Emerald Germs of Ireland

by Patrick McCabe

  “Pat!” she gasped. “A helicopter? You’re crazy!”

  Pat removed his RayBan spectacles and looked at her.

  “Maybe I am, baby,” he said, “maybe I am.”

  Winnie found herself dumbstruck as he removed a handful of green notes from his top pocket and inserted them down the front of her blouse. His grin was so large it was almost the size of the room.

  Mary was not grinning. He hit the chair a kick and sent it skidding across the carpet. “What in the hell are you talking about?” he barked into the receiver. “No, I don’t want to hear any of your shaggy shakin’ jumpin’ jackshit-jimmy! Just find him! Find him—you hear me? Or your ass is on the line, you pink-face waka-waka candy-suckin’ no-time loser, you got that?” The receiver was slammed into its cradle and in that instant the endre building seemed about to explode.

  Time was running out for Celia and he knew it. The coupé tore down the country road with a startling squeal of dres. There were indentations on the walnut dashboard where Celia had been repeatedly hitting it. “Mother-hopper!” he repeated, and it was just then he saw it. To the casual observer, there was nothing remarkably significant or spectacular in the sight of a fifty-three-year-old farmer scooping pig nuts from a bucket and scattering them into a trough for his hungry animals. But, as he clambered breathlessly from his coupé, Celia was anything but casual. Tan water skitted against his satin leopardskin hipsters as he made his way breathlessly in the direction of the field.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” stammered the countryman as Celia held him up against the wall of the dairy, a piece of paper fluttering in front of his face. It was a coat receipt from Harry Carney’s. “I’ve never had this coat cleaned in my life!” he croaked.

  “Mother-yummy, fuggin’ hen-ball!” snapped Celia and flung the hapless pig-breeder to the ground. The polished dashboard received another uncompromising blow as the vehicle took off toward the horizon.

  It was the Ajax Dry Cleaner’s counter assistant’s worst nightmare. The day had started off quite unremarkably, as usual, with him sorting out the various items to be sent to the steam-press room and now his head was down the toilet, being remorselessly pulled up again by Celia’s polished black hand as he bellowed, “Don’t nowhere me, you country bush! I’m through with mealymouth and this and that and no I wasn’t there, you dig?”

  “I’m telling you the truth!” the assistant moaned. “I gave it away years ago! It’s the God’s honest truth!”

  The horrible sound of hissing and gurgling filled the counter assistant’s ears.

  The scarecrow stood dark and rigid in the center of the field, exuding, despite its turnip head, a certain kind of nobility. Which the single blast from a Winchester pump-action shotgun ended in a fraction of a second, pieces of the vegetable scattered for miles, a scorch hole burned right through the lapel of its long black coat.

  “Hopping comedown! Blast in heaven!” shouted Celia, now turning his attention to the car’s new tires, down upon which he rained unremitting blows. His frustration was such that he might have cried out to the open sky.

  The discotheque was in full swing as Celia sat slumped at the bar. The deejay was playing one of his favorite tunes, “Oops Upside Your Head,” but he didn’t care. The barman wiped the counter in front of him. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough, mister?”

  There was a vulnerability in Celia’s eyes now.

  “You don’t know what Mary’s like,” he explained, “he—”

  Before he could finish, the barman tossed back his head and snorted, “Not half I don’t! My own Cissie is the very same! If I was you, I’d go home, mister! I’ll tell you this—that’s one hell of a fine fur coat!”

  “Huh?”

  Celia was momentarily distracted, but he reflected on the barman’s words of advice. He climbed down off his stool and said, “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  It was just when Celia was approaching the exit and the deejay was introducing his new disc, which was “The Bump” by Kenny, that he saw what he saw and felt the blood drain from his face to such an extent that he feared he must be turning white, such was the effect that the sight had upon him. He was forced to steady himself against one of the corner banquettes. For just at that moment, Pat McNab, resplendent in his wraparound shades and long black coat, had entered the building with Winnie McAdam on his arm, displaying the demeanor of someone who might be under the impression that he is some sort of “visiting dignitary.”

