The Sleepers of Erin

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘Dublin,’ she said, smiling nearly like Sinead. My heart turned over.

  ‘Do we get off now?’

  ‘Yes. Unless you want to go back.’

  I thought a bit, then did what she said. Once a chicken, always a chicken.

  Chapter 12

  When you go to a new place I always find you have to adjust, but the adjustment isn’t a matter of simple surprise or pleasure. You need a positive effort to rid yourself of preconceptions. Where the hell we get them from Heaven alone knows. If you’re like me, you spend a time being astonished that it isn’t at all like you’d somehow tricked yourself into thinking it would be. For a start, Dublin has no Tube. Why I’d ever assumed it would have, I’ve no idea. See what I mean? And Dublin’s trains are noisy little diesels pulling orange-and-black coaches, another mind-blower. And their lads and lassies seem to smoke continually, everywhere. Like everywhere else, Dublin was showing signs of making living impossible in the interests of greater efficiency. And the traffic was at least as dangerous as everywhere. But I liked the way cars halting at traffic lights waited airily in the very middle of the crossing.

  That evening I plodded round the darkening city looking for a place to lay my weary head, finding still more astonishments. Why no dots on the letter ‘i’ in names of streets and stations? And Dublin seems to do without those great office blocks most cities find indispensible, which is pleasing. The day was falling into its ember sky by the time I found a nosh bar near the Abbey Theatre and slammed a couple of pasties down in a sludge of tea. Time was getting on then, so I started blundering about a bit faster, trudging my cardboard suitcase along likely streets.

  The River Liffey when I found it turned out to be as black as your hat, again a new fantastic fact. Guidebooks say Dubliners call it ‘Anna’, but I suspect they use the nickname as often as cockneys call their river Old Father Thames. Anyhow, I crossed by the Halfpenny Bridge feeling a bit lost and downhearted, wondering what on earth did I think I was doing here, miles from home, in search of more trouble than I had even back in East Anglia. But at least I was among people, though the city centre didn’t have as many of those around as I’d have liked.

  Dublin chimneypots are really great, genuine collectors’ items. It’s a wonder the whole lot haven’t been whipped years ago. Believe it or not, but in one narrow street behind that big bookshop on the Liffey side I saw a good set of clay-coloured Blashfield Hexagons, which are rare enough for those who collect London chimneypots, and a delectable group of eight Fareham Reds. Don’t laugh. I honestly do believe the Fareham Red’s pie-crust edging and its pretty white-painted rim band to be a work of art design. Anyway, why scorn a lovely piece of genuine eighteenth-century sculpture just because it’s been stuck on a roof and become a bit sooty? You don’t laugh at the Venetian crucifix on Giorgio Massari’s reconstructed Church of the Pieta, same age. And across the road there was a triplet of tulip-shaped serrated crowntops, though mostly you see these ‘Wee Macs’ round Burton-on-Trent.

  A fine drizzle started then. In despair, and not having pockets big enough to carry nicked chimneypots, I walked on and settled for a small terrace house with steps and nice but rusting Victorian iron railings, scrapers and door furniture. It advertised Vacancies and was not too far from the well-lit centre where the cinemas and pubs were still booming and buses tried to run you down at least as fast as I was used to. Inside, the house was a bit faded and peeling. Mrs Johnson the landlady was homely and chatty, gave me a room for an advance and promised to wait up to let me back in. ‘You’ll be off for a drink, I expect,’ she said wisely. As I went forlornly off towards O’Connell Street I consoled myself that at least I was untraceable by practically everybody, friend or foe. Nobody knew I was here in Dublin, and tomorrow I could hire a car at first light and bomb off to Kilfinney. I’d still be ahead of the Heindricks’ game.

  Next morning the car hire looked quite a grand firm. It turned out to be the most complicated one on earth, what with phone calls to check my licence, a bloody test drive if you please, and a long wait while they did something to the mileometer. And I’d never seen so many forms in my life. Finally they said it was ready. I thanked them, and walked out to where the car stood at the kerb. I had this odd feeling as I went to open the driver’s side door, telling myself not to get spooked in broad daylight.

  ‘Morning, Lovejoy.’

  Lena Heindrick was sitting in the passenger seat, giving me one of those non-smiling hilarities women emit when they see men squirm. She was as elegant and stylish as ever, diamond-stud earrings, a tight scroll hairdo, and a smart Donegal tweed suit. I didn’t dare glance at her legs. The Edwardian silver-set sapphire brooch unnerved me enough as it was. She leaned across and gently pushed the door ajar. Her eyes were absurdly big.

