Patrick McCabe - Hello Mr Bones / Goodbye Mr. Rat

[dem bones]

Patrick McCabe - Hello and Goodbye: Hello Mr Bones / Goodbye Mr Rat (Quercus, Sept. 2013)

Blurb:
Twin epistles of Gothic dread that will turn your life upside down.
Welcome to Hello and Goodbye: two dark tales from two deceased narrators - bottled-lightning treats that will make you gasp, gurn, shiver and squirm.

HELLO MR BONES ... in which an evil puppet-master and his flotilla of fiends reacquaint two reformed souls with the demons they thought they had defeated.

GOODBYE MR RAT .... in which a girl from Northern Indiana travels to rural Ireland , where, as she bids a friend goodbye, she meets malign misfortune.

Valentine Shannon, a Christian Brother, newly arrived in London after being dismissed from his last teaching post back home in Ireland. Long regarded as a Mr. Chips figure by colleague and pupil alike, an over-stressed Valentine had sworn at the caretaker's wife and almost lashed out at an unruly pupil. The 'Martin Boan Affair' was seized upon by the press, and Valentine was sacked in disgrace. Crossing the channel in 1986, somehow he landed a job in his old profession, although admittedly, in Tower Hamlets. Valentine was then 42, a virgin (at least according to our narrator, more of whom below) and, most likely would have remained so had he not met, and fallen in love with, Christine Jones, a stall-owner at Camden Market (leather goods, trinkets, etc.). Chris is mother to Faisal, an eleven year old with special needs. With her diet of roll-ups and strong feminist views (admittedly mellowed a little with age), Chris is everything that Valentine is not, but the trio get on famously and we are glad. It is nice to see people happy!

But Valentine has a skeleton in his wardrobe.

Orphaned when he was very young, Valentine was befriended by the Bowen brothers, Balthazar and the elder "grim, austere" Bailey, "or as he might term us himself, that pair of eccentric perverts." Valentine eventually reported Balthazar to the police for interfering with him, whereupon, on the advice of Bailey, Balthazar drove his car into the river and drowned.

Balthazar is our narrator. Although his argument is with Valentine, with the help of Mr. Bones, he will destroy Chris and Faisal, too.

Meanwhile in Florida, children's entertainer, 'Bonio the Clown' has achieved overnight Ed Kemper notoriety off the back of the sadistic murder of a Down's syndrome kid. Balthazar considers Bonio an inspiration ...

This is all shaping up very nicely, I must say.

[dem bones]

"As God is my judge, I hate Sooty and Sweep."

Though she doesn't yet realise it, Chris, too, has had a run-in with Mr. Bones. Shortly after Faisal's birth, she visited Southern Ireland for a short holiday and became friendly with a mysterious old timer at Rosses Point, until he freaked her out by expressing sympathy with thrill-killers John Shaw and Geoffrey Evans - "freedom fighters," according to him - who made known their intention of slaying a woman a week across Ireland. Thanks to 'Mr Bohan', Chris suffered the most appalling nightmares for weeks, and all of them centring around the brutal murder of her son.

We now learn the facts of the infamous "Martin Boan affair." The star pupil arrived in class one day dressed as Adam Ant circa Kings Of The Wild Frontier. When Brother Valentine reminded him that this was in breach of the rules, it only encouraged the youth to repeat the offence, over and over, until Valentine took him to one side and smashed him in the face with a glass paperweight. No more Glassdrummond College for him! But now, in the sanctifying presence of Chris and Faisal, Valentine can at last confront the demons of his past. As he drives past Aldgate East station on his way home to Barnet, the cheery voice of Michael Fish again assures radio listeners that, contrary to irresponsible rumour, there is no hurricane forecast for this evening ....

As you've gathered, Hello Mr. Bones abounds with pop culture references; Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Marc Bolan, Pink Floyd, George Melly, Masters Of The Universe, Reader's Wives .... Chris occasionally wears the charm bracelet that came as a free gift with her first comic, Bunty.

[dem bones]

You'll wonder where the yellow wnt when you brush your teeth with Pepsident

If there's one thing that Mr. McCabe has a fondness for even above a pop culture reference, it's a flashback. Now we find ourselves transported back to Chris's childhood in Gorton, Manchester, where she would fetch and carry for elderly neighbour Pada Bonet, a fanatical man hater, feared locally as a Devil on earth. Sure enough, Chris gets to learn that Pada's misandry is justified, when as a ten year old, she is molested by the next door neighbour who looks like Stewart Granger, and all with the consent of her doting father. Or so Balthazar tells us, and we can't believe a word he says. Even his brother is likely a figment of his warped imagination. Tee Hee! What Larks!

And now it is the night of 15 October 1987, Valentine Shannon is driving home across London as the hurricane Michael Fish dismissed as a load of hot air lays waste to the South East, except the master puppeteer has arranged some further distractions before he finally destroys his old foe. Valentine escapes a psycho cab driver dressed as a clown, only to walk straight into a junkie mugger. The drug-crazed youth stabs him with a filthy needle, but, for Valentine, contracting AIDs is the least of his worries ....

Nasty, League Of Gentlemen weird, and all done in 141 pages, Mr. Bones will give you the collywobbles if you let him!

Flip the book over, and you get ....