Knick Knack Paddy Whack by Ardal O'Hanlon

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'Bangers, five for fifty. Get your bangers, sparklers and stinkbombs. Five for fifty, the bangers, love!'

A crowd of oul' toothless women hawking in harmony. Selling contraband fireworks from deep inside their knickers for Bonfire Night.

The rain was bucketing down at this stage. Some chance of those bangers going off, love, I thought to myself. Damp squibs. It was torrential altogether. McKenna and myself were standing in the doorway of some art gallery not saying a word. Hands in the pockets, fingering a couple of rings, my rucksack on the ground. He only had a plastic VG bag. That was all he had to his name, no coat or nothing, no family, no friends. Soaked to the skin, shivering, sleeves of his jumper pulled down over his hands. There were about twenty others waiting for the last bus to Castlecock. Some of them looked vaguely familiar, to be avoided like the plague.

I had a few days off for Hallowe'en so I decided to go home. As a matter of fact, from now on I'll be going home every weekend because I fuckin' hate Dublin. It can be a very unfriendly place, so it can. A couple of weeks ago, I was coming out of a chip shop with a bag of chips and this fella comes along and karate kicks the chips out of my hand for absolutely no reason, and then he says to me 'Are you startin'?' and I says to him, 'No, I'm not startin'!' and off he went.

Francesca, my girlfriend, was on her way to her mother's below in Wicklow for a few days. Her mother wasn't at all well and depended on Francesca. Personally, I think she should have been in a home. However, the old lady ran a pub in this wee village there on her own ever since the father died. As far as I know he had been his own best customer for years but Francesca never talks about him. She just says 'oh him' and throws her eyes up to Heaven. The pub had been for sale this good while but unfortunately there were no takers. And I'm not surprised either because to be perfectly frank it's a kip. I was down there myself on New Year's Eve when the mother was away visiting her sister in England. I went down to help Francesca behind the bar. Balls came too and between us we drank the place dry. Jaysus, it was deadly crack. By the way, in case you're wondering about her name, Francesca has no Italian blood in her whatsoever or indeed no exotic connections although she does look sort of Oriental. Her surname is Kelly and she was called after a great horse in the sixties. I think that's one of the reasons why she won't talk about her father. She hasn't forgiven him for that. There's a faded photo of that horse crossing the finishing line at the Curragh hanging above the bar to this very day. And I'll tell you one thing, old man Kelly must have won a lot of money on 'Francesca', that's all I can say, enough to buy the pub anyway.

We've being going out with each other on and off for just over a year now but lately we haven't been getting on too well. In fact, we had a fierce argument during the week. She was annoying me so much, I could have killed her. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do love her, I do, even though she's tiny and uncooperative. She's very cute altogether. I have never seen facial skin as silky and pure as Francesca's, not even on a baby or a china doll or a bowl of Angel Delight touched up by a child's spoon. I could safely say that she'd have absolutely no need whatsoever for Nivea Cream or any of those top-class lotions. I'm not saying she's the best-looking girl in the whole world but she certainly has the smoothest, most unsullied face. No spots, no moles, no broken veins, no colour, no make-up, no warts, no hair, not so much as a trace of down, not a blemish apart from the tiny indentations on either side of her nose where her glasses rest. It is a lovely wee face framed by straight black hair parted in the middle a bit like Sabrina's from Charlie's Angels. But I've had enough of her. I can't explain it, it's just, I don't know.

I was trying my best to ignore McKenna when a well-organised shower of tramps swooped down among us and started pestering us for money. The dirty bastards. Most of the bystanders escaped by back-backing into the gallery behind them. It was probably the first time in their lives they ever saw a painting, the fucking culchies. I stood my ground and stared straight ahead like a guard outside the courthouse during a terrorist trial. My father was in the guards before he died. So I know what I'm talking about. I applied, myself, for Templemore last year but they said I was too small, a quarter of an inch too small. Some friends of the oul' fella were going to see what they could do, apart from stretching me, but I haven't heard anything in a while. In the meantime, I left home and moved to Dublin, and last December I got a job as a security man in a jewellery shop. I've been there ever since. I'm plainclothes.

