The Misremembered Man

by Christina McKenna

  “Oh…the best, Peggy, the best.”

  “You’ll give us a wee tune later on I hope.”

  She swept a lock of hair behind her ear and dropped her head back to the labor, building the wet glasses on the drainer dangerously high.

  Jamie studied the bowed head, a straight pale line bisecting the crown in her straw-blond hair, like a harvester track in a corn field. “Give you a wee tune surely, so a will,” he said.

  “Give us a vodka and coke there, will ye?” a voice loud and uncouth broke in. Chuck Sproule forced his way between Jamie and Paddy. Peggy continued her chore, pretending not to have heard.

  Chuck was an erratically behaved nineteen-year-old, restless and rude, a drop-out with a dead father, a hopeless mother, and four wild siblings whom he bullied to a point beyond madness. He had greasy hair and puckered skin, wore scruffy jeans which barely stayed up on his skinny arse, and a gray tee shirt that had shrunk in the wash and rode part of the way up his back.

  “Did ye hear me, did ye?”

  Peggy stopped what she was doing, slowly dried her hands and glared at him.

  “Jamie, did you hear some unmannerly hellion ask me for something just now?”

  Jamie did not want to tangle with young Chuck. He had a talent for catching on a person’s flaw and pulling ’til he’d unraveled them to rage. He didn’t want anything to do with the nasty wee bugger.

  “I think he wants a vodkey and coat—I mean vodka and coke—Peggy,” Jamie quickly corrected himself.

  “Jezsis, if it isn’t oul’ McCloone!” Chuck elbowed Jamie in the back, flung an arm round his shoulder and stuck his face close to his. “Are you a fuckin’ translator now, are ye?”

  “Less of that craic in here, Sproule,” Peggy warned, “or I’ll bounce you out on the street. Don’t think I won’t.”

  Chuck released Jamie immediately and straightened. Paddy and Matty studied the bar counter, by turns looking into their drinks and up at the ceiling, anywhere but at Peggy. It was not through kindness that Mrs. O’Shea had earned her nickname; anyone who crossed her usually cut themselves. Her threat had the desired effect: Chuck’s bravado wilted immediately.

  “Och, Peggy.”

  “Don’t ‘och Peggy’ me! It’s ‘Mrs. O’Shea’ to you.” She kept her eyes on him. “Now, what did you want?”

  “A vodka and coke, Mrs. O’Shea, pleeeease?” he said in a falsetto baby voice, steepling his fingers under his chin like a pleading altar boy.

  Peggy gave in, if reluctantly. She began setting up the drink. All at once there came a squeal from an amplifier, like that of a hog being hauled within sight of the butcher’s cleaver. It deafened every patron for a few jaw-rattling seconds and was followed by a muffled echoing.

  “One, two…one, two.” Declan and the Bullets were doing a sound check. The show was about to begin.

  “That’s Declan gettin’ her goin’,” Matty made the superfluous comment. “Maybe we should head in.”

  Paddy took it as his cue and stumbled to the toilet. Jamie ordered another round.

  The lounge, behind the public bar, was a long rectangular room with a raised platform at the far end, and below it a woodblocked dancing area, not much bigger than a generous tablecloth. In its former life the space had been a store, a toilet, and a coal shed, but Slope had seen its potential as a locus of entertainment. With a substantial loan from the Tailorstown Credit Union (which he was still paying off), he had realized his fantasy by knocking the three areas into one and naming it The Step Inside Lounge.

  Secured along each wall was a row of bench seats upholstered in amber carriage cloth, salvaged from a derailed slow train from Derry to Donegal. Slope had procured the reconditioned seating at tremendous discount from a member of the traveling community. In front of each seat: a knee-high Formica table. On the floor: a carpet of clashing scarlet stripes and furious lime spots encouraged the drunker patron to believe he’d thrown up even before he had a mind to. The smoke-yellowed walls were of combed plaster. At equidistant intervals a succession of twin-pronged lamps under dusty, green shades jutted out, giving the assembled faces the look of early-stage cirrhosis—an illness that was most likely lying in wait for several of the livers present.

