Ballycarson Blues Read online

  “Dr. Todstein, I presume,” was the cheerful, if unoriginal, greeting of Cary Grant as he switched off the stream of hot air from his drying machine by opening the front-facing circular door. He then explained to the doctor that they all used the extractor vents of washer-dryers to produce hot steam that they could blow against their faces and have a hot, wet shave in the great outdoors. Sure, they all still got a facial rash, but it felt better and they did not get as many cuts. This indeed was a street-side barber’s shop just like those seen in the temporary housing areas in the Third World, only a little more advanced. More than that, it was one that was based on a sustainable source in that all the washing machines had been reconditioned after rescue from the town dump and other low-cost outlets. Donald Oskar Gormley had supplied well over half of their business needs and had been so kind as to give them a special deal for bulk purchasing. The news caused the doctor to revisit her plans to write to The Lancet.

  A brief consultation in the lay-by convinced the doctor that, in a community such as Ballycarson, much remained unknown to an incomer like her. Indeed incomers forever remained outsiders. As a doctor, she was supposed to take secrets to the grave, but in Ballycarson things were more serious than that. This town remained a living mystery. What she heard and saw next merely confirmed her view.

  As well as facilitating early morning shaving, the steam-producing washer-dryers went, as it were, “on tour” – if only locally. The machines had become the power behind a peripatetic parlour of personal pampering. The Red Army ran a series of mobile saunas. Each involved the pumping of hot, moist, machine-produced air out of the washer-dryers and into the back of each of the red transit vans through a hole cut in the door, just like a cat flap, to facilitate the insertion of the long white hose. In every location the public electricity supply to the street lights provided the requisite power. Each red transit van was fitted out with two wooden benches in the back upon which the health-seeking populace could sit. Clearly these were the economy seats. The requisite machinery comprised nothing more than old washer-dryer machines rescued from the lost and found or the canal or acquired by equally sustainable means. Refitted, revamped and filled with the family laundry of the Red Army and their customers, the machines could blow in as much warm, damp air as necessary in two-hour cycles coinciding nicely with the time for which each health-seeking person paid. The customers could have their clothes washed whilst they waited – even the very clothes they had been wearing when they arrived. “Saunas while you wait.” What other washeteria offered such service? This was better than a coffee at the barbers! Participants – or rather, paying clients – were allowed to choose their own fragrance of fabric conditioner to scent their sauna from a house-list or even to bring their own bottle, provided always a corkage charge was paid. Every opportunity for making money had been considered. “Taking Health Back to the Steam Age” was the business strap-line stencilled on the side of one of the vans. Another bore the logo “We Take the Shirt off Your Back”.

  There was a political dimension too. Those who enjoyed the mobile saunas came from all quarters of Ballycarson society and spoke freely as they inhaled the hot, steamy air. So economy class was really business class too, at least in the van parked at the front of the lay-by. The participants in this local ritual let vent to their secrets as their pores breathed. The whole arrangement was another great source of information for Big David to whom the Red Army forwarded all they overheard, in exchange, of course, for more washing machines at a discount. Big David knew details of the paying clients’ lives that Todstein had never imagined. She was left in the dark to deal with her patients and the consequential exponential increase in acute asthma attacks and allergic skin rashes.

  I wonder if there is a paper in it after all, thought Dr. Todstein as she walked back to her car. Perhaps not The Lancet … Maybe The European Anthropologist, Lost Tribes of The World or Washer Woman’s Weekly.

  CHAPTER 11

  THAT SINKING FEELING

  A first glance at Big David (otherwise known, though most definitely not within his hearing, as “Camp David”) might lead the casual onlooker to suspect that he scarcely lived up to the image he tried to portray.

  The self-proclaimed saviour of Ulster Loyalism in Ballycarson had not been born in Northern Ireland. He wasn’t even a child of Ulster émigré stock reared by his parents on a version of long out-of-date politics who had returned to re-educate the populace in the pure, distilled truth and to restrain dangerous signs that the locals were about to compromise and move into a new era.

