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

`How civic of you.'

`What?' he asked warningly.

`Nothing.'

He looked up and down the street. A few passers-by had stopped to watch us, and the traffic was pulling round us gingerly.

`The filth'll be here in a minute. Gimme a lift,' he requested airily.

I looked back at the Wreck dubiously.

'Don't worry,' he said. `Old bangers like that can survive anything.'

`Hey, lay off my mean, my car. At least it's paid for.'

He climbed into the passenger seat and proceeded to direct me out of the little tangle on the pavement with his erstwhile joyride, commenting all the while on the deficiencies of my driving and my vehicle.

`So you steal cars?'

'I borrow them'

`It's illegal.'

'Really? I didn't know that. I better stop doing it now Thanks.'

`Have you done it before?F

'What do you think?'

'Judging by your driving, it's hard to say. Why did you do it?'

'I fancied a spin,' he answered blithely.

`What if that had been a doctor's car or something? What if some medic got an emergency call and he'd come out to find his motor swiped?'

Roche turned his grubby face towards me triumphantly.'I'd have given him a lift,' he said gleefully. 'He'd have got there quicker.'

I had to laugh. `That's for sure. You were doing some knots coming round that corner.'

'Well, why hang around?'

I looked at him in the seat beside inc. He was so stunted that the seatbelt swamped him. Mathematically, I could have been this kid's father. It was a horrible thought.'I hate to think what you'll be like when your balls have dropped.'

'Worry about your own balls, pal'

I'd crossed Bradbury Place before I realized that I was heading towards home. That was not a good idea. I definitely didn't want Dick Turpin there to know where I lived.

'Where am I taking you, kid?'

'Just drive'

'I'm taking you home. Where do you live?'

'You promise you're not going to try and snog me at the garden gate?'

'Ah, fuck, not that again.'

He told me, with relatively good grace, where he lived. I turned right down Sandy Row and headed for Beechmount. I should have known. Upper Falls gamin, he was typical.

'You know where Beechmount is?' he asked me casually.

'Yeah'

'I knew you were a Taig.'

'Good for you.'

He fingered the cuff of my suit. 'Not at work today? How come?'

'I had to go to funeral,' I muttered. Roche's mockery might just have sent me over the edge.

We were on the Grosvenor Road now. He told me to pull over. I did. It was simpler that way. I pulled up under a streetlight. He pointed over towards the edge of the housing estate.

'Look,' he said.

I looked. In the growing darkness, the streets were lit up but not illuminating. It was a West Belfast housing estate. I'd seen them before.'Very nice,' I said.'I'm sure it's lovely in the moonlight!

He tutted irritably.

`Look at the wall,' he hissed.

I looked at the wall. There were some graffiti there. Fuck all Prods. IRA are God and even a few OTGs. I looked closer at the OTGs. They were shakily, dyslexically written, the work of a child and not a gifted one. Once or twice it was misspelt, OGT, GTO, TGO.

`You got a couple wrong,' I told him.

`What are spelling police?'

I laughed and drove on.

`What's your obsession with this OTG thing?'

`What?'

`Why did you write that?'

`I wanted to.'

`Why?'

Out of the corner of my eye I could see his ratty little face adopt an appearance of mystery and importance.

`I saw a guy writing it a couple of weeks ago.'

I was interested now

`Just one guy on foot. I saw him writing opposite the Orange lodge on Clifton Street. When he finished I followed him. He went into the New Lodge and wrote it up on a wall near the Just Us advice centre. Looked like he didn't like Protestants or Catholics. The lights are green, dickhead.!

I lurched and stalled, cursing the brat. After a while, the Wreck chugged into life and we drove on.

'Then what?' I asked him.

`I followed him for an hour or two. He just wandered round the town stopping to write on walls every now and then. Opposite churches, political headquarters, even a police station at one point.'

`Didn't he get caught?'

`Nah, he was pretty cute that way. It was dark and he was a nice mover.

`What did he look like?'

`I don't know. About your age. Walked very quiet. Dark clothes. Jacket and trousers. Like a suit. I nearly thought he was a priest for a while!

'Why?'

'Well, his gear was dead black and I could just make out a bit of white at his neck.'

'You'd make a good cop,' I said.

`Fuck you.'

'Thanks.'

I turned right into Beechmount. Beechmount looked like Beechmount always unprosperous. Little terraced houses with little terraced people standing on the doorsteps. Some kids ran about the pavement as they always did and some broken glass lay around as was habitual. The walls were painted with a variety of crude scenes depicting how much nicer Catholics were than Protestants and a series of inventive tableaux in which large numbers of British soldiers were maimed and killed.

These were the Belfast mean streets, the internationally famous and dreaded West Side Jungle. It was no big deal. The scorbutic children and big mamas were stock stuff. You could see worse in any city. Even as nearby as Dublin and London you could find more dramatic poverty, more profound deracination.You mightn't come across the same quality of Armalites but everything else would look much the same.

There was a species of suffering here that was supposed to be different. A crucial disenfranchisement, a particular oppression. These people, we were told, weren't living in the country they wanted to be living in. I'd been in lots of poor places and I'd never found anyone there who thought that that was the place for them.

I came from a place just like this. It was old hat. Dead news. I wasn't buying any of the bullshit.

'Over there' Roche pointed to the dirtiest house I've ever seen.

I pulled up. A group of short-haired tracksuited youths looked over briefly and then turned away. That was the real joy of the Wreck. It would never be worth stealing.

The kid slipped out of his seatbelt and opened the door. He glanced at me as though disappointed by something I had failed to do. I lived with it.

`See you around, kid,' I said.

He smiled. `What's your name again?'

`Jake,' I said.

`Well, Jake,' I waited for the insult, `you're all right. See ya.'

He tripped round the car and up the little garden path to the dirty house he lived in. No insult, no graphic profanity. I watched him as the door was answered by a big guy in a dirty T-shirt. He looked over at me suspiciously. He thought about coming across and chatting it out but he didn't have any shoes on. He just scratched his balls, threw his fag butt into the garden and turned into the house with the kid. Young Roche there didn't take after his father in terms of stature but they shared a similar charm.

As I tried to move off I stalled again. I tried starting the engine once or twice but it was useless. The Wreck did this sometimes. If I left it for half a minute, it would wise up and start.

In the silence while I waited I heard the unmistakable noise of shouting from Roche's house. I could have sworn I also heard the sound of blows. I couldn't be sure but I was sure. The big guy had looked like he would. He had looked like he did.

I started the engine and drove away. What could I have done? Sometimes it's just not your problem.

But, all the way back to my house, I felt grim. I should have known that there was someone in the kid's life who was beating the shit out of him regularly. With kids like Roche there was always some big guy in a dirty T-shirt in the background. I didn't know why it bothered me so much. Was it that he reminded me of myself when I was a kid? Hardly. Now that I had arrived on the scene, at least Roche had someone in his life who liked him — or tried to. That was the big difference between us.