World Without End, Amen

by Jimmy Breslin

  “Well,” the father said.

  “I’ll tell you,” Dermot said. “I just come from court. These fuckin’ people.”

  “Well, it’s their ball park now, you know,” the father said.

  Dermot didn’t say anything.

  “Finbar come around this mornin’, he was bent in half from last night, and—”

  “I’ll tell you,” Dermot said, “I’m thinking of walking down to see her before she goes. I don’t know if I’m going to be around to see her again. Poor son of a bitch. I’ll go home and she’ll be in the slam.”

  “The girl?”

  “The one in here yesterday.”

  The father nodded.

  “Know her?” Dermot said.

  “Oh, I’ve seen her around. I don’t know her. Finbar knows her. He told me she brought you to the house.”

  “Well, she’s taking off and maybe I’ll walk down and see her before she goes. Maybe I’ll do that. Take a walk down there.”

  One of the two men called for a drink. Dermot’s father went up to the middle of the bar to draw a pint.

  “I’m going to go,” Dermot said.

  His father was staring down at the tap. Dermot waved and started for the door.

  “Dermot.”

  It was strange to hear his father call him by name.

  He turned around and his father came down to the end of the bar and leaned on his elbows. He had his hands clasped. He looked at his hands.

  “You know, once you let one day go, it’s a very easy thing to let a hundred days go.”

  “I know,” Dermot said.

  16

  AT THE CAFE, DEIRDRE was wedged between people, Ronald one of them, in a booth. The juke box loud, dirty-legged children walking around with soda bottles. Eamonn was standing behind the counter. Dermot motioned through the noise to Deirdre, who started pulling herself out of the booth. Ronald’s head dropped like a stone. His whispering tugged her down. She was looking at Ronald, not at Dermot. Dermot walked out and went up to the saloon on the corner. The soldiers in the pillbox in front of Chada Fashions gave him the look. Before he had his hand on the saloon door, Eamonn came trotting up, pushed the door in, and followed him to the bar.

  “One drink and she’ll be right along. She just told me.”

  “One and I’m gone,” Dermot said.

  “To where?”

  “To New York.”

  They ordered whisky and water. The bartender poked tongs into a plastic bowl. He came up with a small ice cube. A guy at the bar began to read a newspaper race chart out loud. The barman listened, the ice cube still in the tongs. When he finally put the cube into the drink the ice disappeared.

  Dermot took a couple of sips. “I try to do something for her and she sits there with that fuck of a guy,” he said.

  “Aye. He’s a whore’s get,” Eamonn said.

  “I mean,” Dermot said.

  “It’s worse than you could rightly imagine,” he said. “Here. Last summer the B Specials is lined up on the wall. They’re singin’ ‘We Are the Billy Boys.’ They’re goin’ to come down on us. Along with the fookin’ coppers. We’re down behind the barricades waitin’ for them. At that very moment, Ronald runs into one of the wee houses on Wellington Street. He barricades himself in the back room. Then he begins screamin’ that he will kill himself unless Deirdre comes down from the barricades. He was goin’ to cut his throat with a wee razor. We hadda break down the door to stop him.”

  “Why did you stop the fuck?”

  “The lass made us.”

  They finished their drinks and ordered another. This time the bartender didn’t bother with ice.

  “I don’t even think she likes the fook,” he said.

  “Well, then what does he have that she puts up with him?”

  “Nothing. He’s a wet, sticky masturbator.”

  The drinks went down. Dermot held out his glass for another. “I still can’t figure out what she’s doing with him,” he said.

  “Christ, he gets to cryin’ and clutchin’ her arm. Doesn’t have a clue how to get him off her.”

  “That’s sick,” Dermot said.

  “Aye, it’s sick. It’s just not Deirdre either. Not a one of them has a man takes care of himself. The stronger the female, the weaker the man around her. Jesus, but it’s all mixed up. Thank Christ for the street fightin’. It gives some of the poor fookin’ men a chance to be what they should be.”

