elephants. Rhinos. Giraffes. The stink off the gorillas; the way they looked like people. How come he could hear them and the zoo a mile away? They’d like this heat, of course. Maybe they were at it in there, the males and the females. Did all of them sleep though? No. He sniffed carefully again. A stink of manure. Monkey piss. How’d he know it was monkeys? After things got back to normal, he’d get a laugh out of telling them about the night he spent up by the zoo. They’d laugh, all right. They? There was no one waiting for him to talk to, no one to share a joke with. Not even Ma: she’d had it. All his stuff in plastic shopping bags around the back of the restaurant, dumped like rubbish. Nobody wanted to hear from him, and nobody-nobody-had ever asked him-not once, nobody-how he felt. Like he had no feelings. Like he was the type of bastard who could do that to Mary, who could even think of doing that to Mary. Like he was some kind of an animal.
His throat was killing him. He found the bottle of Coke and finished it. Christ, it’d be better to sleep in the day and stay up at night, not bother trying to get to sleep and worrying. Sleep: the more you want it to come, the farther away it gets. It must be well after midnight now. At least he hadn’t bumped into down-and-outs or courting couples. In a way, he wanted some to be here so’s he’d know the place was safe. He fingered his cigarettes. Twelve, enough even if he couldn’t sleep at all. He cupped his hands around the lighter. With the cigarette lit he glanced at his watch. Half one. The Coke had left an awful furry taste on his tongue. He hawked several times but couldn’t summon the spit. The cigarette was doing a little dance in the dark. That meant his hand was shaking. He imagined dark figures slouching by the Park gates, fanning out across the fields, tiptoeing from tree to tree. He got to his knees. He could see nothing in the darkness under the city’s glow. He slapped his knuckles against the trunk.
Minutes passed. It had worked-he had calmed down. He sat down again. He began to think about the few times he had slept out before. They’d put together a sort of a hiking club back when he was eleven or so. That social worker fella that was always hanging around, the bearded fella who never got mad. Finn. Hiking up in the Dublin mountains. Jammy, him, the lads. Joe Ninety, Spots, Tommo. Had Pizzaman been with them on that? He couldn’t remember now. Pots and pans and half the bleeding furniture they stuffed into them bags. O’Reilly and the vodka, Christ! Walking up by the Hellfire Club, Finn spots O’Reilly handing it to someone. War. Bleeding war, man! We’re all going back. Who else has stuff?
They’d sung as they marched along, dirty songs some of them. Finn pretending to be pissed off but smiling. Even the other fella, the priest who never put on priest’s clothes. What was his name? Four eyes. Goggin-that was it. Camping up in the Pine Forest or something, everybody shagged and ready to hit the sack, sitting around the fire, Goggin came on with the fucking sermon. How did it go? Jesus in the bleeding garden of what’s-the-place. Praying, yeah. Just before the big thing. Cavalry-Calvary. “Won’t one of you stay up and keep me company?” And the apostles all shagged off or fell asleep or something. And Jesus woke them up or something and asked again…
He forced himself to let his eyes close. Orangutans had orange hair, faces like oul wans. There were all kinds of ones that looked like cats or squirrels or mice or something. Lepers-no-lemurs. Come to think of it, we were monkeys too. He suddenly ached for someone beside him.
Talk about anything. Jammy, so he could see that he had all his marbles, that he was just as quick and smart as ever. There was a time when people admired him for the stuff he knew, for all the facts he could remember. Lemurs. Krakatoa; the Vikings; Jesse James. All the stuff he knew: different types of clouds, makes of cars-he could guess the age and model of any car with just a look at the bonnet. Two seconds, that was all he needed. That counted for something, didn’t it?
An ambulance siren made him open his eyes. He watched its blue lights flashing as it raced toward the city centre. Some poor bugger in an accident. His eyelids slid down again. Images flared suddenly in his mind then: himself covered in blood lying on a stretcher in the ambulance. The driver booting it, the other one looking down at him. Jesus! He writhed and stood up and squeezed his eyes tighter. He’s a goner, one of them was saying. My God, look at the blood. They must have used razors on him. They sliced his eyes and everything. We’re too late. Take him to the mortuary.
TWELVE
A half century and more of mortal existence and he still hadn’t copped on to the basics: you cannot make yourself sleep. Minogue opened his eyes again and looked at his watch. Seven, not bad. Last night’s shandy had left him gassy but without the melancholy wake-up he expected of Guinness.
He loaded the coffee-maker, switched it on and stepped into the garden. His forsythia had cascaded even further over the walls into the neighbours’. No problem. He ambled by the potato drills. British Queens, Duke of York. Leaves looked starchy. Drought in Ireland, he thought. That he should live to see it. He remembered Kathleen fussing over Iseult last night: would Iseult like a nice bubble bath? Apple tart with real cream? All Iseult wanted, damn it all, Kathleen, was to slip into the house and be left alone.
The phone sounded shriller than usual. He skipped back over the grass.
“Are you awake?” It was Murtagh.
“No. Go ahead.”
“Sorry. Just thought I’d wait until after seven. We found the other hard-chaw, Painless Balfe’s sidekick. Lenehan. Call him Lollipop.”
“Where is he?”
“We took him up to Fitzgibbon Street. Five o’clock he came rolling on home.”
“Oh? You waited for him, John?”
“Me and Doyler. We had a grand old time of it. I even got a couple of hours’ kip.”
“Have you talked to him yet?”
“Talk, is it? He was high on something. He threw shapes right there in the street. Fab, it was.” Minogue heard the coffeemaker hiss.
“How fab was it?”
“He didn’t buy the ID. He thought we were hit men or something. He pulled out knuckles. Swear to God, boss. We had to call in the cavalry. It took four of them and then the two of us. When he saw the squad car screaming up, he went berserk.”
“Are ye all right?”
“Never better. Such a row! It was Doyler who finally gave him one in the nuts. Had to tie the feet and all then. Three fellas sitting on him all the way back to the station. What a madman. Pony-tail, face like a crocodile. Acne. The mugshot didn’t do him justice.”
“So we can have him for the long haul?”
“Yep. Weapon. Assault. Assault with intent. Battery. Resisting. Causing a disturbance. Malicious damage. He’s a goner.”
“Does he know he’s up the creek?”
“Yep. He’s been dropping hints. I think he’s trying to suss out a deal.”
The excitement came to Minogue mixed in with the scent of brewing coffee.
“Great, John. Great. Now tell me, is he our man?”
“Could be. Christ, he’s a reptile. Vicious. He could be our man.”
Minogue put on the boiled eggs. If Lollipop Lenehan was a lifer, he could clam up and take the charges without a word. One of the eggs popped. He looked in to see the albumen issuing out into the dancing water. Iseult stood in the doorway.
“Did I wake you?”
“I wanted to be awake. Will you give me a lift into town and you going?”
She sat at the table. Her mother’s dressing gown was a foot short on her.
“I’ll get stuck into me stuff and I’ll be right as rain.”
He poured her coffee. He listened for Kathleen’s step on the stairs.
“Did you talk to your mother?”
“A bit.”
She threw her hair back. There was a glint in her eye to match the edge in her voice.
