Heartland, page 9
–He’s the funniest man in Glasson. And that’s for certain sure, Shorty – yeah, Hughie.
Wee Hughie Munley got up and stared at both of them.
–Think you’re all the hard men, is that what you think? Think you can come around here and laugh at me as you please? Laugh at me, and call me Patches, huh?
–It’s only a joke, said the Runt, staggering awkwardly.
–Aye. That’s all it is, agreed Shorty, slurring his words, not antin’ else.
Sonny Hackett wasn’t listening to a word they were saying, being much too preoccupied giving his attention to …
Well, as a matter of fact, listening to himself.
In an extremely private and distant place that was a very long way from Mervyn’s Mountain Bar. And, indeed, from everyone in it.
–It’s to do with the trouble that the two of us had in the early days of our marriage, Sonny murmured, after she gave birth to our very first child.
As he persisted with that strange, glazed look, picking away at a beermat.
–Some of the women who used to come and visit, they started telling her not to mind the priests, what the priests had to say. That they don’t belong in the world anymore. Because all they’ll do is fill you full of out-of-date talk. So what you got to do, Mrs Hackett, yes what you want to do now is go out and visit the Indian in the caravan. Because he knows it all. He has bells and sits on a mat for hours.
–A mat? Big Barney interjected abruptly. Is that what he said?
As he leaned forward, with every muscle in those enormous arms contracting.
And stared right at Sonny.
–Now you listen and you listen to me good. You pay attention to me here, Sonny Hackett. You listen to me, Sonny, and I’ll give him mats and bells. What are they giving Indians permission to come around here for anyway? Tell me this, my friend – when zackly did all this start?
But it was more than evident that Sonny wasn’t listening to Big Barney.
Being too preoccupied trying to find expression for his thoughts.
Sonny proceeded.
–It’s on account of the Indian that she gave our son that stupid fucking name, Cosmo. Cosmo – that’s what he’s known as now, I’m afraid – I mean, can you believe it, Barney? I’m worried about him, fellers, I really and truly am. I genuinely am now, I won’t tell youse a word of a lie. O God. O Christ. Is there any sign of Begley out there?
The beermat he’d been holding was now shredded into pieces.
–You know what he did only the other week, he resumed, as he wiped his forehead, when we brought him off to the seaside? He sat in the car and refused to come out. This lovely little child with the sweetest smile as pale as death now with his little blond pudding-bowl haircut. No Daddy, he kept on repeating – no, Daddy, I’m not coming out. And I’m definitely not going down there to the shore because the sea is filled with dead men, he kept on saying. Of course my wife said nothing – she thought it was great. Same as the Indian in the caravan when she told him about it, banging his tambourine and saying that our son was special.
He lowered his head and for a long time said nothing.
Before lifting it again and picking at his teeth with the point of one of the tiny cardboard pieces.
–Then what happened. She started saying that it was me who was to blame. And that I had a reputation, same as all of our family. O aye, the Hacketts, she used to say – och sure everyone knows about them. Yes, the Hacketts. And I admit that some of what she said was true. I mean, I won’t even pretend that they didn’t used to say certain things about me at school. When I was in fourth or fifth class, when I used to like to hang around on my own. And when the teacher started saying that it could be that perhaps I was in some sort of category all of my own. And that, like one or two others in the Hacketts, maybe I was what they called ‘special’. It was after that then that they said they were going to have me examined. Yes, Master Hackett, we’re going to have you tested, they kept on saying.
He fumbled for a cigarette and lit it as best he could.
His sleeve was completely covered in ash.
–I had to write it all down on this great big yellow pad with lines, all the things that came into my mind, including everything about the shirts.
–Shirts? What shirts? asked Big Barney. Which shirts now would this be?
–I was duty bound to tell them the whole truth, they warned me, and I wasn’t to hold anything back. But then when you do, they use it against you. I should never have told them anything about it.
–What did you tell them? asked Barney. Take your time Sonny.
–About how they used to come and strangle me in the night.
–Strangle you, said Barney, but how?
–They’d come out of the wardrobe just before I fell asleep.
He looked directly at Barney.
–It isn’t any use. It’s a total waste of time. Because I can tell by the way you’re looking that you’re thinking the very same as them. And there’s no point in trying to tell me different because it’s there, I can see it. I can see it, Big Barney – right there in your eyes.
–I’m afraid that I think you’re mistaken, Barney protested, because there isn’t anything to see in my eyes.
–Yes there is, insisted Sonny Hackett. You may not know but yes, there is. The very same as them, back then.
He tapped his cigarette repeatedly into the tray.
–That’s what makes her say it, I suppose. The fact that she knows all this stuff about our family, all our history and the things that happened to us years ago. Yes, that’s probably what makes her come out with all these hurtful things, always insisting that it’s our family is responsible for what’s been happening to Cosmo. She says that the Hacketts were always odd. Queer from the very day they’re born, she says. But it’s not true, Barney, and it isn’t fair. Not when it comes from a woman who goes running around the country, baring her soul to Indians in caravans. What are you looking at, Campbell – why are you laughing?
