Chapter Twenty-four
They stayed at the Corsican Inn, run by a Sicilian family. Dinner in the attached restaurant was robust. When the waitress extended the list of single malts, St. James declined. After dinner they ordered coffee and split a crème brûlée.
Connie waited until they had both dipped spoons in the dessert. “Back there with the dog, Ian, I never would have suspected that. What made you stop?”
“Oi don’t know. Just a feelin’ I had.”
“You ever have a dog?”
“Not one of me own, not really. Some of the families I stayed with had dogs. Oi always liked ’em.”
Connie gazed at him. “I had a dog. Bonnie.” Her eyes filled with memories as they finished the dessert. And then she sighed and said, “Well, let’s get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.”
St. James went up to his room. It was smaller than a typical US motel room, barely room enough to do push-ups. He looked at his battered guitar case on the bed. It was covered with stickers: Grateful Dead, Violent Femmes, Not Lame, various countries he’d visited. Inside lay his trusty Gibson which Brian May had signed in Magic Marker. Sitting on the bed he unsnapped the case, took out the guitar, and held it on his lap.
A riff had been rattling around inside his head for days. Tuning the guitar by ear, he worked the riff. It had Marshall Crenshaw chords. He played around with the melody for a few minutes, set the guitar aside, and took a pad and pen from the case.
My daddy died before I was born.
Some say that’s for the best.
He was a rakehell bastard ripped and torn
Thought love was just a jest
St. James looked at the words. Good chords forgave a multitude of bad lyrics. Someone knocked at the door.
St. James was surprised to see Connie through the peephole. He opened the door.
“I thought you were going to play me your new stuff.”
St. James shrugged, pleased and surprised. “I can’t very well invite you in. There isn’t room for the two of us.”
“Let’s go down to the lobby. They’ve got a fire going, and there’s nobody there.”
The lobby, with its tile floor, Persian rugs, and framed paintings of Venice and St. Peter’s Basilica, was deserted. Rain drummed against the windows and the roof. St. James sat on an ottoman in front of the fire and played his song softly, pounding out a backbeat on the Gibson’s hollow body with his hands. The song had good bones. He could feel it.
When he, finished Connie clapped in delight. “What else you got?”
“That’s it.”
“I thought you were writing songs.”
St. James rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’ve been having writer’s block.”
“Know any Dylan?”
St. James softly tiptoed through “All Along the Watchtower.” When he finished, they both sat in silence for several minutes.
Connie stood. “Thank you for that. We’d better get some rest. It’s going to rain all day tomorrow.”
“Did I tell ya I worked one summer as a gravedigger?” St. James said.
Connie looked back with a half-smile. “Really?”
“For real,” he said as they headed for their rooms. Once inside, he tossed his guitar on the sofa and collapsed on the bed.
***
St. James woke at six and looked outside. No way. He did fifty push-ups and a hundred sit-ups on the tiny floor, leaving him sweating and breathing hard. He took a shower, and, for the first time in God knew how long, did not feel like death warmed over. At eight he joined Connie for bangers and mash in the restaurant. At a quarter of nine they were on the road. The wipers could barely contend with the heavy rain. They drove for hours in the deluge, no faster than forty.
They pulled into Odoyle at seven-thirty. It was nearly full dark and the rain had settled into a steady drizzle. The only lights in the tiny village emanated from the Hog’s Head Pub. The four regulars in the overheated pub stared at the unlikely couple, until St. James took Connie’s hand and led her to the bar. She wore a baggy hoodie with the hood up.
The bartender, a ruddy-faced man with a curly gray beard, leaned on the bar. “Hell of a night. What can I get ye?”
“Oh, a couple of hot coffees I think,” St. James said. “And is there any place to stay around here?” The GPS hadn’t worked for the last three hours.
“Aye, there’s the Bainbridge Inn about fifteen miles further on. I could phone ’em if you like.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Connie said taking a stool next to St. James. The bartender got them two steaming coffees in oversized mugs and placed a bowl of sealed half-and-halfs and sugar in front of them. The bartender placed an ancient Bakelite phone on the bar and dialed. When the phone rang, he handed it to Connie, who reserved two rooms for them.
The regulars returned to their drinks and their stories.
As Connie hung up the phone the bartender came back and leaned on the bar. “So what brings you to Odoyle?”
“We’re looking for Peter MacGowan.”
The bartender leaned back as if he’d caught a whiff of the grave. “MacGowan? What do ye want with him?” Said in such a way as to suggest they were insane.
“We’re working on a story about the Banshees,” Connie said.
The bartender made an ugly face. “If ye call that music. Doubt you’ll get much out of old MacGowan. Fried his brain years ago on the sauce, an’ he’s a nasty piece of business, that one. His boy Paddy lit out of there as soon as he was able. And good riddance, I say. He always was a nasty little prick.”
“Do you know where we can find him?” St. James said.
“Och, aye. Aboot twelve mile out of town, ye’ll see a road heading north. Look hard because it’s easy to miss the sign. Rathkroghen Road. It’s a rough road, not somethin’ you’d be attempting at night. MacGowan lives in a cottage—an old shack, really—about six miles north, right where the road gives out.”
Connie wrote it down in a pad. They finished their coffee and paid the tab.
“Good luck,” the bartender said as they headed out. “Yer gonna need it.”