Call Me the Breeze: A Novel

by Patrick McCabe

  I listened again, thinking of him there in his van by the water, unable to bear the guilt of his involvement in the Campbell Morris ‘incident’. Trying to steel himself to follow through with the decision he’d made some days before, the silver water’s sheer still surface now seeming anything but peaceful.

  ‘How you doin’, old friend?’ I asked him. I could feel him all around me. ‘What’s it like? Is Mona there?’ I asked, and the sun’s sudden wink as a cloud passed it by might have been his smile.

  ‘You’d better believe it,’ he said. ‘I remember when we were kids we used to say how it might be like the colouring book of a kid. The big blue sky and the golden swaying corn. And sure enough it is. That’s what it’s like up here now, Joey. You approach it from afar, the harbour drawing your boat safely home. At night you can see them twinkling, the lights that give signals to those hard-pressed, lonesome souls.’

  Well, I can’t tell you how contented … no, not contented — that’s a lacklustre and anodyne old word for the emotion I’m trying to express — more like close to incoherent I became after hearing Bennett speaking those words. Now, after everything good that had happened, with the kids being so terrific in performance and Boyle Henry being so receptive and encouraging and everything, whatever unease I’d been experiencing was clearly nothing more now than old-fashioned paranoia. A tangle of infuriating brambles that served no other purpose than to impede the clear path of truth.

  There were also, of course, the immense possibilities which my plans for Wonderful Pictures were suggesting inside my head. Not to mention another little project I had started on, a piece of prose fiction which I thought might end up being a novel, although I’d never written one in my life!

  Ideas just seemed to keep popping up out of nowhere. I just could not believe my good fortune on this earth, I really and genuinely could not! With the result that it was all I could do not to run over to the nearest Friesian cow and give it a great big kiss on the forehead! Which I didn’t, on reflection thinking the better of it, for you never knew who might be watching, and that just might be a little bit too much for them. ‘Fukken kissin’ fukken cows!’ you could almost hear them saying. ‘What next — riding sheep?’

  I did, however, open up my Dead Souls and begin sonorously reciting my favourite passage, my voice gliding right across the still stretch of water as I gestured expansively. I was so full of belief because of the way things had gone that I think I must have thought that I was Charles Laughton! ‘The spring,’ I began, ‘which had been held back for a long time by frosts …’

  Then, soliloquy completed, I lay down once more. It was so comforting beneath that sycamore, with all of them around you (Bennett jerking his thumb: ‘Would you look at the lazy big bollocks!’ and Mona going: ‘Always mad for the books!’) making you feel you were already at home, in that place where nothing would prove unacceptable. Where you could say: ‘I’m the Prophet of Spring,’ or, ‘I’m Cassavetes the Second!’ and no one would ever bother saying: ‘Oh, would you shut up, Joey Tallon, you and your nonsense and your fanciful ideas, when everyone knows you’re a great big stinky blob, that’s all you are and everyone knows it — and all you’ll ever be!’

  (It’s hard to believe — and to this day I still can’t get my head around it — that you could submit a typescript with a title such as that — The Amazing Adventures Of Blobby McStink — and on the strength of it be told you’re a fucking genius! But I’m afraid that’s what happened —‘Joey McDoughey the Stinky old Blob’ and his smelly old stupid old life story turning out to rock the meek-mannered world of letters! Look out, James Joyce, there’s a new kid in town!)

  I kissed the grass and bade her — and them — adieu, their voices all beginning to fade as I made my way once more back to town.

  Until they’d vanished altogether, retreating back behind the clouds until the time would come for us to talk again, for all the world like little dandelion clocks just floating away on the breeze.

