Call Me the Breeze: A Novel

by Patrick McCabe

  ‘Excellent,’ I said. I was happy for him.

  There was an old fellow at the bar and he shot me this filthy look. I heard him muttering under his breath as he turned his back on me. But I didn’t mind — I had expected a little bit of that and, to be honest, there weren’t all that many who’d been hassling me during my trips around the pubs.

  Anyway, regardless of that, I got chatting some more to Hoss and let him know of everything we’d got planned. I told him that most of the ideas were mine and that Fr Connolly was more of an adviser. Which was effectively true, for that was what the priest had wanted — someone with fresh new ideas, which someone of his advanced years simply wouldn’t have. ‘The more help I can get, the better,’ he’d said, ‘for I don’t have the energy any more!’

  ‘I’ll be pretty much in charge of drawing up the programme,’ I said.

  ‘You’re drawing up the programme then, are you?’ Hoss says. ‘Then by Christ it should be good! It should be good then all right! Would you say so, Sandy?’

  ‘Now you’re talking, Hoss! Connolly knows what he’s doing all right. He gets all the top men on his side.’

  ‘The Top Men! Do you get it, Barba? The top men! Ha ha now, it’s a good one!’

  ‘The men on the inside track!’ laughed Sandy, holding his pint aloft. He had softened a bit by now, clearly deciding to become more co-operative. ‘Sit up there out of that and join us, Joey, and I’ll get you a pint of porter,’ he said and clicked his fingers to catch the barman’s attention.

  I did as he suggested and spread my papers, memos and what have you on the counter. As soon as I’d my first mouthful down, I began to feel considerably calmer and certain that, once I’d got their backing, a lot more support would be bound to follow. I rooted about in my briefcase and found it — the letter that the fan club had received from U2’s manager. I had already written to them in prison telling them what their music had meant to me, how what they said had meaning far beyond their wildest assumptions, and how, in my experience, poetry, art, film and music had the power to heal men’s souls.

  And women’s! (I had made sure to — what’s the word? — interpolate that, having, on re-reading, realized that I’d foolishly gone and omitted it!)

  As a letter, though, it was well put together and I was glad they were keeping it on file.

  ‘So you think there’s a possibility they might play here this summer?’ said Sandy, and I could see by the way he was looking at me that he didn’t believe it. Didn’t believe there was a chance. I had to choose my words carefully in case he might start going around badmouthing the idea and making it seem like —

  ‘No, Sandy, of course not! I’m not that stupid,’ I explained. ‘Obviously I am aware that they are a very busy group of people. A world supergroup, in fact. So, clearly, I’m taking a huge big risk. A gamble, certainly. But look, Sandy, anything is possible!’

  ‘Now you’re talkin’!’ laughed Sandy. ‘Anything is possible! Anything at all is possible!’

  ‘I’ll drink to that!’ declared Hoss Watson gamely.

  I was sorry the old fellow sitting with them had felt the need to be so hostile. But I shrugged. ‘That’s life, I guess,’ I said to myself. Then I folded my arms and took a sip of my pint. I turned to Hoss and said: ‘We’re shooting for the moon here, Hoss!’

  I remembered hearing Bono saying that one night in the recreation room when me and Bone were watching them playing Croke Park during the Joshua Tree tour. Shooting for the moon. Giving it everything, in other words.

  ‘All or nothing. That’s the Bono way,’ I felt like saying. ‘Sure, some of us might have done bad things in the past! But that can all be forgiven! If you go out and show what you’re made of! What you’re really all about — inside! Open your heart the way Bono does and sing out that truth the way that U2 do! And they know, more than most, just exactly what that truth is. Know, too, that if you want to find it — to go on that voyage of discovery, to travel to “the truth” itself — that you don’t have to go to India. What I mean — and what they mean — is that you don’t have to get behind the wheel of a beat-up van and tear off in a cloud of dust to some place you’ve never heard of.

  ‘And why not? Because the truth is here, right here beside you — the frog beside the pond, like The Seeker used to say. It’s in your local library, in the faces of your people. In art, in film and music. The truth is you — you are the truth. And you will find who you are by doing. Not by excessive thinking, which was the way I’d once understood things to be …’

  And it’s Fr Connolly I have to thank, I thought, for enabling me through what is essentially pro-active engagement to grasp this single essential maxim. That we are because we do, in a sense.

