by Ken Bruen
The manager barked louder: ‘But he’s just a boy, what’s wrong with him?’
‘He got canned.’
Falls accompanied the security guard for aid. To the pub. He ordered a double brandy and she a Britvic orange, slimline. She put out her hand, said: ‘I’m glad to meet you. And you are?’
‘Beige. That’s how I feel, but put me on the other side of that drink, I’ll be, as Stephanie Nicks sang, “A Priest of Nothingness’’.’
His Irish brogue surfaced haphazardly as he lilted on some of the words, then he added: ‘I’m Eddie Dillon.’
‘Dylan?’
‘Naw, the other one, the Irish fella.’
‘He’s famous?’
‘Not yet, but he’s game.’
She laughed, said: ‘I haven’t one clue to what you’re on about.’
He gave a shy smile, answered: ‘Ah, there’s no sense in it, but it has a grand ring!’ He looked at her hands, added: ‘And speaking of rings, can I hope yer not wed?’
She was filled with warmth, not to mention a hint of lust. She said: ‘Are you long in security?’
He drained his glass and she clocked his even white teeth. He said: ‘I was with the Social Security for longer than either of us admit, but yes, it’s what I do. I like minding things. I used to do it back home, but that’s a long time ago. Thank Jaysus… and no, it’s not what I do while I’m waiting to be an actor. I’m with Woody Allen who said he was an actor till he got an opening as a waiter.’
She laughed again, then said: ‘I’ve got shopping to do, so are you going to ask me out?’
‘I might.’
Roberts looked at his wife across the breakfast table. Deep lines were etched around her eyes, and he thought: ‘Good Lord, she’s aging.’ But said: ‘England went under with barely a whimper, losing their final match by twenty-eight runs today.’
‘That’s hardly surprising dear, surely?’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, I mean the poor lambs have a maniac stalking them. It’s not conducive to good cricket, is it?’
He felt his voice rising: ‘All they had to chase was a perfectly manageable victory target of 229.’
‘Says you. And darling, I’m sure they feel you should be chasing a maniac instead of criticising.’
Falls was surprised that Eddie Dillon had a car. She felt he’d have a lot of surprises. The motor was a beat-up Datsun, faded maroon. He said:
‘I won it off a guy in a card game.’
‘What?’
‘Just kidding. It’s the kind of line guys adore to use.’
‘Why?’
‘Good question, and one I have no answer to.’
He was dressed in a thin suit; everything about it was skinny, from the labels to the crease. A startling white shirt cried: ‘Clean, oh yes.’ Falls had her sedate hooker ensemble. Black low-cut dress, short, and black tights. Slingback heels that almost promised comfort, but not quite. He said: ‘You look gorgeous.’
She knew she looked good. In fact, before he arrived, she’d almost turned herself on. He’d brought a box of Dairy Milk. The big motherfucker that’d feed a flock of nuns.
She asked: ‘Won them in a card game?’
‘Yup, two aces over five, does it every third hand.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To Ireland.’
And in a sense, they did.
‘I was a small time crook until this very minute, and now I’m a big-time crook!’ Clifton Young in Dark Passage
Fenton, of the ‘E’ gang, was becoming less wallpaperish. He was beginning, for the first time in his life, to follow the plot. Not completely, but definitely in there. Now, coming off a football high, he challenged Kevin, said: ‘See that young copper got done?’
‘Yeah.’
‘The papers are saying we done it.’
Kev was dressed in urban guerrilla gear. Tan combat pants with all the pockets, tan singlet and those dogtags they sell in the arcade. Desert Storm via Brixton. He sensed Fen’s attitude and squared off. A Browning automatic peaking from the pocket on his left thigh. He smiled, said: ‘Fuck ’em.’
Fenton, less sure, wanted to back off, but had to hold. Asked: ‘Did ya, Kev? Did ya do him?’
