Hayden re-entered the house on the verge of a panic attack. He began talking to himself, discussing his own fear. ‘Nothing has actually happened, but something is about to. This I know. I also know that the something will contain a level of violence I haven’t experienced since my first day at secondary school.’5 How did he know this? He didn’t. It was the panic attack talking. But sometimes, just sometimes, a panic attack knows more than you do. The panic attack expected a visit from the Popes, and it expected that visit soon.
In moments of stress, the tea-making ritual is known to bring an equilibrium of sorts. He’d read that somewhere or other. Possibly a Japanese novel. He put the kettle on, tipped used tea leaves out of the infuser and washed the teapot, Verschiebungly, with shaking hands. He’d just placed a cup and saucer on a tray, one tinkling rhythmically as it made contact with the other, when his mobile rang. Rich. He disliked his agent intensely, but on the plus side, the panic attack wasn’t Rich’s fault. And maybe, just maybe, it was time to go back to London, which at that moment seemed like a distant and much-loved memory, not to mention an unsullied haven of peace. Might be an idea to see what Rich had to offer. Panic attack temporarily over, he accepted the call.
‘Ay.’
‘Dickie.’
‘Rich, Ay. Rich.’ Hayden relaxed. For the first time, it felt good to hear the sound of his agent’s voice. ‘September tour, Ay.’ Hayden perked up. This felt better still. ‘You’ll be supporting –’
Back to worse. Hayden had a position. He didn’t do support on out-of-town gigs. London was different. You went on early, you rushed off to another gig. No pecking order. Out of town was different. Rich knew that.
‘Whoa, Rich. I don’t do support.’
‘Spare me, Ay. Thing is, you’ve been usurped, mate. It’s your generational tectonic-plate-shift type thing. You with support? For ‘with’, read ‘as’. That’s the bad news.’
‘And the good news?’
‘Same line-up. You. Foetus O’Flaherty. In that order.’
Hayden was about to tell Rich exactly what he thought of the tectonic-plate-shift theory of comedy when a loud rap on the front door took his mind off this latest blow to his manhood. He’d been expecting the visit, felt he knew who it was and decided, as a result, to pop out the back way. Pretend he was pruning the statue. That way he might live to make his own dinner.
‘Interesting offer, Rich,’ he said. ‘Got to go, though. I’m just off to stick a pin in your effigy.’
He opened the back door as the kettle entered the penultimate stage of the boiling process, the one where the noise shifts up a gear but the bubbling has yet to start. Two squat men stood blocking his way. He recognised them from the garden. Shaved heads. Tight-fitting suits. Bit like body doubles for each other. They smiled in unison.
‘Psychic or fucken wha?’
The accent was hard. Guttural. Decidedly not Clontarf. Hayden fought the desire to soil himself.
‘The Pope Twins. Jus so ya know.’
A second knock on the front door. The more identical of the twins brushed past Hayden and went to answer it. ‘You can’t be too careful these days,’ he said. ‘Could be annyone.’
His brother in crime pointed at his retreating back. ‘JP,’ he said. He pointed at himself. ‘Benny. Mind if we come in? Good man.’
Probably a rhetorical question, as they were already in. Hayden bowed to the inevitable and closed the back door. His mouth was dry. So were his trousers. He was doing well, all things considered.
‘Nice place, Clontarf,’ said Benny. ‘Wha’s the fucken word? Genteel. Me an JP, we like a bih a genteel. Wha’s this?’
He pointed at the teapot. Hayden located some saliva.
‘It’s a teapot. I was making a pot of tea when you –’
‘Poh a tea. Nice. Haven’t seen one a those in – well, evah. Very – wha’s the word?’
‘Genteel?’ said Hayden.
‘Rhetorical question,’ said Benny. ‘I was abouh to answer it meself. But yeh. Very genteel. An there’s the kettle biled. Away you go, sonny.’
Hayden bridled at the ‘sonny’ bit; he was old enough to be Benny’s uncle. But he said nothing. He scooped three heaped tea-spoonfuls of Assam into the infuser and poured boiling water over it and, because his hand was shaking, over the worktop. Closely watched by Benny.
‘Always a pleasure watchin an artist ah work,’ he said. ‘No need for the cup. I’ll explain when JP gehs back. Hold ih. Serendipiddy alert. Here comes the very man now.’
JP ambled in. ‘Couple a Jehovah’s Wihnesses. Now thass whah I call timin. I told em there was a man here abouh to meeh his maykah. They were del-eerious. Asked me to pass this on.’ He held up a copy of the Holy Bible. ‘Wha’s wih the tea?’
‘He was makin ih,’ said Benny, ‘So I said on you go.’
‘Magic,’ said JP. ‘Any biccies?’
‘I thought we weren’ stoppin,’ said Benny. ‘Anyway, don’t ya have to leh the fuckah brew?’
‘Six minutes,’ lied Hayden.
‘Six fucken minutes? Live an learn, hoh? How long left?’
‘Five minutes fifty seconds,’ said Hayden. Another lie. It was more like four twenty.
‘Five fifty?’ said Benny. ‘We’ll be well gone by then. Thah righ, JP?’
‘Spor on. Okay. Grab a seah. Leh’s do this.’
He gave Eddie’s writing seat a little twirl and motioned Hayden to sit. He sat. The Twins looked down on him almost, you’d be forgiven for thinking, benevolently. Benny’s eye shifted to the table. ‘Wha’s wih the nohebewke?’ he said.
Hayden couldn’t help himself. ‘I’m writing a novel,’ he said.
The twins looked impressed.
‘Brillo,’ said JP without irony. ‘Wha’s it abouh?’
‘Early days yet,’ said Hayden, relaxing slightly into his favourite subject. ‘It’s – it’s a crime novel, actually.’
