Emerald Germs of Ireland

by Patrick McCabe

  The reaction from Pat was instantaneous as he slapped his flat open palm down on the counter, splashing some beer onto the floor. “Leave me alone!” he cried. “Why can’t you all leave me alone!”

  Timmy Sullivan felt his jaw drop.

  “Jesus, Pat!” he cried. “There’s no need to start a carry-on the like of that now!”

  But Pat was already gone.

  Sitting, in fact, by the dead fire back in his house surrounded by shadows and thinking about Patsy Traynor. And of how he had always had to get the upper hand, no matter what the cost to anyone else. If you had something he wanted, then he had to have it. Anything at all, if Patsy Traynor wanted it then Patsy Traynor had to have it. Those were the rules abiding in “Patsy Land,” as it might have been called. And always had been. Right from their very first days together in St. Cashie’s School.

  Pat shivered as he thought of those days, all seeming now so long ago. He poked at a dead ember with his toe and shuddered slightly, but not without a wry smile, as in his mind’s eye he saw himself once again coming strolling down the street, happily humming to himself a tune that had been popular in the charts at the time—”Do Wah Diddy Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Do!” by Manfred Mann and his band. Until suddenly, would hear a voice calling, “Oi! McNab! Get over here!”

  Reluctantly, Pat would make his way over to McGurk’s Corner where Patsy Traynor loitered with a few of his associates. He saw it again now plain as day.

  “Well, McGush!” sneered Traynor. “What do you think of this fellow, then?”

  Henry McGush rubbed his hands together (“paws” might have been a more accurate description) and tossed back his head.

  “Oh now, he’s some baby!” replied McGush. “He’s some baby now, Patsy! That’s all you can say about him!”

  Patsy nodded, his eyes twinkling delightedly.

  “Do you see the wee tie he has on him?” he continued. “I say—she has the de on you again today, Pat. What has she?”

  His meaty hand became a sort of crude trumpet as he placed it over his right ear, as if padently awaiting Pat’s reply.

  Pat lowered his head.

  “She has the tie on me again today,” he shamefully replied.

  Now it was Patsy Traynor’s turn to rub his hands together.

  “She has the tie on me again today,” he repeated. He fixed Pat with a fierce gaze.

  “She has the tie on me again today—Your Majesty!” he emphasized.

  The crude trumpet was once more brought to bear on the situation. As an eyebrow was promptly arched.

  “She has the tie on me again today, Your Majesty.”

  Patsy nodded with satisfaction.

  “That’s better!” he declared. “All must be heard to address King Patsy as His Majesty. Isn’t that right, McGush?”

  “Oh, indeed it is surely, Your Majesty! Haw haw!” replied Henry McGush, as though his colleague had only just shared with him the most hysterical joke in the history of the world.

  Patsy coughed with counterfeit politeness.

  “And now, young Pat—would you please be so kind as to step forward in order that we might have our rightful twang?” He paused. “Mr. McGush,” he intoned, “what is it we require?”

  “Our rightful twang of tie!” came the reply, with a seemingly instinctive, almost military, clicking of heels.

  “Step forward, please!” snapped Traynor.

  The waves of shame, beneath which Pat, within subsequent minutes, found himself sinking, can only be described as truly incalculable. His cheeks appeared to burn with generations of humiliation. As to the sound of shrill cries of delight, hands thunderclapped once again.

  “Well, my my! What a twanging there is on here today, McGush! This is the best twanging day yet!”

  Patsy shook his head.

  “You have to hand it to her!” he said. “I say—you have to hand it to yon haybag McNab! She never lets us down, McGush!”

  Henry McGush nodded appreciatively.

  “Never lets us down, he says!”

  “Mad and all as she might be!” cried Patsy Traynor, plum-sized eyes craving affirmation. Readily supplied by Henry McGush who, in a high pitch, croaked, “Mad and all as she fecking is! Haw haw! Ho ho!”

  Patsy chorded and drew a small circle in the gravel with the toe of his boot.

  “Haw haw ho ho is right!” he said. “And I’ll bet she’s given this litde gosson a few bright shillings for his lunch—would you say that’d be the case now, McGush?”

