Ken Bruen - Green Hell

Jack lost. . as always.

I met Ann at the Meryck Hotel. On the phone she said,

“Let’s pretend we have some class.”

Irishwomen had this lock on non sequiturs. Did they always have the last word? According to Jack, they most certainly always had the last laugh, regardless of how bitter. I’m not sure what I was expecting. An aging woman, gray and broken from grief and her legacy of men, downtrodden?

I think that was the description I was anticipating.

Quelle surprise . . which Jack had Irish-translated as

“Fuck me sideways!”

She was well groomed, finely preserved, indeterminate forty-through-fifty range. An immaculate tailored navy coat, strong face, with that melancholic slant that attracted rather than repelled. Her hair was shot through with blond highlights. The eyes, intense blue with a light that spoke of deep reserves. She welcomed me warmly, said,

“But you’re little more than a gasun.”

The pat-your-head, kick-your-ass sandwich her nation specialized in.

We ordered tea. Yeah, I was trying to go native. Was even managing to swear without consciously thinking about it. She asked,

“So, how can I help you?”

I launched. Gave her most of my Taylor narrative. She was a good listener. Took a time but eventually I was done. Not sure what responses I was anticipating but laughter wasn’t among them. She said,

“You need to watch that.”

“What?”

I’d deliberately avoided cusswords. She gave me a warm smile, and how it lit up her face. I could see how Jack would have cherished its glow. She said,

“I could be listening to Jack.”

She had to be kidding. I tried,

“You have to be kidding.”

She reached over, touched my arm, said,

“You have taken on his speech patterns. Next you’ll be making lists.”

Clumsily, I tried to cover the current list with my teacup. She continued,

“Jack has a dark, very dark magnetism. Alas, it obliterates those who stay drawn to it. Look at his closest friends. . Stewart,”

Pause.

Dead.

Then,

“Ridge. . just out of hospital. Not to mention a long line of casual acquaintances, bartenders, street people, so-called snitches, even an innocent child. All Taylor-tainted and all dead or wounded. My own husband and, God forgive me, my own lost heart.”

Fuck!

I noticed she still wore the Irish wedding band, the Claddagh ring. The heart turned inward-for whom, Jack or her husband?

I didn’t ask.

Did ask,

“Do you hate him?”

She seemed quite astonished, took a moment to regroup, then,

“Not so long ago it seemed as if Jack might be on the verge of happiness.”

We both laughed nervously at such a notion. She continued,

“An American he met on a weekend in London. The affair apparently burned bright and rapidly. The high point was her impending visit to Galway. . Jack was aglow.”

I went,

“Wow, hold the phones. She knew about his drinking, right?”

She rolled her eyes, said,

“Mother of God, everybody and his sister knows that! There was another woman, hell-bent on destroying every aspect of Jack’s life and had somehow gotten hold of his mobile. The American arrived, no one to meet her at the airport, so. .”

She took a deep breath.

“She answered Jack’s phone, said,

‘Jack can’t come to the phone,

he’s about to come in me.’”

I went Irish,

“Holy fuck!”

I ventured,

“Do you still have some. . um. . residual feelings for Jack?”

She laughed but not with any warmth, said,

“Residual! Jesus, sounds like a TV repeat. How deeply fucked is the ordinary art of conversation by political correctness.”

Her use of obscenity gave her words a blunt trauma and also affirmed that this line of questioning was done. She gathered her coat, asked,

“What happened to your friendship with the bold Jack?”

Taken aback, I considered some answers that might put me in a better light. This woman’s approval seemed necessary. I said simply,

“I betrayed him.”

She took a sharp breath, then,

“Phew, that’s bad, no return there.”

I asked,

“He doesn’t forgive betrayal?”

“Jack doesn’t forgive anything or anyone.”

I reverted to American, said,

“Hard-core, eh?”

She gave me a look, savored that, said,

“There is one person he can never forgive.”

I wanted to guess, “Your husband,” but some discretion held my tongue. She had such a look of profound sadness, so I asked,

“Who might that be?”

“Himself.”

Those who actually work say

“I get wages.”

Those who just think they work say

“I’m on a salary.”

(Jack Taylor)

Jack had recently resumed drinking in the River Inn. He hung there as NUIG staff like to unwind near the university. After a grueling day of between one and two lectures. One guy dressed in a worn cord jacket with, and I kid thee not, patches on the elbows, was a regular. A man who’d read his John Cheever or watched one too many episodes of University Challenge . He liked to drink large Jamesons, no ice, no water. A dedicated souse. Jack knew him slightly from Charley Byrne’s bookshop, where he spent hours loitering in the Literary Crit section.

Jack began to join him at the counter, freely buying him rounds, creating an artificial camaraderie through drink. The guy liked to talk a lot.

A few sessions in, Jack slipped de Burgo into the chat, began,

“Professor de Burgo seems to be highly respected.”

No one pisses on academics like their colleagues. The guy didn’t disappoint, muttered,

“Cock of the fucking English Department.”

Gently prodding, needling, Jack brought the prey to play, said,

“A firm favorite of the ladies, I hear.”

Bingo!

The torrent opened, accompanied by a huge “umph.”

“Ladies’ man, my arse. He lines up all the naive starry-eyed first-year students, grooms them, and then. . in his words. .”

He took a hefty belt of the Jay, as if what was coming needed lubrication, certainly artificial strength, said,

“Nails the cunts.”

Jack bit back his own ice-cold fury, asked quietly,

“How does he get away with it?”

No hesitation.

“Connected. The Garda super, half the city’s movers and shakers, they’re his golf buddies.”

Jack wondered how much he could reveal of what Sister Maeve had told him of the condition of the girls, went with,

“I’ve been told those girls are in a bad way.”

He nodded ruefully, said,

“Time back, I’d a bottle of Old Midleton, a real fine vintage, got buried into it with the professor, and recklessly observed, ‘Jesus, you could kill one of those girls.’”

Jack said,

“Bet that rattled him.”

He glanced up at the TV. Sky News was reporting on 25,000 lost in the Philippines typhoon. Some horrors are of such magnitude you can’t grasp them. He shook his head, seeing but not assimilating. He said,

“De Burgo laughed, said, ‘One can always dream.’”

Then he abruptly stood, glared as if Jack stole something from him, said,

“I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore.”

Jack sat for a time, his mind careering amid nails, typhoons, and stray snatches of conversation from other drinkers. Their main topic was the appointment of Martin O’Neill as Ireland’s new manager with the red-hot announcement of his assistant, Roy Keane.

Keane was a tornado of a whole different caliber. The government was pleased, took the spotlight off its cancellation of medical cards for children with Down syndrome. Jack ordered another pint, watched the slow build of the black, and thanked some deity for at least one unchanged staple.