The Holy City

by Patrick McCabe

  Not even knowing I was smoking the cigarette until the record came to an end, crackling repeatedly until the metal arm eventually drew back, and Eric Burdon and the Animals began to recede. And with them the promise of those warm San Francisco nights, in that dirty old part of the city, as Eric had just sung, where the sun refuse to shine.

  A promise fading, glimmering and diminishing: like a tiny light, as James Joyce had written, beyond a pier-head where a ship was about to enter. Almost out of sight, just like the girl who, very shortly before, had waded so breath-takingly into the water. With her skirts kilted boldly and dovetailing out behind her, her bosom as soft and slight as a bird’s.

  The Altonaires were playing in the Mayflower that weekend but their music was dull and I kept wanting to go home, all they kept playing were dreary old fifties novelty songs and in the end I left in the foulest of humours. The girl in whose company I found myself wasn’t exceptionally pretty but she made it clear that she liked me a lot — which I have to say was flattering.

  — I see you going about the town on your rounds, she told me, and I’ve often seen you above in Cafolla’s.

  I had no desire to offend her. She looked quite wonderful in her Tammy-style dress. But all I kept thinking of was the girl wading into the water and lying there with Marcus Otoyo, the two of us chatting away about poetry. About Robert Louis Stevenson and A Portrait, so contented, prostrate on the sand.

  When I looked again, the Tammy girl was kneeling beside me, her cheeks colouring pink as she nervously enquired:

  — Do you think you’ll be going to the Mayflower next week? The Sands are playing there on Saturday.

  Tony Kenny played with the Sands. I liked his music but I wasn’t sure if I’d be going.

  — I just don’t know, I remember telling her. Maybe, I said. I really just don’t know.

  9 Any Views on That, Mahatma Gandhi?

  There were a few things that consistently kept bothering me in the White Room. I couldn’t stop wishing Stan Carberry hadn’t interfered with my mother. I wished more than anything that he’d left her alone. Why did he have to go and do that — bring her out to the barn that night?

  And I wished that I’d never known anything about religion — Catholic or Protestant. I wanted to know about neither. And yet at the same time I wanted to know everything. Why could I not be like everyone in the sixties, I kept asking myself, and say that God was dead: Hey, man, take it easy, no need to worry, nothing bothering us cats down here.

  But more than anything what was bothering me was what I’d done to Mukti. It was wrong and I knew it. Except I also knew this: that, if I capitulated this time, not only to excessive feeling but to any kind of vulnerable emotion at all, my time in that White Room could prove to be devastating. Worse than anything I’d experienced so far. And I couldn’t risk that.

  In the sixties they said people kind of liked being a little mixed up. That was what the Beatles were always insisting: take, for example, I am he as you are he etc., from ‘I Am the Walnut’ as Mike Corcoran sings. Or should I say Mike Martinez, ha ha, later of the famous Mood Indigo house band the Chordettes.

  Yeah, that was the way. Identities were frivolously encouraged to fracture in those days, to turn themselves upside down and inside out, through the influence of drugs, alternative therapies and who knows what else. With nobody so much as batting an eyelid at any of it. No, it was all about getting your kicks, man. You could be everybody and nobody all at once. Nothing and everything all at the one time. It was ‘thrillsville’, they said, ‘too much’ and ‘outasite’.

  But it didn’t turn out that way for me. I heard later from Mike that Mukti was supposed to have been heartbroken with the way things had turned out.

  — Then he shouldn’t have tried to trick me, should he? I said to Mike.

  And what reply could there possibly be to that?

  — It was just a pity, though, Chris. I mean — boiling water, for Christ’s sake.

  And I know it’s true — and I deeply regret it, I genuinely do. Trickster or not, none of that ought to have been necessary with Dr Mukti.

  I was kept in the White Room for quite a considerable period of time, don’t ask me how long — I lost all track. Then one day, quite unexpectedly, when I was chewing my nail in the corner and thinking, to be honest, mainly about nothing, the most extraordinary thing happened. At the very first indication of that soft and faint, very measured tapping behind the ventilation grid I inclined my ear forward, my initial consideration being that it might be a small creature: a mouse, for example — or a timid little bird. And persisted in thinking that — excitedly, I have to say — as I inspected the serrated grid for a sign. An indication.

