by John Brady
“And what does that prove?”
Minogue looked up and down Wicklow Street. It was still one of his favourite steets of all in the city. The curve as it slid down toward Grafton Street beckoned him always, its trove of side streets like adventures of their own.
Kilmartin made a sour laugh then.
“Wonder who gave those other fellas the tip-off,” he said. “I say it was Egan himself. The kind of thing the bastard would do. Save him having to pay them.”
Minogue couldn’t disagree. Malone had told him that the word was West Ham had gotten out of hand at an after-hours in Finglas, and blathered about what they did, and what they could do. He waited until Kilmartin took a pause.
“James. James?”
“What. What are you Jamesing me for?”
Minogue looked at his friend, took in the fierce eyebrow slant, the blinking.
“James. You’re just blathering. It’s too much. Okay?”
Kilmartin made to say something but held back. A look of desperation crossed his face for a moment, but was quickly gone.
“Easy for you,” he said, quietly. Minogue did not think so. Nor did he think he could ever tell his friend how much he had tried to dissuade Kathleen from doing this.
“Look,” said Kilmartin, nudging his arm. “It’s like I told Herlighy. That old goat, sure he’s gone deaf, I’m sure. ‘I want what I had,’ I says to him when he asks me where I wanted to be when this was over. ‘Well you won’t have that,’ he says. ‘Nobody can have that.’ Something about the same river twice?”
“Not as deaf as you think then, is he. Or as dumb.”
“Whisht, will you. Says he, things are not just going to happen – what’s the word he used? To ensue. Big word. You have to write the script, practise your role and then produce the film, says he. Or the play – I was going to say ‘drama’ but by Jesus, I don’t want to use that word, do I.”
Minogue nodded. The thought of the Szechuan noodles had cheered him a little.
“It’s just a dinner,” he said to Kilmartin.
“For you it is. For me, it’s auditioning.”
“Just keep it light, that’s the trick.”
“No mention of why she tried to kill herself then, I suppose.”
Minogue stared at him. Too far gone? Maybe he had misjudged Kilmartin entirely. Maybe the silent bitterness ran deeper and longer than even Kilmartin himself knew.
“Well you got that out of your system at least,” he said.
Kilmartin sighed and shuffled his coat.
“I don’t know why I said that.”
“You’re nervous. But I’m going to kick you under the table if I think that class of a comment is on its way out of your mouth again.”
Kilmartin examined the cement edges of the footpath. He let out a deep breath. He looked up then, his face easing a little.
“Did you say a kick, or a tap under the table?”
“A kick I said. I’ll root you out of it, so I will.”
Kilmartin nodded as though to agree.
“And you’re certain she doesn’t know?” he asked.
“Not unless you told her.”
Almost against his wishes, a small smile of satisfaction crept over Kilmartin’s features. He looked across at the restaurant window.
“I don’t much like Chinese food,” he said.
“Ask them for potatoes and cabbage instead, why don’t you.”
“I don’t want any trouble from you. Kathleen I like, but you, you’re work.”
“You behave yourself in there. You Mayo bullock.”
“Listen to you. A mucker from Clare. I’ll have to show you how to use a knife and fork again, I suppose.”