The Holy City

by Patrick McCabe

  — The Orbs, I said, numinous, remote. For them engagement with the real world is no longer necessary. They live in TV in a world of white wax.

  — The Eggmen, laughed Mike, they are the Eggmen, C.J., that’s what they are. The fucking walnuts is what they are.

  The humour had gone off me for telly, though. I was kind of looking forward to retiring, to tell the truth.

  And all the way back to the White Room I could not keep from thinking that, simply by choosing a few simple words, Mike had created a whole new philosophy. With the result that, when I got back inside, the more I considered the substance of what he’d been saying, the more it began to seem like something of real worth. Definitely to be investigated further. Maybe I’d write a few notes about it, I thought. ‘The New Philosophy, the Twizzlers Who Do Not Care’. I was in the middle of thinking up the first few opening sentences when — suddenly! — I found myself staring alarmingly at a corner of the room. Bracing myself for the first sound of activity in behind the ventilation grid.

  Why, there wasn’t even so much as a whisper, not a sound.

  It was then that I started reflecting on the whole ‘Tom Thumb’ business with Mukti. And how stupid it all began to seem. I mean, a diminutive Indian doctor. What had I been thinking?

  I was embarrassed beyond words, to tell you the truth.

  But then I thought about Mike’s new philosophy and it cheered me up no end. It was really the best laugh I’d had in quite a while. As Fat Curly the warm-up comedian in the Good Times always says:

  — Och come on, me auld muckers! Surely youse have to laugh!

  Except that, after a while, it didn’t seem all that easy to do it, no matter how many amusing things you thought of, Twizzlers or anything. It was as if your smile seemed strained, as if you were trying too hard or something. It seemed kind of forced, so tight that it hurt. So tight that it — I don’t know. So tight that it … it’s hard to say … it’s difficult, you know? It’s … duh-duh-difficult, that’s all, just duh-difficult … duh-duh-duh-diff…

  14 A City Devastated

  It wasn’t long after the European Cup that a new record shop opened in the town — right next door to the Good Times bar.

  And it was around then too that the first rumours began to surface about an impending visit to the town by the sensational chart-topper Clodagh Rodgers, whose number-one hit ‘Come Back and Shake Me’ was requested as often in the record shop now as anything by the Beatles. But all of this was as nothing to the opening of Colette’s, the brand-new hair salon in the centre of the square, opposite the Green Shield shop. Already it was reported to be so popular that there were no appointments available until July. A noticeboard outside read: The most modern sahn in Europe.

  And it was into this already fabled emporium that Miss Dolly Mixtures, Dolores McCausland, one day confidently strolled, sporting her scarf in what she called the Babushka style, gaily knotted beneath her chin. Removing her Foster Grant sunglasses and breathing on to the lenses as she cooed — much to the chagrin of the nylon-caped incumbents, upon whom a small but palpably identifiable cloud of resentment now settled.

  As they watched Dolly fold herself delicately into an easy chair, leafing through a copy of Fashion Weekly, into whose pages she gracefully vanished, as if she perceived herself somehow, quite effortlessly, to have taken possession of the town. Protestant entitlement, was how Henry Thornton might have described it. It’s not as if I despise them, really, I recall him writing in one of his essays, for me they’re more of an inconvenience, really, a mild irritation. Like naughty children, I suppose — or recalcitrant pets.

  No one could say for definite where exactly the Clodagh Rodgers rumour had originated. Its authorship, however, was eventually attributed to none other than the recordshop owner himself, a well-known entrepreneur not long returned from England. Who had in fact left Cullymore in ’58, never to be seen again apart from the occasional holiday in summer when he would arrive in off the boat, in his dark suit and thin tie looking like Ronnie Hilton, they said — a popular singer and bandleader of the fifties. He was a rich man now and had worked with all sorts of ‘pop’ bands in the UK, it was widely reported.

  It has to be admitted that when Clodagh Rodgers didn’t appear there was a great sense of being ‘let down’ in the town. But it didn’t take long for that feeling to dissipate. For, as the name of the best pub in the area suggested, the late-sixties were indeed ‘good times’ and in any case Dave Glover and his band with the singer Muriel Day proved to be a more than adequate replacement.