  No, Big David was a four-foot-eight, ostensibly effeminate immigrant from Vietnam. He was one of the boat people who had fled poverty and oppression. As a teenager he had been placed in an overcrowded boat by his parents only to find the rusting hulk sinking below his feet a few days later far out from land. By chance the doomed crew were picked up by a passing British registered ship and, contrary to the then policy of the British government, taken to Hong Kong.

  Big David’s fate was decided because of a lie during his interview with the immigration officials of Her Majesty’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. To avoid repatriation David and the other refugees had lied about their origins and claimed to be from Tsingtao, China. The officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office knew this was an obvious lie. Big David and the other refugees knew they knew this was a lie. So there was transparency and a mutual recognition of transparency in the entire process. But it was also a convenient lie if only because lies were the currency in which the Foreign and Commonwealth officials were deft at dealing. With this manufactured world they felt more at home than with the hard facts. Better an obvious and transparent lie than an obscure, opaque and awkward truth. For British interests in the Far East, it would look good to have fewer refugees from Vietnam. So the teenage Big David and the others were noted down as arriving from mainland China. This was an embarrassment, but it was far less of an embarrassment than more incomers from Vietnam.

  To rid themselves of such moderately embarrassing arrivals, the high flyers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office hit on the neat idea of linking the fate of the refugees with the captain of the ship that had picked them up. Since he came from Northern Ireland, the refugees would be resettled there. It was indeed fortunate there were some new vacant houses in Ballycarson. Her Majesty’s government could even gain some useful publicity from the event. There could hardly be a more convenient spot for the new arrivals from Tsingtao, the former official German colony in China. They could move in beside the long-established, unofficial German colony in Ulster.

  The vacant houses in Ballycarson were new but lay idle and unoccupied due to a mistake in design and location. Whether they liked it or not, everyone in Ballycarson was told that they did not wish to move into this ill-thought-out housing scheme. What they really wanted, so they were told, was to boycott this new housing by remaining in their existing substandard houses. The building of the new houses was an attempt by a Hamburg-based firm of architects to impose a foreign model of society on locals. Germany may have succeeded in managing its own religious divide, but that was no reason to apply similar solutions here. So ran the prejudiced parochial political pronouncements.

  The big problem was that the new houses were part of a new model village in an urban setting, with new streets and new public facilities all designed by someone who sincerely wished to accommodate local peculiarities. Clearly the instructed architect had been only partially briefed leading to a manifest demonstration that a little knowledge is worse than none at all. The rumblings of discontent started when Councillor Eugene Gerald Fitzmaurice indicated that it was outrageous that the new model housing scheme in Ballycarson was to be named after the army of the butcher of Drogheda and Limerick. Cromwell’s New Model Army, of course, had nothing whatsoever to do with the New Model Village in Ballycarson, but the accusations had touched a raw nerve and irritated an old wound.

  But perhaps there was a hidden political agenda after all.
Only when the New Model Village was fully built was it discovered that it comprised a new Orange Hall in Green Street and a new chapel in Orange Street. In addition, in the blurb on the back of the glossy brochure sent from the Hamburg architects, the designers had expressed the hope that they had catered for all local sensitivities and that the houses would be fit for both “staunch Catholics” and “devout Protestants”. What sort of continental idiot could have made such mistakes unintentionally? No, it all must have been planned deliberately. The New Model Village was roundly condemned by all local politicians as being overtly ecumenical in its layout. It was an outrageous attempt to impose a political solution on people who had already been told what they really wanted by the local politicians.

  Still, such niceties would not matter much to incomers from the Far East, thought the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. And even if they did, that was all to the good because it might encourage them to return to China or wherever it was they really came from.

  “This form of internal exile within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will encourage others not to follow in their wake”, ran the internal ministerial memorandum.

  So the memorandum was promptly leaked to a news reporting service in Hanoi. But the earlier duplicity and lies backfired. The message did not have the desired effect. The Vietnamese news reporting service didn’t report the leaked memorandum as it referred only to the resettlement in the U.K. of Chinese asylum seekers. “What’s this got to do with us?” asked the editor. “It does not affect Vietnam.” So the information in the memorandum was dumped.

