“I want it to be the best party you ever had, Scott! Because I know you’ve been to lots of parties!”
The expressions on all their faces had to be seen to be believed. “It’s going to be the fabbo party of all time!” they cried in unison. “It really is!”
“Four more coffees, man!” exclaimed Scott as he flicked his ash into the tray. “We’ve just had some fantastic news!”
It was not common in the town to see decorations such as SCOTT’S GOING-AWAY PARTY, which the banner draped over the entrance to the McNab house proclaimed in vivid red, or lightbulbs strung along the privet hedge at the end of the lane so that they gave the impression of being even more spectacular than perhaps they actually were. Neither was it particularly common for Pat to greet visitors attired in a flower-specked headband (his mother’s scarf in reality) with eyeballs so wide they would have suggested he was under the influence, greeting, as he did, visitors with the words, “Mammy wants to know if youse have any drugs on youse? Ha ha!” Ordinarily, this might have been taken as a rather odd statement, but such was the level of abandon and frivolity that very little attention at all was paid to it.
Although it might have been a lot better if it had, considering that a mere one hour and a half later, Scott Buglass was lying in a rumpled heap beneath the Sacred Heart picture in the library, with his shades more than a litde askew as Pat’s mother shook her head vehemently, uncorking another bottle of wine as she cried, “No, Scott! Have another drop now out of that! Sure you’ll never find till you’re back in England and neither Pat nor me will ever see you again!”
Scott’s grin was lopsided and there was ash all over his candy-striped blazer.
“Somehow, Mrs. McNab, I think if I keep this up I’m not going to make it.”
“I know what you mean, love,” said Mrs. McNab, rather oddly, as she splashed some more Blue Nun into the muso’s glass.
“Mind your hipsters now!” she continued as the liquid wobbled precariously over the brim, continuing, “Now who’s for another little drinkie!” as she made her way toward a bleary-eyed groupie in the corner who gave all the impression of being a bell-sleeved, gamine-haired octopus.
It was approaching 3:00 A.M. when a rather unsteady Nikki sought for her hessian bag behind some bottles, stumbled a litde, and put her hand to her forehead as she edgily enquired, “Have any of you seen Scott?”
“No,” hiccuped Carole, sucking hopelessly on a long since spent roll-up cigarette. “I guess he must have gone home. He has an early start in the morning.”
“Good-bye,” waved Mrs. McNab as they departed into the night, their shoulder bags swinging as they negotiated the squelching mud which the heavy rain had now begun to soften and churn up, “goodbye—ee!”
They waved and were gone, as into the heaving maw of a sodden, velvet-black beast.
Pat was often to reflect, years later, on how it had been the best party ever. The best in his wildest dreams, especially when it had been held—thrown!—by clodhopping idiots who were more than faintly redolent of cow dung smells and ragwort! Namely Pat and his mother, of course! Oh yes!
What amused Pat more than anything, however, when sitting by the fire staring into the wavy flames and looking back upon that night, was how nobody had ever bothered—perhaps did not see the need to, considering Scott was due to return to England the following morning—to enquire after him or his welfare—there had not been so much as a single, inquisitive knock upon the door or even a meek, “I wonder—have you seen Scott Buglass at all?”
It was as though poor old Bugie had disappeared in a single puff of incense!
Pat shook his head and raked the fire. Outside there was a bit of a wind blowing. It had all been so simple, he thought. Scott rooting around in a drawer—their private drawer!—and Pat’s mammy just standing there, for ages!—looking at him before he ever noticed.
“You’re a very cheeky fellow,” she said to him. “You know you really shouldn’t talk to people like that.”
“Like what?” Scott said, continuing—unbelievably!—to fumble around in the drawer!
“Like the way you talk to my Pat.”
“Oh yeah—that!” he replied—at least admitting it. ‘Yeah, but it was just a joke!”
Mrs. McNab did not betray any hint of emotion in her voice as she, quite reasonably, said, Yes, but of course what’s a joke to one person might not be a joke to someone else.”
