Beatlebone

Part Two. LADY NARCOSIS (SWEET COUNTRY MUSIC)

There is a show tonight in the Highwood, John. There will be all sorts of people to play music there. We must go tonight to the Highwood, John. We’ll breathe in the music and the cold-starred air.

——

And Cornelius has taken down the moon — hasn’t he? — with gleam-of-eye and giddying snout and his touch on the wheel is delicate as the spring, here a soft tip, there a glanced tap for each swerve of the road as it runs the country and turns.

Oh this is the knack of it — John can see clearly now — the carefree life, and he envies him the spring.

And before we know it, John? The summer proper will be in on top of us and the woods will be whispering.

Fuck the whispering woods, Cornelius. Just get me to my fucking island.

But he is snagged again; he turns helplessly.

How’d you mean, about woods?

Cornelius beams—

There are things we can’t describe, he says.

Go on?

What we see around us is only at the ten per cent level, John.

Of?

The reality.

And what’s the leftover?

Unseen.

How’d you mean?

Well, he says. The way sometimes you’d walk across a field and a sense of elation would come over you. Are you with me?

Okay…

You’re half risen from the skin. The feet are not touching the stones. The little heart is about to hop out of your chest from sheer fucken joy. And the strange thing about it?

Go on.

That patch of happiness could be floating around the field for the last ten years. Or for the last three hundred and fifty years. Out of love that was had there or a child that was playing or an old friend that was found again after a long time lost. Whatever it was, it caused a great happy feeling and it was left there in the field. You’re after walking into it. And for half a minute you’re lifted and soaring but then you’re out the far side again and back into your own poor stride and woes.

You’d find a sadness just the same?

Or an evil, John. Or a blackness. Or terror, John, or fucken terror, because there’s plenty of terror in the world. Always was and has been.

A soft whisper—

I mean take a look out the window.

A sweep of the arm for the greys and sea-greens of the moonfull hills, the pale night as they pass by—

I mean why’d you think I’ve the fucken foot down, John?

——

In the darkness of a sudden valley the van is brought to a halt. Its engine ceases apologetically. Cornelius raises delicate business—

The suit is fine. I’ll say again I’m inclined against the running shoes. But here…

He presents a tub of hair cream:

A pawful of this gentleman, John.

He greases back his hair. He checks his look in the rearview. He arranges a fag in the corner of the gob for a spiv’s face, a nylon-dealer’s — he has a Second War face.

Take the spectacles off, John. Thank you. Now try these boys for me?

Bloody hell.

My poor dead father’s prescription-issue. The misfortunate man couldn’t see his own hand half the time nor the plate in front of him.

The lenses are so thick the world comes down to just blurs and vague shapes. Everything is abstracted. He climbs out of the van. He is close to moving water. It is a warm night in the Maytime. The dark water laps. He looks over the tops of the glasses and examines his reflection in the van’s window. Cornelius climbs down for an inspection also and at once chokes back a sob.

John?

Yes, Cornelius?

You’re the fucken bulb off him.

——

Your name is Kenneth.

Kenneth?

You’re home from England. You’re the first cousin on my father’s side. You don’t talk much.

Oh?

On account of a brutal speech impediment.

And what does K-K-Kenneth do in England?

He works in a car factory in Coventry and is married to Monica and does the pools of a Saturday.

——

Look. We are all terrified, John. There is no mystery to it. If you weren’t terrified, there would be something wrong with you. The world is a hugely uncertain fucken place. Things can go either way and at any time. Step out of the bed in the morning and there is no guarantee you will step back into it the same night. The whole of your life is up in the wind and it might take off in any direction. We are all terrified at least half the fucken time. So what matters? For a finish? If we are all terrified and if it all ends in hell and misery and roaring fucken death anyhow? I’ll tell you what matters. How you hold yourself is what fucken matters. How you walk through the world is what fucken matters. The set that you have of the shoulders. That’s what matters. Is the chin held up in the air and proud or is it sunk down on the chest like a frightened little pup? That fucken matters, John. It’s all a gamble. We have no control. We have no hope. We haven’t a prayer against any of it. So throw back the shoulders. Comb the hair. Polish the shoes. Never let a plain girl pass by without compliment. Keep the eyes straight and sober-looking in the sockets of your head. Look out at the world hard and face the fucker down. And listen at all times, John. Do listen to what’s around you.

——

Cornelius?

Yes, John?

When was it you adopted me?

The shyness of the smile; the fondness in the eyes—

I’m not sure when it was exactly.

