Titch Fitzpatrick vacates the stage, and Greg smiles expectantly. But as the Quartet emerge, his smile quickly fades to a frown. What the hell’s happened to Van Doren’s horn? And why are the four of them covered in tinfoil?
Mom is cleaning the kitchen. She has been cleaning it for hours, down on her knees in her dressing gown. The bucket of stuff smells like it could get you high. I’m going out Carl says. Mom doesn’t hear him.
Barry is waiting at Ed’s when he gets there, walking up and down like a dog that’s been tied up. A second later the car pulls up and the door swings open.
Inside everybody’s eyes are red from hash smoke. They’re all laughing and slagging each other like usual but underneath you can feel other things swirl around like sharks. Carl sits in the boot because there’s no room. He watches the Saturday-night streets outside, chippers, billboards, traffic lights, like a huge hand slowly closing around them.
Across Deano’s knees the sports bag from under the bed.
In his head a black field, hands rising out of the grass.
Where is the place? Barry says.
Not far, Mark says.
Everybody chewing the inside of their mouths. To distract them Deano asks, if they could have any bird, who would be their number one. I’ll go first. Angelina Jolie, hands fuckin down. Mark says Scarlett. Knoxer says BETHani. Uh, is she legal yet? Deano goes. If she’s old enough to bleed, goes Knoxer. Barry says Beyoncé. But she’s black! Ste says and everyone laughs.
What about you, head? Deano says.
Carl wants to say Lori just to say her name. But he doesn’t want to say it in this car. It’s like she’s sand now, magic sand, he has only a little left, and if he takes it out here it will be blown away.
Well?
LORILORILORI, goes his brain. He feels like crying. Beyoncé as well, he says.
Knoxer grunts, Fuck’s sake.
Stephen? Deano says to Ste. Ste is quiet for a long time. Then he says, Helen of Troy.
What?
Who the fuck is Helen of Troy?
She was Greek, Ste says. They had a war about her. Vietnam? Carl says. No, you spa, Ste says, like a thousand years ago, in Greece.
That’s stupid, Deano says.
Why is it stupid?
Because, you don’t even know what she looked like.
They had a fuckin war over her. Obviously she must have been pretty fuckin hot.
Yeah, but it has to be someone alive, Deano says.
Why? Ste says.
Because how are you goin to ride her if she’s fuckin dead?
For fuck’s sake – Ste is getting pissed off – it’s a game, you cunt. It doesn’t matter who we fuckin pick. You think Angelina fuckin Jolie’s going to ride you just cos you picked her? If Angelina Jolie was right here in this fuckin car I bet you a million quid she’d ride fuckin Looney Tunes here before she rode you.
Deano shuts his mouth tight and looks out the window.
I’m just sayin, Ste says, if you want to pick the hottest bird, like, you’ve got your Beyoncés and your Angelinas and all them, but the little old lady shufflin off to fuckin bingo night, fifty years ago she could have been sexier than all of them. She could’ve been the sexiest bird of all time. And then, on top of that, there’s all the birds that are dead. Like in history, there must have been millions of amazing rides. But we’ll never even know what they looked like.
What the fuck are you on about, you gimp? Knoxer says.
I dunno, Ste says. It just seems sort of unfair.
Maybe someday someone will invent a time machine and you can go back and ride all the dead birds, Deano says.
Youse lads are fuckin strange, Knoxer says. Then the car stops and everyone goes quiet.
We’re he-ere, Mark says in a Poltergeist voice.
They are on an ordinary-looking road lined with ordinary-looking houses. Right in front of the car, though, in the middle of the normal houses, are these gates. They remind Carl of Lori’s gates but they’re not in Foxrock, he doesn’t know where they are. A wall too tall to climb runs from the gates away behind the houses.
For a minute they sit there in the car, like they’re waiting for something, but Carl doesn’t know what. I can’t do this without a blast, Mark says at last and reaches over Ste’s leg for the glove compartment. Inside there’s a package wrapped in brown paper and a film canister filled with coke. Mark takes a big snort then gives it to Ste, then Deano and Knoxer have some. But Knoxer gives it back to Ste without Carl or Barry having any. He doesn’t look at them, he acts like for a minute he’s forgotten they’re there. Okay, Mark says. He gets out of the car and goes to the intercom. Carl can’t hear what he says. He gets back in the car. They don’t talk, coke frazzles electric through the air. The gates swing open. Mark drives through. The gates close again behind them. He pulls the car up outside a little house that doesn’t look like there’s anyone in it. The others all get out, someone opens the boot. There are no lights, the air has gone dark blue and everyone has turned into shadows. This is fucking weird. A second ago, just on the other side of that wall, they were in the city. Now it’s like they’re in the country. Come on, Mark says with the package in his hand and he disappears instantly into the dark like he’s fallen down a hole.
The ground sinks under Carl’s feet. They’re in a bog or something. He has to hurry not to lose the others, he can’t see his own hand in front of his face and something is there, something is moving, thudding towards them, Deano reaches into the sports bag –
Horses. They come close enough so he can see the outlines of their pointy ears. Then they stop, and wait there, breath snuffing down their noses. They watch them go past, like they know something. They know who’s waiting for Carl.
Suddenly it’s freezing cold. The others are under the trees, there is the sound of rushing water. Their faces appear as he gets closer like ghosts in a graveyard. Do they know too? A slimy log stretches across a stream. Deano is smiling. Ladies first, he says. Carl goes over the log on his hands and knees.
Where is this cunt? he hears Knoxer say.
He said he’d light a fire for us, Mark says.
They’re talking about the Druid, Carl! They don’t know about Dead Boy, they’re not bringing you to him!
Now they’re in a forest, branches keep springing back into Carl’s face.
But what if Dead Boy is inside their heads too, pushing their thoughts with his see-through hands? What if none of this is even real? Maybe Carl is in a nightmare, maybe he smoked loads of hash and is sleeping. Wake up, Carl! Wake up wake up!
But then, like a spark from a lighter, he sees a tiny orange flame somewhere in the dark. Look! he shouts. Not waiting for the others he stumbles towards it, ignoring the branches in his face and the brambles that drag at his ankles, until the woods open into a field, and the spark turns into a bonfire.
Two men are standing in front of the fire. One has long hair and a beard that tangles down his chest. He’s wearing a cloak with suns and moons on it, and he’s leaning on the handle of a huge sword. The other man is short, cross-eyed, a bit mental-looking, he has one hand tucked inside his leather jacket.
I went out to the hazel wood, the tall man with the beard says, because a fire was in my head…
All right? Mark and the others arrive at the bonfire.