Fishing the Sloe-Black River (15 page)

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Johnnie Logan's going nuts over the mining boys. Says they should stay the hell out. But he's all set, he is, with his Opel bloody Manta and his four-bedroom house and a seat on the County Council. Man like that doesn't need a new job, unlike me and Barney. If he keeps those mining boys out it'll be a good thump in the head from Barney, that's for sure. And I'll never vote for the bastard again. He used to be one hell of a boyo, getting that strike settled for the union and all, but like Barney says he's barking up the wrong tree this time.

*   *   *

Ferocious bloody hangover this evening. Out on the piss in the Humbert with Barney in the broads of broad daylight. Smithwick's.
Nectar of the dogs,
says Barney. And a fierce drink for the scuts.

Anyway, it's all signed sealed and delivered, says Barney. The bank sold your woman's caboose to the mining company. Off they are now doing speculations in the hills. There's gold in dem dere hills, as the boys in the wild west say. Word around is that there might be jobs when the mining boys get their act together, which'd be a damnsight better than cleaning the bin, that's for sure. Johnnie Logan's bulling, but it serves him right, him and all the other greenies around. There'll be a road up the mountain, no ifs, ands, or buts. They can all go to Kerry or Majorca or the south of bloody France if they want a bit of peace and quiet.

Went up there myself for a goo. Mining boys already put a big insignia on the side of the caboose. Picture of a mountain with the sun coming up over it. It'll be a sunny bloody morning if they hire myself and Barney, that's for sure. Those boys have money. You can be sure of that. We'll be laughing and it might even bring a few of the lads home from Amsterdam or the Bronx or wherever the hell they're gone. They put some barbed wire around the old carriage and already got themselves a few JCBs and a couple of churners, a pile of gravel and a big blue Dumpster. There's no flower beds there any more, that's for sure. Looks a bit different than it used to but that's the way it goes. Jobs are jobs. There'll be hell to pay if they don't hire local lads, all the same.

Your woman must know about the caboose because she threw a nasty one tonight. Out they were doing all sorts of maneuvers to hold her down, the Heimlich and all that stuff. The only doctor on was that skinny bloke who stinks of garlic. Nurses had to call me out from the kitchen, where I was doing the scrubbing, to give them a hand. Six of us there including Barney, but he went a bit easier with her this evening. Dressing gown all over the place and she's a good-looking woman, all the same. Barney asked me if I sprung a hard-on. He's a filthy bastard sometimes. Anyway, out of her pockets comes tumbling a load of sachets of sugar that she must have stolen from the bowls in the dining area. Dozens of the damn things spilling all over the floor. In the little white packets. Maybe she has a sweet tooth.

Eventually calmed the hissy-fit though, the lot of us together. On with the gray gown, out with the shoelaces, give us that necklace, darling, and it's off down to solitary with the soft white stuff on the walls. Don't be banging your little brown curls around this time.

Must be awful hard all the same, losing the parents and the caboose like that. The nurses call her Ofeelia on account of the flowers in her hair. Can't help feeling a bit sorry for her, even if Barney says it's her own fault. Twenty years old and it's not much better than the fucking slophouse.

Still no sign of the Georgie one. They must be doing all sorts of tests on her up beyond in the big smoke. Dymphna O'Connor got the thumbs up today and it's off back to Kiltimagh for her. But the place was a fucking mess. There was a tampon shoved down the inside of the third stall and the rubber gloves had taken a hike. Mary Marshall at it again. They should teach that woman some manners. Barney told me a funny joke about Eve in the river but I can't for the life of me remember it now. One of these days me and Barney are going to get new jobs. No doubt about it. We'll be up there with the mining boys wearing three-piece suits and colorful ties and the doctors at the bin can lick the piss off the floors themselves.

*   *   *

Ofeelia was very quiet in solitary today. Often wondered why I never saw more of her around town, her being a fine thing and all. By all accounts, so say the nurses, her Da had a fierce battle with the board of education to keep her at home. Just imagine that. Didn't even have a debs dance or anything. A bit like myself I suppose, since I only did the Inter and didn't get a chance to dance with the old dickie bow on. Living in that caboose she probably never even had a chance to see any new films either. Christ. That's not living.

