Free Call Me the Breeze by Patrick McCabe

her, taking a bow and blowing kisses right, left and centre. The old-timer was close to fainting at this point, covered in muck from head to toe, and I could hear him saying behind me: ‘Do you think they’ll be coming here regular? Do you think it was good? I think it was good! I hope they’ll be coming here regular!’
    Boyle Henry came climbing in through the ropes and, after holding up both women’s arms and announcing: ‘Ladies and gentlemen! The fabulous Rosa and Big Bertha!’, went on to say that there would be two more shows before the wrestlers went back to England. Then hecalled for a big round of applause for the sexiest women in Ireland — all the way from England, of course! The roof was nearly blown off the place with yelps and piercing wolf whistles.
    But once it was all over and the women had gone back to their hotel, the mood sort of changed and conversation all but died out in the bar. You could hear nothing apart from Austie saying: ‘Well, so much for Connolly and his picket! All talk! That’s all he is — just talk!’
    Then, after a bit, one of the regulars stared broodily into his pint and said: ‘Aye. Well, maybe — maybe, I was thinking, it wouldn’t have been such a bad idea if he
had
come with his picket.’
    ‘Ah now,’ said Austie, and smiled. But not much — he was reading the situation from experience and could tell that they were all privately in agreement with the speaker. Like what they were secretly thinking was:
Those English prostitutes have made fools of us! Come over and make their money and then what do they do? Fuck off
!
    For the next couple of hours, it was like you were afraid to say anything — no matter how innocuous — in case a fight might break out.
    But I reckoned by now I’d learnt to deal with situations like this. Once upon a time I would have found myself picking up every detail, the sudden jerking of a head or the flick of a cigarette. Investing such gestures with a significance that was often misplaced. But not now. Now I was oblivious to such trivial ephemera. My reading — my acquisition, I guess you could say, of knowledge — seemed to be directing me towards a different, more important place. Along with the vibes I felt coming —
emanating
— from her. A calm was descending. A peace. I could see the glittering water, and there, just beyond, the twinkling, beckoning lights of a comforting, precious harbour.
    Hoss said: ‘Are you listening to me, Joey?’ Some horseshit or other about a football match. I nodded and made eye contact with him, just to keep him happy. But I could just as easily have said: ‘I’m not. No, I haven’t been listening to a word you’ve been saying.’ Because that was the truth — I hadn’t. For the very simple reason that I was giving my attention to certain other words that he wasn’t privy to and which I found a hell of a lot more interesting.
    ‘
It’s up there, straight ahead
!’ I could hear Jacy saying. We were on a winding dirt road just off the interstate and heading for our new home in the mountains. I’d read all about it in a book on reincarnation I’d found quite by chance — if such a thing really,
truly
can be said toexist — in the library. It was as though it had been hollowed out of the rock in expectation of our arrival, deep in the safety of its darkness, each tiny little detail meticulously and lovingly prepared.
    Our special name for it was the Karma Cave, and the moment you laid eyes on it, you knew exactly what it was. Realized that you’d been there before, even if you couldn’t say exactly when.
    The first thing you heard as you approached it was the fragile tinkling of the wind chimes rotating slowly in the heavy afternoon air. There was a little silver tiger. And an elephant. I could hear those chimes so crystal clear.
    ‘
Are you fucking listening to me
?’ I heard Hoss saying. ‘I said, Corrigan played a blinder! He won the match for them! He won the fucking match on his