Sharon was a lousy cook; but she was all over Mongi with affection and sweetness, full of Rose of Tralee kindness. Her palliative, chimebox voice got a bit stifling at times, because all Mongi wanted to do that evening was to lie around bollock naked and watch football. Above him, the festooned canopy of the bed with its peach lace drapes hanging down like two half-moons. It was one of the last games on the soccer calendar. A testimonial, he called it. And what could be more unerotic than end of season, drag on, scoreless draw football. The referee hadn’t even produced a yellow card yet.
Sharon was doing her best to liven up the situation, instantly assuming that there was something wrong with her if her partner preferred soccer. She was practically maiming herself. Trying to wrap her legs around one of the mahogany poles at the foot of the bed, vaulting across the massive TV in a red, cheese-cutter thong and recklessly reversing her centre-spread backside into his face, without even as much as a blink from Mongi.
I can’t fuckin’ see! You’re blocking my view, he said. Sharon sulked.
Sport was the end of imagination. It was a refuge from sexuality and engagement. A mushroom cloud of sterility. She could tell by the heartburn look of bitterness on his face that he was not even satisfied by the game. He was gnawing like a badger at his already depleted fingernails, and it looked like the only thing he wanted to do with Sharon was to start biting her false purple-black talons. He was self-absorbed. He had failed to get his hands on Jimmy Coyne. In addition to that, he had been questioned by the cops in relation to the murder of Tommy Nolan. Sergeant Corrigan had put a number of awkward scenarios to him earlier on at his mother’s house while his hamburger was going cold.
Sergeant Corrigan was now presenting Mongi with all the evidence he had collected. Amazing the amount of witnesses he had found. Mongi was a cornered rat, ran the theme of his message. And the Gardai were thematic, schematic bastards. There was only one thing Mongi hated more than all this unwanted attention, and that was being called by his real name, Richard. Pronounced by Sergeant Corrigan as Rigid! Spoiled his appetite and fucked up all his jouissance.
To make matters worse, Sharon started talking to Mongi’s mickey. Mongi thought he was hearing things. Addressing his pecker, she was, in dulcet, nursery tones. She knelt down and had a private conversation with it as if Mongi didn’t exist and this floppy little instrument of power and pleasure was the only friend she had in the world. As though Mongi’s half-stiff ego was located right there in his ragdoll member. Careful not to get in the way of the lacklustre images of soccer, she chatted away.
Come here, my little pet! What’s the matter with you tonight, you poor little peckerhead?
At first, Mongi ignored the use of these diminutive adjectives. All lovable items were little to the women he knew. A nurturing instinct to reduce everything to manageable infant dependency. A Sindy doll universe. Venerating his fragile id, kissing it and shaking it playfully from side to side, trying to spark a debate against the background noise of indifferent football cheers. Until she used one Lilliput superlative too many.
My sweet little sprat, she said, nudging it with her nose and whimpering.
Mongi looked down and discovered that his mickey had indeed taken on the blue-green stripes of a lower infant class mackerel. Flapping about and hyperventilating like it was out of water in an over-oxygenated environment.
What did you call it?
Darling little sprat, she repeated, looking up at Mongi with great concern. It was the wrong word. She tried to swallow and withdraw her face.
Too late! Mongi lifted her with a punch in the mouth that sent her across the room. There was a neat, audible click of her lips as the fist made contact. A wasted string of libidinal saliva was left hanging in the air and Mongi wiped his knuckles on the bedspread in distaste. Then he jumped up and grabbed a lamp in the shape of a black nude bearing a yellow globe on her shoulder. Held it like a joystick, took Sharon by the hair and threatened to electrocute her womb if she ever used that term again.
You’re saying it smells like a fish! he shouted.
No! Jesus, Mongi. I didn’t say that.
You insinuated that I’m a fishmonger.
Mongi, no! Please. I swear!
