Winterwood

by Patrick McCabe

  —You'll see, Catherine, the more you get to know me, I said, that it's different now.

  And it was true. I was far more chatty and outgoing for a start. But still aware enough not to make the same mistake I'd made with Immy. No unnecessary displays of emotion, I told myself. Take it nice and easy and relaxed. 'Flowing' and 'light-hearted' - those were the words which remained foremost in mind. Casual and relaxed but, more than anything, 'entertaining'. I related a few stories about London after she'd departed, about the early days in the dark Drumcondra hostel. I had learnt so much - in particular, not to burden a story with detail unnecessarily.

  Taking your time in that old Slievenageeha way.

  I decided it was better to be frank with Catherine, to be straight and direct. I asked her straight out what she thought of my new image. I stroked my curly beard and grinned at her in the mirror. I swear I was the image of Uncle Florian and Ned. And, of course, of my own deceased father. You wouldn't have been able to tell us apart.

  —The men of the mountain! I said, just for the laugh.

  She didn't answer. She was quiet now, and hostile, like in those Kilburn days I remembered so well.

  She was under no obligation to answer me. Of course she wasn't. The two of us were adults. It didn't matter anyway. Kilburn now belonged to the past. There was only one place that mattered now. Because it's been ordained, I said, two paths intersecting which should never in the first place have diverged.

  As we approached the factory, I became overwhelmed by these absolutely fabulous thoughts of 'home' and 'hearth' with this one single word appearing in my mind and obstinately refusing to go away: Pappie.

  Auld Pappie.

  —Pappie, I kept repeating, adjusting the mirror as I scrunched up my face, pushing back my copper locks.

  I wanted to be the best father. I wanted to be the most adored father in the world.

  Which is funny, of course, because that is exactly what Ned Strange had always wanted. Deep down now I could see that. And began to feel a renewed compassion for the man. Because it was obvious to me now that much of what had happened, it, plain and simple, hadn't been his fault. A lot of it had been simply bad luck. It could have happened to anyone really. Especially anyone who'd had a difficult upbringing. As many of us on the mountain - regrettably had.

  What they'd done to him in prison had been despicable. They'd urinated in his food, sprayed 'nonce' on the door of his cell. He'd attempted suicide, I'd read, three times. Before, of course, eventually succeeding in the solitary cold of a prison shower cubicle.

  Which explained, the more I thought about it, why he'd shown such concern for me at times. As though he didn't want me, being a fellow mountain man, ending up being humiliated like that, or made unhappy by women who didn't love me.

  We were now approaching winterwood and I was explaining to Catherine how things had changed. How she had nothing to worry about now.

  —I've learnt, I told her. I've grown up, you see. Why, I daresay if you were to ask any of my workmates who of us all is the most devoted father, I guarantee you this, they would seriously consider me.

  I lit a cigarette and turned the dial to find some music on the radio. I was half-expecting to hear John Martyn. It didn't happen, which I have to say surprised me.

  —To give you an example, Catherine, I continued, only last week during the Christmas festivities, the girls from the brothel next door to the office arrived laden down with bottles of champagne. Well, did that cause a stir or what! Larry Kennedy's eyes were out on sticks!

  I shook with laughter as I slid into the middle lane.

  —Hmm, you look nice, says this hooker to me, and you know I'm not crude but before I know it she's down on her knees and — Catherine, I'm not kidding you! - doing her level best to get me, you know, aroused, quite frankly!

  I had to chuckle when I thought of it.

  —But there was no way I was going to permit that to happen. Get up — do you hear me? I was on the verge of saying, Catherine. Get up, I told you! What are you - a fucking whore? It was on the tip of my tongue, Catherine! Because, I mean, she was really taking liberties. It was just so unnecessary, and so fucking coarse - you know? An uncomfortable situation, certainly, and one which, at the time, could really have gone either way. Which is where Pappie came in, reliable Auld Pappie. As the whore knelt beneath me, I smiled to myself and thought of good Auld Pappie with his great big twinkly open-hearted smile. Ah, Pappie, I thought, the man with the greater life experience. The man who possesses that little bit of extra wisdom. That little bit that makes all the difference. I touched her gently on the shoulder and laughed as I said:

  —Get up out of that now — there's a good girl.

