Ghosts and Lightning Read online

  —Off Tommy, says Pajo.

  I hand it back over, me hand shakin.

  —Mad fuckin stuff, that, I say. —I’m fuckin spaced already.

  —Amateur, says Maggit. His already gaunt cheeks hollow and the tip o the joint glows a deeper orange as he pulls on it. He shakes his head and grins. Sinead takes a drag next. Smoke billows from her nose and she closes her eyes.

  —Jesus, she says.

  Ned looks at her, concerned.

  —Yeh alright love, yeah?

  Sinead nods.

  —Excellent, she says, and smiles a wide, warm smile.

  Sinead hands the joint to Ned. Ned looks at it and hands it to Pajo. I crack open a can and take a drink, leanin back into the cavity-ridden rock behind us.

  —D’yiz know wha happened to it? I say.

  All faces turn to me. I hadn’t planned on sayin anythin; it just popped out.

  —Wha d’yeh mean? says Ned.

  I scratch me chin. It’s bristly. Haven’t shaved in a few days.

  —Em, the Club like. The place was burnt out years ago. D’yiz know wha happened to it?

  —G’wan so, says Sinead.

  —It went up in flames, like. Years ago. It was –

  —Where’d yeh hear this? says Maggit.

  —Just know, I say.

  —G’wan, Denny, says Sinead.

  I take a sip from me can. —OK. So just imagine, right, that the place is still in action, yeah? Yeh get fellas and girls comin up from the city every weekend for dances and gamblin and all this. Exclusive though, it’s not just commoners boppin up here, this is top o the range hedonism, upper classes only like. Anyway … actually, did yiz know this place was named the Hellfire Club cos o some fella called Jack St Ledger?

  Headshakes and shrugs all round.

  —Yeah, well, he was this Satanist fella. He founded this cabal called –

  Maggit laughs.

  —Cabal?

  —Yeah, a cabal. A secret society like. They were called the Hellfire Club and they met up here. They were Satanists supposedly. Although mostly they just came up here and got drunk and high and –

  —So we’re carryin on a grand tradition? says Ned, obviously delighted.

  —Suppose so, yeah. Although these saps were readin the Satanic Bible and all the rest, yeh know? Evokin the Great Horned One and all this shite. So anyway the satanic ties became more and more, like, tenuous or wharrever, as time went on, till all they were doin was comin up here to play cards and dance and ride and wha have yeh. They went like the clappers apparently, with all these mad drugs and that. They were on laudanum and opium, smokin stuff. Injectin cocaine. Everythin.

  —Injectin cocaine?

  Maggit, again.

  —Yeah. They used to do that years ago. Sherlock Holmes did that. And before yeh say, I know Sherlock Holmes isn’t real, but that’s wha he did in one o the books. So it’s all goin grand anyway until one night this scruffy little fella turns up lookin for a game o cards.

  I look round. Everyone’s eyes are on me.

  —Well anyway yer man has money so they let him play. They think he’ll be a piece o piss, just some workin class eejit or somethin after stumblin into some cash. Course in the end he cleans the place out like, he’s fuckin untouchable.

  —So who’s this fella? says Maggit. —Some kind o demon or somethin?

  —Hang on will yeh? Fuck sake. So yer man’s a total pro, yeah? And everyone’s broke in a couple o hours. Course these snobby pricks aren’t impressed with a smelly gobshite beatin them on their home turf so they hold out on him like, tell him to fuck off back to his coal shed. Now, yer man –

  —Coal shed? says Maggit.

  —Yeah. Well wharrever like. His hovel then. Anyway yer man just sits there and takes the insults. Not a bother on him. He just says, I’ll be paid one way or the other, and he gets up and leaves and whumph! The table they were playin on shoots up in flames and in minutes the whole place is burnin. Totally blazin like. The doors and windows are all jammed shut and they can’t get out. The whole lot o them are burnt to death and the place was left like …

  I point at the Club.

  — … that. Just a burnt-out shell.

  —And wha about yer man? The smelly fella? says Maggit.

  —Well, a youngfella and youngwan were comin up the hill, on the very same path we took like, and they saw yer man comin back down. Thing was, he was over in them fields there … the ones with all the rocks and that in them. Treacherous. And he was skippin along, hoppin and jumpin, cool as yeh like. Totally nimble and that. He was …

  I stop. Bollix. I watch me audience, watch them watchin me, wonderin where I’m goin.

  —He was wha? said Maggit.

