A Goat's Song

by Dermot Healy

  “You just missed being in Ulster,” said Bertie. He turned to the second man, who wore glasses, and shook his head. “We should never have given them back Cavan, either, Willy. The Free State should never have been given Cavan. It was a mistake.” He turned back to Jack as Willy went off and joined some others. “Leitrim is a different case entirely,” he continued, “there’s not many of us left there.”

  “Why don’t you let me get this one?” asked Jack.

  “No, wee lad,” Bertie replied, “We are all friends here. I’ll look after you.” He called two balls of Malt Bush.

  “I’m feeling high,” said Jack.

  “Good on ya.” They talked of the quality of life in the North. “And you’ve been a good few years in My Lady’s?” the man asked.

  “Aye,” said Jack.

  “So you’d know your way around?” he repeated ominously.

  “I would.”

  “Who’s your local commander there?”

  “I wouldn’t know about these things.”

  The man called over to his companion. “Hey, Willy. Come here till I ask ya.” The man with the glasses got up. The two turned aside and spoke quietly together a few moments. Jack looked uneasily at the two drinks beside him.

  “Are you rightly?” Willy asked Jack as he took the other’s place.

  “I’m fine,” said Jack, “Can I get a drink for us?”

  “Sure thing. Go ahead there.”

  Jack ordered three more Malt Bushes.

  “What sort of stuff do you write?”

  “Love stories,” said Jack.

  “What religion are you?” interrupted Bertie from behind.

  For a long moment Jack turned the question over in his mind.

  “I’m Protestant,” Jack answered.

  “You’re no Prod,” Bertie shouted. “You don’t fool me!”

  Jack saw that people were leaving the bar very fast. Behind his back the tables emptied. The barman was clearing away. The man leaned forward to Jack. “You are probably one fucking Provo. I can see it in your eye.” He moved closer to Jack. “I’ve looked into many a terrorist’s eye, in Israel and in Cyprus, and I know one when I see one.” Jack protested. “You see this gat?” said Bertie lifting his jacket to show a gun in the back of his trousers. “You see this gat? I’ll soon know who you are.” But Willy spun his companion round, and the two sat on a seat together, while furtively the barman collected glasses in the now empty lounge.

  Willy, tucking his glasses up onto the nub of his nose with his index finger, returned to the bar while Bertie, frustrated and angry, stayed put by a table. Willy called for more drinks.

  “We’re closing, Willy,” said the barman.

  “Sure thing, Simmons. Three Bush, right?” He turned to Jack as if none of the previous exchange had occurred. “So, you’re a class of a writer?”

  “I’m an idiot,” said Jack. “You can see it there in black and white.” And he showed him the Irish Press.

  “I don’t read that paper.”

  “You can find out about me through the Belfast Newsletter,” said Jack.

  “And who do you know down there?”

  “They have a piece about a play of mine.”

  “Who are you living with in My Lady’s Road?”

  “An aunt of mine,” said Jack. The sweat began to roll down his face. “She’s getting old now. A Mrs Brooke. She was married to an RUC man.”

  “I wouldn’t know too many round there.”

  “Good luck,” said Jack.

  “Aye, good health.”

  Jack downed the three whiskeys in front of him, leaving just a swallow in the final one. All the time Willy coolly watched him.

  “Excuse me,” said Jack, “I have to go for a piss.”

  “Aye.”

  It was a long walk to the gentlemen’s toilet. He felt the eyes of Willy on him in the mirror beyond the bar, the barman’s eyes on him as he swept the lounge floor, the eyes of the man who had shown the revolver on him as he sat in a recess by the door. When he entered the bathroom Jack spread both his hands – palm-outwards – across the tiled wall. “Jesus Christ,” he said. The tinnitus that he had not heard for so long rose menacingly inside his brain. He could not urinate, nor did he try. He washed his face, then he dried it carefully. He drank from the tap. Then he dried his mouth. He looked for a second at himself in the mirror. “Now,” he said. He closed his eyes. He tidied his hair. He stepped back into the lounge like a man without a care in the world. He saw that the barman was standing by the exit with the keys. He walked up beside the man with the glasses and drank the remaining whiskey down.

  “I think I’ll be off now, Willy,” he said, proffering his hand. Willy, out of habit, took it. Jack, smiling madly, turned to go.

  On the left he saw his other interrogator had been joined by a young man in blue denims who had just come in. “Hauld on,” Jack shouted to the barman by the door.

  “Good luck, Bertie,” he said to Bertie with a great wave of friendliness. But Bertie looked away to catch Willy’s eye. The barman held the door open. His eyes were anxious. At that uncertain moment Jack fled out onto the street. There were two taxis parked outside. He immediately opened the back door and sat into one. “Take me,” he said, “to My Lady’s Road.” “Can’t boss. I’m booked,” said the driver. “I’m waiting for people inside.”

  “Oh, sorry.” He got out.

  “Try Norbert,” said the driver. He ran across to the next taxi. “I have ten pound here, Norbert,” said Jack, “if you’ll take me out the Hollywood road.”

  “Eight will do.”

  “Can you take me?”

  “I can take ye, surely. Just take your time now.”