——

The van is parked by the roadside. John is all angles in the phonebox. He is getting an earful. Cornelius passes into the phonebox the 5p pieces and the 10p pieces — John feeds them to the phone like prayer tokens.

Across the ocean the signals travel and their voices.

At length Cornelius shakes his head and makes the sign of a slit across the throat.

Because sometimes, John, a man has to attend to matters he has been called to.

The ground beneath them feels hollowed out and deep.

——

And the season is at its cusp, as if this is the night precisely that spring will give way to summer, as if it is all arranged in advance, at celestial council, and the world soon will throw back its doors and open out its moments.

It becomes for him a sedative night. The world moves slowly on its chains. Car lamps range their lights all over the mountain — the lights are thrown slowly and move. A breath of wind moves the trees as softly and the hedges. There are people aiming for the Highwood from just about everywhere. They tunnel into the dark by their lamps.

The sky above is starless and discreet behind clouds, and along the flank of the mountain the van moves quickly and climbs. Cornelius slaps down a cassette for mood — a heartbroke voice picks sentiment from the air and yodels it dreadfully.

Cornelius?

Ray Lynam, John. That’s what I’d call a fucken singer. The way he holds the note and wouldn’t be caught looking for it? Superb.

——

They leave the heavy airs of the sea behind. They are headed for the Highwood. It is lost somewhere in the hills.

The worst thing you can have, John, is an empty night in front of you. You’re as well to fill up the nights always.

He unscrews the lid from a bottle of Powers whiskey and passes it.

Tip the glanced wheel, the road is turned; John takes a beady sip.

Now, Cornelius says; the wheel is tapped.

And the lamps bring up the graven rocks and the gaps in the hills and the great ferns that blur in the light wind, and the wind this high holds a thousand voices, trapped.

What’s the feeling you’d get hereabouts?

Better not to ask, John.

Bleakish?

It would incline you to open your wrists in a running bath.

Oh?

There was never anyone who was right around this stretch.

It’s not just me then.

The van moves quickly and climbs.

There’s one of us as badly off as the next always, John. That’s the great happy thing to remember in life.

Empathy — oh send me just the one song.

——

They come at last to the Highwood. It is by the edges of a lake. It is set on a plateau. It is patrolled by skinhead crows grey-booted and stern. It is encircled by great pines. It is attended by ghosts but they are his own and not sombre. There are a few habitations strung out and about like misplaced teeth but they invite no questions. There is a long, low-sized pub that wears no signage. Strings of coloured lights spill gaudily from the pub. Cars in grievous repair are not so much parked as abandoned around the edges of the pub. The van is set down to keep company with them. There is a squall of dreadful music from inside the pub.

At quarter past one?

It’ll be filling up soon enough, John.

The music from the pub is made of jangled strings, mania and a flute.

A throng of drinkers spills also from the pub. They have the look of difficult people. They are all elbows and accusation. Cornelius with satisfaction kills the engine and sighs.

Keep yourself to yourself, John, and you’ll find this is a very discreet house.

The drinkers appear to be related or at least of a tribe. There is commonly a ranginess and a long-limbed look. There are eyes dark, deep-set and impenetrable. Feet have the tendency to be planted quite widely, as of gunslingers, or sheep shearers.

These are decent people, John. These are lovely, warm-hearted, respectable people. They’d have no more interest than the wall in poor apes out of bands.

They pass through the lake’s air and time. They approach the evil pub. They dip for a low entry. They enter a groan of voices in the dim—

——

I see you have a nice little throat on you, Kenneth? When you get going at all?

He drinks some whiskey and laughs and he drinks some more. He takes a pint of stout in his hand. He has a nip of brandy. The world is just blurs and vague shapes. Mouths talk at him. Eyes come close. Night colours fill the hoods of eyes. He talks to a young man who looks like an old man and says he’s a doctor.

Doctor Carl O’Connor, he says, rather grandly, and presents a firm, clean shake.

Our problem here, he whispers, and I speak from harsh experience, Kenneth, is the lip. I mean take the continental. The continental will enjoy a glass of wine with his supper and some pleasant conversation and then very happily go home for the evening. But the Irishman is familiar always with the concept of the lip. Are you with me?

I think I am.

The Irishman will have a glass of wine with his supper and it will be lovely but then he will say, oh fuck me now anyhow! Oh Jesus Christ almighty! I have the fucken lip on me now! And that’ll be it for the night, Kenneth. He is gone.

You mean there’s no “off” button?

Precisely so.

The night fractures and folds in.

——

There is a hefty chap with a voice that sounds like gravel in a bean can, and he has only the one ear.

What’s happened your other?

A badger got it, Ken.

