Wellesian

‘You didn’t happen to accuse that woman inside of having incest with her brother?’

‘Now, that’s going a bit far.  I simply alluded to a hypothetical.’

‘Runt!’ said Sue Ellen Deane. 

‘I was only referring to how everyone accuses the Berrills of having . . . incest with each other,’ I continued.

‘Well, it goes without saying with that pair,’ said the Gulliver, in a deep voice, Wellesian deep, the first and last time I would hear it, if I were to be so fortunate.  ‘If anyone’s having incest, it’s them.’

‘The lad’s not even two-----’

‘Three.’

‘Three months in the grave and you’re spreading nonsense.’

‘Spread?  That’s absurd.  Unless she can get into other minds to do her gossiping, telepathic-like.  All the minds all at once.’   

Next of all Rita appeared (almost as though she could sense confrontation).  It was my understanding she didn’t smoke, and had most likely only joined us in the beer garden to see out the row.  She sidled up next to Sue Ellen Deane and was clearly delighted Colreavy had waylaid me; also, she looked about ready to get stuck in again herself.

‘You don’t seem to understand what your perverted friends did,’ said Sue Ellen.  ‘That bloody hoax they orchestrated might have been amusing for them, but information is power, and to wield it in such a way is irresponsible to say the very least.  Is it any wonder someone was – many of us were – hurt?’ 

‘It wasn’t a hoax,’ I said, secretly knowing that for Oran it kind of was. ‘Not really.  You might call it, in terms of prose writing, fiction that wasn’t explicitly declared as such.  Like the Orson Welles thing.  Which should have been much more harmful than it was back in the day when you think about it, seeing as it reached a greater number of ears, and let’s be honest, there was much more at stake in that particular instance.  In the end, it’s all about the reader.  How far they’re going to take it.’

‘So Ernest is to blame, is that it?’ cried Rita.

‘That’s not on now,’ said Colreavy, with a low, threatening cadence.

‘Brendan, not only was this bastard slandering my family’s name in there, he also accused us of having something to do with the fire at the weirdos’ house.’

‘I thought you said you knew nothing of a fire,’ I said to Rita.

‘You go around accusing people of crimes . . . then you’re barking up the wrong tree, pal,’ said Colreavy.

I noticed a turn in his mood.  He was already hostile, but ill-temper grew in him when the fire was mentioned.

‘I didn’t mean to imply that either,’ I said.  ‘My only intention was for us to bear in mind the madness that has come from all this blame and rancour.  I know the Berrills.  They’re just harmless old pensioners.  Of course, they’re eccentric for this place, but they’re not the only ones.  There are way madder ones knocking about if you pay close attention.  If you blame them, you may as well blame everyone.  We’re all subject to scrutiny then.  I just wanted to point out that the blame game is pointless.’

‘Come off it,’ said Rita.  ‘You were obviously framing one of us for that incident.  Why would you have said it?  And you plastered on top.’

‘Okay, it’s true I don’t know who or what was behind the fire, though I’m pretty sure it was a who based on the matter of fact a bomb was thrown in their back window.  I can’t be sure who did it and I’m not in the habit of casting aspersions.  But at the same time, there’s plenty round here who have it in for the Berrills, have had it in for them long before your brother died – by misadventure, I should add – and some of you haven’t exactly hidden your vengeful objectives.  So all in all, I can’t be certain, but I wouldn’t be surprised either . . .’

I didn’t get another word in as Colreavy suddenly slammed my head against the wall and pinned it there.  He added no slapping or punching or kicking or any other form of accompanying battery; he just held on to my head tightly and pressed it against the dusty cold stone and a metal sign for Hannaway’s Ale to my left near cut my face.  The smell of sweat from his hand was nauseating.  I wasn’t strong enough to fight him off and just stood there trapped and helpless. 

‘Brendan!  Stop it!’

It was his wife come to reprimand him.  However, he was not ready to release me and paid her no notice, so caught up was he in the euphoria of violence.  I think after some time he must have recognised that it wasn’t feasible for him to stand there restraining me for the rest of the night so he soon let go.  I didn’t say anything else.  I was angry enough to hazard a punch back but I’d been put in my place, I suppose, and was reluctant to see events escalate.  I looked at Caitríona but she didn’t return the acknowledgement.  I hoped she had spoken up out of concern for me, but I believe she was simply unimpressed by her other half’s etiquette.  Her eyes stayed firmly on him, brows raised in horror and disapproval.   I thought it was best that I just skedaddle without another word, so I composed myself and made for the lounge.

‘Yeah, get out of here, you rotten little bastard,’ said Rita. 

The man with the soft beard put his cigarettes into his jacket as I was leaving as if to say I would receive no such kindness from him anymore.

A feeling of humiliation and rejection like you wouldn’t believe.  Though it was not the first time.  The town had provided me moments like this before and there were times where I might have agreed with Phyllis that the place was a hell-hole.  Or even that there was something in the food.  And sure enough, as I passed through the bar on my way to the front door, I spotted on a table, though someone else’s table, not the Colreavy-Gilgan-Gulliver alliance table, a plate of macaroons sitting there, which gave some credence to Phyllis’ hypothesis. 

I walked sullen and aimlessly further into town, so shaken was I that I’d no mind for sound decisions.  And it was almost as though there was an itinerary inscribed in my brain because I just found myself suddenly in the alleyway at the side of The Martlet, then up on top of the wall at the very back of the building.  I didn’t even check to see if anyone was around to catch me clambering over as my mind was lost to insult, with every impulse now set to an old beat, the execution of a fixed mission, and the rectification of my primary failures in going about things by the doing of something primitive and possibly restorative.