Always the drink

Always the drink

I should have known. I should have realized, as soon as I saw his
Leprechaun grin across the bar at the Duck and Drake, that the best
thing by far to do was to keep my head down. But no. I had to say
hello. In fact I had to yell it across the bar at the top of my
lungs,
"Hey, Paddy!" I shouted, like an idiot; like inviting Death himself
into my home.
"Hey, Paddy! Where ya been?" I shouted like a market trader with a
special offer on suicides.
His little face lit up, bless him, at the sight of me. He must have
thought it was his birthday. He must have thought Christmas had come
early. For some reason I've never understood I actually believe the
things he says. I know I shouldn't. Nobody ever should, but for some
reason I do! Listen to me! Just listen! "For some reason" indeed. It's
the drink, of course. I know it is. If I hadn't been drinking I
wouldn't have been in the Duck and Drake with a cribbage board tucked
under my arm looking for late ones. They run a system there; after
licensing hours if you've got a cribbage board, they'll still serve -
the landlord's registered the place as a private club for card game
enthusiasts. If it hadn't been for the drink, I would never have
believed a word he had ever said to me, in fact I wouldn't even know
his face; I wouldn't know his name. Come to think of it, I'm not even
sure I believe his name really is Paddy Dwyer. But there he was and I'd
invited the devil into my life again. From the moment he heard my voice
his little Leprechaun ears pricked up, his ginger beard stood to
attention like an alert squirrel and he positively beamed with
Hibernian warmth,
"Is it yourself, now?"
What a question! And what, I wonder now, looking back, is the accepted
answer? Only the Irish could come up with such a greeting.
He seemed to materialise on the bar-stool next to me.
"Where have I been?" He asked laughing, "Where have I been? Why I've
been here, man, here! Where have you been?"
We chewed the fat for a while and then she appeared, tottering atop
six-inch platform boots, knee-high in black patent leather, white mini
skirt and enough mascara to sink the Bismarck.
He stood up, his beard sticking out horizontally, pint in hand, and a
huge smile stretching from one freckled ear to the other,
"This is Charlene," he declared proudly, "She's Ukrainian. Sweet as a
birthday pony, no?"
To be honest it was difficult to tell. Charlene was barely twenty it
seemed, but had the air of a tired tart about her, and eye bags from
the drink she showed all the signs of loving too well.
"Yes," I lied diplomatically, "very pretty."
Charlene giggled, hiccupped and giggled some more. She teased the
umbrella in her cocktail and batted her painted lashes at me
provocatively.
"Charlene's looking for somewhere to stay. Aren't you petal?" Paddy
said slowly, pronouncing each phoneme slowly and clearly as if talking
to a retarded child.
"She's a student, is my little Charlene. Of course her real name's not
Charlene, its Anastazja, but that would attract the wrong sort of
attention from the authorities now, wouldn't it?" Paddy Dwyer leaned
closer and blew cigarette smoke through his freckled nostrils as he
lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
"I found her staying with Belarusian Boris," he said as if I should
know who Belarusian Boris was and whether that was a good or bad
thing.
"She's here to study, but she does a little work on the side for
Boris," he confided in an almost confessional tone.
There was something in the way he slowed down and emphasized the word
work that should have tipped me off; should have made alarm bells ring
but, like I said, it's the drink. It's always the drink. It was the
drink that reminded me I had the keys; reminded me that Lucy's rich
daddy was away; that he had all that expensive malt whisky; that the
flat was empty, the keys were in my pocket for safe keeping, and that -
best of all by far - her daddy's Mercedes was sitting outside the pub
waiting to drive me home.
That was the way it felt with the Merc. It was so sophisticated, so
easy to drive and, above all, so safe, that it almost seemed that the
more drunk I was the safer it would be. It seemed that the thing always
knew which gear to be in, hat to do, where to go.
"No problem," I bellowed proudly, "No problem at all! I have the
perfect place. Half an hour by executive saloon!" I hoisted the keys
gleefully from my jacket pocket and Paddy Dwyer's eyes bulged with
enthusiasm. He looked sideways at Charlene, teetering like a toy on her
heels. I had a sudden flash of childhood memory about those toys they
used to advertise on TV in the days of Top Cat and Rentaghost - Weebles
wobble, but they don't fall down. I choked briefly on my gin and tonic,
but didn't puke - a sign I knew beyond question, that I was still
sober. Paddy nudged me in the ribs and winked wildly,
"I think we should have a little party. Charlene will be very friendly
I'm sure."
And I believed him. I always believe Paddy when the drink's involved.
And I'd been so good! Not a drop for three months! That was why Lucy
had given me the keys - as a reward for being such a good fianc?. She
was off in Tuscany with her rich mummy and rich daddy and had given me
her keys to show them how responsible I could be as long as I stayed
off the stuff. After that last incident with the horses, they'd
starting having second thoughts about the wedding.
I'd started having second thoughts about our little soiree as we all
climbed into the Merc, but Paddy swore everything would be just fine.
There was just one other thing, he added by-the-by. He just had to go
back to the bar to get that grass. Apparently, Belarusian Boris had
sent Charlene on a business errand, to deliver the goods and collect
payment by Ukrainian invoice.
Charlene hiccupped on the back seat,
"Do not forgetting a cash, also," she said.
And still I trusted him. It was the drink.
By the time he had come back with a sports bag full of prime Amsterdam
skunk to throw in the boot, I had already dropped off at the
wheel.
Paddy thumped me in the arm as he climbed into the passenger seat, "How
much you had?" he enquired with what seemed to be genuine concern. I
rooted around in my inside jacket pocket and pulled out an empty bottle
of Bell's. He shook his head in sympathetic disapproval. I rooted
around some more and pulled out a quarter bottle of brandy, down to the
half-way line.
"And you're driving!! Jesus H. Christ man. Are you mad?!"
"I'll be ok, cat. Skin up will ya? There's some resin in me jacket
pocket."
"You have to be joking. I'm in absolutely no state to skin up. I'm
completely pissed. You do it. I'll drive."
"Bad idea," I slurred, you're Paddy Dwyer. It'll go wrong.
I'm still not sure how it all happened. I'll probably never know all
the details, but it was a mistake. That much I know.
It turned out that Paddy had given Charlene a number of driving lessons
over the previous week and she could now thrash the engine in three
different gears with confidence, although she would have been hard
pushed to identify the gear stick sober.
Rubber smeared itself across the road as the Mercedes screeched and
accelerated to take-off speed before even Charlene had no choice but to
realise that the cylinders were about to rupture and rammed it into
second, letting the clutch spring back like a Jack-in-the-box. The car
jolted like a hanging man reaching the end of his rope and again got
steadily thrashed towards breaking point. Again Charlene stamped on the
clutch and rammed the stick forward, pushing from the shoulder. Time
now to simultaneously forget all about the clutch and stamp on the
accelerator as if it were on fire.
Paddy was having trouble rolling the joint.