Oh?

I was put out of my own mother’s house on account of drink and the false accusation that I had masturbated into the fireplace after she had gone to bed one night. I had nowhere left to live. This went on for five months. May to September.

Like a romance.

It was no romance, Ken. I was sleeping in sheds. I was sleeping in the car park of the Regional Hospital. I got rickets and a bleeding ulcer out of it. I could keep down nothing stronger than milk.

You’re not doing so bad now.

Well. Wait till I tell you. It was the way the ear went on me that turned my entire life around like a miraculous transformation. You might think there was drink involved but there was no drink involved. What was involved was buck fucken madness. On the night of the badger.

They move in shadows, don’t they?

Well this is it, Ken. But if I hadn’t come through that dark night in that field I wouldn’t be stood here talking to you now.

——

Bodies move; the night shifts.

Someone sings a bit from the Beach Boys for half a minute—

Well it’s been building up inside of me

for oh, I don’t know how long.

Which is all he fucking needs, and for a moment the pressure of his sadness is vast on the note that holds.

Are you not so great in yourself, Kenny?

No, I’m not so great.

I thought as much.

He sits tightly in a corner and keeps his eyes down. The measure of the note that holds is brokenheartedness. Bodies sway; teeth sing. Smiles twist on gappy mouths. Heavy scowl lines show by the grimace and the grin. He watches a mandolin player collapse into himself and get carried out sideways.

Argument goes through the musicians like fire.

The burly landlord says—

Right. Be done with ye. A pack o’ cunts.

And he turns on the radio instead.

Kate Bush is away on her wiley fucking moors still.

He calls to the landlord—

What’s the station?

Luxy.

They like their K-K-Kate Bush.

Cornelius passes by and bites a woman’s neck as he passes and she squeals and slaps.

Now, Cornelius says. Aren’t you delighted?

The night fractures; it folds in.

There is wild talk that the singer Ray Lynam might show — he is known to be in the vicinity.

——

An older lady sits and clings to him for a while, auntishly. She carries a waft of marmalade and brandy. She tells him that she is out with the sister — her bird-like fingers claw at his forearm — that she hasn’t talked to the sister in nine years, a nine years that is now lost to them — her nails dig into his skin — and there is no sign of a thaw — none whatsoever — and what it all goes back to is that she came down pregnant, the sister, and I said a stupid thing. Sometimes, Ken, a stupid thing can be a true thing but even so you shouldn’t say it. I said is the child his? Referring to Ronnie. Well. Six months later didn’t the yellow-faced child step out from her. And there was no prizes for guessing where that came from. Out of him from the fish farm. Out of him out of Belfast. Out of him in the denim the yellow child was spawned. Out of him with the big ignorant mouth on him and the same buck not knee-high to a fucken midget. And of course Missy hasn’t spoke to me since. But what harm? Is there call, when you think about it, Kenny, for us all to be mouthing away at each other like fucken goats, morning, noon and night? Would it not be better for us all to shut up for a while and ease off on ourselves? Hah?

——

He stands by the doorway and smokes and looks out to the tall pines that shimmy and flex in the wind and to the dark lake’s water as it laps. A pale youth stands beside him, a brightly eager type with his head inclined gently for questions.

This place around here is called the Highwood then?

No, Ken.

Oh?

The pub is called the Highwood.

So the place is named after the pub?

You could look at it that way.

——

Cornelius swings a great dog-faced laugh as he passes by. He seems to bark as he moves. The radio goes off again and everybody roars for a while and Cornelius is on the verge of tears he is so happy to see everybody.

Silence is requested and a shimmer goes through the room — is it Ray Lynam that’s in? But no, there is no country singer, it is just a young girl that sings out to the tips of her black hair, and the night folds in around him.

Too much.

He goes outside for a while. It is starless now and black and the sky is breathing. The tips of her song vibrate and strain to fill the room back there — he closes his eyes to hear it.

Well it’s been building up inside of me

for oh, I don’t know how long.

The past opens to him as starlessly and dark. He walks from it and towards the water. He goes for a while into the feeling of being lovelorn and younger. That green envy, that deathly swoon inside, and say it’s the year that you’re seventeen.

If he can hold the feeling, maybe he can work from it again and write again.

——

He talks to a very old man. He says that age can come and go in your life, can’t it?

Well, the old man says. I’m eighty-seven years of age now but I looked worse when I was seventy-three.

That’s exactly what I mean.

There are some people, the old man says, who are not only old at forty but they’re bitter aul’ cunts, too. Do you know what I mean?

I surely do.

But there’s no worry in that because they’ll all get the fucken cancer.