  I was in the middle of thinking all that and wondering should I say anything about it to the lads when I realized that a gentle hand was resting on my shoulder. It belonged to Sandy McGloin.

  ‘Well, if Hoss is getting involved in this Tops of the Town of yours, then that’s an entirely different story! I think I’ll change my mind and get stuck right in!’

  ‘Fantastic, Sandy!’ I said and gave him the soul-brother handclasp.

  ‘It’s great to have you home,’ said Hoss. ‘You must have great stories about your time in The Joy.’

  I did, I told him, but they could wait. Right now the Tops must be given —

  ‘Top priority,’ laughed Hoss as a playful punch glanced off my shoulder. ‘Boom boom!’

  I laughed and accepted the pint that had arrived. Then I lapsed once more into deep contemplation, making a private commitment to leaving once I’d finished that drink. I didn’t want to start getting into sloppy old habits and let Fr Connolly down. The more I kept thinking of it, the bigger in my mind the festival seemed to grow.

  In a way I suppose I was hoping that the Tops could lay to rest for ever the memory of the first peace festival and all the other things associated with it. That it could act as a sort of cleansing agent, become a kind of purifier, really, and that that was why it deserved to be a really big success.

  A Disgrace

  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got home one evening — about a month or so later, the festival preparations in full swing — and opened the door of the caravan. I had been out since early morning, distributing leaflets, and who did I see shadow-boxing inside? The bold Bone-head, large as life. Completely plastered however, as I was soon to discover, falling around the caravan with a huge sombrero on his head and in his hand a bottle of John Jameson whiskey. ‘There you are! There you are, Joesup!’ he says. ‘You’re the man! You are de fucking man!’ and then starts into this story about the children’s homes and how he can’t sleep because of forgiveness. ‘I can’t forgive!’ he kept repeating, with his fists up to his eyes. ‘Some of the things they did to me in there, I haven’t it in me to fucking forgive!’

  The sombrero looked stupid and I told him to take it off. He got hostile then and said a friend had given it to him in a pub uptown. He’d met him by chance and they’d gone off together on a skite. ‘And I thought that you were my friend, Joesup!’ he said then and glowered. ‘If you were you wouldn’t say it was stupid. It isn’t fucking stupid and I won’t fucking take it off!’

  He lowered another swig of the whiskey and shuddered as he sat in the chair. I had rarely heard him talk like that before — not as intense, at any rate — and I realized the more he went on how hard things were proving for him on the outside. He wasn’t fitting in the way I was. Already I was feeling — because of Connolly and the Tops and the faith he was showing in me — as though I’d never been away at all. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and glared at the streak of saliva.

  ‘They interfere with you there till you don’t know what’s what!’

  He kept threatening to cut himself with a glass. ‘I’ll do it, I’ll fucking well do it, Joesup! Like I did to Ward that night we were robbing the lead! He asked for it! That’s why they put me away, but I don’t care! I’ll do it aga
in!’ he says, and jumps up off the chair. I had no other option but to slap him across the face. Which wasn’t a good idea, for then he starts to cling to me and whimpers: ‘Every night she comes, Joesup, she comes to me. She’s a beautiful woman — I told you I’d meet her! Every night she comes to me and says: “I love you!” We can work this out between us! Maybe you could go to … what do you call it, Joesup? Councillors! She wants us to go to councillors! They can fix it! They’re brainy men!’

  ‘She means counselling, Bone!’ I said, and embraced him. I stroked his back to calm him down but he was still as stiff as a board.

  Then he starts to mutter and mumble and make these leers into the glass. ‘It’s them that did it — came between her and me! I start seeing their faces the minute she touches me, every night! So I can’t forgive them, Joesup! Priests, Joesup! Ruiners! That’s what they are! Look at me, Joesup! I’m a disgrace to the Stokeses of Rathowen! Even my own father would turn in his grave if he could see me in the state I’m in now! After all my plans when I got out of The Joy! What I was going to do — she’s going to leave me, Joey! For how can she stay? Fucking ruiners, destroyers! It’s them! She says I’m well bred, Joesup! She said I haven’t a drop of tinker blood in me! She says she could tell the first time she laid eyes on me!’