  Dermot didn’t answer him. He ordered another drink. The saloon door opened and Deirdre came in alone.

  “I was goddam near out of here,” Dermot said.

  “I walked past here before and saw you busy with the glass and I kept going over to the Guildhall. I was in the housing council office. I could look right past the wee man and see out the window to the front of the hotel. So you wouldn’t have been able to get to the hotel and then leave it without me knowing it. Hel-lo. I’ll have a pint. The wee man was so terrified when I walked in. Christ, but he was thinkin’ I was in for revenge for last night. They say, they say they’ll have the woman in something livable by half three.”

  “Half three today?”

  “Aye, half three today. And you were a good man to go with her. Ah, Jesus, it’s all awful.”

  “No good atall,” Eamonn said.

  “Whatever you do, you don’t have to go to jail,” Dermot said.

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, you’re out now. Anything happens, you just run.”

  “To where? The South?” She said it in disgust.

  “Well, I don’t know.”

  “To America?”

  “Are not the blacks out rapin’ every white woman goin’ along the street?”

  “Oh, I certainly hope for that,” Eamonn said.

  “If you want to come to America, you got anything I have.” He picked up the glass.

  She took his arm and pulled it down. “Look at me,” she said. “You’re lovely.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Dermot said.

  “Never mind, I have it for myself, my own little secret.”

  They sat in the silence of the saloon in the afternoon, with the one man rustling the paper loudly and the bartender’s shoes squeaking as he rocked back and forth and the sigh of the man swallowing a mouthful of stout.

  They sat there a long time. The saloon door opened and Ronald was standing in it. His eyebrows were raised and his mouth half open. His eyes nicked across Dermot’s and darted away. When he saw Deirdre get up, he let go of the door and was gone. Dermot paid for the drinks while she drained her pint. Eamonn walked out ahead of them and went quickly up to the cafe. Ronald was sitting in a red car parked in front of the cafe. At the car, Deirdre put her arms around Dermot’s neck and gave him a quick kiss on the mouth. She threw her cheek against his and held him. He pushed her against the side of the car and kissed her on the neck. He glanced down, his lips still on her neck, at Ronald sitting at the wheel. A small-boy look. He reached down and opened the back door of the car. He put his hand behind Deirdre’s back and pushed her in. He got in after her, slammed the door, and sat down with his arm around her shoulders.

  “Where are we going?” he said.

  Ronald drove without a word, his hands slapping the wheel in agitation, his head jerking as if it were being yanked by a hook in the mouth. They went across the bridge over the cold gray river, the wind putting white flecks on the rushing surface. The pillbox sandbags were dark from rain, the soldiers looked cold, huddled inside their green ponchos, their hands raw red but not moving off their weapons, which were pointed at anything coming at them. The car climbed out of Derry and onto a road running into the sky. Ronald had a hand running through his hair and he was muttering to himself when he came to a section of road under repair. The car crept past. About ten workmen were standing behind a small truck filled with hot asphalt steaming in the wet air. One of the workmen, in a dirty tan topcoat, sunk a shovel into the asphalt. He carried it over to the piece of road du
g up for repair. The heads of the crowd of workmen turned as one, following the man with the shovel as he went from the truck to the dug-up road. The heads dropped as they followed the asphalt spilling off the shovel. The heads rose as the man in the topcoat went back for another shovelful. Deirdre rolled down the window. One workman turned to look at her, his chin resting in the aye-it’s-tough greeting.

  “How come you’re all watching him?” Deirdre said.

  “It’s his turn with the shovel,” the workman said.

  She grabbed Dermot’s hand and they both laughed. The whisky kept the laugh alive. He took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He looked at her, pulled the cigarette out, and fell over her with his arms around her. She laughed while he kissed her on the cheek. Ronald looked like he wanted to commit suicide.

