A few minutes of chit-chat passed.The cough girl and I were silent. The American threw anxious looks Chuckle's way. He shrugged chubbily. Max took it on herself to grease the wheels after my bad start.'Chuck tells me that you went to university in London?'
I dreaded the prospect of making conversational headway with this.'Ah, yeah, that's right'
'What did you study?'
Chuckie tried to smother his laugh.
'Political science,' I said.
Aoirghe didn't bother to hide her laugh.
'You liked London?' Max asked quickly, her smile too sweet.
'Yeah, London's OK.'
Aoirghe chipped in.'Why did you go to London?'
'Mmm?'
'What was wrong with Irish universities?' Her face was humourless, adamant.
I tried the Noel Coward approach. 'Well, Irish universities remind me of God. A lot of people seem to believe in them. I respect their faith but there's no real proof.'
Her face was a smile-free zone.
'As a matter of fact,' I went on quickly,'I've no idea why I went to London. I think I just wanted to avoid going to Queen's at all costs. There have to be some standards'
'I went to Queen's,' she said.
I didn't blink, I didn't pause. With my voice all bright and interested I ploughed on.'What did you do?'
`History.'
'Ali, right.'
She set down the glass she'd picked up. `What does "Ah, right" mean exactly?' she asked.
Who knows what would have happened if the waitress hadn't arrived to take our orders? Silently, I blessed this profession to which Mary belonged. Silently, I damned Chuckie's fat little eyes for getting me into this. I could have been doing something better, like having an unusual and interesting bowel disease.
We ordered and we talked on. Max and Chuckie took the burden of the conversation so Aoirghe and I could take a breather between rounds. I was amazed at all these new skills of Chuckie/Chuck/Charles. He'd be speaking French and quoting haikus next. Slat had once told me that Chuckie was a man of possibilities but I felt sure that Slat would shit himself if he could see any of this.
I calmed down a bit and checked out my date. She was about my age, blue-eyed, big-chinned. There was a definiteness about her that appalled and attracted me in equal measure. As she listened to the others talk, her mouth twitched slightly, unable to remain set in the position that she desired. I wondered if this was a tic or her irritation at my presence. And when she glanced my way, it felt like a fight would start. She was pretty Irish, this girl, and it looked like I was never going to be Irish enough. It was very hard. Last week, I'd been beating people up for a living. I wasn't sure I had the delicacy required for this task.
Unfortunately Chuckie let the cat out of the bag once more by letting it slip that I'd been born up West there. I'd figured this girl for a middle-class worst I knew she wouldn't be able to resist the lure of all those credentials of mine.
`You're from West Belfast, then?' she asked me, a new glitter in her eyes. I nearly laughed. Nobody in Belfast says West Belfast. That was TV news talk.
`Yeah,' I said.
Max brightened innocently and Chuckie looked at his plate.
'I wouldn't have guessed it,' said Aoirghe.
And I could have gone in there and then, both hands swinging, but I still tried to let it all slide.
'There you go,' I replied amiably.
She continued, blithe, animated. 'In fact, I was sure that you were a Protestant:
I looked around. I could only see the top of Chuckle's head as he minutely inspected his asparagus. What the fuck was Chuckie doing eating asparagus? Max smiled at me guilelessly. At adjacent tables an eavesdropping couple stared. I'd tried to let it go but, really, who was I to refuse?
'Why would you have thought that? The space between my eyes, the gapless front teeth, the fact that I'm wearing no green?'
I wasn't exactly shouting but my voice was sharp. Some prick had once told me I looked like a Prod because I wore suits and had short hair. I had a low threshold for this stuff. In fact, I didn't have any threshold for this stuff at all.
Max coughed and Chuckie snorted. I even sensed a rumble of encouragement from the other diners. Aoirghe looked untniffed.
'I don't know. You just don't seem very Catholic. You don't seem very West Belfast'
I wasn't a big double-dater. I'd no real experience of the forms but even I guessed that what I went on to say wasn't good blind-date technique.
