Breakfast on Pluto Read online

  Could it ever have been? With my own dear Dummy? Methinks it not! That great big blazing fire and me with my arms around my knees and my head resting on his thigh, going all misty and wondering: ‘Dummy? Where do you think we’ll be in twenty years’ time?’ as he stroked my hair and said: ‘Huh?’

  Poor old Dummy! He really didn’t have the life of a dog with me, did he? One minute I’m there as black and broody as ever a woman could be, pulling away from him and going: ‘Oh, get your hands off me! You’ll never understand!’ and the next I’m gone all woozy, like never until the end of time will I leave this lovely man. Which may or may not have been true – I genuinely couldn’t say – for who’s to know whether ‘like’ can someday be ‘love’, become that something special over years? And ‘like’ him I certainly did. He was a lovely companion, no matter what lies they told about him in the papers! And I’ll tell you something else about him – no matter what they’d been through or whatever terrible things she had said about me and our relationship I never heard him once speak ill of his wife. Not that I wouldn’t have welcomed the odd ‘old cow!’ or even ‘jealous bitch!’, to tell you the truth, but whether I did not, it wasn’t forthcoming anyway. ‘She has a generous heart, she really has,’ he’d say and I admired him for it.

  Although I have to say there was little in evidence of it the day she came around slandering me in front of the whole countryside. Not that I didn’t understand, mind you! If I was married to someone and they went off with somebody, I wouldn’t just shout a few words of abuse. I’d make their lives miserable, if you want to know the truth! Everywhere they went, they’d find me there – and not the nice, well-groomed, soft-spoken version either! The wicked, cat-hissing one, more like, harridan of all harridans who would think absolutely nothing at all of tearing your clothes or cutting your face with a few well-aimed scratches of her polished nails! You don’t think I would have it in me? Well I’m afraid you don’t know me, at least the me where love is concerned! I go absolutely crazy even thinking about someone taking the one I loved away from me.

  Which is one of the reasons I didn’t bother going to his funeral. How was I to know, what with all the stress and the strain and everything, Mrs Faircroft – O no! I’ve gone and told you his name! Oh, well! – might spot me then and lose control of herself the way it’s possible to do after bereavements, heap all the upset and hurt on top of some poor unfortunate individual, a relative you’ve had differences with or whatever. I simply wouldn’t have been able to withstand that, everyone looking at me and going: ‘Do you see him . . .’ and all this rubbish, whispering away as usual.

  Which, as I say, was all they ever did about me and Eamon. (Yes! Now you definitely know!) To tell you the truth, I don’t think they were actually capable of understanding us in real, sort of concrete terms, if you know what I mean – I don’t think they could accept that it could ever even be!

  So in the end I thought the best solution was to just not go. I sent a Mass card all right – deep down, he was a very religious man, no matter what they said about corruption and murder and all the rest of it. But I thought it better not to sign my name. I just put down, ‘A friend.’

  A few nights later in Mulvey’s, they said to me: ‘You know where they found your boyfriend? One half of him in Tyreelin parish and the other in Clonboyne!’ This was supposed to be the joke of the century, of course. Another night, I was going to the toilet when one of them squeezed my arm and said: ‘How did they know Eamon Faircroft had dandruff?’ I shrugged – not that it made any difference whether I did or not because I was going to be treated to the hysterical answer anyway: ‘Because they found his head and shoulders in the river!’

  Well, excuse me, darlings, while I wet myself.

  Not long after that, I had a visit from the IRA and as I was caught in flagrante delicto again, doing myself up at the mirror. ‘I’m in for it now!’ I thought to myself. I mean – you try talking to flak-jacketed men in ski-masks wearing only a hairnet and skyblue negligee! I threw myself against the wall as they came in and cried: ‘Go on – do it then! Murder me! But, please – please make it quick!’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Pussy!’ one of them said and straight away, I recognized him as McGarvey from Tyreelin Cross. I tried to get my own back on him – he never stopped wolf-whistling when he saw me coming down the street – by making up all sorts of lies when he started asking me questions. By the time I was finished poor old Dummy had been working for the Mafia, the CIA and Interpol all at the same time. ‘You needn’t be trying any of your fairy tales on us, Pussy!’ one of them said then and they all laughed. I nearly laughed myself, to tell you the truth, it was so absurd – me standing there in my Doris Day outfit raving about poor old Dums and international espionage. They were wasting their time, of course, as I kept on telling them, for they found nothing and in the end they just said: ‘Ah, fuck this!’ and cleared off. Making sure to give me a nip on the backside as they went, plus – surprise, surprise! – a rousing chorus of ‘See you later, honky tonk!’, which was the latest around the town – thanks to Dick Emery and that stupid TV show of his!