  The curved whisker of a rodent, perhaps, I considered, or a small distended avian claw.

  Then I heard another sound — this time different, soft but resolute nonetheless. It suggested a thin wooden panel sliding back sharply. Barely perceptible, but indisputably real. I started backwards in expectation, but, in fact, nothing happened. With nobody — or nothing — appearing for quite some time. It had all the hallmarks of some kind of subtle charade. Like someone was trying to ‘take a hand out of you’, as the old farmers used to say long ago. But then, after another short while this small brown hand, hardly even the size of a doll’s, appears out of the ventilation grid, so positively, absurdly and quite ridiculously tiny that you could not help but be amused.

  And before you could say anything at all, whose head appears — I could scarcely believe what I was seeing myself — none other than that of Dr Mukti himself, the noted head psychiatrist of St Catherine’s Hospital. But a psychiatrist unlike any I had ever seen before — one who could not possibly have been more than six inches in height, handsomely attired in his buttoned-up Nehru-style jacket, a little blue cotton cap perched on his head like a boat. With some old ancient Hindu nonsense scribbled on it. He looked so content, almost blissfully so.

  Which explained why, initially, I was on the verge of greeting him in that same familiar, almost affectionate manner we’d been accustomed to when we first met. Before hostilities opened up between us. But I was soon to be disabused of any such facile intentions.

  For his expression already had grown grave and darkly formal. As he waved his finger and chastised me formidably for my recent undignified, unworthy behaviour. Repeating harshly:

  — You’re just about the rudest man I’ve ever known, Christopher John McCool. Saying those things to me that day in my office. Have I not at all times told you the truth? You cannot deny the fact that I have. Why then, don’t you ask yourself, would I bother to go to the trouble of deceiving you in this instance? Can’t you see it’s your own innate weakness, your complete failure to put your trust in those who might be able to help you that has been causing you all these unfortunate problems? You really are your own worst enemy, McCool!

  I knew now what he meant. And that, probably, in all likelihood, his accusations contained a lot of substance.

  Apart from the bit about the Catholic priest, anyway. Which only served to show how little, just like Pandit, in spite of all his much-vaunted experience, he actually knew. And how hastily he himself tended to jump to conclusions and embrace stereotypes. He’d been labouring, it soon became clear, under the illusion I’d assumed his visitor that day — on the ‘day of the boiling water’, I suppose you might call it — had been a Catholic priest. And that it had been my supposed resentments towards this fellow, having grown up with my peculiar history in a ‘small repressed Irish country town’, which had prompted my actions. How uninformed can you possibly get.

  When nothing, in fact, could have been further from the truth. I wasn’t even remotely interested in his visitor, and I certainly bore no animosity towards him or his clerical colleagues, for any ‘damage’ inflicted on me, or anything else. There was only one reason why I had followed them into the kitchens that evening and it had nothing to do with visitors at all. It was Mukti I was after, Mr Clever Clogs
Mukti, steering conversations to get people to catch themselves out, yes, Mr Entrapment Mukti — treacherous fucking Indian bastard!

  Anyway, even at a distance you’d have had to’ve been blind to think it was a Catholic priest. For a start his suit was light charcoal grey, so although he was a clergyman, he had to be either Methodist or Church of Ireland — one or the other. In any case, as I say, that poor unfortunate fellow was irrelevant. He, unhappily, happened just to get in the way, and that’s probably the thing I’m most regretful about of all.

  But, anyway, as I say, ‘little’ Mukti went on blathering. Except with this laughably squeaky voice now — it made me double up every time he opened his mouth — ever so reasonably explaining it all to me, with his diminutive doll’s hands gesturing as he did his best to sound intelligent. Not only had the clergyman not been a Catholic priest, he continued patronisingly, but he had come to St Catherine’s to visit his brother, who was an alcoholic.