'I'm sorry but I haven't heard anybody talk crap like that for years. Not very Catholic, Jesus! I'm tired of all that bullshit.'
All the lights in her face switched on full beam. I hated, I really hated to admit that it was quite arresting.
'Very good,' she taunted. 'Does that amount to a political position?'
It was time to start shouting. I was punctual.
'A political position. Oh, for fuck's sake.'
Max creased her face at her friend, hoping she'd stop. Chuckle's face was touching his plate. Aoirghe's chin, already prominent, set further.
`Oh, I'm sorry, do you have some problem with politics?'
She was shrill. Max put her hand on her friend's arm. Chuckie looked up at me and shook his fat cheeks at me. All the fight in me dried up.
`Yes,' I replied, my voice low. `I do have a problem with politics. I studied this stuff. Politics are basically antibiotic, i.e., an agent capable of killing or injuring living organisms. I have a big problem with that.'
Aoirghe was practically purple now and, despite Max's restraining arm, she was winding up to some big barrage when Chuckie piped up in a weak voice. `Hey,' he said, his face bright with lunatic inspiration, `you know the way they call Britain the UK-'
`Actually, Chuckie,' I said, swallowing my anger, `Great Britain and the UK are separate entities. We aren't invited to one of those parties.'
Aoirghe snorted volubly. It sounded like she was saying her name again.
Chuckie smacked half a glass down and went on, `Well, I was thinking the other day that it shouldn't be called the UK at all. It should be called the UQ. It should be the United Queendom.Where's this king they're talking about?' He turned to the rest of us, his chops chubby with his grin. Peacemaker, wit, Lurgan.
There was a big, big pause. There was even a tiny ripple of applause at an adjacent table.
We all ate silently for some minutes, I was fuming and I didn't want to look at the asshole I'd been saddled with so I watched Max and Chuckie instead. It was odd to see Chuckie make out with a girl like her. Again, I was oppressed by the uneasy sensation that Chuckie was going places. It worried me unaccountably. I mean, I wanted him to do well. It was just that I didn't want him to do well enough to show me up. With this swish girl on his arm he was already assuming a patrician air, already giving me grief for not having a girlfriend.
But after a while Max and Chuckle's talk dried up. Aoirghe had caught their eye. I looked where they looked and saw her staring at me with an extraordinary expression. I even looked behind me just to make sure. Chuckie giggled nervously.
'What happened to your face?' she asked.
I poured my wine while I failed to find a quip. Chuckie looked nervous.
'Somebody hit me.'
'Who?'
'I don't know his name.'
'Where?'
'Around the head mostly but-'
'No, I mean where did it happen?'
'Oh. right. On my doorstep'
'What?'
'At my door.'
'Somebody just rang your bell and beat you up.'
'Yeah, more or less.'
'Why did you answer your door to him?'
'He was a cop'
That was foolish. That was my big mistake. I should have known better. Her eyes gleamed with sudden fellowship. She was not a big fan of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, what with her being a Republican and thinking it was a good idea to kill them and all.
'That's disgusting'
/> 'Well, you know, it wasn't that simple.'
She sat back and included our mystified co-diners in her indignation. 'There is an average of one hundred serious assaults by the RUC every year. There is an average of three prosecutions every year. There are no convictions'
I threw the rest of my wine down my throat.'So, Max,' l said, 'what part of America are you from?'
'Don't change the subject,' Aoirghe bellowed.'How can you let yourself be beaten like that and not grow angry?'
`Well, it wasn't really political.'
`What?' she last I was stoking her fire. `It's always political!
I gulped the rest of the wine. Soon I'd be home and everything would be fine.
'I deserved it.'
She was furious. I think she caught fire or something. `Deserved it. Oh, you poor bastard. Is that how you feel about being Irish? This kind of thing will just go on and on until this whole country is united and we are one Ireland.' She half rose out of her chair and looked at me as though she expected an orchestral swell to underline her drama. The other diners were openly staring now and even the waiters looked anxious. Such talk was never profitable in public Belfast, no matter how swish, no matter how bourgeois. People got nervous. People got annoyed.
