From out of the City

by John Kelly

  It’s hard to believe the reviews were so bad when you read a passage like that. Although it didn’t take long for him to undo everything by gratuitously inserting himself just to make a dig at the clergy, adding, quite unnecessarily, that the birds remind him of aeroplanes of precisely creased paper, folded and pressed to the finest points and launched with hope to seek their own perfection, like the one flung through a singing church during the dimwit priest’s first Mass. And then when the priest says ah look, it’s the flight into Egypt, everybody cracks up and the flock guffaws. All I can do is examine them all in quiet despair. These punters easily pleased, I think to myself. This unexacting place where anaesthesia is all. And then another quite ridiculous scene about someone about to fall into the path of an oncoming DART only to be grabbed by yet another priest – this time a Tridentine from New York City wearing a full round collar and Secret Service shades. He had Claude Butler in his mind when he wrote that. No doubt about it. Lucky’s Tirade is a book I can, so to speak, read like a book.

  And then the four depressing bell-rings that always herald some new announcement of failure on the network. The four ascending notes that break Schroeder’s heart every time he stands on this shattered platform, off on another fool’s errand into Dublin City. Yet more breakdown. Yet more grief.

  We are sorry to announce the late running of the 10:35 train to Howth. This train is delayed by approximately twenty-five minutes. This delay is due to …

  Public transport in all its charmless decay and Schroeder swears so loudly that the other people on the platform shift. And they’re right too. Such a violent outburst might well be the prelude to a shooting spree or worse, and so the alarmed commuters edge even further down the platform and line themselves up at a safer distance, staring straight ahead as if they’re all about to pee on the tracks. Every fucking day! Schroeder spits again, the Beetroot Man still vivid in his head and the desire to punch something making a hard icy snowball of his fist. He looks for something to thump and when he finds it, he drives his knuckles right into it – the rusting sign for Salthill-Monkstown / Cnoc an tSalainn-Baile na Manach. The line of commuters drop their pretence of calm and trot at speed to the very far end of the platform like a little frightened flock of plovers about to fly off, at any moment, in a shower of feathers and shite. Schroeder slinks into the shade.

  When the DART finally arrives, the driver looking somehow pleased with himself, the plovers get on at the back and the madman who has punched the sign for Salthill-Monkstown / Cnoc an tSalainn-Baile na Manach steps through doors which seem to have opened just for him, the carriage empty but for a small huddle of junkies who slur abuse at each other and look as if their faces are dribbling away into a communal hole. Schroeder steps back out onto the platform again and re-enters the train the next carriage down, this one drug-free but jammers.

  Schroeder has written enough about hangovers for me to know exactly how he’s feeling. The drilling headache and lurching heart that seems somehow terrified of itself. And he has written enough about these excursions into Dublin for me to know exactly what he’s seeing. Free newspapers, in several language editions, trampled all over the floor. Today, it’s the official portrait shots of President King standing on a troop carrier dressed as a fighter pilot, his helmet under his arm like a glossy beachball. He has a big grin on his face, all those decades of progress binned and the planet in chaos all over again. An endless orange alert.

  There are a few exhausted-looking soldiers in the corner but mostly it’s Spanish students, talking at torture-level volume about whatever dramas are taking place on their phones. Schroeder can get through an entire day without saying a word to anyone so he can never understand people who talk like this. And this bunch is talking, talking, talking – the air slippery with the cedillas of machinegun Español and he wonders what the little bastards really have to talk about when everything in the heads of youth, even Spanish youth, is misplaced and nothing is understood.

  As the train finally cranks away, Schroeder sees the sign for Salthill-Monkstown / Cnoc an tSalainn-Baile na Manach, now with its little jelly-mould dent. And cradling one hand in the other he looks down at his knuckles all red, white and blue and puts his forehead to the glass, trying to force assorted thoughts both into and out of his mind. He swallows another pill. That Muff bastard knew his name. And Walton’s name. And said he was Branch. And they never say that.