Scott—having found the matches he was searching for—lit the cigarette awkwardly and said, “Oh yeah—but come on, Mumsy …”
He was about to cheekily extend this response (he was becoming impatient now and his artificial attempts at “manners” were at an end) when he heard Mrs. McNab say, “For example—would you call this a joke?”
The single glimpse of the maraca permitted to Scott Buglass was that of a flickering red blur as Mrs. McNab produced it from behind her back and deftly brought same into contact with his forehead. Neither did he entirely, clearly hear her next words which were, “Or this?” as its twin surfaced in her left hand, his forehead receiving an equally fierce “twin” blow which effectively terminated his conscious state. There can be no describing the state of—perhaps inexcusable!—utter glee in which Pat and his mother (Pat had slipped in unnoticed and gently closed the door behind him) reduced the tormented musician to a helpless mass of unrecognizable pulp in what might be described as an orgy of bloody, frenzied, alternative “bebop” improvisation.
There were the occasional references to Scott Buglass throughout the district afterward, along the lines of (advanced by perplexed members of Scott’s “crew”), “We’ve never heard from him since” or “Now that he’s in England, he’s forgotten all about us!” But in the end these too began to fade as flowers might at the onset of winter or those once eagerly inserted into the barrels of military firearms; and when the rumors of “drugs”—initially advanced in the grocer’s by Mrs. McNab—began, all talk of Scott Buglass and the so-called “Fabulous Groovers of the 1960s” began to disappear, eventually, like the sad protagonist, fading without leaving so much as a single trace.
Sometimes, for years afterward, late at night in the library, Pat would place his only remaining talisman of that time (a record by Alan Price, “I Put a Spell on You,” which Nikki had given him—”I want you to have this”) and sit with his chin in his hand wistfully reflecting upon those times. And as the flames in the fire danced once more, he would fancy he heard the voice of a poor deluded musician, a sunglassed sexbomb in a candy-striped blazer, crying out from where he was trying to reach him. And, you know, sometimes, the strangest thing of all is, it would be as though he were saying, “u”Pat! Pat, I’m sorry for what happened—and, if we ever meet again, this time I know that we’ll be the best of friends. The way it should have been all along!” small coals shifting as outside the huge night turned toward sleep, the thin sound of a plangent guitar seeming to issue from a jasmine-scented bedsit many light-years away, in a galaxy not yet born.
Twenty-one Years
The judge said, Stand up lad and dry your tears
You’re sentenced to Dartmoor for twenty-one years,
So dry up your tears, love, and kiss me good-bye
The best friends must part, love, and so must you and I.
I hear the train coming, ‘twill be here at nine
To take me to Dartmoor to serve up my time.
I look down the railway and plainly I see
You standing there waving your good-byes to me.
Six months have gone by, love, I wish I was dead
This dark dreary dungeon has gone to my head
It’s hailing, it’s raining, the moon gives no light.
Now won’t you tell me, love, why you never write?
I’ve waited, I’ve trusted, I’ve longed for the day
A lifetime so lonely, now my hair’s turning gray.
My thoughts are for you, love, till I’m out of mind
For twenty-one years is a
mighty long time.
It is a fine fresh day in the garden, and there can be no doubt but that Pat McNab is feeling happy and contented with himself as he digs away at his drills beneath the hot burning sun, thinking to himself, “As soon as I have this done, I’ll move on up above there to my turnips and, who knows, perhaps the lettuces too if I have time.” Whistling away (a familiar tune, and one which was a favorite of his mammy’s: Cliff Richard’s top ten hit “Bachelor Boy”), he turns over a clod with the corner of his spade, fancying he sees something glittering in it and is bending down to examine it more closely when he receives a large resounding slap to the middle of his back and turns to see what can only be described as the “colossal” figure of Sergeant Foley towering above him with a broad smile, exclaiming, “Pat!”
“Jesus Mary and Joseph, Sergeant, you put the heart crossways in me!” was Pat’s reply as he struggled to his feet.
The sergeant doffed his cap and stared morosely into the small amphitheater of its darkness.
“Pat,” he sighed, placing both hands on his hips, “you’ll never guess what’s after happening.”