  They came into a town called Dungiven, as a sudden thick rain came out of the cold sky. Ronald stopped at a bar. They ran through the water pouring down the sidewalk and into the lounge room. Deirdre slid into a booth across from a guy with a wounded face. Dermot stood shaking the rain from his hair and shoulders. The worn blue carpet smelled of stale beer and last night’s puke and piss in the corner. She introduced the guy in the booth as Sean. Sean said hello as if he were saying his daughter just died. The barman, a wet cigarette hanging from his mouth, came in. Sean ordered another pint. Deirdre and Dermot ordered Scotch. Ronald said he wanted a pint. Dermot handed the guy a pound. The barman started to walk away. Ronald called him back. “I think I’ll have a wee Scotch,” he said.

  They sat without talking, and when the barman brought the order Deirdre grabbed her glass and said, “Let’s drink it down, we’re behind schedule.”

  Sean took almost the whole pint with one long swallow, he did not seem to need breathing, and then he excused himself to go to the men’s room.

  “What does he do?” Dermot said to her.

  “Ah, he’s a good man. He’s for the cause. One of the best we’ve got.”

  “What is he, though?”

  “That boy has a farm. His farm is as hard as this table. But he makes things grow. That boy could make things grow on this table.”

  “What does he do that’s so good?” Dermot asked her.

  “He works.”

  When Sean came back, he looked like he had just seen a bad accident. The rain had stopped as quickly at it had started. They went out to the car and drove for over an hour until the road came into Cookstown. You come down a slope into the town, which runs for a couple of blocks, with shops on both sides of the street. The road runs up a slope and you are out of town. On the front of one of the stores, an insurance agency, there was a British flag flying. Sean pointed to it.

  “What do they have the butcher’s apron out for?” he said.

  “What’s that?” Dermot said.

  “The Union Jack,” Sean said. “Butcher’s apron. There’s been blood wherever they raise it.”

  Deirdre started to laugh. Sean turned around and stared at her. “Oh, there has been, you know.”

  Ronald turned onto a side street and came into a cluster of ugly brick garden apartments with cracked sidewalks leading up to the scarred doors. Deirdre jumped out of the car and went to one door. A girl opened it and said something to her. Deirdre jumped back in the car and said something to Ronald and he drove up to the start of the main road, to a two-story white house set back from the street by a small garden. They all got out of the car. Deirdre pushed in the front door and called out.

  “Is that Deirdre?” a girl’s voice came from the top of the stairs.

  “It is.”

  “Jesus, am I not late again?”

  “Aye, late again.”

  There were some sounds and a guy padded out to the top of the stairs with his pants on, the belt hanging loose, and the rest of his clothes in his hands. He had no chest. If you slapped him on a shoulder it would break. His eyes were beautiful. He did not even try to look at any of them. “Hel-lo,” he said. Deirdre waved at him. They went into the living room. It had low, modern furniture. On the walls were these two huge posters, Che Guevara and Mao Tse-tung. They were in black charcoal on white paper. The guy had done Che with wind blowing the long black hair and the beret tipped at an angle which made you feel action. The eyes had the same look a big race horse gives you. Who are you? I am a champion. Sean and Ronald were sitting on low chairs staring at the floor. Dermot asked Deirdre if she wanted to go for a drink. Ronald’s head came up. When Deirdre said yes, Dermot said, “Come on, I’ll buy you a couple.” When he said the word “buy,” he looked straight at Ronald, who dropped back onto the couch and stared at the floor.

  Deirdre and Dermot walked directly across the road to a pub that had a dirt floor and a bar that was almost shoulder-high. Nobody was in. A door off the bar opened and a woman came out. She poured whisky. There was no sense even asking for ice. She put the bottle on the bar in front of them and went back inside, shutting the door after her. Dermot finished his drink quickly. Only half a taste to it now, which always happens when you’re going too strong. Right away he reached for the bottle. Behind the bar, each corner of the mirror had the word WHISKY etched onto it. The saloon door was open. The road outside was empty and silent and the white house on the other side was tidy. Dermot pounded his foot on the dirt floor.

  “She lives across the street?” he said.

  “Certainly not. She lives at the council houses we went to first. Malachy Carlin lives across the way here. He is a solicitor. He gave her the use of the house while he’s off somewhere.”