  The Temple of Colossal Dimensions

  The only thing was that once the film was finished — or ‘in the can’ as they say in the trade — I found myself at a bit of a loose end, kind of in-between projects, I guess you could say. But in a totally different way than before, because what had happened now was that at last I’d grown up. My experience in the college and in shooting the picture — at least that’s how it seemed to me — had shown me how, if you can manage to believe — really and truly, I mean — then things will somehow just fall into place. The days of standing around moping, waiting for Johnston Farrell-type figures to appear like a troop of ‘soul cavalry’ to offer you some form of example or guidance, or of twiddling your thumbs every day down in Austie’s, half-cocked from drinking beer — not to mention screwing up your head with fucking lysergic acid — were a thing of the dim, distant past.

  As I strode about the town, I felt now like I owned it. Or that at least there was a tiny little part of it that would now forever be all mine, which was a hell of a lot more than I’d ever had ownership of before!

  I couldn’t stop thinking that if someone had come up to me, just right there and then as I walked around, and said: ‘I say there, Joseph! I know you’re probably busy with your film-making but we’ve just got this slight problem! You see, we’ve to come up with a poem for a special occasion because our usual fellow’s gone and let us down. Well, actually he hasn’t, he’s been taken sick, in fact, and we were wondering — we know it’s short notice — do you think you could help us out?’

  ‘In a jiffy!’ I’d say, without even having to think. It was as though I’d been fitted out with the most fabulous suit of burnished armour. ‘Look! There he goes!’ I could hear them say as I came across the square, clutching my Gogol and swinging my shoulder bag. ‘There he goes! Joey Tallon! Scotsfield’s only true living genius! Do you know what I’m going to tell you? There’s nothing that fellow can’t do!’

  However, somewhere deep within me, there was the tiniest twinge of concern regarding Hoss’s fingers sticking out the window of his Land Rover.

  Then I’d meet Boyle Henry in the newsagent’s buying his paper or just passing by on the street, and the very minute I did, would feel so foolish!

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Joey!’ I’d say to myself and wipe away the perspiration, most of which, really, was caused by the heat. It was turning out to be a very hot summer, just like old times. There was talk of water shortages again and the fire engines were at it the very same as before, charging out the country to douse the numerous gorse fires and barn blazes. What with my thinking so much about forgiveness and having so much time on my hands, it was on an otherwise ordinary day in the middle of July when I was coming past the Fuck Me that I experienced a kind of revelation. Another ‘eureka’ moment, I guess you could call it, when I found myself thinking: What about a manifesto, Joseph? A film manifesto, perhaps!

  Which I reckoned would be a way of getting it all down on paper so that people would know what your actual philosophy regarding your chosen discipline was. And you wouldn’t have to be going: ‘My film’s about this,’ or ‘My film’s about that.’

  It would all be there for everyone to see, like your ordinary political philosophy, essentially, except in a more creative and artistic vein. I was sitting in the cafe sipping a latte and scribbling when I thought of a title that came to me so suddenly that I swear to God I nearly had a seizure!

  ‘The New Spring Manifesto!’ I heard myself saying, the words arranging themselves as if in Day-Glo right there before my eyes.

  I think everything I have ever believed or considered believing was included there in that very first draft. I didn’t stop writing until I looked up and saw the waitress standing staring at me with this lazy expression, announcing: ‘We’re closing!’

  I rolled up my document and, shoving it into my shoulder bag, headed off down to Doc Oc’s to see who might be around — maybe some of the students, who would definitely be interested in this startling n
ew development!

  ‘You’re beginning to frighten me, Joe Tallon!’ I said as I bounded towards the pub. ‘What I’d like to know is just where they’re all coming from, these cracking new ideas of yours?’

  It seemed to me incontestable now that the reason all this was happening was to make up for all the bad old times, those fucked-up days of the 1970s and the dreary grey days in prison. The ‘Day of the Second Chance’ had arrived with a bang, opening up door after door. I didn’t deserve it, maybe, but boy, now that it was here, was I going to take advantage of it!

  To celebrate ‘eureka’ — and I know it must sound silly — I decided in Doc Oc’s that I wouldn’t have a drink or any of their fancy gastronomic dishes but instead a great big pie! Yes! A great big steak and kidney! As a way of saying cheerio to the past! To those anxious days of no opportunity when, frightened, you stuck your face in one of these and didn’t dare lift your head!

