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VI

MAD MOONEY

1

al was frightened as he had never been frightened in his life before. He sat in his room, the door locked, and shook.

The shaking had begun a few minutes after events at Rue Street, almost twenty-four hours ago now, and it hadn’t shown much sign of stopping since. Sometimes it made his hands tremble so much he could hardly hold the glass of whisky he’d nursed through an all but sleepless night, other times it made his teeth chatter. But most of the shaking didn’t go on outside, it was in. It was as if the pigeons had got into his belly somehow, and were flapping their wings against his innards.

And all because he’d seen something wonderful, and he knew in his bones that his life would never be the same again. How could it? He’d climbed the sky and looked down on the secret place that he’d been waiting since childhood to find.

He’d always been a solitary child, as much through choice as circumstance, happiest when he could unshackle his imagination and let it wander. It took little to get such journeys started. Looking back, it seemed he’d spent half his school days gazing out of the window, transported by a line of poetry whose meaning he couldn’t quite unearth, or the sound of someone singing in a distant classroom, into a world more pungent and more remote than the one he knew. A world whose scents were carried to his nostrils by winds mysteriously warm in a chill December; whose creatures paid him homage on certain nights at the foot of his bed, and whose peoples he conspired with in sleep.

But despite the familiarity of this place, the comfort he felt there, its precise nature and location remained elusive, and though he’d read every book he could find that promised some rare territory, he always came away disappointed. They were too perfect, those childhood kingdoms; all honey and summer.

The true Wonderland was not like that, he knew. It was as much shadow as sunlight, and its mysteries could only be unveiled when your wits were about used up and your mind close to cracking.

That was why he trembled now, for that was how he felt. Like a man whose head was about to split.

2

He’d woken early, gone downstairs and cooked himself a fried egg and bacon sandwich, then sat with the ruins of his gluttony until he heard his father stirring above. He quickly called the firm, and told Wilcox that he was sick, and wouldn’t be in work today. He told the same to Brendan – who was about his morning ablutions and, with the door locked, couldn’t see the ashen, anxious face his son was wearing this morning. Then, these duties done, he went back to his room and sat on his bed to examine the events at Rue Street afresh, hoping that the nature of yesterday’s mysteries could eventually be made to come clear.

It did little good. Whichever way he turned events they seemed impervious to rational explanation, and he was left only with the same razor-sharp memory of the experience and the ache of longing that came with it.

Everything he’d ever wanted had been in that land; he knew it. Everything his education had taught him to disbelieve – all miracles, all mystery, all blue shadow and sweet-breathed spirits. All the pigeon knew, all the wind knew, all the human world had once grasped and now forgotten, all of it was wailing in that place. He’d seen it with his own eyes.

Which probably made him insane.

How else could he explain an hallucination of such precision and complexity? No, he was insane. And why not? He had lunacy in his blood. His father’s father, Mad Mooney, ended his life crazy as a coot. The man had been a poet, according to Brendan, though tales of his life and times had been forbidden in Chariot Street. Hush your nonsense, Eileen had always said, whenever Brendan mentioned the man, though whether this taboo was against Poetry, Delirium or the Irish Cal had never decided. Whichever, it was an edict his father had often broken when his wife’s back was turned, for Brendan was fond of Mad Mooney and his verses. Cal had even learned a few, at his father’s knee. And now here he was, carrying on that family tradition: seeing visions and crying into his whisky.

The question was: to tell or not to tell. To speak what he’d seen, and endure the laughter and the sly looks, or to keep it hidden. Part of him badly wanted to talk, to spill everything to somebody (Brendan, even) and see what they made of it. But another part said: be quiet, be careful. Wonderland doesn’t come to those who blab about it, only to those who keep their silence, and wail.

So that’s what he did. He sat, and shook, and waited.

3

Wonderland didn’t turn up, but Geraldine did, and she was in no mood for lunatics. Cal heard her voice in the hall below; heard Brendan telling her that Cal was ill, and didn’t want to be disturbed, heard her tell Brendan that she intended to see Cal whether he was sick or not; then she was at the door.

‘Cal?’

She tried the handle, found the door locked and rapped on it. ‘Cal? It’s me. Wake up.’

He feigned bleariness, aided by a tongue now well whisky-sodden.

‘Who is it?’ he said.

‘Why’s the door locked? It’s me. Geraldine.’

‘I’m not feeling too good.’

‘Let me in, Cal.’

He knew better than to argue with her in such a mood. He shambled to the door, and turned the key.

‘You look terrible,’ she said, her voice mellowing as soon as she set eyes on him. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘I’m all right,’ he protested. ‘Really. I just had a fall.’

‘Why didn’t you ring me? I was expecting you at the wedding rehearsal last night. Had you forgotten?’

