Robert Wilson - Eureka Street - A Novel of Ireland Like No Other

OTG

Chuckie double-took and peered question marks. What did that mean?

yeah, what the hell, why not?' Max was saying.

He'd never seen it before, nor anything like it. The letter 0 didn't feature much in Irish or Ulster graffiti.

'So, OK, I'd be glad to,' she went on.

He frowned with irritation. He hated not knowing. `OTG,' he murmured to himself, `OTG'

'What?' Max asked.

'Mmmmm?' mumbled Chuckie.

'What did you say?' Max's voice was sharp.

`I said, oh, I agree.'

'What?'

'Oh, I agree.'

'To what?'

'To what you said.'

'So its a date, then?'

`Ah' Chuckie panicked, `yes, absolutely.'

'OK, see you there.'

The phone clicked in the American style, without formality.

The door of the phone box opened.

`Listen, fuckface, I've had it,' said Willie Johnson, an impatient Eureka Street neighbour. `If you don't want that phone stuck up your arse, you'll give me my turn.!

Chuckie stumbled out of the box. He hadn't a clue to what assignation he had agreed. Max had said, `See you there' Where?

Chuckie stepped to the end of the now five-strong queue. He waited. After an hour, during which his neighbours delighted in taking much time over their own conversations, he called Max back and checked the details.

`Maybe you should write it down,' she advised.

'Yeah,' said Chuckie. `Maybe I should.'

After his call, he ran into Stoney Wilson again. Stoney had been walking in the other direction but his life was such that he had nothing better to do than change direction and walk with Chuckie wherever Chuckie might choose.

Stoney was one of those people to whom Chuckie always promised himself that he would be much more unpleasant but to whom, unerringly, he was shamefully amiable. Chuckie was always helpless when faced with people about whom he had made private resolutions.

Nevertheless, he didn't want to walk back home because he knew that Stoney would follow him to the door and expect to be asked in. Chuckie didn't feel that he had the energy to refuse him. So, though it was now dark and though the rain had begun its fun again, they walked aimlessly up and down the length of their little local streets, passing the dirty shops on Sandy Row with their windowfuls of spiders and flies, and passing quartets of ambling policemen, all submachine-guns and

Stoney was full of some story he'd just heard on the radio about some UVF robbers who'd ripped off some jewellery store in Portadown.The punchline was that they'd called a taxi as their getaway car. Typical Prods, said Stoney. The joke was meant to be the ineptitude of Protestant paramilitaries, that despite the blood-drinking myths of Protestant tumult, they weren't as good as the Catholics. But it seemed to Chuckie that they operated on simpler lines than the other lot. Political complexity wasn't their thing. They wanted to terrorize Catholics. They terrorized Catholics by killing Catholics. It had always seemed to Chuckie that they were pretty good at that.

`Were you using the phone box?' Stoney asked, with circusstyle slyness.

`Aye'

'Didn't you used to have a phone?'

'Still do.'

'So why-?' Stoney broke off theatrically. They passed the Rangers Supporters' Club where the coats and gloves of famous Loyalist killers were encased in glass and hung on the walls.

'Fancy a pint?' asked Stoney.

'Not in there, I don't.'

Double-chinned double-Protestant Chuckie could barely have pronounced the word integrity but there was no place in his big gut for the hatred and fear they peddled there. He glanced unfavourably at his companion and promised himself again that one day he would insult this man so dreadfully they'd never have to talk again. But, for now, he merely turned on his heel and started retracing his steps towards his own street.

Stoney followed, not unaware of the sudden impediment in their good fellowship.To mend it, he assumed a comic tone.'So why were you using the phone box, Chuckle?'

Chuckie stopped dead and turned to face him full.

`What's with the questions? While you're at it, why don't you ask me whether space is curved finitely or infinitely?' Stoney opened his mouth. `I'm fucked if I know whether it is or not,' Chuckie added quickly.

Stoney was delighted with Chuckle's brusqueness.'Were you calling some girl?' His eyes glinted greedily.

Chuckie walked on.With Stoney, it was impossible to be irritated for long. `Yes,' he said.

`Where's she from?'

`I don't know exactly.'

`Is she a Taig?'

`Fuck's sake, Stoney, she's American.'

Stoney clapped his hands with delight. `American.Very good. I always wanted a Yank girl. They've got very clean teeth.!

Chuckie laughed.

'Have you shagged her yet?' asked Stoney.

Chuckie paused to decide whether or not to be angry. He decided not to be angry. `Yes,' he lied.

`How was it?'

`Demonic.'

`You're a lucky fucker, Lurgan.There's your cousin's got himself a wee honey too and you're both fat bastards:

'Where's the light of your life tonight?' Chuckie asked him. It was a good subject change. In his experience, married guys always talked gleefully about everybody else's love life. Chuckie thought he'd depress him by asking him about his own. Stoney had a dreary wife and a dreary two-year-old kid who shared her mother's button nose and amazed expression.

`She's round at her ma's. Didn't fancy the trip.'

`Yeah, yeah, and you're left to wander Sandy Row on the pull. Hard times, Stoney, hard, hard times.'

Chuckie gestured at the wet streets, empty of people other than themselves. He laughed harshly and walked on. Stoney's little legs had to skip to keep up. They passed the bookie's on the corner, the bookie's that swelled and burst every lunchtime and where Chuckie would see men like his father in a thousand different guises. The place was doing powerful trade because, nowadays, even Catholics were venturing within its doors. They were becoming too frightened to bet in their own betting shops. There'd been a couple of simple massacres in Catholic betting shops over the past couple of years. Chuckie was sure that these new customers comforted themselves with the thought that money was money and that no one cared whether it was Protestant or Catholic money. Chuckie was also sure they were fooling themselves.

`What'd you say?' he asked Stoney, who'd been breathlessly mumbling something to him.

Stoney swallowed and puffed. `I hear you're going into business.

'Do you?'

`Aye. What kind of business exactly?'

Chuckie frowned. They were near Eureka Street now. Then he could be happily free of this fellow. `I'd rather keep the details to myself for now.'

'Oh, until you hold your press conference, no doubt.' Stoney laughed carefully. He didn't like to overtease. He went on more gently, `Good business is getting paid a hundred grand a year for watching television all day. That's good business'

They reached the corner of Eureka Street. Chuckie turned down towards his house. Stoney stopped and said goodbye to his back. Chuckie waved once without turning. Stoney shrugged and moved on. He didn't care. Chuckie was just a fat shite with no da.

Chuckie walked blithely down Eureka Street. His mood was unaccountably tremendous; he was impervious to Stoney's mumblings about good business. No badinage would deflect him. He was going to be rich. If only he could find a way of getting some start-up capital. If only he could persuade somebody to give him something for nothing.

Something for nothing. In a sense, Stoney Wilson had been right. Good business was getting paid as much as possible for as little as possible. That was capitalism in essence. Something for nothing. He needed the impossible. John Long was right. He was a fantasist. Something for nothing. Where could he find a dick who would give him that?