You can’t take on the whole world, Pat, she said. You can’t solve everything.
She mentioned the possibility of joining group therapy. Perhaps it would be good for him to do something like psycho-drama. Come to terms with his past by re-enacting the traumatic events in front of other people. There was a lot to be said for group sessions.
The first duty is to yourself, Pat. You must enjoy life. That’s what we’re here for – to have fun.
Coyne was appalled by such a selfish construction of life. That’s exactly what the problem was. There was too much fun. People with no other aim in life but gratification. Stuffing themselves.
We’re not here to enjoy ourselves, Coyne said.
He would not submit to the tyranny of fun because he was devoted to sorting out the world. His heart went out to all kinds of people he never met. A lot of things had to be put right first before he could start enjoying himself. He was thinking global stuff here as much as local. And what about people in history. How could you forget what happened? How could you turn your back on all that and start tucking in?
Coyne’s friend and mentor Fred Metcalf felt it was something more congenital. Coyne had inherited a lament in his head. It was the lonely echo of the Irish language across the Connemara shoreline. He could only think of what was gone, keeping faith with what had disappeared.
Our likes will never be seen again.
It’s the sad gene, Fred said. We all have it.
In the blood?
Yes, in the blood. And also not in the blood.
What do you mean?
Whenever they say that people have something in the blood, they’re usually talking about exactly the kind of thing that’s not in the blood. A nation of people can carry things in various ways, Fred explained. You know the way animals carry their genes from one generation to the next, along biological lines. Well, human evolution is different. We carry genes outside our bodies, through songs and stories. Race memory.
Fred was right. If you thought of Joe Heaney or Caruso – the greatest singers of all time – their genes travelled the world through crackled recordings. Sex was very limited. Samuel Beckett’s genes were always more likely to be carried forth into everybody’s consciousness through his work than through procreation. These people sent their spiralling messages out like floating dandelion seeds, like parachuting regiments of words drifting across the fields.
Coyne was facing extinction. He remembered being in Connemara as a child. He remembered the sad coastline of Béal an Daingin where he learned Irish. He carried with him a kind of elated loneliness, a great melancholia that sprang from people and the surrounding peninsulas and inlets where he lived.
The all-or-nothing impact of the sea on the shoreline formed his imagination. Every day the landscape changed beyond all recognition when the water receded and left the shore behind. In the morning, the tide could fill the land with great blue and white hope. By afternoon, it migrated almost a mile out from the coast road and the houses, leaving nothing but a vast disillusioned coast where he played alone among the rocks, watching the crabs running sideways at his feet in surprise. Breathing heavily with asthma, with the constant cry of snared prey in his lungs. The high latrine tang of the seaweed in his nostrils, and the thirty-five different Irish names for seaweed in his ears.
The ebb and flow of Coyne’s psyche. Standing on the deserted tideline as a boy. A lifeless landscape from which the sea had been drained away and the entire foreshore had been left uncovered, like a great weakness. Limp manes of black seaweed draped across abandoned rocks as though the coast had been struck by a fatal disease. Nothing but the swirling shrieks of curlews and gannets and dogs barking in the distance with deceptive echoes. Everybody had gone off to America and left him behind.
Coyne made another call to Killmurphy, this time from a coin box. Just to keep the pressure on. Early one evening, just when the household was sure to be entering a nice relaxed atmosphere and Killmurphy was probably having his first gin and tonic.
You shouldn’t have done it, Killjoy. You and your wife. Nora, isn’t it? Living up there in your nice house.
Coyne recalled all the reasons why he was angry at Killjoy. The writ coming in the door. Carmel in tears every day for weeks, thinking it was the end, with disgrace descending all around them. Until her mother finally came to the rescue and put a financial package into place that made Coyne fully subservient and beholden. A failed breadwinner.
Killjoy, you bastard. You’ll pay for it. I’ll be keeping in touch with you.