  Then he starts weeping into his hands, and what I was worried most about was Connolly or someone appearing on the scene, for I could see how bad it would look and I didn’t want that any more, not now, not ever, and that was why I shook him, shook him and shook him. ‘No!’ I said. ‘No, Bonehead! Listen to me, please listen to me for Christ’s sake, listen!’ I told him I’d read about forgiveness. ‘Forgiveness is —’ I started to tell him. ‘Forgiveness is —’

  But it was no good. He wasn’t listening. Then he got up and started walking around, like he didn’t know where he was going, sniffling and staring disdainfully at my books. He looked at me with these wild eyes. ‘It’s no good, Joesup! We told ourselves lies! Them books does nothing for you! T. S. Eliot is better off where he is — down there. Below! He’s better off there, I’m telling you, Joesup! For now he has no more worries!’

  He spat.

  ‘Books!’ he hissed. ‘Filling up our heads with shite! Shite, Joesup! To distract ourselves from —’

  He touched his forehead with his fingers and didn’t speak for a minute, then came over to me and held me firmly by the shoulders. I didn’t like it. It wasn’t what I wanted overheard.

  ‘No, Joesup! We’re just fooling ourselves, you and me! We try to forget but we’ll never be able to — you’ll never be able to, because you love her! Merv is a good man! He’s good, Joesup! But it’s lies, all of it! Not everything is possible! The past will always catch up with you! Just when you think you’ve left it behind you look up and it’s right there ahead of you! It’s the God’s honest truth and you know it, Joesup! No matter wh-’

  I didn’t let him finish. Not that I was annoyed with him — why should I be? Because he didn’t know what he was talking about. Maybe once upon a time I would have been. But not now. And not because of zen, either, or anything to do with it. But because I’d found myself — through doing, through serving and giving. Giving myself to others.

  And I really didn’t need —

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘No! That’s where you’ve got it wrong, Bonehead! You’ve got it wrong, you hear me? And now, if you don’t mind, perhaps you might care to leave.’

  He didn’t say anything after that, just stumbled down the steps and shuffled off across the grass with Mangan’s dog growling after him and Mangan himself at the window, drawing back the dirty curtain. I was on the verge of calling out: ‘No, Bonehead! I didn’t mean it! Please come back!’

  I didn’t sleep a wink that night, thinking over what he’d said, alarmed at finding myself wondering was he right. The next morning I couldn’t stop looking at the books and thinking: Is it shite? All of it?

  ‘But no!’ I said. ‘It can’t be true!’

  It couldn’t be, it simply couldn’t be! For if it was —

  The next morning there was a note lying on the floor. It was from Fr Connolly saying the boy band from Dublin had confirmed. I felt a huge weight being lifted from my shoulders and at once gathered up my effects and papers and went into town with a renewed sense of purpose.

  A Serious Disagreement (from ‘Fr C. — asstd thoughts and observations’ — of which there are quite a number, meriting him, indeed, almost an entire notebook to himself!)

  Whether or not Fr Connolly is aware of it or not, what he said to me the day I arrived up to his house with the present is the most hurtful thing addressed to me — ever.

  I had been up since the crack of dawn, thinking … no, not thinking — marvelling over just how successful the festival had been, beyond the wildest dreams of me or Fr Connolly either. The Tops variety revue exceeded all expectations, The Two Lads, Nite-flite and the local stand-up comedian Jason X (‘What do you call a Scotsfield man in a suit? The accused!’) and all the others putting on terrific shows. There was a great little sketch from a few of the factory girls, written by themselves, called A Day in the Life, telling the story of a day on the machines. It was really great and just shows you how much talent is around. For the kids and the community in general, the karaoke in Doc Oc’s proved a marvellous hit, having everybody in stitches. As I ate my breakfast, all I could think of was Hoss when he said: ‘I’m afraid you’re in dreamland, Joey, if you think you’re going to get the lazy bastards of this town out of the pub for something the like of that!’ Meaning the treasure hunt, which had turned out to be equally successful.

