50 Shades of Brown

Ciaran Carson steps into the room after stepping out to have a smoke. He is wearing his old glasses, and a suit just as old. Energetically talking the moment he enters, it is almost as if he has suddenly started speaking his thoughts, continuing a conversation he was having with himself outside in the autumn air. Everything he says is like this; when he speaks, he is really just thinking out loud. There is no filter, and sometimes no direction, yet you learn all the same.

It is he who brings our attention to his brown tweed suit, although I had noticed it already. Heavy and ugly, I cannot think where Ciaran buys his clothes, and I cannot imagine a day where the suit he is wearing would be fashionable. What interests me most about the suit, however, is how poorly it seems to fit him; when he sits, his trousers ride up a good three or four inches, revealing hideously ugly teal socks.

He takes his jacket off, because it is warm in the little room. Beneath the heavy jacket is a vest of the same material, and a blue tuxedo with red buttons by the wrists. On his elbows are those armbands I sometimes see in old movies, the ones reporters wore. He holds up the jacket for us and explains that the suit he is wearing originally belonged to a Colonel, and that there is a lapel inside of the suit that gives the date the suit was completed. He wonders aloud if it is the suit that makes the man and, if, in donning this suit, he has become the colonel.

The suit came to him through eBay, which supports him in his writing habit. When writing The Pen Friend he bought 254 fountain pens, and for his newest book, he bought vintage suits—

Ciaran has remembered the point in his memoirs, and rummages around in his brown leather satchel for a dozen or so cards. He passes them out, and I look carefully at mine. Join us to celebrate the launch of EXCHANGE PLACE, it reads. 

“Sorry about the late notice,” he says, “I ought to have given it to you last week.”

For weeks he has been talking about this novel, although he has never mentioned it by name. Instead he spoke of fairies, of fetch, your doppelganger. What would it mean to see another image of yourself walking through the streets of Belfast, like Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper. Would it be frightening? Exhilarating? He claimed to be working on something with this very idea at the heart of it, and here it was, in my hand.

“There’ll be free wine,” he says, smiling, his eyes intent and large. If I did not know him, and understand what that look meant, it would have reminded me of a madman. As it is, he jumps up with his hat and pretends the Colonel has possessed him, and we laugh freely. Suddenly he remembers we had homework due, fairy tales, and he picks me to read mine aloud. As I do so, crawling along slowly, making sure I enunciate and speak loudly so the class can hear and understand me, I am rewarded with his muffled laugh.

“I want to let you know, Bekah,” he says, “that I laughed when I first read this. It’s filled with black humour,” which is one of the highest compliments an Irishman can give, that I looked at death and laughed to spite it. As the saying goes, if something tragic happens in Ireland, the very next day, there’ll be a joke about it.

Muriel’s Café Bar is by the Prince Albert Clocktower, the one that is rumoured to lean from the weight of too many prostitutes. It is a long walk, at least forty-five minutes, and I was not sure which of the small alleys and lanes it was down. I know more of how Belfast is laid out than I ever did of home, or even Livonia; but it is still a surprise to turn the corner and see it, full already of cheerful people, and my laughing professor.

I have brought along Hannah and Victoria, because I know that they will drink the wine I will not touch, and because I am afraid to go so far by myself. We step up to Muriel’s, and there sitting outside on the patio is Ciaran Carson, smoking and laughing. His hat is on the table before him, and he is leaning back in his chair the way a cat will arch its back in the sunlight. Suddenly I remember that today is his birthday; he is 64 years old.

We step inside. I have never been to a book launching, and am suddenly self-conscious and wary. I wanted to come, so much; but now I am here, I am at a loss. I look around, and try to grab my bearings. It is hard to concentrate in the dim light of pubs, and hard to get my grip on a small room teeming with people. But even in the yellow half-light, I can see quite plainly Muriel’s own special touch: hanging from the ceiling, as if on a clothesline, are strings of pants, all of them bearing the name of a brand of cider, or the name of the pub itself. 

Directly to my left are two women selling copies of Exchange Place, and then a staircase leading upstairs. In front of me are the tables, and then an almost museum-like wall, with white paper mache heads bearing hats tucked into the wall, and bolts of cloth. The effect makes Muriel’s seem older, and more like a museum. To my left is the bar itself, gleaming, with wine glasses hanging from the ceiling.

I buy a book, suddenly keenly aware of my American accent, and then lead Hannah and Victoria to the bar. It is red wine they are giving away tonight, and we watch the bartender deftly take the bottle and pour it into a thin tin tube, which measures out the wine, and then slips it into the wineglass. When our turn comes, the bottle has run dry, and so I watch his slim fingers deftly turn a corkscrew and pull the cork out of a new bottle. Out comes the little tin tube, and he pours three glasses, pulling them from the ceiling above as if he is picking flowers. One of those glasses, I assume, is for me, but I leave it lying there, feeling a little pang of guilt. I hope the wine won’t be wasted.

They take the drinks outside. It is a beautiful day in Belfast. It has not rained in four days now, although you can tell the rain is waiting to break. But for now the roads are littered with yellow leaves, who drift down on the tail of the wind and try to nestle in your coat, and although the light is not as soft and yellow as it is at home, this is what Belfast has to offer, and I will accept it. The weather today is especially fine; I am sweltering in my coat, and wish I had just left it at home.

