— I’m a Catholic, Ma, I’d say, amn’t I? I’d say ‘amn’t I?’ the way the Catholic children in Wattles Lane had always said it.
Before Lady Thornton would smile and sleepily nod, as the leaves of the volume turned and slowly fell.
5 Suits Me, Mrs Vindaloo
Down in Mood Indigo, in these the heady days of the relentlessly advancing noughties, a lot of the faces you’ll see are black. Once upon a time, and I freely admit it, I might have had certain problems with that. After all, when all’s said and done, what was Chris McCool way back then, only an ordinary old Irish dairy farmer, a country Eggman, whatever grandiose claims he might make for himself. And in that I was just the same as everyone else. Hayseed hillbillies who scarcely knew where London was, not to mention Paris or NY.
But that’s all changed. That era’s vanished. Gone for ever like so much of the world to which such facile attitudes belonged. Utterly transformed. Yes, the world has come to our door with a roar. Now you can do pretty much as you please, even mope about with a head like a balloon.
— Like a fucking balloon, Vesna Krapotnik — look, don’t you see? They’re all around us!
I remember the first day I made that remark. Vesna, I swear, nearly choked on her salad. Not that it occurred to me there had been anything particularly amusing about the observation. Not as far as I was concerned. It was just an aside, a throwaway statement. As far as I was concerned, all I was doing was stating the obvious.
— Let us welcome then, Vesna, the people without feelings. Who exist to consume, with their heads like ghostly moons, here in this twenty-first-century world of wax.
The first time I became aware of this extremely sly and subtle transformation of our surroundings occurred one otherwise perfectly ordinary day in September 2006 when I happened to be observing a few people eating dinner, as they say, al fresco, on the Plaza across from our apartment building. There was nothing, otherwise, unusual about this particular family I happened to be observing. They were simply relaxing, under an awning, consuming wine and eating pasta. An average family, complete with two or three children: all of them with perfectly rounded powder-white heads. Like puddings.
— The Balloon Family, I remarked to Vesna.
But not just ordinary ballons, I explained. Ones which were almost, without exception, utterly featureless — perfectly polished, smooth and dove-white.
There was a light wind blowing at the time and I remember thinking: I hope that little boy’s head continues to remain upon his shoulders. I would just be afraid it might detach itself and drift away with abandon on the breeze.
Which it didn’t, fortunately.
And when I looked again, they were all in exactly the same positions as they had been before. With the mother, who was sporting an orange tan and a blue baseball cap, turning to her husband. I remember being struck: no eyes, no mouth. Moons en famille. Aesthetically quite pleasing, though, I have to say, in their uniformity, almost perfectly choreographed as they raised their disc-heads in unison, regarding the screens directly above the Plaza, steadily rotating with an eerie kind of poetry.
You can imagine how such a spectacle might, initially, have tended to be somewhat discommoding — even startling. No longer, however. In a small way, even, it’s become almost reassuring: as though it reminds one of how far we have come in this newly urbanised country — having at last left behind the quite unnecessary and infuriating self-defeating ingrown complexities that were so much a part of rural life in Cullymore: where, inferring slanders and conspiracies at every turn, faces seemed to alter almost by the second. Where each random gesture seemed freighted with immense significance, every glance a semaphore reflecting the labyrinthine, complex intensity of suppressed passions within.
Little innocent Cullymore, where everything seemed to twist and turn by the day, and where, at times in your life there, you would have willingly parted with all your earthly possessions for the privilege of being seated beside such a composed and unthreatening assembly. With their milky sphere-heads seemingly emptied of guile, all considerations of conspiracy and subterfuge consummately erased. Gazing whitely at the turning plasmas, which pause at intervals as though in compliance with the directions of some invisible conductor.
— The Balloon People, I laugh, and Vesna thinks it’s funny too, with heads like Eucharistie hosts!
