Jude in Ireland E-Book

Julian Gough

• Herausgeber: Old Street Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

"If I had urinated immediately after breakfast, the Mob would never have burnt down the Orphanage." So begins the acclaimed, prize-winning tale of Jude, a Tipperary-reared orphan who on his 18th birthday sets off to discover the wide world and his true parentage. His picaresque adventures take him first to the "Sodom of the West" - Galway - where he falls in love, encounters temptations galore and, disguised as Stephen Hawking, unwittingly blows up the HQ of a Multi-National Corporation - and himself. Jude hotfoots it to Dublin, in pursuit of Angela, ex-Galway chip-shop employee and his True Love. A spectacular, riotous chase through the city of Ulysses ensues, transformed by Gough's talent into a dazzling metaphor of 21st century violence, alienation and progress.

Leseprobe

PRAISE FORJUDE

“Sheer comic brilliance”The Times

“Julian Gough gives a new shine to an antique mode, the Quixotic picaresque, as he relates the antic adventures of a Tipperary orphan. It’s clever, it’s nuts, and there are moments of comic greatness” Kevin Barry (author of City of Bohane), Irish Times, Books of the Year, 2007

“Clever and laugh-out-loud hilarious” Mail on Sunday

“This is funny. It is also, possibly, quite serious. Certainly, it endears” Irish Times

“Gough’s novel is like the picaresque bastard love-child of Flann O’Brien and Matt Groening, and yet is all Julian Gough. Possibly the finest comic novel to come out of Ireland since At Swim Two Birds, it recounts the story of Jude, an orphan, as he wanders through Ireland in a quest to find his true love and uncover the secret behind his parentage … Gough makes it look easy, with an instinctive sense of timing, and a razor sharp and subversive intellect”Sunday Tribune, Books of the Year, 2007.

“Twenty-first century Irish satire has well and truly arrived thanks to ‘Toasted Heretic’ frontman, Julian Gough”Metro, Fiction of the Week.

“Jude makes most other contemporary Irish novels look like a pile of puke” Olaf Tyaransen, Evening Herald

“Like Flann O’Brien before him, Gough has written a highly effective satire of contemporary Ireland by combining an eye for bizarre detail with a relentlessly anarchic prose style and structure… Jude in Ireland is an extremely original and surprising book which goes some way to making up for the dearth of literary responses to the changes brought by the Celtic Tiger. Jude in Ireland succeeds where few have tried in making us laugh at the grotesqueness of 21st-century Ireland.” Sunday Independent

“Outrageously comic and satirical… a madcap romp which mercilessly sends up some of the sacred cows of modern Ireland, and even uses child abuse in an orphanage as a source of fun. It’s a brilliant story (a sort of Celtic Tiger Myles na gCopaleen) guaranteed to put the painful into laughter.”Irish Independent

“Gough’s preoccupation with the Greeks at the time of Aristophanes comes across in his writing, echoing the belief that comedy is superior to tragedy, being the Gods’ view. That is not to say that Jude is not a serious novel; it is deeply humorous, but Gough is deadly serious in his writing… With his inventive approach to publishing and disregard for literary conventions, Gough has written an epic novel for the 21st century, which, truly, no one else could have written.”Aesthetica Magazine

“Julian Gough’s Jude in Ireland manages an opening line that is bound to become a part of literary history… I defy any Indian reader to read the account of a Fianna Fáil political rally at the beginning of the book and not find it both familiar and hilarious… Jude in Ireland is a ridiculous, brilliant piece of writing.”Sunday Guardian, India

“A tour de farce, a comic chronicle of the history of the Irish psyche which takes the reader from the middle of the 20th century to the post-Celtic Tiger ennui of today, at breakneck speed.”Galway Advertiser

Jude in Ireland

This book is dedicated to my parents, Richard Gough and Elizabeth Gough (née Grogan), with love, respect and thanks.

Contents

IRELAND Border Violations

Title Page

Dedication

Tipperary

Galway

Dublin

About the Author

Copyright

TIPPERARY

1.

If I had urinated immediately after breakfast, the Mob would never have burnt down the Orphanage. But, as I left the dining hall to relieve myself, the letterbox clattered. I turned in the long corridor. A single white envelope lay on the doormat.

I hesitated, and heard through the door the muffled roar of a motorcycle starting. With a crunching turn on the gravel drive and a splatter of pebbles against the door, it was gone.

