by Peter Murphy
“You go to school in Churchtown?”
Danny just nodded, not wanting to seem over-awed.
“Wanna make some bread?”
“Sure. What do I have to do?”
“Just deliver some stuff to a friend. He’ll meet up with you around the school and no one will know – if you’re cool.”
Danny thought about it for a moment but he couldn’t say no. He had been at the edge of everything that happened for so long. Now he was getting a chance to be connected – to be one of those guys that everybody spoke about in whispers. Sure it was a bit risky but he could use the money and, besides, no one would ever suspect him. Most people felt sorry for him and the rest thought he was a bit of a spaz.
“Could be a regular gig – if you don’t fuck it up,” Scully smiled a shifty smile and melted back into the crowd, checking over each shoulder as he went.
***
As they drove off, Scully didn’t answer and just looked down at his hands. His fingers were bloody and distorted like they had been torn away from whatever he had been clinging onto.
Anto turned around and smiled as the street lights caught in the diamond beads on the windshield behind him. “We’re just fuckin’ fine, Boyle. We’re taking Scully out for a little spin in the mountains.”
His cigarette dangled from his thin lips and the smoke wisped away ambiguously. He reached back and grabbed a handful of Scully’s hair, lifting his bruised and bloodied face. “Scully hasn’t been feeling too good lately and we thought that a bit of fresh air might sort him out, ya know?”
“Cool,” Danny agreed, trying to stay calm, trying not to let his fear show – Anto fed off it. He briefly considered asking them to drop him off when they got to Rathfarnham but there was no point. He knew what was about to go down. Scully had been busted a few weeks before and, after a few days in custody, had been released.
It was how the cops set them up. They lifted them and held them until they broke and spilled all that they knew. Then they let them back out while they waited for their court date. If they survived until then – well and good. And if they didn’t – it saved everybody a lot of time and bother.
Danny sat back and watched Rathfarnham Road glide by in the night. They crossed the Dodder and headed up the hill towards the quiet, tree-lined streets that he had grown up in. As they passed near his house he thought about it: if the car slowed enough he could risk it – just like they did in the pictures. He could jump out and roll away. He could be up and running before they got the car turned around and by then he would be cutting through the back gardens and could easily lose them.
“You live around here, don’t ya, Boyle?” Anto spoke to the windshield but Danny got the message. “And your girlfriend – she lives down that way?”
Danny thought about correcting him. He hadn’t seen Deirdre since the incident in the church but there was no point. They’d use anybody and anything to get to him. He was better off just going along with them for now.
He briefly thought about asking God to save him but there was no point in that, either. They had given up on each other a long time ago. He turned his head away as they approached the church where he had been confirmed into the Faith, so long ago and far away now.
Danny Boyle was hoping for a fresh start in Canada. With the help of his uncle Martin, he’d soon found a job and a regular gig with a bar band. And when his sweetheart, Deirdre, joined him, Danny seemed set for life.
But Fate wasn’t done with Danny, and when his uncle was stricken with AIDS, Deirdre did the only thing she could think of to save him from the darkness – she got pregnant. Rising to the occasion, Danny became a father with enthusiasm.
With the arrival of their second child, though, mortgages, day-care, and the press of the day took their toll on the young couple. Battling the voice in his head that told him he wasn’t suited for this role, Danny found an ally in the bottle. Soon, drinking became the only thing that made sense to him.
Deirdre, however, refused to give up without a fight. If she could only get Danny to join her, they might even win.
Here’s an excerpt:
Danny rode the elevator down to the lobby where the heater blasted every time the door was opened. He walked across the carpeted floor and was shocked when he reached for the metal handle. There were a lot of things to still get used to. It was fuckin’ freezing all the time and everyone was talking about the wind chill—that that was what really got to you. But everyone still went out in it.
He and Martin had holed up from Christmas to New Year’s and only went out when they had to. But Martin went back to work and Danny started getting cabin fever. Martin told him he had to start going out on his own. He’d have to get used to it when he was working, and all. Martin had friends looking out for anything Danny could do while he was getting his band together.
He tugged at the zipper of his anorak that was nowhere near as warm as it had been in Ireland. It didn’t really block the wind; it just deflected it down to his thighs and made his arse freeze. He kept one hand in his pocket as he cupped his cigarette with the other.
The wind made smoking miserable as it squeezed down between the high-rises and scraped the length of Davisville Avenue. Martin had told him how to get to the subway and gave him a few tickets, too. He would go southbound and get off at Bloor. It was just a few blocks east of there—whatever a block was.
He was a bit disappointed when he got to the subway platform; it wasn’t really underground like they were in London. The platform was open to the winds and he shivered until the train arrived.
It was warm and clean inside and he settled by the window and watched the graveyard slide by until the train tunneled beneath the street. “St. Clair station,” the distorted, scratchy, voice announced and Danny checked the map again. Summerhill, Rosedale and then Bloor; it was only going to take a few minutes. Martin had even suggested where he could go for lunch.
