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I’ve only seen him away from this area twice. Once on King Street opposite the Living department store (London’s only Third-World shopping experience. They’ve got a couple of items and you never get served because the staff are always on the phone – Now gone as well. A curse!). Brendan forages locally and lives on what he can find – usually some form of superbrew extra-strong lager which, in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications, turns immediately and magically into urine as soon as it is swallowed.

      I had a feeling my mate Terry might fancy the trip. A knackered-looking handsome Irish raconteur, Terry looks vaguely like Sean Hughes, that knackered-looking handsome Irish raconteur. Which was ironic, as he had bumped into Sean Hughes several times at after-hours pubs and clubs and would invariably try and get into an argument with him. Usually because Terry was about to get off with a girl who thought he was Sean Hughes, then the real Sean Hughes would come along and spoil it. Like a Brian Rix farce, really. Or a Brian Rix farce co-written by James Joyce:

      

       What the Finlan saw a Butler sore her Mother Mary.

       (Scene – late nightshite midnight black jean bar under the chip smell tourist choking Tottenhemhem Caught Road. Finoola, Assumpta, Terry in chitchat inebriation)

      Terry: Wear you froming to?

      Assumpta: To? To? From? Live?

      Terry: Chunky fleshy Finoola.

      Finoola: The beer-stained sweat of old pine, belly stubble shaved.

      Assumpta: Are you Sean Hughes?

      Terry: Me funny Sean. Sunny, heavy-lidded sad Sean.

      Sean: No me real deal feelme funny Sean. Who are you?

      Terry: Doppelganger boy. Johnny Stalker. Johnny Walker.

      Assumpta: Double Sean bedfun thrusting, eh Sean?

      

      Anyway, I put it to Terry that the trip might be a good laugh. I said something like, ‘Let’s go off to Ireland for a week or so, try and sell the car, meet people who know the truth, get drunk, stand on mountain tops, go painting, sit in pubs listening to old men’s stories, laugh at and fall in love with mad Irishwomen, shout on the western edge of the world, sing folksongs, cry in the rain, puke in soft green fields, catch a moving statue and put it in our pocket.’

      Terry took a sip of his pint and smiled at me. ‘Argh, yeah, why not?’

      Inside the centre it’s very pale and high ceilinged, perhaps in an attempt to be like a church, although the atmosphere is more akin to an English village hall, the world of amateur dramatics and pantomimes, cake stalls and tombola, prized marrows and dollies made of wicker, the tables left over from university seminar rooms. Looking at the group of lads with their great faces and lost eyes, come to hear their grandchildren play the penny whistle or sing a ballad, I couldn’t help thinking that this scene should be a smoky low-slung pub in the forgotten back streets of a midlands Irish country town.

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