Breakfast on Pluto (15 page)

‘What’s what?’ says Dad as his nostrils sniff and twitch and he begins to understand.

‘Ugh!’ says Mum. ‘But where is it coming from?’

It’s Chanel No. 19, of course, which I, the Avenger, do absolutely adore! But they do not know from whence it emanates! If Mum didn’t know better, she’d say to the kids:
‘Have you been meddling around in my bedroom upstairs? Stealing my Chanel No. 19?’ But she didn’t, of course – mainly because she didn’t possess any. Wouldn’t be
caught dead wearing it, in fact! ‘O God no!’ she often said. ‘In fact I rarely wear perfume of any kind!’

Which is a lot more than can be said for Spirit-Pussy, Puss Avenger, as she floats by in the night with great big trails of whiff stringing out behind her like so many silk-blown scarves. It
only takes an instant before one’s shadow on the blinds is gone and Mummy is saying: ‘Hmm. It appears to be gone now. Perhaps we all imagined it!’

‘Yes – perhaps we did,’ says Dad, although he really doesn’t think so at all – he just wants to settle the kids again. As off I go past VG foodstore, petrol pumps
and Mulvey’s Bar on my travels, having overdone it a little perhaps, but, after all, it is quite a stench that hovers over the village – so long a part of it that no one even knows
it’s there!

Pat McGrane (old classmate) is as happy as Larry. He has just knocked off from his job in Tyreelin Frozen Meats and discovered that he has been given an extra ten pounds in his
wage packet, payment for the seven hours he’d worked three weeks previously and completely forgotten about. All he could remember was the foreman asking him would he be able to work extra
some week, replying: ‘Aye, surely’, and then completely forgetting about it. Making those few green notes all the sweeter. Jimmy Hanlon who worked with him on the assembly line went
past wiping his hands on his rubber apron and flicking his towel across his shoulder. ‘Hello, Pat,’ Jimmy said, as Pat acknowledged the greeting with a smile. Folding his pound notes,
he placed them neatly in the pocket of his wallet, glowing warmly. Partly because of the infinite possibilities with which the extra remuneration now provided him but more specifically the
awareness that it could not have come at a better time, a Thursday evening when he was due, as always, to visit his girlfriend across the border and take her to the Arcadia ballroom where they
would dance to Gene Stuart and the Mighty Avons. Whom she loved. Why, he could not for the life of him understand, for as far as he was concerned, Gene Stuart couldn’t sing a note. A
contention which was the cause of many arguments between them, of course – and ones which Pat always regretted. When they had abated, he would always inwardly chide himself and say:
‘Why did I have to contradict her? Why can’t I let her alone and allow her to like Gene Stuart if she wants to!’ A solemn bond which he would make with himself, only to go and
break it all over again the next time she would look up from the paper and say: ‘I see Gene Stuart and the Mighty Avons are playing in Forkhill tonight – will we go, Pat?’ Hardly
would the words have left his lips than he’d find himself saying: ‘Gene Stuart? What on earth do you want to see him for?’

He felt an idiot when he did it. But he did it every time! Now, as he motored along in his Anglia, raising an index finger from the steering wheel to acknowledge the passing of Fergus Killen, a
neighbour, on his bicycle, he established eye contact with himself in the mirror and committed himself firmly to a reformation of his ways in this respect: ‘If Sandra wants to go and see Gene
Stuart, then Gene Stuart she shall see. There’s going to be no big deal about it, OK?’ It would make for a far better night for everyone. In any case, as his conscience insisted, if you
weren’t prepared to make small compromises like this, what hope was there for a marriage surviving the way it ought to? It was just that he didn’t like her kind of music, that was all.
‘If only I wasn’t such a big Creedence Clearwater Revival fan,’ he said to himself As if there was any hope of that happening!

