‘No prob!’ he would cry, sawing the noun in two like some cheapskate magician in a tawdry show.
How I should have loathed the man! But no – my innocence and desire to think the best of all fellows won the day, and even when he passed by my uncle’s house in his new Ford Consul, waving through the open window like a visiting dignatory from a Lilliputian puppet state, I chose to ignore the unspoken counsel of my instinct, preferring instead to align myself with the views of those citizens of the town who ranged themselves about him, some indeed claiming kinship, as they declared him ‘one fine butt of a lad!’ and insisting furthermore that there was ‘no better man in this town!’
The abrupt nasal-spurt of his megaphone could be heard far and wide as his glittering Consul zigzagged through the candy-striped streets of summer. ‘Yes!’ it would bark with metallic brio. ‘Yes, ladies and gentlemen! Mick Macardle for all your movie requirements! Why not drop along to Mac’s Photography Shop at number 9 Main Street? Come along and see what we have to offer! Weddings, christenings, confirmations! Never be negative with Mick Macardle! Mick Macardle’s the movie man! No prob! Yes, siree!’
Thus life proceeded. The church bells would ring out across the morning town, the womenfolk give themselves once more to the fastidious investigation of vegetables and assorted foodstuffs in the grocery halls, brightening each other’s lives with picaresque travelogues of failing innards and the more recent natural disasters, delaying perhaps at the corner to engage in lengthy discourse with Fr Dominic, their beloved pastor. ‘That’s not a bad day now,’ they would observe, the clergyman as a rule finding himself in fulsome agreement. ‘Indeed and it is not,’ he would respond enthusiastically, occasionally a dark cloud of uncertainty passing across his fresh, close-shaven features as he added: ‘Although I think we might get a touch of rain later!’
Observations of similar perspicacity would provide a further ten minutes of eager debate before they would once more proceed on their way, past Grouse Armstrong snuggled up in the library doorway, the single American tourist snapping gypsies in the hotel foyer (‘Couldja throw a little more grit on your heads, guys?’) and Sonny Leonard the local minstrel rehearsing ‘I wonder who’s kissing her now’ into the neck of the brown bottle which served as his microphone.
Sadly, even at that transcendent moment, as I gave my heartiest approval to the maestro’s impromptu recital with rousing cheers of ‘Good man, Sonny!’ and ‘More power to your elbow, young Leonard!’, disturbing events were already proceeding as the sleek limousine bearing Mick Macardle cruised silently through the streets of Amsterdam, the Barntrosna businessman seated comfortably now by the side of an ambitious, long-fingered entrepreneur, a sinister individual of foreign complexion who, within hours (I know it! Despite assertions – and there have been some! – that it is mere conjecture and foolish rambling on my part! For I, Dermot Mooney, am no erratic, fevered fantasist, and never have been! I scorn such pathetic and perjorative imputations!), would be outlining his proposition in an outwardly unremarkable lockup garage, its dimly lit interior, however, festooned with tattered pictures of young ladies in abbreviated attire, helpless females of tender years being pursued by villains of the wickedest mien sporting pork-pie hats – you can be certain of it! – their misfortunate quarries crying helplessly from the suspended cages in which they ultimately found themselves. Forced to become slit-skirted temptresses leering through uncoiling cobras of smoke, captured for ever in calligraphic captivity as the houndstooth letters whorled all about them in a dizzying, soporific swirl! That same houndstooth lettering that would later choke my soul in bondage like so many miles of barbed wire: Evil Virgin Thrills! Runaway Go-Go Psychos! I Married Hitler!
*
Despicable memories which course through me like a slow-acting poison, the very thought of my uncle and me adorning that Gallery of the Damned like an eerie step across my grave.
*
Mick Macardle – I can picture the scene as though it were being choreographed before my very eyes, for I know these people! – tapped one-eighth of an inch of ash from his thin cigar as the Dutchman ran his tongue along his upper teeth and fanned his fingers on the oil-stained tabletop. ‘Very well, Mr Macardle,’ he began, ‘that arrangement suits me fine. For each copy you deliver on time, you will receive the sum of five hundred pounds sterling. However I must emphasize that I can only accept eight-millimetre as the films are for private distribution. I cannot emphasize how keen my clients are for this type of product and you may rest assured that demand will constantly outstrip supply. Do you feel you may be able to rise to meet the demands, Mr Macardle?’
