Emerald Germs of Ireland (13 page)

“And now—a toast to our three friends from—where ees?”

“Gullytown,” said Pasty. “It’s only fifty mile!”

Papa smiled and held his glass aloft.

“To all in Gullytown!” he smiled and placed his hand across his chest, beginning to sing:

As all—with one voice—rapturously affirmed:

Behind Rosa, a small insect did its best to climb up the intense, if precarious, green slope of a palm tree frond. She lowered her head and
gave her nails full attention. How beautiful they were, Pat thought…

“Will you ever come back to me, Pat?” she whispered, a glimmering moistness in her eyes.

“You know I will, Rosa,” Pat replied.

The insect was almost halfway there. His valor could almost have served as a metaphor for—

“Perhaps one day,” Pat added. “One day—who knows?”

Rosa moved closer to him and touched his upper arm tenderly. Her kiss on his cheek was something that he would remember for a long, long time.

“Good-bye, Pat,” she said.

He took her in his arms and looked into her eyes.

“Adios, my Rosa,” he said. “I’ll never forget you.”

Just then, a familiar sound reached his ears and they looked up to see Papa, standing by the open window, inside the adobe hacienda, his declamatory gestures accompanying a now familiar melody:

Rosa reddened a litde then leaned in to Pat’s chest as a burst of affectionate chuckling took hold of her.

There wasn’t a sound as Pat McNab, Honky McCool, and Pasty McGookin stood by the side of the road. In actual fact, there is only some measure of truth in that statement, for there was one, in fact, albeit of a very low, almost inaudible nature. And possessing an eerie, whistling quality. Pat shivered and ran his hands along his arms in a stroking, reassuring motion. Across from them, beside the stiff if abbreviated sentinel of the village pump, three chickens poked industriously in the dust. Above the door of a dilapidated roadside house, a sign which had once borne the name (its letters long since faded) The Border Bar creaked yearningly with each occasional gust of wind that happened to come floating by. Honky looked at Pat from beneath hooded eyes and gave an involuntary shiver. As if to emphasize his discomfort, the faint peal of a mission bell tinkled skeletally behind the clouds.

“This is some weird place, man,” he said.

As if to answer him, out of the heat haze, over the cusp of the road, what appeared as the bright red distorted grin of some indeterminate medieval creature approached but seemed to take an age, as though in one spot inexplicably restrained by wavering lines of heat, only to suddenly and without warning leap forward, its metal jaws springing open to reveal the shadowy occupants within.

“It’s the bus!” gasped Pat incredulously. “At last!”

Honky drew his denim-clad arm across his forehead as Pasty steadied himself against the fence.

“Thank God for that!” he said.

There was a broad smile on Pat McNab’s face as he fingered out the coins to the bluff and genial driver. But one which faded as a small hand of ice slipped its fingers with a gentle firmness about the base of his spine as he—replacing his change in his pocket—turned to gaze upon the swarthy form of an oily figure some way down the aisle seats down the aisle, adorned with a two-pronged, satin-black mustache. His heart leaped.
“The generalissimo! “he
gasped.

“Not a bad day now!” called the swarthy individual, returning to his
Irish Independent.
“Great to see it!”

A similar experience was—although Pat was entirely unaware of it—being undergone by Honky who, having taken his seat, found himself positioned directly behind the despised sentry! Who, flipping the packet open, had then turned to him, chirping shamelessly as he brandished the cigarettes beneath Honky’s nose, “A smoke, perhaps?”

There have been many arguments down through the years as to the nature of being and the benefits or otherwise of such substances as might substantially alter what we commonly refer to as empirical, tangible “reality.”

Quite what Pasty and Honky’s views on such subjects were, Pat was never to truly ascertain for they never discussed them or indeed “that day” again. All that can be said is that had anyone been walking past on the road that day as the driver released the brake and called out: “Ballinafad next stop!” and had they investigated what they took to be the flap of a passing bird or a stray deposited dropping from that same creature, they would have found that the source of the dull, unexpected
sound was nothing other than the glancing blow made by a small twisted root of peyote plant which the horrified Honky had cast from him (in a fit of anxiety occasioned by his recognition of “the sentry”) into the abyss of the dying summer evening through the open window of the bus.

