Standing Around

‘That’s the author’s signature.’

‘But how could that be?’ asked Alison.  ‘Wasn’t Ernie dead before they printed it?’

‘Yes, before they even agreed to publish it.’

‘I only came upon the etching a couple of days ago,’ said Jasper.  ‘And in my faulty wisdom made it a point in Crumallys last night.  You could say some of them in there took the hump with me.  Anyway, news of that little scene seems to have made the rounds today.  So I thought I’d show as many people as I could.  They’re not so open to scrutiny of the Gilgans.  I swear I thought that mob was going to do me in.  Imagine that.’

‘I’m telling you – it couldn’t be his signature,’ said Alison. ‘Who’d have had the nerve to forge the man's handwriting?’

‘My wife got this one off someone close with the family,’ said Jasper.  ‘All the advance copies came from them, as far as I know.  That’s what I told them in Crumallys and they near had a fit.  Also – and the way I make it, this is where things get very suspicious – I hear the Gilgans have been selling these ‘signed’ copies everywhere at almost triple the going price.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ asked Alison.

‘I wouldn’t put it past them,’ said Ida Roche.   

‘Imagine using the death of a loved one to enrich yourself.’

‘They wouldn’t be the first.’

‘Not even to enrich themselves, just to make a few extra bob.’

 

Oran and the others came out of the office.  Oran now had both paintings balancing on his head so it seemed that Grant and Lavery had come to some arrangement.

‘Well, what’s our state of affairs now?’ asked Lavery when he saw us standing there with Jasper.

‘There’s a crowd out there,’ said Ida.

‘Any sensible ones?’

Nobody was ready to respond to this query.

‘You’d think they’d have gotten sick of it by now,’ I said.  ‘All that standing around.’

‘That’s what they’re used to,’ said Alison.  ‘Have you never stood around for something in your life?’

Jasper stuck out his chest.  ‘I’d go so far as to say you’re not truly Irish until you’ve stood around for something.  Or better still: gone out and marched.’

‘I completely agree,’ said Alison.

I couldn’t say for sure if I agreed with the whole standing around thing myself, but on the back of Alison’s position on the matter, I wanted to, so I nodded – tepidly.

‘They’ll tear him apart if they get hold of him,’ said Lavery, looking at Oran.

‘Let them,’ muttered the big man.    

‘What about my paintings?’ Mr Grant said to Oran.  ‘I’m not paying for damaged goods.  Not only that, I had you for a mindful man.  I don’t believe you’d want to endanger the Montescus.’

‘How about you go out the front?’ I suggested to Mr Grant.  You’re unknown to them so they should leave you be – and me and Oran will sneak out the back.’

‘Good idea,’ said Lavery.  ‘Yous are the only acknowledged villains here.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Alison, crossly.  ‘You might also qualify since you have us in the dark with all your indecision.  Do we really even know if we’ll have jobs in the new year?’

A round of applause came from down the back.  I felt like clapping too.  I’d heard Alison give Lavery a piece of her mind in the past, so her speaking up wasn’t unprecedented, it was just that her timing was spot on.  Ida Roche attempted to come to her superior’s defence, albeit half-heartedly, for she too was feeling the rigours, second in command or no. 

‘It’s a fair point, Alison,’ she said.  ‘But remember these are trying times for the lot of us, including, and I’d hazard a guess, especially for Mr Lavery.’

‘Why is everyone having a go at me all of a sudden?’  whined Lavery with typical hubris. 

‘Oh, give over, Arthur,’ snapped Ida.  ‘We’re trying our best.’

And he did give himself over to commonsense once again, and there was the return of that more thoughtful side of him which he’d shown off after the blaze.  As well as the dopey and preoccupied demeanour I’d been seeing in him since the paper’s closure became a topic for discussion.

 

It was therefore decided Oran and I would go with the paintings out the back and Mr Grant would go to his car and we’d all meet back at Isolde Terrace.

‘Would you have a key for the back gate?’ I asked Lavery.

‘Oh, you need a key now, do you?  You made a fine a job of the wall last time.’

The others were mostly nonplussed by this remark because he had not reported my attempted burglary, thanks be to God, or even mentioned it to another soul.  Although outright a shit, Lavery, in any case, knew how to hold on to a secret.

 

We walked the back streets to stay clear of developing ructions in town.  I carried the bird, Oran the stag.  My burden was lighter and so much more portable but I worried I’d get a splinter in me because the wood was old and peppered with little sharp prongs. 

‘Did you hear anything?’  I asked Oran as we trudged along the alley behind The Martlet. 

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your stethoscope.  What did the painting say?’

‘Only the exact time and date of the end of the world,’ he sneered.

‘Did it tell you if it was the real thing or not?’

‘It’s the real deal, believe me.  A real F. Noel Montescu.  That is why the discerning gentleman means to purchase it.  You’re awful slow, aren’t you?’

 

The streets were mainly empty, but those who did pass us were among the kinder Earlship subjects who by great chance didn’t belong to any factions.  One of them even recognised Oran and didn’t glower or make a dig, was instead pleasant and said Hello with not a trace of venom in the address.

 

There was a long mile of walking for us down Semlyn Street and ahead to our left we could see the Pompadour.  For a building overwhelmingly ignored in its later years, including regretfully by myself, it had prompted substantial convergence recently and now it demanded more of our attention.  Oran was first to notice a hum of activity around the place when we were about ten yards away.  There were cars parked outside.  And inside by the gates you could see a bulldozer and a smattering of diggers.  As we got closer, the building glimmered with hard hats.  Then the sledgehammers and crowbars also came into view.

‘They must be pulling it down today,’ I said.

Oran didn’t respond.  We both stopped for a moment to take it in.  It was a bit of a shock.  I thought for a moment Oran might weep as his right eye twitched and moistened like when we watched A League of Their Own together.

‘At least something is being done about it,’ I said.  ‘It was just sitting there abandoned for years.’  Poor consolation this knowing Oran’s autobiographical affiliation with the place.  To say it was merely abandoned was perhaps not doing justice to its suffering.  The building had a general air of resignation hanging over it like it had been jilted horribly after a prolonged and difficult relationship.   This, one would assume, was the most attention it had received in years.  And they were taking their sweet time attending to it.  Between the clanging and smashing and wrecking, the workers would pause to laugh and chat; a slow, unrushed demolition job.  In the chalky air I felt a voice was singing Daisy . . . Daisy . . .  like the computer in 2001, a movie the Pompadour no doubt recalled showing to the parents and grandparents of its destructors. 

The sorrow evident from Oran’s silence stirred up in me a new compunction.  I became weighed down with regret for having not done more than I could have to aid the poor cinema.  I might even have joined the Screaming Deanes and stood around outside with placards – that is, if they'd have deemed it worthy of standing around for.  I bet they would have.  If anything was worth standing around for, it was the Pompadour.

 ‘On the bright side . . . ,’ I sighed.  ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

‘Keep walking,’ said Oran, irritably.  ‘We’ve things to be at.’

 

 

Photo: by the author