The Gamal (30 page)

It’s only bullshit talk, all that isn’t it? Getting carried away about music like that. We’d all have been better off with no music really, I’m thinking now. I have to stop myself from falling back into my bad old music ways. There’s stuff that matters and music isn’t part of that stuff. I can see that now. Music is only eejiting around isn’t it? Fucking eejiting.

Anyhow dunno when Racey gained the ability to influence Sinéad but she did. Even though Sinéad was working in Roundy’s it was still Racey’s territory. She drank there more than Sinéad worked there and had been drinking there long before Sinéad started. She was well in with the lads too. Monkeys grooming again.

It’s ten to four in the morning. I just went out for a smoke there and I seen a fox. The fox was just strolling along at the edge of our driveway. Next thing a few things happened all in about one half of a second. A wild cat hadn’t seen the fox and jumped off a wall and landed down beside it and let out an almighty screetch with the fright it got and tore off in the opposite direction again. I roared too with the fright I got, I’m ashamed to say. The fox got a fright too and let out a right loud yelp and the fucker took off in my direction. Then I let another roar out of me and the fox yelped again and ran off in the other direction. We all scared the shit out of each other. Was kinda glad to get back in home and close the door behind me. There’s a reason why people like being inside nice and cosy when it’s dark. Outside isn’t our territory any more when it’s dark. Felt like I didn’t belong out there. Cos I don’t. The street lights of Ballyronan don’t make much difference. Only remind you that the sun is long gone.

Sinéad made the best of Roundy’s by trying to be like the people in it. But she wasn’t. And they knew that, even if she didn’t. They all knew she was only there cos her father was sick and if she’d much choice in the matter she’d be two hundred miles up the road trying to make her daft dreams come true with her pie in the sky boyfriend. Sinéad would have on the music she liked but soon got tired of their moaning and put on whatever Racey and co wanted on. They didn’t have any love for music. They were just marking their territory isn’t it? They just weren’t raising their hind leg to do it is all. Anyhow Sinéad put on whatever top-of-the-charts collection she was asked to play. Computery shit most of it. Polluting her precious ear. Just wrong.

Racey started at her.

—Jesus Sinéad girl, where in the name of God did you get the top?

—What?

—Like something an oul’ hippy would wear.

—Why?

—I’m surprised at you girl. ’Tis wicked.

—Is it? Are you serious?

—Ah Jesus girl, ’tis terrible.

I’m no fashion expert but Sinéad looked beautiful. She was wearing a kind of a linen or cotton blouse or something. Kind of thing she often wore.

—I’ll have to take you shopping love, Racey said.

Teesh pipes up then.

—You’ll have to be at the cutting edge of fashion when you’ve classy clientele the likes of us!

—Don’t mind him, Racey said. He’s wearing his father’s old Y-fronts!

The lads laughed.

—Don’t be letting Dinky know about your tangles with my underpants. That’s a sensitive area for him.

He looked at Dinky and wiggled his baby finger at him.

—Ah now, Racey said.

Dinky was the colour purple and shook his head to himself.

—He be all right, said Teesh. Only a bit of sport for fuck sake.

—You’re a prick Teesh, Racey said, looking up at the telly with no sound.

—Prick, said Teesh, prick is it? At least I have one.

—Shut the fuck up Teesh, Racey demanded, still watching the silent telly.

Dinky just took a few deep breaths and waited for the torture to be over, his big nostrils flaring every now and again and his eyes opening wider than wide as if trying to figure out was this really happening or was it maybe a bad dream. Took a good while for a normal human colour to return to his cheeks.

—Sinéad throw on a few pints for us there, said Teesh.

Sinéad went about her business like a robot. Put the pints on the bar, took the money off Teesh, put his change on the counter in front of him, never looked at him or said thanks or anything. For a second I thought she was going to do something. Throw a pint at him or quit or something but no. Next customer came up she was nice as blah. Tomorrow’s my appointment with Dr Quinn again. I think I’ve enough written for him this week. Last week he wasn’t happy. He didn’t say it out plain just said maybe I could get a bit more done. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Dr Quinn is after deciding to give out to me. Giving out doesn’t come easy to him. He scratches his face and crosses and uncrosses his legs usually before saying anything. Was very bad today. Was like some kind of a weird dance.

—Well it’s like this really Charlie. There’s pages and pages and pages about people in the pub. But I mean, at the end of the day it doesn’t really tell us much about Sinéad. I know more about Sinéad from talking to her own psychiatrist casually a few times than I do from reading what you’ve had to say about her. I think you’re holding back a bit in the way you describe her.

I’m always speechless but this time I was speechless in the kind of way that you or any other normal person would be. I didn’t know what to say. This fucking eejit was obsessed with Sinéad now too and instead of helping me I was going to have to figure out a way to help him and wean him off thinking about her the whole time. Useless eejit. I goes,

—How often did you speak about Sinéad to her shrink?

—Her psychiatrist. And that’s neither here nor there really Charlie. I spoke to him once or twice. Plus a couple of times on the phone when we discussed several things. And on the train to Dublin one other time we discussed you, and Sinéad came into it, naturally.

—And what did this fella have to say about her?

—I can’t go into it Charlie. We take an oath you know. It’s highly confidential, as is anything you say to me. Or write, for that matter. I can’t show your writing to anyone without your consent. Unless of course it’s a doctor. You know that don’t you? Everything here is between ourselves.

—What kind of stuff did her psychiatrist say?

—I can’t say Charlie.

—Yeah I know but like what kind of stuff like was he saying? What was so good about what he said about her?

