Charlie Savage

by Roddy Doyle

  This thing, though – Dunkirk. It’s so real, so loud, so shocking, I’m surprised I’m not actually up to my neck in seawater. It’s harrowing.

  Your man from Wolf Hall, Mark Rylance, is up there on the screen. I know she likes him. She has that look – I’ve seen it when she’s gazing at Don Draper from Mad Men.

  I give her a nudge.

  –It’s not history you’re watching now, sure it isn’t?

  –Shut up.

  43

  I’m a bit of a lost soul. So the wife is saying, anyway. I think she’s just a bit sick of me moping around the place, especially in the evenings. She puts her head on my shoulder when she says it, but it’s still a bit hurtful. And, just as her head touches the side of my neck, her hand reaches out and she grabs the remote control off me.

  She wants me out of the house.

  And so do I.

  She says it again.

  –You’re a bit of a lost soul these days, Charlie.

  And she turns from Brighton v. Newcastle to The Great British Bake Off. Normally, I’d be up off the couch like a cat with a banger up its arse, and straight down to the pub. But I stay where I am. I grab hold of her iPad and I google ‘lost soul’. I’ve been hearing the phrase all my life but, now that I’m one of them, I want to know exactly what it means.

  So, I type in ‘lost soul’ and this is what I get back: ‘A soul that is damned’.

  And that sends me down to the local for the first time in ages. If I’m on my way to eternal damnation, I’ll need a pint before the trip.

  And that’s the problem. Walking to the local has become a short stroll to a possible hell. Will he be there, will he be there? My pal, Martin, has become as rare as a Leitrim man in Croke Park, and I hate drinking alone. Even just the one slow pint – I hate it.

  Martin has fallen in love. He admitted it, himself, the last time we met.

  –I heard Puppy Love on the radio this morning, he told me. –And I started crying. I couldn’t help it.

  –Donny Osmond?

  He nodded.

  –The song spoke to me, he said.

  –Martin, I remind him. –You’re over sixty.

  –I know.

  –You’ve enough grandkids to play against Bayern Munich.

  –I know.

  –With subs.

  –I fuckin’ know.

  He sighed.

  –It makes no sense, he admitted. –But—.

  He took a slug from his pint and started singing.

  –I hope and I pray that maybe some day –

  –Martin, stop—.

  –You’ll be back in my arms once again—.

  –Jesus, Martin – please –.

  He was pining for Eileen Pidgeon who was actually in my arms – for an hour or so, anyway – years and years ago, when Donny Osmond was bleating his way to the top of the charts.

  –Has she left you? I asked him, and I tried not to sound too hopeful.

  –No, said Martin. –But I love imagining she has.

  His eyes filled.

  –It makes me so happy, Charlie.

  –Ah, Jesus.

  I got out of there without finishing my pint. Well, that’s not true. I finished the pint but I didn’t enjoy it. I was belching all the way home.

  And now, tonight, I’m walking towards two equally dreadful possibilities: Martin won’t be there, and Martin will be there. He won’t be there and I’ll have to endure my own company. I’ll sit up at the bar and text the grandkids and hope they text me back, so I can keep my head down and look busy. Or, he will be there and I’ll have to endure his lovesick elderly teenager routine.

  He’s there.

  He’s alone.

  He’s not wearing the Tommy Hilfiger jumper Eileen Pidgeon got him for his birthday.

  So far, so good.

  The jumper’s pink, by the way, and way too small for him. It makes him look like a sausage before it hits the pan.

  Anyway.

  –Alright?

  –Good man, says Martin.

  He lifts a finger and the barman, Jerzy, sees him. He puts a glass under the Guinness tap and starts doing his job. Jerzy’s from Poland and the lads from the football club started calling him Away Jerzy – or just Away. And now everyone does, including his wife and kids.

  Anyway.

  –How are things? I ask Martin.

  Is he going to sing? Or cry? I’m all set to run – well, walk – if I have to.

  –Grand, he says.

