Ride On (12 page)

‘That's brilliant! Jesus, when did you learn how to do that?'

‘Ah, will you fuck off taking the piss Aesop,' said Norman. He put the bones down on the table and picked up his drink.

‘I'm serious, man. Tell him girls. Jesus, you've been able to play all these years and you never said anything.'

‘You should see him with two sets,' said Helen.

‘Ah Helen, don't,' said Norman. ‘He's only winding me up.'

‘Do you have another set with you?' said Helen. She reached over into his pocket and found them. ‘Here, show him.'

‘He doesn't really want to see.'

‘He does.'

‘Ah …'

Norman took two bones in each hand and doubled up on the beat, one hand playing off the other for about five seconds. People started to look over. He put all the bones in his breast pocket and sat there with a head on him like a beetroot.

Aesop shook his head.

‘I can't believe you never showed us that before. That was fucking deadly! Jaysis, it was like you had two tap dancers in your hands.'

‘It's nothing, sure. It's only the bones.'

‘It's percussion, Norman. Did you honestly think I'd have no interest in learning how to do that? Selfish bastard.'

Norman went even more red. He couldn't even count the times he'd have loved to whip them out when the lads were around jamming, but he'd been way too embarrassed. They were so cool and brilliant at their instruments, and it wasn't as though he didn't get enough slagging without producing something like the bones in the middle of the kind of stuff they played.

‘If you want, I'll show you a bit.'

‘Norman, I want you to show me everything you know.'

‘It's not much.'

‘You big modest gobshite, I know what I heard. You can really play them fuckers. We'll start tomorrow. No messing. First thing.'

‘First thing? Now I know you're taking the piss.'

‘We'll see about that. Now, your round I believe. My pint is wrecked from the little accident earlier.'

Norman looked around the table to see what the round was and then stood up.

‘Helen likes a nice tall glass,' said Aesop, all kinds of images sprinting into his brain and firing memos off down to his underpants.

‘I know, yeah,' said Norman, moving off to the bar.

Screams of laughter from Helen and Jessie followed him up there before the barman had even started pulling the first pint. He looked around and saw Aesop with his hand on Jessie's knee as he was telling them some story. As long as it was Jessie's feckin' knee there'd be no problems, he thought. The lads at the pool table didn't seem to know him, but he knew them. The tall one, Davey, and Helen had been engaged for a few months last year. That was why he didn't want to play pool. He wanted to stay away from them. That Davey bloke was a bit highly strung and a terrible prick on top of it with drink in him. If Aesop started in on Helen, you never knew what might happen. Norman didn't know the full story, but apparently Helen hadn't been with another guy since they broke up and the murmurs around the family were that it was because she was hoping Davey would find someone first and leave her alone. The whole thing annoyed Norman. He could deal with the situation in about five fucking minutes if he was let, but another one of the cousins told him he was better off out of it. Mikey Pat had apparently said something to Davey once and Helen got all upset and told him to just leave it. It wasn't Norman's place to get involved. And anyway, the last thing they needed was a scene down here.

His hands full of booze, he started to make his way over to the others. Just then the band started up and went into ‘Fisherman's Blues'.

*

Aesop had been steering his attentions carefully away from Jessie and onto Helen for about an hour when he suddenly found himself back where he started.

‘I see we have a couple of Kellys in the house,' he heard one of the guys in the corner say over the sound system. All eyes turned to their table. It been happening all night actually, but for the most part they were looking at Aesop. Word had gotten around that he was there and everyone in the place had been doing their best to have a good gander without getting caught. Now, though, it was Norman that was getting the looks as he got to his feet to a big cheer.

‘Come on Helen,' he said. ‘We'll do a couple.'

‘What?' said Aesop, looking at her. ‘You as well?'

‘Helen's the best singer in the place tonight, wait till you see,' said Norman.

‘Really?'

Helen just blushed a beautiful shade of cerise and stood up, leaving Jessie and Aesop on their own clapping at the table.

Once she got over to a mike and turned around, still lovely and rosy about the face, she took a guitar off one of the guys and did a quick run on it as the guy adjusted the height of the mike stand for her. Ten seconds later she had the guitar in dropped D tuning and was strumming away on it. Aesop sat forward. This was getting fucking interesting.

