Selected Stories

‘I’m going back there,’ Mangan said.

‘The car’s hot.’

Mangan didn’t answer, but swore instead, repeatedly and furiously; then they lit cigarettes and both felt calmer. Mangan led the way from the car, through the half-built site and out on to a lane. Within five minutes they reached a main road and came eventually to a public house. High up on the wall above the bar a large television set continued to record the Pope’s presence in Ireland. No one took any notice of the two youths who ordered glasses of Smithwick’s, and crisps.

The people who had been robbed returned to their houses and counted the cost of the Pope’s personal blessing. The Herlihys returned and found Mr Livingston tied up with neck-ties, and the television still on. A doctor was summoned, though against Mr Livingston’s wishes. The police came later.

That afternoon in Bray, after they’d been to see Cohen, Mangan and Gallagher picked up two girls. ‘Jaysus, I could do with a mott,’ Lout Gallagher had said the night before, which was how the whole thing began, Mangan realizing he could do with one too. ‘Thirty,’ Cohen had offered that afternoon, and they’d pushed him up to thirty-five.

They felt better after the few drinks. Today of all days a bit of fecking wouldn’t interest the police, with the headaches they’d have when the crowds headed back to the city. ‘Why’d they be bothered with an old geezer like that?’ Mangan said, and they felt better still.

In the Esplanade Ice-cream Parlour the girls requested a Peach Melba and a sundae. One was called Carmel, the other Marie. They said they were nurses, but in fact they worked in a paper mill.

‘Bray’s quiet,’ Mangan said.

The girls agreed it was. They’d been intending to go to see the Pope themselves, but they’d slept it out. A quarter past twelve it was before Carmel opened her eyes, and Marie was even worse. She wouldn’t like to tell you, she said.

‘We seen it on the television,’ Mangan said. ‘Your man’s in great form.’

‘What line are you in?’ Carmel asked.

‘Gangsters,’ said Mangan, and everyone laughed.

Gallagher wagged his head in admiration. Mangan always gave the same response when asked that question by girls. You might have thought he’d restrain himself today, but that was Mangan all over. Gallagher lit a cigarette, thinking he should have hit the old fellow before he had a chance to turn round. He should have rushed into the room and struck him a blow on the back of the skull with whatever there was to hand, hell take the consequences.

‘What’s it mean, gangsters?’ Marie asked, still giggling, glancing at Carmel and giggling even more.

‘Banks,’ Mangan said, ‘is our business.’

The girls thought of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the adventures of Bonnie and Clyde, and laughed again. They knew that if they pressed their question it wouldn’t be any good. They knew it was a kind of flirtation, their asking and Mangan teasing with his replies. Mangan was a wag. Both girls were drawn to him.

‘Are the ices to our ladyships’ satisfaction?’ he enquired; causing a further outbreak of giggling.

Gallagher had ordered a banana split. Years ago he used to think that if you filled a room with banana splits he could eat them all. He’d been about five then. He used to think the same thing about fruitcake.

‘Are the flicks on today?’ Mangan asked, and the girls said on account of the Pope they mightn’t be. It might be like Christmas Day, they didn’t know.

‘We seen what’s showing in Bray,’ Marie said. ‘In any case.’

‘We’ll go dancing later on,’ Mangan promised. He winked at Gallagher, and Gallagher thought the day they made a killing you wouldn’t see him for dust. The mail boat and Spain, posh Cockney girls who called you Mr Big. Never lift a finger again.

‘Will we sport ourselves on the prom?’ Mangan suggested, and the girls laughed again. They said they didn’t mind. Each wanted to be Mangan’s. He sensed it, so he walked between them on the promenade, linking their arms. Gallagher walked on the outside, linking Carmel.

‘Spot of the ozone,’ Mangan said. He pressed his forearm against Marie’s breast. She was the one, he thought.

‘D’you like the nursing?’ Gallagher asked, and Carmel said it was all right. A sharp breeze was darting in from the sea, stinging their faces, blowing the girls’ hair about. Gallagher saw himself stretched out by a blue swimming-pool, smoking and sipping at a drink. There was a cherry in the drink, and a little stick with an umbrella on the end of it. A girl with one whole side of her bikini open was sharing it with him.

‘Bray’s a great place,’ Mangan said.

‘The pits,’ Carmel corrected.

You could always tell by the feel of a girl on your arm, Mangan said to himself. Full of sauce the fat one was, no more a nurse than he was. Gallagher wondered if they had a flat, if there’d be anywhere to go when the moment came.

‘We could go into the bar of the hotel,’ the other one was saying, the way girls did when they wanted to extract their due.

‘What hotel’s this?’ he asked.

‘The International.’