That kept me going for a long time. You might ask why it would, but it did. It was somehow easier then to slop out with Christy, look forward to the three square meals, be talking and sleeping and farting, Christy nattering away as is his wont – all the history of nothing that passes for life here. Little by little all I could see was a man, another man like myself in this lost world, and though I hated him too now and then, and he me, and that hatred would burn between us betimes, slowly slowly the hatred abated, and we lived together here, old enemies that have reached an accommodation, out of necessity but also by strange choice. We were souls at least burned in the same fire.
And that is a great mystery to me, and remains so. As if, having done the worst thing to each other, we could do no further harm, or any, really. And there was safety in that. Like the old world of my childhood. And, in this strange atmosphere, the shades of Peadar and my mother were somehow given a sort of life. A sort of permanent presence. Inside this peculiar mechanism, this whirring projector, this engine of Christy and me. Floating here, between us. And loved, fiercely loved. I barely know what I am saying. I am trying to unlock a riddle. Yes, we were wary of each other for a long time after, Christy and me. But we made peace with each other. How that came about is a long long story, a story about nothing, of meaningless words, two prisoners together, getting through the day, eating our grub, like I say, waiting for letters that never came, pissing in the toilet, slowly telling our stories to each other, as if we were the first people in the world, the only people, and the last people, two aging bastards in a ten-by-ten in the Joy. And we knew we were nothing, we knew we were forgotten men, who would never have business again in the world, who would never again walk about the streets of the city, in the manner of the living. And I think it took a long long time for me to realise. Not that I had loved Peadar, which I did, with all my heart and soul, but that I had killed him. I mean, you’d think that would be the first realisation, but in effect it has been the last. Truly, really, understand what I had done. The actual act of pushing him off the cliff, for a reason I knew not why. Then, having accounted myself at last a bona-fide murderer, other things hit me with a new force. That my mother was gone now and there wasn’t a soul in the world knew or cared where I was, and rightly so. The country uncles probably all dead, and so on. Alone. Not crying alone, I mean, not upset alone, feeling sorry for myself, no, not really, though in here sometimes you do feel a bit sorry for yourself, stupidly, but – lonesome. Like a petrol pump once I saw in a little Wicklow village, passing through in a van of seminarians, on our way to swim at Arklow, one of the very first pumps, I’ll be bound, ancient now, rusty, not used for a decade, the garage itself long gone, just the rusty petrol pump, on its own, useless, doing nothing. Like me. And my next thought was, time to go. Finish off what I tried to do at Dun Aengus, all those years ago, as Christy rightly said.
A moment.
I had a thought once I might go out to the missions, learn Swahili in Kenya, or the Congo, something like that, make myself useful there.
But – Peadar lost everything.
Christy
Now we’ve lived together in contentment, more or less, for nigh on twenty year. Like turtle doves. – In prison, I mean, for fuck’s sake, the chances of that.
A few years ago when my case came up again, word came back that they were going to keep me here for the rest of my life, as they called it. What fucking life. And this was after saying a few years before that, that I was going to serve thirty years minimum. I mean, how nice was that? Very fucking unfriendly. Then, lo and behold, PJ is reviewed, and suddenly it’s, yes, he can be released, November coming, whatever, and all the official lingo. Jesus, Jesus. And PJ starting down at the notice, like he was going to be hanged. And me fucking panicking, thinking, holy God, do I have to sit in there with some other fucker for the rest of my born days? I mean, I was so upset I threw up my dinner. Right there on the cell floor. Fucking hamburger without the bun, I mean I ask you, and I don’t remember eating carrots, but there’s always carrots in puke. They must be inner carrots that come up in an emergency.
But and anyway.
And I suddenly realised, I suddenly realised, what I owed to McAllister.
That fucker McAllister, yes indeed, he seemed to get a great kick out of us, before he retired. Professional fulfilment, he called it. That he’d thrun us in together but we hadn’t killed each other. He just couldn’t get over it. Restored his faith in humanity, he said. Nearly got him sacked, more like. Lying fucker. But no, he said, no, it was a miracle. He was glad he’d done it. But, he was a fucker, all the same. He was always saying, ‘Now, Dwyer, don’t turn your back on your man, he’s a shirt-lifter.’ On and on with that. Till the day came and I said, ‘Listen, Mr McAllister, you say that once more, once more, I’m going to steal a long knife out of the kitchens, hone it to the thickness of a nail, and drive it into your skull. Just so you know.’ Now, McAllister knew I probably wouldn’t do that, but still, it was me saying it, wasn’t it? That had done terrible deeds. So he shuts up with his homo remarks. Now, don’t get me wrong. One time, years ago, when I was a married man, I used to get these videos off of a fellow in the People’s Park in Dunleary, and one time he throws a few into a bag, as usual, and I bring them home. Christine was out at the bingo, so ‘Bingo for me,’ says I, and puts on the first tape – by Jesus, it was these fellas going at each other. I mean, they were going. Holy God. So I pull out the tape and bring it back and give the man a box on the ear for himself. But, you know, that’s just me. PJ might have enjoyed that tape, I don’t know. It’s just I didn’t. But it doesn’t mean I think it’s unnatural. I just think I don’t want to be doing it.
