Then he remembered. Cocaine. As Eve talked on, dominating the broadcast, Chuckie racked his brains. Then he held his breath.
Chuckie watched Max sleep. It was barely past midnight but she slumbered deeply. He envied that. She twitched and whimpered. He smiled. Strangely, she had told him that she still only dreamt of America. Same here, thought Chuckie.
He had been listening to the radio for the last twenty minutes, waiting for news about himself, but between the records, the people on the radio had only talked of per cent off all curtain fabrics, io per cent unemployment, r2 per cent fall in sterling. Chuckie had turned to tell Max that she had too per cent of his love but she was already asleep. He would tell her when she woke. He hoped she would be happy with it. He was.
Both Max and Peggy had given him some grief for his television performance. They had disapproved of his final efforts but Chuckie didn't care. He had had no choice.
He had held his breath for almost three and a half minutes. He noticed by the end of the second minute that some audience members were tittering openly and that Jimmy Eve was staring at him aghast. He could feel his face grow taut and purple. Thankfully, the political academic talked on blithely for another minute and a half. In the third minute, Chuckle's world had gone aqueous and black, he had temporarily lost the power of sight and was just losing consciousness when the interviewer turned and nervously asked him a question he could not hear.
Chuckie breathed in.
Blood flooded places he didn't know he had. The noise was dreadful and he felt sure that his face had changed colour in some grotesque way but he launched happily into his answer. His head was less than light, it thumped with pain, his neck bulged and his heart banged like the LigonielYoung Defenders' massed pipe and drum band. It wasn't quite cocaine but his blood was definitely moving.
He sailed into a wild diatribe against Eve. Eve himself, who was probably close enough to spot the thin trickle of blood from Chuckle's ear, immediately quailed. Chuckie bellowed abuse. He said Eve reminded him of Joseph Goebbels, who had said that if you were going to tell a lie you had better make it a big one (Chuckie almost pissed himself with pride at remembering any kind of historical fact). He ran through a semiconscious version of his thought of yesterday: What war? No one he knew had been fighting. He barked and whinnied a variety of sound man-of-the-people platitudes at the palely sneering Eve. The crowd warmed to him, he could see - American fans squirming with pleasure.
But Eve had been able to interrupt had had to take a fairly extensive second breath. He mocked such idle demagoguery and said that it was easy for non-contributors like Chuckie to make fun of the work of real politicians who had to work on proper solutions to the political difficulties of Northern Ireland. He wanted to know if Chuckie was going to do something constructive about his many complaints.
Now, as Chuckie watched Max sleep, he wished that his second breath had taken even longer and that he had been unable to answer Eve's taunt. But, starved of oxygen, pulse hammering, the goaded fat man had announced his plans to set up a new political party, an effective and non-sectarian third force in Ulster politics. It had certainly shut Eve up but, unfortunately, it had rather shut up Chuckie himself. He had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.The audience had gone quiet for a few moments and then applauded strongly.The interviewer had questioned Chuckie about his new party and Chuckie had waffled grandly. A press conference would be held at the end of the week. He was confident of success. In tandem with his business enterprise, he felt he could bring prosperity and other stoned bullshit. He had even included a white-guy version of Martin Luther King's I-have-a-dream speech.
Jimmy Eve had interrupted one last time. With all the contempt he could muster, he asked Chuckie what this new party would be called. On the verge of actually passing out, Chuckie had gasped that his new party would probably be called the OTG, he had been having talks with that group and they would announce all the details at the press conference.
The audience went crazy.Young women threw their underwear at him, and as the floor manager counted down the last five seconds Chuckie gracefully lost consciousness.
It had been madness, but after the programme he saw that Eve and his just Us advisers were terrified. Chuckie couldn't understand it. As he fought off the autograph-hunting volunteers, he failed to see that the just Us people considered him the charismatic Protestant of ancient republican demonology and that he was the kind of imponderable in Ulster politics that they wanted to avoid.
