Pats Donaghy had always harboured notions of becoming a world-famous writer but to say that he found himself speechless and utterly flummoxed when it actually happened would be what you might call the understatement of the century. It all began one Saturday some three years ago now when he was coming down the stairs. A letter lying in the hallway caught his eye. His first inclination was to ignore it completely and go on about his business and have his breakfast. But something drew him back. He hesitated for a moment and then began his journey towards the mysterious white rectangle of paper. It bore none of the hallmarks of the customary missives cursorily dispatched to him by the likes of Reader's Digest and Quality Book Club. Disdainfully, he tore it open. "Gasp!" he exclaimed. "It's about my novel!" And so it was. His latest work, on which he had been labouring for almost two years - A Kalashnikov for Shamus Doyle - had scooped the Buglass-McKenzie Literary Prize!
"What madness is this?" he asked himself. "Pats Donaghy, are you in your right mind at all? Who with any wit is going to give you all that money for a bit of a book?"
He feared that all those nights wrestling with the formless shadows of his fevered imagination had finally taken their toll.
He went inside and bit his nail as his mammy poured him a cup of tea. He resolved to make no reference whatsoever to his momentary delusion in case she might say:
- Will you stop this nonsense now, Pats, or you'll get what's coming to you!
But just then the door burst open and his sister Nabla burst in.
- Mammy! Mammy! Did you hear the news? she declared hoarsely. Pats has won a big prize in England!
She threw her arms around her brother and cried:
- I'm proud of you, Pats Donaghy!
Pats reddened a little and lowered his head.
- Would you look at the cut of me! his mammy cried out. I can't go to England like this!
But that night in bed she said that she was proud of him. She tickled his ear and whispered:
- Maybe one day you'll write a little book about me, will you, Pats?
- Oh, Mammy, Pats said and she laughed and he laughed and then all he could remember was Mammy in his dream coming charging down Charing Cross Road with all her Fenwick's bags shouting:
- Yoo hoo! Wait for me, Pats!
At last the big day came and they were off to London. Shoots McGilly with the one eye drove them to the station. He said he had met plenty of English people and in his opinion there was nothing wrong with them. Nabla said:
- Oh, Pats! I think I'm going to have a fit in this aeroplane!
But she didn't. Didn't it turn out she knew one of the hostesses - a Maureen Fletcher from Blessed Martin de Porres Avenue.
- God, isn't it gas! exclaimed Maureen with her hands on her hips. The places you meet people!
- I'd say there'll be a big crowd in London tonight, mused Nabla, and Maureen agreed.
- There will indeed, Nabla, she said.
Meanwhile, Pats and Mammy went on chatting away about all the things they were going to buy in London. She told him she had always known he was going to be a famous writer ever since the time he got nine out of ten for his composition "Gathering Blackberries". (The Angelus Bell was ringing as we came over the hill, our faces smeared in purple blackberry juice and our billy cans glinting in the sun.)
- Laws! cried Pats. When I think of it!
- I was always proud of you, son, she said, but I won't rest until you write a little book about me.
- Don't worry, Mammy, Pats promised, and she gave a little wiggle, I will.
And would you believe it - ten minutes later they had landed in Heathrow!
Mammy and Pats were in room 245 and Nabla had a room to herself on the second floor. Pats hadn't been so excited since the day of his first communion. Outside, the lights of Shaftesbury Avenue winked at him and said: "Wotcher, Pats - you're in the dosh now, ain'tcha?"
And it was true, wasn't it? All thanks to two people - Mammy and Shamus Doyle.
What was it the Times Literary Supplement had said about him?
The modern Irish novel is in safe hands at last - take a bow, Mr Donaghy!
They had even printed a little piece of his humble effort. It was the part where Shamus vows to Cait that he will never kill again.
Cait tossed back her flame-haired locks angrily and spun away from him.
- Oh you! she snapped, and he went to her, gripping her by the shoulders.
- You don't understand, he cried, you'll never understand, Cait Maguire!
She winced.
- I do understand. I understand more than you'll ever know, Shamus Doyle! I understand that there were twenty-two small schoolchildren on that bus! Twentytwo little boys and girls who never stood a chance!
Doyle lit a cigarette with trembling hands.
- I told you that was a mistake! he hissed.
- She spat contemptuously.
- A mistake? Is that what you call it? You have a nerve calling yourself a human being, Shamus Doyle!
It goes on and on like that and then in the end Shamus says:
- I promise I won't kill any more people, Cait. And she says:
- Oh, Shamus!
Meanwhile, however, his old friend OneShot Danny McClatchey has been dispatched by the organisation to see that he is terminated with extreme prejudice - but listen! What am I talking about! thought Pats as he munched the duvet.
- And now - the winner of this year's Buglass-McKenzie Prize, Mr Pats Donaghy!
Pats was as nervous as a kitten, making his speech. He kept thinking of the whole town in front of their tellies going:
- Would you look at Donaghy! Just who does he think he is!
So he made sure to thank everybody in the town and especially Shoots McGilly for driving them to the station. He said it was wonderful to be in London: "The city that never sleeps!" he said. "And I can assure you I didn't sleep last night - ha ha!" he laughed.
He went on to talk about Madame Tussaud's and how much his mammy had liked being in Selfridge's and John Lewis and all the places they had been that day. And he especially thanked the sponsors Buglass-McKenzie for making it all possible. When he said that, they all began to clap, and one of the critics took over and said that Pats' writing was at the cutting edge of the new Irish urban realism. He said that A Kalashnikov for Shamus Doyle was a bullet up the backside of literary complacency. When she heard that, Mammy said,
- The language of him, Pats!, but she was only joking.
Then they had lots of wine to drink and they met a man and a woman who said:
- Will you say awfter again for us, please.
So they did. They said:
- After we leave here, we're going back to the hotel.
They thought this was a great laugh altogether and said:
- Have some more wine.
- Aaahfter! they kept saying, but they couldn't say it as good as Pats and Mammy and Nabla.
Then it was a taxi and home to bed for everyone. Mammy was wearing a nightdress she had bought in Janet Reger's. She said,
- I must look a sight, but Pats said,
- You do not, Mammy, you look radiant.
- Oh Pats, she said, and Pats said:
- Mammy, do you know what I'm going to do with the money, I'm going to bring you on a world cruise. She said,
- And Nabla as well? But Pats said:
- No, Mammy, just you.
Little did he know at that time just how true those fateful words were to prove, for hardly had they gone two miles in Shoots' hackney car after he had picked them up at Dublin airport ("There youse are!" he had cried with a wide sweep of his cap) when a flock of sheep appeared out of nowhere and swept straight across the road.
- Look out! cried Shoots as he spun the wheel. There was a sickening thud and when he came round Pats saw that Nabla was dead.
- Mammy! he cried out.
- Pats! Is that you? she replied.
- Yes, Mammy, it is! he wept, relieved.
The sad part about that accident was that Shoots was killed too.