‘Thanks very much,' she said, into the mike. The crowd shut up cheering to let her sing. ‘Here's a little song for a friend of mine.'

She looked out around the crowd and Aesop followed her eyes to see who the cunt was. Then she looked full at him and he copped on. Jesus. She was reeling him in, the slapper, and he was falling for it!

Off she went on the guitar, her hand going a mile a minute on the intro. A fiddle player came in after a bar or two and then a bodhrán and finally Norman, standing at the back so everyone would be able to see the rest of the band, started up with the bones. It was the Luka Bloom song, ‘You Couldn't Have Come at a Better Time'and as Helen sang it she kept catching his eye. She didn't hang about staring at him though. She wasn't some hoor. She was being dead cool, pulling her face away from the mike and closing her eyes, her head cocked down as if to hear the bodhrán properly, for any of the short instrumental breaks. When she got to the ‘me and you and me and you and me …' line, up came those eyes again like searchlights to pick him out and nail him to his seat. Fuck sake! Aesop had watched Jimmy do this a thousand times. He'd done it himself sure, from behind the drums when he spotted some honey out among the punters, and here he was now grinning up at her like a fuckin' eejit and feeling special. He felt Jessie's hand on his arm and her voice in his ear as she leaned in to him.

‘I think someone's got the hots for someone,' she said.

‘She's great up there, isn't she?'

‘She's been doing it for years. Everyone knows Helen Kelly around here.'

He nodded and turned back to the stage so she'd shut her hole and stop distracting him. This was great stuff. Everyone in the pub was clapping and singing along, punctuating the song with ye-hoo's and calling her name out. She got to the end of the last chorus and stopped singing so that Norman could step up and do a bones solo. Aesop roared laughing. He was fucking brilliant, the head down, the hands up and the bones flicking and bouncing off each other like he had one toe stuck in a socket behind him. Aesop had known Norman for over twenty years and he'd never seen him do anything like this. Trying to get him to sing at a party was like pulling teeth, and yet here he was up on a stage in front of a hundred people and standing next to a cracking bird while rattling out a percussion solo that Aesop knew you didn't just pull out of your arse. He was really good at those fuckers.

Helen took a bow and grinned.

‘Thanks very much everyone.'

But she didn't look at Aesop this time and he felt a small jealous kick inside his belly. There were a few calls for another song and Helen nodded as she took off the guitar and handed it back to the guy behind her.

‘Maybe one more,' she said, as they began to simmer down. One hand went into her back pocket and the other held the stand just in front of her with long slender fingers. The eyes closed, the hair got swept out of her face, and then she somehow shifted her body so that it glided right in, bringing the mike to her mouth and the rest of her a few inches closer to a rapt Aesop who was by now fit to mount the pint glass in front of him.

‘Need a bit of hush for this one,' said Helen with an apologetic grin, and every gob in the place immediately snapped shut. One tool was on the phone, but his mate gave him a dig and a dirty look and the next thing the phone was back in his pocket.

The song was in Irish, and Aesop was hopeless at Irish, but it was sad and slow and full of heart-rending wretchedness the way any decent Irish ballad ought to be if it had any respect for itself. Her voice was low and full now, and the couple of people humming softly along with her lent it a resonance that was like a pulse that gently throbbed around the pub.

‘What's the song?' Aesop whispered to Jessie next to him.

‘It's called “An Cailín Álainn”. The Beautiful Girl.'

‘What's it about?'

‘It's about being in love with a beautiful girl. But she's gone and all that's left is heartbreak and pain. If she ever came back, the singer would make music for her like a harp or the song of a bird in the dewy fog and never be sad again.'

‘Fuck.'

‘It's gorgeous isn't it?'

‘Yeah.'

It was better than gorgeous. It was perfect. Helen. She was … she was just perfect. For fuck sake, she was up there singing a love song to another girl! Whatever lusty aspirations he had a minute ago, now she was playing right into his lesbian fantasies as well. Aesop held his pint glass to his mouth, gazing up at her. He wondered if she had a shaved minge too. That'd be fuckin' brilliant, so it would. He turned to Jessie.

