Call Me the Breeze: A Novel

by Patrick McCabe

  Days that existed almost in a different universe from the singularly drab and uninspiring notion of monochrome. How best, in cinematic terms, to describe them? Lush and sumptuous? Extravagant, majestic. Breathtaking, stunning.

  Beautifully shot with deep focus cinematography — a great big matinee — a cinemascopic epic!

  There is one thing I am ashamed of, though, and perhaps this episode could be viewed through Mr Cassavetes’ monitor. Put together, maybe, as a short, sharp sequence snappily titled: THE SHOWDOWN, maybe, or A SERIOUS ALTERCATION!

  But which might, possibly, on reflection, be inappropriate also, lending, it could be argued, an air of confrontational majesty to an incident which, although not of major importance in my life — certainly nothing when compared to ‘The Night They Bombed Scotsfield’ or The Cyclops Enigma: Chapter 3 (‘Abduction!’) — does not rank among my most edifying performances.

  Because, no matter what way you look at it, I did ultimately let the kids down.

  Sure I can blame Fr Connolly and Carmody, but, essentially, if you examine it, what happened was that I began to lose interest in my seminars and classes, preferring instead to work on my Life and Times, which I viewed as a sort of extension of my manifesto. And which, mirabile dictu, as the great authors say, by some process of osmosis eventually became my first — and last, it would seem — published novel; eventually, by consensus, entitled DOUGHBOY.

  It grieves me, though, to think of it now, and perhaps that’s one of the reasons we prefer to peer through a viewfinder. Maybe that’s why we become ‘the camera’. So that we can pretend it’s happened to someone else and isn’t directly related to our experience at all!

  Such being the case with this scene starring ‘The Candidate — Joey Tallon!’, or whatever you might like to call him, as he stands in a seminar room of the community college (on a flying visit, as he explains) dressed in his charcoal grey executive suit, his hair neatly combed and a — can you believe it? — starched handkerchief in his breast pocket, delivering a speech on political film, quoting Cocteau, Godard and Pasolini, with specific reference to the Irish ‘troubles’ and referring intermittently to an impressive chalk drawing of ‘The Memorial’ on the blackboard.

  ‘What I have in mind, guys,’ he continued, ‘is a great big temple rising out of the sea like something, say, from Jason and the Argonauts, but with the doors flying open — those massive portals of gold, set with shimmering emeralds. — to reveal within the piled bodies of the dead! The faithful departed, keening and screaming, yeah? Say, Campbell Morris! Bennett! Eamon Byrne, The Seeker! And Detective Tuite! But not only them! Yes! We open lots of different doors and in there we see …’

  In actual fact we don’t see anything, for at that very moment another, more immediate door, is flung open, i.e. the one leading directly into the seminar room where ‘The Candidate’ happens to be speaking, and standing there and looking very irate indeed is none other than Fr Connolly, accompanied by supervisor Eddie and, of course, a trembling Dr Maureen Carmody, who demands that The Candidate vacate the classroom and direct himself towards her office at once, these latest ‘impromptu think-tanks’ being ‘the very last straw’!

  I still hadn’t mastered political skills. Latterly, if faced with a similar situation my strategy would have been to remain seated, placidly, compliantly indeed, carefully considering each point as it was advanced, patiently examining my fingernails and weighing up a number of possible responses, empathizing with every aspect of the argument, regardless of how repugnant I might privately have been finding it.

  Instead of flinging back the chair and bellowing: ‘Well, fuck youse then! You don’t want me to teach? You don’t want me to tell the truth? Then shove your job, you hear me, Carmody? And fuck you too, Eddie! Yeah! Youse do that! But listen up! You think this will stop me? Well, then, think again! I won’t be muzzled, you hear me, Father? I won’t be deflected from my course, from telling the truth, yeah? Because that’s what it’s all about, my friends! And, just before you interrupted me — do you ever bother to knock, by the way, Mrs Dr Carmody? Don’t you think maybe that is something that you should do? You hearing me, Father? Don’t you agree there, Eddie? Because, yeah, what I was saying before you came in was that cinema is truth. Yeah, that’s what we think! But it isn’t you see! We are told that it’s truth! But that’s just … another lie! Cinema is just one man — or woman, excuse me! — who’s looking through an eyepiece! Or staring into a viewfinder and saying: “Yeah, this is what I see so therefore it must be the truth!” Bollocks! Bollocks, Dr Carmody! It’s his truth, maybe — or hers! — but that’s all it is! Nothing more, nothing less!’

