I just know the shoes that kick, that’s all, Jimmy said, already regretting that he had brought the subject up, because he was developing other ways of counteracting the bullies, through humour. Carmel said he should let Jimmy fight his own battles, but Coyne was going to do something about this and the following afternoon, in uniform, he collected Jimmy from school and sat in the car waiting until one of the Fitzmaurice brothers came out through the gate. Jimmy tried to talk his father out of it; not knowing that there was an ancient battle to be fought here and ancient debts to be repaid. Coyne was dealing with all the bullies in history.
A few boys stood outside the school gates, chopping the air, kicking each other’s schoolbags, when Gabriel Fitzmaurice eventually came out. Coyne was amazed that such a fat, red-faced little punk could strike fear into his son. But he understood the dynamics of terror and school-yard sectarianism. He was determined to resolve it and told Jimmy to wait in the car while he got out, adjusted his cap and stood blocking the schoolboy’s path, the way he would one day block Berti Cunningham’s path.
Hold it right there, Coyne said, and the schoolboy stood back. Jimmy in the back of the car with his head down.
Are you Gabriel Fitzmaurice?
Yes.
We’ve had a complaint about you. You’ve been bullying some of the other pupils in the school.
The boy’s mouth was open, denying everything until he eventually burst out in a wail of self-pity and tears.
We’re going to let you off with a warning this time. But the next time we’ll arrest you. And what’s more, I’ll twist your ear around a hundred and fifty times and then let it go – whizz, have you got that? Fitz-whizz. Now move along.
But it was no triumph. Ridiculous. Just kid’s stuff. And on the way home, Jimmy was completely silent. Coyne felt it was like being with his own father. Three generations of taciturn Coynes.
Then came the letter from the bank. Carmel had gone bananas on the oil paints, so they had to go and see the manager, Mr Killmurphy – Mr Killjoy, as they called him. It wasn’t the first letter either.
Carmel went to the meeting with him and they walked through Dun Laoghaire, on the sunny side of the street. Coyne blinded by the sun reflecting off the bonnet of a car. Wintry breeze piercing through his shirt.
They were brought up the stairs, along a corridor to a room at the back of the building and invited to sit down. Killjoy glared at the Coyne file on his desk. A small barred window behind him had not been washed in years. Encrusted with dusty grey rain marks. Because nobody ever needed to look out there. There was no view. Only a granite wall with glass and razor wire on the top.
We’re going to have to add this overdraft to the existing loan, Killjoy said.
Carmel tried to explain that she had become an artist. Her art teacher said that she would soon be in a position to sell her paintings. That would solve everything and Coyne thought it was a stroke of genius. Fair juice to you, Carmel.
Let’s get this in order first, will we. Killjoy smiled. You’ll just have to learn to budget a little better. You’ll have to stop shopping in Brown Thomas.
Coyne looked at the plastic Brown Thomas bag beside Carmel. It wasn’t even hers. It was Mrs Gogarty who had been out shopping, for fucksake.
The bank manager did a sort of cavalry imitation on the calculator with his fingers. He was trying to look grave and sincere, like he was just about to tell Carmel she had breast cancer. Carmel and Pat still trying to look respectable and nice. We like you, Mr Killmurphy. You’re a decent man.
Who’s in charge of the finances? Killmurphy asked, so Carmel and Pat looked at each other.
Look, you’ve got to run your home like a business. This feckless spending has to stop. You’ve got to have a balance sheet – your income has to match your expenditure, simple as that. And if you can’t afford Brown Thomas, then you’ll just have to go to Dunnes Stores like everybody else.
Coyne saw that Carmel had tears of artistic rejection in her eyes.
You’ve no right to say that to her, he said.
Mr Coyne, I have every right to keep the bank’s finances in order. If you can’t control your spending, then I’m afraid I’ve got to do it.
Coyne sat forward, furious and helpless at the same time. As though he was going to put his fist through the bank manager’s face. You bastard, Killjoy, you made her cry. But Carmel put her hand on Coyne’s arm to restrain him.
