'What the fuck are you talking about?' Davie snapped again.
She took another swig of his cider.' If you want to pursue beauty, go to the big city. That's how it works. Beautiful people get better jobs and gravitate to the city. There they meet other beautiful people and have beautiful children. It's the way things are. That's the thing about little country villages. The slow and the plain and the unambitious get left behind, and they marry and they have slower and plainer and less ambitious children. Don't let it happen to you, boys. You're bright, I can see that. You're individuals. Get out of here while you can.'
I started to think about this. It seemed to make sense, but then I was pissed on cider.
Davie was nodding sagely as well.
Then he pushed her off her swing and stole her handbag.
He took off into the night, cackling wildly.
And I ran after him.
I drove down to Groomsport two nights after the incident in the Quiet Room. This was a calculated risk as I hadn't possessed a driving licence for some considerable time. There had been a small 'incident' which forced some dozy judge to remove it until, and I quote, 'hell freezeth over'. But now that terrorism was largely a dying art there weren't so many security checkpoints on the roads, so the chances of me being caught out were much reduced. I just had to drive carefully. It wasn't a problem. I'm a careful kind of a guy. I drove down the coast at a steady thirty-five miles per hour. Other motorists screamed abuse at me, but it was water off a duck's back.
Somehow it didn't surprise me that Davie had never moved away from the village. We'd enjoyed two golden years of punk, but then my parents had grown tired of the constant sniffles of Irish seaside life and gone back to the city. For a while Davie came up to see me at weekends; funnily enough I can't remember ever going back down to Groomsport to see him. I met new friends, different girls, then Trish, my first proper relationship, my only proper relationship. She met Davie a couple of times and seemed to like him, but was quite wary of him as well. Maybe she was jealous of how close we had been, but she needn't have worried because we really weren't close at all any more. After a while he stopped coming up; there was the occasional phone call, then Christmas cards. Then nothing. I heard on the grapevine that he had joined the police, and then a couple of times while out reporting I ran into him. He was big and imposing with his uniform and gun; I was usually bedraggled and hungover. Our conversations were stilted and embarrassing. He was a cop, and being a cop changes you. It goes with the territory. God knows what he made of me. We exchanged numbers and promised to give each other a bell, but we never did.
Sad, really.
And then Joe Strummer pops his clogs and I'm motoring down to The Stables in Groomsport to meet him and really not knowing what to expect. It had to be at least eight years since I'd last bumped into him; then hurried words on a mobile and an agreement to meet up soon while a gay nurse jacked off in the background and my wife screamed at me.
I pulled into The Stables car park. Patricia had given her tacit approval to me driving down to meet him but warned me against drinking and driving. Davie said he'd put me up for the night. Fair enough. The bar had changed quite a bit over the years; it had once boasted the kind of musty smell you get in pubs that don't bother to clean their carpets from one decade to the next, but now everything was new and polished and family-friendly. Same staff, though. Big Vernon, who'd once terrorised us, thumping us around the ears and hurling us out into the car park, Vernon whom we'd terrorised in return, running a hose pipe into his car and filling it with water, ordering tonnes of coal for his apartment — he was behind the bar, paunchier, balder, but still recognisably Vernon.
He saw me, looked puzzled, then surprised, then pointed to the doors.' Out,' he said.' You're barred.'
I stood my ground.' Yeah? You and whose army?'
'Me and this army,' he scowled, and nodded at the bar before him and the three guys sitting with their backs to me. One by one they turned around, growling.
'All right, lads,' I said.
I was forty years old. I was too old to run away, and too old to stand and fight. I was caught in no-man's land cursing the mistakes of my youth and the eternal memories of smalltown hard men.
And then they smiled.
They came off their stools laughing and said: "Bout ya, Dan — how're you doin'?'
I was staggered.
I looked closer. Jesus. Bald — fat — bearded . . . these were old friends. Mark, Tommy, Sean — punks of my generation gone to seed. They had their hands out and were clapping me on the back and saying how great it was to see me and what the hell had I been up to.
