The Gamal

  All that stuff proves is that the world makes no sense same as the fox and the cat and myself all scaring the shit out of each other. Random and stupid isn’t it?

  Anyhow I’m going back talking about Sinéad in the pub. I don’t care if it’s boring. Dr Quinn is boring. That Wednesday night the place livened up a bit later on. Couldn’t hear what they were saying over the far side of the bar but herself and Racey seemed to be having a bit of a laugh. They were talking about clothes. Sinéad looked down at her top, pulling it out to look at it. Racey covered her eyes and laughed and Sinéad laughed too and shook her head. Racey put her hands on her hips then and started saying something to Sinéad. Then Sinéad put her hair up with her hand for a second and turned to the side and Racey nodded approvingly and said something. Then another customer came to the bar and Sinéad said,

  —Same again Gerry?

  —Like a good girl yeah. There’s a few in tonight Sinéad.

  —There is isn’t there? For a Wednesday night like it isn’t bad in fairness.

  —You’re good for business Sinéad.

  —Oh! I dunno about that! I’d say if ’twas tea I was giving out there wouldn’t be many here!

  —Ha! Do you know, I’d say there would.

  —Oh go on out of that! There you are. Pint of the best.

  —That’s the girl.

  She gave him his change and said,

  —Thanks Gerry.

  —Come here.

  Sinéad leaned over to him but I couldn’t hear what he said to her.

  —Oh go ’way out of that Gerry, Jesus!

  Gerry went off laughing back to his seat. Another bachelor. Gerry was about fifty and worked in the quarry. Was going steady with a Cork city one for a bit back along. Teesh said,

  —She bled the poor bastard dry and gave him the flick. Bought her a car and everything sure, the fucking eejit.

  Teesh and the lads called him Bitches cos that’s what he mutters to himself when he’s very drunk.

  —Oho Bitches is in now!

  —Watch out girls!

  Roundy had warned Sinéad on her first night working there to watch Gerry when he’s drunk. Gets violent towards women. That’s all, she never had any trouble with him far as I know. Was just one of her customers. That’s the last ye’ll hear about him. Just thought I’d give him a mention, that’s all. This was all part of her new world.

  Sinéad went back over talking to Racey.

  The lads were mad to get inside Sinéad’s head. Later that night Teesh was telling Snoozie stuff knowing that Sinéad could hear him inside the bar.

  —Heard he met some Australian one above, Dinky was telling me.

  —Oh yeah, said Snoozie.

  —Singer one. Gorgeous-looking thing.

  —Oh yeah, yeah.

  —That’s what he said to Dinky here the other night. Savage-looking bird altogether. She’s in some music society above in the college.

  —Ssshhh, said Snoozie.

  —Yeah, say nothing, said Teesh glancing over at Sinéad.

  —Christ, ha? A dark horse, said Snoozie.

  —Down under ha? said Teesh and he looking over at Sinéad and shaking his head and goes,

  —Do you know what ninety-six is down under? Sixty-nine!

  Snoozie slapped his knee and pretended to find it hard to breathe with the laughing and looked over at Sinéad and shook his head again saying, ‘Oh Jesus Christ.’ The lads laughed too. Sinéad didn’t take her eyes off the telly. That was the end of it for the night except the lads kept saying random things in an Australian accent.

  —Not on your nelly mate, stone the crows!

  —Cor blimey!

  —Struth!

  —Fair dinkum!

  —Cor blimey, that’s a big didgeridoo.

  —Struth!

  I dunno was the mother or someone in my room doing a bit of snooping. Went for a walk and when I came back there was a thing on the floor that shouldn’t be there at all. Should be away in the drawer with the rest of Sinéad’s things. Even though it’s mine. But it’s like the one Sinéad got. Easiest way to describe it is to photocopy it. This is it.

  It’s called a Rosary ring. Detective Crowley asked me where I got it one time, the time he was up in my room. Cos Sinéad’s went missing when her room was broken into. They took it off her key-ring and took it. Detective Crowley goes,

  —Did Sinéad give you this?

  —No, I said. It’s my own always.

  —Where’d you get it?

  —The Bishop. He came and gave us all one in school long ago.