The moment had come for Coyne to try and get back with Carmel. It was her birthday. A perfect day for reconciliation. For the past few weeks Coyne had woken up every night talking to her. Dreaming about her rubbing lotion on his back. Dreaming about her eyes. And her laughter.
How had things got this bad?
We belong to each other, Coyne kept saying, like the words of a cheap pop song. He was trapped in the eternal Euro hit of sentimental longing, trying to find some more original way of saying the same thing.
Baby, this is serious! Stop fucking around with my heart, ’cause it’s tearing me apart. And don’t close the door, because I can’t take it any more. You know, love can be so cruel, it will turn me into a mule. Coyne had the fire inside, that cannot be denied.
He hung around the cosmetics department of Brown Thomas trying to choose a gift for her. Something generous but not feckless. Nothing worse than giving her an over-signified birthday present that would be misinterpreted, ultimately, as an audacious advance. He needed something romantic and perfume was by far the most conventional method of approach. To hell with it, Coyne thought, why not buy something expensive?
Trying to make up his mind, he sniffed enough bottles to wipe out an entire colony of laboratory rats. He was suffocating. Any minute, he would be forced to get his inhaler out. Collapse on the floor, gasping, with a little crowd of people standing over him saying: oh my God. Who was he?
What evolutionary platform had the Irish arrived at now, Coyne thought. Their identity was what they purchased. All around him tills were ringing, credit cards sliding, people making choices with great conviction, while Coyne was stuck at the same counter in a state of perplexed consumer panic. Incapable of making an expedient decision.
The assistant with the orange face mask was doing her best in the circumstances, spraying jets of expensive effluent on her bare arm in polite desperation. The Irishman was becoming very fussy altogether. Used to be a time when they would sneak in with a newspaper, point to the nearest bottle and say: wrap it up, love. But Coyne was the new breed of Irishman, choosing conscientiously, by way of elimination. After all, it was no longer that straightforward. The tricky territory of postmodern separation, of ex-husband and wife relationships, required some thought. Maybe even an environmental impact study. You couldn’t buy any old slurry stink like Eternity that her mother had probably given her already. Was there nothing called Obnoxious?
Coyne, the great prevaricator. The multi-optional man, terrorised by choice. Give me the reek of rotting seaweed. Give me haystacks and horse shite. Dunghills and decomposing leaves. The department store stocked every malodorous whiff in history except the one he wanted – the scent Carmel wore when he first met her. He could still remember it clearly. Like fuchsia hedges, laced with cut grass and a subtle background hint of diesel exhaust fumes on a late summer afternoon. Some cheap and ordinary perfume that had long disappeared off the shelves along with his innocence. That was it, the simple romance of the ordinary was no longer available.
Coyne became distracted by a young woman carrying a shoulder bag. He watched as she discreetly sprayed a quick blast of perfume on her wrist, then dropped the bottle into the bag. It was that easy. Only took a second.
Coyne was fascinated. For a man who had spent so much of his life upholding the law, the subversive elegance of this crime suddenly seeme
d attractive. An act of civil disobedience that confronted his entire devotion to order. Self-service socialism. Coyne had observed her before in the handbag department where he had already spent hours loitering around, sniffing leather, feeling the texture of imitation snakeskin, going through the whole existential breakdown over handbags and finally coming to the decision that it would be an insult to give Carmel a gift like that. I mean, what kind of total gobshite would buy his ex-wife a handbag?
Here! I hope you get mugged, is what it was saying.
Coyne was amazed, as much by his own tolerance as by the sheer audacity of the shoplifter. It seemed easier to steal than to buy. He noticed that she was wearing high-heeled shoes. Strange, he thought, because Coyne’s advice to Carmel was always to think of escape. Never make a purchase without assessing the flight implications. Always wear shoes that you can run for your life in.