I spoke up. `Listen, Earache, or whatever your name is, why don't you give it a rest and let us finish our dinner?'
She snarled defiantly at me. It was amazingly arousing under the circumstances. `Don't you want your country united?'
`What country?'
`Don't you consider yourself Irish?'
`Sweetheart, I don't consider myself at all. I'm humble that way.
At last, she started to get really pissed off. `Don't call me sweetheart, you prick.'
From that high point, the evening deteriorated.
She gave us the full whack, the entire job lot. The international perspective, the moral imperative and the historical basis for why it was OK for the people she liked to kill the people she didn't like. I'd had many such evenings, many such listenerships - being Irish, I could hardly have failed it had never been so hard to take, it had never been so ugly.
She was particularly good on the history, what with her big local degree and all. She gave us the rundown from prehistory through the Dark Ages to the present day. The old stun. the island of Ireland had been a free stronghold where human culture flourished at its finest. Then the English came!
There were three basic versions of Irish history: the Republican, the Loyalist, the British. They were all murky and all overplayed the role of Oliver Cromwell, an old guy with a bad haircut. I had a fourth version to add, a Simple Version. Eight hundred years, four hundred years, whatever way you wanted it, it was just lots of Irish killing lots of other Irish.
We swallowed the rest of our meal and swallowed her bullshit too. I couldn't be bothered taking her on any more. She had the impervious faith of the bourgeois zealot, which was OK for her. Nobody was going to come shit in her nest. I envied educated people who got off on revolutionaries. Islington was full of them. It must have been fun if you didn't have to do any of the dying.
When the meal wound up, Chuckie looked like a dead man. This had interrupted all that good work he'd been doing with Max. I didn't know what kind of fantasy he'd had about me and Aoirghe but I wasn't going to take her anywhere convenient while he and Max got it on back at her place. I mean, Chuckie was a friend but Aoirghe gave me the pip.
We parted awkwardly. Max kissed me and I'd liked her. Aoirghe and I stood square to each other and muttered some thick valedictions. (buckle got into the Wreck with me. I drove him to his place in silence.
When I got home, a car full of heavies had stopped outside my house. I parked the Wreck and opened nay front door. My flesh crawled and my blood pounded. As I closed it behind me I was almost disappointed that the muzzle of the Browning had not, in fact, been pushed hard against my ear.
Crab or Hally had been leaving messages on my answering machine. Death threats. Disguising their voices, trying to sound threatening. I didn't take any of it very seriously, but I knew if they got drunk or bored enough they wouldn't hesitate to nip round here or to tell some of their friends with balaclavas what a Catholic I was.
Inside, I looked out my window to see what the heavies were up to. Two of them had got out of the car. They were bad guys, all right, badly dressed, well-moustached. I saw them walk to the graffiti wall. For a moment I thought I'd worked it out. I thought that these were the OTG guys. But then they got out their cans and their brushes and they painted over both the OTGs written there. They drove off. I was relieved. I wouldn't like any mysteries to originate with guys like that.
I lay in bed with the windows open. I couldn't sleep. I'd forgotten what a good night's sleep was like. It was years ago and places distant. I'd used it up, like luck or wishes. In the end I lit a cigarette and switched on the tiny radio, which was the only noise, bar cat, I had left after selling my stereo and my television. A news bulletin told me that they'd shot another taxidriver. Maybe I'd sell my little portable too.
Next day, I worked through my Friday.
It had taken me a weekend to find another job. I'd called some people. Some people had called me back. I was flattered, amazed. I was stirred to find how high my stock still stood. A few of my old associates had soon heard I was out of work again and they were tripping over each other to offer me employment.
