The Butcher Boy (3 page)

Christmas, why that's wonderful news he says.

Yes, I said Alo's coming home.

He wanted to hear all about Alo.

Alo, he says. You must be proud.

I am, I said.

Christmas Eve you say.

That's right I said.

Well with a bit of luck I'll run into your Uncle Alo. This town should be proud of him. Your mother was telling me all about him and the great job he has over in London.

Ten men under him, I said. Then he smiled at me and looked me up and down. When he was ready to leave he leaned right in towards me so I could see the wiry brown hairs up his nostrils like the inside of a mattress and he says would you not run on home now Francis like a good lad, mm?

The way he said it sounded like he was nearly going to give me a few bob if I did. I should have said yes indeed I will Father if you will just be so kind as to oblige me with a small fee of five shillings Going Home Tax. But I didn't. I just said sure Father I will indeed. But I didn't. I went off down the street and as soon as I seen him going into the presbytery I hopskipped back round by the Newtown Road. There was a drunk lad with a ripped coat lying in the doorway of the Tower singing
I wonder who's kissing her now
into a bottle. Then he'd quit for a while and say:
Uh! Uh!
for a while with his head nodding like a cloth doll you'd see in the back of a car. He shouted over at me:
Do you know me do you, do you know me?
I just stood there looking at him. I didn't want to go home and I didn't want to stand there. He kept on saying it with the eyes wild in his head do you know me do you? It was getting dark and when I looked up there was one of them moons you're not sure if its there or not and the first dusty flakes of snow were starting to fall. We're early this year they said but sure all the better. That's right I said as I caught one of them on my tongue and licked it.

Fuck me said Joe the face of that, it was a monkey banging a drum in the window of the fancy goods shop with a chin bigger than its head. Farmers drove off to the mountains with big blonde dolls saying
mama
roped to the roof racks. Tyretracks of slush webbed the streets and there was music all night long in the upstairs of the Tower. Someone was battering Nat King Cole to death and an accordion wheezing help! half strangled. There were children and a dog on the white fairgreen and the town band marched again on its fourth lap of the town as if it was condemned to wander for all eternity until all the tunes came right. It was a powder country, ice floes bobbing on the freezing water of the river.

What will youse do now fish, said Joe, youse have had it now!

We stuck our noses in it but there wasn't a dartboard eye to be seen. Sorry: Gone away, signed Fish. Our twin fishing poles sat there for days without being touched.

Back from the garage there was no holding ma, talking nineteen to the dozen whiz here one minute, there the next, it wasn't just the floor you could see your face in but everything. One minute she was up the stairs and the next she'd be standing right beside you talking then away off into something else. She said we'd never be run down in this town again we'd show them we were as good as any of them. She looked into my eyes and said: We don't want to be like the Nugents. We don't want to be like any of them! We'll show them -- won't we Francie? They'll envy us yet! We're the Bradys. Francie! The Bradys!

I said we sure were. I was proud as punch. Everything was starting again and this time it was all going to work out right. Look look she says to me look what I bought she says its a record the best record in the world. I'll bet you never heard a record as good as this Francie she says. What's it called ma I says its called The Butcher Boy she says come on and we'll dance. She put it on hiss crackle and away it went. Whee off we went around the room ma knew the words inside out. The more she'd sing the redder her face'd get. We'll stop now ma I said but away we went again.

I wish my baby it was born

And smiling on its daddy's knee

And me poor girl to be dead and gone

With the long green grass growing over me.

He went upstairs and the door he broke

He found her hanging from a rope

He took his knife and he cut her down

And in her pocket these words he found

Oh make my grave large wide and deep

Put a marble stone at my head and feet

And in the middle a turtle dove

That the world may know that I died for love.

It was a good song but I didn't know what was going on in it. When it was over she says what do you think of that Francie -- he went upstairs and the door he broke he found her hanging from a rope! He wasn't so smart then the butcher boy was he. She starts telling me all about it but I didn't want to hear any more. Then whiz away she goes out to the scullery singing some other song oh no she says them days are over that's all in the past. There's no one will let Annie Brady down again Francie!

She'd leave the record off for a while then she'd go in and put it on again. Anytime you'd come in, from school or anything, it would be on. And ma singing away out in the scullery.

After all this her new name should have been Ma Whiz. One minute she'd say I see Mrs Connolly has a lovely new coat then before you had time to answer she said are they turning off the town water or something about the hospital when I was born. Then off she'd go again rolling pastry and stacking butterfly buns on tray after tray.

The house was full of cakes.

Full of cakes for Uncle Alo, I said.

That's right she says, Alo loves cakes. If that's one thing your Uncle loves its cake.

And butterfly buns, I said.

You're right, she said, I'll make some more.

It got so bad you nearly had to tunnel your way into the house with all the cakes. A few times I knew da was about to say:
Stop singing that cursed song!
But he didn't in case whiz she'd be off to the garage again. He just went off to the Tower instead and didn't come back till after closing time.

I saw Philip Nugent on his way to music with his crocodile-skin music case. He stopped outside the home bakery and waited there for a minute. Then she came out and I saw her looking towards me. She handed Philip a white cardboard box the kind they used for the cakes. She was handing it to him real slow. Poor old Nugent -- she really thought I cared about her and her cake. I had to laugh. Us with enough cakes to feed an army! It seemed like years and years ago I had cared about anything to do with Nugent. I didn't even bother going near them. I just turned on my heel and off I went, still laughing. Mrs Nugent would have a long wait before she ever caught me worrying about the likes of her again.

