Carn (22 page)

Sadie replied, “How can I? Tara was like a weasel all day.”

“Can’t you let her babysit? She was due to mind ours but my mother’s with them so she’s free. Come on Sadie—once in your life.”

Sadie drank. “Are you sure? She wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not. Just slip her a few quid. Come on Sadie—Jesus when do we ever get the chance to go out. Stuck in from morning to night. We’d be stupid to let it pass us
by.”

Sadie held back and almost declined. She looked at Una’s eager face.

“Why should we let it pass us by?”

She looked down at her slippered feet. At the kitchen in disarray. The flickering screen. “Okay. Just wait till I get changed,” she said.

She dabbed perfume behind her ears. The brandy went through her, filled her with anticipation. Before she went downstairs, she checked the children again.

“You’re sure you’ll be all right?” she said to Una’s sister.

“Of course she will,” said Una, “doesn’t she mind ours? Come on. That’s a fantastic dress Sadie. Jesus you look smashing.”

They closed the door behind them and set off for the Turnpike Inn.

The tepid air of the bar hit them in the face as soon as they opened the door. The drinkers were six-deep at the bar struggling to be heard over the noise. “Last orders
now, you pay from now on,” cried the barman. “A treble whiskey and five pints of lager,” cried a voice in the wilderness. The band were well down one of the spot prizes which they
had clandestinely awarded to themselves and were playing in a variety of different keys. The lead singer burst into laughter at incongruous moments and the others discarded their instruments
helplessly. The lyrics of songs were interchanged at random. The accordeon player’s dogs wandered around in search of their slumbering master and stray pools of spilt alcohol.
Gonna get
mah motorsickle and head out out on the road
, screamed the vast image of the heavy metal rocker on the video. The bikers passed a joint from hand to hand and horseplayed on the tables. They
climbed on each other’s backs. The blonde English girl was crying and laughing at the same time as she crawled under the table searching for her contact lenses. The two men were clinging to
each other like lovers, pledging lifelong friendship. “You’re one of the best, one of the best.” “And so are you, so are you.”

The English girl stood forlornly in the middle of the floor. “I can’t find them,” she sobbed. “And look at my dress. My dress is ruined.” Her white dress was
stained with Guinness and cigarette ash.

“Come over here cousin and get this down you. You won’t know yourself then.” He held up a replenished glass of spirits and threw back his head, rocking with laughter. His
companion shook his head and wept. “You’re one of the finniest men in this town. Come on over here cousin.”

The English girl sat on his knee with her wet hair falling down on her face. She chewed her nail and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. Beneath the television a group of football supporters waved
scarves and held pint glasses aloft. On the television screen above them, the prime minister adjusted his spectacles and, reading from a script, morosely confirmed that every man woman and child in
the Republic of Ireland owed ten thousand pounds each.

The caretaker sat between two of the mature women. His limbs flopped about him heavily and he tried to focus his eyes. One of the women felt inside his open shirt. “It must be hard for
you. Cooney is too bloody cute.”

“Hard is right,” sniggered her companion. “Hard in all the right places.”

The other woman laid a hand on his shoulder and whispered into his ear, “Buy me a little half-one. Will you?”

“This place is mad,” said Una Lacey. “I never seen it like this.”

“Two double brandies,” called the barman.

Una paid for the drinks and they sat down. Sadie was taken aback by the cacophony of the bar so she drank quickly to steady her nerves. The mature woman was now on the stage bumping and grinding
to the sound of hissing cymbals.

She raised her dress above her knee slowly and dropped it again. The whole bar squealed with delight. The drummer pounded. Sweat rolled down his cheeks. “The minute you walked in the joint
. . .” sang the woman. The guitarist made lewd gestures with his right arm. She rotated her backside. Hats flew in the air. Her dress fell off her shoulder. The footballers cried,
Irriwaddy Irriwaddy Yip Yip Yip!
It fell in a crumpled heap on the floor. At the counter her husband fumed with rage and shame.

“Jesus Mary and Joseph, she must be out of her brain,” said Una. Sadie ordered two more brandies. “You’re getting through these Sadie. Fair play to you. We should go out
more often.”

“What would Blast Morgan have to say about this?” she laughed, the warmth of the brandy coursing through her.

More more more more more more more more

The crowd was in hysterics. Fired by their enthusiasm, the woman called for a friend to join her. They bumped and grinded together, shaking their breasts at the men under the stage.

The bikers took over the bar and began to serve drinks free. “Everything on Jame Gooney. Right—who’s first?”

A pint glass came out of nowhere and splintered against Davy Crockett’s coonskin cap.

“Fuck Cooney!” cried someone. “Don’t mention Cooney—that’s what I think of James Cooney!”

The drummer’s knuckles bled. The dogs licked the paralytic body of their accordeon-playing master under a table. Some of the normally less extrovert workers had now joined the bikers, who
looked on mirthfully as they struggled without success to inhale the marijuana. The primary school teacher leaned over to a former pupil explaining the complexities of the political situation to
him. He listened respectfully but didn’t hear a word the schoolmaster said.

An argument started up among the footballers. What had caused it? Why had Carn Rovers not had a victory in fifteen successive matches? The rapid decline in the club’s fortunes had
continued unabated in the past year and thrown the ranks into utter confusion. And now, as had become common in the bars and other public places, friends who had once been unquestioningly loyal to
the club, argued bitterly among themselves. But even those who had been with the club from the early days could not ignore what was now in most people’s minds—it was the mismanagement
and bad decision-making of Pat Lacey that had been responsible for many of the defeats and the continuing low morale. He had lost his touch, they whispered and ought to be fired. It was sad but it
was true. They sought for evidence of loyalty to him in order to lay the brunt of their recriminations on the backs of his supporters. But there were none to be found and they only succeeded in
covering the same old sour ground again. In the end, like battle-weary soldiers, they linked arms reluctantly and began to sing.
Carn Rovers Carn Rovers we’re the best team in the land
. . .

