And he came in with a bag of drink and told them how Evelyn couldn’t come on account she had to take the kids on a school tour early in the morning and she had to have an early night and Siobhán said Really, Dave? Is that really true? About Evelyn? And the way he went red gave the game away. You wouldn’t get much past her. Why would you make up a girlfriend, Dave? You weirdo?
Johnsey didn’t think Mumbly Dave was a weirdo. So what if he tried to embellish himself a bit? Plenty did it. He’d imagined himself being more than he was and having more than he had every day of his life. Mumbly Dave’s face was getting redder and redder and Siobhán should have let it go and left him make a laugh of himself and he’d have had a funny way surely of explaining why he invented a woman for himself inside in town and it’d seem like a gas thing he’d done and nothing out of the ordinary at all, only a bit of fooling around. But she kept staring at him and shaking her head and saying he was an awful weirdo and Mumbly Dave for a finish got pure thick and said he’d done it to have an excuse not to be knocking around up here while she was around the place, and Siobhán said Oh, so it’s my fault you’re a fucking freak? And Mumbly Dave said she was a poison bitch and a gold-digger and he was the one that was here all along helping Johnsey through all his trouble.
Siobhán said Really? What did you do to help? Besides slug cans of beer and talk bollocks to him about all the imaginary women you’ve had sex with?
And Mumbly Dave said I writ a letter to them newspapers.
And Siobhán, all sarcastic, said Wow! That was some letter I’d say! What did you say to them?
That they was only a shower of shitbags, all a them news-paper fellas, and they didn’t know notten about Johnsey Cunliffe and …
Dear Newspaper Fellas, You is only a shower of shitbags. Wow, Dave! I can’t believe you didn’t make the front page. It’s a wonder they haven’t been on to you to know would you be their new editor-in-chief.
I still done more than you, up here tormenting the poor boy with your tits inside in his face, making a pure fool out of him.
You’re a horrible jealous yoke. That’s all you are. You fairly latched on to Johnsey because you had no one else and he’s too nice to get rid of you. You’re a big, fat, friendless loser, Dave. That’s all you are. Why don’t you go back down to your council hovel and ride your sister or whatever it is ye do for fun down there? You freak.
Mumbly Dave had no answer. Or if he did, he hadn’t the stomach for the saying of it. He looked at Johnsey and there was a big fat tear rolling slowly down his cheek and it flung itself on to the floor and Johnsey turned his face away from Mumbly Dave and stared at the little star-shaped puddle that the tear made and when he looked up again, his friend was gone.
IT WAS Minnie the Mouth who came to the door the next day to tell Johnsey the news. Sure, why wouldn’t it have been? She fattened on the telling of sorrowful tales, and everyone has to take their pleasure where they can. Minnie the Mouth said wasn’t he a pal of yours, that boy of the Cullenses? Her eyes were gleaming. Her cheeks were glowing red with excitement. She was trying to see past him to know who had he inside. Did you not hear the news? Well, I’m fierce sorry now to be the bearer of sorrow, but it looks like he was killed last night. Lord have mercy on him. Apparently he slid on black ice and hit that feckin auld dead elm at the bad bend over beyond near Pike’s Cross. In the small hours of this morning it was. Where the hell was he off to, I d’know? How well he had to hit the tree! By all accounts he was killed outright, at least there’s that, anyway. That boy always drove like the divil; I always maintained he was an accident waiting to happen. At least there was no one took with him! He was often up here with you, wasn’t he? Ye palled around a lot, didn’t ye? He thought the world of you, I’d say. I often heard him backing you up to the hilt and you getting read left, right and centre below in the village by them that knows notten. I seen ye knocking around together. That auld bad bend is a solid fright. Lord save us and guard us, isn’t it just a fright to God? They’ll surely straighten it now. Or drag out that auld tree out of it at least. The poor misfortune, how well he had to hit the tree.
THERE WAS only three or four lumps of coal in the bucket by the fire, and nare a log. How’s it he never thought to fill the log box to the top and bring in a couple of buckets of coal while he was at it? Daddy always had a plot of turf in the bog out towards Cloughjordan. Your back’d be broke turning and footing and bagging and piling it on the trailer and dragging back all the miles home with your wobbly load and then lugging the bags into the shed and emptying them and stacking the turf up nice, but it saved you burning too much coal when winter came. Coal goes in and gets red-hot real fast and burns itself out in no time. It’s brilliant while it lasts, but it never lasts long. Turf burns gentler and lasts longer. He’d ring your man in Clough in the spring and see about getting a plot again. How hard could it be? Surely be to God he could organize something as simple as that. He’d book the plot and your man would ring when the turf was cut and ready to be turned and he’d give it a few days and he’d foot it and Siobhán could give a hand if she wanted but she probably wouldn’t in fairness, young wans would hardly choose to give summer days to breaking their backs in the bog.
Siobhán kept saying Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
Yerra shut your face, he felt like telling her. Just shut your face. If you hadn’t made little of him none of it would have happened. He’d never say that out, though. You’re as well off keep your powder dry when you’re that cross, for fear you’d say things you can’t take back. Anyway, it was he was responsible. Women can’t help rising rows. He was here like a prick looking out of his mouth at Siobhán and grinning at her like a fool while she danced around the kitchen to the radio and drank vodka with Coca-Cola in it and smoked fag after fag and told him he was very closed off, he was very mysterious, he was very deep, not like them dicks inside in town. And he lapping it up like an auld hungry dog getting fed scraps while his only pal drove around the countryside in pure-solid temper and finished up making bits of himself.
Did it take him long to die? Was he panicking and shaking and trying to draw air into his bursted lungs? People always say people in accidents were killed outright, but you knew half the time that was only as comfort for them that’s left behind. How did anyone ever know? Maybe Mumbly Dave sat strapped in to his yahoo car, still with all his senses while his insides bled, thinking about how Johnsey had let Siobhán say all them things and how his pal had turned his face away from him and never even tried to defend him or stop him from leaving.
He’d lain in his bed chancing the odd look over at Siobhán who snored like them auld fellas that used be in Daddy’s ward inside in the hospital. She never even went near his mickey. He’d seen her in her knickers, though, at least, as she hopped into the bed. They were light blue with white frilly bits at the edges. She’d kissed him once on the lips and said You’re lovely, forget about Dave, he’ll be grand, he has a hide like a rhino, and she smelt like fags and liquor and perfume and she turned away and fell asleep and she took all the duvet and most of the mattress and he lay there like a gom with his arse hanging out over the edge of the bed, trying to keep his horn from poking into her. And at some stage while he was doing that, imagine, Mumbly Dave met his lonely death.