Odd, I thought, for the postman has a bicycle. I walked to the large oak door, picked up the envelope, and gazed upon it.

Jude

The Orphanage

Tipperary

Ireland

For me! On this day, of all significant days! I sniffed both sides of the smooth white envelope, in the hope of detecting a woman’s perfume, or a man’s cologne. It smelt, faintly, of itself.

I pondered. I was unaccustomed to letters, never having received one before, and I did not wish to use this one up in the One Go. As I stood in silent thought, I could feel the Orphanage Coffee burning relentlessly through my small dark passages. Should I open the letter before, or after, urinating? It was a dilemma. I wished to open it immediately. But a full bladder distorts judgement when reading, and is a great obstacle to understanding.

Yet could I do justice to my very dilemma, with a full bladder?

As I pondered, both dilemma and letter were removed from my hands by the Master of Orphans, Brother Madrigal.

“You’ve no time for that now, boy,” he said. “Run off and organise the Honour Guard, and get them out to the site. You may open your letter this evening, in my presence, after the Visit.” He gazed at my letter with its handsome handwriting, and thrust it up the sleeve of his cassock.

I sighed, and went to find the young Orphans of the Honour Guard.

2.

I found most of the young Orphans hiding under Brother Thomond in the darkness of the hay barn.

“Excuse me, Sir,” I said, lifting his skirts and ushering out the protesting infants.

“He is Asleep,” said a young Orphan, and indeed, as I looked closer, I saw Brother Thomond was at a slight tilt. Supported from behind by a pillar, he was maintained erect only by the stiffness of his ancient joints. Golden straws protruded from the neck and sleeves of his long black cassock, and emerged at all angles from his wild white hair.

“He said he wished to speak to you, Jude,” said another Orphan. I hesitated. We were already late. I decided not to wake him, for Brother Thomond, once he had Stopped, took a great deal of time to warm up and get rightly going again.

“Where is Agamemnon?” I asked.

The smallest Orphan removed one thumb from his mouth and jerked it upward, towards the loft.

“Agamemnon!” I called softly.

Old Agamemnon, my dearest companion and the Orphanage Pet, emerged slowly from the shadows of the loft and stepped, with a tread remarkably dainty for a dog of such enormous size, down the wooden ladder to the ground. He shook his great ruff of yellow hair and yawned at me loudly.

“Walkies,” I said, and he stepped up to my side. We exited the hay barn into the golden light of a perfect Tipperary summer’s day.

I lined up the Honour Guard and counted them by the front door, in the shadow of the South Tower of the Orphanage. The butter-yellow bricks of its facade glowed in the diffuse morning light as a late fog burned off.

I checked I had my Travel Toothbrush tucked safely into my sock.

We set out.

3.

From the gates of the Orphanage to the site of the speeches was several strong miles.

We passed through Town, and out the other side. The smaller Orphans began to wail, afraid they would see Black People, or be savaged by Beasts. Agamemnon stuck closely to my rear. We walked until we ran out of road. Then we followed a track, till we ran out of track.

We hopped over a fence, crossed a field, waded a dyke, cut through a ditch, traversed scrub land, forded a river and entered Nobber Nolan’s bog. Spang plumb in the middle of Nobber Nolan’s Bog, and therefore spang plumb in the middle of Tipperary, and thus Ireland, was the Nation’s most famous Boghole, famed in song and story, in History book and Ballad sheet: the most desolate place in Ireland, and the last place God created.

I had never seen the famous boghole, for Nobber Nolan had, until his recent death and his bequest of the Bog to the State, guarded it fiercely from locals and tourists alike. Many’s the American was winged with birdshot over the years, attempting to make pilgrimage here. I looked about me for the Hole, but it was hid from my view by an enormous Car-Park, a concrete Interpretive Centre of imposing dimensions, and a tall, broad, wooden stage, or platform, bearing Politicians. Beyond Car-Park and Interpretive Centre, an eight-lane motorway of almost excessive straightness stretched clean to the Horizon, in the direction of Dublin.

Facing the stage stood fifty thousand farmers.

We made our way through the farmers to the stage. They parted politely, many raising their hats, and seemed in high good humour. “’Tis better than the Radio Head concert at Punchestown,” said a sophisticated farmer from Cloughjordan, pulling on a shop-bought cigarette.

