Chuckie gulped hotly, too ashamed to be angry. `Yes,' he squeaked, like a schoolboy.
To his horror, the Englishman fell to his knees in the middle of the restaurant. There were tears in his eyes. He raised his hand in supplication. Dishes clattered to the floor. Other diners looked round sharply.
`Mr Lurgan,' gasped the stricken man, `you are a genius, a master. Let me follow you.'
Chuckie helped him to his feet.
Luke Findlater would accept nothing other than full employment from Chuckie. He wanted to give up all his other interests and devote himself entirely to Chuckie's projects.The honour of having his ludicrous pipe-dreams called projects thrilled Chuckie but he was anxious. Historically unadmired, Chuckie was deeply unaccustomed to making such a favourable impression on anyone. He felt the unease of the plain man approached by a beautiful woman. Which of his friends had put her up to it? Was she a working girl? Was it a bet?
Within a week, they had offices. Chuckie moved his fax machine out of his mother's scullery They had a secretary, a girl from Enniskillen chosen by Luke for her competence and her lack of beauty. They were writing proposals, making contacts and generating documents in a manner that satisfied and mystified Chuckie to an equal degree.
That weekend, he and Luke had what the Englishman persisted in describing as brainstorming sessions.This seemed both strenuous and most unproletarian to Chuckie. They spent the entirety of Saturday and most of Sunday morning sitting in their offices staring guiltily at each other across an unstrewn desk. Chuckie was growing mutinous by Sunday lunchtime when Luke was struck with an idea.
He took Chuckie to the Ashley bar and got him hammered. The Ashley was a dreadful, dank, unreconstructed Loyalist bar. Many of the men who drank there had done time for chasing, beating, baiting, or just killing the Catholics of the city. There was a poster for the ANC over the bar. With its freedomfighting connotations and left-wing associations, this had puzzled Luke until one of the more cosmopolitan drinkers informed him that the poster was there because of an unshakeable belief amongst the regulars that ANC stood for Absolutely No Catholics. This seemed just the place to Luke. He proceeded to inebriate Chuckie as quickly as he could.
He was right.The combination of witlessness and the milieu of primordial Protestant ignorance induced Chuckie to fantasize wildly and to ramble around the grimy bar telling his hairy-knuckled confederates all his plans for making a million. Luke followed him round, notebook in hand, keeping him out of the worst of the brawls and carefully annotating every use less boozy aphorism.
Within the next week, this eccentric planning session had borne fruit. Chuckie, only truly recovered from his hangover by Thursday afternoon, found to his bewilderment that his company was already heavily engaged in several ventures. Capital had been committed, people hired, money moved.
They had broken into the Irishness business. They were engaged to import half-wool Aran sweaters, made by slaveworkers in Romania. By sticking a Made in Ireland label on them and shipping them to New York and Boston, they would make a fortune. They had already bought out a small mineralwater supplier in Kansas; they had contracted to ship the water to East Coast restaurants and wine bars. The shipments stopped off in Philadelphia where they were decorated with the legend IRISH WATER and a picture of an Irish brook. They couldn't afford the water company but, by the time they had to pay for their purchase, the profits for the half-wool Arans would have it covered.
Most eccentrically, and Luke had swallowed hard before he had carried out this one, they had gone into the ethnic accessory business. He had hired cohorts of small boys from around Chuckie's street. He had sent them to the foot of the hills to pick up twigs for which they would be paid a pound for every hundred. The kids thought he was a looper but went to it with a will. Fifteen thousand twigs arrived in the first day. He gave a furniture restorer three hundred pounds to dip them all in a varnish vat and by Wednesday had persuaded an American importer of miscellaneous luxury items to take ten thousand genuine Irish leprechaun walking sticks (RRP $9.99) off his hands for four bucks a go. They had forty thousand dollars by Thursday. Sale or return, but who would bother?
Luke had already started investigating the possibility of setting up some small utility companies, one in New Jersey to be called Irish Electric and perhaps a gas company in Massachusetts called Irish Gas. The office was full of papers, monstrous piles and bulging files. He had set up different diversification headings: Agribusiness, Finance, Industry, Service Sector. They were expanding like the yawn of a lunatic octopus. It was all nmad, all impossible.
