Beatlebone Read Free

handsomeness, and at once he names the dog—
    Brian Wilson, he says.
    At which the dog wags a weary tail, and apparently grins, and John laughs now and he begins to sing a bit in high pitch—
Well it’s been building up inside of me
    For oh, I don’t know how long…
    The dog comes in to moan softly and tunefully, in perfect counterpoint to him—this morning’s duet—and John is thinking:
    This escapade is getting out of hand right off the fucking bat.
    ———
    A brown car rolls slowly from the top of the town. John and the dog Brian Wilson turn their snouts and beady eyes to inspect. The car has a tiny pea-headed chap inside for a driver. He’s barely got his eyes over the top of the wheel. He stalls by the grocer’s but he keeps the engine running. He steps out of the juddering car. There is something jockey-like or Aintree-week about this tiny, wiry chap. He fetches a bundle of newspapers from the backseat of the car and carries them to the stoop of the grocer’s.
    Well? he says.
    Well enough, John says.
    He places the bundle on the stoop and takes a penknife from his arse pocket and cuts the string on the bundle and pulls the top paper free and he has a quick read, the engine all the while breathing, and Brian Wilson scowling, and John sits huddled against the morning chill that moves across the town in sharp points from the river.
    I’ll tell you one thing for nothin’, the jockey-type says.
    Go on?
    This place is run by a pack of fucken apes.
    Who’re you telling?
    He sighs and returns the paper neatly to its bundle. He edges back to the verge of the pavement and looks to a window above the grocery.
    No sign of Martin? he says.
    And he shakes his head in soft despair—
    The misfortune’s after putting down a night of it, I’d say.
    And with that he is on his way again.
    John and the dog Brian Wilson watch him go.
    You can never trust a jockey-type, John says, on account of they’ve got oddly set eyes.
    ———
    A broad-shouldered kid comes walking through the square with an orange football under his arm. As he walks he scans one way and then the other, east and west. The kid has a dead hard face on. As if he’s about to invade Russia.
    Morning, John says.
    Well, the kid says.
    The kid stops up and drops the ball and traps it under his foot—he rolls it back and forth in slow pensive consideration.
    You one of the Connellans? he says.
    I could be, John says.
    Ye over for the summer or only a small while?
    We’ll see how it goes.
    Ah yeah.
    The kid kicks the ball against the grocer’s wall and traps it again and kicks it once more for the rebound.
    How’s the grandmother keeping?
    Not so hot, John says.
    She’s gone old, of course, the kid says, and winces.
    And what age are you now?
    I’m ten, he says.
    Bloody hell, John says, time’s moving.
    Could be the brother you’re thinking of, the kid says. The brother’s Keith. He’s only seven yet.
    I have you now.
    The kid moves on, curtly, with a wave, and kicks the ball as he goes in diagonals to his path, now quickening, now slowing to meet its return and tapping rhyme as it follows the fall-away of the street, an awkward-looking, a bandy-footed kid whose name never will be sung from the heaving terraces—and so the silver river flows.
    And the kid crosses the river and walks on and the heron takes off on slow heavy beat-steady wings and the kid’s away into the playing fields and the rising morning. It’s the sort of thing that could break your heart if you were of a certain type or turn of mind.
    If you were a gentleman quick to tears, John says.
    And Brian Wilson moans softly again and stretches and yowls in the morning sun.
    ———
    Here’s an old lady a-squint behind the wheel of a fab pink Mini as it grumbles and stalls again by the grocer’s—centre of the universe, apparently. She wears a knit hat of tangerine shade and a pair of great chunky specs. She rolls the window and sends a pessimistic glance from the milk-bottle