  I paused for a minute and then said: ‘Huh?’ to see what kind of reaction I was getting. Then said: ‘Huh?’ again. When they showed no sign of making any response, I started rummaging around in my shoulder bag. I could see Mrs Carmody leaning over. ‘Don’t worry, Dr Carmody, I got it right here!’ I said, which was a lie. I wasn’t even sure if I’d put it in that morning.

  But I was in luck.

  I slapped it down on the table, as battered a manuscript as ever was assembled by an aspirant author — The Life and Times of Joey Tallon — complete with the clichéd teacup rings and cigarette burns!

  ‘Yes! There it is, my friends! You wanna find truth, you got it right there! And once you got it, you can’t stop its march! Not you, my friend, Fr Connolly! Nor you, Mrs Carmody the doctor! And you know why I say that? Because I know where it comes from now! And we don’t need Mr Charlie Manson! We don’t need Mr “Surrender” Hermann Hesse! Me and the padre we got a good old friend, right, Father? And his name is — guess what, Mrs C? His name is T. S. Eliot, and what that guy has got to say is — Fr Connolly will remember — “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!” You can dig it, Father, can’t you? You remember that from way back when! Sure you do! Yeah! Course you do!’

  Fr Connolly didn’t say anything as I gathered up my manuscript and put it back in the bag. I eyeballed the three of them. ‘See, that’s the way it is, my friends,’ I continued. ‘Truth is what it’s about and always will be! And that’s to be found right here in Scotsfield. You don’t have to go to India, man! Because what you’re looking for is right here beside you! All you’ve got to do is be able to see it! You getting my drift? Fr Connolly? Eddie?’

  As far as the ‘Youth Awareness’ scheme and its associated responsibilities were concerned, not to mention his enthusiastic efforts in the field of pedagogy, with particular regard to cinema studies, it might be said that at that precise moment the credits began to roll on The Candidate’s career.

  Either way, he was never to be seen in the vicinity of Scotsfield Community College again. Notice regarding his ‘dismissal’ arrived some two weeks later, of such little consequence to him now that the envelope remained unopened. For her part, Dr Carmody was reputed to be on tranquillizers for some considerable time after what she privately referred to, in muted, almost hunted tones, as the ‘Incident’.

  The Man in the Top Hat

  ‘Hunted’ not being an epithet which could have been comfortably applied to the behaviour of The Candidate, who, after the ‘incident’ or the ‘showdown’ or whichever noun you think most apposite, had begun to declare himself, in an assortment of public places including the square, the churchyard and the ‘fairgreen’, as ‘empowered’ by developments in his life. These declarations were, without exception, passionately imparted, some through a megaphone and others not. But all of them quite audible and impressive as oratory, a fact to which the ever-swelling groups of people that had begun to gather about him testified. Also of assistance, in this regard — it had already been advanced in the pubs and so forth — was his presenting such a colourful and unusual spectacle on what would otherwise be drab wet Wednesday afternoons. Now sporting, as he did, a specially tailored headband (an old friend of his mother’s had run it up f
or nothing) which displayed the logo, beautifully dyed and stitched: ‘Vote for Joey! The Man You Know-ey!’

