Eureka Street: A Novel of Ireland Like No Other (39 page)

It was a beautiful night. I left the Wreck parked outside the Wigwam and loped slowly towards Poetry Street. Belfast was tense and scared; there were, doubtless, people being done to death at that very instant but, all in all, it was beautiful.The city sounded like an old record that crackled and hissed. But you could still hear the trouble, distant or close. In the broad night, the sirens whooped and chattered like metallic married couples.

I removed my jacket and opened my shirt. I slowed my pace. I dodged the drunken men and tried not to look at the miraculous girls. I read the walls with a feeling of unaccountable joy. After a few yards, I noticed that there was a smattering of dyslexic OTGs:TGO, ODG, OTD. I stopped and touched the wall in question. I had guessed right.The poor draughtsmanship was characteristic and the paint was still wet.

`Roche!' I bellowed. `Roche, where are you?'

A few passers-by stopped to stare. I ignored them.

`Roche!'

Several of the passers-by shook their heads and walked off, thinking I was a madman. A small dirty head peered round the entrance of an alley nearby. There were smudges and flecks of paint in the boy's hair. `Oh, it's you.'

`You're still not getting it right,' I said.

`What?'

I pointed to his imperfect graffiti.

`Hey, Jake.'

'What?'

'Have you got a Postgraduate Certificate in Education?'

'No.'

'You can fuck off, then.' He smiled happily at me.

`Come on,' I said. `I'll give you a ride home.'

It was nearly midnight, the street was full of drunks. It looked like that twelve-year-old was going to debate the point but I think he recognized I was getting all adult there. We walked back to the Wreck.

Roche had continued to hang around after Chuckle's departure for America. The kid was everywhere. Luke Findlater told me that he was around Chuckie's offices most of the day and I often saw him lurking in Eureka Street when I went calling on Peggy Lurgan. He must have forgotten what school looked like. I taxed him about his education one day and he suggested that I should eat his bollocks. I liked Roche. He had some imagination.

He was also a handy errand boy to have around Eureka Street. Chuckle had left a shitload of cash in a box in the kitchen and I used that to get the kid to stock the house. He had very high wage expectations. I don't know what Chuckie had been paying him but I never saw any change.

As we drove up West, Roche told me that he had seen the OTG man again. He had noticed something else this time. Every time the man wrote on walls he would write some kind of sentence before and after the legend OTG then he would simply paint over everything but those three letters. Every time I'd seen OTG written in the city it had been preceded and followed by bands of paint, the first band slightly shorter than the second. I'd thought it was merely a decorative conceit.

'What does it say before he paints it out?'

I turned off the Westlink and Roche murmured something into his chest.

'What?'

'I don't know,' he muttered.'It's hard to make it out before he paints over it.'

I stopped at some traffic lights. `Listen, kid. So you don't read too well. It's no big deal. I was slow at school. All the best people were.'

`You haven't speeded up much,' Roche replied defiantly.

I drove the little prick home in silence. Just as we turned into Beechmount, he asked me to stop the car. `Let me out here,' he said.

`I can take you up to your door just as easily.'

`Here's fine,' he said, too loudly.

I stopped the car. The kid got out. `Thanks,' he said insincerely.

I watched him as he walked off. He kept looking back at me. I knew what the score was. I swung the car across the street just as he turned a corner out of sight. I stopped the car. I got out and followed.

As I suspected he might, he walked past the street where he lived. He ducked down a few side-streets and ended up back on the Falls Road. I had an idea where he was going. I went back and fetched the Wreck. I drove to the Grosvenor Park, a dilapidated and tiny concrete and grass esplanade with a few dingy swings and a clapped-out bandstand. I parked and walked slowly up to the bandstand. The bench there was unoccupied. I was surprised. Then I bent down and looked underneath. Roche lay there, his head propped on his schoolbag, a tarpaulin pulled over his shoulders.

I waited for the quip that didn't come. Amazingly, the boy said nothing. He stared at me mutely, with something like shame in his eyes. For once, he looked like he was twelve years old.

`What's wrong?' I asked. `A bit of bother chez Roche?'

`What?'

`Forget it.'

