So, six months late, I went to see my foster-folks.
Matt and Mamie had been my foster-folks. They sounded like a nineteen-fifties novelty act. And that, after a fashion, was what they were.
Matt and Mamie had fostered me when I was fifteen. When all the bad stuff happened with my real folks, the cops and the social workers had nabbed me. After a few weeks of courtrooms and hostels, they dragged me over to Matt and Mamie's house.
Years later, they'd told me what a wolf-boy I was when I arrived. I was violent, withdrawn, the usual stuff. The various arms of all the state services had recommended institutional care but some optimist, some humanist, had thought I was recognizably human. That was the someone who had thought of Matt and Mamie.
They didn't need to remind me. I'd never forgotten the first day I went to them.They lived on the Antrim Road then.They weren't solidly their home, their belongings were unimaginable to me. After I had mutinously fielded an evening of solicitous non-enquiry from them, they showed me my bedroom.
It had all been so bad, my childhood, my youth, it had all been so I'd seen it all through like a hardwood cowboy. Nothing had finally hurt me beyond endurance and, for all the damage I'd taken, I was still standing. But that night I cried, I wept to die. I sobbed silently until my head was hot and bursting and my nose ran like twin taps.
And it was only because of the coverlet on my bed. Mamie had laid a green embroidered coverlet on my bed. I had no idea what it was made of but it was heavy and felt like prosperity itself. It was only a piece of material but it was too much for me, that coverlet. I had never seen such green. I couldn't really understand that this woman I didn't know would have put this thing across the bed for my comfort, for my pleasure. I rubbed my hot, snotty face in it and slept in my clothes.
Later, I decided that it was no big deal. I decided that it was only bed-linen. Later still, I changed my mind. Perhaps green coverlets are not profound things but I think it made me understand something of what I might have there'd been nobody around to love me like they should.
I lived with Mamie and Matt for a couple of years. By the number of grateful men of various ages who called on them, I soon guessed that Matt and Mamie had done the foster thing before. I was right. They had had no children and had made up for it by fostering the kids nobody would touch. That basically meant males over fourteen. They'd had some shockers: delinquents, hardmen, wide-boys and paramilitaries of every description. Only one had turned out bad. He was dead already, shot by his own side in some Republican feud.
We kids had stolen from them, cheated them and assaulted kid had even come home one night with a UVF gun with which he was going to kneecap Matt, but Matt and Mamie had continued loving them all, absolutely and unconditionally. Eventually these wide-boys, these halfmen just had to learn that language.
Matt and Mamie had stopped fostering now. Or rather they'd been stopped. They were too old. They'd been retired from the caring business. But they'd done their bit. Seventeen kids had passed through their hands from 1964 onwards. Mamie always talked proudly of having the biggest family in the city. Some of these guys were in their forties. They were lawyers, doctors, builders; they were husbands and fathers.
Matt and Mamie had fostered generations of the city's scum and persistently and without reward made human beings out of them.
Matt and Mamie were weird.
Matt and Mamie had been leaving messages on my machine for months. I hadn't called back. I'd only ignored them because I'd known what they'd wanted. I hadn't seen them since Sarah had gone.
They were both in their sixties now, living in a big house out on the Shore Road. It was in the general area where I'd been doing my repo work. I'd always been a bit panicky in case I bumped into them, doing that work of which they would so disapprove. Mamie hadn't wanted to move to the Shore Road but Matt had insisted. He had partially maritime fantasies. He'd always wanted to work in the docks. He'd even tried to leave school when he was fifteen. they'd been childhood dissuaded him. He hadn't wanted to listen to her but since he had tried fruitlessly to have sex with her at least once every twenty minutes between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, she had a carrot he couldn't resist. The new house was on the north edge of the bay of the city and Matt liked to walk the coast of Belfast, concrete and crane, the docks thick with the quality of the sea. He liked to dream there.
I rolled up to the house about two. Matt was in the garden, his big back bent over some dwarf hedgerow. I called out to him. He stood up and shielded his eyes with his hand. It was not sunny.
'Good to see you, son.'
