Headbanger

by Hugo Hamilton

  The tea was better on the Northside, she had to admit on the way home. Back into exile, where her only friends were Carmel and the kids, and another widowed lady by the name of Bronwyn Heron. Brownwind, as Coyne called her. And maybe the perfume was wearing off on the way back over the toll bridge, because Carmel and her mother both agreed that there was a foul smell in the car. Mrs Gogarty of course thought it was the smell of her son-in-law, the way she held her nose up and looked around the car. They had to drive with the windows open. Such a vicious stench that Mrs Gogarty insisted on dousing the whole vehicle with Lancôme as though it was holy water.

  So much that nobody could smell a thing after that. Coyne gathered it must have been the hedgehog. May have left behind a few little trophies in the boot before escaping. Found nothing when he examined the boot, however, except three little black marbles. And now he had to drive around the shagging place in what smelled like a beauty salon on wheels. Pong all over his uniform. Such a slagging he got from the lads.

  The trouble was that Coyne was seriously indebted to Mrs Gogarty. Mrs Gocart, as he sometimes called her, had given them the deposit for the house. Otherwise they’d still be renting. When her husband died, the life insurance, along with a very good offer on her house in Drumcondra, enabled Mrs Gocart to set up a nice little empire on the Southside. Bought her own house, put down a substantial deposit on Pat and Carmel’s house nearby, as well as retaining more than enough money in the bank to live comfortably for the rest of her days, yacking to Carmel over tea and spelling things out in letters so that the kids couldn’t hear.

  Coyne was compromised by the deal. She owned him. The clothes the children wore were practically all bought by her. And still Coyne never had any money. Carmel had gone into debt just to buy curtains and fittings, just to keep up with her mother’s image of her daughter’s lifestyle. And because of Mrs Gogarty’s constant presence, Coyne’s own mother refused to come over to the house any more. She’d rather sit on her own watching TV than have a posh conversation with Mrs Gocart. Instead, Carmel and the children went to visit Mrs Coyne once in a while. Coyne’s mother never tried the self-appointed role of special adviser to the new family, telling Carmel that Coyne shouldn’t be seen coming and going from the house in his uniform.

  You don’t want the neighbours knowing what he does.

  Wait till they needed him next, that’s all Coyne would say. It was all right to look down on a Garda and call him a pig and a redneck and all that. Until the time came when you needed him. Coyne to the rescue. Like the time he had to get a ladder and climb up into a bedroom on the estate, because a three-year-old boy had locked his mother into the bathroom and Coyne found the bedroom destroyed, lipstick marks on the walls, jewellery all over the place, like a break-in. It was all fine until Madam Gocart needed to have her hedge cut back. It was all right to laugh until the next little domestic crisis turned up and Coyne would be called in to fix a hoover, or just explain that the trip switch had gone on the fuse board. Where would you be without Coyne?

  In fact he had a reputation for his eco-friendly inventions. Carmel had once told him that the only ecological disaster to get upset about was the toast burning. So he had come up with some great domestic innovations. Like the wooden clothes peg he had screwed up against the kitchen window to hold the rubber gloves. And the wooden tray he invented with spare door handles at both ends.

  But as usual, Coyne took his inventor status too far. Like the time he gathered his whole family around the kitchen table, asking them all if they could find a way of standing a raw egg up. And everyone kept trying it and laughing at their own inadequacy, Coyne watching them with his arms folded and a smirk of absolute wisdom on his face, until they all said they were giving up and Coyne just simply took the egg and cracked it on to the table so that it stood on its head. Ah but that was cheating. We all could have done that, Mrs Gogarty said.

  Then why didn’t you do it, Coyne said, full of triumphant glee, while Carmel started cleaning up the mess and muttering that he was getting a bit too silly.

  Mrs Gogarty was beginning to get on Pat Coyne’s nerves. Sitting around the house all the time, always giving advice, indoctrinating the kids and holding Carmel under a spell of moral superiority.

