Kavanagh could have kicked himself. ‘Look, I’d love to stay and chat, Pajo, but I appear to be bleeding to death.’
He held up his bloodied hand, and was satisfied to see Pajo take a step backwards as he looked at it in horror. Kavanagh turned and opened the door without giving Pajo a chance to respond or to ask him what had happened. Outside, he stood in the rain for a bit and waited for the girl. He didn’t know for how long, he wasn’t wearing a watch, but it felt like forever. A taxi approached, and Kavanagh took one last look towards the door. No sign. His legs felt like they might give way. He hailed the taxi and headed for the hospital.
*
‘Where is he? The guy with the hand?’ Stevie made her way into the kitchen, her bag on her shoulder.‘I was supposed to bring him to hospital.’
‘I told you already. He left ages ago,’ said Orlaith. ‘Jesus, you’re even more fucked than me.’
‘Should I go after him?’
‘Are you mad? It’s lashing rain.’ Orlaith grabbed Stevie’s hand. ‘Come on inside and dance with me.’
Chapter 4
‘Jesus, my head,’ Pajo heard Jacqui say as she sat up in bed, stretched her skinny arms and yawned. She looked at him with a lopsided smile that she probably imagined was endearing.
Pajo squinted and shielded his eyes. ‘What time is it?’
Afternoon light was creeping in through a gap in the blinds, casting long shadows on his bedroom wall. It made Jacqui’s dyed-blonde hair look even more bleached-out than usual. Her eyes were dark with smudged eye make-up.
She checked the time on her phone. It was lying next to a pile of clothes strewn on the ground. They were hers. Pajo’s clothes were folded in a neat pile on a chair at the end of the bed.
‘Half one,’ she said. ‘I could use a cup of tea. Do you want me to make you one?’
Pajo shook his head.
‘I can make it and bring it in to ya, if ya like?’
‘Nah, it’s grand. I’m getting up now anyway.’
‘Yeah, me too.’ She smiled at him again.
‘Yeah, I’ve got shit to do today, so …’.
‘Oh … sure.’ Jacqui looked at her nails, which were bitten down to the quick. ‘I’ll just … get going then.’
‘Right.’ Pajo yawned, stretched, and got out of bed. Jacqui riffled through her clothes, pulling on her underwear under the covers. She sat on the edge of the bed, plucked her jeans from the floor and put them on.
‘It was a good night though, wasn’t it?’ She pulled on her top. ‘The look on those girls’ faces was gas.’
‘Hmm?’ said Pajo as he checked his phone.
‘Right, well …’ she pulled on her boots and stood up by the end of the bed. ‘I’ll just …’.
Pajo looked up from his phone. Jacqui was standing there wide-eyed, looking at him like she was some sort of simpleton.
‘Got everything?’
She nodded and patted her handbag on her shoulder. ‘So, I …’.
‘Here, I’ll let you out,’ he said. ‘The door’s locked.’
‘Oh right, thanks. Thanks, Pajo.’
He unlocked the front door and opened it for her. A blast of daylight shone in.
‘Oh God,’ she said, putting her hand up to shield her eyes as she shuffled outside and laughed nervously. She turned to look at him.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Will you call –?’
‘I’ll see you around, yeah?’ he interrupted, making to close the door. In that instant, he saw her face fall. Maybe he had pushed her too far. He’d have to reel her back in a bit.
‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Jacqui?’ He smiled.
‘What’s that?’
‘Are you not gonna give me a goodbye kiss?’ He tapped his cheek with his middle finger.
She smiled uncertainly and stepped towards him. She went to kiss his cheek, but then kissed him on the mouth instead, her chapped lips rubbing against his.
‘That’s my girl. Bye darlin’.’
She beamed, visibly bolstered by this tiny kindness as she tottered off into the daylight.