I shook his hand. There was some muck there. `Likewise,' I said.
We went inside. Mamie was in the kitchen, cooking something major. Her meals had always been complicated affairs, taking military amounts of time and tasting pretty military in the end. She kissed my cheek with her big cold lips and told me to sit at the table. She went on cooking.
`You've been a stranger,' she said, wiping her brow.
I smiled but nobody was looking at me. `Yeah, well, you know how it goes.'
'I'm not sure I do know how it goes.'
Matt coughed uneasily. `You want a drink, son?'
'I'd drink any coffee that's going.'
Matt busied himself with my request. Mamie turned to face me. `How's Sarah?'
I looked at my fingernails. It felt pretty blithe but I knew it would fool no one. `She's fine.'
`Mmm,' replied Mamie.
A lot of Mamie's conversation had always consisted of indeterminate noises, grunts, mumbles and grumbles, all invested with their own peculiar significance. `Mmm' was not a favourable noise.
But then, having finished with coffee, Matt started his own series of peacemaker noises, coughs, chokes, sneezes. I nearly laughed. This wasn't Foreign Office but nobody could deny its diplomacy.
`I must urinate,' he announced.
He left the room. It looked intentional. It looked like Mamie had something to say to me that Matt didn't want to hear.
`You look thin,' said Mamie.
`I haven't been eating your concrete casseroles for near a year.
She took a swipe at me with one floury hand. `You should call us more.'
`Yeah, I'm sorry. I will, I promise.'
She stopped what she was doing and stood facing me with her arms folded. `She's gone, hasn't she?'
'Who?'
'Sarah'
Matt and Mamie didn't like me to smoke but I lit a cigarette anyhow.
'Yes. She's gone.'
Matt and Mamie had been big Sarah fans. They had dug her. To Matt and Mamie, Sarah had been a good thing, she'd been the only good thing. Mamie knew my news already so she didn't freak but she gave me one of her old-woman looks. It was one of the things I'd noticed about Sarah going. Everybody thought it had been my decision. They were wrong. I hadn't packed any bags. But that stuff, all that stuff, it just took too long to explain.
'Who's for dinner?' I asked.
Mamie didn't mind the subject change but she blushed for me. John and Patrick are coming special.'
John and Patrick were the first and second of Matt and Mamie's fosterings.They were both in their late forties. She was always ill-at-ease when she split her affections like this. I'd made her feel bad that I wasn't getting my feet under her table that night. She needn't have worried. I was OK. Mamie's cooking was dreadful. She had to take the day off to make an omelette. John and Patrick were welcome to it.
'I'd have asked you but you were being all
I put my arms around her old shoulders. I put my lips to her old cheek.'Yeah, yeah,' I said.'Tell it to the marines.'
Matt came back. He stood awkwardly, empty-handed, semaphoric. 'Can we help?' he said uncertainly. He looked at Mamie. She shook her head. He smiled in relief. 'I was going to take a turn outside. Do you want to come with me?'
I looked at Mamie. She turned back to her mixing bowls.
'Yeah, sure,' I said.'Why not?'
Matt and I walke
d for an hour. We went right down as close to the docks as we could. Matt stood on the lip of the land and sniffed. He looked out at all the Belfast fish in all the Belfast sea. He was happy there, some docker's fantasy coursing through his old blood. There never was a more inappropriate lawyer. Matt should have been a stevedore, he should have been a longshoreman, he should have been a contender.
Matt wiped some imaginary sweat from his brow. He turned to me and smiled his favourite John Wayne smile. Matt's version was inaccurately humane and generous. `We know about Sarah.!
I sighed patiently. `Yeah, Mamie told me,' I said.
'I thought so: He threw a stone into the water. The plop was loud. `She came to see us before she left.!
My heart went all hot. `Yeah?'
'She wasn't very happy.'
I picked up a pebble. It was my turn to throw a stone. `Well, Matt. She was the one pushing all the buttons. She was the one with all the choices' I threw the stone. I missed and it landed in a bush. The entire sea to aim at and I fucking missed.