  Not now, I’m afraid! There was a different approach to the old pies now! Why, they even had them specially made! None of your microwave slop in a jacket of tatty old cellophane! The very best of home cooking, the most ‘nutritious’ pies in Ireland, I was told! And low calorie too!

  ‘Good!’ I thought as, with my knife and fork almost defiantly clutched, I launched with a vengeance into a sample and it was all I could do not to let out a cheer. I could see Austie staring down at me, but I really didn’t care in the slightest. All I kept thinking of was my ‘Spring Manifesto’.

  There was a politician on the television talking about the changes that had come over the country lately and the clean wind that seemed to be blowing throughout almost every corner of the land. I chuckled and walloped another forkful of steak good and hard down into my gullet.

  ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet!’ I exclaimed as I imagined myself on that TV screen, talking away there in place of the newsreader. Clearing my throat as I opened the document and sombrely intoned: ‘And now —the “Spring Manifesto”!’

  All that night I couldn’t get to sleep. I could have sworn I heard a knock, but it was just someone rattling a bucket. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! Not Mangan again!’ I mumbled irritably and went to the window. And sure enough there he was, filling his pail at the pump.

  I smiled as I heaved a sigh of relief and climbed back into bed, proceeding to consider, in some depth, the predominant strands of my philosophy. But most of all allowing myself to dwell for some considerable length of time on the magnificent idea that was the Theatre of Forgiveness, my fabulous ‘Temple of Colossal Dimensions’!

  It was the cornerstone, essentially, of the manifesto, a jewel-encrusted edifice so bright your eyes could barely gaze upon it, incredulous at the sight it presented, having risen so dramatically from the interior of the dankest swamp — that of the soul of Joey Tallon and of everyone in Scotsfield town.

  The Prophet of Spring

  Reflecting on all these developments from what, at this stage, might be considered — I don’t think I’ve the will or imagination left for anything else, to be honest! — a reasonably objective viewpoint, I suppose I’d have to say that what surprises me most is … well, how I got away with it, basically.

  I mean, to succeed, in the first place, in getting the things printed. My ‘manifestos’, I mean! Did the printer or his assistant never examine the content, for God’s sake? At least take a look at the sort of thing they were running through their machines?

  It certainly doesn’t look like either of them had ever bothered, for I don’t remember experiencing even the slightest bit of hassle, with them just accepting the copy without a murmur and going off then about their business like I’d dropped them in the local Greyhound News. In another way too, of course, in the beginning at least — before it began to seem like the whole town had been papered over with ‘Prophets of Spring’ manifestos — it would all have seemed as little more than a laugh. In the way that I heard an old fellow say, when I was giving a speech in the square (it seemed like a natural progression from directing, and any politician that was worth their salt would surely sooner or later have to develop their public speaking — at least that’s the way I’d been rationalizing it): ‘He’s at it again, that Joey Tallon! Since he started above in that community college, they can’t keep him quiet! The only way of doing it might be to tie the fucker down!’

  Which I have to say amused me no end. Except that that wouldn’t even do it. For now that I’d glimpsed possibility — of a specific, particular kind — I really did see how practical, useful change — as well as the spiritual kind — might be effected and nothing now would stop me till I’d finished. Not even Carmody, who did her damnedest to ruin it, demanding to know why I was pasting up posters.

  ‘You have no business putting those up in this school!’ I found myself told after she walked in on one of the impromptu lectures that I had started giving to a number of the particularly zealous students in a rarely used seminar room. Which happened to be, unfortunately, on ‘transgressive’ or ‘unusual’ cinema, which we had been discussing of late, having just viewed David Cronenberg’s Shivers, rented for that purpose.

  The ‘Cut Short’ Lecture

  I simply coughed and proceeded. The students were extremely attentive. It was, in essence, an unofficial ad hoc film studies group. I had no difficulty in departing from my script as I had been up until very late the night before memorizing the essential content. I stood at the window organizing my thoughts before turning to say: ‘The movie you have just been watching seems, on the surface, to be a very simple story. But is it? A lot of the critics have suggested that it operates on a much deeper level than we think.’

