‘Norway,’ they said together.
‘Ah, Norway — the land of Mr Hans Christian Anderson, if I’m not mistaken. Would yis believe I used to live in Oslo?’
‘No,’ said the more mistrusting of the two. She had a pale, smooth-skinned face and wavy blonde hair. She wore a white pullover and torn jeans. She was very stylish, I thought. Both of them were. Though not in the boring, fashion-victim way.
Grinning more openly her friend said, ‘Actually, Hans Christian Anderson was from Denmark.’
‘Oh yeah, of course!’ said Scag, only fractionally discouraged. ‘I must have been thinkin of Knut Hamsun — now he’s definitely Norwegian. Do yis know him? He wrote Hunger. It’s a book about my life story; this lad comes to a foreign city and does fuck all, and he has no money and goes round the bend a bit. It’s a great book.’
The thing about Scag was, he really seemed fairly well read, despite all the junkie stuff and the criminality.
‘I’ve heard of it,’ said the girl with the grin. She was tall and slender with long limbs and dyed red hair, and even prettier than her friend.
‘Yeah well, yis should read it,’ Scag said. ‘It’s a Norwegian classic, ladies.’
I looked on, impressed, as were Alfred and Patser who, unlike Scag, seemed to shrink and fixed their eyes on the ground when the girls finally decided to come over and give us — or give Scag — the time of day.
I was wondering if Scag really had lived in Norway when the dyed-redhead asked him the same question.
‘Yeah, I did. Lived in a squat there for a few months in around eighty-nine. Denmark as well. There’s a lot goin on in Denmark.’
‘Yeah, I have a few friends who squat in Copenhagen,’ she said.
They talked about that for a few moments. Then Scag turned to his two alco friends and said, ‘Right lads, I’ll love yis and leave yis, I have to be gettin on. I shall be seein yis soon.’
And with that we found — the two girls and I — that we were following Scag, being led out of Dublin Castle and down Dame Street, and across into Temple Bar. He kept up a steady flow of verbiage to ensure neither girl had time to question what they were doing and slip from his grasp.
‘It’s a lovely afternoon, girls,’ he said as he weaved us among the cobblestoned alleys of Temple Bar. ‘It would be a sin not to make the most of it by sittin out and havin a pint in a nice oul beer garden. Am I right or am I right?’
We let him lead us through the laneways until, a few minutes later, we found ourselves in a pub. Scag slapped his hands on the bar and said, ‘So, ladies and gents, what’ll it be?’ It was as if we had arrived there magically, having had no say in the matter ourselves.
The girls said they’d have pints of Guinness, and I said the same. I guessed what was coming next. The barman started pouring the pints and then said, ‘Fourteen euro forty, please.’
‘Fuck!’ said Scag, making a show of pulling his wallet open and peering into it. Lo and behold, it was empty. ‘I’ve only got fifty pence. I thought I had another twenty bills on me.’
He started off on what was sure to be a longwinded, regret-heavy explanation, but the blonde girl — we had by now learned that her name was Nicky, and her redhead friend’s, Lorna — said, ‘Oh no, don’t worry. I’ll get this one.’
‘Are ye sure?’ he said, as if it was a completely unforeseen, even bizarre idea.
‘Oh yes, of course, no problem.’
I had barely said a word since the girls appeared. The truth was, I found them intimidating. They were a few years older than me, and surely far more interesting. No doubt they were hugely sexually experienced. As we sat down at a thick wooden table and sipped our pints, I remained silent but for a few nervy grunts, and imagined them screaming and sweating in the throes of mind-blowing orgasms administered by calm Jürgens, cool Tibors, handsome Tags.
We quickly finished our pints and then Lorna got another round in. Both of them had now settled into the idea of spending the afternoon with a Dublin junkie and his witless, wordless friend, and they loosened up, laughing and joking, telling us about themselves. They had just finished college, studying architecture (Nicky) and fine art (Lorna). Now they were ‘backpacking around Europe, staying with friends here and there, seeing what happens’.
‘How long have yis been in Dublin?’ I asked.
‘Only two days. You’re the first Irish people we’ve met since coming here, in fact.’
‘We’re the only Irish people here,’ said Scag. ‘I imagine your dormitory is crowded, is it? The summer and everything.’
‘Oh, we are not staying in a dormitory, we have a double room,’ said Lorna.
‘I see. Well, how about another pint, girls? Like I say, next time it’s all on me.’
‘Of course,’ said Nicky with a grin.
We stayed in the pub all afternoon, getting progressively more wrecked. Every hour or so either Scag or I would roll a joint — at first in the toilets, but after a few pints, under the table — and go outside to smoke it.
The girls were drunker than we were, though they kept up the pace surprisingly well. Scag hardly seemed affected at all. I supposed that, with all the smack and other drugs he must have hurled into his body down the years, alcohol no longer had any effect on him at all, or not very much at any rate.
He was now educating the girls with one of what he called his ‘race theories’.
‘Ye see, drink pulls ye back into yer body. It anchors ye in yer physical experience, whereas marijuana on the other hand makes ye float further out into the cosmic realms, the non-visible reality.’ He vaguely waved a hand in front of his face to suggest enigma and weirdness.
‘You mean the spirit world?’ said Lorna.
‘Precisely. The fuckin spirit world. And that, ladies, is why the Irishman drinks so much: cos he’s already far enough out in the other world, due to his inborn Irish nature. He doesn’t need something to take him out there to the fairies and the spirits and the bleedin demons. He’s already there, so the oul grog helps to keep him grounded, it doesn’t let him drift too far out. The drink is better for the Irishman than the weed. That’s why I never touch marijuana, girls, not so much as a single toke of the stuff.’
As he finished saying this, he slowly licked along the joint he was making, looking intently at Nicky all the while. He smoothed down the folded papers with his thumb and twisted the end of the joint to finish it. Then he put it behind his ear.
‘Very interesting, Irishman,’ said Nicky with another playful smirk.
‘Mmm. You know, we were supposed to do some of the sightseeing today. So long to that,’ laughed Lorna. The place was starting to fill up now, the Friday after-work crowd coming in with ferocious thirsts on them.
‘Ah, don’t mind that,’ replied Scag. ‘This is the most authentic bit of Dublin cultural experience yis are likely to get, drinkin all day with two bona fide Irishmen. When in Rome, ladies, do as the Greeks.’
They laughed and raised their glasses to us. Since she had started getting a little drunk, Lorna had begun giving me looks, smiling at me when someone else was talking. I grew tense whenever she did it, looking into the head of my pint and then taking a big, steeling gulp.
Nicky said: ‘So we were wondering, do you know anywhere that is good that we can go to, like for going out?’
‘Ye mean before or after we go back to yer hotel and have a bit of fun?’ said Scag with a grin.
‘What!’ Nicky protested. ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.’ But she was laughing as she said it.
‘What’s wrong? I wasn’t implyin anything underhand, ladies. I just meant that we could go back there for a few cans and a smoke, like. Save a few sheckles, play some of our own tunes, far from the maddening crowd, know wharray mean? God almighty, ladies, what do yis take me for?’