Onstage, I counted the smaller Orphans. We had lost only the one, which was good going over such a quantity of rough ground. I reported our arrival to Teddy “Noddy” Nolan, the Fianna Fáil TD for Tipperary Central and a direct descendant of Neddy “Nobber” Nolan. Nodding vigorously, he waved us to our places, high at the back of the sloping stage. The Guard of Honour lined up in front of the enormous green cloth backdrop and stood to attention, flanked by groups of seated dignitaries. I myself sat where I could unobtrusively supervise, in a vacant seat at the end of a row.

When the last of the stragglers had arrived in the crowd below us, Teddy cleared his throat. The crowd fell silent, as though shot. He began his speech.

“It was in this place…” he said, with a generous gesture which incorporated much of Tipperary, “… that Eamonn DeValera…”

Everybody removed their hats.

“… hid heroically from the Entire British Army…”

Everybody scowled and put their hats back on.

“… during the War of Independence. It was in this very boghole that Eamonn DeValera…”

Everybody removed their hats again.

“… had his Vision: A Vision of Irish Maidens dancing barefoot at the crossroads, and of Irish Manhood dying heroically while refusing to the last breath to buy English shoes…”

At the word English the crowd put their hats back on, though some took them off again when it turned out only to be shoes. Others glared at them. They put the hats back on again.

“We in Tipperary have fought long and hard to get the Government to make Brussels pay for this fine Interpretive Centre and its fine Car-Park, and in Brünhilde DeValera we found the ideal Minister to fight our corner. It is therefore with great pleasure, with great pride, that I invite the great grand-daughter of Eamonn DeValera’s cousin … the Minister for Beef, Culture and the Islands … Brünhilde DeValera … to officially reopen … Dev’s Hole!”

The crowd roared and waved their hats in the air. Long experience had taught them to keep a firm grip on the peak, for as all the hats were of the same design and entirely indistinguishable, the One from the Other, it was common practice at a Fianna Fáil hat-flinging rally for the less scrupulous farmers to loft an Old Hat, yet pick up a New.

Brünhilde DeValera took the microphone, tapped it, and cleared her throat.

“Spit on me, Brünhilde!” cried an excitable farmer down the front. The crowd surged forward, toppling and trampling the feeble-legged and bock-kneed, in expectation of Fiery Rhetoric. She began.

“Although it is European Money which has paid for this fine Interpretive Centre… Although it is European Money which has paid for this fine new eight-lane Motorway from Dublin, this Coach Park, this Car Park, that has Tarmacadamed Toomevara in its Entirety… Although it is European Money which has paid for everything built West of Grafton Street in my Lifetime… And although we are grateful to Europe for its Largesse…”

She paused to draw a great Breath. The crowd were growing restless, not having a Bull’s Notion where she was going with all this, and distressed by the use of a foreign word.

“It is not for this I brought my Hat,” said the Dignitary next to me, and spat on the foot of the Dignitary beside him.

“Nonetheless,” said Brünhilde DeValera, “Grateful as we are to the Europeans…

…we should never forget…

…that…

…they…”

Fifty thousand right hands began to drift, with a wonderful easy slowness, up towards the brims of fifty thousand Hats in anticipation of a Climax.

“…are a shower of Foreign Bastards who would Murder us in our Beds given Half a Chance!”

A great cheer went up and the air was filled with Hats till they hid the face of the sun and we cheered in an eerie half-light.

The minister paused for some minutes while everybody recovered their own Hat and returned it to their own Head.

“Those Foreign Bastards in Brussels think they can buy us with their money! They are Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! You cannot buy an Irishman’s Heart, an Irishman’s Soul, an Irishman’s Loyalty! Remember ’98!”

There was a hesitation in the crowd, as the younger farmers tried to recall if we had won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1998.

“1798!” Brünhilde clarified.

A great cheer went up as we recalled the gallant failed rebellion of 1798. “Was It For This That Wolfe Tone Died?” came a whisp of song from the back of the crowd.

“Remember 1803!”

We applauded Emmet’s great failed rebellion of 1803. A quavering chorus came from the oldest farmers at the rear of the great crowd: “Bold Robert Emmet, the darling of Ireland…”

“Remember 1916!”