  The dust from the seats is blooming in the sunlight and suddenly Schroeder senses the approach of a rangy figure. The air that accompanies him throbs with unease and Schroeder’s discomfort deepens when he feels a stare of recognition. He reaches for the book. Murakami (229 pages) and the man – a skinhead – throws himself across the opposite seat, lying there as if expecting to be fed grapes.

  – Well? says the skinhead.

  Schroeder pretends he hasn’t heard. The skinhead persists.

  – Did you get it?

  – Schroeder looks up from his book.

  – Did I get what?

  The man looks familiar. Far too cheery for a skinhead.

  – Did you get it?

  Schroeder decides to move seats but just as he gets up the man reaches out and grabs his leg. Schroeder considers kneeing him in the jaw but instead he glares at the hand and hisses with as much venom as he can manage.

  – Do you mind?

  It’s a poor effort and only makes Schroeder sound like an indignant librarian.

  – The letter! says the skinhead. The letter! Did you get it?

  – What are you talking about?

  Schroeder is shaken, but conscious that people are watching, he sits down again. The skinhead gets excited.

  – The letter, man! The letter! It’s not like you get a letter everyday!

  The other passengers, sensing the unpredictable, gather their bags close and pretend to ignore what’s happening. Schroeder stares the skinhead right in the eyes and whispers.

  – So you’re the Branch too, are you?

  The skinhead laughs.

  – Not me, mate. I’m better than the Branch.

  – Then who the fuck are you?

  The man looks around as if he has just heard the stupidest question in the world ever.

  – Who the fuck am I? I’m the mailman! Who do you think I am?

  Then he laughs like a castrato and Schroeder twigs. It is the mailman. Off duty. Unrecognizable in the way a bartender might be. Out of context.

  – How do you know I got a letter?

  – I’m the mailman. I fucking delivered it.

  – I mean how do you know who it’s from?

  – I checked it. I check all the mail. Not all of it obviously. Just the suspicious stuff.

  – Suspicious stuff!

  The mailman shrugs.

  – I use my discretion.

  Schroeder begins to boil.

  – You can’t read people’s mail!

  The mailman raises a finger.

  – I have to read it. What with the President coming we have to be on full alert.

  – I’ll report you to the Guards.

  – The Guards know all about me.

  – I fucking bet they do!

  – I report direct to headquarters. I’m their top man.

  Schroeder has met fantasists before. The city is full of them – touts and then there are people who think they are touts, the latter often being the more dangerous. But in this case Schroeder fears that this is a mailman who really does check the “suspicious” mail. Believing himself especially anointed for the purpose, he feels obliged to guard the postal matrix, to keep its channels open and keep his eye out for this and for that. His mission is to miss nothing. No detail too small when there are sleepers everywhere. Terrorists, subversives and their many fellow travellers are a constant threat to Irish democracy. Cascade has said so. And Gibbon says little else.

  With Claude’s letter the mailman has noticed an address written in the anxious hand of a male person in some distress, carved i
n deep and pressured curls, the fruity blackberry of a cheap ballpoint. Whoever sent it was in a sweat. Someone who perhaps knows where the bodies are buried, or where the banknotes are stashed. Someone who, one way or another, knows too much. Between that, the wonky stamp and the Liverpudlian postmark, the postman reasoned he had several grounds for concern – or for curiosity at least. And so he stepped sideways and crouched between the wheelie bins and opened the letter with the razorblade he carries for this purpose.

  Claude’s letter was read quickly and once satisfied that it contained news of personal rather than national crisis, the mailman resealed the envelope, sprang to his feet, relocated the letterbox, savoured his power once more and opted, finally, for delivery. At that very instant he felt himself the most potent man in Ireland. He is the final arbiter – the hand outstretched and his wavering thumb the sole focus of the slavering multitudes. Let the letter go! Release the letter! No! No! Deprive Schroeder of his news! Keep the letter! Put it with the rest! It was a very important decision, as are all his decisions in these dangerous days. And in the end he decided to send the head of an English king into a tailspin as the letter headed for the hall floor of no. 28. He let the letter live and he listened with something like love as it hit the tiles.

