You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here

by Frances Macken

  ‘Wow. It’s great to see you, Aidan.’ There was always an energy going between us, a warm and exhilarating chemistry, and a certain way we had of talking to one another, and a certain way we had of looking at one another. There were always the shy glances. There was always the shy spark.

  ‘What’s brought you back to Glenbruff?’

  ‘I was made redundant.’

  ‘Shite,’ he says, and he looks to be sympathetic. There’s something about having known a person all your life. You tend to care for them. You tend to want the best for them.

  ‘I’ll figure something out. I’m just taking some time away. Life can get so crazy that you forget what you really want to be doing. You get swept up.’ I flash a smile and he reciprocates. His smile is mesmerising.

  ‘Are you around for long, Katie?’

  ‘’Til I figure something out.’

  ‘Give something a go, and if it doesn’t work, you can try something else.’

  ‘That’s it. The only way to move forward is to try something. Keep an open mind.’

  ‘You’re still interested in the photography?’

  ‘I am, yeah.’

  ‘I’ve been taking a few shots myself. Football matches and that. You must call up to the house one of the days and have a look. See what you make of them.’ I wonder does he mean it, to call up to the house, or is that just one of those things people say but don’t expect you to take them up on it. He looks down at his watch. ‘You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve to be up early for training. But it was good seeing you, Katie. It’s good to have you home.’

  ‘Of course.’ I’m frustrated. ‘Safe home. See you.’ All I’ve ever had from Aidan were moments that came to nothing, near misses that only ever led to disappointment. The whole thing makes me suspicious of God. You’d wonder why he’s always presenting me with things I’d love to have, but he never lets me have them. Is it all a big joke to him, people’s actual lives and feelings? It’d have you thinking there’s no one in charge, and there’s no such thing as fate, and it’s only ourselves responsible for our own lives.

  The rest of the night drifts by in a smatter of talk and reconnections, and eventually, we’re all up dancing. Kenneth is hunched over a music deck, bouncing his head up and down in time with the beat, a headphone as big as a doughnut pressed to one ear. There’s no doubt but that he’ll be driving out the regulars with the thumping club tunes. It was Kenneth’s father, Finbar, who bought Donovan’s a few months ago as he always fancied the idea of running a pub, but he wasn’t up to it in the end with losing the foot to diabetes.

  Evelyn, Maeve and myself all walk home together, and Peadar too, the guitar case high up on his back, the birdsong commencing and the horizon’s edge shading into pale blue. I make a joke about the sign in front of Nancy’s Café informing customers that they’re selling ‘latties’ and ‘crossaunts’, and we laugh uproariously, but I remind myself that I’m not to be too snide about Glenbruff. It’s their home, and it’s my origin.

  ‘It’s a crying shame Angelo’s is closed,’ bemoans Peadar. ‘You’d be hankering after a bag of chips late at night. You’d be dreaming of chips.’

  ‘Has Pascal shut up shop?’

  ‘He has. A few years now. He’s gone over to Vegas to play poker professionally.’

  ‘You’re obsessed with chips, Peadar,’ says Evelyn, walking along in her socks and clutching her high-heeled boots in her hand. ‘It’s all you fucking eat. You’re malnourished-looking.’

  ‘It’s the frontman look,’ he says, plucking the sheepskin collar.

  ‘Go on and tell me what you saw, Peadar. I’m intrigued,’ I say. ‘The night of Louise’s wake.’

  Peadar looks to Evelyn and then to me, building up the anticipation. He stops on the road and we all look at him. ‘It happened like this. I was running towards the humpback bridge when I saw the ghost of a monk. He was hovering a few feet off the ground with a black hole for a face. Next thing I was thrown back on the road. It was like being flung out of a catapult. I was never so afraid in my life.’ He shakes his head slowly. ‘I’ll never, ever forget it. Long as I live.’

  I shiver. ‘That’s some story. I’d have been traumatised.’

  ‘It’s because they built Amperloc on the grounds of an ancient monastery,’ Evelyn explains. ‘It’s sacred ground. The spirits of the monks aren’t happy about it.’