As regards our non-national friends who are to be seen now in substantial numbers in Mood Indigo, let me say this. Attitudes towards those who might be described as ‘nonindigenous’ have only softened in this country quite recently. We are much more sophisticated now, it is routinely attested, and will never again be using words such as ‘nigger’ or ‘Baluba’. We have moved on. And surely it is laudable that such is the case. But some time ago, I am afraid, we knew very little, if anything, about such matters. We were, and surely this must be contritely acceded to, laughably unschooled and ill-informed. Perhaps indeed a trifle xenophobic, if the truth be told. This was the nature of the world in which I grew up — whether it appeals to me or whether it doesn’t. And which I hope will provide some explanation, however insufficient, maybe provide some background to the reason I insulted my psychotherapist Meera Pandit and called her unwholesome names.
Not that Meera was what you’d call proper black — not really. Not ‘full-blown’ black, I mean to say. Not Nigerian, for example — ebony — black and shiny the way that Marcus Otoyo was. Gleaming and polished, in that shiny African way. No, Pandit, you see, was a Hindu, not from anywhere near Nigeria, or anywhere else in Africa for that matter. I think from somewhere out near Bangladesh. As a matter of fact, to be fair to old Meera, now that I think of her, she was like something that might have emerged from the sixties herself, with her scarves and her bangles and her flappy Birkenstock sandals.
— You stupid black fucker! was, in fact, what I had said.
I can’t even remember what she had said to me to precipitate that reaction — what her actual question had been, I mean. But I know it had something to do with Ethel Baird. As a matter of fact, it was all she seemed to want to talk about. Ethel Baird, or ‘the music teacher’, as she preferred to call her.
— Yes, all of that is fine, Mr McCool, she would say, usually after I’d been rabbiting on for ages, but can we talk about the music teacher, please?
— What else can you say about her? I replied. She was liked by everyone, kept herself to herself all the time. Was regarded by everyone as the almost perfect Protestant. ‘The quality’, they called her. ‘Dearest Ethel,’ they’d say, ‘is the quality.’
— The quality?
It soon became obvious that she didn’t have a clue. Pandit was hopelessly out of her depth.
Nonetheless, I did my best to explain:
— Upper crust. Respected. Well-off, but not showy, you know, Meera?
Then she looks at me in this funny kind of way and changes the subject all of a sudden.
— Why did you go there after you’d been to the greenhouse?
— I wanted her to read to me, I said.
— Read to you?
— Yes, I said, read: and maybe sing a little hymn.
— Sing a — what? A hymn?
— Yes, I said, ‘Abide With Me’.
— ‘Abide With Me’?
Of course with the way she was looking at me I might have said it was ‘Delaney’s fucking Donkey’ I’d wanted.
Then she said:
— Well then, Chris, is there anything else you’d like to say about that time? About the nineteen sixties: about how you were feeling, what you might have been expecting from life? And this boy that you mentioned, this Marcus Otoyo —
— Niggers, Meera, I said, they’re all the same. You can’t trust any of them. They’re even worse than Catholics.
When I saw her reaction then, I had to interject immediately:
— Ha ha, Meera, that was just a joke! Marcus Otoyo was an excellent fellow! Absolutely nothing wrong with him at all!
She didn’t make any response to this, just seemed kind of sullen before continuing on.
— Now, you say that in your village, this town you call Ballymore, is it?
— Cullymore, I corrected.
I was so irritated that, after all my efforts, in spite of all the patience I’d demonstrated, she’d gone and forgotten the town’s name again. That was the third or fourth time she’d done it. It couldn’t have been all that difficult to remember, I kept thinking. So now, I’m afraid, it was my turn to be sullen. I didn’t say anything for quite a long time. I kind of felt too, mainly on account of the way she was staring at me, some kind of an implication that for purposes entirely my own I’d been withholding certain facts from her. Facts pertaining to Marcus Otoyo, in particular.
I decided to clear the air once and for all.
