Sudden Times

by Dermot Healy

  Anyone?

  No.

  Do you think it’s all in my head?

  No, Marty.

  Believe me, he said, there’s cunts after me.

  We lay there listening. Near three, a taxi, its radio blaring, stopped on the street outside the church. We watched her through the curtains. These dudes got out, the doors slammed. Then they stood looking towards us. Marty’s hand came down hard on my shoulder.

  Whist, he says.

  The three blokes stood in a line and pissed through the fence into the site. They went off. Marty got into my bed. We talked of home. We played a few games of cards and listened to this late night station where they were playing record after record by Roy Orbison. Finally, just to help us out, they played The Monster Mash. Then on came Harry Belafonte, whose voice, in the long ago, Mohammad Ali said sounded like straw.

  cartoon sounds

  I woke to find the mobile basking in wet heat. The windows had steamed up. Marty was gone.

  Then I heard these fucking cartoon sounds. Like as if someone was listening to a TV in another room. Little jibbity noises and the click of tiny heels. Beep, beeps, boom! Buff! Ba-da! Tockety-tockety tock! I shook the head. I was afraid to open the fucking door for what I might find outside. Maybe the fairies had followed me over from Sligo. Marty had me spaced out. This is it, you see. This is it. I tried to start with what I’d forgotten. What was it? What is it? It’s that thing again nagging at me.

  I have to watch that.

  I heard the welcome sound of Marty leaning on the horn at the gate.

  Things were getting out of order.

  I was out of line completely.

  Yes.

  not far from the trains

  We went to the park. It was grand. These South Americans playing netball and the sound of birds and a crowd of lads playing G.A.A. We watched the match and had an orange. I remember I was very happy. Then we took off for a walk across London and found our way to another small park not far from the trains.

  There was no more talk of the place being watched.

  We went to the pictures and I slept that night the sleep of the dead.

  Chef sauce

  We had a lovely system going. We’d meet in the York around seven, and have a pint or two, then head back to his site. Meticulously Marty did his dawk-cue-ments and his sums and I wrote up my diary. He’d light incense, we’d roll a joint and sit on the blocks with a few cans or lie in bed talking in the dark with the music going. Often I fell asleep into dreams where this singing voice was leading me through another language.

  Up in the morning to sausages and Chef sauce I’d brought from home. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we went to the pictures. Other nights we might stroll along the King’s Road. Or saunter through cardboard city and back again by underground from Waterloo. And we did a lot of walking. We inspected sites where theatres and aquariums were to be built. We did a couple of jobs for a chain of Indian restaurants working well into the night. Put a roof on a cricket club. Then added a kitchen on to a house in Hampstead.

  There I was put to knocking down walls again. The story was the old kitchen had to go and a new extended one had to be built. Marty dropped me off. My orders were to quietly tap the gable wall down from outside without making too much of a scene. Then with a bar work holes into the cement filling. I threw a sheet inside over the shelves and sink. Then I stopped outside tapping plaster off the outer wall, chiselling in between the blocks and trying to wrench them free. I was getting nowhere. Marty came and went. After two hours I had realized only a few blocks. The Jewish woman of the house looked at me every so often, then she invited me in for a cup of tea.

  I dare say you have your reasons for knocking the wall in rather than out?

  Not really, I said.

  So why, says she, don’t you just knock it out onto the lawn from here?

  Ah.

  Wouldn’t that be quicker?

  Oh, I said, we were about to do that.

  You were?

  Yes.

  When, pray?

  After I’ve cleaned the outside of plaster.

  Seems a waste of time to me, she said curtly.

  The minute she was gone I knocked the old wall down from within in half-an-hour. When Marty got back from the builder’s yard it was finished.

  Jazus, he says. Why didn’t I think of that?

  Well, I said. Neither did I. Your woman it was that copped it.

  Ah!

  You sham ya, I said.

  the Reverend

  Marty cooked curries and lasagnes and I did stews and fish soups. He was a demon for spice. Saturday afternoons I drove with him delivering stuff. Then we hit the bookies or maybe went round the Natural History or the War museums. Sundays we took her handy. He might tinker with the lorry or just sit there.

  You could sit with Marty for hours without him saying anything. Maybe he’d draw, or maybe he’d read. Once we even went to the church to hear the choir. There were few people there. The Reverend Dawson was very interested to find that his nearest worshippers were living across the road in a mobile.

  When they build over there, he said, we will have disappeared entirely. I often hear your music.

  That’s right, said Marty.

  He asked could he visit sometime.

  You’d be very welcome, I said.

  So some Sundays we found ourselves going to the church, to stamp sales and flower shows. The Reverend Dawson led his Irish friends from stall to stall and introduced us to the ladies. We drank clear soup with him in plastic cups and bought a wicker chair, a lamp stand, a couple of Ruth Rendell mysteries and a set of assorted stamps illustrating the fish of the world. The Reverend helped us carry the items across the road.

  Do you mind if I take a peep?

  Not at all.

  He stepped in for tea.

  It’s very pleasant, he said.