  Nevertheless, the group of refugees including Big David rejoiced on hearing of their destination and boarded the plane to Belfast International Airport. Thus began their lives in the mysterious West. State schooling and state institutions in Northern Ireland demanded that one of the established religious traditions should claim Big David and his co-refugees if only for the purpose of indicating where they eventually should be buried. So, the fact that he went to a controlled state school and not a maintained convent school determined his future forever. Whether he liked it or not, and regardless of his own religious beliefs, for all official and unofficial purposes Big David was to be perceived as a Protestant. But Big David was alive to the possibilities and manifested his newly acquired origins and loyalties by wearing orange suits and bright orange silk shirts with matching socks and underpants. This man from the Far East was determined to become more extreme, more unreasoning and more loyal than anyone else. He was going to become a real local politician.

  To be educated is one thing. To have money is another. Big David intended to have both. To make him feel at home, the politically correct teacher at the state school had ordered a book of the sayings of Confucius together with several dozen Chinese cookbooks. It was all the more appropriate, the teacher indicated, that the school library should provide this material as the great Chinese philosopher taught in Tsingtao where Big David reputedly had been born. Forced to read this stuff in Ballycarson, Big David gained, for the first time, a vague and confused familiarity with the teachings. It would serve him well in later life when he recalled an uplifting, encouraging and entirely suitable definition of altruism:

  “Be content with what you’ve got and make sure you’ve got a lot”.

  A shoestring budget was not Big David’s idea of fun. From day one in Ballycarson Big David engaged in extra-curricular activities intended to raise extra funds. For him the local gang of boot boys provided a foot in the door of the local economy. Before long Big David’s talents with the boot boys came to the attention of Councillor Montgomery Cherry who ran the whole operation in the east side of town.

  Councillor Montgomery Cherry was indeed a man on the make who had never quite made it. However, he did have the whole market of polishing and shining boots sewn up, particularly black boots. Yes, the black polish economy in Ballycarson was booming with two army camps and a police station providing a well-trodden path to success. But it was only partially for this reason that Councillor Montgomery Cherry had earned his nickname, “Cherry Blossom”. The real reason was his vanity. He did not wish to admit to his greying hair and receding hair line, so he supplemented his thinning locks with his own black boot polish applied daily to his scalp with the best of brushes made of finest bristle. The result was a deeply enhanced, shining colour and a very, very straight fringe. Both aspects were useful in his election posters to demonstrate an honest, unadulterated outlook on life coupled with his belief that all the important political issues were only black and white. There was no room for grey or for fudging at the edges. The only downside to this instant honesty came in unexpected downpours. Then his delicately painted hairline ran in streaks down his forehead and cheeks.

  This boot boy business was a trade in which Big David’s talents shone. A basic secondary school education had endowed him with little in the way of formal qualifications but, instead, provided him with the ideal reference from the headmaster. That reference, sent by second-class mail to the personnel department of the boot boy business, was a condemnatory one-liner:

  “If David is not already in jail, he will be soon.”

  The condemnation proved to be Big David’s recommendation.

  Here is a future leader! This is the ideal man for the job in hand, thought the personnel officer at the boot boy business.

  And, for once, the thoughts of the personnel officer were accurate. Within a few years of his recruitment, Big David found himself in charge of the whole boot boy organisation as the business of politics demanded more of Councillor Montgomery Cherry’s time. Now Big David really was the big man. No longer was he the penniless, persecuted, political refugee. No, now the boot was on the other foot.

  But Big David didn’t want to change the very organisation that had given him the chance to shine. Honoured tradition had to be maintained and polished, and not brushed aside. Above the main door to the L.H.O. hall Big David had repainted in white exterior gloss the traditional slogan of the descendants of the Ulster Plantation: “One Law, One Land, One Throne.” With the remains of the tin, the two long-standing tractor tyres that acted as planters for the orange lilies in the entrance hall were tastefully refreshed. And the tyres did not stand alone. Outside the main door to the L.H.O. hall stood two of Big David’s bodyguards both now dressed in orange-coloured suits, silk shirts, socks and underpants to match the attire of Big David. The effect, thought Big David, had been spectacular. Consequently he extended the whole sartorial requirement to his entire workforce. They would be known thereafter as “the Orange Shirts” or maybe “the Young Orange Front”. The latter variant of the name caught on but only in part. Because of their attire, Big David’s workers became more widely known as “the Orange Y-Fronts”.