— Look here, Meera, I began — with admirable restraint, I would have to insist, in the circumstances. It seems to me that these are the verifiable facts. Yes, I admired Marcus quite a lot. Indeed, at times, I think I might have even wanted to be Marcus Otoyo. Certainly to be as saintly as him: to experience the same overpowering depth of emotion to which he had access. Share in that celestial otherworldly transcendence. Do you know what I mean? To experience that aura. Which one exudes when they say one’s in love.
— In love? she said quizzically.
— Yes, in love, I said, abiding in that holiest of cities. The most ancient place: the city of the open heart. It’s so sacred, Meera. The truest holiness of which we mortals are capable. That’s what I meant by the ‘new Jerusalem’.
Then I became aware of her hooded, sceptical eyes. But by now I didn’t care. I was prepared to let her think whatever she wanted. To me, all that mattered now was the truth. And I knew the truth. Which was — that all I’d wanted was the opportunity to be admitted through those portals. In order to be bathed in the light of Marcus Otoyo’s singular faith. To be touched by his fervour and his unique passion. That was all. I yearned to do that.
What I hadn’t told Pandit was that around the time when I’d met Marcus first, I had actually begun to do a lot of reading myself, unintimidated by considerations of whether I might be qualified to do so or not — having, in fact, terminated my schooling some years previously. At exactly the same age Marcus was now — seventeen. And had gradually become fascinated by the manner in which certain authors could describe their secret inner worlds, analyse the depths of the most elusive and complex feelings.
Once, quite by chance, I had happened to overhear Marcus reading from one of his schoolbooks to a friend:
— My soul is cast down. I feel disquieted — so helplessly alone.
I had never experienced anything quite like it and its subsequent effect on me was enormous. As a direct result of it I found myself seeing him, in a sort of late-night reverie, after I’d returned from Bernie’s public house — Marcus ascending into heaven, black as ebony and wrapped in a winding sheet white as snow, with an expression of beatific rapture on his face. And had awakened, trembling, with warm tears welling up in my eyes. How could someone harbour such depth of emotion? How was it possible to experience it and remain alive?
— Why did you do such a terrible thing in the church? Do you think, Christopher, maybe you can tell me?
Thankfully now, there was something more appealing about her tone.
— If only he had accepted the book, Meera, that’s all. If only he’d taken it — accepted it as a token. Instead of —
— Instead of … ? she quizzed hesitantly.
— Instead of insulting me, little nigger bastard!
One thing I regret is that in the course of my conversations during those sessions with Meera Pandit I had ever bothered mentioning Lulu, had even so much as opened my mouth about the Glasgow singer. For it soon became plain as day that the poor psychotherapist, she hadn’t the faintest idea who she was. But the fact of the matter is, the only reason that I had introduced Lulu at all into the conversation was because it had happened to be one of her songs which had been playing on a transistor that day outside the library when I’d unexpectedly encountered Marcus Otoyo, combing his curls as he stood in the library doorway.
— Who is this Lulu? Why do you talk about her? asked Pandit.
— Oh would you ever shut up! I found myself snapping — my patience, finally, at an end.
The red-haired baby-faced Scottish singer Lulu had been one of the brightest stars of that particular year. There would have been no one more popular in Cullymore at that time. Except, perhaps, the Beatles — or the Rolling Stones. It had been the most wonderful year in Ireland, I remember. With a great sense of optimism now evident across the land, new houses and factories springing up everywhere. As for myself, I was making very good money indeed, selling my produce directly now to the new supermarkets, in particular the Five Star. But then spending it, I have to say, almost as quickly as it came in, on records and big meals in the hotel, as well as attending weekend dances in the Mayflower Ballroom, now unashamedly the dapper dandy in my crushed-blue-velvet pants and frilly pink nylon shirt. The music in the Mayflower had stirred the town from its protracted slumber. The bands that played there arrived in colourful vans, hauling out guitars as they swaggered in sheepskin coats. There seemed to be a never-ending supply of these musical outfits, whose names included: the Real McCoy, the Miami, Billy Brown and the Freshmen and, occasionally, from England, the Tremeloes, maybe, or the Herd.
