“Isn’t the ceiling work very intricate?” I asked, looking up so I didn’t have to watch the pair of them pawing away at each other.
“My mother is in the Legion of Mary,” declared Mary-Margaret. “I don’t know what she’d say to this kind of carry-on.”
“Relax,” said Julian, as they separated and he sat back with a contented look on his face. A look that said I’m young, I’m good-looking, I like girls and they like me; there is no end to the amount of fun I’m going to have once I leave the shackles of a secondary education behind me.
“Do you like the tearoom, Bridget?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
“What?” she said, looking at me in bewilderment. She seemed unsettled by the passionate kiss and had a look on her face that suggested she wanted nothing more than for me and Mary-Margaret to leave her and Julian alone so they could go wherever they had gone in the past to do whatever they had done. “What tearoom?”
“The tearoom you work in,” I said. “What other tearoom would I be talking about? The tearoom in Dáil Éireann.”
“Oh right,” she said. “Sure we’re splitting our sides all day, Cyril, with laughter. Ah no, I’m only teasing you, it’s all right. The TDs are a smarmy bunch and most of them can’t resist slapping your arse when you walk past them but they tip well because they know that if they don’t, Mrs. Goggin will sit them at a rotten table the next day and they’ll never get to ingratiate themselves with a minister.”
“Was she the one who had the go at us in the Dáil that day?” asked Julian.
“It was, yeah.”
“Christ, she was some piece of material.”
“Ah no,” said Bridget, shaking her head. “Mrs. Goggin is one of the good ones. She demands a lot from her staff but works harder than any of us at the same time. And she never asks anyone to do anything that she won’t do herself. She has no airs and graces, unlike some in that building. No, I won’t hear a word said against her.”
“Fair enough,” said Julian, chastised. “To Mrs. Goggin,” he said, raising his pint.
“To Mrs. Goggin,” said Bridget, raising hers too, and what choice did Mary-Margaret and I have but to join in.
“Do you have a Mrs. Goggin in the Bank of Ireland?” asked Julian.
“No, we have a Mr. Fellowes.”
“And do you like him?”
“It’s not my place to have an opinion on my superiors.”
“Is she always this cheerful?” asked Julian of Bridget.
“The smell of piss is getting worse in here,” she said in reply. “Should we sit somewhere else, do you think?”
We looked around but the Palace had grown busy with the work crowd and we were lucky to have a seat at all.
“There’s nowhere else,” said Julian, yawning a little as he made way into his next pint. “Christ, we’re lucky enough to have kept this table for so long. The regulars would have every right to tip us off it.”
“Do you mind?” said Mary-Margaret.
“Do I mind what?”
“Not taking the name of the Lord our God in vain.”
“I don’t mind in the slightest. Why, did he drop in to your desk on the foreign exchange at the Bank of Ireland, College Green, after his lunch to tell you that he doesn’t like it?”
“Have you not read the Ten Commandments?” she asked.
“No, but I’ve seen the film.”
“Bridget, this is beyond the beyonds. Are we to sit here all evening and listen to this gibberish?”
“For what it’s worth,” I said, feeling the room begin to spin a little, “the capital of Papua New Guinea is Port Moresby.”
“What?” said Mary-Margaret, looking at me as if I was an imbecile before turning to Julian. “Is this fella soft in the head or what?” she asked.
“Do you suppose Yul Brynner has a baldie head or does he shave it for the films?” he said in reply.
“Bridget!”
“He’s only having a laugh, Mary-Margaret,” said Bridget. “Don’t mind him.”
“I don’t like jokes about Yul Brynner,” said Mary-Margaret. “Not when he gave such an impassioned performance as the Pharaoh Ramses. I’d prefer that we show him a little more respect, if you don’t mind.”
“Is he a friend of yours then?” asked Julian. “You have friends in high places all the same. God, Yul Brynner, Mr. Fellowes.”
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” said Mary-Margaret, which didn’t seem to me to have any bearing on what we’d just been talking about.
“But I’m the Lord,” said Julian.
