Loopy (11 page)

The walls of the bar were festooned with framed advertisements for long-defunct brands of tea, cigarettes, and mineral waters. Beer, too. One he particularly liked showed a smiling farmer effortlessly holding aloft, far above his head with one hand, a huge workhorse. The other hand clutched a pint glass of dark beer as he bellowed, “Murphy's stout gives you strength!”

A rival brand on the opposite wall was even more to the point: “Guinness is good for you!”

Loopy mused that unlike Trabane 5 Star, both beers were still brands his customers asked for regularly, even if the extravagant advertisements had been toned down over the years. The bar counter had a top of black marble that was the very devil to keep clean. Barstools upholstered in red leather stood like sentinels against a heavy brass footrail bolted to the wooden floor.

As he was putting the last glass back on the shelf, he saw in the big mirror behind the bar the reflection of two golfers playing the final hole. He turned around to watch their progress through the big window that looked out on the eighteenth fairway.

As they drew closer, he saw one of them veer off the fairway, looking for his ball. It was Leo Martin. Quite by chance, Loopy had seen Leo's ball bouncing off a tree and coming to rest behind it. Leo would have to chip the ball out sideways before playing his approach shot to the green. Loopy glanced across the fairway at the other player, now recognizable as Tim Porter. Tim was focused on lighting a cigarette in the stiffening breeze as he waited for Leo to play.

It was then that Loopy saw the banker give his ball a surreptitious kick with his shoe. The ball shot out from behind the tree and stopped on a level patch of grass from where Leo now had a clear shot to the green. Tim was still trying to light his cigarette and was too far away to have observed any skulduggery when Leo waved at him to indicate that he had found his ball. He then hit a high wedge to within ten feet of the flagstick. Had Loopy not seen what had happened
before
Leo's wedge shot, he would have remarked to himself—for the bar was empty—on the excellence of the shot.

Disconcerted by his opponent's recovery, Tim hit a weak approach shot that barely reached the putting surface. He took two putts to hole out, then watched intently as Leo crouched over his putt for what seemed like an eternity. The whoop from the banker as his ball disappeared into the hole left no doubt as to who had won the match.

When they came into the bar, Tim said, “There you go, Leo, ten hard-earned notes. That was one hell of a shot you played to the last green.”

Leo shot Tim an anxious look but could find nothing in his expression to suggest that his fancy footwork had been detected.

“Thanks. Yes, it certainly was one of my better efforts. What can I get you?”

“A whiskey and soda, I think. Must make a phone call first though. Shan't be long.” With that, he was gone.

With no one left to talk to, Leo addressed Loopy, “Two whiskey and sodas, like a good man. Make mine a large one while you're at it. Might as well celebrate, seeing as your friend Tim Porter is paying for it. To the victor, the spoils, eh? Just managed to pip him on the last hole with a big putt. Ran into the hole like a frightened rat, so it did.”

Loopy stared hard at him. He longed to be the kind of person who could look Leo Martin in the eye and tell him straight out that he had seen him cheat. But this was nothing more than wishful thinking. Imagine Larry Lynch, son of the local bankrupt, shelf-stacker and general ignoramus, daring to challenge the bank manager who also just happened to be treasurer of the Golf Club! It was laughable, but nevertheless he felt a sudden surge of anger. This was not the way things should be, having to kowtow to cheats like Leo Martin.

Yet things like that were changing fast, not just in Trabane but all over the country. Look at the way, he reminded himself, he had felt too humble to drive Edward Linhurst home when he had taken one too many because Loopy regarded him as in some way his social superior. On that occasion Loopy had found the courage to stifle his inferiority complex. If he could find that same courage once more, it might just set things right for his friend. He hated to see Tim Porter cheated out of his money even if he had more than he needed. In a flash his mind was made up. He swallowed hard, then looked Leo straight in the eye.

“Yes, sir, it was a good putt. But the wedge onto the green was quite a shot, too, wasn't it? I had a great view of it from here altogether.” Loopy nodded toward the window, and both pairs of eyes immediately zoomed in on the tree from behind which Leo had kicked his golf ball.