'Jesus, guys, bolt from the blue or what. Let me get you a drink.'
'No,' Vernon snapped. Then quickly followed with: 'The drinks are on me. Eh, Dan? Local celeb returns home.'
'Celeb?'
'Dan, you're never out of the papers. Your column, we used to love that. And then your books and all the trouble you get into. You're the closest thing Groomsport will ever have to a celebrity.'
I shrugged helplessly and happily. I was a celebrity in Groomsport in the same way that Karen Malloy had been a great beauty; it meant bugger all just a mile away up the road. But still, Vernon was buying me a drink.
'So what are you havin'?'
I ordered a pint.' I'm supposed to be meeting Big Davie. Have you—?'
And with perfect timing, the opening chords of 'Should I Stay Or Should I Go?' pealed out of the jukebox, and the boys parted to reveal Davie leaning against it with his arms folded across a leather jacket and his hair slightly quiffed up. Very rock'n'roll. I wasn't sure if this was still his normal style, or whether he'd made a special effort. I, on the other hand, was dressed head to foot courtesy of Kays Catalogue. Polyester Man. I was getting old. I felt it now, and Trish did nothing to help me, ordering all this crap out of a catalogue.' How're you doin', mate?' Davie grinned.' Thought I'd get the boys back together to mark the occasion. Little Danny Starkey's back in town.'
'Davie.'
'Whaddya think — The Clash on The Stables' jukebox! It only took Vernon twenty-five fuckin' years.'
Vernon grinned across, but it seemed to me that a flicker of anger crossed his face. The boys themselves looked a bit awkward.
'C'mon and get a pint, Davie,' Mark said.' Vernon's buying.'
Davie stood by the jukebox for a moment longer, then came across with his hand extended.' Dan,' he said.
We shook.
'Shakin' hands like we're all grown-up,' he said.
'I know. Happens to us all.'
I nodded around my old friends. It did happen to us all. We managed to get a couple of rounds in, chatting about the old days, without me talking to Davie directly at all; there was something between us, an awkwardness, a holding back. But then one by one the others began to make their excuses and leave. One was driving and didn't want to risk his licence. One had to relieve a babysitter. One couldn't take another drink or he'd be up all night burping. They shook my hand again and said how great it was to see me, but I could tell they were kind of relieved to be going home. The pub was no longer their natural environment. They were family men. Davie and I never were, never had been.
'Great to see them, all the same,' I said.
'Ah, part-time punks,' he replied dismissively.' You see them more than I do.'
'But you're still in Groomsport.'
'Oh aye. Fucking fixture in here.' He nodded around the bar. Vernon glanced over, but stayed talking to another punter.
'What about Joe, then?' Davie said.
'Aye. Dreadful.'
We looked at our drinks. I'd come all this way to reminisce about The Clash, but we seemed to have exhausted it with one exchange.
Davie nodded back up to the bar.' Ah, fuck it,' he said.' Vernon, give us four pints of snakebite.' He winked across at me.' It's like we're on a first date, mate, isn't it? Awkward as fuck. Let's sink these and then the barriers will come down.'
I nodded.
I was in a quiet village getting quietly drunk with an old mate. It wasn't the sort of place where you could possibly get into trouble.
4
Vernon, my new best buddy, threw us out just after midnight. He barred Davie for ramming bottle-tops into the coin slot on the jukebox and screaming, 'Daniel O'Donnell's a cunt! Daniel O'Donnell's a cunt!' at the top of his voice.
The sentiment wasn't wrong, just the means of expression.
I was drunk, but Davie was pissed. He was funny though, which makes up for a lot of things. We'd talked for hours. He was right. We needed to get pissed together to break down the barriers that had been erected over the past twenty years. Now we were rolling along the main street like kids, the wind off the sea battering us, the rain soaking us, but neither of us caring. We were just having a laugh. Big Davie. My mate. He'd even managed to persuade Vernon to sell him half a dozen cans before throwing him out. It was like the United States selling weapons to Iraq. Sooner or later he knew Davie was going to come back and slap him in the face with them.