  Over the following Sundays we discussed sailing and megalithic tombs. He became our guide to graveyards where victims of the plague were buried.

  Were you ever in prison? he asked me.

  No, I said.

  I’m sorry, he said. I once saw someone very like you in Wandsworth jail.

  What was he in for? asked Marty.

  I don’t know. But if my memory serves me right it was a long sentence.

  That wasn’t me, I said.

  You have a dopplegänger then, he said.

  Was he Irish?

  I couldn’t say. He cleared his lap of spilt ash. All I can say is that he looked like you, he said cheerfully.

  Lovely, I said. I’m glad to hear it, Father.

  fuckers

  One night Marty told me he’d been summoned up north to Manchester on business.

  Do you think should I go?

  Why not.

  I could be walking into trouble. I’ve a bad feeling about this one. These cunts have me plagued.

  Who are they, Marty?

  Just fuckers.

  What fuckers?

  I can’t say. It’s best not to involve yourself.

  We made tea and sat out on the blocks.

  Fuck it anyway, he said.

  Take her handy, I said.

  They’ll get me, you know. One way or another.

  Looka Marty, you go. I’ll be all right here by myself.

  I don’t want to go. I’m in trouble. I wish to fuck you would believe me.

  I do.

  No, Ollie, you don’t. If you believed me you would not let me go.

  Well, don’t go.

  I don’t blame you for not believing me. Fuck it. I’ll go in the morning. I’ll be gone a few days. And Ollie?

  Yeh?

  Let no fucker in, no matter who they say they are. Right?

  Right.

  No one.

  No one.

  He slapped me on the back. We sat there for a couple of hours. I heard him the next morning rummaging around the mobile. I got up to let him out the gate.

  See ya, Ollie,
he said.

  gone north

  He gave me the key so I had the site to myself. I cleaned out the mobile and built the blocks into two concrete seats so that we could sit back in comfort outside. I mended one of the gas rings. I was proud to be left in control. I walked the site with his torch, checked the perimeter fence, fed the wildlife and studied the atlas. One evening I heard a crash at the gates. When I went out there was this big middle-aged bloke with a moustache standing there. He had a bad eye in his head.

  Hallo, I said.

  You security?

  Yes. Mr Kilgallon is gone north for a few days, so I’m looking after the place.

  Really? he said. Well now, I’d be obliged if you’d let me in.

  I can’t do that.

  But I’m foreman of the site, he said.

  Oh.

  So come ahead, son.

  But, you see, he told me not to let anyone in.

  Well, I’ll be blowed.

  That was my orders.

  OK, mate. Look, I understand security but this is taking it a mite far. He laughed. Just open the fucking gates, mate.

  No.

  Well, fuck me. He put his head in his hands and kneaded his scalp, then he put his face up against the wire mesh, caught a hold of the steel bars, shook the gate, widened his eyes and said: Open the fucking gate!

  No.

  Fuck!

  What do you want?

  I wanna get in.

  For what!

  Fuck you!

  Have you any identity?

  I’m going crazy here, you hear me?

  I do. Have you anything that tells me who you are?

  I don’t fucking believe this.

  You see, I said, you could be anyone.

  Open the gates! he roared.

  If you’re going to talk to me like that, I said, I’m going.

  You what?

  I’m going, I said. Come back when Marty is here.

  I walked off.

  Oi, mate! Come back here!

  I rounded the corner behind the foundations.

  You’re dead! he shouted after me again, you thick Irish fucking cunt!

  I peered through the girders. He drew a kick at the gate. Then another.

  Fuck him.

  me auld mate

  I spent a few anxious nights after that wondering would the same bollacks come back. I could have sworn I saw him alight from a bus at Liverpool Street but it was someone else. Then there he was standing outside a fish shop at Hammersmith underground. I nearly cracked up.

  But it wasn’t him.

  I tried to reason with myself. It was a one-off. Take her handy, Ollie. Easy does it. Remember the cartoons. And the worst thing was I began to imagine that one evening I’d come home and find the lock was changed because your man really was the foreman. So each day I took all my belongings with me into Liverpool Street. Then when I came home from work I checked the site from all asides, went up all the side streets in case the cunt at the gate who called me names was around. Then came the moment to try the lock. I’d put in the key and when I felt her turn my relief was enormous.

  Walking through the shadows, I did my tour of duty jumping at every sound.

  I heard things.

  I saw things.

  I did.

  The head was not right.

  No.

  I was afraid to play the music in case I’d miss someone crossing the site or at the gate. But the silence was more threatening. So what I did most nights was batten down the hatches, play the music loud and read about trips to Brazil or go through the planets. Venus, the rogue. As the moon moves away from us, our day will grow longer. The African and American plates drawing apart from each other in the centre of the South Atlantic Ocean. What was that? India careered into Asia fifty million years ago. Rain pounded on the roof.

  Come home, Marty, I said.

  Me auld mate.

  no one

  Once I got back from work I couldn’t really go far from the site because I had the key and I wanted to be there when Marty came home. Every evening I waited for the blast of his horn, but it never came.

