The Dramatist (12 page)

She had a friend, a physiotherapist, who agreed to treat me. I began a punishing regime with her and was soon able to discard the cane. My knee was never going to be 100 per cent, but it sure was coming along. The day I ditched the cane, I made love to Margaret. A Friday night. We’d been for a meal, went back to her place, and I made the promised move. It wasn’t a huge success; in fact it was mostly quick. We lay in bed after and I said,

“I’ll improve.”

She had her head on my shoulder, answered,

“You better.”

War with Iraq dominated the news and people became familiar
with UN resolutions. Hans Blix was as famous as Bono. The pool run by the sentry in Nestor’s, as to when Bush would invade, had been abandoned. I asked him,

“What happens to all the money in the pot?”

He was staring into his Guinness, snapped,

“All bets are off.”

Pithy. Put it on a tombstone and you were downright ironic. Refunds weren’t mentioned.

The rupture in my friendship with Jeff began to mend and I resumed my visits. The hard chair and table that served as my office were back in action. I heard that Pat, Jeff’s friend who’d been castrated, had been moved to Dublin to be treated there. Sometimes, his fate shadowed our conversations, but we never met it head on.

To my surprise, Cathy asked me to mind their toddler, Serena May. I went,

“Like babysit?”

“Exactly.”

“Jeez, Cathy, I don’t know.”

Cathy had put on weight and it suited her. She’d taken on the role of mother, housewife, with delight. A far cry from the heroin punk I’d originally known. Almost all traces of her London accent were gone. I felt that was a loss. She spoke like an actress who’d determined to pass as Irish. Mostly, she succeeded.

The afternoons and evenings I watched Serena, I felt a kind of tranquillity. The little girl wasn’t walking but she sure could move on all fours. She seemed to know me and sat still as a prayer when I read to her. Dr Seuss, Barney and a shitpile of nursery rhymes. I also read to her in Irish, and if Cathy returned early, she’d say,

“Don’t stop. I love to hear that language.”

Usually,
M’Asal Beag Dubh. The Little Black Donkey
by Pádraic Ó Conaire. I didn’t remark to Cathy that here was a drunk, reading from a drunk. She said,

“I hear you’re seeing someone.”

Galway, city or no, it was still a small town. I muttered,

“Yes, sort of…”

She laughed, demanded,

“When will we meet her?”

“Soon, real soon.”

An event was coming down the pike, already shaping in its black destructive energy and preparing to rip my life in pieces, pieces that would never be restored. Cathy said,

“You’re doing good.”

And like a fool, I answered,

“Better than I ever could have hoped.”

“Not that it matters, but I tried to think of a way to repay your generosity; and such repayment invariably settled on the truth that you’d be better rid of me. Be happy and tell my sons that I was a drunk, a dreamer, a weakling and a madman, anything but that I did not love them.”

Frederick Exley,
A Fan’s Notes

Christmas came and went and I stayed sober. By New Year, I was
off the cigarettes. Twice a week, I went to visit my mother and swore I’d get her moved.

I didn’t.

She had shifted to another place in her head, a place where she was a young girl again and I’d no idea what she was talking about. My relationship with the matron continued to be cold and combative. My investigation into the students’ deaths came to a complete stop. I spoke to Stewart on the phone, told him I was getting nowhere. He said,

“Keep searching.”

And hung up.

The cheques continued to arrive and I continued to cash them. Ronan Wall rang me less and less often, his interest in play waning. Margaret and I were still “doing our line” and my life was as normal as it gets. My knee had improved but a slight limp was going to last.

I was in Charlie Byrne’s, looking for books on Synge, collared Vinny, asked him if he could help. Much as he hates to admit defeat, he conceded that Synge was not one of his areas of expertise, but added,

“Here’s the man you want.”

I turned to see a distinguished man, standing next to the literary criticism. Vinny said,

“My old professor of English and a published author.”

He added quickly,

“Not that he’s old, but college was a time ago. He’s the Synge expert.”