Chuckie had to lie down.
I lit another cigarette and groaned. I was breaking my fast at Rab's Rotten swear it was called early bacon and eggs joint near Sandy Row. This was one of the places that had made Chuckie what he was so it may have been a poor idea. It was only eight in the morning. A morning when I'd already had a bad breakfast of poached eggs and smoked the cafe blue, while the booze of the night before flattened down in my gut and I felt a year's worth of regret.
I'd had the piss scared out of me when I woke that morning. Two plain-clothes cops had made a seven o'clock call at my house. They'd only come to interview me about the newspaper reports that I'd been beaten up by a cop. I made them no coffee and gave them no help.They'd only called so early to annoy me. I stood at my door and told them I didn't know how the newspaper story had happened and that none of it was true. I didn't particularly want to get Mary's boyfriend into trouble but I did it mostly because I knew it would annoy Aoirghe.
`A delegation of bereaved relatives met the just Us party today to request that the IRA reveal to them the sites of the graves of their murdered relatives, officially termed missing. It is suspected that as many as twenty-five bodies he buried under various building sites and housing estates in West Belfast. Just Us said that they had no control or responsibility in IRA actions'
'Hey, Rab, turn that off, will ya?' I called out.
Itab, an obese and hairy man with the most ill-executed tattoos I'd ever seen, called back grumpily,'I)oes your dick reach your arse?'
'What?'
'Does your dick reach your arse?' he repeated patiently.
'Why?' I asked nervously.
He glared.
'Because if it does, it'll be easier for you to go and fuck yourself.'
'Thanks. That's nice.'
The fat fuck went back to cooking his horrible meals. I looked around the other breakfasters. A motley crew of four or five, none seemed at all put out by Rab's customer relations. They were used to it. He was no maitre d'.
I paid up and went to work.
At lunchtime, we all went out onto the roof of the hotel. So long in dark indoors, we blinked and winced at the light. We'd been cleaning out one of the big kitchens before retiling. My colleagues and I were greasy from our work; our clothes were covered in smears of industrial cleaner and adhesive scraps of dead food.
My workmates sat or lay down, they lit their cigarettes, they opened their newspapers and their lunchboxes. An eggy smell lingered briefly in the open air. Ronnie Clay, of the famously flesh feet, threw me an apple in an uncharacteristically munificent gesture. I bit into it and walked away from the indolent others to the edge of the roof. From seven hundred feet up, I looked out across the city, towards the lough. The water in the bay glittered with tiny crests.
It wasn't a dream come true, this job. I wasn't the manual type. I was educated way beyond my station. I looked at my hands. They were already chapped and grotesquely scarred from their work. I'd never liked tiling. I had to get another job.
But I loved this roof. It was the only good thing about working there. Failure always has some upside. The hotel was one of the tallest buildings in this flat, flat town and I could see all Belfast from up there. I could see the City Hospital like a biscuit box with orange trim. I could see the bruised, carious Falls. I could see the breezeblock rubble and trubble of Rathcoole, fat and ominous in the thinned distance. I could even see the Holy Land. I could
see all the police stations, I could see all the Army forts, I could see all the helicopters. But, from up there, the streets smelled sweet and Belfast was made of cardboard in the mild and cooling air.
And, besides, any kind of work was better than kicking arse for Marty Allen. I'd had a call from him, asking me if I'd changed my mind. He told me he might give me my old job back if I had. It was easy to refuse. He asked me what big-deal employment I had now. I told him I was working in a bank. He told me I was humping bricks down the Europa. He knew everything, Allen, I'd forgotten that. I said goodbye. He said that Crab and Hally had been asking for me. I'd told him they couldn't have me and hung up.
Crab and Hally had been up to their old tricks again. I'd had lots of dark wide-boy abuse on my answering machine. I could tell that it was mostly Crab but Hally had left one or two messages. It was simple vituperation and threats but it still sounded like they'd had to write it down on their sleeves to remind them.