  The barman could not believe the transformation in his formerly remorseful, if not fragile, customer as found himself sliding across his own counter on the end of his tie.

  “Honky in the shades!” snapped Celia into his face. “Who is he? I said—who is he?”

  The barman gulped. He was genuinely frightened.

  “P-P-P-P-Pat McNab!” he stammered. “C-C-C-Can’t you see you’re choking me?”

  “Tell me about him! Talk! Fast!”

  “I don’t know nothing about him only that his mother is mad and lately he seems to have come into a pile of money.”

  “What did you say?” rasped Celia.

  “His mother. She’s nuts. And he’s not much better, I hear.”

  “No! About the money!”

  “He won it, maybe. I don’t know! I swear to God! All I know is he spends it like there’s no tomorrow!”

  “Spends it, huh?”

  “Aye! Firing it round him like a millionaire this past while!”

  A broad grin began to spread across Celia’s face, the mirror ball reflected in his golden tooth.

  “Well, is that a fact?” he said slowly and contentedly as he discarded the barman and bunched his fist inside his leopardskin pocket, moving toward the dance floor as Quincy Jones belted out a “waka-waka”-style song from the stacked speakers.

  The dance performed by Pat in the center of the floor could be described as a perfect example of what is known in America as the “white man’s overbite” or perhaps more locally as the “social worker shuffle.” There appeared, it seemed, to be no pattern or coordination whatsoever to the manner in which he was wildly flailing both his arms and legs, mouthing words along with the tune which was in fact an instrumental hit. But he didn’t mind—nor, indeed, did Winnie. They were having the time of their lives. At least until a large black hand settled on Pat’s right shoulder.

  “Mary wants to talk,” boomed Celia, ominously narrowing his eyes.

  It seems incredible that Pat McNab should display such presence of mind as he did on this occasion. That within the space of a nanosecond he would succeed in evaluating the situation perfectly and, having realized the gravity of it, not waste a moment in translating his analysis into affirmative action. Celia reeled backward as Pat’s first blow caught him full square in the abdomen.

  “Go, Winnie! Go!” cried Pat.

  Winnie—shocked, perhaps—stared stupidly at him.

  “Go where, Pat?”

  “Don’t ask questions!” he cried. “Just go! I’ll follow you!”

  Another blow felled Celia and Pat followed his partner as they raced out into the night.

  The hissing cymbals and staccato wah-wah of the guitars persisted inside the discotheque as Pat McNab and Winnie considered their limited options. All along the deserted street there were no Zodiacs or Zephyrs or any other high-powered vehicles which might have provided them with a triumphant, effortless getaway. The sole available vehicle, indeed, presented as a red and white Massey Ferguson tractor double-parked outside Donie Halligan’s shoe shop. Pat pushed Winnie in the back and cried, “Go!”

  The tractor roared around the corner on two wheels. Winnie’s hair was flying in the breeze. “Pat,” she begged shakily, “will you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “There’s no time for that now, Winnie!” explained Pat, just as—

  “Jesus!” he cried, white-faced.

  The tractor had stuttered to an emphatic halt. For a second, the entire town, road, and
trees seemed blurred. But Pat rapidly steadied himself. “Get out, Winnie!” he yelled. “Don’t even think about it!”

  There were two figures in the wide open landscape that was Larry O’Halloran’s field. Two frightened, hunted figures holding hands beneath a sky that to them was filled with helicopters searching for them. Two people alone but for each other, and their names were Pat McNab and Winnie McAdam.

  Pat sat on the algae-mottled trough, his head slumped in his hands. Winnie touched him gently on the shoulder.

  “But why didn’t you tell me, Pat?” she said, compassionately, understandingly. “Why didn’t you say?”

  Pat looked into her eyes. Such pain she had never before seen. “What have I got you into, Winnie?” he said. “What are we going to do?”

  Winnie squeezed his hand.

  “It’s going to be okay, Pat. We’ve just got to think,” she said.

  Pat nodded vigorously.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Think!”

  He frowned.

  “Think!” he repeated.