  Is there a nicer, more reassuring word in the English language? Especially the way we use it in Ireland. It covers everything – the weather, your health, global politics, the quality of the pint in front of you, the points your granddaughter got in her Junior Cert. It covers – it hides – everything, including reality, what’s right in front of your eyes. There could be a chap holding his scalp in his hand, blood pouring over his eyes, but if he tells you he’s grand, it’s official: he’s grand. Leave him alone and move on – quick.

  Martin doesn’t look grand. He looks wretched; his skin’s a strange grey colour. I’m guessing Puppy Love isn’t speaking to him any more.

  But he said he’s grand, and I’m thrilled.

  44

  It’s coming up to Halloween, so me and the wife are doing the rounds. Looking for drugs.

  To sedate the dogs. And ourselves.

  We always leave it too late. The first of the fireworks goes off in early September, always in broad daylight – some twit who can’t wait for Halloween or even night time – and we hear the dogs going mad out the back. They’re throwing themselves at the back door; they’re howling at the moon that isn’t out yet. It’s not a great sound; there’s nothing funny about it.

  –I’ll go down to the vet in the morning, I say.

  And I always forget about it, because there isn’t another rocket or banger attack for weeks, sometimes well into October.

  This year it’s been very quiet. I hear one cartwheel in mid-October, in the far distance.

  –That’ll be the North Koreans.

  –You’re gas.

  I’m starting to wonder if there are any kids left in the neighbourhood, or if kids still go in to Moore Street to get their bangers.

  It was one of the great signs of maturity when I was a kid: the walk down Moore Street and if one of the women asked you if you were looking for bangers, you were elected. You were grown-up, a bona fide teenager, ordained by the women on Moore Street.

  Five years later, I walked down Moore Street again, hoping the women would ignore me. I was too old for bangers. I had an adult smell and hair on some of my face. I had a job, kind of a girlfriend, and a Honda 50. I carried the crash helmet, my adult credentials tucked under my arm. I’d nearly made it to the corner of Parnell Street when I heard the inevitable voice.

  –Are you looking for bangers, love?

  That was it, official: I was a kid for at least another year.

  But, anyway. Last night, it was like a scene from Apocalypse Now. The poor oul’ dogs were going berserk. Even I started howling.

  So, this morning, I go down to the vet for canine sedatives, or whatever. But he won’t believe the amount of dogs we have; he thinks I want to poison a horse or something. I phone the wife, to get her to verify the number. But he won’t believe her either. It doesn’t help that she doesn’t actually know the precise number herself, and the dogs won’t stay still long enough for her to count them.

  Anyway, he gives me one tablet – one! – that looks like it wouldn’t sedate a squirrel, let alone calm down a herd of enthusiastic dogs. So, we’re doing the rounds of the neighbours, family and friends, taking any drugs they’re not using. Painkillers, sedatives, anti-psychotics – we’re not fussy. We accept them all gratefully. We’ll mash them up and put them in with the food, with a few spoons of Benylin, for taste.

  We keep most of the Benylin for ourselves, for Halloween night itself. It goes down very well with gin, by the way. A Hendrick’s and Benyl
in – why wouldn’t you?

  Anyway. We’re all set. The neighbours and family have been brilliant. We’ve enough drugs to floor the cast of 101 Dalmatians.

  But we’re careful. We won’t be giving the dogs any old thing. We want happy dogs, not catatonic dogs. We had a major scare a few years back when one of the neighbours, a desperate oul’ hippie called Zeus – a nice enough chap, but Jesus. Anyway, Zeus gave us a SuperValu bag full of mushrooms.

  –Picked them myself, he told me. –On Fairyhouse Racecourse.

  –And they’ll do the trick, Zeus, yeah?

  –Ah, man, he said. –I’m Exhibit A.

  So, fair enough. I brought the mushrooms home and we fed them to the dogs, by the handful. The dogs are never that keen on vegetables, or anything that didn’t once have legs on it. But they loved these yokes. They golloped them up, and not a squeak out of them for half an hour or so.

