Breakfast on Pluto (8 page)

As there I sat, the same thing thinking! But not to Mrs Begley listening! To Hawkwind and ‘Silver Machine’, the very same tears my own cheeks streaking as I thought of my old
friends, on coffee-soaked paper scribbling letters: ‘Write to me – this place is fucking crazy! Sometimes, I’m afraid, I don’t feel so good! I love you Charlie,
Irwin!’ and if not that, then once more thinking of her I’d give my life to find the one-and-only Eily Bergin. ‘Where are you, Mammy?’ I might often be heard to choke.
‘Where are you?’

For how long already had one been searching? Since the very day of arrival, to be honest! Once – can you believe it! – a pallid face observed in a passing tube: ‘It’s
her! I swear it’s her!’, for Mitzi she did, in truth, resemble! Mitzi as she might be now in 1973! How many people in this teeming city? Ten million? More? How long to find one’s
mammy? Has anyone seen my mammy?

Look – there she is in the empty church. Turning her head to greet you.

‘Hello, Paddy. Why did you leave it so long?’

As ‘Ah’ goes, thorned head upturned: ‘Ah! Did you think it was your mammy?’

And in a café too, of course! From the street you saw her as you passed, sitting there, pale hands curled around a cup.

‘Mammy!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

How many times did that one happen? Why, hundreds, dearest, hundreds!

Now is it any wonder that a bitterness would begin to grip, as through the small hours you sat there glass-eyed, gazing, while on the portable TV the Israeli tanks moved across the Sinai desert,
their guns rat-tatting and repeating in your head.

Quite what I would have done without old Bertie Wooster and his baldy chap, I really do not know!

It must straight away be acknowledged – for what is the point of deception – that poor old Bertie bore absolutely no resemblance to Marlon Brando (Some hope! Mr
Magoo might have been more like it!) who was up to his margarine tricks in France in the Odeon, Leicester Square, the billboard for which you could clearly see through the window of the café
where Berts, man-about-town was sitting now, daffodil-coloured (the outfits!) in his lambswool V-neck and matching slacks, with her eminence P. Pussy, who thanks to a temporary change in her
fortunes was looking, it had to be admitted, quite desirable, in her brightly coloured suede patchwork jacket and a dinky little T-shirt with a scarlet baby heart over the left breast. Not to
mention trousers most exceptionally delicious, of velvet once again and big-buckled belt of patent black. With her eyeshadow laden and hair again dyed: boy with the swirling, shiny hair –
could it be Pussy? Methinks it is! – did she perhaps resemble Miss Lynsey de Paul? She certainly did, let there be no doubt! Indeed often swinging her hips while working Piccadilly, to the
tune of ‘Sugar Me!’ – for services rendered, of course!

And now she sits there facing dearest Berts! Marlon Margarine definitely not – but everyone’s favourite uncle perhaps. The one who always arrives with prezzies and is never done
trying to amuse everyone – squirting you with his novelty trick flower and going: ‘Ha ha! Only joking!’, flopping down in his favourite armchair – the one he sits in every
year – and ruffling the heads of kiddies all around as he says: ‘Well! Wot’s been ’appening then? Any stories for your Uncle Bertie?’ As they all say: ‘Oh, Uncle
Berts! How O how we love him!’

Except when he gets too drunk of course, and starts blubbering in the corner and wilting like a great big daffodil (he just loved yellow!), saying nobody loved him and that his life had come to
nothing. Uncle Bertie plastered across the table at every single wedding, everyone mortified with shame.

And now, here he was at it again in front of a complete stranger! Oh, Bertie Bertie Berts – what a sight to behold after practically a crate of beer! Holsten Pils like dribbly teeth going
plok!
as his spidery eyes they liquidized upon the table.

But waking up – eureka! – just as his favourite song came on the jukebox! How he adored them, Peters and Lee! As he did not fail to inform the entire company!

‘I can’t believe it! It’s on! My favourite song! What a coincidence! Astonishing, in fact!’

It was unlikely, as a general rule old Berts deciding at the drop of a hat to entertain crowded cafés to renditions of ‘Welcome Home’ or indeed any other popular numbers, but
right at that very moment, at 3 a.m. on the 11th of August 1973, there would have been very little that anyone who took the notion could have done to stop him! He even insisted on his new companion
–
moi
, of course! – accompanying him on a waltz around the floor, much to the amusement of the assorted Irish, Turkish and other immigrant workers who cried: ‘Drop the
hand!’, ‘Pair of Hoors!’ and ‘Get them off ya!’

