The Holy City (11 page)

At the fashion show Dolly had been wearing a beautifully cut A-line dress with matching black stilettos. Her unblemished appearance, as the MC had pointed out, was accentuated by her sparing use of Max Factor pancake make-up, whose brand was also responsible for her pastel pearly pink lip colour called Strawberry Meringue. Her gloves, it emerged, were by Dent's, and were a cream pair in cotton, always the hallmark of the lady.

The other ladies acquitted themselves admirably throughout the remainder of the show, it has to be said. But afterwards they too began to flock around Dolly, with even greater enthusiasm now than the men. Breathlessly plying her with questions about handbags — and whether she used a lip brush or not. It was as if the spotlight never seemed to desert her. The real Ruby Murray would have had her work cut out to compete — Ruby Murray, who could do no wrong in the UK charts.

—
Softly softly,
the women sighed as Dolly walked by, making heroic efforts not to savagely consume their pendulous, defeated underlips.

But more action was to follow later on in the Good Times.

Dolly had been sitting at the bar with some friends when Ronnie Hilton the owner called on her for a song. There was to be no dissent on this occasion either. That evening was declared ‘the best so far!'. For no sooner had she ascended the stage than, without any warning whatsoever, she smacked her thigh and launched into a fast and furious up-tempo version of the Muriel Day hit ‘Wages of Love',
sassily curling the microphone cable, puckering her nose and pouting her lips as she did the twist right down to her hunkers.

The pub was completely packed now, going wild as Dolly Mixtures gave no indication of desisting, wiggling her ample hips and thrusting out her sequined bosom, snapping her fingers as she launched into ‘Fruit Cake', raising her dress high as before. Wolf whistles soared and the fever intensified.

—
Yummy delisch!
sang Dolly, running her tongue along her lips as she sensuously swayed:

— It's Miss O'Leary's Irish fruit cake!

Her performance being so powerful that there wasn't a man present in the bar who didn't go home, thinking: I'm fantastic! For it's plainly obvious that Dolly finds it hard to physically resist —
me
!

Except that they were deceiving themselves, for the final number she sang that night — it was dedicated solely, well, to what person do you think?

Yes, the one and only, specially chosen
Mr Wonderful!

So was it any wonder that the nascent Simon Templar, self-styled cool globetrotting bachelor of the sixties, would remain casually at the bar, sipping dry Martinis? For he was clearly moving into the big league now. As the diminuendo of the piano's tinkling treble gave way to Tony Bennett's secular hymn to the manifold delights of ‘The Good Life'.

— You look beautiful, Miss McCausland, I said with a laugh, whenever, at last, she came waltzing over to join me.

Speaking in a kind of jet-set, transadantic accent, which amused her. I was acting like I was Tony Bennett myself!

And she was even calling me ‘baby' now — in that lovely cutesy sixties way. Giggling at things that weren't even so funny.

It was great. No, it was maj!

— Yeah, baby, it's a magic time!

— It's maj! Yeah, babes, it's maj!

It was the following Sunday that Canon Burgess delivered his sermon on the subject of nightdresses and their potential evils. It had been problematic, presumably, for him to make it — with a clergyman hardly likely to have been particularly well-informed about such a subject. Which had only been broached at all on account of the Dreamland lingerie brand: a selection of which had just gone on display in the window of the Green Shield Stamp showroom. For two books of stamps, the sign read, any ‘go-ahead lady' in Cullymore who so wished could find herself the proud owner of the fabulous Dreamland nightie — a two-tier shortie with tiny lace cap-sleeves and frilled flounce.

The clergyman insisted to his congregation that he had privately been promised that the offending items would be removed without delay from the front of the window. This was what he had been discreetly assured. But, much to his regret, this, sadly, had not happened. Indeed, and much to the astonishment of the citizens of Cullymore, in the aftermath of the homily, exactly the opposite proved to be the case.

The original sign had been removed all right. Yes, it, without doubt, had been taken away. But now in its place,
in italicised letters of the gaudiest frosted pink, was the announcement that Dreamland Foundations, in association with Green Shield Stamps, had agreed to sponsor the Cullymore Summer Lingerie Extravaganza, to be held in the Cullymore Arms Hotel that very week.