For Pat simply loved Creedence, and until the day he died would never understand how people could ever even begin to accept bad versions of their songs by the likes of Gene Stuart. It was
because he liked them so much that he had adopted, practically down to the tiniest detail, the style of dress of the lead singer, John Fogerty. Every Thursday night, on would go the lumberjack
shirt and denim jeans and what with the identical, collar-length hairstyle (almost Beatlish) and the tiny bootlace tie which he had lately taken to wearing, you would have been hard pressed not to
leap to the conclusion that somehow John Fogerty, the lead singer and guitar player of Creedence Clearwater Revival, had arrived in Tyreelin. Over a few pints in Mulvey’s, before he went to
collect Sandra across the border, Pat’s pals would often say: ‘Oho, you can traipse about like John Fogerty now, but come your wedding day she’ll soon put a stop to all that, I
can tell you!’ To which Pat might reply: ‘Would you go away to fuck out of that!’ or ‘Do me a fucking favour, lads!’

Driving along now, he smiled as he considered it – knowing in his heart how silly it was. For, whatever about him and Sandra rowing over Gene Stuart, he knew, it would be a long time
before she started ordering him around in terms of telling him what to wear and so on. Because, as she had said, God knows how many times, she liked him just the way he was. Loved him, in fact. She
had said that too. Playing with the silver clasp on his bootlace tie she had sort of looked away from him as she said it: ‘I love you, Pat.’ To which it wasn’t hard for him to
find a response. Because he had been dying to say it all evening, of course. ‘I love you too, Sandra,’ he said.

Getting ready, he hadn’t been able to make up his mind where they would go before the dance. A lot of the time they went to Hughie’s, which was in the middle of the market square in
her hometown of Dunkeerin, but of late he had been getting fed up with it and, he suspected, so had she. Hughie’s idea of running a pub seemed to be to pack them in and throw any sort of old
slops at them. In the middle of the week, it was fine, but on Thursdays it could be a madhouse. Then there was the Spinning Wheel – but that was the opposite. The most exciting thing that
happened in there on a Thursday or any other night was someone flicking over a table mat or playing games with matchsticks. It catered more for the bank and teaching crowd – pub grub, soup
and sandwiches during the working week, that sort of thing. Then there was Walter’s, where you were liable to be taking your life in your hands once you went inside the door. But which could
also be worth it if you got in with the right crowd. All the same, Sandra wasn’t keen on it. ‘No doubt it’ll probably end up being McLarnon’s again then!’ Pat had
sighed as he buckled his Levi’s belt. Which didn’t bother him in the slightest, actually, for they always ended up having a good time there. Sometimes they had good music too –
one night a band from Belfast did the most amazing version of ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’. It had astonished him, in fact, and for weeks after Sandra would say: I never seen you
looking as entranced, Pat – I really didn’t.’

Unfortunately, however, that particular band were nowhere to be seen that night and he and Sandra ended up sitting beside one of the speakers as the singer banged a tambourine and sang:
‘Tra la la la la la – triangle!’ hopelessly out of tune. But once they got out into the night air, Pat didn’t care. He put his arm around Sandra and kissed her on the mouth.
She hooked her thumb into the back of his belt as they walked along. The dance was surprisingly good too and he had even begun to consider had he been unfair to Gene Stuart. Especially when he did
a cover of ‘Bad Moon Rising’. As they danced, he stroked Sandra’s hair and said: ‘Come back. Gene Stuart – all is forgiven.’

It was a bit early yet to be talking about the wedding but all the same, there were one or two things which it was no harm to think about – just so as they’d be out of the way. He
agreed with her about that. The more they had done beforehand, the easier it would be whenever the planning truly started in earnest. Sandra’s mother joined in for a while when they were
chatting about it all, and actually ended up agreeing with Pat about Gene Stuart – who turned up again in the conversation, completely out of nowhere!

I can’t understand what our Sandra sees in him!’ she said and cupped her hand around the blue-striped mug. ‘Oh, will you two ever ...’ hissed Sandra and for a split
second, Pat was sure she was going to lose her temper. But it passed, her fleeting moment of irascibility, and by the time it was coming towards three, they had been embracing for so long there,
Pat thought he had better do something or he’d be there until morning. And that wouldn’t look so good in the quiet, law-abiding town of Dunkeerin! So, adjusting his clothes and his Ben
Sherman shirt, Pat coughed and said: ‘I think I’d best hit the road, pet. Otherwise I’ll never make it.’

At the door, under the porch light, Sandra gave him a last kiss and told him how much she had, first of all, enjoyed the evening, and, secondly, was looking forward to the wedding.

