Petitions

There are lots of places in the garden where you can feel completely cut off from the outside world. You can go anywhere in the garden and not have to worry about being looked at by the neighbours. Sometimes it would be nice to have the entertainment of looking at the neighbours. The wife's uncle says that his neighbour used to stand in his back garden every evening and play the tuba, until he lost it a few months ago. He's been playing the air tuba ever since then. He imitates the sound by singing the word 'tuba' over and over again. If you didn't know what he was up to, you might think there was something wrong with him, or you might think that anyway.

My cousin Hector often heard the sound of a bell when he stood in his garden. A friend of his called Sean had taken up the hobby of bell-ringing. People used to say they could smell him ringing it from miles away. This was meant as an insult, because anything you could smell from miles away in this locality wouldn't be very pleasant. But he always took it as a compliment. He took everything as a compliment, even remarks that were prefaced with 'This is not meant as a compliment'.

The local Amateur Dramatics Society were putting on a play and they needed a bell-ringer, so they cast Sean in the role. He was playing a character called Billy Clava, who rang bells and trained greyhounds by day, and by night he was a burglar. He didn't need the money, but he loved the thrill of burglary. Billy was just a minor character. The central characters were a man called John and a woman called Brenda. Neither of them said or did very much. According to Dara, the director, the drama was in what they didn't say and didn't do.

Sean thought that the audience would only go to the theatre as a means of escape from watching people saying nothing and doing nothing. He thought he should be the central character. His friends, Hector and Steve, agreed with him, and they rarely agreed with him. He believed that they always agreed with his statements, even when they prefaced their remarks with 'Firstly, you don't know the first thing about Eskimos'. Hector and Steve started a petition to make him the central character, and to add an Irish Wolfhound (they knew someone with an Irish Wolfhound, and everyone liked to look at him). Everyone they asked agreed to sign it, and they all said they'd go to see the play if the changes were made. They thought they had built a compelling case, but when they presented the petition to Dara he was furious. He tore each page into small pieces. He said he'd only change one of his plays if the characters in his head presented a compelling case for change, and that if idiots like Hector and Steve told him not to jump off a cliff, he'd be forced into jumping off a cliff just as a matter of principle.

This gave them an idea. They could get people to sign a petition asking him not to jump off a cliff. He wouldn't jump off a cliff if it would kill him, but he might jump into the sea off a small cliff. So the petition was to ask him not to jump off the cliff near the lighthouse. It was difficult to convince people to sign it, even when they explained that he'd do the opposite of what the petition suggested. Everyone agreed that they wanted to see him jump off a cliff because this was the man who was keeping Sean in the background of the play, but some people found it difficult to get their heads around the idea of achieving this goal by asking him to do the opposite. Reverse psychology normally worked in these situations. They'd say, "It doesn't matter. I'd rather jump into the hole in your garden rather than have your signature foul this page." They also tried suggesting to people that they couldn't really sign their names.

They presented the petition to Dara. Hector said, "We think you'll find this to be a very compelling case, because you're the one who made it."

Dara's response was to come up with a petition of his own. It was to get Hector and Steve to be the test pilots in Jerome's latest car. Jerome was always modifying old cars. His back yard was more like a junk yard. He found that the word 'pilot' was more appropriate than 'driver'. 'Crash test dummy' was more appropriate than 'pilot', but that would have put any potential applicants off the job.

Dara asked people to sign his petition. No one found it difficult to get their heads around this idea, and they all signed it. He presented it to Hector and Steve, and he said, "Withdraw the petition and I'll withdraw this one."

"Maybe we want to be the test pilots for Jerome's new car," Steve said.

"Yeah," Hector said, "it sounds like fun."

"Ye're bluffing. Ye might as well be the test pilots for a bomb."

Hector said, "I think it would be worth the risk just to see you jump off the cliff."

Hector and Steve went to see Jerome that evening. They told him about Dara's petition, and they said they'd pay him if he used a safe car in the test. Jerome agreed to this.

Dara suspected they'd try something like this, so he needed to give Jerome a reason to want to hurt them. He took the petition that they had presented to him (the one that asked him not to jump off a cliff) and he put a sticker over the title of the petition. He wrote on the sticker: Petition to ban ZZ Top from the jukebox in the pub.

Jerome loved ZZ Top even more than he loved the cars. When he saw the petition he looked at the first two names on it: Hector and Steve. He smiled because they had set up such a great opportunity for revenge.

When Hector and Steve called to see Jerome on the evening before the test, they detected some animosity. Jerome said, "If it explodes on take-off, don't worry. I have a fire extinguisher." He held up a bucket.

Hector suddenly remembered something he had to do on the following day, but he couldn't remember exactly what it was. All he knew was that he didn't have time to test the car, so the test would have to be postponed.

Dara was delighted to hear about the postponement. Hector phoned him to say he had to do something (he decided on shopping with his wife). Shortly after talking to Hector, Dara got a visit from two old men who introduced themselves as Bill and Chris. Bill said, "Chris is my younger brother. He used to be a cyclist and I was his manager. We heard about a character in your play who sounds very much like Chris. He once cycled up the side of a mountain in a race after crashing into a mini-bus that was taking nuns to the beach. He kept going even though he had a broken collar bone."

"And when I got to the top I realised I'd gone up the wrong mountain," Chris said.

"That's right. We heard that something very similar happened to a character in your play."

"He's just a minor character," Dara said.

"So is Chris."

"What exactly do you want me to do about it?"

"You have two options," Bill said, "and only two. Don't think you have the option of doing nothing. You can either give Chris the monetary compensation that would reflect his contribution to the character, or else change the play to reflect his involvement."

"How exactly do you want me to change it?"

"Include him in the play. Include both of us in the play."

"How?"

"We could be introduced to the audience at the start, and it could be explained to them that the story is based on us, or we could be introduced when this character appears."

