For the Good Times

by David Keenan

  You’re Mackle McConaughey? Tommy says. Now he can’t believe his lamps. I’m sorry for calling you Bob Marley, he says. That was unforgivable. Sure, I probably did mean Bob Dylan. Fuck it, Mack says, let’s get the green in, and he and his boys head to the bar. I’m starting to breathe again. Tommy gives me a look and under his breath he says to me, is the fucking Ra really coming to this? But we all end up getting half-blocked and at one point Mack actually gets up onstage with the band and sings ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’.

  Now Tommy knew nothing about the rock n roll. None of us did. I mean, we all went to see Bill Haley when he played Belfast. That was just an excuse to rip out the seats. But that night I looked at Mack, who had his arm around Tommy by this point, the pair of them completely blocked and talking into each other’s faces, and I thought to myself, the times they are a-fucking changin’ alright.

  *

  Did you ever try the toffee treacle pudding with nothing but cold custard on the top? What?! You’ve never lived, son. Just a carton of cold custard poured right over the top? The custard has to be cold, otherwise forget it. Some munch.

  That’s what I miss most in the jail. But there’s other things, wee things you get in here that bring back memories, like for instance hot chocolate, you get the hot chocolate in here this weather, and that takes me back to when I was a wee boy in the Ardoyne, that and the carbolic soap, the smell of that carbolic soap takes me right back every time, back to the old house, where we’d all be sleeping in the one bed beneath all these jackets, my da’s big coats all spread out on top of us (we never saw a duvet in our lives, are you fucking kidding me) and they all smelt of the carbolic soap, that’s what my ma would wash our clothes in, only in the jail they have proper sheets and blankets and stuff like that and they wash them in a washing machine with Persil so as you have to wait till you get into the showers before you can get a good sniff, a good sniff of memory. It’s a fucking step up, in some ways.

  *

  Tommy’s da was on death’s door for about the space of what seemed like forever. They says that back in the day he had been involved in the Easter Uprising, that he had done time for the cause, but I never knew anybody who could confirm it and besides, what fucking age must the cunt have been? Tommy wore a gold George V sovereign ring on his finger that he said his da had made in the jail but who knows what goes on, they’ll tell you anything. When you would go round to Tommy’s in Jamaica Street everybody would sit in the kitchen and you would hear his da moaning from behind this curtain they had set up round his bed in the corner. I always thought he just seemed sorry for himself. It was all a big fucking drama. Occasionally this fucking disembodied hand would come out from behind the curtain and grab a cup of fucking tea or a lit fag and then it would go back to moaning to itself. It was fucking disconcerting. You’re sitting there trying to eat a biscuit and this guy is wailing like a fucking leper. Everybody would sit and talk to him through this thick fucking curtain. First time I saw it I says to myself, what is this, the fucking Wizard of Oz?

  At first Tommy’s da didn’t want us to get involved in the Ra. Get a paper round, he says to us, do something decent with your life. His own da had been involved but then he got hit by a taxi when he was coming home half-blocked and that was the end of that. Tommy’s da was just as bad. You should have seen his record. Years later I sent away for it and I get it on a flappy disk out the archive: drunk and disorderly, refusing to do the dishes, no-shows, punch-ups in the canteen. I never knew the Ra used to have canteens, but there you go.

  Tommy’s ma was alive and well but she was even less of a presence than his disembodied da. A big brooding face with big brooding lamps like big brooding coals plus she was tied to that sink and that stove. I never saw her outside the kitchen except for once at a funeral and once at a hospital visit, but wait till I tell you. I guessed that she must have slept in there beside her man. The toilet was out the back so as there was no need to go ganging up the stair or into the front room. I don’t even know if there was a front room. And allow me to correct a well-known fallacy: everybody thinks that Catholics, and certainly Republicans, and definitely members of the IRA, hated the Queen, but that could not be further from the truth, my friend. 1977 was the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and Tommy’s ma was collecting stuff about her. She had a memorial biscuit tin on her shelf and a mug with the Queen’s face on it and a badge, as well as a souvenir magazine that she kept in a drawer and that she would pull out when the guests came around. It made no sense to me because Fuck the Queen was my motto. But the mums loved her. My own ma was crazy about her. Even as her friends and neighbours were getting burnt out their homes in her name. The fucking Irish, you want to tell me about it.

