Heard her angry rasp in a deep breath, then,
“Don’t play the cute hoor, the supposed lawyer who showed up at our last meet.”
I had a choice. It being the season of goodwill, would I goodwill it?
No.
Went for annoyance.
“Gotta plead the Fifth.”
A beat, then,
“Don’t suppose she knows anything about the disappearance of the underwear, vital to the Boru Kennedy case?”
My heart soared.
“Good fuck, really? So you’ve no case now.”
“Fuck you, Taylor.”
Slammed the phone down.
In the early hours of Christmas morning, Boru had used a sheet to hang himself.
The case was truly CLOSED.
Late Christmas night, my mind was crawling with snakes. Desperate to distract, I had a mini Ben Wheatley fest.
Down Terrace
Kill List
Sightseers-with the line after the main character beats a guy to death and says,
“Not a human, a Daily Mail reader.”
Doesn’t come any darker or more blackly humorous. My life in disjointed glances really. Saint Stephen’s morning, my hangover was what you’d expect.
Rough.
The doorbell rang.
A group of disheveled singers, I kid thee fucking not.
Either the Wren (and do they still continue this tradition?) or the remnants of a soused hen party. I gave them a few notes on condition they stopped singing!
Two kick-ass coffees,
Solpadine,
Xanax,
And, God help me, one sick cigarette. My mind began to twist.
I phoned Ridge.
She answered with a terse,
“Taylor?”
“You know Boru Kennedy was innocent on Christmas eve?”
Sigh.
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him or did his lawyer?”
“Not my job, Taylor.”
“You cunt.”
Stunned gasp,
“What did you call me?”
“He spent Christmas eve not knowing he was clear. Terrorized, terrified. . what was he anticipating, Christmas dinner? That some big bastard would take off him. This was a kid who’d spent every Christmas safe, warm, and with a family!”
She spat her words,
“Don’t. . you. . dare put this on me, Taylor.”
“You got your wish, sergeant. You’ve become a real Guard.”
“How dare you.”
“Have a nice New Year, see the sheets you helped strangle that poor, lost kid in a dark cell.”
I slammed down the phone.
Days blundered through the post-Christmas gloom. Sales, despite the recession, had people sleeping outside Brown Thomas for thirty-six hours to secure
Gucci handbags!
The homeless just slept outside anywhere and for longer. Covered in piss, despair, and degradation.
Recession my arse, as a woman got lead story on RTE six o’clock news for buying a Stella McCartney dress for only fifteen hundred euros!
The New Year galloped toward us. Em hadn’t returned nor phoned. Maybe she’d fucked off permanently.
Did I care?
Not a whole bunch.
I was too broken, heartsick over the needless waste of Boru’s suicide. Was I to blame? I was certainly in the mix. A horrible irony wasn’t lost on me that the coveted number one song was by a prison guard.
Hang your guilt on that.
Ken Dodd on the first
sign of aging-
“When you wake up and find you’ve a bald-headed son.”
January 3, 2013.
My birthday.
Fuck
and
Fuck
Again.
I got over thirty cards. Yeah, right!
I dragged my aging body to the shower, avoided the mirror, not a mix. I was growing a beard. At that stage of weary wino, not to mention leery. I had a serious adrenalized coffee and an extra Xanax for the day that was in it.
My head was scrambled for a blitz night of TV.
A highly anticipated return of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes on BBC. Then, mid-Jameson, I switched to Sky Living to catch Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock. After midnight, on cable, I stumbled across. . you guessed it. . Sherlock with Robert Downey Jr. in the role. I fell into bed with Basil Rathbone striding through my dreams uttering,
“I’m the real deal.”
Come morning,
I dressed like a winner.
Sort of.
Old Garda sweatshirt under a weird fish comfortable wool shirt. Black 500s over Dr. Martens. Shucked into my all-weather item 1834, looked out the window, said,
“Bring it on.”
Guilt-free for once to hit Garavan’s at opening time. Sean the barman said,
“Blian Nua go maith.”
Indeed.
Two drinks in, a guy took the stool beside me. I tried for his name,
“Tom?”
He nodded, ordered a large Paddy, no ice. Got my vote.
I knew his backstory. A rough one. His son had been killed by a nineteen-year-old drunk driver. Worse, if possible, the guy walked, on a technicality. Tom then had the horror of running into this pup fairly regularly. Galway is still a village in the worst way.
The punk, far from repentant, would smirk, even once flashing a thumbs-up.
Until. .
Six months before, the punk, drunk, got behind the wheel of his brand-new Audi. Present from Daddy for his twenty-first. A figure in the backseat shoved a single long shaft of steel into the base of his skull, right to the dumb fuck’s brain. Tom had a solid alibi.
He ordered a second drink, offered me one.
My birthday!
So I said,
“Yeah, thank you.”
We clinked glasses, I said,
“You doing OK?”
He held his drink up to the light, as if it might reveal some truth. Then he smiled, said,
“The past six months, I’ve been fucking great.”
Amen.
Sean, a voracious reader, watched Tom leave, then put a book on the counter. It was upside down but I could read the author’s name,
Sara Gran.
Sean freshened my pint, said.
“I read an author during Christmas and you know, the critics crap him off because they say. .”
Pause
“. . Get this. He uses too many cultural references, pop music, crime writers in his books. Now, see, you know what I think of them? I might hazard. . not complimentary?”
Big grin, then,
“Yeah, bollix to them. Because for me, it grounds the story in stuff I know, that I can relate to. One fuck said he was for people who don’t read. How fucking insulting is that to readers?”
The pint was good. I sank a quarter, said,
“Thing is, Sean, critics are God’s excuse for why shite happens.”
Sean was shouted at by a small elderly woman who demanded,
“A big dry sherry.”
As he turned to go, he said,
“Hey, guess whose birthday is today.”
I tried for a humble grin, asked,
“Who?”
“Schumacher.”
Michael Schumacher was in a medically induced coma.
I reflected bitterly that in one form or another, I had been inducing a coma over my whole bedraggled life.
Back at my apartment I found Johnny Duhan had sent me a copy of his album
Winter.
The very first track might have been written by my own heart,
“Charity of Pain.”
I muttered,
“God bless your genius soul, Johnny.”
Marc Roberts and Jimmy Norman, over the past week, had been giving extensive airplay to “The Beacon.”
Serendipity?
I dunno, but later in the week, my favorite band, the Saw Doctors, were due in the Roisin Dubh.
Music, music everywhere and not a hand to hold.
Och, ochon (woe is rife).
“You can run with the big dogs
or sit on the porch and bark.”
(Wallace Arnold)
January 5: Horrendous gales and storms continued to lash the country.