  If things had improved even a little bit, I think I might have considered staying around Tyreelin for another while but if you look at those first six months of 1972, you would have to ask: ‘What person in their right mind who had a choice would stay five minutes in the fucking kip!’

  Especially if they’ve just gone and lost themselves a lover, and most likely soon to be chucked out of house and home? I think what put the tin hat on it was when they decided to top young Laurence Feely. After that, I was off – for sure! – and wild horses wouldn’t have dragged me back.

  Chapter Twelve

  Celebrity Squares

  Laurence, being Down’s syndrome, couldn’t pronounce his words right – which was why I called him Laurence Lebrity. No matter how he tried he just couldn’t get it right, the name of his favourite programme – Celebrity Squares. I used to meet him every day and say: ‘I suppose you’ll be watching it tonight, will you Laurence?’ and he’d start clapping his hands and jumping up and down. Quite what he must have made of two completely strange men standing in his living room while he was watching Bob Monkhouse reading from his cue cards, all you can say is God only knows. Nothing, I suppose. Too busy clapping his hands and going: ‘Lebrity Kwares! Lebrity Kwares!’

  When they started asking him the questions, most likely he thought it was his own sort of private Celebrity Squares. And why, probably, he raced up the stairs so enthusiastically to get his rosary beads when they leaned in close and asked him, smiling: ‘What religion are you?’

  Which they were happy to accept as an answer, and why, after they had raped his mother, they put the beads around his neck like a garland and said: ‘Clap your hands for Celebrity Squares!’, which he did, as enthusiastically as ever.

  I think it was the first Down’s syndrome boy shot in the Northern Ireland war. The first in Tyreelin, anyway.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A Girl Who Knows She’s Loved!

  How flattered I was by the attentions of a certain gentleman, I really cannot impress enough upon you, and, had one not at the deepest level possible by recent deaths been so affected, they might well have been a determining factor in overturning the decision alluded to earlier – the leaving of Tyreelin town!

  Once, to my little cottage, I received an anonymous letter, doused with powder and, secreted within, in elegant script, the words: ‘I love you – you know me.’

  Which I did, of course – because, could Jojo Finn stay anonymous to save his life? Of course not, the great big idiot, shuffling about in his denim bomber jacket, peering out of the shadows – completely besotted, I’m afraid it would appear! All I can say is – thank heaven Eamon didn’t apprehend his missives! There would have been one hell of a row!

  Which is not to say I wasn’t flattered by the nervous affections of my suitor full-of-longing. I most certainly was! Especially since they were responsible
for his presence in the Sports Centre dancehall that fateful night in Cavan! When Pussy got her make-up smudged!

  What happened was we decided on the spur of the moment to hit Cavan to see the Plattermen – Irwin was crazy about them. ‘You want to hear their version of “With a Little Help from my Friends” – Joe Cocker doesn’t have a smell!’ he said as his battered Anglia motored into Cavan. Later falling about the street as he roared at litter bins: ‘The Free State’s either with us or against us! Anyone else thinks different – stay out of the fucking way!’ Charlie stood up on the steps of the courthouse and flung back her batik scarf as she informed bewildered citizens that she wanted to ‘Paint two thousand dead birds crucified on a background of night’, stuffing her book The Mersey Sound back into her pocket as off we went then to the café, to encounter – mysteriously ensconced in the corner, now in silk scarf and tartan jacket, and puffing on his smokes – sweet lover Jojo Finn!

  As I sipped my coffee, throughout from Jojo those furtive glances sailing. Stop it, Jojo! You’re embarrassing me! But – honest question! Did it stop me preening? It most certainly did not! I couldn’t stop thinking: ‘He’s all dressed up tonight – is it for me? I wonder what he thinks of me in my skinny rib and two-tone flares!’ Not to mention my gorgeous brass hoop earrings! Which all Cavan had stopped with cries of: ‘He’s wearing weemen’s earrings!’ To which I replied: ‘Affirmative, darling sweety-pie!’

