Sudden Times

by Dermot Healy

The deceased told you?

  Yes.

  Thank you, Mr Loonan.

  Thank you, your honour.

  Mr Loonan?

  Yes.

  We have heard from two witnesses that politics was discussed at this party.

  No. Never.

  Both witnesses stated that you and Mr Ewing started to speak in Irish. Is that correct?

  I can’t recall, sir.

  Well, the court will be patient. Now, do you remember speaking in Irish?

  I don’t think we did.

  Please, Mr Loonan. If you spoke in Irish would this not be an attempt to communicate with each other without Mr Reynolds or Mr MacVeigh knowing what was being said.

  Yes, I suppose so.

  So what did you speak about?

  Suddenly La Loo broke out into a fit of laughter.

  You find it funny, Mr Loonan? Indeed. So what did you speak of?

  The only Irish we spoke was of Murphy Agus A Chairde.

  And what does that mean?

  Murphy and His Friends. It was a programme for children that used to be on Irish television when we were young.

  A children’s programme?

  Yes.

  drugs

  There was plenty of alcohol available at this party?

  Yes.

  And drugs? I repeat, Mr Ewing, were there drugs available?

  Ham.

  I’m sorry?

  Nothing.

  We already know there were drugs available through an autopsy carried out on your brother, the deceased. You have heard evidence to that effect, have you not?

  Yes.

  So you admit there were drugs available at this party?

  Yes.

  Thank you.

  And did you partake of LSD?

  No.

  You are certain of that?

  Yes.

  But your brother did?

  Yes.

  And your friends?

  I can’t say.

  But you didn’t?

  No.

  I see. I have a police report here before me, Mr Ewing. It states that your eyes were dilated and you were suffering from hallucinations when the police arrived. Is that correct?

  I was all over the place after what had happened.

  Indeed. All over the place.

  That’s right.

  Why are you lying?

  I am not lying.

  I put it to you that you were doped out of your head!

  No.

  Do you think a man in your condition would in fact be able to recall in a lucid manner the actual run of events at the party?

  I can remember.

  Can you?

  I’m not likely to forget.

  Well let’s see, shall we, Mr Ewing?

  things started flying

  When things started flying that’s when it started.

  What things?

  Food.

  And who was throwing this food?

  Scots Bob.

  Mr MacVeigh?

  That’s him.

  And because of some light-hearted fun on the part of Mr MacVeigh you decided to eject him from the party?

  It was not light-hearted fun.

  Throwing food? Come, come, Mr Ewing. Isn’t it true to say that you were only waiting for your chance?

  He was out of order.

  Then what happened?

  I asked him to go.

  And when he refused?

  I asked him again.

  And then you struck him, yes?

  No.

  And forcibly restrained his companion Miss Farrell from leaving?

  That’s not true.

  You heard her evidence.

  She’s lying.

  Why would a young woman, who came to the party with Mr MacVeigh, decide not to go with him when he was leaving?

  It happens.

  And why would she lie to the court?

  That happens too.

  So, lying to the court is something that happens?

  If you feel threatened.

  Is that why you are lying about drugs, Mr Ewing? Do you feel threatened?

  No.

  What? Is that not your modus operandi? Is that not why we are standing in court today? What of all the imaginary threats we’ve heard over the last few days? In fact, because you felt threatened one man – if not two – are dead.

  What the fuck are you saying?

  Please control your language, Mr Ewing.

  I’m sorry, your honour.

  So things started flying did they, Mr Ewing?

  Yes.

  And so you decided to eject Mr MacVeigh?

  Yes.

  And what of Mr Reynolds?

  He said he would go too.

  Did Mr Reynolds in any way start to protest?

  No.

  In fact, he behaved like a gentleman, did he not?

  Yes.

  But Mr MacVeigh did protest?

  Yes.

  Understandably, given the circumstances, wouldn’t you agree? Oh you don’t agree. If by chance you were being thrown out of a party and your hosts refused to let your female companion accompany you, I’m sure you would protest. Wouldn’t you?

  She said she didn’t want to go.

  Did she indeed? I am afraid the court has heard a quite different version of events from Miss Farrell. So let’s recap. You attacked Mr MacVeigh and hurled him out the doorway of the apartment?

  I didn’t attack him. No one attacked him.

  So you gently hurled him out the doorway?

  He didn’t go handy.

  Handy? Meaning easily I take it?

  Yes.

  I see. And then what happened?

  The windows came in.

  Just like that?

  No, sir, suddenly.

  the crux

  And now we come to the crux of the whole evening. You say your brother went to the toilet. Yes?

  Yes. He headed on out.

  This meant he had to leave the living room and walk along a short corridor that passed by the front door of the apartment.

  Yes. The front door would have been on his left.

  As he was going out?

  And on his right side coming in.

  Thank you, Mr Ewing. Did anyone accompany him?