A couple of days before, I'd found a jiffy bag full of shit in my letterbox and the legend `Taigs will dy!' chalked on my front door. They were extending their range. I was sure it was taxing them heavily.
There was trouble coming, I knew, but I would deal with it some other time. I was just going to do my work and fail to get laid.
`Don't do it. Don't jump! Life can be beautiful'
I didn't even turn to acknowledge Ronnie's big joke. I'd been coming up there every day for a week and every time I walked to the edge of the roof Ronnie cracked this joke. Ronnie was a Democratic Unionist. If you hadn't known, you'd have guessed.
They were in a comic mood.They'd been laughing at me for an hour already. I'd asked the site boss for the next day off. I'd hoped that I wouldn't have to say why. I had to say why. They laughed like drains.
The night before, I'd made a promise to Slat. Slat was always busting my balls with his high-grade integrity. A lot of South Belfast's concerned classes had hired a train to go down to Dublin as a protest against all the IRA bombs that had been planted on the Belfast to Dublin line. By all accounts, it was meant to be an emblem of the community's protest against terrorist violence but it sounded like a satchelful of shit to me. Anyway, in his cups, old Slat had been all for this Peace Train. I agreed I'd go along. Chuckie and Max were going. I balked a little when I discovered that it was running in a couple of days - that was, tomorrow when I'd probably be hung over still.
I knew now that I should have been smarter than that but I hated to see Slat sitting there with a faceful of Guinness, telling me what I didn't know about democratic responsibility.
This Peace Train thing was a new development. It had been started by Sam McDuffin, a local celebrity (in the loosest sense). He thought that it was time the intelligentsia of Northern Ireland stood firm against the gunmen. Intelligentsia? McDuffin was some old geek from Sandy Row who did a local radio show about the good old days when the soda farls were hot, the doors were always open and nobody minded if you were a Protestant or a long as you were a Protestant. I wished Slat hadn't goaded me into going to this thing. McDuffin was the last thing I needed.
But at least my esteemed workmates all had a big laugh when they heard I was going to ride the Peace Train. Honestly, such fatalism was most unbecoming. Ronnie said, and I quote, `There'd be peace quick enough if the Army were allowed to go into every Fenian ghetto, guns blazing: I'd always imagined that the Army were allowed to do precisely that. Ronnie didn't know that I was a Catholic. I had told him I was a Methodist from Fivemiletown. He believed me.
I looked across at my lounging co-workers and noticed that little Rajinder was sitting, as always, on his own, the Belfast Asian. Rajinder wasn't quite white, and this was a problem for Ronnie Clay and his pals. The week before, Ronnie had told Rajinder that black people all looked the same to him. Rajinder's smile had been a pale, pale thing. I think he'd heard that one before. It was an ugly moment but, in fairness to Ronnie, I had to admit that black people all looked the same to me as well. But then white people all looked the same to me too. To me, we all looked pretty awful.
We finished up about four. At Ronnie's suggestion, we all headed off to the Bolshevik for a couple of pints. I didn't want to go but it would have been impolitic to refuse. I didn't want to look like a university graduate or a human being or something like that.
The Bolshevik was an old city-centre bar of imperfect design and cleanliness. It had been opened in the early twenties by Ireland's only communist. At first called the October '17, the name was changed to the Lenin, on account of customers continually asking what happened on 17 October. From the Lenin, the name was changed to the Trotsky, the popular during the latter years of the Second World Khrushchev, the Gagarin, the Revolution, swiftly changed at the start of the Troubles, and finally to its present tide. The original owner was long since dead but his descendants held fondly to the tradition of Soviet nomenclature.
Unfortunately, the Bolshevik was commonly dubbed the Bullshit by the citizens and was mostly frequented by reactionary Protestants of the most decided kind. There were no revolutionaries and Rajinder never joined us. Ronnie was always immensely happy in the Bolshevik. He and the other colonists felt that this was their kind of place, their kind of fate.