  I always pick the number seven, Mrs Gogarty was saying to the children one evening before Coyne went out to work on the late shift. He was in his uniform, reading the paper. He looked up and saw Mrs Gogarty filling in the Lotto numbers.

  Seven or any number that has a seven in it, she said. Like seven, fourteen, twenty-one, twenty-seven and so forth. If I run out of numbers then I pick a number and add seven to it.

  Coyne gazed in amazement at this new Gogarty rationale. Could not concentrate on his newspaper any more.

  Is seven your favourite number, Gran? Jennifer asked.

  Seven was the number on my hall door when I was a little girl like you.

  Coyne threw his eyes up to the ceiling.

  I like seven too, Nuala said.

  It’s my lucky number, Mrs Gogarty continued, and Coyne was ready to contest this new arithmetic ritual. She went on about seventh heaven, and the seven-year itch and all the other superstitions that revolved around the number. Some say you get seven years bad luck if you crack a mirror.

  What about Seven-Up, Coyne burst in. And Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

  Absolutely, Mrs Gogarty argued back with great venom. For your information, Pat Coyne, the number seven happens to be the most vital number in the human cycle. The basis of all mathematics.

  007, Secret agent James Bond.

  Ignore it if you like. But seven is the number of goodness, she said. Seven is kindness, righteousness, love of God.

  Yeah, like seven shades of shite, Coyne concluded as he got up to leave the kitchen. He was having the last laugh and Mrs Gogarty looked like she had swallowed seven barrels of Seven Seas cod liver oil.

  In the squad car with McGuinness, Coyne’s patience was ready to snap. All he needed was one little trigger, some small incident to set the fuse.

  At a set of traffic lights they pulled up beside a red BMW which McGuinness began to admire.

  Nice machine, he said.

  Heap of shite, Coyne returned. He had been going on a serious ticketing binge recently, as though he was conducting a personal crusade against the private car. He had taken Fred’s words to heart. Cars had the effect of alienating him.

  What are you talking about, McGuinness insisted. That’s a work of art, that car. Beautiful.

  Wouldn’t be seen dead in it, Coyne said, and before McGuinness could say another word they noticed that the driver of the BMW seemed very young. With a shaven head and a bomber jacket. It was none other than Joe Perry.

  Bejaysus! It’s fucking hatchet-man.

  Coyne had had enough of these joyriders hooring through the streets of Dublin like it was Los Angeles or someplace. He would teach them. There will be one less car on the streets tonight.

  We’ll see who’s laughing now.

  Take it easy, Pat, McGuinness kept saying. We’re not meant to give chase.

  The BMW shot off and Coyne was pleased to get a chance to prove what the squad car was made of. They caught up with the BMW again on its way out towards the power station. Chased it all the way, in through a number of side-streets, doing handbrake turns outside front windows. Coyne felt a crisis dose of adrenalin rushing into his already boiling bloodstream. Nothing came close to the roar of engines, the squeal of the tyres and the wailing siren, howling like yobbos through people’s dreams. Coyne and Perry communicating through burning rubber.

  You should be back in your pram, Perry.

  Where’s your L plate, Garda?

  Go back to your toy cars, Perry, you little sparrowfart.

  You thick Garda gobshite. You couldn’t drive a fucking wheelchair.

  Life seemed to accelerate here.
It was touch and go as Coyne put the squad car up on two wheels, falling back with a thump and a jerk, leaping forward again with new determination like a super-horse.

  Jesus, McGuinness prayed, and then phoned for a backup vehicle. He was all white in the face. This is going too far. Don’t do a Mr Suicide on me, Pat.

  But Coyne had saved time with the wheely and saw an opportunity to trap the stolen vehicle this time. He was thinking ahead, trying to corner Perry in a dead end as though everything else in life had suddenly become irrelevant.

  McGuinness was putting his foot down on an imaginary brake pedal, trying to persuade him it wasn’t worth it. Coyne laughed: you’ve got nothing to worry about, mate. I’ve got a wife and three kids. Which didn’t sound very reassuring, because Coyne raced up through the gears again, and McGuinness felt he was suddenly changing from golf to Russian Roulette. Mice to men. McGuinness saw an image of the great floodlit golf course in the sky.

