In my ears, the sound of bodily fluids intermingling was as the roar of some horrible Niagara.
How long we spent in our foul confinement I cannot say. When at last they came to their decision regarding our fate, we were bundled out into the harsh light of day to confront the despicable Macardle, now disporting himself in a white shirt emblazoned with the lurid rubric MAC. A grin flexed itself across his face as he flicked his cigar and stared into my eyes. ‘Ever done any acting, boy?’ he enquired. ‘No,’ I croaked, feeling the first faint blush coming to my cheeks, and it was then he raised his hand and slowly opened it to display the photograph of my Uncle Louis, in what has been described as flagrante delicto, helpless as he lay in their powdered arms, folded in the delicate wings of my beautiful Birds of Paradise.
‘I wonder what the parish priest would make of this?’ snickered Macardle as he secreted the photograph in the inside pocket of his brown leather jacket.
‘No, please!’ I cried. ‘Don’t send it to the parish priest! Anything but that!’
Macardle coughed and pared the nail of his index finger with his marbled pocket knife.
‘And just what’s in it for me if I don’t?’ he quizzed stonily, his beadlike eyes slowly rising to meet mine.
‘I’ll do anything you say,’ I said then, resigning myself at last to my fate.
*
Subsequently, everything is a dream. The nightly agonies of conscience which I suffered I cannot even begin to chronicle here for it would be too painful. All I can remember are the sad, hurt eyes of my dear Uncle Louis as the oaken arms of Dingo Deery gripped him once more and hurled him forward with a snort of derision, and the schoolmaster sank once again beneath a flutter of wings and the flying feathers of what once were Gauguin’s masterpieces. But etched most of all on my mind is the twisted, salacious expression on the face of Mick Macardle as he distributed a variety of crook-handled canes, purchased by him for a pittance in a London East End market, and with which, through the medium of his barking metal trumpet, he instructed the cast, with unmistakable lip-trembling glee, to: ‘Bate him harder! Hit him again there, girls! Give him all you’ve got!’
I hid my eyes as the blows rained down on the reddening flesh of my beloved uncle, his elderly moons thrust skyward as they continued to yelp excitedly: ‘This will teach you! You won’t be spying on us again in a hurry, you filthy-minded old rascal! Take that!’
The days passed in a black delirium as we were subjected to indignity after indignity, each day another can of eight-millimetre film sealed and labelled, just as surely as was our fate. Tears come into my eyes as those words return once more, thumbed that day by Deery onto a glinting reel: THE SECRETS OF LOUIS LESTRANGE.
I cannot continue. Sometimes I think perhaps it was all a dream – not unlike what they insisted (and continued to, the fools, as if they could possibly know!) were no more than my fevered reconstructions of foul goings-on in a decrepit Amsterdam lock-up, for that was indeed how it appeared when it had all ended: the cameras spirited away, the convent reopened, the single tourist gone from the hotel: nothing remaining but the flattened yellow grass and the soft contented chirp of the chaffinches. I began to think maybe there never had been a Dingo Deery, a Mick Macardle, a thin moustache?
Would that it were true! I shall never forget the sight of that narrow, mean mouth, the unmistakable smell of cigar smoke that enshrouded me as I felt his hand grip my shoulder. ‘If you ever breathe a word of this,’ he hissed into my ear, ‘the bating Lestrange got will be nothing to what’s coming to him!’
I thought of my uncle, his spirit now broken beyond repair, his white-swaddled hands for all the world the blunt stumps of a war veteran as he picked his way sheepishly through the cooling streets.
Oh yes, Mick Macardle and Dingo Deery existed all right, for in the few days that remained to me in the town, they missed no opportunity to humiliate me, whispering discreetly as they passed close by: ‘I believe you’re a powerful actor, young man!’ and ‘Did you ever try the stage?’
I began to dread these forced intimacies to such a degree that I became a virtual recluse.
