The Horse With My Name (7 page)

He smiled pleasantly and said, ‘Would you like to buy an oil painting?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Would you like to buy an oil painting?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘They’re by some of Ireland’s finest artists. I’ve been selling them for twenty years.’

‘And you still haven’t got the message.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I said, I don’t need an oil painting.’

‘Okay. Do you mind if I call again?’

‘I’m only here for the weekend.’

‘Oh. Right. Fair enough then.’

If he’d had a cap, he would have doffed it. Off he went back to his car. I watched him load up his paintings and drive off. Across the road kids with hurley sticks were
staring at me. I closed the door and went back to my beans. I reheated them.

Five minutes later the doorbell went again. When I opened up there was a man standing there with a coat on a hanger and a receipt book under his arm. ‘Do you want any dry-cleaning done?’

‘What?’

‘Do you want anything dry-cleaned? I’ve been dry-cleaning in this area for twenty years. I call every Monday.’

‘This is Saturday.’

‘I know, but it’s Easter Monday on Monday, there’ll be no dry-cleaning done that day. So I’m calling today. Do you want anything dry-cleaned?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Right-oh, then. Good afternoon now.’

I watched him go down the path and climb into a small van. As he drove away the boys with the hurley sticks stared across at me.

I returned to my beans. I microwaved them again because there are few experiences in life more depressing than eating cold beans. They’d already soaked through the toast, turning it to mush. I finished them, then cleaned and washed the plate. I tried to watch something on the TV but I couldn’t concentrate. I was a stranger in a strange land, even though it was only down the road. I couldn’t relax. There was a crack against the window and then a boy came over the garden wall to retrieve a ball. He didn’t look up at me standing glaring down as he lifted it.

I unpacked. Another twenty seconds. There was a knock on the door. A young fella in a white coat said: ‘Ice-cooled chicken breasts?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I’ve ice-cooled chicken in the van. I call here every Monday.’

I looked beyond him to a plain white van, then back to him. ‘Are you having me on?’

‘What?’

‘Are you taking the piss?’

He blinked several times. ‘Do you want to buy some ice-cooled chicken breasts?’

‘No, I’m a vegetarian.’

‘I also do frozen vegetables.’

‘No. Thank you.’

He nodded. ‘I can call again. I’m always in the area.’

I said, ‘Please do.’

As he walked back down the drive the ball came into the garden again. The boy came over the wall and had picked it up and was already climbing back out when I shouted, ‘Why don’t you go and play outside your own house?’ like my father.

He glanced back, his brow furrowed. ‘I was,’ he said.

I looked across the road to where a middle-aged man was scraping birdshit off his lounge window. He glanced round at me and I waved across. ‘Well just be careful of that wall,’ I said and closed the door.

I switched the TV off and paced. I had an address for Geordie McClean’s stables but it was getting into early evening and there didn’t seem much point in driving out immediately. That left the option of more TV and an early night or checking out the pubs in town. I went upstairs and had a shower. I dried my hair and had a think about what to wear. I decided on black jeans and a green tartan shirt. Black trainers and a smile. Friendly. Ingratiate. See how they are about strangers. The doorbell sounded again. There was an intercom by the master bedroom. I pressed the button and said, ‘Whatever the fuck you’re selling, I don’t fucking want it, now fuck away off and don’t come fucking near me again.’

I combed my hair and cleaned my teeth. When I went back downstairs I looked out of the front window at two nuns standing with collecting tins talking to the man who’d been cleaning birdshit off his window. One of the sisters saw me, then quickly pointed me out to her colleague. They both glared at me, then turned their backs and hurried along to the next house. The birdshit man fixed me with a steady gaze, then darted back inside.

