— It has a fuckin’ history?
— Yes, of course. Attitudes, beliefs. It’s really interesting.
— Oh good. I’m glad it’s interesting —
— You’ve had your quota of sympathy today, James.
— Okay.
— Asking a man to — what? — give her one for you. Jesus — with his own daughter.
— You’d want to have been there, said Jimmy. — There was a context.
— Don’t laugh.
— I’m not.
— You are.
— So are you.
— You’re such an eejit, she said. — Seriously though, you should read this.
— I’ll bring it with me to the chemo, said Jimmy. — Don’t tell me the endin’.
He picked up his own book, Jah Wobble’s autobiography. He put on his own new reading glasses.
— Do they suit me?
— Do you remember Harry Worth?
— Ah fuck off now. I only got them to keep you company. I don’t really want to know.
— What?
He pointed at Aoife’s Kindle.
— I read the first page there. When you were brushin’ your teeth.
— And?
— A quarter of all deaths in America are caused by cancer.
— I know, she said. — It’s frightening.
— Yeah, said Jimmy. — But actually, really — it’s not. The figures mean nothin’. But it’s supposed to be the history of cancer, yeah?
— Yeah.
— But it’s still killin’ a quarter of all Yanks, said Jimmy. — So it’s not history at all.
— It is.
— And the chemo’s a waste of time.
— No.
— Because nothin’ works.
— That’s ridiculous. Jimmy —
— I know, said Jimmy. — I agree with yeh. But if I read that one, or the others you’re hidin’ there in your Kindle —
— I’m not.
— I’m only messin’, he said. — But even the Chemotherapy for Dummies one you gave me. If I read too much of it, I start havin’ doubts. More doubts than I have already. Cos the optimistic stuff is just fluff, and I’m better off not knowin’ the pessimistic stuff. Cos it’s way more believable.
— Okay, she said. — That makes sense.
— The fuckin’ Dummies book would tell me to love my tumour.
— Probably.
— I’d have to bend over and shout it up my hole. I love you, little tumour!
— Play your trumpet to it.
— That’ll definitely kill it.
— You’re doing very well.
— The trumpet?
— Yes.
— No, he said. — It’s shite.
— Well, I like hearing it.
— Thanks, he said. — Good. Thanks.
They took off their reading glasses. She turned off the light. They lay in the dark, said nothing for a while. They listened to the sounds downstairs. They listened to the feet on the stairs, Mahalia using her cop-on, going up to bed at just the right time. They heard her in the bathroom. They heard her bedroom door. Then there was nothing.
— No sign of life next door, said Jimmy, softly.
— No.
— Any word there?
— No.
— Is it still cold out there?
— It’s been cold since November, said Jimmy. — Have you not been out since then?
— Oh God, said the nurse. — A character.
He watched her work. The saline bag, the stand, the red digital numbers going on, off. Why did they have to be fuckin’ red? She hooked the bag to the top of the metal stand.
— Can I’ve ice an’ lemon with that? he said.
— You’re gas.
He turned on the radio. Joe Duffy. Good, he could get annoyed. Joe was doing one of his poxy polls. Should the Pope visit Ireland?
— Fuckin’ hell.
The lights ahead were red. He texted Noeleen. Joe Duffy poll. Shud pope vist. Txt yes. Get evyone. Green again, mission accomplished. He was delighted. He’d just been nuked and he was still working.
He was down near the Grand Canal Theatre. He didn’t really know this part of the world but the new corners and blocks seemed to have been finished just in time, seconds before the bust. He found a parking spot and texted Aoife. Chemo was grand X.
The cold was good. He was walking fast, cutting through it. He’d felt a bit shiny leaving the hospital, but this was great.
The phone buzzed in his pocket.
It was Noeleen. Poll says yes to pope.
Brilliant.
That was his job now, saving the Catholic Church.
He found the door, a windowless slab of grey-painted iron, and the line of buzzers, more grey against the grey of the cement. He could hardly read the signs. He needed the light on his phone. Live Studios. He pressed.
— Yeah?
— Howyeh. Can yeh hear me?
— Yeah.
— Is that Lochlainn?
— Yeah.
— It’s Jimmy Rabbitte.
— They’ve gone.
— The Halfbreds?
— Yeah.
— Can I come in anyway?
He heard the buzz, and a slight click. There was no handle on the door but there was room for his fingers, so he pulled it back and found the light switch before he pulled the door shut again. The switch was on one of those timers. He had thirty seconds, and a set of concrete steps in front of him. He was Tom fuckin’ Cruise. He went up, no bother, onto a landing, a turn, and more steps, and another switch. He gave it a thump and kept going, and came to another iron door, this one painted red with a single badly painted eye staring at him. He knocked, and stepped back as the door slowly came at him.