He closed the front door and boiled the kettle for tea in the kitchen. Jacqui was all right to have around, but he didn’t want her getting ideas. He’d rode her a few times, and she was a good fallback if there was no one better around. He wasn’t a good-looking guy, he knew that, but he appealed to a niche market. If there was a whiff of drugs or violence in the air, and they saw that he was at the centre of it, there was a certain type of woman who couldn’t jump on his dick quick enough. That was just the reality of it. He could spot these girls a mile away. They were attracted to the potential danger of the situation. It got their blood pumping, made them eager, let them escape the crushing ordinariness of their lives. Or maybe he was a means for them to act out their self-loathing. If these girls wanted him to confirm what shitty and worthless people they were, he was happy to oblige.
One of his favourite things was taking photos on his phone. He’d managed to amass quite a collection. These girls always let him do what he wanted. Maybe some of them regretted it afterwards, but he never heard if they did. Some were so out of it they probably didn’t even remember. He was never in the photos, at least his face wasn’t. When he told them what to do, they listened. He liked them on their knees on cold bathroom floors. They swallowed what he gave them like good girls. He liked to cum on their pretty faces, to watch it drip down their cheeks, get in their hair.
The kettle whistled, and he filled up a cup with boiling water. Life was survival of the fittest. It was foolish to pretend otherwise – that power didn’t exist and wasn’t there to be used. He hated the word ‘bully’. Nobody accused tigers of bullying antelope. They tore them limb from limb because it was in their nature to do it, because they could. A tiger couldn’t be anything but a tiger. No matter how you tried to dress it up, people were animals acting out their nature, fulfilling their own needs.
He had learnt this early on, had seen how the pack mentality was already in the boys back when he was in school. They congregated in the yard at break time, perfecting the art of cruelty. At first he was on the wrong side of it, and his mam made him go with her to the principal’s office. They both looked at him like he was a stray dog in the rain. The mortification of it, being seen as a victim, as powerless. He despised them for it.
The truth of it was that he didn’t want to punch anyone, but he recognised that if he wanted to change his situation he needed to do so with his fists. At the start of secondary school he signed up for boxing training, but he soon realised that he wasn’t cut out for it. His reactions were slow; he was a stocky, lumbering thing. When he tried to work the skipping rope, it tangled around his giant feet. None of that mattered. A watcher, he took in what he needed, saw how the men in the gym carried themselves. All he needed to do was assume the posture. Then the boys in school heard he was a boxer, saw it in the way he carried himself. One fight – that was all he needed – one fight, and his reputation would precede him.
He got his chance with Eamon Devlin, the boy who was always looking for trouble. He had hair on his face by the age of 12 and was smoking twenty Johnny Blue a day by the age of 14. He was riding women – he claimed – by the age of 15, and getting served in the over-18 club with his fake ID. Word of the fight after school spread, as it always did in these situations, and the crowd of boys encircled Pajo and Eamon in the yard. Pajo could hear them shouting encouragement, mostly to his opponent, who everyone assumed would win. Eamon started the fight in the traditional manner, by shoving Pajo hard and yelling, ‘Come on!’ Pajo puffed out his chest, drew up his fists, and that’s when he saw the look in Eamon’s eyes, that flicker of fear and uncertainty, that slight step back. It was only a fraction of an inch, but a perceptible one to Pajo. It was all he needed. He knew then that he had already
won. He landed a clean punch on Eamon’s bristly jaw. Smack.
‘Awwww –!’ came the collective groan of the crowd. Eamon lunged at Pajo, pushing him hard again and trying to connect with his face, but Pajo blocked every scrappy throw.
‘Hit him!’ the boys cried in frustration. Pajo landed another punch, this time on Eamon’s left eye.
‘Ooh –!’ groaned the crowd, a hint of schadenfraude audible in their voices. Eamon changed tack now and lowered his head, charging at Pajo like a disgruntled goat as he pummelled blows into Pajo’s sides – the actions of a desperate man. Pajo knew he just had to bide his time. Winded now, he manoeuvred himself so he would be out of the way of Eamon’s fists. He weaved into a better position as Eamon looked up. His eyes were two wide saucers that Pajo was determined to smash as he threw his final punch. Smack! Eamon fell to the ground in slow motion. He didn’t get up. Pajo stood over him, fists still clenched, his heart caught in his chest. Eamon groaned, rolling over onto his side. You could almost see a ring of cartoon stars around his head. Pajo knew he had done enough.
