CHAPTER SIX
The captain was sounding the ship’s horn and calling the last of the weary souls on aboard. Shane stood in the darkened room and he thought for a second about the woman he loved, the woman who had turned his heart into stone and he couldn’t hold a picture of her face long enough to be able to curse her name and that blasted junk and he looked beside himself and there; sitting on what had been the barman’s counter, was a dusted bottle of aged whiskey and a tiny single serving bottle of gin and beside them; where he had left it, sat a small zip locked bag puffed out like a policeman’s belly, full of junk and beside it, a cold bright needle, his shiny silver sword.
He had fought so hard to strike Teresa from his heart and try and claim some kind of a life back, but it had been no use. Since giving up the bottle and clearing his veins, Shane had become a lesser version of himself; unable to feel and unable to write, being useless and unaffecting, being just another pair of broken balls sweating over a grimy penny like every other poor fool in this world; hardly special, hardly miraculous.
“Last call” yelled The Captain.
Shane left it all on the table; the whiskey, the gin, the needle and the bag of junk. He didn’t want to feel again, not what he had felt before and maybe it wouldn’t be such a horrible thing if god were to clean his plate and scrape all of this shite into the dog’s bowl.
He left the bar and walked in the scuttering rain towards the edge of the river that hadn’t been there when he had passed before, but of which was promised by The Tall Handsome Man and which now existed; just as he said, running under the looming and dooming viaduct. And moored by its edge was a smallish boat with its lights glimmering and music blasting from inside its many decks.
As he stepped upon the wooden plank that would walk him onto the boat, he was accosted by two uniformed men and he was taken by the scruff of his neck and forced against the railings while one of the uniformed men reached into his pockets and removed his flimsy wallet.
“Who do we ave here then? Mr. Shane Pardon my French MacGowan. We got us one of those Pogues here Gavin.”
“Oh really, give us a kiss then,” said Gavin, bulging his fat belly into Shane’s skin and bone and forcing his red, sweaty, pimply, bloated face right next to Shane’s hear, breathing like a dog in heat.
Perversion and menace being the truncheon he slapped against his open palm.
“And what do you want on The Queen’s boat then paddy?”
Shane thought for a split second about how to best handle two apparently drunk British guards without resorting to any violence or name calling or any of those fun things that he would never have given a moment’s hesitance into lashing about. But he needed to get to London and they wouldn’t believe him if he had told only half of what he knew, what he had seen and the incredible things that he still had to do.
So he played it safe.
“Nutin,” said Shane.
“Nutin? Do you hear that Gavin? Paddy here is doing nutin. What is it with you Irish and the letter ‘h’. Huh? Hey Gavin, what’s the difference between an Irish wake and an Irish wedding?”
“What?”
“One less sodden drunk.”
Shane kept silent.
He wanted to throttle the both of them and knew he could with one lick of his burning venom, but he also knew he had to be smarter than that. The right thing to do according to the book of sobriety was to stand hither and wear the licking, poking, prodding and insult like a runner’s sweaty shirt; stand as still as possible and try not to let the stains rub too homely against one’s skin.
“I think this tinker is carrying drugs. Are you on drugs?”
Shane’s eyes looked blurred and shaky and to any man it might look like he was at the worn end of some drunken and drug addled spiral, clawing his way through the last fabric of his skin to tear his soul from his blistering feet, but it was neither alcohol nor junk that was doing this to him, it was sobriety and though a heart of stone had turned his veins cold, living without the drink was turning his blood to arid sand.
“Spread your legs paddy,” said Gavin, throwing Shane against the railings and driving his fat hand along his leg and up into the nether of his groin, squeezing with the cusp of his hands, in theory looking for something of suspicion, in fact, finding between his fingers, everything he ever wanted.
“Can ya hurry dis up, man? I aint got nutin.”
“That’s because you’re Irish. You can blame your pig ugly mother and your sheep molesting father for that. As long as your blood is green, you’ll never amount to anything.”
“Open up his cavities,” said the uniformed man handing Gavin a small flashlight.
Oh, what he would do, when with this nonsense, with it, he found himself through.
“He’s clean. Some skids and all. Dirty fucker. No bombs, no drugs” said, Gavin.
“Alright, fuck off now paddy,” said the uniformed man, kicking Shane along.
He did up his belt, headed for the smoke and found himself stumbling aboard the boat train, heading up the wooden gangway. When he looked behind, the two British officers were gone, as if they hadn’t been there to begin with and he thought to himself, “if dis is da jewel of my fuckin imagination while I’m sober, dreaming up gobshites like dese, I really need a fuckin a drink. Dat or ta start readin a feckin book.”
He pushed open a rickety old door as old doors always seemed to be; rotting wood on rusted hinges canting out suspicious sounds into eerily silent rooms. The door squeaked as he turned the handle and it squealed as he pushed it open and the main desk was vast, with space for hundreds of weary souls and around the room there were tables for the playing of poker and other chances of cards and there were tables for drinking and there were tables for dancing and there were tables for loners just wanting to be all alone and there were tables for this and there were tables for that and they were all smothered in thick black dust and had not been sat at for maybe a century or two.