" For fuck's sake woman, will ya chill out? And go easy on the
pedals."

The Mercedes's engine was nearing the pitch of a hammer-drill.

"What now?"

"Fourth woman!! Fourth!!! What the fuck d'ya think?!"

Charlene remained calm, almost psychiatrically so.

"Where is it?"

"What? What do you mean Where is it? Up woman!! Up and right!!
There!!"
Paddy had reached a point of near-hysteria and his voice had
disappeared, not through mere exasperation so much as the fact that it
was now at exactly the same pitch as the engine, the two wavelengths
cancelling each-other out.
Charlene dutifully performed the only manoeuvre she knew with the
mechanical enthusiasm of a small child "doing its trick", the resultant
lunge stretching the chassis to new lengths, and the Mercedes settled
into a more relaxing pelt.
Paddy knew from experience that Charlene would now keep her right foot
on the accelerator and rely entirely on the steering-wheel for damage
limitation, staying alive and allied activities. Paddy really had
intended to introduce the issues of braking and deceleration, working,
eventually, towards control and safety but the syllabus had been so
alcohol-driven that the emphasis had, thus far, been firmly on making
the tyres go 'eeek'.
Paddy checked the road ahead. It boasted his two favourite features in
roads - straightness and emptiness. He got back down to the joint and
evened out the tobacco - the wheels went 'eeek' reassuringly - he
started crumbling the resin.
"Oh dear," said Charlene, far too slowly.

Paddy looked up.

"Tell me that's a taxi behind us," he said over his shoulder at me as I
tucked into the last of

the brandy.

"What?" I asked in oblivious innocence

"That car with the light on it. The one right up our arse."

Paddy closed his eyes in a strange form of silent prayer consisting of
one word of four letters.

"Slow down," he said calmly to Charlene.

"How?"

"Drop a cog."

"Eh?"

"Third, woman."

"How?"

"Oh sweat Jesus."

There was a pause.

"Change back down to third gear."

Charlene looked momentarily confused and then tried her best trick
backwards.

