Avoiding the Liminal

By: Mike Guerin The long boreen, down from my house, faces the rising sun and I usually rise with it. There’s always warmth on your face, even on a cold morning. It’s a peaceful walk down to the main road and it’s an easier walk into town now - since the footpath came out to meet my piers. The shop and garage are usually busy with fellas in white vans buying petrol and bits from the deli counter, I’d often get a cup of tea and a breakfast. They have a little nook where you can sit down. The chairs are hard enough that you wouldn’t stay too long though and I doubt it’s by accident - tis all go in this place. A nice way to spend half an hour in the morning though, watching other peoples’ industry. I often walk the length of the footpath in town then, there’s about two miles of it. I’ll stop to talk to anyone who has time in the morning, farmers and sole contractors usually; fellas that have no one to answer to. Other mornings I’d go to the café and have a big breakfast and read the paper, another fine way to pass time.

Pubs are allowed to open at half ten on weekdays (half twelve on a Sunday, but I stay at home on a Sunday as a rule). Only two pubs open in the mornings here, The Twisted Knot, where young blackguards and out-and-out disasters drink, and Big Paddy’s where it’s mostly older fellas with time on their hands. Paddy doesn’t care too much about money. He has the luxury of owning his pub, so he doesn’t have to leave the cross young fellas in like someone who’d be renting. ‘Tis for company mostly he opens and he doesn’t care how much you drink, or don’t drink, as long you don’t ask for tea or coffee, that drives him nuts altogether. I saw him run a gang of yanks a day because they asked for one pint and four coffees, they didn’t know what to make of him, they say the yanks have a steep hill to climb in coming to terms with the drop in customer service standards they encounter here compared to across the water. A lot of people say it’s a symptom of being a post-colonial country, on account of the English, but I often think, as a race, we’re just prone to a bit of ignorance.

I could tell that Big Paddy had big news as soon as I sat down. He bustled over, swinging his polishing rag over his shoulder and leaning close to me on the counter, even though there wasn’t another soul in the place.

‘Con Murphy is dead.’

This was news indeed. Con was a regular in Paddy’s pub and would have been leaving at least a hundred euros there every week. He had been pickled for so long that his longevity was remarkable; he had no heart troubles or liver issues and he didn’t fall asleep in a ditch on a winter’s night only to wake up dead – common complaints amongst career alcoholics.

‘I was talking to Mary and she said he’d have wanted to be laid out here, before he goes to the church, she said this place was more of a home to him than that little social house they gave him.’

I had wronged Paddy, for I had thought that the look of fear on his face related solely to his loss of income, but in fact it was the notion of having the pub in enough order for a removal that had him riled. I tried to be sympathetic to the amount of work involved – which he could not refuse to do. We naturally moved onto more general talk of Con – his wife, his descent into alcoholism, a delicate subject to negotiate when talking to a publican, his daughter Mary who was stuck in everything and his son, who I knew little about. Paddy called him ‘Old Murphy’ and I asked why the son was called ‘Old’.

‘Dhera he was old before his time; he was very serious in school so we gave him the nickname - ‘Old’. He was a fella who couldn’t wait to get out of the place, he’s below in Clonakility - last I heard he was the mayor there. They’re welcome to him though, no craic - and he gave his father no peace. The last time I had the misfortune to meet him he was dragging poor Con out the door there - giving out yards! Disgraceful stuff! Once the mother died, he was gone. He’ll be on I suppose, lording it over us. He might have to be reminded that he’s mayor of sweet-fuck-all here!’

Old Murphy sounded like an intriguing character, twenty years my senior if he was the one-go with Paddy. Paddy didn’t like him but that wasn’t saying much because he didn’t like a lot of people, he stored up slights like jars of pickles at the back of a press, preserving animosities for decades. I was looking forward to meeting a mayor, even if he wasn’t the mayor of anywhere proper; just a big Irish town. I left Paddy’s after two pints; I could hardly make a day of it (a thing I only did once in a blue moon) on account of a fella dying whose sodden mutters I could barely understand. Paddy never had any trouble getting what Con was saying but Paddy was a pro when it came to dealing with sots. Con had seemed personable enough early in a day when you could understand him, but he wasn’t too inclined to talk until he had a skinful and then he was like a fella gargling marbles.