Third pub. Third pint. The first two had been dead but the third was much better. It was called Muldoons, and like the others was decorated with photos of previous Fairyhouse winners. The barman was big and jolly and I didn’t understand a blind word he said, his accent was that thick. Maybe he had the same problem. Every time I asked for a lager he poured me a Guinness. I can’t stand Guinness, but seeing as how I was undercover it was important for me to blend in, so I accepted it without complaint and drank for God and Ulster. There were a couple of dozen people drinking, enough to give it a nice buzz. I’d brought a newspaper with me. I sat on a bar stool, reading some, pausing, looking, then reading some more. I’d thought about cutting eyeholes in it to simplify the process but I resisted on the grounds that it was getting a bit close to being origami, and origami sounds a bit like orgasm, and I hadn’t had one of those for months and I didn’t want to get depressed, first night on the job. The talk around and about me was not of horses, but of life in general.
EastEnders
,
Brookside
and Manchester United. I could have launched into a diatribe on British colonisation by cultural stealth but thought it would be better to ingratiate myself by volunteering to make up the numbers on one of the teams when the barman announced that a pub quiz would be starting
shortly. He took a note of my name, pronouncing it slowly to himself, then added it to a list of three others. He pointed to a corner which had thus far been shielded from my field of vision by a cigarette machine. ‘Yucan joinem,’ he said.

I lifted my pint and walked over. Sitting at a table, looking depressed, were the oil paintings salesman, the dry-cleaner and the chicken man. They looked up, but if they recognised me they gave no hint of it.

‘Hi,’ I said, ‘I’ve been drinking alcohol in several areas for more than twenty years, but you three are without a doubt the saddest-looking individuals I’ve ever come across. I think I’m absolutely perfect for your team, if you’ll have me.’

They looked at me, then gave me a collective ‘What?’

‘Speak slower,’ said the chicken man.

‘What’re you on about?’ said the dry-cleaner.

‘You’re no oil painting yourself,’ said the oil paintings salesman.

‘I said,’ I said, ‘what can I get you to drink?’

‘Guinness.’

‘Guinness.’

‘Guinness.’

‘Okay then,’ I said.

We weren’t the worst team on the night, and we weren’t the best. I excelled at the movie questions but was found rather wanting on the silage round. Bloodstock left me bloodied and I won no points on the point-to-point. But they weren’t a bad bunch of lads. They worked on the farms there and about and tried to earn an extra punt or two in the evenings with their various franchises, scrambling into action every time word went out that somebody new and innocent had moved into town. But none of them made any money at
it and they were all in debt to their shark of a supplier in Blanchardstown.

‘We hate that cunt,’ said the oil paintings man.

‘We should kill him,’ said the chicken guy.

‘And I could get the bloodstains out,’ said the dry-cleaning man.

It was a plot that was never going to get beyond the pub, and they knew it. The Celtic Tiger was creating superwealth for the chosen few in Dublin, while the likes of them were wallowing in the tiger shit, earning fuck all in the fields and fuck all calling cold with disinterested and similarly strapped householders. I asked about the upcoming races at Fairyhouse and they all said they were involved in the catering end of it. I asked for more detail and they said they’d be selling sandwiches and hot dogs on the road outside on Easter Monday.

We stayed drinking until closing time. I’d heard tales of marvellous country Irish pubs where the landlord never called time and you drank until you fell over, but incoherent fat lad behind the bar suddenly started grunting on the stroke of eleven and by a quarter past we were standing on the pavement outside. I felt quite sorry for them. They didn’t seem to have any other friends and they looked shiftily away when I mentioned my wife in passing, though I doubted if any of them had slept with her. I invited them back to the house and then stood tapping my foot while they pleaded with the landlord to serve them a carry-out.

Eventually he caved in. He disappeared back inside, then reappeared with four bags packed full of tins of Guinness. He was wearing a blue Dexter and Hush Puppies and appeared to think he was coming to the party as well.

We set off down the winding road back towards my empty, spacious house. The oil paintings salesman, the chicken man, the dry-cleaner and the fat incoherent landlord. As we
walked I reflected on the fact that although I had learned nothing, it hadn’t been a bad first night south of the border at all.

7

At first he didn’t have a clue who I was, walking across the damp grass, six a.m. and the sun just a dull glow behind dark clouds to the east; one minute he was watching horses galloping past and the next there I was smiling as I came towards him, cupping my hands against the diminishing sound of thunderous hooves and shouting didn’t he think it was cruel to get horses up so early.

As Geordie McClean eyed me curiously, two guys carrying shotguns rushed up to intercept me.

