On Valentine's Day, the only affection Vinny Fitzpatrick felt was for the bags of cheese puffs he was demolishing at an alarming rate.
By now, there were five or six empty wrappers scattered on the settee as he chomped away, unaware of the nicotine-like stain each fistful was leaving on his fleshy fingers. There was golf on the telly from sunny California.
As for Vinny, he sat alone in his honky in Clontarf, with a broken heart and a woman on his mind. The woman was his wife, Angie, who had speared Cupid’s arrow through Vinny’s fatty heart and then cracked it into smithereens under sharpened heels.
Even so, Vinny would still throw himself under a 130 bus if it meant saving Angie for she remained the only woman he had ever loved, truly, madly, deeply.
He had almost thrown himself at the mercy of the law lords at Leopardstown the previous Sunday only for fate to intervene in the most improbable way, as he explained to Fr Leo Lavelle in a mid-week declaration of guilt.
The local parish priest and Vinny went back to their days in Joey’s where they served apprenticeships as altar boys – Leo found his vocation; Vinny found a few coppers under the pews after Mass. As the grate was pulled back in the darkened confessional in St Gabriel’s on Wednesday, there was no need for secrecy.
“Howya,Vinny. Anything for Cheltenham?” grinned Leo, who liked a punt, as did many men of the cloth.
Vinny’s melancholy expression hinted at trouble and Fr Leo took the hint. “‘Take as long as you like, old friend,” he said quietly.
Monstrous Mister Hyde
What followed was an act of confession which startled even Leo Lavelle, who felt he had heard it all after 20 years on the Clontarf beat.
Bit by bit, Vinny opened up on how he switched from being decent skin Dr Jekyll to the monstrous Mister Hyde, to the point where he arrived in the parade ring at Leopardstown with murder in mind. “This wasn’t an off the cuff reaction Leo, but a cold, calculated act. That I knew what I was doing scares the bejaysus out of me,” he said.
Vinny explained the split-second event which spared Rodger ‘The Dodger’ Winston from serious injury, if not worse. As Vinny brandished the knife from under his cuff, and made to thrust forward with vicious intent, The Dodger dropped a betting slip he was holding out for a nearby reporter.
Apologising, he deftly bent down to pick up the scrap of paper, leaving Vinny’s blade to slice through thin air rather than flesh. By the time The Dodger straightened up, Vinny’s chance was lost. Someone cried out from the throng ringing the enclosures, “Hey, there’s a guy in there with a knife.”
At that, Vinny’s instincts for survival kicked in. Furtively, he dropped the weapon into one of the buckets of water kept for sweating steeds, tugged his peaked cap over his eyes, and took a step back from the swarm of folk by the winner’s enclosure.
“He’s over there,” he shouted, pointing towards the RTÉ TV gantry. As heads turned, Vinny made his way towards the quieter side of the parade ring. In an effort at nonchalance, he doffed his cap at a racecourse security man and headed for the exits.
A brisk 10-minute walk later, he was on the Luas. “My head was wrecked; it still is. What in God’s name was I thinking, Leo?” Fr Leo had offered compassion, understanding, followed by two decades of the rosary and a “Glory Be”. He suggested Vinny “lie low for a bit to think things out. Remember this, Vinny you didn’t hurt anyone, so don’t hurt yourself. The way I see it, you’ve been given a second chance; you should take it.”
Pit of shame
For Vinny, the admission hadn’t offered the cathartic release he was searching for. If anything, he plunged deeper into the pit of shame.
He managed one trip to Dolan’s, on Friday morning where he loaded up on cheese puffs, pizzas and a tray of stout, but otherwise, he stayed cocooned on Causeway Avenue, a prisoner of his own conscience.
As he munched and sipped, clad in pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers, he struggled to find some rationale for his actions. He’d been brought up by his folks to show respect to his elders, to hold doors open for people, to say please and thank you; those were the values which shaped his personality.
He was a mild-mannered Joe Soap, who knew right from wrong, not a knife-wielding, blood-thirsty, villain. Match of the Day came and went in a blur, as did Pádraig Harrington's final hole calamity in California, as Vinny sank into the quick-sands of gloom.
A part of him reckoned he was being punished for daring to entertain lascivious thoughts about other women. There was Petra, the Vilnius vixen who worked for Fran in the launderette, Jackie, the sexy pal of Angie’s, and Tabitha Tregoning, the fiery Welsh dragon.
All three had played loose and wild with his emotions, and he’d happily gone along for the ride, cock-sure there was no harm in some fun.
But there was. Angie had been side-lined, taken for granted by a husband who didn’t appreciate how blessed he was. As Vinny fiddled, Angie burned from within, unsure where she stood with her husband and vulnerable to the attentions of a suave suitor such as The Dodger.
Where Vinny offered curried chips and a wet weekend in a Wexford caravan, The Dodger could provide a five-star gallop to Dubai, and London’s bright lights. If only Vinny hadn’t let his mind wander, this descent into a living hell may never have happened.
As his yellowed fingers reached for another bag of puffs, he thought of the scene from Les Miserables, where the caring priest who has given refuge to Jean Valjean is then robbed by him.
“What have I done? Sweet Jesus, what have I done? Become a thief in the night, become a dog on the run? Have I fallen so far, and is the hour so late, That nothing remains but the cry of my hate?”
At that moment, Vinny's cry of hate burst out from within and he began to sob.
Bets of the week
1pt Schalke to beat Real Madrid in Champions League (7/1, Paddy Power)
1pt (each-way) Chesson Hadley in Northern Trust Open (200/1, Stan James)
Vinnie's Bismark
2pts Lay Ireland to qualify for quarter-finals of the World Cup (6/4, liability 3pts, Ladbrokes)
