The Magdalen Martyrs (11 page)

“How did you know I was a ban garda?”

“I used to be a guard.”

Now she gave a dazzling smile, transformed her face. A mix of devilment and delight, the very best kind, said,

“Oh, I know that.”

She was drinking something orange in a glass, with lots of ice. I’d bet heavy it was Britvic and nothing added. Here was your sensible girl. Drinking would be at weekends and never lethal. I asked,

“What do you want?”

“To talk.”

My turn to smile, without devilment or even warmth, the one they teach you in Templemore. I asked,

“What about?”

She glanced over her shoulder, then I thought,

“What? Coke, pills, drink?”

“The Magdalen.”

Caught me by surprise. I said,

“Oh.”

“You’re out of your depth. I can help.”

I took a long swig of my pint, felt it massage my stomach. I asked,

“And why would you want to do that?”

A moment, shadows flitted across her face, then,

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

I drained my glass, asked,

“Get you something?”

“No, thank you.”

“What’s your name?”

“Bríd . . . Bríd Nic an Iomaire.”

Had to digest that, reach into old memory for translation, said,

“Ridge . . . am I right?”

She gave a disgusted look, said,

“We don’t use the English form.”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

I stood up, said,

“Hate to drink and run.”

“You’re going?”

“No wonder you’re a policewoman.”

“But don’t you know that Superintendent Clancy’s aunt was a nun in the laundry?”

I tried not to show my surprise, and she said,

“See, you do need the guards.”

“Honey, it’s a long time since I needed anything from the guards.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Believe me, it’s what I do best.”

‘To her way of thinking, such mishaps were intimately connected to
the intelligence of the recipient. Violence happened to people who,
unlike her, did not have the common sense to avoid it.”

Louise Doughty,
Honey Dew

Two days later, I was drink free hut drug ridden. The double
dose of pills had me mellow beyond mantra. Spring was heavy in its promise, and despite a nip in the wind, people were in shirtsleeves. I was wearing a tie-dye T-shirt. Not by design but atrocious laundry. Women over the years had patiently explained the colours you never mix. Dutifully, I wrote the instructions down. Then washed the list.

So, a once splendidly white T had slugged it out against navy and . . . women forgive me . . . pink.

As in life, white lost.

Not a complete disaster as the logo had been near erased. Once it had read,

I WAS A GUARD.
NOW I’M A BLACKGUARD
.

I was sitting on the rim of the fountain. To my right, was the statue of Padraic O Conaire. His head was back. Yeah, he’d been decapitated, the stone whisked to Northern Ireland. Eventually, the culprits were caught, the piece returned.

If not the finest hour for the Guards, it remains among their most popular.

A drinking school was in full song near the public toilet. Sounded like “She Moved through the Fair”, to the air of
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Not an impossible task, simply weird. On Eyre Square, since the Celtic Tiger roared, weird was down-right commonplace.

Add to it, the conglomerate of Italian, Spanish, Irish, American and, I swear, Serbo-Croat, you had lunacy on tap.

A woman detached herself from the pack, approached me, said,

“And a good morning to you, sir.”

“Howyah?”

She was encouraged by my answer, moved closer. Her age could have been twenty-five or sixty from the ruined face and dead eyes. Her accent had the burr of Glasgow, which was no longer on her agenda. She asked,

“Price o’ cup of tea, sir?”

“Sure.”

Surprised her. When you surprise a wino, you have got a few moves left. I reached in my pocket, took out the change, handed it over. She took it fast. I asked,

“Ever hear of Padraig?”

I meant the late head wino.

She glanced over at Padraic O Conaire, asked,

“Who’s he?”

“He wrote
MAsal Bheag Dubh.”

“He what?”

“Never mind.”

“Got a smoke?”

“Sure.”

I produced a pack of reds, shook the pack, and she grabbed
two, tore the filters off. A match from nowhere and she was engulfed in smoke, asked,

“Are you a social worker?”

“Hardly.”

“A guard?”

“Not any more.”

“Want a ride?”

I laughed out loud. Blame the drugs.

I thought about Casey, Bill Cassell’s muscle. The giant who had delighted in my humiliation. The Sicilians say, if you’re planning revenge, dig two graves. One for yourself.

As Melanie sang in the hopeful years,

“Yada, yada.”

Or they say revenge is a dish best eaten cold. I was cold all right.

A nun skipped by, trailing piety. If I asked her, she’d
go
for company policy, incant “for it is in forgiving that we are forgiven”.

I’d answer,

“Bollocks.”

Stood up, stretched, felt almost light. I’d unwrap the gun, polish the handle. I had Casey’s routine down pat. It simply remained to take the next step.

Shoot him.

“Only a small crack
. . .
But cracks make caves collapse.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Nothing reflects those months of numbness, those months of
almost coma, like my total selfishness. Foot and mouth came and went with barely a dent in my perception. I look back now and go,

“What the hell were you thinking?”

A British election was due on 7 June, and Tony Blair’s tooth-ridden smile was everywhere. It registered zip on my radar. A time there’d been, I could have named the members of the houses of parliament and actually followed the House of Commons debate.

