Ghosts and Lightning (13 page)

—So anyway, says Maggit —This one year me and Pajo scouted the whole house out before the big day. Reconnaissance, like. Every dodgy floorboard and stair, we marked it down in Pajo’s homework copy. We even put an oul sock in the bedroom door so it wouldn’t close all the way and then make a load o noise when we opened it again. So come one o’ clock me and Pajo sneak out o bed and creep down the stairs. Not a sound, like. Fuckin James Bond job. We didn’t have the copybook with all the plans in it cos we’d lost it a few days before but fuck that like, we knew every fuckin inch off by heart at that stage. So we got into the sittin room and it’s deadly. Yeh know how it is when yer small. All the presents and that, it’s the best fuckin day o yer life. I got this big Manta Force yokeybob and Pajo had some … wha was it?

—Wrestlin stuff, says Pajo. —Bret Hart and Hulk Hogan and all. The big rubbery ones. And a deadly ring for them. The proper WWF one.

—And Jake the Snake, I say. —Didn’t yiz used to have him?

Pajo nods. —Yeah. I lost his snake though. It fell down the shore. I was ragin.

—Yeah so anyway, says Maggit. —There we were playin away, the tree all sparkly and the cards everywhere and wrappin paper on Pajo’s head and wha happens? Me
da comes in — fuckin sneaks in like; we never heard a fuckin sound, the sleeveen fuckin shite — and he whacks me full force in the back o the head with the bleedin leg o ham for the Christmas dinner. The leg o fuckin ham!

Ned whoops.

—Jesus, says Sinead. —That’s horrible.

—Tell me about it, says Maggit, rubbin the back of his neck like it’s still sore, twenty years later. —And then he pulls out Pajo’s copybook and says thanks for the tips, lads, gives Pajo an almighty smack in the arse and chases us back up the stairs, the two of us roarin cryin.

We burst into hysterics. Pajo makes that funny hissin noise he makes instead o laughin, his shoulders shuckin up and down. We all look at each other, eyes glintin, happy. I cut off another slice o wrinkly-lookin but quite-nice-actually chicken and everythin’s grand until Sinead says:

—That’s child abuse, that is.

Pajo coughs. We all look at Sinead.

Silence.

—No, I’m serious, she says. —You could get done for that. Should get done for it, actually. If everyone just –

—Ah no, says Maggit. —It was only me da, like.

—That doesn’t make it right, says Sinead.

We stop lookin at Sinead and look at each other instead, and then closely inspect our peas and beans or half-empty wine glasses. Child abuse? That’s a bit much, like. When it’s yer own da …

I fork a roastie and Bing Crosby’s dreamin of a white Christmas and I reckon we’re all thinkin o smacked arses and whacked necks, and how it all meant fuck all in the end. Par for the course really, isn’t it?

No one says anythin for a few seconds, then Ned says:

—Ye of the un-smacked arse, wha? Me middle-class darlin.

He grins at her, then puts on a husky Darth Vader voice:

—Welcome to the dark side, Sinead.

I tilt me head and smile a big unnatural smile and … sweet fuck all. I wait a few more seconds … still nothin.

I glance down at the pair o fluffy granny boots shufflin on the other side o the curtain, then look back at the screen, me reflection in the glass still grinnin its now strained, slightly mental-lookin grin. Me hair’s gettin a bit long, it’s curly and it grows up more than down. It’s startin to look a bit like an afro. I don’t know where I get that from, both me ma and da have straight hair. Well, they did have straight hair; me da’s gone baldy. I push me hair back from me forehead and inspect me hairline. It’s still grand. For now.

A shock o white sears me eyes and when I open them there’s two pulsin globes bobbin in me vision. I slowly stand up and pull aside the greasy curtain and stumble back into the world. Which is to say, the fruit and vegetable aisle in the new Tesco on Ballyfermot Road. The picture booth in Liffey Valley is broke so I ran the car up to Ballyfermot. Gino’s mate shifted it a couple o days ago. Took a whole day to clean the shite and straw out and yeh can still smell it. Pajo’s got the chickens out his and Maggit’s back garden. He’s delighted with them. And me, as well, I’m delighted — tellin yeh, it’s deadly just bein able to jump in the car. No more fuckin 78a.

Class.

Gettin on, yeh know. Gettin ahead. Feel in a deadly mood today. I need two passport photos to register with this agency I dropped into yesterday, in Clondalkin village. I’m startin to consider gainful employment. Well, I’ll fill out the forms and see how it goes.

There’s two grannies chattin to each other across the aisle, one gesticulatin at the other with a bent and hairy lookin carrot, like she’s some mental, geriatric conductor. There’s an earthy tang o dirt and both o the grannies are speakin quick and clipped, the old school Dublin innercity machinegun twang me nanny Cullen used to have. The carrot-less granny turns and looks at me, smilin.

