“Well good morning, stud.”
I groaned.
She set the tray down. I saw toast, eggs, OJ, folded napkins and, God, a red rose. Silver coffee pot, steaming. I said,
“I’d kill for a coffee.”
Malicious smile, then,
“Is that appropriate to say to a murder suspect?”
She poured and passed me the cup. It smelled fantastic. Actually tasted near as good. It’s one of life’s jokes that coffee never fulfils its promise. If you based your life on that truth, you’d probably become a TD. She buttered some toast, laid a wedge of egg on it, said,
“Open wide, Romeo.”
Shook my head,
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t want me to feed you?”
“No.”
“I used to feed my husband.”
“And he’s...”
She shrugged. I drank the coffee, asked,
“Where’s my clothes?”
“I burned them.”
“Seriously, where are they?”
“I seriously burned them.”
“Christ, why?”
She turned to look at me, said,
“You’re going to be with me, you’re going to have to smarten up.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think you’re going to smarten up... or you don’t think you’re going to be with me?”
“Both.”
She pointed to the wardrobe, said,
“My husband’s clothes will fit, and believe me, they’re the very best. I bought them.”
A thought struck me, and I grabbed her arm, shouted,
“The coat... my garda coat... did you burn that?”
“I tried... you’re hurting me.”
I tore down the stairs, the hall, through the kitchen and could see the fire in the garden. Flung the door open and approached the flames. The coat was thrown to the side, badly singed but intact. I grabbed it, the smell of smoke in my nostrils. Kirsten was at the door, hands on her hips, asking,
“What’s the deal? It’s a piece of shit.”
“That, lady, is my history, my career, the only link to my past.”
“What a pathetic history then.”
I brushed past her, went through to the front room, searching. She followed and I asked,
“Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“The GHB.”
Half smile curling, she said,
“We used it all.”
“Like I’ll take your word for it. Where’s the empty bottle?”
She waved towards the garden.
“With your clothes. Want to check?”
I took a deep breath, said,
“Kirsten, I hope that’s the truth. You don’t want to fuck with that stuff. It can cause a coma.”
Now she was smiling, said,
“It sure set your motor running.”
I went upstairs, selected a heavy pair of brogues. Tight on the toes, but hey, pain was familiar. She shadowed me all the way, asked,
“When are we getting together?”
“Kirsten... what do you do?”
“Do?”
“You know, with your life, during any given day.”
“Shop and fuck.”
“What?”
“The town is full of young guys. They give it up for the price of a drink.”
I shook my head, unable to ask about condoms, protection. I truly was afraid of the answer. Instead I asked,
“So what do you want me for?”
“You amuse me.”
I headed down the stairs, and she asked,
“You’re going?”
“Yes.”
“You think you can fuck and fly?”
Is there an answer?
I got the front door open, and she called,
“Yo, Jack.”
“What?”
“That liquid E?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s a killer.”
“Where you staying?”
“The Empire Hotel.”
“The Empire eh? Nobody but drunks stay there.”
“That’s fine. I’m something of a drunk myself.”
Andrew Pyper, The Lost Girls
The bad drop.
I’m not talking about a pint of Guinness gone sour. It’s a concept I tried once to explain to Clancy, back when we were friends. It’s a slice of ice in your heart. And not a bad thing, the ability to lash out at the final moment, a shard of preservation that comes into play when you’re backed up, right against the wall. You don’t even know you have it till it’s absolutely vital.
Then, suddenly, a voice takes over, goes,
“Fuck with me... you have no idea of the ferocity I am capable of.”
Clancy had shook his head, gone,
“Ary, that’s mad talk.”
He went on to become the embodiment of a very bad drop. Now, as I headed down Taylor’s Hill, the voice kicked,
“So Kirsten, screw you.”
And felt it.
I walked past Nile Lodge, turned at Scoil Ursa, and the Gaelic connection reminded me I had a date with a ban garda. I was looking forward to it; at least I could pretend so. A guy near the site of the Sancta Maria Hotel was playing a tin whistle, a cap for donations at his feet. If there’s a worse spot to busk in Galway, I couldn’t think of it. Nobody walks along that road. It’s true ghostville. People shunned the area if they could. The hotel had burned to the ground with a tragic loss of life.
I found some coins in my burned coat and put them in the cap. His eyes widened and he asked,
“Are you on fire?”
“Not any more.”
He ran a withered hand over his brow, said,
“I thought I was losing it.”
He raised his thumb behind him, continued,
“That, you know, maybe... you’d come out of there.”
Drink had mottled his face to a full purple, and his body gave odd tremors. I said,
“This isn’t the best spot for your art.”
He gave a knowing smile, said,
“Look at the moon, stop listening to the dogs in the street.”
Go figure.
The circle of addiction, how it comes in many guises. I was tripping on the beat of no hangover, then looked into the face of raw alcoholism.
The mix rolls, and you never can predict what the result will be. Now it rolled the dice and churned out a coke craving.
I could see a neatly rolled line of pure white. A guy said to me once,
“Come on, Jack, it’s so eighties.”
Like I care about the era or am aware of current trends.
I’m mostly locked in some seventies mode when hope had an actual face.
Two lines of coke and the world throws its doors open. The white lightning across my brain, the ice drip along the back of my throat. Oh fuck, I felt my knees sag.
When the Charlie lights, you get this huge sense of purpose. Plus a bliss that convinces you of total insanity. Like that you can sing. And sing you do. It doesn’t get much crazier than that.
But the downside: few crash like cokeheads do. From soaring to a descent to hell itself, thrashing, sick, paranoid. The physical side is no advertisement either: the lost eyes, the constant sniffles and the erosion of the membranes of the nose. Eventually the septum is totally eaten away.
The tabloids trot out poor Daniella Westbrook, the soap star, with malignant glee. Photos of how she used to be and then, close up, the ravaged nose. If not a deterrent, it is certainly a shot across the bow of glamour.
I’d reached the cathedral and felt the need of a quiet moment. Pushed open the thick brass door, and it clanged shut behind me. The relic of St Therese had attracted U2-type crowds, but it was silent now. I moved along a side aisle, the Stations of the Cross marking time with my feet. Knelt in a pew near the main altar.
Without thinking, I began,
“Glór donAthair