Now, I barely knew the Oireachtas. I did notice Des O’Malley had been canonised in a TV series. Haughey got blasted, but what was new in that? I caught a glimpse of him, shaken and frail, emerging from a car and the crowd chucking coins.

Coining it?

Not any more.

Louis Walsh had unveiled yet another global band on us. Girls this time. I had to know this as two were from Galway. How parochial had I become? Slowly, I was fading into my
father. My mother continued her black ghost role around the streets. She haunted more than me.

Videos.

With my new chemical tranquillity, I was able to watch a whole slush of movies. In no particular order

Loved
Loathed
Laughed
Cried

Through

The Thin Blue Line
The Company of Strangers
Audition
Jennifer Eight
Smiley’s People
Sunset Boulevard

Listened to Gabrielle; listened to her a lot.
Sunshine
seemed to speak to me, but I’m not sure what it tried to tell me.

Books:

Robbers,
Christopher Cook
Noise Abatement,
Carol Ann Davis
1980,
David Peace

You bundle all that up, take it to a shrink, spill it on his desk and ask,

“What?”

He reaches for the Thorazine.

A snap analysis is given by any wino:

“You’re seriously fucked.”

Argue that.

As a footnote to the above, I was scrabbling through old photos when I found a battered leather purse, the type to hold a rosary beads. Opened it to reveal . . . my wedding ring.

Back from the Thames?

It’s not that I survived that period. More along the lines of the Doors’ biography:

No One Here Gets Out Alive.

Felt I wasn’t hurting as the scar tissue encircled my soul, waiting to squeeze.

The day of the suicide began slow and easy. Woke in a subdued mood, not unpleasant. More in the neighbourhood of gentle melancholia than chemical overload.

I could hack that.

Did some sit-ups and then had a cold shower. Who needed booze?

Not I.

Welcome to the world of pill dependency. When that kick-back came, as come it would, I figured to put a bullet in my head. No more hospitals or dry outs. Ride the dragon to the close.

Brewed some coffee and could actually taste it. Tasted good. I had a longing but didn’t know for what.

God? Naw, He folded His tent and moved east. How much would I notice?

In the lobby of the hotel, Mrs Bailey exclaimed,

“Gosh, Mr Taylor, you look so relaxed!”

You betcha.

Even accepted her invitation to breakfast. Now that is a rib broke in the devil.

The chambermaid, housekeeper, cleaner, Janet, was also the waitress, albeit a slow one. I strongly suspected she might also be the cook. The breakfast lounge was bright and cheerful, a stack of gratis newspapers at the entrance. Mrs Bailey saw me glance at them, said,

“Oh, yes, just like the grand hotels. You can have the
Independent
or . . . the
Independent”

And she gave a mischievous smile. A pure joy to behold. She liked to nail her politics up front. We sat and she said,

“Janet irons them.”

“What?”

“Every morning, every newspaper. So the guests don’t get ink on their hands.”

I’d seen Anthony Hopkins do it in
Remains of the Day
but put it down to an English foible. We ordered tea, toast and scrambled eggs. Mrs Bailey said,

“Smoke if you must.”

I didn’t.

I felt relaxed, touching mellow. Remember Donovan? If he was the English answer to Bob Dylan, you shudder to think what the question was. He wore the denim cap, had the face of a pixie, and I could remember “Atlantis”.

God help me.

Lived in North Cork now and, like the other expat rock stars, liked to jam in his local pub. His daughter was the actress lone Skye. And before the eggs arrive, I was asking myself,

“How do I know this shit?”

And worse, why?

Mrs Bailey touched my arm. I noticed the glut of liver spots on her hand. She asked,

“Where were you?”

“In the sixties.”

A shot of sadness in her eyes, and she said,

“You live there a lot.”

“In the sixties?”

“The past.”

I nodded, accepting the truth of it, said,

“It’s not that it’s safer, but I dunno, familiar.”

A huge pot of tea came, and she opened the lid, stirred vigorously, said,

“I never got used to tea bags.”

A man stopped, said,

“Did ye hear?”

In Ireland this could mean the pope is dead or it’s stopped raining. We gave the requisite,

“What happened?”

“The FAI Cup . . . Bohs beat Longford Town.”

I’d have been more torn up if I knew Longford were even playing. Mrs Bailey, who watched all sport, said,

“That dote Michael Owen had two miraculous goals on Saturday, finished Arsenal.”

A woman over eighty, in the west of Ireland, knew that, and I wasn’t even sure what day of the week it was. The man, crushed, lamented,

“The dream is over for Longford.”

And he sloped away, defeat writ large. I said,

“A Longford man.”

“Ary, go away, he’s from Tuam.”

Brendan Flood was on my mind. Time for another meet. Now that he’d lost his religion and hit the booze, I felt I should check on him. We weren’t friends, but we were connected. His information had broken two cases for me. Found his number, rang,

To my surprise, a woman answered. I said,

“Could I speak to Brendan please?”

Keep it low and keep it polite.

“Who is this?”

“Jack Taylor . . . I’m a friend of Brendan’s.”

Long pause, then,

“Ye were guards together.”

I took a moment, considered, then,

“Yeah, a long time ago.”