Which Pat smiled as he thought about now, driving home listening to the radio, and trying to keep his eyes open which wasn’t proving easy. But he’d make it all right, he knew. As he
cruised along the avenue of sycamore trees which since the war started had been dubbed Rosary Row by Tyreelin folk, because of the number of people who had been attacked or murdered there, Pat
didn’t give it a second thought. He’d travelled it so often, it never even occurred to him to do so. Not even when he saw the lamp swinging to and fro in the darkness up ahead for he
knew it was probably just the UDR who, although they might give him some annoyance, would only delay him for a couple of minutes at the most and that wasn’t going to bother him.

But it wasn’t the UDR. Although they were, in fact, attired in military dress. But that was just to hoodwink drivers like Pat. Who didn’t know what was happening until he received a
solid blow from a wheelbrace across the head.

How long he had been awake, Pat didn’t have the faintest idea. The problem was that he kept walking and passing out again. Where exactly the garage was – or if it even was a garage
– he wouldn’t have been able to say, but he felt it was miles and miles away from where he had been picked up. He really wished they would do what he knew they were going to do in the
end anyway, because it was as clear as day he was never going to see Sandra again. Which suited them fine, of course, because they didn’t like him associating with protestants – or
‘their’ kind as they put it. After reviving him with a bucket of cold water, they told him that they didn’t mind him ‘riding taigs’ or ‘screaming wee Catholic
witches’ but when it came to clean, God-fearing protestant ladies, they could not stand by and countenance Catholic cocks squirting the poison of Rome into their spotless, untainted vaginas.
It just wasn’t right. It wasn’t right, they said. Whose idea it was to start chipping at him, Pat didn’t know. Of all the tortures so far, he would say it was the worst. It turned
him into a solid block of flesh, a sculpture they kept tapping away at with seemingly infinite patience. How many wounds – half-inch nicks – were there on his body when they tired of
it? Approximately three hundred. Then they brought out the knives – just an eight-inch at first – and carved some lines right down his back – parallel tracks all the way down.

There was a late-night film on the black and white portable so they watched that until he passed out. It was called
A Great Day for Bonzo
. In his fleeting moments of clarity Pat managed
to remember his name and imagined himself running with the children and the dog across the lush and rolling fields of the English countryside. In the final, brief seconds before he felt the Magnum
placed against his temple, Pat wondered whether he and Sandra would have had a dog. He thought perhaps Sandra might have been against it but they would have agreed in the end.

How wicked to laugh within such dreams but apparently I did! Wallis even told me! ‘You were thrashing about like a facking maniac!’ he said. ‘What was going
through your head?’

‘Perfume,’ I said. ‘Perfume to take the smell away! Perfume one million! Stench – nothing!’

‘You’re a right one you are!’ he goes and says then with a smile.

Quite nice in the end, old Wallis was – I think I rather fancied him!

Even sponging my head as off again I silky-floated, tumbling wild from moon to moon, as sweat it rolled (ugh!) and body it jerked and spasmed.

‘Write it for me,’ Terence said. ‘Write it as best you can – it’ll help me understand.’

Which it obviously did! Help him understand that the best thing he could be doing with himself is applying for a transfer to another hospital, away from this sad nutty fairy!

Who now finds herself planked upon a smallish mountain in the shadow of which she grew up, eyeing it viciously with narrowed, kohl-rimmed eyes.

It is almost eleven-thirty in Mulvey’s Bar, and Dessie Mulvey the owner is at his wit’s end trying to clear the house. ‘Ah, for God’s sake, lads!’ he repeatedly
cries. ‘Do you want to have the guards on me or what!’

As if the guards would come into Mulvey’s at that hour, causing trouble! For, as Dessie well knows, they have far too much sense! Why, the last time they came in trying to throw their
weight around, it had practically ended in a riot! Especially when the sergeant committed the cardinal sin of saying something cynical under his breath about the IRA, which you just don’t do
in Mulvey’s – because it is a Provisional IRA pub, of course! And more especially still when one of their number who was well known in the bar had been taken into custody by the very
same policemen and savagely beaten. It was silly of the sergeant and, almost as soon as he’d said it, both he and his colleagues knew it. But it was already too late, for Jackie Timlin and
the Horse Kinnane had risen from their seats and were giving him looks that did not exactly say: ‘We understand your predicament, sergeant. If you’ll just give us one or two more
minutes?’