by Roddy Doyle
—My brother.
—Yeah.
—He died.
—He dies, you take up arms. It’s good.
—There were dogs, I told him.
—Christ. They ate him?
—No, I said.—No.
I was remembering; I was going further. I could hear the rats, I could feel them slide under my fingers. I made sure I was still in the tepee. Then I told him about the fighting dogs, and the rats myself and Victor had caught to drive the dogs mad before they were set at each other. I told him how we’d boil the babies, how we’d rub the soup onto our hands and arms, to drive their mothers wild and careless, so we could more easily catch them. I told him how we’d bring the rats to the secret places on the edge of the city, where men would bet on the dogs, and how I’d lower my hand deep into the sack and keep it there longer than I needed to as Victor went among the men with a hat held out for their guilt money, and how I’d pull out a frantic rat and hold it over my head, the claws scratching the air just over my scalp, and I’d drop the rat into the pit for the dogs, and I’d make sure that Victor’s hands and arms were washed clean of the rats before we’d lie down and sleep, in whatever corner we found and made our own each night.
I finished. The story had its dogs.
He said nothing. He sat still, looking at me. And I knew: Victor wasn’t going to make it. Mary Kate would have a brother but Henry Smart wouldn’t. Henry had to be a loner. I was a writer then, and I’d killed my second brother. I’d blame Ford later but I knew exactly what was happening.
He stood up.
—This was good, he said.
His hand was on my shoulder.
—You need to get out more, he said.—A wigwam’s no place for a rebel. We have to get at this. Because this is going to be my next picture.
He stooped to avoid the deerskin wall. And he was gone. I stayed there. I made sure I did. I wasn’t in Dublin, running with Victor, or holding Victor as his last cough faded to nothing - I’d killed him.
That was stupid, sentimental shite - I knew it and I pushed it away.
I got back to work.
I wasn’t running from the cattle drovers, or lying on top of Piano Annie—
I picked up the notebook.
I’d tell Ford about Annie. She’d make it into the story.
The moonlight - it was yellow - crawled slowly across the blanket. I looked back through the notebook. Her name wasn’t there. I wrote it now. PIANO ANNIE.
There’d be two stories. There’d be Ford’s, The Quiet Man, or whatever it was going to be. Ford called it ours, but he wasn’t hiding anything. He’d pick the pieces he wanted and needed.
PIANO ANNIE, ANNIE’S DEAD HUSBAND. The names would be my story. I didn’t want Annie on top of me; I couldn’t have coped with her. I just wanted to remember Annie, and her dead husband, and where’d they’d lived and I’d lived, and when she’d got me the start on the docks, and when I’d met Jack Dalton, when he’d sung a song he’d composed himself and turned me back into the Irish rebel that Ford was going to make his own. Ford was going to love Annie. Piano Annie rubbed her arse against me and I became the Quiet Man.
—Can’t use her.
—What?
—Can’t use her.
—Annie?
—Great name, said Ford.—Put her in the book.
—What book?
—Your notebook there, said Ford.—Now that’s a good idea. Meta?
—Right here.
—Mary Kate’s brother has a book. Black. The names go into it. Guys he needs to settle scores with.
—But—
—Better still. He has someone else who holds the book for him. Puts in the names. Puts lines through the names. He barks the name, the other guy writes it in.
—Like me, said Meta.
—Like you, said Ford.
He turned back to me.
—Annie’s part of the story, I said.
I’d fight for Annie. (I hadn’t fought for Victor.) I could see Annie in the picture, up on the screen, leaning out over the open-mouthed young fellas in the front seats.
—Okay, he said.
—She’s in?
—No, he said.—She isn’t. We can’t have two women.
—Why not?
—Who’s he meet first? Mary Kate or the Piano piece?
I said it; I gave her the name.
—Mary Kate, I said.
—The love of your life. Right?
I shrugged.
—I’m right? he said.
I nodded.
—So Piano Annie comes along, he said.—We forget about Mary Kate?
—No.
—Out of nowhere, you come up with Piano Annie, a woman you’ve never mentioned before. Right, Meta?
—I think so.
—Right, he said.—I think so too.
—She’s one of the reasons I became a rebel.
—You were already the rebel. You were in the post office there
- your G.P.O.
—She sent me down to the docks to work and—
—She’s some kind of whore, right?
—No.
—No?
I stared at him; I wasn’t sure why.
—No.
—So, explain.
—She got me the work on the docks. It’ll look great. The cranes, the river.
—I’ve seen that river. The Liffey, right?
—She got me the job. And that’s how I met Jack Dalton.
—We don’t need that. He’ll meet you anyway.
He stood out of his chair and turned.
—Look, he said.—See over there?
He nodded across to the set, to a horse and cart.
—The girl sitting up there, he said.—That’s Joanne Dru. See her?
—I see her.
—She’s Annie, said Ford.
—She wouldn’t be right for Annie.
—She’s Annie. For now. We’re looking at her here and we’re not complaining. Are we?
—No.
—She’s Annie.
—Okay.