Sharon was shaking. Her lipstick had turned to blood. She was astonished by the level of aggression involved in the preamble to sex these days. Thug foreplay. A bit of rough. A multi-pack of bruised breast fantasies delivered in one terrifying domestic assault. Gratified only by the stuttering sound of her Rose of Tralee voice begging for mercy, he switched off the TV, ready to punish this grievous misappellation.
Never say sprat again.
I promise, Mongi, she whispered, white in face. Counting her teeth with a scarlet tongue. Please don’t mark me.
He kissed her mouth and sucked her swollen lip. Mongi the vampire, swallowing the taste of terror. But in that moment, the cellular phone rang. After him getting all worked up for it, then came the crass intrusion of the mobile phone. Another setback. An urgent business development that put an instant dampener on Mongi’s dark desire. It was Jack McCurtain. A serious problem had arisen in the wet-back situation.
Of course. Why hadn’t Coyne thought of this earlier? If McCurtain had been chosen to deliver a paramilitary message to Coyne, then he had to be in a position to lead the way. They expected Coyne to be afraid, they expected him to shrivel. Like all those people who had their windows painted black in final warning. They thought he would be cowering in his flat at the mention of balaclavas. Coyne felt vulnerable at first. Any man with a family would. But he had nothing to lose any more. He would not fret for the rest of his life like a frightened rabbit. Not Coyne.
He found McCurtain’s house, rang the bell and waited. The door opened and emitted a waft of curry. McCurtain saw Coyne and instantly tried to slam the door. Like they used to slam the door shut on all the Mormons and Latter-day Saints and Poppy Day sellers. Feck off back to England. Anyone who didn’t conform with Catholic republican ideals. Coyne’s own father was the same, slamming the door so the whole street would shake.
McCurtain didn’t care for any creed at his door after midnight. He whacked the door like a tennis racket, creating a hostile gust in the hallway. The rebuff on the Irish doorstep. Except that Coyne was too fast an opponent. Stuck his itinerant boot in the door, close to the hinge at the angle of least resistance. Caused the door to bounce back ineffectually.
Sorry to disturb your dinner, Coyne said.
I’m busy.
You shouldn’t be eating that kind of stuff so late at night. Give you nightmares.
What do you want?
I’m looking for your friend, the man with the mackerel.
Listen, it’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t take moral responsibility for anything else. I’m only the messenger, Coyne.
The dove from above, is that it?
Coyne pushed his way into the house and closed the door behind him. The smell of bindi bhaji was overpowering. He pushed McCurtain along the hallway towards the kitchen where he had been eating his take-away and watching hardcore porn. Tarka dhal and simultaneous ejaculations. For Christsake! Coyne was not easily disgusted by other people’s proclivities, unless they included golf. But the thought of McCurtain horsing into his erotic Indian dinner was a sight too far. Indian food was the pornography of world cuisine.
Where is he? Coyne shouted.
Who?
The bastard with the message.
McCurtain claimed he had no way of contacting him. It was all operating on a strict cell system now.
Coyne had had enough of this evasion. Grabbed him by the neck and pushed him back into a chair, so that McCurtain suddenly found himself reclining gracefully with his legs sticking out straight for balance. Arms flailing around trying to grab hold of his take-away and sending basmati all over the kitchen floor.
For one minute, McCurta
in thought he could get out of this by force. He got his hands on a fork and started stabbing the back of Coyne’s neck, like some Jurassic bird pecking, until Coyne threw him down and cracked his head on the terracotta tiled floor.
Coyne felt his neck. Like a zip had been opened, letting in the air. His hand was red. The television was making appropriate gasping sounds of agony.
McCurtain, you Casanova bastard. You shouldn’t have done that.
McCurtain huddled in the corner with his fork. Tried to gouge Coyne’s eye out this time, until he was dispossessed of his weapon. There followed a straight, Ryan’s Daughter style punch-up in the kitchen. McCurtain at times gaining the upper hand, throwing tarka dhal straight into Coyne’s eyes. But at last Coyne won the battle and pinned McCurtain to the floor with the chair.
You’re forcing me to do this, Coyne said.
