Aesop tried to be on his best behaviour. Norman seemed to be under the impression that just letting him out of doors down here was asking for trouble and if it was going to be like that for two weeks then Aesop wouldn’t get to have any fun at all. After they collected two pints at the bar, Norman steered them back to a small table out of the way where they were pretty much on their own except for a middle-aged married couple quietly sipping a pint and a glass of wine next to them.
Aesop took a big pull on his drink.
‘Nice pint,’ he said, picking the glass back up to give it a closer look. ‘Do you want a game of pool?’
Norman looked around. It was early enough and there was no one on the table.
‘Eh …’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘The boys down here take their pool very seriously Aesop.’
‘What boys?’
‘The local lads. Some great players there is too.’
‘So what? Anyway, there’s no one there now is there?’
‘They’ll be in soon enough.’
‘They don’t own the table, do they? They can have it when we’re finished if they come in.’
‘You’re a bit handy yourself Aesop. I don’t want any grief.’
‘Why would there be grief? Jesus, is everyone down here just itching to stick the head on somebody? What’s the matter with you? Will you relax?’
It was another half hour before two guys in their twenties came in and put some coins on the table. Norman and Aesop had just started their third game.
‘Winners?’ said one of the young fellas.
‘Ah no,’ said Norman. ‘You can have the table.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah. We’re finished anyway.’
‘Thanks.’
They wandered off to the bar, leaving the lads to finish their game but looking over every now and again to see who these new guys on the pool block were and how their form was.
‘Why didn’t we play them Norman?’
‘Ah, I’ve enough pool for tonight.’
‘Chicken.’
‘What?’
‘You don’t think we’d beat them?’
‘It’s not that. I’d rather just have a pint. And the band will be on in another bit anyway.’
Aesop bent over a shot and then looked up.
‘You think I’m going to get us into trouble every time I open me mouth, don’t you?’
‘It’s been known to happen.’
‘Jesus man, all I’m doing is having a pint and a game of pool. You think I’m going to go out of my way just to annoy a few woollyheads?’
‘Look what you just said!’
‘They can’t hear me.’
‘But I heard you. Anyway, they keep looking over.’
‘Ah right. They lip-read, do they? Are they going to feel threatened and start throwing slaps around just because I’m all sophisticated and urbane and their women want to ride me?’
‘Christ. Will you shut up and take your shot you langer? Sophisticated my arse.’
The game didn’t even go the distance. Norman plugged the black with four of his balls left on the table.
‘Pints on you, my big worried friend.’
‘Right. Go on back to the table there and I’ll bring them over.’
‘The lads are coming back. You sure you don’t want to play them?’
‘Yes. Go on.’
Norman went to the bar as the two guys arrived with their own pints.
‘Lads,’ said Aesop.
They were looking at him a bit funny. One of them picked up a cue.
Oh fuck, thought Aesop. Here we go. They must have ears like rabbits, this pair. He looked past to them to see how far away Norman was.
‘Are you that fella in The Grove? The drummer?’
Aesop relaxed. Thank fuck for that. He smiled and put his own cue down on the table.
‘Yeah. Aesop Murray. How’s it going?’
‘Grand. What are you doing down here?’
‘Ah, just taking a bit of time off. The band is on tour in a few weeks. That’s me mate Norman. His Granny used to live down the road there, so we’re staying in her gaff for a bit and seeing the sights.’
‘Not many sights around here.’
‘Have you not been to the holy well?’
They turned to check out Norman.
‘I don’t think I know him,’ he said.
‘Norman? He lives in Dublin now. I think he prefers it down here, but.’
Norman had the pints now and wasn’t wasting his time getting back with them. He handed Aesop his, and then glanced around quickly to see what damage had been done.
‘Hiya lads,’ he said quickly. ‘Enjoy your game.’
‘Yeah,’ said one of the guys. ‘You sure you don’t want to play? House rules. The table is yours till we knock you off it.’
‘Nah, we’re grand.’
‘Fair enough.’
Norman made a beeline for their old seat.
‘Talk to yis later lads,’ said Aesop. He winked. ‘Norman’s shite at pool, but I’ll give yis a game.’