  The lounge was crammed when Jamie and his friends took the seats reserved for them by Declan, at a top table near the band. Talk and laughter fairly bubbled, cigarette smoke and oaths poured from mouths; forests of bottles and glasses crowded every table, ashtrays spilled matches and cigarette ends onto the floor.

  Mary, the O’Shea’s teenage daughter—with her mother’s eyes (for which she was grateful) and her father’s grin—strode up and down, delivering drinks and collecting glasses. She was a tall, attractive redhead who hated Saturday nights, the unedifying mix of smoke, groping hands, sweaty men and foul language. Often she refused to help her parents out unless she got paid in advance and, being as headstrong and combative as her mother, usually got her way.

  Declan Colt strutted about the small stage with hips swiveling, singing “Dixieland” in a sub-Elvis baritone, his satin collar standing up, his head down, chewing the microphone, mopping his brow frequently with a great snowy hankie. The Silver Bullets looked inert by comparison. The percussionist sat stirring a snare drum and shaking his head at some imaginary argument. The third member stood, as if in shock, thumbing a bass guitar, his eyes rooted on the far wall.

  After every slow number came a fast filler to liven things up. Now Declan launched into “Blue Suede Shoes” and several couples shuffled shyly onto the dance floor. They jived and spun awkwardly, colliding with each other, the men sweating in shirt sleeves, the women dizzy and unsure. As their confidence grew, they swung and swayed more, their flowery rumps twitching, their jewelry bouncing; twisting and twirling, looking down at their shoes, as if checking for dog dirt, as if squashing insects under their feet.

  The interval arrived and Declan gave Jamie the nod.

  Jamie, his faculties sufficiently impaired by booze to mimic courage, was ready for it. He hoisted his Horner two-row Irish button accordion onto his front and climbed up on the stool. The crowd roared approval, sweaty hands on sticky glasses raised in a toast.

  “Give her a good squeeze, Jamie!” someone shouted. “Aye, ye boy ye!”

  And in seconds Jamie was away, “The Boston Burglar” roaring out in great torrents from the wheezing bellows.

  Up there on the high stool, Jamie sat in a shaft of white light, brandishing the instrument like a warrior’s silvery battle shield, his fingers dancing over the buttons, the room drenched in its rich droning sound. He played with his head cocked to one side, the sweat flying off him and his eyes shut against the smoke, the glare, and the undivided attention of his audience. Nothing could compare to the joy that Jamie felt in those moments in the hot room, with the eyes of seventy people upon him, their tapping feet, their clapping hands—and he the push, the pull and the absolute focus of it all.

  He slid effortlessly from number to number in the first of his three set pieces. Half an hour’s break for Declan and the Bullets was half an hour’s glory for him. However, he’d just finished “The Black Velvet Band” and was bathing in a wave of applause when a shout went up. He recognized the voice of Chuck Sproule.

  “Hi, what’s the difference between Jamie McCloone and a bucket of shite?”

  Seventy guffaws escaped from seventy throats.

  An answer flew from the back of the room and struck Jamie’s ears with a vulgar force. It was young Sproule again.

  “A bucket!” he yelled, and the crowd stormed with laughter.

  Jamie, a rage rising in him like milk boiling up in a saucepan, decided, with a powerful self-restraint, to ignore the insult this time. He took a quick swig of Black Bush, slid the seething saucepan off the heat and began belting out “I’ll Tell Me Ma” before the wee bastard had time to fling up another heckle.

  The powerful, throbbing music swelled in the room as Jamie played on and on, afraid to stop in case
Sproule got the chance to hit him with another broadside of abuse. Soon, however, a metallic flash in the doorway told him that Declan and the Bullets were back; his time was nearly up. Jamie finished off “Danny Boy”, drawing out a deafening refrain. The crowd roared its appreciation as he vacated the bar stool and unstrapped the accordion. Then, in the murmuring lull, it came again.

  “Hey, Jamie! How d’you keep an idiot in suspense?”

  The hubbub lessened; the rowdier patrons sniggered in expectation. Jamie heaved off his instrument and thrust it into Paddy’s hands.

  “Take a hoult of that for one wee minute, Paddy,” he said.

