The Dead Republic (17 page)

I stayed where I was. He’d said he wouldn’t lock the door, and he didn’t. I listened. He didn’t touch the window. If he started whistling I’d be over there quick, although I wasn’t sure why. If he climbed out and fell, if he stretched a leg to some ledge - none of it mattered. I’d come to Cong to murder the man but that seemed like a long time ago.

I heard the chain and the flush. I heard water running. I heard nothing extra. But the water kept running. And now I saw the steam, leaking up from the edges of the jacks door.

My broken fingers hopped as I got off the bed. I fell - I made it to the door and pushed it open. He was sitting on the jacks and he was crying. I was drenched already; the steam was dragging me to the floor. There was barely room - I had to shove his legs out of my way. I turned off the hot tap and managed to unlock the window one-handed. It was already a hot day outside, so the steam made no dash to the open window. I looked again at Ford. His glasses were two white clouds and the tears ran, straight and quickly, from under them. His pyjama bottoms were up and his hands were clasped and caught between his legs. He was leaning forward, but not slumped like he often was. He looked like he was trying to hear properly, trying to catch the words. But there weren’t any. There was nothing, no noise at all, now that the tap was off. There wasn’t the sound of an engine or animal. The hotel was absolutely empty, and the country outside was empty.

—Alright?

He didn’t answer. He didn’t hear.

I stepped back, into the bigger room. It was like walking through drizzle, and the condensation on all the wood and glass. I got back up onto the bed and scooted across to my side.

He was crying. But fuck him. I’d remembered why I was there in the first place and why I’d strangled him with the beads that I now pushed off the bed onto the floor.

I didn’t give a shite.

He came out. Walked out of the edge of a cloud. Like an ancient angel, in his silk pyjamas. He leaned against the door frame, like I’d seen Wayne do in one of his films.

—I love this country, he said.

—For fuck sake.

—Fuck you.

He climbed onto the bed like a kid, knees first, then turned over and lay back.

—That’s the problem, he said.—And that’s your answer.

—What?

—I love this country, he said.—You never did.

—How can you love a fuckin’ country?

I was angry again, but I was curious. I’d done the fighting, but he was the one doing the crying.

I pointed at one of the curtained windows.

—What’s out there that you can love?

—Nothing.

—Exactly.

—You don’t get it.

—Trees and water and trout.

—You don’t get it.

—Explain it to me.

He pointed to the side of his head, inches above the raw line I’d put on his neck.

—I love what’s in here, he said.

—What’s that mean?

—What I grew up with. I was Irish from the start. It was the stories my parents told. And the dancing and music and the drink. We were never really American. We were Irish but Ireland was thousands of miles away. And fifty years away. I grew up loving a place that didn’t fucking exist. I just knew it was a hell of a lot better than where I actually was.

—What about America? I asked.

—I love America.

—You’re a cranky old cunt, for a man who loves so much.

—I love America. You do too, Henry. You fucking know it. It’s impossible not to. When I went across it that first time, on my way out to California. To meet my fucking destiny. I loved it. The plains and the deserts and the old-time religion. Everything. But it never really let me in. I was always Irish. Even my wife wouldn’t let me be American, even after I married her. And her fucking brother out there, Wingate - Jesus. I fought in two fucking wars. I made some of the best pictures ever made. I conquered the Wild West single-fucking-handedly. I gave them John Wayne and a brand new history. I changed my fucking politics. But, you know, I’m not really American.

—You are.

—No, he said.—I’m Irish. But I guess you’d dispute that.

I shrugged, and the pain shot up my arm.

—That’s the problem with America, he said.—And I’m guessing it’s going to get worse.

—What?

—It’s full of folks who’ll never be American. They’ll try their damnedest but they’ll never make the grade. They’ll die in all the corners of the world. They’ll dye their hair and bleach their skin but it won’t work. They’ll grab at new religions or they’ll try to buy their way in. But it’ll be never be enough. That’s the secret. And I’ll tell you, Henry. I’m content enough keeping it.