  —And this isn’t Sinéad’s one?

  —No.

  —And do you go to Mass Charlie, you do?

  —Yeah.

  —Good man.

  I don’t know why he said good man cos himself or the wife never go to Mass. Even their little boy was buried some place up in Cork for burying pagans. Then he goes to me that time,

  —Do you say prayers?

  —Yeah. Before I goes to bed.

  He was looking into my eyes then fierce concentrated. Just looking at my eyes. I turned away a bit but he comes around the side of me to look at my eyes. Wildest carry-on you ever saw. He was shameless about being weird and strange and ignorant, Detective Crowley was.

  Sinéad had the sureness of God definitely one time. Most people were too cool to use the Rosary ring or they just didn’t believe in it. The boys used it as knuckle dusters. But Sinéad still had hers years after. She had it in her hand with her keys the evening down by the river. She was pressing it into the palm of her hand so hard I thought she was going to crack it and cut herself. We were sitting on the river bank in that exact same place as in the picture from the paper that was being mean about me. We were crying and she goes,

  —There’s no God Charlie is there?

  —I wouldn’t think so no, I goes.

  Sometimes I wonder if I ever should have lied to her it was then. Can you respect someone too much? We just sat there crying all evening looking at the world go dark. It was proper dark before she spoke to me again. I knew then that she knew I’d do anything for her. Anything. Anyhow that’s for later in the story. You wouldn’t be able for all that yet. I’ll tell you a bit about it later on maybe.

  For fuck sake. The mother has on John Lee Hooker below, I’m going away out again for a stroll.

  That song yesterday it messed up my brain. John Lee Hooker. He has no regrets. ‘Don’t Look Back’ has to go here now.

  John Lee Hooker would say things over and over again and it was like a mother going to an upset baby that she comforts in her arms. Kinda singing-talking, same as John Lee Hooker. And the repeating the whole time. That’s what Sinéad used to say anyhow. I dunno to fuck. Daft talk really but that’s what she used to say about the blues. That it was baby talk for grown-ups.

  —I know, I know, the poor lovely baba. No, no, no, ah sure the poor baba, no, no, no. My own little peteen, no, no, no, the poor lovely baba, no, no, my lovely peteen, my own darlingeen, no, no, no.

  I stopped crying after a bit of John Lee Hooker last night at about five in the morning and I fell asleep too.

  You see it made me think of Sinéad too cos that same ‘Don’t Look Back’ song reminded Sinéad of the mná chaointe long ago as well. Old Master Higgins told us about them. Women paid to come to funerals long ago and be wailing and saying the same stuff over and over again. Sinéad said you could see ones like them with the black shawls on them on the news and they crying over their dead sons in Palestine or Pakistan or Lebanon or some place. Some place hot and troubled anyhow. Wailing and saying something over and over and over again. And it wasn’t about the price of carrots. It was emotion sounds. We listened to a lot of blues for a while. Thinking of how it started with the black slaves in the cotton fields hollering and singing over and back to each other in America long ago. And their sadness and they soothing each other with sounds. Sinéad thought the origins of a lot of music is in mothers and babies and soothin
g sounds.

  —You know you’re not alone when someone is making sound, Sinéad said. Like a baby crying in the wilderness is reassuring to a mother who can’t see her baby. And the mother’s baby talk reassures the baby like.

  —Yeah, I said.

  —Yeah, said James.

  Sinéad lifted the needle and we listened to the record again. I don’t know how I’m going to get better in this house with the mother’s music fucking me up. My brain is fidgety today. Won’t settle down at all. Thinking too much too fast isn’t it? If I wrote all my thoughts ’twouldn’t make much sense probably. Couldn’t write fast enough anyhow. Regrets bouncing around my brain like fucking pin balls. They won’t even slow down, just keep shooting all over the place in all directions inside my brain and ’twon’t stop. I try to press my head but there’s no pain on the outside, it’s the inside of my brain that’s sore. From regrets. Bouncing off the inside of my skull. Take a big bullet hole to let them out.