  A small crowd of youths had gathered to watch and McGuinness said it was all a set-up. They had been drawn on to some kind of race-track, for a laugh. We’re doing exactly what they want us to do, he said. But the idea of being laughed at urged Coyne on even further. There was no way that Perry’s new BMW was going to get out of the trap. He was in a duel, racing at his opponent with McGuinness fast forwarding through his prayers.

  Hail Mary – fucking hell, Amen he said, but Coyne had no religion left, just an icy devotion to victory in this contest of wills.

  The headlights of both cars had picked each other out in a high-speed stare. Coyne was racing straight at death. Who will blink first and run back to the safety of life? Coyne experienced the manic passion of his choice. Kept his nerve, even had time to look right into Perry’s eyes before swerving away at the last moment, just as the tail of the squad car was clipped by a searing screech of metal. He lost control and could do nothing to stop the squad car going into a spin, tumbling over on its roof three times before it crashed into a wall. Nobody was hurt, but the steam of defeat hissed from the engine while the red BMW raced on, laughing. By the time Coyne and McGuinness got out, a small group of boys and children stood around the overturned wreck.

  All right now. Stand back, Coyne said.

  Moleshaver was crapping himself, of course. By the end of the shift, Coyne had to face him in his office again. Red West Cork ears flapping with incomprehension.

  Mr Suicide is absolutely correct. It’s a complete fucking write-off, Molloy was saying.

  Molloy was even trying to be dignified about this. Trying to cling to the Garda ethic of standing by your own. But that ethic was eroding each time Molloy looked down at the caption underneath the wrecked squad car in the morning paper. Midnight duel. Gardai and joyriders in deadly showdown at the Pidgeon House.

  You must have paid off Saint Christopher, that’s all I can say.

  I had him cornered, Coyne offered. It’s that bastard Perry again.

  But that just sent Molloy into paroxysms of rage. He was like a kettle that somebody forgot to switch off in 1922, boiling off all its water and going into the initial stages of meltdown. The hair flap lifting off his head with the steam.

  Look, I’ve had head office on to me about this already. You’re like a crazy shorthorn. Worse than any joyrider. This is the last warning.

  Moleshaver had no bloody idea. He was locked into his own tiny universe. Part of the problem of this city, just pretending to enforce the law without any concept of where society was going. Moleshaver, you’re as thick as the rest of them, you dense briquette brain.

  But Coyne was thinking about more global issues. He was thinking about the whole nature of society and predicting the decline of the car culture.

  There are too many cars on the road, he said.

  What? Molloy stood back as though he’d just been called a horse’s bollocks.

  There should be no such thing as private cars, Coyne insisted. There’s too much privacy. It’s the dogs of illusion. The wheels of destruction.

  Molloy had difficulty breathing. But instead of finding his rage, he was completely baffled by this outburst of sociological wisdom and could think of no response except a disintegrating cough and splutter.

  You need your fucking head examined, Coyne.

  Carmel and Coyne had been invited to a dinner party by some of her new artistic companions. All that Saturday she had been going on about art, so that Coyne was half threatening not to go with her. He hated dinner parties anyway. All that empty talk. Watching people buttering water biscuits and pecking at cheese and de-seeding grapes like an assembly line.

  In the kitchen, while Carmel was feeding the children, she seemed to be struck at one moment by a vision. Looking out through the back window, she saw some kind of apparition, like the Blessed Sacrament exposing itself to her outside in the back garden. Coyne was getting worried about her.

  Isn’t the light really amazing, she said. So strange. So mystical.

  Coyne half got up from his seat to see what she was on about.

  That’s what all these artists and film makers are coming to Ireland for. It’s the quality of the light. The Irish skies. So atmospheric. So magical.

  Magical my arse, Coyne said. He got up from his seat again and gazed out the window properly.

  What light? he said.

  Can’t you see the sky. The sunset illuminating the walls. It’s like candelight. Like one of those ancient oil lanterns in the sky somewhere.