  – I’ll report you for this, Schroeder says again.

  – Report away. I’m the last line of defence. Anyway, he wants to meet you. What has he done, your friend?

  – Fuck you!

  And then as the DART begins to slow once more, the mailman who knows everything and suspects even more suddenly leaps to his feet and makes for the doors. Schroeder, shocked and fuming, watches him lope off down the platform like a six-foot kid with a belly full of sherbet. Like a man who has killed the real mailman, stuck his dismembered bits into the Edwardian pillar boxes of Jacobite green and taken to delivering the Dún Laoghaire mail on some insane postal frolic of his own. Schroeder hokes in the bag. He’d better read the fucking thing now. This, says Schroeder under his spearmint breath, is turning out to be one shitty, shitty morning.

  Dear Anton,

  You will be surprised to hear from me. It is a very long time since we have spoken to one another. Was it my ORDINATION? Yes? A lifetime ago I think so. Have we spoken since then? Yes we have. Just before I went to PERU, which is where “Saint Martin de Porres” is from and Paddington the Bear who loves his marmalade sandwiches and his …

  Paddington the Bear? Saint Martin de Porres? Inverted commas. Block capitals. Schroeder makes an instant diagnosis of basket-casery and tugs at his hair.

  … hard things. Hurtful remarks I think. Not that I am to “judge” or scold. In no position. I would say. I am trying just to make contact with you. How are you? I am well. I am no longer in the “PRIESTHOOD” as you know. And it’s not that I wasn’t even called, more that I did not understand what God was asking of me. Or perhaps I received a message meant for somebody else maybe? Wouldn’t that be a good one!!! HA HA! But I still adhere to the “teachings of CHRIST.” Forgiveness and love the heart of it all. And I forgive you hurtful words for all of my life and I hope that you will forgive me too. Of my own sins …

  Sins? Forgiveness? Not the inevitable, surely? Claude in handcuffs, in an anorak, led through ranks of spitting trolls with fagbutts and highlights to be jailed, unforgiven and chemically adjusted. A pariah, a danger, and Schroeder would be thankful that Mr and Mrs Butler were both long dead and wouldn’t have to see their shiny boy dragged from backseat to courtroom – a hand on his head so he wouldn’t bump it. As if anybody cares. Mind your head scumbag! Father Claude the Good. Father Alpha and Father Omega and all the fallen clergy in between.

  … when I left the “PRIESTHOOD” there were many who thought bad of me. Perhaps you saw me for a “weak man” too. A man of no principles. But nobody understood “the circumstances” but me. This I must explain to you. Confess to you. Because here I am seeking the forgiveness of an old friend which must surely be the great forgiveness in all human life …

  Schroeder throws the letter on the seat beside him and tries to distract himself with a separate rage. What the fuck are you looking at, King? You warmongering piece of shit. But no good. A more personal focus is needed and he finds it quickly. A huddle of schoolboys on the platform. School uniform from the waist up and, from the waist down, shorts, bare legs and the dried rugby-mud of privilege. Little tadpole lawyers and doctors – perfect crossbreeds between the cheekboned princesses of Southside Dublin and the gormless gods from across the avenue. And all of them complicit in what happened. In sucking the soul out of the place. The nation. In capitulating to vulgarity at every turn. In raising the accountant above the medic, the socialite above the poet, the general above the pianist, the professional shit above the man who might possibly fix your head. All these little fuckwits care about is Leinster Rugby and steroids. It’s in their genes. All else has been bred out of them long ago.

  Even the sight of that uniform, almost thirty years later, still makes Schroeder spit. The older boys oxter-cogging him into the jacks, sticking his head down the toilet and then the flush – the air full of male stink and taunts of Welcome to Guantanamo! He remembers with shame that he yielded immediately to get it over with as quickly as possible, picturing, as he sobbed, the man he had read about, murdered in a cruel and unusual way, propped upright inside a giant cathedral bell as it rang out across Paris. Decibelled to death, the vibrations disrupting his heart and soul to the point of explosion. That was his terror, his cheek pressed against the sleek sweep of the toilet bowl, his eyes stinging and the vapour of industrial disinfectant eating at his brain. When his head was finally lifted he looked sideways and saw that Claude had been watching the whole thing. Not actually partaking in the cruelty, but present even so. In the vicinity and hovering with a big innocent face and just the twisted hint of a smile.