  ‘Jesus. I never knew that.’ We reach the front gate of my house and I wave them off. ‘Goodnight. Watch out for the monks.’ Evelyn and Peadar approach the brow of the hill, and Maeve trots behind them in the camel-coloured coat, and they slip over the top and away.

  It’s hard to fall asleep with Peadar’s singing voice still sounding in my ears, and thinking of Maeve who’s headed towards some sort of disaster, and wondering if the time will ever be right for myself and Aidan, and if it really matters at all, because wherever Evelyn’s going, I intend to go too.

  Robert’s fuming, pelting the balding tennis ball off the wall in the handball alley with a fearsome force. ‘They’ve brought Des in for questioning. He’s up in the station in Adragule.’

  ‘Why? How come?’

  ‘Apparently Maureen Cooney found a letter up in her loft inside the lining of an old suitcase. She says it’s a strange thing for a teacher to write such a personal letter to a child.’ It was Evelyn said Desmond Duignan should have been spoken to by the guards, strung up by the toes and interrogated. Evelyn’s sharp, I’m thinking. She knows things. ‘The guards have decided it’s evidence of grooming. It’s the maddest shit I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘What was in the letter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he spits. ‘The letters were only intended as encouragement. He used to write letters to all of us. I had several myself over the years. We all got them. It wasn’t that Pamela was singled out.’

  ‘I suppose it’s difficult to say if we haven’t read the letter ourselves.’ There must be something peculiar in the letter if they’ve gone so far as to bring Des in for questioning.

  ‘Maureen told the cops about the tape Des brought from the States when Pamela expressed an interest in dancing. But we all got things like that from him. You remember the book about bridges I had when I was young. It was Des who sent off for it for me.’

  ‘It must be a misunderstanding, so.’

  ‘A man tries to do his best and look what happens. It’s the same story every place nowadays. Good men being vilified all over. He could lose the job over it.’

  ‘Still. If you haven’t read the letter yourself…’ I say, my voice faltering.

  He throws me a contemptuous look. His black eyes are smarting. ‘What am I after telling you.’

  ‘Alright. You know him better than I do.’

  ‘I know him better than anyone.’ Is Robert in some sort of denial? Has Des gotten into his head and taken it over? ‘Now don’t go saying this to Mam or Dad, but myself and Des are moving in together. As soon as the guards let him out. He needs good people around him. He needs a friend.’

  Mammy pays a visit to Mary Lynch. Mary says Tom is out on the farm and he won’t come in. ‘He won’t talk about it,’ says Mary. ‘He’s too upset.’ Mary confides in Mammy that Maeve hasn’t two pennies to rub together in spite of the good job. She cannot understand it. She says that Maeve was in the kitchen a few days ago, and a black crow flew down the chimney and startled her, and it was a harbinger of doom. Something bad was on the way. They were only waiting for the misfortune to take place. It could be a death or an accident or a fire. They’d have to wait and find out. One way or another, it’d be a bad shock.

  ‘Aidan wants you to call up,’ Robert says, gutting a snouted pike fish over the kitchen sink, his hands awash with blood. Des has been released without charge after Robert stormed down to the garda station with a stack of letters he had under the mattress, and himself and Des spent the morning at Lough Easkey.

  ‘What’s that?’ I turn down the volume on the one o’clock news.

  ‘Ai
dan Morley,’ he says, lopping off a head and tail. ‘He was down at the lake with his camera. He says Terry and Peadar are heading out for the afternoon to buy Peadar a motorbike and he wants you to call up to the home place.’

  My stomach is clenching in waves. ‘When?’ This’d better be the real thing. This’d better be it.

  ‘He’ll be up there now, I’d say. He’ll be back by now. He’s eager to see you.’

  I’m walking along the road under the canopy of trees. I’m taking my time, taking it all in and savouring it. The leaves are glowing luminous in the sunlight. Petrol-blue dragonflies zip and roll in the warm air. My heartbeat accelerates to see the familiar bungalow up ahead and Aidan inside and our fates about to collide.