——

He drinks some more. He smokes what is passed to him. The young dark girl sings again and he sits tightly in the corner and he listens to her sing and he settles to the belief of himself as an unknown and safe here, in the Highwood, as this soft-voiced Ken, with his old-fashioned hair and his milk-bottle eyes, and a suit that sweats and itches and smells of dogs, rain and coalsmoke.

He drinks a white spirit that is passed to him — by the fiery bead it goes down — and Cornelius swings by, madly grinning and able—

Cornelius in a burly fast Cornelius-type rush

— and he says hush! He says hush now, everybody, hush, for the love and honour of Jesus. Ah for Godsake hush! I think Kenneth might have a song for us?

And the remarkable thing is, Cornelius says, he don’t stammer even the one time when he sings.

——

He is accused of stealing fags by a farmer.

The Gitanes!

They’re me own fucking Gitanes!

You’re only a stoaty cunt, the farmer says.

He is pinned to the wall — the farmer’s great knuckly paw presses hard against a reedy art college chest.

You’re only a long yella fucken stoaty cunt!

He shucks from the paw and screams—

Who’s ever heard of a sheep farmer smoking fucking Gitanes?

The farmer falls to one knee like an old crooner and shows his palms in a gesture of injured righteousness just like Levi Stubbs out of the Four Tops and goes oddly falsetto—

I do smoke the fucken Gitanes! he cries on the high note.

And Levi Stubbs’ tears run down his face.

——

Beyond the high window the sky moves its clouds and now clearly the night by the silver of its starlight shows—

The sceptred tops of the moving pine.

The shadow of a mountain as it reaches darkly for the sky.

——

He is called a stoaty cunt and a lying cross-eyed cunt and a Jew-nosed cunt and an English cunt, an English cunt, an English cunt.

The night folds in.

He drinks the white spirit and he smokes and he sings.

——

And now he is among the trees. He believes that he can talk to her across the night and trees. He tells her that he loves her. He says that he sees her sometimes in faces that pass by. He says that when he is near the sea he thinks of her most of all. He tells her what has become of him and I wonder can you see, he says, what might have become of us together. He says that he misses her still and badly and that he will miss her always. He says you were younger then than I am now. He says that he thinks of her as a girl still

my blue-veined love, my Julia.

——

Nausea sends him to his knees like a green-faced lout. He throws up in hot, angry retches. He lies on the bonnet of a car for a while and he looks to the sky above the hills. He feels the cool night around him as a second skin. He hears two men speak — the North-of-England is in their voices. He cannot see but can feel the way the men lean against the wall and smoke and talk and the way their voices gather thickly in the dark—

Kenneth? one says. Don’t think so.

——

He sits in the corner of the pub and holds himself tightly. Time is not fixed down at all. He might be anywhere in life. He might be down the art school. He might be down the boozer — Ye Cracke. Or in Hamburg where the brassers grin from the windows and wear army boots and black knickers and fire at him from toy machine guns as he goes past, turning the hoarse creaking rattles on the machine guns, rat-a-tat-tat. He smokes what is passed to him. The night stretches out its voices and yelps.

Keep it f-fucking down! he cries.

Kenneth, Cornelius says, would often take a sour turn late on in the evening. But there is no violent harm in him whatsoever.

A North-of-England voice is close by again; there is something darker here.

If you need a quiet place, John? Well there is a place called the Amethyst Hotel.

——

He walks through the trees for a while. He listens hard. There have been hangings from these trees. He can tell. He can hear the creaking rope and slowly now it swings. He listens to the voices that move through the trees. He can hear them clearly. There is a world unseen just beyond us here but he is not frightened at all. The voice of a girl moves through the trees by the Highwood and it is a long time ago but he can hear her still and her sex is a tiny, distant star—

my cold-lighted love.

——

The first of the morning comes across the trees. The lake hardens with new light. He wakes to a head throb — it hurts even to think. He cannot place himself, quite. It hurts especially to fucking think. He lies on his belly on the smooth stones by the edge of the lake. He feels great age down the reptile length of himself. He lies still and cold and listens to the water of the lake as it moves. He retches again. He has a pinhole in the centre of his forehead and all of the world’s pain screams through. He is sweating fucking bullets. A flicker comes from the night at last. He turns painfully onto his back and sits — he sees the empty boarded pub, a grave jury of trees, the morning patrol of skinhead crows. Accusation in the yellow of their pin-bright eyes; he retches. Accusation in the black gloss of their coats; he retches. The night in flitters and rags comes back to him; he groans. Arrows of light are flung through the pines. He hears nearby a deep bovine suffering. He turns to find the van with its side door halfways open and a pair of boots stuck out at odd angles. He goes on his fours across the stones. He retches as he crawls and by slow evolution of the species at length brings himself to an upright stance and walks. He sets one monkey foot in front of the other until the van is reached. He pokes his head in back to find Cornelius red-eyed, purple-faced and lowing.

