“I’ve got a house in Hidden Valley.”
“From yer man?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the catch?”
“I’m going to look into a bit of trouble he’s had.”
“Jeez, Jack, I thought you packed in that business…after last time.”
“This is different.”
“Yea, you’re in even worse shape. Cathy! Jack is going.”
She came running.
“Aw, Jack.”
“I’ll be near, literally round the corner.”
“But I had a fillum.”
She pronounced it thus. When the English go native, they go bananas.
“What film?”
“Julien Donkey-Boy by Harmony Korine.”
I gave her my best blank look. She continued,
“It’s the Dogme #6 one. He made Gummo, remember?”
“Um, not offhand.”
“Jack, you have to see it. He takes the piss with Lars von Trier.”
Jeff was pissing himself behind the counter. Even the sentry was smiling. I decided to come clean, said,
“None of that makes the slightest sense to me.”
Crestfallen, she produced a small package. I could see “Zhivago Records” on the front. She said,
“This was to welcome you home.”
I opened the package, a CD titled “You Win Again” by Van Morrison and Linda Lewis. I mustered all my enthusiasm, muttered,
“Wow.”
Cheered now, she gushed,
“I knew you’d be happy. Remember before you went away, you gave me her album.”
I didn’t, said,
“Sure.”
Outside, Sweeper said,
“I’ve a van.”
“Me, too.”
It was a Ford Transit, beaten to a pulp. When he saw my reluctance, he said,
“The engine is hyped.”
Slid the door and threw my bag in. The white suited singer from my homecoming approached, asked,
“Price of a cup of tea, sir?”
Handed him the CD. He asked,
“What the fuck is this?”
“New material.”
I was arrested my first night in Hidden Valley. They came for me at eight, rousing me from a power nap. I’d fallen asleep by an open fire. Hidden Valley is a steep incline running from Prospect Hill to the Headford Road. A haven of rare quiet in a city gone ape. From the hill, you can see out over Lough Corrib, wish for children you never had. To the north is Boher-more. Round the corner is Woodquay and Roches Stores. The house was a modern two up, two down. And hallelujah, wood floors, stone fireplace. Fully furnished with heavy Swedish chairs and sofa. Even the bookcase was full. Sweeper said,
“The fridges and deep freeze are stocked. There’s drink in the cupboard.”
“You were expecting me?”
“Mr Taylor, we’re always expecting someone.”
“What can I say? Let me get you a drink?”
“No, I must be away.”
I’d once come across a letter written by Williams Burroughs to Allen Ginsberg.
I was first arrested when I beached, a balsa raft suspected to have floated up from Peru with a young boy and a toothbrush. (I travel light, only the essentials.) One night, after shooting six ampoules of dolophine, the ex-captain found me sitting stark naked in the hall on the toilet seat (which I had wrenched from its mooring) playing in a bucket of water and singing “Deep in the Heart of Texas ”.
I looked round my new home and thought, I’ve beached pretty well. I had a long bath, put my clothes away and rummaged about. The coal bunker was out back, and I got a fire going. Intended to sit for a few minutes, drifted off. Banging on the door pulled me awake. Wiping sleep from my eyes, I fumbled to the door, opened it and said,
“The guards.”
In uniform. Looking about sixteen. But mean with it. The first said,
“Jack Taylor?”
“As if you didn’t know.”
The second said,
“We’d like you to come with us.”
“Why?”
The first smiled, said,
“To help us with our enquiries.”
“Can I grab some coffee?”
“I’m afraid not.”
The squad car was parked right by the door. I said,
“Thanks for the discretion, lads. I wanted to impress the neighbours.”
Just like the movies, the guard put his hand on my head as he put me into the back. Almost looks like care, managed to bang my head, went,
“Oops.”
At Mill Street, as we got out, Mike Shocks, the local photographer, rushed over, asked,
“Anybody?”
“Naw, he’s nobody.”
Inside, I was brought to the interview room. Rubbed my wrists as if I’d been cuffed. A tin ashtray sat centre on a graffiti surface: a logo, “Players Please”. I shook loose a red, cranked the Zippo. Deep drag and tried to guess where the camera was. Door opened and Clancy entered. Superintendent Clancy. Man, we had history, none of it good. He’d been present at the action that cost me my career. Then, he’d been skinny as a wet greyhound. We’d been friends. During the events before my exile, he’d been a bastard.
Dressed in the full regalia, he’d leaped into middle age. His face was purple, blotches on the cheeks. The eyes, though, sharp as ever. He said,
“You’re back.”
“Well detected.”
“I’d hoped we’d seen the last of you.”
“What can I tell you, bro?”
“I only hope that other yoke, Sutton, won’t show up.”
“I doubt it.”
Sutton was dead. I’d killed him, my best friend. With, as they say, malice afterthought. Clancy walked behind me. The old ritual of intimidation. Rule one of interrogation. Not in the training manual but laid in stone. I said,
“Fair cop, guv; I’ll spill my guts.”
Sensed his hand raised, tensed as I waited for the wallop. It didn’t come. I shook another red loose, fired it up. He asked,
“What are you doing with the tinkers?”
“Tinker.”
“Don’t give me cheek. I’ll run your arse up to Mountjoy before you can scream barrister.”
“Oh, you mean Sweeper.”
Rage exploded from him. He went,
“He’s a blackguard.”
“I don’t think he’s fond of you either.”
He plonked himself on the edge of the table, his pants riding up. A white hairless leg was visible above his navy sock. He leaned right into my face. His breath stank of onions. He said,
“Listen to me, laddie. Stay away from that bunch.”
I ground out the cigarette, asked,
“You won’t be investigating the murders of four of their men?”
Spittle lit the corners of his mouth. He spat,
“Fecking tinkers, they’re always killing each other.”
He stood up, adjusted the tight tunic, said,
“Get out.”
“I’m free to go?”
“Watch your step, boyo.”
On my way to the door, I said,
“God bless.”
On release from Mill Street, I walked towards Shop Street. Radiohead’s Thom Yorke said,
Every day you think, well maybe, we should stop. Maybe there’s no point to this, because all the sounds you made, that made you happy, have been sucked of everything they meant. It’s a total headfuck.
I stood on the bridge for a few moments. Across the water, over near Claddagh, I could see Nimmo’s Pier. Sutton’s body had never been found. His paintings were now collectable. The French have a word for nightmare…cauchemar. Man, that is evocative. An alcoholic has dreams to rival that of any Vietnam vet. Closing your eyes you mutter, “Incoming”…and kidding you ain’t. Initially, like the worst irony, alcohol dispels them. Leastways you don’t remember. Then, of course, it fuels and powder-kegs them to the ninth level. Not a level on which to linger. The Irish for dreams is broinglóidí, a beautiful gentle sound. Of the many impossibles, a drinker prays most in that direction. In vain. I never dream of Sutton. Sure, I think about him most days, but he remains in the daylight hours. Thank Christ.
I needed Merton and a pint. Not necessarily in that order. Headed for Charlie Byrne’s, a second-hand bookshop. It is the bookshop. During my apprenticeship with the librarian Tommy Kennedy, as he shaped and nurtured my reading, he told me about Sylvia Beach. In Paris, in the true glory days, her bookshop held court to