The nurses were saying that her Da taught her the weirdest bloody stuff, him always up in arms about chemicals in the air and the peat bogs and all that other stuff they talk about. He was a friend of Logan's and the greenies. Seems to me you have to be pretty bloody rich before you start talking about all that stuff. You can see them there on the TV, protesting the whales and the dolphins and all. There's some graffiti in the women's toilet that says
NUKE THE GAY WHALES
, which is pretty damn funny when you think about it.

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She has the greenest eyes I ever saw. I'll say that much for her. And quoting some strange bloody poetry too when she's down there in solitary. All about these turtles and stuff. Doctor Garlic went to take her out today but she threw another nasty one. It was back into the white room for her, a shove in the back from Doctor G. That fella's a screamer if ever I saw one. He shouldn't be treating the patients like that, that's all I have to say.

*   *   *

She's a headcase, that one. Acting nice as could be for the last two days and back in the dorm, she is. Slopping out the stalls and who rolls in but herself. Oops, I say, it's closed for a minute or two. Down she leans and, straight in the eyes, asks me if I could buy her a few bottles of syrup down at the shops, then slips me a fiver. Can I trust ya? she says, sounding normal as could be, even though they slapped a few of the yellow boys down her gob earlier on. Dressing gown hanging down awful low again. Barney would have had it right, but I never told him. Up she stands, with a bit of a wink and down the corridor until Dolores finds her and guides her back to the dorm by the elbow, awful gentle like.

So I bought the syrup, why not. Cost me an extra eighty-six pence. Went in, when they were all at dinner, and slipped the bottles under her bed. Didn't say a word to Barney. He'd be slagging me something fierce. Took to calling me Hamlet for some reason when I said she wasn't half-bad-looking. That bastard is always in the storeroom pulling his plum anyway.

There I was, doing a number on the corridors at about four in the morning, and the night nurses must have been sleeping or else she's quiet as a fucking mouse.
You're a savior,
she says to me, and slips four pink flowers across the floor. Syrup all over the front of her dressing gown. The flowers got a bit wet on account of the mop water, but I dried them out in the flat later on and put them in a jar. Anyway, I've a funny feeling she's not half-mad at all. Asked me did I know where the caboose was. I said yeah, course I do. Then before she went waltzing back down the corridor she asked me to take some photos of the bloody thing for her. To hang above her bed because she's homesick. Christ.

*   *   *

At the bloody sugar she was again tonight. And splatters of syrup all over her dressing gown. Georgie's back, awful quiet, and she isn't talking to a soul.

*   *   *

Those mining boys have the life of it up there. Two BMWs down by the gate. Barney says that the only difference between a cactus and a Beemer is that one has the pricks on the outside. He's a funny bastard sometimes. But I wouldn't say no if they put one out the front door for me, that's for sure. Dublin license plates on them. Sitting outside the caboose, shiny as could be. They hired McLaverty and three of his fucking crew to make the tarmacadam road up from the main one, over the hills and down into the valley there. It's a job all right, but it's not mine. Still and all McLaverty said they'll be hiring if things prove to be going all right.

There's ructions in the Council. Johnnie Logan even said the hills are holy and they should take their mining company back to Ballyfermot and dig up a few horse bones for the knackers up there. That fella has a mouth on him for a politician. Still and all there's no job like a job that pays, that's what I say.

Got to thinking about old Ofeelia when I was up there snapping away. Bloody photos'd break her heart, even if she is a touch on the mad side. No flowers or anything. Anyway this security bloke comes out and asks me if I'm from the newspaper, then tells me not to be taking photos, that's illegal. I'm not about to lose the chance of working with them, so right there I opened the back of the camera, ripped out the film and said there ya go, not a bit of harm done. Better all the way round that way. Old Ofeelia had a bit of a fit when I whispered to her as they were all traipsing out of the dining room, but that's life isn't it? She left me alone with the cleaning tonight, but I'll be damned if there wasn't another boatload of sugar in her pockets and even some of it stuffed down those long blue socks.