—Ah, she says. —Gettindoulpassportpichers.

I nod and smile back, blinkin hard; me eyes are still a bit fucked. I glance back at the oul photo booth. I know the pictures are gonna be useless but I’m after spendin a fiver on them so I’m not leavin them there.

—Gosomewherefoddin, son, says the granny with the carrot, and she points the wonky vegetable vaguely (I assume) in the direction o some foreign hotspot.

—Somewherewirrabirrasunshine, says the other one.

—Not actually goin anywhere like, I say. —Just gettin the photos done.

They look at each other and nod sagely, eyes closin slowly and openin again.

—Forrajob, says the granny with the carrot, and the two o them nod again. —Teddiblehardtogerrajobthesedays.

—Ohgodyeahjaysis, speciallywirralldemfoddiners.

The carrot-less granny reaches to her left without turnin her head and scrabbles at a pile of apples, her wrinkly hand lightin quickly on one apple and then another. The old,
spotty hand closes round an unlucky yellow and she plucks it up and drops it into a cellophane bag, then expertly flips it and twists it and places it into her otherwise empty trolley.

—Millionsodempolishaswell. Neverseendalikes.

There’s a clunk from the booth, followed by a whirrin sound. The photos are warm and slightly sticky. Most o me face is obscured by me hand and the one visible eye is red and demonic lookin. Not as bad as I’d thought they’d be, but still crap. I stuff them into me jeans pocket.

—See yiz, I say to the grannies, and head for the booze aisle.

—Enjoydaholliers, one o them says.

*

Cheerios, multivitamins, potatoes (small bag), steak and kidney pie (x2), three-for-two Chicago Town pepperoni pizzas, marked down toffee cheesecake (has to be eaten tonight), packet o digestives, family pack o Monster Munch, tray o frozen chicken fillets, milk (two litres, semi-skimmed — Paula won’t drink the full fat stuff), bag o Granny Smiths, huge box o Lyons tea bags, king prawns for Teresa (they have the faces on, and their legs and everythin; I reckon if yeh eat something’s whole body like that yeh gain their memories — no prawns for me, so), two bottles o cheapo red wine, Guinness six-pack (cans), Budweiser six-pack (bottles), a large bottle o Smirnoff and four Christmas tree-shaped air freshener things for the car. I know I shouldn’t really be gettin all this drink in (usin mostly Teresa’s money, as well) but wha can yeh do? Sit
in and stare at the telly all night? Yeh need the option o drink, even just as a fallback.

There’s a woman in the queue in front o me, oldish but with a nice figure, her trolley filled with things I’d never buy. It’s mad when yeh see that, stuff other people buy at supermarkets. Tinned pears, a tub o Elmlea whole cream. Things I’d never think o buyin.

While she’s payin for her stuff I keep lookin at her hands: they’re dead elegant lookin, the skin milky pale and the nails red and immaculate. The mad thing is that facewise (and I’m not slaggin here, just sayin) she’s in rag order, all clown style make-up and hairy moles and saggy skin. Why lavish all that attention on yer hands and none on yer face? The mug of a sixty-year-old prostitute and the hands of a faerie queen. The people yeh see. She pays with a card and steers her bagged shoppin towards the exit.

The fella on the till is young and snatches up each item and scans it without lookin. A little bleep. Monster Munch. Bleep-bleep. The milk, the cheesecake. Bleep. Sometimes it takes two scans. The packet o digestives takes three.

—How do Denwaldo?

I turn round. It’s Kasey, noddin his head and grinnin his big stoner’s grin.

—Heya Kasey. What’s the story?

—Here, will yeh get us twenty Blue?

Kasey splats a crisp fifty euro note onto me box of Cheerios. Then he looks at me and grins and hurries out into the foyer where he plonks his arse down on a miniature version o Postman Pat’s delivery van. He shoots me a big thumbs-up.

*

Me and Kasey stand under the Tesco’s awnin, smokin his cigarettes with me shoppin bags round me ankles. There’s a line o bristlin cars and buses stuck in traffic across the car park, the shitty 78a like a weird mobile zoo; a woman with a nose ring and green hair, a double-chinned man with a red potato for a nose, a teenager with a mobile phone glued to his ear. A taxi pulls up in front of us and a woman in a trouser suit clutchin a plastic container o pasta salad ducks in. The taxi pulls away, stoppin about fifteen feet up the road, the lights still red.

I haven’t seen Kasey since that day in Trinity. Although that’s nothin new, I suppose; always off on his travels, Kasey. He’s back in his usual attire, as well: the oul leather jacket and the near threadbare Anthrax T-shirt. He takes a huge drag on his cigarette, his dark green eyes on the slow-movin traffic. He taps his ash and looks at me, smilin slightly.

