For the Good Times

by David Keenan

  A tsunami, yes. A tsunami is like a finely calibrated gold watch, which has its time, just as this was the beginning of mine, the time I was to serve, as a prisoner, the time I was to bow down to, the time that is now coming to an end, and that looked so beautiful then, in a dark-blue pencil skirt and high heels. Its long red hair, hanging down. Inscrutable dark eyes, where the future meets the past, like a swan’s.

  Hiya, Sammy, she says to me, and she sits down next to me and lights a fag. I’m pregnant, Sammy, she says to me, and with her long, red fingernails she pierced the flesh of my chest and grasped me by the heart.

  I’m pregnant, Xamuel, she says to me in my arms, on this bench that had been set aside for us by Christ Jayzus and his da at the beginning of time (let’s face it), this bench on the shore at Carrickfergus, and I says to myself, let me be the father, please, make it perfect, this moment, but in my heart of hearts, I knew. Even as she caressed it, even as she held it gently in her hands, in this moment, of the two of us, even as I felt it strain against her fingers, I knew who the father was. I tried to make light of it, to turn it into a joke. Don’t tell me you’re going to give birth to a wee darkie? I says to her. But everything has its season. I held her in my arms then, in the space that was given to us, in the time that was ours, and we wept.

  *

  The story she told me was this: that she had worked as a whore at the Europa for several year and that it was profitable and safe – at first – and there was a never-ending supply of clients, with members of the press, civil servants, diplomats and international politicians coming and going in those years. There was a circle of girls working there, essentially under the protection of the Brits. Her husband Davy knew nothing about any of this. She says. At first. He had been paying protection money to the IRA in return for being able to trade. His shop was in an area that had fallen under covert IRA control. Kathy mentioned the various diplomats and politicians that she had ‘befriended’ at the Europa and Davy insisted that she bring it up to them. And so she did.

  She mentions it to a few people who shrug and say, it’s a problem across the board, there are no-go areas all over Belfast, what do you expect us to do? But she had taken a lover. A man name of Trevor Winter. One of these vague ‘protector of the realm’ types. And Winter says he’ll look into it. That it might be possible to do something, he says. That he would look into what contacts he had on the ground and see whether they couldn’t nudge a few of the necessaries. He acted like he was pulling strings. Like the whole thing was a game with just a few people on each side directing the action. He would get drunk with Kathy in a room at the Europa and he would boast about his contacts in the field. The whole game is rigged, he says to her. The whole game is riddled. The whole game is wriggled.

  He gets drunk and he goes on about Control. Control says this. Control says that. Control is in control, he says. What is Control? Kathy says. Control, my dear, he says, Control, my darling girl, is whoever defines the term. Are you talking about psychological warfare? she says to him. If you say so, he says, and he winks and he rolls her top up over her small, perfectly formed tits, like little fucking coloured rosebuds, they were. The whole game is riddled, he says. We have introduced contagions. Pathogens of our own making. Psychopathogens, he says. That’s another word for a Fenian bastard, he says, and we’re flooding the market.

  Then, afterward: my husband is being leaned on by the IRA. He has stopped paying their protection money to them out of principle. Principles, Trevor Winter says, and he chokes off a laugh as he lays out a line of coke for each of them in a room with the curtains closed in the spring of 1977. Principles, he says, are the most dangerous contagion of them all.

  Give me his details, he says, I’ll have some of our men in the field pay him a visit. Perhaps we can sort something out, he says. After all, he says, it’s not often that you come across a man with principles in Northern Ireland. It’s not often that somebody takes a stand. I do think he should be rewarded, he says, or at least, you know, backed up.

