Ghosts and Lightning (4 page)

—Right, your fuckin turn. Yiz mad fucks.

Pajo grabs the bag two-handed and swings it up and over his shoulder, tiltin backwards with the awkward sudden weight before I grab him. I givvim a wink and he winks back.

—Sure we’ll just pitch here then, I say. —Yeah?

—Me bollix, says Maggit. —Lookit them fuckin sheep Denny, yid wake up and one’d be in the fuckin tent eyeballin yeh.

—Don’t be a clown.

—Balls, they’d give yeh the evil fuckin eye Denny, fuck that. Not sleepin in a field with sheep, no fuckin chance.

—Right so, I say, and I bound ahead, another surge o the pills washin through me. Where the fuck I’m goin I don’t know but I start howlin as I run, like a madman from ancient times, a drugged up ancient clansman howlin at the wind, at sheep and bowin trees, at the whipped and tossin clumps o nettles, me hands above me head, clappin and spinnin and howlin still, howlin at the sheer fierce fuckin beauty and madness of it all, o the trees and rain, o the silent grey mountains and me gobshite friends, the oddness o things, the wonder of it, the sheer and mad and funny beauty.

*

Still buzzin I follow a narrow gravel path that leads off the main track and come to a garden, huge with a whitewashed bungalow at the bottom almost hid by high bent grass and overgrown bushes. I vault the gate and the others follow. There’s an amber glow from the kitchen window and a shape movin, potterin back and forth. I look back over me shoulder.

—This do yeh?

—A bleedin garden?

—A garden or sheep, up to you. We’ll be quiet, yeah? Just get the tent up and skedaddle first thing.

We’re crouchin in the rain behind a blackberry bush. Maggit scratches his ear. Pajo’s still smilin aimlessly, grindin his teeth at the same time in a weird, rictus, shiftin grin. I stick me head slowly above the cover o the bush. The shufflin shape is an old woman, forty yards away and oblivious, her hair long and white in a single braid hanging over her left shoulder. She reminds me o me nanny Cullen, me ma’s ma. I touch the ring she gave me ma, the smooth white gold. It’s her hair, mainly, that reminds me of her; me nanny Cullen never went for that blue rinse, short hair bollix. I run a hand through me own soppin hair. It’s gettin long now, like; needs a cut. I duck back down.

—Just keep it down and we’ll be grand, yeah? We’ll be found dead out here if we keep this up, fuckin pneumonia like. Leave the place as we find it though, yeah?

—Right, says Maggit. —Fuck it. Fair enough.

Pajo shrugs. —Cool.

I take the bag from Pajo and slide out the first o the tent poles, then point it at Maggit, a blunt and wonky sabre.

—Grab that.

He does, and far off I hear the huge and darkly swellin grumble o distant thunder. The sound comes from a great depth, or it seems like it does anyway, to me, underwater, long and low and deeply sonorous. Somethin stirrin. Some immense and ancient form o life.

*

—Giz the flask over, Maggit, I say.

Maggit’s lying on his side, readin
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
. I brung it up with me and I’m surprised to see him readin it. Books aren’t his thing, yeh know? His upper body’s pokin out of his sleepin bag, his long, wiry arms almost covered in dark blue tattoos. He has the Liverpool crest on his right shoulder and Che Guevara on his left. He’s wearin his glasses and they make him look older than he is, his lips silently shapin the words. He shifts and grabs me Adidas bag, then throws it over.

—Hardly any left, he says.

Pajo’s rollin up a joint and his fingers make me think of a documentary I saw a few days ago, with this close-up of a spider’s legs as it rolled up a fly. Pajo’s wired to the moon, but in a completely different way to Maggit; there isn’t a hint o violence in Pajo. He’s as serene as they come. And a bit frazzled, as well, to be honest; a bit addled, like. Black and white, these two. They don’t even really look that similar, cept for the eyes.

—There y’are, Denny, says Pajo, passin the joint to me. Pajo’s collarbone is pushin against his skin like it’s tryin to force its way through.

I take a long, deep drag. Nice. I take another and then hand it to Maggit. Maggit closes over the book and takes
the joint, regardin it for a few seconds between thumb and forefinger, then takes a quick puff. He nods his head and passes it back to Pajo, who taps the ash into an empty Monster Munch packet.

Pajo skootches over and sits beside me. His hair’s brushed back over his head and his slightly yellow, misaligned teeth are bared in a big grin. He takes a heroic drag on the joint and offers the smoulderin remains to me. I wave it away.

—Yeh sure?

—Positive man, I’d be snoozin in no time.

Pajo nods. —Cool. Sound. Very wise.

I stretch and crack the bones in me neck.

—Preposterous, isn’t it? says Pajo.