But what chiefly amazed him was that everyone seemed happy to believe that he had been having secret meetings with the mysterious OTG organization. Now Chuckie knew that he moved in a credulous universe, credulity was the only thing that could have set him in motion, but even he was impressed by this new gullibility.
Peggy had called an hour ago. She said that the Eureka Street phone had been going crazy with journalists calling to find out about the new party and the press launch. Chuckie knew that he had gone too far and that, once again, his private fantasies were taking on a form and colour that he had not intended.
He walked to Max's bedroom window and looked out. The moon hung high like a bare bulb in a cheap room.The mountain was a rim of glow, a flat, wide thing. Chuckie had never been too impressed by the horizon. To him it had always been just a distance. Nevertheless, he conceded that it looked fine that night, it looked dandy.
In his panic, he had gone round to Poetry Street to see if he could find Jake. He sat on his friend's doorstep, practically sobbing. Jake was not in. He didn't know what he could do. He would never be able to make up a meaning for the letters OTC on his own. He needed his friend.
Jake's cat appeared from underneath a hedge and screamed happily at the disconsolate Chuckie for a few minutes. The cat looked hungry and neglected but Chuckie knew he tried to look like that all the time and decided to take him for a walk anyway. It was the only one of the animal's idiosyncrasies that he could bear.
So, cat and fat man set off up Poetry Street, both anxious and confused in their different ways.
Then Chuckie saw the OTG man. He was half-way up a ladder, which leant against the wall of the Irish Institute. It took Chuckie a few moments to determine that he wasn't a workman. It was only as he saw him paint the word The, the letters OTG and the rest of the sentence that he knew who it was.
He was just as Jake had described Roche describing him. Jake's age and height, dressed in shabby, priestly black. Chuckie saw him carefully paint out the words around the OTG itself and then the fat man went charging up the street after him.
The man saw Chuckie coming and panicked. He slid down the ladder like a fireman and ran for it, paint and brush in hand. Chuckie zoomed on after him.
He was very quick and by the time Chuckie got to the Lisburn Road, the OTG man had gained some yards. But Chuckie saw him turn down one of the little terrace streets on the other side of that road. The fat man increased his speed and followed. His quarry ducked down a little alleyway. Seconds later, Chuckie skidded in behind him.
Imagine Chuckie's surprise when he saw the words LEAVE ME ALONE painted on the alley wall. The paint was wet but the typography was composed. Jesus, he thought, how had he managed that? Chuckie ran on, shouting at him now.
The man came out of the alleyway on to another terrace street. Chuckie was gaining on him. Quickly, the man dived into the alleyway opposite and turned a sharp corner. When Chuckie turned the corner there was more fresh writing in that steady, unmistakable hand. FUCK, YOU'RE QUICKER THAN YOU LOOK, it said. Chuckie began to lose his mind but he didn't check his pace.
By the time the OTG man made it on to the next street, Chuckie was almost within diving distance of the spooky bastard. As he sped into the last alleyway available, Chuckie thought he had him. The man vaulted a wheelie-bin and turned again. Fat Lurgan's heart was bursting as he turned the corner, banged into the wall and collapsed on the ground. He looked up through the sweat in his eyes and saw the words THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANY
MORE perfectly written on the wall above him. He raised himself on his elbows and stared down the alleyway. The OTG man had stopped and was staring at Chuckie with something close to a smile. Chuckie could have sworn a wink trembled in one of his eyes.
'Fuck it,' said Chuckie.
The OTG man smiled again and jogged off towards the railway tracks, towards the mountains, towards fuck knew where.
When Chuckie regained his breath, he beat a painful path back to Poetry Street. Jake's cat was sitting near the foot of the ladder. There was some more paint there and the cat had got some on his paws. Chuckie approached him smiling, in the hope he could get close enough for just one kick, but the cat was too cute. He ambled off, leaving white-paint paw marks on the pavement behind him.