—The secret?

—Yep. I keep the secret. I help hide the fact that there’s a secret. I give ’em Duke and Jimmy Stewart and all that hokum about the American way, and I get honorary membership.

It made sense. But America was big enough for any kind of sense. I’d done it myself, invented America, after I’d landed on Ellis Island; I’d done it every day.

—But I have my Ireland, he said.

He tapped the side of his head.

—In here, he said.—Take it out of me and I’m dead.

I heard his head move on the pillow. He was looking at me.

—I tried, he said.

I looked at him, but not for long.

I didn’t know what he meant yet; I didn’t know if I wanted to. I was ready for sleep again. It was good there, on the bed; I’d never been relaxed like this. I thought about closing my eyes, and thought about trying not to.

He nudged me - a soft prod to the shoulder.

—What?

—Wake up.

—I’m not asleep.

—You came all this way to hear me, he said.—I took the day off. First time in my life.

—Right; go on.

—I intended making the picture. I fully intended doing it. When we met, in the Valley, back then. I loved that story. I knew the story before we even met. It was in the can, already made, as far as I was concerned. You remember that, don’t you?

—Yeah, I said.

—That’s right.

—I remember.

—Great, he said.—But I couldn’t do it. The killing.

—Fuck you anyway, I said.—You’ve killed hundreds of men in your films. Fuckin’ thousands.

—That was different.

—How?

—Soldiers and Indians. Mostly Indians. They don’t matter. The Indians love me, but they don’t matter. It’s sad but fucking true. No one cares about the Indians. Not even the Indians. It’s propaganda, I guess. All the how the West was won. Indians, Japs, commies. I played my fucking part. And, like I said, they gave me my honorary membership. I knew exactly what I was doing. I invented a place that would take me. Understand me?

—I suppose so, I said.

—But I couldn’t do that here, he said.—I won’t have this place covered in dead Apaches and Navajo.

—What are you on about?

—I could tell it to a point, he said.—The fight, your part in it. The Limeys would be the Apaches, but worse. Bad palefaces. I’m getting a bit mixed up here. I suppose, we - the Irish - would be the Apaches.

He was years ahead of the Provos.

—The rebels, he said.—You’d be Geronimo. And we’d win. But I’d have to make it happily ever after.

—Why?

—I’m a cartoon Irishman. Like all the other Irishmen and women in America. Look, he said.—Listen to this.

I looked through the black lenses, to the eyes behind them. For a second or two the lenses weren’t there. Ford wasn’t hiding.

—Without our nostalgia we would die, he said.—We’d be nothing. Landless. The place mightn’t exist, Henry, but we need it. And the Italians, and the Swedes, the Russians and all of those people. They need the home in their heads. You too.

—No.

—Yes.

I didn’t repeat the denial. The first No already sounded hollow.

—You too, he said.—You colluded. I told you why I’m doing it. But what’s your excuse?

He was right. I’d colluded with him, long before Frank Nugent rounded up the diehards and drove them off the pages of the script.

—I couldn’t have an Irishman shoot an Irishman, he said.—That doesn’t happen in Ireland. No one gets shot in the back. No one gets shot at all.

—What about
The Informer
?

—No one paid their ten cents to see it, said Ford.—They stayed away and they were right to. We all know the fucking truth but who wants to pay for it? And, listen. There’s something else.

—What?

—I’m doing the right thing, he said.—Making this leprechaun Ireland. I’m doing the right thing here, Henry.

—What d’you mean?

—You’ll see. Can’t say now. But it’s part of the plan.You retired from the fight, right?

—Right.

—I never did.

—You’re talking shite.

—That might be, he said.

We lay there.

I didn’t feel bad; I didn’t feel good. I was in Ireland, the real place, not Ford’s. I was lying on a fat bed in a well-kept castle, but I was still in Ireland. And I was more than likely staying. I hadn’t thought about that. I didn’t think about it now.

—I could use some food. You hungry?

It took a while - where and who I was; who was talking.