  One night Davy comes home and tells Kathy that he was visited at the shop by Special Branch. How do you know it was Special Branch? she says to him. Because that is exactly what they didn’t say, he says. They never announced themselves as Special Branch, which is exactly what Special Branch would do, instead they simply says that they had come to see me about my problem. That they had heard that I was a man of virtue and of good standing. That that was a rare thing in Belfast, a rare thing in Northern Ireland. Then one of them made a strange remark, her man says to her. He points toward me, he says, and he says to his companion, doesn’t he remind you of someone? Yes, his companion says. Yes, I was only just thinking the exact same thing. It’s uncanny, he says. It’s a million to one, he says. If I wasn’t so sure of his whereabouts right now, the first man says, if I wasn’t, in fact, so convinced of your integ rity, sir, and, well, your honesty, let’s just go ahead and say that, he says, if I wasn’t so, how do you put it, sold, on your story, my friend, I would be almost convinced that this was some form of elaborate set-up. Some form of psychological double bluff, his colleague says, the conversation snaking back and forth between them. You see, they says that Davy was the spitting image of a sleeping fox. A ‘sleeping fox’ is a code for a double agent, they says. A sleeping fox that might be willing, they says, to trade places with him.

  This could work well for both of us, the second man says. You could take a holiday, as it were, the first man says, while our friend, well, while our friend moves in and, as it were, draws the heat. I thought it was ridiculous, Davy says, a sleeping fox impersonating me, a sleeping fox pretending to be me. I have regulars, Davy says to them. I have close friends that are customers. Sure, he’s a cousin, a brother, in that case, the first man says. He’s a family member. But the resemblance would be enough to convince anybody that might ask questions. Besides, the second man says, he can look after himself, this sleeping fox, you would have no need to worry about that. He has his own story. We know what we’re doing, the first man says. Think about it, he says, as just a subtle sleight of hand.

  Counterparts, I says to Kathy. Do you think that everybody has their counterparts out there? Not like their double exactly, but like their opposite number?

  That’s what Davy says, Kathy says to me. That’s what Davy says but only he calls it his alter ego. My fucking alter ego is out there, he says, and then he brings up the story of Ms Marvel, which was this comic book that he always went on about. I says to him, what the fuck does your favourite comic book have to do with a sleeping fox? and he says to me, shut up and listen, shut up and wait till I tell you, he says:

  *

  Carol Danvers is investigating her own alter ego. She is trying to track down Ms Marvel and find out her true identity. But Ms Marvel’s true identity, her alter ego, is Carol Danvers. Only she’s forgotten or suppressed it somehow. She starts to having these blackouts. There are gaps in her story. Ms Marvel does not know her true identity. Ms Marvel is trapped in a place of no memories. Carol Danvers’s shrink puts her under and while she is hypnotised she recalls memories of Ms Marvel and her superpowers. But her shrink dismisses them as ludicrous or as shadow fantasies personified. It’s just a complex, he says. Think about it, Davy says.

  What if your complexes are not in here but out there?

  What if you could come face to face with your own alter ego?

  What if your alter ego has forgotten it’s your own invention?

  I says to him, I’m not indulging any stupid comics-fanboy superhero nonsense, she says. You do not want to get mixed up with these people, I says to him. These people are dangerous, I says to him, but he’s obsessing over it. You’ve been reading these comic books for too long, I says to him. I’m not mental, he says to me, I’m not mad. It’s a projection, I says to him. You’re projecting onto this fantasy figure, I says to him, but he just laughs at that. Imagine the power of projection, he says to me. That’s what you call art.

  *

 
; I start to notice changes with Davy and it’s like this supposed meeting with Special Branch has inspired him, she says. Can psychological warfare be as subtle as that? Could they have somehow hypnotised him by planting the seed of this idea and then the seed somehow grows under its own power or under the power of Davy’s fantasy? Thing is, he stops wearing his sloppy T-shirts and his training shoes and his baggy jeans and he starts to buying smart shirts and dress shoes. He starts to wearing a blazer into work and he even starts to wearing the cologne. Sorry, the aftershave, he starts to wearing the aftershave. I think to myself, okay, it’s good to aspire. It’s good to want to better yourself, if that’s all it is, then fine. Then good. He’s looking better than ever, I’ll be honest with you. He’s making an effort. I’m all for it. Then you lot go and kidnap me. Then he kicks the shite out your friend at the comic shop.