But somehow, in its own special way, it was an experience never to be absolutely entirely forgotten by Pat McNab, and there were nights when he would find himself sitting alone in Sullivan’s Select Bar poring over a drab pint of Guinness, listening to Hoss McGinnity as he gesticulated wildly—yet again!—making his way through his rendition of “South of the Border,” when, once more, he would see himself proudly attired in a crimson cummerbund, Rosa smiling by his side as she inclined her head ever so slightly just a litde to avoid the confetti, Papa shedding a tear and shaking his head, as off they drove (in a battered truck—who cared!—past the hitching post, the gospel hall, the well—and the chickens, of course!) into the dust and the shimmering heat, between them now a love to which none could compare, one which he knew was destined to be his forever, as bright and clear and infinite as the waters of the Rio Grande itself.

P
at was lost in contemplation, staring in the window of the greengrocer’s, wondering what he was going to have for his dinner, when he heard a shout coming from the far side of the street. It was Bullock McCoy, already halfway across the road on his way over to Pat. How best to describe Bullock? A cattle dealer-type man, perhaps, with exorbitantly large brown boots and a flat cap (extremely shiny) tilted on what was casually referred to locally as “the Kildare side.” “There you are, McNab!” exclaimed Bullock, landing as if with a thump beside Pat. “I was just looking at the spuds, Bullock,” replied Pat, “one pound fifty per stone. Isn’t that very dear for spuds?”

“Never mind spuds,” said Bullock, “where’s your auntie? She was supposed to ring me.”

Pat stared at Bullock.

“Ring you?” he said. “Is that what she said?”

Bullock nodded.

“Aye. Tuesday, she said. She said she’d ring Tuesday.”

Pat stroked his chin quizzically.

“And she never did?”

“No,” replied Bullock glumly. “I waited the whole night.”

“That’s a pity,” said Pat.

Bullock stared at a flattened sweet paper on the pavement for a moment, then raised his head.

“We were going to go to the hotel,” he said.

“Were you?” asked Pat.

“Aye. I was going to have a mate stew and she was going to have chicken curry. Did you ever hear of that?”

Pat nodded.

“Yes. She made it for me. They make it in America the whole time.”

A flicker of melancholy passed across Bullock’s eyes.

“It was all planned,” he said. “And then she never phoned.”

He broke off, then resumed.

“Maybe she hurt herself?”

Adding hopefully, “Maybe she fell and hurt her leg?”

Pat shook his head.

“No,” he replied impassively, “her leg’s fine.”

“Is it?” Bullock asked eagerly. “Then maybe you’ll tell her to ring me?”

Pat pushed out his lower lip, thought for a moment, and then said: “No—I can’t!”

There was a short pause and then he continued: “She’s gone, you see.”

The sound of Bullock swallowing was deadly audible in the early afternoon.

“Gone?” he said.

“Yes,” was Pat’s reply. “Gone back to America.”

The skin on Bullock’s forehead tightened. He moved in closer to Pat.

“But that can’t be!” he cried shrilly. “I bought her a ring!”

Pat frowned and coughed a little.

“Bought her a ring?” he said.

“Aye!” cried Bullock. “It cost me fifty pound!”

Pat considered for a moment or two and said: “I could send it to her if you like …”

Bullock’s face flushed a litde and his voice acquired an almost falsetto quality.

“Send it to her?” he cried. “You don’t send rings! Who ever heard tell of sending rings? We were supposed to be engaged, for the love of Jasus! Pat—are you trying to cod me?”

Pat shook his head vigorously.

“No, Bullock,” he assured the larger man. “She went yesterday, you see. She left a note. As a matter of fact, I think I might have it with me!”

Pat searched for some moments in the depths of his long black coat before eventually producing, among other things, a bottle cap bearing the inscription Time Ale, a chewing gum card of Ricky Nelson, a crushed packet of cigarettes, some pebbles, and then eventually a piece of rolled-up paper. “Look! Here it is!” he cried, as he unfolded the beautifully written note. The handwriting could only be described as copperplate.

Dear Pat: I am afraid I have to go home, it said.