  —He was … kind o … it was kind o goatish like, the way he was movin. Skippin like. Actually, look … I was supposed to say earlier that someone saw his feet under the table and they were hooves.

  Me moment in the limelight and I’m after ballsin it up. Class, Denny; well done.

  —I knew he was some kind o demon fella, says Maggit. —It was obvious like.

  —Well you can tell the stories next time then Dickens. Yeah?

  Sinead laughs. Ned’s smilin and Maggit’s kind o scowlin, the way he does. I hop up.

  —I’m goin for a slash, I say, as much to flee the scene o me botched tale as to relieve me bladder. There’s a corner in one o the rooms in the Club where everyone pisses. I pass the Goths and duck under the blackened lintel and into the Club. It’s fuckin manky. Beer cans everywhere. Bits o blanket and crisp packets. Totally filthy. The walls are covered in graffiti. So and so loves so and so. Blah-blah was here, such and such a year. Must o seen thousands come and go, this place. DEAD DUBLIN BY NIGHT is scrawled over one o the walls in yellow paint. I head up the scummy stairs and into the big room on the left-hand side. There’s a corner at the front that’s smelly and visibly stained. I walk over and unzip. Splashy-splashy. There’s a window next to it and I can see Ned and Sinead and Maggit and Pajo sprawled out on the blanket in the deepenin dark. Sinead’s drinkin a mug o Slimfast. Smoke’s curlin up from the new joint in Pajo’s hand. And there’s Dublin again, spread out in front o me. Looks tiny, really, when yeh can see all that water out there as well.

  I’m a bit unsteady on me feet from the drink and the smoke. Bit frazzled, like. Makes the shadows seem somehow full. And then out o nowhere I feel a kind o chill on me. Like somethin’s in the room with me. Visions of a runty, hairy face. Clip-clop on the stone floor and music somewhere behind it. Me spine comes alive and I turn and piss onto me runners.

  Nothin there.

  Fuck.

  Stories though, man. The way they work on yeh. They’re a kind o spell, aren’t they? Or a prayer, maybe, some o them. An article o faith. How the fuck else can yeh make sense o things, like? Yer fucked without them. There has to be meanin. It’s not just all fuckin … like … evolution or wharrever. Cells and impulses. There’s got to be stories as well. This happened and then this happened and then this happened. And it all meant this.

  It all meant this.

  *

  We get utterly wrecked in the lengthenin shadow o the Hellfire Club. By the early hours o the mornin Dublin’s a puzzle o tiny lights in a sea o nothin below us. Everyone’s in ruins, dead to the world. The teenagers are long gone. The Goths got pissed off with our singin and scarpered an hour or so ago. It gets cold — freezin, like — so we head into the Club. I wrap Ned and Sinead in the blanket and they fall asleep like one big bulky two-headed creature. Pajo follows me and snuggles up beside them like a pup.

  —I’m wasted, says Maggit, back out beside the rock. —I’m a fuckin loser. I’m a loser, Denny. Amn’t I? A complete fuckin cunt, a sad fuckin sack o shite.

  —Shurrup, I say, and lead him upstairs, the two of us slurrin and stumblin. I plonk him down in a corner under the window.

  —Night, night, I say.

  He’s frownin in his sleep.

  I make me way int
o the other room. The one with the spine o the ancient chimney. So dark, here. Me head’s spinnin. There’s a draught whooshin down the flume, clean and cold. Patchouli. And then I get that feelin again, me spine hoppin. I knew I would, somehow; knew this feelin would come back. I stand there, for ages it seems. Dunno wha the fuck I’m doin. I press me face to the wall and close me eyes. I run me palms along the bumpy, grimy stones, then turn round in circles and laugh and come back to the chimney, sink to me knees on the shitty cruddy ground, compelled, and peer up the flume … up, up and into the inky tunnelled blackness above me. Stars in a small blue-black square. Smell of old soot and coal. Jesus, can yeh imagine wha it would have been like, burnin to death here all them years ago? Fuckin horrific, man. Faces slidin from skulls. Skin bubblin and cookin. Hoofs clip-cloppin outside.

  I turn on me phone and it says that I have two more missed calls. Both from Shane. I can’t believe the fuckin prick is actually tryin to throw us out. Shane and Gino, it’s like … It’s like there’s somethin wild in them. Some mad and ancient impulse. Even now that they’re older and they’ve wives and jobs, it’s still there. They were mental when they were younger. Proper lunatics. Shane was always a bit more savvy and Gino that much more savage, but the two o them were off their heads.

