Call Me the Breeze: A Novel

by Patrick McCabe

  ‘Joseph!’ he said. ‘Look at me! Where did he ever go, that old father of yours? Where did he go, your old man Jamesy? Tell us, Joey, where did he go?’

  I didn’t reply. I tried my best to wrest my shoulder away, but without drawing attention to it.

  ‘Did he have a wee girl maybe out foreign?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know where he went, Mr Henry.’

  ‘What did he have to go and do that for? That was a bad thing to do. Poor old Mona, shovelling gin into herself then and going around quaking like a jelly. A Chivers jelly! Say that, Joey — a Chivers jelly!’

  I looked away. He clapped me gently on the back.

  ‘Ah well. Don’t say it then,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to.’

  He sighed and sank his hands into his pockets. Then he continued: ‘And your poor old mother, she didn’t fare much better. That’d be the shame, I suppose. Shame is a bad boy, Joey. She mightn’t give a fuck about him, and the way I heard it, she didn’t. But the shame now, that would be different. That would be a different kettle of fish for a woman abandoned. Which is really what happened, Joey, no matter what way you might try to dress it up. Left on the dump so as he could ride all he wanted.’

  He flexed his fingers and contemplated his nails. ‘He was a good singer too, Joey. He used to sing at all the concerts. Do you know what he used to sing? “Harbour Lights”, Joey. I wonder what harbour he sailed into? I know! The wee furry one, maybe!’

  He clapped me sharply on the back and boomed: ‘Aye! That’d be her! Eh, Joey? Eh, Joey?’

  I swallowed. All of a sudden he erupted into song.

  And then those harbour lights

  They only told me we were parting!

  The same old harbour lights

  That once brought you to me.

  He twinkled then and gave me a little shove. ‘Wasn’t he a desperate man now, doing the like of that?’

  His eyes creased up and he laughed again. Then he said nothing for a while. He drank some more beer. The pool balls clacked. He licked his lips and gave his attention to the game for a while, commenting here and there. ‘Nice shot!’ he said, and: ‘Lovely pocket, son!’

  Then, all of a sudden, he swung on his heel and blurted: ‘Joseph?’

  ‘Yes?’ I replied.

  He raised his left eyebrow. ‘Do you think there’ll ever be peace in this country?’

  I said I didn’t know. There were crumbs from the pastry on my lips. I tried my best to wipe them off. I didn’t want him to see me doing it.

  ‘Look at you, Joseph! You’re all crumbs!’ he teased.

  I laughed a bit then stopped. Then I saw he was gazing at me and pointing at them — the crumbs. I half laughed again and tried to brush some of them off with my sleeve.

  I was trying to think of what I was going to say next when he lifted up a piece of meat and held it between his fingers. Then he said: ‘Joseph, will you open your mouth for me?’

  Before I knew what I was doing I had complied with his request and he was pressing the cubed steak in between my lips. Without warning, he jabbed me with his fingers, real hard. I gagged.

  ‘Oops!’ he chuckled. ‘Bit of an accident there! Sorry about that, Joseph!’

  He grinned and was about to pick up another piece of meat when Connolly came over and announced: ‘We’ll have to be making tracks shortly, Boyle, there’s someone looking for us up at the chapel.’

  ‘Back at HQ!’ the councillor laughed as the clergyman smiled and strode off again.

  My stomach felt empty, like I’d eaten nothing at all. I was on the verge of calling out to Austie for another pie when Boyle came back and gripped my wrist: ‘Like I say, Josie …’ he continued.

  Then, oddly, he dropped his voice until it became a mere whisper. The pool balls were seeming to take an age travelling the breadth of the green cloth. It was as though he were in pain now as he spoke. As if tears were about to moisten his eyes.

  ‘That night in New Orleans we could have had our pick, the choice of whatever it was we wanted, any sweet and juicy pussy going, Joseph my man, French, Jap, Chink or Jew, we could have had it. What do you think of that?’

  He flicked his nail and sighed, still pained, even more so. ‘Oh, Joseph!’ he went on. ‘If only you’d been there. If only you’d been there that night. Do you know where you’d have come with us?’

  I flushed to the roots.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Joseph,’ he continued, ‘you’d have come with us. To the only place you could. And where’s that? Joseph, ask me! Where’s that?’