—Preposterous? Wha is?

—The weather.

Preposterous. Yid never catch anyone cept Pajo sayin that. It’s not even really that preposterous at all, this weather in November, in the mountains. But yeh have to laugh. Madman, our Pajo.

Pajo’s inspectin the inside o one of his soaked Doc Marten boots. Behind me I can hear Maggit readin, whisperin to himself. We’re all knackered. Fuckin cold, as well. The BZP’s wearin off, like. This was probably a dopey idea, comin up here.

—There’s a few things we’ll need for the séance, says Pajo.

—Wha?

—A few things, like. Emm … trappins and that. I’ll have to get a few things together.

—Like wha?

—Just … emm … there’s a special candle. And yiv to have a strong-smellin spirit. Whiskey or wharrever.

—Right.

—Yeh have to do it proper, like. Yeh can’t just mess around with the paranormal.

—Paula said it might be a revenant, I say. —Wharrever difference that makes. None.

—Well. There’s different types.

I shake me head. —Yer a sky pilot.

—There is, though. There’s, like, poltergeists, spectres, wraiths. And there’s this Swedish one, a gjenganger. I don’t think it’s one o them, though. They’d probably have an accent.

—I suppose they would, yeah. Like ABBA.

Pajo nods. —Don’t be, like, afraid or anythin Denny.

—I’m not afraid.

—Well … OK. Good. There’s nothin to be afraid of.

—There’s nothin there at all for fuck sake.

Pajo shrugs. I do feel a bit edgy, though. I mean, out in the middle o nowhere like this, fuck all protection. I saw a sheep’s skull in one o the fields, big empty eye sockets and all its teeth still in place. Fuck that. I turn away from Pajo and look at Maggit.

He’s still readin.

It’s mad that. Maggit readin. Not that he’s stupid or anythin. He’s a canny bastard but he’s not what yid call a scholar. Still, it’s cool all the same, seein him gettin into a book. Lookin forward to askin him about it, actually. Havin a chat like, yeh know? I’ve known Maggit forever but we’re dead dissimilar in loads o ways, and I think we’re driftin. I wonder, sometimes, if we’d still be in touch if I hadn’t o had to come back from Wales. If me ma hadn’t of … like … and if I’d o stuck it out and got a decent job, or a qualification or wharrever. He never rang me while I
was over there. Although I was only gone a few months so I suppose yeh can’t make too much of it.

Me big plans. Off to Wales. Get a job. Get some money and go to university. Meet someone. Someone nice. Didn’t happen. Dunno why I thought it might.

There yeh are, anyway. Must o stepped on a snake somewhere. Slid back to Dublin. Square one. Or Wicklow at this exact moment, which might be square two, or even minus one. Ah sure, details. I’m fucked either way.

Outside there’s a small white bird dartin through the air from tree to tree. I think it’s a lark but I wouldn’t stick money on it. Shane or Gino would know. Gino especially, he’s mad into birds.

Anyway. Busy oul thing, this lark or wharrever it is. Keeps dartin from the trees on one side o the garden to the other, dodgin raindrops. Then onto the roof o the bungalow and a low dip over the grass, dead close to the tent then back to the first tree. I can hear the whirr of its wings. It just keeps doin that, over and over, like it’s castin a spell or somethin. The old woman could be a witch and the lark, or wharrever, her familiar anyway, is layin some strange curse on us, some witch’s hex.

—Lookit that, I say.

Pajo puts down his boot and looks up.

—Wha?

—The bird there, lookit. —The white one?

—Yeah, lookit the way it’s flyin. Watch. We sit there for a few minutes, our eyes dartin after the bird.

—Mad, isn’t it?

—Yeah.

—Maggit.

—Wha?

—Lookit this out here. Wha kind o bird is that?

Maggit closes the book and shifts slightly, the evenin’s dyin light catchin in his glasses. His head and jaw are stubbled. The glasses make him look strange, kind o … I dunno, vulnerable or somethin. Not that I’d say that to him.

He takes off his specs and peers past me and Pajo.

—Where?

—There, look. That white one on the bungalow, on the roof there. See it?

—The roof?

—There, look. Put yer glasses on.

—They’re not fuckin binoculars Denny. Where?

—Look, there. Yid wanna get yer eyes tested again.

I meant that as an observation, the thing about the eye test. As advice or wharrever. But as soon as it comes out of me mouth I know it sounds like I was slaggin him. Maggit looks at me for a second, scopin me out, annoyed, then scratches his ear and sinks back down into his sleepin bag.

—Just sayin man, I say. —I don’t mean like –

—I can’t see the fuckin bird Denny, right? he says, without lookin up. —Poxy fuckin trip.