Pat knitted his brow and touched his chin with the fingers of his right hand.
“What, Sergeant?” he ventured querulously. “Someone shot? The bank! The bank’s been robbed! That’s it, isn’t it, Sergeant? Oh my God! How much? Everything in the safe taken!”
The sergeant shook his head and drummed a little tune on the circumference of the cap as he continued, “No, Pat! I only wish to God it had! I could be doing with something like that on my CV, to be honest with you! No, I’ll tell you what it is, Pat—the station’s been burned down!”
Pat gulped as he felt the color drain from his face.
“Ah no, Sergeant!” he chokingly replied. “Not the lovely station where you’ve spent God knows how many years toiling away in the service of the community!”
“Burned to a crisp, Pat!” the sergeant confirmed wearily. “The ganger told me this very minute. She’ll have to be built from the ground up.”
“Jesus Mary and Joseph, Sergeant!” gasped Pat.
The sergeant’s face grew tense.
“You can say that again, Pat. I’d say you’re looking at the guts of half a million.”
Pat could not believe his ears.
“Half a million!” he croaked.
“At the very least,” nodded the sergeant, continuing, “Well—I wouldn’t like to be in Guard Timmoney’s shoes, that’s all I can say.”
Pat was puzzled.
“Guard Timmoney?” he asked.
The sergeant drew a long, deep breath.
“Him and his deep-fat fryers,” he said. “Well—you know what this means, don’t you, Pat?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” agreed Pat, before diffidently adding, “What, Sergeant?”
“I’ll have to stop with you for a while. That’s the best way out of it. I can do my investigating from here.”
Pat felt the skin above his eyes tightening.
“Investigating?” he wondered. “What investigating?”
Without warning, the sergeant drew himself up to his full height and became stiff as a plank, delivering himself of the following sentence in a tone that was unmistakably frosty, officious, and uncompromising.
“I would appreciate it if you would account for your movements between the hours of three A.M. and seven A.M. on Thursday the seventeenth of September last.”
He paused and went on, “Well?”
Waspishly, Pat replied, “I was here!”
There was no mistaking the officer of the law’s wide grin. “Sure don’t I know you were, Pat, you auld cod you! I’m only pretending to be invesdgating! Slagging you, like!”
Pat felt such a fool, his downcast eyes as small reconnaissance spaceships endeavoring to decode the complexity of his situation as he raised his head and, crimson-cheeked, replied, “Of course, Sergeant! Oh, aye! Of course! Sergeant—do you hear the old carry-on I’m going on with!”
The sergeant sank his right hand deep in his pocket and said, “Indeed and I do surely, Pat! Sure don’t I know you from when you were a nipper! And your father!”
“That’s right, Sergeant!” replied Pat, a warm feeling beginning to assert itself in the region of his abdomen.
“And your mother!” continued Sergeant Foley.
‘Yes!” affirmed Pat, touching some crumbly clay with the toe of his Wellington.
“And all belonging to you!”
“All belonging to me!” grinned Pat. “Like they say in the films—yes sir!”
“Yes “beamed the sergeant.
“Yes Sir.’”grinned Pat, perspiring a litde uncomfortably.
The sergeant shook his head.
“Oh now!” he went on. “Don’t be talking! Pat, do you know what I was just thinking? You must be tired from all that digging you’re doing there. Are you not exhausted?”
Pat was a litde taken aback by the sergeant’s sudden concern and hastened to reassure him.
“Exhausted?” he replied. “No, Sergeant! Sure, what would have me exhausted?”
“Digging, Pat!” came the sergeant’s brusque reply. “Digging a hole for the body!”
A sickening taste came into Pat’s mouth.
“For the body?” he replied weakly.
“Aye!” the sergeant replied. “The latest one, I mean!”
The corners of Pat’s mouth jerked like the flick of whip.
“Oh, aye!” he laughed. “The latest one!”
The sergeant nodded.
“Sure that would have anyone exhausted! Not to mention the poor fellow that has to go and prove it!”
