‘Take those colours off inside this house! And you, Aidan McManus, should know better than to bring the jersey being used by the Junta Generals. Your brother would be ashamed of you,’ my father said, thumping the table during one late Friday-night game and his fifth bottle of Red Heart Guinness.
Rex Mundi reminded me of this a few weeks later as we made our way via the railway tracks running parallel to the River Lagan up to Sabine’s house in the Holy Lands. He informed me that his once-firebombing brother cared little anymore for politics anywhere. After his release, Mick had ended up in West Berlin, dossing down in a squat of hippies by the Landwehr Canal, close to the Wall, which sounded even worse than the accommodation he had once shared with other prisoners during that eighteen-month stint in Crumlin Road jail. His brother was now an entrepreneur of narcotics, both a user and a dealer, who sent parcels of dope home to the English south coast with his couriers of hippy trailers, Bowie-disciples and German punks, the latter on their way to pose inanely up and down London’s Kings Road.
‘At least when our Mick comes home or sends his teams over to England there’s always seriously good dope to be had,’ Rex Mundi said as he deftly rolled up a joint even while we walk at pace under the shadow of the blue gas tank. The faint reek of Leb Gold is competing feebly with the pervasive stench of the sulphur from the coal-powered gasworks to our right.
‘So tell me about this art-house babe then, cousin,’ Rex Mundi continued as we climbed through a broken piece of fencing leading towards the safe territory of River Terrace.
‘I first saw her in The Pound. She always dances to the same song every week.’
‘What song?’
‘“The Speed of Life”, the first track on Bowie’s Low. We listen to the album all the time now.’
‘So apart from being a fellow Bowie freak, what’s so special about her?’ Rex Mundi asked.
‘She’s just different. So different from anyone I’ve ever met before. She’s a bit like the man himself: when I first saw her on the dance floor she looked as if she might have fallen to earth from another planet too.’
‘You are one serious wanker, cuz.’
‘Nah, you’re just jealous!’
‘Well then you’re taking a chance introducing me to her. You’re a brave man, Ruin. I could end up as second jockey.’
‘You can fuck right off and get that idea out of your head now or I’ll put you back on that boat to England,’ I replied, before changing the subject in case he really did have ideas about her. ‘So when did your Mick start losing interest in the revolution? I thought he went to Germany because he wanted to link up with the Baader-Meinhof gang?’
‘Yeah he probably did, but he ended up being linked up instead with a load of Turkish geezers who promised to make him really rich. Plus he got into smack, which means he won’t end up rich after all.’
‘Smack?’
‘Smack, yeah. Heroin, Robbie. Not blow or grass or any of that shit. Really serious business. Anyway, never mind about our Mick. What about your bird?’
‘Whatever you do, please do not call her a bird,’ I pleaded.
‘Has Padre Pio met her yet? he asked.
‘You must be fucking joking!’ I replied. ‘He knows fuck all about her, and let’s keep it that way.’
‘I hear you, cuz. But he’ll be feeling neglected by now. I’m surprised he’s not making it his business to know what’s keeping you from him.’
Rex was right, but I didn’t want PP anywhere near my Sabine, my new world. I wanted to leave him behind – him and all his shite. Sabine was a taste of freedom.
When we arrived at 66 Jerusalem Street, Sabine led us into the front room. The table was covered in a red-and-white chequered tablecloth, which boasted a spread of salads, veggie pastas and numerous oddly shaped bottles of Portuguese and French rosé wine. Rex Mundi went straight over, sniffed the food, lifted the bottle of Mateus Rosé and necked a third of it in one greedy gulp.
‘Fuck me! All this rabbit food! Is there anything dead on offer?’ he asked after slamming the bottle back down on the table.
She looked him up and down. There was instant disdain on her face, which secretly pleased me.
‘It must be exhausting being such a cool rebel with your special ‘Boy’ zips and bondage jacket there,’ Sabine said caustically as she delivered a kiss to my forehead.
My cousin planted his DMs on the table perilously close to the pastas and fumbled in his pockets for his red pack of Rizla. ‘Still, it’s nice in here. Who do you share it with? Have you got any tidy housemates?’ he asked.
‘By tidy I think he means sexy, Sabine,’ I interrupted.
‘I know exactly what he means … and wants. For your information, I live alone or at least I used to be totally alone until this cheeky wee shite came along. Now have you any other equally stupid questions you want to ask?’ Sabine said with her hands on her hips. She had that slightly scrunched up stare of defiance on her face that I had come to love. She was the picture of power on her home patch, defiantly underwhelmed by the sight of an original 1976 ‘English’ punk in her living room.
‘So, cuz here is invading your splendid isolation,’ Rex Mundi replied sulkily.
‘Actually your cousin is great company. He’s different from the rest of them.’
‘Fair play to him. Happy for the both of you,’ Rex Mundi grumbled. He began to roll the next joint, like a soldier who has been taught to deftly break apart and reassemble a rifle while blindfolded. He never looked down at the table once as he pieced the reefer together.
‘Here’s a present from our Mick and his Turkish mates in Berlin,’ he said, sparking up and passing the joint to Sabine. ‘Hey love, our Mick told me once that no one who lives in the Holy Lands was ever born in the Holy Lands. So where are you from originally?’
His question irritated me. ‘People are normally asked that in this town before they get a hole in the head or their throat slashed, Rex. You’ve been away too long.’
Sabine inhaled the hashish and released the smoke through her nostrils before emitting what sounded like an orgasmic sigh. ‘Don’t call me love. But just to satisfy your nosiness, I’m from East Belfast.’
‘Hey snap! Me too,’ Rex Mundi said. ‘I’m also from the east. Where abouts exactly?’
‘Imperial Drive off the Woodstock Road originally,’ she replied, which made my cousin choke as he took his turn to draw on the dope.
‘Fuck me pink, love. You were a two-minute walk from my house. You might remember it. It was the big three storey one on the main road that got burned down in 1971. The one just facing the chapel that your neighbours also tried to burn down quite a few times.’
Noticing that Rex Mundi’s tone had grown a little darker, I joked nervously. ‘Small world, eh! Belfast’s a village.’
‘Yeah, a village with lynch mobs carrying fiery torches. We were given twenty-four hours to get out of your area or else,’ he said, pointing at Sabine.
‘It wasn’t MY area,’ she protested. ‘Whatever happened to you and your family had nothing to do with me. Like now, with all this shit around us. I’ve no interest in any of it. None. The only parade I will ever attend is one that supports my right to control my own body. I won’t march behind any flag. So don’t lump me in with that lot over what happened to you.’
Rex Mundi deliberately ignored her protests. ‘Over what happened to us! I’ll tell you what happened to us, shall I? If it wasn’t for Ruin’s