The Magdalen Martyrs (17 page)

I found some coins in my burned coat and put them in the cap. His eyes widened and he asked,

“Are you on fire?”

“Not any more.”

He ran a withered hand over his brow, said,

“I thought I was losing it.”

He raised his thumb behind him, continued,

“That, you know, maybe . . . you’d come out of there.”

Drink had mottled his face to a full purple, and his body gave odd tremors. I said,

“This isn’t the best spot for your art.”

He gave a knowing smile, said,

“Look at the moon, stop listening to the dogs in the street.”

Go figure.

The circle of addiction, how it comes in many guises. I was tripping on the beat of no hangover, then looked into the face of raw alcoholism.

The mix rolls, and you never can predict what the result will be. Now it rolled the dice and churned out a coke craving.

I could see a neatly rolled line of pure white. A guy said to me once,

“Come on, Jack, it’s so eighties.”

Like I care about the era or am aware of current trends.

I’m mostly locked in some seventies mode when hope had an actual face.

Two lines of coke and the world throws its doors open. The white lightning across my brain, the ice drip along the back of my throat. Oh fuck, I felt my knees sag.

When the Charlie lights, you get this huge sense of purpose. Plus a bliss that convinces you of total insanity. Like that you can sing. And sing you do. It doesn’t get much crazier than that.

But the downside: few crash like cokeheads do. From soaring to a descent to hell itself, thrashing, sick, paranoid. The physical side is no advertisement either: the lost eyes, the constant sniffles and the erosion of the membranes of the nose. Eventually the septum is totally eaten away.

The tabloids trot out poor Daniella Westbrook, the soap star, with malignant glee. Photos of how she used to be and then, close up, the ravaged nose. If not a deterrent, it is certainly a shot across the bow of glamour.

I’d reached the cathedral and felt the need of a quiet moment. Pushed open the thick brass door, and it clanged shut behind me. The relic of St Therese had attracted U2-type crowds, but it was silent now. I moved along a side aisle, the Stations of the Cross marking time with my feet. Knelt in a pew near the main altar.

Without thinking, I began,

“Glór donAthair

I’d learnt my prayers in Irish, and they only held true resonance if said thus. Course no more than any other frightened Catholic, I’m partial to a blast of Latin. The easy majesty talks to my peasant soul. The cathedral is built on the site of the old Galway Jail. Not only male prisoners but women, too. Outlandish sentences for petty crimes, an early echo of the malignancy of the Magdalen. A priest crossed my vision, paused, said,

“Mind if I sit?”

I wanted to say,

“Your gig.”

Nodded. He sat in the seat in front. He was in his early forties, tall, with the dark features of a Spanish-Irish heritage. I stayed on my knees, nearly began,

“It’s been thirty years since my last confession.”

But he wasn’t giving off the priest vibe. If anything, he’d an aura of quite serenity. He said,

“It’s good to take a moment.”

“It is.”

“Are you a guard . . . a somewhat burned guard?”

He smiled, and I went,

“Burnt out.”

“I’ve been there.”

And he put out his hand, said,

“Tom.”

“Jack Taylor.”

I didn’t feel the urge, the in-bred traditional knee-jerk “Father”. In fact, I felt he wouldn’t go for it. He said,

“Sometimes it’s as much as I can do to get out of bed.”

My turn to smile, say,

“Kind of your job though.”

He raised his eyes to heaven. It seems to hold an added dimension when a cleric does it. He said,

“Sermons, they’re the bane of my life. Telling ordinary decent people how to live when their lives are riddled with harsh reality.”

“You could tell the truth.”

He wasn’t shocked, even taken aback, said,

“I did, once.”

“And?”

“The bishop sent for me.”

“Oh, oh.”

“Asked me if I was practising disobedience.”

I thought about that, said,

“Sounds like the guards.”

He grinned, went,

“Something tells me you didn’t toe the line.”

“Not exactly. I smacked a guy in the mouth.”

He savoured that. I asked,

“Where is the Church on suicide these days?”

He gave me the concerned look. I held up my hands, said,

“Not me . . . a friend of mine hanged himself.”

He made the sign of the cross. I wasn’t sure if I should do the same. He said,

“You’re asking the wrong question.”

“Am I?”

“Shouldn’t you wonder where God stands on the subject?”

“Where does He stand?”

“I think God has tremendous compassion for a person in such a terrible frame of mind.”

“Hope you’re right.”

He stood up, held out his hand, said,

“I enjoyed meeting you, Jack.”

I took his hand, answered,

“You did me good . . . Father.”

Big smile, then,

“It’s supposed to be my job.”

“Well, it’s a long time since a priest did me any good.”

He turned, genuflected in front of the altar and was gone. I headed out. At the main door, a nun was tidying pamphlets. She glared at me. I said,

“Excuse me?”

“What?”

“Fr Tom, what’s his surname?”

“There’s no Fr Tom.”

I described him, and she said,

“Are you deaf? There’s no such priest in this parish.”

“Why wouldn’t I have paranoid traits, living as I has lived? As my life
went on, my mini paranoia would save my life more than once.”

Edward Bunker,
Memoirs of a Renegade

I didn’t get back to Bailey’s till late afternoon. You take a walk
through Shop Street, you better not be in a hurry. You meet your past, remnants of a shaky present and forebodings of the dark future. The past is represented by school friends, who appear old, shook and furtive. The present dances in a swirl of rain, refugees and lost winos, the future through the number of mobile phones and the hieroglyphics of text. An overall effect of bewilderment.