  He carries in a plate of custard creams, or ‘teacher biscuits’ as myself and Evelyn used to call them, and an overflowing cup of tea that slops out on one side. ‘I spent three hundred quid on the camera lens. It’s the one all the big sports photographers use. That’s what they told me in the shop,’ he says, sitting in close to me on the couch, and I could faint with the longing. He proceeds to show me his photographs of sliding tackles, jubilant spectators and the gurning faces of young players in a slideshow set to a soundtrack by U2. ‘That was a beaut of a day,’ he says, frisking his dry hands together. ‘We hammered Saint Malachy’s. Annihilated them.’

  ‘That’s a good shot there,’ I say, pointing at the screen.

  ‘You think so,’ he says eagerly. ‘You think it’s good.’

  ‘You could enter it into a competition and see how you get on.’

  ‘You might bring me good luck.’ I can feel the wishing in the air, but no one makes the move. It won’t be me who makes the move.

  After several minutes of small talk and wholesome banter, I come to realise that Aidan hasn’t asked me a thing about Dublin at all. I’d say he thinks I haven’t changed a bit. I’d say he thinks I’ve no good stories, or else he’s not interested in hearing them.

  ‘How d’you find the teaching?’ I ask him, tiring of the football photography and talk of Saint Malachy’s Parish. It’s like the Crips and the Bloods at this stage.

  ‘I love it. It suits me.’

  ‘Isn’t that great. I’m happy for you,’ I say, supping on the bland tea. Aidan forgot the two sugars I asked for. All of an instant, I’m recalling the crystal pins falling out of my hair and hitting off the dance floor at the Debs’ Ball.

  ‘I was lucky to get the job at all.’ His expression hardens. ‘It was stupid of me to have given the interview to the papers. Pure stupid, looking back on it. It did more harm than good.’ He closes down the screen of the laptop. Harrumph.

  ‘You’re entitled to tell your side of the story.’ I rest the cup of tea on my knee. ‘I thought you did well.’

  ‘When I went looking for a teaching post I could tell they’d looked me up online. They’d let on they were hiring from within the existing staff and the ad was only a legal obligation, but I’d see the same post being advertised for weeks and months afterwards. Tyre-kickin’ bastards.’

  ‘That must have been rough,’ I say, careful not to toss the teacup as I reach for a custard cream.

  ‘Peadar told me to keep going, to keep sending in the job applications. He’s always saying I’ll be exonerated.’

  ‘I suppose you heard about Desmond Duignan.’

  ‘I did. There was nothing to it apparently. He was out again last night. Didn’t I meet himself and Robert at the lake earlier on.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘D’you know what, I’d sell my soul to know what happened Pamela.’

  ‘You would?’

  His shoulders drop forward. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. No one does. I’ve been over it and over it in my head. The most likely scenario is a drunk driver knocking her down and hiding the evidence. But…’ He grimaces. ‘I know I shouldn’t dwell on it. I know I’ve to move past it.’

  ‘Did you ever try searching for her? By yourself.’

  ‘Oh, I did. At the beginning. I even took out Tom Lynch’s metal detector up and around the bog to see if I’d find some small scrap of evidence, but I never found anything and it made me feel worse. I had to put a stop to it.’

  ‘Do you ever see the Cooneys around the place? Whatever happened to them?’

  ‘They moved away years ago. The investigation was going nowhere and the mother gave up hope.’ He begins rubbing his palms down the fronts of his trouser legs. ‘Can I trust you not to mention something to Evelyn? I know ye are good friends.’ His eyes are fixed upon me.

  ‘Of course. You can trust me.’ What’s this now.

  ‘The Cassidys’ trucks are always coming and going from Glenbruff. Can’t you imagine a scenario where Pamela is coming along the road and a truck pulls in alongside her and she’s taken away in it. Up towards Adragule and the motorway only twenty minutes beyond. It’d be easy conceal someone in a truck and take them away to God knows where.’ There are beads of sweat forming on his forehead. ‘That’s what I think happened her, and there’s more than myself thinks it. Peadar thinks there might be something to it as well, but you know he can’t say it. Not with Evelyn and the job. He won’t even discuss it.’

  ‘Could such a thing happen in Glenbruff? Is the place that bad? Are the people that bad?’ Could there be something to it? Would there be any way of finding out if the trucks were searched?