"There's another option ye didn't consider," Dara said, "and it's the one I'm taking: get out of my sight."

"If you think we're going to take that option, you don't know very much about human nature. We'll get out of your sight alright, but we'll be back."

They were back on the following day with another man. Bill said, "At first we were going to get a gun and threaten you with it, but The Healy here has a much more interesting gun. His surname really is 'Healy' but 'The' is just a nickname. As you might have noticed, The Healy is short in terms of height."

"I'm five-foot-four," The Healy said with pride.

"He's five-foot-four," Bill said. "He's what you might call a small person. There's nothing unusual in that. There are lots of small people around, and it's this fact that got him thinking. It got him talking to people of similar height, and the result of this consultation process is that he's assembled an army of small people. They don't feel so small when they join together."

"How many are in the army?" Dara said.

"I don't count how many of us there are," The Healy said. "I just note our combined height. All I know is that we're 158 foot tall."

"Yeah," Dara said, "but even if ye stood on each other's shoulders, ye'd be too unsteady. And ye'd have to stand on each other's heads to reach ye'r full height. I know a sort of a club who stand on each other's heads, but it wouldn't be for the purpose of being taller. They run into walls as well. I'd be scared of that club if they threatened me, but somehow the army of small people only makes me smile."

"You'll be smiling on the other side of your face pretty soon," The Healy said.

"What side of my face am I smiling on now?"

"The wrong side."

"The wrong side is right," Bill said to Dara. "Think of The Healy's army as a gun, and it's pointing at you. Bring us into the play, or else."

"I think I'll go for the latter option."

"Your choice is made. Don't let us try to talk you out of it. This is exactly what The Healy wants. Some of his soldiers are dying for action. We'll be seeing you again."

Dara lived in a house outside the town. When he was walking home down a narrow road after the rehearsal that night, The Healy jumped out from the ditch in front of him. Dara got a shock, but when he saw who it was he smiled. He said, "Should I look up or down to see your army?"

"Look behind you."

Dara looked back. There was a line of small soldiers across the road about twenty yards away. There was another line behind that, and then another. He couldn't tell how many lines there were. They were all wearing uniforms. They looked ghostly in the moonlight, and they frightened Dara. He ran to his house.

When Bill and Chris called to see him on the following day, Dara said, "Okay, ye can be in the play."

"Can we play ourselves?"

"If ye want to."

"Aha!" Bill said, and he pulled off his wig to reveal that he was really Hector. Chris was Steve.

"We fooled you," Chris said. "We made up the story about the cyclist crashing into the mini-bus full of nuns."

"The Healy doesn't even have an army," Hector said.

"But I saw them last night."

"You saw boy scouts who were camping nearby. These costumes we're wearing are from your play. And your own make-up artist did our make-up. When we told her we wanted to get one over on you she was only too happy to help. You were outsmarted by idiots. Does that make you want to throw yourself off a cliff?"

Dara said, "There's only one way out of this. We need to act as gentlemen and face up to our responsibilities. I'll act in accordance with your petition and ye should act in accordance with mine."

Hector and Steve weren't expecting him to say that. They reluctantly agreed, and they shook hands with Dara.

Dara said, "I wish ye luck in the test of Jerome's latest car. I, in accordance with the petition, will not be jumping off the cliff."

"But you said you'd do the opposite of what idiots told you to do. Are you a man of your word or aren't you?"

"I did say that, and I stand by that statement. But the two of ye have just outsmarted me, thus proving that ye're not the idiots I thought ye were."

"At least you admit you were outsmarted by us. That must make you want to jump off something."

"It would do, but I've just outsmarted ye. I feel like standing on cliffs or at the top of steps and looking down."

"You've just outsmarted us, proving that we are idiots. We've just forced ourselves into piloting a bomb. How stupid is that?"

"The plan ye came up with was brilliant, and ye enacted it perfectly. Ye're certainly not idiots. I proved that I'm one step above ye. Ye've been outsmarted by a man of exceptional intelligence. That doesn't mean ye're idiots."

A large crowd gathered to watch Hector and Steve test Jerome's car. The expression on Jerome's face made him look like an arsonist in a fireworks factory. Hector and Steve were sitting in the car when Dara came over to him. He suggested a compromise. He'd withdraw his petition asking them to be the test pilots if they agreed to be in the play. "Ye've already shown ye can act when ye played Bill and Chris," he said. "And I'll give in to Bill and Chris's request. They wanted to play themselves, so the two of ye will be playing Hector and Steve."

They agreed to this. Mental damage sounded more appealing than physical damage. Sean rang the bell loudly when he heard they were in the play, but a lot of the spectators wanted to inflict physical damage on them when they pulled out of the test. Sticks and stones were thrown at them as they made their getaway, which didn't bode well for the play.

Some people in the audience were ready to throw tomatoes at them when they appeared on stage, but the mental damage was so great that there wasn't any need to make it worse. Hector and Steve had to cry and talk about their feelings for one another.

The moose's head over the fireplace can just about hear the sound of our neighbour, Joe, when the window is open in the evening. Joe has a band and they play on the roof of his shed. They play up there to let the view inspire them. If you didn't know what they were looking at, you'd assume it must be some sort of a hole, judging by the sound they make.

Dignity

The lawns are covered in leaves. Autumn is near. The dog is chasing the leaves as they blow in the wind. As long as he isn't chasing anything he can kill, that's okay. He doesn't understand the command 'Don't kill that'. My neighbour trained his dog with German commands. He says it wasn't because the dog is a German shepherd, but because he thought that commands in German sound more authoritative than commands in English, or in his variety of English.

