Frankie Pope sat, head in hands, on the verge of the shallow grave. His bravado had fled with his brothers. He was now simply a young and broken man.
‘You can’t speak to those people,’ he muttered.
Dottie, or perhaps Florrie, pulled her skirt up and removed a hip flask from her stocking. Hayden was beyond shocked. Frankie Pope as a woman he could take. But his nonagenarian aunts? Stockings? He may even have caught a glimpse of thigh. On the plus side, one stocking, one thigh, one aunt. It could have been six, six and three. Set against that, Eros had closed a very important door in his imagination, and it would probably stay closed forever. Truth to tell, it’s beginning to have the same effect on me, so let’s move discreetly on.
‘Here you are, Francis. For medicinal purposes only.’
Frankie sighed and took a short swig, then sat for some minutes in silence. Eventually he looked up, weary-eyed, and took another swig.
‘I didn’t know Ma went to Bewley’s,’ he said.
The three aunts exchanged a glance.
‘She didn’t.’
‘Oh look, girls. Butterflies.’
‘They’re not butterflies. They’re those little things you get when your eyes go all wonky.’
Maybe it was the wisdom of age, the desire to leave the two young gentlemen alone, or maybe they genuinely collected those little things you get when your eyes go all wonky, but off they tripped through the bracken like spring lambs, wielding make-believe nets.
Hayden removed a pipistrelle bat from his hair and sat on a rock. Frankie Pope took another contemplative swig and sighed deeply.
‘Lucky you lot were around,’ he said. ‘Picnic, was it?’
Hayden laughed. ‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘Scattering the uncle’s ashes.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Uncle Eddie,’ he said. ‘Eddie McGlynn.’
The effect was just as he expected.
‘What? Eddie? As in…?’
‘As in,’ said Hayden. ‘The very same.’
Frankie sighed again. ‘A great man. A truly inspirational man.’ Frankie mulled this over. Hayden felt the twinge he always felt when the subject of Eddie’s greatness came up. The familial pride, and yet – something else. Something he tried to suppress.
‘The thing is,’ said Frankie, ‘Your Uncle Eddie. He understood me.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘He knew what was going on up here.’
Then it all came out. I won’t go into detail because it’s pretty much the experience of everyone led towards a life of crime by social forces beyond their control. Family. Class. Schooling. Interesting point on the secondary school front, though. I went to St. Aloysius of the Little Flower CBS12, so did Frankie. I grew up in Clontarf, Frankie grew up in Killester. I was in the A class. Frankie? Straight into D. See? Social forces. He also happened to get landed with a violent mother, several absent fathers – they never found the bodies – and twelve violent brothers. So how come he alone, of all the brothers, got the brains? Different one of the several fathers is my guess, which would also explain Winston, but I wouldn’t say that to his mother. Gout can turn a mean woman meaner. I just hope that if Big Mags ever comes across a book called Sloot, annotated or not, she opts to read something else. Otherwise, in the argot of the criminal class, I’m fucked.
Back to Frankie Pope. While I’ve been describing his background, Frankie has dealt with specifics:
• A spell in reform school, which is where he first met Eddie, who did some voluntary teaching and awakened Frankie’s love of art.
• A couple of Open University degrees.
• Several spells in detention on behalf of his brothers, courtesy of Lou Brannigan.
• Shrewd investment in the art market, which enabled him to buy a detached house in Clontarf; re-meeting Eddie over the back wall when the latter was collecting windfalls for the latest batch of Sweet Ambrosia.
He’d just got to the bit where Eddie had convinced him to pose for Portrait of a Lady when –
‘Coo-ee, Hayding.’
‘Tree tirty-tree beckons.’
‘Time to remove the urn from its receptacle –’
‘– and spread Eddie while the moon is still up.’
‘The mooooon.’
Rusty, who had been lying morosely in the bracken the whole time, sat up. His good ear twitched. He raised his face to the clear night sky.
‘Owoooooooooooo.’
Hayden checked his watch. The time was tree tirty-one.
Hayden held the urn out, then hesitated. He felt a welling up of emotion. Love. Tenderness. Sorrow. An idolisation of sorts. And something he couldn’t find a word for. Something not quite so loving. Something dark, brooding, clenched. But overriding everything, a deep sense of loss. He lifted the urn skyward, upended it and poured it out to join the elements. The gusting wind changed direction and blew his uncle’s ashes back into his tear-stained face, over his coat, and across his still-damp trousers. Rusty, suddenly rejuvenated, barked noisily, stood next to Hayden and, as if obeying a summons from above, cocked an idle leg. Then he raced off down the hill, turning every few feet to yelp at Hayden to follow.
12 Name changed to protect the guilty.