Ten men under him, I said to Joe.

Joe whistled and sent a flat stone skimming down the river.

Ten, he said, ten whole men. That's hard to beat Francie.

There's going to be some party in our house that night Joe, says I.

The Alo party says Joe.

The party to end them all, I said.

Whee-hoo! cried Joe and a big shower of spiky sunlight arrows coming through the gaps in the trees when you chinked your eyes.

The nights before Alo came I didn't sleep a wink thinking about him. We'd be coming down the street and there'd be Nugent. She'd be mad for us to talk to her. Who's that woman Alo would say to me in his English accent, she keeps looking over. I don't know, I'd say, I never seen her before in my life. Then we'd walk on until she was a speck standing in Fermanagh Street. Then it started all over again with me and Alo on the Diamond getting ready to set off once more down the street and Mrs Nugent trying to attract our attention. Please Francie, I'll give you anything she'd say. Sorry I'd say, too late. Then I'd cut her off and say: What was that you were saying Uncle Alo?

The town was quiet after the bars closed. All you could hear was Grouse Armstrong howling away.

You know what he's saying when he does that says Joe.

No, I says, what.

How the fuck do I know I don't know dog language says Joe.

I COULD HEAR VOICES. THERE WAS SOMEONE OUTSIDE THE HIDE. It was Buttsy from the mountains. Mrs Nugent was his sister. He was in a bad way poor old Buttsy. He looked like a priest on the cover of Africa magazine with his freckles and the carrot hair falling down over his eyes. Peepil please help me build my hospital. But all Buttsy cared about hospitals now was putting me into one. He kept shouting out:
Brady!
Then he'd light a fag and I could see his hand was shaking. Devlin kept saying to him: Don't worry Buttsy we'll find him he can't have gone far. He had a pain in his head I could tell from the way he kept rubbing over his eye. Soon says Devlin, we'll have him and we can do what we like with him. The whole town wants him to get what he deserves. If we get our hands on him before the police I know what we'll do with him, we'll drown him Buttsy what about that?, Devlin said. But Buttsy had more sense. He knew they were only wasting their time if they hadn't found me by now they weren't going to, them or the police. He just sat there by the river with his elbow on his knee and an inch of ash hanging from the fag. The bastard must have come out this way, Devlin said, poking about in the bushes with a stick.
Hey Brady!
he called again. It triple-echoed across the mountains.
If you're in them woods Brady you better come out.
But it was no use so in the end they just went back towards the town.

When they were gone I came out and stuck my face into the river. Hey fish I said are you there? Yoo-hoo!

Come out you bastards!

THE CAKES WERE STACKED IN TOWERS ON THE CHAIRS. THERE were some on top of the wardrobe and the washing machine. There were ones with icing and without, all decorated with hundreds and thousands and marzipan and different kinds of designs. I had a hard job keeping all the flies away. I went at them with the rolled-up Irish Press. Back, dogs! I said. I had to make sure they didn't manage to land on the icing at all because if they did you couldn't hit them in case you'd break up the cake altogether. Would you like another slice of cake Francis? said ma from the scullery. I didn't. I had already had eight. I went off up the town and anybody I met I told them about Alo. Then I came back down again: Any sign of him yet? Whiz away off again. It was the best time in the town for a long while. The breadman skipped into the shop with a tray of fresh loaves wrapped in holly paper. Children tossed pebbles and watched them ping off the fountain's big white crocus of ice. Please give a little it could help a lot the radio said. When I got home ma was wearing white gloves of flour and rolling more pastry just in case we run out she said. Then the car pulled up outside and in they came, Mary from the sweetshop and everybody popping corks and dusting snow off collars. I couldn't take my eyes off Alo. Sure enough he had the red hankie in his breast pocket and the trousers of his blue pinstripe suit had a crease would cut your hand. His steel-grey hair was neatly combed in two neat wings behind his ears. He stood proudly by the fireplace and I thought to myself Nugent? Hah! Nugent has
nobody
like him. I felt like cheering. Welcome to the cake house said ma, that's what you call this place, wiping her hands on her apron. Call it what you like, home I call it smiled Alo and gave her a big hug. Da was late but the party started anyway. Here's to Christmas and all in this room, he beamed and raised his whiskey glass.

Now you said it Alo, they said, to the man himself, Alo Brady.

Ah yes, says Alo, yes indeed and swirled the whiskey in his glass.

Where does the time go, where does it go at all? Twenty years in Camden Town this Winter, would you believe it?

You'll never come back now Alo.

Come back? What'd take him back, am I right Alo? He has it far too good over there.

Ten men under him, called ma from the scullery.

God bless all here said Alo and long may they prosper.

I still couldn't stop looking at him, the gold tiepin and his polished nails, the English voice. Nugent's was only half-English. The more you thought it the harder it was to believe that Nugent had ever been anything worth talking about. Ah yes, he went on, I'll never forget it. Euston Station, London town!

A big spot Alo, you were a long way from the town then!

Nothing only my coat and case, what have I let myself in for I said.

The streets of Piccadilly, Alo!

Now you said it. Spent the night in the YMCA. Don't talk to me!

All corners of the earth, he says!

Now you said it!

Well would you credit that!

Boys oh boys.

Twenty years to the day, he says!

Well you're here now so here's to your health and all in this room!

Cheers they said and I heard the front door click closed and then da was there they hardly noticed him at all. His eyes were small like ball bearings he just moved along the edges getting drink and saying nothing. Then they said there you are Benny and started back into the old days.