Selected Stories, Volume 2 Read online

  He stuffed a couple of ties into his pockets and closed the bedroom door behind him. On the way downstairs he heard Gallagher’s voice before he saw him.

  ‘There’s an old fellow here,’ Gallagher said, making no effort to speak privately, ‘watching His Holiness.’

  Gallagher was as cool as a cucumber. You had to admire that in him. The time Mangan had gone with Ossie Power it had been nerves that landed them in it. You couldn’t do a job with shaking hands, he’d told Power before they began, but it hadn’t been any use. He should have known, of course.

  ‘He’s staying quiet,’ Gallagher said in a low voice. ‘Like I told him, he’s keeping his trap tight.’

  The youth in the doorway was wearing a crushed imitation suede jacket and dark trousers. His white T-shirt was dirty; his chin and cheeks were pitted with the remains of acne. For an instant Mr Livingston received an impression of a second face: a flat, wide nose between two bead-like eyes. Then both intruders stepped back into the hall. Whispering took place but Mr Livingston couldn’t hear what was said. On the screen the Popemobile moved slowly through the vast crowd. Hands reached out to touch it.

  ‘Keep your eyes on your man,’ a voice commanded, and Mr Livingston knew it belonged to the one he had seen less of because it was gruffer than the other voice. ‘Keep company with His Holiness.’

  Mr Livingston did not attempt to disobey. Something was placed over his eyes and knotted at the back of his head. The material was rough, like tweed. With something similar his wrists were tied in his lap. Each ankle was tied to a leg of the chair he occupied. His wallet was slipped out of the inside pocket of his jacket.

  He had failed the Herlihys; even though it was a pretence, he had agreed to perform a small and simple task; the family would return to disappointment. Mr Livingston had been angry as soon as he realized what was happening, as soon as the first youth appeared. He’d wanted to get up, to look around for something to use as a weapon, but only just in time he’d realized it would be foolish to do that. Helpless in his chair, he felt ashamed.

  On the television the cheering continued, and voices described what was happening. ‘Ave! Ave!’ people sang.

  ‘Pull up,’ Mangan said in the car. ‘Go down that road and pull up at the bottom.’

  Lout Gallagher did so, halting the car at the opening to a half-built estate. They had driven further than they’d intended, anxious to move swiftly from the neighbourhood of their morning’s work. ‘If there’s ever a squawk out of you,’ Mangan had threatened before they parted from Mr Livingston, ‘you’ll rue the bloody day, mister.’ Taking the third of the ties he’d picked up in the bedroom, he had placed it round the old man’s neck. He had crossed the two ends and pulled them tight, watching while Mr Livingston’s face and neck became flushed. He released them in good time in case anything went wrong.

  ‘You never know with a geezer like that,’ he said now. He turned his head and glanced out of the back window of the car. They were both still edgy. It was the worst thing that could happen, being seen.

  ‘Wouldn’t we dump the wagon?’ Gallagher said.

  ‘Drive it in on the site.’

  They left the car behind the back wall of one of the new houses, and since the place was secluded they counted the money they’d trawled. ‘Forty-two pound fifty-four,’ Mangan said. As well, there were various pieces of jewellery and the transistor radio. ‘You could be caught with that,’ Mangan advised, and the transistor was thrown into a cement-mixer.

  ‘He’ll issue descriptions,’ Mangan said before they turned away from the car. ‘He’ll squawk his bloody guts out.’

  They both knew that. In spite of the ugliness Mangan had injected into his voice, in spite of the old man’s face going purple, he would recall the details of the occasion. In the glimpse Mangan had caught of him there was anger in his eyes and his forehead was puckered in a frown.

  ‘I’m going back there,’ Mangan said.

  ‘The car’s hot.’

  Mangan didn’t answer, but swore instead, repeatedly and furiously; then they lit cigarettes and both felt calmer. Mangan led the way from the car, through the half-built site and out on to a lane. Within five minutes they reached a main road and came eventually to a public house. High up on the wall above the bar a large television set continued to record the Pope’s presence in Ireland. No one took any notice of the two youths who ordered glasses of Smithwick’s, and crisps.