  I had read that in one of the film magazines and was only throwing it out as a suggestion. The plot of the film was, indeed, on the face of it quite uncomplicated. In it a number of women shared an apartment in a building in Montreal. I knew it was Montreal because it said so in the article. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue. Nothing remarkable happened for a bit, with one day being pretty much as the next until, then, one of the tenants kicks off her shoes and climbs into the bath to have herself a good long soak and wipe away all the cares of the day, the hassles of working in the office and shit. Then the plug goes plup! and the next thing you know there’s this flotilla of foot-long parasites poking their heads through the plughole like pink mini-submarines, for that’s the only way you could describe them, the camera homing in as they make their way towards the woman’s private parts as though they’ve been programmed to do it or something. It doesn’t just happen to her, though. Very soon it’s taking place all over the city — the very same thing and in exactly the same way. Hundreds of flesh-bombs on the loose. It transpires that what they are, then, is parasites who infect the victim with venereal disease and make them go rabid for sex.

  That led to a discussion on the topic of alternative cinema generally. I was in the middle of talking about that when I saw her. She had her arms folded and was livid. I was on the verge of saying: ‘Hello, Mrs Carmody’.

  But I never got the chance. I couldn’t believe it. She actually came over and grabbed the book out of my hand.

  ‘Who gave you the authority to set up this impromptu lecture?’ she spat with venom.

  The Good of the Community

  What she didn’t say to me in her office that day simply wasn’t worth saying. Then she sent Fr Connolly out to the caravan in an effort to make me ‘come to my senses’. He said I was on the verge of being dismissed. But I talked it through with him and — ha! Tough shit there, Dr Carmody! — he left having to admit that I had been making sense. I was a bit cute there, though, to tell the honest truth, ensuring I had plenty of quotes from the Bible and St John of the Cross to accompany my arguments so that they would make the padre feel good. And, boy, did he feel good! No doubt thinking: Yes, Joey’s done his homework! And it can’t be denied that he has the good of the community at heart!

  The good of the community? Why that decent old fuckbrain padre doesn’t know how
much! I remember thinking.

  Like I explained to the kids, by the time we were finished and our film had acquired distribution, etc., etc., and been seen by thousands of people, the town of Scotsfield would be like the star in some magical widescreen extravaganza, one you’d be literally incapable of turning away from, complete with soaring, heart-lifting soundtrack.

  ‘And how has this come about?’ I asked the next day as I tapped my pencil. ‘Because it had the courage to look into the animal pit! To hold its gaze as it stared in there to behold the … writhing maggots! But also [I paused] to discover … the chickens!’

  ‘Also to discover the chickens!’ I boomed as I engaged my rapt class without flinching.

  The Chickens of Forgiveness

  What I meant by that, of course, was ‘The Chickens of Forgiveness’, a little story which I’d related to them and some weeks before reprinted in my pamphlet — I used to get the kids themselves to distribute them, which wasn’t strictly kosher. I mean, it wasn’t their job. But they were fantastic about it, they really were, making no complaint at all.

  ‘Sure thing!’ they’d say. ‘We’ll see you right! We’ll see these chickens hatch!’

  And did those birds lay eggs or what? I don’t know how many people — just ordinary folks you’d meet on the street — came up to me after reading it: ‘You know something, Joey?’ Or, ‘You know something, Mr Tallon’ depending on who they were. ‘That chicken story is one of the most meaningful and moving parables I’ve ever heard in my life!’

  Which indeed it was. I had come across it completely and utterly by accident, and it really did exert a powerful influence over me. Although, admittedly, at the time it didn’t take all that much to get me going, discerning import as I now was in the simplest and most mundane of things, quoting St John of the Cross every chance I got. I had really come to like his verse, especially after his help in winning Fr Connolly around.