“What?” asked Mary-Margaret, confused now.
“I said I’m the Lord. I’ve been sent down by my father, who’s also the Lord, to set people on the right path. What we want, the daddy and me, is for everyone to take their clothes off and just leap on each other like wild dogs in heat. Adam and Eve were naked, as you’ll know if you’ve read the Book of The Beginnings of It All, chapter one, verse one: And lo there was man and lo there was woman and neither of them had a stitch on and lo and lo the woman did lie down and lo, the man did do all kinds of mad stuff with the woman, who had big tits and was gagging for it.”
“That’s not in the Bible,” insisted Mary-Margaret, leaning over the table, her hands clenching into fists as she prepared to rip Julian’s throat from his neck.
“Well, maybe not the bit about the big tits but the rest of it is spot on, I think.”
“Squirrel,” she said, appealing to me. “Are you really friends with this person? Is he leading you astray?”
“It’s Cyril,” I barked.
“Sorry, what are we talking about?” asked Bridget, on whom the Snowballs were beginning to have an effect. “I was off in a world of my own. I was thinking about Cary Grant. Is it just me or is Cary Grant the most handsome man alive?”
“Present company excepted,” said Julian. “Only a blind man could deny Cyril the Squirrel’s charms. But while we’re on the subject of ridiculously handsome man, has anyone seen who’s over there at the bar?”
We all turned our heads to look and my eyes ran along the six or seven statues seated on their stools, staring at their reflections in the mirror behind the bar.
“Who?” asked Bridget, reaching forward and grabbing Julian’s hand. “Who is it? I heard Bing Crosby is over for a golf championship. Is it him?”
“Look over there toward the end,” said Julian, nodding in the direction of a portly man with a jowly face and dark hair who was seated on the last stool before the stained-glass division. “You don’t recognize him, no?”
“He looks like Father Dwyer,” said Mary-Margaret. “But a man like that wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this.”
“He reminds me a bit of my Uncle Diarmuid,” said Bridget. “But he died two years ago, so it can’t be him either.”
“It’s Brendan Behan,” said Julian, sounding amazed that we didn’t recognize him.
“Who?” asked Bridget.
“Brendan Behan,” he repeated.
“The writer?” I asked, the first time I had spoken in a long time, and Julian turned to me with an expression that suggested he’d forgotten I was even there.
“Of course the writer,” he said. “Who else could I mean, Brendan Behan the milkman?”
“Is he the man who wrote that Borstal Boy thing?” asked Mary-Margaret.
“And The Quare Fellow,” said Julian. “A great Dubliner.”
“Is he not a terrible drunk?” she asked.
“Says the girl on her fourth Snowball.”
“Father Dwyer said that was an awful play. And the book he wrote about the prison, Daddy wouldn’t have it in the house.”
“Mr. Behan! Mr. Behan!” cried Julian, turning around and waving his arms in the air, and, sure enough, the man turned around and looked at us, a disdainful expression dissolving into a cheerful one, perhaps on account of our youth.
“Anseo,” he said. “Do I know you?”
“No,
but we know you,” said Julian. “My pal and I here are Belvedere boys and we value the written word even if the Jesuits don’t. Would you join us at all? I’d consider it an honor to buy you a pint. Cyril, buy Mr. Behan a pint.”
“Sold,” said Behan, shuffling off his seat and walking over, taking a smaller stool from a nearby table to join our group and settling in between Mary-Margaret and myself, leaving Julian and Bridget next to each other. The moment he sat down he turned to Mary-Margaret and looked into her eyes before slowly glancing down to focus on her breasts.
“A fine pair,” he said, looking around the table as a fresh round arrived and Julian took the money from my hand before handing it to the barman. “Small but not excessively so. Just right for the palm of a man’s hand. I’ve always believed there’s a direct correlation between the size of a man’s hand, the circumference of his wife’s tits and the happiness of their marriage.”
“Saints alive!” said Mary-Margaret, looking as if she was about to faint.