  The people who had been robbed returned to their houses and counted the cost of the Pope’s personal blessing. The Herlihys returned and found Mr Livingston tied up with neck-ties, and the television still on. A doctor was summoned, though against Mr Livingston’s wishes. The police came later.

  That afternoon in Bray, after they’d been to see Cohen, Mangan and Gallagher picked up two girls. ‘Jaysus, I could do with a mott,’ Lout Gallagher had said the night before, which was how the whole thing began, Mangan realizing he could do with one too. ‘Thirty,’ Cohen had offered that afternoon, and they’d pushed him up to thirty-five.

  They felt better after the few drinks. Today of all days a bit of fecking wouldn’t interest the police, with the headaches they’d have when the crowds headed back to the city. ‘Why’d they be bothered with an old geezer like that?’ Mangan said, and they felt better still.

  In the Esplanade Ice-cream Parlour the girls requested a Peach Melba and a sundae. One was called Carmel, the other Marie. They said they were nurses, but in fact they worked in a paper mill.

  ‘Bray’s quiet,’ Mangan said.

  The girls agreed it was. They’d been intending to go to see the Pope themselves, but they’d slept it out. A quarter past twelve it was before Carmel opened her eyes, and Marie was even worse. She wouldn’t like to tell you, she said.

  ‘We seen it on the television,’ Mangan said. ‘Your man’s in great form.’

  ‘What line are you in?’ Carmel asked.

  ‘Gangsters,’ said Mangan, and everyone laughed.

  Gallagher wagged his head in admiration. Mangan always gave the same response when asked that question by girls. You might have thought he’d restrain himself today, but that was Mangan all over. Gallagher lit a cigarette, thinking he should have hit the old fellow before he had a chance to turn round. He should have rushed into the room and struck him a blow on the back of the skull with whatever there was to hand, hell take the consequences.

  ‘What’s it mean, gangsters?’ Marie asked, still giggling, glancing at Carmel and giggling even more.

  ‘Banks,’ Mangan said, ‘is our business.’

  The girls thought of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the adventures of Bonnie and Clyde, and laughed again. They knew that if they pressed their question it wouldn’t be any good. They knew it was a kind of flirtation, their asking and Mangan teasing with his replies. Mangan was a wag. Both girls were drawn to him.

  ‘Are the ices to our ladyships’ satisfaction?’ he enquired; causing a further outbreak of giggling.

  Gallagher had ordered a banana split. Years ago he used to think that if you filled a room with banana splits he could eat them all. He’d been about five then. He used to think the same thing about fruitcake.

  ‘Are the flicks on today?’ Mangan asked, and the girls said on account of the Pope they mightn’t be. It might be like Christmas Day, they didn’t know.

  ‘We seen what’s showing in Bray,’ Marie said. ‘In any case.’

  ‘We’ll go dancing later on,’ Mangan promised. He winked at Gallagher, and Gallagher thought the day they made a killing you wouldn’t see him for dust. The mail boat and Spain, posh Cockney girls who called you Mr Big. Never lift a finger again.

  ‘Will we sport ourselves on the prom?’ Mangan suggested, and the girls laughed again. They said they didn’t mind. Each wanted to be Mangan’s. He sensed it, so he walked between them on the promenade, linking their arms. Gallagher walked on the outside, linking Carmel.

  ‘Spot of the ozone,’ Mangan said. He pressed hi
s forearm against Marie’s breast. She was the one, he thought.

  ‘D’you like the nursing?’ Gallagher asked, and Carmel said it was all right. A sharp breeze was darting in from the sea, stinging their faces, blowing the girls’ hair about. Gallagher saw himself stretched out by a blue swimming-pool, smoking and sipping at a drink. There was a cherry in the drink, and a little stick with an umbrella on the end of it. A girl with one whole side of her bikini open was sharing it with him.

  ‘Bray’s a great place,’ Mangan said.

  ‘The pits,’ Carmel corrected.