I like PJ. Anyone would.
But howandever, without McAllister, I’d a’ been alone in here. Even with some other cellmate, I’d a’ been alone. That’s how I see it anyhow.
Look, you’re probably asking yourself, why are they telling us their story? Well, the truth is, we have this plan, you see. Yes, our little plan, we call it. When it comes up in conversation, as it does a lot, that’s how we refer to it. So, before we carry out our plan – call it our escape plan, if you like – we wanted to tell our side of things, even if our side of things isn’t that … flattering. But you know, in the papers, the Herald or the Press as may be, we’re only called killers, perverts, and all the rest, with demon eyes and vile and evil hearts. But yes, we are murderers, we must be, that’s why we’re here. But PJ says, PJ says, God is in rage just as much as love. He says to me, ‘Christy, did you never read the Old Testament?’ ‘Old testicles,’ I says. ‘No,’ he says, ‘it’s still the Bible. It’s still the holy book. There’s a lot of human rage in the Old Testament. Just fucking saying,’ says he. – No, well, he never says fuck, does he? You know, because you’ve been listening to him.
The plan. And my next thought right anenst the word ‘plan’ is: Christine. Let me tell you the little story of Christine. It’s the story of Christine, Doreen and Mickey, as a matter of fact. Talk about triple bypass. As soon as I fessed up about PJ’s ma, it was all over. For her. For me, it was going on as before, to tell you the truth. Look it, well I know it, I am a very sentimental man. There’s some things that make my cry, in a foolish sort of way. I mean, I like Charlie Landsborough. I think that says it all. But there’s another thing that lives on a tier above foolishly weeping, and that’s the feeling I have for Christine. I knew well my luck when I had her, and I know well my misfortune in losing her. A woman is a world, isn’t she? She’s a country, with airports and cities, she’s a sort of district where a man can live. And only there. Yes, I will admit that, for the last fifteen years and more, I was hoping she would come and see me. You know, the families gather at the old high gates at visiting time, and I am sure that’s a strange sight to people passing up the canal to the Glasnevin Road. Maybe they pity them, maybe they find them disgusting. But what are they, only fucking angels, the families, the brothers and sisters, the mothers and father
s, that have kept faith with their relative. Criminal relative now, as may be. But kept faith. And want to see them, want to sit at the fucking plastic tables and have a natter, about nothing and everything, praying, praying Johnnie is still off the drugs, and hasn’t been fucking raped by some madman, and so on, and so forth.
God forbid.
Which reminds me. The other Big Thing that happened in our time together. Me, I was stuck in here with a terrible ould head cold. PJ was obliged to go walking about the yard on his ownio. His constitutional, he calls it. Three fucking bad lads lay into him. Now, that’s unusual enough, you might be surprised to hear. There’s mostly young lads in here. It’s like a college, they come in for a few years, and then they go. Of course, a lot of them come in again – ‘to do their masters’, as PJ calls it. But they’re mostly quiet lads, druggies and the like, thieves. But these three fellas were murderous cunts, didn’t like PJ, didn’t like his crime, thought they could improve on the decisions of the penal system. Beat him black and blue, broke the right side of his jaw, broke an arm, nearly burst the stomach out of him, he was another month in hospital, and when he came back he looked like jack. Poor bollocks. And, he never once complained about it. Didn’t want revenge, doesn’t believe in it, so I tore the leg off the table we had then, stuck it into my trouser leg like Long John Silver, and went down into the yard to look for the three fellas. But, they’d been transferred to Portlaoise. Lucky for them! Jesus. I was mashing up his grub for months. Baby food, army hash, like when Peadar was a baby. ‘Will you mash that for me, Christy?’ Christine would say.
But she has never come. My informant on Tier Two, who knows everything about what happens in the outside world, how he knows I couldn’t say, but I have a little suspicion there’s a mobile phone involved, but however he knows, he keeps me updated about Doreen, who married an ESB man, one of those lads who go out after a storm and get your electric back for you, up on the lampposts. You know? And Mickey’s gone to England, just like his da, but he’s import-export, whatever that is. Import-export. Sounds fancy. But they’ve never come to visit neither. I wrote to Christine three hundred thousand times, asking for to see her, and how very very fucking sorry I was, and I wrote to my son and daughter, but, I suppose they have made a clean break. And I understand all that. I don’t blame them. And I would really love to see them again, but I won’t, I know that now. Stupid fucking Christy Dwyer, took twenty years to get the fucking message. Dense fucker.
Maybe if we meet again in heaven, all – what do you call it? – earthly things’ll have passed away, and we’ll be hunky-dory again. I hope so.
