The Deportees

by Roddy Doyle

  She loved that album. Or so she'd said anyway. Mind you, no one loved music the way Jimmy loved it. He'd met Simon Le Bon once – at least, he'd said he was Simon Le Bon – in Cafe en Seine, in town, years ago, and he couldn't believe it when Le Bon couldn't remember the name of his own first album. It was just as well, because Jimmy had been going to tell him it was shite.

  Still nothing from Aoife.

  Jimmy kissed her shoulder, and sang.

  —FORGIVEN, NOT FORGOTTEN. FORGIVEN—

  —Jimmy, said Aoife.

  —Yes, bitch?

  —Get out of the bed.

  He climbed into the top bunk in the boys' room. Marvin, the eldest, had got in beside his brother, Jimmy Two, in the bottom bunk, and soon both of them would go into Jimmy and Aoife's bed. It was the same every night. So, this wasn't unusual; he was just a bit early. But it was different tonight, and he knew it.

  It was the first time she'd ever told him to get out.

  He listened. He thought he heard her crying. But he couldn't be sure.

  He couldn't hear anything. He'd tell her in the morning. He'd bring her a cup of tea and tell her he hadn't been serious. Which was true enough. He really didn't want to go through it all again.

  It was the only time he'd ever been really depressed, in the weeks after The Commitments broke up. It was years ago now, before he'd met Aoife, but he could still feel it. There he'd been, sorting out their first record deal, with Eejit Records, and the next thing they'd exploded, just like that, blood and egos all over the shop, no more band, no more record deal. He hadn't gone out for weeks after it, hadn't spoken to anyone or listened to anything, especially not soul. The Brassers' break-up hadn't been as painful. The vocalist, Mickah Wallace, went to Mountjoy for eighteen months, for robbing his uncle's Ford Capri.

  —Me ma bate the head off him for reportin' it, said Mickah. —But it wasn't his fault. He didn't know it was me that robbed it.

  —Why did you do it?

  —I didn't know it was his, said Mickah. —How was I supposed to know he'd bought a fuckin' car? Sorry about the band but.

  —We'll wait for you, said Jimmy.

  —Yeh'd fuckin' better, said Mickah.

  But by the time Mickah got out – he did the full eighteen months, the first man in the history of the state to serve his full sentence – Jimmy was three weeks away from getting married and The Brassers weren't even a memory.

  Then there was Northside Deluxe, Jimmy's boy band. Years before your man, Louis Walsh, invented Boyzone, Jimmy came up with the idea of getting five good-looking lads together and grooming them for stardom. He held auditions in their new house, with Aoife there to point out the contenders. But, by the end of the fifth night, after 173 young men had walked in and walked out of their fridgeless, cookerless kitchen, Jimmy had to conclude that there wasn't one decent-looking young fella on the northside of Dublin, let alone five.

  —God love them, he'd said.

  Aoife had been taking notes.

  —Ninety-two of them sang 'I'm Too Sexy', she told him.

  So, he really didn't fancy going through it again, the non-starters and bloody endings. He really didn't want it. He didn't have the time. He didn't have the energy. He was happy enough as he was.

  When Aoife got up the next morning, she found Jimmy and the kids on the kitchen floor, surrounded by hundreds of CDs.

  Jimmy smiled up at her and put his arms around the boys.

  —Dad's forming a group, said Marvin.

  —Oh Jesus, said Aoife.

  3 Wigs in the Window

  It had been a tricky few days.

  Jimmy didn't want to go back into band management, he really didn't. He didn't want the grief and, as well as that, he couldn't come up with the music – there was nothing out there that he could really get worked up about. With The Commitments, it had been soul – James Brown for breakfast, Otis Redding for the dinner. Jimmy was the first man he knew to own a Walkman and he'd deliberately missed buses so he could hear all of 'Prisoner of Love' or 'Down in the Valley' without having to turn the volume down while he paid his fare.

  He liked a lot of what he heard these days but nothing that he really wanted to wade into and drown in. But, still and all, there was something that kept pushing at the back of his head – do it, do it, go on.

  Aoife felt mean for coming between Jimmy and his schemes. And that made her angry because he shouldn't have been having them at this particular time. She was six months' pregnant, for God's sake, and retaining water like a camel. There were days when she could hardly move, when the sweat ran off her like rain. But Jimmy's schemes and plans, the way he could build dreams with that mouth of his – these were what she'd always loved about him. The man had literally talked his way into her knickers an hour after they'd met.

