Call Me the Breeze: A Novel

by Patrick McCabe

  ‘Do you mind if I …?’ he asked her. ‘I just got one or two more things to work out, you know? It helps me to concentrate.’

  She shook her head and hugged her knees, in the process forgetting about her damaged wrist. She winced as the pain shot through her.

  ‘Did that hurt you, Jacy? I’m sorry,’ he said as he fired up the joint and drew its smoke down deep into his lungs. He looked at her and then looked away, his face flushing.

  ‘No, Joey. I think the pain is easing now,’ she replied — the first time she had spoken in ages, apart from her understandably bitter castigations. Then, to his surprise, she extended her hand. He was amazed to see her eyes twinkling.

  ‘Can I have a puff, do you think? It might calm me down,’ she said.

  She smoothed back her hair and his relief was immense.

  ‘Oh, Jacy,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry!’ And he handed her the joint.

  He couldn’t afford, obviously, to succumb to sleep, but as he drifted off — between the poles of the conscious and the unconscious, there has the mind made a swing, he recalled from Rabindranath Tagore’s Songs of Kabir, which The Seeker had given him many moons ago — he stiffened as he heard her say: ‘I just want to understand, that’s all. This “Total Organization” plan you mentioned …’

  He relaxed a little more and skinned up another. He was stoned all right — that much he accepted — but still alert. He could hear the cops outside, still barking shit through that fucking loudhailer. He didn’t care. All he wanted was to be there with her and forget the ‘World of Outside’, as he thought of it now. It was of no consequence. It was a stupid world, an empty one. A stupid fucking world of idiotic marksmen, tinkers’ fucking dogs and bomb-happy warmongers. He sucked in the tangy smoke and exhaled as though in ecstasy. Then he bobbed his head a little while gathering his thoughts and explained: “‘Total Organization” was about one thing, Jacy. It was about discipline!’ he explained. ‘Discipline, you know?’

  She nodded understandingly. He handed her the long thin cigarette.

  ‘Discipline,’ she replied, and flicked the ash from the jay.

  ‘If I didn’t have that, if I didn’t get that organized, I knew we’d never go on the journey.’

  ‘We’d never go on what?’

  ‘You and me, man. The journey. Yeah. Jacy and Joey. Joey Tallon and Jacy.’

  ‘And which journey is that? What kind of a journey was it supposed to be?’

  He drew long and hard on the joint.

  ‘A journey to the West Coast. To California.’

  She smiled and nodded, bobbing her head exactly as he’d done.

  ‘California?’ she said.

  ‘Yes. But not just that. It’s an inner journey too.’

  ‘I know about things like that. My flatmate is really into that kind of stuff. She reads about it all the time. Hermann Hesse, the mystics. She’s always going on about them. She wants to go to India. So tell me, Joey. Tell me about the inner journey.’

  He was uplifted. She had called him ‘Joey’. He knew he was fumbling a little for words because of the effects of the jay but he went on to explain as best he could about him and Mona, the longing for peace and a kind of rebirth —

  ‘I want it to be … the way it should have been. For Mona, for my mother. For anyone who —’

  He hesitated for a moment, then eventually found the courage.

  ‘For anyone who’s ever wondered what true love might bring …’

  ‘What might it bring, Joey?’ she asked him. Her arm was resting on his knee now. And all of a sudden it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Exactly as he’d expected. She tapped him gently on the thigh.

  ‘Tell me what you think it might bring,’ she said.

  ‘It might bring you home,’ he said.

  He could see she understood.

  ‘Do you know what my flatmate says? You’ve got to go there. That’s what she says you’ve got to do. I want you to, Joey. I want you to come home,’ she said.

  That was the second beautiful thing she said. The third was: ‘Don’t mind them. Don’t mind the world outside. There’s only one thing that matters now and that’s home. I want you to tell me everything, Joey. When it was you decided to embark on this journey and why you wanted to take me with you. Will you tell me that, Joey Tallon?’

  He was on the verge of weeping. But he didn’t. Just at the last minute he managed to pull back, a triumphant sense of achievement spreading right through him as she placed her small soft hand in his.

