Читать книгу Joe's Wedding - Gareth O'Callaghan - Страница 5

It was all slowly coming back to him now. The pub crawl, the Tequila slammers, the kissogram girl … the boat. “Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” he whispered. Five of his mates had bought him a present and asked Linda, the kissogram, to present it to him. It was a ticket to Holyhead. He quickly searched himself. “There must be a return voucher,” he muttered, running his hands through his cape and down the insides of his red tights. There was nothing. Nothing.

He sat back on the bench and took three deep breaths. He had no watch so he had no idea what time it was. For all he knew it could well be three o’clock, the time he was due to marry Liz Gunner in the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows.

He thought about the word “sorrows” for a moment. It had become his nickname for Liz: Mother of Sorrows. She was such a serious person. Everything had to be a crisis. Even when Joe brought her out for a drink with the lads, she would end up giving them all advice. Joe used to say, “Liz, will you shut up, please! Or I’ll lose all my friends.”

He tried to remember to whom he had been chatting. Had he made a show of himself in front of anybody? To hell with them, he thought. If they didn’t like the party they should have gone home. Joe Mooney was boss. He was his own man, free to do whatever he wanted, and to hell with the begrudgers.

His mind was totally confused, apart from the brain damage caused by gallons of beer, washed down with countless slammers. He lay back down on the seat and willed himself to die. “Oh God, please don’t do this to me. Please, help meee!” he kept crying out until he felt his voice going hoarse. He lay still for a while and worked on a number of solutions. One: he could go back to the ferry ticket office and pretend he had been booked to entertain the passengers on the return crossing. Two: he could ring the local television station and tell them he had been dragged into a car the night before. He was leaving a pub in Dublin at the time. His kidnappers dropped him off in Holyhead after robbing him of everything. Or three: he could phone Liz and tell her the truth. With a bit of luck she might call off the wedding.

Joe knew there would be no such luck.

There was only one problem: he had no money to make the phone call. He lay there, staring up at the blue sky. He was getting dizzy again. Three seagulls flew in circles above his head.

“Excuse me, are you Superman?” a slow deep voice asked.

Joe Mooney sat up and looked behind him. An elderly man wearing waders stood looking at him. He wore a tatty jacket tied at the waist with baling twine and a black cap. He was standing directly behind Joe now, blocking out the sun.

“No, I’m not Superman,” Joe said anxiously. “Can you tell me what time it is?”

The old man shook his arm. He waited for his watch to slide down to his wrist. “It’s twenty-past nine. That’s my bench you’re sitting on.”

Joe moved to one end of the bench. “Since when did you own this bench?”

“I’ve sat down here every single day for as far back as I can remember, son; sometimes twice a day. How many times have you sat down here?”

“Never. This is my first and last time.”

“Well then, since it’s my bench I don’t mind sharing with you.”