A pint of beer dripped down John F. Kennedy’s smiling face. The video screen went blank and when the picture returned a crazed youth in an asbestos suit was setting a series of young women
alight. He met them in singles bars, lured them to his home and burnt them alive. They turned from the woman on the stage and gave their attention to this for a while. They stared open-mouthed as
he applied his flame thrower to the feet of a trussed-up girl.

“What do you think of that master?” cried one of the footballers to the teacher.

“Shut up or he’ll send you to the priest.”

“To Father Tom? He’s too busy giving it to his housekeeper!”

“Tell us about Patrick Pearse and De Valera master, like you used to. What are they up to these days?”

“Waving their dicks for Ireland master!”

They cheered as the schoolmaster, at a loss for words, put on his coat and fumbled his way past them out into the street.

Feedback from the speakers whistled as the mature woman made her way back to her seat. The band struck up again, and exhorted all to join in this time. The crowd clapped along, belting out the
chorus with gusto.

We’re on the one road sharing the one load

We’re on the road to God know’s where

We’re on the one road sharing the one load

But we’re together now who cares?

Northmen southmen comrades all

Dublin Belfast Cork and Donegal

We’re on the one road singing along

Singing a soldier’s song
.

The footballers chanted,
Here We Go Here We Go
. . .

“Got my motorsickle outside and I’m heading out on the road!” sang the bikers.

The songs collided with each other and made no sense. But no one was about to give an inch and with each new verse they hurled themselves further into the chaos.

Una and Sadie were far gone. They put their arms around one another and said that they were best friends, always had been. We go back years, they said to one another. Una leaned over to a
teenage girl sitting beside them and said, “When we were your age, we were wild. The things we used to get up to. We didn’t give a damn. Did we Sadie?”

“Una was the first girl in Carn to wear a mini . . .”

The teenage girl looked blankly at them.

Una went to the bar and ordered two more drinks. When she came back she found Sadie deep in conversation with a man whose face she recognised. “Una—do you remember Don? He used to
work in Poultry Products? Don—you remember Una.”

“Hi.”

She sat with the drinks.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw you sitting there. Sadie Rooney—it seems so long ago now . . .” said Don.

“I barely recognised you Don. The tan,” Sadie said.

“Yeah. I’m gone a long time. I never expected to see you here. It’s not always like this, is it? Or maybe I’ve been away too long . . .” He gestured with his head
at the disarray behind him.

“Where are you now Don?” asked Una, moulding her words carefully to offset the effect of the alcohol.

“Aussie. We’re in Sydney. This is my first trip home. I brought a mate with me. Here he comes. I’ve been telling him all about the place. But he never expected this.”

The Australian sat down and placed the drinks on the table.

“Here are two friends of mine from the old days. Two Elvis fans.”

“Hi. I’m Paul.”

“Well Sadie—how have you been? You know Paul—this girl—could she sing Elvis—we used to go out to the Hairy Mountains, a gang of us—we were only kids.
Jesus—she could do an Elvis impersonation—eh Sadie?”

Sadie reddened. “Oh I don’t know about that . . .”

“So what’s been happening around Carn then—apart from these lunatics . . .”

Una started the ball rolling and Sadie got into the swing of things. The Australian insisted on buying all the drink. The table filled up with glasses. “Any fan of The King is okay by
me,” he said.

“Bebopalula she’s my baby,” sang Sadie.

“Never mind us, we’re well on,” said Una.

“I’ll tell you something Una,” said Don, “you’d really enjoy the life out there. Sydney—it’s the place to be. And it’s easy to get in there now .
. . did you ever think about it?”

“I was thinking of going to London,” said Sadie, then collapsed into nonsensical laughter.

“We’d look well in Sydney all right,” said Una.

“There you go,” said the Australian, setting more drinks down on the table. Sadie felt as if she was about to faint. The noise and the smoke swirled.

One of the bikers stood up on the counter and with a wild look in his eyes cried, “Let’s show Mr Cooney what we think of him and his factory!” He lifted the microwave oven
above his shoulders and sent it crashing against the drinks display against the wall. “There’s your present from Carn, Mr Fly Boy Cooney!”

Another biker slashed the face of John F. Kennedy with a snooker cue. On the video screen the rows of women on meat hooks in the maniac’s house went up in flames as he removed his asbestos
mask and twitched excitedly.

The footballers continued.
Here we go-oh! Here we Go!

“Cooney betrayed Carn!” cried a boning-hall worker at the microphone. Behind the bar the mirror was smashed to smithereens.

“She’s my cousin,” said Marty to a neighbour, explaining the prone figure of the unconconscious girl on the floor. “I think she might have had one over the eight.”
He broke into laughter and squeezed the mystified neighbour’s arm. “What do you think?” he said to the assembly worker who was askew across the table, “One too many
maybe?”

The dogs barked, forgotten by their master who was still dead to the world.

“You bitch. You dirty bitch,” said the mature woman’s husband bitterly.

Then the policeman appeared in the doorway, followed by three of his colleagues. A hush fell. The bikers squashed the joint underfoot. The musicians began to drag their cables across the stage
and pack up their instruments. The policemen moved to the centre of the floor. Slowly people drifted as anonymously as they could to the exit. The policemen stared at the wreckage that confronted
them. They turned their attention to the bikers. The football chant stopped abruptly.