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

But we got on with it. We did our usual thing. We knocked on the usual kind of door. The usual kind of fifty-year-old fat guy answered. We had our usual conversation with him. He made the customary mild objections and made the characteristic attempt to close the door. Hally put his typical boot in the way and pushed his way through in the traditional manner. The man had the expected change of heart and decided, as always, to co-operate.

It was routine. It was standard.

Inside, the blinds of the front room were still closed. The man, Mr Johnson, stood in shorts and vest. Crab stood close to him, invading his airspace. On the wall, a plain devotional hung, an unCatholic tract. God is Love, it said.Yeah, I thought, we'll see.

Crab asked the man where the bed was. Hally asked him where the fuck he thought it would be. Crab's face convulsed with fury. An itch started at the base of ny skull.

`Listen, fellas,' said the man, his voice pressed flat with false bonhomie, `my wife's really sick. She's had a stroke. The bed's for her. It's a special bed, like a medical one. It cost me fifteen hundred quid. I've only a few payments to make. Can't we make some kind of deal? She's really sick.'

`It's not our job, mate. We have to take it away.'

`All right, listen. She's up there now, my wife. It's hard to move her. If you lads come back in an hour I'll have her moved and then you can take it.'

Crab bridled. He leaned into the man's face. `Fuck away off. Do you think we have all day to waste on your fucking problems?' He turned on his heel and ran up the staircase. He looked really crazy. We all piled after him.

When we got there we found him standing in a bare but neat little bedroom. He was staring at the tiny woman lying wrapped on the massive metal bed. Mrs Johnson was awake (probably) and her eyes stared out at us through the rictus of her distorted features. The itch in my skull heated and spread.

There was a pause then. A silence. A moment of shame, of something. A moment that showed us all what we'd come to: the sad couple, Crab, Hally and me. We all had a little time to see where we were and what we were doing.

And, who knows, anything might have happened. The three of us might have thought better of it. We might have left those people alone. We might have gone back to Allen with some bullshit or even cut a deal with the ugly fat guy who looked at his wife with such tender eyes.

But Hally had hit Crab and Crab was still angry and he badly needed some trouble. Silently, suddenly galvanized, he strode over to the bed and grasped the mattress with both hands. With one shudder of his huge shoulders he yanked the mattress high and the sick woman rolled off the bed and hit the floor and the wall with a weak thud. I nearly puked with shame.

But then things happened quick. The husband went nuts and jumped for Crab. I knew Hally would kill him so I weighed in there and tried to drag him away. The guy's face was distorted with rage and pain for his wife and he was swiping wildly. It was bedlam. He was screaming, the wife was bellowing in some horrible paralysed way and I was shouting at the guy to calm down. I was really scared. Not by the fight but by all the shame, all the horror. He caught me one on the right temple and I was surprised and impressed by the unexpected quality of that blow. I jerked my head away and became calm.

Doctors and nurses always say that when some horrible accident happens and the mangled victims start coming in, they can always cope with the horror and madness. They say that their professionalism takes over and they can get on with it. That's what happened to me. My professionalism took over. I grabbed a fistful of the guy's gut and squeezed as hard as I had ever squeezed anything. All the fight went out of him.

It was a great ploy, this belly-pinching routine. I'd learnt it in America when some big bouncer had done it to me. The pain was unbelievable and all you could do was whimper and wait for it to be over. It was as much about humiliation as pain. I always thought I was its only European practitioner. I was proud of it. It was a real winning move.

Crab and Hally were manhandling the bed onto the stairs. The thing was huge and even apes like them were struggling. I couldn't figure out whether I should give them a hand or keep my mitt on the husband's guts. He was crying by now. Looking over at his wife, I decided that he was all finished and I let go of him. I joined the others.

It took us twenty minutes. Hally got so fucked off that he kicked the wooden banisters away.That made our job easier but it was still a drag. I was very glad, though. I was happy that it was hard. It gave me something to think about.

After we'd shunted it into the van, Crab turned back towards the house. He looked ill. He looked like he had a bad heart. Like it worked but it was wicked.There were still some bits of the contraption up in that bedroom and he told us he was going to get them.

`No. I'll get them,' I shouted, and raced past him.

Back in the bedroom it was all very unpleasant. I hadn't wanted to go back but it was better me than Crab.The old guy was sitting huddled in the corner, his broken wife lying across his lap, his arms tight, tight around her shoulders. He was murmuring to her, apologizing, soothing.

I picked up the bed rails and turned to the man. He looked at me but just continued to rock the woman in his arms, murmuring. Her eyes stared out at me as well, her face twisted and unbearable. Ludicrously, I felt a pricking at the back of my eyes. `Look,' I said, `I'm sorry.'

They didn't reply. She couldn't and he wouldn't. Perhaps that was what made Crab come into the room from where he'd been standing, walk across the kneeling man and slap him backhanded across the face. Perhaps it had been some spurious gesture of comradeship with me, offence taken on my behalf. I don't know. It's also hard to say for how many seconds I fought the impulse. For I did fight it. I didn't want to do what I then did, I passionately didn't want to do it. But I skipped over and gave it to him across the back of the head with the metal rails and laid him out beside them.

It was mayhem after that. Hally came in and there was the usual back and forward. He and I shouted it out, hands carefully pressed to our hips. We didn't want any more fighting. Hally terrified me but I knew he'd never been sure of me. He could never figure out how tasty I was. Crab was conscious but he didn't look good. His hair was matted with blood and it looked like he would throw up at any moment. In all the bickering, the Johnsons, whose house we were in, remained absolutely impassive.

In the end Hally took Crab down to the van and said that he would drive him to Casualty at the Mater. When they'd gone I just left the room and closed the door behind me. I didn't think I'd try to apologize again. But, before I'd escaped, the crippled woman started grunting her strange noises at me. The same meaningless phrase over and over again. It was speech but it took me a few moments to understand what she was saying.

`You,' she was saying. `You.'

She was right. It was definitely me.

I walked back to Allen's. It took me an hour and a half. It wasn't a sure thing that Allen would fire me for what I'd done to Crab but I knew it was over anyway. I'd seen enough. I could wait table. I could carry bricks. I could give blowjobs down the docks. I just couldn't do this stuff any more.

Back at the garage, I tripped into Allen's office. Once again, he was on the telephone when I walked in. It sounded like some telephone sex line this time. I pressed the cradle down and cut him off. He didn't smile.

`What the fuck did you do that for, you wanker?'

'I quit.'

`Yeah? Well, good fucking riddance:

'I've got two hundred coming.'

`Heard you whacked Crab.'