  In fact, among those present in the Mayflower Ballroom that night, were some who claimed to have seen Clodagh Rodgers perform in England and that she ‘couldn’t hold a candle’ to Muriel Day.

  — Who cares about Clodagh Rodgers anyway, someone said, she’s probably a Protestant.

  The fact that Muriel was one as well didn’t seem to occur to or unduly bother anyone. She certainly looked it, with her beehive hair. No Catholic woman would have dared to sport such a coiffure at that time. For, if she did, she would be responsible, as Canon Burgess never tired of reminding his female congregation, ‘for bringing a blush to the cheek of the Virgin Mary’.

  It was around this time too that ‘Fashion Show ’69’ was convened in the hotel and an emergency urban council meeting called to establish just exactly what it was that had ‘gone on’. Quite a few members of the council hadn’t been in favour of having the meeting at all for to tell the truth they were confused by the whole affair and privately confided that they couldn’t ‘for the life of them’ understand how something like a fashion show could possibly come under the remit of the urban council.

  But then this wasn’t any old ordinary ‘fashion show’.

  It had been organised by Dolly Mixtures McCausland and the woman with whom she was staying at number 12 Wattles Lane. By the ‘black fellow’s’ mother, as one of the members had indiscreetly phrased it.

  — You know the young fellow, don’t you? The lad they say has all the brains. Of course you do. The black lad.

  It is no exaggeration to say that the fashion show caused a virtual sensation. For days before it had been the talk of the place.

  Dolly Mixtures by now had acquired quite a reputation and not just in the Good Times public house. Everyone in Cullymore seemed now to know her. And her songs. Even the children sang about Miss O’Leary’s cake, especially when they saw Dolly coming mincing through the puddles, delicately lifting her stiff lace petticoats, which were far more expensive-looking than anything seen before in Cullymore. Or, at least, that was how it appeared. Even though it might not have been true at all. For that was the thing about Protestants, somehow. Even if a Catholic had the same money as them — somehow the Protestant would always seem richer. As if Protestant money was worth more than Catholic. It was a kind of magic they appeared to possess. And Dolly Mixtures had it. It was as though a superior kind of light shone around her. Allowing her to do pretty much as she pleased. With no thought given to either consequence or restitution.

  — Mr Wonderful, she would sing, twirling scarves and dancing around them, through the wet rubbish and broken eggshells of Wattles Lane.

  — Mr Wonderful, that’s you!

  The children — though honoured — found themselves blushing and gasping in astonishment, as Dolly drew her baby-pink lambswool cardigan around her narrow shoulders and gave them a wave, puckering, before disappearing indoors.

  Grown women took to following her down the main street, sneaking suddenly down back roads and entries for fear they might be spotted. It was as if they couldn’t help themselves, as if they were being consumed by a virus of envy far more powerful and voracious than that to which they were accustomed. And it appeared to infect everyone, almost without exception. In this, the sixties, what exactly was happening to the town of Cullymore?

  The Green Shield Stamp Centre had got properly into its stride by late August ’68, and by the time the summer of’69 had come around, an
even more extensive variety of household appliances and fancy goods was being enthusiastically redeemed by the excited collectors and book-holders. Even the most modest of houses now were filling up with chintz armchairs and portable televisions, hairdryers, vacuum cleaners, garden furniture, toasters and expensive calf luggage that before you’d have only seen in advertisements. It was as if America and England had come to the town. First Blue Band Margarine, Get Smart and the Beatles, but more exciting even than any of them, the songbird Ruby Murray, in the form of Dolly Mixtures, who had the effect of making grown men turn into children. Turn into children and gibber like near-idiots.

  As regards the ‘Fashion Show ’69’ emergency meeting, there was one public representative in particular who had seemed over-zealous to the majority of councillors. And there was a reason for this. One day he had been in the supermarket buying cigarettes when he looked up to find himself standing beside a tall and curvaceous, slightly plump blonde woman who had her hair backcombed and lacquered, and who had dark upturned eyelashes and painted lips that seemed on the verge of taking off on their own.