Shane looked around expecting an odd occurrence and if he had gambled upon it, he would have counted himself as a winner for there on the largest table in the centre of the room was a tiny figure; an inhospitable looking specter; shaped like a ghastly caricature, breathing and laughing gruffly amidst heavy smoke before and after every drag of its cigar.
“Pull up a chair if in deed ya do care or be a rude cunt and just stand dere and stare.”
There was nothing normal about sobriety.
Shane shook off the initial weight of absurdity and walked over to the table and pulled himself a seat. His legs were sore from the walking and his bones ached from the constant chill of the whoring rain that had irked his every sense since his heavy eyes opened this morning.
Before him on the table were five cards and in front of him, still dressed in darkness was a tiny leprechaun called
“Seamus. Me names Seamus. And of all da leprechaun’s, I am da most famous. And truth to be told da most handsome of all wit golden hair on me beard, me arse and me balls but where are me manners, I have done talk witout tink, ya look like a man whose in need of a drink?”
“I can’t. Not anymore” said Shane.
“Surely a sip will not tarnish yer leder, scuff up yer insight or ruffle yer feders? Have a wee drink and have some wee more and da boat will be sailin and divorce from its moor.”
“I have to drink, to make the boat sail? What if I say no?”
“I know what yer tinking, what’s on in yer head, da ghost yer forgettin and wishin stayed dead. Da one dat ya loved but whose love sent ya blind and afraid ta den feel for she left ya behind and yer not ta blame lad, tis no fault o yers, dat life, is a cunt and love is its curse” sang Seamus the Drunken Leprechaun.
“If I was sober dat night, she wouldn’t be dead.”
“If true dat is be dat you found yerself sober den true dat it be dat you’d never ave known er for da love dat you had was a sight to behold, it couldn’t be bought and could never be sold and I get what ya say, from where ya do stand; what use is
a heart, in half of a man? Listen to me true and listen to me bold, do what I say and do as yer told, drink from da glass and remember her name, cherish her face and pardon da blame for love it will always, take its last breath, with bitter divorce or mourning in death and yer time den together will always seem brief when revel ya do in blame laden grief. Drink ta Teresa and fuck da regret, ya loved er in life, now love er in death” sang Seamus the Drunken Leprechaun.
Seamus slid a small shot glass towards Shane and he took it in his shivering clenches and as his fingers touched the tiny stained glass, his cold hand warmed and he felt the tips of his fingers tingle and the thought of another drop of alcohol on his tongue sent a wave of warmth through his freezing veins, making his blood a little less like arid sand.
“Ta fait,” said Shane holding the glass in the air before resting it upon his lips.
His chair rattled and the lights started to flicker and the room seemed less dark than it was and everything started to rattle and shake and he could see flashes of people moving about as if his blind sight were returning to him and then vanishing every other second and then everything went black again and it was just he and the drunken leprechaun seated at a large dusted table in the middle of darkened room.
The leprechaun slid a bottle of whiskey towards Shane and the bottle stopped in the palm of his hands and his fingers cusped around the bottle so naturally, like a mother’s upon her new born child, as if this was what nature had intended all along and he held the bottle to his lips and drank every last drop without pestering the moment for a breath of fresh air.
Shane slapped the empty bottle back on the table. His throat and his belly were on fire; like in the bar by the looming and dooming viaduct but this time it was a fire that no amount of blame or remorse could quench and it was enough for the darkened room to explode with light as around him, hundreds of revelers all danced about in swinging arms; singing and chanting and fighting and drinking and some of them cursing and some of them kissing and the noise it exploded right into his ear and as long as he stayed drunk, it would not disappear.
“Never a day had ever been sad if, in ever a day, a drink had been had” sang Seamus.
Seated beside him at the table were members of the crew.
There was the angry chef who was of Middle Eastern descent; a prick of a man to the mean he was meaner, with a prickly white beard and a prickly demeanour. Beside him another soul slaved to the boat with the most beautiful dragon, tattooed on his throat and his eyes were conniving, they read of each man, the fear in his eyes and the strength in his hand and another who swept up the shite from the floors, who mopped up the blood and who rusted the doors and he played for companions, he loved it to bits, but he played like a joker and he lost all his chips and then he returned from whence that he came, never to have a companion again.
And beside him the last to make up the game, one that the dead had branded insane, a madman of monsters, a ghoul to the ghosts, the ship’s own captain, the iniquitous host.
“What should we drink to?” yelled the captain.
“To the passage of time.”
“To fate and existence.”
“To reason and rhyme and ta man and ta flesh and ta spirit and soul and ta all dat hath made, existence a whole and ta dis man right here, a devilish rogue, let it be known dat our saviour was a drunk and a punk and a Pogue” sang Seamus the Drunken Leprechaun.
“Here, here” they all cheered, smashing their glasses against one another; drinking and gulping and returning their eyes to their cards.
Shane lost the first hand and he lost the coat he had stolen and he lost the watch that he didn’t know was tucked away inside the interior pocket though he won against seemingly impossible odds in the next three hands and took the spirit’s money and he left the table with the players; all of them ghosts, yelling and cursing and accusing whoever would listen of cheating and lying and they would dissipate from the table and then from nowhere, another ghoul would emanate with its eyes on its cards and its hands shifting the whiskey before it and the other at the latch of its gun.