The long hot summer came to an end. Grouse Armstrong met his death in an accident with a Volkswagen Beetle and the only sound to be heard now in the Pronto Grill was that of the proprietor whistling his lonely tune, dreaming of Palermo. Not long after, Mick Macardle opened a supermarket, the very first of its kind in the country, and ever since is to be seen cruising around brashly in his open-topped convertible in streets that are now littered with drug addicts and disco bars. I understand he has entered politics and resides in a magnificent converted castle on the outskirts of the town, with Dingo Deery resplendent in his blue security uniform by the electronically surveyed gates, his embrocated extremities now encased in gloves of the softest calf leather.
What bitter injustice there is in this world!
And now in this great city, as beneath my window the cinema doors open and the hunted, clandestine penumbrae emerge from the subterranean flesh-palace to shuffle homeward like so many tormented spectres, I realize at last that there is little for me to do but accept the hand that fate has dealt me. For, having hastily terminated my academic studies and fled the country all those years ago, who am I to complain of a lowly position with Brent Council? For in truth they have treated me most fairly and my supervisor has informed me that the section of Kilburn Park for which I am responsible is considered impeccable and utterly leaf-free and has been singled out for special mention by the visiting inspectors on more than three occasions.
Yes, the old men have long since passed away now, the Summer Seat taken away and broken up for firewood. To smoke a Player’s cigarette now is to put oneself in great mortal danger and they say that since Yuri Gagarin returned from space he has become a complete vegetable. But I shall not rest. Deep inside my quest shall go on, my relentless search for refuge from those terrible memories and the wanton destruction of what was once a beautiful dream.
Which of course they shall never know. How would they, those sad, anonymous creatures who shuffle homeward to their waiting, unsuspecting wives, their base desires sated? How are they ever to know that what they have just witnessed on that oblong obscenity they call a screen is the vilest of lies, a distortion, a cruel, ugly trick played by a cheap magician? Would they listen to me if I were to cry out from the very pit of my soul: ‘The Secrets of Louis Lestrange! It is lies, my friends! Lies! This is all lies! A pack of despicable, unwarranted lies! Don’t believe a word of it!’
No, in my heart I know they would not. So, I have no choice but to go on, with the memory of those days which were once suffused with the colour of burnished copper receding within me, nothing more now than a bit player from the last reel of the deserted cinema of life, where a silent, would-be ornithologist, once honoured and revered beyond all rustic pedagogues, sits alone in the back row, staring into the dust-clouded lenses of a pair of old binoculars, chuckling to himself without reason as he tries to focus on the past and the way it might have been, before a thin moustache, a cruel twist of fate and 1,137 whacks of a crook-handled cane brought an old man and a poor young adolescent boy to within eight lonely millimetres of hell.
The Luck of Dympna Wrigley
Ever since she had been forced to give up her job in the civil service, Dympna Wrigley, aged thirty-five, of Immaculata Parade, Barntrosna, had been living with her mother and would have gladly killed her (‘Who’s goanta look after me! Who’s goanta to look after me!’) if she had the chance because she was driving her mad and had been ever since her husband’s death. Sitting in the chimney corner with her stockings around her ankles like gravy rings, croaking about this and croaking about that and demanding to know what exactly it was she had done to deserve a daughter the like of Dympna. If she was a daughter at all, a cheeky, good-for-nothing lump more like, who never did so much as a hand’s turn around the house. Who cared about nothing or no one and who, if her poor mother was to drop dead right there on
the spot, probably wouldn’t so much as shed a tear over her grave. Indeed would most likely be more than glad to get rid of her, for that was the kind of her, wasn’t it, a lousy, rotten, miserable and ungrateful wretch not worthy of the name daughter. O no daughter, Mrs Nellie Wrigley had no daughter.
It was only to be expected that eventually an unsettling little smile found its way onto the face of Dympna Wrigley and she surprised herself by thinking:
—You know, Mama, if you keep on talking like that, I really do think I shall have to stab you with a knife!
She scraped some more muck off the plates and camouflaged her chuckling by rattling the crockery in the sink as she thought of herself standing over the spindly old dwarf – for what else was she! – with the knife, going:
—What’s that you say, Mama? What am I doing with the knife, Mama? Why, I’m going to kill you with it, of course!