  That’s the floodlights, Coyne remarked. He had never heard her talking like this before. It was most probably the light from the football field at the back of the houses, he explained. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, he could hear the anguished shouts and roars of men’s voices. You’d think they were killing each other. Re-enacting Vinegar Hill on a floodlit battlefield. Agony and torture echoing through canyons of semi-Ds. Pass the ball – Aaargh. You Saxon foes. Croppy, croppy, croppy. Maybe the Battle of the Boyne – Billy, Billy, Billy. Then the unified roar whenever there was a goal, followed by deadly, lingering silence when everybody was gone home again.

  You’re as blind as a bat, Pat. That’s the reflection of the sunlight.

  It’s the lights from the football field you’re looking at.

  Carmel ignored him. Went upstairs to have a bath and get ready for the dinner party. Jennifer and Nuala went up with her. Jennifer playing shop with all the bottles of talcum powder and conditioner and hair spray, while Nuala was washing Carmel’s knees with a sponge.

  Will you wash my back, love, Carmel said, and Nuala dipped the sponge down deep to get lots of bubbles and soap.

  Were you painting fishes, Mammy, she asked, and Carmel looked up smiling.

  No, lovey. Why?

  Dad says you go down under the sea with the colours.

  Did he say that, really?

  He said you have to paint the little baby fishes.

  Well, don’t mind him, love. He’s only joking.

  The dinner party was everything that Coyne had predicted. Lipstick marks on wineglasses. People talking shite. Coyne ended up sitting beside a hypochondriac by the name of Mary Donoghue, talking about homeopathy and rebirthing in every detail.

  What line of business are you in yourself? she eventually asked, and Carmel on the far side of the table tried to pass Coyne off as a barrister.

  Law, she said. But that backfired because Coyne overdid the legal terminology. Without prejudice, this soup is really excellent.

  Would have been better off just to say you were in the Force. Except that somebody would be thick enough to pursue it and say: what force? Star Trek? Oh, a Garda; that must be a fascinating job these days. Or else they would ask him how much more they could drink, taking into account that they’d already had two gin and tonics and four glasses of wine approximately. And every time he tried to make conversation, he would say something stupid, something nobody under
stood. Like something about the environment. People looked at him like he had a slice of lemon up his nose.

  Coyne could see that Carmel was drinking like a fish. She had the capacity of a water biscuit and he knew by the volume of her laughter that she was well on the way to getting plastered. By the end of the dinner she was arseholes, talking about the healing power of art.

  I just think people have become blind to beauty, she announced. Beauty can heal us.

  Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the donkey. Where’s my inhaler?

  There’s beauty all around us that we don’t see. Every object has its own healing personality.

  Then Carmel picked up some lettuce. Look at this leaf of lettuce, she said. Everybody takes it for granted.

  Thanks a lot, the host, Deirdre, said with a smile.

  But Carmel was talking aesthetics here, holding up the leaf of lettuce like she was starting a new religious cult.

  Will you just eat it and shut up, Coyne interrupted.

  But Carmel was hurt. Threw him a dirty look across the table and prepared to get her own back. Heat-transferring currents making their way across the table.

  Excuse my husband, she said. He doesn’t know a thing about culture. He’s a complete philistine.

  Coyne shrugged his shoulders. Other couples sometimes slagged each other too, as long as it didn’t go too far. He saw Carmel knock back her wine and look at him in defiance.

  When it comes to aesthetics, zilch, she said. Forget it. It’s like showing a Goya to a goat.

  Well, at least I can make up my mind about lettuce.

  Silence followed. Everyone looked at Carmel, then at Coyne, to see who was going to back down. Deirdre cleared the air a little by saying she took it as a compliment to her salad. But then Coyne felt he needed to put the record straight – people took art far too seriously – while Carmel argued back from the opposite end of the table saying that people had become immune to it. Somebody joked about goat’s cheese and Mary Donoghue tried to change the subject back to vitamin supplements. They were all too eager to brush everything under the carpet. There was a point to be made here, Coyne felt. People were afraid to say it.