Nobody bothered him after that. He discovered that the threat of violence was far more effective than the violence itself. Now he could control their reactions on tap, like Pavlov’s dog. They had all seen the fight. With a flex of his muscles, a snarl of his lip, he could inspire the same terror again without getting his hands dirty. As he grew older and got into dealing, he discovered he could get others to do the dirty work for him. There were plenty of fellas like Hulk who were tightly coiled springs who only needed a guiding hand to direct their violence; and plenty of fellas like Walshy with a sly, conniving talent for finding out who was up to what and passing on what he needed to know. He mostly dealt hash in those early days, the odd bit of acid. Then it was pills, speed and coke – always something to be bought or sold, and he was the man who could get his hands on things.
He brought his tea into the sitting room and looked out the window as he drank. His view from the penthouse apartment looked down over the Spanish Arch and towards the Claddagh. Seagulls hovered like drones looking for targets. He could see himself reflected in the floor-to- ceiling window, and he liked what he saw. He’d been going hard at the gym, and it was paying off. He was muscular, solid, the product of discipline.
You couldn’t let anyone get away with anything, even small fry like Kavanagh. They’d roughed him up once for dealing weed. Pajo was convinced that there was a rival supplier in Galway. He had heard rumours but couldn’t get to the bottom of it. He thought Kavanagh might be behind it, but it turned out he didn’t know anything. They’d put him in his place, and Pajo hadn’t given him a second thought since, but something about last night was niggling at him. It had him thinking back to when he was younger and that first fight with Eamon all those years ago. He couldn’t figure out why it was on his mind now when it was something he hadn’t thought about in years. Then it clicked with him – last night he had seen the look of fear in Kavanagh’s eyes, but then the little runt had surprised him with his bloodied hand, had knocked him off guard. It was a long time since that had happened to him and he didn’t like the feeling. No, he didn’t like it at all. He would have to keep an eye on that Kavanagh.
Chapter 5
Quay Street, nine a.m. Delivery trucks trundled along the cobbled street, ignoring pedestrianisation like war tanks rolling into enemy territory. Workers scrubbed away the evidence of last night’s carousing like furtive murderers. Steam rose with the smell of disinfectant. The city was shedding its filthy skin. A newly mopped floor and here was Kavanagh, his arm in a sling – a testament to his mouldiness and stupidity – strolling through it with filthy shoes. Girls floated past him like fragrant ghosts, their skin fresh, their hair glinting in the morning light. A barman rolled seats and tables out of Neachtain’s. Kavanagh had spoken to your man somewhere before but couldn’t remember his name. The barman nodded to him in greeting. Kavanagh nodded back. ‘Hoywa now?’
‘Didn’t think you’d be up at this hour, Kav.’
‘Oh, you know me, fresh as a daisy. Any chance of a pint?’
‘No, sorry, man, just coffee. Come back at twelve.’
A bell clanged out nine times. Everywhere, people were on their way to somewhere, except him. A failed actor from last night’s scene who refused to leave the stage even though the new backdrop had been wheeled on. They’d given him a painkiller at the hospital. A pint would be a nice addition, would see him right.
Kavanagh saw his life as a line graph: a steady segment across the x-axis of MEH-MEH-MEH, interrupted by an occasional rise to a peak of CRAIC! CRAIC! CRAIC! This was usually followed by a sharp plummet into DOOM DOOM DOOM, until the line crept slowly back up to MEH, where it languished and lingered in a not particularly exciting fashion, until the next dip or peak. Right now, he was in a dip. In fact, the dip was so low it may have slid right off the bottom of the chart.
Lately, the peaks had been few and far between. He felt like life was the scaggy tail-end of a party he was trying to squeeze any last bit of craic out of as the same scratched record played on a loop. He wasn’t really drinking or taking drugs to get high any more, it was just to keep along that steady line of nothing-muchness. He didn’t quite know what he had been expecting his life to turn out like, but it wasn’t this. Yet he didn’t know how to go about fixing it. He’d had a series of jobs over the years since art school that he would be enthusiastic about at the start, but they never really stuck, or he never really stuck with them.