  Henry McGush knitted his brow and stroked his chin slowly and contemplatively.

  “I’d say she’s looked after him well in that department, Patsy, now that’s what I’d say!”

  “Mm,” said Patsy, “and which he is now about to hand over to help the Patsy Traynor/Henry McGush Fund. Isn’t that right, young Pat McNab? Would I be right in saying that?”

  Pat’s cheeks were florid as those of a fever victim.

  “It’s all I have,” he answered in plaintive, fragile tones.

  “And c’mere—how much do you think we want?” countered Patsy, lowering his voice in a significant manner. “Sure what you have is all we want! McGush—he thinks we want more! What does he think we are—greedy guts?”

  Henry McGush feigned astonishment.

  “Ah now, Pat,” he said, “don’t be like that! Don’t be thinking bad things about us!”

  “Come on now, Pat,” went on Patsy Traynor, “fork it out there like a good lad!”

  Pat inserted his right hand into the pocket of his gray serge trousers and from it removed the coins therein. Two silver shillings gleamed in his palm. Patsy Traynor’s eyes lit up like matches flaring inside his sockets.

  “Ah the blessings of God and his Holy Mother on you, Pat, from your old friends Patsy and young McGush! Money for the boys for drink! And plenty of it!”

  “Plenty of money for Double Diamond, Smithwick’s Ale and—”

  “Phoenix, the best of all!”

  “Phoenix—the bright beer!”

  “The best available in the world of beer for Patsy and his old pal Henry McGush! Well—good luck now, Pat McNab. We’ve to be off now about our business! Say good-bye to us now till we quench our thirst, now there’s a lad!”

  Pat’s mouth was dry as a well long forgotten in the vastest, most arid of deserts.

  “Good-bye,” he choked, his voice only just audible.

  An eyebrow was slowly elevated as Patsy smiled wryly and in tones of feigned hopefulness, enquired, “And maybe, do you think—one last wee twang?”

  Pat swallowed and fancied his face as a bush aflame.

  “Please,” he pleaded.

  “Ah go on,” said Patsy, “don’t be such an auld spoilsport, Pat! Here, McGush! Give it a twang there!”

  It was as though Pat’s entire body was being modulated toward a state of almost total elasticity, Henry McGush moving backward and forward on his heels, his face contorted with wickedness, the moments before he released the thin, knotted piece of cotton material which he clutched in his right hand seeming to Pat as though infinity itself.

  “Pitchaow! cried McGush aloud as he released his grip and, in a blur, the wine-colored knot thudded against Pat’s Adam’s apple like a small missile careering through space. In that instant, he experienced a sense of total disorientation, a sickening, almost unbearable galactic solitude. He leaned backward against the frontage of Linencare Dry Cleaners, their departing voices as smudges, tiny specks revolving beneath him.

  “Well, Pat! Must be off now! See you then!” called back the loathed Traynor.

  “Double Diamond works wonders! Works wonders! Double Diamond works wonders! Works wonders it does!” chuckled Henry McGush.

  “Ha ha ha!” laughed Patsy Traynor.

  There was something undeniably, perhaps hopelessly, abject about Pat’s efforts to adjust his tie as his two adversaries were swallowed up by the thick warm darkness of Sullivan’s Select Bar, which was situated directly across the street. It
was as though someone else had succeeded in inhabidng his body as he light-headedly began to negotiate his way homeward, knowing full well the reception which would be awaiting him when he arrived. “But why did you let them do it?” his mother would say. “Are you going to stand there all your life and let the likes of Traynor walk all over you? Well, you won’t, for I’ll go down this very minute and let him and the whole cheeky tribe of them know what I think of them! Traynors! Tramps and tinkers and twopence-halfpenny chancers!”

  His pleas, he knew so well, would be in vain.

  “No—please, Mammy! I beg you—don’t!” he would cry, but she would already be pulling on her coat.

  “Oh yes! I’ll talk turkey to them for what they’ve done to my son! Not that it’s any wonder, mind you! With that father of his lying on top of the melodeon outside Sullivan’s every night God sends! As for the mother, if you could call her that! Up every Sunday with the hat on her and the nose stuck in the air. When the whole country knows Jemmy McQuaid had her fixed before she was married. I wonder what they’ll have to say when they hear a few home truths like that, them and their thieving sons!”