  Jack climbed into the front seat beside him.

  The driver looked at him.

  “Hollywood, ye said?”

  “Aye,” said Jack.

  “Did you know that Hollywood is the only town in Ireland with a Maypole?” asked the driver pleasantly, as he turned the engine on.

  “No. I didn’t know that,” said Jack trying to stifle his panic.

  “There you are now.”

  The driver eased into first gear, righted the mirror and looked behind him. Is this a fucking set up? thought Jack. In slow motion the driver turned the car round. As they swung out into the traffic Jack took a quick glance behind. No one. They moved slowly through East Belfast.

  “You’d be a Free Stater then?” asked Norbert.

  “Yes,” said Jack.

  “And how do you like it up here?”

  “Oh, it’s grand.”

  “Once,” said Norbert, “you get to know your way around.”

  They spoke no more. Throughout the entire journey Jack sat there gripping his thighs. He gave a false address. When they arrived he handed the taxi-driver the tenner.

  “Eight I said, and eight it’ll be,” said Norbert. He gave back two pounds change. He watched Jack with a merry smile. Jack thanked him and then he turned casually up a side street. He ran towards a laneway and waited to see if anyone was following him. He went on up another street and waited. By side streets he got home some hours later. A light was on in the house. He ran in and shot all the locks home.

  “Jesus Christ!” he said, and sat on the floor. Out of his side pocket the Irish Press poked up.

  Catherine stood in the door of the bedroom watching him.

  “I knew this would happen,” she said. “I knew this would happen.”

  A few evenings later they were walking towards a cinema in the city centre when a man stopped and laughed at Jack, and Jack laughed back, and the man said: “It won’t be long now, fella.”

  They went on walking.

  “What was that all about?” asked Catherine.

  “That was him. That was Bertie.”

  “Who?”

  “That was the man who threatened me.”

  “And you laughed at him?”

  “What did you expect me to do?”

  �
��I don’t know.”

  “Well, I don’t fucking know either.”

  27

  Crossing the Musical Bridge

  A few nights later the window of the living room came hurtling in. They heard the noise, and lay petrified in bed.

  Jack got up.

  “Don’t go out there!”

  “I can’t hear anyone.”

  They remained perfectly still.

  “There’s no one there,” he said again.

  “Yes, there is,” she whispered shrilly.

  He opened the bedroom door and felt his way along in the darkness. A cold wind was blowing down the corridor. In the living room itself all their papers were hurtling to and fro. As he stepped across the carpet he felt broken glass underfoot. He threw a coat on the floor. He reached the window. He looked out on to the street. There was no one out there.

  He moved back and switched on the light. Everything was swirling round in the wind, but there was no sign of a stone.

  He shouted in to Catherine: “The wind blew it in.”

  He took a piece of carpet and nailed it over the place where the pane had given. Catherine stepped into the room.

  “My nerves won’t take any more,” she said. “We’ll have to leave.”

  “Now what will we do?” asked Catherine.

  “Move to West Belfast?”

  “No,” she said.

  “I have no money left,” said Jack.

  “So where?”

  “Go to the Mullet, I suppose.”

  “Is it a dream to think we might get living together peacefully in the South?”

  He said: “What I should do is go ahead and find some work on the boats.”

  “You could stay in our house.”

  “I’d rather we had a place of our own.”

  “I don’t know where I might get a job.” She looked at him. “Are we really moving?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are going to leave me here.”

  “I’m broke. I couldn’t stay even if I wanted to.”

  “When are you going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about your class? What will they think?” she asked. “Are you going to leave them, too?”

  She picked a piece of broken glass out of her cigarette pack.

  “Do you think we are suitable people,” she said, “to be together?”

  “I wish we were.”

  “We’ve had terrible times.”

  “There’s worse.”

  “But we have not experienced it.”

  She pushed back her hair.

  “Do you know that Helen Wynne goes to Mass? I’m beginning to think she’s right. We don’t believe in anything but we suffer for breaking the rules all the same.” Then she looked at him: “What we should do is go off the drink for a while.”

  “Yes.”

  “Things are going out of control.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “You do accept that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  The first morning of their sobriety Jack received a phone call from Sara asking him to advise Catherine to watch Glenroe on RTE the following evening.

  “Did she say why?”

  “No.”

  “Can it be possible what I’m thinking?”

  “You should ring your mother.”

  Catherine did, only to find that Sara had already been in touch with Maisie.

  “And where,” Catherine asked Jack, “are we going to see RTE up here?”

  “There’s a club I know that has RTE.”

  “In the Falls?”

  “No, actually just a little ways from here.”

  “A Protestant club?”

  “Aye.”

  “And they have RTE?”

  “Yes. To watch the races on Saturday.”

  On Sunday evening they were seated before two pints of lager in the empty club. A single-bar electric fire was on behind the bar, and to their left, a roaring coal fire. Songs of Praise was on the BBC when Jack asked the barman to switch over to RTE.

  “Her sister,” said Jack, indicating Catherine, “is appearing in an Irish soap.”

