New Town Soul

by Dermot Bolger

  ‘They are not friends. Only Shane is my friend.’

  A gap appeared in the traffic and the teenage girls decided to risk crossing the road. They raced out with mock shrieks. Despite the blaring car horns there was no real danger until one girl, lagging behind her friends, slipped in her high heels. She managed to stand back up, but looked startled by the lights of the oncoming car. The driver tried to stop. He slammed on the brakes but slammed into her as well, throwing her body into the air. She hit the windscreen and bounced off. There was absolute stillness for a moment: the girl lay still with one high heel on and another a few yards away. The traffic was halted and it almost seemed as if life had stopped. Then the road was filled with people as the girl’s friends started to scream.

  The driver emerged from his car and hunched down, shaking. When I reached the middle of the road a circle had formed. The girl’s friends were hysterical. People didn’t know what to do. When Shane stepped forward nobody stopped him because he was possessed of a quiet authority. He knelt beside the girl and felt her pulse. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips close to her ear. The murmur of shocked voices was growing, but I could plainly hear the words that Shane was whispering. I could not understand them because they were in Latin, but I knew that he was solemnly praying for her departed soul. Everyone present seemed to recognise this, because they fell silent and, when he finished and stood up, many people instinctively blessed themselves.

  There were sirens in the distance now. A motorcycle cop appeared and took command of the situation. As he waved aside a line of cars to let the ambulance through, people’s attention shifted from Shane. The other boys were anxious to get away – sharing the anxiety which all outsiders feel that, somehow, they might be held to blame. It was the first time I had ever seen anyone die. I was shaking. I wanted my mother to be there to hold me. We crossed the bridge in silence and on the south quays we gathered around a sculpture in the shape of a Viking boat. We were all shocked. Lads slipped away until there was just Shane and me and Niyi, who was listening to his music and saying nothing. Shane touched his shoulder, and when Niyi removed his earphones and looked up, I saw that he was crying.

  ‘Get the last DART back to Dún Laoghaire,’ Shane said softly. ‘Things will be okay. Trust me.’

  ‘Why should I trust anyone?’ The boy turned to go and then paused. ‘I do trust you,’ he said quietly. ‘Promise you will call.’

  Shane nodded and I watched Niyi walk away, his shoulders hunched.

  ‘How did you find Niyi?’ I asked.

  Shane shrugged. ‘He was a shipwrecked sailor. That’s what they all are.’

  ‘And what are you then?’

  ‘Think of me as being like a beachcomber. Folks in Blackrock eked out a living that way for centuries, you know, combing the rocks for timber or washed-up bales of silk or shipwrecked bodies to plunder after storms. I am more like a soul-comber though: I comb for washed-up souls.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  Shane looked at me for a moment as if about to say something and then just laughed. ‘It means nothing; it’s nonsense, like when Eric Cantona talked about the seagulls following the trawler. I’m having a laugh with you.’

  ‘Really? And so tell me, where did you learn those Latin prayers you whispered into that girl’s ear?’

  Shane shrugged, amused. ‘What makes you think I know Latin? Maybe I know the odd phrase. When I was small I wanted to be a priest. It’s amazing the bits you pick up as an altar server at Mass.’

  ‘Shane, priests haven’t said Mass in Latin for donkey’s years.’

  Shane raised his eyes to heaven. ‘How come you know shag all about history, but you’re suddenly an expert on religion? Come on, let’s go.’

  ‘Are we getting the last bus home?’

  ‘You disappoint me, Joey. A girl just died before your eyes and all you can think about is going home?’

  Shane turned and, as he did so, he appeared to stumble because he fell backwards. From the way he landed with his head thrown back and his eyes closed, I was scared that he had cracked his skull on the pavement. But as I leaned forward anxiously his eyes opened mischievously and he clicked his fingers. ‘Life can be snatched away like this,’ he said. ‘Surely that should make even a dormouse like you want to take the odd risk? So, are you a wimp or a rake?’