He was standing beside the bed, beside me. A sudden thought, a fact: he’d kissed me. It was on my forehead, left from the dream that had burst, collapsed when his words came through.

I knew where I was.

He hadn’t touched me. It was all that was left of the dream, all I could keep hold of. A child - a daughter - had kissed my forehead. But Saoirse, my daughter, had never done that. But maybe she had in my own Ireland. It was still there on my forehead.

Sentimental shite.

—Yeah, I said.—I’m starving.

—Anywhere else, there’d be a phone and I could ring for some breakfast. Here, I have to put on my pants and walk.

—Off you go.

—I’m locked in.

—Oh, yeah.

I pushed myself up, one-handed.

—Someone will have to fix those fingers, he said.

—They’re grand, I told him.—No one fixed them the last time they were broken.

—Younger bones back then.

—The same fuckin’ owner. Leave them alone.

—Okay, he said.—But I need the key.

It was in one of the pockets of my American trousers, the same side as my broken fingers.

—Need help?

—Fuck off.

I had it; I pulled, and heard the lining rip. I shook the loose threads from the key and held it out for him.

—Anything you don’t like to eat?

—No.

—Just cooked.

—I’m easy.

—The fucking rebel.

He wore his cap but he hadn’t put on shoes. He leaned on the wall as he went down the small stairs to the big room. He looked down at each step. He left the key in the lock; he wasn’t going to lock me in.

—And coffee, he said.

—Yep.

—No tea.

—Never touch it.

—Limey piss.

He shut the door.

I’d eat and go.

I’d tried to tell the truth but I’d ended up inventing another Ireland. Just like Ford had done to America. He’d sold them the story - the good fight their people had taken to the frontier; the Yankees and southern rebels, and the Irish and Swedes, all united—

—AND IF YOU ASKED HER—

WHY THE HECK SHE WORE IT—

They watched, and saw themselves ride out of the fort, to push savagery back, across the heartland, all the way to the Pacific. The covered wagons stocked high with provisions and civilisation, they made the land theirs - because it was theirs.The men and women in the picture houses were out there with John Wayne and Maureen FitzSimons and the others that Ford had chosen to be the faces of America. They sat in the dark and accepted their American destiny. And the fight went on - Bataan, Normandy, the 38th Parallel. Ford’s stories were all the same story: America was right.

He was taking his time with the fuckin’ food. I was starving.

And that was what was happening here as well, in Cong. Dublin and the slums didn’t exist; Ireland was a village called Innisfree. The tommy gun was off the handlebars, and the bike now had two saddles, a foot and a half between them.
The Quiet Man
would be the emigrant’s dream, soft and green. And Ireland was going to play up to it. The rest of the world would see the film, and Ireland would give the world what it had seen. The village, Cong, was outside the castle window. I’d walked through it and I’d seen the hungry faces; they hadn’t changed since 1922. But they wouldn’t be making it into the picture. The extras would all be red-cheeked and smiling. That would be Ford’s Ireland.

But he was right. I’d been with him all the way. Ford wasn’t to blame, and Frank Nugent wasn’t to blame. I’d let in the blarney long before Frank Nugent.

I could hear feet outside, more than one pair.

I was the one to blame.

Silver trays came into the room, and the two men in white jackets carrying them. They saw me propped up in Ford’s bed but they refused to look surprised.

There was no blame. My daughter had kissed my forehead. I’d invented a place where that could happen. Ford had invented a place where the Irish could be at rest. Where fists didn’t hurt, where drink did no damage, where there was no real pain to hide. A monstrous fuckin’ lie, but a nice one.

There were the usual bits of business now. It was a film set and Ford was directing. The bell lids were lifted off the trays. He showed them how to pour the coffee. The butlers watched and learnt.

I got out of the bed - they didn’t look. I came down the steps; I’d slept with my boots and leg on. I grabbed a full cup.

—Thanks, lads.

I heard myself; I was in the fuckin’ film. And I was happy to be in the film. I went back up the steps.