  “You’re codding me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Well, fuck.” He switched to RTE and sat down beside them. “What’s the story?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It used to be about sheepfarmers in Wicklow.”

  “Fuck,” said the barman.

  Beside them, Catherine sat sober and correct.

  “Is that her?” asked the barman when the programme started.

  “Not yet,” said Jack.

  A marital row had broken out in a farmhouse. She accused him of having an affair. The man went off into the night.

  “That’s him fucked,” said the barman. The estranged husband went into a pub. The other drinkers looked over at him with long knowing glances. “He must be having a bit on the side, all right,” the barman concluded.

  “That’s wonderful,” said Catherine.

  After the break for advertisements the husband left the pub. Immediately the other drinkers in hostile asides were discussing him and his fancy woman. Much tut-tutting followed. He had been seen leaving a cinema in Dublin holding her hand. Sympathy was expressed towards the wife. Then the bar-room door opened.

  “Is that her?” shouted the barman.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” said Catherine.

  “She’s a pretty lady,” he said, “no more then yourself.”

  Sara, in a mini-skirt and bright red high heels entered. Her red hair was swept up into a bee-hive. “Oh dear,” said Catherine, taking a furious gulp of her drink. With a gleaming smile Sara sat on a high stool at the bar. The shocked pub in Glenroe went quiet. “Holy God,” said Miley. “That’s the hussy,” someone hissed. “That’s right,” laughed the barman. Then with great effrontery, and giving a lopsided grin, she ordered a gin and tonic. All the locals watched malevolently as Sara lifted out a small make-up mirror to study her over-painted face.

  “And you’d be?” asked the landlord.

  “Bridie Smith,” replied Sara. “I’m just visiting.”

  With an innocent smile, Bridie Smith lifted her hand to shake his. But the landlord did not take it. Her hand stayed there, in the middle-distance, and longingly the camera lingered on it, with its ring and brightly painted fingernails.

  “Dear God,” said Catherine, and she covered her face.

  “Delighted, I’m sure,” said Bridie Smith in a broad Northern Irish accent.

  “So Bridie’s one of us,” said the barman as the theme tune played and the credits came up. “That wasn’t at all bad.”

  In those last few weeks Jack was drunk most days. In the Crown Bar he saw Helen sitting with friends. He found his way to her table and swayed lightly to and fro. She got up and took him away to the bar.

  “I don’t like to see you like this,” said Helen Wynne.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her.

  “You’re not the real you,” she said, “when you’re drunk.”

  “I’m just going out of my mind.”

  “She loves you.”

  “That,” said Jack, “is unfortunately no help.”

  “You were happy once, you’ll be happy together again.”

  “I’m sorry to be coming out with all this to you.”

  “You will just have to sort it out between you,” said Helen, “It’s up to yourselves.”

  Helen refocused her eyes.

  “You’re getting drunk quicker these days,” she said carefully.

  “Can I join you and your friend?” he asked.

  “It’d be better if you didn’t. She sees you in black and white, and for the minute you’re all black.”

  “All right,” replied Jack angrily.

  “It’s impossible,” she said, “to talk to you when you’re like this.”

  “Fuck it,” said Jack. “Fuck it,” he said. He took a taxi to Helen’s Bay. He climbed into Crawfordsburn
Country Park. He lay on his back and looked at the sky. Then, carefully, he climbed over the gate. He took a taxi home. A crowd of young Protestant lads wearing the Loyalist colours were standing, as they always did, up the road from the off-licence. “That’s the UVF,” Catherine used say, warning him off. Now Jack walked down and joined them.

  “Would ye like something stronger than cider?” he asked.

  “Why not, Boss.”

  He went into the off-licence and bought a bottle of Black Bush. “It’s Christmas,” he said. They stood in a huddle, handing round his bottle.

  “What are you doing up here anyway?” one of them asked.

  “I’m the man that thought up the Anglo-Irish Treaty,” he said. “Do you think will it catch on?”

  “Ye’re all right, fella. You like your drink, anyway. I see you, whenever I’m out, taking a bottle home,” one said.

  “It’s been a long winter,” said Jack.

  Jack called down to see Christopher Nolan. He was sitting in the gloomy inner room of the shop by the Superser.

  “Jack,” he said.

  “Chris.”

  “So what’s the story?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “You’re getting out?”

  “Yeh.”

  “I don’t blame you. Things are getting bad up here again. You can smell it in the air. It’s coming into summer. That’s always the worst time.” He snapped open the lid on a can of lager. “You want to come over to the pad after?”

  “Not today. Why don’t you come over to our place?”

  “Would that be wise? Your old lady might not like it.”

  “She won’t mind.”

  At six they were sitting in the house drinking vodka and listening to Cat Stevens by the boarded-up window when Catherine came home. She sat down on the sofa and crossed her legs.

  “So what’s this – a going-away party?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Are you the person from the bookshop?”

  “The very same. Christopher. I’ll miss old Jackie.”

  “So will we all, Christopher.”

  “I thought you said you were coming with me?” said Jack.

  “Sara rang to invite me to Dublin.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I said I’d think about it. I said I was thinking of going down South with you.”

  “And what did she say to that?”

  “She said I was foolish.”