The color drained from Bullock’s face as he devored its contents anew. There was a weariness in his voice (as though he had, all along, feared the worst). “Dear God!” he groaned mournfully. “And the crack we had!”

Pat’s smile spread right across his face as he placed his open palm on Bullock’s shoulder and remarked wistfully, “Oh indeed and I’m sure it was good now! I’ll bet not many had crack like youse, Bullock! For she’s a great girl! A great girl and no mistake!”

Bullock lowered his head sadly and took a last look at the crumpled piece of paper he held in his hand.

Pat’s first experience of this “crack,” as Bullock termed it, was arriving home with the messages to find his Auntie Babbie (the “living image of his mother,” they said in the town), who had just the very day before arrived home from America, now dancing in and out of an arrangement of chairs as Bullock McCoy stood in the corner clutching at the lapel of his Sunday blazer and winking—a tad excessively—as though afflicted with a severe nervous tic. When it was remarked that Babbie was the “living image” of Mrs. McNab (i.e., Maimie, her sister) this was to ignore the large peroxide beehive hairstyle which she possessed and the staggeringly vivid lime-green trouser (or “pant”) suit which appeared to be the most favored item in her wardrobe. “For she never seems to take it off,” thought Pat as he peered through the crack in the doorway—the dancers (for Bullock had now given himself wholeheartedly to the spirited maneuvers) throughout remaining entirely oblivious of his presence. As they proceeded now to whirl about the perimeter of the kitchen with even greater abandon, Babbie, in that curiously hybrid speech which appears common to all those who have resided for any appreciable length of time in both Brooklyn and
Gullytown, cried breathlessly, “Phwee—oo! Ya wanna go round again, Bullock?” as her companion—his cheeks truly incandescent with excitement—replied, “Hell! Why not!” in what, it has to be acknowledged, was a somewhat unconvincing echo of big city chutzpah. Something which was not lost on Pat’s Auntie Babbie at all as she tweaked his cheek and teased him about it, squealing (for how else could you describe it?), “Listen to you!” before mimicking tiny mincing steps (her rear was enormous, Pat reflected, perhaps even four times the size of his mother’s) and, skipping across the room to the hi-fi, upon which she placed a long-playing record so that the entire house rang out with the shrill song she piped and encouraged her partner to emulate:

The last thing Pat could remember was the sound of his aunt’s high-pitched laughter as what appeared to be a four-legged technicolored animal lost its balance and disappeared behind the settee.

There are some things which perhaps can never be adequately explained, and surely this applies more than anything to certain aspects of human behavior. Why the mere echo of laughter ought to have elicited from Pat the reaction which it did that day—and there can be no denying that it was one which can be best described as being of an edgy, tremulous, and resentful nature—manifested most tangibly by the violence which he exacted upon the bagful of what were locally known as “messages” (in effect, unremarkable foodstuffs), raining blow after blow down upon the unfortunate cloth receptacle until all that remained was a shapeless and broken mess of eggs, citrus fruits, and sundry comestibles, from which coursed a variety of winding, intersecting rivers of thick liquid dribbling their way across the back doorstep. Aligned to this also was his disappearance to his room for a total of
three days on end, throughout which he partook of no solids whatsoever, covering his ears with his hands and repeating, in the manner of an Eastern mystic applying himself to the recitation of a mantra, “I don’t hear anything! I don’t hear anything!” Something which he might well have continued to indulge himself in for a further quota of days had his aunt (in that intuitive manner Pat was to come to know extremely well in the weeks that followed—those glorious times before the “stab in the back” as he came to privately think of it) not lowered her voice and whispered in a deliciously lusty timber, “If you come out, you might get a litde surprise, Pat. You really might, you know! Oh yes!”

That Pat McNab should have found himself having the time of his life simply as a reward for vacating his room on request would probably come as a surprise to most people, considering he was at an age when most mature men would be busying themselves in their work and ensuring a good future for their children. Indeed, the very idea of a grown man laying back in the arms of a considerably ample woman who also happened to be his aunt would, in all likelihood, prove anathema to most people. But such was not the case with Pat McNab, and as he stared up into the big blue eyes of his mother’s sister (they were so like hers), it was hard for him not to utter every second when she smiled the words, “I love you, Aunt Babbie. I’m sorry I went bad for a while there.” As he knew he had, and felt thoroughly ashamed when she sniffled into her hankie, “I was only having a litde bit of fun with him, Pat, that’s all. We used to play together in the square when we were kids, you see.”

