Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other (27 page)

A large BMW came skidding off a side-street at about fortyfive miles an hour. The driver struggled to keep all the wheels on the ground but the big car went into a spin. I braked hard and skidded up the pavement, just missing the pillars of a theatre. The BMW spun round towards me and I thought I would die. It hit the kerb hard and lost most of its velocity, shunting into my passenger side almost gently.

I gasped for breath. These things always came from nowhere and always made me want to piss myself. I took a moment to get my breath back and regain control of my wildly shaking limbs. I could see the driver of the BMW struggling angrily with his door. Looked like he wanted to sort me out. That was just what I needed to calm down. I jumped out of the Wreck and sped towards him. I dragged the driver's door open and the driver menaced me with his fists.

`Roche!' I exclaimed, aghast.

`Who the fuck are you?' the child asked. He looked at me closely.'Oh, it's you, the graduate. Didn't clock you in the suit. Good fucking driving, pal.'

`Whaddyamean, good driving? You nearly killed me.'

`I had the right of way.'

'You're a twelve-year-old criminal driving a stolen car. Don't fucking patronize me.'

He laughed delightedly.

`Are you hurt?' I asked.

`Nah, I always wear a seatbelt.'

`How civic of you.'

`What?' he asked warningly.

`Nothing.'

He looked up and down the street. A few passers-by had stopped to watch us, and the traffic was pulling round us gingerly.

`The filth'll be here in a minute. Gimme a lift,' he requested airily.

I looked back at the Wreck dubiously.

'Don't worry,' he said. `Old bangers like that can survive anything.'

`Hey, lay off my mean, my car. At least it's paid for.'

He climbed into the passenger seat and proceeded to direct me out of the little tangle on the pavement with his erstwhile joyride, commenting all the while on the deficiencies of my driving and my vehicle.

`So you steal cars?'

'I borrow them'

`It's illegal.'

'Really? I didn't know that. I better stop doing it now Thanks.'

`Have you done it before?F

'What do you think?'

'Judging by your driving, it's hard to say. Why did you do it?'

'I fancied a spin,' he answered blithely.

`What if that had been a doctor's car or something? What if some medic got an emergency call and he'd come out to find his motor swiped?'

Roche turned his grubby face towards me triumphantly.'I'd have given him a lift,' he said gleefully. 'He'd have got there quicker.'

I had to laugh. `That's for sure. You were doing some knots coming round that corner.'

'Well, why hang around?'

I looked at him in the seat beside inc. He was so stunted that the seatbelt swamped him. Mathematically, I could have been this kid's father. It was a horrible thought.'I hate to think what you'll be like when your balls have dropped.'

'Worry about your own balls, pal'

I'd crossed Bradbury Place before I realized that I was heading towards home. That was not a good idea. I definitely didn't want Dick Turpin there to know where I lived.

'Where am I taking you, kid?'

'Just drive'

'I'm taking you home. Where do you live?'

'You promise you're not going to try and snog me at the garden gate?'

'Ah, fuck, not that again.'

He told me, with relatively good grace, where he lived. I turned right down Sandy Row and headed for Beechmount. I should have known. Upper Falls gamin, he was typical.

'You know where Beechmount is?' he asked me casually.

'Yeah'

'I knew you were a Taig.'

'Good for you.'

He fingered the cuff of my suit. 'Not at work today? How come?'

'I had to go to funeral,' I muttered. Roche's mockery might just have sent me over the edge.

We were on the Grosvenor Road now. He told me to pull over. I did. It was simpler that way. I pulled up under a streetlight. He pointed over towards the edge of the housing estate.

'Look,' he said.

I looked. In the growing darkness, the streets were lit up but not illuminating. It was a West Belfast housing estate. I'd seen them before.'Very nice,' I said.'I'm sure it's lovely in the moonlight!

He tutted irritably.

`Look at the wall,' he hissed.

I looked at the wall. There were some graffiti there. Fuck all Prods. IRA are God and even a few OTGs. I looked closer at the OTGs. They were shakily, dyslexically written, the work of a child and not a gifted one. Once or twice it was misspelt, OGT, GTO, TGO.