— Lochlainn?
— Yeah.
— Jimmy.
— Hi.
It was disappointing, even before he saw anything. Lochlainn obviously lived there, but it wasn’t like one of those New York lofts. This was a tiny kip. The studio was a corner of what might have been the bedroom — Jimmy wasn’t sure.
— They’ve gone, you said.
— Yeah.
These guys were always fuckin’ autistic; he’d forgotten.
— But they recorded the song? said Jimmy.
It was a prayer more than a question.
Lochlainn shrugged.
— Yeah.
— Is it anny good?
He shrugged again. Or at least his Nine Inch Nails T-shirt moved.
— Can I hear it so? said Jimmy.
— Yeah, said Lochlainn. — But.
— But?
— They only did one take.
— Is that a problem? Jimmy asked. — There was only ever one successful take of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. Did you know that, Lochlainn?
— They, like, said Lochlainn. — I think they broke up.
— Ah Jesus, again?
— He — eh —
— Barry.
— Yeah. His phone rang before the end.
— Of the first take?
— Yeah.
— The only take?
— Yeah.
— Ah shite.
Lochlainn shrugged. He drew breath and spoke.
— She —
— Brenda.
— She said Connie.
— Same woman, said Jimmy. — Go on.
— She shouted.
— I’d better hear it, said Jimmy.
Bollix to it.
But he’d come this far. He wanted something to attach to the day, his first day of chemo. And he was curious.
— They’re old punks, he told Lochlainn.
— Maybe, said Lochlainn. — But he left because the Minister needed a file for questions in the Dáil tonight, yeah? And she had to pick up their daughter from hockey.
— And you reckon they broke up?
— Looked like that.
— That’s just their way, said Jimmy. — They love each other, really.
— Cool.
— Can I hear it?
Lochlainn shrugged again.
— It’s yours.
Jimmy looked around for somewhere to sit, but changed his mind. He was too giddy to sit. And Lochlainn had the only chair.
It was rough.
— I’M DOWN ON MY KNEES —
It was dreadful.
— A MUNCHIN’ MUNCHIN’ MUNCHIN’ —
It was brilliant. Lochlainn was yawning but he hadn’t a clue.
— AND THE GIRL DON’T KNOW —
I GOT ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION —
Jimmy was listening to the howling kid inside every middle-aged man, and Brenda on the drums was the howling middle-aged woman.
— OH YES SHE DO —
— OH NO SHE DON’T —
— OH YES SHE DO —
— OH NO SHE DON’T —
— Was their bassist with them? Jimmy shouted.
— No, said Lochlainn.
— I didn’t think so, said Jimmy. — Just the two of them, yeah?
— Yeah.
— They fill the room but, don’t they?
— SHE’S SMILIN’ BACK AT ME —
SHE’S SHOWIN’ ME HOWTH JUNCTION —
AND THE BITCH DON’T KNOW —
I GOT ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION —
There was no getting away from it, the senior civil servant could sure make that guitar scream. There wouldn’t have been room for the bass.
— OH YES SHE DO —
— OH NO SHE DON’T —
This was the scream of a shocked and angry man. And Brenda’s drums boomed, brutal as ever. Waiting, wanting, wanting, wanting. Waiting, wanting, wanting, wanting. It was fuckin’ wonderful.
— BUT NOW SHE KNOWS —
— I GOT ERECTILE —
The phone — Barry’s phone — went off. ‘Ace of Spades’. It was perfect and it sounded distant, fading. And Barry’s voice.
— Sorry.
And Brenda’s.
— Ah, for fuck sake!
— I’ll have to take it.
Brenda kept at it. Waiting, wanting, wanting, wanting. And stopped.
— Then fucking take it, Barry!
— Stop it there, Lochlainn.
Brenda’s shout was still in the room.
— Exactly there, said Jimmy.
— What?
— I want it to end on Barreeeee — the way she says it, okay?
Jimmy loved this.
— Make the eeee hang there, he said. — Three beats. No, four. Then done. Can you handle that, Lochlainn?
Lochlainn shrugged — no problem, no interest, your funeral. He hadn’t a fuckin’ clue. And Barry and Brenda. They hadn’t a clue either. They’d left, gone back to their other lives. It was a classic, and Jimmy was the only man in the world who knew it. He’d probably need the rights to ‘Ace of Spades’, even that poxy phone version. But that was grand, easily done — he thought.
What a day.
He watched Lochlainn fiddling away.
— D’yeh suffer yourself, Lochlainn?
— Sorry?
— The erectile dysfunction.
— No, said Lochlainn.
— No, said Jimmy. — Me neither.