The Wake - Table of contents

The Wake - afters (7)

Stopped breathing for a bit and listened for the sounds of rioting. Things seemed quiet as I walked on but you can never be sure in this town. Like a graveyard one minute and the next it’s carnival time. Friendly nod from two guys leaning up against the Grandstand bar looking to tap me for the price of a drink maybe. That was a good one Mickey MacTamm told me the last time he was cutting my hair.

As God’s me witness I seen it happening meself Jeremiah. His Lordship the bishop walking down William Street last Saturday. I see you shaking your head there but I’m telling you now, he was walking all right. On his own too, I swear it. Naw listen, sure didn’t I see him with me own eyes? I was coming up the ways on the other side of the street and I nearly dropped so I did. Never seen that man walking in me life before, always in the back of the big Rolls any time I seen him. Wait, I tell a lie. I seen him one time walking up the middle aisle in the cathedral there around Corpus Christi I think it was and a whole gang of men holding the canopy thing over him. Is that what you call it? You know the thing I’m talking about, like the roof of a circus tent if you can picture it. Well he’s going down past the Grandstand twirling away at the big black umburella and these three standing outside arguing the odds for the day look up and there he is. So all together they salute him and then they say one after the other Good morning your lordship and you know what he does? He looks up at the Guildhall clock and sees it’s two minutes past twelve so he says back to them Good afternoon and walks on, head in the air. Put them in their place so he did.

William Street quiet, still strewn with bricks and stones from the day’s rioting, but quiet for now. Turned into Waterloo Place, passed couples walking hand in hand, others in doorways grinding up against one another, up for anything I’d say, making me remember, filling my throat, stopping me breathing nearly, soon to be stretched some of them on sofas, car back seats, beds, glutinous seed emptying, filling, infecting.

A police car hurtled through Guildhall Square, cop in the back seat gave me the fingers. Or maybe it was the V sign. Amounts to the same thing. She might be there. That programme about lesbians I saw on TV last week, somewhere in the north of England. Newcastle was it? Doesn’t matter where it was. Interesting. No, fascinating. No, titillating. Out of focus shots of bodies rolling and writhing in slow motion, pastel fluids running into each other, breasts merging. Mammy came into the kitchen in the middle of it and I was nearly going to change channels and then I thought, Why the hell should I? I pay the bloody rental. She didn’t catch on till it was nearly over anyway, stupid you see, when this dyke said I prefer girls mesel, men are hard see and adding My mar knows nowt aboot it. Well she knows now, dear, she knows now. My mar wanted it switched off but I held out. She made a scene and I couldn’t take in this part at the end properly with bottoms going up and down like billows, pale red and pink and purple, really arty and all, great camerawork but I couldn’t appreciate it. Stuff her, I saw as much as I wanted to see anyway. Still feel disappointed it never talked about bisexual girls though. Probably there’s so few they’d have to trawl for ages to find ones.

Hardly in the door of the City Hotel when I saw her. Her. Disappearing round the corner into the bar. Didn’t see me. Hair different, cut short, dyed some kind of brown, first thing I noticed. Urchin look like Mia Farrow, face pale, what was it she was in? Rosemary’s Baby. Like Audrey. Exactly like Audrey. Tight black shiny. Jesus, it’s leather, that’s leather she’s wearing, two piece leather suit. Who’s she with? Who’s she with? I’ll go in in a minute, go to the men’s first to think. How long ago was it she told me she wasn’t sleeping? She looks great. She looks fantastic. She looks happy. How can she be happy?