  I shrugged and sat. ‘So that’s why they took so long to hire me the car.’

  ‘I had Kurak contact every firm, Lovejoy.’ She smiled, her hand on my thigh.

  ‘Then you just waited by the phone?’

  ‘I did so want to . . . talk.’ She traced with her fingers. ‘It will be a great deal easier here, since Kurt has urgent manufacturing business to attend to in London.’

  Finding somebody else, now Joxer was too dead to work for him? I swallowed. ‘Where to?’

  ‘That’s better, Lovejoy. Drive out towards Sandymount. Don’t be nervous. I’ll direct.’

  I always notice Daimlers, because they remind me of Daimler himself, who once prophesied that motor-cars hadn’t much of a future – because there were only 1,000 chauffeurs in the whole of Europe. A large black Daimler pulled out behind us as I drove away. Lena hadn’t come alone, it seemed.

  The place at Sandymount was near a rugby ground. Over the flat sealands into which the duck-riddled river ran you could see the incongruous twin slender chimneys of the power station. It didn’t look much like a pigeon-house to me – another nickname gone wrong. The area was largely terrace houses with oddly pleasant wide-arched doorways, and narrow, shaggily unkempt gardens.

  ‘Left here, but park outside.’

  The place was a walled garden surrounding a large house set back from the road. Nearby was a school noisy with playground squeals, and a little bridge over the river opposite. A couple of chatting women stirred their prams the way they do. Calm, quite nice really. Yet the feeling was tight in my throat. I switched off and met her eyes. I’d never known a woman smile as much as her.

  ‘I needn’t have come.’ My defiant reminder only made her luscious red mouth smile wider.

  ‘Of course you needn’t, darling,’ she said. ‘Tell your conscience you were kidnapped.’

  Women get me really narked. They always assume you have no bloody will of your own. Furiously I started up, ‘Listen, you—’

  She raised her hands to heaven in exasperation and broke in. ‘Lovejoy,’ she said wearily, ‘for heaven’s sake get me out of this car and up to Flat Five. Whatever you’re going to do to me’s not allowed in parked cars.’

  There are some things you can be really proud of, like the times you help a person for nothing, or when you pull off a coup you never really expected. The trouble is, those events don’t come along so often, and if they do it’s accidental as far as I’m concerned. The rest of life is filled with occurrences you try to avoid remembering. Like Lena.

  Lena’s one of those women like Helen, who want a smoke after. And oddly it’s then that they talk, when the man is dozing after that minor death which finally washes out the orgasmic rut of love. Women nark me like this. Sometimes they’re thick. Not everybody has to be talkative the way women are. I’m not. When I was a kid I went silent days at a time, sometimes for devilment, as my old gran used to call it, but often because I just felt like some useful silence.

  ‘Darling?’ Lena must have asked me God-knows-what. The ceiling was a bit cracked. Her head of hair was lovely on the pillow. She’s got that sheen into it which Margaret Dainty has. ‘I said are you all right?’

  ‘Ta.’ Why
are women’s breasts always cold?

  She half rolled and leant over me. ‘What do you think of, Lovejoy? You are always miles away. A woman doesn’t like to feel her man has slipped off into a world she doesn’t know.’

  ‘Brew up, chuckie.’

  She stared in astonishment, then laughed and laughed. Her eyelashes were long and dark, her breasts full and smooth. Puzzled, I asked her what was up.

  ‘You’re impossible, Lovejoy!’ Shaking her head disbelievingly, she rose and went through the corridor, draping a bath towel round her waist. She had to step over our clothes which were scattered over the floor. It had been a right scramble into bed.

  I shouted after her, ‘How did you know I’d gone to Dublin? Jason?’

  ‘Yes.’ She must have sensed me wondering about her and Jason. ‘He does try so, poor boy, but he’s hardly your rival, darling.’

  There was a nasty sound of womanly permanence about all this. Better to keep it safely into matters of business, keep on playing dim. ‘Lena. Why Dublin?’

  A pause, a rattle of cups. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘You said that about not needing a passport but foreign. And Joxer is – was – Irish.’

  If ever a mature living woman stepped straight out of one of those voluptuous Victorian engravings, it was Lena Heindrick when she came to the bedroom door and stood looking.