Grown men wept as they recalled the great failed rebellion of 1916, and so many contradictory songs were started that none got rightly going.

There was a pause.

All held their breath.

“…Remember 1988!”

Pride so great it felt like anguish filled our hearts as we recalled the year Ireland finally threw off her shackles and stood proud among the community of nations, with our heroic victory over England in the first match in Group Two of the Group Stage of the European Football Championship Finals. A brief chant went up from the Young Farmers in the Mosh Pit: “Who put the ball in the England net?”

Older farmers, further back, added bass to the reply of “Houghton! Houghton!”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

“My great grand-father’s cousin did not Fight and Die in bed of old age so that foreign monkey-men could swing from our trees and rape our women! He did not walk out of the Daíl, start a Civil War and kill Michael Collins so a bunch of dirty Foreign Bastards could…”

Here I missed a number of Fiery Words, as excited farmers began to leap up and down roaring at the front, the younger and more nimble mounting each other’s shoulders, then throwing themselves forward to surf toward the stage on a sea of hands, holding their Hats on as they went.

“Never forget,” roared Brünhilde DeValera, “that a Vision of Ireland came out of Dev’s Hole!”

“Dev’s Hole! Dev’s Hole! Dev’s Hole!” roared the crowd.

By my side, Agamemnon began to howl, and tried to dig a hole in the stage with his long claws.

Neglecting to empty my bladder after breakfast had been an error the awful significance of which I only now began to grasp. A good Fianna Fáil Ministerial speech to a loyal audience in the heart of a Tipperary bog could go on for up to five hours.

I pondered my situation.

My only choice seemed to be as to precisely how I would disgrace myself in front of thousands. To rise and walk off the stage during a speech by a semi-descendant of DeValera would be tantamount to treason, and would earn me a series of beatings on my way to the portable toilets.

Yet the alternative was to relieve myself into my breeches where I sat.

My waist-band creaked.

With the gravest reluctance, I willed the loosening of my urethral sphincter.

4.

Nothing happened. My subsequent efforts, over the next few minutes, to void my bladder, resulted only in the vigorous exercising of my superficial abdominal muscles. At length, I realised that there was a fundamental setting in my Subconscious, and it was set firmly against public voidance. To this adamant subconscious setting, my Conscious Mind had no access.

Meanwhile, the pressure grew intolerable, as the Orphanage Coffee continued to bore through my system.

I grew desperate. Yet, within the line of sight of fifty thousand farmers, I could not unleash the torrent.

Then, Inspiration! The Velvet Curtain! All I needed was an instant’s distraction, and I could step behind the billowing green backdrop beside me, and vanish. There would, no doubt, be an exit off the back of the stage, through which I could pass to relieve myself, before returning, unobserved, to my place.

A magnificent gust of Nationalist Rhetoric lifted every hat again aloft and, in the moment of eclipse, I stood, took one step sideways, and vanished behind the Curtain.

5.

I shuffled along, my face to the Emerald Curtain, my rear to the rough wooden back wall of the stage, until the wall ceased. I turned, and I beheld, to my astonished delight, the solution to all my problems.

Hidden from stage and crowd by the vast Curtain was a magnificent circular long-drop toilet of the type employed in the Orphanage. But where we sat around a splintered circle of rough wooden plank, our buttocks overhanging a fetid pit, here was elegant splendour: a pit of surpassing beauty, encircled by a great golden rail. Mossy walls ran down to a limpid pool into which a lone frog gently ’plashed, barely disturbing the water-boatmen skittering across the water’s mild surface, in which was reflected a trembling sky.

Installed, no doubt, for the private convenience of the Minister, should she be caught short during the long hours of her speech, it was the most beautiful sight I had yet seen in this world. It seemed nearly a shame to urinate into so perfect a pastoral picture, and it was almost with reluctance that I unbuttoned my breeches and allowed my manhood its release.

I aimed my member so as to inconvenience the Frog as little as possible. At last my Conscious made connection with my Unconscious; the Setting was Reset; Mind and Body were as One; Will became Action: I was Unified. In that transcendent moment all my senses were polished to perfection.

I could smell the sweet pollen of the Heather and the Whitethorn, and the mingled Colognes of a thousand Bachelor Farmers.

I could taste the lingering, bitter grounds of the Orphanage Coffee, and feel the grit of them lodged in the joins of my teeth.

