Chapter One
Mulligans is the sort of
pub you'd keep a secret. Warm and snug, the soft light embracing dark brown
wood, and a pint of Guinness that's only Nectar of the Gods. In a hectic world
of pace and change, it remains sober, steadfast and demure.
"Holy Christ,"
he says with feeling, as the Barman places a frothy pint within his grasp.
I drag my eyes from the
racing page. I am in the presence of a fellow sufferer, a fellow traveller on
the road of life. I know him well in ordinary life. However, the fact that he is
dressed in full police uniform with the rank of Garda Sergeant has not escaped
me.
He pushes his cap back
to reveal a low forehead over a dark shock of greying hair. His heavy-boned,
weather beaten face has the long enduring lived-in look of a man who has seen
life, red of tooth and claw, in the raw, in all its wonderful variations.
"Soft day," I
offer, to acknowledge that his remark has not fallen on the empty air.
He downs a third of his
pint in a swallow and nods to the Barman to set up another. Then he eyes me,
having taken my remark on board.
"Soft is it?"
he asks, and I sense his pain. "There's some'd say it's a shite day."
He elaborates, "A
day where nature conspires with chaos to produce confusion."
"Nature?" I
ask, trying to catch his drift.
"Dark, dull,
drizzle that's trying to be rain, everywhere gloomy, a day that brings the
depressives to the fore," he explains.
I pick him up wrong,
"sorry for your trouble," I say, thinking he is suffering from
depression.
He looks at me as if it
has begun to dawn on him that nature is not finished with him yet, this day of
days, and, ignoring the fact that we have a long acquaintance, he conveys by his
look a sense of wonder that perhaps nature has conspired to throw him together
with a fool.
And Mulligans is the
only sanctuary he knows. He looks about but there is no escape; we are alone in
the Snug. He finishes his pint and then considers deeply the bottom of the
glass.
"You don't have the
look of a man who gets depressed," I throw out, sensing my attempt to be
comforting has driven him deeper into the abyss.
Our eyes meet and he
realizes I am sensitive to his pain. He relaxes and reaches for his second pint.
"Get you one?" he asks indicating my three-quarters empty glass.
"Don't mind if I
do."
We skirt about it for a
couple of pints. I update him on the state of the racing page and we share a
joke or two over the recent performance of the Dublin Gaelic football team. In
discussion, it becomes clear to me that years of residence in this city have not
dulled the Sergeant's allegiance to his home county of Cork. We shift the
conversation to safer ground, dealing with Manchester United, Chelsea and
Arsenal, and the general state of play in the English Premiership League.
Then he can stand it no
more. "What a bloody day," he lets out with a deep sigh.
"Early days
yet," I offer in recognition that it is still too early for teatime.
"Early shift,"
he explains, "six o'clock start, two o'clock finish."
That explains the drink.
However, he is still in his Garda uniform and this is a measure of his
desperation. Admittedly, he is in the private sanctuary of the Snug in
Mulligans, but he is not wont to drink in uniform, being a stickler for
maintaining standards and, in fairness, not wanting to frighten other customers
who might not know him. Indeed, I conclude he must have had a shite day.
"The Howlette girl
threw herself into the canal up at the lock," he adds.
"Howlettes from the
flats?" I enquire to get a better fix, for if this is so, then it's an
attractive red haired girl. "You remember her?" he asks and I nod.
"Didn't I teach her
for six years. About twenty years old; not over bright, but a solid sort of a
girl."
"Yeh got her in
one."
"Is she dead?"
"Yeh know young
Fitzer, the pervert from Mocol Street?" he asks, and I defer to his right
not to reply to my question, not at least until the relatives are told.
I say, "who
doesn't?" wondering how Fitzer had added to his troubles.
"Well, as life
would have it," he explains, "said Fitzer was up at the lock, trying
to do a bit of flashing in his raincoat. Some of the schoolgirls take a short
cut that way."
"Don't I know
it," I say. "We're always telling them it's not safe up there, but
they meet boys along the canal."
"You've been known
to take your own mot up there!" The Sergeant scores a point.
"In the
evening," I hasten to explain, "just courting. Haven't been there in
ages. Last time we were there she said the quacking ducks would give her a
headache."