But it was already too late. The young woman was surrounded by security guards. An older woman in plain clothes approached her, and there was a minor struggle when two security guards took the shoplifter by the arms. One of them speaking into a walkie-talkie.
Coyne told himself not to get involved. You don’t need any more complications. Don’t jeopardise the compensation claim, like a good man. But he had seen too many of these arrests in the past in the course of his work. Some of them genuine thieves. Some of them just doing it for fun. Others that would break his heart. For the first time, he allowed himself to sympathise with a criminal.
Excuse me, he intervened, before they had a chance to lead her away.
The security personnel looked troubled. He drew the store detective aside and explained that the young woman was not right in the head. Mentally challenged, he said. A ward of court, just out for the day. He apologised for letting her out of his sight. Said he would pay for the goods in question and tried to take the young woman by the arm.
Coyne was proud of himself, thinking all this up on the spot.
The shoplifter assumed a sad, orphaned appearance.
Hold on a minute, one of the security men said. His chest was bursting through his uniform from over-exercise. He had short brown hair, cut neatly into the shape of a square at the back of the neck. A real neck box. In addition to which he possessed a really dangerous set of canine teeth. Coyne returned to the fundamental implications of Darwinism in contemporary Ireland: whether you still needed all that primitive weaponry to bite into a Whopper. He watched the teeth with the fascination of a natural scientist as the security man spoke in his talking clock voice.
I am not at liberty to discuss with you the particulars of this case.
I’ll pay, Coyne said, holding out his money.
It is the policy of this store to prosecute offenders, the security man persisted.
Somebody switch off this shaggin’ neck box, please.
Coyne had always seen security staff as his allies around the city. His friend, Fred Metcalf, was a security guard. They were on the same side of the crime war. But something was happening to Coyne. He suddenly felt like destroying the shop and sending this red-haired primate with the hyena teeth crashing into a rack of Calvin Klein sunglasses. Coyne the great liberator. Of course, he was out of his mind getting into this. He could be charged as an accessory. And what if he made a run for it? They would come after him with video evidence. Coyne would appear on Crimeline, like a national celebrity. Have you seen this man? And sure as hell, Carmel’s mother would spot it. That’s him, she would hiss with glee in her armchair. Delighted to turn him in. Coyne, like an eejit on TV, running towards the exit with a young woman in high heels. That would be the end of Coyne and Carmel.
You’re in this together, the sabretoothed security man said.
Coyne became a great persuader. He was on higher ground. Told them he was an off-duty Garda. Paid for the handbag and a bottle of Eternity, as well as some luminous green underwear. Coyne was a little embarrassed by these items being paraded so openly for all to see. The cashier demonstrably folded them at shoulder height. Republican underwear. The wearing of the green!
Her name was Corina. She was Romanian. She offered to buy him a cup of coffee, which, she felt, was the least she could do after him mounting such a daring rescue. Coyne gratefully accepted his reward and they stood in the street for an awkward moment before they walked away in the direction of an Italian café.
The city was changing. There was a greater selection of cafés in the capital now, and people were beginning to enjoy the notion of diversity as they sat over narcotic cups of coffee, with shopping bags at their feet. They had moved away from the mono-culture of tea and gaudy pink cakes, of rock buns and cream doughnuts with the worm of bright red jam. There was a time when Irish life was concealed with enormous skill behind cups of tea. When the paraphernalia of kettles and teapots provided the stage props of the nation’s drama and gave people things to do with their hands while the subtext of ordinary life remained hidden behind the clatter of delph and stirring spoons. Now, things were beginning to look more European. More cappuccino.
Are all Romanians such bad shoplifters? Coyne wanted to know as they sat down.
I never did it before, she said.
Fair enough, it was a promising début, he had to admit. But he wanted to know why she needed to put herself at such risk in the first place. Was shoplifting an act of revolution? His experience told him that there was something else behind this. There was always a cause. A Garda narrative.