  In cinematic terms, it might well be suggested that he had become, almost overnight — the details of the ‘incident’ were already the stuff of legend — something of a knockabout silent movie star. A Harold Lloyd perhaps, if not Buster Keaton himself! Visible, as time went on and the election month of October drew near, at practically every moment of the day, swinging his loudhailer and exhorting the by now — or so it would appear — hopelessly besotted citizens of his hometown to bestow on him their ‘number one’, so ‘I can give you back the gift of truth!’ His campaign now becoming so successful that the Scotsfield Standard, in a comparative study of all the candidates, without a hint of irony proclaimed in broad black type on their very front page that they had recently, after some initial scepticism, come around to rating his chances ‘very, very highly’ indeed. Their brief analysis accompanied by a photograph which depicted The Candidate in his by now familiar spot, raising his fist and barking through his ‘trumpet’, stirringly reminding passers-by of the ‘collective guilt’ of Scotsfield and each individual’s duty before the ‘restless dead’.

  ‘Let us remember the ghosts of ’76!’ he feverishly insisted from his perch outside the post office once again; this had, in recent times, become a notable feature of his speeches — his emphasis on his refusal to be ‘muzzled’.

  The most recent innovations, regulars to his ‘public clinics’ and ‘reconciliation half hours’ noted, were pictures and photos of long-forgotten victims, and beside them neatly pinned newspaper cuttings reporting their deaths, including: ‘Blood in the snow marked the spot where the first New Year victim of the North’s violence was killed last night. The little baby boy died in his mother’s arms, caught in the blast of a massive car bomb in North Belfast’ and ‘British Ambassador murdered in Sandyford. This is the first time in the history of the state that such an act has occurred. Mr Ewart Biggs, who, along with his secretary Judith Cooke, met his death in the explosion yesterday, was the most closely guarded diplomatic representative in the country.’

  ‘Let us never forget,’ he continued, ‘just how bad things were! Let us refuse to be gagged and each of us live up to our own responsibilities! As I will to mine, ladies and gentlemen! Make no mistake! Joey Tallon will show you the way! He will not shirk from facing his demons as he pleads with you now to confront your own! In that way shall the ocean be seen to part and out of its depths the Temple emerge! The Temple of Colossal Dimensions, my citizens!’

  Worshippers in the churchyard were quite amused but not a little impressed by his erudition when they emerged from Mass one Sunday to find him there, snug in the fork of a tree outside the gates, reciting Gogol (down the megaphone) and now sporting a top hat (‘Vote for Joey!’) covered in tricoloured crêpe paper, of the sort often purchased at football matches. ‘Yes, I tell you! The spring which has been held back for a long time by frosts has suddenly arrived in all its beauty and everything has come to life everywhere! Patches of blue can already be seen in the forest glades — if you don’t believe me take a walk out to the reservoir — and on the fresh emerald of the young dandelions show yellow and lilac-pink anemones bowing their little heads! What freshness in the air! What excited twitterings of birds in the orchards! Paradise, joy and exaltation in everything! The countryside resounding with song as though at a wedding feast!’

  There could be no doubt that he was talking some sense, a lot of people found themselves agreeing. ‘You have to give him that, they said and went home thinking deeply about the horrors of the past. 7 will not be muzzled!’ becoming a bit of a catchphrase locally.

  But the novelty aspect aside — and even that was bound to work to his advantage, bringing in a lot of the young voters, to whom he had now become a kind of anti-hero — there could be no doubt but that Joey — ‘Vote for Joey! The Man You Know-ey!’ — Tallon was making his mark politically.

  ‘I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ an irate — and visibly threatened — council official was overheard remarking in Doc Oc’s, ‘if the fucker managed to scrape in by the skin of his teeth! It will be God help the fucking town then! God only knows what he’s capable of coming out with!’

  An eventuality which would most definitely send shock waves through every incumbent member of the urban district council. Something which, in the opinion of many casual commentators in the shops and public houses, they richly deserved, so indolent and complacent had this current crop of public representatives become!

  The Art of the Possible

  All of which was essentially, of course, in the global scheme of things, just so much small beer, and didn’t exactly entitle Joseph Tallon ‘The Candidate’ to qualify for Malcolm X or Martin Luther King status. Or even for that enjoyed by Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern, Gerry Adams or any other politician currently in the news.

