Father’s Music. Dermot Bolger

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ bit of Irish inside them. You tell him to sing the next one for anyone who fancies another little bit of Irish inside them.’

      I was drunk enough to bring it up. When I turned a tall Irishman stood right behind us at the bar. I had noticed him already with a large family group who were growing increasingly rowdy. Often men his age made fools of themselves trying to look young, but from his suit I actually thought he was far older until I looked at his face. He was obviously well known at the bar, to which he had been coming up every twenty minutes to buy another round of drinks. He seemed to pay for everything and yet he stood out from the family gathering as much as Garth and I stood out from the ordinary punters at the counter.

      ‘Share the joke,’ he said and I stopped laughing.

      ‘What’s it to you?’ I asked.

      ‘Maybe I could use a laugh.’

      ‘Well, it’s private between me and my boy-friend here.’

      ‘I hope your boy-friend’s boy-friend doesn’t get jealous so.’

      Garth stood up. They were shoulder to shoulder, both an inch either side of six foot. If the Irishman was into his forties then he wasn’t irredeemably so. Garth would probably be a match for him alone, but not for his family. I was frightened. I had never liked Irish people anyway, because your upbringing doesn’t go away. But the stand off between them was so subtle that not even those people beside us seemed aware of it.

      ‘He’s cute,’ the Irishman said and Garth’s eyes flicked briefly towards the stage. ‘And you’re everything an Irish mother would love her son to bring home: black, six foot tall and male.’

      Garth continued staring ever so casually into the Irishman’s eyes. There was something boyish about his face, yet also something I didn’t quite trust. His voice was so low I could hardly hear it.

      ‘I hear he goes walkabout, our little altar boy. He’s a bit of a night bird, inclined to roam about like he doesn’t quite know which way to go. Personally I think it’s those apple tarts he has to take back to his room. I mean could you sleep, never knowing if some granny with no teeth and a black bra was going to jump out from inside one of them?’

      ‘I’ve never heard nobody sing with that accent before,’ Garth said.

      ‘It’s pure Drogheda,’ the Irishman said. ‘A class of knacker accent. You know knackers … cream crackers … tinkers? Travellers is the term we’re meant to use now. God looks down when a knacker is born and says: “I ordained that this child be born on the side of the road in a freezing trailer that will be burnt out by the locals before Christmas is over, but just in case he survives I’ll give him a Drogheda accent as well”’.

      ‘And is he one?’ I nodded towards the singer who had started an embarrassing line dancing routine while the crowd cheered. The Irishman laughed and used the opportunity to place his fingers for a second on my shoulder as if I were a child.

      ‘They wouldn’t let him through this door if he was,’ he said. ‘If he sneaked in they’d smash the glass he drank from before anyone here would use it. He’s from a wee house in Drogheda.’ He nodded to the barman who had assembled the massive round of drinks, then looked at Garth. ‘Our singer friend always stays at the Irish Club in Eaton Square. There’s an all night coffee shop across from the tube station in Sloane Square. I’ve come across him there at three in the morning. A man passing might do the same himself.’

      ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ Garth’s tone was guarded. The barman stood, waiting to be paid.

      ‘Bring lots of whipped cream.’ The Irishman reached for his wallet. ‘Apple tarts need a little extra something to help them go down.’

      He handed a fistful of notes to the barman who began to pass the drinks across. Garth sat back. The Irishman ignored us as he relayed pints and shorts into the willing hands of family members who came forward to help. The table where his family sat was crammed with stacked glasses and crumpled cigarette packets. They were obviously the rump left over from a wedding reception. He rejoined them and bent to say something with his back to us. People laughed and some glanced in our direction. The Irishman didn’t look back but I felt nervous. Nobody talked to total strangers like that. Was he winding us up or setting us up? Garth had turned to the bar, nodding at the barman to fetch us two more drinks.

      ‘I hope I’m wrong,’ I said quietly, ‘but I get this feeling you’re going to walk out the door and have your head kicked in.’

      ‘Sweetheart, I have that feeling every morning I go to buy a newspaper,’ Garth replied. ‘I get that feeling so often that I stopped noticing years ago I ever had it. If you’re worried, Tracey, just take your coat and go.’

      ‘Don’t be silly. I’m not leaving you.’

      ‘I don’t need no babysitting from here on in. The dude seems a bit odd but all right. Still you never can tell.’ Garth tossed a fiver on to the counter. ‘It’s my round, but I’ve got to shake hands with the unemployed.’

      The encounter had left me agitated, but it wasn’t just concern about Garth. The man’s words made me feel uneasy about myself. If they knew that my father had been a tinker they wouldn’t use this glass again. I hated them and their half-assed sentimental music. I’d only come for a laugh but it didn’t feel right being here. We were drinking doubles but I got the barman to put an extra vodka into my glass. The Irishman peeled off from his family. I might have been nervous but I wasn’t going to show it when he approached again.

      ‘Luke is my name,’ he said. ‘I’ve been watching you.

      ‘So?’

      ‘All evening just watching and sitting there thinking.’

      ‘Thinking what?’

      ‘That if pigs could fly.’

      He had eyes which demanded you stare back into them. They were salesman’s eyes, I thought, and I wasn’t buying.

      ‘Pigs can’t,’ I said.

      ‘If they could,’ he replied, ‘your black friend might get an early tube to Sloane Square and leave you sitting here alone.’

      ‘What’s it to you if he did?’

      ‘I’ve been watching ever since you came in. I can’t stop. You hate this place more than I do.’

      ‘Why are you here then?’

      ‘Duty, guilt, habit.’ He glanced back. ‘You know yourself, family life is never easy.’

      I followed his glance. It was obviously a rare coming together of relations, animated and yet fitting uneasily together.

      ‘When was the wedding?’

      ‘Yesterday morning,’ he said. ‘Yesterday evening was the family fight and tonight is the kiss and make up.’

      ‘Do they ever change their clothes?’

      ‘That’s tomorrow when they keel over and are carried home,’ he said. ‘To Dublin mainly, although a few have flung themselves as far as Coventry and Birmingham. The blonde girl in the blue outfit, she’s the bride. You’d think she’d feck off on her honeymoon, СКАЧАТЬ