My cousin Jane and her friend, Claudia, went to a seaside town one evening to play pitch-and-putt. The course was next to a caravan park overlooking the beach. They were on the ninth green when they were distracted by the sight of two people who were behaving in a way that Jane and Claudia considered odd. Jane and Claudia had a high threshold for 'odd'. The bar would be set somewhere near the height for the pole vault world record. Many people had made valiant attempts to get over the bar. Many of them looked as if they'd been making attempts all their lives, and had often hit their heads off the ground after missing the landing mat. Earlier that day they had seen a man talking to crisps as he ate them. He was about a foot under the bar. He was telling the crisps about a new dessert he was working on. He might have reached the bar if he'd said what Claudia's uncle keeps saying about peas. And his dessert would almost certainly clear the bar if it ever came into being.

As they stood on the ninth green in the evening they saw a cowboy creeping around the side of a caravan, and he was followed closely by an Indian.

"That's odd," Jane said.

"Does the cowboy know the Indian is right behind him?" Claudia said.

"I don't know."

Jane and Claudia went into the caravan park, and they saw another cowboy. He was looking around the corner of a caravan. Claudia set the bar for stating the obvious at a new world record height when she said, "He probably has something to do with the other cowboy and the Indian."

They walked up behind him, and Jane coughed to attract his attention. He reacted to the sound as if a shot had been fired, but when he saw it was just Jane and Claudia he said, "They're after me. Ye've got to help me."

They knew a woman who owned a caravan nearby, so they took him there. Her name was Amanda. She liked coming to her caravan for a few weeks every summer and over long weekends. Jane knocked on her door and when she opened it, Claudia said, "Can we hide our cowboy in your caravan for a while?"

"Yeah, of course."

He told them his story when he was safe inside the caravan. His name was Benny, and he was an actor. He was a man who liked his dignity, and he wanted to retain what was left of it, but his dignity was a suit that was falling to pieces. It was full of patches and holes. The trousers could fall down at any moment and his dignity would be gone for good. He was playing a cowboy in a Western that was being filmed in the sand dunes. Des, the film's director, was trying to film the whole thing while shooting a video for a rapper. It had taken an hour to shoot the video. They'd been working on the film for a week. The rapper agreed not to tell the record company about it as long as he got a part in the film. He wanted to rap the following lines:

I'm going to shoot you seventeen times
Before you blink, and you know that rhymes.

He said he could do it and then say, "Hey, I think I've just invented rap!"

Des gave in to this demand, and this was the final straw for Benny. The trousers of his dignity would surely fall down if he took any further part in this film, so he left, and the others were trying to find him because they needed to finish the film.

"This is what I've sunk to," Benny said to Jane, Claudia and Amanda. "I had my shot at the big time, but I blew it. It wasn't exactly a shot. It was a shadow of a shot. I was supposed to play a waiter in a Hollywood film. But days before shooting began I fell off a horse, of all things. And now I'm a cowboy, even though I'm too scared to get on a horse."

Things were a bit cramped in the caravan, and Benny needed a drink, so Amanda gave him a rain coat to wear over his cowboy costume and they went into town.

As they were walking along the seafront they saw some members of the film crew up ahead. Amanda suggested hiding in a hall where a snooker tournament was taking place. Jane and Claudia weren't keen on watching snooker, so they said they had to go home.

Benny went in with Amanda. Jane and Claudia walked away from the hall, but they saw the film crew walking towards it and going inside. "Someone must have seen Benny go in," Claudia said.

"Hopefully Benny and Amanda will be able to get out through the exit at the back."

There were only four other people watching the snooker in the hall. The place had been full at the start of the match, but just those four had the endurance to stay with it until the final frame. Benny and Amanda sat in the back row.

A player called Justin was at the table. The score was four-all in frames. Justin just needed the black to win the final frame by a point. But he was distracted by a noise from the audience when the film crew and some of the actors entered the hall. Benny and Amanda went straight for the exit. Justin mis-cued, and the cue-ball missed the black. The foul gave seven points to his opponent, meaning he won the frame and the match.

Justin was furious. 'Revenge' was his middle name. Actually, 'Ignatius' was his middle name, but he got revenge on his parents for that when he told them he was marrying a stripper. He even hired a stripper as part of his pretence, although it's possible that he came up with that explanation after he hired her. He couldn't let the slightest of slights pass without getting revenge, and he was determined to get back at whoever had cost him the match.

Jane and Claudia were waiting outside the back entrance to the hall. They told Amanda and Benny to head back towards the caravan park. When the film crew emerged, Des asked Jane and Claudia if they'd seen two people running away.

"Yeah," Jane said. "There was a man and a woman. The man said something about needing a drink."

"That sounds like Benny alright," Des said.

"They went towards the seafront."

The film crew and the actors went in that direction. Jane and Claudia went with them. They got talking to a teenage girl called Michelle. She told them she hated seaside towns because of the memories of seaside holidays when she was young, and she hated the fact that she was still young enough to go, at least in the eyes of her parents, but really she was too old and she kept saying that. She made her brother faint once when she told a ghost story with a candle in her hand. He blamed it on the smell. One of her hobbies is trying to make it happen again, and that alleviates some of the boredom of these holidays, but she'd still rather be at home. "I keep saying I'm too bloody old, but they say I'm not old enough to use language like that. But I'm sixteen. I'm old enough to sell dogs or get a job as a tree surgeon. They just say, 'It'll be fun. You always had fun by the sea.' And I say, 'Yeah, I doubt that very much.' But then I got a part in this film. So I can say to my friends, 'Yeah, I went on holiday with my parents again.' And they'll say, 'I went to Italy.' And I'll say, 'Yeah, and I had to play a maid in this bloody film.' It's been a lot of fun. Although it would be a lot more fun if the director wasn't so depressed nearly all the time."

"Why is he depressed?" Jane said.

"He says this was his one shot at doing something good and it's all going down the drain now."

They came across a pub with a flashing neon sign in front. The sign showed a bird that looked as if it was being electrocuted every time the sign lit up.

"Benny hates birds," Des said. "Let's try in here."