There was some old chat with my workmates, some old crap. They chided me again for my imminent journey on the Peace Train. They grew serious. They lamented their lot. They talked the talk of Protestant fear and conspiracy. Catholics were moving in everywhere, including across the table from them if they but knew. The Fair Employment Commission was putting them in the workplace. They were then getting enough money to buy property in good Protestant areas where the houses had no shit on the walls. The RUC weren't allowed to shoot them any more and if any good Protestant took a couple of the dirty bastards out, he was, appallingly, sent to prison just as though he'd committed a crime. Bar the tits and the university education, these guys reminded me of Aoirghe. I didn't mention this.
I was, as you'd expect, bored pissless with this. Belfast hatreds were multiple but unvarying. I'd heard them all before, the details and the emphases never changed. You could sing along if you Iiked.These fulminations were faded and dog-eared with age.
The tragedy was that Northern Ireland (Scottish) Protestants thought themselves like the British. Northern Ireland (Irish) Catholics thought themselves like Eireans (proper Irish). The comedy was that any once-strong difference had long melted away and they resembled no one now as much as they resembled each other. The world saw this and mostly wondered, but round these parts folk were blind.
Interestingly enough, hardnien would still routinely and joyfully beat the shit out of Catholics/ Protestants even if those didn't believe in God and had formally left their faith. It was intriguing to wonder what a bigot of one faith could object to in an atheist who was born into another. That was what I liked about Belfast hatred. It was a lumbering hatred that could survive comfortably on the memories of things that never existed in the first place. There was a certain admirable stamina in that.
I sat in the grimy bar and listened to those boys, happy but mistaken in the belief that I was a Protestant. In my early years, I had often hoped that the future would be different. That from out of the dark mists of Ireland's past and present a new breed would arise. The New Irish. When all the old creeds and permutations in people would be contradicted. We would see the Loyalist Catholic. The liberal Protestant. The honest politician. The intelligent poet. But, as I sat and listened to my workmates, I decided I wasn't going to hold my hand in my arse waiting for any Utopia.
The flow of debate was halted when a skinny, grubby kid approached our table with an armful of newspapers. He softly ululated some mysterious phrase which, though it sounded like Oyoyillooiiethkckooiy, we all knew meant, `Would you like to purchase the latest copy of the Belfast Telegraph newspaper?' At least the kid did this quietly as a concession to being indoors. Out on the streets his (sometimes extremely mature) colleagues belted out these Nordic challenges with some
gusto.
Nobody wanted a newspaper so Ronnie told the kid he had no sale. The kid stood where he was, wiped his nose with his sleeve and said: `All right, ten p for a joke, then.'
One of my workmates, Billy, groaned. `Ah, fuck, it's not you, is it? I didn't recognize you. Had a bath this year or something?'
The kid's murky chops grew murkier. `Does your dick reach your arse?' he asked.
I stared.
`What?' said Billy.
`Does your dick reach your arse?'
Billy was unamused. `What do you mean?'
`Well, if it does you can go and fuck yourself easier.'
Billy slapped the kid hard across the face. The child dropped his newspapers. He bent to pick them up, snuffling, trying to cover his face with his hands.
I put my glass down.
`What did you do that for, you dumb prick?' Ronnie inquired mildly of Billy.
'None of your business, wankstain,' he riposted.
The dirty kid looked up briefly, a bright look amidst his tears. Obviously he had not heard that bon mot before and was now carefully committing it to memoryYou could almost see his lips move as, imperfectly, he spelled out the letters.
Billy lifted his hand as though to take another swipe at the boy.
`Touch him again, and I'll break your fucking skull,' said Ronnie.
Billy was a sparky enough young man and might have gone for it but Ronnie had surprised us all so much. Billy was smart enough to make no ungenerous assumptions about anyone's pugilistic skills. Wisely, he decided that experience was always an unknown quality and let it go.
The kid picked up his papers and moved off, sniffling.
'Aye, Ronnie, you're my fucking hero.'
`SuperClay.'
'You fancy him, do you?'
`Ronnie wants to fuck the wee snotbag, right enough.'