He walked over to Norman and sat down, looking around the bar with a smile and saying nothing. Then he turned around.
‘I told them you were shite at pool.’
‘Good.’
‘Set them up for later. Might snaffle a couple of pints off them.’
‘I’m not in the humour Aesop.’
‘Sure we’ll see.’
He knocked back some of his pint.
‘Anyway … so, c’mere, how is Helen your cousin?’
‘Helen? She’s Mikey Pat’s daughter.’
‘Oh. Right. But … hang on … I thought you said Mikey Pat was your cousin?’
‘Yeah. His Dad was my Dad’s brother.’
‘But … then Helen isn’t your cousin, is she? She’s your … eh … second cousin or something.’
‘So what?’
‘Norman!’ Aesop clapped his hands together. ‘Sure, second cousins are grand! You could even ride her. The Pope says you can and everything, so he’s hardly going to have a mickey-fit if I put one away, is he?’
‘It’s got nothing to do with the Pope, Aesop. And don’t be talking about her like that or I’ll give you a box. Second cousin or whatever she is, you promised you wouldn’t go near her. She’s still family.’
‘I don’t even know my second cousins, sure. I could have rode dozens of them already and I’d be none the wiser.’
‘Jesus. And that doesn’t bother you?’
‘You can’t be going around the place letting things bother you, Norman. Life is a fragile and fleeting thing. You never know when your next portion will be your last.’
‘Will you ever … who are you waving at?’
‘Next portion.’
Norman looked up at the two girls coming in the door.
‘You better be fucking talking about Jessie.’
‘Oh there’s Jessie too, look.’
The two girls saw them and waved back with big smiles. Aesop felt Norman staring at him.
‘I’m joking for fuck sake. Will you chill out?’
He turned to give the girls another poilite flash of the pearly whites and saw Helen’s eyes widen just the tiniest bit. She said something to Jessie and they both laughed. Then she looked up at him again and gave it to him full-on, the smile dropping off a good bit but the eyes just scooping him up, green and shining even from thirty feet away. The flush in her cheek from the cold outside deepened … and then back came the smile; pink lips and white teeth and the merest suggestion of the horniest fucking overbite that Aesop had ever seen.
He wondered if his own mouth was open. He’d never seen an entrance like it. She was stunning. Not that she was minging on her way out to work this morning when he was having his tea, but by fuck she was a goddess after a few pints. She unwrapped her head from a big shawl yoke as she stopped to say hello to someone, and her hair fell out of it, bouncing down around her shoulders in russet bundles like the whole arrangement was spring-loaded. She leaned to one side as she laughed at whatever the guy was saying to her and grabbed it by the fistful, shaking it and sweeping it out of her face until it seemed to run in rumpled bewilderment from one side of her chin right around her head to the other. Well, that was it. There was nothing else for it. He had to have her, didn’t he? It was only manners. He wasn’t even registering anything else that was happening in the pub, or who else was there. It was just Aesop and Helen and the ensuing chain reaction in Aesop’s head was something he barely noticed shifting into first gear. Then they started to come over and his eyes flicked to Jessie.
Fuck. The mate.
‘Okay Jimmy. Wingman. Wingman. I need a wingman.’
‘What?’ said Norman.
‘I need a wingman. Get rid of Jessie.’
‘What?’
‘Get rid of Jessie. I’m going in. Jesus Christ almighty, would you look at her. Have you ever …’
‘Aesop, what are you doing?’
‘What?’
‘Did you call me Jimmy?’
‘What?’
Aesop looked around and blinked.
‘Oh.’
‘What are you on about?’
‘Eh … nothing. Sorry Norman. I was miles away.’
‘What’s wrong with your mouth?’
Aesop closed it.
‘Nothing.’
The girls stopped at the table and started to unbutton coats and cast off hats and coats and gloves.
‘Bloody freezing tonight!’ said Helen. ‘Hoosh up there Robert. Two pints?’
‘No way,’ said Aesop. ‘Sit down there, the pair of you. I’ll get them. What are you having?’
‘Murphys for me,’ said Jessie.
‘Bacardi and diet Coke in a tall glass,’ said Helen.