‘Go on then. Show us a bih.’
Hayden shifted uneasily. ‘It’s still fermenting.’
‘Like the tea, hoh?’
‘Sort of.’
‘So, like, how long to go?’
Hayden looked at his watch. ‘Just over five minutes,’ he lied.
‘I think he meant the bewke,’ said Benny.
‘Oh, that,’ said Hayden. ‘It sort of all depends on the fermenting process.’
JP coughed politely. ‘Can we be in ih, like?’
Benny grabbed the chair excitedly. ‘On’y here’s the twist. We’re the good guys. Cos we’re noh in real life. Wish we were though.’
JP smirked happily. ‘No we fucken don’t.’
‘On’y joshin,’ said Benny. ‘Anothah thing. You know scenes like this. Two baddies, one poor fuck in a chair. How comes the two baddies geh the best lines?’
‘Yor righ there, Benny,’ said JP. He looked at Hayden. ‘Thoughts?’
Hayden thought. Quickly. As if his life depended on it. ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘the victim has other things on his mind.’
‘Could be,’ said JP, thoughtfully. ‘Could be. Hadn’ thought a thah. See? Thass why you’re a wriher an we’re noh.’
‘Each to his own area of expertise,’ said Benny, a line which would have suited a more relaxed Hayden very well. But he felt, on balance, that he might be better advised to go down the good listener route, which gave JP the floor.
‘Speakin a which,’ he said, leaning in till his nose almost touched Hayden’s. ‘Frankie’s garden. You seen nuhhin, righ? Wha did ya see?’
‘I saw nothing.’
Silence.
‘Leh’s try that again,’ said JP. ‘You seen nuhhin, righ? Wha did ya see?’
Hayden was confused.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I saw nothing.’
‘Yor noh listenin,’ said JP.
‘Oh, right,’ said Hayden. ‘I seen nuhhin.’
‘Good man,’ said Benny. ‘Thing is, we’re proud a the vanacular. The homogenisation a local dialectics: thorny subject. How’s thah tea comin on?’
‘Oh,’ said Hayden, ‘not long now. Maybe, what, five minutes?’
‘Care to reword thah? On’y when I first mentioned ih, the clock said six past. Ih now says twelve past. Higher Mahs not yor strong suhe?’
‘It’s – it’s about ready now,’ said Hayden.
‘Excellen-fucken-teeho,’ said Benny. ‘A Plus. Top a the class.’
JP lifted the pot off the tray.
‘So where would you like ih? In the mouh or poured over yor bollix?’
Hayden looked at him, unable or unwilling to formulate an answer. JP paused. A menacing pause. He held it for a long, meaningful moment. Then he put the pot back on the tray and turned to Benny.
‘He seen nuhhin,’ he said, sauntering towards the door.
And Benny sauntered in his wake.
As Hayden watched the Pope Twins leave from the window, strolling in the opposite direction came Detective Inspector Lou Brannigan. They exchanged barbed pleasantries as they passed, without easing the pace. Brannigan paused at Eddie’s gate, glanced up at the house, removed his trilby, and walked up the driveway. Hayden met him at the door.
‘Friends of yours?’ said Lou Brannigan.
Hayden relaxed. There’s nothing like not having your penis doused with boiling Assam to give you a fresh take on the sheer pleasure of being alive. The quips that had been stifled while the Twins were visiting could now be given free rein. ‘Friends of yours?’ didn’t suggest an immediate riposte, but he was ready for repartee. And a nice cup of – aha!
‘They dropped by for a nice cup of tea,’ he quipped. Not bad for an opening gambit.
‘I see,’ said Brannigan. ‘Pot empty, is it?’
‘Au contraire,’ said Hayden. ‘It’s a four-minute brew. They couldn’t wait. Off to murder someone. Or rob a bank. They weren’t specific. Or’ – he was feeling positively skittish now that the pressure on his manhood was off – ‘they might have had designs on some local feline.’ He almost said pussy, but he was better than that. It’s one of the reasons he struggled in his work. Bit too cerebral for the common taste. Unlike Foetus O’Flaherty who, at this precise moment, was wowing a live audience on lunchtime TV6 with his roguish Irish charm and just-the-right-side-of-naughty quipettes.
‘You’ll be referring to the fine lady’s pussycat, maybe?’ said Lou Brannigan.
‘You could read it that way, I suppose,’ said Hayden.
‘Well fair dinkum o’dooleys,’ said Brannigan. ‘You brought the subject up before I did. Because that’s why I’m here. Your Uncle Eddie’s dog, d’ye see?’
‘What dog?’ said Hayden.
‘Don’t play the wide-eyed innocent with me, Mister,’ said Brannigan, wandering around the kitchen like a cop. ‘His bow-wow. Rusty. Will you lookit here. A doggy bowl. A shelf-full of what’s known in the grocery business as dog food. D’ye think the bould Eddie gets down on the floor there and ates the stuff himself?’
‘Eddie is dead.’
‘My apologies,’ said Brannigan. ‘Mea culpa. Sorry for your loss. I forgot. Murdered, wasn’t it? Or have you copped on to yourself yet?’
‘If you mean do I think he fell to his death through natural causes then no, I haven’t.’
Brannigan, suddenly animated, jerked Hayden back onto Eddie’s chair.
‘You’re getting to be a bit of an irritant round these here parts, honey boy,’ he hissed. ‘So here’s the deal. We have reason to believe Eddie’s old pal Rusty has gone native. You rein that mongrel in pronto, or next time’ – he picked the pot of tea up and poured it over Hayden’s crotch – ‘we’ll maybe settle for the ten-second brew.’ Pot half-drained, he clattered it down on the hob and adjusted his trilby. ‘I’ll see myself out.’