Mulligans is the sort of pub you'd keep a secret. Warm and snug, the soft light embracing dark brown wood, and a pint of Guinness that's only Nectar of the Gods. In a hectic world of pace and change, it remains sober, steadfast and demure.
"Holy Christ," he says with feeling, as the Barman places a frothy pint within his grasp.
I drag my eyes from the racing page. I am in the presence of a fellow sufferer, a fellow traveller on the road of life. I know him well in ordinary life. However, the fact that he is dressed in full police uniform with the rank of Garda Sergeant has not escaped me.
He pushes his cap back to reveal a low forehead over a dark shock of greying hair. His heavy-boned, weather beaten face has the long enduring lived-in look of a man who has seen life, red of tooth and claw, in the raw, in all its wonderful variations.
"Soft day," I offer, to acknowledge that his remark has not fallen on the empty air.
He downs a third of his pint in a swallow and nods to the Barman to set up another. Then he eyes me, having taken my remark on board.
"Soft is it?" he asks, and I sense his pain. "There's some'd say it's a shite day."
He elaborates, "A day where nature conspires with chaos to produce confusion."
"Nature?" I ask, trying to catch his drift.
"Dark, dull, drizzle that's trying to be rain, everywhere gloomy, a day that brings the depressives to the fore," he explains.
I pick him up wrong, "sorry for your trouble," I say, thinking he is suffering from depression.
He looks at me as if it has begun to dawn on him that nature is not finished with him yet, this day of days, and, ignoring the fact that we have a long acquaintance, he conveys by his look a sense of wonder that perhaps nature has conspired to throw him together with a fool.
And Mulligans is the only sanctuary he knows. He looks about but there is no escape; we are alone in the Snug. He finishes his pint and then considers deeply the bottom of the glass.
"You don't have the look of a man who gets depressed," I throw out, sensing my attempt to be comforting has driven him deeper into the abyss.
Our eyes meet and he realizes I am sensitive to his pain. He relaxes and reaches for his second pint. "Get you one?" he asks indicating my three-quarters empty glass.
"Don't mind if I do."
We skirt about it for a couple of pints. I update him on the state of the racing page and we share a joke or two over the recent performance of the Dublin Gaelic football team. In discussion, it becomes clear to me that years of residence in this city have not dulled the Sergeant's allegiance to his home county of Cork. We shift the conversation to safer ground, dealing with Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal, and the general state of play in the English Premiership League.
Then he can stand it no more. "What a bloody day," he lets out with a deep sigh.
"Early days yet," I offer in recognition that it is still too early for teatime.
"Early shift," he explains, "six o'clock start, two o'clock finish."
That explains the drink. However, he is still in his Garda uniform and this is a measure of his desperation. Admittedly, he is in the private sanctuary of the Snug in Mulligans, but he is not wont to drink in uniform, being a stickler for maintaining standards and, in fairness, not wanting to frighten other customers who might not know him. Indeed, I conclude he must have had a shite day.
"The Howlette girl threw herself into the canal up at the lock," he adds.
"Howlettes from the flats?" I enquire to get a better fix, for if this is so, then it's an attractive red haired girl.
"You remember her?" he asks and I nod.
"Didn't I teach her for six years. About twenty years old; not over bright, but a solid sort of a girl."
"Yeh got her in one."
"Is she dead?"
"Yeh know young Fitzer, the pervert from Mocol Street?" he asks, and I defer to his right not to reply to my question, not at least until the relatives are told.
I say, "who doesn't?" wondering how Fitzer had added to his troubles.
"Well, as life would have it," he explains, "said Fitzer was up at the lock, trying to do a bit of flashing in his raincoat. Some of the schoolgirls take a short cut that way."
"Don't I know it," I say. "We're always telling them it's not safe up there, but they meet boys along the canal."
"You've been known to take your own mot up there!" The Sergeant scores a point.
"In the evening," I hasten to explain, "just courting. Haven't been there in ages. Last time we were there she said the quacking ducks would give her a headache."
"Cured yeh, I bet," he says with a laugh.
"Not at all," I say. "We prefer to go to the pictures. Mind you, she likes the walk up there on a Sunday evening."
The Sergeant sups his pint and I realize I am rambling. I pay attention so he can continue.
"Fitzer sees this girl coming alone down the path. Prime target. He gets his buttons undone and stands there bollock naked to the world. This girl walks past."
"How do yeh know all this?" I ask.
"Bugger confessed. He was in a state; blurted it all out after I gave him a knuckle sandwich. Then I interviewed other parties to fill the gaps."
"Carry on," I say, understanding that his source is, as it were, from the horse's mouth.
"The girl casts a glance. "Big for a monkey" she says and walks past.
"Bitch!" Fitzer shouts. He's set out to impress and does not take kindly to her disparaging remark. "May your tits fall off and may the devil take yeh."
"Fair enough," she says and jumps into the canal inside the lock."
"Into the lock?"
I'm horrified, for the lock is deep and would be hard to get out of at the best of times. In this cold weather, a trap that only a brass monkey would endure.
"Into the lock," he confirms. "It's the Howlette girl and she's up to commit suicide. At the point they meet, the Fitzer incident is for her a minor distraction. Her mind is set and there's no turning her. Into the lock she goes."
"Jasus," I say by way of helping the conversation along.
The Sergeant's face creases into a tired smile as he continues, "Fitzer of course, is one of these types who thinks the world is all about themselves, and he thinks his remarks have led the girl to throw herself off into the lock."
"Jasus," I say and nod to the Barman for a further two pints.
He's ear wigging but goes to it, still listening.
"Fitzer goes mental. He throws off his raincoat, cap and Wellington boots and dives buck naked into the lock," the Sergeant continues.
"To save the girl," I say admiringly.
"On the way down, Fitzer remembers he can't swim and just before he hits the water he starts to shout for help. He hits the water and now two of them are drowning in the lock."
"Jasus," I say and pass a tenner as the Barman arrives with the perfect pint by two.
He holds back on the change, and gives it to me later, at this point trying to minimize his interruption of the Sergeant's story.
"Two deaths then?" I attempt to summarize.