‘Eh, right. A tall glass. Aren’t you very precise? And a pint, is it Jessie?’
‘Thanks.’
‘Grand so.’
Aesop went up to the bar, slotting things into place in his head for later. Hmm … a tall glass. She must be a size queen, Helen. Mad for lad. And the heftier the better by the sounds of things. Aesop was a Freudian at heart.
He passed the pool table on the way.
‘Howya lads. Still going strong?’
‘So far, yeah. You ready for a game?’
‘Sorry pal. A bit later. Entertaining.’
He nodded towards the corner where Norman and the girls were. The lads looked over and then looked at each other. Aesop caught a vibe of something, but just nodded and carried on to the bar. He didn’t give a shite about pool any more. He gave the order to the barman and stood with his back to the bar, watching the girls talk to Norman. He had a bit of a problem there. Norman. Norman would freak. He looked at Helen again but could only see the side of her face. She turned suddenly to look over at him and out shone that smile again. He smiled back and then turned around to pay for the drinks. This wasn’t right. She was barely related to Norman at all, and even if she was, what was wrong with Aesop giving her some rumpy pumpy if she was up for it?
He grabbed the drinks and started to make his way back, noticing another furtive glance from the two boys at the pool table. Aesop nodded again and kept going. Something was definitely up with this pair of muckers. Fuck it, he had other things on his mind. Back at the table he put down the drinks and sat beside Norman.
‘That tall enough for you?’ he said to Helen.
‘That’s grand, thanks. I like the extra Coke.’
‘Ah right. C’mere, do you know those two lads playing pool?’
The two girls looked over and then quickly took up their glasses.
‘Yeah,’ said Jessie. ‘They’re from around here.’
That was all they said. Aesop nodded and finished his old pint. There was some history there. Did he have to sort that out too?
‘Hey Aesop,’ said Helen. ‘Do you think you might play with the band for a bit? They’re setting up over there, look. They’d be delighted for you to join in.’
Aesop turned around. There were about five guys setting up for a trad session.
‘Ah, to be honest Helen, I don’t really play that kind of stuff.’
‘You could sing a song, sure.’
‘Jaysis, no. I’m a shite singer. If Jimmy was here he’d get up all right, but you don’t want me up there spoiling it for everyone.’
‘Do you not do backing vocals? You do on the telly.’
‘Nah. That’s all Jimmy and Shiggy singing. My mike is just for show, I’m telling you. I do a bit in a few songs when we’re playing live but, I swear, if I tried to do lead vocals on me own we’d all be asked to leave.’
‘Norman, will you get up?’
‘Ah sure I might in another few pints.’
Aesop looked around. Norman was worse than he was.
‘What? Are you going to sing?’
‘Not at all. I’ll just play with the lads for a couple of songs.’
‘Play what?’
Norman went red.
‘Ah, I play a bit of oul’ bones.’
‘The bones? Are you serious? Since when?’
‘I’ve always played them. Sure, it’s only a laugh. It’s nothing.’
‘How come I never knew that?’
‘Sure Christ, I’m hardly going to take them out when you and Jimmy are playing, am I? I’d look a right langer.’
‘But … have you got them there?’
‘In me pocket.’
‘Give us a look.’
‘Ah Aesop, don’t start slagging me now.’
‘I’m not slagging you. Take them out there.’
Norman reached into his coat and pulled out two flat sticks about six inches long and handed them to Aesop.
‘How do you hold them?’
Norman showed him and Aesop gave them a quick shake. One of them immediately slipped loose and described a big arc over them before splashing off the top of his pint and skidding around the table. The girls roared laughing.
‘Bollocks.’
He dried it on the seat and handed both of them to Norman.
‘Here, you show me.’
Norman took the bones and demonstrated again how to hold them. Then he raised up his right hand to shoulder height and rattled off a rhythm to the Paul Brady song that was coming over the house system. Aesop clapped his hands together.
‘That’s brilliant! Jesus, when did you learn how to do that?’
‘Ah, will you fuck off taking the piss Aesop,’ said Norman. He put the bones down on the table and picked up his drink.
‘I’m serious, man. Tell him girls. Jesus, you’ve been able to play all these years and you never said anything.’