Dooley’s wasn’t what he had expected. It was large and clean and bright with deliberate little Irishisms everywhere. It was the type of place he would have to bring his parents to, after he got settled, and all. The young woman who came to take his order didn’t look very Irish. In fact she looked Vietnamese, or Filipino, but she was friendly. She smiled and asked what type of beer he wanted. Her skin was clear, a yellowish brown and her eyes were dark like pools. Her lips were almost too big for her face and her hair was straying from under the white hat of her maid outfit.
“What type do you have?”
He ordered Carlsberg. It was what Martin had filled his fridge with, along with some anemic light beers that were for David. Danny tried one but couldn’t finish it and, without thinking, said he thought it was “faggoty.”
“Over here we’re called ‘Gays,’” Martin had warned him. He also asked Danny to stay out for the day. David was coming home and they wanted the place to themselves for a few hours. Danny didn’t mind, it would give him a chance to explore his new city.
After lunch, he wandered toward Parliament Street in the bright cold sunshine. He wanted to see Corktown and the old church down on Queen Street. Martin had marked it on the map for him; even though he hadn’t been down to see it.
Martin’s tour led him through Gabbagetown, where the Irish had migrated to from Corktown, once the Irish ghetto that waited for those who survived the “Fever Sheds.” He had read all about it and wanted to see the places for himself; where the children of “Black 47” had fought their way up. Martin had suggested that he not talk like that in front of other people; that it was all in the past now and besides, Canadians got very sensitive when immigrants criticized them. “And they have every right to, too. People come over here from the backend of nowhere and, no sooner than they get set up, they start telling everybody they’re doing it wrong, that everything was better back in the old country. Don’t be one of those guys, Danny. Please?”
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sp; Still, he had to go where those who had gone before him had been, and he’d pay his respects. A lot of Irish had come to Toronto and had to claw their way up. Just the Catholics, mind you; the Protestants got to run the place right off the boat, but Martin said it was better to forget about all that, too. “It wasn’t like being Catholic was such a great thing.” Danny knew what he meant.
Still, the houses along Winchester didn’t look like the kind of houses that Irish people would own. The Irish had moved into them when their more Anglo residents had moved up the ladder. That, Martin had told him, was how it worked. Each time a new group of immigrants arrived, they started near the bottom. “That pushes everybody up a bit. Well, almost everybody.”
Most of them were rooming houses now, with rows and rows of buzzers implanted into their Victorian facades; a public notice of their continuing decline. Danny had noticed a big change in his uncle, too. Now that Martin was openly gay, he wanted people to start accepting each other, and not judge. And not just gays; he was on about the way Danny talked about black people, too, but that was understandable.
Danny agreed and tried but, sometimes, it was just reflex. Everyone at home talked about black people like they were afraid of them. Most of them never met one but they inherited the attitudes of those who said they had. But Martin was right; Danny didn’t want to be a part of anything he was back there. He was being given a new beginning—just like everybody who came over.
Martin was still Irish, but in a different kind of way. He always acted like he never missed it but sometimes, after they had been drinking, he’d let it slip out. He also made it plain that he had no time for religion anymore. He missed Ireland—not being Irish. It was understandable. The Church was against people having sex unless they were trying to have children and there was no way two guys were ever going to be able to convince anyone that that’s what they were up to.
He shivered in the blast of wind that met him at the edge of Riverdale Park, and the noise of a highway right in the middle of everything. Right beside the overgrown river, white in its winter stillness, except for a few bits and pieces of garbage that flew off the highway.
Most of Toronto was clean. He couldn’t believe it, almost sterile, but Martin bristled a little at that and said that he needed to see the rest of it before deciding. Sometimes, Danny was beginning to wonder if he ever really knew his uncle. Most of what they had shared had been all about him. That’s why he wanted to try so much, for Martin’s sake.
The cold cut his tour short but he did get to walk along a part of Queen Street. It wasn’t what he expected, especially around Sherbourne where a steady flow of shabby-looking men filed in and out of the tavern on the corner. It was called the “Canada House” but it didn’t look like the type of place he’d go to.
He did stop in at McVeigh’s New Windsor Tavern. Martin had marked it on the map, too. It was dark and smoky and warm, and he felt at home in a moment. It was a quiet afternoon but Martin had told him it was the place to go when you were in the mood for being Irish.
Danny was. He missed Dublin and he missed Deirdre, even though they weren’t really back together. He felt totally alone and wanted to be somewhere warm and familiar for a while. He wasn’t second-guessing coming over—he had no choice, really—but it was hard to get used to. Everything was all very different, now that he was actually here.
“What can I get you?” the waitress asked.
“I don’t suppose I could get a pint?”
“Not the type you’re thinking about. Most of the guys who come in drink ‘EX.’ It’s a bit like Carlsberg but they seem to prefer it.”
“Can I get a pint of that?”
“Most of the guys drink it by the bottle.”
“Okay, then, that’s what I’ll have. Thanks.”