‘What are you doing here?’ one snapped.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ followed the other. Their accents were northern, and so was their attitude. I didn’t reply, I just kept my smile in place and my eyes on Geordie. Their hands ran over my denim jacket, probably searching for a designer label.

They continued to shout questions, but I ignored them and concentrated on McClean, coming across the chewed-up ground towards us. It had been several years since we’d met, but if anything he looked younger, fresher. He was wearing a Barbour jacket, a flat cap, wellington boots and a look of surprise that slowly transformed itself into a smile.
He was puffing on a thin cigar which he removed as he approached and extended his hand. As he did the two gunmen glanced at each other, then let me go. ‘Dan the Man!’ McClean exclaimed. ‘Dan the Man – how the hell are you?’

‘Cold, wet and intimidated, thanks. Can’t even go rambling without—’

‘It’s private property, son – but Jesus! Dan the Man! In the flesh. Jesus, Dan, appearing out of the mist like the fucking Grim Reaper! What are you doing here?’

‘I got redirected from your stables.’

‘No! What are you doing here at all? I haven’t seen you since, like, New York.’

‘I know. I heard you named a horse after me. I’m here to collect my royalties.’

He grinned widely. ‘Dan – you should have called. I could have had you barred.’

‘You probably would too.’

I glanced at the gunmen, who’d now retreated several yards but were still keeping an eye at me as they leant against the side of a Land Rover emblazoned with an angular green
IAR
logo. I looked back to McClean. ‘I was just passing, y’know. Thought I’d look you up.’

‘You never call me, you never write, and here you are – Dan the Man.’

‘Yes, I think we’ve established who I am. Now who are you? Sheikh Abdul Lottsahorses or what?’

He took another puff on his cigar. ‘I’m the man who’s giving racing a fucking good kick up the arse, that’s who I am, Dan. As you no doubt know already.’ He gave me a serious look, and I shrugged. ‘So what’re you really doing here, Dan? You don’t strike me as an early bird. You don’t look like you’ve even been to bed.’

‘It’s the new look. Hangover chic.’ I smiled. ‘I want to
write a book about Dan the Man. And about the business. About you. How you can switch horses midstream, boxing to geegees, and still make a mint. You know the kind of book. Like the last one.’

‘The last one, indeed.’ He nodded for several moments. ‘You know, my lawyer wanted to sue.’

‘I didn’t even mention him.’

‘You know what I mean. But I said no. Because I thought it was bloody good work. I’m not much of a book man, Dan, and I’m not sure I emerged smelling of roses, but then maybe I don’t – not these days anyway, eh?’ And to emphasise the point he kicked at a lump of horse shit which managed to splatter across the front of my jeans. We looked at each other for several moments before he said, ‘Sorry about that.’ I shrugged. I’d been knee deep in it before, and would be again. McClean took a deep breath and nodded towards the horses that were now galloping back in our direction. ‘Ah now, Dan, I thought boxing was the thing for me, but this, it’s an entirely different ball game.’

I nodded encouragingly.

‘And I’m not sure it’s one I want written about. But let’s talk about it. Come up to the house for lunch. I’ve some business first, but sure, let’s talk. It’s good to talk.’

I nodded again. It had been much easier to make a connection than I thought. Maybe he was a changed man. Maybe he had mellowed. Maybe
I
was nicer, better with people, maybe I should stay up all night drinking more often.

As the horses came thundering past, a dozen of them, chucking up muck and grass, their diminutive jockeys with legs clamped to flanks and their arses in the air, I glanced at McClean, his eyes narrowed, a picture of absolute concentration.

‘Ah, now, Danny boy,’ he said when they’d passed,
‘there’s no substitute for this, getting up at dawn, coming down here. For all the science involved, the blood tests, the weighing, the working on the split times, it can all still just be down to watching the horses, like this, having that knack for knowing when they’re going to hit the top of their form.’

‘And you have that knack?’

‘Sometimes. And when I haven’t, I buy a man that has.’

I nodded after the departing horses. ‘Which one was he, then? Dan the Man.’

‘The fast one.’

I’d not noticed, but I nodded anyway. ‘Did you really name him after me?’

‘Somebody told you that?’