  The accordion squawked like a fat infant as Paddy bundled the bellows in. When he looked up again it was to see Jamie head in the direction of the taunting voice, his hatred coming to a blaze under the most recent splash of vitriolic fuel. His accordion’s music was his only way of releasing the gift he had to give. He’d been stepped on as a child but, by God, no adult was going to step on the man he strove to be.

  “God, we better go after him!” cried Matty.

  In a flash both men were on their feet, hauling Jamie back with an uncharacteristic swiftness.

  “How d’you keep an idiot in suspense?” the shrill voice repeated. “I’ll tell ye the day after the morra, Jamie!”

  The crowd fell about again. Jamie freed himself with a frenzied force, elbowing his two comrades in the stomach, and in seconds he was up on young Chuck, sending the glasses and bottles flying in a glittering crash as the table was overturned. He yanked him free of his mates—none of whom was sober enough to assist—punched Chuck on the nose, doubled him up with a kick in the privates, then tore at his greasy hair, hauling him upright.

  “What was that ye said, ye dirty wee bastard?” he spat. “Not so funny now, are ye?”

  The crowd cheered. But Chuck shot out a fist and got Jamie smack in the belly. He fell onto his back, his arms and legs paddling the air like a capsized turtle.

  Then suddenly all went quiet in the room. Jamie opened his eyes, to see Peggy the Bacon-Slicer advancing on them, her furious face set in a terrible contortion.

  “Jamie McCloone, you should be ashamed of yourself! No more drink for you.” She turned on Chuck, who was holding a bloody nose. “As for you: out this minute! I don’t want my carpet ruined. And you’re barred for a month.”

  “He hit me first!” Chuck wailed.

  “Aye, and you insulted him first. You’re nothing but a useless eejit.”

  And with that she led him by the ear up the floor, like a matador parading a wounded bull, as the crowd applauded. On approaching the open door, Chuck, knowing his case would not be heard, started to shout and resist, holding unto the door frame in desperation, his feet sliding all over the place in a ludicrous parody of an astronaut’s moon walk.

  “You’re nothing but a fuckin’ oul’ bitch!” he cried, in a voice gritty with resentment, “and you’ve a face on you like a sow’s arse.”

  “That’s it, you’re barred for three months now!” Peggy slapped him hard across the face.

  Slope came from behind, planted a foot against Chuck’s skinny back and heeled him out onto the street, swiftly double-locking the door behind him.

  With the troublemaker well on his way, things returned to normal. Matty and Paddy helped their friend to his feet and Jamie struggled back to his seat by the podium, all too aware that his comb-over had come unstuck during the fray and that he must look a frightful sight. He attempted to rearrange his hair while apologizing to his mates.

  “Och now, we know how much you wanted to get at the brute,” said Paddy.

  “Sure I would a done the same meself,” agreed Matty, and he placed his own double brandy before Jamie to help him recover himself.

  Jamie swallowed a mouthful. An otherwise grand night had been destroyed and he nearly wept at the recollection of it. How great it had all gone—and how quickly it had all been taken away by that filthy-mouthed wee get.

  “That was a great bit a playin’, Jamie,” said Paddy, trying to salvage something from the wreckage.

  “Aye, if it hadn’t been for that rascal shoutin’ at ye and then you havin’ to get up and hit him a clout, it woulda been a grand night altogether,” Matty put in, grabbing Paddy’s precious piece of solace and tossing it back on the raging sea.

  Declan Colt, observing the trio from the stage, and sensing Jamie’s dejection, shimmered up to the mike.

  “Now listen up!” he ordered the room. “I want y’all to give Jamie here a big hand. Some of the best playin’ I ever did hear came from that accordjin tonight.”

  The crowd stood and applauded, and Jamie’s face broke into a great smile as he held up his brandy glass in toast. He saw again his uncle take his awkward, twelve-year-old fingers and extend them over the ivory buttons, felt again the surging joy when he realized he could make the instrument speak another language from his tortured, silent self. The triumphant result of that entire endeavor was James McCloone, the man, sitting on a high stool in O’Shea’s bar, making hands clap and voices sing as he fed his sonorous, furious music to the room.