“I read your book, Mr. Behan,” said Julian before she could hit him.
“Please,” said Behan, raising a hand while he smiled beatifically at us all. “No formalities, please. Call me Mr. Behan.”
“Mr. Behan it is so,” said Julian, laughing a little.
“And why did you read it? Did you have nothing better to do with your time? How old are you anyway?”
“Fifteen,” said Julian.
“Fifteen?” asked Bridget, feigning shock. “You told me you were nineteen.”
“I am nineteen,” said Julian cheerfully.
“When I was fifteen,” said Behan, “I was too busy pulling my mickey to be worrying about reading books. Fair play to you now, young fella.”
“This is not my standard,” said Mary-Margaret, making good headway through her fifth Snowball and being so appalled by the turn the conversation had taken that she had little choice but to order another.
“My father tried to get it banned,” continued Julian. “He hates anything to do with Republicanism, so I had to see what all the fuss was about.”
“Who’s your father?”
“Max Woodbead.”
“The solicitor?”
“That’s the one.”
“Who got his ear shot off by the IRA?”
“Yes,” nodded Julian.
“Jayzuz,” said Behan, shaking his head and laughing as he lifted the pint that Mary-Margaret had ordered and drank a good quarter of it without batting an eyelid. “You must have a few quid so. We’ll keep you on call here all night.”
“Can I ask you a question, Mr. Behan?” asked Bridget, leaning forward with a look on her face that suggested she was either going to ask where he got his ideas or whether he wrote by hand or on a typewriter.
“If it’s will you marry me, the answer’s no, but if it’s will I take you out the alley for a quick ride, then it’s yes,” said Behan, and there was a long silence before he started laughing and took another mouthful of his Guinness. “I’m only pulling your leg, darling. Let’s have a look at your legs anyway. Swing ’em out there. Come on, all the way; let the dog see the rabbit. Jayzuz, they’re not bad all the same. You’ve two of them, which always helps. And they go up a fair way.”
“They meet in the middle too,” said Bridget, a line that made me, Julian and Mary-Margaret sit back in a mixture of admiration and disbelief. Julian looked as if he was about to rise off the seat in lust at the very idea.
“Is this your fella, it is?” Behan asked, nodding at Julian.
“I don’t know yet,” said Bridget, shooting Julian a sidelong glance. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“I’m buttering her up,” said Julian. “I’m giving her the old Woodbead charm.”
“She’ll be getting the old Behan charm if you’re not careful. And what about you, young fella?” he asked, turning to me. “You look like you’d rather be anywhere else but here right now.”
“Not at all,” I said, not wanting to let Julian down. “I’m having a great time.”
“You are not.”
“I am.”
“I am what?”
“I am, Mr. Behan?” I said, uncertain what he meant.
“I can see right through you,” he said, leaning forward and looking me directly in the eyes. “You’re like a wall of glass. I can see right into the depths of your soul and it is a dark cave filled with indecent thoughts and immoral fantasies. Good man yourself.”
A long silence followed, during which everyone at the table, with the exception of Behan himself, felt awkward.
“Bridget,” said Mary-Margaret finally, breaking the silence but slurring her words. “I think it’s time I went home. I don’t want to stay here any longer.”
“Have another Snowball,” said Bridget, who was getting as drunk as any of us, and she waved her finger over the table without even looking around and, to my astonishment, within about two minutes, a fresh round arrived.
“Was everything you said in your book true?” asked Julian. “In Borstal Boy, I mean.”
“Christ, I hope not,” said Behan, shaking his head as he lifted his next pint. “A book would be terrible boring if everything in it was true, don’t you think? Especially an autobiography. I can’t remember half of it anyway, so I presume I’ve slandered a few people along the way. Was that why your daddy wanted to have it banned?”
“He doesn’t approve of your past.”
“Do you have a sensational past, Mr. Behan?” asked Bridget.
“I have a few of them. Which part is it that he didn’t like?”
“When you tried to blow up the Liverpool docks,” said Julian. “The bit that landed you in Borstal in the first place.”
