Bastards, the lot of them.’ Paul pelts the Wexford People down on the spilt beer and heads to the bar for more pints. His round face, topped by tight black curls, is usually jolly but now it wears a dark scowl. Vinnie sees the headlines. Unlike his pal he has a thin, pinched look. He feels his legs go weak, even though he’s sitting. His neck is hot; the palms of his hands are wet.
Paul had called for him at tea time, when Vinnie was sitting with his mother in the back room, not saying much. He’d been listening to the wind in the chimney and thought it funny that the wind sounded different in each ear. He hadn’t noticed that before. His mother was smoking and the deep lines in her face seemed to hold within them the hurts and disappointments of forty years of living.
‘Ma, we’re going for a game of snooker – see you later.’
When they were gone, the wind made her think of Vinnie as a boy when he called her out the back to see the heap he had gathered under the tree – the shining, red-tan conkers, some of them split open and showing their soft-white chestnut beds. It seemed a long time ago now, a time before her son became restless and edgy.
They walk to the Bull’s Wall down at Crescent Quay. Vinnie is taller than his friend but he has a way of appearing smaller than anybody he’s with. It’s the way his shoulders curve downwards; the uncomfortable gait of his body. Vinnie makes sure they skirt the church. Vinnie hasn’t passed the building in seven years, seven years this October. The streets are crowded with toffs – the opera ones.
‘Jaysus, did you hear about yer man – the one who’s givin’ them the millions?’ Paul said.
‘What are ya on about?’
‘The millionaire guy – he’s giving the opera crowd two million for the new opera place. What planet are ya on?’
They’re outside the Theatre Royal on High Street. There’s a gigantic picture of the new opera building on the hoarding, showing a skyline and a huge green fly-tower soaring way above the church spire.
‘We might get a job up there’, Paul says, prodding Vinnie and grinning. The two work as roofers with a local contractor.
‘Ya big eejit. That’s a copper roof.’
They head for their usual haunt, Danny’s Pub on Main Street, for the craic of watching the opera toffs head out for the night dressed to kill.
Danny’s is a long, narrow, corner pub with photos of Wexford hurling teams covering the walls of the low-ceiling room. Vinnie’s favourite picture is the one of Liam Griffin punching the air the year of the county’s last All Ireland glory. The two sit close to the window. They have to lift their heads to look up on to the street.
‘Vin, there he is – yer man – in the kilt!’ They watch out for him each year.
The crowds are heading for High Street with glossy programmes in their fists. Vinnie is waiting for a woman in high heels to trip; they always did.
By the second pint he’s starting to relax. It feels a bit like when he had a bad sore throat and took antibiotics – soothing like.
‘Vin, I think there’s comedy at the Talbot – a late night gig – will we give it a go. It could be craic. I’ll get the paper and have a look. What do ya think?’
That’s when he nipped out to get the Wexford People.
Now Vinnie is looking down at the headlines: Unbelievable – Shocking Truth of Ferns Enquiry.
A good-looking cleric is looking straight up at him. There are four of them on the front page. But Vinnie only sees one – the smiling face under dark thick hair; a face you’d trust. He hasn’t laid eyes on him in seven years.
Paul is talking to a girl in a red top with her nipples pressing through the tight cloth. The beer is seeping through the newspaper. As Vinnie stares, the beer seeps over the photo, turning the man’s face into a soggy yellow mess.
Vinnie keeps watching the face. He’s thinking of the green tower soaring high over the Church spire. He’s thinking that he’ll walk home past the church to-night. He’s thinking it, but he knows he won’t.