  She wanted to kill him.

  They avoided each other.

  He washed the dishes, even some that hadn't been used. He bathed the kids until they were wrinkly and faint. He told them bedtime stories that went on for ever. He saw Aoife looking in as they all lay on the big bed, cuddled up, listening to Jimmy.

  —Once upon a time, he said, —there was a pixie called P.J. who wanted a career in band management.

  She didn't laugh. She didn't smile.

  She was gone.

  She sat in the kitchen and tried to think of nothing.

  He came in and went behind her without touching her chair. She heard him fill the kettle at the sink.

  —Tea?

  —Yeah. Thanks.

  He sat at the other side of the table.

  —So, he said. —How was your day?

  She smiled. She couldn't help it. She looked, and he was smiling at her. And she cried. The boiling kettle sounded exactly how she suddenly felt. A flood of wet happiness and relief poured up out of her. She held her hand out, across the table, and he took it. And she got ready to tell him, Go ahead. Form your band. It's why I love you.

  She wiped her eyes with her free hand and looked at him again. And she caught him looking at the CD rack in the corner, between the fridge and the wall.

  —Jimmy!

  —Yes, bitch, sorry. Yeah?

  —Can you not even look at me for a few seconds? Do I look that bad?

  —No, said Jimmy. —You look gorgeous.

  She screamed and stood up.

  —Listen, you, she said. —You think you know everything but you don't. For your information, Stevie Wonder's wife was not up the stick when he recorded Innervisions. It was Songs in the Key of Life, and you can stuff your fucking tea.

  Aoife never said Fuck or Fucking.

  She left him alone in the kitchen. They hugged twenty minutes later, and had another row. And they rolled that way all week. It was desperate.

  Jimmy was on his way home on the Friday. He was walking down Parnell Street, on his way across to Tara Street Station. The car was being serviced. Marvin and Jimmy Two had filled the petrol tank with muck from the front garden.

  —It was an experiment, said Marvin. —Petrol comes from the ground.

  —Not Irish ground, Marv, said Jimmy as he pushed his hands deep into his pockets so he wouldn't strangle him.

  Anyway, he was on Parnell Street, walking past one of the African shops, when something in the window grabbed his attention. Wigs or something, a string of them hanging there. He walked across for a closer look – he'd get one for Aoife, the pink one there, for a laugh – and someone walked straight into him, sent him flying.

  —E'cuse me!

  A Romanian, a young fella, Jimmy could see, as his head hit the edge of the path and an Italian bike courier rode over his hand – an Italian who'd been in Dublin for a while.

  —You theeek fockeeng eeee-jit, he roared as he dashed across to Marlborough Street.

  Jimmy's head was hopping as he stood up, helped by the Romanian kid and a big African woman. His hand was in a bad way too, fuckin' killing him. But he was grinning.

  Jimmy had his group.

&
nbsp; 4 The Hardest-Working Band

  He typed, one-handed, onto his laptop. 'Brothers and Sisters, Welcome to Ireland. Do you want the Celtic Tiger to dance to your music? If yes, The World's Hardest-Working Band is looking for you. Contact J. Rabbitte at 089-22524242 or rabbittej@banjo.ie. White Irish need not apply.'

  Could he write that? He didn't see why not. It was his fuckin' band. But he deleted the last sentence. A couple of old-fashioned Irish rockers would look good onstage with the rest, especially when they were touring abroad. Touring abroad – Jesus. Jimmy could hardly stay sitting at the kitchen table. He read over the ad again. It was going into the Hot Press classifieds, where the Commitments ad had gone.

  He'd explained it all when he'd got home that night – about the wigs and the Romanian kid and the Italian prick on the bike.

  —How did you know he was Romanian? said Aoife.

  —His jumper, said Jimmy.

  The kids admired the tyre-tracks running across the back of his left hand.

  —It must have been a good bike, said Marvin.

  —Only the best, said Jimmy.

  He got Marvin and Jimmy Two to design a flyer and an A4 poster for him. And, while the lads got dug into the artwork and Mahalia annoyed them while they did it, Jimmy stuck on Ruben Gonzalez and he danced with Aoife in the space between the table and the door, and between them, seven months of unborn Rabbitte, give or take a week.

  —What's the weather like over there? said Jimmy.

  —Lovely, said Aoife. —Grand. But I'll have to sit down in a minute.