  No.

  So there is no witness to what happened out in that corridor?

  Yes, there is.

  And who is that?

  Scots Bob.

  Thank you, Mr Ewing. The court is aware of Mr MacVeigh’s position at the time. I meant there was no witness among your party who could testify to what took place at that front door?

  No.

  But you were first out?

  I heard a knock. Then a whoosh.

  And?

  And I found my brother in flames. I found Scots Bob with his arms on fire. The fire was running along the carpet.

  And what did you do?

  I remember the screaming.

  Yes.

  And that I had to stop the burning.

  Yes.

  I tried to throw a blanket over Redmond.

  Understandably. Did you do that immediately?

  I don’t know.

  There was a lot of confusion.

  Yes.

  Did you try to throw something over Mr MacVeigh?

  No.

  In fact, you struck him.

  What?

  You struck him repeatedly. Isn’t that right?

  No.

  In fact, before going to the aid of your brother you struck Mr MacVeigh.

  No, no, I did not.

  ta-do

  Mr Robinson?

  That’s me.

  You live above the apartment where this tragic affair occurred.

  I do, for ten years. People come and go. I stayed on.

  And you attended the party on the night in question.

  I did. It was fancy dress. Everyone came as someone else. Not me, though.

  And a certain
fracas arose.

  It did.

  And then Mr MacVeigh and Mr Reynolds –

  I don’t know their names.

  – left the party in violent circumstances. Right?

  There was a ta-do.

  After they left, you were seated directly inside the living-room door, the door that lead on to the corridor. Yes?

  I was seated at the entrance.

  And then, after a certain length of time, Mr Oliver Ewing rushed by you when more commotion arose in the corridor.

  There was screaming.

  And what did you do?

  I looked out.

  And what did you see?

  Nothing at first. There was a great deal of smoke. The stench was terrible. It was very frightening.

  And then what did you see?

  Oliver.

  And what was he doing?

  He was stamping on the carpet.

  And then –?

  He started screaming at the other man, the intruder.

  You mean Mr MacVeigh, the accused?

  Yes.

  Go on.

  Then he threw some garment – a blanket – over his brother.

  But first, Mr Robinson, before he got the blanket to throw over his brother, did he strike Mr MacVeigh?

  It might have been after he covered his brother.

  You think it was after he covered his brother?

  Yes, now I think, it was after he covered his brother.

  I see. Well now, whether it was before or after he got the blanket for his brother, you admit that he struck Mr MacVeigh?

  It’s all so difficult.

  Please, Mr Robinson, I have your statement here before me. You state he struck Mr MacVeigh, yes?

  Yes. But you see …

  Thank you, Mr Robinson.

  But you see, now I think, he was trying to put out the flames.

  By striking a man?

  Yes.

  I doubt it, Mr Robinson. I think what you witnessed was Mr Ewing physically assaulting a severely burnt man who could not defend himself. Is that not so?

  Yes. That is true.

  Thank you.

  But begging your pardon, sir, why did he then strike his brother in the same manner?

  Are you telling us he struck his brother also?

  Yes, sir, he did.

  He struck his brother?

  Yes.

  evidence

  Just a few more questions, Mr Ewing. All right?

  Yes.

  Is it true that you surreptitiously made your way to the room in St Thomas’s where Mr MacVeigh, severely ill after the fire, was hospitalized?

  What?

  Were you not found by the police lurking on that floor of the hospital?

  But my brother Redmond was being treated in the same hospital. I didn’t even know Scots Bob was a patient there.

  You didn’t know?

  No.

  And yet you were found facing the exact room in which he was a patient.

  It happened by pure chance.

  Chance again? Pure chance? Of all the rooms in the hospital, you ended up outside his very door?

  I took the lift to the wrong floor.

  Did you indeed?

  I did.

  One wonders what would have happened had the police not been on permanent duty there.

  I tell you I didn’t even know he was in the hospital!

  And yet you were found outside the door of the chief witness in this trial, the only person who could tell us what exactly took place on the tragic night of this party.

  I took the lift to the wrong floor.

  Indeed? Let’s return to your apartment in Olive Street. Before the police had conducted a proper search of the house what did you do?

  What do you mean what did I do?

  Did you not, in fact, clean the entire flat from top to bottom?

  I did.

  Why?

  Because the place was a mess.

  Were you not trying to hide any evidence?

  The police had already been through the flat. I was not trying to hide anything.

  Your brother is lying in hospital severely ill, and instead of staying with him, you find yourself outside Mr MacVeigh’s door, and then you return to the apartment and give it a thorough going over. Would you not consider your actions suspicious?

  I’m tidy.

  I see.

  I always was. It’s in my nature.

  Is that so. And is selfishness in your nature? Why did you not stay in the hospital with your brother?

  I can’t say.

  And is deception in your nature, would you say? Is deception equally abundant in your nature?