He took a bottle of Tabasco sauce and stuck it up McCurtain’s nose. A jet of the fiery liquid made its way down the nostril, burning through McCurtain’s sinuses, making him sneeze half a dozen times in quick succession. This was chemical warfare. Red-hot lava trickling around the nasal cavity more powerful than any caustic toilet cleaner.
I swear, I don’t know!
Another squirt of Tabasco in McCurtain’s eye caused him to weep convulsively. Red-eye McCurtain, crying for Ireland. His eyeball bathing in a socket of acid. It was the only way of dealing with the situation, the physical force tradition. Fighting fire with fire. The inherent paradox of all warfare. Violence to end all violence.
Wait! McCurtain shouted at last. Can I make a phone call?
Mongi was furious. Right in the middle of a delicate moment in the build-up to love he had to negotiate with McCurtain. Jesus, the pong of garlic coming down the phone line was enough to put him off sex, if not football as well, for a year.
McCurtain was trying to speak in code. Explained his predicament in the most eloquent Irish. Tá mé i sáin, he said, using a common chess analogy. By the grimace on his face, it looked like McCurtain had surrendered.
Have you ever wondered what happens after checkmate? Coyne asked. The game doesn’t end there. Tell that to your friend. The next move is even more interesting. The defeated king gets roasted alive in a cauldron of Tabasco sauce.
Mongi put the statuesque bedside lamp of the black nude on the floor as he listened to this arcane gibberish coming at him across the phone in the middle of the night.
Gabh’ agus fuckáil thú féin, he said.
Mongi didn’t care about McCurtain. Why should he care if this ex-cop gave McCurtain a hiding. Let him give McCurtain the vindaloo treatment. They would get Coyne back in good time.
Meigeal an Mhaighdean Mhuire, McCurtain was screaming. He’ll kill me.
Coyne started laughing to himself. What was all this garlic lark. Didn’t they know that Coyne was a fluent Irish speaker? Coyne the true native. Not like these half arsed Irish speakers who spread a patina of the language all over the country like low-cholesterol margarine. Abusing the mother-tongue, turning it into an incendiary device. Gaelic as a weapon of war.
Coyne grabbed the phone from McCurtain and spoke directly to the leader.
Listen here, a mhac, Coyne shouted. Those new visitors from Romania. They’re my friends. If you ever lay a finger on them again I’ll incinerate your pal here. Every grain of that basmati rice is going into his urethra. Then I’ll come over to your place and do the same to you, mate.
Mongi was calm. His fury had not had enough time to percolate into his nerve endings, still tingling with sexual promise. In the background, Sharon was tousling her hair. Exaggerating a rip in her belly-top and lying back as though she’d just been knocked off a horse or a tractor. Simulating a farming accident: absentmindedly taking blood from her mouth and smearing it on her cheeks. On her left ear.
Stop that, Mongi barked at her.
Coyne burst into another poetic string of golden Irish treasures. Cursing at Mongi with real blas. Mongi could not help being impressed. Beidh tú sínnte, a mhac, le bud asail I do bheal agus méar an deabhail I do thóin. Coyne was advising Mongi to put his mackerel in his mouth and smoke it.
Diúg do roinneach.
Mongi responded with a few lacklustre expletives and threw the phone across the room. What was the point in talking to this crazed native speaker?
Mongi sat back on the bed. He had no real interest in the language, except for its fetish value And there was no way that he could resume the intensity of his love for Sharon, after all that garlic. Not with the same sadistic brio. He looked down and saw that his mickey had been reduced to a minnow. Paucity pecker! It was money he was thinking of. Because there was nothing as erotic as money. He was thinking hard.
Coyne found himself on shaky emotional ground after the encounter, as though there was some benign hand laid on his shoulder by the Irish language that made him tolerant again. Those few words made him realise what he had been missing. That sense of lost friendship. The consensus in adversity. Now at last he knew what was wrong with his country. They had lost that close-knit sense of support and good will towards each other when things were poor and everyone spoke Irish.