  ‘The last time I waited on a man was ten years ago, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Then you’ve been bloody idle. Get a move on.’

  The kettle shrilled. She went out, laughing. I suppose Lena Heindrick seethed with breeding, because I’d never known a woman so sure of herself, so unbelievably positive. Oh, I admit every woman has this knack of somehow turning sexual supplication into a royal command, but never before had I encountered a woman who best-guessed like her.

  ‘You brought your Slav gorilla over?’ I called through, wondering if it wasn’t overdoing the idiot bit.

  ‘Have I?’ she answered mischievously.

  ‘The Daimler.’

  ‘Well spotted. He was necessary – till now.’

  Oho. I rose and padded about, looking for my trousers and my jacket. I could have sworn I’d shed them in the corridor between the living room and the bedroom, but maybe Lena, in an epidemic of homeliness, had tidied. Women do that.

  ‘Where are my clothes, love?’

  ‘You don’t need them yet, darling.’ Her voice was smiling.

  The window overlooked a stone-rimmed courtyard. Kurak, all million tons of him, was sitting on a decorative stone. He was in a bad humour, and staring malevolently up at our net curtains. He was cracking his knuckles, straight out of a bad supporting feature. My soul chilled. I’d seen that horrid habit before, in . . . in a bloke exactly like Kurak, three years ago. In . . . in Northampton? At an antiques function, where . . . where . . .’

  Lena returned carrying a tray with cups and all the gear, pleased with heself. There’s nothing prettier than a well-loved woman just that little dishevelled. By then I was in bed, trying not to look worried sick but restless as a cat on hot bricks. She came in beside me without shaking the house down or spilling everything, another female knack.

  ‘There! Well? Aren’t you proud of me? Tea in bed?’

  ‘I’ll arrange the knighthood. Where’s Kurt?’

  She turned and put a finger on my mouth. ‘Shhh. Kurt’s a man whose only interest is antiques and art. He’s not here, which suits me fine.’

  Well, pretence is everything nowadays. ‘Does he know?’

  ‘Know, darling?’ She stopped pouring, the spout dripping.

  ‘About you and Kurak.’

  For a split second her nostrils flared, almost too quick to notice, but it happened and should have warned me. My only excuse for what eventually occurred is that a woman in bed is a terrible distraction to common sense. She poured the tea, stirred and carefully passed mine.

  ‘There’s such a thing as change, Lovejoy. Kurak’s served his purpose, now that . . .’

  ‘Now I’m here?’

  She lit a cigarette and jerked her head to show supreme irritation the way they do. ‘Too pure, Lovejoy? Well, are you? I read your life story. Kurt had three agencies on you for weeks. Every tart, every shady deal, every forgery, those silly bored sluts of housewives pretending to be Sweet Little Alice in exchange for a good rut. It was all there, every detail.’

  My life isn’t the way she made it sound, really sordid. Anyway, Lyn’s not a slut.

  ‘Kurak had his uses, Lovejoy, just as Kurt had his.’

  ‘Past tense?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Her brown eyes enveloped me. ‘It’s you now. Or are you too stupid to realize?’ And, honestly, she smiled as she said the words, her lips widening and her cheeks dimpling. I swallowed tea to wet my throat, suddenly dry.

  ‘Me for what?’

  ‘Two things, darling. One, we find a fortune.’

  ‘And two?’

  She slid down, covering her shoulders with the sheet, and gave my belly a lick. ‘Finish your tea, darling.’

  I can’t drink tea hot like women do, so I put it on the bedside table. The Duc de Charost actually read a book in the Terror’s tumbril, and, when it came his turn for the scaffold, calmly turned down the page to mark his place. I wish I had panache like that. It would give you some control. Anyway, he’d still got the chop, poor sod, and I was trying not to.

  A click fetched me conscious.

  Lena was sleeping hunched, her back to me. We lay sideways across the disarranged bed. My leg was over her waist. In sleep my right hand had reached round to hold her breast. The pillows were anywhere. It was still daylight. I kept still and listened. No further sound. Kurak. It had been Northampton, that auction. Only he was no Slav then. I’d seen him across the crowd of bidders and dealers.

  Without moving I estimated Lena’s breathing. Regular. I stirred, moved my leg, freed my hand and rolled on my back. Lena didn’t shift. Flat out. The click didn’t come again. There was no movement in the other rooms that I could tell.