I have to make money fast, she said in a burst of anger. Clearly, she objected to this interrogation. Coyne saw defiance in her brown eyes.
Stands to reason, Coyne said. He was also trying to make money fast, through compensation. Who wasn’t?
I owe a lot of money, she said. I can’t pay it.
She was already working as hard as she could in a fast food restaurant nearby but there was no way that she could meet her debts. She had expected affluence. Streets paved with gold.
Coyne would have suggested some insurance scam. It would make more sense, financially. She would be dealing in larger amounts, with less risk. Maybe a whiplash claim. People were getting rich on car crashes.
Corina began to apologise for her crime. She wasn’t really cut out for it, she hinted. As though Coyne was the host and she was the visitor who had been caught pilfering the silver cutlery. Her momentary remorse allowed Coyne to ask more questions, and slowly she revealed how she had come to Ireland. He got the information in small increments – the journey by sea, the long hours locked inside a cabin.
Christ, he thought. These were the Blasket Islanders coming back. The tide of emigration was turning. Here they were, the first of them – thousands who had fled poverty and were now returning at last.
You’re coming back, he said.
She didn’t understand this enigmatic shift of gear in Coyne’s attitude. He was speaking with great feeling now. Looking at her through watery eyes.
The islanders, he said.
Corina shook her head and smiled at this complete misunderstanding. It had nothing to do with any language barrier either, because the Romanians were the best linguists in the world, and she had already picked up a number of key Dublin colloquial phrases, such as I’m broke. I’m skinned. Altogether!
She had difficulty understanding what Coyne was saying now. He was entertaining his emotions again. He wanted to help her, give her money. Then he decided to write down his phone number for her. But she looked at him accusingly. Pushed the piece of paper away.
What do you want?
If you’re in trouble, he offered.
I’m going to split, she said. This had obviously gone too far. She got up from her seat. I have to meet somebody, she said. She pushed the handbag and its contents into Coyne’s lap. Thanked him and walked away from the table, leaving Coyne behind, looking up with a helpless expression of rejected kindness.
Wait, h
e said. I’m serious. If you’re stuck?
He went running after her through the café. Knocking his own chair over with a great clack of undignified urgency as he chased her with the shopping bag in his hand.
The Anchor Bar, he said.
But it sounded sad, like he was looking for a favour from her in return for the rescue. She turned around and squared up to him. Looked as though she was going to punch him. She didn’t trust Coyne’s hospitality any more. Didn’t need his help. Like she was saying: I can look after myself, you know. I don’t need a man to sort things out for me. Then she was gone. And Coyne went back to his seat and sat down.
Mongi O Doherty was such a dedicated capitalist that he perceived cash as an awkward medium, an obstacle to the flow of capital. The physical collection of money was a nuisance which slowed down the whole process of amassing wealth. The trend was towards the virtual transactions of credit cards, to ease the resistance and make the concept of money more spiritual. Payments should be like prayers. Decades of the rosary. Novenas. In God we trust! Cash was a grubby, secular substance which he didn’t like to handle personally.
Corina first had to pay her money over to a third party in a city pub. It was a lodgement, so to speak. After which a phone call was made on a mobile phone, and she was then instructed to go to another specified pub to meet Mongi O Doherty himself. An audience with the money Buddha.
The instalment was disappointing, is what he was there to tell her. He appreciated the sight of hard currency coming into his possession, but the amount was too small, that’s all.
I mean, how do you expect any of your ex-Soviet countries ever to integrate fully into Europe if you can’t speed up the rate of repayments?
We’re doing our best, Corina said.
Mongi forced himself to be pleasant and courteous. He had an idea that might help her. A kind of Marshall Plan, if you like, that would enable her to make better use of her natural resources and generate income more rapidly. He bought her a drink, which she tried to decline, looking at the daiquiri with the cherry and the plastic sabre with some amusement. If only this could be converted back into money to pay off more of her debt.
Sad Bastard Page 6
