Hayden stood alone in the sitting room. Well, apart from the three aunts, who looked out the front window and giggled with girlish glee.
‘Mass every morning, Hayding? We tink not.’
‘And all that guff about blemishes. Sure we’re covered in blemishes, Hayding.’
‘We were up for gun running in the tirties.’22
‘To be fair, that was before his time, but he’s way off beam on the character front.’
‘We mean to say, what sort of training do they give police bobbies these days at all?’
‘It’s no wonder the country is –’
‘Language, Dottie. He’s at an impressionable age.’
But Hayden wasn’t listening. Again. He was routed, his humiliation complete.
‘Ah, will you look at the little face on him. Poor Hayding.’
‘I suppose he’ll want to know what really happened now.’
‘Mind you, we don’t know.’
‘On account of the dementia.’
Their little heads bobbed mischievously.
‘Or do we?’
Hayden closed his eyes, shook his head wearily, and finally swallowed the nut. It was the last thing he’d eat for several days.
Seconds later, Hayden opened his eyes. The three aunts stood in a row facing him, their six tiny eyes trained on his.
‘This is pretty heavy duty stuff, Hayding.’
‘Maybe you’d like to sit down.’
Hayden bridled. ‘I’ll stand, if it’s all the same with you. I can take it.’
‘That’s all very well, Hayding. But can we?’
‘We’ve been getting cricks in our necks ever since you started your pontifications.’
‘You must be what? At least five tree.’
‘Five feet nine and a half,’ said Hayden. The if-you-don’t-mind was implied in his tone. He sat down.
‘Good boy.’
‘You always were a good boy under all that braggadocio.’
‘And the holier-than-thou stuff in your twenties when dialectical materialism was de rigueur wit the pseudo-intellectuals. Not to mention – but that can wait for happier times.’
‘Here’s the nub of the ting, Hayding. We were up to no good.’
‘We can’t remember any of it on account of the dementia, but sometimes we get little flashes.’
‘Hold on, girls, I tink I’m getting one now.’
‘Me too. Don’t say me tree, Florrie, or I’ll burst you.’
‘Dottie, if you don’t mind. We knew you were going trew the tapes, Hayding, so we popped in when we tought you’d be asleep and took the incrimulating one.’
Hayden was on his feet again. ‘The incrimulating one? You mean –’
‘We do mean, Hayding. The one that incrimulates.’
Dottie – could have been Dodie – took a reel-to-reel tape from her handbag and slotted it back on the tape shelf.
‘However, we took the liberty of transferring it to the latest gadgetry.’
‘Modering technology, Hayding. Little hobby of ours.’
They produced a small state of the art doodah. I’m not up on these things myself, but when they switched it on! The sound! Mono recording, Sensurround effect. You know, that thing you get in the cinema when you’d swear the baddie was behind you.
Hayden sat down again and swallowed hard. Were the three aunts about to confess to murder, that most heinous of crimes? What would he do if they did? Shop them? The other inmates wouldn’t last five minutes if they were banged up with this lot.
They set the small gadget down on the table and beamed reassuringly at Hayden. He didn’t beam back.
‘This is the edited version, Hayding. Location: Eddie McGlynn’s domicile.’
‘We cut the toilet breaks.’
They pressed play. Two voices. Both incredibly drunk. Hayden recognised them immediately.
EDDIE: Go aisy on the drink there, son. It’s not a competition. Where was I? Ah yes. I followed your career with interest. Hoping. Always hoping.
HAYDEN: Sorry, but what the fuck do you mean by that?
EDDIE: Only Quotin’? Big mistake. Father Brown’s Boys? I know they killed you off, son, but have you ever watched it? And how about that leprechaun suit ad?
Hayden was stunned. Eddie was dredging up his long-buried past, but Hayden had no recollection whatsoever of this conversation, or when it had taken place. He listened on with dread.
HAYDEN: But – but that was, like, the start of my career. That was early fucking on.
It was too. He was the same age as Foetus O’Flaherty is now. On the make. Not thinking of the years of self-torture ahead.
EDDIE: Excuses, son. Excuses. The point at issue here is, the true artist doesn’t compromise. I didn’t bring you into the world to peddle pap to the masses.
SOUND OF A CHAIR HITTING THE FLOOR.
‘I tink that was you falling over, Hayding.’
‘We’ll tell you one ting.’
‘You’re better at sitting down now.’
‘Deliberately tirsty, Hayding. That’s what you were in those days.’
‘But – but I don’t remember any of this.’
‘Oh now, Hayding. Last time you were over. Six munts ago.’
Hayden was incensed. ‘Wait a minute. I wasn’t over six months ago.’
‘You most certingly were, Hayding. You possibly don’t remember, being as how you were hitting Eddie’s Sweet Amnesia wit vim and gusto.’
‘But back to the incrimulating tape.’
SOUND OF LIQUID BEING POURED.
HAYDEN: What do you mean ‘bring me into the world’? You’re a midwife all of a sudden?
‘Pause here, Hayding.’
‘Pretty pregnant to our way of tinking.’
‘No pun intended, but stick around. It gets worse.’
EDDIE: You’re right, son. I spoke out of turn.
HAYDEN: Son? Jesus! What’s all this ‘son’ shit? What exactly the fuck are you on?
‘Tut tut, Hayding. Tree genteel ladies present.’
‘Although to be fair about it, we weren’t present at the time.’
HAYDEN: What right have you to demolish my – to demolish my career you –
Hayden listened in pained silence as his past self stuttered to a furious, intoxicated, word-search stop.
HAYDEN: – you –
He was off again.
HAYDEN: – cunt.
The three aunts pressed pause.
‘Lucky for you, he didn’t play the tape back before he died, Hayding. It would have killed the poor man.’
‘We tought of cutting that bit.’
‘But decided that, on balance, it added nuance.’
‘Lovely word, nuance. Delicate. Playful.’
‘Unlike ‘cunt’. Which suggests to us, Hayding –’
‘– you’re better off the jungle juice.’
‘Because on it, to be quite honest, you were always a bit of a –’
‘Stop it, Dorrie.’
‘Flottie. A bit of a –’
They composed themselves. Then pressed play.
EDDIE: Now stop it right there, son. You’ve no right to talk to your fa –
‘Second pregnant pause, Hayding.’
HAYDEN: My fa? What the fuck is a fa? You’re not my fucking –
‘Pause numero tree, Hayding.’
‘Wait for it. Any second now.’
HAYDEN: Da?
‘End of act one, Hayding.’
‘Beautiful twist, by the way.’
‘But where can it go from here?’
22 Spanish Civil War, to clarify.