But if it was going to be great fun killing her, thought Dympna, it would be even more exciting burying her. ‘Goodbye, old scarecrow! Ta ta!’ she would cry triumphantly. ‘Off to the worms!’
There would, of course, be no need for a coffin. She’d simply toss her in in her baglady’s rags. That would be good enough for her, wouldn’t it? But of course! Then – at last! – over her dead and buried body, to be able to read: Here lies Old Nellie Wrigley. In life she was a wizened old cow and in death she’s even worse! But at least, thank God, she’s quiet!
—What are you doing out there? demanded the scrakey voice from within.
—I’m just doing the dishes, Mama! replied Dympna as a spark of flinty fire leaped in her eyes, and she clenched her suds-mottled fists with resolve.
*
For she knew she would not be doing the dishes for very much longer. What she could not for the life of her understand was how it had taken her so long to come up with a plan. As she dried her hands, she just could not believe how she had tolerated the litter-strewn abscess that called itself a village, for so long weeping at night in a kitchen that smelt of chickens without ever once taking a defiant stand and saying to herself:
—I’m getting out of this dump! To hell with her, the whingeing old crone! And to hell with Barntrosna! You hear me – to hell with you!
Which was what she was most definitely saying now – O, but yes! At the very same time as she was emptying some fine white powder from a broken capsule into Mama Scaldcrow’s soothing evening drink!
—Is my drink ready yet, you? snapped the voice with the timbre of a rusty swinging gate.
—Oh yes, Mama! Oh but yes, my repugnant scarecrow mother!
The last part Dympna didn’t say, of course. Simply let it pass across her mind. But ensured that she did not in any way permit it to interfere with the heart-warming smile with which she greeted Señorita Hag as she handed her the steaming cup of hot cocoa to help her with her night-time sleep. Which it would certainly do and no mistake – Hag need have no fear of that! Why, with a bit of luck, she wouldn’t wake up for at least a month! By which time, Dympna would be far away, waltzing through the streets of Dublin City, with her life and all the world before her. With handsome men coming up to her and saying:
—I want you to be my wife – come and live with me for ever!
Already, her vanity case was packed and ready for the road, and thrown hastily across it the only garment Dympna Wrigley possessed that even vaguely resembled an overcoat. Which, in fact, looked like any number of rats sewn clumsily together. But that too would very soon change. Inevitably, Dympna Wrigley knew, when her fortunes changed, when about her shoulders there would be draped the most expensive furs that money could buy, and upon her pale white arms more jewellery than you would hear rattling in the whole of Hollywood.
A ripple of excitement was running through her body as she thought of all that was yet to be, when just then she heard the muffled piggy snores coming from the direction of the chimney corner. In that instant, the state of ecstasy in which Dympna Wrigley found herself became almost unbearable. Particularly when she gingerly tiptoed towards the kitchen door and with one eye peeped in to establish the state of the wheezing assemblage of badly baked turnover loaves who called herself Mother. And who – to her absolute delight! – was – if not lying there with a large breadknife inserted in her chest – was at least, to all intents and purposes, completely dead to the world! Which meant that for Dympna Wrigley – once and for all! – it was time to put into action the second part of her plan!
Within seconds she had her ticket purchased and the train was speeding towards Dublin like a firework shooting into the night.
And as Dympna Wrigley sat alone there in her carriage – a little tense, it must be admitted, for the furthest she had ever been from Barntrosna was to the neighbouring village of Killyhoe to visit her Uncle Dan – behind her eyes a thousand tiny worlds of possibility glittered, each one about to expand in all directions into a phantasmagoric universe all of its own. As the former civil servant pulled her rat-coat about her, she gave a little shiver, consoling herself with the knowledge that soon it would be the finest mink or sable, and that the streets of Dublin would grind to a halt, stunned into silence as she swept by, then crying:
—My God! It’s Dympna! Dympna Wrigley!