  Ever so daintily detaching themselves from her face. At least, that was what was going through the councillor’s mind. As he stood there, trying to locate change in the folds of his trouser pockets, finding himself infuriated and affronted. What, he asked himself, is this all about? He hadn’t come into the supermarket to be confronted by unnecessarily provocative sights such as this, he told himself.

  But that was nothing to what was coming. Only seconds later, as a matter of fact, when, quite unexpectedly, he found himself staring in open-mouthed astonishment as, curling her lip, she gazed directly at him, giving her figure-hugging black dress the most provocative little tug.

  Before patting her hips and for no reason exclaiming:

  — Oops!

  The councillor rolled out into the deafening clamour of the Cullymore afternoon. With confluent trickles of perspiration shining on his forehead. He stood in the edgy sanctuary of a dark alleyway, repeatedly clenching and unclenching his fists. It was this same official who had made the impassioned speech. Who had posed the definitive question to his colleagues: What on earth was going on in Cullymore?

  At the fashion show Dolly had been wearing a beautifully cut A-line dress with matching black stilettos. Her unblemished appearance, as the MC had pointed out, was accentuated by her sparing use of Max Factor pancake make-up, whose brand was also responsible for her pastel pearly pink lip colour called Strawberry Meringue. Her gloves, it emerged, were by Dent’s, and were a cream pair in cotton, always the hallmark of the lady.

  The other ladies acquitted themselves admirably throughout the remainder of the show, it has to be said. But afterwards they too began to flock around Dolly, with even greater enthusiasm now than the men. Breathlessly plying her with questions about handbags — and whether she used a lip brush or not. It was as if the spotlight never seemed to desert her. The real Ruby Murray would have had her work cut out to compete — Ruby Murray, who could do no wrong in the UK charts.

  — Softly softly, the women sighed as Dolly walked by, making heroic efforts not to savagely consume their pendulous, defeated underlips.

  But more action was to follow later on in the Good Times.

  Dolly had been sitting at the bar with some friends when Ronnie Hilton the owner called on her for a song. There was to be no dissent on this occasion either. That evening was declared ‘the best so far!’. For no sooner had she ascended the stage than, without any warning whatsoever, she smacked her thigh and launched into a fast and furious up-tempo version of the Muriel Day hit ‘Wages of Love’, sassily curling the microphone cable, puckering her nose and pouting her lips as she did the twist right down to her hunkers.

  The pub was completely packed now, going wild as Dolly Mixtures gave no indication of desisting, wiggling her ample hips and thrusting out her sequined bosom, snapping her fingers as she launched into ‘Fruit Cake’, raising her dress high as before. Wolf whistles soared and the fever intensified.

  — Yummy delisch! sang Dolly, running her tongue along her lips as she sensuously swayed:

  — It’s Miss O’Leary’s Irish fruit cake!

  Her performance being so powerful that there wasn’t a man present in the bar who didn’t go home, thinking: I’m fantastic! For it’s plainly obvious that Dolly finds it hard to physically resist — me!

  Except that they were deceiving themselves, for the final number she sang that night — it was dedicated solely, well, to what person do you think?

  Yes, the one and only, specially chosen Mr Wonderful!

  So was it any wonder that the nascent Simon Templar, self-styled cool globetrotting bachelor of the sixties, would remain casually at the bar, sipping dry Martinis? For he was clearly moving into the big league now. As the diminuendo of the piano’s tinkling treble gave way to Tony Bennett’s secular hymn to the manifold delights of ‘The Good Life’.

  — You look beautiful, Miss McCausland, I said with a laugh, whenever, at last, she came waltzing over to join me.

  Speaking in a kind of jet-set, transadantic accent, which amused her. I was acting like I was Tony Bennett myself!

  And she was even calling me ‘baby’ now — in that lovely cutesy sixties way. Giggling at things that weren’t even so funny.

  It was great. No, it was maj!

  — Yeah, baby, it’s a magic time!

  — It’s maj! Yeah, babes, it’s maj!