  “Please, Mammy!” Pat would beg anew as she shook the life out of him in front of the fireplace, insisting that a repeat performance was never to be permitted.

  “Pat McNab,” she’d cry, shivering, “you’ll have to learn to stand up for yourself! For if he’s taking shillings off you now, what will it be later on? For God’s sake, ask yourself! What will it be later on?”

  His mother’s trembling lip returned to Pat now as he sat facing the fire’s dying embers, in his hands the gilt frame which contained the oval photo of the only girl he had ever loved. The inscription beneath read: Bridie Cunningham, March 1972. He swallowed painfully as he traced a line from the top of her head to the point of her chin and thoughtjust how right his mother had been. “Just as she always was,” he reflected. For Traynor indeed didn’t call a halt after he’d extorted a few shillings. He had never had any intention of doing so.

  Pat stared at Bridie in her knitted woollen cap and black polo neck. Sometimes she wore a gold chain with it. He got up and stood staring out the window, thinking of those times (dead now) when he would wait across the street from the convent until she and her colleagues emerged through the gates in an explosion of navy blue serge. He smiled. In some strange way, he knew that it had all been inevitable. For once Patsy Traynor realized the intensity of his love for her, it had soon become clear that it was only a matter of time before he would endeavor with all his might to attend to that litde matter too, not ceasing until he had succeeded in taking away from him the only woman—apart from his mother, of course—that Pat McNab had ever had the good fortune to love.

  It was the autumn of 1971 and Bridie was going past the vegetable shop in her day clothes—a bright orange and red tank top with jeans covered in newspaper headlines.

  “Hello, Pat,” she said.

  “Hello, Bridie,” was Pat’s reply.

  “That’s a nice day, Pat,” Bridie elaborated.

  “Bridie,” Pat began in a dry, sort of choking voice, “I was wondering if you were going to the dance on Friday?”

  “You bet I am, Pat!” cried Bridie excitedly. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world! They’re my favorite band!”

  “Are they?” cried Pat excitedly. “They’re mine too! Who are they?”

  “What, Pat? Why, the Square Pennies! Ha ha!”

  “I might see you there, then!”

  “Yes! I’ll look forward to that!”

  “Good-bye, Bridie!”

  “Good-bye, Pat!”

  Nineteen seventy-one—Oct. 16, 12:35 A.M. NOW that the dance was over, with the musicians packing all the gear into the van (the Square Pennies! Ireland’s Newest Sensation!) and people streaming out into the humming, lit-up car park, as Pat stood with Bridie out among the cars he began to realize that what he was experiencing could possibly be the most beautiful and exciting night of his entire life. He found himself once more staring at Bridie’s hands. He couldn’t get over them. They were the smallest hands he had ever seen! His excitement overwhelmed him to the extent that he feared he would fall directly into the puddle in front of him.

  “Look at how small your hands are!” he cried aloud. A man and his girlfriend turned from an Audi 1100 to look at him.

  “What, Pat?” said Bridie.

  “Nothing, Bridie,” Pat replied. “I’m sorry.”

  Bridie reddened a litde and took Pat’s hands in hers, her smaller ones.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” she intoned.

  Pat coughed and said, “Bridie—would you like to come to the dance with me again next week?”

  Bridie nodded and squeezed one of his fingers a litde.

  “Yes, I will!” she said, adding, “Pat—do you know that I’m going to Dublin in a wee while?”

  The startled reply leaped unbidden from Pat’s parted lips.

  “What?” he cried.

  Bridie lowered her eyes.

  ‘Yes. I’ve been accepted into college. I’m going to be a teacher, you see.”

  Pat’s head reeled.

  “Teacher? What? Sums and all—?” he cried—a tension as though steel wire had been abruptly strung all about it—manifesting itself in his chest.

  Yes. I’m going to be a primary teacher. I’ve always wanted to be one ever since I was a litde girl. Oh! I can hardly wait!”

  Pat trembled involuntarily. He could barely contain his excitement. Now he was squeezing her hands!