  I wished he would stop it. Stop it now, right now!

  I was on the verge of grabbing a handful of pie and saying to him: ‘Shut up! Shut up now, do you hear me? Stop it and shut up or I’ll mash this into your face! I’ll mash this pie right into your face right here and now in this fucking bar! Do you hear me?’

  ‘Joseph,’ he said, ‘you’re not answering me.’

  ‘I didn’t —’

  ‘Ask me, I said. Say to me: “Tell me, Boyle, where’s that?’”

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘No: “Tell me, Boyle!” Mm?’

  ‘Tell me, Boyle, where’s that?’

  He sculpted a female figure in the air, closing his eyes as he licked his lips, his body enjoying a sensuous quiver of delight. I thought he’d never get around to speaking. I wanted him to stop and yet I wanted him to speak. Just say something! I thought. Say it, for fuck’s sake say it!

  At last, his lips parted.

  ‘That is,’ he smiled, ‘that is the American Door, behind which you’ll find — behind which you’ll find —’

  ‘No!’ I cried.

  He shook his head and frowned sympathetically.

  ‘I don’t blame you for not believing me, Joseph, for it’s not that often you’d see it round these parts but when you do, Joseph — Joseph, when you do …!’

  ‘Austie!’ I called, as I nearly choked on a meat cube. ‘Can I have another steak and kidney pie, please?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Boyle said, ‘you do that. You have yourself another pie, Joey, but in the meantime listen. Listen to your old friend Boyle.’

  I opened my eyes hoping he’d have gone away. But he hadn’t. He split a match and started picking his teeth with it.

  ‘But the best of all,’ he went on, ‘the best of all didn’t come from New Orleans at all. Didn’t come from Louisiana state at all. “Where did it come from, Boyle?” Ask your old pal that.’

  He looked at the match, then tugged my sleeve.

  ‘Go on then, Joseph,’ he urged, ‘ask me.’

  I lunged towards the plate, forking a dollop of pie.

  ‘That fork’s dirty,’ he said, before continuing: ‘It doesn’t matter now. It’s gone. You’ve ate it. It’s … finito.’

  He sighed, flicking away the match. Then, rubbing his thighs, he went on: ‘Anyway, where was I?’

  His grin widened.

  ‘Go on then, ask me.’

  ‘Ask you?’

  Top Cat exploded on to the television. He shot up out of a dustbin with a fish skeleton on his head. ‘Hey T. C.!’ a mechanical voice squealed as the music speeded up and the characters tore off like things possessed.

  ‘Yes. Ask me. Ask me! “Where did she come from, the sweetest juiciest pussy that a man did ever … if she didn’t come from the state of Louisiana then where did she come from?’”

  I wanted so much to do it — lift the plate right there and then, break it, and stuff the pie right down his throat.

  ‘Ah, come on now, Joseph,’ he said after a bit, ‘I haven’t got all —’

  I couldn’t help it. I know I ought to have kept my voice down. It wasn’t a shout exactly, but it was an awful lot louder than it should have been. And I oughtn’t to have cursed.

  ‘Where did she come from then?’ I snapped. ‘Where the fuck did she come from then if she didn’t come from Louis
iana?’

  He looked at me as if to say ‘Tut tut!’ and pressed his forefinger to his lips. ‘Now, now,’ he said.

  He lapsed into silence then, remaining deep in contemplation. Then he looked right at me.

  ‘California,’ he whispered. ‘California.’

  He stood up straight away and brushed down his jacket. He gestured towards the empty tinfoil tray and said: ‘I’m paying for that, Josie.’

  ‘Where the hell have you been, Boyle?’ called Connolly then, bustling in with an armful of his pamphlets. ‘We’ve been looking everywhere for —’

  ‘The Sunshine State,’ grinned Boyle Henry, conspiratorially, ‘the Sunshine State, Josie!’

  ‘State! State!’ fussed Connolly. ‘We’ll be in a right old state if we haven’t got The Courtyard finished this evening!’

  ‘Right so,’ said Henry then, tugging down his sleeves.

  ‘Austie!’ I called. ‘Would you have another pie there, please?’

  ‘What?’ said Austie, grunting. ‘You haven’t fucking finished this one, Tallon!’