—And Maureen is Mary Kate, he said.—Maureen O’Hara. You’ll have to meet Maureen. The best-looking woman on this earth. From Dublin too. She’s Mary Kate.
—Okay.
—So, there you are, with Mary Kate. In the G.P.O.You’re made for each other, it’ll be in the eyes. She’s the love of your life. You can see that?
—Yeah.
—You can.
—Yeah.
—So, then we have Joanne.
—She wouldn’t—
—Some other Joanne. It’s not going to make sense.
—It’s the way it happened.
—People will hate her.
—They won’t.
—Yes, they will.
—So what?
—It’s a picture, Henry.You keep forgetting.You’re a writer now. You make decisions. Imagine it - picture it. Your Annie comes between you and your wife.
—She wasn’t my wife then—
—The love of your life, he said.—Maureen O’Hara. Jesus. And you leave her.
—I didn’t—
—Shut the fuck up, goddamn it. It’ll never make sense. Because Maureen is the love of your life. That’s the story. And very few women can stand beside Maureen. It’s a picture, Henry. There are no other loves. You’re not Don Juan or Casanova. You’re an Irishman. And you’re not going to fuck every riverside whore you meet. Not in my picture. In my pictures you fall in love once and you don’t fuck at all.
5
The communists in Hungary had jailed a cardinal. There were more communists taking over China. There was a new place called Israel and another new place, the Republic of Ireland.
I grabbed the man’s paper. I was sitting in a diner and he was sitting at the other side of my table. The paper was on the table, folded, beside his plate and eggs. I’d been reading it upside-down. REPUBLIC, and then IRELAND.
I read it the way I ate, my fac
e right over the table and the page. A hand tried to grab it back. I growled.
The Free State had become the Republic. There’d been no civil war, not even a scrap. A man called Costello, the Irish Prime Minister, had just changed the name and then announced the change.There was no picture, just the words. Republic. Prime Minister. John A. Costello. I felt nothing. Just a kind of admiration, as if I’d watched a card trick that I couldn’t figure out.
The hand grabbed the paper’s edge but didn’t pull it back.
I sat up.
—All yours, I said.—Fire away.
I was starting to understand again. It was years since I’d felt in charge, since I’d felt the slight swerve that was the act of deciding. I recognised it one morning, when I made up my mind which way I’d have my eggs.
—How d’you want them?
I looked at the waitress’s jaw.
—Scrambled, I said.
And I’d felt it, just before I spoke. The swerve, the corner - the exhalation. I was going to eat scrambled eggs, because that was the way I wanted them.
I was in Los Angeles again, but not because I’d been brought there. I’d chosen to be in Los Angeles. Because I needed to stay near Ford.
He’d fucked up.
—You look good, Henry, he said.
He was right. I did look good. I smelt and felt good. I woke up after I slept. I slept when I was tired. I ate when I was hungry, three or four times a day. I walked, turned the occasional corner, and knew exactly where I was. We sat on the step outside his studio office. It was the 19th of April, 1949. I’d been able to name the day of the week every day since the desert. I’d decided to shave and stop being the oul’ lad. I’d seen the old rebels; I remembered them. They were still rebels, still dangerous. I’d seen old hard men, too shaky to shoot straight, but still hard. You had it, or you didn’t. I reminded myself - I insisted: I had it.
He’d fucked up.
—What am I? I asked Ford now.
—What?
—What am I?
—My job, I said.—What am I?
—You’re a goddamn writer, he said.
—Pay me.
—What? he said.—Nobody’s paying you?
—No.
I’d found cash in my pockets, most of the times I’d searched in there for some. But no one had ever handed it to me.
—That’s fucking outrageous, said Ford.—Meta?
—Just pay me, I said.
—Well, sure, he said.—We’ll get you onto the payroll. Sure. But what’ll you do with the money?
I bought a suit. I bought another hat. A fedora that wasn’t heavy on my head. I bought boots.
—See them?
They were cowboy boots. They were hanging behind the head of the guy I was talking to.
He turned. He put one finger to one boot.
—These?
—Yeah.
—You want these?
—No.
It was dark in the store but the boots were shining.
—I want the leather, I told him.
—That’s alligator skin, he said.
—Grand, I said.—Look.
He leaned over his counter, down at my boot. It was old, and timeless. A boot.
—I want a pair like this, I said.—But made out of the alligator. I pointed back at the boots behind him. They were black and brown, and shining like they’d just been peeled off the beast.
—Can you do that? I asked.
—Nope, he said.—I just sell ’em.
—Who makes them?
—Guy behind this wall here.
—Well, I said.—Can he?
—Well, he said.—I’ve only seen him make the one kind. And that’s cowboy.
He waved a hand.
—That’s what we sell.
—Ask him, I said.
He looked at me.
—Alright, he said.—You wait.
I’d told the man to do something and he’d done it. No growl or bribe, just Henry Smart. The charm and danger. They were still in me.
He was back.
—Says No.
Too fast, too soon.
I hopped the counter - I nearly did it. My hand slid on the varnish as I hoisted myself, and I landed hard on my hip before I rolled off the counter, right against him. But I didn’t regret it, and I didn’t grunt.
