Jammy Dodger by Kevin Smith Page A

city seemed quiet: the annual middle-class migration, The Great Escape. In a few days the place would be teeming with banners, pennants and gaudy silks, and the air itself would be shuddering under the onslaught of the mighty Lambeg drum (at 120 decibels, they say, the loudest acoustic instrument on Earth). I remember as a child being taken by my spectacle-loving aunt one Twelfth to ‘see the bands’ and having to be delivered home early wrapped in a blanket because of the noise of those drums. Always a street away, always approaching … Moving through the city like … like what? … like the id monster in Forbidden Planet .
    I could see the ladder men unfurling a banner: King Billy on his horse at the River Boyne, framed in dazzling orange. He wore a long black curly wig, a frilly shirt, and a tangerine tunic. His white steed, which appeared to be prancing on water, had a look of the nursery rhyme about it. I moved on towards Shaftesbury Square. Didn’t Van Gogh consider orange to be the colour of madness? I traversed the Square and entered Dublin Road on course for the headquarters of the BBC, where, thanks to Stanford Winks, I was due on air within the hour.
    In the office earlier in the week the phone had rung – a rare occurrence – making me jump. It was Winks, sounding slightly less feeble than he had the last time.
    â€˜Artie, here’s the thing,’ he said after thirty seconds of niceties. ‘Radio Ulster have asked me to go on their arts programme to discuss Dylan Delaney’s book but I’m really not feeling up to it. I said you’d take my place.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜It would be a personal favour to me.’
    â€˜But Stanford – ’
    â€˜And I also think it would be an excellent opportunity to promote Lyre .’
    â€˜Yes, but …’ To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure why I was resisting.
    â€˜And there’s a fee of fifty pounds.’
    â€˜You’re right,’ I said. ‘It’ll be a good profile-raiser for the magazine.’
    As he seemed to be in better form I asked him about Mad Dog’s play.
    â€˜Artie,’ he whispered. ‘It’s an abomination of the first kidney.’
    â€˜It’s disappointing then?’
    â€˜What can I tell you? It’s the work of an evil, irredeemably twisted mind.’
    â€˜That bad?’
    â€˜Artie, it has taken me a full week of twelve-hour days to translate it into recognisable English. My eyesight has been impaired.’
    I gathered the play was entitled Suspicious Minds and that it told the story of a Belfast hard man tormented by the belief that his wife was helping the other side and even planning to change her religion.
    At this point Winks faltered.
    â€˜â€¦Â And?’ I prompted.
    â€˜And so he kneecaps her.’
    â€˜What?’ (I had a sudden headache.)
    â€˜Yes, but then it turns out she was innocent all along.’
    I massaged my skull.
    â€˜What happens now?’ I asked.
    â€˜I’ve handed it over to Tristan Quigley at Lagan and told him to get cracking.’
    â€˜Quigley? Whose raison d’etre is the transformation of metaphor into stage reality?’
    â€˜The same.’
    â€˜And what does he make of it?’
    Winks sniffed.
    â€˜He absolutely adores it.’
    Â 
    Once at Broadcasting House I progressed through a series of high-security air locks, decompression chambers and lifts to the canteen on the seventh floor where I was handed a styrofoam cupful of coffee (it might have been oxtail soup) and informed that Monty Monteith, veteran presenter of The Big Arts Show , would be along presently. I took a seat and pulled out the notes I had jotted on the back of a takeaway menu. Around me, BBC staff, some of them familiar from television, tucked into late lunches or lingered over hot drinks. I tried to filter out their chatter so I could concentrate. Two men, both in leather jackets, stood at