The engine screamed as Charlene hammered the gas and accelerated wildly
into a lower gear. The car was now leaning forward into the road as if
it had lost something.
"Off the gas, woman. Off the gas!!"
Charlene obeyed with all her amassed automotive knowledge, and even
tucked her right foot under the seat to make sure that it wouldn't
happen again.
Relief became as tangible as it was short-lived as needle and
engine-pitch both sank back to non-terminal heights. The needle
continued to fall; the cylinders ceased their desperate scream.
Charlene beamed broadly - this must surely be a good thing.
It was with a sinking, sphincter-slackening air of ill ease that Paddy
grasped the full state of play.
The fact the Mercede's was 'borrowed' without the knowledge of its
owner, paled to nothing next to the fact that it was doubling the speed
limit in a residential area driven by an illegal Ukrainian prostitute
who genuinely believed that abandoning the petrol in third gear on a
main road was a good idea.
Paddy had less than five seconds to explain the basics of manual
transmission to Charlene. He took in his friend's look of innocent
optimism and decided not to bother. Charlene's painted grin was too
painful.
As the car started to cough, Paddy looked ahead up the road for some
sign. Some hope. He casually wondered if he was insured, as he looked
at the steep hill up which we were now rolling. Maybe there was some
chance. Maybe there was a God. Miracles could happen. Couldn't they?
Maybe. Maybe??
"GAS!!" he yelled.
Charlene raised her leg like a marionette. Too late. The Mercedes
spluttered, coughed its last and died.
BANG - Charlene hit the gas and looked to her right apologetically.
Silence.
The road started to slip away from ahead of us; objects in the window
started moving away from us. It took Paddy a while to realise what was
happening.
"BRAKE!" he screamed.
Charlene's elephantine reflexes whammed the brake pedal into the floor
with such force that both learner's and instructor's heads shot back
into the head rests with a heavy pair of thuds. Paddy checked the score
through his door-mirror. It couldn't have been more than three or four
inches at the most. Very close. Too damned close. He waited
Nothing. No light. No siren.
He checked his options. Charlene sat like a showroom dummy with a grin
of retarded terror frozen onto her face, her fingers locked through
rigor mortis around the steering wheel.
We waited.
I was reminded of a scene from Das Boot. I even wished the pigs would
hurry up and do us all, just to get it over with.
Nothing.

Was it possible? A hill start? First time? Three inches rear clearance?
Charlene? - it was too

horrible. It had to be a nightmare. In a spasm of sober lucidity Paddy
seized the moment.

"Do exactly what I say."

Charlene was starting to salivate visibly. She nodded.

"Put your left foot on the left pedal, don't take your right foot off
the middle one." He pulled up the hand brake and clung to it at full
stretch.
"Now turn the keys to off. Now on. OK. Gas - not too much."
Too late. It was always too much, but too much was better than rolling
back.
"Left pedal down. Now first gear," Paddy closed his eyes; too much gas
- way too much. The engine was screaming.
"Now dump the clutch."
Like an explosives engineer, Paddy released the hand brake and plunged
it down. The launch-pad effect took even him by surprise. Sucked back
into his seat by the G-force though he was, he was just able to see
ahead to asses the road, which suddenly revealed a turning.
"Left!"
Charlene was still accelerating uphill in first. She spun the wheel
with what was, even by her standards, wild abandon. The road flattened
out to reveal a second turning, this time to the right. Charlene didn't
need telling, she'd suddenly become Michael Schumacher. From full left
lock to full right lock with no hint of middle ground, two of the
Mercedes's wheel-hubs were forced into the tarmac, the other two
leaving it entirely. The banshee scream could have awoken the dead for
miles around.
"BRAKE!" Screamed Paddy. The result was, perhaps, predictable.
"Down!"
Paddy Dwyer and I plummeted out of sight. Paddy kept one nervous eye on
the door mirror as the police vehicle pottered by lazily and stopped
ahead of us.
Charlene just sat there, grinning.
They gave us the usual hassle, of course. Had us out of the car for
searching; gave us the usual chat, the usual wisecracks. Paddy seemed
unusually self-assured. I should have known he would have an idea. I
should have known it would be a bad one from the way he winked as he
leaned towards me.
"Maybe we can use Charlene's professional talents," he said, "If we
just get their spuds drained, maybe they'll leave us alone."
I was desperate. I was in a panic, I was standing drunk in the rain and
I was painfully aware that Lucy's daddy is the local magistrate, so I
acquiesced. Anything, I thought, was worth a try. And it would have
worked too. It nearly did.
I was sitting there, trying to be discrete; trying to look out of the
windows as they steadily steamed up. Trying to ignore the snorts and
grunts of the copper in the front seat. Paddy had already excused
himself.
"Off to the bushes," he'd said, "The beer's gone to my bladder," he'd
said. "I'll be back in a flash."
He'd promised. And I believed him. I should have known. And so I sat
there, shaking as the cops changed places and the second one sat there
wheezing and grunting like a pig at the trough as Charlene's peroxide
head bobbed up and down like an erotic machine part.
If only she hadn't thrown up. They would never have looked in the boot.
They would never have checked her ID. How was I to know she was only
sixteen? If only Paddy Dwyer had come back to the car. He'd have had an
idea. But no, he was gone and there I sat. If only I'd never seen him.
If only I hadn't listened to him, but aah, it was the drink.
It's always the drink.