“That’s a fine boat”
Said a guy sitting on the dock of The Claddagh
My trawler, the Kate
Once a thriving fishing vessel, pollution, foreign illegal boats and, of course, EU directives effectively killed the Galway fishing industry
Stone dead
I had toyed with the idea of selling her, fucking off to Australia like the rest of the young but a chance gig of ferrying tourists to The Aran Islands rescued me
No way was I going to retire on the proceeds but it kept me, forgive the pun, afloat
I loved the sea, like nothing else
Heading out across Galway Bay, the sun just rising, you could believe all kinds of shite
Love
Success
Then come evenings, tying up, the whole ritual of mooring, battening down hatches, made me feel alive, then a stroll up Quay St and pints in Naughton’s
Was that happiness?
Fuck knows
My father had been a captain of a large merchant ship and was known to all as Skip
All I inherited was his nickname, he drank everything else away, had said to me
“’Tis the seaman’s fate to drink”
Right
He talked a lot of other bollocks but mostly, thankfully, I forget it
As I try to forget him
My mother was as they used to say
“On tablets”
Not anything to do with Moses, or even Catholicism
No, it was tranquilisers
Do I blame her?
Yeah, a bit
She left me and my sister to the mercy of a violent drunk
His excuse
“I’ve no work”
Pity the fuck
Years later on a chance rapid view of Judge Judy, as I channel surfed, I heard her say to dead beat Dad
“Can you say, you want fries with your burger?”
Man, I loved that
My sister, never recovering from all the abuse, killed herself on the White Strand beach, it’s really lovely there, picturesque even
She used my father’s merchant navy knife, a long serrated vicious blade, bit rusty then but hey, you make do
Cut her wrists in the correct fashion, she Googled it, then lay down, looking at the waves, her blood making a crescent shape on the sand
Coroner told me
“Took her a while to bleed out”
I stared at him, asked very quietly
“You felt the need to tell me this, why?”
He was filing papers, not once looking at me, said
“Full disclosure”
* * *
Weeks later, I saw him having dinner with a very foxy young lady
Wife/daughter/hooker?
Who the fuck knows
Or cares
I waited until he took a toilet break, came up behind him as he splurged a stream of very expensive champagne piss against the urinal
Hit him twice, fast, hard in the kidneys and he shot forward into the bowl, I leant into him, whispered
“Full disclosure?”
Pause
* * *
I stole his wallet and fuck me, it was jammed with large denomination notes
What were they paying civil servants these days?
I’m not a criminal and I don’t give much heed to the adage, crime pays but I do believe that criminals should pay and the coroner committed the crime of gross insensitivity
I used his money to streamline the engine on the Kate and for a headstone for my sister with the inscription
…full disclosure
I had one close mate
Finn
A wild colonial boy
He had a shock, and I mean shocking in its ferocious redness, of hair and since being an extra on Game of Thrones up north, he’d a full flaming beard
He’d been a shoo-in for Vikings shooting in Wicklow but was so hungover that he burnt out, he did say to the casting guy
“Aren’t Vikings like, supposed to be hungover, generally wasted?”
The guy, all snot and vinegar said
“But they are required to at least be able to stand up”
Finn, not easily discouraged, said
“I can do good pillage and bro, my plunder is a thing of art”
He is not in Vikings
* * *
Finn, if he’d lived in California, would have been your out ‘n’ out stoner
He certainly had the language if stoner words can even remotely be connected to articulation
Dude
Chill
Like (always seeming to end in open-ended question)
And the ubiquitous
In response to direct questions
“I wanna say”
Of course he loved his weed, bongs 24/7
But he had my back, always
A time when I was gradually taking over the boat, my father managed to drag himself from his daily stupor, gave my mother a beating, spat at my sister then headed down to the pier to deal with me
I was near the wheelhouse, bailing water as is a constant part of my trade when he launched, if unsteadily, on to the deck and did that thing that bullies learn in intimidation classes
Make a show of taking their belt off
When you’re a child few gestures hold the horror, terror of that
Even now, the memory can bring a shudder
He snarled, froth leaking from the corners of his mean drunk’s mouth
“You gonna get a whipping now boy”
Finn, below decks, making spliffs, appeared like a wrath of ferocious red fury
Picked my father up like a toy, said
“Dude, you got to like chill”
And threw him overboard
I began to stockpile my mother’s pills, the sleepers
I crushed them and began to add them to a bottle of Crested Ten
My father’s tipple of choice if he had a choice
He’d drink out of a wellington if he had to
I borrowed a car from long-term parking at Jurys hotel
I intended to put it back
On Daddy’s birthday, I said to him
“Get your coat; I have a treat for you”
He growled
“Hope it’s fucking cash”
I showed him the bottle of Crested, said
“A little libation for the trip”
That’s all she wrote
He was in
My mother did her usual gig
Nothing
Nothing at all
As I drove, he nipped from the bottle, cursing every driver on the road
I put on music
“For whom the bell tolls”
Metallica
He near spat
“What’s that shite?”