The man smiled politely; he had an air of academia. There was that awkward moment when strangers have been introduced and have nothing to say. I muttered,

“I’m looking to find out a little about Synge.”

He gave a tolerant smile, the one that says, we both know you’re an idiot. He said,

“Read his account of his time on the Aran islands.”

I said I would and then, after another anxious minute, he said goodbye and moved away.

Vinny provided the following:

Interpreting Synge, Essays from the Synge Summer School, 1991–2000
, edited by Nicholas Grene.

An Aran Reader
, edited by Breandán and Ruairi Ó hEithir.

An Aran Keening
by Andrew McNeillie.

Scenes of Aran Pilgrimage
by Tim Robinson.

As he wrapped them, I said,

“Take me a while to wade through these.”

“But you’ll know the man.”

“You sure?”

“Sure as shooting.”

A few days later, as I walked into the hotel, Mrs Bailey said
,

“Mr Taylor, a letter for you.”

She never would, despite my pleas, call me Jack. I took the letter, a plain white envelope. Typed on the front was:

Jack Taylor

Bailey’s Hotel

Galway

I shoved it in my pocket and took the stairs to my room. A wreath was lying against my door. Yes, the ones you see on top of coffins. I picked it up, a chill along my spine. God, I needed a cigarette. Put my hand down to reach for them and remembered, no cigs. Opened my door, went in, stood lost for a moment, then moved to the window, pulled it up and flung the wreath into the yard. My mind was racing through answers. A practical joke? A mistake? But none brought ease. I sat on the bed and longed for the days I could have reached for the bottle of Jameson, drunk deep from the neck.

Took the envelope out of my pocket, saw the tremble in my hand, then tore the flap and took out a mass card. The Sacred Heart on the front, inside the words,

“A mass will be offered for the repose of the soul of Jack Taylor.”

Then,

“With deepest sympathy from”

In bold black letters:

J.M. SYNGE

My breathing was constricted and I thought I was going to throw up. It passed and I looked at the envelope. It had been posted in Galway the previous evening. The wreath he’d delivered personally, but a hotel has people in and out all day.

I picked up the phone and rang Ridge, told her. She was quiet as she digested this, then,

“Somebody’s playing with you.”

“Oh really, wow, I’m glad I cleared that up. Lucky I called you.”

“Don’t use that tone with me, Jack Taylor.”

I backed off, tried,

“Well, at least now you’ll agree he’s out there, that it wasn’t, what did you call it…a bizarre coincidence?”

She sighed, asked,

“So what? It doesn’t really change anything. I mean, what can you do?”

“Do? I can watch my frigging back.”

And I slammed down the phone.

A line of coke, a carton of cigs, a bottle of Jameson, nineteen
pints of Guinness, all preened, shimmered before my eyes. I got out of the room and asked Mrs Bailey if she’d noticed anything, anyone odd passing through the lobby. She looked at me in disbelief.

“Odd? Are you codding me? The whole country’s odd. A young lad was in this morning, looking for work, and he had pins in his eyebrows, his tongue and the Lord only knows where else.”

I wanted escape, to shut off my mind. Went to the video store and rented a whole set of stuff. The guy said,

“Catching up?”

“As if I could.”

Over the next few days, I saw
Insomnia, The Devil’s Backbone, Lantana, Donnie Darko, Three Colours Blue, Apocalypse Redux
and the whole of the first series of
CSI
.

Maybe I’d watched
The Simpsons
too often, but I punctuated the movies with Domino’s pizza, delivered regularly. Finally, my mind was sufficiently bombarded to get back on track. Rang Margaret and took a walk along the prom. Late February, the wind howling off the bay, sure it was cold but invigorating. Then headed for the Galleon, our appetites up. Margaret ordered Chicken Maryland and “loads of chips”, asked,

“Jack?”

I studied the menu, said,

“Well, it’s not going to be pizza.”

“I thought you loved it?”

“Not any more.”

I ordered steak, roast potatoes. Margaret’s face was flush from the wind, her eyes alive with contentment. I said,

“You look like you’ve had good news.”