—Keepin OK so, Denstable? he says.

—Not too bad. After gettin a car.

—Yeah?

—Yeah. It’s only an oul banger I got off Gino but it does the job, like.

—That’ll do. So how’d the séance go?

Another big drag on me cigarette. —Dunno, really. Pajo went a bit … well, hard to say, like.

—Did yiz make contact?

—I wouldn’t wanna say, Kasey. Pajo started sayin all this mad shite but … I dunno. I reckon he was just …

—Puttin it on?

—Well, no. Not puttin it on. He wouldn’t lie. But he might o convinced himself.

—And is the ghost still there?

—Paula says it’s not. So … happy days, I suppose.

Kasey takes another drag from his cigarette, lookin thoughtful. I shrug and take a good drag meself, blowin the smoke out in front o me, the bluish-grey ribbons like spectral fingers.

—Yeh in the money or wha? I ask him, handin over his forty odd euro change.

Kasey shrugs and taps the side of his nose. —Well, yeh could say that, I suppose.

—Yeh workin?

Kasey laughs. —In a manner o speakin, Denethor. I’ve managed to come across certain substances that are much in demand in today’s affluent Ireland.

—Yer not fuckin dealin are yeh?

Kasey shrugs.

—In wha? I say.

He winks.

—Fair enough, I say. —Yid wanna be careful, though. Less I know, wha?

—You said it, compadre.

We stand and smoke for a bit. The sky’s turnin a bit dark, the clouds huge and sluggish.

—Wha had yeh up at a culchie doctor’s? I say. —Maggit was tellin me.

Kasey looks at the ground and shrugs. He scrapes the back of one runner against the front o the other, then shrugs again, lookin sideways at me.

—Boys in blue dropped me off, he says.

—How come?

Kasey takes another, final, gargantuan drag. It looks like the cigarette’s sucked into him, like some stage magician’s
trick. The tip turns orange and smoulders and a pair o thin smoke trails tumble from his nostrils.

—Well, he says. —Long story short Denver, I was on me way to Donegal to see me sisters. Drivin up. I was drinkin and that, yeh know? Off me face on cider and pills. Wasn’t feelin the peachiest that week, yeh know? Can I be honest with yeh?

He drops the butt of his cigarette and looks at me. I nod.

—Pure bummed out I was. Rock bottom, as they say. And halfway there I just says to meself, out o the bleedin blue like — fuck this shite. I was drivin alongside some river and Gerry Ryan was on the radio talkin to this culchie farmer about bleedin irrigation of all the wide world’s subjects and I just ran the bleedin van into the river.

—Fuckin hell Kasey.

—Have yeh ever heard Gerry Ryan’s show?

Oul halfmad Kasey. A new unlit cigarette hangin slantways from the corner of his mouth. One hand in his jeans pocket, the other makin a fist and slowly openin again.

—Yeh alright Kasey?

—Grand, Denno. Grand. He laughs again. —Bleedin van only went halfway in, sure. I thought it’d be like the films, yeh know? The way they just go flyin off the road and the car sinks and that’s that. End o story. Trust bleedin me though. I was left sittin on the bank with freezin bleedin water pourin in over me runners. Stayed there for ages, like. Listenin to Gerry Ryan and drinkin me cider.

—Wha, and the police saw yeh?

—Yeah. A squad car pulled up on the motorway and these two coppers came down. They thought I robbed
the van. They pulled me out and dragged me up the embankment. This pig hits me a smack in the head and then I was in the back o the car. They said they were sick o the likes o me comin up from Dublin, wreckin the place. I told them it was me own van and that I was tryin to kill meself and me ma was from Donegal. I thought I was in for a night in the cells and a bop in the head, yeh know? Bate the brass monkey or wharrever. But wha did they do only bring me to a fuckin mental hospital. Said I was a sadcase and a bleedin waste o time and they’d other things to be dealin with.

—Fuck.

I can’t think of anythin else to say. It may sound a bit mad, like, but the casual admittance of attempted suicide isn’t that much of a shock to me. Not when yeh know people like Kasey. I wouldn’t say it happens every five minutes or anythin but it’s not earth shatterin, either.

—Fuck is right. It took me another day to come down, I’d popped that many pills on the drive. I was away with the bleedin fairies Del. That’s when this culchie doctor tells me I’m unwell. He should know I suppose, with all these certs he had on the wall. He said I needed help. All I need’s a valium and a shite, I says to him. Ran off that night. Hitched back to Dublin with this truck driver from the Liberties, slept in Stephen’s Green and got the bus home. The gardaí towed me van out o the water for me. They rang me ma. I’ve to go up and collect it. It’ll probably cost a few bob but –