*   *   *

There's a new magazine out that has all sorts of stuff about the films. There I was looking at a picture of Daniel Day Lewis in his Mohican rigout and who walks in but Dolores in her nursing whites, giving me all sorts of shit for not doing my job right. Slaps the magazine right out of my hands. Look who's talking, I wanted to say. In there in the kitchen nattering about the patients all night long. And sleeping on the job too. Saw her later on in the kitchen with the other nurses, slobbering all over the magazine. They all think that Day Lewis fella is gorgeous. I'll grow my hair long, get a number done on my teeth, and get a job in Hollywood myself. Watch out boys, here come Marty Lyons with his hatchet flying.

Anyway, Ofeelia came waltzing down the corridors when I was mopping at half past four and said to me,
Some night let's go for a walk outside, you and me, for a breath of fresh air.
Didn't say a thing, just kept on mopping. She's fucking bonkers if she thinks I'm going to go for a stroll with her. She asked me for more syrup too, but I didn't say a thing. I was thinking of asking her for that eighty-six pence, but I didn't.

*   *   *

Barney left in his application with the mining boys today. Looking for a man to do the JCB, he said. Told them he worked for the County Council for seven bloody years before he went to the bin. So up I go myself to fill one in too. Place is fierce nice inside—done it up awful posh, expensive carpet and all that lark. Fax machines ringing like bloody Wall Street or something. They fixed the hole in the roof where the telescope used to be. Ah well, that's progress. Three-piece asked me if I'd ever done the bulldozer thing before, so I told him the truth. Told me, natural as could be, that he already has a few men with experience but he'll keep me on file. Bastard like that needs a lobotomy if he thinks Barney is telling the truth. That's what you get, though. Doors slammed in your mush when you do it honest.

Georgie and Ofeelia were bulling today when they couldn't go for a walk in the rain. I got in at five o'clock and there they were, in the dining room, sitting away from everyone, scowling like the clappers. Ofeelia had a fucking field of sugar in her pockets, you'd swear she'd been pulling beets all day. Georgie was rocking like a madwoman. Seems they're pals now. Maybe Ofeelia's shooting the white stuff, who knows around this bloody place. Both of them whispering and pointing the finger at me, of all people. Then they started laughing. One thing's for sure, Barney better stop with this Hamlet shite or I'll rip his head off and leave a long slimy one down his throat. He better be half decent to me or I'll up and tell the mining company, not a bother on me, and that's the fucking truth.

This place is driving me around the bend. Geraldine McCabe was slapped in the solitary after swallowing her fucking thermometer. Una Harrison's parents left her a box of Milk Tray after six o'clock visit and Maggie the Moaner ate them up. All because the lady loves Milk Tray, I suppose. Mary Marshall left another jam rag in the toilet tank. Barney left it for me to clean up, the lazy pillock.

*   *   *

Two weeks now she's been here and she's awful nice. I don't think she's as mad as half the bloody people in the country. She must be a cute hoor to be able to slip past the nurses at night. Down she comes and sits near where I'm working whispering about this that and the other, the price of butter, whatever you want. One night she's talking about things a little wacky, like how the universe is expanding and some such shite about gravity and stuff. Then she's just staring away at the wall. The next she's on about the flowers down by the pond, straight and narrow as could be, a little bit of a twitch in the lip but that's all. It must be said that there's a little bit of a tinkle in the trousers every now and then, what with her in that dressing gown with the buttons open and that bit of nipple looking like a crater on the moon. She's got these awful big lips. Very sexy that in a woman. And those rhododendrons don't look too bad. A man could go blind afterward. I'm surprised Barney doesn't wear glasses after what he does in the stock room.

We've started taking to walks every now and then, me and Ofeelia. Nothing happens, just walking down around the grounds, but the Barney is like a fucking tape recorder.
Hey, Hamlet, did you go for your midnight snack? D'ya think she could suck a golf ball through a fifty foot hose on a windy Friday?
I swear that bastard's looking for a punch, but he's a big one. Might have to take my breakfast and lunch with me. He'll be off and about soon enough working with the suits up there at the mining company, flinging his bulldozer around. Still and all, he's probably right about me getting booted if they find me out walking in the grounds with Ofeelia. Not very clever, he says, even for you. All we do is go out the back door with my key, take our shoes off when we go across the gravel, go down to the flower beds, and she looks at them. Every now and then she picks one and sticks it in her hair.