  No.

  So what did you throw out?

  Rubbish.

  Is that all?

  Yes.

  Well, we shall never know, shall we?

  Ollie Ewing

  I went to stand with the prosecutor outside the courtroom. He was congratulating me on staying the course. La Loo was lighting a fag. I looked over his shoulder and saw Silver John standing with his barristers. They were going great guns. He turned away from them in disgust and his eyes alighted on mine.

  He smiled over at me. Then I saw it – his mouth went into an O, he wagged a finger at me, slowly shaking his head, as if to say You shouldn’t have! Someone spoke to him and he replied without looking at them. Then he raised his hand and flicked two fingers fast across his neck as though he were brushing away a fly. He mouthed something.

  He started walking towards me. I backed away but he kept coming.

  Someone must have understood then what was happening, for his crowd surrounded him, but he still kept at it, wagging his finger and then he whispered to me again. Even though I was standing some distance from him, I could read my name on his lips. Ollie Ewing, he was saying, Ollie Ewing.

  VII

  An Afterlife

  32

  the drums

  The morning after the trial I closed the door to the Clapham flat and lit out for Luton with La Loo.

  I was glad to be away from there. The mother and La Loo had stayed a few days, but mostly I was there on my own since the night of the party. Traipsing. Sometimes I imagined there were folk under the arches of the railway watching the house. Once night fell I didn’t stir. I waited for the windows to come in. The doorbell would ring at all hours and there’d be nobody there. Soon, none of the tenants would answer the door. Instead they’d call out Hallo from their window.

  Hallo, anybody there? I’d hear the gay bucks call.

  No answer.

  It was silence all round. I never spoke. I never answered the door. I never called out. One night this fucking car parked directly outside and whoever it was had this drumbeat playing. They threw the door ajar. It must have lasted maybe only a minute but it seemed to go on for ever. The same pounding rhythm over and over. I could do without that.

  the point

  So, La Loo says, come on down to Luton.

  We shared the one room. He headed off in the morning to his toxicology and I hung a few laps around the town looking for work. I stopped off at Vauxhall Motors but had no luck. Then I saw a sign in a window. They wanted pickers. £4.25 in the hand, plus bonus. Training and uniform provided. Own safety shoes an advantage. So I said, right. I know potatoes, but what did I want a uniform for? So I stepped in. I’m sorry, sir, the secretary says, but this is actual factory work. I didn’t understand, but Thank you, I said. In the event, I went into the Arndale Centre.

  How are you today, sir? Morella in the arcade asked as he served me cappuccino.

  I could be better, I said.

  Oh, he said with dismay. You not find a job?

  What is the point? I asked him.

  Hah?

  I’m saying, what is the point of it all?

  The point? Ha-ha, he said, avoiding me.

  With great bluster he poured frothing milk into my cup from a jug held on high and moved on quickly to the next customer
.

  How are you today, madam? All right?

  I got myself a seat on a long bench. The floor rocked under my feet as if it was suspended. Then, at the other end of the bench someone farted. It reached me after passing along the buttocks of the other sitters.

  Lovely, ain’t it? said the bloke beside me.

  Then a woman carrying coffee fell across him as she made her way past us. He watched the coffee run across his trousers.

  Hallo, he says, wha’ we got here?

  Sorry, she said.

  Put more water in it, love, he said.

  He looked at me and lifted his hands.

  What can you do?

  Nothing, I said.

  Right. Right. So what you been at?

  Been through a court trial.

  Nothing political, I ’ope.

  No.

  You win?

  I couldn’t win.

  Yeh, but did the other bloke go down?

  Yeh. Seven years.

  That’s all right then. Fuck ’im, right?

  fuck him

  Fuck him.

  Luton ladies

  I was there maybe a week when one day I found myself reading a monument to the men and women of Luton who died in the war. Three Indian girls in flowing white saris emerged from the town hall. One of them was pregnant. It was the lovely pitch of the raised sari over the swell that attracted me.

  He’s not mad, one said.

  No, said the other, but she’s going mental.

  And then you get, like, dance stuff.

  See you later, she said to the others.

  See you later, they said.

  I followed the pregnant lady through the shopping arcade.

  This fascination with pregnant women took me on various jaunts round the city. I might be minding my own business then this woman would stroll by, just taking a walk. Maybe she wanted to get out of the house. Sometimes we walked for hours and hours. Sometimes she’d stop and straighten up as if some distant command had reached her. She’d push out her breasts and tap the small of her back. Then on. Or maybe rest a hand on her hip as if she’d run out of breath.

  Then on we’d go to travel agents’ windows, hairdressers and especially vegetable stalls, for lettuce maybe, radishes, sometimes mushrooms. We’d drop into a seat in Queen’s Park and watch children playing. She might eat Pot Noodles or a baguette or a doughnut. We watched the people.