  Her skin was flawless, full and smooth. It took an iron will slowly to reach the other way, and gently find the teacup. My finger touched the wet tea. Barely warm. Maybe an hour at the outside.

  The edge of one sheet lay across my chest, but Lena had pulled a blanket over our legs and somehow got herself mostly burrowed under. Women do this in halfsleep, being naturally petrified of coldness.

  One thing I’m a world expert in is leaving bed with great stealth. I’ve trained a lifetime. You don’t do it inch by inch. You sigh, yawn, flop a bit, because those are the natural movements a woman’s senses expect of a sleeping companion. Getting yourself vertical’s the main problem. The best way is to sigh, then, making sure your limbs are free of all encumbrances, in one movement you smoothly swing your legs over the side, simultaneously bringing your torso erect. You stay sitting there, breathing regularly so the vibes of kipping lull any alerted senses back into oblivion. Then you slowly stand up, and you’re off. Check first that your escape’s not left her more uncovered than when you were in situ, so to speak, or chill will bring her to.

  That should have been the end of it, except my jacket and trousers lay too neatly on the carpet of the living room. Practically folded, as if the trouser crease was still traceable. Now, I didn’t like this at all because I don’t fold things. I liked it less when finding my wodge of money was gone. My gear had been cleaned out, down to the last Irish florin. No sign, though, of anybody – such as Kurak – in the flat.

  Underpants, singlet, shirt (sleeves rolled up to conceal its button-free cuffs), trousers and jacket. A man feels better when dressed, probably because blokes look so daft in the nuddie. Socks were difficult, till I remembered I’d slung them off in the bedroom. Worse, Lena’s handbag was missing. And I knew it should have been by the telly where she’d carelessly laid it as she lit a cigarette. I padded over to the window. Kurak was still down in the courtyard, now smoking a cigar and much less edgy. Just as sullen, bu
t no knuckle-cracking. Exactly like a bloke who had just obeyed his mistress’s command: nick Lovejoy’s gelt, don’t let him get away, and wait outside until you’re told different. Well, I now knew how persuasive Lena could be. I was hooked on her myself, daft sod. Silently I floated into the bedroom, and found my tatty socks near the dressing-table.

  Lena had turned over. She now faced the corridor door, and I was sure she was still sleeping . . . I think. Suspiciously, I waited a few moments but there wasn’t a quiver from her eyelids. Her handbag wasn’t in the bedroom either, That took a minute, which was fatal. The bed sounded, too sharply.

  ‘Lovejoy? What are you . . . ?’

  I’d clocked her one before I could think. She exhaled and slumped on the bed, moving slowly, in a daze from my blow. The recollection still makes me embarrassed, but what else is new? Anyway what can you do when it’s courtesy or survival? Instinct takes over then. Nothing actually to do with thinking or behaviour or conscience. Another choice was on me now – keep on searching for the odd groat, or scarper. I settled for escape in poverty and hit the road.

  The door had a simple lock. Kurak was a nerk to have let it click – you pass any modern lock with a comb or a few celluloid toothpicks. He ought to have known that.

  The kitchen clock said two o’clock. There was part of the day left, but it was now much less promising. I left by the back door, climbed a wall and in an hour had walked into Dublin town.

  Chapter 13

  Not a farthing, no help, no car. I sat on a bench in draughty old Pheonix Park, thinking, unable to go home or reach Kilfinney two hundred miles away. Hunted by vengeful Heindricks, trapped into immobility by poverty. And you need money to finance the kind of war I was in.

  The quickest way of course is roulette, though it’s a mug’s game. Mind you, there’s an infallible system – or, rather, there used to be. Clever Victorian Joe Jagger spotted it in the Monte Carlo casino by hiring clerks to sit at each wheel and list the numbers, but then Joe was a meticulous engineer raised on a lifetime of Lancashire cotton-mill spindles, and he knew all about eccentricities of balance mechanisms. His relentless winning streak is the reason that the roulette wheels of the world are now perfectly balanced by gimlet-eyed serfs at half past seven every dawn. Reminiscing, I grimaced to myself. The famous Joseph had more sense than most. Eventually rumbled by the panic-stricken croupiers, the world’s only infallible – and sensible – gambler simply packed his bags with his fortune and scarpered. The trouble is, gambling isn’t like antiques. It’s guessing. Look at that con artist Charlie Wells, the original Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo. Kept on gambling, finished broke. Well, I was broke to start with.