Fed up with it. Lovely and all as living with PJ is, well, it’s not really a life, is it? It’s funny that we both reached the same moment, at the same time – the moment of being completely fucking fed completely up with this fucking how’s-your-father.
You can understand that.
No, no, I’m not really telling the fucking truth here. The truth is very fucking simple. PJ doesn’t want to get out, and I don’t want to stay here without him.
Two sorts of sweat. Him sweating at the thought of freedom, at the fucking fearful thought of freedom, ‘Blueberry Hill’ how are you, and me, well, me, I never expected freedom, not this long time, no, I know what the minister said about me in the papers, never a crime so heinous, that’s the word he chose, never a crime so heinous, killing an old lady, as bad as killing a garda, and once he said that … But I’m not going to sit in here without PJ. Jesus, I suppose it was all plain as day to him, when he told me about his release. And him looking at my face. White as a peeled banana. And he says, ‘What’s wrong, Christy?’ and sure fuck it, I threw up, and then I burst into tears, didn’t I, like a foolish child, and PJ is on is knees trying to mop up the puke, and me crying, and then he fucking forgets about the puke, and yes, and alright, he comes over to me, and he puts an arm around my shoulder, and he says, ‘This won’t do, Christy,’ he says, I mean, was that homo or what, yes, and I don’t fucking care if it was, I fucking love that fucking man, that fucking fucker PJ, and I’m gabbling and crying, and he says, ‘Look it, Christy, we have to have a plan.’ Formulate a plan, was the way he put it, actually. And he never says ‘look it’, I was only adding on a bit there.
‘But PJ,’ says I, ‘I’m fucking happy for you, ha? At least one of us is getting out. You’ll have a grand old time. Walking up O’Connell Street as happy as a lark, and going into Devito’s Amusements, all sorts of crack.’
Oh, but, the ghastly white face on him then too, like I had just described hell.
‘I don’t fucking think so, Christy,’ he says, maybe one of only two or three times I ever heard him curse. ‘They’ll crucify me, Christy. They’ll have my guts for garters. And proper order.’
Then him shivering, shivering, like a mangey cat.
Then the weeping again. Weeping, weeping. Like the waterfall in Powerscourt. The first time in thirty years I really cried. So that will tell you.
Anyway, our plan. We’ve been hatching a plan. There’s been a lot of planning to the plan, you might say. Now, look it, the fags might carry me off, I’m sixty-nine years old for the love of Mike, PJ has the dickey heart, but well, no, we could be hanging on for another twenty years, me in here and him outside, knowing our luck. So we were thinking, how’s about a little pact. We smuggle in two big knives from the kitchens – it was threatening to stab McAllister put that in my mind – then we set ourselves up here, on the floor here, face to face, and we’ll, you know, hold the knives good, and PJ will aim for my heart, and I’ll aim for his. Not in sorrow or anger, but in a friendly way. Because, make no mistake, we are great mates. And just in case we turn out not to be in the last analysis, as the fella said, we’re going to swear on PJ’s Bible not to be jammy fuckers. Then, at a signal of our choice, we’ll strike in the same instance, and we’ve sworn on his ould bible, Old Testament and all, as I just said, that neither of us will draw back at the last minute, and if one of us is going to do that, we’ll say so, scout’s honour, and call it off. Because otherwise one of us will end up on a second charge of murder, for fuck’s sake. And it’ll be just the same thing all over again. So then we’ll be sure to strike deep, make sure we get through the ribs and touch the heart, because that’s how you do it, it’d be easier with a gun, but on the other hand it’s very hard to fire two guns at the exact same time. With the knives we’ll have some leeway. If one blade is turned by a rib, we can give it another bash, you know, that sort of thing. Anyway that’s our plan, that’s what’s going to happen next, but we don’t expect you to want to be here to see it, so it’ll be after. And then, you see, it won’t be suicide at all, and we can both skip Limbo, which PJ tells me is a pain in the hole. Though he didn’t put it that way. And if it’s going to be Hell or Heaven for us, we’ll let the Big Man decide. If it’s going to be Hell, better if we go together anyhow, since we’re used to each other now. Because, the time comes when you hear the signal, and it’s time to be going. Life is sweet, of course it is, even in here. There are moments. Good moments, strange to relate. When everything is still, for instance, and you’re just lying on your bunk, with Samantha Fox and Linda Lusardi for company on the wall, and PJ below, and a nice fag for yourself, glowing like a glow worm in the darkness, and the whole prison as may be is sleeping, all the weary souls, the young lads and the middle-aged men and the old, sleeping, dreaming their dreams, the murderers and the thieves, under the old washbasin of starlight, here in our mansion beside the Royal Canal. But the hour comes when you seem to hear the bell, and the owner of the boat is calling. ‘Come in, PJ Sullivan, come in, Christy Dwyer.’
On Blueberry Hill Page 5