  Now, so there was a rumour that Tommy’s da knew the location of an arms stash in Armagh, and not just any old arms stash, but one that was supposed to have come from Libya or Saudi Arabia – don’t ask me, how would I know – but a big one, by way of some of the big boys, was what they says. Tommy didn’t want to bring it up with his da but then Mackle McConaughey leans on him. Don’t end up like your da, Mack says to him. Do something with your life, Mack says to him, which is exactly what Tommy’s da was saying to us, only the reverse. Personally, I’ll take liberating a Libyan arms stash for a bunch of street-fighting nationalists over delivering The People’s Friend to your agoraphobic ma and I says as much to Tommy but he was touchy about his ma, they all were, so as I dropped it. But he eventually agreed to bring it up, under the stipulation that I did all of the negotiating and that if it was going to bring any heat down on his da then we would make out that the whole story was bollocks and we would say that it was a result of wee dafties talking their gobs off and that there were no arms really, to speak of, and that the whole thing had been nothing but a masquerade.

  *

  I take a seat in front of this curtain, this black nicotine-stained curtain that smelt of boiled meat and fucking – sadness. Tommy’s ma – her name was Josie – gives me a mug of tea with Prince Philip’s face on it. Tommy looks over at me. When he was that nervous way of his, he would start with the fiddling with his hair, wrapping it round his finger and pulling it out. He was sensitive about his bald patches but he was his own worst enemy. That’s what he’s doing right then.

  I clear my throat, I’m like that, how are you doing in there, Mr Kentigern? I says to him. It’s your man Samuel, I says to him, come to say hello. There’s an endless silence, then a coughing fit. Finally he replies to me. How the fuck do you think I’m doing? he says. Aye, it’s hard times, I says to him. It’s hard times, isn’t it, Mr Kentigern? I says. What’s so fucking hard about your times? he says to me. We’re all struggling, I says to him. We’re all part of the struggle. I’m fucking struggling to get out my bed, he says to me. Last I heard you were struggling with some wee bird down The Shamrock.

  Tommy’s ma looked at me like I was a germ at this point. Aye, there’s some cracking wee birds down that Shamrock, I says to him, I’m not about to lie. I see Tommy put his head in his hands. His ma is banging the saucepans this way and that. Don’t talk to me about cracking wee birds, his da says to me, and this floating fist comes through the curtain like a ghost in a play.

  Has this bastard come to taunt me? he says. Do you think I lie here day in day out because I’m trying to attract the wee birds? he says to me. Then Josie speaks up. He sacrificed his life for the troubles, she says to us. It wasn’t all about birds and glory back then. Youse all think youse are a bunch of celebrities this weather. Look, I says, I’ve not come here to make light of anybody’s contribution. Quite the opposite. I’ve actually come with a commendation. Certain people, let’s say, are very aware of the quality of your service and your loyalty and the sacrifices what you have made for the cause (basically I was talking like a prize-winning author). I’m here to say thanks, I says to him, and to ask if there is any way in which we can help extend the great work you did in the past and perhaps, you know, secure your legacy for the future.

/>   I’ll cut straight to the point, I says to him. We are speaking here about the arms stash in Armagh. You’re the only one that didn’t go to jail, I says. And I know you had to deny the existence of any stash. And I also know, by the way, that at that time there were certain factions, shall we say, that were more interested in getting hold of the arms in order to secure their own economic status in certain areas. And kids were getting gunned down. In our own communities. You did the right thing. You took a noble stance. You said in court that the arms did not, in fact, exist. You said it was all bravado and double-dealing. And I know that later everybody gave a statement to the high command that the weapons were actually at the bottom of a river near the border. But I’m asking you. And this is coming direct from the boys up top, boys with no personal agenda or axe to grind, boys what are only interested in guerrilla warfare and in uniting this beautiful country what is where we live. What I’m trying to say, Mr Kentigern, is that you’re the one holding the cards. And they’re the ones writing the history books.