  Schroeder stares at the letter. It looks like a wounded man trying to get up.

  … possible that you meet me in Dublin? I will be there at the end of the month. For a FUNCTION. I arrive on the 27th. What about Redding’s Hotel. 3 PM in the afternoon? There are things I need to tell you about but can only do so “IN PERSON.”

  – Not a fucking hope, says Schroeder to the coastline view. Not a fucking snowball’s.

  The DART expires as it enters Blackrock / An Charraig Dhubh and stands for a tense ten minutes until a soldier suddenly smashes out a window with his rifle butt, climbs out into the air and disappears down the platform. Even the Spanish students fall silent until, at last, unapologetic as ever, the train slides away again and on to Booterstown / Baile an Bhóthair – protected home of the Kingfisher: Alcedo atthis. The Halcyon bird. Sign of calm waters and the promise of spring. If you are not lucky enough to see one today, the sign says, don’t give up, it may be here soon. Like the train perhaps. Or Father fucking Claude. Or that grinning bastard King still looking up from the newspapers strewn on the floor.

  For the comfort and safety of other rail users do not place your feet on the seat.

  Schroeder counts the herons hunched in wait for passing trade – the Charons of Booterstown Marsh in their misted hellscape gurgling on its glacial tills, the culverted Trimelston stream, the Nutley stream bringing in the salt sea – the very salinity that once rarefied the place for plants and birds. Snipe. Teal. Tufted. The sulky shelduck and the shoveller. And over the wall, in the Bay itself, whatever hardy sharks can stand the radiation are chomping on the city’s fleshy detritus – murder victims mostly – and maybe the odd mullet.

  Schroeder must have been about twelve when the first great white appeared off the coast of Kerry, their outriders having been spotted the year before. Nobody really believed it but soon there was actual footage of seal kills and fins. When that same first shark was killed by a drunken Corkonian genuflecting on the prow of his boat with a high velocity rifle, it was a big news story. Not least because when the man got back to Cork he was mauled by his pet wolf, crazed by the smell of shark all over his mast
er’s hands. Every cloud, said Mrs S. A very funny woman when she wanted to be, Mrs S.

  … we have all made mistakes. Mine was to loose my way inside my “faith” which is deep. Yours was loosing your way inside your “desire” which is dark. Do you not agree with me? But REDEMPTION is available to all of us if we have the courage for it. And if we can recognise it. This world needs “good people” to live in it like brave people.

  To live in it like brave people? Faith. Desire which is dark? Redemption! Courage! Loosing (sic) your way? Maybe Claude wants to talk about how Schroeder did his science project for him? And how Claude got best in the class for it and how he swaggered like a flute band for a full fortnight encouraging Mr and Mrs S to think that the boy from across the street was some kind of genius. And yet it was Schroeder who wrote every word of it. The Flora and Fauna of Booterstown Marsh. The little egret. The mix of freshwater and saltsea flora – the mad names: bistort, horsetail, sea aster, creeping bent, sea milkwort and the most significant if he remembers correctly – Borrer’s grass, then found only in a few places in Ireland. He can still remember most of it. Borrer’s saltmarsh-grass.

  Puccinellia fasciculata to Carduelis carduelis and a flock of goldfinches comes alongside. Schroeder had thought them long extinct and they seem so exotic in the beachy light. Der Distelfink. They remain by the window, astonishing, undulating slightly, before withdrawing the privilege and veering out into the toxins of Sandymount Strand. The train then plunges into the back gardens of Dublin 4 with its tennis courts and deep basement kitchens, orchids and spice racks arranged in windows lined with prison bars. Then it’s Sydney Parade / Paráid Sydney, a drag act in any language. Alsatians patrol the woodbine hedges. They bark at the train and lunge at the rats.