  Which in the end saw that no one was offended. Absolutely no one. Even the prostitute was good-humoured about it all, swinging her bag as she flounced off.

  —Sorry, big fella. Didn't realise you were such a loyal husband! Ha ha!

  It had worked perfectly. If only I'd been privy to such knowledge and self-possession before, I remember thinking, as I heard my name called out, and I strode out the door to collect my fare.

  But then, who ever succeeds, in early life, in grasping the fundamentals of such wisdom? What do you know when you're first starting out? You know nothing. You think you're going to get married and that's the way it's going to remain for ever. You believe it when they tell you that such a thing exists as marital bliss. You're overjoyed when you hear that what's facing you is a lifetime of sensation and discovery and loving enchantment of the heart.

  —You never pause to think that it might be all lies, I murmured aloud, half to Catherine and half to myself, as I slowed the car and turned in off the road, to where the tall stately pines stretched majestically into the sky.

  Twelve: A Bar of Chocolate

  So IT'S AULD PAPPIE Tiernan they call me now, and the name fits me like a glove — I really have grown into it.

  —There he is, Auld Pappie! you'll hear them calling, and look, he's in early again! Putting everyone to shame, Auld Pappie, so you are!

  I'm always showing them photographs of my kids.

  —Every cent goes on his youngsters, they say, dotes on them, he really does.

  Although 'likenesses', as Florian used to call his photographs, might be a more appropriate term, since for obvious reasons I can't publicise my actual family.

  —This is Cara, she's my eldest daughter, I tell them.

  These indeed are the blissful days. Each day when I'm driving through the city I never fail to remind myself just how lucky I've been. How utterly fortunate: unlike poor Ned Strange, whose last days on earth were truly appalling.

  For how else could you describe the poor man sitting there, minding his own business in the prison yard, reading his westerns and harming no one at all. When, out of nowhere, he looks up and sees this little lean-faced inmate, clearly intent on causing trouble. Staring down menacingly, kicking the book out of Ned's hand.

  —It's a good thing to be a nonce, he says, that's a good thing to be, isn't it? It's a good thing to abuse a child. Take away his innocence and then go around acting like you're some harmless old man. We know what you're at, cunt.

  Using your stories to get them to like you. Conning them up to the two bloody eyes. Sharing your tobacco and playing your poxy fiddle. You're going to get it now, you fucking nonce! You won't walk out of here alive!

  It turned out that the little bastard had a spanner underneath his coat. Laying into Ned, with the guards just standing there as if nothing was happening.

  I'd read all that in the magazine Irish Crime. To be fair, it was quite a reasonable and balanced report. Unlike the tabloids who'd sensationalised everything. Making a skit of how Ned had tried to get the prisoners on his side, convincing them that he'd actually adored Michael Gallagher. And hadn't intended any harm to come to him at all.

  How could he possibly ever have been attracted to him sexually? he'd repeated constantly, with tears of heart-break fl
owing down his cheeks. He was just an old man, for heaven's sake, he kept insisting. All he'd ever wanted was a wife and a little child. He would never - never! — have harmed little Michael.

  —I loved him, don't you understand? he told them. Why can't you understand? He was the star of my ceilidh. He fed my chickens! I adored Michael Gallagher! I would never have harmed a hair on his little head!

  They didn't believe him, however. They told him he was a liar. Went further and insisted that he was lying through his teeth. Then the rumour started about him actually losing his mind. That was what was happening now, it was said. Sitting in the corner muttering to himself, eating bits of paper and trembling. But then it transpired that this too was an act. That all he was doing was laughing at them. That he didn't give a damn about anything they did or said. That he wasn't even afraid of them. That he'd been making fools of them all, all along.