‘You should see him with two sets,’ said Helen.
‘Ah Helen, don’t,’ said Norman. ‘He’s only winding me up.’
‘Do you have another set with you?’ said Helen. She reached over into his pocket and found them. ‘Here, show him.’
‘He doesn’t really want to see.’
‘He does.’
‘Ah …’
Norman took two bones in each hand and doubled up on the beat, one hand playing off the other for about five seconds. People started to look over. He put all the bones in his breast pocket and sat there with a head on him like a beetroot.
Aesop shook his head.
‘I can’t believe you never showed us that before. That was fucking deadly! Jaysis, it was like you had two tap dancers in your hands.’
‘It’s nothing, sure. It’s only the bones.’
‘It’s percussion, Norman. Did you honestly think I’d have no interest in learning how to do that? Selfish bastard.’
Norman went even more red. He couldn’t even count the times he’d have loved to whip them out when the lads were around jamming, but he’d been way too embarrassed. They were so cool and brilliant at their instruments, and it wasn’t as though he didn’t get enough slagging without producing something like the bones in the middle of the kind of stuff they played.
‘If you want, I’ll show you a bit.’
‘Norman, I want you to show me everything you know.’
‘It’s not much.’
‘You big modest gobshite, I know what I heard. You can really play them fuckers. We’ll start tomorrow. No messing. First thing.’
‘First thing? Now I know you’re taking the piss.’
‘We’ll see about that. Now, your round I believe. My pint is wrecked from the little accident earlier.’
Norman looked around the table to see what the round was and then stood up.
‘Helen likes a nice tall glass,’ said Aesop, all kinds of images sprinting into his brain and firing memos off down to his underpants.
‘I know, yeah,’ said Norman, moving off to the bar.
Screams of laughter from Helen and Jessie followed him up there before the barman had even started pulling the first pint. He looked around and saw Aesop with his hand on Jessie’s knee as he was telling them some story. As long as it was Jessie’s feckin’ knee there’d be no problems, he thought. The lads at the pool table didn’t seem to know him, but he knew them. The tall one, Davey, and Helen had been engaged for a few months last year. That was why he didn’t want to play pool. He wanted to stay away from them. That Davey bloke was a bit highly strung and a terrible prick on top of it with drink in him. If Aesop started in on Helen, you never knew what might happen. Norman didn’t know the full story, but apparently Helen hadn’t been with another guy since they broke up and the murmurs around the family were that it was because she was hoping Davey would find someone first and leave her alone. The whole thing annoyed Norman. He could deal with the situation in about five fucking minutes if he was let, but another one of the cousins told him he was better off out of it. Mikey Pat had apparently said something to Davey once and Helen got all upset and told him to just leave it. It wasn’t Norman’s place to get involved. And anyway, the last thing they needed was a scene down here.
His hands full of booze, he started to make his way over to the others. Just then the band started up and went into ‘Fisherman’s Blues’.
*
Aesop had been steering his attentions carefully away from Jessie and onto Helen for about an hour when he suddenly found himself back where he started.
‘I see we have a couple of Kellys in the house,’ he heard one of the guys in the corner say over the sound system. All eyes turned to their table. It been happening all night actually, but for the most part they were looking at Aesop. Word had gotten around that he was there and everyone in the place had been doing their best to have a good gander without getting caught. Now, though, it was Norman that was getting the looks as he got to his feet to a big cheer.
‘Come on Helen,’ he said. ‘We’ll do a couple.’
‘What?’ said Aesop, looking at her. ‘You as well?’
‘Helen’s the best singer in the place tonight, wait till you see,’ said Norman.
‘Really?’
Helen just blushed a beautiful shade of cerise and stood up, leaving Jessie and Aesop on their own clapping at the table.
Once she got over to a mike and turned around, still lovely and rosy about the face, she took a guitar off one of the guys and did a quick run on it as the guy adjusted the height of the mike stand for her. Ten seconds later she had the guitar in dropped D tuning and was strumming away on it. Aesop sat forward. This was getting fucking interesting.
‘Thanks very much,’ she said, into the mike. The crowd shut up cheering to let her sing. ‘Here’s a little song for a friend of mine.’