  But there wouldn’t have been any point in telling him that. Oh no, I’m afraid there would have been absolutely no point in the wide world, and if you’d had the temerity to do such a thing, especially at one particular point in his campaign when it was really beginning to catch fire, you might have received a sound thrashing for your trouble. At the very least, a severe tongue-lashing.

  For now, with the reception he was receiving town-wide (all the primary schoolkids had taken to sporting the badges which he’d got made up cheaply by a local firm — a branch of the Scotsfield Standard, in fact, who’d gladly accommodated him, wanting to hear more about his cause), whatever reticence might have been evident in the early stages began to slowly but surely dissipate, until it gathered momentum and practically vanished altogether, in its place now unmistakably evident a steely and vigorous new confidence.

  The like of which he’d never experienced before but found, he had willingly taken to reminding himself, very much to his liking! And which literally shone out of his pores (‘Oh glowing man, thy name is Tallon!’), he thought as he presented himself one electric-sparking day — the campaign was literally galloping along now! — at the front desk of Scotsfield Library and handed to his old friend Una Halpin a reading list so comprehensive that her eyes almost popped out of her head!

  ‘Joseph, Jesus and his mother Mary!’ she gasped as she placed a comforting palm on her breast. ‘Who on earth can this be before me in a lovely charcoal grey suit and a gorgeous spotted tie? Surely it can’t be Joseph Tallon? Is it really you, Joey?’ she croaked. ‘And you really and truly are standing for election?’

  The Candidate beamed from ear to ear as he clutched his thin lapels.

  ‘Yes, it’s me, all right,’ he replied, ‘and I trust you’ll be giving me your number one, Una, whenever the big day comes around!’

  Which wasn’t so very far away now! A mere matter of weeks was all it was!

  Una still couldn’t believe it. He had lost so much weight! And he looked so handsome now! All that jowly beer fat was gone, every inch of blubber put there by the pies which she had seen him wolf down in Austie’s so many times when on her lunchbreak! Where had he gone, that sixteen-stone hulk who used to come barrelling down the street, glowering at everyone and quoting one minute Hermann Hesse and the next Charles Manson? Something she felt responsible for, having ordered that copy of Helter Skelter (companion volume to The Family) for him so long ago. But she needn’t feel that way, not from this day on, she knew. But where had he gone, the old, sad Joey Tallon, forever pursuing his interminable quest? Where, please tell me? she found herself thinking.

  Her visitor could have smiled and said: ‘He’s gone all right! Yes, vanished! Gone for ever to become … “The Candidate”!’

  If he had been aware of her thoughts, that is. Except that he wasn’t, being much too preoccupied with drawing her attention once more to his extensive list, which she peered at now through her specs.

  ‘Obviously I won’t have time to read them all,’ said The Candidate. ‘Not before the election, at any rate. But I really have been bitten by th
e bug, of that there can be no doubt, Una! I have become completely obsessed by my pursuits in the world of politics. The art of what’s possible, Una. Yes, it’s wonderful!’

  Una smiled as he stroked his chin, thinking. What he had meant by that statement was how wonderful it is that it can confer on you such power. He had given this subject much thought of late.

  Long into the night he would find himself writing, before pausing then in the first light of dawn and reflecting on the years already past. ‘Ah, youth!’ he would muse. ‘Listening to Santana and reading Carlos Castaneda, before moving on to Mr Hesse and our old friend Rabindranath Tagore. Not to mention Mr Ginsberg and the best minds of our generation!’

  Then, having completed his reflections, realizing how childish — so immature! — it all seemed now and how what he wanted was nothing so much as to distance himself from it. To observe it all through a viewfinder. Almost without realizing it, he had removed the tattered paperback from the inside pocket of his jacket and was smiling approvingly down at its cover, when he once more became aware of his surroundings as he heard Una say: ‘Is that what you’re reading at the moment, Joseph?’