They all went inside, but there was no sign of Benny. They ordered drinks and Des phoned the other search parties. He told them all to come to this pub.

Jane and Claudia spoke to Des. They asked him why he was making a Western and he told them he'd wanted to make one since he was ten, although when he got into the film industry he never thought he'd get a chance to make one. He was directing an ad for biscuits once and he tried to get cowboys and Indians into it, but they wouldn't let him. 'They' consisted of people he despised. He'd have been undressed of his dignity if he hadn't vowed to make a real Western. But there's a rapper in his 'real Western' and his leading man is a drunk who's gone missing. The trousers of his dignity seemed beyond repair.

"Don't give up," Claudia said. "You might find him yet."

"Yeah," Jane said. "I mean, if he's a drunk, you just have to look in pubs."

"Someone told me about a hole in this town where people drink," Des said. "Have ye heard of a hole where people drink?"

"No," Jane said. "But you have enough people to search every pub in the town."

"You're right. I might as well try to finish the film at least."

As they were leaving the pub, Justin was going in. He rounded up all the pool players inside.

Jane phoned Amanda and said, "I think we should get Benny back on the film."

"Anything to get away from him," Amanda said. "I'm stuck in an old pub with him, and he never stops talking about himself. He can't even hear what I'm saying right now because he's talking about his hand."

"We could bring the film crew there."

Amanda gave Jane directions, and then Jane told Des that she knew were Benny was, so they all went to the pub. They noticed Justin and the pool players following them. They were all wielding pool cues, walking slowly but inexorably forward, like zombies. Most of the film crew saw a fight approaching, but Des saw an impending zombie film, and this was even more unsettling than a fight.

Amanda and Benny were in an old pub on a quiet street. It was nearly empty when Benny was telling Amanda about his hand. It was nearly full when Jane and Claudia arrived with the film crew and the actors. And then it was too full when Justin arrived with the pool players. The fight began. Cowboys and Indians fought with the pool players. Benny tried to stay out of it. Justin was thrown over the bar. He got to his feet, but he had trouble staying there.

Benny remembered hearing Amanda give directions on the phone, and he put two and two together. "You brought them here," he said to her. "This is all your fault."

"It's just a film. You might as well finish it because you don't have any dignity left to hold onto."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"Face it -- you're washed up. You had your shot and you blew it. You couldn't shoot a dead horse now."

"You haven't seen me try."

"A dead horse could smell the drink from you."

"Death must be a more interesting experience than an evening with you."

"How would you know what an evening with me feels like? You can't spend time with anyone but yourself."

"What does that say about you? I'd rather spend time with a washed-up drunk who couldn't shoot a dead horse than spend time with you."

"I'd rather spend time with the dead horse."

"So because you couldn't find a dead horse you had to spend an evening with me. Even I haven't sunk that low."

"I spent time with you out of pity. That's the only way you'll spend any time in the company of the women you don't pay."

"Some of the women I pay are as appealing as Naomi Campbell and as intellectually stimulating as Stephen Hawking. It's the other way around with you."

She slapped him across the face. Des said, "That's perfect! Now kiss. Kiss!"

They realised that the fight had stopped and they were being filmed. The sight of Justin behind the bar had reminded Des of a saloon in a Western. The pub looked ancient and Justin was still wearing his waistcoat and bow tie after the snooker match. Des got the camera man to start filming Benny and Amanda as they argued, with Justin behind the bar in the background, and an entirely new film went into the development stage in his mind. It would be about a cowboy who used to be a brilliant shot, but he'd become a washed-up drunk. Amanda's character would help him return to his former self to defeat a villain.

Neither Benny nor Amanda had any intention of kissing each other. When Des saw this he said, "That's okay. We can do the kiss later. And we'll have to drop the bit about Stephen Hawking and Naomi Campbell. Unless we create characters called Stephen Hawking and Naomi Campbell... No, we'll drop that. Can you say something else instead of that line?"

Benny said, "Some of the women I pay are as pretty as a primrose and as tough as a cactus. It's the other way around with you."

She slapped him across the face again.

"Now kiss. Kiss!" Des said. "Alright, we'll do that later."

Des called the film 'A Dead Horse'. The rapper ended up playing the part of an escaped mental patient, although he wasn't aware of this during the shoot. Des was able to restore his dignity, and so was Benny. He felt rejuvenated as an actor, and he stopped drinking. Amanda liked this latest version of Benny, but not enough to actually want to kiss him. Jane and Claudia got parts in the film too. They were part of the mental patient's entourage.

The moose's head over the fireplace is looking very relaxed, despite the presence of a parrot in the room. The wife's aunt left her parrot with us for a week, and the bird normally annoys the moose's head. She's gone to Germany to visit a man called Rupert. She says she knows ten men in Bavaria and they're all called Rupert. I think she's just confused. The parrot can be annoying when he makes fun of people's hair, but I've found a way to shut him up. I put on an old record called 'How do you do now that you don't do the thing that you did to your parrot?' The parrot can't say anything to that. He used to say the words 'Up Meath', but he can't even say that after Cork hammered Meath in the football semi-final at the weekend.

The Pub

My grandfather often saw ghost builders building a red brick wall in the field behind the garden. That's why he never touched the pile of red bricks at the back of the garden. He had many reasons for not touching things. He wouldn't touch the cat as a matter of principle, and he wouldn't touch a moss-covered rock in the orchard because he claimed it was a seat used by the fairies. He says he saw the fairies there one evening. They were digging a hole. This is why he refused to touch shovels.

My cousin Bertie and his fiancee, Miriam, once spent a week in a cottage by the sea. It was a relaxing week of long walks along the coast, boat trips and dinner in seafront restaurants. On Friday evening they decided to go to a pub. As they walked along a path overlooking the sea they met a man who wore a black hat that had seen better days, and lots of them. The shoes were as old as the hat -- the shoes and the hat were like book-ends for the middle-aged man in between. He had a curious smile on his face. Bertie and Miriam thought he'd be an interesting book to read.