  But then. Have you ever heard a gang of dogs singing Love Will Tear Us Apart? That was what we thought we heard. We ran out the back and the dogs – well, they weren’t dogs any more. They were swimming, or trying to. Or they were flapping their front paws, trying to take off. They were talking Chinese to each other, or it might have been fluent Cork. Anyway, whatever it was, there wasn’t one of them behaving like a dog, barking at the sky, pawing at the ground. The weirdest thing: they weren’t wagging their tails.

  I legged it down to Zeus.

  –They were for you, man, he said. –Not the fuckin’ dogs.

  –Oh.

  We’d left a few of the mushrooms in the bag, so myself and the wife took them, and we went outside and joined the dogs. And we came back in in plenty of time for Christmas.

  45

  I’m in an off-licence with one of my sons.

  Lovely, says you. It’s a day out with one of the children, kind of an adult version of a trip to the zoo. And it is lovely – any excuse to be with the kids, especially since they’ve grown up and left. Except it’s dragging on a bit.

  I said an off-licence, not the off-licence. The off-licence is only up the road, tucked in between the Spar and the Hickey’s, and it has anything I’d ever be interested in drinking. But, so far, myself and the son have been in four different off-licences and I’m beginning to wonder if I should have brought a change of clothes and my passport.

  The son is into the craft beer.

  And fair enough – we all need a hobby. But he’s taking it a bit far, I think. He has a book about it.

  A book about beer! As far as I’m concerned, that’s about as useful as a book about inhaling and exhaling – Breathing for Dummies. But I say nothing. I’m just glad to be with him. He asked me to come along, so I’m both delighted and bored out of my tree, at the exact same time.

  Anyway. There’s a beer he’s fond of called Handsome Jack, and it’s made in Kilbarrack. There’s a brewery in Kilbarrack!

  –Jaysis, son, I haven’t had an education like this since I was thrown out of school.

  I wasn’t expelled from school, or anywhere else. But I like to pretend I was. It makes me more interesting, somehow; a bit wild and hard. And I just like making up stories. I once told the daughter I was in charge of Patrick Pearse’s rifle in the GPO, in 1916. She seemed impressed – ‘Really, like?’ Then she asked me if I’d slipped down to Supermac’s during a lull in the bombardment. It took me a while to cop on that she knew I was acting the maggot. She was ten.

  Anyway, the brewery is in the Howth Junction industrial estate, in behind the GAA club there. So, our first stop is McHugh’s on Kilbarrack Road, because – it says in the son’s book – some beers don’t travel well, so it might be ‘a fun idea to try a glass in close proximity to the point of manufacture’. McHugh’s is a stone’s throw – a bottle’s throw – from Howth Junction, so in we go.

  And he buys a bottle.

  One bottle.

  There’s two of us in the bloody car.

  –Should we drink it now, son? I ask him.

  We’re back in the car with the bottle.

  –Why? he asks.

  –Well, I say. –We’re in close proximity to the point of manufacture.

  –Ah, no, he says. –The house is only a mile away.

  –That’s still in close enough proximity, is it?

  –Ah, yeah.

  –Fair enough.

  It’s a long day. There’s a new beer, an IPA—

  –What’s that? I ask him.

  –India Pale Ale.

  I think I remember Ena Sharples from Coronation Street liking a half of pale ale, back in the days when the telly was black and white. But I say nothing.

  Anyway, this new beer is called Howling Wreckage. It’s from some mad brewery in the north of England, somewhere, and we spend the afternoon looking for it.

  I don’t really get it, all the craft beer. Guinness is crafty enough for me. When I was a kid, a teenager, me and my pals just wanted to become the men who drank Guinness. I remember my first pint, and being proud and slightly terrified. I wouldn’t be able for it. I’d pass out or vomit, or I’d hate it – I’d look like a kid among the men. But, luckily, I liked it – or, I persuaded myself that I liked it – and it’s been my poison ever since.

  The beer you choose is like a marriage. Like your football team or your wife, you’re stuck with it for life. Through triumphs and childbirth, relegation and the menopause, your team is your team, your wife is your wife, and your pint is your pint. Call me old-fashioned, I don’t give a bollix.