She looked out around the crowd and Aesop followed her eyes to see who the cunt was. Then she looked full at him and he copped on. Jesus. She was reeling him in, the slapper, and he was falling for it!
Off she went on the guitar, her hand going a mile a minute on the intro. A fiddle player came in after a bar or two and then a bodhrán and finally Norman, standing at the back so everyone would be able to see the rest of the band, started up with the bones. It was the Luka Bloom song, ‘You Couldn’t Have Come at a Better Time’and as Helen sang it she kept catching his eye. She didn’t hang about staring at him though. She wasn’t some hoor. She was being dead cool, pulling her face away from the mike and closing her eyes, her head cocked down as if to hear the bodhrán properly, for any of the short instrumental breaks. When she got to the ‘me and you and me and you and me …’ line, up came those eyes again like searchlights to pick him out and nail him to his seat. Fuck sake! Aesop had watched Jimmy do this a thousand times. He’d done it himself sure, from behind the drums when he spotted some honey out among the punters, and here he was now grinning up at her like a fuckin’ eejit and feeling special. He felt Jessie’s hand on his arm and her voice in his ear as she leaned in to him.
‘I think someone’s got the hots for someone,’ she said.
‘She’s great up there, isn’t she?’
‘She’s been doing it for years. Everyone knows Helen Kelly around here.’
He nodded and turned back to the stage so she’d shut her hole and stop distracting him. This was great stuff. Everyone in the pub was clapping and singing along, punctuating the song with ye-hoo’s and calling her name out. She got to the end of the last chorus and stopped singing so that Norman could step up and do a bones solo. Aesop roared laughing. He was fucking brilliant, the head down, the hands up and the bones flicking and bouncing off each other like he had one toe stuck in a socket behind him. Aesop had known Norman for over twenty years and he’d never seen him do anything like this. Trying to get him to sing at a party was like pulling teeth, and yet here he was up on a stage in front of a hundred people and standing next to a cracking bird while rattling out a percussion solo that Aesop knew you didn’t just pull out of your arse. He was really good at those fuckers.
Helen took a bow and grinned.
‘Thanks very much everyone.’
But she didn’t look at Aesop this time and he felt a small jealous kick inside his belly. There were a few calls for another song and Helen nodded as she took off the guitar and handed it back to the guy behind her.
‘Maybe one more,’ she said, as they began to simmer down. One hand went into her back pocket and the other held the stand just in front of her with long slender fingers. The eyes closed, the hair got swept out of her face, and then she somehow shifted her body so that it glided right in, bringing the mike to her mouth and the rest of her a few inches closer to a rapt Aesop who was by now fit to mount the pint glass in front of him.
‘Need a bit of hush for this one,’ said Helen with an apologetic grin, and every gob in the place immediately snapped shut. One tool was on the phone, but his mate gave him a dig and a dirty look and the next thing the phone was back in his pocket.
The song was in Irish, and Aesop was hopeless at Irish, but it was sad and slow and full of heart-rending wretchedness the way any decent Irish ballad ought to be if it had any respect for itself. Her voice was low and full now, and the couple of people humming softly along with her lent it a resonance that was like a pulse that gently throbbed around the pub.
‘What’s the song?’ Aesop whispered to Jessie next to him.
‘It’s called “An Cailín Álainn”. The Beautiful Girl.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s about being in love with a beautiful girl. But she’s gone and all that’s left is heartbreak and pain. If she ever came back, the singer would make music for her like a harp or the song of a bird in the dewy fog and never be sad again.’
‘Fuck.’
‘It’s gorgeous isn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
It was better than gorgeous. It was perfect. Helen. She was … she was just perfect. For fuck sake, she was up there singing a love song to another girl! Whatever lusty aspirations he had a minute ago, now she was playing right into his lesbian fantasies as well. Aesop held his pint glass to his mouth, gazing up at her. He wondered if she had a shaved minge too. That’d be fuckin’ brilliant, so it would. He turned to Jessie.
‘Yeah?’ she asked.
‘I don’t s’pose … eh … ah, it doesn’t matter.’
Jessie probably didn’t know anyway.