My answering machine had buzzed all weekend with their unanswered messages: Slug, Spud, Muckie, Rat, Dix, Onion, Bap and Gack. Why didn't I know anybody called Algernon? Fondly remembering my old form, my old skills, they had all made various offers but I didn't do that sort of thing any more. Even a stint of repo work had been a departure. Davy Murray's was the worst offer but it was the most legal. I took it and I'd ended up doing crew work for Davy just like I'd done in the old days. I was a construction worker again. I was a brickie. I was a tiler. I was a big success.
I'd worked this work on and off since I was sixteen. We were doing renovations on kitchens at the Europa, the biggest hotel in Belfast. The famous one they always used to blow up. (Stich past tenses are hazardous in Belfast, the one they still blow up, the one they will blow up.) Yeah, the one with no windows, the one with the wooden curtains. It was once the most bombed hotel in Europe but Sarajevo joints were taking all the records now.
My new job was OK. I worked in construction so I did constructive things all day. I liked the work. It was simple. It was legal. It wasn't the best use of my education but at least it was giving me some muscles.
Chuckie phoned when I got back from work. I apologized for blowing his plans the night before. No problem, he said. Aoirghe was going to Dublin for a while, which meant Chuckie was going to have Max all to himself for as long as was necessary.
`So you didn't go for old Aoirghe, then?' he asked.
`What do you think?'
I heard him laugh.
`Yeah, she's had medicine, right enough. But relax, she hates me too.
'Well, Chuckie, I hesitate to mention it, but wouldn't you be a bit Protestant for her tastes?'
`No, it wasn't that.'
`No?'
'No.You know the way she's a big Irish speaker. When I first met her, I asked her what the Irish word for constitutional democracy was.'
`What is it?'
`British conspiracy.' Chuckie guffawed. `I'm proud of that joke. It's the only one I ever made up by myself. It's not that funny but it's dead satirical.'
`I presume Aoirghe wasn't busting her gut at that one!
'I thought she was gonna nut me' Chuckie chuffed on for a while about this and that.
`How's business?' I asked him.
`Amazing.You would not believe it.'
He told me how business was. I would not believe it.
That night I sat in the Wreck and waited for Mary to leave work.The bar shut late and it was much unhappiness to sit there while the windows steamed up and to lie to all the cops who gripped their guns and asked
me what I was doing. It was madness. For all I knew, Mary's pugilistic boyfriend might have been on duty and if he'd seen me waiting there he'd have emptied his clip into me just for fun.
After an hour and more I saw her leave. Her coat pulled tight, she jumped into a cab with one of the other bar girls. I could barely see her face and it only lasted about twenty seconds but it looked like a nice life she had there. It looked like she wasn't missing much.
Then, stupidly, I drove out to Rathcoole. I drove out to the house where the Johnsons lived. I parked the car in front of their house and sat there for an hour or two. It looked like I was turning into a watcher, a weirdo. I seemed to know all these people who wouldn't want to talk to me. I smoked and watched as the lights were switched off one by one. When the house was dark and I could be sure they were sleeping, I felt better. It was no atonement but it was all I had in me.
I went home. Someone had painted letters on my front door. Your ded. The spelling was Hally's; it even sounded like his accent. I knew there was trouble to come. Since when had my life become so controversial? I decided to think about it in the morning. I went to bed. I felt so bad, I was nice to the cat. Uneasy but willing, he took the opportunity of getting into the bedroom and sleeping on my face all night.
The weekend opened out to me like a menu in a cheap cafe. There wasn't anything I wanted there. It didn't feel good to be single any more. Saturday morning I went shopping, just so someone would talk to me, just so I'd have something to thank somebody for.
Chuckie had gone to ground for the weekend, undoubtedly on some mysterious financial enterprise. I wasn't sure that I could ever remember him being out of touch before. The new Chuckie was taking some getting used to. Slat and some of the others would be around but I didn't want to do any drinking. What with Chuckie being such a cosmopolite now, I thought I should try something a little more dignified than usual. I didn't know any dignified people so I thought I'd have to spend the day alone. I wondered if the Erasmus would last a full Saturday.
It didn't. In the end, of course, I couldn't take the solitude.
Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other Page 10