  ‘There’ve been rumours about Dan Cassidy for years. Drug trafficking. Human trafficking. And he’s well in with the guards and judges. People are afraid of him.’ He swallows. ‘I think I’ll go mad if I don’t get answers, Katie. It’s like a parasite inside me, eating away at me.’ He pauses. ‘Will you have more tea?’

  ‘No, thanks. I’ll be off now in a minute.’

  He coughs into a closed fist. ‘We should go out ourselves sometime with the camera,’ he says, a stilted pitch to his voice. ‘Go off for the afternoon up to Lough Easkey. I’ve plenty of time now with the kids off for the summer.’

  ‘Alright. We’ll go one of the days.’

  He lingers on the doorstep as I make my way out to the road. It seems my passion for Aidan has been like a flare going off, full of colour and light, but falling from the sky and coming to nothing.

  Geraghty’s Newsagent’s has a tier of faded boxes of washing powder in the front window, and black bananas hanging from butcher hooks on the ceiling inside. An open-topped freezer in the centre aisle is making a protracted groaning sound like there’s someone dying inside it.

  Kenneth’s father Finbar sits behind the counter on an old stool with a cracked leather seat and asks me forty questions. ‘Who are you?’ ‘Where do you live?’ ‘Who’s your father?’ ‘What does he do?’ There’s nothing worse than telling a person your business and them telling you nothing in return.

  ‘Kenneth is running Donovan’s now. He’ll enjoy that, won’t he.’

  ‘I don’t know where you heard that,’ says Finbar, like I’m some class of eedgit.

  ‘He told me himself. Wasn’t I in there the other night.’

  ‘You’re dreaming. Kenneth doesn’t run a pub.’

  ‘He does. He told me himself. He told me he’s taken over the pub.’

  Finbar throws the box of cigarettes out onto the counter. ‘You heard wrong.’ God Almighty. It’s like the twilight zone around here.

  I’m up at the top of the town and passing the church gates when Mickey Cassidy bounds out on the path before me. ‘It’s only me,’ he declares. ‘It’s Mickey.’ The look of him is unsettling: the pinched child’s face and the big red mouth slicked with wet. The white-blond hair sticking out all over his head, and not only that, but he’s reeking of petrol. Robert says he has a job laying patio tiles. I don’t know how you could trust him to count to ten, never mind laying a patio.

  ‘Mickey.’ I press my hand to my chest. ‘You frightened the life out of me. What are you playing at?’

  ‘I saw you and thought I’d give you a fright.’

 
; ‘Well. It worked. I’ll see you.’ I make the move to head off along the path and Mickey blocks me.

  ‘I’ve news,’ he says.

  ‘What?’ I snap at him.

  ‘Evelyn’s going to a film festival.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Herself and Peadar are going to America. To a film festival.’

  ‘What would they be going to a film festival for?’ A film festival. In America?

  ‘They made a film and they sent it off and it’s going to be in a film festival in a place called New Mexico. They just got word today.’ Hold on now. They made a film. I can hardly breathe with the shock. How has all of this taken place without me, and not one word said to me about it. ‘Come on and I’ll walk you out home.’

  ‘Go away, Mickey,’ I cry out, and my eyes prick with tears.

  ‘I only want a chat.’

  ‘I want to be on my own.’ Mickey’s following me along the path. ‘I said I want to be on my own.’

  ‘It’s sad being on your own. If I keep talking to you, you won’t have the chance to feel sad. You can listen to me instead.’

  ‘Would you ever just fuck off.’ I’ve never before been cruel to Mickey Cassidy but today’s different. Today’s the day my whole life came crashing down around me, and I’ve never felt more alone or useless. It’s supposed to be me and Evelyn, not Evelyn and Peadar. It’s supposed to be me and Evelyn doing these kinds of things together.

  Evelyn’s floating around in the community centre, looking like a heavenly creature. The place is packed out with people all jostling to talk with herself and Peadar. She’s walking through a big crowd of locals, and they’re all pressing in around her, pulling at her and praising her. A golden future awaits Evelyn and Peadar, and golden praise wherever they go. It’ll all take off for them now. Maeve lands in and says she’s sorry she’s late, she was working, but she’s as happy as anyone for the two film-makers. The seating is laid out in a horseshoe shape, and by the time it’s eight o’clock, there isn’t a free seat in the house.