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

'Gentlemen!' he barked thickly. He looked penetratingly at Jake. Septic mouthed the words as Tick spoke.' Where were you when Kennedy died?'

'I was being conceived in a cheap rut in a damp alley off the 1)onegall Road,' replied Jake.

'Son!' cried Tick, as he never failed to do.

'Father!' wept Jake, as he always did.

It was an ancient exchange, oft-repeated, much-loved. The second time it had happened, Jake had even embraced Tick extravagantly. Tick's almost visible stink had prevented a repetition of that particular move.

'My five pounds, please,' said Septic.

As he looked at the old tramp, Chuckle saw that Septic was right. Tick looked dreadful. Dirt and sweat marked out the craquelure of his ancient face and the whites of his eyes were completely unwhite. He looked like a Rembrandt. He looked hundreds of years old.

'Hey, Tick,' asked Septic, 'what are you drinking these days? Furniture polish? Windolene? Toilet cleaner?'

'Cut it out, Septic,' warned Deasely.

Tick stared hard at all their faces. Touchingly, he recognized them. 'Ah well, fuck the health advice, lads. just gimme some money. I'm gasping.'

A man approached from behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. Tick swivelled round to face him.

'Right now, leave my customers alone and be off with you.'

'Eat my bollocks,' suggested Tick.

The manager grabbed him two-handed and started shoving him. There was a chorus of protest from Chuckle and his friends. Jake stood up silently and laid a firm hand on one of the manager's arms. The man stopped and looked uncertain.

`He's our guest,' said Chuckie.

`He's that man's father,' said Septic, pointing out the silent, grim-faced Jake.

Tick smiled beatifically at the man. He gestured at Jake. `Can't you see the family resemblance?'

`Don't push it, Tick,' warned Jake.

The manager gave up. All the firmness fled and he looked uneasily around for an exit.

`We'll take care of it, thank you very much,' said Jake.

The man walked away, just slowly enough to be dignified.

Tick licked his lips and spoke. `Did I ever tell you boys that I wrote "Jailhouse Rock"?'

They all laughed.

`Fuck's sake, Tick,' said Septic. 'Remember who you're talking to.'

`How much money do we have to give you to make you go away and leave these people alone?' asked Jake.

Tick, entirely unoffended, adopted his business expression. He frowned, calculated, did a brief headcount of their table and smiled. `Five of you at a pound each is not, I think, unfair.'

`That's extortionate," complained Deasely.

`But you know how unpleasant I can be,' Tick explained simply.

`There's a point,' said Slat.

Chuckie stood up. `I'll sort him out,' he explained hurriedly. He shepherded Tick out of the cafe. Once on the pavement, Tick, suspecting he was about to be deprived of a multiple contribution, complained so loudly that he could still be heard clearly inside the cafe. The other boys saw Chuckie give the old tramp something that reduced him to silence. They could have sworn that they saw Tick briefly lose consciousness. When Chuckie came back one of the others asked him how much he'd given Tick. Chuckie lied.

They drank their drinks. They talked about Chuckle's girl. They talked about Chuckie's money.They talked about Chuckie. His friends cajoled him affectionately. Chuckie knew that he should have loved it, that this praise from his friends might have been something that he valued, but his recent sense of unease had returned. Tick had made him feel uncomfortable.

Septic's head was swivelling monotonously, like a bodyguard beside a president. Chuckie looked around the cafe and saw the various tables of women that Septic was `scoping'. Septic Ted was obsessed with sex. He was marvellously adept at getting it. He had made his discovery when only seventeen or eighteen. Septic just pratted about whenever there were any girls around. He knocked things over, he stumbled, he wore unfashionable clothes and blushed when he said stupid things. He got a bad haircut. Most of all, with thrilling success, he told girls he was crap in bed, useless, embarrassing.

It always worked. His friends suffered a tortuous form of collective amazement to see the lines of girls lie on the pavement before him, begging, moist, absolutely, completely seduced.

Stirred by Septic Ted's massive turnover, Chuckie had tried this line a few times himself. Unfortunately, when Chuckie told girls that he was crap in bed, they believed him. But for a decade the line had continued to work for Septic Ted. Chuckie had to hand it to Septic. Everybody else did.

The only hitch Septic ever faced was when girls asked him why his male friends called him Septic. He always told the truth. Only some of them liked it.

(Septic, more properly Edward Gubbins, had been so named when he was fifteen years old. An inveterate and publicityseeking masturbator, Septic had delighted in giving his schoolfriends updates every day on the progress of his campaign of self-abuse. He told them of new record diurnal aggregates, new fantasies, new techniques. Towards the end, he started experimenting by including a variety of moistures in his onanistic efforts. He robbed his mother's make-up bags and bathroom cabinets of a melange of ointments and unguents. Next day, he would pass lordly verdicts on the qualities of Nivea, Pond's, and Vaseline. But one fateful night Septic had absent-mindedly swiped a tube of Immac hair-removal cream from one of his mother's drawers. Blithely, he spread the astringent substance over his eager penis.

It had taken ten or twelve seconds to really make itself felt. Septic always refused to talk about those following moments, but over the next few days, he was happy to appal his schoolfriends with brief flashes of his mutilated organ. Several boys fainted at the sight. Looking so like a mutant raspberry, a nuked strawberry, it had only been a matter of days before Edward Gubbins had become Septic Ted.)

`I'm in love,' groaned Septic.

The others looked where he had been looking. A few feet away there was a table of three women. Mid to late twenties. All attractive.

`Which one?' asked Slat foolishly.

`Fuck. All of them.'

`One of them is Janine Stewart. Isn't that Janine?' Deasely was excited.

Slat looked closer. `God, yes. It is.' He paled. `I used to go out with her.'

`Yeah, I remember,' said Septic. `Father's girl. Gorgeous but legs like something off a cheap chicken.'

`That's the one.'

`When was the last time you saw her?' asked Jake.

Jesus: Slat smiled uneasily.The others knew that he was a little strange about sex. A little too discreet. Slat would have claimed that this was just his rigorously correct political attitude to women but the others suspected something more. `I haven't seen her for five or six years. Someone told me that she's gay now'

Septic sputtered in his glass. `Christ! Janine Stewart a dyke. That's criminal.'

Slat looked at her. `She's still lovely,' he murmured.

Amongst this little group of men there was something unconvincing in the casual way they talked about women. Chuckie had watched it become less brutal over the years but there was still a cavalier dash to it that was hard to believe. Chuckie, now Max-happy, suspected that each went home and thought differently and thought tenderly, each suspected that the others did the same but when together there was always that air of raillery, of musketeerish bombast.

Jake stood up and excused himself, heading for the toilets. Septic followed him with his eyes. He was still a little bruised by his ticking off in front of the waitress.

'What's wrong with him?' he asked.

'Maybe it's Sarah,' suggested Slat kindly.

'Ancient history,' said Chuckie.

`What about the waitress you told me about?' asked Septic.