The following Saturday Geraldine’s elder sister Teresa was to marry the love of her life, a good Catholic boy whose fertility could scarcely be in question: his beloved was four months pregnant. Her swelling belly was not being allowed to overshadow proceedings however: the wedding was to be a grand affair. Cal, who’d been courting Geraldine for two years, was a valued guest, given the general expectation that he’d be the next to exchange vows with one of Norman Kellaway’s four daughters. Doubtless his missing the rehearsal had been viewed as minor heresy.

‘I did remind you, Cal,’ Geraldine said. ‘You know how important it is to me.’

‘I had a bit of trouble,’ he told her. ‘I fell off a wall.’

She looked incredulous.

‘What were you doing climbing on a wall?’ she said, as though at his age he should be well beyond such indignities.

He told her briefly about the escape of 33, and the chase to Rue Street. It was a bowdlerized account, of course. In it there was no mention of the carpet or what he’d seen there.

‘Did you find the bird?’ she asked, when he’d finished recounting the chase.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ he told her. In fact, he’d come home to Chariot Street, only to be told by Brendan that 33 had flown back to the loft in the late afternoon, and was now back beside his speckled wife. This he told Geraldine.

‘So you missed the rehearsal looking for a pigeon that came home anyway?’ she said.

He nodded. ‘But you know how Dad loves his birds,’ he said.

Mention of Brendan softened Geraldine further still; she and Cal’s father had been fast friends since Cal had first introduced them. ‘She sparkles,’ his father had told Cal, ‘hold on to her, ’cause if you don’t, somebody else will.’ Eileen had never been so certain. She’d always been cool with Geraldine, a fact which had only made Brendan’s praise more lavish.

The smile she offered now was gently indulgent. Though Cal had been loath to let her in and have her spoil his reverie, he was suddenly grateful for her company. He even felt the shaking fade a little.

‘It’s stale in here,’ she said. ‘You need some fresh air. Why don’t you open the window?’

He did as she suggested. When he turned round she was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her back to the collage of pictures he’d put up there in his youth, and which his parents had never removed. The Wailing Wall, Geraldine called it; it had always upset her, with its parade of movie stars and mushroom clouds, politicians and pigs.

‘The dress is beautiful,’ she said.

He puzzled over the remark a moment, his mind sluggish.

‘Teresa’s dress,’ she prompted.

‘Oh.’

‘Come and sit down, Cal.’

He lingered by the window. The air was balmy, and clean. It reminded him –

‘What’s wrong?’ she said.

The words were on the tip of his tongue. ‘I saw Wonderland.’ he wanted to say. That was it, in sum. The rest – the circumstances, the description – those details were niceties. The three essential words were easy enough, weren’t they? I saw Wonderland. And if there was anybody in his life to whom he should say them, it was this woman.

‘Tell me, Cal,’ she said. ‘Are you ill?’

He shook his head.

‘I saw …’ he began.

She looked at him with plain puzzlement.

‘What?’ she said. ‘What did you see?’

‘I saw …’ he began again, and again faltered. His tongue refused the instruction he gave it; the words simply wouldn’t come. He looked away from her face at the Wailing Wall. ‘The pictures …’ he said finally, ‘… they’re an eyesore.’

A strange euphoria swept over him as he sailed so close to telling, then away. The part of him that wanted what he’d seen kept secret had in that moment won the battle, and perhaps even the war. He could not tell her. Not now, not ever. It was a great relief to have made up his mind.

I’m Mad Mooney, he thought to himself. It wasn’t such a bad idea at that.

‘You’re looking better already,’ she said. ‘It must be the fresh air.’

4

And what lessons could he learn from the mad poet, now that they were fellow spirits? What would Mad Mooney do, were he in Cal’s shoes?

He’d play whatever game was necessary, came the answer, and then, when the world turned its back, he’d search, search until he found the place he’d seen, and not care that in doing so he was inviting delirium. He’d find his dream and hold on to it and never let it go.

They talked a little while longer, until Geraldine announced that she had to leave. There was wedding business to do that afternoon.

‘No more pigeon-chasing,’ she said to Cal. ‘I want you there on Saturday.’

She put her arms around him.

‘You’re too thin,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have to feed you up.’

She expects to be kissed now, the mad poet whispered in his ear; oblige the lady. We don’t want her to think you’ve lost interest in copulation, just because you’ve been half way to Heaven and back. Kiss her, and say something fetching.

The kiss Cal could deliver, though he was afraid the fact that his passion was prompted would show. He needn’t have feared. She returned his fake fervour with the genuine article, her body warm and tight against his.

That’s it, said the poet, now find something seductive to say, and send her off happy.

Here Cal’s confidence faltered. He had no skill with sweet-talk, nor ever had. ‘See you Saturday,’ was all he could muster. She seemed content with that. She kissed him again, and took her leave.

He watched her from the window, counting her steps until she turned the corner. Then, with his lover out of sight, he went in search of his heart’s desire.