It was a good thing I left when I did because I got to witness Old Murphy’s ignominious arrival. He was a passenger in Bob Keane’s recovery truck which was towing a big fancy car. I sat on a wall and watched the car being lowered as Old Murphy shook his head at it. Old was tall and thin, he had a full head of white hair, a premature greying job. He was wearing a suit that didn’t look like it was for the funeral. When the car was lowered, he went to the boot and pulled out a suitcase, laid it on the ground, extended its handle and started to pull it along in the direction of Shine’s Bar and Bed and Breakfast; an establishment bedecked with hanging baskets and notions. It was funny that he wasn’t staying with his sister. I reckoned I could bump into him easily if I went to Shines, he’d surely be having a pint at some stage of the evening, there’d be nothing on this evening, funeral-wise, as Con Murphy needed an autopsy on account of being found dead in his bed. A waste of time and money really, there’s a lot of formalities out there to keep fellas in state jobs. It was only two o’clock now and Shine’s didn’t open until five o’clock so I decided to go home and eat and sleep. I hadn’t worked in three years since the factory closed. I didn’t miss it especially since I got on the disability for my back. Some fellas can’t handle time on their hands but I’m lucky to have never had that particular problem, I could pass a day looking at a road or sitting on the high stool.

Shine’s was busier than usual when I arrived at six. Small towns should be riddled with dead cats with the dent of the curiosity washing about the place. Mai Shine was over to me before I was even settled on the stool. She was known as the fourth B, but she was perkier and friendlier, to me anyway, than usual.

‘An awful shame about poor old Con Murphy. We have his son staying upstairs. Mayor of Clonakilty. He’s gone years of course. A lovely man, a pure gent. His car broke down and he had to get towed to town, as if he didn’t have enough troubles and he burying his father, of course there’s the autopsy to get through first. I suppose they’ll try to blame the drink but he was eighty-six years of age, if the drink was to blame it would have killed him forty years ago but you can’t tell that to these doctors.’

Mai was being very chatty; nervous about her guest. She was dressed up a bit too. The pub stayed busy with an older crowd, many of them contemporaries of Old. I stopped for a word with several as I went in and out to smoke. Many liked him but some were like Paddy and thought he was up his own hole, but you could put a lot of that down to the unconscious resentment that leavers elicit from those of us who stayed put. He had gone to his sisters for dinner but he wasn’t expected to stay long over there as they had never really gelled. Mary had idolised her father and had never seen him for what he was. She would talk about him with a wry smile, saying things like; ‘You know what he’s like!’, ‘He’s an awful terror!’, ‘You couldn’t be up to him!’ Her fondness for him was barely dulled by his chronic drinking and near constant incoherence. Still and all, the sibling rivalry would mean I wouldn’t have to spend all night in Shines before heading back to Paddy (Paddy’s pints were five cents cheaper) and delivering my report – a thing I knew he’d appreciate.

Old Murphy arrived in the door at eight. His hand was shook and his elbow was cupped as he made his way to the bar. Three different men raised a finger to Mai, indicating a desire to buy Old a drink. He was gracious in accepting the free pint, arguing against accepting just the right amount and making his way over to speak to the purchaser; he had good bar etiquette. He had an hour and a half of that before he ended up next to me and I touched his arm and told him my name and that I knew his father from Big Paddys.

‘Sorry, I didn’t catch you.’

The bar was noisy at this hour and I repeated myself.

‘No, sorry.’

He turned his arse to me at this. I was starting to fall in line with Paddy’s view of him but I thought he could at least give me the respect of leaning in to hear me in a noisy bar, I know he didn’t know me but I knew his father, in a way. I held his elbow gently and tugged slightly and repeated myself again, slower this time.

‘Ah would you just leave it!’

He was giving me a right brush-off so I repeated myself again, louder this time. I was getting a bit cross at this fella’s attitude.

‘Would you just fuck off! I can’t understand a word you’re saying! I’ve enough of my life spent trying to understand drunks!’

That quietened me alright. It quietened a lot of people in Shines. I couldn’t tell whether the frowns and smiles were on my side or his so I got up and left. I had trouble with the door on the way out and there was a few laughing. I wouldn’t be darkening the door of Shines again in a hurry.

The street between pubs is always cold. Always too full of the real, always too full of one’s own self. I was glad to get in the door to Paddy.

‘I suppose you were below in Shine’s with the rest of the town, gawking at Old Murphy.’

‘I was, and I wish I hadn’t bothered, a right highfalutin bollix.’

‘Didn’t I fucking tell you?’

I paid for my pint and sat on the soft bench and let my head back against the rough wall. I was going to drink some whiskey next; it’d be for the best to have no clear memory of the night.