‘Yeah?' she asked.

‘I don't s'pose … eh … ah, it doesn't matter.'

Jessie probably didn't know anyway.

Jimmy wandered around his house, looking for things to do. But tonight all his clothes were washed and ironed, the place was spotless and there was half a lasagne in the fridge from yesterday so he didn't even have to cook. A quick flick through the channels revealed nothing but the usual shite on the telly. He sat looking at it, but thinking of Susan, and then he walked over to his laptop to check on flights. Fuck it. He needed a holiday. He could have her in his arms by lunchtime tomorrow.

He stood up and went out to the fridge to grab a can of Guinness and by the time it was in his belly he had his phone out, the contact list scrolled down to Susan's name. An hour later there were three more empty cans on the coffee table in front of him and he was still fingering the phone. Four cans was the sweet spot. He decided that he was being a big fucking girl. It was time to sort this out. He'd go over. First thing in the morning. Spend the weekend with her at least and before he came back again he'd know what they both wanted.

He pressed the green button, his heart hammering.

*

‘Those two lads playing pool …' said Aesop.

It was some time after two and they were back in the cottage, sipping on a couple of fairly respectable Jamesons in front of the fire. They were both well oiled and there was no great urgency about sobering up.

‘What about them?' said Norman.

‘Well, maybe I was just imagining things …'

‘You weren't.'

‘So the big one fancied me then?'

Norman looked over at him.

‘What?'

‘Well, he kept looking at me. More than just the punters in the bar, like. They were just looking cos they knew I was in the band, but every time I saw yer man he was staring at me like he was on a promise.'

‘Aesop, he doesn't fancy you. Langer. He's a big oaf called Davey Molloy and he was looking at you because he had a thing with Helen and reckoned you were moving in on his territory.'

‘Ah. Right. Well that would've been me second guess.'

‘Nasty one, that fella. Keep away from him. He only left the place early because he's got a match tomorrow and the manager of the team was in. I don't know him that well, but I've heard that he's a bit of an animal on the pitch and worse off it when he's tanked up. Put a bloke in hospital last year with a bottle.'

‘Jaysis. So blowing him a kiss wasn't a good idea?'

‘What? When did you do that?'

‘When you were up on the stage with Helen. I was swept up in all that gorgeous music and when I caught him eyeballing me, all the love just came out.'

‘You fucking eejit! What did he do?'

‘Well, for a minute I thought he was going to come over and lamp me, but his mate grabbed him and said something to him and then they headed off a bit after that.'

‘Aesop, it's no wonder everyone's trying to kill you. Why do you have to be such a cheeky bastard all the time? Jesus, for someone who couldn't box his way out of a paper bag, you've some knack for winding people up.'

‘Sure aren't you here to protect me?'

‘Not like that I amn't. Just because I'm here, that doesn't mean you can go about the place taunting big fuckers like him. You think I want to get involved with anyone down here where I'm known?'

‘It was only a kiss. It's not like I was passing him notes to meet me out in the jacks or anything. Can we change the music?'

‘No. Listen to me Aesop, it's not funny. Helen and that bloke were nearly married and he's having a hard time realising that it's not going to happen. If you see him again, you bloody ignore him, okay?'

‘Do you not reckon you could take him?'

Aesop was grinning at him now, the eyes all bloodshot and droopy.

‘That's got nothing to do with it. I'm not getting into stupid situations down here just because you're bored and feel like taking the piss.'

‘Sure you're much bigger than him. I'd say you'd batter him. What is he … six foot? So in theory …'

Norman sighed and looked into the fire.

‘He's six-foot one. Weighs about ninety-two kilos. Favours the right leg from an old knee injury and he was holding his cue tonight like he was after getting a belt of a hurley on the thumb some time in the last week. I'd say his reach is seventy-six inches give or take, but he's a southpaw. He leads with his right leg, so I'd stamp down on that, put the gammy knee out and that'd be the end of it. Two seconds. First round knockout. If he did try and get to his feet again he'd be a stupid bastard and it'd cost him the use of his shoulder for six months.'