  *

  He didn’t kick the shite out him, I says to her, what happened was he accidentally kicked Barney in the head while he was flailing about trying to escape. Whatever, Kathy says, what he told me was that he split that cunt’s head wide open. That’s exactly what he says and, I mean, already that wasn’t like him. I split that fucking cunt’s head wide open, he says to me. I’m not going to argue the point, I says to her. It was a lucky kick, but whatever. So he kicks the shite out your friend, she says, and then he calls Special Branch and asks for an appointment with his alter ego. He says that he is ready.

  *

  The story that he told me was this: how he gets a number and is told to phone it at a certain time and to use a certain phrase. A certain phrase that he says he cannot reveal to me under pain of death.

  Don’t tell me, I says to him: Flame on!

  It’s not fucking funny, he says to me, and he fixes me with this stare, this fucking stare where his head doesn’t move at all. That’s another thing that happened to him when he came back. When he spoke to you he never moved his head. I know that sounds unremarkable but try it yourself. You can move your eyes or whatever but try speaking to someone without ever moving your head. It’s fucking disconcerting, I’m telling you. And at first you don’t even realise what it is about it until you figure it out. They don’t move their heads when they talk to you. You realise that and you get the creeps. That’s a Special Branch technique. I’m giving nothing away here but watch out for it. The non-head-moving. Strategic non-head-moving. It’s a giveaway. A giveaway that they’ve had training. So as he calls this number and he utters this phrase. This phrase that he says has the power to unlock the future, is what he utters.

  There’s no one on the end of the line. When he phoned this number someone picked up the phone without speaking. He’s in deep here. He utters the phrase. The person on the other end of the phone doesn’t respond. You can hear a transistor radio in the background. It’s playing music. What music? I says to Kathy. How do I know what music? she says. What the fuck does it matter what music? It might have been important, I says to her. But carry on.

  There’s this music playing, this unknown music. And he stays on the phone. Davy stays on the phone and waits for a response but there’s none. He listens some more. He listens some more and that’s when he says to me that he understood the first lesson. He says that he gets it right there. Listen to yourself, he says. That’s the first lesson. The phone call was a feedback loop, he says to me. The phone call was a silent meditation between himself and his alter ego, and he says he felt supercharged. He says he hung up the phone after who knows how long. Long enough to get the message, he says, and he was buzzing. This is dangerous behaviour, I says to him, this is deluded behaviour. But he just looks at me with this fucking stationary-head thing and it’s enough to make you jangle.

  *

  So as he kicks the shite out your friend Barney and he comes round and he rescues me from you lot. He waits until you leave. He was watching the house the whole time. Davy and his alter ego had their eyes on your safe house (I imagine these two fucking motionless heads sitting like Easter Island in the front seat of the car, watching us). He bursts in on me, or it might have been his alter ego, because he’s wearing a bally, so who knows. Davy, is that yourself, I says to him. It’s me, he says, and it sounds like him, to be sure. I’ve come to rescue you, he says, and he grabs me, but before he goes he says, wait a minute. Wait a minute here, he says, let’s leave them a calling card, and that’s when he told me to get my heels and to sit them on the chair. It’s like the Invisible Woman hanged herself, he says, and we rush out into the car and we skid off without anybody seeing us.

  Was his alter ego in the car? I says to her. Did you get to see him? No, she says, I didn’t see anything because he forced me into the boot. Your own husband that came to rescue you forced you into the boot of the car?

  He says: get in, bitch. That’s what he says to me. Then he picks me up and he tosses me into the boot and the car screamed off. We pull up to another house. He gets me out the boot and I’m kicking and screaming and I’m shouting blue murder. What the fuck has got into you, I says to him, what in the name of fuck are you doing? He slaps me hard across the face and he grabs me by the hair. He drags me across the front grass and into the house and he throws me on the stair and he tears my tights down and he rapes me.

  I can see us in the mirror, watching myself, getting raped, watching Davy, raping me. He’s tearing my dress in the mirror and he’s holding me down by the hair at the same time. The first sex we’d had in years and all the time he’s calling me a whore, you’re a fucking dirty little whore, you’re a slutty little fucking bitch, so she is.