  Charlie – not so discreetly sipping from a vodka bottle – now appeared upon the table singing Yes songs at the top of her voice. ‘If the summer change to winter, yours is no disgrace! Yours is no disgrace!’ she yowled into the microphone-bottle, shaking her backside and swishing her bearskin coat to reveal her jeans and smiley faces, felt pen scribbles: Black Sabbath, Peace and Love – Clapton is God.

  Melty-eyed Irwin ate a handful of chips and gave me the peace sign. ‘Wait till you hear him on the bass. Rob Strong is a fucking genius, man – I’m telling you!’ Across the town the Plattermen answered him with a piledriving Afro-Cuban number. As Irwin joined Charlie on the table and they both took the bottle-mike for Santana’s ‘Oye Como Va!’, managing ten whole seconds before the Italian owner came running with a screech – as Jojo’s eyes at last met mine and did his face go – whoosh!

  *

  How the dancehall fight started I haven’t the faintest idea, to be honest with you! I do seem to remember someone pulling my sleeve and enquiring as to my gender. After that, all I remember is: ‘Skree!’, and the women losing their minds as the bikers tried to get a kick at me. You can picture the scene, I’m sure – leather jackets, hefty boots and ‘Kill the hooring nancy queen!’ As out of nowhere comes a vision! Jojo! I can’t believe my eyes! My not-so-secret admirer with fists now squared and, lit with drink, ready to tackle them, one by one!

  ‘Leave him alone! Fucking leave him alone! He’s a Tyreelin man!’

  Did he beat them up, each and every one? Well – not quite! Though definitely managed to scare them away! And then does what? Goes all coy and slinks away – as if suddenly a stranger!

  Except not to me, by a long shot – no! Old Puss a favour just does not forget!

  ‘Come back!’ I called after him. ‘Jojo!’ Adding, in a whisper – ‘Darling.’

  ‘What happened?’ Irwin squeaked, coming up for air – some soldier! (It was Jojo the IRA should have recruited – not him!)

  As through the streets I then did wander, searching for that heart of mine – Jojo Sweetness, saviour of his girly! Running him to earth in the alleyway by the New Pin Cleaners my heart skipping a beat and, truly, little tears coming misting to my eyes as his hand I took, not a word between us whispered as I touched it – so cold and sweaty-fearful? – and nibbled gently on his earlobe. ‘Thank you so much,’ I murmured and mascared eyelashes permitted droop a little. How could he be so afraid?

  ‘It’s OK, Jojo. It’s OK, pet!’ I said and then was gone, a kiss blown back across the night now quiet. Along with three mimed and simple words: ‘I love you.’

  ‘Where the fuck were you? We were searching everywhere for you!’ bawled Irwin Smash-the-State when I got back. Charlie was reading The Mersey Sound to a telegraph pole.

  ‘Oh, nowhere, Irwin, honey!’ I beamed, utterly consumed by the proud, exquisite, giddy tremor of a girl who knows she’s loved!

  Chapter Fourteen

  A Head on Him Like Barney Gillis’s Cockerel

  It was an ordinary midweek afternoon in early summer in the town of Tyreelin. Eamon Faircroft had been dead some months now and already time had begun its healing work on the soul of Patrick Pussy. Obviously he would never forget the man with whom he had spent such a short but beautiful time, occasionally, as he sat there on the summer seat, feeling the corners of his mouth begin to twitch and behind his eyes a little glitter-twinkle starting as he recalled some joke that Eamon had told him, or an idiosyncratic story they had shared on the way to Enniskillen where they dined out every Sunday. But now, he realized, it was over and there was nothing for him but to pack his bags once and for all.

  Especially when he was unceremoniously thrown out of his abode, fag-puffing workmen hammering planks across the door as Puss she weepily waved goodbye.

  ‘What you’re doing, you’ll never know!’ she said. ‘The memories this place holds!’

  ‘Oh, fuck off, Mrs Braden!’ bawled one of them and chased him with a plank.