—Excuse me.
He got out of my way; he pasted himself to the wall. The hanging boot heels were tapping his head.
—Good man.
I got past him, through the door to the left, and in. To the smell of a perfumed butcher’s shop. Hides and skins hung like tobacco leaves, waves of them. They swung as I went under. I could hear the tap of a small hammer on little nails - tap tap. I could hear a man whistling his anger. I found him, the cobbler - the word came back. But he wasn’t making a boot. He had a strip of dark brown leather, flat on the table, and he was chiselling words into it. The letters were coming out a lighter brown, and he’d nearly finished. KEEP OU—
—It’s for my boy, he told me.
—Your son?
—That’s right.
—For his bedroom door.
—Nope, he said.—For mine.
He tapped at the T.
—Keeps walking in on top of me and his stepmother, he said.—If this don’t work she’s leaving.
He’d finished the job.
—He’s thirty-one years old, he told me.—And know what worries me?
—She’ll go with him.
—You’re ahead of me, he said.—What can I do for you?
I showed him my boot.
—One of those feet ain’t bones.
—That’s right, I said.—Can you do me a pair like this one, but alligator?
—Do?
—Make.
—Mister, he said.—I could make you a brand new foreskin with alligator, and it’d be a good’n.
—The boots will do.
—I’ll do ’em, he said.—I like the notion.
—Two boots, I said.
—Two’s good.
—How long will it take?
—Two days.
—Grand, I said.—I’ll come back the day after tomorrow.
—It ain’t going to be these next two days, he said.—I’m making two pairs for Alan Ladd. I’ll get down to yours when I’m done with Al’s.
They were mine in two weeks. The cobbler brought them out from under his bench. He took a cloth from a back pocket and flicked and rubbed the dust from the skin. He put the boots side by side on the bench.
I slid my wooden foot into the alligator. I thought I felt new softness. I stood up straight; I ordered my back to keep going. I looked down and watched my trouser legs slide over the new skin. I counted out the money. I folded the notes, once, and handed them over.
—Did a special job on where the wooden foot’ll rest, he said.—That boot’ll outlast the wood.
—The wife still with you?
—Still with me, he said.
—That’s good.
—Sure is.
I was gone.
The new man, the old man. The new man and the old man. I was Henry Smart. I wasn’t a ghost or a shadow, a leaking bag of memories and bitterness. I was living. I was breathing in and comfortably out.
I looked down at the boots. And so did everyone else. They looked down, and up, and saw a man worth knowing. I could keep it up for hours, before I’d have to hide.
—Good boots, said Ford.
—They’re only the half of it, I said.
I saw it, seeping from under the lenses: worry. I was becoming the man he’d been trying to get out of me. I was more than he could handle.
He smiled.
He’d fucked up. The Quiet Man wasn’t going to be his next picture. There’d been a deal. I didn’t know the details. I didn’t need them; the details would never make sense. But I did know there’d been a deal with one of the film companies, RKO Radio
- something like that
; the names changed, the faces changed. No one wanted to make our picture, because no one had wanted to pay for it. But it would happen, Ford would get the finance - I liked the word, finance; I heard it, and always saw a woman swaying. He’d get the finance to make The Quiet Man, but only if he made another picture first, something that would roll quickly into profit. Easy, simple - he’d been doing that since the start of the century. One more film and we’d be on our way.
He made the picture, a thing called The Fugitive. I didn’t see it. (Although I’d been sneaking into the picture houses.) It had Henry Fonda and some woman with a name that made me sit up when I heard it, Dolores del Rio. I never saw her, but I knew she’d be gorgeous. Ford, Fonda, del Rio - tits and horses. It couldn’t go wrong. But it did. The deal was off. There’d be no money going to Ireland.
He still hadn’t told me. No one had told me. But I knew.
—Come on, he said.
He stood up and walked into his office. There were cardboard boxes on the floor and the photographs that had filled the walls
- the actors and horses - were gone. The empty squares made quick, sharp sense; he was getting kicked out of the studio.
Then I saw the chair - and the back of the chair.
H. Smart - Writer.
White letters, white words, across the back of the black canvas. I sat down. It was the same chair. It fell into shape exactly as it had before, whenever I’d sat into it. Only the letters were new.
And that was fine. I was H. Smart, the writer on the payroll. We were making a picture. He said nothing about the new letters. I could hear Meta Sterne, behind me. She said nothing either.
But I could feel them on my back.
—The I.R.A., said Ford.
—What about them?
—Forget about them, he said.
The interrogation had resumed. He was whacking me first; then he’d help me up and clean me. I kept my mouth shut.
—I’ve given those guys money, he said.—The I.R.A. I’ve donated. I know some guys.
He leaned forward.
—The fight’s not over. Right?
The little hard eyes behind the lenses - I thought I saw them, jabbing at me.
—What do you want? I said.
—I want you to forget what you think, he said.—You’ve been through a lot. Given the chance, would you do it all again? My guess is you’d say No. Am I right?
—I don’t know, I said.
He nodded, twice.
—Good, he said.—That’s okay.