Matt put his hand on my shoulder. `We were worried when you didn't call,' he said.
`I'm sorry. There were lots of things I didn't want to talk about.!
He smiled. `Was it bad?'
'It wasn't good, Matt.!
`No.'
'What happened to you two? It was so great between you.'
A pair of vulgar gulls wheeled low like jets, screeching.
I had an opportunity then. If I'd told him about the secret abortion, they might have stopped flying her flag so much. Mamie, the disappointed mother, would have been particularly outraged. It had always been so hard for me to resist the lure of cheap sympathy.
`Why did she leave?' Matt asked again.
`Well, Matt, you know to live without'
The old man's eyes were harsh as he followed the flight of the gulls but his mouth was pursed in admiration for their faded beauty. `You're not funny every time, Jake,' he said.
I kicked some gravel. Jesus, Matt, every time? I'm not even funny most of the time.'
`You don't want to talk about it?'
'Matt, this is disturbingly perceptive of you.' I laughed. I changed the subject to one he could never resist.'Hey, Manmie's looking well.'
Matt gurgled with delight.'Yeah' His eyes glittered.'She's still a fine-looking woman.'
Mamie looked her age but Matt could never see it so. He was hilariously uxorious. Forty years on and still he could barely contain his lust for her. Matt could never believe that his wife was sixty. He still saw the twenty-two-year-old he'd married. He reminded me of Pierre Bonnard. Bonnard painted his wife for fifty years, standing in the bath, lying buff on the rug. At seventy he still painted her like she was nineteen. I'd always had a thing about soppy old guys. It was an ambition of mine. One day, I thought, I might just end up some soppy old guy.
`I hope I die before she gets old.' He laughed.
'You're barking, Matt.'
He kicked a stone into the oily water.'Yeah, but I'm happy that way.'
We walked on. In the distance we could see the jutting hulk of old Grosvenor Wharf with its mile-long warehouses. It was desolate now. The thousands who had worked there worked there no longer. Yet this sight always put Matt in a good mood. He was a lawyer. No one he knew had lost any jobs there. I hoped it would stop him talking about Sarah. I didn't need any reminding.
Back indoors, Mamie had progressed no further with the meal she was preparing. Her face was smudged with the disturbing brown of some nameless gravy and a truly astonishing smell was leaking from the oven.
' 'What's with the whiff? Smells delish.'
This was Matt's attempt at cajolerie. I wouldn't have risked it.
Jake?' asked Mamie.
She straightened from the job and looked at me. I hated it when she asked me that. Jake? It always meant that there was trouble coming. There was something squeaky and interrogative in the way Mamie sometimes said my name.
`Yes?'
`Do you know a couple called Johnson?'
I should have remembered. I should have thought. Typically, Mamie did a form of community visiting around that area. Not content with letting a whole lot of unfortunates come and live in her house, she had to go and be nice to a lot of others whom she couldn't actually house. I should've guessed that she'd have run into the Johnsons. The best thing to do, of course, was to confess.
`Never heard of them,' I replied vacantly.
`That's strange:
`Why?'
Matt coughed placidly. Mamie ignored him. `They live in Rathcoole. She's sick and he's not working. Ring any bells?'
In my confusion, I even dipped my finger in one of Mamie's sauces and tasted it. I had to be very nervous to do something like that.
`Don't think so.' I choked.
`They tell a strange story.'
`Yeah?'
Mamie looked hard at me. She stopped smiling. `You haven't been going around buying beds, have you, Jake?'
`I've already got a bed, Mamie.'
Matt coughed and chuffed a bit. He smiled a big nervous smile and spoke to Mamie. `Jake says he's got to go now, sweetheart.'
Mamie ignored him. `What are you working at now?' she asked.
I told her I was a brickie again. She asked to see my hands. I gave them to her. She inspected them minutely and then grunted half in satisfaction, half in disappointment. It was humiliating but it deserved to be.
'What happened to your face?' It was worse because she hadn't mentioned it before. She knew that.
'I was moving some furniture!
She almost smiled.
'Stay out of trouble,' she said.