"Cured yeh, I
bet," he says with a laugh.
"Not at all,"
I say. "We prefer to go to the pictures. Mind you, she likes the walk up
there on a Sunday evening."
The Sergeant sups his
pint and I realize I am rambling. I pay attention so he can continue.
"Fitzer sees this
girl coming alone down the path. Prime target. He gets his buttons undone and
stands there bollock naked to the world. This girl walks past."
"How do yeh know
all this?" I ask. "Bugger confessed. He was in a state; blurted it all
out after I gave him a knuckle sandwich. Then I interviewed other parties to
fill the gaps."
"Carry on," I
say, understanding that his source is, as it were, from the horse's mouth.
"The girl casts a
glance. "Big for a monkey" she says and walks past.
"Bitch!"
Fitzer shouts. He's set out to impress and does not take kindly to her
disparaging remark. "May your tits fall off and may the devil take
yeh."
"Fair enough,"
she says and jumps into the canal inside the lock."
"Into the
lock?"
I'm horrified, for the
lock is deep and would be hard to get out of at the best of times. In this cold
weather, a trap that only a brass monkey would endure.
"Into the
lock," he confirms. "It's the Howlette girl and she's up to commit
suicide. At the point they meet, the Fitzer incident is for her a minor
distraction. Her mind is set and there's no turning her. Into the lock she
goes."
"Jasus," I say
by way of helping the conversation along.
The Sergeant's face
creases into a tired smile as he continues, "Fitzer of course, is one of
these types who thinks the world is all about themselves, and he thinks his
remarks have led the girl to throw herself off into the lock."
"Jasus," I say
and nod to the Barman for a further two pints.
He's ear wigging but
goes to it, still listening.
"Fitzer goes
mental. He throws off his raincoat, cap and Wellington boots and dives buck
naked into the lock," the Sergeant continues.
"To save the
girl," I say admiringly.
"On the way down,
Fitzer remembers he can't swim and just before he hits the water he starts to
shout for help. He hits the water and now two of them are drowning in the
lock."
"Jasus," I say
and pass a tenner as the Barman arrives with the perfect pint by two.
He holds back on the
change, and gives it to me later, at this point trying to minimize his
interruption of the Sergeant's story.
"Two deaths
then?" I attempt to summarize.
"Fitzer is not
resigned to his fate and the water is freezing his balls off. He's in a
panic," the Sergeant contradicts.
Obviously the story did
not end there.
"And the
girl?" I ask.
"Dignity
personified. Hands folded on the chest, treading water, preparing, getting ready
to pass off this mortal coil and end her troubles."
"Jasus," I
say.
"But Fitzer is
making a holy show of himself roaring and crying, and of course there is no one
except himself and the Howlette girl."
"What
happens?" I prompt.
"Eventually she
says, 'feck this for a game of soldiers,' and swims over and hits Fitzer a box
when he comes up for air. Fitzer grabs hold of her and shouts, "we'll drown
together."
"I'd not be seen
dead with the likes of you," she replies and hits him another box. Then she
gives up. 'Feck this' she says and drags Fitzer over to the gate of the lock.
She takes her scarf off. She was well dressed given the state of the weather,
and had a long scarf. This she ties to Fitzer and secures him to the gate of the
lock."
"And gets back to
suicide?" I ask.
"No," the
Sergeant smiles. "The moment was past. Once she got annoyed she was alive
again, no way she'd be able to commit suicide with her change of mood."
"Makes sense,"
I agree.
"And there was no
way she was sure Fitzer would be rescued. Last thing she could stand was to be
found dead in the same lock as your man."
"I can understand
that, and him without a stitch on him," I agree again.
"So nothing for it.
She has to rescue Fitzer. In time she manages this, and they end up bedraggled
on the bank."
"Get dressed,"
she says to Fitzer when he comes round, explaining, "I'll not be seen dead
or alive up here with a frizzled up naked man. My good name would be wrecked,
especially if it was the likes of you."
The Sergeant savours his
pint as he continues the tale.
"Fitzer gets up and
puts on his cap, wellies and raincoat. "Goodbye," she says, turning
back to the lock, settling her mind and intending to start again. "I'll
jump and get yeh," Fitzer promises."
