The door of the saloon banged open and a man came in, green pork-pie hat, trench coat, white chamois gloves. His shoes were old brogues, beautifully shined. His moustache was straw-coloured, his nose was long and his eyes were large and watering. He looked uncommonly like an ageing parrot.
‘Goddammit, it’s cold!’ he called out. ‘John, set me up a glass of port, like a good man. First today. And how’s our American friend today? What’s the word from New York?’
‘I’m fine and dandy, Major, fine and dandy,’ Mr Madden said, giving his old doorman smile, his big tip wink. ‘But that rain’s a helluva note. Wouldn’t you say that’s a helluva note?’
The major peeled his gloves off and sat down on a high stool beside Madden. His hands were delicate, yellowed by tobacco, and permanently shaking. He drew the glass of port towards him carefully and lifted it fast to toss back in his throat.
‘Godblessus and saveus, but that warms all the way,’ he said. ‘Now, John, I’ll trouble you for a piece of that meat pie and another glass of this excellent port.’
John Grogan put a slice of pie on a plate, put a knife and fork beside it, poured another glass of port. Then he wiped his hands on a towel and stood with his buttocks resting against the back of the bar. He folded his arms, a quiet man, a watchful man.
Major Gerald Mahaffy-Hyde ate the pie, every last crumb of it. He drank half of his second glass of port. Then he saw John Grogan waiting, a quiet, watchful man. He took a ten-shilling note from his handsome wallet and paid. The wallet contained only ten shillings. He put the wallet away, slid the change into his trousers pocket and turned to Mr Madden.
‘You know,’ he said reflectively, ‘there’s no country in the world where the cost of living is going up the way it is here. And it’s these damn socialist influences over in Britain. That’s what did the damage. Never mind whether our fellows are in, or those labour cranks, the result is the same. The harm’s been done. Soak the rich and all that. And dammit a man like myself, retired on a pension he’s the victim, do you see? These damn socialists have no use for us. They’re out to ruin us, that’s their game.’
Mr Madden cradled his Bass. ‘Socialistic, eh? Back home in the States we had that trouble.’
‘Most interesting,’ the major said, nodding his parrot head. ‘Of course, you fellows over there didn’t stand any nonsense. Quite right too. Harm’s been done here. Sometimes it makes me wonder whether a fellow wouldn’t be better to find himself some island to retire to. Like the West Indies. Cheap, lots of servants, sunshine and damn good rum.’
A bare-breasted native girl shyly dropped her sarong. Tuan Madden patted her smooth rump, raised a rum punch to his lips. ‘M’mm, something in that, Major. I never thought of it that way. Not like Ireland, cold and rain all the time. You know, a guy could go out there, set up a little business, something the natives don’t have, maybe a curio shop for the tourists. A little capital, you could have yourself a time.’
‘Get away from it all,’ the major said with relish. ‘Let them have their century of the common man in Ireland if they want it. People like myself, people who helped to keep the country running when these socialist fellows were hanging around the street corners of Britain, we’re the ones they’re out to get.’
Apolitical, Mr Madden dismissed all this. ‘Get yourself set up, maybe a little store, get some local help to work for you, sort of supervise, eh?’
‘O, I’ve been out in those waters,’ Major Mahaffy-Hyde said, looking speculatively at his empty port glass. ‘Jamaica, Bermuda, Haiti, Cuba. Some wonderful spots. I remember in Haiti, it’s a nigger republic, you know, some of the white men there lived like kings. Great whacking big houses, villas, mansions, a dozen servants. Pretty little mulattoes. Hot-blooded little things, the tropics, the sun does it. Fondle a few round bottoms!’
‘Great big white mansions,’ Mr Madden chortled. ‘Brother!’ His eyes saw past the oak panelled bar to a distant shore.
‘Niggers run the place,’ the major said. ‘But there’s no race hatred. Everybody speaks French.’
Mr Madden saw Harlem, remembered an ugly incident on Lennox Avenue. Razors. ‘Ugh! I don’t like jigs. New York’s full of them.’
The major looked longingly at the empty glass in his hand. ‘This is different, old man. Some beautiful little brown wenches in these places. Get yourself a maid and all the damn comforts of home for about three pounds a month.’ He tried a gambit. ‘Care for another?’
‘Dark meat, eh?’ Mr Madden chuckled. ‘No, no, this one’s on me – John – two more.’
‘Why, there are red-headed natives all over those islands,’ the major said. ‘In Jamaica, blacks name of Murphy. The Irish planted their seed there all right. Olden days, pirates, deserters. Some wonderful stories. And their descendants. Imagine having a brown nubile little Murphy on your knee.’ His parrot lips curved wickedly. ‘We Irish conquered by peaceful penetration,’ he chuckled.
Mr Madden slapped him on the back. ‘I bet you did your bit yourself, Major, when you were with the British Army, eh, Major?’
‘By God, I did, James. By God, I did!’
John Grogan quietly placed a glass of port and a bottle of Bass on the bar. He wiped his hands on a towel and went back to his books. Major Mahaffy-Hyde sighted the port glass, grasped it in his shaking, delicate hand and leaned back, a good mercenary, giving value in talk. Encouraging Madden to dream, helping him towards drunkenness, towards the open confessional of drinking talk.
‘By God, I think you’re right, James. A fellow like you, an American, he’d know a lot of tricks. Why, you fellows are natural salesmen. Dammit, if Americans could sell refrigerators to the bloody Eskimos, they could sell anything to those niggers. Yes, James, I can see you taking your ease in your own villa with a couple of comely bedwarmers by your side.’
‘You got a point, Major. You got a point. Now, take the business end. Take soft drinks. Now, if I could get a concession …’
Shortly after four, John Grogan ceded his place at the bar to Kevin O’Kane. Before leaving, he respectfully approached Mr Madden and asked him if he would mind settling up now. Mr Madden stopped talking. Major Mahaffy-Hyde excused himself and went to the toilet. Mr Madden paid the reckoning. Major Mahaffy-Hyde returned to find Mr Madden sitting with the dejected air of a man who knows he is half drunk and has been caught for all the rounds. The major felt in his pocket and threw some silver on the bar.
‘One for the road, now,’ he said. ‘My treat. Let’s drink to the new king of the islands.’
‘Mine’s a double,’ Mr Madden said roughly. Sonofabitch never paid for a drink. Yankees walking free drink concession, that’s how he figures me.
He remembered Creeslough. How often he’d thought of it in the years when he rode the subway trains, when he stared across Times Square on rainy afternoons. How he had seen it in memory, transformed, a vision of peace and a slow peaceful way of living. And the reality, when he went back. The long bleak street and the warm cosiness of Lafferty’s pub. Free pints of porter, boys. Madden, did you say your name was? Well, is that a fact? A son of old Dinty Madden, of the Glen. Well, do you tell me now? Well, thank you very much, I will have another, Mr Madden. And what is it like in the States these days? Do you tell me so? All of them, country boys and men with their tongues hanging out, waiting for him to buy another. Spilling his guts out to them, talking about the old days and them, Donegal men, listening to the Yank, waiting for him to stand another round. And when he stopped buying, they began to talk about corn and crops, and pigs and the fair day. All a million miles away from what he knew. He had no place there.
And now, in Belfast, the same game. Your own fault, Mr Madden told Mr Madden drunk. After this one, get the hell out.
The double whiskey