  Probably the worst of it was over Gino’s foal. I was about twelve at the time. I was arsin round in the fields on me own. There used to be loads o fields like that years ago. I knew Gino’s mare was after havin her foal and I wanted to see it. I remember marchin through high grass and duckin under barbed wire and cuttin the heads off thistles with the swish of a branch I broke off a dead tree. In me mind I was miles from home and years ago, in some older Ireland. Those fields went on for miles and miles — they might as well have gone on forever. I passed a burnt-out car with the door hangin open like the broken wing o some huge and squat mechanical bird. After years o wanderin I found the field I was after. The horses were at the far end, a huge oak tree above them. I marched up and they whinnied and shifted their weight and then I saw it. The foal. It was dead. Its mother was standin over it, nudging it, and it was dead and shorn of its mane and tail and covered in all colours o paint and there was a steel rod skewered through its eye. The sun was castin a shadow across it like a sundial and it said three o’clock. Three o’clock, past the time me ma told me to be back for me dinner although that didn’t matter anymore. It took me a while to realise I was cryin.

  I was still cryin when I told Shane. I don’t know how they found out who did it. I don’t even know if they were sure themselves. Shane and Gino got their mates together. They said I had to come with them. Me da knew what they were up to. I remember it in snatches after that. Gino slappin the hurley against his palm, the same one he left in the house a few years ago, tellin me that, even though I was fuck all use in a scrap, someone had to have a weapon in the house. I was still wearin me Undertaker T-shirt and me shorts from earlier that day and I was shiverin with cold or fear or both. The first fella wasn’t at home but they found him at the corner by Finches and I could smell the vinegar off his chips. A few of his mates tried to jump in but this was Shane and Gino and mad Philip Butler who could lift concrete slabs over his head, and they left them layin. The fella said he didn’t do it but it didn’t matter, he probably did, his chips scattered on the path and mashed into the ground. They pulled him after them through the estate and Philip Butler banged on a door. A fella answered and Gino punched him and dragged him out by the hair. His face was red with blood, his nose smashed.

  They dragged them to the fields. They were me brothers and me brothers’ mates but they were fuckin terrifyin; heads shaved close to their skulls and their hurleys lyin against their shoulders and all o them dead quiet. The two fellas were cryin, blubberin tears and snot and blood. I was thinkin fuck this fuck this run the fuck away and Shane put his hand on me shoulder and looked at me and I walked on. We passed the burnt car in the dark.

  They brought them to the top o the field and the horses stood and parted and cantered away. The fella from outside Finches fell to his knees and started screamin and shoutin and Philip Butler brought his fist down on him. Gino walked up to the other one.

  —Yeh sick fuckin cunt yeh, he said. —Yeh fuckin –

  And then the kicks and punches rained down and I thought I was gonna faint but I didn’t. I thought about the shadow on the dead foal and of all things the smell o vinegar and I watched it happen, watched the event that’d become Cullen myth, a story told but not fully believed but I was there, a child and a proof and I watched and felt me underpants dampen with piss, watched them pull the lads’ shirts over their heads, their chests heavin and skinny-pale as they tore the boots and jeans off them and shaved them bald, their nakedness complete except the paint that Shane slopped onto them, oozed into their eyes and ears and mouths, mixin green and red and then up stepped Gino and out came the time-tellin bar — a pain for a pain, a hurt for a hurt and their screams in the dark like shocks o sheer white, sheerest, purest white — and I turned and ran and ran and ran forever.

  *

  There’s someone here. Jesus, I fell asleep on me fuckin back, the night sky in the flume above me. There’s someone … I can fuckin feel it. For real; in the dark. I think o me da in his armchair and the boundin devil that burned this place years ago and for a second they’re one and the same. It’s a mental, horrible thought — me da sittin in the dark, grinnin, his face twisted and malevolent. This is it, man, I’ve totally fuckin lost it. I’ve –

  —I am meeting skinny Santa Claus, no? You bring me presents?

  I scramble onto me arse as a laughin face bends down towards me.

  —Are you OK, man?

  The voice is odd, otherworldly. Whoever owns it squats down beside me. There’s an exhalation o sharp, minty breath.

  —I didn’t mean to scare you, man.

  The shadow puts a hand on me shin. I jerk me leg away.

  —You like parties, man?

  —Wha?

  —You like to party? Listen man, don’t freak out.