I was squatting on my haunches. It was growing uncomfortable. I lit a cigarette. He stared at me. I offered him one. He lit up greedily.There was silence and the air felt warm and magical on my face. It wasn't such a bad night on which to sleep rough. Still.

`Come on,' I said, standing up, `you can sleep at my house.'

Roche stuck out his head from underneath the bench and opened his mouth to protest.

'Relax,' I said.'I'm not going to try to have sex with you.'

The boy shut his mouth, satisfied. He gathered up his meagre stuff and scrambled to his feet. He looked expectantly at me.

'Hey, kid,' I said,'I think I should tell you something!

`What?'

'You're much less sexually attractive than you believe.'

That night I dreamt a year's worth of dreams.

Six a.m. Roche ended up pulling me out of bed by my hair. I chased the persistent little shit downstairs but I hadn't a chance of catching him. My cat looked on with interest as I chased the boy round the kitchen.

'The phone,' he bellowed.'It's your fat friend from America'

I stopped, suddenly calm. I picked up the receiver while Roche made mutinous noises in the background.

'Chuckie?'

'Jake. Hi.'

'Do you know what fucking time it is?'

Chuckie knew what time it was. Chuckie didn't care. If he'd been in Eureka Street, I might have driven round to beat the shit out of him but he knew it wasn't worth an international flight.

Chuckie had called me for two reasons. First, he wanted me to give up my job and start working for him. He told me he was worried about Luke Findlater. He was a nice guy and good at his job but Chuckie wanted someone he could trust on the inside there. Besides, Luke kept saying things like sot;Qne and egregious. It was getting on Chuckle's nerves.

I told him wearily that I didn't know anything about busi ness or money. He refuted my objections. I was so tired and pissed off that I said I'd work for Chuckie for a grand a week. I was astonished when he said yes. It wasn't that he'd agreed, it was that he'd barely noticed.

`What was the other thing?' I asked fuzzily.

`What?'

`You said you'd called me for two reasons.'

`Oh, yeah.' He paused.

The line burred and chirped. It wasn't very atmospheric but I wondered what Chuckie was working up to.

`I'm going to be a dad.'

`What?'

`Max is pregnant. We're gonna get married.!

`I took a deep breath. `That's great. Congratulations, Chuckie.'

'Yeah. Listen, don't tell my mum. I'll tell her when I get back. How's she doing?'

'Ah, fine,' I said vaguely.

`Good. I'm really grateful for what you've been doing with her, Jake.'

`What do you mean by that?' I snapped nervously.

`Looking after her. It means a lot to me.'

`Oh, yeah, right. Don't mention it.'

`I gotta go,' said Chuckie.

I felt a surge of affection for him. I was even beginning to wake up. `Hey, Chuckie. I'm openly jealous.'

`Of what?'

`Fatherhood, Chuckie. Fix that short-term recall. It's fine news.

`Thanks'There was a slight tremble of emotion in Chuckie's voice. He hung up.

I found my eyes had grown misty. Chuckie a father. I wasn't sure what I felt.

`Did he give you the grand a week?' asked Roche.

`Yeah.'

'Fuck. Put it there,' said the awestruck boy.

Roche held out a grimy paw. I groaned and headed for the kitchen. I made some coffee, lit some cigarettes and fed the cat. It was 6.15 a.m. I don't think I'd ever woken up this early. I was surprised to find it quite so beautiful. The light was exquisite, somehow energizing. Even Roche didn't look so bad. I made the kid some breakfast, we sat at the table and I apologized for chasing him round the flat.

'I don't suppose you'd consider the possibility of going to school today?'

Roche munched his toast implacably. `What do you think?'

'Thought so.'

`What, are you like my dad now or something?'

The cat vaulted onto my lap. He'd finished his breakfast. I seemed calm so he started purring. I felt like some kind of respectable patriarch there, cat and kid at six in the morning. I quite liked it.

`What's the deal with your old man? Does he knock you about?'

The boy lodged a large slice of toast in his mouth. He stood up and lifted his shirt over his head, toast and all. He swivelled slowly.

`Fuck me,' I said.

His chest and back were sown with rich bruises of varying ages. Over his back, the patches of unbruised flesh were in the minority. He pulled the shirt down, almost dislodging his toast in the process, and looked at me imperturbably. I had been planning to end breakfast with the advice that he couldn't stay with me for long. Perhaps he'd guessed that before he'd flashed his tits. I lit another cigarette.