  —D'yis like the music, kids? said Jimmy as they swung by the laptop.

  —Cwap, said Jimmy Two.

  —Poo, said Mahalia.

  And Marvin didn't disagree.

  But Marvin had a great head on him, a genuine chip off his da's block.

  —How will we get people to stop and read it? Jimmy asked him as he looked over his shoulder at the poster.

  —Put a picture of a nudie woman on it, said Marvin.

  —You will not, said Aoife.

  —Nudie man then.

  —No, said Aoife.

  She was having a breather; the trot around the kitchen had flaked her. And she'd stood in the cat's litter tray. The cat, Babyface, had died a month ago – lung cancer, God love him – but the kids wouldn't let Aoife get rid of the tray.

  —Nudie nothing, said Aoife.

  But, even as she laid down the law, Marvin was putting the word nudie, repeated, red blue, red blue, in a glowing rectangle around the ad copy. Jimmy took up the laptop and showed it to Aoife.

  —Does that pass?

  —Okay.

  She laughed, and hugged Marvin and Jimmy Two and Mahalia's imaginary friend, Darndale.

  It was three more weeks before the Hot Press ad would become public. But he spent the next Saturday with Marvin and Jimmy Two, with Mahalia in her buggy, sticking the A4 nudie ads on poles in Temple Bar, in the African shops on Parnell Street, in any pubs they passed, on DART station doors, anywhere they were likely to be seen and gawked at. They were still sticking up posters, on Molly Malone's bronze arse at the bottom of Grafton Street, when Jimmy got his first call.

  —Mine!

  Mahalia wouldn't give him the mobile. Jimmy gave her his keys and guaranteed her two Loop-the-Loops, one each for herself and Darndale. She let go of the phone.

  —Hello, said Jimmy.

  —Nudie? said a male voice – on the DART, Jimmy guessed.

  —Rabbitte Talent Management. How can I help you?

  —Interested in the band, said the voice.

  An Irish voice, vaguely Dublin, vaguely MTV.

  —What instrument d'yeh play? said Jimmy.

  —Guitar, vocals. Drums, a bit.

  —D'yeh like The Corrs?

  —Yeah, sure; cool.

  —Fuck off, so, said Jimmy, and he handed the phone back to Mahalia.

  A disappointing start maybe, but Jimmy was on his way. He needed coffee.

  —D'yis want a cake, kids?

  —Yeah!

  —Cool!

  —Big cake, this big.

  —Okay, he said. —Let's go to Bewley's and terrify the tourists.

  He'd just pointed the buggy at the caffeine when he got the second call. Mahalia threw the mobile at him.

  —Thanks, love. Hello?

  —Yes, said the voice.

  Jimmy waited, but there was no more.

  —Are yeh ringin' about the band? said Jimmy.

  —Exactly, said the voice.

  It was an African voice, kind of southside African.

  —Are yeh interested? said Jimmy.

  —Yes.

  —D'yeh like The Corrs?

  —We are not acquainted.

  Jimmy's phone hand was shaking.

  —What instrument do yeh play?

  —To whom do I speak?

  —Eh. Jimmy Rabbitte.

  —Mister Rabbitte, said the voice. —I am my own instrument.

  Jimmy punched the air.

  —We'd better meet, said Jimmy.

  —Exactly, said the voice.

  5 The King

  The Forum was a surprise. Jimmy had walked and driven past it but he'd never seen it. It didn't look like a pub; it was more like a cafe and, as far as Jimmy was concerned, there were enough of those things in Dublin already. But, once he was inside, it was a real pub, and a good one.

  Portuguese-looking barman, Spanish-looking lounge-girl, Chinese-looking girl on the stool beside him, good-looking pint settling in front of him, REM's new album on the sound system – sounded good, although maybe a bit too like an REM album – African locals chatting and laughing, Irish locals chatting and laughing. Jimmy tasted his pint. Grand – and just as well, because it wasn't fuckin' cheap.

  —Mister Rabbitte, said the voice.

  Jimmy turned on his stool. He was looking up at a tall black man.

  —You are Mister Rabbitte, the man told Jimmy.

  —Yeah, said Jimmy. —That's me. Jimmy.

  They shook hands. It was hard to put an age on him. Late twenties, Jimmy reckoned, but he could have been older or younger. Serious looking. The man didn't smile.

  —You know my name, said Jimmy. —But I don't know yours yet.

  —Robert.

  He stared at Jimmy.