  Then he finishes me off. He finishes me off and he gets up and he locks the front door and he puts the keys in his pocket. Get upstair and get yourself fucking cleaned up, he says to me, there’s an outfit for you in the spare room. In the meantime I’ve got somebody I need to talk to, he says.

  I get up and I’m staggering. I’m covered in bites. He was biting me the whole time. I go up the stair. I’m in the room above the living room. I can’t hear him talking. I can’t hear him moving around. But after he tells me the story of calling up this silent contact and uttering this word, I’m sitting, in the room upstairs, crying, bleeding, sore, and I’m picturing him, down the stair, on the couch, with the phone up to his ear, sitting there, listening to his alter ego, listening to the voice of silence. I walk over to the cupboard. There’s an outfit hanging up in there. I get dressed and I wait for him in the clothes he has chosen for me, with my eye bruised shut, and with cuts on my thighs. After what feels like an eternity he comes up the stair and he takes me by the hand and he explains what the future has in store for me.

  *

  Storms toss the kingdom of Hibernia.

  The sun and moon rise and fall together.

  Neutrino and The Anomaly return to their secret Control Station in the mountain fortress of The Cave Hill.

  The future of The Forever Family is in doubt.

  Neutrino is alone in the Control Room. He scans absent-mindedly across the surveillance channels. Visions of flood and famine. Whole populations displaced.

  He can barely muster a shrug.

  In the bowels of the complex The Anomaly paces The Cryogenic Vault.

  In his hand he holds a smooth silver cylinder: The Armageddon Artefact.

  I was given this by my mother, he says to himself. His voice echoes across The Cryogenic Vault.

  I have it within my power, he announces, to bring all this to an end.

  To bring all this to an end or once more to join the fray. To battle in good faith, father against son, brother against brother, father against father.

  Ah! But have I the heart?

  Take heart, a voice says. A voice from out of the air.

  Take heart, my son. Take all this with you, all sorrow and foreknowledge of parting, all fate and fortune, and do battle regardless.

  For that is what is written. And what is written is The Eternal Warrior.

  Is it you? he asks of the air.

  No respo
nse.

  Then: It Is I.

  It is I?

  No answer.

  Outside the elements thunder. Lightning turns the air purple.

  The Anomaly steps toward The Crucible. The time has come.

  The voice of the silence now speaks. It speaks through The Anomaly in actions.

  He takes The Armageddon Artefact and inserts it into The Crucible, which opens like flesh to receive it.

  The pod of The Crucible lights up. There is the sound of an amplified heartbeat.

  The door slides to one side.

  There is nothing there!

  Ye Gods, The Anomaly cries. Why have you betrayed me?

  Inside the pod: a single coat hanger swings on a rusted metal hook.

  Neutrino flicks across the channels. He sees Hibernia from high above. He sees the horizon curving into space. He feels the arc of the planet.

  Great plumes of smoke rise up; red smoke and grey smoke and blue fire lick at the clouds. It is the end of days. Hibernia is haemorrhaging into space.

  The moon hangs huge on the horizon. The sun boils high in the sky.

  Suddenly: a vapour trail rises at an inhuman speed.

  Is it a missile? Is it a space capsule?

  It tears up into the sky and arcs toward the moon.

  Neutrino zooms in.

  Ye Gods! The Anomaly, come quick!

  The Anomaly thunders into the Control Room. Can it be?

  A lone figure tears through the stratosphere.

  A lone figure speeds toward the moon.

  Sunflower!

  Did you activate The Armageddon Artefact? Neutrino asks him.

  Yes, he says. But it failed. The Crucible was empty.

  But that’s not possible, Neutrino cries.

  Sunflower is risen! The Anomaly cries. Anything is possible!

  The moon itself seems to shudder at Sunflower’s approach.

  One overthrowing of nature demands another, The Anomaly announces, and he brings his fist down on the control panel.