He looked up, smiling.

‘In theory, like.'

Aesop frowned at him.

‘Fuck sake! Who told you all that stuff about him?'

‘No one did. I can just do it. Used to box, remember?'

‘Since when is stamping on some poor fucker's knee allowed in boxing?'

‘Yeah, well … I did other stuff too.'

‘You're a scary bastard sometimes, Norman.'

‘The point is, Aesop, just because I can deal with Davey Molloy if I have to, if you start any shit with him I'll probably just apologise on your behalf and buy him a drink and if anyone will be getting a slap, it'll be you later on for being a tool.'

‘Do me.'

‘What?'

‘Do me. Height and weight and all that. Fuck, and there's me for years saying you should be in the circus. Eh … I mean … a lion tamer, like.'

‘You're five foot ten and about seventy-three kilos.'

‘And how would you sort me out in a scrap?'

‘You?' Norman chuckled and shook his head. ‘Sure all I'd have to do is tell you what I
might
do to you and you'd faint down into a puddle of your own piss.'

Aesop roared laughing.

‘Jaysis, what's Davey's number there? We'll get him around and I'll wind him up for you. Kevin Costner me bollix. Fuckin' Robocop I have here with me!'

‘Just you keep away from Davey. You're in enough trouble.'

‘Do Jimmy.'

‘Ah stop messing. It's only knowing what to look out for. It's not that hard.'

‘Yeah. Actually, you know what? I can do it too.'

‘Can you?'

‘Yeah. Well, with chicks I mean.'

‘You can tell how to bate a girl? Christ, that must come in handy.'

‘No no. Not fighting. When you walk into a place and it's wall-to-wall beaver, like. You're only going to leave the place with one bird, right? Most of the time. So you don't want any surprises later on when the kit comes off and you're committed.'

‘What are you on about Aesop? If you're that concerned about a girl's body, can't you get a good enough idea of it just by looking at her in her clothes?'

‘Exactly. That's what I'm saying. But if you pay attention to the details of all the different girls in the place, you can fine-tune the upcoming session, can't you?'

‘Can't I what?'

‘Take tits for instance.'

‘Ah Jesus, Aesop …'

‘Just for a minute. Jessie, right? Looks like a 34C. Sounds lovely, right? But she had a padded holster on her this evening. Now, I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. Shows that the girl is trying to make herself look nice before she goes out, fair play to her. You want a girl that's going to put in a bit of effort, and the balcony's always a good place to start. This morning, though, she was a B. Sure, B is a lovely size too. Better on a 32-sized bird, but still. We can't all be perfect, right? Thing is, if you only saw her tonight and reckoned you knew what the day's specials were on the puppy menu, then you might well find yourself feeling hard done by, y'see? You'd have them out and you'd be wondering if your hands are after suddenly growing a bit bigger somewhere en route between the pub and the back of bus shelter. Y'know what I mean?'

‘Aesop …'

‘I, on the other hand, didn't even need to see her this morning to know she was giving the girls a little boost tonight. A top doesn't fall the same way across a bird wearing a padded bra. They keep coming up with better ones, but you can't fool Aesop. I've been at this game too long. Now, in Jessie's case it doesn't matter a bit. She's well-stacked either way and I'd be the first man to stick the head on them given the right circumstances. But it's still nice to know what you're letting yourself in for, is all I'm saying. Sure, once you get to know a girl you can tell what bra she likes to wear with what top, if she's not wearing a bra at all … for fuck sake, after a while you can even tell when she's got the painters in. Y'see, every month …'

‘Okay Aesop! I don't want to hear any more.'

‘Now … arses are a different story altogether …'

‘Shut up, you fucking delinquent. Christ, this is your hobby, is it?'

‘Jesus, no. It's much more important than that.'

‘And you do it with every girl you see?'

‘Just happens at this stage. Like noticing what colour her hair is.'

‘So you were doing it with Helen?'

‘Ah … well, I mean … it's not like I was …'

‘And Trish? You want to tell me all about Trish's breasts?'