  The shadow stands and walks back to the window. Or dances rather, its head noddin. It holds up its hand and gestures at the night outside the window.

  —Listen man. You like it?

  I can hear voices outside the Club, talkin and singin and whoopin. The shadow laughs and stamps its foot, throws out an arm, arched, a spectral matador. I can see fireflies — nah, they’re sparks — sparks and rags o flame tumblin upwards, past the window, twistin into the night. Wha the fuck kind o music is that? Singin and wild fiddlin and a guitar bashed rhythmically; a crazy, intoxicatin blend o punk and Cossack folk.

  The shadow twirls against the window, hummin. Then it walks back to me, holds out its hand. I take it and it hauls me up and pats me on the shoulder.

  —I didn’t mean to scare you man.

  —Yeah, I say, wantin to say more. The arse o me jeans and the back of me shirt are cold, slightly damp.

  —You wanna join?

  —I’m here with mates, I say, as a kind o veiled warnin; like, don’t fuck with me, I’m not alone.

  —Take a look, man, says the shadow. It gestures for me to come to the window.

  —Look.

  I follow him and peer out the window, me palms on the ancient frame, the stones cool, slightly lumpy. Our fire is huge and bustlin, and there’s a small crowd o people round it, dancin and drinkin and playin. I can see the fiddle player, an oldish fella wearin a flat, multicoloured cap, his face lit up by the firelight. A woman with pinned-up black hair is sittin on a rock, a djembe between her thighs, slappin out a wicked, drivin rhythm, her grinnin face to the purple sky. Men and women are stampin their feet, clappin. Two men with red hair are playin guitar. They look identical.

  —Look, says the shadow again, pointin.

  Pajo’s down there, a small, thin shape with his lank green fringe plastered behind his left ear, cheeks hollowin as he sucks on a cigarette. He’s tappin his feet and noddin his head, gaunt an
d smilin, lookin completely at home.

  —Your friend is a funny guy, says the shadow.

  —Yeah, I say again. —He’s wired to the moon. His name’s Pajo.

  —You want to party?

  —Yeah.

  Why did I say yeah? This is fuckin surreal, man. Fuckin hell.

  —I’m Andriy.

  He holds out his hand. We shake. His grip is light and he tickles me palm with his fingertips as he draws his hand away.

  —I’m Denny.

  —I know man. Your friend said to me. You OK?

  —Cool, yeah. Bit spaced like. I’m not dreamin am I?

  —No. You a somnambulist?

  I shake me head.

  —Well then, you’re not dreaming. This is a great spot, says the shadow. —You been here before now?

  —Nah. Well, actually … yeah, sorry. Few times. Gets a bit … like … crowded in the city, yeh know? Yeh feel like yer trapped in or somethin? Ever get that? I feel fuckin stuck.

  Jesus, wha the fuck am I on about? Givin him me fuckin life story here.

  Andriy nods. —Look, there’s always a way out man. There’s traps on the streets, you go underground. Yeah? Traps in your room you go through the roof. You know? You get out man. Simple. Just get out.

  —Yeah. Spose.

  We walk downstairs, me pattin the walls, Andriy seemingly unhindered by the dark. I pass Maggit on the way — he’s still asleep, wrapped up in me green sleepin bag, a huge caterpillar with a man’s dreamin head — and Ned and Sinead, who’re sleepin as well, in the corner. I step out o the Club, duckin under the low, lopsided lintel, and Pajo and a woman in a loose, blue wool jumper turn round and hold up their hands, yellin. A clean breeze hits me.

  Andriy takes a few steps forward, twirls and bows.

  —This is Denny, he says, his arm held out in my direction. People cheer. One o the redheaded men hands Andriy an acoustic guitar covered in stickers and graffiti. Andriy takes it and starts to play, slappin the guitar rather than strummin, skippin on the spot and a hum buildin deep in his throat, findin words I don’t recognise. The old fiddler picks up the rhythm, then the djembe player. People link arms and kick out their legs, dancin. Andriy stalks through the crowd and someone hands me a bottle o Tiger. I look at it, the amber liquid, the tiny bubbles, then lift it to me lips and drink and dance, dance and drink, the night long and manic, full o mad voices and mad rhythm and Andriy at the centre always, clappin and playin and howlin and laughin, his eyes bright and a stream o songs and stories on his lips; people, places, crazy getaways and doomed and drunken loves. The huge dark around us a nothingness complete and we go through it, through the roof of the night sky, bottle after bottle, dance after dance, this night unending.