  You could always tell by the feel of a girl on your arm, Mangan said to himself. Full of sauce the fat one was, no more a nurse than he was. Gallagher wondered if they had a flat, if there’d be anywhere to go when the moment came.

  ‘We could go into the bar of the hotel,’ the other one was saying, the way girls did when they wanted to extract their due.

  ‘What hotel’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘The International.’

  ‘Oh, listen to Miss Ritzy!’

  They turned and walked back along the promenade, guided by the girls to the bar in question. Gin and tonic the girls had. Gallagher and Mangan had Smithwick’s.

  ‘We could go into town later,’ Carmel casually suggested. ‘There’ll be celebrations on.’

  ‘We’ll give the matter thought,’ Mangan said.

  Another couple of pulls of the tie, Mangan said to himself, and who’d have been the wiser? You get to that age, you’d had your life anyway. As it was, the old geezer had probably conked it on his own, tied up like that. Most likely he was stiffening already.

  ‘Isn’t there a disco on in Bray?’ he suggested. ‘What’s wrong with a slap-up meal and then the light fantastic?’

  The girls were again amused at his way of putting it. Gallagher was glad to hear the proposal that they should stay where they were. If they went into town the whole opportunity could fall asunder. If you didn’t end up near a mott’s accommodation you were back where you started.

  ‘You’d die of the pace of it in Bray,’ Marie said, and Mangan thought a couple more gins and a dollop of barley wine with their grill and chips. He edged his knee against Marie’s. She didn’t take hers away.

  ‘Have you a flat or rooms or something?’ Gallagher asked, and the girls said they hadn’t. They lived at home, they said. They’d give anything for a flat.

  A few minutes later, engaged at the urinals in the lavatory, the two youths discussed the implications of that. Mangan had stood up immediately on hearing the news. He’d given a jerk of his head when the girls weren’t looking.

  ‘No bloody go,’ Gallagher said.

  ‘The fat one’s on for it.’

  ‘Where though, man?’

  Mangan reminded his companion of other occasions, in car parks and derelict buildings, of the time they propped up the bar of the emergency exit of the Adelphi cinema and went back in afterwards, of the time in the garden shed in Drumcondra.

  Gallagher laughed, feeling more optimistic when he remembered all that. He winked to himself, the way he did when he was beginning to feel drunk. He spat into the urinal, another habit at this particular juncture. The seashore was the place; he’d forgotten about the seashore.

  ‘Game ball,’ Mangan said.

  The memory of the day that had passed seemed rosy now – the empty streets they had hurried through, the quiet houses where their business had been, the red blotchiness in the old man’s face and neck, the processions on the television screen. Get a couple more gins into them, Mangan thought again, and then the barley wine. Stretch the fat one out on the soft bloody sand.

  ‘Oh, lovely,’ the fat one said when more drinks were offered.

  Gallagher imagined the wife of a businessman pleading down a telephone, reporting that her captors intended to slice off the tips of her little fingers unless the money was forthcoming. The money was a package in a telephone booth, stashed under the seat. The pictures of Spain began again.

  ‘Hi,’ Carmel said.

  She’d been to put her lipstick on, but she didn’t look any different.

  ‘What d’you do really?’ she asked on the promenade.

  ‘Unemployed.’

  ‘You’re loaded for an unemployed.’ Her tone was suspicious. He watched her trying to focus her eyes. Vaguely, he wondered if she liked him.

  ‘A man’s car needed an overhaul,’ he said.

  Ahead of them, Mangan and Marie were laughing, the sound drifting lightly back above the swish of the sea.

  ‘He’s great sport, isn’t he?’ Carmel said.

  ‘Oh, great all right.’

  Mangan turned round before they went down the steps to the shingle. Gallagher imagined his fancy talk and the fat one giggling at it. He wished he was good at talk like that.

  ‘We had plans made to go into town,’ Carmel said. ‘There’ll be great gas in town tonight.’