  I sit back and I take a big gulp of tea from out this chipped royal mug. Another long silence, then another coughing fit, and then he replies. Are there going to be any cracking wee birds in it? he says to me, and Tommy’s ma cursed him and all of Ireland, and Tommy cracked up laughing, and when I looked into Tommy’s eyes, into those laughing Irish eyes, it was like I could see the future, mirrored there, and I says to myself, this is going to be beautiful, so it is.

  *

  Wait, see if you know this one:

  There’s a Irish priest, in a Vauxhall Viva,

  on the other side of the border

  and he’s swerving to this way and to that

  across the lanes, so as the garda have got zero choice

  but to pull him over,

  for that.

  This is on the road, from Newry to Dundalk,

  I’m sure youse mind the one.

  Have you been drinking, Father? the first garda says,

  and he smells booze on the priest’s bad brefff.

  On the passenger seat, he spies a bottle,

  of Blue Nun, emptied, to the last.

  Sure, says the priest, but only water has passed these lips.

  Then how is it I can smell wine?

  And the priest looks down, at the empty wine bottle, and he says,

  Christ Jayzus, he’s done it again!

  *

  This is when we get the caravan. This is what they do in Israel, Mack says to me. We’re waiting for Tommy at this farmhouse out Newtownabbey way. They have the top brass meetings in the caravans, Mack says to me, and then they scoot the caravans around the place, just so as they can never be found. Tommy says he knew a guy that was getting rid of one, quick style. Top-of-the-range one, he says, thirty quid, he says, and he’s gone to pick it up with Patricia so as it looked like they were buying it for going away on their holidays but really it was going to be a mobile Ra HQ. Fuck Mossad, Mack says, and he spits in his hands. Anything they can do, we can do better. Mack makes me the offer of a sly bifter. Do you ever urinate on your hands? he says to me. I’m not putting that fag in my mouth if you’re pishing on your hands, I says to him. Pish, it’s completely sterile, he says to me, and besides, he says, it’s not like I don’t wash them as well. Don’t touch me with your pishy hands, I says to him, and I take a step backward. Gimme your hands, he says, let me see them, and he grabs them and he spreads out my palms, like that. Look at this, he says to me, and he shakes his head. These are the hands of a stillborn baby.

  What?!

  You want to toughen yourself up, he says to me, and the best way to harden your skin and to firm it up is to urinate on yourself. My da taught me that, he says to me, and he had a pair of hands like cured buffalo hide, he says. We stand there, smoking our pishy fags in silence. Did you ever hear about Barney? I says to him. Fuck is Barney? he says to me. Our pal, Barney Donnen, I says to him. The one what looks like the Italian pit bull? he says to me. Aye, he says, I know the very fella. You know he gets the disabilities on the bru? I says to him. What for? he says to me. I mean, I know he’s mental, but still. He told the doctor he was a simpleton, I says to him. Got his wife to go along with it. Went in there and says to him he couldn’t even mind his own name and that he thought his house was made of cheese, all this stuff. So as they send someone out to see if he’s really yon disturbed way and if he qualifies for the bru. Twenty minutes before the fella arrives, Barney drinks four bottles of water. His wife shows the guy into the living room and Barney’s sitting there on a chair acting doolally, just completely fucking out of it. The guy from the bru asks him his first question and Barney just pishes himself right in front of him. Just sits there in his chair and lets go with this river of pish running down his legs and pooling round his feet. The guy can’t get out there quick enough. He’s on the disabilities for life after that. Christ Almighty, Mack says, and he shakes his head, but that is fucking disgusting. It is that, I says to him, but think of the quality of the skin on those legs. Must be like a fucking rhino.