Killjoy watched Carmel take out a tissue. He was trying to show compassion and understanding. But he wouldn’t give you the steam off his piss. He had as much regard for human feelings as a dead badger’s back passage.
We all have to shrink our expectations, he said gently, nodding his head like a social worker.
I’ll shrink your goolies, pal, is what Coyne wanted to say to him. But ultimately, it was all bark and no bite. Carmel was blowing her nose quietly and her eyes were red. She was entertaining her emotions. As a last resort, Coyne pulled out his inhaler, as though he was suddenly short of air. Appealing for mercy with his little blue sympathy pipe.
It was no use. Killjoy didn’t flinch. His brain was in formaldehyde. He had turned them into criminals, turfed out of the Garden of Eden. He drew up the new repayment schedule and pushed the contract towards them like a confession. Sign here – unless you’d rather go for suicide counselling. The bank offers a very attractive package whereby you can solve the whole problem with no strain on your domestic budget. Why not avail yourselves of our friendly advice? Take a long walk off the short pier, Coyne.
And Killjoy had a recent suntan, the bastard. Off roasting his arse in Gran Canaria or some place. Brown hands, immaculate pink shirtsleeves and grey suit. It’s a wonder you wouldn’t clean that fuckin’ window some day and let a bit of sunlight into your office. Coyne stared at the confession and Killjoy handed him his own special blue fountain pen. What – you want me to kill myself with this shaggin’ pen?
Carmel had decided she was taking over control of the finances from now on. Nothing new in that, except that she had become more price conscious than ever before. She would budget like Michelangelo. Art before food. Yellow-pack, no-name brands all the way, even if she wouldn’t stoop so low as Dunnes Stores.
On Saturday morning, Coyne was making none of the shopping decisions. His role from now on was to do nothing but push the trolley, like a horse and cart, waiting for the click of the tongue so as to move on. Leaning forward over the handle, pushing with his elbows, while Carmel was rushing around with the list, and the children were chasing each other through the aisles. In the background, the omnipresent sound of Phil Bleeding Collins, or Chris De Shagging Burgh, or somebody else who would happen to be Princess tacky-heart Di’s favourite too. Shoppers high on emotion. Interrupted every now and again by the voice over the loudspeakers calling for assistance. ‘Staff call!’ ‘Spillage!’
Occasionally, Coyne abandoned the trolley to investigate certain items. Wanted to take part in the new fiscal rectitude. Had his own views on economy.
Look at the feckin’ price of that, he said, picking out a jar of marmalade and turning around to Carmel, only to find that she had moved on and he was suddenly speaking to a startled old woman wearing a sort of pastel-green turban on her head. Found himself apologising and putting the jar back sheepishly. And because he hadn’t realised that Carmel had gone ahead with the trolley, he then started pushing the old woman’s trolley away by mistake.
That’s not yours, the woman squealed in horror as though he was a madman. A crazed supermarket fiend.
I beg your pardon.
Carmel sniggering as always. Shoppers mistaking her effort to contain the laughter for some kind of neuralgia or facial paralysis. And Coyne back to leaning on his own trolley, drifting through the aisles after his family; arse imperviously stuck out behind him as though nobody could see him. As though people in supermarkets were blind.
And look at all the junk that Killjoy had in his trolley. No way he was sticking to the Marietta biscuits. And there was Nora Killjoy walking along beside him like she was his colostomy bag or something. Fellatio face. Skin like a crumpled brown envelope, you’d think she rubbed herself down with French polish every morning. And him trying to look forever young beside her, in a yellow and blue Battenberg jumper. I hope you get coronary thrombosis, hardening of the arteries, angina, the lot. I hope they give you a pig’s heart, you bastard. Killjoy – the Wank of Ireland.