Kev was well pleased. It kept the troops in line if they believed the boss was totally not to be fucked with. He said: ‘Whatcha fink Fen, eh… what do ya reckon, matey?’ Now Albert and Doug were on their feet and the air was crackling. Fen fell back into a chair, saying: ‘Aw Jeez, Kev, you never said nuffing about doing the old bill. Jeez, it’s not on. It’s not… And he groped in desperation for a word to convey his feeling. ‘It’s not British.’
Kev gave a wild laugh, then pulled the Browning out, got into shooter stance, legs apart, two-handed grip, swung the barrel back and forth across his gang, shouted: ‘Incoming!’ and watched the fucks dive for cover.
He could hear hueys fly low over the Mekong Delta, and vowed to re-rent Apocalypse Now.
‘What a place. I can feel the rats in the wall.’ Phantom Lady
The Galtimore ballroom confirms the English nightmare. That the Irish are: One, tribal. Two, ferocious. Three, stone mad.
To see a heaving mass of hibernians ‘dancing’ to a show-band with an abandon of insecurity, is truly awesome. Like a rave with intent. When Falls saw the entrance and felt the vibes, she asked: ‘Are we here to dance or to raid?’
Eddie took her hand, laughed: ‘They’re only warming up.’
She could only hope this was a joke.
It wasn’t. Two bouncers at the door said in unison: ‘How ya, Eddie.’
Falls didn’t know: was this good or bad? Good that he was known, but how regular was he? Was she just another in a line of Saturday Night Specials, cheap and over the counter?
Eddie said: ‘They’re Connemara men. Never mess with them. When penance is required, they think true suffering is to drink sherry.’
Inside it was sweltering, and seemed like all of humanity had converged. Eddie said: ‘Wait here, I’ll get some minerals,’ and was gone.
Falls panicked, felt she’d never see him again. The sheer mass of the crowd moved her along and into the ballroom. She thought: ‘So this is hell.’
A stout man, reeking of stout in a sweat stained shirt asked her: ‘D’yer want a turn?’
‘No thank you, I’m — ’ but he shouted: ‘Stick it, yer black bitch!’
A band, consisting of at least fifty or so it seemed, were doing a loud version of ‘I Shot the Sheriff. Mainly it was loud, and they sure hated the sheriff. And here was Eddie, big smile, two large iced drinks, saying: ‘So, did you miss me?’
‘Yeah.’
Then they were dancing, despite the crowd, the heat and the band. They were cookin’. He could jive like an eel. Falls had never met a man who could dance. In fact most of them could barely speak. It deeply delighted her. Then a slow number: ‘Miss You Nights’.
And she drew him close, enfolded him tight. She asked: ‘Is that a poem or are you real pleased with me?’
‘It’s poetry all right.’
And later, it would be.
The Beauty of Balham
Falls was in love with love. She yearned to feel the mix of sickness, nausea and exhilaration that came with it. So in love you couldn’t eat, sleep or function. The telephone ruled your life and ruined it. Would he phone, and when, if, oh God…
You bastard. She wanted to do crazy shit like write their married name and buy him shirts he’d never wear. Cut his hair and hang out with his family, prattle on about him until her friends roared: ‘Enough!’
Lie awake all night and stare at his face, trace his lips gently with two fingers and half hope he’d wake. Kiss him before he shaved and wear the beard rash like a trophy. Mess his hair just after he’d carefully styled it, and iron his laundry, or even iron his face. She giggled. Publicly, on matters musical, she’d drop the name of cool like Alanis Morissette. Sing the lyrics of mild obscenity and mouth the words of kick ass. A
t home, if it wasn’t the Cowboy Junkies, she’d tie her hair in a severe bun and put Evita on the turntable. Her window had a flower box, and with the tiniest push of imagination — open that window full — she was on the balcony of the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires. A couple of dry sherries fuelled the process and she’d sing along with ‘Don’t Cry for me, Argentina’.
The track on total repeat till tears formed in her eyes, her heart near burnt from tenderness for her ‘shirtless ones’. Till a passer-by shouted: ‘Put a bloody sock in it!’