  —He used to laugh into my face, one of the warders was quoted in the magazine as saying, he'd stand there grinning and offering you chocolate. 'Michael used to love it, officer, you know,' he'd say. Make you shiver so it would, the way the dirty, creepy bastard stared.

  It was a pity the warder had had to see it like that, I thought. I could understand it, though, for I'd once myself thought in the very same way. Would indeed have insisted, without question, that Ned's intentions all along had been to murder Michael Gallagher, with no particular motive at all.

  The fact is that to someone like Ned Strange such thinking would have been inherently abhorrent. Certainly without doubt he'd been longing for many years for a family of his own — in particular, as he'd told me on many occasions, a little boy. But he wouldn't have kidnapped a child solely for that reason, to experience what family life might be like, even for a ludicrously short time.

  No, that wasn't it at all. Ned Strange had sexually abused Michael Gallagher all right - just as he'd done to another person in a room in Portobello, one night long ago now best forgotten.

  —Poor Little Michael, I remembered him saying, as my skin crawled, imagine trusting the likes of me. I suppose it's the chocolate, Redmond, ha ha. They just can't say no to the chocolate, can they, the little bestest friends of Ned?

  Thirteen: These Are My Mountains

  I WAS VERY MUCH at ease now with the world and with myself. Which is why, when one of the cabbies in the office happened to say to me one day:

  —We were wondering, Pappie, if you weren't too busy, might you come along to one of our prayer meetings?

  I had no problem at all accepting the invitation.

  And why, for months afterwards, I made it my business to attend with regularity, adding my voice to their thriving little congregation. They all kept telling me how delighted they were to have me. I assured them humbly that the pleasure was all mine and that perhaps one day I might bring along my family. Cara, of course, and Owen, my little son.

  I told them I was looking forward to the day of Cara's first Holy Communion.

  —She'll be seven next birthday, I said.

  They agreed it would be a very special day.

  Every Sunday after our prayers, we had tea in a little hall. We sat and talked about the state of the world in general.

  —Perdition seems to me just around the corner, a sad-eyed old man remarked, nipping a biscuit as he added: I've lived through two world wars and I never thought I'd see things like this. Men of God in this once-innocent little isle. To think of the things they've been accused of doing.

  Those lusty old priests and their rampant tally whackers, I thought to myself.

  —It's dreadful, I agreed with him, absolutely dreadful.

  —It is, Pappie, he agreed. It's worse than that, I'm telling you. Far worse.

  I nodded and laughed ruefully, in that convincing and practised Auld Pappie way.

  I always made sure to kneel up at the front, where everyone had a good view of me, thrusting out my chest as I chanted 'Let Me Lie in the Arms of Jesus'. A photograph was mounted of me devoutly praising Our Saviour. Why, I seemed the loveliest old-timer you ever laid eyes on. With nothing but goodness and decency in my heart, undiluted love for the world and its neighbour.

  I was standing in the office one day, leafing through a copy of Homer Simpson's Scrapbook - I had repeatedly searched the shops and hadn't been able to find anything about Sweet Valley High - which I'd just bought for Imogen, when I overheard one of the drivers saying:

  —It's hard to even get him to come out for a pint.

  I received that as a compliment. But didn't acknowledge it. Just smiled warmly, from ear to ear. But then I heard:

  —I wouldn't be so sure about him. I wouldn't be so sure about that fellow at all.

  I immediately froze, but I didn't have to look. I knew straight away who the commentator was - the driver I'd caught interfering with my property. It was hard not to react, I won't pretend it wasn't.

  But I was a different man now. Auld Pappie didn't react in impulsive, foolhardy ways.

  —Ha ha, I laughed.

  And just went off about my business.

  The more time passed, though, the more I found myself brooding over the incident. I became jittery and on edge, and it grew more difficult to keep up the Auld Pappiness, as it were. Like the smart-ass cur I had in the car the other night. Mouthing out of him to impress his intoxicated girlfriend, so hopelessly drunk she hardly even knew her own name. I was playing some music and the next thing you know, what do I hear him saying?