'That fucker bars me every week,' Davie growled as he drank his first can in one.
It was a comment I should have taken on board at the time.
Davie crumpled the can, threw it up in the air, then kicked it hard.' He shoots! He scores!'
Except that he had scored through the front window of a terraced house. The glass shattered, and for a moment we just stood there in shock.
Then we took off, racing up the street laughing madly.
Davie led me along several back streets at a gallop, then down a lane where we stopped for a piss against a brick wall, still laughing our socks off.
'Jesus,' I kept saying, gulping for air.' I'm gonna have to get fitter.'
'Ah bollocks,' said Davie.' Come on.'
He turned and walked further along the lane. I was drunk. I followed without asking. He opened a small wooden gate and led me down a garden path. He patted his pockets, clearly searching for a key.' Ah bollocks,' he said. He looked up at the kitchen window. The small top window was partially open.' Ah bollocks,' he said again, and climbed up onto the sill. He opened the small window fully, then reached down towards the larger one below.' Ah, bollocks,' he said, straining to reach the handle. But he got it and opened it and then manoeuvred himself through the window and into the kitchen. A moment later a light came on and he opened the back door.
'Enter,' he said, bowing, 'my humble abode. But . . .' and he put a finger to his lips '. . . Mother is sleeping.'
I nodded. I'd heard that his dad had died, but he hadn't mentioned it, so I hadn't either. This was a smaller house than he'd lived in when we'd been mates. Just a little terrace. He led me through the kitchen into the front room, flipping the light on as he went. It was small, but packed with dark wooden furniture and shelves full of china figurines.
'Now,' Davie whispered, 'let's organise a little drink, eh?'
He moved to a teak sideboard and began opening drawers. I stood somewhat ill-at-ease. I was out of practice with the drink. I felt like lying on the sofa for a doze, but knew that Davie wouldn't let me get away with it. He tutted as he crossed to a glass-fronted display cabinet in the opposite corner. I glanced at the photos on top of the sideboard. There were none of Davie. None that I could see of his mum. Probably relatives, but I didn't recognise or remember any of them, although I'd probably met a few of them at some point.
'Ah bollocks,' Davie hissed. He wasn't having any luck with the drink.' I'll try the kitchen.'
He walked past me and started opening cupboards there. I bent to a plastic box containing several dozen albums, and began to flick through them. Most of them were of Scottish pipe bands, my personal idea of hell, but each unto their own. Although I didn't remember his family being much into the whole Orange culture thing, it could easily have slipped my mind.
Then I heard footsteps coming from the stairs.
There's nothing as loud as two drunks trying to be quiet.
I steadied myself against a chair and prepared to make polite conversation with Davie's mum. I wondered how much she'd aged. She'd be in her seventies now, for sure, bent and grey, perhaps on a walking stick.
Except the woman who came through the hall door was in her forties at most; she had on a pink dressing-gown, curlers in her hair, and she was carrying a shotgun.
She said, 'I don't know who the fuck you fuckers are, but you better get outta my house or I'll blow your fucking arseholes off.'
I stared at her aghast for several moments, desperately waiting for her to break into a smile, to crack up at the great fright she'd given us. Or indeed me, as I heard the back door open and Davie take off screaming down the garden path.
'Okay,' I said. I started to back away.
'You're the worst fucking burglars I ever met,' the woman hissed.
'We're not burglars,' I said, reversing through the lounge doorway into the kitchen.
'Well, what the fuck are you then?' She jabbed the gun at me, as if it had a bayonet on the end.
'Pissed,' I said.
'Well fucking piss off then!'
I reached out blindly to find the kitchen door, then turned. She poked me in the back with the barrel.
'I know that fucker from around town, but I'll remember you, you fucken no-brain dickhead.'
I cleared my throat and stepped out into her back garden.
'I'll just er . . . dander on here.'
'You do that, arse face. And close the fucking gate!'