—My goodness. Nothing. I mean. I thought I just got another picture. Another insight into her. She seemed to have been a little more rebellious than you’d have described in your writing Charlie. A lot more rebellious really. When she was younger even. And that’s not saying anything about what I was told. But that’s the impression of her I was left with. A very rebellious youth.

I don’t know what picture you have of Sinéad from all the things I’ve said but you should have a picture of Dr Quinn as a terrible annoying stupid cunt sometimes. Dr Quinn doesn’t know what rebellious is. He probably thinks cos she got suspended from school and ran away from home that that makes her a rebel. He probably thinks she was trying to kill her father when she pushed him down the stairs and he smashed his knee and broke his nose. He probably thinks she was a rebel because she wouldn’t waste her breath talking to his stupid shrink friend who was probably obsessed with her too.

But here’s what happened. And don’t go making up your mind now that Sinéad was a tramp like other ignorant lazy-brained people said about her behind her back. The picture I was giving you all along of Sinéad was the right one. The one that was the truth. I didn’t tell you one or two things cos it gave a picture of Sinéad that wasn’t true.

But now Dr Quinn is after fucking it up with his stupid prying. I’ll explain how people thought Sinéad was out of control and would say mean things about her. But it drives me pure feral that I have to cos it wasn’t the truth and I know how stupid people can be and you’re no different I bet you.

There was a new girl came to the school when we were in transition year and she had an unusual hairstyle cos she was a Goth. Transition year is fourth year so they were all about sixteen. She wore black nail varnish and pale make-up. She had long black hair but she had cut her fringe down to absolutely nothing. Some girls started calling her Lego Man and being nasty to her. Next thing half the school were calling her it. Even though she was a year below Sinéad in school they used to talk about music sometimes and Sinéad would always be on to her to give up the smokes. So then when she realised all this bullying was going on Sinéad cut her fringe up at lunchtime just like the Lego Man girl and next thing others were coming up to Sinéad asking them to do it to them. By the end of lunchtime I’d say she’d a hundred and fifty fringes cut. Parents complained to the school then about Sinéad cutting their children’s fringes and the principal suspended her for two days cos all he ever did was lick parents’ holes anyhow. Only problem for Sinéad was she’d have been at home alone with her drunken lech of a father so she moved out for the two days and into a spare room in the castle unknown to James’ father but his mother knew. Her parents rang the guards saying she was missing and I think Detective Crowley knew but pretended to be looking for her anyhow. The whole place was talking about how she was after running away with some fella. It was those days that Sinéad did some of her painting for her Leaving Cert exams. And James’ mother teaching her. And then a couple of years later her father decides at one in the morning on a Tuesday night that he wanted to get in to his daughter’s room and her mother was away so Sinéad pushed him away and he staggered backwards and fell down the stairs. And next thing you’d hear people saying things like,

—Sure that Sinéad Halloran one is tapped.

—She’s off her game altogether.

—She’s a bit of a knacker, her.

—She has a bad name, that one. Bit of a huzzy. Pure fucking wild.

The Holy Joes or the bitter people could have told Sinéad that life wasn’t supposed to be a joyous thing always but Sinéad wouldn’t have listened. She couldn’t have listened. There were a zillion different thoughts that found their way into Sinéad’s mind but reasons to be miserable never made it in. Sinéad was unafraid.

Sinéad used to ask the question,

—Sure what’s to be afraid of? What can they do to us? They can’t shoot us.

When someone would say something like,

—Oh my God we’re in big trouble now. Or

—We’ll be killed for this.

She’d go,

—Yeah, I don’t even know where I want to be buried. We’re so young to die, it’s such a shame.

She was interested in people. Stupid reckless people a lot of them, who had no fear. She read life stories. Biographies. Especially of people when they were young. People like James Joyce and his wife Nora. Or Vincent Van Gogh. Bob Dylan. Billie Holiday. Kurt Cobain. People with no fucking cop on. And this did damage to her too.

I’m thinking of a painting she did for her Leaving Cert exam in those two days when she was painting with James’ mother. It was huge. Size of a wall in a room in a house. It was of a net. And there was shapes. And none of the shapes were getting through. But then you noticed this one. This one shape that was blue. It looked like it might get through the net. Just one. Might. It was like the shapes became people and you felt for them. And you didn’t know if the one that might get through was the lucky one or not. The net could be saving them from falling or capturing them. You didn’t know if this blue one was going to fall or get free. Or both.

I can’t do it. I can’t remember how she made the shapes. How she gave them life. Cos they didn’t have faces. But Sinéad was good at art and I’m only a doodler.

Everyone is kind of stupid but Dr Quinn is the same kind of stupid that most people are. His witness statement about the world would be supported by most people. Billions would have seen it all the same way as him. If you want to know Dr Quinn and the rest of them all just read one of them fancy Sunday newspapers the father gets, with the glossy bits and the serious bits and the funny bits and all the fucking bits and they all just right. Same as the right dose of tablets. People have their brains numbed along the way isn’t it? But then you’ll get the odd erring one. Who might have seen different.

And the truth of it is that a lot of people would have called Sinéad ignorant words like trollop or knacker or huzzy behind her back cos of them things that she’d no choice about but that doesn’t mean you have to be the same as the rest of them. But chances are you would be isn’t it? So in order to give you the proper Sinéad I had to not tell you some things but Dr Quinn messed it all up then with his bullshit rebel Sinéad talk. And he after talking to some stupid shrink who can only think in textbook. The picture I was giving all along is the right one of Sinéad.