  The pink ball glided silently across the flat expanse of green baize and was gratefully swallowed by the top left-hand pocket. Mary grinned and chalked his cue as he said, “So the big fluffpops found his zigzag no-show man, huh? Well, ain’t he a lucky hoo hoo, huh? Ain’t he the jim jam go go!”

  The hoodlum by the secret, leather-paneled door shifted nervously from foot to foot, fearful that any inappropriate gesture would result in many of his teeth being lost as a result of contact with a propelled pool ball.

  It had all seemed so simple when Pat sat by the window working it out. Winnie standing by the poolside as he lay across a lounger in his costume, the burning sun reflected in his wraparounds. “Would you like some martini, dear?” she had said.

  “No, hon,” he had replied. “Matter of fact I think I’ll take me another swim!”

  The blue of the swimming pool had been so real he could almost feel it right there all around him. “I guess that was my problem,” he would often reflect years later. “I didn’t see that it was all too easy.”

  They had arranged that they would check in separately, in different queues. As she approached the desk, Winnie gave him a distant, affectionate wave. Pat instinctively looked away. She looked beautiful, he thought. More beautiful than ever. Especially now that she was wearing Polaroids. A warm feeling swept over Pat. A warm feeling that said that in six hours he would be free. Free forever and together. He smiled as he heard her say again, “Would you like some martini?”

  “Good morning, sir,” said the attractive desk assistant as she opened Pat’s ticket wallet.

  “It is indeed,” Pat heard himself reply as he drummed his fingers on the desk, “it is indeed.”

  But that was but fantasy, the Paradise-on-earth that was Barbados was some distance away yet, the “waka waka” sound still ringing in Pat’s ears as his eyes darted all about the field from his vantage point behind the bush. The moon was fat and full in the sky. “Go!” cried Winnie, giving him an encouraging litde push in the small of his back. “Go now, Pat!” In a split second he was gone, a silhouette shooting across the nighttime fields. What is tragic is that neither of them heard the screech of wheels or the crunch of gravel in a laneway not two fields away.

  “Open up! Open damn you!” gasped Pat breathlessly as he tore at the backdoor bolt which continued to resist him fiercely. He might have had twenty-five fingers. At last the heavy oaken door swung open before him. The portrait of his mother smiled at him as he removed it and revealed the safe. Now it was as though he had acquired ten more fingers! “Open! Damn you, open!” he cried shakily. “Can’t you open for me!” The safe door complied and at last the black briefcase was in his hands. Feverishly, he began to stuff the green notes into his coat—no pocket being left unfilled. How long Celia had been standing there—with his arms folded—grinning!—it is impossible to say. At first Pat thought it was his imagination again. “The mushies, maybe. Making me hear things! Like the way I could feel the blue of the swimming pool! So real!” he thought.

  But it had nothing to do with mushies, or swimming pools, as he soon realized when Celia took one step forward and, stroking his chin in a mischievous but all-powerful fashion, said, “Why, mano hooch, if it ain’t the perfumed smell of green!”

  A cascade of notes snowstormed all around Pat.

  “No! I can explain!” cried Pat.

  “It’s nothing personal, puppy,” explained Celia as he shot Pat dead.

  It was many days later when Mary and Celia—closer friends now than they’d ever been in their lives—were sharing a bottle of bourbon and laughing and joshing over some “spook” down in Washington, DC. Celia was puffing on a Cuban cigar and tossing back his head grinning over the finer details of this particular heist and so taken aback all of a sudden that the cigar remained steady on his lip with no visible means of support. “Yeah? And then?” barked Mary. “Don’t stop! You struck dumb or what?”

  In the ensuing seconds, there was no sound to be heard emanating from Celia’s throat. The only sound in the room was that of Pat McNab’s voice saying, “Well, hello, fluffy bunnies! It’s checking-in time!”

  It was a pale Pat McNab, his face bearing the grim, gray featurelessness of a concrete slab. But him nonetheless.

  “What the—” snapped Mary, reaching for the drawer.