  Springing to his feet, Shane strode off along the quays, not bothering to look back. He was setting me a test and waiting to see if I would follow.

  FIFTEEN

  Shane

  August 2007

  For several moments, Geraldine and Shane stared at the old man sprawled on the floor. Then his eyes opened, almost mischievously, as if he had been setting them a test. Observing them upside-down, he swept out one arm in a wry gesture of welcome and murmured something in a tongue that neither of them understood. He saw their confused looks and smiled. ‘My Latin is rusty,’ he said. ‘It translates as, “Step into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.” ’

  Shane wanted to run, but his feet seemed turned to stone. It was Geraldine who stepped forward.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, trying to make herself sound older.

  ‘What am I doing here?’ The old man didn’t try to stand up. But he seemed in no pain. ‘As it happens, I live here. This is my house. I was born here. So, could I ask you the same question? What are you doing here?’

  ‘We didn’t know anyone lived here,’ Geraldine replied.

  ‘So why did you come?’

  ‘We were just messing around,’ Shane said. ‘We’d formed a sort of club.’

  ‘What type of club?’

  ‘To investigate mysteries.’

  Shane realised how foolish the notion seemed, but he could think of nothing else that would explain their presence. However, the old man seemed to treat the idea seriously. ‘And have you solved any?’ he asked, slowly getting to his feet.

  ‘No,’ Geraldine confessed. ‘You were our first case.’

  ‘Who sent you here?’ The man’s voice hardened.

  ‘Nobody,’ Shane insisted.

  ‘Are you sure?’ His eyes looked suddenly manic. ‘How do you know they are not using you?’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘When you finish investigating me, who do you report back to?’

  ‘Nobody,’ Geraldine interrupted, unnerved by the new tension in the room. ‘It’s a bit of fun. Besides, we don’t know what you’ve done yet.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ He laughed, but there was a frightening loneliness in that laugh. ‘That’s one dark mystery all right.’

  Geraldine looked around the bare room and shivered. The old man lowered himself into the armchair. ‘I’m sorry.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘It’s unfair of me to scare you like that.’

  ‘We’re not scared,’ Geraldine said, but both she and Shane edged towards the door.

  ‘I’m just not used to visitors,’ the old man said. ‘I guard my privacy. I’m only getting used to being home again.’

  ‘Is this really your home?’ Shane asked. He realised that the old man was studying his face intensely. ‘What are you staring at?’ he said, disturbed.

  ‘It feels like I’m staring at an old friend.’

  ‘I don’t know you.’

  ‘It’s not you I know; it’s your face: I’ve seen your face before. Yes, this is indeed my home, but it has lain empty for years. Maybe you two have been here before?’

  ‘We were never here,’ Geraldine said quickly. ‘A boy told us he saw something through the window this afternoon.’

  The old man nodded. ‘I did spy a figure stumbling around the garden, but I knew they hadn’t sent him: he would be too weak to be of use to them.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Shane asked, puzzled. ‘And how could you possibly know my face?’

  ‘Your face will come to me,’ the old man said. ‘Faces always do. I can’t stop them floating through my mind. I was careless to l
et myself be glimpsed, but I didn’t think that young man had seen me or would remember, because life gets blurred through the end of a whiskey bottle. I speak as the black sheep of a once respectable Blackrock family.’

  ‘Did your two brothers live here?’ Geraldine asked.

  ‘Yes,’ the man replied. ‘They shared the one roof all their lives, yet for their final thirty years, neither spoke to the other. They now share a grave with my mother.’

  ‘People say this house is haunted,’ Geraldine said.

  The man smiled. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’

  ‘No.’ But Geraldine couldn’t stop an involuntary shiver. ‘Not in daylight anyway.’

  ‘At night you’re not so sure?’

  ‘You’re not a ghost, are you?’

  The old man laughed. ‘My name is Thomas McCormack. I’ve never even seen a ghost, though I often slept in graveyards when I was homeless in America.’

  ‘Were you a hobo?’ Shane asked.