"Good
thinking," I say.
Fitzer may not be able
to deal with women in the normal way of things, but he had got her there.
"What happens
next?" I enquire.
The Sergeant smiles. The
telling of the story has relaxed him, although the pints may also have helped in
that department.
"About this
time," he continues, "a schoolgirl is on her way home with her friend
along the canal and they've reported a man and a woman lying on the bank, I
expect having spotted them when they came out. The schoolgirl gets on her mobile
phone and is a bit agitated. The reception is not the best but she says he's
naked and she thinks they are kissing, but I established later that Howlette was
giving Fitzer mouth to mouth resuscitation."
"Jasus," I
say, shivering at the thought, for hadn't the girl been through enough.
"With yeh
there," the Sergeant agrees, understanding my shiver.
"How did you come
on the scene?" the Barman asks, tentative like, not wanting to intrude on
our conversation but his curiosity is roused.
The Sergeant is
expansive and explains.
"I arrives on foot
of the call from the schoolgirl's mobile. The schoolgirls have legged it and
Fitzer and Howlette are sitting on the arm of the lock gate, shivering but in
good order, doing nothing that is arrestable. Fitzer is in the raincoat and as
far as I can see, flashing nothing."
"So?" I ask.
"So I arrests them
for a breach of the peace, on suspicion, and the rest is history," the
Sergeant concludes with a flourish.
"Where are they
now?" I persist.
The Sergeant cuts across
my question. "One thing I'll tell yeh. Fitzer is cured. He'll never flash
again, or so he swears. Says Howlette jumping off the lock put the heart across
him, and if a flash did that he's withdrawn from the field."
"Good for
him," I say approvingly.
"To top it
off," the Sergeant adds. "I took him up to Strimmers. One of the
ladies of the night owes me a favour. I told her to finish young Fitzer off
properly and make a man of him. She'll do the job."
"Good
thinking," I say, thinking that might not be a cure but that the Sergeant
is a practical man under the gruff exterior.
"But what about the
girl? Is she all right?" I ask.
"Outside," the
Sergeant says indicating by way of a nod of his head, to the door of the Snug
that leads to the public bar.
"The damp lady in
the corner drinking balls of malt?" the Barman confirms.
I remember he has been
feeding drinks down the other side of the bar as normal. Although it's a wet
day, there are a few in the bar. He must have seen the Sergeant bring her in
earlier and had maintained his usual discrete silence.
"Dropped her
there," the Sergeant says, "on me way in. Told her not to shift her
ass until her mother came and got her. Her mother's working as a cleaner over in
the paper factory. I've sent a message."
"They're not off
for another hour," I say. I'm remembering the good ordinary school kid she
was only a few years past, and wondering how she's feeling, just having nearly
killed herself.
"She'll be well
pissed by then," the Barman adds. "The rate she's going at the balls
of malt."
I shift myself and stand
up. "She was one of my pupils," I say. "I'd better go talk to
her."
"Right so,"
the Sergeant says agreeably, and the Barman lifts the latch so I can exit the
small Snug.
"A word in your
ear..." the Barman whispers as I pass through.
I lift an eyebrow in
inquiry.
"The young lady in
question was dating O'Toole. You know O'Toole?"
"The Builder?"
I say. "Middle aged, married with six kids?"
"The very
same," he confirms. "They've had a row. Between you, the gatepost and
me, he might have got her up the spout."
"Pregnant?" I
whisper, but the Barman says no more. He has gone as far as he can go.
Behind his bar, he sees
all the comings and goings, but he has Professional Ethics and already he has
stepped over the line.
Taking care not to slip
on the puddle at her feet, I sit down beside her. She recognizes me, and as our
eyes meet she lets go, weeping the tears of the lost.
"There,
there," I say holding her hands, and she looks at me with the eyes of one
who has been hauled back from the grave.
The Barman brings a pint
and a ball of malt. Thoughtfully he is also balancing the mop for a quick,
discrete mop up.
She senses the empathy
behind my discomfort, that I want to help but don't know how or what to say. I
smile and she manages a little one. When she squeezes my hand, I know she is
going to be all right.
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