  On seeing the cheering crowd, Jamie, for now at least, knew that he mattered, that the people of Tailorstown were behind him four-square. But he feared that the elation was fleeting and that later the nasty episode with Sproule would come back to haunt him.

  Chapter fifteen

  Lydia read over Frank McPrunty’s letter once again in the relative privacy of her bedroom. She stood with her back against the locked door, just in case. She would be meeting him in two hours’ time and needed to acquaint herself once more with his personal details.

  Lydia, being a teacher, approached most things in life in an analytical manner. Frank McPrunty was a project, and his letter an examination paper. It needed revision before she set the test and decided whether his performance merited a pass or a fail.

  Dear Miss Devine,

  I was absolutely delighted to receive your lovely letter and deeply honoured that you would choose to be interested in a person such as myself. I hope that the answers I give to your questions will be in keeping with your expectations.

  I am sixty-one years, although I am told that I look ten years younger. I retain this youthful look through a careful diet and exercise regime. I try to eat healthily and I walk a lot with my dog Snoop as I believe I mentioned in my last letter.

  No, I have not been married before. Not that I did not have the opportunities mind. I realize now that I was perhaps over-cautious and a little too hard to please. I think when we are young we believe that we have all the time in the world, when in fact we have very little, as I now know to my cost.

  You asked me what I look for in a woman and I will be honest and say that above all I’m looking for companionship. There is more I could write in relation to this very important question, but I think such things are better discussed face to face. Often the words set down on a glaring white page come across as impersonal and lacking warmth.

  To this end Miss Devine, and pardon me if you think I’m being forward, I feel it’s best that we meet. I will be at the Chestnut Inn Hotel on the main road out of Killoran between four pm and five o’clock on Thursday August 7th. I will wait for you in the lounge.

  I will be wearing a navy blazer, grey slacks, a white shirt and red cravat. On the table in front of me I will place my Rolleiflex camera. My camera is expensive and used mainly by professional photographer’s, [Lydia tut-tutted on seeing the grocer’s apostrophe] so I think it will be a reliable marker for you. Not unless there is a function or wedding in the hotel on that day which might prove troublesome. Still I don’t think a wedding photographer would be likely to leave his equipment lying about on the nearest table. So I think my camera is a good sign.

  I do hope you will decide to come. I will stay in the hotel well past five o’clock just in case for some reason you get delayed. I am very much looking forward to meeting you.

  Yours sincerely in anticipatio
n,

  Frank Xavier McPrunty

  Lydia folded the letter and returned it to her purse, satisfied that she knew what she was dealing with. She had decided to answer Mr. McPrunty first, because, of the two respondents, he seemed slightly more interesting and more in tune with her on an intellectual level. She was keeping Mr. McCloone, the farmer, in reserve for the time being, in the eventuality that Frank proved unsuitable.

  She took a final look at herself in the mirror and was pleased that she cut such an elegant figure. The pink juliet dress with the white butterfly collar was, she felt, a good choice: appealing in an understated kind of way.

  She checked her watch. In twenty minutes she would collect Daphne at the library. Her friend had agreed to accompany her for moral support.

  “Well of course I’ll come with you, dear!” Daphne had assured her. “I couldn’t have you getting carried off by some mysterious stranger and never seeing you again.”

  Lydia smiled at the memory as she slung a white cardigan over her shoulders. She picked up her bag and a library book and left the room. The book was a decoy.

  “I’m just popping along to the library to see Daphne, Mother.” Lydia tried to sound as upbeat and natural as possible. “Do you need your books changed?”

  Elizabeth Devine was in the parlor, her embroidery frame on her lap, a cup of tea at her elbow and the television before her showing a mute Fanny Craddock rolling out a sheet of pastry. She continued to gaze at Fanny, totally ignoring Lydia.

  “I can’t stand that woman’s voice! Sounds as if she’s chewing gravel. And why does she need to talk so much anyway? We can all see what she’s doing. We’re not imbeciles.”

  Lydia waited for her mother to finish and tried again.

  “Mother, do you need your books changed?” She held up her Victoria Holt.