  ‘In trouble again?’ laughed Pat McGrane (old classmate) as he pulled up in his Anglia, on his way across the border to see his girlfriend.

  ‘’Fraid so, Pat!’ simpered a tattered Puss as off went Pat tooting his horn.

  Fortunately, for all the time that remained to her, good neighbours came to the rescue and now she sat with Charlie’s folks in front of the television watching David Bowie and the Spiders From Mars cavorting in their unitards.

  ‘Ah, for the love of Christ!’ Mr Kane said. ‘Did you ever see the like of it? For Jasus’ sake – I ask you!’

  Mrs Kane went out to put on the kettle and called from the kitchen: ‘Oh, you needn’t be asking me. It’s that pair there you’d want to ask.’

  He shook the paper and vanished behind it, Bowie pouting on his knees.

  ‘The cut of the cunt – arsing about my television with a head on him like Barney Gillis’s cockerel!’

  Whereupon we took our leave upstairs where Charlie’s Salon was now in progress, Alice Cooper blasting through the open window. ‘Lift your head, why don’t you,’ she said. ‘I can’t get at your neck!’, foundation dab-dab-dabbing with her cotton ball.

  ‘You look fantastic!’ she said when she was finished. ‘I could eat you!’

  And then: ‘I’m going to miss you, Pat Puss, you know! So much.’

  ‘I love you, Charlie. I’ll write every day, I promise.’

  ‘Kiss me! Even if I’m Irvin’s and always will be for ever, I still want you to kiss me!’

  Yummy breasts of all time as little tongue goes travelling down to belly-town! And other secret places!

  Such squelch and sweat the world has never seen! God! – Why couldest not invent a sweeter way to melt and merge? Dickies which might squirt Chanel, or weenies which secrete rosewater? O who can ever tell your plan! But Charlie – with her it was so close to exultation, one almost didn’t want to go!

  Hold the front page! Pussy changes mind! Refuses to emigrate after all! Decides to settle down with long-time friend from childhood!

  But it was not to be and when the time came I felt like Ingrid Bergman. ‘We may never meet again, Charlie, you know that?’ I wept. ‘Oh, shut up, Braden!’ she snapped and, moist-eyed, hugged me yet again. ‘Please don’t say it for I love you so!’

  ‘Good luck then, Head-the-Ball,’ said Irwin.

  I was sorry to leave old Irwin too, standing there with his wild red hair and freckle-splashed face. Under his arm a pile of papers: Republican News.

  ‘I can’t get around him, Patrick!’ Charlie said. ‘He’s off his fucking
head!’

  As purring bus went vroom! and whoosh! – away we go!

  Chapter Fifteen

  Elephants To England

  ‘I boxed for Kilkenny – I boxed for Ireland!’ said the man with the scalded prawn face. ‘And I’d be boxing yet only for my accident!’

  How sad that it transpired they had put him in prison – for offences unnamed. The lights of Liverpool yet far away as The Munster ferry made its way through the churning waters. What is that I discern just below the eye of Boxing Man Extraordinary? Why I do believe it’s a nervous tic!

  ‘You’re a funny class of a buck!’ he says. ‘Dressed like that . . . would you not be afraid . . .?’

  I was sporting a scarf of purple chiffon, decadently flying in the breeze.

  ‘Why, darling?’ I said and moved ever so slightly closer.

  Now who would have expected a pugilist and a saucy Pussy to be in the lifeboats so entwined?

  ‘Elephants they call me,’ he said as he indulged in his post-coital smoke. ‘If anyone lays a paw on you – just tell them Elephants isn’t far away. I’ll bate them! I bate more men! I’d batter them!’

  ‘O Elephants!’ I sighed.

  Then what does he do – start to cry!

  ‘I hated prison!’ he says. ‘It did all sorts of things to me.’

  As after a good sobbing session, off we went down to the bar where ‘A Nation Once Again’ was in full swing. I felt sorry for Elephants with a nose like that, beaconing over the rim of his pint. His eyes begged: ‘Could you love me?’ Well, I could – but I had a lot of things on hand and it really would have to wait. I shouldn’t have stolen money out of his pocket as he snoozed there on the booze-splashed table. But he had promised me a tenner and there wasn’t much sign of it coming!