  I was down the village again today. Went down for milk for the mother and had a little stroll. Seen Teesh below at the petrol station. He never looked at me in the eye since everything that happened. He never says hello, nothing. Maybe he never did but I notice it more now cos I’m watching him and hating him. Brazen head on him all talk and a smile and a joke with every fella. Fools. Even some of the women around are nice to him.

  The Promise

  ’Twas a winter wedding so it was about six months after James went to Dublin. He wasn’t invited to Laffey O’Brien’s wedding. He must have been the only footballer in the parish not to be invited. It was a strange one. A sign. No one seemed to be asking where he was either. Another sign. And he wasn’t invited to Séamus O’Mahony’s either come to think of it. I was at both of them with my mother and father.

  But James and Sinéad were invited to Teesh’s. Teesh was twenty-two and was marrying Snoozie’s sister, Anne-Marie. It was young to be getting married. Anne-Marie was a shy girl and didn’t go to the pub. She didn’t say much at the wedding but she said to James when he congratulated her at the wedding that she’d be lucky if Teesh stayed faithful to her for a month. Only place I ever saw the two of them together was when I seen them at the two other weddings I mentioned a sec ago. Teesh never spoke to her and as soon as the dinner was over he got up and left her on her own for the night. Anyhow, so James and Sinéad were at Teesh and Anne-Marie’s wedding along with the rest of the parish.

  They were sitting with Snoozie and the rich builder’s daughter, Karen and Dinky and Racey. I was sitting over with the mother and father and other old people. But I was watching them and they were really enjoying themselves, having a right good laugh. Sinéad was getting on great with Racey and Karen. After a while James came over to me saying there were two empty seats at their table, cos some couple never turned up but I said no, and then Sinéad starts beckoning me to sit over with them too, then Dinky and Snoozie start, and they going,

  —Sit over with us Charlie boy.

  —Come over here Charlie.

  And they being all nice to me, cos the whole parish were watching. My mother gave them a smile that meant, ‘Thank you,’ and said to an old one beside her,

  —Aren’t those lads great to my Charlie.

  I went over then, and the big napkin flapping under my chin.

  Teesh had asked Sinéad and James to perform a song or two at the wedding.

  Sinéad was all excited.

  —What’ll we sing?

  —One of our own, said James.

  —No, I said. Wedding crowd. Give ’em what they want.

  —D’ya think?

  —Yeah.

  —Maybe he’s right, Sinéad said.

  —Yeah. Maybe.

  —Know your crowd, I said.

  —Yeah, I suppose, said James.

  —They’ll adore her. She’ll sing a song they all love better than they ever heard it before.

  —You’re right Charlie.

  —Ah lads, said Sinéad, get real now like.

  —What song?

  —I dunno, I said. Some old Irish love song ballady thing. There’s a lot of nice ones.

  —Or what about ‘I Got You Babe’? Sinéad said.

  —What ya think Charlie?

  —Yeah . . . maybe, I said. There’s lots of songs.

  We spent a day up in the library in the castle listening to old Irish love songs and ballads. Sinéad singing a verse or two of them all with James finding them on the piano trying to keep up with her. ‘Dan Murphy’s Meadow’, ‘The Dutchman’, ‘She Moved Through the Fair’, ‘The Voyage’, ‘Carrickfergus’, ‘Sweet Sixteen’, ‘The Lass of Aughrim’, ‘The Sally Gardens’. We ended up going with ‘Silver Threads among the Gold’ sung as a duet.

  We listened to it a million thousand times on the record player. The song was on two of my mother’s records. John McCormack and The Fureys with Davey Arthur. The McCormack version was like orchestra. But in a quiet kind of way, not like the usual show-offy orchestra. Let his voice do the flying it did. The Fureys with Davey Arthur record did a bit more with it. There was one of them lads could make the banjo talk to you. In a soothing kind of way. Finbarr Furey sang then. There was in his voice the tenderness of a ghost who was fierce fond of all the living. And he after smoking a million hundred thousand cigarettes and after drinking as many pints. In search of some different kind of wisdom isn’t it?

  At the wedding during the dinner Teesh came over to our table and started taking the mick out of James about something that puzzled him.

  —This must be one of the biggest band break-ups since The Beatles, Teesh goes.

  —What? James asked.

  Snoozie and Dinky started skitting then.