  *

  Just then Tommy and Patricia pull up in this van … thing, and it’s painted green and white. He’s beeping the horn and waving to us as they pull in. That’s not a caravan, Mack says. That’s a fucking mobile home. Tommy gets out and leaves Patricia in the passenger seat. What do youse think of the caravan? he says to us. That’s not a fucking caravan, Mack says to him. That’s a mobile home. Don’t fucking split hairs with me, Tommy says. I’ll fucking split your lip if you turn up for a meeting with me again in a green-and-white mobile home, Mack says to him. Do you want to just write IRA On Tour on the side and be done with it? Tommy was starting to look a bit sheepish. I almost felt sorry for him. Give it a good coat of paint, I says to him. A caravan’s a caravan, I says, at least this way we don’t need to drag it round behind a car. Good for quick getaways and that. Exactly, Tommy says, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m out of here, Mack says. I got youse in on good report, he says to us, after your performance in Dundalk. Now don’t fuck it up. Get that caravan sorted and make sure youse are in Armagh next week, at the Keady campsite. Youse are going to move on the weapons. And youse better be on top form. Because the sketch is complicated. That’s what he says. Then he walks off. Oh, so it’s a caravan now, is it? Tommy says. Do you know he pishes on his hands? I says to him. That’s as bad as fucking Barney, he says.

  *

  This is me and Tommy in a caravan park in Armagh, and Barney was there too. The point is to look like tourists, Mack says to us, and in the name of the wee man we gave it our best shot. We sat outside the caravan – radio on, tops off – drinking cans of green that Pat had liberated from Safeways. Up the fucking Rebels, we says, and we gave it plenty. We played card games and we smoked and we listened to the old rock n roll. Dion and Lonnie Donegan and Elvis, that was all fine. But then this song comes on, some fucking harridan woman singing about pishing in a fucking river. It was the time of the punk rockers and Tommy was fucking fuming. I wouldn’t sit here and listen to that filth, he says to us, and he gets up and he turns the radio off in a rage. Can you imagine Como singing a song like that? Barney says to us. Never, Tommy says. Wouldn’t happen. Como never let a curse word pass his lips, Barney says. He was always a clean liver, he says. Tommy passes me a fag and I just about manage to get it lit in the wind what’s coming in from the ocean, must be. Plus he was a good Catholic, Barney says. Barney’s sitting on a deckchair in nothing but a pair of blue swimming trunks. I thought he was a Jew? I says to them. Fuck off, Barney says, Como was never a Jew. What about all them Jewish songs he sang? I says to them. That was just him reaching out to the other side, Tommy says. English wasn’t even his first language, Barney says. It was Italian. He would only speak the English in the songs. And in the TV shows. Otherwise it was fucking original Italian the whole ways. Nothing was off limits to Como. Even fucking English.

  What about birds and booze? I says to him. I thought he drew the line at that? And fucking
curse words, Barney says, and he nods his head again, all solemn, like, you forgot those, he says. Fuck Como, I says to them, I’ve had enough of him already, I says, just for a joke. Hey you, Tommy says to me, fucking cool it. Then he stands up with a fag in his mouth and rubs the suntan lotion into his bare chest. Don’t take this too far, he says to me, you’re talking to a true believer here. Never forget that. Never underestimate the power of a true believer, he says. Then Barney gets up and starts singing in this mad vibrato style, singing about fucking rain falling, and flowers growing, and prayers being heard, up above, all this stuff. He has his head thrown back and his arms outstretched in those fucking torture trunks of his. Sure, you’re murdering that, Tommy says to him, sit the fuck back down. But Barney keeps up with the singing, even as he’s backing away from Tommy, who’s rounding on him. Tommy was the singer in the group, there was no question. He could have been on the London stage. Tommy takes a run at him. He rugby-tackles Barney and he decks him. They end up wrestling each other on the ground in front of the caravan with everybody watching, the both of them screaming and laughing, but really going at it. Two boys away on their holidays for the first time ever; I mind it like it was only yesterday.