  When they began to cross the shingle she said it hurt her feet, so Gallagher led her back to the concrete wall of the promenade and they sat down with their backs to it. It wasn’t quite dark. Cigarette packets and chocolate wrappings were scattered on the sand and pebbles. Gallagher put his arm round Carmel’s shoulders. She let him kiss her. She didn’t mind when he twisted her sideways so that she no longer had her back to the wall. She felt limp in his arms, and for a moment Gallagher thought she’d passed out, but then she kissed him back. She murmured something and her arms pulled him down on top of her. He realized it didn’t matter about the fancy talk.

  ‘When then?’ Marie whispered, pulling down her clothes. Five minutes ago Mangan had promised they would meet again; he’d sworn there was nothing he wanted more; the sooner the better, he’d said.

  ‘Monday night,’ he added now. ‘Outside the railway station. Six.’ It was where they’d picked the two girls up. Mangan could think of nowhere else and it didn’t matter anyway since he had no intention of being anywhere near Bray on Monday night.

  ‘Geez, you’re great,’ Marie said.

  On the bus to Dublin they did not say much. Carmel had spewed up a couple of mouthfuls, and in Gallagher’s nostrils the sour odour persisted. Marie in the end had been a nag, going on about Monday evening, making sure Mangan wouldn’t forget. What both of them were thinking was that Cohen, as usual, had done best out of the bit of business there’d been.

  Then the lean features of Mr Livingston were recalled by Mangan, the angry eyes, the frown. They’d made a mess of it, letting him see them, they’d bollocksed the whole thing. That moment in the doorway when the old man’s glance had lighted on his face he had hardly been able to control his bowels. ‘I’m going back there,’ his own voice echoed from a later moment, but he’d known, even as he spoke, that if he returned he would do no more than he had done already.

  Beside him, on the inside seat, Gallagher experienced similar recollections. He stared out into the summery night, thinking that if he’d hit the old man on the back of the skull he could have finished him. The thought of that had pleased him when they were with the girls. It made him shiver now.

  ‘God, she was great,’ Mangan said, dragging out of himself a single snigger.

  His bravado obscured a longing to be still with the girls, ordering gins at the bar and talking fancy. He would have paid what remained in his pocket still to taste her lipstick on the seashore, or to hear her gasp as he touched her for the first time.

  Gallagher tried for his dream of Mr Big, but it would not come to him. ‘Yeah,’ he said, replying to his friend’s observation.

  The day was over; there was nowhere left to hide from the error that had been made. As they had at the time, they sensed the old man’s shame and the hurt to his pride, as animals sense fear or resolution. Privately, each calculated how long it would be before the danger they’d left behind in the house caught up with them.

  They stepped off the bus on the quays. The crowds that had celebrated in the city during their absence had dwindled, but people
who were on the streets spoke with a continuing excitement about the Pope’s presence in Ireland and the great Mass there had been in the sunshine. The two youths walked the way they’d come that morning, both of them wondering if the nerve to kill was something you acquired.

  After Rain

  In the dining-room of the Pensione Cesarina solitary diners are fitted in around the walls, where space does not permit a table large enough for two. These tables for one are in three of the room’s four corners, by the door of the pantry where the jugs of water keep cool, between one family table and another, on either side of the tall casement windows that rattle when they’re closed or opened. The dining-room is large, its ceiling high, its plain cream-coloured walls undecorated. It is noisy when the pensione’s guests are there, the tables for two that take up all the central space packed close together, edges touching. The solitary diners are well separated from this mass by the passage left for the waitresses, and have a better view of the dining-room’s activity and of the food before it’s placed in front of them – whether tonight it is brodo or pasta, beef or chicken, and what the dolce is.

  ‘Dieci,’ Harriet says, giving the number of her room when she is asked. The table she has occupied for the last eleven evenings has been joined to one that is too small for a party of five: she doesn’t know where to go. She stands a few more moments by the door, serving dishes busily going by her, wine bottles grabbed from the marble-topped sideboard by the rust-haired waitress, or the one with a wild look, or the one who is plump and pretty. It is the rust-haired waitress who eventually leads Harriet to the table by the door of the pantry where the water jugs keep cool. ‘Da here?’ she asks and Harriet, still feeling shy although no one glanced in her direction when she stood alone by the door, orders the wine she has ordered on other nights, Santa Cristina.