`You got a couple wrong,' I told him.

`What are spelling police?'

I laughed and drove on.

`What's your obsession with this OTG thing?'

`What?'

`Why did you write that?'

`I wanted to.'

`Why?'

Out of the corner of my eye I could see his ratty little face adopt an appearance of mystery and importance.

`I saw a guy writing it a couple of weeks ago.'

I was interested now

`Just one guy on foot. I saw him writing opposite the Orange lodge on Clifton Street. When he finished I followed him. He went into the New Lodge and wrote it up on a wall near the Just Us advice centre. Looked like he didn't like Protestants or Catholics. The lights are green, dickhead.!

I lurched and stalled, cursing the brat. After a while, the Wreck chugged into life and we drove on.

'Then what?' I asked him.

`I followed him for an hour or two. He just wandered round the town stopping to write on walls every now and then. Opposite churches, political headquarters, even a police station at one point.'

`Didn't he get caught?'

`Nah, he was pretty cute that way. It was dark and he was a nice mover.

`What did he look like?'

`I don't know. About your age. Walked very quiet. Dark clothes. Jacket and trousers. Like a suit. I nearly thought he was a priest for a while!

'Why?'

'Well, his gear was dead black and I could just make out a bit of white at his neck.'

'You'd make a good cop,' I said.

`Fuck you.'

'Thanks.'

I turned right into Beechmount. Beechmount looked like Beechmount always unprosperous. Little terraced houses with little terraced people standing on the doorsteps. Some kids ran about the pavement as they always did and some broken glass lay around as was habitual. The walls were painted with a variety of crude scenes depicting how much nicer Catholics were than Protestants and a series of inventive tableaux in which large numbers of British soldiers were maimed and killed.

These were the Belfast mean streets, the internationally famous and dreaded West Side Jungle. It was no big deal. The scorbutic children and big mamas were stock stuff. You could see worse in any city. Even as nearby as Dublin and London you could find more dramatic poverty, more profound deracination.You mightn't come across the same quality of Armalites but everything else would look much the same.

There was a species of suffering here that was supposed to be different. A crucial disenfranchisement, a particular oppression. These people, we were told, weren't living in the country they wanted to be living in. I'd been in lots of poor places and I'd never found anyone there who thought that that was the place for them.

I came from a place just like this. It was old hat. Dead news. I wasn't buying any of the bullshit.

'Over there' Roche pointed to the dirtiest house I've ever seen.

I pulled up. A group of short-haired tracksuited youths looked over briefly and then turned away. That was the real joy of the Wreck. It would never be worth stealing.

The kid slipped out of his seatbelt and opened the door. He glanced at me as though disappointed by something I had failed to do. I lived with it.

`See you around, kid,' I said.

He smiled. `What's your name again?'

`Jake,' I said.

`Well, Jake,' I waited for the insult, `you're all right. See ya.'

He tripped round the car and up the little garden path to the dirty house he lived in. No insult, no graphic profanity. I watched him as the door was answered by a big guy in a dirty T-shirt. He looked over at me suspiciously. He thought about coming across and chatting it out but he didn't have any shoes on. He just scratched his balls, threw his fag butt into the garden and turned into the house with the kid. Young Roche there didn't take after his father in terms of stature but they shared a similar charm.

As I tried to move off I stalled again. I tried starting the engine once or twice but it was useless. The Wreck did this sometimes. If I left it for half a minute, it would wise up and start.

In the silence while I waited I heard the unmistakable noise of shouting from Roche's house. I could have sworn I also heard the sound of blows. I couldn't be sure but I was sure. The big guy had looked like he would. He had looked like he did.

I started the engine and drove away. What could I have done? Sometimes it's just not your problem.

But, all the way back to my house, I felt grim. I should have known that there was someone in the kid's life who was beating the shit out of him regularly. With kids like Roche there was always some big guy in a dirty T-shirt in the background. I didn't know why it bothered me so much. Was it that he reminded me of myself when I was a kid? Hardly. Now that I had arrived on the scene, at least Roche had someone in his life who liked him - or tried to. That was the big difference between us.

