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| Arthur Broomfield |
Dr Arthur Broomfield is a poet, short story writer, essayist and Beckett scholar from County Laois, Ireland.
It was round three on a late October afternoon, the leaves on the row of beech trees beyond the Bloom pub were falling and drifting across the cobblestone courtyard, towards the in need of a cleaning plate glass window of the pub’s lounge bar. The pub stood a mile outside the cattle mart town of Dungrey in the Irish midlands. It was mart day. Johnny Grogan, well known to livestock farmers as a purveyor of substances beneficial to the well-being of beef cattle was driving to the Bloom bar to meet a colleague. He swung his buff Toyota Carina round the gable end of the pub and pulled in to the car park behind the stacks of crates and barrels that were assembled close to the whitewashed outdoor toilets. One other car was parked close to the back entrance to the bar. Johnny strolled into the lounge where Duncan, the barman of twenty odd years, was washing glasses and tidying up after the few who’d been in round lunchtime.
‘Make me a couple of mugs of coffee Duncan, in your own time. A pal ‘ill be joining me presently’ Duncan nodded, left down the glass he was polishing and set about complying with the order. It was too early in the day for Johnny to start drinking; it was better to have the coffee in front of him when Murt arrived, as he’d assured Johnny he would, at a quarter past.
‘I hear those boyos are down in Jamesie Duffy’s,’ Duncan announced to the ethers in general .
The lounge door creaked open as Duncan was heading out with the coffee.
‘I’ve taken a chance on your poison, Murt?’
‘Are you off the Capuchino, Johnny’
‘It didn’t reach these parts yet. You never know what people might think if I was seen drinking it.’
‘I’ll stick with the coffee, rightly or wrongly, said Murt.’
The bar was quiet but for the three of them. Murt had changed his boots and Mart garb in the truck, before he came in. At a fresh forty-two he could give Johnny a year or two.
Duncan arrived with a plastic tray with two mugs of coffee, teaspoons, sachets of sugar in a bowl and two Heineken beermats, all squeezed into the available space the tray offered. He put the mats and the mugs on the table and left the rest on the tray that he pushed to a vacant spot within reach of the men.
‘I hear McHensey had a couple caught in The Meats yesterday,’ Johnny said.
‘Yeah, Limousines. It’s not getting easier, Johnny. They’ve got their spy in The Meats, that Monseigneur’s f###ing godson.’
‘They used to call the likes of him felon setters in Fenian times’, Johnny said.
‘Their sort is still here, Johnny.’
‘Any value today, Murt?’
‘Hard to know what’s value, with what’s going on.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I did get a bundle of poll Angus bullocks, ready for the shed. Molloy was eyeing them, but I got him to stand down for me.’
‘How did you pull that one Murt, that boy aint simple?’
‘Have you heard of this man Bob Haldeman, Johnny?’
‘Ha! So tell me, Murt.’
‘I found it beneficial, after an awkward situation in Barrow Meats last month, to employ the services of Molloy’s educated son Sylvester, the one who works in the Lab. The word is he’s a gambler.’
‘It cost you?’
‘Enough,Johnny. I had no choice. I think he must have used his own water, there’s not a clean beast going into a factory these days.’
Murt studied his coffee, swivelled the mug round on the Heineken mat. He paused, opened the paper corner of a sachet of sugar, carefully, poised it over his mug and watched the sugar slowly fall into the coffee, the fading October sun reflecting occasional glints as it caught crystals in descent.
‘It’s our life blood, Johnny… How is your boy getting on in college?’
‘Good, Paul’s a good worker, doing Ag Science. You know they stopped the grant; said we were above the limit.’
‘Bastards.’
‘So, do you think we should drive out, Murt and take a look?’
‘Do you reckon?’ Murt’s brow furrowed. ‘Hogan had it all. They’ve been there since round twelve, tearing the place apart. He’s a f###in’ windbag. Four cars of them, parked in Cabbage Lane, they walked up, caught Jamesie and the lads cold.’
‘Cabbage Lane, Murt!’
‘There’s decent men behind bars in Castlereagh, Johnny. For doing f### all bad. And a lot of good…a lot of good for themselves, anyway!’
‘God helps those who help themselves. We could drive by and get a look, Murt.’
‘That’d make us up.’
‘You’ve gone farther for less, Murt. We’re only going to take a look.’
Murt lifted his mug of cooling, untouched coffee off the beer mat, laid it down, stirred it a couple of times, raised it halfway to his lips and left it back down again.
‘I’m not so sure I want to see it. We’d be like them useless bystanders you’d see in pictures at the scene of an eviction. Anyway I have to get back to the Mart to sort out my cattle.’
‘It’ll only take twenty minutes, at the most and ‘I’ll drive out Murt, you can leave the truck here, we’ll be back in jig time.’
Johnny took a packet of Benson and Hedges and a lighter out of his pocket.
‘I’ve got a gallon of petrol in the boot… just hang on till I settle for the coffee.’
Johnny headed towards the bar, walking like he was about to be awarded a medal at the school sports. Murt watched him through narrowing slits between his eyelids, then looked down at his still full cup of coffee.
Duncan rooted among price lists and jars till he found a pen and paper.
‘That’ll be two mugs of coffee, and it all comes to that.’Duncan thrust the bill towards Johnny who left a bundle of coins on the bar and turned to face Murt, but Murt was conspicuous by his absence.
‘Did he leave Duncan?
‘Headed out the back as soon as you turned to the bar.’
‘That’s the way to go Duncan.’
The next he saw of Murt was his shoes, toes pointing upwards, sticking out beneath the side of his truck.
‘What’s up Murt?’‘Looks like the power shaft is f###ed. When I threw her into gear, not a budge. F### it anyway. Hey, would you drop me into Fred’s Motors, better get it right, anyway, whatever it is.’
Excellent. I felt I was ‘there’.
ReplyDeleteARTHUR...YOU PULLED ME IN ...YOU SHOWED US NOT TELL ,
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