  Well, after that, after those first few encouraging words and the gentle touch of her undamaged hand — assisted by quite a number of joints, it must be said — there was no holding Joey Tallon, who literally deluged his companion with information regarding his past and the reasons behind this ‘journey’ of his. Any time his explanations faltered, she encouraged him with whispers or just a look into his eyes and on he’d proceed — literally a damburst, it seemed, of sensation.

  His eyes were red from the smoke of the spliff as he gingerly held her hand — he was still quite reticent but she understood that, like everything else.

  ‘We used to talk like that for hours, me and Mona,’ he told her.

  She said she wanted to hear more. About Mona.

  ‘Tell me about her,’ she said, ‘for I feel she’s the key. She’s the heart of the onion, Joey.’

  They’d had a great rap earlier about Hermann Hesse in general, and Steppenwolf in particular. Of course she had read it. He knew that from day one. That day in the flat.

  ‘I adore that book, and Harry Haller,’ she said. ‘My flatmate is absolutely crazy about it. She’s always telling me to read him. She talks for hours about Steppenwolf. I almost know it by heart from listening to her going on about it, for she never shuts up to tell you the truth —’

  She broke off and tossed back her hair. Then she hugged her knees and said: ‘No, I’m just kidding. It really is amazing. Harry Haller is amazing. And you know something, Joey? You remind me of him. You remind me of Harry.’

  He was flattered by that and could not resist the temptation to impress her by quoting the novel.

  ‘Man is an onion,’ he said, ‘made up of a hundred integuments. A texture made up of many threads. The ancient Asiatics knew this well enough and in the Buddhist Yoga an exact technique for understanding the illusion of the personality.’

  ‘I want to understand yours, Joey,’ she said. ‘Understand the illusion of your personality. Until what that means becomes clear to us, the journey cannot begin. And it’s not just my flatmate talking. It’s me, Joey.’

  Well, if all Joey Tallon needed was the tiniest bit of encouragement to really get into his stride proper with the beautiful Jacy he certainly had got it now, and by the time the third night came around, there were very few corners of his personality that had not, at some juncture, been exposed. Very few layers of that onion which remained unpeeled. And boy did it make him, Joey Tallon, feel good! He couldn’t recall ever having felt so terrific! And after having surrendered so much! Something he’d never have dared to do before — with anyone!

  ‘It’s fantastic, Jacy!’ he told her. ‘It’s electric, feeling like this!’

  ‘Let’s dance!’ she said, and he couldn’t believe his ears. The song had just come on the radio. The one he had been telling her about. 10cc.

  ‘That couldn’t be just coincidence,’ she said. ‘Some things are meant to happen. You know that, Joey. So come on then, let’s dance.’

  He was so out of it now as he laid his head on her chest — she was a much better dancer than he was — that he was barely aware that either of them was singing until she placed her lips very close to his ear and he heard her crooning: ‘I’m not in love, so don’t forget it. It’s just a silly phase I’m going through …’

  ‘Oh, Jacy,’ he said, the words waltzing so luxuriously and effortlessly from his lips, ‘it’s so wonderful to be here with you.’

  ‘Tell me about Mona
again,’ she said. ‘Did you want to be her baby? Is that what you wanted, Joey? Or Joseph — wasn’t that what she used to call you?’

  As they lay there later, she told him to lay his head on her lap. ‘No,’ she had encouraged him, ‘don’t be shy now. Rest your head right here.’

  The warm white cotton of her skirt touched his cheek and he thought he was in heaven. ‘I know where I am now,’ he said. ‘I am staring out across the harbour. I am in the Land of Paradise. I have been here since The End. I will be here at The Beginning.’

  He groaned quietly as she rhythmically stroked his crown and ran her index finger along the ridge of his hair. He was telling her about his father’s singing now, barely aware that he was doing it at all.

  ‘“Harbour Lights” was his song. Before he went, you see.’

  ‘Where did he go?’ she asked him. ‘Can you tell me where he went? Take your time.’

  Her fingers strolled languorously across his forehead. He never wanted them to stop. The rhythmic and hypnotic stroking of her nails.