'Hey,' I said, `you've got margarine all over your shirt!

My first executive decision as an employee of Chuckie was to take the day off. I rolled down to the hotel to quit my job and say goodbye to Rajinder. I had to bid a variety of fond farewells to the others as well. I had planned to discuss the tragedy of his initials with Ronnie Clay, but in the end I didn't have the heart. For a sectarian racist moron, Ronnie wasn't so bad.

Since I'd just increased my annual income more than fivefold, I spent the rest of the morning shopping. I bought myself another suit and even, pathetically, got some stuff for Roche. In the act of buying socks and underwear for a twelve-year-old boy, I knew the world would frown upon such a situation. I would have to do something about the kid before I got arrested. I decided to visit Slat.

I called into his offices. It was a swish Golden Mile interior but the waiting room was full of people who looked as though they'd never even met anyone who had enough money. The place smelled of desperation and poverty. I hassled the receptionists. A variety of prim but attractive young women tried to frown me away but I persisted and after a few minutes Slat himself wandered out. I told him I needed to talk to him straight away. He told me to meet him in the Wigwam in half an hour.

I hadn't been in the Wigwam during the day. It somehow felt like a crucially different experience. The waitress who liked me slid up to my table. `Sian Teat,' she said, mystifyingly.

`You work days too? You must be really shagged,' I replied.

She said something else in Irish and pressed a special smile on her features. I looked blank.

`I'm afraid I only speak one language,' I mentioned.

Her manner grew cold immediately. `Can I get you anything?' she snapped.

In my embarrassment I smiled more widely than I should have. `Coffee, please. Listen, I'm didn't mean

Her face softened again and she sat opposite me. `Your name's Jake, isn't it?'

`Yeah.'

`I'm Orla.'

I felt myself flush to the skull. `Hello, Orla. I'm glad to meet you.

`Likewise'

It was hard to get a cup of coffee, these days. She smiled expectantly at me. It didn't matter how humble I was, there was no mistaking this.

`What age are you, Orla?'

`Nearly eighteen!

`Jesus'

'What's wrong with that.'

`I'm nearly old enough to be your father's much, much younger brother'

`So?F

I gave up on the coffee. I lit a cigarette. 'OK. Well, in that case, you know all that Chuckie ar la stuff you come out with?'

'Yeah.'

`Well, sister, that stuff really gives me the shits'

She just walked away. I really seemed to have a knack with the women in my life. They kept on just walking away.

Slat arrived. He sat down. `What's cooking?'

Orla came back with my coffee. She bent over the table and poured half of it into my lap. I sat in silence as she placed the near-empty cup on the table. She apologized insincerely and smiled triumphantly as she asked Slat what he wanted. He replied, in some trepidation, that he would like a cup of coffee but that he would fetch it himself if she liked. She simply smiled and stalked off.

Things between men and women were very modern these days.That was nice. Girls chatted you up now. But it looked like you still weren't allowed to turn them down.

`What was all that about?' Slat asked.

`Revolutionary politics.'

He looked nonplussed and uninterested. `Speaking of which,' he said, `have you heard?'

`Heard what?'

He laughed. `Yeah, I forgot. You always switch the radio off when the news comes on.'

`Have I heard what?ff

'There's been a ceasefire.'

`What?'

`The IRA have declared a ceasefire.'

My initial deep surprise faded. `They've had plenty of ceasefires before.!

'This is different,' Slat insisted. `They're saying themselves that this is the end of their war.'

`Fuck'

`Big news, huh.'

`What about the Prods?'

`People think the UVF and all their chums will call their own ceasefire in a few days.'

I sipped what was left of my coffee and tried to wipe my trousers with a napkin. `So, it could really be the end?'

`Looks like it might be.'

We had a silent, sombre reflection there, Slat and I. We were sensitive and intellectual that way. Then I told him why I'd wanted to see him.

`He's sleeping at your place?' asked a shocked Slat, when I'd finished.

`Yeah.'

`Jesus.!

'I couldn't let him sleep on the street. He's only twelve.'