  —What's that on the tape, grandpa? What kinda shit's that you got playing on there?

  The girlfriend started laughing. I flipped the cassette out, and found something modern to keep the morons happy. But, as I say, it wasn't easy either. I mean, I could just as easily have stuck the car to the road and told the little bastards to get out of the cab.

  —Get out of the car this minute, scum!

  I could have said that. Or something along those lines. But I didn't. Like I say, I quietly and simply ejected the tape.

  —We like Britney Spears, they slobbered.

  —So you don't like the country and western music at all! I laughed. You leave the like of that to old-timers such as me!

  They didn't reply. Too busy skitting semen on to the back seat.

  The song I'd been playing was 'Nobody's Child'. It meant a lot to me, for reasons which I presume are obvious. I often sang it in the cab to myself. It's a lot of old nonsense, they'll tell you about that song — a load of embarrassing sentimental twaddle. It's like 'Snakes Crawl at Night', they'll say. You couldn't possibly go around taking songs like that seriously. I mean, ordinary wives just don't do things like that — simply go off and make love to snakes. Someone like Catherine Courtney might. But not Casey Breslin.

  Most certainly not Casey Breslin, sophisticated lady-about-town. But I have to say, the second year we had spent living together, Casey and I - it was amongst the most rewarding of my life.

  Once again I was deliriously happy. I just couldn't believe it. Life being so good that anyone observing me that morning on the train to Slievenageeha would have been prompted to remark:

  —There are few times in your life when you are lucky enough to witness such a calm and peaceful expression on a man's face. He must be in love. That's all you can conclude.

  And it was true — I was in love. Very much so. As was Casey. Blowing kisses after the train, to the husband she so loved and respected and adored.

  The theme of the documentary These Are My Mountains, which I was off to start shooting, was the rapidly changing face of modern Ireland, how an old, almost ancient, way of life was vanishing in front of our very eyes. The completed film juxtaposed images of the vibrant new valley - in the foreground the Gold Club, a vast glass-fronted nightclub on five floors, bathed in blue light at the foot of the hills, set in the midst of a plethora of business parks and apartment complexes, hi-tech plants and German hypermarkets, the entire place buzzing twenty-four hours a day — against old grainy monochrome footage orchestra
ted by nostalgic strings. The closing image, in time-lapse sepia, depicting the rugged, magisterial mountain peaks slowly fading into the mist, as though returning to some lush and blistered paradise, an evanescent, primordial Eden, along with them a tumbledown stone cottage, where Florian had gambled far into the night, smiling lasciviously at his nephew as he reached for his fiddle, sawing out wild solos that leapt untamed like screeching gales.

  Neither of us expected the extraordinary success which was to come the way of that little documentary, already having moved on to other things. In a way I had seen it as drawing a line underneath the past.

  —Slievenageeha, I'd said to myself, sweet and peaceful mountain: au revoir for ever.

  Even when early indications had seemed favourable - its first outing had been unanimously praised in the papers - I had not attached all that much importance to it. Then one day while working at home I'd received an unexpected phone call from Casey. She excitedly informed me that These Are My Mountains had been shortlisted for the Irish Film and Television Awards, and was being tipped in Montrose as very likely to win.

  Which was exactly, in fact, what came to pass.

  The reception was held in the Westbury Hotel. I could barely stand up when I heard my name called out.

  —And the winner is . . . Dominic Tiernan for These Are My Mountains, in the documentary and features section.

  When I looked up, I could see her clapping through the haze, in a long lame gown with her blonde hair tied back.

  —Dominic! I heard her cry.

  Then she was standing beside me, taking my arm and kissing my cheek.

  —I'm so proudl she told me.

  I put my arm around her waist: all of my colleagues were sharing in the moment. The noise of the applause was a triumphant, invigorating storm. It was wonderful. So much so that it took me a minute or two to focus on James Ingram. James was tall. About six foot four. Originally from London. He informed us - with no need of prompting — that of late he had cut down on a lot of his foreign travel.