As Berts crooned in Puss’s tender ear: ‘
Welcome Home! Welcome! Come on in and close the door!
’

Later – much later! (already the tubes were groaning into life), over a very appreciable number of Pils, it transpired that Berts had a theory. ‘Gasp!’ I counterfeited
admirably. Yes, Berts went on, he had no doubt whatsoever that this particular song, as written, told only half the story.

I nodded feverishly as he stared into my eyes with something, if you didn’t know better, you might be inclined to consider very close indeed to complete and utter madness, of a firmly
pathological and obsessive kind, and not been in the slightest bit surprised if they had stormed the café and carted him off for good never to be seen again. Especially when he poked his
finger into your chest and plaintively cried: ‘What about the
inside
of the house? Eh? The
tables
and
chairs
and
sideboards
and that? You don’t hear about
them, do you? Oh no!’ Out of nowhere he began to sing (And what a performer! I kid you not!), twirling in and out among the tables.

I nearly fell off the chair as stalk-eyed he leaned right in to me and continued:

He slapped his perfectly manicured hand down on the formica.

‘You’ve got to hear about the
inside
, don’t you understand! And I’m going to see to it that we do! Oh, yes! I’ve got my own band you know! Been in
showbusiness all my life! I’ve written it already, actually! Yes! Welcome Home Part 2, I suppose you could call it. You want to hear it, my young friend?’

Before I could open my mouth, he beamed and drained his bottle, coughing politely as he began to sing to the waking city:

It’s hard to know what to say about him, old Berts, sitting there with his drinky and swaying from side to side, like a supperclub crooner lost in space.

‘Every Sunday morning down the Wheatsheaf – it’s how I earn my living! Just me and the jolly old keyboard, Patrick, my friend!’

Then Bertie – all of a sudden getting naughty! Almost breathless, as he squeezed my arm.

‘Please! Please you’ll come and stay with me!’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that now! A girl’s got to think of her future, Bertie, darling!’

‘I’ll give you anything you want!’

‘You will . . .?’

‘Please say you will – Louise won’t mind!’

‘Louise!’ I gasp. ‘
Louise?
’

‘Yes! You can be my nephew!’

Much thought then given to it – approximately fifteen seconds worth that is! After all, I really did think I had had quite enough of Paddy Braden’s High Class Escort Service, The
Railings, Piccadilly Circus, London W1, for quite some time, thank you very much!

Charlie and Irwin walk down the street. Irwin is sullen with his hands in his pockets and from the petrol pumps to the chickenhouse not so much as a word passes between
them.

‘Don’t lie to me!’ says Charlie then. ‘I’m not a fucking idiot! I don’t believe your fucking stories!’

‘I told you – I’m not going on any operations,’ says Irwin. ‘I sell
Republican News –
big deal!’

‘You’re a fucking liar and if you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll finish with you!’

Which she won’t, of course, no matter when he says. But he
is
going on operations. In fact only the night before this conversation had helped two volunteers prepare a booby-trap
bomb.

‘I don’t care what you believe!’ cried Charlie. ‘It’s not in you to kill someone!’

‘What do you know? What the fuck do you know, Charlie?’

A lot more – certainly about ‘Volunteer’ Irwin Kerr than he would – or could – care to admit!

As was plainly evident only some nights later (not long after the young McCarville fellow came sailing down the river roped to a mattress with a six-inch nail hammered into his head and it had
been decided something needed to be done) when the Horse Kinnane and Jackie Timlin called for him and they drove off to stiff old Anderson and his son. Who both conveniently happened to be in the
library spraying food onto some exotic plant or other when the three masked desperadoes burst in. Nutting the old chap proved no problem but his son (albeit he was fifty years of age) fought tooth
and nail. Almost escaped, indeed, before the Horse managed to get between him and the door, knocking him to his knees and shouting: ‘Do him! Do him, Kerr, you bollocks you!’