In the wake of this alarming development, yet another meeting was called in the urban council chambers and this time the aforementioned irate member had stormed out in a blind rage. It was the first time anyone could recall this actually happening. Certainly since any elected representative had been heard to utter the expletive ‘fuck' in the chambers.

But on this occasion there was no enthusiasm for conflict — even debate. Perhaps the word ‘lingerie' was perceived as being too essentially intimate in nature, encroaching too impudently on to the esoteric, vaporous privacy of what they perceived to be the world of women, breaching the boundaries of their sacred holiness. And so, at the risk of giving the unfortunate councillor a stroke — the subject was subtly but quite firmly dropped.

There were all sorts of rumours, predictably, circulating about Dolly. That she was definitely a Protestant everyone knew. There were intimations of her having been ‘separated' from her husband in England, and that she had come to Cullymore to stay with her equally husbandless friend, Marcus Otoyo's mother. But no one individual was sufficiently informed to vouch for the veracity of any of this.

The suspicion then surfaced that she might be divorced. Which would have been unheard of in Cullymore at that time.

This came to represent another mystery — something that
they
did, meaning the Protestants and the English, with impunity. Like reading the
News of the World
paper. Which, not insignificantly, was perused weekly by Dolly, from cover to cover. Just as soon as she had finished singing her hymns in the lane. Yes, there she would sit turning its dubious pages, its shadowy photos depicting the exploits of ‘runaway wives', not to mention various goings-on ‘in the suburbs'. And government officials indicted for ‘gross misconduct'.

— What's gross misconduct? Marcus had, shamefacedly, enquired of her one particular Sabbath morning, I was informed.

Which had amused her no end, she said.

— He really is the most innocent youth: destined for the priesthood. Such a loss, I sometimes think: he's so sweet and innocent — handsome, you know?

I made no reply — just kind of shrugged.

— You know, sometimes I catch him looking at me, she said, at my legs especially. How it makes me laugh!

I dismissed it. It meant nothing — why should it?

What was unusual about that? I asked myself. It did not surprise me greatly at all that Marcus Otoyo, being an essentially spiritual boy, which we all knew he was, might harbour, even awkwardly declare, certain affections for Dolores McCausland.

— He's so thoughtful, it's flattering, she would say,
twirling a loose strand of her fine blonde hair — in a kind of daze, as I recall.

But if it meant anything to me — if it bothered me in any way, then I did not show it. Indeed I encouraged her to indulge his innocent, adolescent excitements. As I lay there beside her looking into her eyes.

—
Such vehement passions!
I would think, recalling
A Portrait.

As I thought of us there by the swaying green ocean — Marcus and I.

Being holy, he liked all kinds of hymns, she said. I hadn't asked her, she had brought up the subject completely out of nowhere. But being a Catholic boy at heart, she continued, there would always be a special place in his heart for hymns that tended to be of a more vivid and evocative cast. Tunes that evoked the colour of crimson, released in one's soul certain primitive emotions.

The songs of that kind for which he retained a special affection, she claimed, included ‘Soul of My Saviour', ‘To Jesus' Heart All Burning' and, of course, ‘Faith of Our Fathers', with its stirring lines concerning blood and martyrology. Wherein a tender youth found himself done to death at the point of a sword.

—
His last end,
Marcus would sigh, almost lovingly, she told me.

— He writes too, you know. About the most wonderful things. Once he composed a little story about himself. He often does that. He's made up a character. He calls himself Marcus Minor in them. And me, his Ariadne.

— Does he now, I said, through thinning, defensive lips.

He had told her many such stories, she further elaborated a number of weeks later. I was confused by my feelings, finding myself hot and bothered as she continued. He would see certain people, she explained, standing numbed by his graveside: Dolores McCausland among them, clad in a black mantilla, erupting into fits of sobbing as she declared how his love for her had enabled her to see the light, to embrace what she called the ‘Catholic mystery' — and become converted, to the amazement of all — to the code of Catholicism. Which she once would have regarded as uncivilised, indeed heathen.