Chuckie stood on the ladder looking up at the wall. In his panic, the guy had inadvertently dragged his brush over the OTG. It was a meaningless blur of wet paint.
Chuckie stared at it blankly.
Then he picked up the paint. He climbed up the ladder.
OTG, Chuckie wrote, OTG.
Chuckie turned away from the window. Seeing the OTG man had been fortunate but it had solved none of his problems. He still had to think of something believable that might be represented by the initials OTG. If only he could think of something Catholic that began with 0 and something Protestant that began with T, he would be laughing. As he pondered, he began to believe that the Omagh Trotskyist Group wasn't such a bad idea.
He wished Jake had been in when he had called. He needed his Catholic friend's guidance. He thought with pride of their friendship. Protestant and Catholic, their casual brotherliness was the ultimate example of what he meant when he said that no one he knew had been fighting. He and Jake had a friendship that the world supposed could not exist. Chuckie thought with horror that it was exactly this kind of platitude that was bound to get him elected. Political office was probably only months away. His fantasies of wealth had been much more unlikely and he had achieved those while barely noticing. Things seemed to come easy to him now. Perhaps he was becoming a force of nature.
He looked over at the sleeping Max. It was all her fault. Because of her, he had wandered the streets of his city bewildered by the mathematics of people. And now he couldn't think of a time when he might have walked a street without thought of her as company and motor. Because this wasn't love, this was punishment.
She had made a music of his heart. Now, the beautiful things smacked him in the mouth like a bar-room fly-weight: motorways, cheap cafes, cigarette smoke in a still room, dull days with dirt in the air, car parks.
There are things so beautiful that they let you not mind that you will grow old and die. There are things so beautiful that growing old and dying seem like pretty good ideas, rounded and generous. For Chuckie, Max was one of those.
Chuckie's chest swelled with unfashionable grandeur and he headed for the fridge to drink something calming, something cold. Max's fridge was full of bottled yuppie water, open bowls of spices and a solitary tub of margarine. On the lid of the margarine, printed in large yellow letters was the advice:
KEEP COOL
Yeah, thought Chuckie, that's a good idea.Yeah, I'll try.
Today the sky was an amazing thing. The clouds were city clouds, thick with dirt and matter. The light was the colour of tea, badly stewed. At midday, I walked out to buy cigarettes. It surprised me that the people could walk, drive and stand on those streets with me.
I'm in that kind of mood. Tonight, the sweet, sweet world makes me wanna he down and take my clothes off. In another room the radio's on and a man reads a letter from a woman who says her heart is cold and broken.Then he plays a song that means much to her. And that banality makes me faint with tenderness.
Yesterday, she only smiled, she only wiped a strand of hair from her face, she only kissed me.
And tonight the world is a big world, grand and marvellous as the story you never knew when you were a child. And tonight the sky is an amazing thing.
I'll never forget that morning. She had gone home to her parents' house in Fermanagh. It took me two days to find a firm address. Next morning, I drove the ninety miles to her town in a mood like an opening chapter.The radio was on but I needed no music. Her little town was beautiful. It rose on both sides of a thin river. Dozy houses, too many churches, it looked like an impossible place, a child's drawing. It looked fine to me. Across the bridge in the little townland, I was stopped at a checkpoint. The young policeman leaned on my open window.
`Going far?' he asked.
`I hope so,' I said, `I certainly hope so.'
It took me five hours to work up the courage to knock on their door. I wandered around the little town, hoping that I would bump into her. As the day matured, I worked up the guts and strode on up there.
I met her brown-haired mother. I met her wheelchaired father. They watched uncomfortably as I apologized to their daughter for something they didn't understand. Restrained in their presence, she could only listen, she could only accept my regret.
The parents invited me to stay for dinner while their daughter glowered mutinously. The mother suggested that in the meantime her daughter show me round their land. Silently she stood up and beckoned me to follow. The mother smiled approvingly at me as we left.