I said
“That is your knell”
We got to White Strand, the beach looking deserted
Forlorn
A lone heron stood sentry
I stopped the car, produced a flask, said
“This has poitín and coffee”
Plus a wee smidgen of Rohypnol
* * *
Got it from Finn, the walking pharmacy, who inquired mildly
“Dude, you do know this is like, the date rape gig?”
Added quickly
“Not like I’m judging or shite”
I said to my father
“We’ll have this on the sand”
He could give a fuck, long as the booze flowed
He headed off, staggering wildly as the Crested Ten took effect, and he sat/collapsed near the water’s edge
The ocean was coming in fast, high tide in about an hour; I knew from Google maps, I watched him for a moment, feeling nothing
Nothing at all
I pulled on my battered Barbour jacket, near blond in colour from years on deck, grabbed the can of petrol from behind the driver’s seat, headed after dear old Daddy
* * *
He had collapsed right at the water’s edge
I suddenly recalled his manic viewing of a TV quiz show where contestants choose between three coloured doors, prizes varying according to the choice; during this show, my sister and I were literally crushed into silence as he roared at the TV
“Pick the red bloody door moron”
And more in that vein
He looked at me, snarled
“Gimme some of that shite in the flask”
I did
His eyes got wild and I indicated the petrol can, said
“You get three choices
1… I pull off my belt”
Asked
“You remember that action you liked so much, when you beat us, well door one is, I strangle you with said belt
2… Door two is I pour petrol over you and whoosh, you burn like the deepest hurt”
I took out a battered Zippo, had the insignia, Brónach, I flipped the hood to get his full attention then said
“3… Door three is, you lie there and the tide will drown you in about… Hmm, an hour”
He gurgled something and I said
“Think of it like this
1… Red door
2… Yellow door
3… Blue door”
He tried to rise, failed, the water reached his shoes, wetting the ends of his frayed trousers and that tiny thing nearly caused me to abort
I pointed my finger, said
“See, over in the sand there, you can almost still see a crescent shape, that’s where her blood ran”
I flicked the Zippo, said
“Time’s up, I think the yellow door is your best fit”
* * *
Then I met Skylar
Gorgeous, American with a Brit accent
What was not to love?
And I did
Love her
Hard
I was working on the Kate, painting the hull, not long after my Dad’s funeral
A girl approached, in her fine mid-twenties with a wonder of long dark hair, like a ferocious raven and indeed, fierce she would prove to be
Her face was marred by a badly broken nose that appeared to only recently have been slight repaired
Her eyes were dark blue and she had what they call in literary works, a full mouth
She might have been pretty before the nose disaster but she was better than that as she exuded an air of menace and heat
She asked
“You Skip?”
She was wearing those skinny jeans that no one save a Ramone can carry off but she was close
Black biker jacket as is the current trend and ping T with the slogan
#meattoo
I stared at her a moment too long then asked
“Who wants to know?”
Letting a hint of hard granite leak slightly over the words
Saw it in a movie and liked the effect
She laughed, said
“Oh I do like the bad boys”
I said lamely
“I’m Skip”
She studied me for a tense moment then
“What’s a girl gotta say to get a drink?”
I snapped
“Please would work”
So it began
A frenzied dance of pubs, clubs, trips on Galway Bay, and when she finally saw my home, she exclaimed
“Is this like for real?”
The old fishermen’s cottages, you have to be
Of
From
Related
To Claddagh
To have one
I had restored it to its previous look
Poor
Everything white, wicker furniture and precious little of it
I went for the Zen look
“Bare”
* * *
She went by the name of Skylar because of Breaking Bad
She said she grew up in Oakland, California but was educated in London
Thus the curious blend of accents
She was twenty-five and in Ireland to write a book titled
The Galway Girl
Because she said
Gone Girl still had some mileage despite the hundreds of writers who leapt on the domestic noir wagon
So put girl in the title and
Hey
She was in fucking Galway or vice versa so borrow Steve Earl’s song title
What would he do?
Sue?
He didn’t sue Ed Sheeran
Later, after I had bought her a damn wedding ring, and paid rent on a flat for her, plus down payment on a Ford Corsair, I discovered all of the above was false
What was true was she was banging Finn
* * *
Time later, I was more than a little drunk, sitting on the beach near the Kate, had done some lines of coke and it makes me homicidal, that’s why I took it, my right arm was pouring blood from the deep slash I carefully cut into it
A bottle of poitín in my left hand to fuel if possible the maniacal ferocious rage
And a sawn-off shotgun with two shells primed
I had texted both of my mates
Finn
Skylar
Asking them to meet me for a wonderful drop-dead surprise
As I waited, a picture of almost calm, I whistled
What else
Galway
Girl