Again Loopy had to swallow hard before suggesting with a calmness he did not feel, “Weren't you dead lucky that tree didn't interfere with your shot.”

There was another, longer pause during which neither of them spoke nor looked at each other. Loopy was still looking absently at the tree, and Leo had found something of interest to him in the ashtray on the bar counter.

By now Loopy was growing more confident by the second as he added, “Mind you, 'twas a great shot all the same, Mr. Martin, when you actually got 'round to playing it. I'd say Mr. Porter was really surprised, too—you were
more
than lucky, the way I saw it!”

With that, Loopy turned away to fill the drinks, leaving Leo staring uneasily at his back. When he turned round again with the drinks, Leo's manner had undergone a marked change. Tim had not yet returned, so the bar was still empty as the banker remarked in a casual, man-to-man drawl scarcely louder than a whisper, “I rarely talk shop here at the club, y'know, but I must say I'm very impressed with the way you're trying to pay off your father's overdraft despite your injury. A pity more 'round here couldn't do likewise. Anyway, be that as it may…” Then, as if the thought had just struck him: “Why not drop in to the bank tomorrow? I might have an interesting proposition for you.”

Then, with what was meant to be a conspiratorial wink, Leo leaned across the counter, adding, “Now let's forget all about the tree, shall we?”

At that moment, before Loopy could reply, Tim reappeared and joined Leo at a table by the window.

*   *   *

The Allied Banks of Ireland in Trabane was in a cut-stone building with round, marble pillars flanking a heavy oak door. Only the garish, backlit plastic sign indicated that it was a bank rather than the headquarters of some obscure religious sect. It stood on a corner of the main street and a lesser thoroughfare that lead to the church. This, unsurprisingly, was called Church Street. When Loopy called to the bank, it was almost empty. He wondered if the wild rumors were correct after all.

Moves were indeed afoot to close it down, though at this early stage only Leo Martin was privy to this. The suboffice in nearby Lisbeg had already shut up shop, and Trabane was scheduled to follow suit. To avoid the inevitable uproar when the closure was made public, the townspeople would first have to be persuaded that this was not necessarily the final nail in the coffin for Trabane. By now Leo had been carefully briefed as to how to proceed with this delicate exercise in public relations. The directors had already come up with a draft of something they called a Code of Practice for dealing with customers and local communities affected by such closures. From the little sense that Leo could make of it, it meant ingratiating himself as much as possible with the local people, though how this was to be achieved was left up to him.

The post office would remain open, but anyone needing proper banking services would have to travel to the next town, eleven miles away. Already some of the ground had been prepared in advance of the closure. Leo had easily been won over by the promise of a transfer and promotion to Dublin. Though sworn to secrecy, he was sure that Rosa, his wife, would welcome the move from this dismal backwater.

The intercom on his desk buzzed like an angry wasp: “Young Lynch to see you, Manager—says he has an appointment.” The assistant manager made no effort to hide his surprise. He would have seen the stern letters addressed to Lynch's mother and wondered why her eldest was seeking audience with Leo.

“Send him in!

“Ah, Lynch, how nice to see you. Sit yourself down over there”—Leo gestured toward a chair on the far side of the paper-strewn desk as he peered at a computer screen—“while I bring myself up-to-date on your father's account.”

Loopy did as he was told and said nothing.

After some tentative key-bashing, Leo let out a deep moan like a wounded buffalo. “Ah, yes. A matter of almost one thousand pounds. Overdrawn, I see, and without sanction.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

Leo harrumphed and raised an eyebrow. This was intended to register his amazement that anyone in this day and age could not be familiar with this, the simplest of banking jargon. “
Without sanction?
Well, young man, it means that your father cashed checks all over the place without first okaying them with me. That's what
without sanction
means. And when you do that sort of thing, there are penalties.”

“Penalties?”

“Yes, penalties.” Leo was becoming testy from having to explain even the simplest of banking terms. Still, he reminded himself, it had to be done if his reputation was not to be ruined by this whippersnapper alerting all and sundry to his fancy footwork. “Penalties, in this instance, come in the form of surcharges.”

