Read Online The Holy City by Patrick McCabe - Free Book Online Page A

bursting dramatically through the high French windows of Thornton Manor, with rain and sheet lightning sweeping out behind him, his face a mask of bitter resentment, tearing the book
A Child’s Garden of Verses
from Lady Thornton’s pale trembling hands. Before casting it contemptuously into the roaring flames, its thin leaves edged in gold immediately turning to ash in the heavy grate. As I fled from her lap, out into the yawning black maw of the night — hopelessly blinded by bafflement and sorrow.
    Resounding in my ears the mercilessness of his chastisements, as he continued to charge her with that most grievous sin.
    â€” Fornicating with Carberry like a common fucking whore, and bringing that oddity, that thing into the world! You call yourself a Protestant? You think they’ll ever show respect to you again? They’ll despise you from now till the day you die, for showing weakness above all to one of them!
    On the day of the ‘boiling water’, what happened was I had been following Mukti — more or less for the whole morning, in fact. Now, at close of evening, I found myself concealed behind the sundial, under cover of some bushes, eyeing him closely as he led his visitor in the direction of the prefab, where they held the group sessions, specifically for alcoholics.
    I was feeling very cold — icy, to tell the truth — as I observed them chatting, ever so warmly, and smiling. What seemed so strange was that the feeling in its essence was soclose to the one I remembered from long ago in Cullymore. After I’d discovered the letter of betrayal. The crumpled envelope I’d found in Dolores’s handbag. Dolores Mc-Causland and I had established a liaison of some significance at the beginning of summer in 1969, after a number of meetings in the Mayflower Ballroom. She was a woman some years older than myself, and her presence in Cullymore had literally electrified the town. The truth was that they had never seen anything like her before. An entirely different kind of Protestant, with her peroxide hair and figure-hugging dresses. They said she looked the ‘spit’ of Ruby Murray, a Northern Irish singer who’d been very successful some years previously. And whose songs she had declared a particular affection for, actually singing them in public from time to time. She was attracted to me, she said, because someone had told her I was a Protestant. I’m not, I told her, and did the best I could — but she wouldn’t permit herself to be convinced. I heard you have associations with quality, she said — and laughed.
    â€” We all stick together, she chuckled mischievously the first night I met her, because we’re different to them! They can get themselves in such a tizzy about silly things, can’t they, the Catholics? Like a little slap and tickle, for instance. Or a girl’s fondness for a nice cheeky dress. They won’t even allow the
News of the World
Into the house! Kiddies, really, I sometimes think. They’re so predictable but lovable in so many ways. They can have such fun with their singing, you know, and their drinking! Love them Fenians — bless ’em, or hate ’em — one way or another, you can’t be without them!
    But I’m really not a Protestant, I continued to insist to her. Meaning that part of me would, regrettably, remain for ever Carberry. And that was just about as Catholic as you could get. The inebriate, treacherous, unreliable rascal.
    â€” I don’t care what you say, she said, I can tell. The way you dress, even the way you walk. Yes, you’re every inch the gentleman, she insisted, and that’s why I shall christen you my own
Mr Wonderful.
    I really became fond of Dolores McCausland, the lovely ‘Dolly’. Each weekend now I took her to the Mayflower and we would enjoy a drink most evenings in the Good Times. She liked the Beatles but preferred Peggy Lee.
    â€”