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

Jimmy Eve had known for some years that almost everything he said was untrue. Mostly, that had not mattered. After a decade of Margaret Thatcher, he had learnt to believe his own lies in some careless, auto-pilot way. The consciousness of deceit was one he found easy to repress, to tuck away somewhere dark in his unthinking mind. But the sensation of being a liar was ever present again. It was disturbing his equilibrium and ruining his peace. He had even begun to wonder guiltily whether other prominent members of Just Us were conscious of what liars they were. His own lies were talismanic, mathematical. When he said that he only wanted dialogue he meant that he only wanted total victory. When he told reporters that he respected the rights of the Protestant community he meant that soon they wouldn't have any. When he called publicly for international monitoring of human rights in Northern Ireland, he certainly didn't intend them to poke their noses into any of the naughtinesses of his chums in the IRA.

The only lie he could still believe was the most important one, thank goodness. Whenever he said that everything was all the fault of the British Government, he still deeply believed that. That lie still held good.

Enough of Eve's uncertainty was visible to make Chuckie confident as he watched his dressing-room monitor. But fifteen minutes into his appearance it had all gone wrong. Chuckie had stepped onto the set to applause and cheers from his MFG fans, and as he had approached Jimmy Eve to shake hands, the man had stepped back as though to ward off a blow. Chuckie had shaken hands with the man with the Omagh Trotskyist theory and had launched happily into the announcement of his investment plans.

But it had been a damp squib, an irrelevance. The audience had applauded politely but Eve had wiped the floor with him. He had criticized the right-wing private enterprise and exploitation of plutocrats like Chuckie. He had accused Protestant businessmen of not building cross-border links towards an all-Ireland business community. He had interrupted Chuckie several times, confidently telling him that he didn't know what he was talking about, derisively doubting the totals that Chuckie said he had already raised. After ten minutes the man's tremor was stilled and Chuckie felt himself falling apart. He could see his T-shirted American fans whispering anxiously amongst themselves. He could not understand why he was not performing as well as he had on his last TV appearance.

Then he remembered. Cocaine. As Eve talked on, dominating the broadcast, Chuckie racked his brains. Then he held his breath.

Chuckie watched Max sleep. It was barely past midnight but she slumbered deeply. He envied that. She twitched and whimpered. He smiled. Strangely, she had told him that she still only dreamt of America. Same here, thought Chuckie.

He had been listening to the radio for the last twenty minutes, waiting for news about himself, but between the records, the people on the radio had only talked of per cent off all curtain fabrics, io per cent unemployment, r2 per cent fall in sterling. Chuckie had turned to tell Max that she had too per cent of his love but she was already asleep. He would tell her when she woke. He hoped she would be happy with it. He was.

Both Max and Peggy had given him some grief for his television performance. They had disapproved of his final efforts but Chuckie didn't care. He had had no choice.

He had held his breath for almost three and a half minutes. He noticed by the end of the second minute that some audience members were tittering openly and that Jimmy Eve was staring at him aghast. He could feel his face grow taut and purple. Thankfully, the political academic talked on blithely for another minute and a half. In the third minute, Chuckle's world had gone aqueous and black, he had temporarily lost the power of sight and was just losing consciousness when the interviewer turned and nervously asked him a question he could not hear.

Chuckie breathed in.

Blood flooded places he didn't know he had. The noise was dreadful and he felt sure that his face had changed colour in some grotesque way but he launched happily into his answer. His head was less than light, it thumped with pain, his neck bulged and his heart banged like the LigonielYoung Defenders' massed pipe and drum band. It wasn't quite cocaine but his blood was definitely moving.

He sailed into a wild diatribe against Eve. Eve himself, who was probably close enough to spot the thin trickle of blood from Chuckle's ear, immediately quailed. Chuckie bellowed abuse. He said Eve reminded him of Joseph Goebbels, who had said that if you were going to tell a lie you had better make it a big one (Chuckie almost pissed himself with pride at remembering any kind of historical fact). He ran through a semiconscious version of his thought of yesterday: What war? No one he knew had been fighting. He barked and whinnied a variety of sound man-of-the-people platitudes at the palely sneering Eve. The crowd warmed to him, he could see — American fans squirming with pleasure.

But Eve had been able to interrupt had had to take a fairly extensive second breath. He mocked such idle demagoguery and said that it was easy for non-contributors like Chuckie to make fun of the work of real politicians who had to work on proper solutions to the political difficulties of Northern Ireland. He wanted to know if Chuckie was going to do something constructive about his many complaints.

Now, as Chuckie watched Max sleep, he wished that his second breath had taken even longer and that he had been unable to answer Eve's taunt. But, starved of oxygen, pulse hammering, the goaded fat man had announced his plans to set up a new political party, an effective and non-sectarian third force in Ulster politics. It had certainly shut Eve up but, unfortunately, it had rather shut up Chuckie himself. He had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.The audience had gone quiet for a few moments and then applauded strongly.The interviewer had questioned Chuckie about his new party and Chuckie had waffled grandly. A press conference would be held at the end of the week. He was confident of success. In tandem with his business enterprise, he felt he could bring prosperity and other stoned bullshit. He had even included a white-guy version of Martin Luther King's I-have-a-dream speech.

Jimmy Eve had interrupted one last time. With all the contempt he could muster, he asked Chuckie what this new party would be called. On the verge of actually passing out, Chuckie had gasped that his new party would probably be called the OTG, he had been having talks with that group and they would announce all the details at the press conference.

The audience went crazy.Young women threw their underwear at him, and as the floor manager counted down the last five seconds Chuckie gracefully lost consciousness.

It had been madness, but after the programme he saw that Eve and his just Us advisers were terrified. Chuckie couldn't understand it. As he fought off the autograph-hunting volunteers, he failed to see that the just Us people considered him the charismatic Protestant of ancient republican demonology and that he was the kind of imponderable in Ulster politics that they wanted to avoid.

But what chiefly amazed him was that everyone seemed happy to believe that he had been having secret meetings with the mysterious OTG organization. Now Chuckie knew that he moved in a credulous universe, credulity was the only thing that could have set him in motion, but even he was impressed by this new gullibility.

Peggy had called an hour ago. She said that the Eureka Street phone had been going crazy with journalists calling to find out about the new party and the press launch. Chuckie knew that he had gone too far and that, once again, his private fantasies were taking on a form and colour that he had not intended.