yes, of all places, on the World Wide Web, locate that very same delicacy. And take the opportunity to present it proudly to my beloved Vesna. To her absolute delight, producing the box as we sat together hand in hand in the Happy Club, home of the Carpenters and sheer domestic bliss. She looked so delicious as I primped up her coiffure.

— Welcome to Dreamland, I said, as I kissed her.

But as I was saying about that nightdress and Marcus. What continued to bother me as I observed him outside
the shop was — why is his preoccupation with it of any importance to me? Why should I be even remotely interested?

I turned the key in the tractor and, as the engine spurted into life, I found myself recalling a familiar phrase, a snatch I remembered from
A Portrait: A trembling seized him and his eyes grew dim, for there appeared no respite from his inconsolable ardour.

The best method of allaying my roused emotions, I decided, somewhat childishly perhaps, would be to effect some means of distraction. So for that very reason I treated myself, purchasing a record and some smokes — Peter Stuyvesant was the brand I had begun to favour. I found I relaxed quite considerably after that. The single I'd bought was an upbeat novelty tune, one recently penned by Lennon and McCartney, but now performed by a group called the Marmalade, entitled ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da'.

Thereafter, fixing my grub in the quietude of the Nook, I was gradually returned to my former state of carefree buoyancy. It's the sixties, man, I kept telling myself, I was young, for heaven's sake, only just turned twenty-five. What did I care about plays or James Joyce? Or, come to that, impossibly religious Nigerian boys who went about the town in braided bottle-green blazers. And who were, in any case, probably most likely only going through a phase, as did so many young people of his age. And with regard to which I was eventually proved one
hundred per cent correct. If only I had bothered to pay attention to myself.

But right at that very moment, as I prepared my Vesta beef curry in a saucepan, I simply did not care at all. Which was why I had taken the decision to go out on the town that very night. Yes, head off to the Good Times, which was opening later on. Cullymore's very own new ‘swinging bar', complete with Rock-Ola jukebox and a stage. It was unique, and everyone in town was already singing its praises. So yes, I repeated, I would have to pop down and check out all the action. Schmooze all the talent and have a few beers.

It turned out to be fantastic, with a lot of chicks who'd been specially invited. We all really let our hair down that night.

— It's the new sensation! we laughed — but it was.

It was only going to be a matter of time before I bought myself a car. Which, by modern standards, was extremely humble, I'm afraid I have to say. A ‘fab' Ford Cortina which I'd been looking at in the showrooms for some time. But I mean, let's face it — it was hardly ever going to be an E-Type Jag! Sure I was earning reasonable money — but I couldn't say I was Ronnie Kray yet! Two hundred quid I picked it up for. I might have been Lord Snowdon as I cruised the country roads in my frilled Ray Davies shirt.

Grooving with the ladies in the Mayflower and the Good Times.

— This is a grand new car that you've got.

— It sure is, baby, it's a real mean machine.

As onward we cruised and Cullymore's answer to Pattie Boyd snapped her fingers, pressing the transistor up against her ear, as we chanted along with ‘Wild Thing' and the Troggs, the raw ragged metal guitars of '69 shining silver in the summer air.

Dr Mukti, Pandit's superior, was an Indian the very same as her.

— Fucking curry munchers, Mike Corcoran used to say, they're getting in everywhere. Pontificating to good men like you and me.

I'm afraid old Mike was a bit funny in that regard. But really, back then, everyone was. Except that Mike could take it a little far.

— Gas all the gypsies, you'd hear him saying on a regular basis. Set aside an afternoon and round the whole lot up. You'd be doing everyone a favour, Christy. And the nigger boys too — scoop a few of them.

Now, however, in these rehabilitated and reformed, more enlightened days, he doesn't give a damn about any of that. If he ever did. It was the drink that put him ‘astray', he claims. And in point of fact, for most of our time in St Catherine's Psychiatric Hospital, he and Mukti got along quite well. To give Mukti his due, there were times when he could be something of a character himself.

— Don't talk to me about the bloody sixties, he could say.
Bunch of bloody children, isn't it! Most overrated generation ever the world has known!

Reluctant though I might be, I have to, in retrospect, acknowledge that there is a certain amount of that statement with which I would find myself inclined to agree. But only someone like Mukti would have had the courage to state something so baldly and directly. For that reason, he had always seemed kind of Protestant to me. Not initially, perhaps, but always ultimately admired for his steadfast adherence to principle: his grace under pressure. The muscular rationality of his approach. Mike Corcoran, as I say, secretly liked him too. As indeed he ought to, for the doctor had performed a near miracle on the man.

Poor old Mike. When he first came into St Catherine's, he really was in an awful state. I knew him, of course, from our days in Cullymore, where he'd worked as a musician with a small pick-up band. Like a lot of musicians — and he is regarded as one of the best: a multi-instrumentalist, who can literally play anything, he got himself into bad trouble with the bottle. To such an extent, in fact, that he ended up busking, without a penny, on the streets. In a truly dreadful way — scarcely knew his own name, to tell the truth. Until the eminent Dr Mukti, ‘the Protestant', came along.

To give you an example of how bad Mike actually was: one day I happened to be sitting in the lounge minding my own business, just watching something stupidly inconsequential on the television. When, all of a sudden, he gets a hold of me round the neck and starts shouting:

— You fucking bastard, you screwed my wife! Why, Chris — why did you do it? We were friends!

The laugh being, of course, that the lunatic doesn't even have a wife!

But that's all over, as I say. Mukti cured him. Good old Mukti cured him completely.

— He's a genius. An absolute genius, Mike would often privately say, shaking his head in disbelief and gratitude.

Which was exactly the opinion I used to have myself. Before my eyes were opened — about so-called Dr Mukti. Who swore blind to me that Pandit had been transferred to another hospital and that he, personally, having ‘cleared some space', would now be taking over my case. For a long time, I had actually believed him. But the whole thing turned out to be a clever little ruse — quite heartless, really — a wily conniving scheme to get me to talk. So much for Mukti the straight-talking honest Protestant. I couldn't believe it the night I saw Pandit. Through an upstairs window on the terrace. Quite by chance, late one summer's evening, tossing her head back as she laughed at some joke of his. Anyone looking would have assumed her and Mukti to be involved in some form of illicit affair. Whether they were or not didn't interest me. My only concern was their treachery and disregard for my feelings.

But I didn't say anything, made no reference at all to it. I kept my powder dry for about another fortnight or so — just to see what exactly was going on. I laid eyes on Pandit on no less than four occasions after that first time. Yes, Meera
Pandit, Mrs Vindaloo, who else, whom I'd been solemnly assured had long since ‘left' the hospital. The implication being that, chiefly because of her failures with me, she had now been assigned to ‘other duties'. It was flattering, obviously. But, unfortunately, however, was a complete pack of lies. A clever ploy by Mukti to get me to think well of him, to consider myself ‘singled out' and ‘special'.

Bollocks.

All Mukti seemed to want to do now, ‘now that we are on an even keel again', was to start more talk about the sixties. Which I found rather strange, not surprisingly, having heard him disparage them so vehemently before. I withdrew resentfully once I began to realise what he was doing. Trying to relax me in order to get me to talk. That was the reason he was blabbering on. Ever so subtly then, when you weren't expecting it, returning to the subject of Marcus Otoyo. He kept on doing this and then smiling cloyingly, as he elaborated on that ‘lunatic decade, the permissive sixties'.