  We’re in off-licence no.6. It’s in Castleknock; we had to drive right through the Phoenix Park to get here. I’ve brought my reading glasses, because I can’t make out half the stuff that’s on the labels. I’m actually looking at the variety of crisps when I hear a shout.

  –Yes!

  It’s the son.

  –Found it!

  He’s holding a bottle of Howling Wreckage. It hits me; it’s his face. It’s the exact same expression he had when he found the Buzz Lightyear that Santy had left for him at the end of the bed. It’s my son there with the bottle; it’s my little boy.

  I know: there’s a big difference between craft beer and Toy Story but, actually, it’s the same buzz.

  46

  I get to the door of the local.

  But I hesitate.

  I’m a man on a mission.

  Don’t get me wrong now – I don’t fancy myself as Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossibles. I wouldn’t get a part in Mission Possible, or even Mission Quite Straight-forward. But I’m going in there and not for a pint – or, not just for a pint.

  It’s quiet. Maybe ominous. Or maybe just empty.

  I push open the door.

  And it’s the usual gang, dispersed around the shop. It’s pub policy: the under-forties are barred, or at least discouraged. It’s very clever, actually – something discreet about the decor and the clientele. Walk into my local and you just want to lie down and die. And if that’s how you feel before you get there, it’s like walking right into your natural habitat, the room of your dreams.

  Anyway. The place is just quiet. I’d never really noticed it before – all the punters are staring at their phones. There’s only two lads talking and they’re leaning into each other, whispering like they’re in a library.

  There’s a round table with four men at it. They’ve known one another for more than thirty years but they’re all holding their phones right up to their faces. They’re all half-blind and one of them has actually taken off his glasses so he can read what’s on the screen.

  Maybe they’ve run out of things to talk about. Maybe they’re looking for the name of the footballer whose name they can’t remember. Maybe it’s just a break in the conversation. But I don’t think so. I think it’s an indication of something profoundly wrong about the way we live now. Because a woman walks past and not one of them looks up to have a gawk at her.

  I know the woman.

  It’s Eileen Pidgeon.

  –Ah, Charlie, she says. –How
’s yourself?

  –Not too bad, Eileen. How’s the hip?

  In case you’re thinking, ‘Oh, good Jesus, he’s having a fling with Eileen Pidgeon’, I’m not. I’m not even dreaming about it. Well, I’m not dreaming seriously about it.

  Eileen phoned me this morning. But she was using my pal Martin’s phone. So, when I put my phone to my ear and heard, ‘Charlie?’, I thought Martin was after having the sex change – the hormone injections or whatever’s involved.

  Martin told me a while back that he identified as a woman, so I’m always a bit surprised when he turns up to the pub in the same jeans and jumper he’s been wearing since the Yanks were hoisted out of Saigon.

  Anyway.

  –Martin, I said. –You cut the oul’ balls off – good man.

  –It’s Eileen.

  –Sorry?

  –Eileen, she said. –Pidgeon. I’m using Martin’s phone.

  I believed her. I also wanted to climb into the washing machine and shut the roundy door.

  –He doesn’t know, she said.

  –Sorry – what?

  Now it was me who was sounding like the man who’d been having the hormone injections.

  –I thought if I used my own phone, you wouldn’t answer me, she said.

  I coughed, and got a bit of the masculinity back up from my stomach.

  –Why wouldn’t I answer you? I asked.

  –Well, she said. –I know. We have history.

  I wasn’t that pushed about history in school. But the way Eileen says ‘history’, the way the word slides into my ear, I want to run all the way in to Trinity College and sign up for a fuckin’ Master’s.

  Anyway.

  She wanted to meet me.

  –For a chat.

  –What, about Martin? I ask.

  –Never mind Martin, she says.

  Martin and Eileen have been doing a line since I kind of accidentally introduced them to each other. He’s a widower who wishes he was a woman and she’s a widow who seemed to think she’d met her ideal partner – some kind of a male lesbian. I’m trying not to sound bitter – but Eileen Pidgeon has been sitting in a little corner of my mind since I was sixteen, since the first and the last time she kissed me.