Cross - Ken Bruen [21]
10
'I think you've forgotten me.'
Hostage Ken Bigley in a message to Tony
Blair, twenty-four hours before he was
beheaded.
I'd been bothered for some time by a problem I was trying to ignore, felt if I didn't acknowledge it, it would just go away.
Yeah.
My hearing.
With the television, I had to turn it to max volume, and my music, top level too. And when people spoke to me, I had to lean in close to catch what they said. You hit fifty, things are going to start to decay. Fact of frigging life. My eyes were still OK, but the life I'd led, it was a miracle I was still above ground. Lots of days, I wished I wasn't.
So I got out the telephone directory, found an ear specialist and made an appointment, straining to hear what the receptionist said. Jesus, if I lost me hearing . . . I already had a limp . . . how old was that?
No point in sharing with Ridge, she said I never listened anyway. I admitted to me own self – a thing I hated to do – I was scared. I was alone. Your Irish bachelor in all his pitiful glory, shabby and bitter, ruined and crumbling.
With a plan.
Christ Almighty, a plan. Me whole physical being was shutting down and I had a plan. Isn't that priceless? Here I was, on me last legs, and instead of planning for a retirement home, I was heading for America. Can you beat that?
You could say I was fighting back, showing fortitude in the face of fierce adversity, refusing to lie down, fighting the good fight. And anyone who knew me would savour this fine line of reasoning then utter, 'Bollocks.'
A morning shrouded in despair. In Irish we moan, Och ocon . . . Woe is me, with bloody knobs on. I'd been in deep depression for nigh on two weeks. No drinking, of course, not because I didn't want to or think it a good idea, but I didn't think I'd another round of so-called recovery in me.
Watched telly in betwixt times. The news was ferocious in its darkness.
Ken Bigley was beheaded. There are no words to describe how that felt, like seeing the Twin Towers get hit. The same disbelief, the same sick horror. I went into a further spiral of black dog and dreamed of dogs – yes, the Newcastle ones. They howled and bit at my ankles, barking for me to do something. The phone rang continuously. I jerked the plug out of the socket and I swear it still rang.
Odd times, people pounded at my door and I mumbled, 'Fuck off, I gave at the office.'
In such delusions, you always get to hear the phantom orchestra, like Malcolm Lowry described. Mine had one tune, over and over . . . 'Run', by Snow Patrol. I prayed that if I died – and it seemed highly likely – I wanted someone to play that at my funeral.
What a fucking song.
What a fucking life.
But if there was no one left to attend my passing, who was there to mourn me? Self-pity, of course, is the outrider of the DTs – and I was drenched in it. The country, too, was feeling pretty bad. We had rejoiced in our first Olympic gold medal for over thirty years, and sure, we made a huge deal of it. Who wouldn't? And then – you couldn't make this up – the horse failed the dope test. The frigging horse!
In a country where madness was respected and lunacy was a given, this was a step beyond.
When I finally got the strength to go out, shaky and paranoid, I met a woman who said, 'You know today is the blessing of the dogs?'
I stared at her and gasped, 'What?'
She seemed to think I should know and patiently explained, 'In the Poor Clare Convent, there's a special ceremony to bless the dogs.'
There are a hundred replies to this, all involving sarcasm and very weak puns, but all I said was 'Oh.'
I wondered if the dogs of Newcastle might be safer now. Somehow I doubted it.
I went to Garavan's, and before the barman could pour my usual I said, 'Black coffee and sparkling water. Galway Irish water, if you got it.'
My father would have turned in his grave to know the day had come when we paid for water on an island surrounded by the bloody stuff and