Hannah and Victoria sip their wine, and I work up the courage to ask my professor for his autograph. I do not think there is a way to do this gracefully; but I manage to find that courage somewhere inside of me, and I approach his table. He checks the spelling of my name and signs the book, but he writes my classroom nickname, won because I am the second of the Rebekahs in my class. It sounds false on his tongue, and on everyone’s but my sister’s. Bekah. Half a shekel. Good to have you as a student, he writes, and he dates it, signs his name, and adds the location: Belfast.

A table has opened up nearby, and we sit there. Victoria is giving us a spirited rendition of the Resident Evil series. I am thumbing my way through the book. It begins in first person, and ends in third—I notice, only because Ciaran brought it up in class today. It starts with a man and a lost notebook, and the day he was writing in it; and the first concrete location is Muriel’s bar. That’s the mark of a novel, my literature professors would say; real, concrete places. Never underestimate the author’s use of real places. Take a look at Moll Flanders, they say, as I stifle yawns; look at her in this passage, circling Newgate. This is her descent into hell.

I push away the voices of my inner critics, and flip to the last page. I always read the first and last lines before anything else. The last line rarely contains any spoilers, and I can tell by how it sounds what type of book this will be. The last words in this book weigh heavy, but at the same time I could laugh: The words kept on, appearing from nowhere. This, too, is something Ciaran has been speaking of for two weeks now.

“Hey,” a boy—a man—suddenly says. It is addressed to me; his black eyes have not met either Hannah’s or Victoria’s. This is unusual on about a thousand different levels, and shocks me, so all I can manage in reply is a long, drawn-out, “Heeeeyyyy,” back. Finally it clicks: this is Aleksander from Creative Writing class. He has come to Professor Carson’s book launch, too.

Aleks is tall and dark, with short black hair and glasses remarkably like Professor Carson’s. His trousers are black, and his sweater is black, with buttons on the left shoulder. The effect is remarkably Russian, for a German exchange student.

“When did you get here?” he asks. Now that I know him, I am relaxed, and his accent falls cleanly on my ears. When a German speaks English, it is the closest thing to an unbothered, Midwestern accent in the world. It is not hard to listen, or understand, as it sometimes is with the Irish, and I do not need to concentrate to understand his words.

“’Bout ten minutes ago,” I say.

“And you’ve already had a glass of wine?”

He is looking down at the table, where an empty wineglass is sitting before me. Whoever vacated the table left it, and I didn’t bother my head about it—because it makes it seem that I fit in. Perhaps it worked a bit too well. I fumble, and forget how to speak, and I really wish I was a couple of miles away. “It’s more of a decoy,” I manage.

I have no idea how he takes this, but he smiles politely, and goes inside to get his own drink, before coming out to roll a cigarette. I watch closely, half-listening to Victoria. I have never seen anyone roll a cigarette. The bag he takes the tobacco from reads SMOKING KILLS in great white letters, but he takes a small amount of the brown strands and puts them in clean white paper. He starts to smoke, and we fall into conversation about Ciaran’s book. I show it to him, and watch as a glowing ember from his cigarette flakes down by Hannah’s wineglass. I imagine my book old, and yellowed, smelling of red wine and rolled cigarettes, which somehow is a cleaner, softer scent than the pre-rolled ones of America. I wonder if they are any healthier.

Soon we are all inside of the cramped little pub. Ciaran is on the stairs, next to his publisher, a woman in a beautiful blue dress with polka dots on it, whose face is obscured from view. She introduces him, and Ciaran introduces himself as no one else can: by playing on his tinwhistle. We listen to him recite two translated poems thereafter, all about the exchange of place, of men’s eyes looking at you from the horse, and the horse’s eyes looking at you from the man. Finally he reads some of his own book, just a paragraph or two, and finishes with another tune. Behind me are a group of all, laughing men, friends of my professor; they laugh and cheer at everything he says. My own little group of students laugh, too. It is impossible not to find his eccentricities endearing.

“It’s also Ciaran’s birthday,” the publisher announces, “Will you join me all in singing the traditional song?” And the pub is suddenly roused and singing. Someone brings out a cake, and Ciaran blows out the candles, embarrassed. “You can have it,” he says, ducking back outside, where it is safe.

We stay for a slice of cake, and then go to Crescent Church for iCafe. It is quiz night, and we have been promised pizza. “I feel so literary,” Victoria says, smiling, and Hannah agrees.

For the quiz, we divide into groups. There are two Irish with us, and then Mel, Intan, Daniel and James. We name ourselves 50 Shades of Brown; I’m not exactly sure why, but I assume it is because we are so many different countries and skin colours. They keep us dancing to Gangam Style, and test our knowledge; Daniel and James, from Africa, know most of the answers. For one of the challenges, we must construct an animal out of a latex glove, two balloons, tape, and a newspaper, and we create a peacow named Ralph, an imaginary creature that fiercely annoyed the dreadlocked man behind us.

“It’s neither dolphin nor camel!” he says, but he laughs in spite of himself.

Somehow we win, and our prize is a large tub of chocolate. We divvy it up between ourselves, and I take the tub home. Mel and I sing “We Are the Champions,” through the streets of Belfast, and anyone watching would think we were completely plastered. But tonight I do not care. I am too happy to care.