I could see every slender, quivering stalk rising from the moist mosses lining the pit, every shivering layer of reflection upon the water, sky mingling with the pool’s bottom in an exquisite balancing of visual weight, so that the frog with a powerful thrust far beneath the surface seemed to fly up through the light clouds of summer and skirt the very sun.

I could hear the murmur and sigh of the crowd like an ocean at my back, and Brünhilde DeValera’s mighty voice bounding from rhetorical Peak to rhetorical Peak, ever higher.

And as this moment of Perfection began its slow decay into the past, and as the delicious frozen moment of Anticipation deliquesced into Attainment and the pent-up waters leaped forth, far forward, and fell in their glorious swoon, Brünhilde DeValera’s voice rang out as from Olympus:

“I

hereby

officially

reopen…

Dev’s Hole!”

A suspicion dreadful beyond words took hold of me.

I attempted to Arrest the Flow.

I may as well have attempted to block by effort of will the course of the mighty Amazon River.

Thus the Great Curtain parted, to reveal me Urinating into Dev’s Hole: into the very Source of the Sacred Spring of Irish Nationalism: the Headwater, the Holy Well, the Font of our Nation.

6.

I feel, looking back, that it would not have gone so badly against me, had I not, in my panic, turned and hosed Brünhilde De Valera with urine.

7.

They pursued me across rough ground for some considerable time.

8.

Agamemnon held my pursuers at the Gap in the Wall, as I crossed the grounds and gained the House. He had not had such vigorous exercise since running away from Fossetts’ Circus to hide in our hay barn a decade before, as a pup.

Now, undaunted, he slumped in the Gap, panting at them.

Slamming the Orphanage Door behind me and turning, I came upon old Brother Thomond in the Long Corridor, beating a Small Orphan in a desultory manner.

“Ah, Jude,” said Brother Thomond, on seeing me. The brown leather of his face creaked as he smiled, to reveal the perfect, white teeth of Brother Jasper.

“A little lower, Sir, if you please,” piped the Small Orphan. Brother Thomond obliged. The weakness of Brother Thomond’s brittle limbs made his beatings popular with the Lads, as a rest and a relief from those of the more supple and youthful brothers.

“Yes, Jude…” he began again, “I had something I wanted to… yes… to… yes…” He nodded his head, and was distracted by straw falling past his eyes, from his tangled hair.

I moved from foot to foot, uncomfortably aware of the shouts of the approaching Mob. Agamemnon, judging by his roars, was now retreating heroically before them as they crossed the grounds toward the front door.

“’Tis the Orphanage!” I heard one cry.

“’Tis full of Orphans!” cried another.

“From Orphania!” cried a third.

“As we suspected!” called a fourth. “He is a Foreigner!”

I had a bad feeling about this. The voices were coming closer and closer. I heard the thud of Agamemnon’s retreating buttocks against the door. Agamemnon stood firm at the steps, but no dog, however brave, can hold off a Mob forever.

Brother Thomond fell asleep briefly, one arm aloft above the Small Orphan.

The mob continued to discuss me on the far side of the door.

“You’re thinking of Romania, and of the Romanian orphans. You’re confusing the two,” said a level head.

“Romanian, by God!”

“He is Romanian!”

“That man said so.”

“I did not…”

“A Gypsy Bastard!”

“Kill the Gypsy Bastard!”

The Voice of Reason was lost in the hubbub, and a rock from the Rockery came in through the stained-glass window above the front door. It put a Hole in Jesus, and hit Brother Thomond in the back of the neck.

Brother Thomond awoke.

“Dismissed,” he said to the Small Orphan sternly.

“Oh but Sir you hadn’t finished!”

“No backchat from you, young fellow, or I shan’t beat you for a week.”

The Small Orphan scampered away into the darkness of the Long Corridor. Brother Thomond sighed deeply, and rubbed his neck. He turned to me.

“Ah, yes. Jude… Today is your eighteenth birthday, is it not?”

I nodded.

Brother Thomond sighed again. “I have carried a secret this long time, regarding your Birth. I feel it is only right to tell you now…”

He fell briefly asleep.

The cries of the Mob grew as they assembled, eager to enter, and destroy me. The yelps and whimpers of brave Agamemnon were growing fainter. I had but little time. I poked Brother Thomond in the clavicle with a Finger. He started awake. “What? WHAT? WHAT?”

