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

`Fuck me,' I said.

His chest and back were sown with rich bruises of varying ages. Over his back, the patches of unbruised flesh were in the minority. He pulled the shirt down, almost dislodging his toast in the process, and looked at me imperturbably. I had been planning to end breakfast with the advice that he couldn't stay with me for long. Perhaps he'd guessed that before he'd flashed his tits. I lit another cigarette.

'Hey,' I said, `you've got margarine all over your shirt!

My first executive decision as an employee of Chuckie was to take the day off. I rolled down to the hotel to quit my job and say goodbye to Rajinder. I had to bid a variety of fond farewells to the others as well. I had planned to discuss the tragedy of his initials with Ronnie Clay, but in the end I didn't have the heart. For a sectarian racist moron, Ronnie wasn't so bad.

Since I'd just increased my annual income more than fivefold, I spent the rest of the morning shopping. I bought myself another suit and even, pathetically, got some stuff for Roche. In the act of buying socks and underwear for a twelve-year-old boy, I knew the world would frown upon such a situation. I would have to do something about the kid before I got arrested. I decided to visit Slat.

I called into his offices. It was a swish Golden Mile interior but the waiting room was full of people who looked as though they'd never even met anyone who had enough money. The place smelled of desperation and poverty. I hassled the receptionists. A variety of prim but attractive young women tried to frown me away but I persisted and after a few minutes Slat himself wandered out. I told him I needed to talk to him straight away. He told me to meet him in the Wigwam in half an hour.

I hadn't been in the Wigwam during the day. It somehow felt like a crucially different experience. The waitress who liked me slid up to my table. `Sian Teat,' she said, mystifyingly.

`You work days too? You must be really shagged,' I replied.

She said something else in Irish and pressed a special smile on her features. I looked blank.

`I'm afraid I only speak one language,' I mentioned.

Her manner grew cold immediately. `Can I get you anything?' she snapped.

In my embarrassment I smiled more widely than I should have. `Coffee, please. Listen, I'm didn't mean

Her face softened again and she sat opposite me. `Your name's Jake, isn't it?'

`Yeah.'

`I'm Orla.'

I felt myself flush to the skull. `Hello, Orla. I'm glad to meet you.

`Likewise'

It was hard to get a cup of coffee, these days. She smiled expectantly at me. It didn't matter how humble I was, there was no mistaking this.

`What age are you, Orla?'

`Nearly eighteen!

`Jesus'

'What's wrong with that.'

`I'm nearly old enough to be your father's much, much younger brother'

`So?F

I gave up on the coffee. I lit a cigarette. 'OK. Well, in that case, you know all that Chuckie ar la stuff you come out with?'

'Yeah.'

`Well, sister, that stuff really gives me the shits'

She just walked away. I really seemed to have a knack with the women in my life. They kept on just walking away.

Slat arrived. He sat down. `What's cooking?'

Orla came back with my coffee. She bent over the table and poured half of it into my lap. I sat in silence as she placed the near-empty cup on the table. She apologized insincerely and smiled triumphantly as she asked Slat what he wanted. He replied, in some trepidation, that he would like a cup of coffee but that he would fetch it himself if she liked. She simply smiled and stalked off.

Things between men and women were very modern these days.That was nice. Girls chatted you up now. But it looked like you still weren't allowed to turn them down.

`What was all that about?' Slat asked.

`Revolutionary politics.'

He looked nonplussed and uninterested. `Speaking of which,' he said, `have you heard?'

`Heard what?'

He laughed. `Yeah, I forgot. You always switch the radio off when the news comes on.'

`Have I heard what?ff

'There's been a ceasefire.'

`What?'

`The IRA have declared a ceasefire.'

My initial deep surprise faded. `They've had plenty of ceasefires before.!

'This is different,' Slat insisted. `They're saying themselves that this is the end of their war.'

`Fuck'

`Big news, huh.'

`What about the Prods?'

`People think the UVF and all their chums will call their own ceasefire in a few days.'

I sipped what was left of my coffee and tried to wipe my trousers with a napkin. `So, it could really be the end?'

`Looks like it might be.'

We had a silent, sombre reflection there, Slat and I. We were sensitive and intellectual that way. Then I told him why I'd wanted to see him.

`He's sleeping at your place?' asked a shocked Slat, when I'd finished.

`Yeah.'

`Jesus.!

'I couldn't let him sleep on the street. He's only twelve.'

'If anybody finds out, they'll think you're having sex with him.'

I frowned. `What can I do?'

Slat smiled sadly. `There's nothing you can do.'

`What about social workers or something?'

`Social workers can't take a child-care referral from some guy on a building site, Jake. It's got to be the cops or a GP or something.'

`Brilliant. Somebody has to do something. When I was a kid, I got Matt and Mamie. There's got to be something like that for Roche.'

`Things are different now, Jake. Social services are an arm of the state. They don't mediate between state and individual any more. It's the new Britain or the new Northern Ireland or whatever you want to call it. What do you think I do all day? It's why I do the work I do.'

`Should I let him move in, then?'

'No!' Slat almost shouted. Some diners looked round at us and ►ny revolutionary waitress sneered.

'No,' he repeated. `Tell him he has to go back home. He should tell his teachers about his troubles. They can put the wheels in motion.'

`His teachers? Jesus, Slat, this kid probably can't remember what street his school's on.'

'That's the way it is.'

And that was fair enough. That was the way it was.

I tried to spend the rest of the day shopping but found that I quickly ran out of things I wanted to buy. This depressed me somehow. After lunchtime, something Protestant in me made me go down to Chuckle's office and start some form of work. Luke Findlater was there and he did his best to explain the main areas in which he and Chuckle were doing business. He was rational and clear, but after twenty minutes I still had to lie down and breathe deeply.

Chuckle's ventures were almost all wildly improbable. It was as though all his corrosive yob fantasies had been given grotesque flesh. To my horror, I discovered the rejected proposal for the chain of ready-to-wear balaclava shops. I was told how much money they had made from the leprechaun walking-stick scam. I saw how much money the various government investment agencies had granted Chuckle for no reason I could readily identify.

Additionally, Chuckle's rapid accruing of wealth had not been without its amorally democratic grandeur. He had ripped off and duped Protestants and Catholics with egalitarian zeal. He was a pan-cultural exploiter. I discovered that he had bought a controlling share in a regalia company that supplied the Orange lodges and Loyalist bands that marched so Protestantly on the Twelfth of July. He had just negotiated a contract for this company to supply the Vatican with various regalia and uniforms. If anyone heard about this, Chuckie would be hung upside down from some street-lamp in East Belfast.

After an hour or so, I'd got a pretty fair picture of the state of his business machine. Soon, I grew bored. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Luke, thankfully, was kind.