God? Naw, He folded His tent and moved east. How much would I notice?
In the lobby of the hotel, Mrs Bailey exclaimed,
“Gosh, Mr Taylor, you look so relaxed!”
You betcha.
Even accepted her invitation to breakfast. Now that is a rib broke in the devil.
The chambermaid, housekeeper, cleaner, Janet, was also the waitress, albeit a slow one. I strongly suspected she might also be the cook. The breakfast lounge was bright and cheerful, a stack of gratis newspapers at the entrance. Mrs Bailey saw me glance at them, said,
“Oh, yes, just like the grand hotels. You can have the Independent or... the Independent”
And she gave a mischievous smile. A pure joy to behold. She liked to nail her politics up front. We sat and she said,
“Janet irons them.”
“What?”
“Every morning, every newspaper. So the guests don’t get ink on their hands.”
I’d seen Anthony Hopkins do it in Remains of the Day but put it down to an English foible. We ordered tea, toast and scrambled eggs. Mrs Bailey said,
“Smoke if you must.”
I didn’t.
I felt relaxed, touching mellow. Remember Donovan? If he was the English answer to Bob Dylan, you shudder to think what the question was. He wore the denim cap, had the face of a pixie, and I could remember “Atlantis”.
God help me.
Lived in North Cork now and, like the other expat rock stars, liked to jam in his local pub. His daughter was the actress lone Skye. And before the eggs arrive, I was asking myself,
“How do I know this shit?”
And worse, why?
Mrs Bailey touched my arm. I noticed the glut of liver spots on her hand. She asked,
“Where were you?”
“In the sixties.”
A shot of sadness in her eyes, and she said,
“You live there a lot.”
“In the sixties?”
“The past.”
I nodded, accepting the truth of it, said,
“It’s not that it’s safer, but I dunno, familiar.”
A huge pot of tea came, and she opened the lid, stirred vigorously, said,
“I never got used to tea bags.”
A man stopped, said,
“Did ye hear?”
In Ireland this could mean the pope is dead or it’s stopped raining. We gave the requisite,
“What happened?”
“The FAI Cup... Bohs beat Longford Town.”
I’d have been more torn up if I knew Longford were even playing. Mrs Bailey, who watched all sport, said,
“That dote Michael Owen had two miraculous goals on Saturday, finished Arsenal.”
A woman over eighty, in the west of Ireland, knew that, and I wasn’t even sure what day of the week it was. The man, crushed, lamented,
“The dream is over for Longford.”
And he sloped away, defeat writ large. I said,
“A Longford man.”
“Ary, go away, he’s from Tuam.”
Brendan Flood was on my mind. Time for another meet. Now that he’d lost his religion and hit the booze, I felt I should check on him. We weren’t friends, but we were connected. His information had broken two cases for me. Found his number, rang,
To my surprise, a woman answered. I said,
“Could I speak to Brendan please?”
Keep it low and keep it polite.
“Who is this?”
“Jack Taylor... I’m a friend of Brendan’s.”
Long pause, then,
“Ye were guards together.”
I took a moment, considered, then,
“Yeah, a long time ago.”
“Not for Brendan. He was always a guard.”
“Um, could I speak to him?”
“No.”
Like a slap in the mouth. I regrouped, tried,
“Excuse me?”
“He hung himself.”
“To this scene come Eddie and Ray Bob, outsiders from the rural frontier, from the unseen and forgotten bumfuck outskirts of the urban media landscape. Rubbernecking the city, seeing what’s what, not much impressed. fust more folks humping the dollar.”
Christopher Cook, Robbers
Brendan Flood had left an envelope addressed to
“Jack Taylor.”
I offered to come round, she said,
“I don’t want you in my house.”
Fair enough.
Anyone who thinks suicide is an easy option might reconsider, especially if a rope is their choice, Brendan had put the noose around a sturdy beam, then, dressed in his guard uniform, climbed on to a plain kitchen chair. A guy in Bohermore used to handcraft them. Built to last. The rope near decapitated him. He’d vented his bowels, ruining the trousers. I was given all these details by the young guard who’d had to cut him down.
I asked Mrs Flood,
“When is the funeral?”
“From Flaherty’s, at six tomorrow... to St Patrick’s. He’ll be buried in the new cemetery.”
“Can I do anything?”
“Leave me alone.”
Click.
I could not believe he was dead. That I’d failed him was obvious. Remembered all the shit I’d read about “Gatekeepers”, how it said,
Gatekeepers are the first people to realise the potential suicide is serious. They are the first “finder”. It’s their duty, responsibility, to direct the potential suicide towards help.
Oh God... finder! My whole career now was based on a rep as finder. And gatekeeper! Could there be a worse example than me. I’d flung the frigging gate wide open, had as good as said,
“Go hang yourself.”
The pure legacy of suicide is the survivors’ guilt. A barrage of questions that can never be answered:
Could I have helped?
Why didn’t I act?
How blind was I?
All now useless. I wanted to crawl into a whiskey cloud and never emerge. Personify The Cloud of Unknowing.
Guilt roared up my body to emerge as a howl of total anguish. Oh Christ, yet another grave to join the long line that I so badly neglected.
Dry swallowed some Quaaludes in the hope of artificial peace. They’d need to be mothers. Lay on the bed, sobbed intermittently. As the pills kicked in, my eyes began to close. My last thought,
“Hope they frigging kill me.”
They didn’t.
But did they ever knock me out. Came to in darkness. Checked my watch, 8.30 p.m. Jesus. And knew what I was going to do.
Dressed in black, not least for Brendan. Jeans, T-shirt, watch cap. Fitted the gun into the waistband of my jeans. Checked myself in the mirror. The face reflected was a chunk of worn granite. When your eyes look hard to yourself, you’ve gone west.
Made a caffeine-loaded drink, washed down some black beauties. Took deep breaths, said,
“Incoming.”
The docks were quiet. Less than a tourist away was Eyre Square with its attendant madness. Wouldn’t you know, caught on the wind was David Gray’s “This Year’s Love”.
Slaughters me. I can sing every lyric and, worse, mean it. Tear the goddamn heart right out.
I’d roared at the sky,
“God, why torment me so?”
Course He didn’t answer. Least not in any fashion I could decipher. Even Thomas Merton couldn’t help me there.
As I neared Sweeney’s, I could feel the gun butt, cold against my skin. My mind was closing down on all fronts. Could have been the drugs... or grief. I’d never understood the connections it makes at such times of intensity. In rehab, on one of my numerous incarcerations, a shrink had said,
“Your mental processes suggest an underlying psychosis. It’s significant that in periods of stress, you fix on passages from books you’ve read.”