“Your daddy isn’t a sympathizer then?”
“He wants the Brits to come back in and take control,” said Julian. “He’s born and bred in Dublin but he’s ashamed of the fact.”
“Well, sure it takes all sorts to make a world. And what about you, young fella?” he asked, turning his attention to me.
“I don’t care,” I said. “I have no interest in politics.”
“Tell him who your mother is,” said Julian, nudging me in the arm.
“I don’t know who my mother is,” I replied.
“How can you not know who your mother is?” asked Behan.
“He’s adopted,” said Julian.
“And you don’t know who your mother is?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Then why did he—”
“Tell him who your adoptive mother is,” said Julian, and I looked down at the table, focusing on a stain that I was trying to scrub clean with my thumb.
“Maude Avery,” I said quietly.
“Maude Avery?” asked Behan, putting his pint down and staring at me with a mixture of disbelief and humor. “Like to the Lark Maude Avery?”
“That’s the one,” I said.
“One of the best writers Ireland has ever produced,” he said, slapping his hand down on the table a few times. “Do you know, I think I remember you now. You were at the funeral. I was there myself.”
“Of course I was at the funeral,” I said. “She was my adoptive mother.”
“She’ll find her peace with the Lord,” said Mary-Margaret in an evangelical tone that made me turn to her with a contemptuous expression on my face.
“I can see you still in the front row in a little dark suit,” said Behan. “Sitting right there next to your father.”
“His adoptive father,” said Julian.
“Shut up, Julian,” I said, a rare moment of displeasure from me to him.
“You gave one of the readings.”
“I did,” I said.
“And sang a song.”
“No, that wasn’t me.”
“It was a beautiful tune. You had us all in tears.”
“Again, not me. I can’t sing.”
“Yeats said it was like listening to a choir of angels. O’Casey said it was the first time he
’d cried in his entire life.”
“I didn’t sing anything,” I insisted.
“Are you aware of the esteem in which we all held your mother?”
“I didn’t know her very well,” I said, wishing that Julian hadn’t brought this topic up.
“How could you not know her well?” asked Behan. “If she was your mother?”
“My adoptive mother,” I insisted for the umpteenth time.
“When did she adopt you?”
“When I was three days old.”
“Three years old?”
“Three days old.”
“Three days old? Sure then she was your real mother, for all intents and purposes.”
“We weren’t close,” I said.
“Have you read her books?”
“No,” I said.
“None of them?”
“None of them.”
“I’ve told him,” said Julian, perhaps feeling a little excluded from the conversation.
“Not even Like to the Lark?”
“Why do people keep telling me to read that? No, not even Like to the Lark.”
“Right so,” said Behan. “Well, you should if you have even a small interest in Irish literature.”
“That’s exactly what I have,” I said.
“Christ,” he said, looking from Julian to me and back again. “Your father is Max Woodbead, your mother is Maude Avery. What about you girls? Who are your parents? The Pope? Alma Cogan? Doris Day?”
“I’m going downstairs to the jacks,” I said, standing up and looking around the table. “I need a piss.”
“We don’t need to know,” said Mary-Margaret.
“Fuck you,” I said, before giggling uncontrollably.
“Do you know something,” said Behan, smiling at her sweetly, “if you want to loosen yourself up a little, maybe you should go down there with him. I bet he’d find a way to sort you out. You’ve got to lose it sometime, Missy, and so does he. This pair on the other hand,” he added, nodding toward Julian and Bridget. “They’re well into it already, I’d say. Sure he’s only short of dragging her under the table and sticking it to her right here.”
I stepped over the back of the chairs before I could hear her response and stumbled downstairs, urinating long and furiously against the back wall and wishing that we had never come to the Palace Bar to begin with. How long was Behan going to sit with us? And why hadn’t Julian told me that he had planned a foursome for the evening? Was he afraid that, had I known, I would never have come? The fact was, I would have anyway. It was easier to sit in front of him, watching him get up to all sorts, than it was to be left alone in our room at Belvedere College, imagining it.