Loud smash.
Applause.
I enter the chemists opposite the commotion and feel a slight nausea as I automatically smile at the dirty-blond transvestite who works at the sales counter. She knows I know she knows, and I enjoy watching her hoodwinking the locals, our secret tryst sending me into a childish bout of rubescence.
The chemists is like Doctor Who’s Tardis, as from where I came in; I now stand in a huge space filled with the cheapest goods possible. A queue forms in front of the pharmacist, who’s stationed in the top left corner. Mr. Pill for every ill. He’s got the purple rinses and the overweight hooked into his whole world and is dazzling in his diagnoses.
I stare at Mishca’s hands, and catching me (as she’s telling some old bat with a mole that’s sprouting more hair than is on my head), she seemingly mocks us both: “Yes. It will work on you every time.”
She quickly rubs the crotch of her jeans to guide my eye toward her. I over-stare and feign arousal before looking at the various ’70s shaving foams and after-shaves that I remember seeing in Mike’s bathroom at the home.
My knees begin to knock and I want to fight somebody.
I approach the counter, not sure what I’m to say.
“Pack of Wrigley’s, please.”
“What flavor?”
Everything grinds to a halt. Freezes, and the natural sound fades out.
What flavor? How about fucking... COQ AU VIN, eh, Johnny? Be there at 6; bring the van round the back or I’ll fucking kill your sister, all right?
“Er. Spearmint...? No freshmint.”
The chemists now seems small. Dirty. That pharmacy guy should be shot.
So much for providence.
Mishca licks her lips. “Anytime, sugar.”
She then turns and reaches up to the shelf for the gum and I’m taking myself out of this place fast.
I move quickly so that she imagines me to have been merely an apparition.
I’ll deal with her later.
I walk back toward Kelly Mews.
Looking skyward and seeing red, I remember it all.
Red sky at night, Shepherd’s cottage on fire.
Cops are clearing the place out, as that idiot who threw the chair is being pushed, shirtless, into the back of a van. One slimy copper is talking to a girl of about fifteen and asking her where she lives, with a grin.
I’ll deal with him later.
The redhead is talking to some old woman and nodding her head as though she was a kid being told where bad girls go, and catching a ray of hope reflected in my eye, looks to me like the ghost I might have just become. She makes toward me but the woman holds her arm, pulling her back.
“Just listen to me, Colleen, and you might learn something.”
I dip my head and keep moving. Someone bumps into me, he’s about seventeen and I can just make out his eyes beneath that hood. I think twice as I know he is armed. He recognizes me. His face widens as I get in first.
“How’s your mum?”
“Yeah. She’s good.”
I’ll have to deal with him later.
I cross the road by the bank, or at least try to. The lights are on red but the cars just keep coming, afraid that if they were to stop, someone would drag the driver out and beat him to death. I walk out anyway, knowing I’ve got the law on my side. Hit me and I’ll sue you for everything you’re worth, after I’ve dragged you from your vehicle and beaten the life out of you, of course!
Haven’t been in a gym for a while, but you never lose it. Right cross. Uppercut. Jab. Pow. Pip. Pow. Super-middleweight titleholder from ’74 to ’77. Mike said he’d never seen a lad like me. Said I had the “killer’s gaze.”
I get to the other side. Away from the din. I cross again and dip between east and west, keeping an eye on Woodfield Place in case the 4x4 has found his stomach and decided to come back and face me.
No one.
I’m on the home stretch thinking about later, now I’ve made my decision.
A drunk is relieving himself against the bins outside the futuristic Science Photo Library next door to mine. A trusta-farian, some spill from the Hill seeking a cheap thrill, opens the door from one of the flats upstairs, and seeing what the drunk’s up to, pretends, It’s all good in da hood, bro.
“Don’t mind me.”
The guy spits, “I fucking won’t, cunt.”
After dumping his rubbish, I’ll fucking dump him in a minute, he shuffles off back to where he came from, counting out his father’s money, no doubt, in his ironic “chav” Burberry pajamas and fluffy slippers.
He glances, the guy still peeing, and he gives me a limp smile before hopping back indoors.
Life on the edge of a very plush cushion.
Indeed.
Something in the air catches me and sends me spiralling back through time.
Bernadette: Diorella.
Eileen: Diorissimo.
Margaret: Chanel № 5.
In the distance, a crackhead screams for all she’s worth, maybe for all we’re worth.
“THE WHORE OF BABYLON! THE WHORE OF BABYLON!”
Blood songs coagulate in the black currents of a cold cold night.
The need to believe.
Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem.
Ready?
Ready as I’ll ever be.
I approach the mews and should I go in and change or just get on with it? I decide to perform the latter and go to the office. I skip around the back of the building and turn the key, walk in, and head for my desk. Mary approaches me with a smile.
“Father Donaghue?”
“Yes, Mary?” I toss my keys onto my desk. “What is it?”
“Well, Father, I know you’re very busy, but I was wondering if you might be able to add a few prayers tomorrow for my sister. A remembrance, if you would.”
“How long has it been now?”
“It’s been five years, Father. Five years since he took her away from us.” She begins to cry.
I put an arm round her and remind her that the Lord is with us. And to call me by my first name, which is Johnny.
She begins to feel a little uncomfortable, questioning my grasp ever so slightly with her eyes, and so I let her go and then offer her a drop, which she accepts.
“Father. I didn’t know.”
I stare at my glass.
“Neither did I, Mary. Neither did I.”
Mary takes a sip as I put my glass down onto the desk and pick up my crucifix.
We both laugh now and chat about the bargains to be found at Iceland and Somerfield and how the new pound shop is really quite amazing. Mary lowers her now empty glass back onto the tray by the whiskey decanter.
“Thank you, Father, I feel so much better now. Yourself? Settling in? Getting used to our little neighborhood? I know it seems a bit on the rough side, but...”
“Oh, I’ve seen worse, Mary, believe me. Now. I’ve plenty to do, as you can understand?”
“Oh, forgive me, Father, for taking up your time.”
“Not at all, Mary. And I’ll be sure to mention...”
“Molly.”
“Molly. Yes. I won’t forget.”
“Goodbye, Father.”
I sit and wait. For an hour. I fill my glass as tears begin to well up in my eyes and roll down my face.
Poor me. Poor me. Pour me a drink.
Believing in Him. Not believing in Him.
Deus Meus, ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum pec-catorum, eaque detestor, quia peccando, non solum poenas a Te iuste statutas promeritus sum, sed praesertim quia offendi Te sum-mum bonum ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris. Ideo firmiter propono, aduvante gratia Tua, de cetero me non-peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum...