Fishing the Sloe-Black River

AROUND THE BEND AND BACK AGAIN

Strange bloody cuckoo, that one. Couple of rhododendrons hanging in her hair. Chewing on her fingernails like she’s starving. Spent yesterday afternoon circling one of the puddles out by the greenhouse, just walking round and round like there’s no tomorrow. Trailed mud all over the bloody floor after I swishbuckled the fucking thing to a shine. Nothing to be said for consideration. But she’s not half bad all the same. Dressing gown giving a bit of a peep there, right down to the brown of the nipple. The way she just stares there out the window, you’d swear there was something on television in the bloody stars. Here we go with the Plough and the Stars, starring Tom bloody Cruise. She needs a bit of a haircut though, those long strands going mad all the way over her mouth. Dolores, giving her a bath yesterday, said she was a bit ripe under the armpits. Who wouldn’t be after hanging around town for days without a bloody bath? Singing some fucking song when they stuck a toothbrush down her gob. And enough tranquilizers in her to knock out a good horse.

She’s your one from the railway family. Recognized her the minute they dragged her in. Moved here from Dublin with her Ma and Da about twelve years back and lived up there in that old orange caboose at the bottom of the hills. Strange fucking place that, railway carriage sitting out in the middle of nowhere. Propped up on cement blocks and all. Surrounded by flower beds and stone walls and green fields, no wonder she went barmy. Choo fucking choo here we go down the valley. She was choo-chooing all right when the cops brought her up here, smashing her little brown curls against the door of the squad car, going crazy with something about her caboose.

Never forget my first sight of that thing years back, on the back of a huge bloody truck, getting carted up from the railway station. Along it comes down main street, almost shit myself. Big orange thing, gone a bit rusty after sitting at the ends of the tracks for so long. One hell of a job that. Must have cost a damn fortune for her old man to hire that truck and a winch and ten hefty men to help cart it up to the hills. I remember her looking out the window as it went round the corner, bewildered as fuck, her no more than eight years old, ribbons in her hair. I was only six myself, that big old bandage on my hand from when I let a firework go off in my fist. Along I went running after the damn thing but it was way too fast. All the other lads went up to the valley later on, where they were propping it up on blocks and asked if she could come out to play. No, says her Da, she has to study. We all knew he was a weirdo after that.

Her Da was one of those fellas who look at the stars and make maps. Like Darryl Hannah in that film Roxanne with your man with the big nose. But her Da was just a little fella in a black beret. Always hanging out at that caboose he was. There was a huge bloody telescope sticking out of the roof sometimes. Talk was that he slept during the day and worked at night and once he even made a trip to California to look through a mighty telescope there. Might make an accounting for the Plough and the Stars stuff that she’s up to tonight, rocking away there by the window, kneeling on the bed, staring out the window like she’s saying her prayers. Right beside Maggie the Moaner too. That’s some pair. And just wait until Georgie girl comes back. There’ll be ructions then, I swear.

Her Ma was a strange one too. Wrote books on flower arranging. Grand topic that, as long as you’ve had a decent lobotomy in the last six months. She was always off to the flower shows with all sorts of buckets in the backseat of the car. How she kept from bouncing around with all the fucking potholes in the road around here I’ll never know. Used to see her the odd time down by the river examining flowers with one of those microscope things. There’s some strange people live around here, that’s for sure.

I was having a nap in the stock room and the nurses were nattering away about her. Seems her old man liked the horses as well as the stars. Before the car crash on the Swinford Road he put a load of money on some horse called Tycho in the fifth at Leopardstown. Old Tycho fell at the second fence and the old man never told anyone that the caboose suddenly belonged to some bank up beyond in Dublin. Rough that. One day you’re doing grand, living in a caboose, the old fella looking at the stars, the old dear tending the flowerpots and things are not so bad at all at all. The next day your Ma and Da are smashed in a car on that fucking bend in the Swinford Road, the will is worth shit, and before you know it the bank owns the caboose and you haven’t two pennies to rub together. Bob’s your uncle, you’re out on the street, two plastic bags in your hands, Dunnes Stores better value beats them all.

No wonder she’s sitting there shaking like crazy.

Nurses were saying that the bank let her live in the caboose for the best part of six months after the crash, and that’s true enough because I saw her up there one day myself, and she was just sitting in a lawn chair watching the world go by, happy as Larry. Gave her a wave but I don’t think she saw me. But the bank is doing talks with the mining company now, so she’s out on her ear, poor girl. Bank manager gave her a loan of a flat down by the newspaper offices a few days ago, but she wouldn’t stay. Bit stupid that. Guards found her walking up the road towards the caboose every bloody minute of the day, her screaming and shouting something about looking after her old dear’s flower beds. I seen her myself once down under the bridge and she was roaring her head off, all those flowers in her hair. Gave her a wave then too, but it was the same bloody thing. That’s madness if you ask me. Standing freezing in the middle of the bloody river.

And she’s a wild one too. Had to grab a hold of her feet when they brought her here. Strong as an ox. Wonder Woman, how are ya. Barney was a bit rough with her all the same. He shouldn’t have slapped her across the gob like that when the nurses weren’t looking. Said she spat at him, but Barney’s a fierce one for lying sometimes. Bet she’s another one for breaking the toilet seats wait till you see, that’s what Barney said. He’s probably right but he shouldn’t have slapped her one anyway. Barney-boy has a thing with the toilet seats. Hates scrubbing the damn things. He’s always bulling about the globs of shite left around the bowl. And he gets even worse when the madwomen get to standing on the seat and aiming from on high.

Still and all, she’s quiet now after all the rumpus. Strange what might go on in a head like that, her there staring out the window of the dorm. Dolores said she caught a goo of her many a time up there on the roof of the caboose with her old man, before the crash. Staring at these maps with a small red torch they were. Something to do with night vision or something. Help them watch the goings on. There’ll be none of that for a while. Only stars she’ll be seeing are the ones from those little yellow pills they’re shoving down her throat. Her and Georgina’ll have a ball when they bring Georgie back from Dublin. That’s what Georgina gets for being a speed freak anyway. Ice water injected into the veins. Nasty stuff. Sends the heart rate rocketing. Her and Georgie’ll be the youngest ones in the whole bloody ward. And Georgie’s a fierce one for pissing on the floors. In I go to clean the toilet up and it’s slippery as all fuck.

* * *

Johnnie Logan’s going nuts over the mining boys. Says they should stay the hell out. But he’s all set, he is, with his Opel bloody Manta and his four-bedroom house and a seat on the County Council. Man like that doesn’t need a new job, unlike me and Barney. If he keeps those mining boys out it’ll be a good thump in the head from Barney, that’s for sure. And I’ll never vote for the bastard again. He used to be one hell of a boyo, getting that strike settled for the union and all, but like Barney says he’s barking up the wrong tree this time.

* * *

Ferocious bloody hangover this evening. Out on the piss in the Humbert with Barney in the broads of broad daylight. Smithwick’s. Nectar of the dogs, says Barney. And a fierce drink for the scuts.

Anyway, it’s all signed sealed and delivered, says Barney. The bank sold your woman’s caboose to the mining company. Off they are now doing speculations in the hills. There’s gold in dem dere hills, as the boys in the wild west say. Word around is that there might be jobs when the mining boys get their act together, which’d be a damnsight better than cleaning the bin, that’s for sure. Johnnie Logan’s bulling, but it serves him right, him and all the other greenies around. There’ll be a road up the mountain, no ifs, ands, or buts. They can all go to Kerry or Majorca or the south of bloody France if they want a bit of peace and quiet.

Went up there myself for a goo. Mining boys already put a big insignia on the side of the caboose. Picture of a mountain with the sun coming up over it. It’ll be a sunny bloody morning if they hire myself and Barney, that’s for sure. Those boys have money. You can be sure of that. We’ll be laughing and it might even bring a few of the lads home from Amsterdam or the Bronx or wherever the hell they’re gone. They put some barbed wire around the old carriage and already got themselves a few JCBs and a couple of churners, a pile of gravel and a big blue Dumpster. There’s no flower beds there any more, that’s for sure. Looks a bit different than it used to but that’s the way it goes. Jobs are jobs. There’ll be hell to pay if they don’t hire local lads, all the same.

Your woman must know about the caboose because she threw a nasty one tonight. Out they were doing all sorts of maneuvers to hold her down, the Heimlich and all that stuff. The only doctor on was that skinny bloke who stinks of garlic. Nurses had to call me out from the kitchen, where I was doing the scrubbing, to give them a hand. Six of us there including Barney, but he went a bit easier with her this evening. Dressing gown all over the place and she’s a good-looking woman, all the same. Barney asked me if I sprung a hard-on. He’s a filthy bastard sometimes. Anyway, out of her pockets comes tumbling a load of sachets of sugar that she must have stolen from the bowls in the dining area. Dozens of the damn things spilling all over the floor. In the little white packets. Maybe she has a sweet tooth.

Eventually calmed the hissy-fit though, the lot of us together. On with the gray gown, out with the shoelaces, give us that necklace, darling, and it’s off down to solitary with the soft white stuff on the walls. Don’t be banging your little brown curls around this time.

Must be awful hard all the same, losing the parents and the caboose like that. The nurses call her Ofeelia on account of the flowers in her hair. Can’t help feeling a bit sorry for her, even if Barney says it’s her own fault. Twenty years old and it’s not much better than the fucking slophouse.

Still no sign of the Georgie one. They must be doing all sorts of tests on her up beyond in the big smoke. Dymphna O’Connor got the thumbs up today and it’s off back to Kiltimagh for her. But the place was a fucking mess. There was a tampon shoved down the inside of the third stall and the rubber gloves had taken a hike. Mary Marshall at it again. They should teach that woman some manners. Barney told me a funny joke about Eve in the river but I can’t for the life of me remember it now. One of these days me and Barney are going to get new jobs. No doubt about it. We’ll be up there with the mining boys wearing three-piece suits and colorful ties and the doctors at the bin can lick the piss off the floors themselves.

* * *

Ofeelia was very quiet in solitary today. Often wondered why I never saw more of her around town, her being a fine thing and all. By all accounts, so say the nurses, her Da had a fierce battle with the board of education to keep her at home. Just imagine that. Didn’t even have a debs dance or anything. A bit like myself I suppose, since I only did the Inter and didn’t get a chance to dance with the old dickie bow on. Living in that caboose she probably never even had a chance to see any new films either. Christ. That’s not living.

The nurses were saying that her Da taught her the weirdest bloody stuff, him always up in arms about chemicals in the air and the peat bogs and all that other stuff they talk about. He was a friend of Logan’s and the greenies. Seems to me you have to be pretty bloody rich before you start talking about all that stuff. You can see them there on the TV, protesting the whales and the dolphins and all. There’s some graffiti in the women’s toilet that says NUKE THE GAY WHALES, which is pretty damn funny when you think about it.

* * *

She has the greenest eyes I ever saw. I’ll say that much for her. And quoting some strange bloody poetry too when she’s down there in solitary. All about these turtles and stuff. Doctor Garlic went to take her out today but she threw another nasty one. It was back into the white room for her, a shove in the back from Doctor G. That fella’s a screamer if ever I saw one. He shouldn’t be treating the patients like that, that’s all I have to say.

* * *

She’s a headcase, that one. Acting nice as could be for the last two days and back in the dorm, she is. Slopping out the stalls and who rolls in but herself. Oops, I say, it’s closed for a minute or two. Down she leans and, straight in the eyes, asks me if I could buy her a few bottles of syrup down at the shops, then slips me a fiver. Can I trust ya? she says, sounding normal as could be, even though they slapped a few of the yellow boys down her gob earlier on. Dressing gown hanging down awful low again. Barney would have had it right, but I never told him. Up she stands, with a bit of a wink and down the corridor until Dolores finds her and guides her back to the dorm by the elbow, awful gentle like.

So I bought the syrup, why not. Cost me an extra eighty-six pence. Went in, when they were all at dinner, and slipped the bottles under her bed. Didn’t say a word to Barney. He’d be slagging me something fierce. Took to calling me Hamlet for some reason when I said she wasn’t half-bad-looking. That bastard is always in the storeroom pulling his plum anyway.

There I was, doing a number on the corridors at about four in the morning, and the night nurses must have been sleeping or else she’s quiet as a fucking mouse. You’re a savior, she says to me, and slips four pink flowers across the floor. Syrup all over the front of her dressing gown. The flowers got a bit wet on account of the mop water, but I dried them out in the flat later on and put them in a jar. Anyway, I’ve a funny feeling she’s not half-mad at all. Asked me did I know where the caboose was. I said yeah, course I do. Then before she went waltzing back down the corridor she asked me to take some photos of the bloody thing for her. To hang above her bed because she’s homesick. Christ.

* * *

At the bloody sugar she was again tonight. And splatters of syrup all over her dressing gown. Georgie’s back, awful quiet, and she isn’t talking to a soul.

* * *

Those mining boys have the life of it up there. Two BMWs down by the gate. Barney says that the only difference between a cactus and a Beemer is that one has the pricks on the outside. He’s a funny bastard sometimes. But I wouldn’t say no if they put one out the front door for me, that’s for sure. Dublin license plates on them. Sitting outside the caboose, shiny as could be. They hired McLaverty and three of his fucking crew to make the tarmacadam road up from the main one, over the hills and down into the valley there. It’s a job all right, but it’s not mine. Still and all McLaverty said they’ll be hiring if things prove to be going all right.

There’s ructions in the Council. Johnnie Logan even said the hills are holy and they should take their mining company back to Ballyfermot and dig up a few horse bones for the knackers up there. That fella has a mouth on him for a politician. Still and all there’s no job like a job that pays, that’s what I say.

Got to thinking about old Ofeelia when I was up there snapping away. Bloody photos’d break her heart, even if she is a touch on the mad side. No flowers or anything. Anyway this security bloke comes out and asks me if I’m from the newspaper, then tells me not to be taking photos, that’s illegal. I’m not about to lose the chance of working with them, so right there I opened the back of the camera, ripped out the film and said there ya go, not a bit of harm done. Better all the way round that way. Old Ofeelia had a bit of a fit when I whispered to her as they were all traipsing out of the dining room, but that’s life isn’t it? She left me alone with the cleaning tonight, but I’ll be damned if there wasn’t another boatload of sugar in her pockets and even some of it stuffed down those long blue socks.

* * *

There’s a new magazine out that has all sorts of stuff about the films. There I was looking at a picture of Daniel Day Lewis in his Mohican rigout and who walks in but Dolores in her nursing whites, giving me all sorts of shit for not doing my job right. Slaps the magazine right out of my hands. Look who’s talking, I wanted to say. In there in the kitchen nattering about the patients all night long. And sleeping on the job too. Saw her later on in the kitchen with the other nurses, slobbering all over the magazine. They all think that Day Lewis fella is gorgeous. I’ll grow my hair long, get a number done on my teeth, and get a job in Hollywood myself. Watch out boys, here come Marty Lyons with his hatchet flying.

Anyway, Ofeelia came waltzing down the corridors when I was mopping at half past four and said to me, Some night let’s go for a walk outside, you and me, for a breath of fresh air. Didn’t say a thing, just kept on mopping. She’s fucking bonkers if she thinks I’m going to go for a stroll with her. She asked me for more syrup too, but I didn’t say a thing. I was thinking of asking her for that eighty-six pence, but I didn’t.

* * *

Barney left in his application with the mining boys today. Looking for a man to do the JCB, he said. Told them he worked for the County Council for seven bloody years before he went to the bin. So up I go myself to fill one in too. Place is fierce nice inside — done it up awful posh, expensive carpet and all that lark. Fax machines ringing like bloody Wall Street or something. They fixed the hole in the roof where the telescope used to be. Ah well, that’s progress. Three-piece asked me if I’d ever done the bulldozer thing before, so I told him the truth. Told me, natural as could be, that he already has a few men with experience but he’ll keep me on file. Bastard like that needs a lobotomy if he thinks Barney is telling the truth. That’s what you get, though. Doors slammed in your mush when you do it honest.

Georgie and Ofeelia were bulling today when they couldn’t go for a walk in the rain. I got in at five o’clock and there they were, in the dining room, sitting away from everyone, scowling like the clappers. Ofeelia had a fucking field of sugar in her pockets, you’d swear she’d been pulling beets all day. Georgie was rocking like a madwoman. Seems they’re pals now. Maybe Ofeelia’s shooting the white stuff, who knows around this bloody place. Both of them whispering and pointing the finger at me, of all people. Then they started laughing. One thing’s for sure, Barney better stop with this Hamlet shite or I’ll rip his head off and leave a long slimy one down his throat. He better be half decent to me or I’ll up and tell the mining company, not a bother on me, and that’s the fucking truth.

This place is driving me around the bend. Geraldine McCabe was slapped in the solitary after swallowing her fucking thermometer. Una Harrison’s parents left her a box of Milk Tray after six o’clock visit and Maggie the Moaner ate them up. All because the lady loves Milk Tray, I suppose. Mary Marshall left another jam rag in the toilet tank. Barney left it for me to clean up, the lazy pillock.

* * *

Two weeks now she’s been here and she’s awful nice. I don’t think she’s as mad as half the bloody people in the country. She must be a cute hoor to be able to slip past the nurses at night. Down she comes and sits near where I’m working whispering about this that and the other, the price of butter, whatever you want. One night she’s talking about things a little wacky, like how the universe is expanding and some such shite about gravity and stuff. Then she’s just staring away at the wall. The next she’s on about the flowers down by the pond, straight and narrow as could be, a little bit of a twitch in the lip but that’s all. It must be said that there’s a little bit of a tinkle in the trousers every now and then, what with her in that dressing gown with the buttons open and that bit of nipple looking like a crater on the moon. She’s got these awful big lips. Very sexy that in a woman. And those rhododendrons don’t look too bad. A man could go blind afterward. I’m surprised Barney doesn’t wear glasses after what he does in the stock room.

We’ve started taking to walks every now and then, me and Ofeelia. Nothing happens, just walking down around the grounds, but the Barney is like a fucking tape recorder. Hey, Hamlet, did you go for your midnight snack? D’ya think she could suck a golf ball through a fifty foot hose on a windy Friday? I swear that bastard’s looking for a punch, but he’s a big one. Might have to take my breakfast and lunch with me. He’ll be off and about soon enough working with the suits up there at the mining company, flinging his bulldozer around. Still and all, he’s probably right about me getting booted if they find me out walking in the grounds with Ofeelia. Not very clever, he says, even for you. All we do is go out the back door with my key, take our shoes off when we go across the gravel, go down to the flower beds, and she looks at them. Every now and then she picks one and sticks it in her hair.

Better be careful, but she asked me to take her along towards the caboose tomorrow night. I told her that maybe it wasn’t a good idea. She says why. I’m not into telling her about the churners and all, but I tell her a little about how I didn’t get the bulldozer job. She says she knew about the dozers and that’s all right she just wants to see it. Goes on about the homesick lark again, and something weird about her driving the caboose through the universe with her old man. That’s madness if you ask me. Seeing how it’s propped up on cement blocks, I don’t think it’s going anywhere soon. But I said alright, maybe we’ll take a wander up there one night but we better not get caught or it’s my arse on a string. Then she winks at me and asks me not to tell a soul, those flowers bobbing away. She’s not too pally with Georgie anymore for some reason and says she doesn’t like Barney at all. Was awful happy when I told her he was quitting, but I didn’t tell her what job he was taking. She’s had enough shite thrown at her these last few weeks.

By all accounts they’re going looney trying to get her to go to the dentist. She opened up her gob and showed me a huge hole in the back of her mouth where the molars should be. That’s from eating too much sugar I says, and she starts laughing like a bloody hyena. Says she tucks the yellow boys in there with her tongue when the doctors give them to her. Hides them away. She’ll be fucked if they’re going to dope her up to the gills. She’s not thick, Ofeelia. Bet she saw that in a movie somewhere. Tom bloody Cruise in the stars again maybe.

* * *

Fucking Dolores and her hawk eyes. Out we were in the corridors talking about taking our stroll and along she comes, in her whites, and reams me out for talking with the patients. Ofeelia goes slinking back to the dorm, a look as long as the Shannon on her mush. Dolores says she’s going to tell the big boys if I ever do something like that again. Every day she’s Miss Up-your-Arse about every fucking thing, clean the floors, wash the sinks, the storeroom needs bloody cleaning. Sometimes I have the urge to tell her about Barney wanking in there but what’s the point. The fucker’s leaving in a few days to work on that road for the mining boys and before you know it he’ll be wearing a Louis Copeland and driving a Beemer. Phoned them myself again today but they said employment’s on hold for now. Some fucking good that does me.

Sometimes I think about Ofeelia and maybe getting a kiss or two one night. If she doesn’t mind the teeth and all. I’ve been thinking about getting braces one of these days. I’ll tell the dentist that story about Ofeelia and the yellow boys. That’ll crack the bastard up. Maybe he’ll give me a discount.

* * *

Trial run, she called it. Thank God Dolores had a day off. And Barney is finished, a couple of days off to get ready for the job he says. I said no at first. It’s getting a bit dicey. But she hands me one of those flowers again and a man can’t refuse that, can he.

Out we slipped at half past two and it’s one hell of a fucking hike up to the caboose, around and down by Martin’s place, then up the road where Barney’s JCB will be doing the trick. Wind blowing in from the sea and all. Had to give her my coat and up she comes and pecks me on the cheek, telling me I’m awful sweet. Like sugar, I say, and she laughs. We scooted around the side of the barbed wire and there was a light in the window behind the curtains. Sat ourselves down in the heather on the hillside. Security man probably doing the same thing Barney gets up to.

Got a bit of a tear in her eye even when she looked at the place, Ofeelia did. Talking about the flower beds and all. Used to be there wasn’t a piece of machinery in sight, only that telescope poking out of the roof. Sometimes she’d play hide-and-seek with her mother under the caboose. Got very fucking strange at one point, though, and started saying things from the Bible, all messed around. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for I have the biggest fucking JCBs in the valley. Just like that, her lip twitching. But then she says sorry, I’m just upset, and started talking normal again, reaching up for the flowers going berserk on her head.

Found out about the driving through the universe. Seems her Da used to play a game or two where they’d sit on the bloody roof and pretend they were driving the carriage through the stars. Weird that. They’d pretend they were train drivers just scooting around the sky.

Awful clever about the names of things though, she is. Told her all I knew was the Plough but she had a list as long as your bloody arm. There’s one called Betelgeuse and I knew that from the film. But there’s others you couldn’t pronounce even if you went to university. Seems her old dear would get a bit upset when her father got rude, parked the caboose in O’Ryan’s groin or through the legs of the Gemini sisters. But most of all they just had fun, she said, pretending they were driving, blowing the horn as they drove past Mars. Had me cracking up, she did, all that talk about stars. O’Ryan’s the bloke with the big sword. And Venus is the one for love, she said. And it’s a grand old bright one too.

We were going to do a bit of the driving game ourselves there on the hillside, but I looked at my bloody watch and it was almost four and we had to run back to the bin like the clappers. Was hankering for a bit of slap bang wallop but there was no time at all. She bummed a cigarette off me before she went back to the dorm, but I’m going to have to give those fucking things up because I was wheezing like a horse after running and then scrubbing the place down. Strange that, the way she said it was a trial run. I’ll be fucked if I’m going back there. Simple as that. And I’m not getting any more syrup either, even though she asked for four bottles and gave me a tenner. Seems she’s back in with Georgie because she said she’d be coming for the stroll too. I said no fucking way, count me out of this lark, I’ll be scrubbing the floors, no ifs, ands, or buts, Georgie girl’s as mad as a fucking hatter.

* * *

Johnnie Logan’s on about the miners again. There he is, his photo plastered all over the newspapers. Says the land belonged to others before it was ours, now we’re giving it away again. Can’t see much sense in that since there’s no Brits running around these parts these days. Still and all he’s talking like the clappers about the empire and multi-something companies and all that stuff. Johnnie Boy should have a go at Hollywood.

I was sitting in the town square listening to him run his mouth off and thinking about old Ofeelia and the way she’d take a flying trip on the damn thing. That must have been a sight. Then I got to thinking that maybe Logan is right. Maybe they should fuck off back to Ballyfermot and leave our mountains alone. Then again if they gave me a job I’d kick the living daylights out of Logan and never vote for the pillock again. Told Ofeelia that I’d make one more trip up there with her if Georgie didn’t come along. She says ah go on, but I said no way José. She was biting away at her lip for a while, but then just gave me a goozer and said okay, no Georgie. This time she gave me one quick smack on the lips. Boys oh boys talk about the rise of the empire. Johnnie Logan would have said a thing or two if he’d seen my trousers.

* * *

All settled so. Ofeelia wants me to take a wire cutters, a hammer, and a screwdriver from the storeroom. Says she just wants to go up and touch the caboose again. Just get through the barbed wire and touch the damn thing with her fingers. I’ll go along. I don’t give a shite. Barney was in the Humbert today telling people I’d become a fucking patient. He was quoting something about to be or not to be. That smart arse is looking for his comeuppance. Him up there on the dozers making money hand over fist. It was pissing rain tonight so we didn’t go outside, me and Ofeelia. Found a flower down behind the toilet bowl though.

* * *

Another fucking delay. It was pissing rain again tonight. Ofeelia went barmy with the sugar. Christ that girl’s definitely off her rocker. Now that Barney’s gone there’s twice as much bloody work around the bin.

* * *

Christ. I don’t know if a man can actually say what happens to him if he tries to drive through the stars. But it must be a fucking beautiful trip, that’s all I have to say.

Got up to the bin at five bells, like always, and got to mopping the corridors, almost clean fucking forgot about our trip to the caboose and all. But out she comes from the dining room and says can we go for our stroll tonight. None of the nurses looking and she sort of takes my hand. Thank you very much, she says, straightforward as can be, a look on her that’d melt you. Polished the place to a bloody shine I did all night, just leaning into the mop like a lunatic, scrubbing all the water spots off the mirrors, taking all the stuff out of the dustbins, fixing the towels, cleaning the toilets, mopping the floors so they sparkled just like in the telly ads. Could have shaved myself by looking in that floor, I swear to God. Was finished triple bloody quick.

Dolores had been on the piss the night before and looking no better than a burned-out saucepan. She was having a nap in the nurse’s station when out Ofeelia comes, all done up to the nines. Her hair was back from her eyes, six rhododendrons going hell for leather, and a bit of makeup here and there. She was wearing a long red dress and the biggest bloody hiking boots I’ve ever seen in my life. She had four Dunnes Stores bags in her hands, weighed down like mad so she was almost walking sideways. I whispered to her what the fuck is in the bags, Ofeelia. And she asks what did you call me. So I says nothing, just a nickname. But she nearly went barmy trying to get it out of me. So I told her what Barney called her and all, and she took out the flowers and trampled them on the bloody floor. I almost gave her a good box for messing up all my hard work, but there were all these tears in her eyes and all I did was get the sweeping brush and swept all the petals into the storeroom.

I said are we right, let’s go, and asked her again what was in the bags. I almost shit myself when I saw all that sugar, dumped out from the sachets, a huge mound of the stuff. The other bag was chock-full of the bloody syrup bottles. I asked her what she was bringing them for, but she just gave me a shrug and said right we are, we’re on our way. I had the cutters, the hammer, and the screwdriver in a red Man United bag with a picture of Paul McGrath on the side, even though he’s playing now for Villa. McGrath’s face was peeling a bit from where I put it in the washing machine by mistake years ago. We were bloody quiet getting out of there, taking off our shoes as we went across the gravel, then laced them up again and went toward the trees. She was humming something or other as we went down to the main gate. Every time we saw a few cars, in we ducked to the bushes and hid. Once she ran her fingers through my hair and I thought there and then about that Chris de Burgh song about the lady in red, which is a stupid fucking song but gets the women all horny. But there was no time for any of that. She did give me a goozer, though, a long slow one with her tongue almost halfway down my throat. I was wondering about the teeth but she didn’t say a thing. I could hardly walk straight after that one.

When we got down to the caboose road we could hear the sea. Ofeelia stopped and had a goo at the sky for a few minutes. There was all stone walls and grass around there, like in the Saw Doctors song. There was no moon out but I swear there was a rim of light around her hair from the stars, stupid and all as it sounds. I felt like singing her a verse or two. But we heard a badger scuttling away through the bushes, which frightened the shite out of both of us, and then we just lugged our stuff up the road. I was carrying the sugar and the Man United bag and it was heavy as all get-out. There was a light in the caboose window as normal. Four of the dozers were outside, yellow as could be. There were a few charred oil barrels, a cement churner, one of those huge roller machines and a blue Bedford Van with the mining company insignia on the side, the wheels all shiny. Not the way Bedford vans are supposed to be. Not in this neck of the woods anyway.

We circled on around the back, along the barbed wire fence, and stopped for a while in the heather. There was a fishing boat with lights on out in the sea. It wasn’t too cold at all. Trust me, she said. Don’t do anything stupid. Fair enough said I, and I knew we were up to a hell of a lot more than just touching that fucking caboose. But I didn’t care.

Down we scrambled, to the bottom of the hill, like Steve McQueen escaping from that prison. Christ, I never felt so good. Got a hole in the Dunnes Stores sugar bag and had to hold the fucker by both ends so it didn’t spill out. Out with the wire cutters and she’s watching me with those big green eyes like a cat as we go snippety-snip and in like rabbits through the fence. What the fuck we going to do now, I says to her. She just puts her finger to those big lips and waves her arms towards the bloody bulldozer. Along we crawl, just like in the films, that red dress of hers getting awful muddy.

The heart almost fucking leapt out of me when I saw the security guard’s shadow move in the caboose, but the wanker didn’t show. Under the bulldozer we got and I’ll be fucked if Ofeelia didn’t start reaching up into the huge bloody engine and start clipping every wire in sight. Christ the woman was around the bend and back again. I was getting a bit of a kick out of it, it must be said, and started to reach up into the engine too, thinking fuck you Barney me boy, see if you can make a few bob now, and where the hell is your three-piece suit anyway. Then, by Christ, there looks likes there’s a million fucking wires hanging down like bloody decorations.

I miss this place, she says to me. Used to be we had a great time up here. I nod my head. I know how you feel, says I. I had a bicycle once that got nicked when I was eight and the mother slapped me for crying. She starts whispering about her old man and how he was making a map of the sky out of Irish stories, like Cuchulainn and Diarmuid and Grainne and all. That’d be a funny fucking map, I says, the salmon of knowledge leaping out of your man’s hands. I pointed up at O’Ryan, who was lower in the sky than he was the other night. She was laughing until I told her to shut up, we’ll get caught. She smiled at me awful long until I says come on let’s get cracking.

Ofeelia never counted on me being a dab hand with a lock, though. Up she gets with a screwdriver and the hammer and stands at the back of the JCB, whispering to me to knock the fucking petrol cap off for some reason. I tell her she’s fucking nuts, we should just pick the thing, otherwise the security guard would think this was O’Connell Street with all the noise. I’ve been doing that sort of thing since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. So out comes the old trusty nail file that I carry everywhere, swear to God. Ofeelia’s happy as Larry. Those locks on the petrol tanks are a curse though and I had to use a little piece of metal that I filed down a long time ago but eventually she popped out good-oh. That was a fucking brand new JCB as well.

Ofeelia took out the sugar and started pouring the stuff in the tank like it was going out of fashion. I heard about that somewhere but forgot. Fucks up the engine no end, a bit of sugar. No wonder she’d been robbing it. Ofeelia had no end of tricks, the yellow boys and the sugar and all. Some of it spilled out on the ground, but most of it went down the gob of the machine.

She was humming the tune about a spoonful of sugar and the medicine going down when out hops the fucking security guard with his torch shining. Ofeelia stands stock still and I fall to the ground. He looks around a bit, lifts his right leg in the air, farts, and steps back into the caboose. I almost die laughing and Ofeelia she has a smile on her face to beat the band. Then she gets out the syrup, something I never heard about before, and dumps two bottles of the stuff in there. She tells me it’ll clog up the engine even if they get the wires fixed. That and the sugar will really do a number. The boys won’t move that dozer up the mountain for many a year, I tell her, but already she’s scrambling off to the other one. She drops the syrup bottle on the ground. Litterbug, I says and her still smiling.

Out she pops with a coathanger from the syrup bag, with the end all sharpened to a point, and she reaches right up into the engine with those small hands. It seems like all fucking night as she punctures something or other. She knows these fucking engines inside out. All this petrol starts pouring out and it gets all over her red dress. Damn, she’s soaked in the stuff. In her hair and everything. I get in there and drag her out and the stuff does a number on me too. Stinks to high heaven the petrol does and she’s doused in the stuff, but so what. We were getting the job done triple quick. Then it’s another number on the wires of the second JCB, my hands shaking like fucking mad. Christ, this is living, I think. Johnnie Logan and the greenies would love me. I should run for fucking Taoiseach after this. Out with the spoonful of sugar again. In the most delightful way, she says. Then some more syrup.

Up to the Bedford, which is open, so I pop the bonnet. Ofeelia she’s just standing there, smiling, looking up at the stars. But then there’s a clink at the caboose door and that bastard is out again, shining his bloody light, catching her in the beam and it’s all fucking hell let loose. Must have heard me messing with the Bedford. Out he steps, shining the fucker in Ofeelia’s eyes. I’m about to run but Ofeelia she’s stepping towards him and swinging her arms like a bloody windmill. It’s John O’Rourke who once slapped me around in school. She lands a good old thump on his jaw, but he gets Ofeelia by the hair and drags her down, shouting fucking bitch scraped me face. He’s in his vest and trousers. Some fucking security guard that.

I step over and clock him one with the hammer. Didn’t mean to do that and down he drops with blood on his face, oh Christ. I kneel down and he’s all right, just cut him to fuck over the eyebrow. I’m about to say I didn’t mean it Johnnie me boy, when he knees me one in the balls and kicks me in the head as I’m down. Times don’t change. Ofeelia she’s hanging off his back in the red dress and I’m half-out for the count. Next thing I know he’s scarping away, out over the fence and away. Ofeelia, she’s laughing and crying at the same time, and there’s a mad bitch if ever I saw one. They took my caboose, she’s saying, real real low, they took my caboose. The makeup around her eyes is streaked like mad. I go up and give her a hug and she gets to kissing my eyes, just like that. I sit down on the ground and just look around, and she kneels and keeps kissing. The red dress is brown as hell now. I see John O’Rourke’s torch shining away down the hill, lashing along through the bushes towards Martin’s place. The bastard’ll call the cops, I said, let’s skedaddle.

The door to the caboose was open though and Ofeelia was staring at it, standing there, stinking of petrol. Christ, I’m thinking, she’s off her rocker and beyond, Doctor Garlic should have kept her in solitary, and we’d all be grand now, scrubbing the toilet bowls and mopping the floors without a fucking care. Come on! I’m shouting, for Christ sake come on! It’s all right I’ll finish it now, she says. Just like that. On my own. Calm as can be. My hands are shaking like mad and I go to drag her by the dress but she’s awful quick and takes a sidestep. Please, she says, sad as can be, hair all over her face. Ah Christ, I think we were standing there for hours, her just looking at me. All right so, I say, don’t tell the cops it was me, that O’Rourke fella didn’t get a look at my face. She nods her head and turns to the caboose, closes the door awful gentle like and I take the hammer and sling it as far as I bloody can, but it bounces off the barbed-wire fence and jumps a bit on the ground. I look up at the sky and let out a big gullier at the stars.

Right so, I says to myself, and off I go towards the hole in the fence and my hands still shaking like mad. She can get out of this fucking mess herself. Out I crawl and just lash through the heather up the side of the hill. I don’t look back for the longest time, just run up there, blazing away like Eamon Coughlan himself. After a while I sit down, take myself a place on the hill, petrol stink on my hands, and look way down towards the town, where these red-and-blue sirens are blaring like fuck, coming out towards us. I squint my eyes and see Ofeelia through the front window of the caboose.

She’s just sitting there and smiling for some damn reason. Her hair is thrown back and the dress is ripped at the shoulder, but she’s just sitting there, watching. Bet the crazy bitch is driving that damn thing through the stars, I’m thinking. Up I stand and give her a big thumbs-up. Go on now girl, get yourself a speeding ticket! Give it an old handbrake turn! She just looks up at the huge sky up there and all the stars blazing away. I look up there too for a moment and think about all those times she might have been there with her old man, driving through the universe like fucking crazy, O’Ryan’s groin and all, that must have been a laugh.

I can hear the sound of the ocean and the wind going mad through the heather. There’s a million bloody stars out and I’m enjoying the view, but the sirens are getting closer. Better get the fuck out of here now, I’m thinking. Back and scrub the floors like bejesus. Those blue-and-red lights are flashing away down the road, along by the trees. Oh Christ she’s done for now. I look down and Ofeelia’s still sitting there, her eyes scrunched up, that smile on her face. But there’s not much they can do except throw her back in the bin, and I’m thinking that maybe every now and then, if things work out, we’ll get a chance to go for a walk in the garden. I give her the old thumbs-up again. How about you put her up on two bloody wheels Ofeelia! Screech her round the corner of Venus and leave some skidmarks for your Ma and Da, why not! See you soon and don’t be asking me for any more syrup!

* * *

There’s nothing I could have done anyway even when she sat there at the window and put that cigarette in her gob and lit it. By all accounts she had popped those yellow boys like they were going out of fashion while I was climbing the hill, so maybe she didn’t feel a thing, all doped up. That’s what the coroner said anyway. She must have had them with her in her pocket. But I don’t think I ever ran as fast in my life when I saw her take out those matches. Reached down into her pocket, looked at them, took one out, struck it and that was it. The guards say I was screaming her name. Cut myself to fuck on the barbed wire. Tripped once and slammed into the door. She had locked the fucker and by the time I pulled it open she was a ball of flames, sitting there, all that petrol from the JCB lit up like a bonfire.

She bummed that fucking cigarette off me and that’s something I’ll never forget. I once saw pictures of a monk doing the same thing, but I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. Just licking away at the red dress, the flames were. And beginning to gather around her. Her stock-still in the middle of it all. Tried to roll her out but the flames got to me too, burning the shit out of my hands and the guards had to rip all my clothes off. Barney said that he heard I was crying, but I don’t take any truck with Barney any more. The bastard’s back working at the bin, and there’s no more JCBs for him, serves him right.

I don’t even care if I was crying or not, who cares. But I know I was shouting something because one of the guards slapped me in the gob and told me to shut up. Christ, she was charred black at that stage and there they were, stamping the flames out around the caboose. It’s just an awful pity that whole fucking place never caught, that’s what I say. There were some scorch marks around the floor and her big hiking boots were black as fuck, but the place was still standing when they took me away in the ambulance. They tried to get me to lie down but there was no fucking way. I was looking at the caboose out the back of the window for as long as I could, all lit up by cop cars and fire engines and all.

Here in the hospital they’ve been looking after my burns and filing all sorts of reports and all. Johnnie Logan and the greenies came in with a bunch of flowers for me, pink ones just like Ofeelia’s. Dolores brought me a few magazines, fair play to her. The cops are taking me to court next week and I’ll probably spend a couple of months in the slammer. I don’t care. I’ll be quiet as a mouse. Then when I get out I swear to God I’m going to do a number on that caboose, up and make sure those mining boys never come back, off to fucking Timbuktu with them for all I care. One good thing about it is we knocked their plans back a good few months but they need to be finished off, pronto like. Stay away from our fucking mountains, that’s what I say.

The cops and the doctors have been asking me all about it, but all I can really remember is that when they were slamming the handcuffs on me I saw a picture of Ofeelia in my mind, and when I get to thinking about it that picture always comes back to me. And it’s always the same. It isn’t the crumple on the floor or anything, or that Dunnes Stores bag lying out by the JCBs or the flower beds or anything. It isn’t even real. She doesn’t have the cigarette in her gob or matches in her hands. It’s like something in a film I suppose. The way I see it she has flowers in her hair, dozens of them, wrapped up in the curls, and she’s sitting there, bloody pink petals flying, driving that damn caboose through the universe for the last time, smiling like the clappers, going hell for leather along by the stars. And the funny thing about it is I’m right there with her, leaving a few bloody skidmarks of my own.