  “Waka waka, micky moko!” barked Pat as the Winchester pumpaction out of nowhere appeared in his hands and Celia went flying through the window in a carnival of shattered glass.

  “Wait, please!” begged Mary pitifully. “You don’t understand!”

  “I want my money!” Pat stonily intoned.

  “But—you’re dead!”

  “I want my money. I said I want my—”

  “Your money? Sure! Here—take all of it! It’s your green! We want you to have it!”

  He pushed the briefcase across the desk, momentarily deflecting Pat’s attention in order to grab a pool ball to propel rapidly toward him. Within seconds his hand was on the door buzzer.

  “Don’t open it!” warned Pat, the pool ball having narrowly missed him. But it was already too late, the secret door having swiveled halfway open.

  “Ha ha!” cried Mary, triumphant until two shotgun blasts caught him in the stomach. Within seconds, Pat McNab had hoods and goons and lackeys on top of him like other people got dandruff. Which was why, a minute later, Mary’s famous back room was akin to what an independent observer might have described as “a slaughterhouse.” Pat shook his head—not now without a tinge of sadness—breaking his pump-action as a last pink ball rolled poignantly into a pocket.

  There was something magical about the couple who stood together, brandishing their tickets and—in the same queue!—holding hands and gazing into one another’s eyes. As there was about the bronzed, black-sunglassed figure in the pink floppy (Celia’s) hat draped elegantly across the lounger by the pool, eyes twinkling as he sipped a piña colada. Which spilled all over his chest as the blood drained from his face, spasming as he felt the cold steel of a revolver pressed against the back of his neck.

  “Waka waka!” he heard Winnie chuckle as she leaped up and down.

  “Jesus Mary and Joseph, fluffpops! You put the heart crossways in me!”

  It is a most beautiful scene, perhaps as beautiful as a scene could ever be. The sky so blue you can almost feel it, touch it. And a long, long way from a cold gray house, a house of stone where breathes not a single soul, the only sound that of a broken shutter rattling and the footsteps of the flies as they take their first tentative steps across the corpse of Pat McNab. Where now he lies, a single talon of blood congealed on his cheek, blue fingers stiffly fanning out as he dreams of vengeance. Which, departed from this earth as now he is, like his love for Winnie, is fated never to be.

  Love story

  (Where do I begin) Love Story

  Where do I begin to tell the story of a love as brave as

  life can b
e

  The sweet love story that is older than the sea

  The secret truth about the love she gave to me

  Where do I start?

  With the first hello, she gave a meaning

  To this empty world of mine

  There’ll never be another love like the time

  She came into my life and made the living fine.

  She fills my heart, she fills my heart with very special

  things

  With angel songs, with wild imaginings

  She fills my soul with so much love

  That everywhere I go I’m never lonely

  With her around who could be lonely?

  What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? Loved Mozart and Bach? And the Kilfenora Ceilidh Band? That she should never have married Patsy Traynor?

  That she should never have gone near the effing bastard, for that’s all he was. Such were the thoughts running through Pat McNab’s mind as he sat in the front pew of St. Bartholomew’s Church trying to hold back the tears as the lid was screwed down on the pine coffin within which reclined the body of the girl he had loved for almost the entirety of his adult life. She was attired in a knitted woollen cap, a tartan kilt, and black tights and her complexion had that alabaster quality he always remembered her for. It was difficult to look as the six-foot box began its interminable journey toward the coal-black curtains. And even more difficult for him when they began to part. In his hands his hat was crushed to an almost unrecognizable mass of twisted felt.

  Outside, as might have been expected, the rain had begun to fall. Pat felt a large, spadelike hand resting upon his shoulder. “Poor Bridie,” said Big Jim Thompson, with eyes downcast. “May God have mercy on her lovely young soul.”

  There wasn’t much of a crowd in Sullivan’s Select Bar, apart from a few bank girls venomously discussing their superior, as Pat sat morosely on the counter thinking over the events of the day and sipping at the contents of his sixth pint. “Ah well, Pat,” remarked Timmy Sullivan brusquely, as he ran a cloth across the wet marble top of the counter, “that’s Bridie gone anyhow.”