It was the greatest feeling in the world thinking it all through for myself that way and as I wiped my mouth with the napkin, I looked right over at her and smiled.
‘Cora,’ I said, ‘I could have eaten that dinner and ten more like it.’
‘My, but you’re in good humour today, Larry,’ she smiled as she removed the plate, ‘it’s not often you say that to me.’
‘I guess it isn’t,’ I said, ‘not that it would make a lotta difference either way for most likely you’d be too hopped out of your head to hear it anyway.’ The words were outa my mouth before I knew it – I coulda cheered, goddamit!
‘What?’ she responded, in, of course – mock-dramatic tones!
‘Oh, come now, Cora,’ I said, before she got a chance to get into her stride, ‘there’s no need for all that!’
Her trembling hand stroked her throat as I continued.
‘You might be good at making dinners but when it comes to acting – well, you might be good! But you’re not that good! Not that good at all, babe!’
‘What . . .’ she began, twisting a corner of her apron, ‘what on earth are you talking about?’
I spread my legs on the chair and faced her squarely, stabbing the air uncompromisingly – I had come so far, now I was prepared to go all the way – with my rock-steady forefinger.
‘You know what your problem was, baby? You want to know what you did wrong? You got careless, honey! Started flying so high you thought you were so far up no one could touch you! One too many reefers, I guess! Thought Mutthead wouldn’t notice? Well, you were wrong, Cora Myers! Way wrong!’
‘Wrong about what?’ she said – them blue eyes beginning to fill up now! – still keeping up her Little Miss Lost-in-the-forest act. ‘Larry – what is wrong with you? How long were you in Louie’s? Larry – for God’s sake! What are you talking about? What is wrong with you?’
I stood up and ran my hands through my thickly Brylcreemed hair. I sighed and looked down at the toes of my brogues. I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe she was going to go through with it to the bitter end.
‘Wrong?’ I said, as I yanked her to me. ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong! Wrong is two little babies sleeping upstairs while their mother sneaks out to some godforsaken sleazehole to feed her habit; wrong is popping Quaaludes and shovelling gin like it’s going out of fashion! Wrong is clinging silk and red lips pouted for kissing! Sax players and brown bosoms throbbing with love! Wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong! Not giving a damn about the things that keep you straight in this world – the things you’re supposed to care about! That’s what wrong is – two babies with a mother who’s a hopped-up swimsuit model in some squalid pit of sexual depravity!’
There were tears in her eyes now, so many she could have washed the floor with them right there and then.
‘But Larry!’ she cried, she implored, fixing me with them big blue eyes – the old turn-him-to-mush trick! ‘We don’t have any kids! We can’t have – because of . . . you know why, Larry!’
She broke off and turned away, thrusting her knuckles into her mouth. I flung the chair aside and spun her around.
‘Go on then, say it!’ I challenged her. ‘Why? Because I don’t have enough to stick a stamp! Ain’t that right, Cora?’
‘No!’ she brazenly lied, ‘it’s not true, Larry!’
‘Not true, huh?’ I laughed, for what else could I do now that it was all out in the open and I saw what had been behind that beautiful mask all along? Strange thing was, I felt like a million dollars.
‘So – tell us, Cora! What are they like? These guys you’ve been hanging out with? These drummer friends of yours, huh? These – ha! – horn players!’
‘Horn players? Drummers? What are you talking about? Oh God! Oh God!’
‘I gotta hand it to you, Cora! You sure had me fooled! Hell, only for Walter you probably still would have! But now, well, I guess it doesn’t matter any more!’
I lit a cigarette and looked at her through the winding smoke.
‘I’m leaving you, Cora! And I’m taking the kids with me! I’m sorry, Cora – but it’s goodbye!’
Well, boy was I hot – flushed and out of sorts when I’d said my little piece, so I guess you can imagine how I felt when my little honey pie began to laugh. What could I do but shake my head? I just stood there and stared at her as she laughed her pretty little head right off, thinking to myself just how crazy, when you get down to it, this old world really is.