To which the brown-suited businessman responded – undoubtedly – by paring the nail of his index finger with a marbled pocket knife, flashing his gold tooth and grinning: ‘No prob!’
With one wave of his Woolworth’s wand began my Golgotha.
*
To the poor, glorious but innocent souls of the town he had not been on an evil, self-seeking mission which was soon to shatter for ever the harmony that existed amongst us all, but merely, as he cheerfully volunteered: ‘Visiting the mother in Dundalk! She has a bad dose of the shingles!’
*
As was their wont in time of difficulty, the commiserations of the local people knew no bounds. Their admiration of such forbearance as he displayed in his time of trial was deep and respectful. ‘How do you manage to keep going at all?’ they enquired of him. ‘Ah,’ he would reply, with a modest shake of his head, ‘I have great faith in St Anthony!’
Thus my genial life proceeded – setting up the screen, making tea for the various societies, who never failed to be impressed by my uncle’s oratory, his statesmanlike imperturbability displaying any hint of fragility only on those occasions when the door would burst open and a familiar figure appear, crying: ‘I’ll give you Cicinurrius regius! I’ll give you turquoise-billed yellow-jacket! I’ll give you long-necked hoppa tail! Look at these hands, Lestrange! One day you’ll pay for what you did to me! Make no mistake, you’ll pay all right!’
It was also my custom in those days to dine occasionally at an establishment known as the Pronto Grill, which was presided over by a gentleman of Italian extraction who busied himself singing selections from the various light operas and furiously polishing drinking glasses. Over a sumptuous repast magnificently prepared by the kitchen staff, to whom I had become affectionately known as More Tay!, because of my predilection for consuming inordinate quantities of the soothing, tan-coloured liquid with my meal, I watched life proceed before me in the warm street outside, at times fearing that such was my ecstatic state I might collapse in a faint on the formica table before me.
For, in truth, it was not the exquisite quality of the comestibles alone that drew me to my quiet cove adjacent to the streaming chrome of the coffee machine, but the soft voices of the young convent ladies who would converge there in the afternoons, rapt in their sophistry and circumscribing elongated shapes in the spilt sugar.
Perhaps I had consumed inadvisable quantities of ‘tay’ – to this day I cannot pronounce upon that with any measure of certainty – but, as they sat there before me, I know that beyond all shadow of doubt I saw them become transformed, their splendour now so dazzling and variegated it was as if Gauguin the master were himself somehow present, bearing those wonders with him from his Tahitian Eden. Marvels destined for my eyes alone. And how I gazed upon them, magically lit now by the angled shafts of clear sunlight that criss-crossed the mock-terrazzo floor of the restaurant, squatting before me now in their rainbow-hued magnificence, what I can only describe as my Birds of Paradise.
Thenceforward, rarely a day passed but I winged with those exotic creatures across the Elysian Fields of my soul.
I was swaying hypnotically in that netherworld of the imagination, partaking of a brimful cup of sugared Brooke Bond, when what seemed as nothing so much as the passing of an unseen spectre awoke me and I looked up in horror to see Dingo Deery huddled deep in conversatio
n with my pulchritudinous fledgelings, their wings folded over as if in protection or a prelude to his spiriting away. How my dream was shattered by the sight of his monochromatic amplitude! Through the crevasse of my fingers, I could discern his tiny eyes, phosphorescent with deceit, and in that instant I watched with a growing sense of unease as he drew the sleeve of the painter’s overall across his mouth in a manner that banished the Tahitian genius, perhaps, I considered, never to return!
I fled, despondent, and walked the desolate streets. I felt as if something precious had died on me. I gave myself to Bacchus and that night slept beneath the open skies.
*
It is dificult, even to this day, to say when exactly things began to go wrong between my beloved uncle and me. Perhaps it was the fact that after my hasty departure from the café, he was forced to hire a horse and cart in order to locate me whilst I hopelessly fell from tavern to tavern, tormented by the valediction of my plumed beauties, put to flight by the accursed Deery!