He raised his hat when he said, "Good evening." The smile remained in place. It suggested he knew something they didn't -- that's the impression they got. Bertie said they were on their way to the pub.

"The very place I'm going to," he said. "But seeing as we're heading in opposite directions, I'm guessing that my 'the' is pointing a different way to the 'the' ye're following. You can't trust signposts. They'll point the wrong way, and sometimes they won't point out the things you really should be seeing, so you'll only get an incomplete appreciation of the area if you're just a tourist. The signpost of 'the' should always point towards the pub I'm heading for. After you've been to this one, all other pubs will become 'a pub'. This one will be the pub. If I've kindled a flame of curiosity, ye're more than welcome to follow me there."

"It's more than a flame," Bertie said.

He introduced himself as Vincent and he said, "Follow me."

He took them to a narrow, winding path that entered a cave of briers. Rays of evening sunlight made it through the thick roof of thorns above. The path led them to an old building. The walls were crumbling. It looked as if it had been abandoned for decades. Most of the ceiling had fallen in, and all of the floorboards in the floor above had been taken away. They could see the blue sky through the bare rafters of the roof.

He opened a door that led to a dark stairwell. They didn't like where this 'the' was heading. He said, "Don't worry about the surroundings. It gets better."

They climbed the stairs. It led them to a corridor that was lit by a single bare light bulb. The carpet on the floor was worn away. The walls were covered with old wallpaper. There was a door at either side. At the end of the corridor they climbed another flight of stairs. The steps were bare and they creaked.

After more corridors and more stairs, Vincent finally stopped outside a door and said, "We've reached the 'e' of the 'the'. It was a long journey, but it was worth it. That's what ye'll be saying when ye walk away this evening. Ye'll say it would have been worth going over road, river and rail to get to this place."

He opened the door and let them walk in first. It looked like most country pubs they'd been in, apart from the fact that it was so well lit by the three large skylights displaying three squares of clear blue sky. There were just a few other people in the pub.

Bertie insisted on buying Vincent a drink. The three of them sat at a table underneath one of the skylights. The man at the next table was alone. There was a case containing a flute on the seat next to him. Vincent said to him, "Are you waiting for Meredith?"

"I've lost her again," the man said.

"You haven't lost her. You just can't find where she lives."

"She's gone."

"As soon as I finish my drink, I'll show you where she lives."

Bertie and Miriam went with them to Meredith's place. They left through a door at the other side of the pub. Vincent had no trouble finding his way through the maze of corridors. They descended a flight of stairs and took a left. Vincent knocked on a door at the end of the corridor and they heard a woman say, "Come in."

Vincent opened the door and they went inside. Meredith was watering plants on a windowsill. There was a beautiful view of the sea through the window. Vincent introduced her to Bertie and Miriam.

Miriam noticed the painting on the wall. "This painting looks like the ones in the pub," she said.

"They're all done by the same artist," Meredith said. "He often has very vivid dreams. In some of those dreams he gains things, but in one of them he thought he'd lost his leg. He believed it was gone for good until he woke up. He painted this one in honour of not losing his leg. But he had lost his shoes, and that lends the painting a melancholy air. He's been obsessed with his legs ever since. He met his wife at an outdoor swimming pool and they both felt a connection straightaway. He told her it was a good place to meet, when they had so little clothes on, because they could both see that the other wasn't missing limbs, and that's something they'd be wondering about until they found out for certain and it could take weeks before they undressed enough to find out for certain. She wasn't put off by that. She just said it wouldn't have taken weeks. I'm on my way to see him now, if ye'd like to come along."

Bertie and Miriam agreed to go, but they regretted this on the way there, as Meredith told them more about Charlie, the artist. His arch-enemy was a man called Andrew, but Andrew himself was largely unaware of this. Andrew was always smiling. There were slight variations on the smile for different occasions. His funeral smile was slightly different to his 'I just won at the greyhound track' smile. He could vary his funeral smile to express sympathy or to show his admiration for the deceased. Charlie was convinced that the smile was a means of hiding the evil plan being concocted in his brain, and that he was planning something only a Bond villain would contemplate. And that left Charlie to fill the shoes of Bond. His shoes wouldn't conceal guns or rockets, but his head concealed weapons that were far more dangerous. He kept coming up with outlandish plans to thwart the schemes he thought were being enacted by Andrew. Meredith was there to throw a spanner in the works of Charlie's plans before someone got hurt. All three of them were kept occupied: Andrew with his smiling, Charlie with his planning, and Meredith with her spanner-throwing.

When Charlie opened his door, Meredith introduced him to Bertie and Miriam. He invited them all in. There was a workbench at one side of the room. It was full of tools, bits of metal and plastic, wires and circuit boards, nuts and bolts. There were blueprints on the wall.

Meredith asked him what Andrew was planning this time, and Charlie told them about the people who get blown away by the sea breeze. There's a flag at the beach, and you can only read the words on it when the wind is strong. It says 'If you can read this, make sure you have an anchor'. Some lifeguards look out to sea. Others look back over the land. When they see someone being blown away they run with an anchor, or let the wind take them. There are men with nets who try to catch people for fun. It's like fishing. They always let the catch go again.

"Andrew is trying to catch people who get blown away," Charlie said. "And he won't be letting them go again. I don't know why he wants them. I suspect he wants to use their legs. But whatever his reason is, he won't succeed. I've come up with a plan to stop him. A woman will sing in the pub this evening. She'll pretend to be French. Andrew will get up to sing himself because he's physically incapable of not getting up to sing. She'll tell him he has a beautiful voice. One thing will lead to another and he'll take her back to his place to see his collection of clocks. When he goes to the kitchen to get some drinks, she'll open the door to let me in. I'll go to his bedroom and leave this mechanical spider under his bed, and then I'll leave through the window. The spider is radio controlled. Later that night it will emerge from beneath the bed and bite him. The poison will kill him instantly. And then as soon as I press this button on the control, the spider will transform into a harmless Rubik's cube."