  ‘He went abroad and never returned. He set sail for some foreign harbour. As far away from this one as it is possible to get.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said as she laid her warm palm on his forehead.

  ‘Where you and me are right now, Jacy. Here, in this harbour of peace.’

  ‘That’s nice, Joey. That’s a nice thing to say.’

  ‘It’s true. It’s home. It’s the harbour with the twinkling lights that beckon. Do you know what I mean when I say that, Jacy?’

  ‘Of course I do, Joey. And I think you know that I do.’

  He nodded but didn’t say anything. She began massaging his temples as she whispered: ‘Sing it for me, Joey,’ and he was about to demur before realizing that the soft words had assumed a life of their own:

  One evening long ago

  A ship was sailing’

  One evening long ago

  Two lovers they were grieving

  A crimson sun went down

  The light began to glow —

  I saw those harbour lights

  They only told me we were parting …

  ‘Far away and never to return,’ sighed Jacy as he sang. ‘Way across the sea. Where you and me are going, Joey!’

  His heart sprang with hope as her hand softly stroked his cheek.

  ‘To Iowa first,’ he heard himself say, as his eyelids drooped. ‘We’ll drive across country till we reach those fields of corn. To —’

  ‘Iowa,’ she whispered, the three soothing syllables issuing from her lips like a ghostly wave hushing in the cabin’s stillness. Before:

  ‘You haven’t got long left, Tallon!’

  The loudhailer’s whistling feedback corkscrewed into his consciousness and he leapt to his feet, drawing back the curtain.

  ‘Don’t think you’ve got me, fuckers! This ain’t over yet! I want a car and a promise I’ll be given safe passage! Are you listening to me?’

  He saw the detective raise the megaphone. Then something silly happened. He started stuttering and was afraid to say anything after that in case he’d get the words all confused and end up saying: ‘I want a safe car and a commitment to passage!’ or something like that. So in the end he just snapped: ‘Fuck you, pig! Pgghew! Pgghew! You got that, huh?’

  He was glad to hear Jacy’s voice again, and to see that smile as she drew him towards her.

  He was so tired when he lay in her lap again that he was glad when she said she’d do the skinning up this time, because he knew that even if he tried he probably wouldn’t have been able to manage it. He was just so fucking stoned and tired, that was all! All he wanted to do now was get out on that road and get the fuck out of Scotsfield once and for all! His eyelids began to droop. Then, suddenly, his whole body went rigid as he snapped: No! I won’t Jet it happen! For that’s exactly what they want, those fuckers! They want me to crash out! But no fucking way! No fucking way, right, Jacy? They’re just waiting for fatigue to set in!

  She nodded and dragged on the joint. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘just a little toke.’

  He loved it when she ran those fingers through his hair, what precious little he had of it. He laughed when he thought of that. The blue fug of the smoke was a turban unwinding magically in the air in the eerie silence of the small hours. It was so tensely quiet. Quiet, that is, apart from the occasional bulletin on the radio regarding the ‘ongoing’ situation.

  ‘You’ve got to get away from him, Jacy,’ said Joey. ‘He’s a dangerous man. There are some things I could tell you. Things that would chill your blood. One day maybe I will. You got to believe me, Jacy. You got to come with me.’

  ‘You know what’s funny about you, Joey?’ he heard her say. ‘It’s that you’re so gentle. You hear them saying things about you around the town …’

  ‘Things?’ he smiled — Jeez, he was exhausted, but he definitely wouldn’t give in — ‘Things like what — Barbapapa, say? Or just big fat stupid Joey?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she went on as she exhaled the smoke. ‘But whatever they say they’re wrong. They’ve got you all wrong, Joey. You are The Gardener. What he could have been.’

  They had spoken about Charlie for hours the night before. How, for him, if things had turned out otherwise …

  ‘You see flowers where others see only weeds. You know what I’m saying, Joey?’

  He smiled. Sure he did. A day from the past rose up out of nowhere, shining.

  ‘I used to bring Mona primroses,’ he told her.

  There was a pause and he luxuriated in the rhythms of her breathing.

