Sanctuary

13

I was in Busker Brown’s, a pub just off Quay Street. They have a jazz morning on Sundays and it is always packed. Today, though, a weekday, it was quiet. They do a very fine Colombian roast — no, not dope, coffee — and I savoured the sheer bite of it as I opened the paper, the taste in my mouth moving from bitter to acrid.

A nun had been killed. She’d been found strangled in the Claddagh church where she’d been saying her morning devotion. The papers put it down to some drug-crazed youth and lamented the state of the nation. I read the account with an icy chill in my gut. This was victim three.

When I finally got home, I was wired. I rang the Guards, got through to Clancy, shouted, ‘Now will you pay attention?’

He waited a moment, then said, ‘Ah, Taylor, conspiracies everywhere. We’ve already arrested a deranged person found with her rosary beads in his possession. Gold ones — he liked the shine on them. I think.’

I argued, ‘It can’t be him. There is a list — I showed you — already three from it are dead and the person who wrote that wasn’t attracted by — ’ I could barely contain myself, ‘ — something fucking shiny.’

He sniggered. ‘Language, Taylor. What have you be drinking? The water? Tell you what — if your letter-writer puts your name on the list, we’ll definitely pay attention. Might even buy him a few pints.’

I threw my mobile across the room.

I was beyond anger. I wanted to inflict serious damage on somebody. I was pacing up and down my small apartment, thinking, Fuck ’em all. What do I care?

Then the post arrived.

Lots of offers to join video clubs, one letter informing me I’d won a million euro and all I had to do was ring the following number, a voucher for a free pizza. . and then a white envelope. I recognized the writing, tore it open, saw the one single page and the typed message that read:

Three

But who’s counting?

Benedictus

I pulled open my door and ran smack into my gay neighbour, who was trying to fit his key into his lock. He was hampered by a broken arm and a crutch, his face a riot of bruises and cuts.

I stammered, ‘Jesus, what happened?’

He gave me a look of withering contempt. ‘The gaybashers. You said not to worry about them. But guess what? You were wrong.’

I felt dreadful. He had asked for help and what had I done but ignore him?

‘Let me help you with that.’ I pointed to the key.

He near spat, ‘Help? I think I’ve had as much of your assistance as I’d ever want.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ I meant it.

He gave me his full attention. ‘Indeed, you are — a sorry excuse for a human being.’ Got his door open and slammed it in my face.

I went to The Quays on, yeah, Quay Street. I’d never had a drink there me whole life as it’s regarded as a tourist haunt. I stepped up to the counter, ordered a large Jameson and a pint of stout. The barman — non-national, of course — poured the pint too fast and didn’t let it settle, but I was in a hurry. Afraid I’d change my mind. I gave him a twenty, got fuck all back, and moved to a corner with a long wooden table — thought, Good, I’ll line it with empties.

My hands had a slight tremble, but nothing too noticeable. I lifted the Jay, downed half, said, ‘Welcome home.’ Then I downed half the poor pint in one gulp and sat back. Let the magic begin, dark as it wished.

That first drink, you hear various responses. Most say the terrible guilt, the loss of sobriety, followed by the if only — if only they hadn’t taken it. I felt like I’d finally let out my breath. For years, I’d been holding it and now. . exhale. . glorious. This was followed by false moments of exhilaration; I understood them for what they were and knew too that the reckoning would be ferocious, worse perhaps than before, but those first few minutes as the whiskey began to light a fire in my stomach felt worth it.

Ride the whirlwind, reap the wrath.

There is a certain peace — of the satanic variety, sure — but having given up the battle, it was done. No more aching, the struggle was over.

A guy approached, looked at me, went, ‘Jack?’

It was Caz, a Romanian who’d been in Galway for nigh on a decade. He spoke English with an Irish lilt and knew more about the goings on in the city than any cop. Information was his ace and the more lurid, the better. We had a give-and-take relationship. I gave — usually twenty euro — and he took whatever he deemed the freight to be.

When the government deportations were at their most extreme, he always managed to evade the net, and now with the economy in threatened meltdown more non-nationals were due for the boot But he was dressed in a flash leather jacket and crisp new jeans, and smelt of expensive cologne. Maybe he could give me twenty euro.