His first words to me that fateful night as he came upon me in the open field where I lay beneath the stars were palpably devoid of the affectionate feeling which I had come to expect in my dealings with him, and we made our journey homeward in silence. There can be no doubt that shortly after this incident, a certain note of sourness became detectable in our relations.
This, however, was just the beginning. Within days, events had taken an even more serious turn. Uncle began to disappear for long periods, without so much as a word of explanation. The only indication that he had returned at all would be the gentle closing of the drawing-room door, the soft click to which my ears became accustomed as I lay there in the night waiting for the first light of dawn to touch the window. His absences grew increasingly more frequent until, as I stood by my bedroom window watching the silver dawn rise up over the rooftops, I clenched my fist in the pocket of my purple quilted dressing gown and at last confronted the fact which I could no longer deny: there was nothing for it but to investigate and discover once and for all the mysterious genesis of Uncle Louis’s burgeoning eccentricities and the cause of his bewilderingly inexplicable nocturnal peregrinations. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that his animosity toward me was deepening by the day. I trawled my tormented conscience. Surely a single incident of boorish behaviour on my part could not have provoked such a bitter volte-face? Was there something else I had forgotten? Some vile act I had committed unknown to myself whilst in the grip of the demon grape? A murder, perhaps?
I paled. I wrung my hands in desperation as the grey-coated inspector of my mind paced the floor once more, investigating with rigorous, indeed fevered application. But it was all to no avail. The entropy of the vocative served only to confuse me further and the nets of my interrogations were returned, sadly empty once more.
However, as luck would have it, a certain pattern began to emerge. It gradually became clear that my relative’s by now seething misanthropy was not directed solely at me. It had begun to extend to almost every citizen in the town.
It was after what I, for the purposes of narrative, shall call ‘the telephone incident’ that I realized that I could no longer indulge in my procrastinations and that any further dalliance on my part would undoubtedly be construed by future generations as moral cowardice. I had been standing for some time with my ear pressed to the oaken door of the library when, in odd, strangely muted tones, I heard him utter the words, ‘So you think I’m at your beck and call, Mrs, do you?’ followed by the ringing crash of the Bakelite receiver as it was slammed into its cradle and I heard him bellow: ‘No! I won’t be available for ornithology lectures! Tonight or any other fecking night! So put that in your drum and bang it!’
The muffled, indecipherable mutterings which followed seemed to cloak the entire building in a Satanic bleakness.
It was clear that I could delay no longer and I determined at once to unscramble as best I could this maddening conundrum, this ravelled web of perplexity that enshrouded my dear relative’s life. That very night I began my vigil in the doorway of the tobacconist’s shop which was situated directly across the road from the house. For three successive nights I remained at my post, and there were many occasions when I was tempted to swoon into the luxurious, beckoning arms of hopelessness. At last, however, on the fourth night of my vigil, my patience was rewarded and I froze as the massive front door of the house slowly opened and out stepped my uncle into the first, hesitant light of dawn. Hesitantly he scanned the empty street and then, pulling the collar of his sports coat up around his neck, began to stride briskly into the morning with his binocular case slung over his shoulder.
It was only when he turned left at the old humpbacked bridge that I realized he was making for the woods outside the town.
At once the scales fell from my eyes and I felt myself shrink to no more than five or six inches in height. Silently, I upbraided myself. How could I have been so foolish! To think ill of my dearest uncle! In those moments it all became clear to me and I understood perfectly, implicitly, the reasons for his recent erratic behaviour. His late-night pursuits of his ornithological obsessions had exhausted his body to the point that he had become the victim of an almost Hydesian change in his personality. And, like Hyde of course, he was completely unaware of it. I determined at once to waste no more time. I would explain this to him. I would be brutally frank and honest. Such a decision caused me no concern whatsoever. I knew he would see reason. I knew now that within a matter of days he would be back to himself and between us, all would be blissful as before. In that moment of realization, I exulted.
I continued to pursue Uncle Louis until he arrived at that clearing in the woods which overlooks the valley, from whence, he had on many occasions reminded me, it was possible at any one time to command a view of over thirty indigenous species of birds.