‘I'd … rather not.'

‘Good.'

‘Right.'

They both sat looking into the fire for a couple of minutes.

‘Norman, please. That music is doing me head in. Have you anything else?'

‘It's grand. Stop moaning. And … anyway … I've seen them.'

‘Seen what?'

‘Trish's … breasts.'

‘Yeah?'

‘They're lovely.'

‘Good stuff.'

‘I like her, Aesop.'

‘I'd say you do. She's a real honey.'

‘Yeah. I think she likes you.'

Aesop leaned back in the chair and took a big gulp of whiskey.

‘I doubt that.'

‘She said she hasn't heard from you. I thought you were going to say sorry.'

‘I am, Norman. I just feel like such a bleedin' eejit. I don't know what to say to her. Y'know, “Listen Trish, about the whole fucking-a-cup-of-tea-in-your-face-and-calling-you-a-psycho-cunt thing … ”'

‘You called her a …'

‘Oh. Sorry. I didn't mention that bit before.'

‘Fuck sake. Just call her, will you? Tomorrow.'

‘I will.'

‘Things are hard enough without …'

‘What? What's hard?'

‘Ah … nothing.'

‘Tell me.'

‘It's nothing Aesop. You wouldn't … know what it's like.'

‘What what's like?'

‘What it's like when a bird that you're mad about fancies your mate.'

‘Who? Jimmy?'

‘Jimmy? Jesus … Aesop, she fuckin' fancies you, you dope.'

‘What? She does in her bollocks.'

‘She does! It's obvious. You can see it in her. That night at the gig and all …'

‘What are you talking about Norman?'

‘You and her, and her breaking her shite laughing with you all night on the couch at the party afterwards. That's what I'm talking about.'

‘Jesus, Norman, we were only chatting.'

‘Yeah, but she never laughs like that with me.'

‘So I'm a fucking comedian. So what? Doesn't mean she's into me.'

‘Aesop, you were there being the fucking rockstar after your gig, with no shirt and a towel around your neck and your tight pants and those two stupid fucking studs in your eyebrow, people coming up to you and shaking your hand every five minutes, and I'm over the other side of the room talking to Sparky about his Mam's daffodils.'

‘Fuck sake Norman, we were talking about you!'

‘And that had her breaking her bollocks laughing? Brilliant …'

‘No ye spa. I was making myself out to be a fuckin' eejit and telling her about all the times I'd have been in the shit if it wasn't for you. Remember the time that bloke thought I rode his wife? He would've killed me if you hadn't been there to calm him down.'

‘You did ride his wife Aesop.'

‘Yeah, but I didn't know she was his wife at the time, did I? It's not like I got her to fill out a questionnaire.'

‘Anyway, women don't want the big hard case. They want someone who can make them laugh. Isn't that what they say in all the magazines?'

‘That's bollocks! We're talking about real women, man. A giggle's all right now and again, but they want a lot fucking more than that. I'm telling you, the likes of me is the last thing they need. And they know it, thank Christ. Norman, they might want to fuck me, but they want to marry you; that's what they say in the magazines.'

‘But I don't want her fucking you before she marries me!'

‘Wh … hang on … are we still talking about Trish?'

‘Yes!'

‘Aw Jesus, listen man, I would never try and move in on your bird no matter what. Any bird! Ever. And anyway, I'd say we're safe enough as far as Trish is concerned. She thinks I'm a fuckin' weirdo.'

‘But what was she doing in your gaff that night? Women don't forget their jewellery. You said that yourself, sure.'

‘Wasn't she giving me that picture? She was just being nice. Getting in with your mates so that it'd be easier for you and her. She's fucking mad about you Norman. Really. It's all we talked about that night.'

‘I don't know Aesop. There's something about her. I can't stop thinking about her but, it's like she's keeping something from me …'

‘Norman, listen. I'm telling you that Trish is a great bird and all she wants is you. The only thing that'll change that is you fucking it up. Really. Chill out and stop looking for things to worry about. She's great and she wouldn't touch me with rubber gloves on. If she's keeping something back, it's probably because she sees that you're not sure and she doesn't want to get hurt.'