Cornelius raises the heavy solid head a martyr’s inch and he looks with the most sorrowful eyes in the universe at his charge.

Fucken disaster, John, he says.

——

But of course another way of looking at it, says Cornelius O’Grady, is that things could not have turned out one jot better.

The O’Grady parlour room: Cornelius considers with happy eyes a mess of duck eggs.

The word’ll spread quicker now that you’re around the place again. That’ll bring the whole game to a head, John. It might be the best thing could have happened us.

He reaches a hank of brown bread to the yolk of an egg. He chews, takes a swig of tea, chuckles.

Because what the fuckers don’t know yet is that Cornelius O’Grady is running this game.

A sly grin; a wink.

Topping, he says.

John sits wretchedly by the fireplace; he shivers.

Cornelius?

Yes, John?

Did I really sing?

Cornelius widens his eyes to show fondness and awe; he whispers—

You were like a bird.

——

What fucking day is it?

The Friday.

I’m not even three days gone?

And doesn’t it have the lovely hopeful air of a Friday?

Cornelius?

Things are looking good for the island, John.

He goes outside to the yard. He throws up again. It’s the most extravagant gesture he’s capable of. The day has come up wretchedly to a hot sun. The sun feels like jealousy on his skin. Cornelius comes and throws a pail of water to wash the sick away. Now there is a decorous or priestly air.

High up, on a clear day, and all of Clew Bay is presented. The knuckle of the holy mountain is far side. All of the islands are down there and waiting.

Cornelius sets beside him a mug of strong tea.

I’ve no willpower either, John. But I’m not going to give out to myself over it. God or whatever you want to call him puts these kinds of nights in our paths to test us sometimes. We failed the fucken test. But do you know the best of it? We’ll be forgiven yet.

He is in busy whistling form as he marches about his business.

Cornelius? The last thing I’m in a condition to do right now is go sit on a fucking boat.

Drink the tea, John. You won’t know yourself from Gandhi.

——

Though of course why you might want to go out to a mean little rock of an island is no one’s business but your own. I’m only here to oblige you. We have always been an obliging breed of people, the O’Gradys.

Cornelius emerges from the house with a small, brown leather suitcase.

Supplies, he says. And if you don’t mind me asking, John, what did you pay for the island? No mind. Your own business and no one else’s. John is away to have a good long chat with himself outside on a wet fucken rock.

He shakes his head in wry humour and passes a bottle of Powers whiskey; it tastes like health.

The best of luck to you with it all. You’re going to come away from Durnish in three days’ time and do you know what?

A loving gaze—

You won’t know yourself.

——

The van drones and judders and turns now to show the glints of a grey sea. The sea is lazier than before. The knuckle of the mountain juts across the bay—

The holy mountain, he says.

Indeed, Cornelius says, and isn’t generation upon end of decent Irish people after trotting up the cunt in their bare feet with their tongues hanging out of their heads and wind taking skin off them and rain coming hard and mud and shite and heart attacks and strokes being took by the new time and would you hear a single word of complaint from those dear pilgrims, John?

Eyes raised in soft questioning—

You would not, he says.

——

The van stops on the coast road.

Ho-ho, Cornelius says.

Cornelius? Please. Let’s just get to the fucking island.

Patience a small while.

Cornelius kills the engine. He climbs from the van. The wind comes harder now from the sea. He gestures for John to follow; he does. They walk the scalp of a hill together, descending.

You’re not to be afraid, John.

They approach a great fall-away to the sea; far below, it flashes its green teeth, the ever-welcoming sea.

Right, Cornelius says.

He steps up to the edge; the fall is sheer — it’s a great distance to fall and to a certain ending there.

Come on, John.

He steps with Cornelius to the edge of the sheer fall; the wind pulses hard against them.

Lean into it, Cornelius says. Like so.

He does and he is held there.

Fucking hell…

Be fierce, John.

The wind comes hard and Cornelius leans in closer again to its great force; he is held there.

Cornelius?

Now, John.

John tips his toes up close to the edge and closer again to the sheer fall and closer.

Cornelius?

Go on.

He leans over the edge and the wind holds him perfectly there.

Do you see, John?

Maybe.

Do you see the trick of it, John?

I think so.

No fear.