—Ah c’mon, says Pajo. —Don’t start gettin cranky and, like … yeh know? Relax the cacks, lads. Deep breaths.

I nibble on one o me biscuits and shrug.

—Don’t be so sensitive man, I say, and I wanna say more but fuck it, there’s no point. For a harchaw Maggit’s feelins are very easily bruised. Sometimes, anyway. Other times he’d laugh it off, slag yeh back. Fuckin impossible to
know which road he’ll take. Ah, sure. Rough and smooth, yeh know? Way o the fuckin world, isn’t it? Too right, man. Too fuckin right.

*

It’s freezin and we’re swayin in the semi-dark o the tent, cross-legged and face-to-face like peace pipe smokers, three pale and bony totems grinnin at each other over Pajo’s Euro-Stretcher lamp. I’m absolutely, completely and utterly spaced. I drum me fingers on the now empty biscuit tin. I’d love another Jammie Dodger. Ah well. Our shadows are lurkin behind us, full o mischief and intent, flickerin, shiftin as we shift, dark and stretched second-selves on the tent wall. Goin on about wrestlin for ages, the topic dredged up out o the past — The Undertaker and Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. The mad spectacle, the pomp and lunacy. Undertaker was my favourite, Bret was Pajo’s and Maggit’s was Shawn. I’ve always loved wrestlin — the heroes and the villains and the stories they told with their bodies. The sound o the rain’s heavy now and so’s the hash’s thick sweet smell and outside and above us, all around us, the deep sad sound o the night wind. Maggit and Pajo’s faces are alive with smoke and shadow.
Huckleberry Finn
‘s on me lap. It’s an old copy, used to be me mad uncle Victor’s.

Pajo shifts his weight and farts. It’s dead loud and ripe and fruity. I don’t mind cos Pajo’s farts are basically odourless. Maggit’s are toxic. We launch into a fit o deep and gulpin laughter. Seems like the funniest thing in the world, which is another sign o how far gone we are.

—Fuckin noise o that, says Maggit.

Pajo grins. —It’s about yer posture, like. If yeh tilt a bit yeh can get great ones.

—Is that wha they teach yeah at yer Buddhist classes?

—Nah. Just, like, found out.

I brush a few crumbs off o the book’s cover.

—Wha d’yeh think o the book? I say.

Maggit chews on a mouthful of Garibaldi. He washes it down with a swing from a bottle o wine. He’s still on his detox. He reckons he’s gettin a bit of a belly, which he is, so he’s off the beer. I tried to tell him that detoxin on wine’s not that likely to make a difference when yeh drink it by the bottle but the cunt knows it all, apparently.

—It’s good, he says, noddin at the book.

—Yeah?

—Yeah, yeh know yerself, I’m not really mad on bukes. It’s good.

Pajo reaches over and I hand him the book. He flips it in his hands, his fingers long and pale, and they get me thinkin about somethin else I saw on telly recently; they’re like the vampire’s fingers in Nosferatu, Pajo’s are, that old black and white film. Not as long, obviously. I think they overdid it with Count Orlock’s fingers actually, made him look a bit comical.

Maggit’s chewin on another Garibaldi. He swallows loudly and says:

—Did I ever tell yiz about the time I caught a goblin?

—Wha?

—Did I ever tell yiz about the time I caught a goblin?

—Caught a goblin? Wha yeh on about?

Maggit sits forward and tilts his head, poppin the bones in his neck.

— Yeah, he says. —At this bird’s gaff, like. I was on a bender with Tommy Power and Rochey, few days on the booze and all sorts. We ended up back at this bird’s gaff in Tallaght.

—A goblin. Is this a joke? When was this?

—You were in Wales. Wait and I’ll tell yeh. The three of us were wrecked like, in ruins. Then this bird, this hippy kinda bird like, breaks out the mushroom tea. She picked them herself, Dublin mountains job. Worst thing I ever did, drinkin that tea. Yiz know me and hallucinogenics. Specially cos I was drunk already and full o Red Bull. I lost the head like, ran out the door. This was broad daylight now as well, it was early in the mornin. We’d been up all night. I thought I could hear people talkin about me, slaggin me off, these whispery voices. It was weird, horrible like. Rochey was callin after me from the garden but I was fuckin gone, scarpered. So I ended up in this park I think, out near the mountains yer woman’s house was, fuckin sweatin, freakin out, seein faces in the bushes, these mad demonic faces, eyes and all this, voices in me head, callin me a waster, a loser. Never doin mushrooms again, tellin yeh. So anyway, there I am goin mad and, out o nowhere I see this little fuckin goblin wearin a pair o dungarees standin in front o me, lookin up at me. Swear to fuckin God, now. This little goblin standin beside a bench lookin up at me.