  —Where’s the Little Rascal? Teesh says, looking around with a big grin on his face. Then he sees him and shouts over to him,

  —All right kid? Viva L’Espagna!

  Then the Little Rascal starts breaking his hole laughing and goes back,

  —Viva L’Espagna, giving a big thumbs up.

  Did I tell you who the Little Rascal was? Shite little pub singer fella used to work in the building site up the road from my house too and he used to sing in the pubs in Spain. And Germany too I think. One man band. One bad man.

  Teesh and Dinky and Snoozie and Racey were all skitting laughing. Sinéad was blushing and said,

  —Go away Teesh will ya.

  And off he did go laughing mad back up to the top table and he looking back at the lads and over to the Rascal laughing away mad the whole lot of them. I couldn’t figure out for certain if it was real or fake laughter. It was partly real and some of it was fake and maybe they were just all licking up to Teesh cos it was his big day, but I was as puzzled as James was. He turned to Sinéad and asked her,

  —What was all that about?

  —Oh just something stupid, she said. He asked me to go with him to sing in a pub in Spain.

  —What? goes James, with a puzzled cross look on his face.

  —It was just kind of a joke like but the lads won’t leave it drop.

  —Cheeky little prick, I’ll break his face.

  —Calm down James. Don’t make a scene. Not today.

  —Cheek of the little prick, James said again.

  Then he looks at Dinky and Dinky just smiles and shakes his head and James stared at him until he stopped smiling. All this was news to me as well as James. It was impossible to keep an eye on things all the time. Sometimes I’d prefer to be listening to her on tape than watching her in the company of them fuckers. Next time Teesh came over he says all serious like, that they sounded very good together like. That their voices worked well together. James said nothing until he went away then he asked Sinéad did she sing with him in the pub.

  —Yeah. Just one song. They were all saying to go up for one song. I had to. I hated every minute of it. He’s rubbish.

  James said nothing, just took a drink of his pint.

  Anyhow, that was the end of the Rascal stuff for the res
t of the night. Then later was time for The Promise to sing. The Promise is the name we called the band. It was Sinéad came up with it. She didn’t want James to be seen as just her guitar player or the keyboard player so she insisted on a name. Another one she came up with was Elsinore, just cos she liked the sound of the word. James came up with No More Auction Block but that was too long. Only thing I came up with was Sinéad And James. They didn’t like it. We all liked The Promise though. I feel so so sorry for you that you never heard Sinéad sing the lines,

  Oh my darling, mine alone, alone

  You have never older grown

  cos it’s the nicest thing I ever heard maybe. And I know now that a lot of the people at the wedding were affected by their performance in the deep way and in the way that’s so rare it’s confusing. All powerful and all. Maybe. Maybe if I heard it now I wouldn’t be as floored by it. I’m better now at dealing with music for what it is and not something that important.

  I noticed she only ate two bites of dinner and was quiet at the table. The nerves were at her. The wedding band man lowered the mic for her and said, ‘Testing, testing one.’ She looked over at James and gave him the nod. James’ intro on the piano was fine. Robbed off The Fureys. At the start, Sinéad didn’t take her eyes off James. Next thing Sinéad. She sang the first two lines of the song still looking over at him. Then she turned around to face the audience. Everyone at the bar stopped and turned around. People who were talking talked no more and looked up at Sinéad. I knew deep in my heart that this was something that couldn’t be stopped now. This voice, which was now heard, was a force of nature and all who heard it. Well. Beguiled them isn’t it?

  I’m up right at the front of the stage over by the side cos I helped James with moving over the keyboard to where Sinéad could see him. Anyhow next thing I see a few people at the front turning around from the stage. Next thing another few did it. Just glancing back at the back of the hall. Then I heard what it was they were turning around for. Some people were laughing and heckling at the back of the hall. All in a huddle at the back of the hall were Teesh, Snoozie, Dinky, Racey and and a few more of Teesh’s brothers and they all bent over laughing. Staring up at the stage and convulsing. Pointing. Nudging each other. Could hear Teesh roar something and they all laughed mad again. The veins popping out of their temples and their mouths all teeth laughing mad and the eyes on them that weren’t laughing at all.