Anyway these winos were trying to wind me up with threats and abuse but they were only wasting their time. It was just as well for them that Geoghegan wasn't here or, God forbid, Shovels. They'd have put manners on them. McKenna of course the little cowardly cunt ended up giving them a pound.
Just then a pair of guards on the beat came into view. The tramps scampered, the street-traders pushing prams scampered, half of Dublin scampered as if they all had something to hide. And you can be sure most of them did too, the ignorant fuckin' Jackeen cunts. Every last one of them. They'd rob you blind, poke the eye out of your head, take the shirt off your back, blow their noses in it, and then probably rape you in a van. And they think they're fuckin' hilarious, 'how's your snowballs?' and that type of thing. I fuckin' scampered too, just in case, into the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery behind me. The staff in there, most of them as old and motionless as the exhibits themselves, in their wee green blazers, must have thought there was a sudden but short-lived upsurge in interest in portraits of poncey squires in breeches. I'd like to take this opportunity to assure them that there wasn't.

Bangers went off as darkness collapsed like dodgy scaffolding over the rush hour. Loud cracks everywhere, like pistol shots on TV. Thousands of people, heads down, hurrying on the wet footpath towards the bank holiday weekend, half anticipating a bomb. I wouldn't have been surprised if one of the sellers exploded like a Calamity Jane or whatever you call those rockets - Catherine wheels I think it is. I wouldn't care either, the oul' disease-ridden hags. There'd be a drop in crime levels on the morning of the funeral if her bastard offspring took time off to mourn.

Eventually O'Reilly turned up carrying a step-ladder but by then the next bus had arrived and I was on it and the bus was full. You weren't allowed to keep seats and O'Reilly was furious.

'Why didn't you keep me a seat, Scully, you cunt ya?' If there is one thing I hate it's people talking loudly on a bus. The whole bus craning for a gawk. The woman beside me was very embarrassed, very.

'Fuck off, wouldya?' I hissed, 'I was waiting for over three-quarters of an hour.'

'It's not my fault I'm late. I had to go back to the flat to pick up this. I was supposed to bring it home months ago.'

He had borrowed the step-ladder from his father a good while ago so as he could paint the flat, well our room anyway. It had been extremely drab and stained with damp and fungus and the evidence of a food fight. But what did the bastard do to make up for that? Only paint it black, I swear to God, ceiling and all. There was no window in the room so Balls sketched a window-frame in the same silver paint he'd recently done his bicycle with and filled in the four imaginary panes with yet more black paint. 'Sure we're only ever here at night,' he explained. We had no heat either. There was an old superser all right that had no gas tank within. The only heater in the whole house was hollow that is to say except for a few blankets that Balls had left inside it. And whenever anyone called around and said, 'I'm fuckin' freezin' hi!' Balls would open the back of the superser as if to turn it on and throw a smelly blanket at the visitor. He thought that was hilarious, he was an awful messer. One night when we were all shivering like mice, he painted orange flames on to a sheet of paper and placed it in the fireplace. And I know it's a stupid thing to say but we did actually feel a bit warmer.

We shared a ground-floor flat in the middle of a Georgian house in Rathmines that had been converted into about a hundred flats with a fella from Wexford, a courier by the name of Dermot Geoghegan whom I mentioned earlier. He was a serious man, always looking for trouble. It was a dingy enough place but cheap. Unfortunately there were only two bedrooms, one for Geoghegan and one for the pair of us. Mind you, O'Reilly was out with his college crowd half the time so it wasn't too bad. I had the room to myself. His real name is Xavier and I think he was studying Media Studies or some shite. He is called Balls on account of his nerve. There was nothing he wouldn't do, especially if he had a few pints on him. For example, he was always taking his lad out in the pub, anything for a laugh. Always acting the maggot. By the way, it's not as if his parents were in a hurry for the ladder. They own a fuckin' hardware shop.

Seeing as there were no seats left, O'Reilly had to stand in the aisle the whole way home. It served him right although it was a pity in a way because we could have had a bit of crack. The bus was very damp and thick with cigarette smoke. I would say that everybody on the bus was smoking except me. I hate smokers. Francesca takes the odd one knowing my attitude full well. My father promised me a hundred pounds if I didn't drink or smoke before I was eighteen. I was only about five or six when he made the promise and a hundred pounds sounded like a lot of money back then. It is fuck all now that I'm nineteen. Daddy if you can hear me you owe me fifty quid, I don't smoke.