  It was the following Sunday that Canon Burgess delivered his sermon on the subject of nightdresses and their potential evils. It had been problematic, presumably, for him to make it — with a clergyman hardly likely to have been particularly well-informed about such a subject. Which had only been broached at all on account of the Dreamland lingerie brand: a selection of which had just gone on display in the window of the Green Shield Stamp showroom. For two books of stamps, the sign read, any ‘go-ahead lady’ in Cullymore who so wished could find herself the proud owner of the fabulous Dreamland nightie — a two-tier shortie with tiny lace cap-sleeves and frilled flounce.

  The clergyman insisted to his congregation that he had privately been promised that the offending items would be removed without delay from the front of the window. This was what he had been discreetly assured. But, much to his regret, this, sadly, had not happened. Indeed, and much to the astonishment of the citizens of Cullymore, in the aftermath of the homily, exactly the opposite proved to be the case.

  The original sign had been removed all right. Yes, it, without doubt, had been taken away. But now in its place, in italicised letters of the gaudiest frosted pink, was the announcement that Dreamland Foundations, in association with Green Shield Stamps, had agreed to sponsor the Cullymore Summer Lingerie Extravaganza, to be held in the Cullymore Arms Hotel that very week.

  In the wake of this alarming development, yet another meeting was called in the urban council chambers and this time the aforementioned irate member had stormed out in a blind rage. It was the first time anyone could recall this actually happening. Certainly since any elected representative had been heard to utter the expletive ‘fuck’ in the chambers.

  But on this occasion there was no enthusiasm for conflict — even debate. Perhaps the word ‘lingerie’ was perceived as being too essentially intimate in nature, encroaching too impudently on to the esoteric, vaporous privacy of what they perceived to be the world of women, breaching the boundaries of their sacred holiness. And so, at the risk of giving the unfortunate councillor a stroke — the subject was subtly but quite firmly dropped.

  There were all sorts of rumours, predictably, circulating about Dolly. That she was definitely a Protestant everyone knew. There were intimations of her having been ‘separated’ from her husband in England, and that she had come to Cullymore to stay with her equally husbandless friend, Marcus Otoyo’s mother. But no one individual was sufficiently informed to vouch for the veracity of any of this.

  The suspicion then surfaced that she m
ight be divorced. Which would have been unheard of in Cullymore at that time.

  This came to represent another mystery — something that they did, meaning the Protestants and the English, with impunity. Like reading the News of the World paper. Which, not insignificantly, was perused weekly by Dolly, from cover to cover. Just as soon as she had finished singing her hymns in the lane. Yes, there she would sit turning its dubious pages, its shadowy photos depicting the exploits of ‘runaway wives’, not to mention various goings-on ‘in the suburbs’. And government officials indicted for ‘gross misconduct’.

  — What’s gross misconduct? Marcus had, shamefacedly, enquired of her one particular Sabbath morning, I was informed.

  Which had amused her no end, she said.

  — He really is the most innocent youth: destined for the priesthood. Such a loss, I sometimes think: he’s so sweet and innocent — handsome, you know?

  I made no reply — just kind of shrugged.

  — You know, sometimes I catch him looking at me, she said, at my legs especially. How it makes me laugh!

  I dismissed it. It meant nothing — why should it?

  What was unusual about that? I asked myself. It did not surprise me greatly at all that Marcus Otoyo, being an essentially spiritual boy, which we all knew he was, might harbour, even awkwardly declare, certain affections for Dolores McCausland.

  — He’s so thoughtful, it’s flattering, she would say, twirling a loose strand of her fine blonde hair — in a kind of daze, as I recall.

  But if it meant anything to me — if it bothered me in any way, then I did not show it. Indeed I encouraged her to indulge his innocent, adolescent excitements. As I lay there beside her looking into her eyes.

  — Such vehement passions! I would think, recalling A Portrait.

  As I thought of us there by the swaying green ocean — Marcus and I.

  Being holy, he liked all kinds of hymns, she said. I hadn’t asked her, she had brought up the subject completely out of nowhere. But being a Catholic boy at heart, she continued, there would always be a special place in his heart for hymns that tended to be of a more vivid and evocative cast. Tunes that evoked the colour of crimson, released in one’s soul certain primitive emotions.