Through my clean, clean windscreen the city looked dirty suddenly. After a day of calorific politics and no-show romancing, Roche had been enough to make Belfast seem like a washed-out mouth. I couldn't spit the taste of my day away. I hated the way that could happen. Driving around, liking the streets and the people, was one of the few pleasures I had left. I hated it when my life took that away from me.

It was near ten o'clock when I got home. The cat was pissed off and hungry. I was pleased. He was close to missing me. My expectations were low. I'd settled for pissed off and hungry. I fed the fucker and played my messages.

Chuckie told me he'd sorted out my Crab and Hally problem.

Septic asked me to double-date with him on Friday.

The Amnesty guy was back on my case.

The coppers who'd called yesterday said they were dropping it.

Aoirghe told me to go fuck myself.

I kicked the cat. He looked at me like it wasn't his fault. I couldn't argue. I switched on the radio. It was a foolish move. I should have realized so close to the hour that the news would be on. This time, I didn't switch it off.

`Police said that the incident was not serious.Three arrests were made. A Just Us spokesman alleged that one of their members had been viciously assaulted by a so-called peace campaigner and required hospital treatment. The spokesman said that this showed the insincerity of such so-called peace rallies. The poet Shague Ghinthoss, who was at the incident, refused to comment. Sometimes, he said, things were better left unsaid!

I laughed and started making some coffee. Good old Shague. I even poured the cat some guilt-milk.

'There has been a report tonight that the mysterious group calling itself the OTG has threatened two young Protestant men from North Belfast. The RUC refused to comment but sources have suggested that the men were threatened because they were involved in debt-collecting activities in the area.'

I switched off the radio and picked up the phone. I called Max's house. Aoirghe answered.

'Is Chuckie there?F

'Is that Jackson?'

'Yeah:

There was a pause.

`I'll get him.'

Jesus, no abuse. What a polite exchange!

Chuckie came on the line. `Hey, Jake, I'm sorry we didn't make it to the train thing.You know how it is. Sounds like you and old Aoirghe had a good time there.'

I cut him short. 'Chuckie, what exactly did you do about Crab and Hally?'

Chuckie sounded scared. `Well ... Deasely and I talked about it and we thought since they were hassling you, the best thing we could do would be to give them some of their own.'

'Did you ring them up and pretend to be the fucking OTG?'

`Well, yes, we did.!

'Brilliant.'

'It worked. Donal called Crab and told him that we'd kill his family, his friends, people he'd only passed by in the street and then we'd kill him if he didn't lay off you. Donal said he was pissing himself.'

'Fucking wonderful!'

`What's wrong?' Now Chuckie sounded wounded.

'It's just been on the radio. If Crab tells anybody my name was mentioned, people will think I'm in a terrorist organization that doesn't even exist.'

'Oh, yeah,' replied Chuckie lamely.

`And what if those two fuckers are in the UVF or something?'

'Relax! You said yourself they were mostly too stupid to be dangerous.'

'What?' l screamed. `Do Loyalist paramilitaries have entrance exams now? All they have to do is tell someone and I'm dead under a housing estate or doing a hundred and seventy-five years in Long Kesh.'

`Take it easy.'

'I'm going to kill you, Chuckle!

`Jake, Jake.'

My doorbell rang. I froze.

`What's wrong?' asked Chuckie.

'There's somebody at my door,' I whispered.

`Well, go and see who it is.'

'What if it's the guys with the hoods and the 9-mms?'

'Go to the window and look out.'

I put the receiver on the table.The window was open and there were a few lights on so it felt safe enough. I craned out into the musky dark air. It failed to cool my face. I could see a man at my door. A cop. My heart sank but it might have sunk further. The RUC were better than the UVE I hoped.

I went back to the telephone. 'Chuckle. The cops are at the door. I'll call you when I can.You're in big trouble, fatso.'

I hung up and answered the door with an upstanding expression on my face. `Yes?' I enquired squeakily.

The cop turned to face me and I saw that it was Paul, Mary's fisty boyfriend. I ducked.

He laughed. Relax,' he said.

I straightened up. `Are you going to hit me again?'