McCurtain was snivelling and nursing his eye while Coyne was struck by a huge wave of remorse. It was an unforgivable thing to do, to interfere with a man’s meal.
It was just like the bread and seagulls incident where Tommy Nolan dropped his sandwiches in the school-yard and let out a silent shout of pain.
I’m sorry about that, Coyne said. It’s not right.
What? McCurtain said, looking up with fear, still coughing and spitting.
I want to apologise for doing this to your food. I didn’t mean to. It was wrong.
McCurtain was amazed by the sudden kindness and didn’t trust such a dramatic personality change. He wished Coyne would stop talking about the food. Leave it alone. The damage was done now.
Can I get you some more rice? Coyne asked. Look, I’ll go down and get anything you want. I feel terrible about this.
But it was too late. The Indian take-away was already shut. McCurtain gazed in astonishment at this bizarre reversal as Coyne picked up the grains of rice one by one. Coyne straightened up the chair. Swore he would make up for it as he lifted McCurtain up and ushered him towards the table, begging him to resume his meal. Hoping to Christ he still had his appetite.
Here, have some more of this bindi bhaji. I didn’t touch it.
There was remorse in the air. Skipper Martin Davis was also feeling a deep new unspeakable guilt on account of the death of Tommy Nolan. Even though he had no part in his death, he still felt he had contributed with his presence, with his words and with his tacit support. The force-feeding incident with the mackerel had changed his mind and he was now hoping to erect some kind of memorial to Tommy Nolan. He began to make a collection. Or effectively a bogus collection, because very few people could spare more than a few pence for a memorial and it was Martin Davis himself who put up the money. Then he consulted McCurtain, the guru of all commemoration, to see how best it could be set up. Perhaps some kind of plaque outside Tommy’s council flat, or somewhere at the harbour, near to where he died. But that was a little too close for comfort, perhaps. They discussed the idea of a brass plate at the Anchor Bar, to show public appreciation for what Tommy had meant in their society.
Sergeant Corrigan was up early, standing on an outcrop of rock, looking out to sea through a pair of Garda binoculars. The lenses were a bit blurred, but he could see the Lolita just out beyond the bay, returning with a catch of fish and the trailing seagulls. What mystified him was that skipper Martin Davis had so suddenly decided to return to fishing. With the blue sky of an early summer’s day, he was out there in the Irish Box hauling in the first mackerel shoal of the season, listening to them slapping about in the hold.
If the binoculars had been any stronger, Corrigan would have detected a smile
of plain pleasure on Martin Davis’s face as he sang to himself through his beard. Belly to the breeze. With the seagull chant in the background, the drone of the engine underneath him and the swell of the sea lifting the boat like the chorus of a song, he was reverting to a simple lifestyle. An ancient devotion to the sea. There was nothing to beat the frenzied sight of fish throwing themselves helplessly on deck in their thousands. Multitudes of green-blue mackerel. Better than the sight of money.
Coyne was on his own in the flat. He hadn’t seen Jimmy in days. Since the big incident on the pier, his son had disappeared.
Coyne was decapitating a late morning boiled egg. Many people would have expected him to regret what he had done. To feel fear. To acknowledge some sense of impending reckoning for taking on the might of Mongi O Doherty. There was a lot of unfinished business out there.
Instead, Coyne was in a fighting mood. Shouting at the radio again.
Good, he roared, when the news broke that an oil company drilling off the west coast had failed to discover any commercial yields. After initially positive indications from geologists, shareholders had their hopes dashed. Disaster! A spokesman for the company said they would be exploring further sites, but that the field closest to the Aran Islands had sadly proved uncommercial.
Well, I’m glad, Coyne shouted back at the radio.
Jaysus, the country was in a state of bereavement. Flags should be flying at half mast and Coyne was laughing. Great news. One last reprieve! Leave that fucking oil where it is, you bastards.
There was a knock on the door. He was in the middle of his tirade, pointing a lump of egg yolk at the radio. Squinting with hot idealism at the invisible oil spokesman as though he was going to kill him with a spoon. He stood up and went to the door.
Carmel.
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