“Don’t stop. I love to hear that language.”
Usually, M’Asal Beag Dubh. The Little Black Donkey by Pádraic Ó Conaire. I didn’t remark to Cathy that here was a drunk, reading from a drunk. She said,
“I hear you’re seeing someone.”
Galway, city or no, it was still a small town. I muttered,
“Yes, sort of…”
She laughed, demanded,
“When will we meet her?”
“Soon, real soon.”
An event was coming down the pike, already shaping in its black destructive energy and preparing to rip my life in pieces, pieces that would never be restored. Cathy said,
“You’re doing good.”
And like a fool, I answered,
“Better than I ever could have hoped.”
“Not that it matters, but I tried to think of a way to repay your generosity; and such repayment invariably settled on the truth that you’d be better rid of me. Be happy and tell my sons that I was a drunk, a dreamer, a weakling and a madman, anything but that I did not love them.”
Frederick Exley, A Fan’s Notes
Christmas came and went and I stayed sober. By New Year, I was off the cigarettes. Twice a week, I went to visit my mother and swore I’d get her moved.
I didn’t.
She had shifted to another place in her head, a place where she was a young girl again and I’d no idea what she was talking about. My relationship with the matron continued to be cold and combative. My investigation into the students’ deaths came to a complete stop. I spoke to Stewart on the phone, told him I was getting nowhere. He said,
“Keep searching.”
And hung up.
The cheques continued to arrive and I continued to cash them. Ronan Wall rang me less and less often, his interest in play waning. Margaret and I were still “doing our line” and my life was as normal as it gets. My knee had improved but a slight limp was going to last.
I was in Charlie Byrne’s, looking for books on Synge, collared Vinny, asked him if he could help. Much as he hates to admit defeat, he conceded that Synge was not one of his areas of expertise, but added,
“Here’s the man you want.”
I turned to see a distinguished man, standing next to the literary criticism. Vinny said,
“My old professor of English and a published author.”
He added quickly,
“Not that he’s old, but college was a time ago. He’s the Synge expert.”
The man smiled politely; he had an air of academia. There was that awkward moment when strangers have been introduced and have nothing to say. I muttered,
“I’m looking to find out a little about Synge.”
He gave a tolerant smile, the one that says, we both know you’re an idiot. He said,
“Read his account of his time on the Aran islands.”
I said I would and then, after another anxious minute, he said goodbye and moved away.
Vinny provided the following:
Interpreting Synge, Essays from the Synge Summer School, 1991-2000, edited by Nicholas Grene.
An Aran Reader, edited by Breandán and Ruairi Ó hEithir.
An Aran Keening by Andrew McNeillie.
Scenes of Aran Pilgrimage by Tim Robinson.
As he wrapped them, I said,
“Take me a while to wade through these.”
“But you’ll know the man.”
“You sure?”
“Sure as shooting.”
A few days later, as I walked into the hotel, Mrs Bailey said,
“Mr Taylor, a letter for you.”
She never would, despite my pleas, call me Jack. I took the letter, a plain white envelope. Typed on the front was:
Jack Taylor
Bailey’s Hotel
Galway
I shoved it in my pocket and took the stairs to my room. A wreath was lying against my door. Yes, the ones you see on top of coffins. I picked it up, a chill along my spine. God, I needed a cigarette. Put my hand down to reach for them and remembered, no cigs. Opened my door, went in, stood lost for a moment, then moved to the window, pulled it up and flung the wreath into the yard. My mind was racing through answers. A practical joke? A mistake? But none brought ease. I sat on the bed and longed for the days I could have reached for the bottle of Jameson, drunk deep from the neck.
Took the envelope out of my pocket, saw the tremble in my hand, then tore the flap and took out a mass card. The Sacred Heart on the front, inside the words,
“A mass will be offered for the repose of the soul of Jack Taylor.”
Then,
“With deepest sympathy from”
In bold black letters:
J.M. SYNGE
My breathing was constricted and I thought I was going to throw up. It passed and I looked at the envelope. It had been posted in Galway the previous evening. The wreath he’d delivered personally, but a hotel has people in and out all day.
I picked up the phone and rang Ridge, told her. She was quiet as she digested this, then,
“Somebody’s playing with you.”
“Oh really, wow, I’m glad I cleared that up. Lucky I called you.”
“Don’t use that tone with me, Jack Taylor.”
I backed off, tried,
“Well, at least now you’ll agree he’s out there, that it wasn’t, what did you call it…a bizarre coincidence?”
She sighed, asked,
“So what? It doesn’t really change anything. I mean, what can you do?”
“Do? I can watch my frigging back.”
And I slammed down the phone.
A line of coke, a carton of cigs, a bottle of Jameson, nineteen pints of Guinness, all preened, shimmered before my eyes. I got out of the room and asked Mrs Bailey if she’d noticed anything, anyone odd passing through the lobby. She looked at me in disbelief.
“Odd? Are you codding me? The whole country’s odd. A young lad was in this morning, looking for work, and he had pins in his eyebrows, his tongue and the Lord only knows where else.”
I wanted escape, to shut off my mind. Went to the video store and rented a whole set of stuff. The guy said,
“Catching up?”
“As if I could.”
Over the next few days, I saw Insomnia, The Devil’s Backbone, Lantana, Donnie Darko, Three Colours Blue, Apocalypse Redux and the whole of the first series of CSI.
Maybe I’d watched The Simpsons too often, but I punctuated the movies with Domino’s pizza, delivered regularly. Finally, my mind was sufficiently bombarded to get back on track. Rang Margaret and took a walk along the prom. Late February, the wind howling off the bay, sure it was cold but invigorating. Then headed for the Galleon, our appetites up. Margaret ordered Chicken Maryland and “loads of chips”, asked,
“Jack?”
I studied the menu, said,
“Well, it’s not going to be pizza.”
“I thought you loved it?”
“Not any more.”
I ordered steak, roast potatoes. Margaret’s face was flush from the wind, her eyes alive with contentment. I said,
“You look like you’ve had good news.”
Huge smile and,
“I have, I have. I didn’t want to tell you till it was confirmed, but I’ve got a place for your mother in Castlegar.”
“Castlegar?”
“It’s a wonderful nursing home with a long waiting list. The care is the very best and it has a fantastic reputation.”
I didn’t know how to reply and she frowned, asked,
“Did I do wrong? Was I too presumptuous? It’s just I know how worried you’ve been.”