  — An alcoholic? I choked — pretending to be concerned — deciding to play him at his own game. In fact, scarcely listening.

  — Yes, he went on, an alcoholic with very severe problems indeed, every bit as bad as yours, Mr Christopher McCool. And I’m sure that his brother has a lot more to do than come around institutions looking out for his troubled relative without finding himself in mortal danger. Would you have anything in particular to say to that?

  No I hadn’t, I assured him. What could I possibly say, I said. It was disgraceful what I had done to them both — without question.

  — I am deeply, Dr Mukti, deeply remorseful over what I did. I implore your forgiveness. I am abject, craven, ashamed of myself.

  And that is exactly what I would have gone on saying if, quite unexpectedly, I hadn’t seen him smirk. And cover his face with his cupped chocolate-coloured hand as he whispered:

  — Marcus Otoyo was right. You really are quite the freak, aren ‘t you? But not in an amusing sixties kind of way. Oh no.

  I went cold all over as soon as I heard that, my muscles stiffening and the hairs on my neck beginning to bristle. Then I found myself responding bitterly.

  — Excuse me, Dr Mukti: would you mind repeating what you said just now?

  — Repeat it? he replied, provocatively confronting me.

  I began to become aware that I had responded too eagerly. Small though he was, Mukti was still clever and had lost none of his dexterous artfulness. Already I could see the eager glint of perceived advantage in his eye.

  — Yes, I said, repeat it, please, if you wouldn’t mind.

  His reprised smirk undermined me again. As did his suave and patient demeanour. The high-pitched tone had all but vanished now from his voice.

  — You must be imagining things, Christopher, he said, because you see, I didn’t say anything at all.

  I had become extremely agitated now and was fumbling awkwardly, without success, for words.

  Eventually I said:

  — Well, vuh-vuh-very well, that’s fine, but I’m sorry you did not, only that there was a smuh-smuh-smirk on your face when you were saying it.

  Now he was making me stammer — something I did rarely, only when I was very upset.

  — Saying what? he said then. Please tell me what I said. If you heard me saying something then please tell me what it was.

  I couldn’t stand it. I knew I had to do something. I snapped.

  — Oh fuh-fuh-for God’s sake, Dr Mukti! I bawled, with my voice now in a higher register than his. Will you stop this nonsense once and for all, for goodness’ sake! I heard what you said! I know what you’re trying to say — that my intentions towards Marcus Otoyo were somehow dishonourable and that all this talk of literature is just a smokescreen of some kind. Well, let me tell you something — how about you and that Pandit take off and go back home: back to India or wherever it is you came from! What do you think of that, Tom Thumb? Any views on that, Mahatma fucking Gandhi? Anything to say about that, have you, foxy? Well? Well? Wuh-wuh-well?

  10 The Mysteries of Protestants

  Thankfully, all of those minor little turbulences are well past now, long since over and consigned to the dustbin of history. And, like so many events throughout the course of my life, I am in the fortunate position of being capable now of recollecting them in an almost luxurious and sleepily random fashion — lying here on my soft velvet cushions in the Happy Club listening to my CDs of the Carpenters and Tony Bennett and all the others and thinking again about poor old Dr Mukti. Whose good points I can appreciate now without the slightest hint of rancour. As I can, in actual fact, with almost everyone I’ve known over the years, with whom I have been connected — Marcus Otoyo, happily, included. Whose poise and refinement, intelligence and erudition really were, by any standards, quite remarkable for their time. And in such a quiet, unprepossessing place. I can see how their uniqueness might have come to impress me in the way that they did. How in so many ways he came to embody the spirit of radiant, adolescent wonder itself — a spirituality and longing I could find nowhere else. And which was so perfectly described in the writings of James Joyce. Who belonged to no age in particular, and who infinitely, culturally and artistically, if one was honest, was superior to anything emerging from the narcissistic, throw-away, congratulatory, complacent and fly-by-night sixties.