The bus was cramped. It was irresponsible in my opinion and probably illegal to transport that amount of people at the same time. We were squashed in like pigs. And I couldn't believe the amount of luggage some people take with them. I mean I've seen pictures in books of Third World transportation and I know the way they carry on over there. People hanging off the sides and goats and hens on board as well as the contents of entire homes. But this is Ireland in the latter half of the twentieth century and economic circumstances are different. To the best of my knowledge there was no livestock on the bus apart from a goldfish in a plastic bag some fella was bringing home as a present. But there were rucksacks and step-ladders as I have already mentioned, suitcases and hold-alls, cardboard boxes and plastic bags, ironing boards, pots and pans, a television set, a metal dustbin, wickerwork, sleeping bags full of dirty clothes, tons and tons of personal possessions, presents, household goods. There was no room to move or even breathe, wedged in as we were by the damp bric-a-brac of these temporary migrants. Every space was occupied, overhead and underfoot. They were like a bunch of ants humping scraps back to the hill for inspection and I know all about ants. The flat is infested with them.

Anyway, I fell asleep on the bus despite the fact that I was very agitated as it bumped and lurched out of the city. I nearly always did. It was the driver's Charlie Pride tape that put me to sleep, not that I mind Charlie Pride. In fact I think he's very good. Balls called it dreary old country shite and put on his Walkman to listen to some fuckin' noise he picked up in college, Simple Minds or some shower of cunts' like that. That was Balls, always trying to be up-to-date.

The driver was a great character, a wee oul' fella who shouldn't have been allowed to drive a Ford Anglia never mind a bus, forever laughing and joking. He has one of the filthiest, dirtiest tongues I ever heard in my whole life.

Sometimes if the bus wasn't too full I'd sit up beside him for the crack, seeing as how he was a neighbour of mine. In every single town we went through on the way home, he'd point out a road or a street or a tree where he said he'd rode some woman in the past. Or he'd indicate a spot on the side of the road where he'd picked up a hitch-hiker who later sucked him off when he used to be a lorry-driver. He was full of shite. I used to collect the money from the passengers for him now and again in exchange for free transport, but not today. No, I was going to enjoy a good snooze if the woman beside me would ever shut up.

She'd been trying to start up a conversation ever since we left the city. Every time she caught my eye she'd smile shyly, a wee dumpy woman in a pink jumper she'd knitted herself, big daisies on the front. It looked like something she'd got off the wall of a children's classroom. A librarian I'd say. An intellectual of some sort anyway. She was reading a Maeve Binchy blockbuster. But unfortunately for me she wasn't buried in it. She'd read a few paragraphs and then look dreamily out of the window or sigh to herself. Before long she-put the book down and started to make those preliminary noises people make before deciding what they're going to say. Composing her thoughts.

'Would you like a sweet, Patrick?'

'No thanks!'

How the fuck did she know my name? I looked down to see if I was still wearing my name tag on my breast pocket but I wasn't. However I was going red, red as a beetroot, a cluster of needles under each armpit.

'How come you know my name?'

'I went to school with your sister Valerie. Deirdre Freeman's my name. Are you sure you won't have one?'

'I will so.' Anything to keep you quiet, I thought to myself. They weren't sweets either, Zubes, they were, cough sweets from a tin that'd make you choke.

'How come Francesca's not with you?' That took me by surprise. She knew all about me and Francesca, where I worked, the guards, Balls, the whole lot. She must have been studying for an exam on me: The Life and Times of Patrick Scully. That's just typical. People you've never met before know everything, well nearly everything. I worked it out in my head that one sweet would get her five minutes of chat and five minutes only but she was far too clever for that. Deirdre Freeman had a big bag of sweets, a sackful between her legs which contained every type of chocolate bar and can of soft drink and enough crisps to power a playground. The Zubes, I suppose, she'd explain to herself were some sort of medicine, not really sweets at all, an antidote to the sweets. Lozenges to reduce the guilt.

'They're for my nieces and nephews,' she said. 'For Hallowe'en,' she added unnecessarily.

It turned out she wasn't a librarian at all but was in the civil service. Worked in the dole office on Thomas Street. In fact she told me she'd seen Plunkett McKenna in there that morning making a claim, the sly pointy-eared little bollocks. If there is one thing I can't stand it's people ripping off the State. She lived about fifteen miles the far side of Castlecock, in Dooshatt, and was engaged to be married. That, I have to say, came as a bit of a surprise. I had put her down as shelf material without a doubt.

'Would you like a fag?'

Fuck sake. She must have known I didn't smoke.

'No thanks, Deirdrel'

'Do you mind if I smoke?'