He clenched both fists and glared across at Red, who suddenly began once more to grind his teeth. Ducking sideways in anticipation of a blow from Sonny’s clenched fist.
But that didn’t happen.
As Sonny Hackett sighed and tugged up the collar of his black leather jacket, like he was doing his best to hide in behind it. Now he was whispering again, trying his best not to twitch as he continued:
–I just don’t care what anyone says – because I know in my heart that it just isn’t fair. You ask anyone, Barney, go on – and anyone else that is sitting here around this table. You ask any person that’s got a mind to be fair, and I guarantee that they’ll tell you this – that although the Hacketts didn’t have much by way of riches or property in this world, they were well known to be intelligent and brainy. My great-grandfather was a genius at languages, in case you didn’t know. In a big university in Dublin. It’s true – you can verify it if you want.
His eyes blazed with an unnatural fire.
–Because if youse don’t believe me, then all you got to do is take a look at what I got here in my hands. Here – go on, take a look. Don’t be afraid, it’s not going to bite.
He began awkwardly unfolding a crumpled scrap of a blue-lined exercise-book paper he pressed first on Barney and which they then began to, gradually, pass around.
–Our little Cosmo wrote all of that – everything in it came right out of his own little head. The teacher says that he never seen anything like it.
Giving the note just a cursory glance, Red Campbell impatiently pushed it on, already in the process of doing his best to erase its memory – that of the crude and childishly pencilled representation of a group of weary-looking men bent over double, lashed to the perimeter of a grey stone grinding wheel, enduring their punishment under brooding, remorseless skies.
–Here, he snapped, and handed it over to Hughie.
Wee Hughie turned pale and said that it meant absolutely nothing.
–It means squat to me, he vexedly proclaimed, once again dismissing it with a contemptuous flap of his fingers.
–Give it over here to me, Barney Grue insisted.
Snatching it gruffly as he began to read aloud, in his trademark falsetto, with each word being dragged like a fish-hook along his gut.
The small piece of paper was trembling in his enormous hairy fingers, at times to such an extent that he had no choice but to recruit both hands in order for it to remain still.
The handwriting underneath the drawing was crude.
But nonetheless eminently legible.
As Big Barney Grue, ever so tentatively, began reading the contents aloud:
Here saw I people, more than elsewhere, many,
On one side and the other, with great howls
Rolling weights forward by main force of chest.
They clashed together, and then at that point
Each one turned backward, rolling retrograde,
Crying: ‘What do you think it is that you’re doing?’
And then, upon the next return:
‘What do you think you are doing – you murderer!’
Thus they returned along the lurid circle
On either hand unto the opposite point
Shouting their shameful metre evermore.
–I don’t like this, complained Big Barney Grue, placing the paper on the table in front of him. I’m afraid I have to say I don’t like it one bit, no matter how good it is.
–Ah, to hell with this. Somebody tell us a joke, demanded Hughie, wailing as he buried his face in his hands.
–He must have got it in the library, decided the Runt. No child could know the like of that. Or maybe the teacher could’ve wrote it out for him. Could he?
–Yes – that’s what happened. The teacher wrote it out, agreed his brother, barely aware of what he was saying, seeming almost terrified as he looked all around him.
–No. No library, Sonny explained, because he wrote it right there with a pencil in the school. It’s a fact, I’m afraid. There ain’t no library involved. I’m sorry to have to tell you all that. I’d rather, to be honest, not to have to say it at all. But that’s the situation, men. No library. Nope – none at all. And that’s something that, like it or not, we’re just going to have to accept.
–Ah look here, snapped Red Campbell, it’s clear as day that what happened with this is that Mr Hackett over here – that for some reason best known to himself, he goes off and writes down all this cockamamie crap. And which, on another occasion, might all be fine and dandy. But not tonight – and not when we just lost Mr goddamn Monroe, do you hear? I said – do youse hear?
–You quit grinding your accursed teeth, demanded Sonny, that’d be the best thing for you, Red Campbell, to do. Because I warned you once, and I ain’t sure I’m going to do it again.
Sonny Hackett flung back his chair, and drawing himself up to his full six-foot-four height, momentarily blinded by his oily, flopping forelock, stabbed the air with a forefinger and seethed:
–No-I-ain’t so goddamn sure anymore.
–Ah here, pleaded Hughie, you two fellers just take it easy. Everybody just ride easy down, you hear me now?
–That’s right, agreed Barney, please if you don’t mind …
Before stumbling awkwardly and falling against the side of the table, covering his eyes with the heels of his hands, saying:
–I don’t know why you were giving me that paper. Because I wasn’t even in the house that night.
–It’s all his fault, Red Campbell bridled, it’s Hackett’s to blame for that, don’t ask me why. It’s him’s to blame for everything anyway, because he always had it in for poor old Wilson Gillis. Every single protestant he’d ever met, he’d no time for. That’s what he said. Those were his words.
–I’ve met rotten liars, Sonny Hackett retorted, but you, Campbell, you’re the worst.
–Is this little soldier dead? wondered Mervyn Walker as he approached the table, shutting one eye and elevating a single empty bottle.
With a capacious silence now slowly descending, as the barman returned, whistling softly, behind the counter.
