Free The Holy City by Patrick McCabe

footin the spars of a pallet as his companion patiently and bemusedly assisted him. They were much too preoccupied with this to notice anything when I finally emerged from my place of concealment and walked right up to them, swinging the wire basket in a wide arc — bringing it forward, even if I say so myself, in an extremely precise, almost perfectly judged movement. But, unfortunately, missing both Mukti and his companion completely with the result that one of the kitchen maids managed to skid on the discharged liquid, falling forward awkwardly, and somehow in the process managing to knock over a vat of boiling water, just as the so-called priest was trying to manoeuvre himself backwards. The scream that followed — it really was appalling.
    The whole episode turned out to be a complete disaster. I heard later that the poor man had sustained horrendous burns. As they led me away, down the corridor to the White Room, who should I see, only Pandit passing by the window, breezing along in her Birkenstocks with her folder. As they turned the key and roughly pushed me inside.
    Yes, the unfortunate ‘boiling water’ episode really did prove to be the most lamentable affair in almost every conceivable respect and I was still doing my best to erase all trace of its memory as I crouched there in the corner of the White Room, chewing my nail and hugging my knees, thinking: Why is my mind so soggy and dull? Then what happened — it started again. The noise, I mean. A kind of furtive scratching behind the grid. I braced myself, tentatively,for a reappearance. By the Indian Tom Thumb, I suppose you might call him.
    In Wattles Lane in Cullymore long ago there lived a carpenter by the name of Half-inch Lynch, and it was him I was thinking of now as I found myself staring directly at the ventilation grid. The familiar sensation — that vaguely pleasurable tingling — had resumed as I felt my shoulders begin to elevate and already sensed the words as they formed on my lips. Well, well, I could hear myself saying, if it isn’t Mukti the Indian giant! Only to find my arrogance disappearing — almost immediately draining away, and with it all trace of self-composure and defiance.
    For what emerged through that serrated brick-sized oblong was not in fact Mukti — or anyone else.
    But, bewilderingly, the injured visitor’s unfortunate brother, the alcoholic — the man who, out of the goodness of his heart, he had travelled a long distance to come and see. I received quite a shock when I realised who it was — not because I recognised him straight away, having descried him from time to time meandering dazedly through the grounds — but because of his disarming, dishevelled appearance.
    You could see he was a man who had genuinely been through the mill.
    â€” To hell and back, as Mike Corcoran used to say.
    As he stood there, pleadingly, in his shabby plaid dressing gown, his eyes said: Help me! with his lower lip quivering.
    It was clear from his manner that it required a massive effort on his part even to think of speaking.
    â€” You might think you know what you’re doing, he said, raising an accusatory, tremulous finger, but you don’t, Christopher. You don’t know how good a man my brother is. He goes out of his way to come here every week. He listens so attentively, keeps returning, even when I disappoint him. And, God knows, many times have I done that. Only for him I’d never have known happiness. What comfort I ever knew is entirely because of him. In his efforts to protect me he has run the risk of his own life being ruined. His wife has pleaded with him to disown me altogether. But he never will. He says it’s his duty to protect me from myself.
    I covered my eyes and when I looked up he had gone, with the ventilation grid now seeming as dull and unremarkable and as ordinary as ever.
    I’m fortunate enough to be able to say that I didn’t let it get