`That would be nice,' I replied sincerely.
That was the problem with Matt and Mamie. Their world was a loving world, a decent world. They couldn't understand shabbiness or harm. They had no imagination.
That night I met the boys. Sloane, Deasely and the others. What with Chuckle gone, it was hard to drink the way we were used to. After a couple, we all got depressed. Slat suggested that we eat. Slat had always had vaguely civilized pretensions. We went to a cafe. We dined. We didn't drink much. We talked. It was very strange.
I went home almost happy. On the wall by the police station on Poetry Street, someone had written two or three more OTCs. The new lettering was even more plump and prosperous than before. Enigmatic fuckers.
When I opened the front door, my cat came bounding out. In my new mood of goodwill, I bent to stroke him, to bond, to spend quality time. He just shot out past me and dived into the garden for a piss. Fucking cat. I wished he'd grow some new balls so I could cut them off again.
But he'd made the right decision. It wasn't an interior night. I didn't go in. I just sat on my doorstep and thought my way through my day.
There had been one pleasant interlude. A man from Amnesty International had called me. I told him he must have had the wrong number but he told me that it was me he wanted. Amnesty had set up an international commission on human rights violations in Northern Ireland. He was responsible for police brutality. My name had been mentioned to him in connection with an incident of police violence. He wondered if I would like to talk to him about my ordeal, in strict confidence.
Then I worked it out. I asked him if he knew any girls who had names that sounded like chest complaints. Yup, it was the delightful Aoirghe's work. I sorted him out. I told him it hadn't exactly been official police business. He asked me if I thought official police business could include beating up the citizenry on their doorsteps. I lost it then. I didn't like this guy vibing me for not being radical enough about being creamed by a cop. That I considered de trop. So, naturally enough, I told him to go fuck himself sideways.
I called Chuckle's number. I got his mum. Chuckie was nowhere to be found. Peggy found Max's number for me anyway but then I couldn't get her off the phone. Peggy was keen to talk. She was worried. I'd never known her so garrulous, so I listened up. She said that something was wrong, that Chuckie wa
s acting weird.Where have you been? I thought. I calmed her down, I reassured her. Jesus, I think I told her something like Chuckle's a unique individual after all. Only a mother would have listened to toss like that. Chuckie had told me that sometimes his mother made him strangely uneasy. Sometimes I knew what he meant.
I called Max's number. I got the answering machine. I left a message for Aoirghe, telling her that I would eschew her participation in my private life. Not quite in those words. I think I was adamant. It had been her voice on the answering machine message. That had helped.
Out on my doorstep, the night sounded like an old record that crackled and hissed. Cars swished by as regular as a second hand. Helicopters droned high in dull Zs. A woman laughed distantly like some urgent bird. Far across the city (Wicked West), a series of dry impacts that may or may not have been automatic gunfire erupted and subsided.
Chuckle Lurgan had the most imprecise notions of what the Augustan age might have been, but in the moment that his hand first met the warns flesh of Max's breasts, he had felt more than Palladian. And, as she kissed his eyes and pushed him back and down on her own sofa, Chuckle's mind was filled with columns: the ardent one that had filled his trousers for the previous half-hour and the double set of credits that ranged on the internalized screen of his greed.
Her brassiere snapped and dropped and she seemed to expand under his hands. At three o'clock that afternoon, after two hours of vague talk and big-teeth smiles, the Ulster Development Board had awarded him a start-up grant of seventy-five thousand pounds. She ran her hands under and between the flaps of his open shirt. His skin began to feel like liquid under her touch (he was so chubby these days his skin would have felt liquid under most people's touch). End of the week he'd have one hundred and ninety thousand pounds in the bank. He hoped his dreams wouldn't suffer from all this reality.
He was distracted by the spectacle of Max shrugging off her skirt without the use of her hands.That was good. Slat had told him he had no chance but the UDB said that his business plan was one of the most imaginative that they had seen. Slat's problem was his unprofitable adherence to logic. Her dynamic pants round her ankles, Max stood in front of him. Chuckie's attention, that wavering, troubled thing, centred and fixed.