After they left Charlie's place, Meredith said, "I suppose we should go to see Andrew and keep an eye on him for the rest of the evening. He'd normally be in the beer garden at this time in the evening."

Bertie said to her, "Wouldn't it be safer just to tell Charlie that Andrew isn't up to anything."

"This is good for him. The constant planning keeps him busy, and keeps him out of trouble."

"I'd have thought it's landing him right in trouble."

"He's never succeeded so far. I've seen to that."

When they got to the beer garden Andrew was leaning on a railing and looking out over the sea. He was smiling. Meredith introduced him to Bertie and Miriam. They went back to the pub to get another round of drinks, and they stayed there when a woman started singing in a French accent. She said her name was Nicole. Meredith went to get her violin, and when she came back she played with the flautist while Nicole sang.

Charlie was right in thinking that Andrew couldn't avoid singing. He sang a few songs and when he sat down again Nicole came over to him and told him he had a beautiful voice. He bought her a drink and she ended up telling him her life story. She said she had been left at the altar by a surfer, and she had vowed never to let love back into her life again. She had been dead inside until she returned to the sea. Now there's a spark of feeling inside her again.

"I should have listened to my family," she said. "They told me he was less than a fly or a rat. But I saw an artist when I saw the beautiful lines he made in the waves. I saw a sensitive soul. I didn't think he'd be capable of anything as menial as sleeping with a waitress in a van, but he was. I thought he was on a higher plane. He wouldn't waste words on fools. He played table tennis with such disdain. This is the first time I've returned to the sea since he left, and it's done something to me. I feel alive again."

They went back to the beer garden to look out over the sea as the sun set. When he told her that he restores old clocks she said she'd love to see them, and they went back to his place.

Meredith, Vincent, Bertie and Miriam waited for a few minutes before following them. They found Charlie waiting outside Andrew's place. He was listening at the door.

Bertie wondered if he was dreaming. He feared that he was going to lose something, and he hoped it wouldn't be his legs.

When Charlie whispered, "He's going to the kitchen now," Meredith thought it was time to act. She took out a nail scissors and she said to Bertie, "Do you mind if I take the buttons from your shirt?"

"Go ahead," Bertie said. If he had to lose something, he'd settle for losing the buttons on his shirt.

She cut them off and dropped them on the ground. Charlie immediately fell to his knees and stared at the buttons. He didn't even notice when Nicole opened the door.

Meredith said, "He's very sensitive to buttons. In his dreams the skies are full of buttons. Right now he's trying to make out the constellations."

Meredith, Vincent, Bertie and Miriam spent the next half-hour looking down at Charlie as he looked at the buttons. When Nicole was leaving, Andrew saw Charlie on the floor and he said, "Was he trying to kill me again?"

"Yeah," Meredith said.

Andrew shook his head and laughed. "He's mad," he said.

He invited them all in for a drink. Charlie chose to stay outside with the buttons, but Andrew gave him a drink anyway.

The moose's head over the fireplace enjoys the sound of the sea. The wife has started playing a CD of sea sounds, such as waves, sea gulls, fog horns and so forth. He needs something to relax after the drama of the hurling on Sunday, when Limerick beat Waterford. I never thought I'd desperately want Limerick to win an all-Ireland final.

The Pub Orchestra

The days are getting shorter and we're still waiting for summer to start, unless you count the summer we had in April. The unusual weather has inspired me to do my part for global warming. Or against global warming. Although some people I know have come out in support of global warming because they hate being told what to do by celebrities. The Beckhams make a good case for ignoring celebrities, but I've decided to listen to their advice on global warming by turning off the TV every time one of them appears on it to lecture me about the environment. The electricity bill is down by twenty percent. I'll be recommending this to all those who support global warming. It's possible to be anti-celebrity and save energy. You can leave your carbon footprint on the rear end of a Hollywood star.

My cousin Hector once joined an orchestra. If they hadn't been known as an 'orchestra' no one would have guessed that their purpose was to make music. The group's founder was called Giles and he made all of the instruments himself. He was always looking for things that could be used to make an instrument. One of his creations featured feathers, a fish tank and a vacuum cleaner. The feathers blown around the fish tank were there just for the visual effect. He was more concerned with the appearance of the instruments rather than with the sound they made.

He had once written a poem from a former girlfriend. When he read the poem he thought it wasn't good enough, but he didn't know how he could change it to make it better. So he used a red marker to write the poem on a pane of glass, and the red words on the glass seemed to improve the poem. He said it was like the way music could lift the most banal of lyrics. This is when he got the idea for the orchestra. The interesting visual appearance of the instruments would compensate for their poor sound. He spent years collecting things to make the instruments. He had a huge collection of bottles and glasses, but he used just a small percentage of them in the instruments. The bottles and glasses became a collection in their own right. The poem on the window didn't last as long as his orchestra (neither did his relationship with the woman he wrote the poem for). It contained the words 'My butter-wuttercup', so he 'accidentally' broke the window.

He thought he'd need at least ten musicians if he wanted to call the group an orchestra. Most of the musicians were regulars in his local pub. He convinced Hector to join, despite my cousin's lack of musical ability. Giles said, "You'll be playing an instrument made out of a paint tin and some copper pipes I found in the skip outside Janie's house. It's not musical ability you'll be needing at all. It's balls." Hector was always susceptible to any appeal to his balls, so he agreed to join.

There was one regular in the pub who they were desperate to keep out of the orchestra. Ron used to play the spoons until the police took them off him. It made everyone feel safer, until he started playing a fork instead. Giles knew that Ron would force his way into the orchestra if he knew it existed, so they couldn't let him find out about it.