Late on a Friday afternoon, Chief drove the new Pajero slowly along the street. Even though they were travelling at walking pace, there was a new sense of purpose. Mick Cunningham was sitting in the passenger seat while Drummer sat in the back. They were watching Carmel Coyne walking along the pavement with a black portfolio under her arm. It was tied together with a red ribbon.
Looks like a big Valentine card to me, Chief remarked.
More like a Mass card, Mick laughed. She’s going to a funeral.
She was, in fact, going to see Gordon Sitwell at his house. He had promised to look over her paintings and help her make a selection for an exhibition.
That’s a portfolio, you ignorant pack of dickheads, Drummer finally informed his gang. She’s into art.
The men examined her in a new light. A walking work of art. They tried to remember the names of famous artists, as though they were having an impromptu table quiz in the car. Michelangelo. Van Gogh. Vermicelli.
That’s pasta, you prick, Chief said. It’s Vermeer.
Picasso!
Pick your own asso, mate.
But Drummer didn’t like the idea of his men acting out Beavis and Butthead while they were out on a reconnaissance job. So they all shut up and watched. Carmel walked up to a redbricked house and rang the bell. Chief pulled up across the street and they waited until Sitwell came out and let her in.
Hang on. Is she plugging your man here? Chief asked. They fell silent again until Mick had an idea that it would be a good thing for Berti to get his portrait done.
It might be a good way of getting paid back for the burned-out car, Drummer was thinking quietly to himself.
Do you reckon she’s any good at dancing? he wanted to know.
Chief was puzzled. Turned around and looked at the shadow of a grin widening on Drummer’s face, trying to read his mind.
You mean Irish dancing. Diddli-eye stuff, Chief answered with a big laugh.
Brilliant. Extraordinary. Shama-Lama-ding-dong, is what Sitwell thought of Carmel’s paintings, smacking his lips as though they could be consumed. He talked about her harbours with all the emotional slither of an emigrant returning to his birthplace after years abroad. Her work was so evocative that he was frequently moved to tears of artistic joy and wanted to hug his protégée. Carmel found him gazing at her body to see if it matched the undiscovered genius of her art. He was falling over himself as they poured over canals and forests and halfpenny bridges, churning up intense excitement.
You will be discovered very soon, Carmel, he said with a tremor.
Then he changed gear and started moving around Carmel as though she had suddenly been covered in a silver web. Stared closely at her hair, her eyes, her face – standing back and squinting as though he was struck by a new creative ailment that would kill him if he didn’t instantly take to the brush.
Shhssssssh… he said. Don’t say a word.
He pushed her gently backwards and forced her to sit down under the fading autumn sunset coming through the skylight, standing back to follow an aura of pale light around her with his outstretched hand. Feeling her face and hair and body from a distance with his brush, narrowing his eyes and inhaling deeply.
Shsshhh… it’s the light, he said. An occasion of sheer benediction. One must seize the moment.
Carmel was pinned down in the chair while Sitwell ran back and forward, getting a new canvas ready, mixing paints and occasionally coming towards her to arrange her hands, one lying over the other, like a Royal portrait.
Sheer benediction, he repeated. The illumination is unique.
He brushed vehemently at the new canvas and Carmel was unable to move. The light was fading fast and Sitwell worked in a race against time before they were both almost in darkness, unable to see each other across the fog of inspiration.
Coyne decided it was time for action. From now on he was taking a more holistic view of things. Society could only be brought back from the brink of insanity by direct intervention. Before going to work that evening he made up his mind to start taking the shite back to the arsehole in a more general sense, with the duty sheet in one hand and the flame thrower in the other.
He would start with Killjoy, the bank manager. Somebody needed to fix the man for all seasons with his pink shirts and his year-round suntan. He should be squashed into a sunbed and frazzled like a burned sausage sandwich. Coyne first contemplated a little surgical strike on the bank itself; but the staff there were all a pack of smiling fish heads and the person he needed to get was Killjoy.