Huge smile and,

“I have, I have. I didn’t want to tell you till it was confirmed, but I’ve got a place for your mother in Castlegar.”

“Castlegar?”

“It’s a wonderful nursing home with a long waiting list. The care is the very best and it has a fantastic reputation.”

I didn’t know how to reply and she frowned, asked,

“Did I do wrong? Was I too presumptuous? It’s just I know how worried you’ve been.”

I reached over, took her hand, said,

“I’m delighted. I’ve felt so guilty, so ashamed of leaving her in that kip. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

She was all lit up, said,

“You can have your mother transferred immediately.”

“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Back at her home, I made love as if I meant it. She said,

“That was wonderful.”

Which is pushing it, but it was a whole lot better. Margaret had an early shift at the hospital, so I slipped out of there just before 1 a.m. She was already asleep, and I touched her face with my fingertips, tracing the line of her jaw. Even in sleep, you could see the strength she possessed.

Outside, a cab passed but I felt too good, decided to relish the walk. A sense of well-being coursed through me and I wanted to savour it. Coming up on Newcastle, I vaguely registered a black van parked ahead. As I drew level the door slid open, and before I could look, I got a crack to the side of my head.

Blackness.

When I came to, the first realisation was the intense pain behind my eyes. I was sitting in a hard chair but not restrained. I was in some type of basement, seated at the end of a long wooden table. Turned my head. Christ, it hurt. Two men in black hoods were behind me. I faced front and saw a man at the opposite end, also seated. Two men behind him, like we were playing poor man’s chess. All were hooded, with holes for eyes, nose, mouth. Their clothing was dark, casual, but suggested a military slant.

The seated man had a bulky upper body, thick wrists, stubby fingers. His hands were joined loosely, relaxed. He said,

“Ah, Jack, let me apologise to you for the manner of your transportation. The blow to your head was professionally administered. You’ll have an ache but nothing serious.”

I found my voice, said,

“That’s a fucking relief.”

He smiled, smoker’s teeth against the hood. I saw two long metal poles behind the standing men, crisscrossed like an emblem. He followed my look, said,

“Pikes.”

I brought my eyes back to him, asked,

“What are ye, paramilitaries?”

He laughed, turned for a moment as if to share the joke with his men, said,

“No, but we are fighting a war.”

I remembered Jeff’s friend, Pat, suspected of molesting the young girl, arrested, released, then savagely mutilated. I said,

“The Pikemen…Jesus, you’re the crowd who near killed Pat Young.”

He nodded, as if bowing to an achievement, and that infuriated me. My voice rose, went,

“Fucking vigilantes.”

And got a crack to the side of the head. He said,

“No obscenities, Jack. If we are to stem the tide of decay, we must apply standards in every sphere of our lives.”

I massaged my head, said,

“And you’ll set the standards, that it?”

The nicotine-stained smile again, then he stood, moved to the metal poles, said,

“Behold the formidable pike. In 1798, during the rebellion, they were easier to use than a musket or bayonet.”

A note of pride and admiration had entered his voice. He continued,

“Pikes were the principal weapon used by the rebels—very effective for the close-in stuff, the man-to-man combat. The original pike was six inches long and spear-shaped. The handle, originally, was about six feet, but we’ve allowed ourselves a little leverage.”

I gave a short laugh now, said,

“It’s not all you’ve allowed yourselves.”

Anger sparked in his eyes, and I could gather he didn’t like interruption. Here was a guy accustomed to lecturing while others listened. He gave a brief cough and I could hear the wheezing in his chest; he’d been, or still was, a heavy smoker.

V
ICIOUS
C
IRCLE

“He likes a drink
And that’s to understate
What is, in fact
The whole of life for him.”

Gerard Hanberry: from
Rough Night

The guy moved to the wall, tenderly took down one of the pikes
,
ran his fingers along the top, said,

“Later on, a hook was added to the side of the pike head. Apart from anything else, it could be used to sever the reins of the horses to dismount the rider.”