From the moment his aunt made that declaration, Pat privately took a solemn vow that he would never again upset her, and afterward rarely a day went by but she would wake up to find her favorite nephew standing at the bottom of the bed clad in his apron and removing the silver dome from a steamy plate of delicious food which he had prepared for her—a truly sumptuous repast of yummy breakfast, or “brekkie” as she and Pat came to call it later. Except not only brekkie—but brekkie
American style
! Yes, any amount of maple syrup-covered pancakes stacked as high as they would go and alongside them crispy rashers and eggs over easy and just about as many hash browns as you could get into your mouth. “Do you like that, Auntie?” Pat would say as
he sat there admiring her from the side of the bed. As inevitably she replied, “I sure do, Patty!”

Which she sometimes called him. Patty! And oh boy did he like that! Especially when she put on her favorite record and gave him that special look, the look that said, “Wouldja like a little dance, Patty?” and off they’d go spinning around the kitchen to the sound of the very same tune that had Bullock McCoy almost tumbling the wildcat with desire on that very first day.

There are undoubtedly those who would be of the opinion that the relationship in which Pat and his aunt found themselves increasingly involved was ill-fated from the start and that, regardless of the complications which the involvement of Bullock McCoy were to eventually present, it would have been difficult, to say the least, to envisage any situation which might have ensured any alternate conclusion. Certainly, this would appear to be true from the moment Babbie—lightheartedly, it has to be said, for that was (tragically, as it transpired) how she perceived their relationship—permitted Pat to join her beneath the covers of her bed—not only that, but cradle his head on her shoulder and coo, “Go sleepies, my litde fellow. Sleepies for Auntie Babs now! Attaboy!” If the clock were indeed to be turned back and perhaps some action of an interventionist nature be taken, to avoid the inexorable, subsequent catastrophe, then this clearly would have been the precise moment.

There is something particularly tragic about the fissure which eventually opened up between Pat and his aunt—for there can be litde doubt that he adored the woman. Loved her, like Othello, beyond any reasonable expectation, a tendency which led him to place her upon a pedestal and, consequently, set in motion a train of events which would spell—for both of them, without doubt (and, in a peripheral sense, for Bullock McCoy)—tragedy destined to plunge them both into a pitch-black abyss of incalculable depth.

For what was unknown to Pat McNab was that his aunt, while outwardly an ordinary lime-green-suited mature lady returned from America, was secretly—and had been for a long time—a considerable amount more than that. It seems uncanny—almost absurd—that Pat did not note with some anxiety his aunt’s peculiar attitude to the absence of his mother (perhaps he did, but feared to admit it to himself).

Professing herself, as she did, contented with his explanation of “she’s gone to England on business,” seeming relieved—gratified, even—when, after repeated questioning sessions, for the duration of which she would grip him by the shoulders and breathlessly insist, “Where is she?” and “Are you sure?” and “Whereabouts?” she would eventually profess herself “disappointed” but disposed toward “endurance” when informed that her sister had been compelled to depart for England “on business.”

A journey which, to all who knew her—particularly her own blood kin, surely—must have defied logic, as Pat’s mother had never been to England in her life, much less involved herself in commercial transactions within its shores. What is undoubtedly tragic—duplicitous though it might seem (but what of it, if it succeeded in precluding heartache!)—is Pat’s failure to uncover earlier what might be described as “Auntie Babbie’s secret holdall,” an item which only came to light after his aunt “went away” and which contained within its remarkable interior what is best called “The Truth About Auntie Babbie.” As he clutched the videotapes in his hands, on that lachrymose day so long after all had turned to dust (they seemed to him as condensed blocks of sheer black badness), tears of regret and “what might have been” coursed down the cheeks of Pat McNab. For deep within him, he still loved his auntie and would have done anything to turn back the accursed tide of history that had made her what she was.