When he had gone to Thailand the previous summer for his friend Nogsy’s wedding, a glittering alternative life beckoned. It seemed to him that you could live well there, live it up even, with little money. Nogsy was a different person out there. He was tanned for a start, and his new wife, Kannika, her family, and everyone at the bar called him Niall. It jarred in Kavanagh’s ear. He had a surfboard. A fucking surfboard. Kavanagh laughed at that for a good half hour. Fuck off, Nogsy. Are you serious? He was all about the outdoors now, and he brought Kavanagh climbing what he said was a hill, but looked very much like a fucking mountain to Kavanagh. He trailed behind Nogsy, a cigarette in his mouth, sweating his balls off, the muscles in his legs screaming.
‘Come on, bro. Not far to go. There’s a killer view from up here.’ Nogsy bounded ahead.
That was another new thing about Nogsy, or Niall. He’d picked up the habit of calling people bro. There was no irony in it. It was unnerving. Maybe Nogsy had always been this Niall character. Maybe this upbeat, positive surfer was always in him – a mutation waiting for the right conditions to spawn. Maybe Galway had been the wrong environment for Niall to prosper. Maybe he’d had no choice but to bitch about college projects and skip lectures with Kavanagh to chain-smoke and watch reruns of Murder She, Wrote.
Nogsy had never been the strongest artist in their class, but now he didn’t make excuses or put other people’s work down like he had done in college. When they finally got to the top of the hill/mountain, they sat looking at the view of the bright blue sea dotted with lush green islands stretching out on the horizon until it met a clear sky. They started chatting about the old days and what their classmates were up to. Nogsy was still finding the time and the enthusiasm to paint, despite his bar work.
‘I know I’m never gonna be the best painter,’ he shrugged. ‘But that doesn’t really matter. I just love doing it, you know? I can’t not do it, so it’s enough for me.’
‘Sure,’ said Kavanagh. ‘That’s great.’
‘Thanks, bro. What about you? How’s your work been going?’
Kavanagh started to spout on about the great series he was planning: his blue Galway paintings.
‘I’m glad you’re keeping at it, bro. You had more talent than the lot of us put together.’
Nogsy worked in a tourist-trap pub on Bangtao Beach. Kavanagh sat at the bar as Nogsy worked and got chatting to the people who came in.
It was pleasant. There was a friendliness to it. We’re all on our holliers, lads! Out of habit, he kept looking at the faces coming in the door to see if he knew anyone. He had to keep reminding himself that he was in Thailand. There was an air of unreality to it, sitting there with Nogsy, just like the old days but in this different environment – the familiarity of the company jarring with the utter alienness of his surroundings.
Kavanagh headed out by himself when Nogsy was tied up with preparations for the wedding. It was then that he came across the tattoo shop, right on the beach. The range of flash displayed on the walls was eclectic, with the usual standards he was used to seeing mixed with designs he had never seen before – from traditional Thai tigers, dragons and gods, to intricate Maori-inspired curves and spirals. The first day Kavanagh called in, a guy was getting a large tattoo on his back of a Thai warrior sitting astride a three-headed elephant. He couldn’t help but look at it taking shape, casting glances at the man’s back as he looked at the designs on the walls. The owner of the shop introduced himself. His name was Logan, and he was from New Zealand. When Kavanagh told him that he lived in Galway, Logan’s face lit up. He had visited Ireland a few years before. Next thing, he was offering Kavanagh a beer and they were chatting, watching the three-headed elephant come into being on the man’s back.
For the next few days, while Nogsy was busy with wedding preparations, Kavanagh hung out with the guys in the tattoo parlour, drinking ice-cold beers and playing darts. It was a busy spot filled with young Brits on their gap years, Irish guys and girls on their way to or from Australia, and people of all nationalities and walks of life. Girls in bikinis flitted in to get butterflies on their ankles, or roses to adorn their shoulders. It was all peace and love, like the Age of Irony had never happened. National symbols were popular too. They did a great trade in Welsh dragons, shamrocks, and maple leafs. Travelling abroad seemed to stir up patriotic fervour in young people that could only be sated by having their national identity inked onto their flesh.
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