‘Larry,’ she cried, throwing her arms around my neck, ‘you’re joking, of course! That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? The whole thing is a silly joke! And there I was – taking it all so seriously! Phew!’
Funny thing is, in a strange kinda way I wish it had been like that. To have been able to say to her: ‘Of course I’m joking, Cora, hon! Joking because you are the sweetest creature a guy has ever had the good fortune to hold in his arms – chiselled features, blonde hair and blue eyes, curves in all the right places. Hell – what more could a man want?’
Yep, Cora Myers was a beautiful woman all right – sweetest doll you ever set your eyes on.
But for every silver fox, lounge lizard and lowdown jazz rat in town, not Larry Bunyan.
*
The dumbest thing of all was, when I told Walter the whole story he starts going all kinda funny – like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about or something! But then, I guess that’s old Walter, ain’t it – he’s just that kinda guy. Even down to saying he’s never heard of any place called the Go-Go Lounge!
I guess he reckons now it’s all over it’s just time to forget – just like with the ink that day it all started.
And sometimes when I see him smile – when I’m passing him a file maybe, or asking for a paper clip – I can read his thoughts just about as loud and clear as if they were my own: ‘There he is – my buddy Larry Bunyan! The man who wouldn’t take it any more!’
Or when we’re sitting in Louie’s maybe, his eyes twinkling as he chews on what’s left of his waffles, looking over at me with a broad smile that sends out a simple message: ‘They said he hadn’t enough to stick a stamp – they were wrong!’
Like he does every day when we leave on the dot of one thirty, crossing the square as I put my arm around his shoulders and give him the lowdown on Cora the day she realized once and for all that I was on to her. My own best buddy – the guy I have to thank for everything! – staring at me with big wide eyes – almost as big as my ex-wife’s, I swear! – as he hoarsely repeats (you wanna hear him!): ‘Hee hee! Sure she did! Sure, Larry, old pal! Oh but yes! Of course!’ climbing the stairs to our office where our names inscribed in regal gold wait to greet us, through the open window then his giddy laughter pouring out into the square whilst I – to all intents and purposes a bachelor now, of course! – uncork the bourbon and, carefree as any goddam bird, pace the office floor and begin my story anew, Walter’s eyebrows leaping as he rubs his hands and chuckles, helpless tears like small rivers coming rolling down his pink and flaking cheeks.
The Bursted Priest
Of all the boys in Barntrosna, Declan Coyningham was definitely the holiest. This was why all the other boys picked on him, of course. Because they were jealous. They couldn’t bear to see him walk to church every morning with his missal and rosary beads tucked under his arm. They hated it, in fact, and were often to be heard saying to each other: ‘I wouldn’t mind ripping that missal to bits. I wonder how our friend Mr Coyningham would like that!’ Declan knew they were saying bad things about him. But he forgave them. Forgave them, and did so because he knew in his heart of hearts that they didn’t mean it. He often wondered if they had been born somewhere else would they have become prime ministers or rocket scientists. He felt they would. Sadly, however, they weren’t born somewhere else – they were born in the Back Terrace, Barntrosna, and once that happened, your chances of becoming prime minister were slim indeed. And no one knew it better than them. Which only resulted in a deepeni
ng of their hatred for Declan. They could not accept that just because he was born in a big house with a garden, he could go around the town thinking he was ‘all the big fellow’, as Toots Agnew sourly put it. Toots, however, had misinterpreted Declan’s demeanour. Which found its genesis not in any notion of superiority, but in a desire to do good by his fellow townspeople; particularly those who lived in the Backs.