— He loved me so much he gave his life, she would say. For me, Dolly Mixtures, he gave himself up and died.

After a while I began to laugh whenever she would tell me such stories. Which essentially were innocent, I succeeded in persuading myself, and had little or nothing to do with me. But still I shivered when I'd think of him as Marcus Minor, girdled in a loincloth, watching him slump lifelessly from a cold marble pillar, mourned by Dolly, tear-stained and helpless. But ultimately triumphant in the security of their love.

He told her once he dreamed he had died with her name upon his lips. They had been listening to
Hospitals' Requests
at the time, she said.

— You were holding my hand as I expired, he had told her.

And had actually taken her hand as he spoke, she laughed.

— The Church's gain is some unfortunate woman's loss, she joked. I could see that boy as a heartbreaker, believe me. I joke with him, you know, about his being Stevie Wonder.

Stevie Wonder was a young black prodigy, a popular vocalist at the time, and whose song ‘My Cherie Amour' was the hit of the summer.

— I even let him try on my sunglasses. Stevie Wonder! I say and we laugh. Oh how we laugh!

They never missed the agony aunt programme
A Woman's World on
Saturdays, she told me.

—
Dear Frankie,
she had chuckled.

— Dear Frankie, my boyfriend is a very puritanical man and basically does not like attractive women. He disapproves of make-up, sheer tights, jewellery, tight sweaters and jeans. He's had a number of girlfriends before me, but he gave them up because he said they were too pretty and flamboyant.

— Would you give me up because I was too pretty and flamboyant, Marcus Minor? she had asked him.

— Never, my Ariadne, he had pledged, to the death I would defend you: and the holy love that we share together. Here in this private, radiant place. The holy city — the chambers of the heart.

Stroking my cheek as she lay there beside me.

— He takes it so seriously. He really is the most extraordinary boy. Such a dreamboat for some lucky girl!

How I hated her using that word. As I listened — my heart scourged with jealousy — I could see them crouched over the wooden cabinet: bathed in the electricity of the female mysteries that were being transmitted over the airwaves.

Most especially, of course, Protestant women, as Dolly Mixtures sighed by his side, her stiff glistening hair like some mythical, unbreachable tower. As she gazed down the valley to where he stood in his tunic in the midday haze, before the wooden gates and the ramparts of the city walls. Calling:

— And I John saw the holy city!

Marcus Minor Otoyo, courageous envoy, bracing himself to defend her honour.

— ‘Love's City', he called that story, she told me, when, quite unexpectedly, I had snapped:

—
Oh for Christ's sake, Dolores, forget it!

Which had prompted her to reply:

— Why, baby is upset! I do believe my Christopher is jealous! Come on, hon, it's just a bit of maj!

We made a laugh of it after that and right up until the time — some weeks later — when I discovered the envelope in her handbag, the whole thing had become more or less forgotten.

But I'd still smart whenever I thought of it, as she attended to her hair in the compact mirror.

— Imagine that, Christopher. And in one so young!

How foolish I had been. And all that one can say is — if there was innocence abroad in that irresponsible age that was the sixties, then it was I, Christopher McCool, one's hedonistic affectations notwithstanding, who best represented its embodiment.

Even to this day it still rings in my ears, the mocking muffled laughter I had heard that night. As they stood there
together in the moonlit serenity of the holiday-camp chalet. That shocking night in Butlin's, after I had quit the Beachcomber Bar. To my horror, for even yet I can find no other word for it, finding myself witnessing, through the window of that modest, wind-whipped cabin, Dolores McCausland ever so confidently and proprietorially taking Marcus Otoyo by the hand, as she pressed it to her cheek, laughing now in that beguiling, crushing way. As she crooned a soft melody, gazing into his eyes as she continued with it:

— My Cherie Amour, distant as the Milky Way!

Desultorily, but with a steely inner conviction, lightly kissing each of his fingers. Singly, with great attention — before leading him patiently towards the small bed.