*
Her first experiences were truly glorious, there can be no denying it; with the few shillings she had in her possession, Dympna Wrigley ensured that she had the time of her life! ‘If I eat another ice-cream cone,’ she exclaimed excitedly to the sympathetic counter assistant in Forte’s Grill in O’Connell Street, ‘I shall surely go up like a balloon! I wonder what millionaire playboy will want me then?’
Yes, initially, there can be no doubt, Dympna found herself living in a kind of Paradise in Dublin City. But, within days, certain ominous shadows had begun to encircle her and the reasonably attractive woman in her mid-thirties whose optimism knew no bounds found herself sitting by the window in a dingy café staring out at the emptying streets, the first pangs of guilt beginning to claw at her, small voices subtly insinuating themselves as they whispered:
—So this is what it was all for, Miss Dympna Wrigley? This is why you left your poor mother? You know that she might be dead, don’t you? You know your poor mother who washed and clothed and fed you might be dead! She might be dead, Dympna Wrigley! Dead! Dead! Dead!’
It was only a matter of time before they breached her defences, these marshalled front-line troops of undiluted guilt, and finally she placed both her clenched fists against her eyes and began to sob. ‘Why oh why did I have to go and do it, leave my happy home to come to this awful place where nobody gives a damn whether I live or die? How could you have been so stupid, Dympna Wrigley! How?’ she chided herself.
After that, she took to walking through the streets with reddened eyes, somewhere close by a reedy organ plaintively piping as she stood staring into shop windows with all their beautiful finery and jewellery. What was it the song seemed to say to her as a silver tear dried in the corner of her eye?
I am a young girl wandering.
Dympna, Dympna Wrigley is my name;
Wandering without hope, without purpose,
When will I find love?
A question to which, as time progressed, there did not appear to be an answer. Certainly none that Dympna Wrigley could elucidate, at any rate, as now, like some broken doll, she found herself sitting on the edge of a fountain with her bag in her hand and the waters crashing behind her as she groaned pitifully:
—I am a bad woman. I am a stupid woman and a bad woman to do what I have done. To leave my poor mama alone to die.
As her tendency towards self-laceration grew, her self-confidence began to evaporate in almost equal measure. In fact her confidence now seemed nothing more than a pathetic contrivance in the face of the ragged, predatory figures who surrounded her as they remorselessly attempted to wrest her handbag and its sad few contents from her grasp. ‘Oi! Miss! Got any odds? Giv’s a few quid!’ they would harshly call from street corn
ers, secure behind their wet-tipped cigarettes, Dympna’s flat heels clattering onward in a night air shattered by the sound of coarse and cold-blooded laughter.
All of which might not have overwhelmed her had it not been for the added anxieties induced by the relentless clamour, the forlorn cries that criss-crossed the night as though the heart-rending pleas of faceless pariahs in some bottomless void, the sudden clang of pinball machines and the swirling phantasmagoria of lights and music which rendered her helpless with a feeling of sickly dizziness and provoked in her a desire for only one thing – to be back in the tranquil haven of her home village – the place she had so stupidly, callously turned her back on!
And to which she was within days of returning – until that fateful night when her life was irrevocably changed for ever.
—It’ll be all right, honeybun! Dermo said to her, extending his hand as he smiled at her across the formica expanse of the corner table in the San Remo Café (despite her tears, she managed to discern the words LOVE and MUM etched upon the brown limb in spidery letters of startling blue) and, with twinkling, magnanimous eyes enquiring as to whether perhaps she might accompany him to his place of residence for a cup of hot soup – that it might make her feel better?
How fortune could have seen fit to smile on her in such a compassionate, yielding manner, Dympna Wrigley could not understand, and as she took Dermo’s arm, now accompanying him through the glittering streets of night (in which she all of a sudden felt herself so utterly comfortable and ‘at home’ that it actually astonished her) she was so happy, in fact, she felt like addressing the entire city of Dublin! Felt like crying out: ‘At last! At last! Dympna Wrigley is happy!’ For the simple reason that she wanted everyone to know! Know that she, Dympna – who had once been the most miserable girl in all of Dublin City – was now as close to bursting with contentment as she had ever been, or hoped to be!