He had thought to joke that these penalties were quite different from the sort Loopy was accustomed to taking for the Trabane Gaels, but decided against it. Too complex and not worth the effort. Instead he explained what surcharges were.

“Surcharges are in addition to the penalties, so that when you add both of them on the interest charged on an unsanctioned overdraft, it all adds up very quickly, I can tell you!” A pause to let this sink in. “However, in the light of our little chat yesterday, I have decided to review your father's account. The bank had originally viewed him as having defaulted on the loan, but that does not now appear to be the case.”

Leo shot a glance at Loopy to make sure that he was taking all this in before pressing on. “I see there have been some repayments made, and small though they are, I am reclassifying the Lynch account from an unauthorized overdraft to the status of a regular long-term loan. All penalties charged to the original account will be canceled, and the interest rate will be substantially less.”

Here Leo paused to adjust his glasses, which were threatening to fall off the end of his nose. “In plain English that means that with all these adjustments, the Lynch account now stands at something just short of
seven
hundred pounds, rather than the thousand or so that was owed to the bank when the account was in your father's name.”

“Does that mean, Mr. Martin, that we owe three hundred pounds less than we did ten minutes ago?”

Martin harrumphed quite a bit before admitting, “Well, yes, you
could
put it like that, I suppose. Everything now depends on your mother signing these papers I have drawn up for her—oh, yes, and, of course, your discretion in that other matter, as well.”

Now it was Loopy's turn. “You're trying to bribe me, aren't you?”

Leo turned purple, but before he could reply, Loopy continued, “We both know you cheated Tim yesterday, and now you think that you can buy my silence by taking a bit off the overdraft.”

Leo had got his breath back by now. “How dare you, it's nothing of the sort. If you think—”

Loopy had found an inner strength from somewhere as he cut Leo short. “What I think, Mr. Martin doesn't matter. What does matter is that by the end of the month I'll have a check for three thousand pounds lodged against the account. When it is cleared, I want you to use it to cancel that overdraft and put what's left over on deposit in my mother's name. You can do what you like about the interest and penalties.”

Without waiting for a reply, Loopy stood up and left. He visited the fort on his way home. As he sat cross-legged in the center of the standing stones, his mind emptied. Leo and his bank might have been a million miles away. After a while he saw his father's face in his mind's eye. A short man in his forties, red-faced and going thin on top. Loopy thought long and hard about his father. Would he have been proud of his son and the way he handled the banker? How would he have reacted to Leo's change of heart? It wasn't every day the bank reduced a debt by three hundred pounds. Would he have considered it nothing more than a lucky break—as if one of his rank outsiders had unexpectedly strolled home an easy winner? Or would he have clapped his son on the back, laughing: “Good man yourself, well done!”

Might he buy him a pint to celebrate? Not likely, Loopy decided.

And what of himself, Loopy wondered, what would he have done if his father were standing beside him in the fort just then? Would they have shared a laugh at Leo's expense? Or would he have let out an ecstatic
Whoopee!
and playfully punched his father's arm? Hardly, he thought. Father and son had never had anything to celebrate together, Loopy reflected sadly. As for the playful punch, it would, most likely, have been misunderstood and sparked off a real row instead. A row like the one on the night his father had slammed the door behind him and strode across the cobblestones and out of their lives, leaving a trail of debt behind him. His father had taken the easy way out without a care for his wife or family. Yet Sean Lynch for all his faults was Loopy's father, and nothing, absolutely nothing, he told himself, could ever change that.

Loopy wondered how he would react if his father did come back. Would he embrace him as a son should or would he act cold and distant to the man who had abandoned them? Why had his father not got in touch? Where was the money he had promised to send home as soon as he got a steady job? Probably in some bookie's satchel. Loopy realized with a start that he had come to hate his father. Then, as he remembered the times he had seen his mother sobbing quietly when she thought no one was looking, he hated him even more. This was a memory he had blocked until now. Whether it was the exhilaration at besting Leo Martin, the strange magic of the fort, or a combination of both that had freed his mind to enter dark places that had been off limits up to this he would never know.