At first I thought that perhaps my nightly vigils had eroded my resilience to the point where my own mental equilibrium was already affected. Then, through a process of what might be termed cerebral massage, I succeeded in persuading myself that because of the all-pervasive heat which we in the town had been experiencing of late, the . . . hallucinations – for what else could one call them – were unavoidable.
Between my dalliance and my delusions, my fate was sealed.
*
‘Stay right where you are!’ a raucous voice snapped. There was no mistaking the lumbering rotundity.
The corner of Dingo Deery’s mouth curled like a decadent comma of flesh. I gasped and fell backwards onto a spiky clump of bracken, my foot, without warning, sinking into the marshmallow softness of a freshly manufactured cow pat.
The binoculars fell from my uncle’s grasp as a swish of leaves stifled his cry.
I endeavoured to launch myself into flight but it was already too late. I found my neck locked in a vice grip as a megaphone-wielding Macardle appeared from the undergrowth, flanked by two of his burly henchmen. I watched helplessly as he stubbed his cigar on a bed of pine needles with the sole of his white Italian shoe, then slowly approached me, smiling faintly, squeezing the flesh of my cheek as if inspecting a fattened beast in a squalid market. He turned from me with disdain.
‘Not bad!’ he snapped. ‘He’ll do!’ before abruptly losing interest in me and stalking off barking, ‘Action!’ into his pathetic trumpet.
I had to avert my gaze, for I could no longer bear to look upon that gross pantomime of the perverse which was before me.
*
My Birds of Paradise, divested of all but the most insignificant articles of clothing, were howling with glee and rapture as they cavorted lasciviously on the flattened grass. The bunched fleshy fingers of Dingo Deery like so many pork sausages caught me just below the spine as he bellowed: ‘Go on, then – look away, you hypocrite! Pretend you don’t see it!’ Saliva dripped from his tobacco-stained teeth as his mocking eyes bit into me. Then he turned to my cowed relative and snarled: ‘Louis Lestrange the Peeping Tom. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about
that, Master? How about a lesson on that – eh? Today, boys, we are doing peeping! Haw haw haw!’
His mirth was unbridled as he continued. ‘Thought you could get away with it, didn’t you? I’ve been watching you for weeks, spying on us with them binoculars of yours! O yes – I’ve been watching you, Master Peeping Tom Lestrange, and now, my friend, you are going to pay! You’re going to pay for what you did to these . . .’ He paused as the colour drained from his face. ‘These hands!’ He raised his extremities and displayed for all to see the lesions and contusions which even after all these years had not healed, the legacy of so many mathematical and linguistic miscalculations in a chalkdusty schoolroom of the long ago. His head seemed to swell to twice its normal size as all the blood in his body coursed rapidly towards it, his hands hovering menacingly in front of my uncle’s face like two blotched table tennis bats of flesh.
‘I’m sorry,’ croaked my uncle, ‘if there’s anything I can do to make it up to you, Dingo – please tell me!’
But it was too late for any of that. It was clear that no one could help us now.
We found ourselves bound and gagged and imprisoned in the back of a foul-smelling vehicle which, it instantly became evident to us, as we lay there back to back like a nightmarish set of ill-proportioned Siamese twins, had been used in the very recent past for the transportation of poultry.
‘Keep them in there until they have manners knocked into them!’ I heard Dingo snarl, and the fading jackboot stomp of his wellingtons was the last sound that came to my ears before I collapsed at last into a dead faint.
*
As the days passed, our only contact with the outside world was the thin sword of light which shone when the double doors swung open, and a foul-smelling bowl of near-gruel was shoved towards us, our only means of sustenance throughout our captivity. How long was it going to go on, that wretched cacophony of sound that assaulted our eardrums daily like so many aural poison darts as we sweated in the darkness of our murky dungeon? ‘Oh my God!’ we would hear them shriek in orgiastic delight. ‘That’s great! Keep doing that!’ as Macardle’s coarse sibilants exhorted those poor corrupted creatures to indulge themselves to the point of what I knew must be certain destruction. ‘Come on, girls,’ he would cry. ‘Get stuck in! Put your backs into it!’