Late at night – when he was a boy – he would often lie awake in bed, dreaming of that glorious day when he would return to the town as a fully-fledged clergyman; cruise proudly through the bannered streets in an open-topped bus on the side of which bright painted colours ecstatically enthused WELCOME HOME FR DECLAN!, tears of joy filling his eyes as he recognized each face from his childhood, his heart swelling with pride as he saw his old classmates waving and crying triumphantly: ‘Hooray for our pal Declan! For this day he has made Barntrosna a happy place!’ He would ponder, too, on his mother, who for many long days and nights had selflessly toiled at her knitting machine, waiting patiently for this day which, many times, she must surely have thought would never arrive. And now it had! How many times had he swooned as he thought of her radiant in her green coat and hat, giving him a little wave from the front pew as he knelt down before the Monsignor who was to perform the ceremony. The Monsignor who would be a good friend to Declan throughout his seven long years in Maynooth College. And who, when they had both finished their spiritual reading, would play football with him up against the gable end of the college, or perhaps accompany him to the games room for a spot of well-earned table tennis.
Declan would smile as he thought of those days which, of course, were yet to come. He saw himself scoring a goal and the Monsignor going mad! So furious Declan thought he was going to hit him! ‘It hit the post!’ he could hear the older man of the cloth shouting, when it was plain for all to see that it simply had not! But in the end, they would, he knew, settle with penalties and all would be well again. Then it would be off with them around the walk (‘This gravelled circle of contemplation,’ his colleague called it) to discuss the latest gossip in The Catholic Times or the Monsignor’s forthcoming article in Far East.
They say that in the seminary you form friendships which endure for life. That between men, a bond of affection can develop which becomes indissoluble. Of two men, this was most certainly destined to be true – Declan Coyningham and Monsignor Pacelli Harskins.
Testimony to this would be the fact that for years afterwards Fr Declan would descend the stairs – or he would if things were not, tragically, to prove otherwise – to find awaiting him on the front door mat a familiar sight – a small white rectangle of paper – and, secreted inside it, familiar words which no matter how often he read them would never cease to gladden his heart: ‘Harskins here! How’s tricks?’ And there Fr Declan would stand – years into the future – with the letter in his hand, almost as if in another world, catching up on all the latest sca (which was to be their own private pet name for scandal) in Maynooth, whilst Mrs O’Sull (as she would affectionately be known – her name in its entirety being O’Sullivan) tugged repeatedly at his elbow. Rubbing his hands and smiling away then as he seated himself at the table, then excitedly exclaiming with a twinkle in his eye, ‘Ready for action when you are, Mrs O’Sull!’ and launching himself into a fierce attack on his sizzling plate of rashers and eggs.
Which would, of course, please his housekeeper no end. Because she would know Declan in his youth had been a very weak boy. Had, in particular, a tendency towards colds, the reason his mother knitted him a grey balaclava with matching tasseled woollen scarf, and which she had persuaded his teacher Master Petey to allow him wear for the duration of the school day. Initially, the master – perhaps understandably – had displayed some reluctance. ‘As a rule, Mrs Coyningham, you see,’ he said, ‘the boys are not permitted to wear headgear of any kind in the classroom. It wouldn’t be, generally speaking, school policy.’ In the end, however, as he knew the family well, particularly old Jack Coyningham, who had been a well-known character and raconteur about the local pubs before he was killed in a buckrake accident (having been perforated), he agreed to make an exception in this instance.
So it is self-evident that Declan was not a strong boy; and also irrefutable that he had a tendency to pick up colds of an often quite distressing severity. But whether or not exercising what might be termed ‘the balaclava option’ was ultimately a wise course of action, considering what later transpired, must remain for ever open to conjecture.
For it was around this time that Declan’s air of ‘apartness’, that preoccupied sense of purpose mingled with sanctity that seems the lot of those destined for the religious life, began to manifest itself quite clearly. The manner in which he now carried himself, each step carefully measured with almost obsessive exactitude, as if engaged in some private and intensely personal march for Jesus, and, beneath his balaclava, his eyes transfixed by a miraculous image located, it appeared, somewhere directly in front of him. It was as if from him there seemed to shine, as if in some other-worldly Weetabix advertisement, a light of breathtaking clarity. A light that triumphantly declared: ‘I am Declan Coyningham. That is my name. And it is my duty to become a priest and save souls in my home town of Barntrosna.’