As Irwin stood there pissing himself – he really did, as anyone with an eye in their head could see from the gathering map on the crotch of his trousers, and being so far away in some
other place that eventually Jackie had to push him out of the way, snatch the gun from his hand and put three in your man’s head. ‘You stupid fucker, Kerr! You stupid dithering little
fuck! What do you think this is? What do you think it is?’

Irwin wasn’t quite sure what it was. All he knew was that from that night on, things were never going to be quite the same again. As indeed they weren’t. It didn’t take the
cops long to figure out who was involved and after that any time Irwin crossed the border, they pulled him in. At first he was just about as tough and resilient as you could get. But that
didn’t last long. And when they said that they were going to see that Charlie was set up and busted for dope, then things began to take a different turn. Especially when they did stop her and
mysteriously find a tiny bit of grass in her pocket. It was nothing but when word got out, her old pair were mortified. ‘Next time,’ the cops said, ‘she’s fucked, Kerr.
Unless you start seeing some sense.’

He knew enough to know that if he started seeing some sense
he
was fucked. But which he did – partly because he wasn’t sleeping anymore and couldn’t think straight. Half
the time he didn’t even know what he was doing. Clearly it was only a matter of time before he started singing like a canary. ‘I can’t lose Charlie,’ he kept repeating to
himself. ‘If anything happened to her . . .’

Which, fortunately, because of his ultimately tragic cooperation nothing did, apart from the fact that she looked like having a fantastic career in the National College of Art and Design.

About which she told me everything the day I rang her!

‘At last, Patrick! At last I get to paint the fuckers! Two thousand dead ones on a big black background!’

‘I got you the Yes albums,’ I told her. ‘They’re on the way.’

‘You fucking beauty,’ she said. ‘How are they treating you over there? Things any better yet?’

‘They have the arse rode off me,’ I said.

‘You fucking slut,’ she said and down the mouthpiece blew a kiss.

‘Good luck,’ I said and by the surging throng once more was swallowed up.

It’s Sa’day night dahn the old West End, innit? Fackin’ right it is, mah san! Look at ’em puntahs – ’avin ’emselves a right old time,
they are! And wot’s wrong wiv that, ai? Naffink! Not a bleedin’t fing, mate! Ain’t like they ain’t worked bleedin’ ’ard for it all week, geddin’ themselves
lookin’ narce nah for a night aht on the old tahn. Look at them in there – laverly, I tell yah! – fackin’ laverly! – quaffin’ the old vino and whackin’ em
all dahn, them great big steaks! Bless ’em, that’s wot I say. Every last soddin’ one of ’em! Like bleedin’ Christmas it is in there, watchin ’em frow it back,
larfing their bleedin’ ’eads off at some soddin’ stupid joke! But who cares – a larf’s a larf, innit? I don’t give a fack, I really don’t, wot people larfs
abaht – long as they’s ’avin themselves a good time, that’s awright by me! All them lights – running along the edge of the window – looks so soddin’
invitin’, you know? Like – no need to stay aaht there – come right on in, guv’ – come and join the party!

Now wot the bleedin’ ’ell was that? Oh, for cryin’ aht lahd! Look at that! Poor geezer’s got blood runnin’ all down side of ’is face!
It’s a diabolical liberty, that is! Frowing bombs into restaurants! Wot do they ’ope to gain by that – ai? Bladdy ’ell! They’re all cammin’ aht nah –
screamin’ and crying some of ’em, it’s like somefink you’d see in a bleedin’ ’orror movie! Poor bloke didn’t even get the steak far as ’is marf, blew
his fackin’ ’ead off! It’s criminal, that’s wot it is! Oh, nao! Look at that little old lady! Where’s ’er legs then? Gao on – tell me! Where’s the
old gel’s legs? That’s right – she ain’t got none, ’as she? Blown raht dahn to stumps, they are – all because of them bleedin’ Paddies! Cor, it don’t
arf try your patience, I’ll tell you! Take ’em over ’ere, give ’em jobs and wot do they do? Blow your fackin’ head off! Weren’t to be seen doing much av it
during the last war though, if you recall! Blahdy bog Arabs! I’m sorry, guv, but that’s the way I feel! Wot if it ’ad been my old mum in there – or yours? Send ’em all
back, that’s wot I say. Back to the bleedin’ bog wot shat ’em aht in the first place!