  One thing was for sure: regardless of what events you had attended, the Scotsfield Breakaway Bonanza and especially my Tops of the Town — which won the Scotsfield Standard award for best overall contribution! — had certainly gone and put our town on the map!

  I was over the moon about it all, but in particular the faith that Connolly had shown in me right from the start. And I’m sure there had been plenty who’d advised him against it — allowing me to have the first thing to do with it at all, never mind become the key organizer! I felt consumed, as they say, by gratitude. Which made it all the more difficult for me to understand — to even begin to understand, quite frankly — the attitude of the clergyman, which seemed to have undergone something of a transformation, and a dramatic one at that. Especially coming right out of nowhere the way it did. I had just been whistling away getting ready to take the present out of my briefcase — I had spent ages wondering what to get him — when the next thing you know his cheeks have become a bit flushed and he’s walking around real fast and picking at his nail as he stammers a bit and goes: ‘I asked you not to do it and you pretended you were going to listen! But since then you’ve done nothing but go your own merry way! Look, Joseph! Stop it! Can’t you see you’re being ridiculous?’

  That whole morning I had nearly driven myself distracted trying to think of something to get him. I’d been thinking of all sorts of things — chocolates, cigs, a tie. And then it hit me! A book! A book, of course! For books are the expressions of-

  We write our souls in them. And that was why in the end I decided on The Poems of T. S. Eliot. I got it neatly packaged up and all. It’s not that I don’t forgive Connolly for what he said that day. It’s nothing to do with that, or because of all the work I’d

  But there was something two-faced about it. If the truth was that behind the scenes he hadn’t wanted me involved, why had he bothered to employ me at all? I hadn’t forced him. Why didn’t he just get someone else instead of —

  But then, I thought, maybe he was just under pressure and when things had got back on an even keel he’d return to himself again. I was in the middle of outlining my plans for the following year — I had already drafted a letter to Madonna’s people and been on the phone to U2 again, this time, I reckoned, with a very strong chance indeed now that their tour was over — when, all of a sudden, he starts up again and snaps: That’
s enough, Joseph! Do you hear me now? That’s enough! Or why for heaven’s sake can’t you see what you’re suggesting — it simply isn’t appropriate! I’ve seen her on the TV, her obscene acts, I know all about them! But I’m not talking about that! Joseph, when I employed you to do this it was my intention to help you but that’s not the way it’s worked out. I won’t let you make a cod of yourself! Do you think I don’t hear what they’re saying? Even in front of you they say it!’

  What I was most disappointed in that day was that up until then I’d felt so comfortable with Fr Connolly, just sitting there in his living room, sharing generally my take on things, maybe going on too long, which, I admit, perhaps I had. All the same, you still don’t expect it thrown back in your face.

  But somehow I don’t think it was that, even if it did play a small part.

  No, I think it was more what he’d been hearing in the pubs. What’s most disappointing is that someone of his calibre would listen to those stupid stories, which are essentially parish-pump gossip — in effect, the antithesis of everything we’d been doing. Or trying to do.

  Who cared what smart remarks a few malcontents such as Oweny Casey — who would never organize anything anyway! — had made, as regards calling me ‘The Promoter’, ‘Billy Barnum’ and so forth.

  Or ‘Paul McGuinness’ — which I think was Hoss’s contribution and which I actually thought quite witty — after U2’s Dublin-born manager, of course!

  ‘Very well then, Father,’ I said and shook his hand, being as civil as I could about it.

  Because there’s no denying, disagreement or not, that I was still grateful. For his showing me ‘the way’. The way of doing. Not just thinking.

  I’d never have anything to do with him again, however. Or the Breakaway festival either. What’s particularly saddening is that I’d discovered, quite by accident, The Seeker’s quote in the T. S. Eliot book — ‘We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time’ — and had been thinking just how ‘salutary’ — if that’s the word — it was that me and Fr C. had gotten together like this and were discovering one another in such a good way. Almost like I was my own father whom he’d known around the time of The Desert Song and he was the age-old pal who understood everything you were thinking without ever having to ask. And then it turning out in the end that he understood nothing.