  One of the orange-shirted bodyguards at the door of the L.H.O. hall was a six-foot-ten heavyweight. The other was a four-foot-three featherweight. It was a deliberate political choice. No-one could accuse Big David of not dealing with all levels of society. But within the contrast there was uniformity. Both bodyguards had the best in black, shiny, well-polished, waterproof footwear. Big David was not going to have the same situation arise as occurred when Councillor Montgomery Cherry was boss and supplied his bodyguards with cheap, substandard ex-army boots. Back in the bad old days of slipshod shoes one of the bodyguards had kicked an intruder so hard that the sole of his boot had been ripped off. The intruder was eventually charged with damage to Councillor Montgomery Cherry’s footwear. What an embarrassment! Who would employ Big David to clean or supply footwear if that were to happen again? No, things had certainly been tightened up after Big David took control. His men now all had the best of laced boots. And the vetting of the staff had also improved. He personally investigated the backgrounds of all applicants for his employ and knew all his employees by name. However, there was a complication with the two bodyguards at the front door. The first name of both these bodyguards was “Robert”. So Big David had to distinguish them
in some way. Consistent with their physiques, they were respectively known as “Bob the Blob” and “Bert the Squirt”.

  To update himself on the international situation Big David was sitting watching the large-screen television mounted on the wall of his office. The news bulletin was clearly coming to an end. A nameless female aide to a nameless government minister was making an announcement about the release of a big name Nationalist paramilitary, now with multiple PhDs in sociology, criminology and governmental studies duly earned in jail, as part of the ongoing Peace Process. The whole event was to be beautifully and sensitively choreographed as the latest of the PhDs was published in paperback at a subsidised price and launched at a Champagne reception in the centre of the city of Newry. A website was also to be produced to explain the contents and keep it constantly updated. With material this good every effort was to be made to bring it before a public who were hungry for the truth, whatever that was.

  “…and finally,” soothed the soft-spoken, soporific spokeswoman, “I would like to reassure the public that this man is no more dangerous than any other murderer.”

  Big David clicked on his remote control and the screen went blank. Things were obviously getting out of hand. This was time for the green phone – the hot line to contacts on the other side of town.

  He took the green mobile phone out of a locked drawer in his desk and, after putting on a white glove, dialled the number of one of his main business and political connections on the other side of town – the second generation Italian émigré “Wee Joe”. Wee Joe’s central position in the esteem of the Nationalist community derived from the fact that his dad – Big Joe – had been a prisoner of the British for two years. Better still, he had been a prisoner without trial – he had simply been picked up and interned. It was not that Big Joe was an internee following upon political activism – far from it. Big Joe had been picked up asleep in an Italian army bunker as the Allied forces stormed ashore in Sicily in July 1943. Thereafter he had been interned in Ulster at the open prison camp near Ballycarson from where he was allowed out all day to assist on local farms. He couldn’t wait for the war to end – he had never worked so hard in his life. But he had spotted a commercial opportunity in Ulster and decided to stay after hostilities ceased. Noone else ran a decent café. The key to success is integration, thought Big Joe and decided to adopt the surname of a local worthy – what could be better than a politician? What could be worse? But there seemed to be so many politicians in Ballycarson and it obviously was a successful line of business. So Big Joe copied down one of the more popular names from the various election posters appearing in the windows of various houses. The name was “Forsale”. It had a certain Sicilian ring about it. It was only years later that Big Joe found out that these were not election posters but estate agents’ posters. The word he adopted as his new surname was not a politician’s name but two words comprising a politician’s motto. Still, after emblazoning the name in green paint on the sign above his new Iceberg Café in Irish Street, it was too late for Big Joe to climb down. So he made the best of it. When asked by all concerned how to pronounce his name he attempted to disguise the original mistake by suggesting a three-syllable single word and not a two-syllable word or, worse still, two words each with single syllables. “Forsale – as in doolally and blind alley,” was his stock answer to enquiries about his name.