Jimmy Sr didn’t like this sort of thing.
Bertie went closer to the car and leaned down. He held his top lip.
— This one? he said.
Then his bottom lip.
— Or this one.
Paddy stood up now as well.
Bimbo whispered to Jimmy Sr.
— Do we know — know his wife?
Jimmy Sr didn’t know what he’d do if the cops got out of the car. He’d never been in trouble with the guards, even when he was a kid; only through Leslie.
The driver spoke.
— Mister Gillespie.
Bertie bent down further and looked past the passenger.
— Buenas noches, Sergeant Connolly, he said.
Bimbo got down off the wall and started picking up the broken glass.
— You’re looking grand and flushed, said Sergeant Connolly.
— That’s cos we’ve been ridin’ policemen’s daughters all nigh’, Sergeant, said Bertie.
Jimmy Sr wanted to get down and run.
Paddy leaned down beside Bertie to see the faces on the gardai. He hacked, like he was getting ready to spit, but the passenger didn’t budge. He wouldn’t even look at him.
Sergeant Connolly spoke.
— You wouldn’t know anything at all about a small bit of robbery of Supervalu in Baldoyle this afternoon, Mister Gillespie? he asked Bertie. — Would you, at all?
— Yeah, said Bertie. — I would.
— What?
— They got away, said Bertie.
The sergeant laughed. Jimmy Sr didn’t like it.
— You can come over to me house now an’ search it if yeh like, Bertie told the sergeant.
— We already did that, said the sergeant.
The passenger grinned.
— Wha’ are you fuckin’ grinnin’ at? said Paddy.
Bertie moved forward a bit and crowded Paddy out of the way.
— Did yeh find annythin’? he asked Sergeant Connolly.
— Not really, said the sergeant. — But tell your lovely wife Thank you, will you, like a good man. — I forgot to thank her myself. Good night now. Safe home.
The car moved away from the kerb and back across the road, and around onto Chestnut Avenue.
— The cunts, said Paddy.
— Where’s there a bin? said Bimbo.
— Over here, Bimbo, said Jimmy Sr. — Look it.
He took Bimbo’s arm and made him come with him. He wanted to get home — and get Bimbo home — before the cops came back.
— See yis, he told Bertie and Paddy.
— Where’re you goin’? said Paddy.
— Home, said Jimmy Sr. — I’m knackered.
— Good nigh‘, compadre, said Bertie. — Here; bring one o’ the sixpacks here, look it.
— No, said Jimmy Sr. — No, thanks, you’re alrigh’. See yis.
He wanted to get the fuck home. He couldn’t handle that sort of thing at all. He didn’t want the guards thinking anything about him. And Bimbo; the two of them not working and that. Your man, Connolly, would start thinking that they were working for Bertie. And they’d raid the fuckin’ house or something. Veronica—
— Are we goin’ home, Jimmy? said Bimbo.
— Yeah.
— Good.
The next couple of weeks were great. He had to admit that. If he’d been looking for someone to be made redundant it would have been Bimbo. That didn’t mean that he’d wanted Bimbo to get the sack; not at all. What he meant was this: he couldn’t think of better company than Bimbo, and now that Bimbo wasn’t working he could hang around with Bimbo all day. It was fuckin’ marvellous.
He didn’t think he was being selfish. At first — during the first week or so — he’d felt a bit guilty, a bit of a bollix, because Bimbo was so miserable and he was the opposite. He couldn’t wait to get up and out in the mornings, like a fuckin’ kid on his summer holliers. But he didn’t think that way any more. Because he was helping Bimbo really. He wasn’t denying that he was delighted that Bimbo wasn’t working — not that he’d told anyone — but he didn’t have to feel bad about it because, after all, he hadn’t given poor Bimbo the sack and he’d never even wished it. And if Bimbo ever got his job back or got a new one he’d be the first one to slap him on the back and say Sound man. And he’d mean it as well.
But Bimbo was sacked; it was a fact. He was hanging around doing nothing. And Jimmy Sr was hanging around doing nothing, so the two of them might as well hang around and do fuckin’ nothing together. Only, with the two of them, they could do plenty of things. Playing pitch and putt by yourself on a cold March morning could be very depressing but with someone else to go around with you it could be a great bit of gas. And it was the same with just walking along the seafront; and anything really.
Jimmy Sr hadn’t felt bad, really bad, in a while; not since before Christmas. He hadn’t felt good either, mind you; just — settled. Now though, he felt good; he felt happy. Bimbo was helping him and he was helping Bimbo. The day after the night they’d got locked — the day after Bimbo’d been sent home — Jimmy Sr called for him and took him out for a walk. Maggie patted Jimmy Sr’s arm when he was going out the front door. It was a Saturday, a day when Bimbo would have been at home anyway, but he could tell that Bimbo didn’t think it was an ordinary Saturday. He had a terrible hangover as well. But the walk had cheered him up and Jimmy Sr took him into Raheny library and got him to fill in a card and he showed him what books were where.
On Monday, the first real day, Jimmy Sr called for Bimbo at nine o’clock and made him come out for a game of pitch and putt. He had to threaten to hit him over the head with his putter if he didn’t get up off his hole but he got him out eventually. He even zipped up his anorak for him. And
Maggie filled a flask for them, which went down very well cos it was fuckin’ freezing. They gave up after six holes; they couldn’t hold the clubs properly any more because they’d no gloves, but they enjoyed themselves. And Jimmy Sr showed Bimbo what was wrong with his swing. He was lifting his head too early. They watched a bit of snooker in the afternoon, and played Scrabble with Sharon until Gina upended the board, the bitch, when they were looking at something in the snooker.
On Wednesday — it was pissing all day Tuesday — Jimmy Sr brought Bimbo into town. Bimbo had only been on the DART a couple of times before, so he enjoyed that. And some little cunt flung a stone at their carriage when they were going past the hospital in Edenmore, and that gave them something to talk about the rest of the way; that and the big new houses off the Howth Road in Clontarf that were so close to the tracks the train nearly went through them.
— Imagine payin’ a fortune to live tha’ close to the tracks, said Jimmy Sr.
— Thick, said Bimbo.
Jimmy Sr pointed out the houses he’d plastered.
He brought Bimbo up to the ILAC Centre and he got a young one behind the counter to put a programme about volcanoes on the telly and they watched a bit of that. They went for a cup of coffee, after Jimmy Sr had taken out a couple of books and he’d explained to Bimbo about the computer strip yokes inside the books and on Jimmy Sr’s card and how the young lad at the check-out only had to rub a plastic stick across them to put the names of the books beside Jimmy Sr’s name inside in the computer. They still stamped the date you had to bring them back by the old way.
They went for a coffee downstairs. The coffee was lovely there but Bimbo had insisted on having tea. He could be a cranky enough little fucker at times. Jimmy Sr was going to make him have coffee — because it WAS lovely — but then he didn’t. They looked out at what was going on on Moore Street. They enjoyed that, watching the oul’ ones selling their fruit and veg and the young ones going by. They saw a kid — a horrible-looking young lad — getting a purse out of a woman’s bag. He’d done it before they knew what they were seeing, so there was nothing they could do. The woman didn’t know yet either. She just walked on along, down to Parnell Square, the poor woman. The kid had probably done it to get drugs or something. They didn’t say anything to each other about it. It made Jimmy Sr think of Leslie.