An assertion which was undeniable; the evidence was there, all around if you cared to look for it – manifested in the softness of his hands; the supple leather of the shoes lovingly polished by his mother every morning; the little miraculous medal pinned to the white cotton of his vest.
The inevitability of Declan’s devoting his life to the service of Christ was accepted at a very early stage by the people of the town. Who, in the main, were quite proud that this was the case. After all, there hadn’t been a priest ordained in Barntrosna for over ten years, ever since Fr Sean Chisleworth of Turbot Avenue and that seemed like generations ago now. ‘We could be doing with another priest,’ the parishioners would often remark, ‘and sure wouldn’t it be great for Mrs Coyningham? I think she has her heart set on it, God love her.’
Which was indeed true. Ever since Jack (RIP) and herself had done pooley (which had been their private name for the love act), she had known Declan was destined to take holy orders. If you had asked her: ‘But how – can you explain to us, Mrs Coyningham? – how could you possibly have known that? At such an early stage, I mean?’ she wouldn’t have been able to tell you. Not in concise, empirical language, at any rate. She would just feel her stomach and give you that look, that queer look that seemed to say: ‘I can’t rightly say. I just knew, that’s all.’
When Declan made his first communion, she thought she was going to have to be carried out, collapsing from what she could only think of as a surfeit of almost unbearable pride. ‘Oh, if only Jack was here now,’ she sniffled into a Kleenex tissue provided by her sister Winnie (Mrs Alfie Baird of Main Street), adding: ‘He’d be the proudest man in the town, God rest his soul!’
‘Maybe he’s watching from heaven,’ soothed Winnie, trying not to think of the remains of what had once been her brother-in-law (for it was her who had come upon what seemed a discarded haybag beneath the buckrake on that fateful day). ‘Maybe he is,’ sniffled Mrs Coyningham as her son Declan appeared out of nowhere, like an angel dropped from heaven, in his beautifully pressed new suit and carrying the polished, zippered missal with its glittering binding of gold which had been a present from his Aunty Gertie. ‘My holy boy!’ cried both women at once and descended upon him in a flurry of rattling pearls and spontaneously levitating clouds of powder.
Perhaps if Mrs Coyningham had not insisted quite so forcefully on his daily wearing of the balaclava and knitted scarf, events might have taken a slightly different turn. And Fr Declan might still be happily ministering away in the town of Barntrosna, instead of his soul being an infinitesimal speck circling the cosmos, pitifully crying out for someone to direct it homeward.
At religious retreats down the years, a story that has been related with great freq
uency concerns an artist commissioned by the Church authorities to paint both the image of transcendent goodness and beauty and that of the most unimaginable wickedness. And who, having had the former delivered to him – the luminous, unblemished visage of a young boy – duly completed his task and set off upon his journey to locate its obverse, a badness so foul and repellent no words could ever begin to adequately describe it. Thirty years he spent upon his quest, only to discover that the black-socketed, wild-haired creature he had chosen as the most authentic representation of evil proved to be none other than that very selfsame young boy he had painted all those years before, now corrupted beyond belief, by this egregious world and all its myriad depravities.
The despair of the crushed painter knew no bounds. As did that of the people of Barntrosna, who now found themselves encountering what had once been Declan Coyningham. What words could they even begin to utter as they gazed upon his hideous figure, for all the world an animated scarecrow as it flailed about the streets on splayed legs with a bottle of methylated spirits held aloft, scornfully gloating: ‘Thomas Aquinas! The two ends of a dog’s bollocks!’ and ‘I’ll give you informed conscience, you gimpy-looking hoor and that fucker along with you! You hear me?’
*
‘NO!’ cried the real Declan Coyningham as he shot up now in his bed, beads of perspiration the size of table tennis balls pinging off the wall opposite. For it had – God be praised! – all been but a dream! Declan sighed with immense relief and flung himself upon his knees in thanksgiving. But his relief was premature. For much worse was yet to come – and in reality.