  I embraced every word that I found in A Portrait, surrendering to their ‘passionate euphony’. And became convinced that Marcus Otoyo was a kindred spirit in this regard, that he had been thinking along those lines too. You could tell, I persuaded myself, by the way he carried himself: mysteriously detached, at one remove from the world in which he lived. Sometimes at night I would think of him praying: not in a remote, stark frigid Protestant cathedral but in a warm and big-hearted Catholic one, where the altar was heaped with fragrant masses of flowers, and where in the morning light the pale flames of the candles among the white flowers were clear and silent as his own soul.

  I thought of him blinded by his tears and the light of God’s mercifulness, all but bursting into hysterical weeping as he watched the warm calm rise and fall of the girl’s breast that day on the strand. With the glowing image of the Eucharist uniting in an instant his bitter and despairing thoughts. While sacrificing hands upraised the chalice flowing to the brim. So far distant from the Gothic grey grimness of what was left of Thornton Manor. And the lives of all who had lived there: in a place which, beside this, was the colour of dust. The shade of the gravestone that was Henry Thornton’s face. No, a book such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses meant nothing to him, not in any real human way. Maybe not in any way at all.

  Yet another indication of Catholic sentiment: unreliable, quite despicable emotionalism.

  One troubled night I dreamt of Henry Thornton, my eyes snapping open, still seeing him bursting dramatically through the high French windows of Thornton Manor, with rain and sheet lightning sweeping out behind him, his face a mask of bitter resentment, tearing the book A Child’s Garden of Verses from Lady Thornton’s pale trembling hands. Before casting it contemptuously into the roaring flames, its thin leaves edged in gold immediately turning to ash in the heavy grate. As I fled from her lap, out into the yawning black maw of the night — hopelessly blinded by bafflement and sorrow.

  Resounding in my ears the mercilessness of his chastisements, as he continued to charge her with that most grievous sin.

  — Fornicating with Carberry like a common fucking whore, and bringing that oddity, that thing into the world! You call yourself a Protestant? You think they’ll ever show respect to you again? They’ll despise you from now till the day you die, for showing weakness above all to one of them!

  On the day of the ‘boiling water’, what happened was I had been following Mukti — more or less for the whole morning, in fact. Now, at close of evening, I found myself concealed behind the sundial, under cover of some bushes, eyeing him closely as he led his visitor in the direction of the prefab, where they held the group sessions, specific
ally for alcoholics.

  I was feeling very cold — icy, to tell the truth — as I observed them chatting, ever so warmly, and smiling. What seemed so strange was that the feeling in its essence was so close to the one I remembered from long ago in Cullymore. After I’d discovered the letter of betrayal. The crumpled envelope I’d found in Dolores’s handbag. Dolores Mc-Causland and I had established a liaison of some significance at the beginning of summer in 1969, after a number of meetings in the Mayflower Ballroom. She was a woman some years older than myself, and her presence in Cullymore had literally electrified the town. The truth was that they had never seen anything like her before. An entirely different kind of Protestant, with her peroxide hair and figure-hugging dresses. They said she looked the ‘spit’ of Ruby Murray, a Northern Irish singer who’d been very successful some years previously. And whose songs she had declared a particular affection for, actually singing them in public from time to time. She was attracted to me, she said, because someone had told her I was a Protestant. I’m not, I told her, and did the best I could — but she wouldn’t permit herself to be convinced. I heard you have associations with quality, she said — and laughed.

  — We all stick together, she chuckled mischievously the first night I met her, because we’re different to them! They can get themselves in such a tizzy about silly things, can’t they, the Catholics? Like a little slap and tickle, for instance. Or a girl’s fondness for a nice cheeky dress. They won’t even allow the News of the World Into the house! Kiddies, really, I sometimes think. They’re so predictable but lovable in so many ways. They can have such fun with their singing, you know, and their drinking! Love them Fenians — bless ’em, or hate ’em — one way or another, you can’t be without them!

  But I’m really not a Protestant, I continued to insist to her. Meaning that part of me would, regrettably, remain for ever Carberry. And that was just about as Catholic as you could get. The inebriate, treacherous, unreliable rascal.