'No.' I could hardly fuckin' breathe. After a while, she put the fag out and stopped talking too. Wonders will never cease. I thought, good, a bit of peace and quiet. But no, she starts to hum. It was driving me insane. The humming went on until she fell asleep just as we were coming into Slane. By then the chatter on the bus as a whole had quietened down to a murmur but visibility remained low due to the smoke. The Charlie Pride tape was obviously damaged because it sounded as if a monster was singing in slow motion. Nobody noticed the difference. It seemed to me that the majority of passengers were still smoking in their sleep. I looked around to see Balls fast asleep standing up with his head resting against the overhead rack, a fag dangling from his mouth too. It wouldn't have surprised me to find the driver sleeping too. I eventually fell asleep myself, only to wake up about five minutes later to find Deirdre's head in my lap dribbling on to my good trousers. I was mortified in case anybody thought she was my girlfriend. So I lifted her head up in my hands and pushed it against the window. With a bit of luck, her syrupy spittle would glue her to the window-pane.

About ten miles from home the bus came to a juddering halt behind a line of traffic. We couldn't see what was going on because all the windows were steamed up but Balls said it was probably an accident. I thought it might be roadworks but Balls insisted it was a crash. He could be very stubborn. Mind you I thought I could make out a flashing blue light in the distance. So anyway myself and Balls and a few other passengers got off the bus to investigate. It was an accident all right, as Balls very quickly pointed out. What happened was, about a half a mile further on, another bus had veered off the road and plunged into a field. There were a couple of ambulances in attendance, a fire brigade and a few squad cars.

'That's a serious amount of blood boy.'

It was McKenna of course, the nosey bastard, first on the scene. He must have sprinted ahead of us.

'Howarya Spock, what happened?' says O'Reilly. For some reason, he always called McKenna, Spock. And to this day I have no idea why.

'The bus was overtaking a car on the corner, it looks like she skidded, went right over the ditch boy.'

'Anyone killed?'

 'Aye there was, a woman. A woman was killed boy.'

'Was she local?'

Somebody butted in and said she was one of the butcher's daughters, Carolan. I knew the Carolans well, neighbours of mine. Our dog stole a cooked chicken from their shop once. We discussed it for a while on the side of the road in the rain and came to the conclusion that it must have been Mary. She was the only one of the Carolans who worked in Dublin. A secretary I think in a dental practice. Very sad altogether.

'I used to go out with her,' says Balls.

Of course he did. There wasn't a woman in the town he hadn't been with at one time or another. I don't know if he got the ride or not. I doubt it. in fact I don't think he ever got the ride off anyone. If he did I don't think I would have heard the end of it.

'Ten badly injured, a lot of them in shock boy.'

Thanks for the update you cunt.

A reporter for the Dundalk Democrat came over to us just as the ambulance was pulling away. People were jumping into their cars as fast as they could, slamming the doors shut and speeding away, not to make up for lost time as you might think. No, it was so as they could follow the ambulance in a convoy to its final destination. That was the thing to do in our part of the country. As soon as a fire engine or an ambulance or a police car or even an ice-cream van made an appearance, people stopped whatever they were doing to follow it. It was very important you see to know what was going on, to be first with the news. In an impoverished town where fuck-all happened, gossip was gold dust.

'Any witnesses?' the reporter says.

'I was on the bus,' pipes up McKenna. Typical. Always wanting to be the centre of attention. He didn't tell him it was a different bus he was on that arrived about three-quarters of an hour after the accident.

Myself and Balls left him there to enjoy his moment of glory and went back to our own bus. I thought to myself, I could just as easily have been on the bus that crashed. I was in time for it and all only I waited for Balls. Just as well I waited for Balls. They might be all talking about me now in hushed tones. 'Scully, from the town.' 'Not Patrick Scully, the guard's son.' 'Aye, the same.' 'Oh no.' 'Oh yes. The poor mother, her nerves are bad enough as it is." She'll be destroyed.''And he was such a good footballer too. He was. 'The Lord works in mysterious ways.'

By the time I got back to the bus, everyone was talking about the crash.

'Anyone hurt?'

'One of the Carolans from the Hill was killed.'

'Oh God!' 'That's terrible!'

'Lovely girls, the Carolans.' And so on.

The mood was quite different for the remainder of the journey, a mixture of shock and excitement. People couldn't wait to get home to tell their families the news.