  The man smiled. ‘I suppose so. I suppose we’re all hobos until God claims our souls. For decades I lived among the homeless and the confused and drug addicts and drunks and, if they asked me, I’d hear their confessions and whisper the last rites in Latin as they lay dying.’

  ‘Are you a priest then?’ Geraldine enquired.

  ‘No. Though when I left this house to study for the priesthood, the neighbours genuflected as they gathered to say goodbye. I was a right swank back then, someone the whole neighbourhood looked up to.’

  ‘What happened?’ Shane asked.

  ‘Sometimes you need to leave home to find out who you really are,’ the old man replied. ‘Somebody told me a long time ago that dozens of personalities lurk inside each of us – good and evil – waiting for their chance to get out. They have all got their chance with me over the decades. Does that answer your question, young Master O’Driscoll?’

  ‘I never told you my name,’ Shane said, scared now.

  ‘I said I would place your face, though it took me a moment because you also have a touch of the O’Learys in your features.’

  ‘O’Leary was my grandmother’s name.’

  ‘And was she from Blackrock?’

  ‘Yes. So was my grandfather.’

  ‘And he was an O’Driscoll?’

  Shane felt excited and uneasy. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And where did they first meet?’

  ‘Slaving for a cranky woman under this very roof.’

  Thomas McCormack nodded. ‘My mother had a sharp tongue, God rest her soul. And your grandmother had a marvellous laugh if her name was Molly. Was her name Molly?’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Your grandad, Jack, used to call her Mollser, or at least he did when he was your age.’

  A memory returned to Shane of his grandfather drifting in and out of consciousness on his deathbed and suddenly saying this pet name as if his late wife had just appeared beside his hospital bed.

  ‘I only ever heard Grandad use that name once.’ Shane said, blinking back unexpected tears.

  The old man smiled. ‘If you had visited this house seventy years ago you would have heard it a lot more. She was a great dancer, your grandmother. I remember dancing with Molly to a jazz record in this room, with your grandad keeping watch for fear that my mother would find us. My mother would have sacked Molly on the spot for dancing to the devil’s music. She would have been furious at me for being over-familiar with a servant, especially when a boy destined for the priesthood was not meant to be interested in dancing. I was a lousy dancer, mind you. The real dancing only happened when Molly and Jack would glide around this room and I took my turn to keep watch at the door.’

  Glancing around the desolate room with its mildew-stained walls, Shane found himself imagining the scene. ‘I can’t believe you knew my grandad,’ he said.

  Thomas McCormack leaned forward, his voice so low that Shane could hardly hear it. ‘I know your grandfather and your great-grandfather; I know all the O’Driscolls going right back to when Blackrock was known as New-town-at-the-Black-Rock. We’re old neighbours, you and I; we go back centuries. That worries me. Maybe they led you here or maybe you came by chance, but do yourself a favour, young O’Driscoll. Forget we ever met. When I slipped unnoticed into this house some weeks ago my aim was to stay unnoticed.’

  ‘Who are you in hiding from?’ Geraldine asked.

  The old man turned, slightly startled, as if he had momentarily forgotten that she was in the room. ‘There’s a touch of the Flemings in your face,’ he said. ‘The Flemings were always great swimmers. Are you a Fleming?’

  ‘I want to go now,’ Geraldine said, sharply. ‘Shane, let’s go.’

  ‘Yes, that would be wise.’ The old man winced suddenly and held his chest. ‘Just pass me those blue tablets first, the painkillers there.’

  Geraldine handed him the tablets, alarmed at the pain clearly visible on his face. ‘Who’s looking after you?’ she said. ‘Does a doctor know you’re living here?’

  He swallowed two tablets, washed down with water from a cup on the table. ‘Not a living soul knows, except the solicitor who tracked me down in America. You might say that you’re my only friends.’

  Shane and Geraldine exchanged an uneasy glance.

  ‘Friend is too strong a word,’ the old man added, ‘but you now have the power to betray my secret.’

  ‘What secret?’

  ‘I never expected to see my home again. I planned to disturb no one, but unfortunately you disturbed me. You see, I’m here on a secret mission.’