So Coyne planned a little job on his home in Killiney – Dublin’s Beverly Hills. Cruised by the house in the early evening just after dark and waited until he saw the Killjoys leaving for the weekend. A little autumn break in the west of Ireland perhaps. Dinner out in Bunratty Castle, stuffing yourselves with duck and pheasant, like chieftains before the Flight of the Earls was even thought of. Then up to the Cliffs of Moher to buy the postcard of a dog lying across the donkey’s back smoking a pipe. Maybe out to Lahinch for a round of fucking golf, what?
Killjoy’s house was a dead easy target. Wide open. No need to disturb the alarm. All Coyne had to do was walk right in through the side gate of this delightfully detached residence overlooking Dublin Bay. Where the fuck did you get the planning permission to build an eyesore like this, Killjoy? And everything so neat and tidy. All the garden tools neatly stacked in the little wooden shed. Hose rolled up perfectly. And the garden furniture all beautifully arranged on the patio.
Coyne casually opened the tin of bitumen and began to pour it across the Liscannor slates. Coyne, the patio terrorist, strikes his first blow, turning the thick tar out over the pristine white deckchairs. Over the beautifully pointed granite barbecue in the shape of a miniature Norman castle. Over the replicated Burren rockery. Lovely thick black blood dripping all over the crazy paving halfway down the garden until it ran out and Coyne was so pleased with his work that he regretted he hadn’t brought a camera. Now there’s a nice little surprise for you, Killjoy, when you comeback from your dirty weekend. That’ll teach you not to insult people in your office.
When the light had disappeared, Sitwell put on a small lamp beside Carmel. Another one had already been lit over his easel, shining down on the nascent masterpiece like a beam of inspiration. It was warm in the studio and Carmel had taken off her jacket. She was leaning back now across the chaise-longue offering herself to art by holding forward a naked shoulder and a naked arm, looking out with a natural expression of self-awareness. She was no longer shy because she was communicating her body to an enlightened public. Nor did she pout or try and look vampish, but rather understated her own sexual presence by looking confidently out across the room, not so much at Sitwell, who had become the intermediary, but at the people who would file past her in a gallery and say: there is a woman at ease with herself.
It would
have been difficult to establish the precise chronology of events that afternoon, but it seemed that Carmel was now obeying each decision that Sitwell made on canvas. He had begun with her face and her hair and the vague outlines of her body reclining along the seat. But as he worked silently, it became clear that he was crafting an image of Carmel with less and less clothes on. She fully understood this creative progression and responded by discreetly removing her shoes, her dress, her underwear until she lay back in the pose of a classical nude, liberated by each brushstroke, a thin scarf draped across her stomach.
Sitwell waved his brush about with excitement. Came forward for a moment and said he needed to get a more precise idea of scale and take some rough optical measurements. He closed one eye and held the brush up vertically. Then stood over Carmel holding the brush across her body like a spirit level. Took in all the details of her skin, the little folds in her elbows, the shadows under her arms, the slight burr of goosepimples along her hip and the hint of natural gravity in her breasts. Her chest and stomach were moving in and out on each breath like the sea, and one of her legs was half crossed over the other so that her pubic hair looked like fine, dark-brown seaweed, swept into a cleft by a receding wave.
Sitwell felt his subject was beginning to make the subtle, indefinable leap from the earthly world into the imagination. One more delicate touch and he could elevate her from life into art. He churned up some light-blue paint on his pallet and drew a line beginning at her shoulder and continuing down along her arm. He covered her thighs and her breasts with light-blue markings that made her look like a bedouin queen.
Coyne called around to Fred for a cup of tea before going on duty. It occurred to him to tell Fred about everything that had happened, but he decided not to. The news of Drummer’s car burning had been greeted by the Special Branch as though they were a pack of sniggering schoolboys. They put it down to some gangland feud. Some reprisal for a drug deal that had gone wrong. Coyne decided to keep the real facts under his hat, only informing Fred on a need-to-know basis so as not to incriminate his mentor.
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