Shane stumbled about the boat with a bottle of tequila in his hands, having already polished the whiskey and the gin. His eyes were swaying in such a way that he could hardly tell if it was his mind or the boat that was listing horrendously and with every sway of his mind to the right, he corrected with illiterate detention to the left swaying this way and that, banging against tables and fumbling and mumbling some pathetic apologies.
He tripped over a small matted dog and knocked into a young man sitting by himself on a stool, his neck red from where his belt had once embraced him out of the living and aboard this ghastly vessel.
“Any craic?” Shane said to the young lad.
The boy, whose eyes were as hollow as his heart, looked up from his book and smiled.
“What are readin?” asked Shane.
“It’s my story. Everyone has one. Everyone here anyway. Where is yours?’ asked the boy.
“I don’t belong ere. I’m passin troo. Hitchin a ride on deat’s tail. What’s it about?”
“Coffee and sugar,” said the boy with the red mark on his neck and eyes more hollow than the charity of his heart.
“Coffee and sugar? Sounds shite. Now if it was called Pint and a Fag, maybe. No wonder ya, ya know, ya did dat ting” said Shane making choking sounds and drawing his finger along his neck, pointing out the boy’s suicide like an inconsiderate drunken prick.
The boy returned to his book and read over words that when he had lived them, he had let them slip by and he read the words his lover had said over and over and he wondered; “what wrong could exist in a man’s head, to have ever imagined and written such a tragedy as this?”
Shane took a long swig of the tequila and his mind blurred in and out of violent tendencies and he felt that, to fight the sickness that was preparing a revolt from his belly, he might either have to find somewhere quiet to aid in its lodging or; in the fight against the inevitable hurling and promising to never drink like that again, to find a man or a gang of men so as to exchange insult, then exchange swinging fists and he could knock the sickness out of his bleeding knuckles.
The noise about him was escalating to a god awful roar and the hundreds of singing songs all hummed in different keys all twisted and turned in his mind and made a flushing toilet of his thoughts and he stumbled his way through the dance floor and past a group of ghouls all sitting round a table playing ‘chance’ and he barraged past a gun slinging cowboy called Stagger Lee and old Stagger looked at Shane’s swagger and offered him a reprieve knowing he’d do more harm to himself if he let the poor fuck be.
Shane beat against a white door with his fist, slurring something that I can’t spell and you wouldn’t come close to pronouncing but he yelled it in his slurred speech thinking of it as elegant and being angered when not even a nod or a wink or a polite response came back in his waiting direction so he banged more and he kicked and he cursed and he spat and versed about all of the things that he’d do if opened that fucking door and managed to get through and then he vomited, all over the handle and fell back down against the wall with his knees pressed against his ears, drowning out the sounds of drunken revelry and the rude of cursing of some bastard next door making impolite passings at a couple of Pakistani students that had died a long time ago at this fucker’s hands and now; on this boat, they had to hear his racial snobbery for the entirety of their ghostly lives.
He looked between his legs and there was a copy of the Daily News scrunched up on the floor, but he could read some of the letters on the front page and he tried to guess what the words could have been and there was a picture of a bomb and beside it, what the journalists called The Musical Madman, the terrorist responsible for all of this nonsense.
Shane threw his hands to the floor and he threw whatever was in his stomach all along the carpet and it ran down with the listing boat towards the dance floor where ghastly ghouls were singing and dancing and a ca
ptain had left his game of cards and was on the speaker shouting;
“Welcome to London.”
And the doors were banging and the ghastly ghouls were disembarking and in a second the lights all went spontaneously dead and there was not a sound playing from the halls or from the floors except for the sound of a drunken Pogue, spitting out the last drops of bile before he picked himself up and staggered down the gangway and found himself in London and there; in what should have been a balmy night, he saw fire in the sky and planes circling about and men in helicopters dangling from open doors, cables attached to their backs while their eyes, glued to the scopes on their rifles that shunted against their shoulders and they all wore royal bandanas and they used adjectives like dreadful and verbs like shan’t and in between sips of tea, they shot at this and they shot at that, at a mother and child, at a priest where he sat for the end it was coming and none were prepared, for the terrors of man when he’s terribly scared.
Shane reached into his pockets and pulled out a set of keys and before him, in the car park, sat an old Reliant Robin. He unlocked the door and squeezed in then turned the key, but the engine wouldn’t turn, just the tap, tap, tap of a dying battery and he stepped on the pedal but was only making it worse and the battery died and the Pogue he did curse.
“Ah bollocks” he said, unsqueezing himself from the seat, putting it in neutral and pushing it out of the car park and onto the road, ignoring the screams and plight of men, women and children all running about with their backs on fire and their anthems of ‘help me’ all going unheard.
He found a hill.
The car rolled.
He jumped in.
The car started and the engine turned.
The lights flickered on.
And London burned.
“Take a left up ere, or I’ll glass ya,” said a voice in the backseat.