  ‘What was it you liked about Mona? The more I think about it the more she truly seems to be the heart of the onion. The key to who you are, Joey Tallon. There was something about her, wasn’t there?’

  He thought of those first few days after Mona’s funeral when he’d go out to the reservoir to listen to her soul.

  ‘It would only last a moment, before it went back far beyond the clouds, or wherever it is they go.’

  ‘They go home, Joey. That’s where they go.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘they go home.’

  She pecked the top of his head with kisses. Tiny little ‘popping’ pecks. They felt exquisite. She rubbed his chest with her palm and dangled her arm around his neck. She gave him another little peck. He was weak.

  ‘And where do you think it is, that home? Where does Joey Tallon think that home is to be found?’

  He swallowed and tried not to think again of his mother weeping by the sink in the shadows of the kitchen. Once she had screamed: ‘So that’s where he’s gone — to ride prostitutes in China! That’s what they’re saying, isn’t it? But it doesn’t matter where he’s gone! For he’s left her with the bastard and me with the shame and to a living death in this fucking town! But I won’t “living die”! I’ll die!’

  Her eyes had been the size of the plates she was supposed to be washing.

  ‘I’ll die! That’s what I’ll do!’ she had insisted as she twisted the dishcloth tighter.

  ‘But she didn’t die, did she, Joey?’ said Jacy. ‘Your mother didn’t die.’

  ‘No. She got Alzheimer’s and they put her away. She died then. That was when she died.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Joey as his fingers brushed her bound wrist, occasioning an agonizing wrench of guilt. He looked away and tried not to think of his father, out there beneath a foreign sky. Or of Mona, so pale and abstracted …

  ‘Where did Joey really believe,’ she began anew, ‘that that kind of rest might be found?’

  Her nails described little threads and patterns up and down his forehead. She placed another tender kiss on his shining pate.

  ‘In the Karma Cave maybe? Is that what he thought? Is that where he thought he might find it?’

  His saliva was thick as paste and his face was blotched as he tried to meet her eyes. But he hadn’t the courage when it came to the crunch. H
owever, he could feel his own eyes glittering with excitement as, at the very last moment, he avoided hers.

  It was like all the skins were peeling away at once. If there is a millisecond in one’s life when every ache is assuaged and every sharp-edged anxiety that is born of entombed, unspoken secrets in a single instant goes floating free, it occurred in that space just before the ‘precious moment’. When Jacy had whispered in his ear: ‘Tell me everything, Joey. I want you to surrender completely now. Let me take these glasses off.’

  He could feel all his tensions ease as he gave himself to her totally. He could hear Mona’s voice, he told her, calling to him from an island. Out of nowhere he heard, elegiac but vivid, the strains of ‘Harbour Lights’. It was as though, he explained, he were on a tiny boat, alone in the vast silence of a cobalt ocean. Then there were strange lights winking on the horizon and bizarre sounds echoing in the darkness. They were calling to him, but Joey only heard Mona, her voice coming from a tranquil place that was rimmed by coral reefs and palm-fringed beaches. That was the only sound he could hear now. The others were far off and had nothing to say to him in any case. The bizarre sounds, they were the blades of helicopters. Mona’s whisper gliding just above the lapping water: ‘Come to the island of green-roofed temples [was it perhaps where his father was? Was that where he had gone all those years ago?], towards this safe harbour sail. And sleep in the Cave of Dreams. For ever in the Cave of -’

  The twin prongs of the peninsula slowly opened in a ‘Y’ as onward he sailed and the first rumble issued from the mountain.

  ‘Was it like this?’ whispered Jacy. ‘Move your head up further, my darling. Come on now, Joseph, don’t be afraid. Move it right up — further.’

  His head was positioned between Jacy’s legs. He slowly closed his eyes and the feeling that enveloped him then was so tranquil and rare, such a calm as he had never experienced. But somewhere —close by — he was deeply embarrassed. Jacy understood, however. She massaged his temples again and scissored her legs. He was finding it difficult to breathe and trying, through gesture, to indicate that. But it was just to galvanize him, she said, to locate and identify that strength of purpose within him, and then to consolidate it. The doing rather than the thinking, she explained.