  ‘He’s an awful man,’ laughed Boyle, leaning on my shoulder. ‘If he doesn’t stop this he’ll go up like a balloon! He’ll be like your man on the telly — Demis Roussos! The girls won’t fancy him at all!’

  ‘Go up like a balloon?’ snorted Austie. ‘What do you mean, go up?’

  ‘Ah yes!’ laughed Boyle. ‘You’re an awful man. But there’s just one thing. There’s just one thing and you should know … you should really know it, Joseph.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I said. I thought he was never going to speak.

  ‘There aren’t two “r”s in “darling”.’

  He gripped me by the shoulders and gazed right into my eyes. Then he moved in closer.

  ‘There aren’t two “r”s in “darling”, are there?’

  ‘No,’ I stammered, ‘there aren’t, Mr Henry.’

  He sighed exasperatedly.

  ‘No,’ he continued, ‘there’s only one “r”. Only one “r” in “darling”. And any man that thinks otherwise, any man that’d find himself thinking otherwise, well, he’d have to be a bollocks. But don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. That’s one thing you and me have in common — we can keep secrets. Right, Joey?’

  He grinned and winked. Top Cat was running for dear life now as a black-masked burglar came chasing after him. The soundtrack raced hysterically along with them.

  ‘Hey, T. C.! Hey, T. C.!’ was all I could hear.

  ‘Whaddya say, Joey boy? Huh? Well, Joey?’

  I thought it was T. C. but it was Boyle Henry. He was hitting my shoulder short sharp jabs with his fist. Then he stopped and said: ‘Right, Joey? Eh? Eh?’

  ‘Will you come on out of that, Boyle, for the love and honour of God!’ I heard Connolly calling.

  ‘Right you be, Father,’ replied Boyle Henry, all of a sudden relaxing and smiling as he said: ‘Well, be seeing you then, Joey, old friend!’ and walking towards the door before swinging on his heel to deliver one last cheery smile.

  When I saw him doing that, not to mention his giving me the thumbs-up, it was all I could do not to grab what was left on the plate and shove the lot right down my throat. Then stand there shouting: ‘Now do you see! Do you fucking well see now, Boyle Henry! I’ve eaten it! Are you happy now? Well, are you?’

  That night a familiar gloom took hold of me and no matter how I tried I couldn’t manage to shake it off.

  I’d indulged in two spliffs, you see, in an effort to banish the sound of his voice.

  Betrayed my trust in myself, effectively.

  Mangan

  It must have been near midnight when I heard the knock on the door and opened it to find Mangan standing on the step. He had his dog with him. He was wearing an old Fair Isle jumper with tea stains all down its front. ‘You’ll be sorra,’ was all he said. Sorra. The way he said it. ‘Sorra’, as a hesitant trembling took hold of his voice. ‘If he hadna been chained up you’d never have hurted him!’ he said and started stroking the dog.

  ‘Why are they always barking?’ I said. ‘That’s all they ever do. Why don’t they shut up?’

  I brought him in and, when the light hit him, I saw that he’d been crying. You could see that plainly. He kept stroking the animal’s head and repeating, heart-rendingly: ‘You’ll pay for what you done, Joey Tallon! Now the whole town will know! For I’ll tell them! I know what you be at in here! Don’t think I don’t see you! I seen you all right! I seen you — with her!’

  He glared at me.

  ‘Pulling at yourself and talking in women’s voices! You think I don’t know? I seen, you see! I seen! I seen you putting a wig on her! A long black wig — I seen it!’

  ‘Shut up!’ I said. ‘You don’t know anything, Mangan! You don’t know what you’re talking about!’

  He squared up to me, quivering.

  ‘I do!’ he snapped. ‘I know everything that goes on. You think I’ve been here in this camp for close on thirty year and not know what goes on? I know all right, and I know you hurt … you hurt my little —!’

  ‘He’s not fucking little!’ I spat. ‘He’s not fucking little!’

  Then I experienced a pang of remorse.

  ‘He just wouldn’t stop!’ I tried my best to explain, but Mangan was already on his way out. He turned as he crossed the grass and raised his fist.