They used to practise in a room over the pub. They were due to play their first gig at a village concert. There was a porch at the front of the pub, with an outer door that was only closed at closing time, and an inner door with a pane of frosted glass. Smokers used to stand in the porch. Giles made sure that there was always someone there to look out for Ron. If they saw him approaching the pub they'd pull a string just inside the outer door, and this would ring a bell in the room above.

The bell was a remnant of a time when drinkers used to move upstairs after closing time so they could drink for another few hours. They'd have someone on lookout duties on the street below. This person would ring the bell if they saw the police approaching. The people in the room above would then hide their drinks, get out easels, canvasses and paint brushes and pretend to be taking part in an art class. Their excuse was that the teacher slept until eleven o' clock at night. They started out pretending to paint bowls of fruit. From there it was a short step to pretending to paint nude models. The bar man eventually shut the operation down because it was effectively a strip club.

The orchestra were able to get a lot of practise in every evening before the bell rang and Ron appeared in the pub, but on one evening, the man on lookout duties got a phone call from his wife, who told him that their dog had got his head stuck in the gate. He was so distracted by this that he failed to notice Ron walking past him into the pub. Ron heard the sound from upstairs and he went up to investigate.

He caught them red-handed. When he realised that their purpose was to make something approaching music he said, "I want to join."

Giles said, "I'd love to have you on board, but... there's no room for anyone else because..."

Ron put his hand into his coat pocket and tried to find something. It sounded as if there was a lot of cutlery in there. Giles said, "But I suppose I could create a place for you."

Ron stopped looking in his pocket and he smiled.

They needed to give him an instrument that couldn't be used as a weapon, so Ron ended up playing a version of the bagpipes, only without the pipes. But he still managed to play it in a way that made all of the other musicians nervous.

Giles wanted to find a way to control him. Hector said, "If you want to keep a greyhound occupied, you give it a hare to chase. In other words, get Maeve to join the orchestra. Ron hates her."

"If you put a hare and a greyhound together in the same room, you're just making it easier for the greyhound."

"Not if it's an exceptional hare. It's the same size as the greyhound, and the greyhound is afraid of it. It'll be stalemate."

"They're playing chess now, are they? The greyhound and the hare?"

"It's an exceptional greyhound as well."

"I suppose it's worth trying anyway."

Ron's rivalry with Maeve started when she commented on his spoon-playing in the pub one evening. She said that he might as well be shoving the spoons up his nose. She agreed to join the orchestra because she had always wanted to be in a band. When they practised, Maeve and Ron sat at opposite sides of the room. They often stared at each other. They were focussing all of their anger on each other, and it put the other musicians at ease.

A few days before their first gig, they were on their way to the village hall one evening to practise on the stage. Ron stopped when he saw a woman at the other side of the street. Her name was Hilary. Ron was once engaged to her, but their engagement didn't last long. He'd be just the man to go to if you needed someone to partake in a bitter split. He'd perform the male role, and Hilary would be ideal for the female part. She filled his car with prawns after the break-up. He was always trying to come up with ways to get revenge. It was difficult with women. He found planning revenge on a woman to be as difficult as buying them a present, although most women he's bought presents for have interpreted those gifts as revenge for something they did wrong. For men you could buy them a bottle of something as a present and break it over their heads as revenge.

When she saw Ron she stopped as well. They stared at each other until she focussed her gaze on Maeve, who was staring back at Hilary. They all walked on again. Ron asked Maeve how she knew his ex, and she said she had been in school with Hilary. They started a band with some of their friends. Hilary was the lead-singer and Maeve played drums. But Hilary convinced the others to vote Maeve out of the band. She said it was because of musical differences. What she really meant was that she didn't like the way Maeve treated the drum kit as a way of releasing her anger. Sometimes she went on 'playing' long after the song had finished. Hilary said it was making people cry.

When Ron and Maeve discovered that they had a common interest in getting revenge on Hilary they agreed to put their differences behind them and work together. The rest of the orchestra didn't mind because now they had two greyhounds and they were both focussed on the same hare.

Hilary realised that she was in trouble if Ron and Maeve were working together. When the orchestra were practising in the hall on the following evening, Hilary arrived with two cakes, one for Ron and one for Maeve. She apologised to both of them. She told Maeve that she was wrong to throw her out of the band, and that the band were never as good afterwards. She told Ron that she'd always felt guilty about what she'd done to his car.

They both accepted her apology. Ron invited her to join the orchestra and she agreed. Giles didn't have much say in the matter. The other musicians were more nervous than ever. Now they had three greyhounds in search of a hare. The rest of the orchestra were terrified of doing something hare-like.

Giles was convinced that Ron, Maeve and Hilary were up to something. The three of them would often be whispering amongst themselves during rehearsals. They were definitely planning something.

The results of their plans were seen on the night of their performance at the village concert. Some people ran from the hall, trying to get away from the sheep and the bees. A few people stayed to put out the fire with fire extinguishers, and others tried to catch the man who was singing 'The Rose of Tralee'.

Giles was approached by the head of the concert's organising committee, who emerged from the hall with his clothes torn and singed, his face black with soot. Tears left tracks through the soot. He shook Giles's hand and said, "That was the best show I've ever seen in my entire life."

The moose's head over the fireplace can only observe the effects of global warming through the window. But he's certainly felt an increase in temperature after his move from a frozen landscape to a comfortable spot over the fireplace. The TV was turned off for a long time after Waterford beat Cork in the hurling last Sunday. At least we still have the football to look forward to, and Waterford can still redeem themselves by beating Kilkenny (assuming they beat Limerick first).

The Halo

Some people play golf in the fields behind the garden. I don't know if the ultimate destination of the ball will be a hole. There certainly aren't any fairways or greens, but there are water hazards, and there's a bunker in the place where my neighbour once attempted to make his own beach. The golfers just hit the ball as far as they can and then spend an hour looking for it. Sometimes their dogs will find the ball and retrieve it. It's an interesting variation on hunting.

