After that, the grief was too much for them to bear. Everywhere they went about the house, they were confronted with memories of Nabla: her forget-me-not pinafore, the holy pictures and her pink squashy house slippers. Despite repeated cancellations, her copy of Woman's Way continued to arrive like some persecution from beyond the grave. In the end it all became too much for both of them so they sold up everything they owned and moved away from the town.
They found Dublin City very much to their liking - except perhaps for the smelly O'Hare family, who became their first neighbours when they lived in temporary rented accommodation on the Miami Towers Estate. There were fourteen of them and four pit-bull terriers - Norman Bates, Pancho, Elvis and Dirty Den. Mr O'Hare worked in the local crisp factory but had been made redundant and turned to selling wellington boots from a stall by the side of the dual carriageway. As he said himself:
Booted out and sellin' boots!
Noeleen young the family, and a very pretty young lady she was too, if a trifle curt in manner, as Pats discovered one day on his way home from Waterstone's with a copy of the London Review of Books. He stopped for a moment to chat to her about school and the approaching exams, only to be taken aback when she said:
Never mind about school - do you want a jump or not?
He demurred and hastened on his way.
Then there was Nialler, who stole cars and raced them up and down the dual carriageway. He had quite a selection in his front garden. Rarely a day passed but he greeted Pats in the traditional manner of the estate:
Howya, Bukes! I'll buke your bleedin bollix in!
It was just as well none of them could read, Pats would often reflect. He shuddered to think what their reaction might have been if they'd found out just what he'd been up to all those nights with his ear to the wall while they were having their colourful, expletive-speckled family debates; especially when Noeleen got in the family way and it turned out to be Nialler's! There certainly was a lot of consternation in the abode of the O'Hares that evening! It took Mr O'Hare almost two hours to bear the truth out of the miscreant with the Krooklok.
- Didja?
- Wha?
- You know wha!
- Did I wha', Da?
- Don't fukkin' didja wha' me!
It got so bad that Mrs O'Hare could bear it no longer and began to fling the remnants of the evening meal - half-eaten batter burgers and sodden chips - at the man she had married in St Anne's Church, Raheny, twenty-two years before.
- Leave him alone, Da! she snapped, as another salvo whistled past his ear. He wiped the ketchup off his chin with an expansive sweep of his forearm and snarled back at her.
- Don't hurt the girl, Jim, for the love and honour of St Joseph!
Mr O'Hare landed a punch in the middle of his daughter's forehead and faced his wife defiantly.
- DON'T FUKKIN' TELL ME WHAT TO DO! JA HEAR ME, RIGH'?
But happily it was all resolved in the end, with the contrite Nialler being dispatched to the Italia Bar for a dozen stout and some drugs for himself and Noeleen. And, as the singing and dancing started - "Here we go! Here we go! Here we go!" and "Ole! Ole! Ole!" the head of the household was heard to gaily whoop atop the gas cooker - the unfortunate pregnancy was all but forgotten. As Mrs O'Hare put it, after a nip or two of sherry:
- I don't care if the little fucker has four eyes - he's still an O'Hare, righ', Nialler?
And Nialler said:
- Righ', Ma! as Elvis, Norman Bates, Pancho and Dirty Den sang background vocals to Mr O'Hare's impromptu Pavarotti.
Unfortunately, Mammy and Pats never did get to see the baby as they were notified shortly afterwards that the building work had all been completed and they were free to move into their new sixteen-bedroomed property overlooking the sea in the salubrious suburb of Dalkey in south Dublin. But the story of the wonderful O'Hare family was far from over . . . For yes - you've guessed!
The notification came as before, in a plain white vellum envelope, and it simply stated that Pats' novel Back of a Lorry - about the trials and tribulations of an ordinary Dublin family - had scooped the Buglass-McKenzie Prize once more. Had things been otherwise, he would have raced back upstairs and cried:
- Mammy! I did it! I won again!
But sadly, not long after they moved into their new home, his mammy began to suffer from pre-senile dementia, and nothing would sway her from the conviction that not only was Pats not her son but that he was, in fact, His Eminence Pope John Paul, the head of the one true Church.
But that is all in the past. It matters little to Pats Donaghy now that the critics champion A Kalashnikov for Shamus Doyle and Back of a Lorry as masterpieces of our time. He is only too aware that it is not a writer's job to pass comment on his own work. His obligation is to simply carry on and do what it is he was put on this earth to do.
Literary prize-givings are of little consequence to him.
And if perchance his new novel does catch the critical imagination and he finds himself once more gazing upon the variegated splendour of that most wondrous of cities, he will most certainly accept them graciously. But until then there are many exotic and beguiling lands to visit, the world opening like a dazzling oyster before himself and Mammy as they board the vessel which is to take them far from their native shores, to the white, powdered sands of the South Sea Islands, where beneath waving palms on a wickerwork table he shall forge ahead with his latest opus, The Barntrosna Files, in which a shy young man is confronted by a series of events which eventually make him face the truth about himself. A work which may well indeed see him take his place once more, nut brown and monkey-suited, upon that august podium, to make his speech. A night which shall be his crowning glory, for he will have kept his promise to Mammy so many years ago, and all those little tiddles will not have been in vain. But that is all to come, and there is much mango fruit and coconut milk to be consumed between now and then. His typewriter keys clack as baby monkeys shriek and chatter happily as Mammy's laughter floats on the balmy breeze as she sips mint juleps and arranges audiences with him for favoured villagers. Pats strikes each key singly, meticulously:
It was morning in Barntrosna. Or should I say evening. There was rain forecast. "I see there's rain forecast," said Mickey Niblett's mother as she wound the skein of blue wool around her stiff, almost waxen hands that were pointed outwards as if she were pretending she had just caught a large fish, such as a trout. Just then there was a knock at the door. Mickey got up from his chair and smiled as he raised his hand and said: "No, Mammy - I'll get it." He had a little difficulty with the front door latch because it was a trifle stiff. But there was no need to worry because Daddy had promised to attend to it when he got home from the fair. At last the door swung open and, to his horror, Mickey found himself shot three times through the head with a .357 Magnum, which is the most powerful handgun in the world. Had he not been wearing his lead-insulated protective helmet, he almost certainly would have died. "Phew! That was a close one, Mammy, wasn't it?" he said, wiping his perspiring brow. "Come here to me, Mickey Niblett, and never mind them would-be assailants or whoever it is they are! Do you hear me? Come away on over here now and give me a kiss, lovey," she cried, "for you're the best wee writer in the whole of Barntrosna town!"
Extracted from Mondo Desperado by Patrick McCabe, published by Picador on September 1st, £10, Patrick McCabe 1999
Mondo Desperado will be reviewed on the books pages next Saturday