James Cooney sold his house and moved to Spain. A German with two Doberman Pinscher guard dogs was occasionally to be seen in the grounds of his mansion. The factory went to rack and ruin, excrement and empty beer bottles scattered about the once-thriving killing floor. Every bulb on the turret neon sign had been broken. The Sapphire Ballroom lay derelict and unsold, the paint peeling from the precious stone which hung precariously above the doorway where crudely-painted letters had been scrawled in the night: Judas Cooney—Where are you now?
The car traffic across the border ceased completely. Alec Hamilton sold up and moved away. In Pete’s Pizza Parlour, Sergio folded napkins blankly, the jukebox unlit in the corner. The Turnpike Inn was purchased by two local brothers who turned it into a delicatessen, then a hairdresser’s, then a turf accountants, then closed it down altogether. A minibus now left twice a week for the ferry terminals and airports of the major cities, picking up en route the latest batch of school leavers who waited with their sports bags and suitcases in every town along the way.
In the Railway Hotel, the few remaining youths and unemployed men played darts and scratched lottery tickets morosely. On the video screen above them, the crazed adolescent in the asbestos suit dragged the body of a screaming young girl into a freezer as the soundtrack blared. An old man sat transfixed beneath the screen, his terrified, perplexed eyes locked helplessly into every movement of the deranged youth. Two men in the corner argued bitterly about the actual date of the closure of the railway.
“It was 1959,” said Francie Mohan without looking away from the freezer where the adolescent was sharpening up a butcher’s knife to desembowel the girl.
“What did I tell you?” said the man. “1959. Those were the days—what do you say Francie? The days before they closed the railway.”
“Aye,” replied Francie, “there was no stopping us then.”
“The night they closed the railway—that was the night the clock stopped in the town of Carn. Oh I could tell you stories about this town . . .” The man stared into the well of his drink and faded off into a dreamy haze.
The girl on the screen screamed as a jet of blood splashed across the visor of the madman’s asbestos suit. He raised the butcher’s knife and brought it down in a sweeping arc with a maniacal laugh.
The barman began to sweep up the used lottery tickets. One of the youths cursed and swore to himself as he tore up yet another ticket and disappeared into the early afternoon.
“I remember the days when you couldn’t move in this hotel for visitors. There were trains rolling into the station every half hour, packed with people. There were markets on the The Diamond every day—there was money to burn . . .”
The man shook his head. His drinking partner sighed wistfully. “Well there’s one thing for sure—this town will never be the same again,” he said, without looking up.
Francie Mohan finished his drink and slid down off the barstool. He pulled his greatcoat about him and said, “Don’t worry. There’s no need to worry.”
The two men stared at him as he walked to the door. He turned and said, “There was a feast in the past and there’ll be a feast in the future.” They continued to stare blankly at him. Then he swung on his heel and shouted, “A feast of fuck-all,” as the screams from the video screen floated out through the deserted foyer of the Railway Hotel.
On the mantelpiece of Sadie’s bedroom, Josie Keenan smiled as she stood in a London street, behind her a flutter of pigeons. Around her ankles, in poor handwriting, the name Gina Lollobrigida.
Sadie visited the cemetery once a fortnight to say a small prayer for Josie by the gravestone that read,
Michael Joseph Keenan R.I.P.
Kathleen Josephine Keenan 1898–1946 R.I.P.
She stood on the hill overlooking the town. The church clock sounded the quarter hour. Through the streets Blast Morgan’s son pushed a bin on two wheels. A carpet was beaten in a garden. The chickenhouse fan hummed. As on all those warm days years before, when she leaned over the fence at the bottom of his garden, Mr Galvin smiled at Sadie.
On it goes Sadie, and not a thing we can do about it. What was it you used to call them Sadie? The tick tock days of Carn? The tick tock days of Carn half a mile from the Irish border.
Mr Galvin smiled. Then he turned and went back to his ridges, prising at the clay with his garden fork as the sun beat down on him all those days ago.
He smiled again and then faded gently from her mind as he had passed from the earth.
On it goes Sadie, on it goes and not a thing we can do about it.
She took her daughter’s hand and left the flowers on the grave. She walked back towards Abbeyville Gardens through the grounds of the church.
In the churchyard, many of the people of the town were on bended knee at the grotto of the Virgin Mary which had been built years before in the days of the railway to commemorate the Marian year. A rumour had circulated that she had been seen to move the night before. There was talk of her bringing a special sign to the town of Carn. The Virgin looked up at the whey-faced sky with a pale, chipped countenance. Beneath her pale feet, old women and middle-aged men fingered rosary beads anxiously. Beside them, in the fashionable black dress of their generation, freshfaced teenagers scanned the heavens hopefully. On the granite wall of the church Pat Lacey smiled, a framed portrait sponsored by the Anti-Divorce League. Beneath it, two small candles burned. The chant of the rosary began anew and they wrapped themselves in the arms of its consoling monotony, flickers of the past moving almost unseen across their minds, a tail of smog as a steam engine hissed into the depot, a flutter of coloured flags on Dolan Square, the music from The Sapphire spreading outward through the bustling, energetic streets.
But that was gone now and it was not for that they had come to the feet of the Virgin but for a sign that would take them back to the way it had been all those years ago, long before James Cooney, when there had been no questions to answer, when they had toiled long hours in the summer hayfields with the unquestioning acceptance of children, their sleep sound and undisturbed.
But a sign was not to come that evening and as Sadie made her way to Abbeyville Gardens, she saw them rise, heads still bowed, and like a silent wave, return to the empty streets where above on the hill, the rusting tower of the Carn Meat Processing Plant threw its evening shadow out across the huddled rooftops of the town.
Carn
PATRICK MCCABE was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland, in 1955. He has published a children’s story, The Adventures of Shay Mouse (1985), and six adult novels, Music on Clinton Street (1986), Carn (1989), The Butcher Boy (1992), which was the winner of the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Literature Prize, was shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize and was a highly acclaimed film directed by Neil Jordan, The Dead School (1995), Breakfast on Pluto (1998), which was shortlisted for the 1998 Booker Prize, and Mondo Desperado (1999). His play Frank Pig Says Hello, based on The Butcher Boy, was first performed at the Dublin Festival in 1992. He lives in Sligo with his wife and two daughters.
Also by Patrick McCabe
FICTION
Music on Clinton Street
The Butcher Boy
The Dead School
Breakfast on Pluto
Mondo Desperado
PLAYS
Frank Pig Says Hello
(based on The Butcher Boy)
CHILDREN’S STORIES
The Adventures of Shay Mouse
The author would like to express his thanks to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre,
Annaghmakerrig, where some of this book was written.
First published 1989 by Aidan Ellis Publishing Limited
This edition published 1993 by Picador
This electronic edition published 2012 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-1-447-23140-0 EPUB
Copyright © Patrick McCabe 1989
The right of Patrick McCabe to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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