  ‘I seen you and don’t think I didn’t!’ he called. ‘Through yon window. I seen what you be doing! Calling out her name! Mona! Mona! I know who you’re talking about, sure enough! I seen her about the town, years ago, same black hair and all! Yes! That’s what youse be at, you and her! You and your Mrs … Mona! Oh aye, Mona Galligan that fired herself into the reservoir! Aye! Riding the dead! Riding the dead — that’s your game and don’t tell me any different! For these eyes don’t lie — dressing her up and talking to her! Lying there raving without a stitch on you, full to the gills with drink! Do you hear me, do you, rav-’

  ‘Shut your mouth, Mangan! Get in there, I said! Get in there to fuck and shut your mouth! Who’s going to believe the likes of you, a halfwit old tinker!’

  He slammed the door and I could see him at the window, shaking behind the curtain. Afterwards, I couldn’t manage to sleep a wink, worrying and wondering how he’d found out about me and Mona. But glad in a way that it had happened. Simply because the more I thought about it — and the Boyle Henry ‘incident’ — the more I realized that what all this meant was, I was being challenged. That this was my big test.

  A sort of dry run, in a sense, before the Big One! Sure I had fallen, betrayed my trust, like I say. But it wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t The End. Far from it, in fact — it was a new Beginning!

  I sat by the window. There was an old paper lying there, carrying reports of the Eddie Gallagher siege. It had been the talk of the country for weeks and I’d watched it every day in the pub. Day after day, with Austie giving me grief about being ‘obsessed’ by it.

  Gallagher was a Provo working off his own bat with Marion Coyle to bargain his lover out of jail. They had kidnapped Tiede Herrema, the Dutch industrialist, keeping him hidden upstairs in a council house bedroom, besieged by police and army. I didn’t like the way they’d gone about things. There was a lot of talk about the psychological torture and unnecessary pressure they’d put on the man. I didn’t know whether it was true or not, but if it was, it was bullshit. That was what it was. That kind of thing didn’t belong in me and Jacy’s world. It wasn’t going to be like that, no way. It was … bad karma.

  But the newspaper reports gave me the idea for the bags of sand — my fallback if things went wrong. Joey Tallon, ‘The Human Bomb’. (‘I’ll take you all with me, you motherfuckers!’)

  A bluff, maybe, but I knew it could work.

  Transfiguration

  My eyes lit up as I solemnly repeated: ‘You are on the right track, move neither to your left nor right, but keep to the straight and narrow way.’

  I th
rew out all my Rizla cigarette papers and a matchbox crammed with acid tabs. I will never be able to explain in words — even now, with all my experience — just exactly how I felt that night. I might have been Tarzan. A Tarzan of the mind, that is. I wanted to cheer: ‘Fuck pies!’ To stand there beating my chest. I wanted to run to the top of a mountain. I could have run up and down one for hours.

  At the first sign of light I went into town, running. And got some food to make me strong. Even stronger! Some steak and kidney pies? No chance!

  I had salad. Lettuce leaves and carrot. I bought them in the vegetable shop beside Austie’s. Very tasty. And nutritious. That night I read some St John of the Cross: ‘And then we’ll climb high, high to peaks riddled with stony caves softly hidden away, and there we’ll go inside and taste the pomegranate wine.’

  I felt … transfigured. That is the only way to describe it.

  Mohawk

  I headed down to the barber’s. ‘Just shave it all off,’ I told him, ‘but leave a bit running down the middle.’

  ‘Is this for the band then, Joey? Is that why you want to be like a Mohawk?’ he says as he plugs in the shaver.

  ‘No,’ I said, a trifle impatient, ‘the band’s broken up. Didn’t you hear about Banbridge?’

  ‘Jesus, Joey, I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Just clip the hair, man,’ I said. ‘Just cut the fur, you dig?’

  ‘Right you be then, Joey,’ he said and got to work. ‘I’ll do you a Mohawk.’

  I couldn’t believe it when I looked in the shop window after leaving the barber’s. At first I thought: It’s just a coincidence. But then nothing ever happens that way — and I knew it. It was a signal, a sign, call it what you will. A fantastic bright orange palm-print shirt. Hawaiian.

  I shoved it on and stood in front of the mirror. ‘Are you looking at me?’ I said. ‘Huh? Huh?’

  I slipped on the shades and the combat jacket.

  ‘You lookin’ at me, baby? You lookin’ at me, Jacy hon? I sure hope you are because, you know something, babe? I love you!’