the last book I ever read (Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry, excerpt nine)

from Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry:

You know why, Charlie? Because if Irish people are martyrs for the drink, they’re worse again for the dope, once they get the taste for it, because it eases the anxiety, and we’re a very anxious people.

Why wouldn’t we be, Moss? I mean Jesus Christ in the garden, after all that we been through? Dragging ourselves around that wet tormented rock on the edge of the black Atlantic for the months and years never-ending and the long gawpy faces screamin’ for the light and the jaws operatin’ on wires and the pale little yellow arses hanging out the back end of us?

Dope be the only thing get us through, Charles.

the last book I ever read (Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry, excerpt eight)

from Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry:

The first six months on heroin with Cynthia were the most beautiful days of all time. Love and opiates—this is unimprovable in the human sphere. Like young gods they walked out. Some night coming down Wellington Road from St. Luke’s. Some Friday night in the rain. That was the best night that ever was.

the last book I ever read (Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry, excerpt seven)

from Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry:

Those were hard times for you, Maurice. What were you? Eighteen? Nineteen?

It was after we moved to the new flat. College Road. By St. Fin Barre’s. He wasn’t right in himself. He’d sit in a deckchair out at the front door and play Hank Williams records. The Hank was never a good sign. It was summer and it’d be nearly bright at eleven o’clock still. He’s in his deckchair. The mother bringing him out cups of strong tea. Hank is going for it on the Sanyo Music Centre. The mother operated on the principle that strong tea was your only man for nerves. The father was done from the job by that stage. He was gone from the port of Cork.

When the work is done for? Charlie says. Throw a stick at it.

the last book I ever read (Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry, excerpt six)

from Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry:

It’s the desperation make us saucy. Gents of a certain age. But as a matter of fact, Moss? For all the groaning out of us? For all we’d be whinging away like we’re stuck in the middle of Radiohead of a wet Tuesday? The fact is we’re in our prime. You and me? We’re three o’clock of a summer’s afternoon.

Hard to enjoy it, Charlie. I have an amount of guilt. Still.

the last book I ever read (Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry, excerpt five)

from Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry:

You were going to tell me this when?

It’s nonsense.

The men won’t build on a site we’ve paid four hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds for because they think there’s a fairy fort up there. And you felt this was beyond remark?

the last book I ever read (Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry, excerpt four)

from Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry:

They walked in the afternoons through the Barri Gòtic. On ancient narrow streets the gargoyles lurched, the fountains whispered. They tried on clothes in skuzzy boutiques. They listened to house music sent on cassettes from Cork and to The Pixies but only the first three LPs. A shipment that set out from Ceuta was taken in on a clear night by Eyeries on the coast of the Beara Peninsula and realised another eighty thousand pounds. She wondered if Charlie could not be cut out at this point.

the last book I ever read (Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry, excerpt three)

from Night Boat to Tangier: A Novel by Kevin Barry:

Which one are you again?

Leonor.

Lovely name, Charlie, isn’t it?

Gorgeous. Like an air freshener.