The Dramatist Read Free Page A

guard? Oh God, yes. Did I miss the bullshit? Never. I wondered how it would go if I called in to see my old nemesis, Clancy. Was I kidding? I knew exactly how that would go.
    Badly.
    A man in his fifties, with red protruding cheeks, purple nose, tweed jacket and the regulation blue shirt did a double take, asked,
    “Jack?”
    “Hello, Brian.”
    If memory served, as it sometimes did, we’d pulled crowd duty in the days of cattle boats. Right down to his GAA tie and the gold fáinne , he was beyond caricature. No faking the gruff friendliness though as he bellowed,
    “By the holy, I heard you were dead.”
    “Close enough.”
    He looked round and I knew it didn’t help any career to be seen with me. He offered,
    “Have you time for a quick one?”
    “I have a train to catch.”

 
    “You are convicts. Your job here is to lie, cheat, steal, extort, get tattoos, take drugs, sell drugs, shank and sock each other. Just don’t let us catch you—that’s our job. We catch you, you got nothing coming.”
    Jimmy Lerner, You’ve Got Nothing Coming:
Notes from a Prison Fish

 
    I couldn’t remember the last time I caught the train; and what the hell had happened to the station? Of course, I knew that coach travel, rail strikes and price hikes had played havoc with the service, but the station was transformed totally. Before, it had been a country train station servicing what was, in reality, a country town. The station master knew everybody in Galway, and not only did he know where you were going but the purpose of the trip. No matter the number of years you might have been gone, when you alighted at the station he’d greet you by name and know where you’d been.
    A speaker announced departures in four languages. I queued for my ticket behind a line of backpackers. Not a word of English anywhere. Finally I got to order a two-day return and was staggered at the price, asked,
    “Is that first class?”
    “Don’t be silly.”
    Muttering, I passed the new modern restaurant, the old draughty café but a blip in the mind. There’d been a photo of Alcock and Brown pinned to the wall beside a poster of a jolly man staring in wonder at a flock of flamingos, pints of the black in their beaks, and the logo
My Goodness
My Guinness.
    It always brought a smile.
    The train still retained a smoking carriage, to the astonishment of an American couple. She went,
    “John, you can, like…smoke…on this train.”
    If he had an answer, he wasn’t voicing it. I had the carriage to myself. So I lit up, feeling it was downright mandatory. A whistle blew and we pulled away. Louis MacNeice loved trains and always wrote his journal during trips. I tried to read to no avail. Outside Athlone, a tea trolley came, pushed by a powerfully built man. He looked as if he moved mountains. The trolley appeared a mere irritant. I asked,
    “How you doing?”
    “Tea, coffee, cheese sandwich, chocolate, soft drinks?”
    His accent was thick, near impenetrable. I was able to deduce the list of goodies from a list attached to the side of the trolley. I pointed to the tea, and as he poured and placed it before me, the movement of the train caused half of it to spill. He put a thick finger to his chest, said,
    “Ukraine.”
    I could have thumped my chest, gone,
    “Irish.”
    But felt a level of alcohol was necessary for that. I gave him ten euro and he grabbed it, moved on. For less than a quarter plastic cup of coloured water, he was on a winner. I took an experimental taste and it was as bad as I’ve ever had—a blend of bitterness that hints at tea and coffee and brought to a fine art by Iarnród Éireann.
    I heard the carriage door slide open behind me, then a woman’s voice:
    “Jack? Jack Taylor?”
    Turned to see a woman in her late twenties, dressed in what used to be called a twin set. Now they’d call it bad taste. The sort of outfit you saw on British television drama, usually involving a bridge game and a body in the library. Her face