There was a spanking new monument in the middle of the square, honouring the founders of the nation who had made the advent of the sixties possible. And directly across the street there now stood a fabulous new building with a great neon board whose green lights flashed Redemption Centre, proudly inviting all customers inside to exchange their Green Shield trading stamps for any number of fancy goods and household appliances. Items which included: vacuum cleaners, toasters, lampshades, garden furniture. But, even more enticingly, a bright display of ‘she-gear for she-girls’, modelled by mannequins gleaming and glittering in a variety of beads and sequins. Exulting in their narcissism with their wet-look go-go boots and rakishly tilted, knitted jockey caps.
Marcus Otoyo had picked me up all wrong, I explained to Meera, and that really was all there was to it. The whole thing had been unfortunate, I told her. Just what had I been thinking, Meera, I asked her, offering a seventeen-year-old boy a stupid kids’ book? Of course he was always going to think it inappropriate. How could it be otherwise?
— It’s no wonder he sneered at me, really, I said. At his age I’m sure I’d probably have done exactly the same.
Long before this incident — it was the night George Best had scored his hat-trick against Benfica, securing the European Cup for Manchester United — I happened, quite by chance, to apprehend Marcus going past, just across from me on the far side of the street. He was unaccompanied. Making, I assumed, his way home from Benediction. With his eyes elevated, and the leather-bound missal, as always, securely tucked underneath his arm. He was wearing his green gold-braided secondary-school blazer. Striding along in that otherworldly way. As if the glories of the Eucharist held his soul captive.
I could scarcely stand as I watched him pass. Then he briefly stopped, having encountered a neighbour.
I had a pain in my chest as I overheard him saying plainly:
— I sincerely hope you’ll be coming to the performance of our play in the cathedral. The title has already been selected. It will go by the name of The Soul’s Ascent: Saints You May Not Know. Myself, I shall be playing the part of Blessed Martin de Porres.
When I looked again he was gone and my deep-seated confusion and flushed countenance unsettled me.
* * *
I went to the Mayflower Ballroom again that weekend. Tina & the Mexicans were playing but throughout the whole performance I didn’t hear a single note. Nothing but the bludgeoning thump of the bass.
I went home early and tried to read but found it quite impossible. My most recent discovery was the
work of James Joyce, a volume in particular that I had seen Marcus carrying beneath his arm on his way home from school. The prose, however, of A Portrait continued obstinately to swirl before my eyes, defying all comprehension, defeating each and every renewed assault.
It was approaching four o’clock when I switched on the radio — only to hear that the Beatles had shot straight in at number one, with the double ‘A’ side, ‘Penny Lane’ and ‘Strawberry Fields’.
Of all the things about the psychotherapist Pandit, what annoyed me most was the way she kept pretending to understand Irish culture when she didn’t know the first thing about it. How could she possibly have done, anyway, when you think about it? For a start she had done all her training in London, and obviously while she might have known one or two things about the capital city of Dublin and the names maybe of a couple of Irish poets and politicians, as regards the subtler aspects of things it soon became clear that she possessed little or no knowledge of any value. Her attempts at empathy — they really were laughable. Especially when she’d try to forge some kind of link between Cullymore and all these Indian villages she kept going on about.
— Ballymore, she said — she’d gone and done it again, got the name wrong. It sounds so much like this little village I knew in Bangladesh …
That was the last straw.
— Look here, Pandit, I said, I’ve just about had it with all this. So how about you and your Birkenstocks just take off and you can tell Dr Mukti I said that if you want to. How about you tell your fellow countryman that? Because the only reason I agreed to these sessions with you is because he specifically asked me to. As if there was something special about you.