— Wha’?
— Your fly.
— Oh. Fuck. Thanks. It’s got nothin’ to do with the cancer, by the way.
What was he at?
— Must be Alzheimer’s, she said.
— Probably, he said. — But it only happens when it’s buttons. I never forget if it’s a zip.
— Interesting.
A text went off in his pocket. It took him a while to get to the phone. He’d forgotten he was wearing trousers again, and the mulled muck had gone to his head. He’d burn the tracksuit when he got home. It was turning him into a toddler.
Noeleen was looking at him.
No. She wasn’t.
It was just as well, because the text was from Imelda. Jesus Christ, he was fuckin’ surrounded. He read it, brought it up to his eyes. Wot do u meen wot did i meen?
What was that about?
His head was swimming. Just a bit.
Now he got it. That text, the one he’d done outside on the steps — he’d sent it to Imelda instead of Aoife. He checked the Sent box and there it was.
Jesus.
He laughed.
The lad.
He’d have to be more careful. Conducting no affairs with a gang of women was a full-time job. He should have eaten before he came out. He shouldn’t have come out.
But he was grand. He sat on his desk. He nearly missed it but no one noticed.
— Great to have you back, Jimmy, said the twit.
— Ah, thanks, eh —
He couldn’t remember the twit’s name.
— Are you back for good?
— Yeah, said Jimmy. — Yeah. I’ve the chemo to go. But fuck it. It’s a man’s world, wha’.
He slapped the twit’s shoulder but kind of got him in the face instead.
— Fuck — sorry.
— No worries.
There was a new young one. The intern. She looked about ten. And forty. It was weird. She smiled at him. He thought he smiled back. He sat up straight. I’m at work. He stood up. That was better, more appropriate. More comfortable as well. I’m the boss. Nearly the boss. I have trousers with buttons.
Noeleen was beside him.
— So how’s Jimbo?
— Jimbo’s grand. How’s Noely?
— She’s savage.
— Grand.
His head had cleared a bit. He felt good again.
— How’s it been? he asked.
— Well, you’re fine, she told him. — You’ve seen that.
He hadn’t, not really. But he nodded. Delight seeped through him — something like that. Or relief. He wanted to text Aoife. We’re fine. He wanted to go home.
— Sales are holding up there, she said. — Well, they’ve dropped, but not drastically. The middle-aged are still finding the money to fund their nostalgia.
— It’s kids that’re buyin’ the Dangerous Dream and the Legovers, said Jimmy.
She could shove her fuckin’ nostalgia.
— True, she said. — But the Celtic Rock stuff.
Jimmy cringed. He actually did. The mulled wine was no protection. He had a stable of bitter old men who, forty years ago, had tried to fuse traditional music and rock. They’d failed, fuckin’ miserably. But none of them knew it. Musically, they were dead by the time teenage Jimmy discovered the NME and started to eat it every week. These lads had never made the NME, or Hot Press. Spotlight had been their natural habitat, in beside the showbands. The Sons of the Fianna, the Minstrel Boys, the Bastards of Lir — Jimmy hated them all.
But they were his living — because Noeleen had told him to go after them. It was why she’d bought the site, or one of the reasons — she’d told him months later. For the Celtic part in kelticpunk. A portal to electrified diddley-eye. It had been hurtful, humiliating, just fuckin’ desperate. But he’d done it. And he was selling buckets of their songs. They were helping him stand tall — kind of — beside his business partner. His fuckin’ boss.
— They’re our stars, she said.
— Jesus Christ, said Jimmy. — Don’t ever tell them that.
He devoted one very long day a week to Celtic Rock. It was how he coped. The other bands were great, even the cunts — especially the cunts; the Halfbreds and some of the other old punks — because they knew they were lucky, even when they were complaining. They were having a great time. And they could all point to some contemporary sound or attitude and claim that they’d got there first.
— Who are your influences?
— The Legovers.
They were grateful to Jimmy, for the bit of recognition much more than the money. But the other fuckers, the Celtic rockers, all they could point to was the Corrs. Their struggle had been pointless. Pointless and just shite.
— But, said Noeleen. — Sales of anything recorded before 1982 have gone the same way as house prices. They’ve stopped. And with Oxegen cancelled —
— That’s bad.
— The ticket to Oxegen isn’t the Christmas present from Mummy and Daddy any more. And to think, it was a stocking filler three or four years ago. To go with the car or the pony.
— Not in our house, said Jimmy.
— I’ve four great new bands, said Noeleen, — and nowhere to send them next July. There’ll be no giddy boys and girls on Phantom or Spin telling the kids at home how hot they are. No displays in Tower. It’s back to the drawing board, Jimbo.
— Don’t worry about it, said Jimmy.
He gave her the Apprentice line.
— We’ll hit the ground runnin’.
He hadn’t a clue; he really didn’t give a shite.
— It’s the new austerity, Jimbo, she said. — Youth has been cancelled.
— Ah cop on, Noeleen, said Jimmy. — We’ll be grand.
His sons would never get to Oxegen. That was a bit sad. It had been the twenty-first-century Irish kid’s initiation, a weekend on a racecourse in Kildare, getting pissed and stoned, sleeping it off in a 15-euro tent while some of the world’s biggest bands shook the place deeper into the muck. But now they’d never get there. And Mahalia — she wouldn’t be going either. That was a relief.
Jimmy was going to cry. He couldn’t drink; he was a fuckin’ eejit.
The intern and the twit were working their way through the room with trays of cocktail sausages. Pity it wasn’t Conor.
— What’s funny?
— Nothin’.
He needed blotting paper, the bit of grub inside him. He’d learn the intern’s name, and the twit’s. He knew the twit’s already; he’d been sitting beside him for more than a year. He’d remember it. He was back at work.
Noeleen was still there.
— Your optimism is infectious, Jimbo, she said, although she sounded like she was telling him the jacks was blocked.
— That’ll be the drugs, said Jimmy.
He lifted his glass.
— Or this.
He knocked back the bit that was left, and swallowed a couple of cloves. He was sending darts down through the remaining twenty per cent of his bowel.
— There’ll be no bonus this year, I’m afraid, said Noeleen.
Jimmy shrugged. Smiled. Shrugged.
— For either of us, she said. — Just so you know.
— Grand. Okay.
It was too late to bring back the Christmas presents. To un-buy them.
They’d be okay. They were making money. He was making money. Jesus though, he hated money, thinking about it — the consequences. He’d have to tell Aoife. Of course, he would. Anyway, she missed nothing. She could read bank statements like they were novels.
The sausages gave him something to do. He grabbed three from the intern’s plate.
— Thanks.
— You’re wel-com!
She was American. How did that happen?
— What’s your name, by the way?