My cousin Darren once came across a halo. When some people see a halo hovering in the air they'll shrug their shoulders and go back to whatever they were doing, whether it be vandalising a phone booth or feeling turnips. But other people will stand beneath the halo and try to look holy. They'll go wherever the halo goes, blessing people they meet and talking in a serene voice. Staying beneath the halo can prove to be very difficult. I heard of a woman whose halo didn't seem to know where it was going. It would move for miles in one direction, through fields and streams, and she'd struggle to keep up as she climbed gates and waded through water. Then the halo would stop suddenly. It would remain motionless for a while, as if it was trying to think. Then it would move back the way it came. Eventually it would stop again and move in another direction. She used to tell people that she went on these long country walks because she felt at one with nature, but no one really believed that her halo was following her.

People have found themselves in unholy situations because they wouldn't vacate the spot beneath their halo. One man's halo took him to a brothel. When he got there he made a speech about the sinfulness of such places, but no one believed him because his words lacked conviction. The brothel's staff thought he was really there to avail of their services and the fact that he didn't move towards the exit only confirmed this. Eventually he gave in to temptation, and the halo co-operated fully.

Darren found his halo outside a supermarket and he stood under it. The halo remained outside the supermarket for an hour, and then it went to an off-licence. Darren had to buy something, so he bought a bottle of vodka and some cigarettes. The halo then went to a hockey pitch, where a women's team were training. He felt uncomfortable, being all alone on the sideline. The women looked even more uncomfortable. He faced the other way until the halo decided to move on.

It took him to the park, and it stopped near the band stand. He drank from the vodka bottle and smoked some of the cigarettes. A man called Kevin was walking his dog in the park. He stopped to admire the halo, which was glowing in the twilight. Darren asked him if he wanted to buy it.

"Why are you so eager to sell it?" Kevin said.

"I'm leaving the country. There's no way I'd get it through customs."

"Does it follow you around?"

"Oh yeah, it's very well trained. It goes wherever I go. I don't even have to tell it to heel or to stay."

"How much?"

"Five-hundred euros."

Kevin had been looking for a way to change his image. Most people were afraid of him, and the police had a terrible prejudice against him. So he bought the halo. Darren walked out from underneath it and Kevin took his place.

"It suits you," Darren said.

"Thanks."

Kevin walked away. At first the halo didn't move, and Darren held his breath, but after a few seconds the halo reluctantly followed, as if it was afraid not to. "It'll take a while for it to get used to you," Darren said.

Darren spent most of the money on a weekend trip to the coast with his friends. He bought champagne to celebrate his recent windfall, and this is how most of his windfall drained away.

After returning from the trip, he went to the supermarket one evening. He didn't see Kevin beneath the halo outside. When Kevin saw Darren, he left the spot beneath the halo and followed Darren home. As Darren was opening his front door, Kevin made his presence known. He said, "It's always useful to know where someone lives if you're making demands. My demand is that I want the money back. There's something wrong with the halo."

"It worked fine when I had it."

"You're not leaving the country at all. You just wanted to get rid of it."

"No, I am. Sometimes the halo likes to do its own thing, but most of the time it's very obedient."

"I want the money back."

"I don't have the money. I've spent it."

"I'll give you three days to get it. For your sake, I hope you really are leaving the country. At the very least you should be moving house. Those are your only options if you don't get the money. I genuinely don't want to see you harmed, but if you don't pay me back, the only option I have is to bring harm your way. Do you see the corner you've painted me into?"

Darren thought that the best way to get the money was through the halo. To find it he just waited outside the off-licence in the evening. After half an hour he saw a man in a suit walking down the street, looking up at the halo above him. It led him into the off-licence, and he emerged a few minutes later with two plastic bags full of bottles and cans. On the walk to the park, Darren introduced himself and explained that the halo was rightfully his. "It got away while I was tying my shoe laces," he said. "I miss its company, but I can see that it's become attached to you, so I'd be willing to sell it."

"Finders keepers. I'm trying to get elected to the Council and this is just the sort of thing I need for my image."

The halo stopped in the park where a group of teenagers were drinking. The man beneath the halo, whose name was Phil, thought it would be rude not to join them. Within minutes he had regressed to his teenage years when he was drinking in parks and writing his name on things. He spray-painted his name on a concrete path, and as soon as he had finished it he remembered the man he had grown into. "I can't let anyone find out about this," he said. "The local paper has been out to get me ever since I said their heads could be exchanged for pins and no one would notice."

Darren said, "I could take the blame if the press start making inquiries."

"Why would you write my name on the ground?"

"Just add the words 'is a twat'. You're going to have to get used to people saying that about you if you want to get elected to the Council."

"It's what they said in the press."

"Of course, I would require some compensation for the stress."

"How much?"

"Five-hundred euros."

"I'll say to you what I said to the man who wanted me to pay ten quid for an umbrella: you must think I came down in the last shower."

Darren took out his phone. "I knew this camera phone would be a good investment," he said. He took a photo of Phil holding the spray can.

"So it's blackmail now, is it?" Phil said.

"You're the one who stole my halo. Theft is bad enough, but a halo, of all things."

Phil paid the money, and Darren paid Kevin. The next occupant of the space beneath the halo was a woman who enjoyed the lifestyle it offered. The halo provided a justification for going to the off-licence and drinking in the park.

The moose's head over the fireplace always looks calm when the golf is on TV. He even managed to stay calm during Padraig Harrington's idiosyncratic trajectory towards the British Open title. He only gets excited during the hurling (the greatest of all sports played with sticks and balls). You couldn't possibly avoid getting excited when Cork played Waterford on Sunday, and they'll be doing it all again in a few days.