Years ago, a radio programme called
Dear Frankie
ruled the waves. Frankie sounded like Bette Davis on a particularly bad day. The whole country knew the show. Problems sent to her seemed more ordinary, more solvable. Her answers were terse, acidic and shut down the prospect of long debate. Interspersed with commercials were snatches of Sinatra. You couldn’t call her anything as lofty as the nation’s conscience, but she did seem to embody a combination of good humour with scathing wit. Behind the gruffness, you got the impression she cared.

It seemed a long time since you could say anyone gave a toss.

During the terrible events of my previous case, a bright light had briefly shone. I’d met a young girl named Laura, a very
young girl. In her twenties, when you’re hitting fifty, that’s near as young as it gets.

Worse, she was very keen.

I can’t say I was totally smitten, but I sure liked her a lot. She did the almost impossible, made me feel good about myself. What drugs and alcohol provided was an ease from the demons. She supplied a whole natural feeling. Who knows what it might have become. I was on the precipice of the most tragic judgement of my Ufe. Too, I was barely over the speedy termination of my marriage. These are hardly sufficient explanation, but it’s where I was.

Her mother confronted me publicly, saying,

“You should be ashamed of yourself. Laura is young enough to be your daughter.”

Did I stand up to her, fight my corner and declare I was prepared to do anything to keep Laura?

Did I fuck?

I slunk away like a scalded child. Worse, rang Laura and told her I’d met someone else.

Brave . . . huh?

I had seen her a few times since, only in the distance. Once near Supermac’s, she’d stopped, but I turned on my heel, moved fast away. Time heals most things or reaches an accommodation whereby you can function. Jeez, how I long for the truth of that. No amount of years will clear away the shabbiness of my behaviour.

I’ve tried to lump it among the other debris of a road badly travelled. Doesn’t cut it. Dislodges itself from the warehouse of shame, to stand alone and cry,

“You acted appallingly.”

The moving finger, having writ, has not moved on.

Kafka, in his diaries, said,

The man who is lost in his own lifetime is able to see more things and to see them in greater detail. With one hand, he tries to ward off despair, with the other, he records all that he is able to see.

From all of this, I learnt one simple thing.

Times are, I’m a bad bastard.

When I got back to Bailey’s, I was close to beat. Mrs Bailey was behind her desk, said,

“I saw Dana today.”

Surely there’s a coherent reply. I waved vaguely and took the stairs. Thought,

“Gonna grab me some shut-eye.”

Opened my door to a scene of chaos. The room was destroyed. My books, torn, were scattered on the floor, the bed upturned and deep gashes in the mattress. Clothes were strewn everywhere and ripped asunder. A strong smell of urine came from the ruined wardrobe. The curtains had been jammed in the sink.

I closed the door, tried to get my mind in gear. Moved through the wreckage and checked the springs of the bed. The gun was gone.

In the wardrobe, I’d previously gone to great pains to lift a board and stash the drugs. Lifted it and let out a small sigh of relief. They hadn’t been touched.

Grabbed two heavy-duty tabs and dry swallowed them.

Moved to the sink in search of a water glass. It was in smithereens. I pulled the sodden curtain away and let it slump to the floor. Bent my head and drank from the tap. Straightening, I reached for my cigs, fired one up. Gazed at the heap of clothes. Jeez, did I have the energy to shop anew? I kept having
to start over. The prized collection of books made me want to weep. Not only were they torn but appeared to have been savagely mutilated, pieces of covers barely visible. The backbone of whatever education I had . . . Merton, Chandler, Yeats.

Poets, crime writers, philosophers, chancers, all woven together in a mess of destruction. I’d rarely find a better epitaph for my life.

Kiki, my ex-wife, had tried to give me a crash course in philosophy, to get me to think.

I’d protested,

“What I most want is not to think. What do you suppose the oceans of booze are for?”

She’d persisted.

Course, I seized on any shard of despair, any piece of damage. I couldn’t pronounce Kierkegaard with any degree of confidence, but I did remember this:

The greater the despair in one’s life, the more one is able to see.

By my reckoning, my vision now should be all encompassing. Alas, nothing could be further from the truth. Was I clogged with self-pity? You betcha.

Alongside whining, dreaming and shite talk, it’s what an alcoholic does best.

I trudged downstairs, approached Mrs Bailey. She gave a tentative smile and my heart sank. I said,

“I’ve some disturbing news.”

“Ah, don’t tell me you’re off to London again.”

“No . . . no. My room has been trashed.”

“Trashed?”

“Ransacked . . . broken into. It’s been gutted.”

“The pups.”

“What?”

“Ah, the blackguards who are loose today. No respect for anything.”

“I’ll pay for the damage.”

“Go way our that. Let the insurance cover it.”

“You’re insured?”

“No, but I always wanted to say that.”

The other sound you heard in the laundry was coughing. Like a
chorus from hell. The girls all chain-smoked; it relieved the tedium and gave them a sense of being adult. The fumes in the place, combined with the nicotine, produced the racking cough from the very depths of despair. When Lucifer heard that sound, she began to smile, without even realising it. The smile began at the corner of her eyes and spread in step as she stalked the length of the room. The girls, heads down, tried to gauge her mood. Course it was always foul, but the level of her wrath varied.