  “When she leaves the house is empty?”

  “Absolutely empty, because, as a matter of actual fact, well be goin’ to the meetings too.” She laughed and made as if to slap him in the face.

  He picked up the drink and looked at the bench against the wall. He put the glass on the bar.

  “So I’ll throw you right on the floor here.”

  “Are you not crazy?” she said. She leaned away. “Here.” She started to pour him another drink. He took the bottle from her and poured so much into her glass that it splashed. Through the open door, you could hear the car starting across the road. It came around in front of the saloon. Dermot spilled money on the bar. Deirdre began picking out cartwheel shillings and half crowns to leave for the whisky. Ronald was holding the car door open, but Deirdre waved them on. “It’s only down the street, we’ll walk off the drink.”

  They walked down the slope to the business streets. There were crowds on either side of the street. Ahead of them, the car pulled to the curb and the candidate got out of the front and got up on the back of a truck. Her voice came out over a microphone. Right away, the crowd on the other side of the street began chanting, “Go home! Go home!” The candidate was calling out, “Mister Sunderland, the Unionist Party candidate, talks of stability. He doesn’t want us to riot. He doesn’t want us to have jobs or have a roof over our heads either. But that’s all right, long as we don’t riot.” The other side of the road kept up this steady chant, “Go home, Go home, Go home.” There were about five hundred on each side of the road The ones on the girl’s side were younger, had longer hair. Their eyes were alive as they listened to the girl over the chanting coming across the street. The traffic kept coming down the road. Across the street, the people seemed to be older and neater, with some color showing in the clothes. One of the shops across the street, the Pearl Assurance Company Ltd., the one flying the flag, had two windows, one saying LIFE-MOTOR and the other saying FIRE INSURANCE. A woman with beauty-parlor gray hair sat in the LIFE-MOTOR window and her knee kept hitting her orange skirt while she clapped and kicked her leg to keep time with the crowd outside her window chanting, “Go home.”

  There was a break in the traffic and Dermot went through it to the crowd across the street. Women mostly, with neat hair and wearing clean unwrinkled raincoats, they were chanting and cackling at the girl over on the truck. The women wore the only lipstick he had seen in Northern Ireland.

  “How com
e she doesn’t have Her Majesty’s flag on the platform?” one woman said.

  “Shell be under Her Majesty’s flag soon enough,” one next to her said. “In one of Her Majesty’s best prisons.”

  “Bread and water,” somebody said.

  A young guy in pressed dungaree jacket and slacks, and with a short haircut, almost crew cut, stuck his head between them. “More than bread and water. The goddamned hangman’s noose for her!”

  “Yeah! Yeah!” the women yelled.

  “Burn her at the stake!” the woman next to Dermot yelled out. She yelled it with her eyes bulging. You could almost hear the anger throbbing at her temples.

  “You don’t really mean that, do you, lady?” Dermot said. He was talking to her the way a cop would who was trying to calm things down.

  She looked at him and she had no control over her eyes. They were rolling around. “Give me the match,” she said. Her voice broke loose. “Give me the match, give me the match, give me the match, give me the match. She should burn. She should burn. Burn, burn, burn, burn.”

  Then they all began to chant, “Go home! Go home!” Dermot waited for a break in the traffic and walked back across the road. The girl talking on the truck really was just a little girl. Long straight hair down the sides of an oval face and a teen-age bad tooth. But her blue eyes were old. She was in a red dress that was as short as you could get it. She finished to loud cheering and clapping from the ones on her side of the street. The ones across the street were shaking their fists.

  At the car, Ronald was holding the door. Deirdre slipped into the back. Ronald was bent down to get in after her. Dermot got his shoulder and hip into him and was in beside Deirdre. Ronald came in after Dermot without looking at him. The candidate got in the front seat. Her boy friend came in after her. Sean was sitting in the driver’s seat.

  “Those people across the street,” Dermot said to Deirdre, “do you know what one of these women was saying?”