He said, ‘Jesus, you’re drinking.’

He’d managed to adopt the Irish habit of swearing without sounding as if he meant it — no mean achievement. I gave him my granite look, which translates as So?

Caz was way too wary to get into a confrontation with me. It was how he’d survived Galway for ten years. He shrugged. ‘I just heard you’d been off it. . a while.’

I finished the pint, said, ‘And now I amn’t off it.’ I took out two twenties, handed them over, said, ‘Get us a round.’

One twenty went into his pocket as he headed for the counter. He didn’t need to ask for my order. I heard him call the barman a bollix and figured we’d get decent-drawn pints.

We did.

He didn’t offer any change, raised his pint, touched mine, said, ‘Slainte.’

‘Slainte amach.’

The added amach is reserved for close friends, implying warmth, and the Jay had given me the warmth.

Caz, foam lining his mouth, asked, ‘Hear about the swamps?’

You have to be real old Galway to name them that. The swamps are a playing field close to Nimmo’s pier.

I shook my head.

‘Found arsenic in it and in three of the houses near by. The arsenic had been there for years, poisoning the poor bastards who lived there.’

I wasn’t surprised. Horrified, sure, but surprised, no. They’d discovered asbestos in homes in Boher-more, and the number of birth abnormalities, not to mention a huge increase in Down syndrome, confirmed my belief that one way or another, the city officials were responsible. In the papers a professor of biology was saying that the virus currently in the water had been there for a decade!

I said, ‘Speaking of poison, you know anything about gay-bashers?’

He looked to his left, fleetingly, enough to let me know he was going to lie, so I added, ‘Don’t fuck with me, mate. You know better, so let’s not screw around.’

He smiled, drank some of his pint, then rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. I took out another twenty, held it on the table under my Jay, waited.

He took a furtive look round, then said, ‘There’s a guy named Gary Blake who has been shouting about ridding the town of heathens and perverts. He says first we take the homos, then we take Berlin, sorry, the child-molesters. GBH is his nickname. He plays golf with lots of the top guards.’

I ignored his lousy attempt at humour, the riff on the Leonard Cohen song, echoed, ‘GBH?’

He loved my ignorance. ‘Grievous bodily harm. He uses homos for harm.’

‘Where does he hang his hate shingle?’

Caz looked worried. ‘Jesus, Jack, leave it alone, the guy is connected.’

I leaned across the table. ‘Did I ask you if he was connected? You hear me ask that?’

He finished his drink, wanting to get away, not to be seen with me. Galway was a cosmopolitan city, but still in the valley of the squinting windows. He whispered, ‘Newcastle Avenue, a new bungalow there.’

I sat back, the Jay stoking the old flames of rage and violence. It felt good, felt alive.

He added, ‘Jack, he’s one of the Blakes. They’re, like, one of the tribes of Galway.’

I said, ‘Time they were extinct, don’t you think?’

He legged it fast.

I finished up. The temptation to stay was nigh on overwhelming, but I dragged me arse out of the comfortable position and thought, Go home.

I went back to my apartment and I dunno, maybe it was the booze but I thought I heard sobbing from behind my neighbour’s door. That combined with the booze only made my resolve more determined. Inside my place, I pulled the small bookcase aside, took out an oilskin cloth, unwrapped it and took out the revolver.

When I’d had to cancel America, waiting on the result of Ridge’s surgery, I’d found it hard to pass the time. A guy had asked me to help him clear out an old house, said, ‘There’ll be the price of a drink in it for you.’

Words to live by.

In the house, I’d found a torn copy of ‘If’ and what looked like an original Proclamation of Irish Independence, and in the oil rag, the old revolver. It was still functional, well cared for, five bullets with it. I imagined a Republican on the run, hiding out there. But what the fuck would he be doing with Kipling? I thought of the line in the poem:

or being hated,

don’t give way to hating.

Is this what he said to himself at night? While he dreamed of harming his enemies?

Right.

It was why he had the revolver.

I’d put the two declarations on the bathroom wall and as I shaved in the morning would flick back and forth between the two ideologies. It made a sort of Irish sense, i.e. none.

I loaded the revolver with the five bullets, put it in my jacket, said, ‘Let’s rock ’n’ roll.’