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

She was particularly good on the history, what with her big local degree and all. She gave us the rundown from prehistory through the Dark Ages to the present day. The old stun. the island of Ireland had been a free stronghold where human culture flourished at its finest. Then the English came!

There were three basic versions of Irish history: the Republican, the Loyalist, the British. They were all murky and all overplayed the role of Oliver Cromwell, an old guy with a bad haircut. I had a fourth version to add, a Simple Version. Eight hundred years, four hundred years, whatever way you wanted it, it was just lots of Irish killing lots of other Irish.

We swallowed the rest of our meal and swallowed her bullshit too. I couldn't be bothered taking her on any more. She had the impervious faith of the bourgeois zealot, which was OK for her. Nobody was going to come shit in her nest. I envied educated people who got off on revolutionaries. Islington was full of them. It must have been fun if you didn't have to do any of the dying.

When the meal wound up, Chuckie looked like a dead man. This had interrupted all that good work he'd been doing with Max. I didn't know what kind of fantasy he'd had about me and Aoirghe but I wasn't going to take her anywhere convenient while he and Max got it on back at her place. I mean, Chuckie was a friend but Aoirghe gave me the pip.

We parted awkwardly. Max kissed me and I'd liked her. Aoirghe and I stood square to each other and muttered some thick valedictions. (buckle got into the Wreck with me. I drove him to his place in silence.

When I got home, a car full of heavies had stopped outside my house. I parked the Wreck and opened nay front door. My flesh crawled and my blood pounded. As I closed it behind me I was almost disappointed that the muzzle of the Browning had not, in fact, been pushed hard against my ear.

Crab or Hally had been leaving messages on my answering machine. Death threats. Disguising their voices, trying to sound threatening. I didn't take any of it very seriously, but I knew if they got drunk or bored enough they wouldn't hesitate to nip round here or to tell some of their friends with balaclavas what a Catholic I was.

Inside, I looked out my window to see what the heavies were up to. Two of them had got out of the car. They were bad guys, all right, badly dressed, well-moustached. I saw them walk to the graffiti wall. For a moment I thought I'd worked it out. I thought that these were the OTG guys. But then they got out their cans and their brushes and they painted over both the OTGs written there. They drove off. I was relieved. I wouldn't like any mysteries to originate with guys like that.

I lay in bed with the windows open. I couldn't sleep. I'd forgotten what a good night's sleep was like. It was years ago and places distant. I'd used it up, like luck or wishes. In the end I lit a cigarette and switched on the tiny radio, which was the only noise, bar cat, I had left after selling my stereo and my television. A news bulletin told me that they'd shot another taxidriver. Maybe I'd sell my little portable too.

Next day, I worked through my Friday.

It had taken me a weekend to find another job. I'd called some people. Some people had called me back. I was flattered, amazed. I was stirred to find how high my stock still stood. A few of my old associates had soon heard I was out of work again and they were tripping over each other to offer me employment.

My answering machine had buzzed all weekend with their unanswered messages: Slug, Spud, Muckie, Rat, Dix, Onion, Bap and Gack. Why didn't I know anybody called Algernon? Fondly remembering my old form, my old skills, they had all made various offers but I didn't do that sort of thing any more. Even a stint of repo work had been a departure. Davy Murray's was the worst offer but it was the most legal. I took it and I'd ended up doing crew work for Davy just like I'd done in the old days. I was a construction worker again. I was a brickie. I was a tiler. I was a big success.

I'd worked this work on and off since I was sixteen. We were doing renovations on kitchens at the Europa, the biggest hotel in Belfast. The famous one they always used to blow up. (Stich past tenses are hazardous in Belfast, the one they still blow up, the one they will blow up.) Yeah, the one with no windows, the one with the wooden curtains. It was once the most bombed hotel in Europe but Sarajevo joints were taking all the records now.

My new job was OK. I worked in construction so I did constructive things all day. I liked the work. It was simple. It was legal. It wasn't the best use of my education but at least it was giving me some muscles.

Chuckie phoned when I got back from work. I apologized for blowing his plans the night before. No problem, he said. Aoirghe was going to Dublin for a while, which meant Chuckie was going to have Max all to himself for as long as was necessary.

`So you didn't go for old Aoirghe, then?' he asked.

`What do you think?'

I heard him laugh.

`Yeah, she's had medicine, right enough. But relax, she hates me too.

'Well, Chuckie, I hesitate to mention it, but wouldn't you be a bit Protestant for her tastes?'

`No, it wasn't that.'

`No?'

'No.You know the way she's a big Irish speaker. When I first met her, I asked her what the Irish word for constitutional democracy was.'

`What is it?'

`British conspiracy.' Chuckie guffawed. `I'm proud of that joke. It's the only one I ever made up by myself. It's not that funny but it's dead satirical.'

`I presume Aoirghe wasn't busting her gut at that one!

'I thought she was gonna nut me' Chuckie chuffed on for a while about this and that.

`How's business?' I asked him.

`Amazing.You would not believe it.'

He told me how business was. I would not believe it.

That night I sat in the Wreck and waited for Mary to leave work.The bar shut late and it was much unhappiness to sit there while the windows steamed up and to lie to all the cops who gripped their guns and asked me what I was doing. It was madness. For all I knew, Mary's pugilistic boyfriend might have been on duty and if he'd seen me waiting there he'd have emptied his clip into me just for fun.

After an hour and more I saw her leave. Her coat pulled tight, she jumped into a cab with one of the other bar girls. I could barely see her face and it only lasted about twenty seconds but it looked like a nice life she had there. It looked like she wasn't missing much.

Then, stupidly, I drove out to Rathcoole. I drove out to the house where the Johnsons lived. I parked the car in front of their house and sat there for an hour or two. It looked like I was turning into a watcher, a weirdo. I seemed to know all these people who wouldn't want to talk to me. I smoked and watched as the lights were switched off one by one. When the house was dark and I could be sure they were sleeping, I felt better. It was no atonement but it was all I had in me.

I went home. Someone had painted letters on my front door. Your ded. The spelling was Hally's; it even sounded like his accent. I knew there was trouble to come. Since when had my life become so controversial? I decided to think about it in the morning. I went to bed. I felt so bad, I was nice to the cat. Uneasy but willing, he took the opportunity of getting into the bedroom and sleeping on my face all night.

The weekend opened out to me like a menu in a cheap cafe. There wasn't anything I wanted there. It didn't feel good to be single any more. Saturday morning I went shopping, just so someone would talk to me, just so I'd have something to thank somebody for.

Chuckie had gone to ground for the weekend, undoubtedly on some mysterious financial enterprise. I wasn't sure that I could ever remember him being out of touch before. The new Chuckie was taking some getting used to. Slat and some of the others would be around but I didn't want to do any drinking. What with Chuckie being such a cosmopolite now, I thought I should try something a little more dignified than usual. I didn't know any dignified people so I thought I'd have to spend the day alone. I wondered if the Erasmus would last a full Saturday.