Kevin Barry - Beatlebone

Turns out he’s Joe Director.

Love and fate, he says.

Why’s it you’re here really? she says.

I’ve been indignantly asking myself that same fucking question, Sue.

From above there is a mighty hog’s bark — the Amethyst is not good on the nerves — as Joe Director goes hard, hard at the boy Frank, and he can hear Frank’s sputtering, and he can hear his cries.

You think this stuff gets you places, Sue?

You leave it inside it poisons and twists.

That’s what I used to think.

Used to?

He turns an eye in to meet its other — a goon-show for the daft kid — and she halfways smiles.

Where’d he really find you, this Joe?

There is an arrogance to her; it’s a kind of shine — the star-of-youth — and it lights the haunts of her elfin or woodland face.

I’ve told you. I was always going to come here.

She goes up the stair. She looks back at him for a slow, held moment as she turns the stair. She disappears into the strange room up there. And the screeches in the room come down to sobs and groaning as her voice goes among the others, and he can hear new, fast, urgent whispers, as of love.

He sits auntishly in the comfy damp chair.

Next, a great manic slam and entry—

Return of Cornelius.

Never a dull moment, the Amethyst.

——

Not good, John. The pressmen are crawling like demented fucken maggots all over the province of Connaught.

Cornelius, hoarsely whispering—

I mean it’s a full circus wagon of the cunts. They’re camped in Mulranny. They’re camped in Newport town. They’re all over Westport like flies on old meat. The place is riddled with them. There’s not a boat moving on the Clew that don’t have a camera fixed to it. There is no earthly approach to the island at this moment in time. They could even be on the island itself…

Throws up the paws in a hopeless flap—

We just don’t know, John.

Who sits in his armchair, cross-legged, harshly executive, with a brandy on the go, a heavy tumbler full of amber sea—

What the fuck happens now, Cornelius?

We’ll need to keep you here a small while yet. And what harm?

From upstairs—

A screech.

A cry.

A Scream.

He swirls his brandy; he inclines his head towards the door.

To the garden, Cornelius. Please.

——

You’ve fucking landed me in it here, pal.

How so, John?

You’ve set me down in a freakhouse!

Ah go easy.

I want away from here and I mean now!

That could be a problem, John.

They are in conference by an old gate down the hotel’s sideway. The five-bar gate sounds its hollows in the breeze. Hedges converse, it seems, the stars whisper, and the dark sea groans.

Get me the fuck out of here, Cornelius.

Through the hollow bars of the gate the breeze moves slowly to play an off-kilter tune — an arabesque.

Would you not go easy on yourself, John? For once in your fucken life?

A strange music in reverb as the breeze comes through the bars of the gate.

I’ve a bad feeling, Cornelius.

But that could be on account of anything at all just floating around the place. Remember you’re a long way off the road when you get to the far end of Achill Island.

Meaning fucking what?

These are pure open-minded people, John.

Cornelius?

Stop. Calm yourself. And listen…Okay?

The breeze plays through the bars of the gate a night-song and Cornelius stands frozen there, his palm held high—

Listen?

Cornelius…

Do you hear, John?

The strange notes that play and turn on the air.

Maybe, he says.

That’s awful sadness, isn’t it, John?

But from where?

Here. Just now. Listen. And you know the funny thing about it?

What?

That feeling mightn’t be your own at all.

It is a sadness that’s ripe and livid on the air. He tries to hum it but he cannot — the notes will not hold or take shape.

Do you see now the way you can fall into a dream with this place easy enough if you’d like to, John?

——

I am working on a way to the island, John. We are not beaten yet. In fact an O’Grady is never beat. An O’Grady could be down on the flat of his back stuck like a pig and the guts spewing out of him like a red fucken river and he’s still not beat. All I need is your patience, sweet John. Just stay hid till the place clears. Give it a day or give it two and the Clew will be clear as light. Patience is the virtue required. This is the best place for you. It’s not like I can leave you with normal kinds of people. These are your own kinds of people. Just relax yourself and I’ll be back again shortly. I will get you to the island, John.

——

A vat of goat curry simmers on the hob. It’s got horn and pheromone and dark magic in. Frank stirs, Frank tastes; Frank looks a bit puzzled. Frank also is the lieutenant in charge of chickpeas.

This lot will feed the regiment, John says.

Frank has a First War face. He smiles weakly and takes up the pot of chickpeas and sets it on the drainer. He twists the end of an ashy rope of hair between a thumb and forefinger. John can see that the boy is in the room and not — his mind is all fucked with and swayed.

You’ve been taken apart tonight, have you, Frank?

It did get a bit thorny.

And how you doing now?

Frank sniffs at the air for a clue; he takes out a lighter and he burns the same tip of hair.

It could go either way, John.

Battle’s never won, is it, Frank?

You’ve got one thing reckoned, he says, another comes up.

It’s like laying lino, John says. Does it get violent in the room up there?

It goes ’round the edges of.

Frank tests a chickpea in his gob — he looks dumbfounded.

What exactly are you doing out here, Frank?

The boy smiles. He has milk-bottle shoulders and a North-of-England mug, that First War face.

Where’s it you’re from, kid?

I’m from Leeds.

A Tommy in a trench — take aim on the alleyman.

I’m sorry for your troubles, John says.

And he can see the sweet dull suburb — dad’s an headmaster, isn’t he? — and the sweet beaming mam; she wears a floral print; it’s the better end of Leeds, this.

I want to change, Frank says.

I’m all for it, change. Every day of your fucking life you’ve got to change. You can’t stand still, not ever. You change or you fucking die. But it’s you that’s got to make the change, Frank. Nobody can tell you how and nobody can show you how.

The boy narrows his eyes.

Now if I was you, Frank? I’d grab young Sue and your satchels and I’d take to the road and bloody smartish.

What gives you the right to say?

Nothing. But I look at you, Frank, and you’re twenty years old or whatever you are and I think it’s a shame you’ve got your head all mangled up by this old hog who’s set himself up as some kind of fucking guru out here, some kind…

No leaders here.

Oh look around you, Frank. Open your dim fucking eyes.

But the boy just shakes his head in sadness and covers the chickpeas with a tea towel.

Grub soon, he says, and leaves the room.

High in a corner of the room a spider rides a breezeblown web and there isn’t even a window open.

A hurdy-gurdy plays somewhere from a hi-fi and from elsewhere there is a dull sobbing.

Not good not good not good.

——

By night he’ll creep in on tiptoes to watch the child sleeping. There is something in the way that he breathes that stops all the time inside. A trace of slime above his lips — a snail’s slime, a silver — and John wipes it clean with an edge of his T-shirt softly as he can so’s not to wake him. The city outside quiet as it ever can be. The black breathing of the park. And the way the past is dropping away. He stays as quiet as he can, he hardly takes a breath — at last the past is dropping away — and the kid unglues an eye — so silently — and has a peep and he takes him up to love and they stand together in the blue of the night above the streets and park, and the city for half a moment is quiet as it ever can be, and they are blue in love and doomed in all the usual ways.