We walked out into all the green and the shit and the spiders. It was the first time we'd been alone since I'd arrived. My face was hot and my lips did not move. She, too, was silent, her face not turning my way. It looked like this would be an unproductive walk.
We walked in virtual silence for nearly twenty minutes. The sun got low and the hedges and trees went all red. Sheep baaed, cows mooed, birds chirped and all the beasts did their thing. We stopped at a five-bar gate at the edge of their land. Aoirghe turned to me for the first time.
`Jake,' she said.
I drove back to Belfast that night. Aoirghe was going to follow in a couple of days. I called Chuckie to see if he was OK. Chuckie seemed to be OK. I told him I wasn't coming in to work for a couple of days. He continued telling me how OK he was. I hung up after twenty minutes or so.
I checked up on Roche, too. He was still in hospital but only had a few days to go. He greeted me with a volley of complaints so obscene that one of the nurses turned green. He'd met his foster-folks. They'd met him. Despite this, they had agreed to take him on when he got out of hospital. He told me they lived in a big house near Dunmurry. He was disappointed that the wife was a little out of his age-range (the woman was in her late thirties) but apparently they had a whole shitload of seventeen-year-old nieces. The little creep tried to rub his hands with glee but his arms were still too fucked.
He asked me about Aoirghe. I told him. He laughed like a drain.
The new foster-folks came in.They seemed like a nice couple, good-natured and amiable. They had talked to the doctors. Roche would he allowed out in a couple of days but would have to miss at least a month of school. Roche looked confused as though he couldn't understand what difference this would make to his life. They hadn't been informed of his truancy rates. They were nice, these people, but they had a lot to learn.
I said goodbye.
'Hey, Jake; said Roche.'Thanks'
'What for?'
'I don't know. Just thanks'
I waited expectantly. There was silence. They all looked at me.
'What?' I asked.'No snappy line? No obscenities?'
Roche settled back comfortably amongst his pillows. 'Nah,' he said.'I'm too fucking sick.'
Later that day, after much sweating and swallowing, I called Sarah. I had never used the number she had left. It was near a year now. My heart hammered as I tapped out the number.
`Hello,' said a man's voice. My chest went hot with jealousy and fear.
'Could I speak to Sarah, please?'
'She's not here, I'm afraid. Are you Jake?'
'How did you know?'
`The accent.'
'Right !
There was a pause.
&nb
sp; `Could you tell her I got her letter and I was just calling to see how she was,' I said.
Somehow the next pause felt more comfortable, more generous.
`She's fine and my name's Peter,' said Peter. `You don't sound like such a wild man to me.'
`You should see how I look.'
And, well, we had a long old chat there, Peter and I. Soon I was feeling disconcerting amounts of warmth for Peter. It was tricky at first. We weren't talking about the size of our penises or anything like that but it was a little tense, a little territorial. Then he asked me whether I had anyone in my life. I told him that I had. He warmed noticeably after that. It was endearing. Soon enough we were burbling like old ladies in a hairdresser's.
He sounded OK, Peter. He sounded like the kind of boy I'd have wanted my daughters to date. Level-headed, funny, gentle. A part of me wondered why I was so glad. But only a part of me.
`Make sure and tell her I called,' I said finally.
`I won't forget,' said Peter.
I did a lot of other stuff. I checked out my friends. I checked out everybody I'd ever met. I even called in at the Europa and said hi to Ronnie Clay and Rajinder. I seemed to have reserves of goodwill that were suddenly enormous. I wandered around the city greeting the citizens.
Then she came back to Belfast. She came round to Poetry Street that night with an uncertain expression and eyes like a forties film star.
`Hello,' I said.
Now, she's sleeping four feet behind me and my room is magical with her presence.A solitary cat yowls its own melancholy klaxon. I'm forced to admit that it sounds like my cat. I ignore it.