Like the great big magisterial eagle that he was, examining his watch. Before returning his gaze to the sweeping, brushing willow.
–Is there anything out there? inquired Hughie, optimistically.
–No sign, the barman murmured, no sign as yet. None, gentlemen. No, none at all.
As the piece of paper was returned to Sonny Hackett’s possession.
His complexion seemed deathly.
–The other day, he recommenced uncertainly, the other day he turned to me, Cosmo, and without even flinching, looked me in the eye. Daddy, he said, do you think the evil men do lives after them?
Wee Hughie kicked his chair and irascibly announced that he was going to the bathroom. That is, if you could call it that – that ancient lavatory with its wooden seat and deafening flush.
–And would you like to know why? he called across as he departed. Because I’m fed up listening to this no-account jabbering.
The others completely ignored him.
–She never talks to me now, continued Sonny hoarsely, she says she thinks that I’ve turned against the boy. But that isn’t true. Because I haven’t. I’m just afraid of what might happen, that’s all. To him, to us all. You know?
Then he lowered his head, so hoarse when he spoke he could scarcely be heard.
–Although I sometimes think that maybe she’s right? That there is something wrong with us – the Hacketts? Do you think so, Barney – what do you think?
Big Barney looked embarrassed, gazing down into his lap as he searched frantically for an appropriate response.
–How do I know, Sonny? I mean, I’m not qualified, I’m not a doctor. In fact, to tell you the truth, it gives me the twitches even to have to listen to talk like that. Because, between you and me, I often have wee little private troubles of my own. Troubles that I never told anyone about, and that have nothing at all to do with what we done on Wilson Gillis.
He shot to his feet, eyes flaring, looking all about him.
–Because that was an accident, wasn’t it, Sonny? Everyone knows that.
As he swayed in space, still clutching the empty bottle, looking like all the sorrow of the world was packed right into three hundred pounds of meat, with eyes that looked like they’d have given almost anything to be accorded the permission to burst into tears.
Sonny seemed to be on the verge of asphyxiation.
–I hate Indians, he screeched, slapping the table. I didn’t used to but now I do.
–Hello there guys! laughed Hughie hysterically. Welcome to the Wee Hughie Munley Comedy Show, where every Saturday night our aim is to put that sad right back in the bottle where it belongs! Comprende?
–I want to get out of here, said the Runt.
–Me too, said Shorty McHale, because that there jungle, I think it’s off. I reckon it’s bad.
–You ain’t gonna be permitted to sully the memory of your father, Red Campbell warned. You agreed to come here so now you gotta stay. You got that? Now be a pair of good cubs and douse the glimmer for Red. Have yourselves another shotta bug-juice there.
As they all looked up and stared at the clock, waiting for the wavering strands of grey smoke to clear, which they did.
And saw that it was coming very close to dawn.
Chapter 14
The Wildwood Flower
The last thing I would ever want to do, wrote Jody, is to cause any unnecessary misunderstandings between us, Ray – for, God knows, there have been enough of those already. I don’t want to lay it on you, Ray, not in any way, because of all bloody things, it’s not my intention here to give you grief. And if there’s any specific reason for what might be described as the directness of some of my words, it’s that the trouble between you and me, it has gone on way too long.
And nobody knows better than me how a grievance nurtured can so cruelly devour.
So anything you got to say to me, Ray, I’ll listen and I’ll hear it, he had promised.
And all the pain, rancour and disappointment that has existed between us can be history.
That was what my old friend had written to me, more than once.
And, as I sit here scribbling my story on an old rickety table underneath a dim bulb, all I can think is: if only a few of those who had been present that night in Mervyn’s Mountain Bar had, at some time in their lives, been privy to such heartfelt sentiments.
All I can say is, such a declaration, in its honesty and sincerity, it might have helped them in some small way.
It’s just faintly possible that something like that might have been what been what a person like Wee Hughie Munley needed – because, right now, you could tell that something bad was getting to him. He hadn’t been the same after coming back from the lavatory.
As he swung a poorly aimed swipe at a chair, and plunged the remains of a cigarette into the the tray, and then announced that, as far as he was concerned, already he’d had way too much upset and ‘consternation’, as he called it.
–There’s been way too much grief here in Glasson and on this mountain, he declared.
Warning, uncharacteristically, that it had better stop.
–Because I don’t want to hear any of it anymore! he shouted. All of this slander – all these names!
As he pawed away at the sawdust, like a pony.
–Because I didn’t happen to be christened Patches, in case you didn’t know, he spat out bitterly, in case you might think that that’s my name. But it’s not, you see, it’s not. And, for your information, there ain’t nothing wrong with any of my beautiful sisters. You think I don’t know what you say about them? O we know what goes on in Hickory Holler, you say, and that there’s a scarlet lamp burning there, above the door, every weekend. You want liver for your pup, gravel for your goose – then it’s them Munley girls that you got to go up and talk to. That’s what you say – that’s what all of them say – and I know everything about it. But I also know this – that all of it is lies. Because, all of us, we’re a God-fearing family. And there ain’t no shame in having once been poor.