Though to rush Brother Thomond was usually counter-productive, circumstances dictated that I try. I shouted, the better to penetrate both the Yellow Wax and the Fog of Years.

“You were about to tell me the Secret of my Birth, Sir.”

“Ah yes. The secret…” He hesitated. “The secret of your birth… The secret I have held these many years… which was told to me by… by one of the… by Brother Feeny… who was one of the Cloughjordan Feenys… His mother was a Thornton…”

“If you could Speed It Up, Sir,” I suggested, as the Mob forced open the window-catch above us. Brother Thomond obliged.

“The Secret of Your Birth…”

Outside, with a last choking yelp, Agamemnon fell silent. There was a tremendous hammering upon the old oak door.

“I’ll just get that,” said Brother Thomond. “I think there was a knock.”

As he reached it, the door burst open with extraordinary violence, sweeping old Brother Thomond aside with a crackling of many bones in assorted sizes and throwing him backwards against the wall, where he impaled the back of his head on a coat-hook. Though he continued to speak, the rattle of his last breath rendered the Secret unintelligible. The Mob poured in.

I ran on, into the dark of the Long Corridor.

9.

I found the Master of Orphans, Brother Madrigal, in his office in the South Tower, beating an orphan in a desultory manner.

“Ah, Jude,” he said. “Went the day well?”

Not wishing to burden him with the lengthy Truth, and with both time and breath in short supply, I said “Yes.”

He nodded approvingly.

“May I have my Letter, Sir?” I said.

“Ah, yes… Yes, of course… The Letter…” He dismissed the small orphan, who trudged off disconsolate. Brother Madrigal turned from his desk toward the Confiscation Safe, then paused by the open window. “Who are those strange men on the Lawn, waving blazing torches?” he asked.

“I do not precisely know,” I said truthfully.

He frowned.

“They followed me home,” I felt moved to explain.

“And who could blame them?” said Brother Madrigal. He smiled and tousled my hair, before moving again toward the Confiscation Safe, tucked into the room’s rear left corner. From the lawn far below could be heard confused cries.

Unlocking the safe, he took out the letter and walked back to face me. Behind him, outside the window, I saw flames race along the dead ivy and creepers, and vanish up into the roof timbers. “Who,” he mused, looking at the envelope, “could be writing to you…?” Suddenly he started, and looked up at me. “Of course!” he said. “Jude, it is your eighteenth birthday, is it not?”

I nodded.

He sighed, the tantalising letter now dangling disregarded from his right hand. “Jude… I have carried a secret this long time, regarding your Birth. It is a secret known only to Brother Thomond and myself, and it has weighed heavy on us. I feel it is only right to tell you now… The secret of your birth…” He hesitated. “Is…”

My heart Clattered in its Cage at this Second Chance.

Brother Madrigal threw up his hands. “But where are my manners? Would you like a cup of tea first? And we must have music. Ah, music.”

He pressed Play on the record player that sat at the left edge of the broad desk. The turntable bearing the Orphanage single began to rotate at forty-five revolutions per minute. The tone-arm lifted, swung out, and dropped onto the broad opening groove of the record, nearly dislodging from the needle a Ball of Dust the size and colour of a small mouse.

The blunt needle in its fuzzy ball of dust juddered through the scratched groove. Faintly, beneath the roar and crackle of its erratic passage, could be heard traces of an ancient tune.

Brother Madrigal returned to the safe and switched on the old kettle that sat atop it. Leaving my letter leaning against the kettle, he came back to his desk and sat behind it in his old black leather armchair.

Unfortunately, the rising roar of the old kettle and the roar and crackle of the record player disguised the rising roar and crackle of the flames in the dry timbers of the old tower roof.

Brother Madrigal patted the side of the Record Player affectionately. “The sound is so much warmer than from all these new digital dohickeys, don’t you find? And of course you can tell it is a good-quality machine from the way, when the needle hops free of the surface of the record, it often falls back into the self-same groove it has just left, with neither loss nor repetition of much music. The Arm…” He tapped his nose and slowly closed one eye. “…Is True. One of the tips I picked up, many years ago, from old Paddy Thackery, of Thackery Electrical…”

He dug out an Italia ’90 cup and a USA ’94 mug from his desk, and put a teabag in each.

“Milk?”