  “Why! That’s wonderful!” he cried. You’ll be the best teacher ever, Bridie! I know you will!”

  Bridie moved in closer to him and put her litde cold hand behind his neck. There was a lovely smell of cream off it.

  “Oh, Pat,” she said, “you’re so nice.”

  It was all Pat could do not to take off into space when he found her lips touching him ever so softly on the cheek.

  It may have been that the months which followed constituted the most beautiful summer ever enjoyed by a young couple in their teenage years. It also may not be the case, for such things must surely be difficult to quantify and notoriously open to dispute. But there can be no denying that the days enjoyed by Bridie Cunningham and her boyfriend Pat McNab were among the most enjoyable ever experienced by two human beings. For never a day went by now but they kept their assignations in the Lido Grill, staring into one another’s eyes and selecting innumerable popular hits on the jukebox. Bridie placed her tiny hand—for all the world a bird of intricately carved china—on the Formica as she said, “Pat—do you like that one?”

  Pat’s reply—he remained ever eager to please her—continued to be hopelessly equivocal.

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  “Yes! I love it! I hope it goes to number one, in fact!”

  “So do I! I think it’s fantastic!”

  Sometimes they walked over to the old water mill where Bridie would sit on the stone and hug her knees to her chest, lost in thoughts and the future’s innumerable possibilities. Whenever he could pick up the courage, Pat would say, “I’ll miss you when you’re in Dublin, Bridie—do you know that?”

  As Bridie chewed on a grass stem, saying:

  “I do, Pat. I’ll miss you too.”

  “What’ll it be like, do you think? Dublin, I mean?”

  “I don’t know. I hope it’s exciting!”

  “They say there’s something to do there every night.”

  “Yeah! I’ll bet there’ll be some great bands!”

  “I bet there will! You’ll probably forget all about me.”

  There would be a sad twinkle in Pat’s eyes whenever those words left his lips.

  “Pat—don’t ever say that,” Bridie would sharply reply. “You know I couldn’t. As a matter of fact, I’ll write to you every day.”

  It was a sentence Pat was never to forget.

  “Every day?” he said.

  He could not believe his ears
.

  “Every day,” Bridie said, “I promise with all my heart.”

  Standing by the window now, Pat remembered those letters. He smiled as he thought of himself reading them. “Dear Pat,” he recalled, “The lectures are very good but I find French a bit hard. The food is—yuk! I miss you so much! Pat, did you ever hear tell of a film called Love Story? Me and the girls were at it last night. I’ll tell you about it when I get home! See you, Pat. Love you, Bridie.”

  Letters which continued to arrive with heart-inflating regularity until that magnificent day she returned home on the bus and Pat was the most delirious youth in the whole town! His very legs going weak at the knees when he perceived the vision that presented itself to him. For a vision is what the woman he loved was as she stood there before him on the steps of the bus in her striped scarf, knitted woolen cap, tartan kilt, and black tights. He could barely release the sound of her name from the pit of his throat.

  “Bridie!”

  “Pat!”

  In slow motion, Pat McNab found himself crossing the square and melting into the arms of Bridie Cunningham.

  Those Christmas holidays glittered in his memory. Bridie chewing a pencil and poring over her folder. Behind her a blazing fire burning in the grate. And, from the speaker of the Reynolds three-in-one stereo which her father had purchased (“Prezzie for you, Bridie!”) in Dundalk, the first few dnkling treble notes falling like milky rain, announcing the soundtrack of the film which she most adored in the entire world of celluloid. Memories such as these for him simply had no peer.

  “I have to have this essay in in two weeks or they’ll kill me!” his girlfriend would say then.

  “Kill you, will they, Bridie?” Pat would reply hesitantly (for the groves of academe, in truth, were a source of almost impenetrable mystery, if not intimidation, indeed, to him). “What is it about?”

  “It’s about Mallarmé and the French symbolist poets,” Bridie explained, with the tiniest hint of impatience.

  “Oh,” Pat replied, as though he understood completely. He didn’t, however. He looked away and felt his saliva thicken up inside his mouth, just as the door opened and Bridie’s mother put her head around it (it was beautifully permed—her head) and said softly, “Now. Would you two young people like a litde cup of tea, perhaps?”