It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that, at odd times, her voice carried to the Umpire, and eased the dreams of carnage he’d envisaged. Reluctantly, like a sad Peronist, she shut Evita down and considered her situation. If she told Roberts about Brant and Mrs Roberts, she was in deep shit. If she didn’t tell him and he found out, she was in deeper mire. If she said nowt to nobody, she’d probably survive. It stuck in her gut like the benign cowardice it was. Falls could vividly remember the day her friends ran up to her in the street saying: ‘Come quick, look at the man on the common.’
When she got there, her heart sank. The object of their curiosity was her dad. Staggering home from the pub after a day’s drinking. She tried to help him. She was four years old. As long as she could remember, her life had been overshadowed by his drinking. He was never violent, but it cast a huge cloud over the family. She felt she was born onto a battlefield. His booze destroyed the family. With it came with the four horsemen: Poverty, Fear, Frustration, Despair.
Dad was anaesthetised from all that. There was never money for schoolbooks or food. Nights were spent trying to block out her parents’ raised voices. Or curled up, too terrified to sleep because her father hadn’t come home. Wishing he was dead and praying he wasn’t. Never inviting her friends home as her father’s moods were unpredictable. Most of her childhood spent covering up for his drinking. Once, asking him: ‘Can I have two shillings for an English book?’
‘Sure, don’t you speak it already?’
Whispering, lest his sleep be disturbed. All of this destroyed her mother. Being of Jamaican descent, she developed the ‘tyrant syndrome’, and tried to enlist young Falls on her side. Early she learned to ‘run with the hare and savage with the hound’. Oh yes! Then she became convinced that mass would help. If she went to church enough, he’d stop.
He didn’t.
She stopped church. Slowly, she realised the terrible dilemma for such a child as she. They have to recover from the alcoholic parent they had, and suffer for the one they didn’t have. When she was nineteen she had a choice: go mad or get a career. Thus she’d joined the police and often felt it was indeed a mobile madness.
‘Love makes the world go round’
Falls, looking in the mirror, said: ‘I am gorgeous.’ She sure felt it. Eddie told her all the time, and wow, she never got tired of it. For no reason at all, he’d touched her cheek, saying: ‘I can’t believe I found you.’ Jesus!
A woman dreams her whole life of such a man. If all his lines were just lines, so what? It was magic. She was sprinkled in Stardust. True, she’d tried the cliches, the mush on toast of trying out his name to see how it fit: ‘Susan Dillon.’
Mmm. How about Susan Falls Dillon?
Needed work.
Eddie Dillon rolled off Falls, lay on his back and exhaled. ‘The Irishman’s Dream.’
‘What’s that, then?’
‘To fuck a policeman.’
After the dance, she’d asked him for a drink. He’d had her. In the hall, the kitchen, the sitting room and finally, panting, he’d said: ‘I give up — where have you hidden the bed?’
As they lay on the floor, knackered, the age-old divide between the sexes was full frontal. She wanted him to hold her and tell her he loved her, to luxuriate in the afterglow. He wanted to sleep. But new-mannish educated as he partly was, he compromised. Held her hand and dozed. She had to bite her tongue not to say ‘I love you.’ Then he stirred, said: ‘I’ve a thirst on me to tempt the Pope. I’ll give you a fiver to spit in me mouth.’
She laughed and, victim of the new emancipation, rose and got him a pint of water. After he’d drunk deep, he gave a huge burp, rested the glass on his chest, said: ‘Jaysus, a man could love a woman like you.’
Ah! The perennial bait, the never-fail, tantalising lure of the big one. Her heart pounding, she knew she was in the relationship minefield. One foot wrong and boom, back to Tesco’s pre-frozen for one. She said: ‘I hope you were careful.’ He tilted the glass slightly, said: ‘Oh yes, I didn’t spill a drop.’
When finally they went to bed, he slept immediately. Falls hated how much she wanted to be held. Later, she was woken by him thrashing and screaming, and then he sat bolt upright. She said: ‘Oh God, are you OK?’