  ‘What mission?’ Shane asked.

  The old man smiled. ‘If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret any more. I’ll tell you if you make me a member of your club. Then it will be an official club secret. I was a member of a club once before, high up in the Dublin mountains.’

  ‘We don’t really have a club, even though we do have a password,’ Geraldine said. ‘We’re only having a laugh, but not just anyone can join.’

  ‘I’m not just anyone. You can help me with my mission.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Are we sworn to secrecy?’ Thomas asked.

  Geraldine wanted to say that they could make no promises, but Shane nodded before she could speak.

  ‘Your secret is safe with us, Thomas.’

  Thomas gazed at Geraldine until she reluctantly nodded too.

  ‘Your task is easy,’ Thomas said, ‘My task is more difficult. Your job is to tell nobody what you saw tonight. Forget I ever existed. This house is my sanctuary. I need to do something here that I can only do on my own, something that I have put off for far too long. You have no need to ever return. But I want nobody else to disturb me. So please, don’t tell a soul. Fate has brought me back to Blackrock one last time as a dying man. My mission is to finally end my life under the roof where I was born.’ Thomas McCormack reached across to raise the volume of the jazz music that was playing and stared into Shane O’Driscoll’s young face. ‘I want to die alone here, unnoticed and truly unmourned.’

  SIXTEEN

  Joey

  November 2009

  Iwalked quickly along the quay wall to catch up with Shane.‘Where the hell are we going?’ I asked.

  ‘To a special gig,’ he replied.

  ‘At this time of night? Are you serious?’

  ‘I’m always serious.’

  ‘Shane, I have to get the last DART home. My mum will be …’

  Shane stopped beside a parked car on the dimly-lit quay. The driver’s window was smashed. Somebody had ripped out the CD player. He reached through the smashed window to pop up the button that unlocked the doors. Slipping into the driver’s seat, he motioned for me to open the passenger door.

  ‘What are you doing, Shane?’ I hissed.

  ‘I’m bringing you to your gig in style.’

  ‘I just want to go home.’

  ‘You’ll get home; now just get into the car first. You’re making us look suspicious.’

&
nbsp; It was true. I was being picked up in the headlights of all the passing cars as I stood there with the door ajar. Reluctantly, I sat in beside him. ‘Shane, can you even drive?’

  ‘The hardest part of driving is simply getting the car started. That’s why you need an old banger like this without central locking.’ He pulled out wires from under the dash and joined them together. The engine came to life with a roar. ‘The second hardest part, of course, is getting the damn car to stop.’

  ‘Shane, let me out.’

  But it was too late. Shane pulled out, to the consternation of the driver behind us who beeped violently. Shane swung right, breaking a red light at the next bridge, and brought us back across the river, turning down a warren of side streets littered with smashed pallets outside deserted fruit warehouses.

  ‘You’re raving mad, Shane. Stop this car.’

  ‘I will … in time. Don’t worry.’

  He swung right so that we were suddenly going the wrong way up a one-way system towards the junction with Capel Street. Cars were still backed up there because of the accident on the quays. Shane did not slow down, although there was barely space for us to squeeze through the jam of vehicles. We sped onto another side street and were passing the music shop with the blue guitar in the window when Shane braked violently. I looked behind, shaking but relieved that he had stopped. If he reversed back, there was just enough space to park the car outside the music shop. Shane followed my gaze.

  ‘I bet you noticed that guitar when we were walking down.’

  ‘It’s a beauty all right,’ I agreed. ‘Now let’s ditch this car.’

  Only then did I realise what Shane intended to do. He reversed between the parked vehicles but made no attempt to straighten up. Instead he mounted the footpath and crashed the car boot into the shop window. It shattered into a thousand pieces, with shards of glass raining down. The guitar was undamaged, still sitting there. I could not believe this was happening. It felt like something from a film. Shane laughed at my shocked face.

  ‘I go to all this effort and you just sit there, Joey,’ he said. ‘At least have the decency to jump out and grab that guitar.’