There were a few others tucked into the shadows and alone with their thoughts, glowing every once in a while when they pulled on their cigarettes. But one was different. He was very dark-skinned but he had a white beard, a neatly trimmed hedge along the side of his face. He wore a beret and a checkered shirt, like the ones lumberjacks wore. Only his was blue and black. He was very tall, even though he was sitting down, and when he crossed his legs, Danny could see that he was just wearing sandals and no socks. He reminded Danny of a Yeti, or something from the bar in Star Wars.
The beer brought little comfort. It had a hard taste to it, but, if it was what the locals drank, he’d get used to it. It wasn’t bad, it was just different and the bottle was weird, a short stubby little thing with a big label on it. He thought about having another but decided against it. Sitting alone in a pub always made him feel like his father. He’d head back towards the apartment if it wasn’t so early. Martin and David would have just got home.
So Danny Boyle walked along Yonge Street as the city rushed home from work. But the cold got to him again and he stopped at the Duke of Gloucester. It was packed. They served beer in pints and you could stand along the bar—just like a real pub. He even got talking with a few people, a Brit and two Scots who had been over for a few years and acted like they owned the place. They spoke about Toronto, and Canada, in terms of them and us; them being all the non-Brits. And, after a few beers, implied that Danny was one of “us.” His Irish might have bristled at that but he was happy to feel included. They assured him he’d be okay as long as he stuck to his own kind. “Canada, mate, is British,” the Brit explained. “And all these foreigners need to remember that.”
“You’re right there,” one of the Scots agreed, burping beerily.
“It’s really more Scottish when you think about it,” the other insisted, smiling as he said it.
“Yeah,” the Brit agreed with both of them. “But the main thing, Paddy, is that we all stick together over here.”
“My name is Danny, not Paddy.”
“Danny, Paddy, Jock or Tommy. We’re all the same over here and we have to stick together.”
If you know something about passion, and desire, and giving everything to live your dreams then leave your world behind for a while. Come with Janice to Dublin, in the mid nineteen-eighties when a better future beckoned and the past was restless, whispering in the shadows for the Old Ways. Janice has grown tired of her sheltered existence in Toronto and when Aidan leads her through the veils of the Celtic Twilight, she doesn’t hesitate. In their love, Aidan, Dublin’s rising poet, sees a chance for redemption and Janice sees a chance for recognition. Sinead tells her that it is all nonsense as she keeps her head down and her eyes fixed on her own prize – a place in Ireland’s prospering future. She used to go out with Aidan, before he met Janice, so there is little she can say. And besides, she has enough to do as her parents are torn apart by the rumours of church scandals. But after a few nights in Grogan’s, where Dublin’s bohemians gather, or a day in Clonmacnoise among the ruins of Celtic Crosses, it won’t matter as the ghosts of Aidan’s mythologies take form and prey on the friends until everything is at risk. Lagan Love is a sensuous story of Love, Lust and Loss that will bring into question the cost we pay for our dreams.
Here’s an excerpt:
He had left a note to meet him in Grogan’s. She understood the significance: ‘Grogan’s is where I grew up. It’s the closest thing I’ve had to a real home, at least since my mother died.’
So this is it, I get to meet the family. I must make a good impression. What would complement my Just-had-good-sex-but-I’m-still-horny smile? Perhaps something in red, with black pants – no, a short black skirt. She wanted to leave an impression on his soul, as well as his body.
For a while, she would become a fixture on his arm, and in time, the world would know her for her own work. After that, Fate would decide if she stayed or went, but first, she had to look the part.
She paraded back and forth in front of the long mirror that leaned against the wall. It offered that nice perspective, sloping away. She could turn and see m
ost of her back, right down to her long slender calves. Was it really fair to Sinead? She said it was okay, but her reflection wasn’t listening. She was posing in her black underwear. And what was it you were saying about clichés? We could try the red set.
It was perfection. Her skin looked like alabaster, her lips like wine and her hair like storm-clouds. She shimmed into her short skirt and, corseted in her red shirt, checked herself one more time. Dark and dangerous, like a child of the night, she offered her passing reflection as she left.
Be careful, you don’t know what else wanders in these nights, in this ancient city, in this strange land, her likeness tried to warn her but she had closed the door and was walking the moonlit street. Her heels clattered quickly past the shaded bench where a shadow flitted and was gone.
By the time she arrived in Grogan’s, he was standing by the bar. Her shirt was tight and her skirt was, perhaps, a bit short, but what the hell. She opened her leather jacket slowly. Her top three buttons were undone. She wanted to push her breasts forward, but she was losing her nerve. Most of the men in the bar had turned. They almost formed a circle around her but kept their distance and opened like a path before her.
She grew a little shy as they eddied back to their smoking and swearing as she passed. She smiled with as much assurance as she could muster and reached forward and kissed his lips as he ordered drinks and steered them to a small table in the corner. As Janice sat, she was careful to let her skirt ride up a little. His eyes followed her hips and she felt warm in his gaze. She reached out across the table; she wanted to be close to him again.
He leaned back and looked at her for a moment with that glazed look men get, but he was calm. “I was thinkin’ about you all day, an’ I was thinkin’ that maybe I’d write a poem about you or somethin’.”