Davie was at the end of the lane, laughing his legs off. I said, 'Thanks a bunch. Thanks a fucking bunch.'
'Don't mention it.'
'She nearly shot my fucking balls off!'
'Ah bollocks, she wouldn't have done nothing.' He cackled.' You should see your face, mate, you're as white as a—'
And then he stopped. He sank to his knees, then turned abruptly and threw up into a hedge. Then again. Then again.
From somewhere in the distance, a man shouted, 'Why don't you go and boke on your own house, you fucker!'
When Davie had got up as much as he was going to get up, I helped him to his feet, and guided him out of the lane and back along the main street. I glanced warily back towards the house where we'd broken the window, but there was no sign of activity. Davie staggered sideways. I kept on his right, trying to stop him from falling off the path onto the road. There weren't many cars about in Groomsport at this time of night, but it only took one.
I'd known Davie was pissed, but thought he'd still be pretty much in control of himself. Now I remembered that he had always been like this: the life and soul one minute, completely comatose the next. I'd presumed he'd grown out of it, rather than into it.
'She's a fuckin' bitch,' Davie slurred.
'She was just worried about her house.'
'Not her, not fuckin' her.'
We staggered on a bit.
'Who then?' I said.' And where are we going?'
'My house. My house. Really. My house. Just up here.'
We turned a corner. Davie had forgotten what we were talking about. I'd confused him with two questions in one.' Who's a bitch?' I asked again.
'She is. My fuckin' girlfriend. My fuckin' fiancée.'
'Your fiancée?'
'Fiancée? Yeah, that's a laugh.'
'Davie, what are you talking about?'
I should have left it. I should have just let him slabber on, got him home, had a good night's sleep, woken up with a hangover, collected my car and gotten the hell out of there. I was past all this. I wasn't exactly grown-up myself, but I was more grown-up than Davie. I should have just shut my mouth there and then. Possibly none of the shit that happened later would have happened.
But I was — I am — a glutton for punishment.
'Davie — what friggin' fiancée?'
He stopped then and grabbed my shoulders, and for a moment I feared he was going to be sick over me. But he merely used me as leverage to push himself into a more erect position. He suck
ed in a lungful of the fresh sea air. The eyes seemed to rotate in his head for a moment, as if deciding whether to okay a complete collapse or grant a moment of clarity.
Clarity came through.
Davie squeezed my shoulders. For a few moments his eyes were as focused as mine. That is, partially.
'Joe Strummer is dead, Dan.'
'I know.'
'It's a tragedy.'
'I know, Davie.'
'Joe Strummer is dead and I was supposed to get married next week. But the cow's run off.'
Davie and a girl and marriage. It was the first mention of it all night.' Seriously?' I asked.
'Would I joke about something like that?'
'Yes, frankly.'
'Well, I'm not fuckin' jokin'. I'm not fuckin' jokin', Dan. She ran off.'
He shook his head, then slowly folded to the ground. He was sick again, then lay still on the pavement, his face inches from a puddle of boke. I tried to pick him up, but he was a dead weight.
'Davie,' I said, 'you gotta get up. You gotta get home.'
'Uuuuuugh . . .'
I sat down on the kerb. It was the sort of night a sailor would call fresh, and the rest of us fucking freezing. I pulled up my jacket collar and looked at Davie. My mate. I couldn't imagine him being married. Neither, apparently, could his fiancée.
I took out my mobile and phoned Trish.
'Is the car all right?' were her first words.
'Yes, the car's fine, and thanks for your concern.'
'It's the voice of experience, Dan. Where are you? What's wrong?'
'Nothing's wrong. I'm sitting on a kerb freezing my bollocks off.'
'Where's . . . Davie?'
'He's lying on the footpath, sleeping.'
'Right. I see. So why are you calling exactly?'
'For moral support, mainly. Am I within my rights to just leave him here? I can get a taxi home.'
'Don't even think about it,' Trish said firmly.' You're responsible for him.'
Driving Big Davie (Dan Starkey) Page 3