A muscle leaped in Pat’s right cheek—-just under his eye.
“Oh, aye!” he said. “Sure it’d be nearly as hard on him in the long run! Having to gather up all the evidence and everything!”
“And then go and convince the bloody judge! And you know what they’re like! Think it was us was on trial or something! I say, you know what they’re like, my old friend!”
Pat threw back his head.
“What they’re like?” he guffawed. “Oh, now, Sergeant, don’t be talking!”
Pat frowned and grasped the shaft of the spade tightly. His fingers left sweat marks, he noted.
“Don’t be talking to me now!” he chortled, although less insouciantly than he would have preferred.
“I will not!” declared the sergeant abruptly. “I’ll say nothing more to you now, only maybe yourself and myself go right up there to the old McNab Hotel and have ourselves a great big hot mug of tay this very second! What do you say, Pat?”
A huge sense of relief seemed to sweep over Pat McNab as he released his grip on the spade and smiled, saying, “You know what I’d say to that, Sergeant? I’d say there’s nothing now on God’s earth would taste as sweet!”
The sergeant placed a large, oar-shaped hand on his shoulder.
“Come on out of that so,” he said, “you great big digging man you, Pat McNab!”
It is the following morning and Pat and his newfound lodger (the sergeant having made it clear in no uncertain terms that it was his intention to remain) are reclining in the sun-filled kitchen eating a hearty breakfast which has been prepared by the proprietor of the house. They both seem in exceptionally high spirits.
“I saw you last night, Sergeant!” says Pat then, expertly spearing a sausage, “and it was great! It was like the FBI or something!”
“Saw me, did you then?” is the sergeant’s response. “And how would that be now?”
“I saw you when I was going by your room. Your room was full of pipe smoke and you were bashing out a report on the typewriter! Clack clack! The noise of it!”
The sergeant nodded as a thin river of yolk was released from the tremulous table mountain of his egg. He smiled as he masucated.
“Up half the night I was with it too, Pat. But it’s all over now, thank God. And before too long, with the help of God, that’ll be another fellow whistling h
is twenty-one years.”
The circle of black pudding paused before it attained Pat’s lips.
“Whistling twenty-one years?” asked Pat, perplexed.
The sergeant placed his fork on his plate and, extricating a small portion of food from the canyon of his back tooth, explained, “Aye, Pat! That’s what I used to say to the missus, God rest her! Every time I put another gangster behind bars, Mary, I’d say, ‘Mary, there’s another go-boy’ll soon be whistling his twenty-one years!’ Did you never hear it, Pat? The song, I mean!”
“I think Mammy used to know it!” Pat said, enjoying some tomato.
“Indeed and she did surely! And she’d be the woman to sing it for us—if she was here now, Pat! Which she isn’t, of course! Mysteriously!”
The sergeant’s head was a red ball placed upon his shoulders facing Pat across the table. It disquieted him.
“Ha ha!” he laughed uneasily as the sergeant, good-humoredly, proceeded.
“Oh, indeed she’d be the woman to give us a verse of it, all right! For there was no better woman about this town for a bar of a song—would I be right there, Pat?”
Pat felt his cheeks reddening a litde.
“Oh now, Sergeant!” he responded.
“Oh now nothing, Pat! If she was here now she’d shift that table yonder and away she’d go on twinkle toes, round the house and mind the dresser! Wouldn’t she, Pat?”
‘Yes! I think she would, Sergeant!” Pat found himself replying, a spot of grease bisecting itself and dribbling down his chin.
“Think she would?” the sergeant said. “No thinking about it, Pat! ‘Come here to me, Pat,’ is what she’d say, ‘before we go off to work, what better way to start the day than a few bars of a song!’ Isn’t that what she’d say, Pat? Look at me now and tell me that it isn’t!”
“It is, Sergeant!” said Pat, quietly.
The sergeant’s fork clanged on his plate.
“It is indeed!” he cried. “‘Give me your hand!’ she’d say. ‘Give me that paw, me jewel and darlin’, and away the pair of us will go!’ Oh boys ah-dear, would she not say that or what!”