‘Man, the flashbacks.’
‘What?’
‘Isn’t that what the guys always say in the movies?’
‘Oh.’
‘Jesus, it was some movie.’
As Falls settled back to uneasy sleep, she ran Tony Braxton’s song in her head — ‘Unbreak My Heart’.
Eddie had all the moves. After he’d spent a night at her flat, next day she’d discover little notes, tucked in the fridge, under the pillow, the pocket of her coat. All of the ilk: ‘I miss you already’, or ‘You are the light in my darkness’, And other gems. Mills and Boon would have battled for him. Walking together, he’d say: ‘Can I take yer hand, it makes me feel total warmth.’
A God.
And what a kisser. Finally, a man born to lip service. She could have come with kissing alone and did often.
‘If your dead father comes to you in a dream, he comes with bad news. If your dead mother comes, she brings good news.’
Rosie couldn’t decide which coffee. She and Falls had met at one of the new specialty coffee cafes. The menu contained over thirty types of brew. Falls said: ‘Good Lord, I suppose instant is out of the question.’
‘Shh, don’t think such heresy, the windows will crack in protest.’
Falls took another pan of the list, then said: ‘OK, I’ll have the double latte.’
‘What?’
‘I know the names from the movies.’
‘Mmm, sounds weak. I’ll have the Seattle Slam.’ They laughed.
Rosie said: ‘So, girl. Tell all, can you?’
Falls giggled, said: ‘If I tell you he kisses the neck…
‘Uh-huh.’
‘… right below the hairline.’
‘Oh God, a prince.’
‘And holds you after.’
‘He is unique, beyond prince.’
The coffee came and Falls sampled it, said: ‘Yeah, it’s instant with froth.’ Then she leaned closer, added: ‘You know why I did, like, on the first date?’
‘’Cos you’re a wanton cow.’
‘That too. But when we came out of the dance, I felt faint.’
‘Lust, girl.’
‘And I sat on the pavement.’
Rosie made a face as she tasted her drink, telling Falls to continue.
‘Before I could, he whipped off his jacket and laid it on the path.’
‘So you sat on it and later you sat on his face.’
They roared, shamefully delighted, warmly scandalised. Rosie said: ‘Taste this,’ and pushed the slam across. Falls did, said: ‘It’s got booze in there, check the menu.’
Sure enough, in the small print, near illegible, was: ‘Pure Colombian beans, double hit of espresso, hint of Cointreau.’ Falls said: ‘I know what the Cointreau’s hinting.’
‘What’s that, then?’
‘Get bladdered. Did I tell you I dreamed of my dad?’
Later, wired on slammers, hopping on espresso, Falls showed her Eddie Dillon’s poem.
‘He wrote a poem for you?’
‘Yes.’ (shyly)
‘Is it any good?’
‘Who cares? ’Cos it’s for me, it’s brilliant.’
‘Give it here, girl!’
&n
bsp; She did.
Benediction
Never believed
in such as blessings
were
you threw
a make
un-helped, upon the day
and help available
was how you helped
yourself — A crying
down
to but a look in caution — stayed alert
reducing always towards
the basic front
in pain
— never
— never the once
to once admit
you floundering had to be
Such Gods as crossed
your mind — if God
as such it
might have been
you never took
to vital introspection
Such it was from you
did feel
the very first in love’s belief
form feaming every smile
you ever freely
gave
Rosie’s lips moved as she read. For some reason, this touched Falls and she had to look away. Finally: ‘Wow, it’s deep.’
‘ ’Tis. That’s what he says, “tis”.’
‘Do you understand it?’
‘Course not. What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Oh, you lucky cow, I think I hate you!’
Virgin? What’s your problem. Whore? What’s your number. Naomi Wolf (Rocking Years)
Sent flowers every other day, she said: ‘I am blessed full. Not a cloud to be seen… almost. One or two tiny niggles, hardly worth consideration: one, he couldn’t take her to his flat; two, she couldn’t phone him. Weighted against the other gold, these were nothing — right?