  A week passed.

  Then a week and a half. I had read all the atlases from cover to cover. I had the planets off pat. I’d read the poetry. No one came.

  20

  I’ll be blowed

  I was looking for my best friend in Hammersmith. I had been searching for days for him. I’d get word here, and move on. That’s when I began losing the thing that tells me who I am. I told the Reverend Dawson that Marty should have been back days ago. I hadn’t a clue how to find him. I thought I’d go see my friends the divers in the London Fire Brigade to see if they could help me. I set out after work and found the station down at the docks and asked for Al.

  Well, I’ll be blowed, it’s Oliver, said Al.

  That’s me.

  What you doing here?

  I’m searching for my friend, I said. Marty Kilgallon.

  Is he in the drink?

  No, I said, I don’t know where he is.

  Hi, Ollie, you all right?

  No.

  He took me into their canteen and I told him the story.

  Your mate will be back in no time, don’t you worry, he said.

  I don’t know.

  Look mate, you’re just lonely and you’re worried. Just put it out of your head, OK?

  OK.

  So he took me for a ride up the Thames in their boat and dropped me at a pier near Hammersmith.

  You keep in touch now, he said. Give me a ring if you think you’re having any trouble.

  I will, I said.

  And don’t drive yourself bonkers.

  No.

  I felt stupid. All that worrying. I was an idiot. I’ll have to stop that, I thought. I was reading the whole thing wrong.

  the jeep

  And then, yes, a fucking cunt with a diesel Datsun Patrol, with big wide wheels on it, tried to do me in.

  They were building a new roundabout at the place and I had taken it as a shortcut. I was in the middle of it on my way home to Marty’s site. I had my sleeping bag and bag of tools. I thought the driver was going one way, then he went another. He flew across sign posts and blocked the road just to have a friendly chat.

  That’s what he said, anyway.

  I had to jump back from the car. He was speaking. I put a hand to my chest. He leapt out of the jeep.

  That’s right, Irish, knife me! he shouted.

  the windows begin to steam up

  This maybe was not long after Marty left. I was having problems with perspective. Plus I was stinking. I was just in to the launderette with a pair of trousers and probably a jumper to go out dancing in. I was there a while. I had her going nice and handy. I took my clothes out of the washing machine but the woman there was not cooperating with me to get the stuff dried, whatever sort of an outfit it was. I noticed the windows begin to steam up. You could see nothing. I just grabbed the trousers and left. Whatever the crack was there I don’t know.

  blue guys

  A lot of these cunts seemed to be wearing blue on the building site.

  The paddy was wary of them.

  Marty had warned me. Ollie, take care! When I got the bucket of water on my head they were working next door. Two guys with blue jumpers. They were sent from next door to do the job on me.

  I don’t know what was the reason for throwing water on a man who was trying to do a bit of work.

  I must have annoyed them somehow.

  my father

  I thought of going up to see my father in Coventry, but I didn’t. I could have. But I had responsibilities where I was.

  speed-drug

  The day the laundry windows steamed up, speed was put into my sandwiches in this fancy restaurant I went to. A real posh place. I went in for a toasted cheese and lost the run of things. I was brought into hospital and that was what was found in my urine. It would have been a fucking Thursday. Always a fucking Thursday.
Maybe I forgot to leave the woman a tip in the restaurant.

  not well

  I got very afraid on that site. But then I knew I had to stay there till Marty came home. I began having these sleepless nights. I was not well.

  Not well at all.

  On Sunday morning I saw the Reverend cross the road from the church, then I heard him rattle the gates. I kept my head low. He rattled them again. I felt bad about not answering him. The place went quiet. I peered through the curtains. He was standing in the doorway of the church, watching the mobile. When I looked out a few moments he was still there but this time he had moved over to the fence and was standing with both hands holding the wire apart. I ducked out of sight. Then I heard him calling my name.

  Oliver! he shouted.

  Oliver!

  But I stopped where I was. Why I did not answer him I could not say. I just lay there on the bed. The whole Sunday I never moved. A few times I thought I recognized the sound of the lorry approaching but it just went on by, or maybe I only heard it in my imagination.

  rifles from high buildings

  This is difficult. I was just walking down the street minding my own business. That evening I had gone to a flat with these guys from work. Then I’d fallen out with them.

  The argument started over protection rackets. I said that Marty had gone missing. That it must have been these protection rackets he told me about. They said he was out of his head. I wasn’t having that. It was a Thursday mind, a fucking Thursday. I had to get onto the street. I went walking at eleven o’clock at night. I closed the door and found myself in alien territory. I was off my rocker at this stage. I headed downtown with my bag of tools and my sleeping bag.

  I could have gone anywhere – just once I got away from there.

  It had become too much for me. You can’t turn to the fellow beside you and tell what you’d been really thinking. So I’d become angry with the lads – fuck you, I said – and left. I was finished with them. But which direction did I take? I walked about twenty minutes thinking about getting a nice woman, or a place to lie down, or breaking in somewhere. I don’t know what I was doing rightly.