I Confess

by Alex Barclay

  ‘Sure, why wouldn’t they?’ said Laura.

  ‘It’s a bit like doping, though, isn’t it?’ said Murph.

  Laura’s eyes widened. ‘He’s not cheating, is he?’

  Murph raised his eyebrows. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Me?’ said Laura. ‘Would you fuck off?’

  ‘No. I’m going to fuck right on.’ He smiled. ‘Come on – was he giving you the glad eye at any stage?’

  Laura sputtered into her drink. ‘“The glad eye”! I couldn’t tell you the last time I heard that.’

  ‘Well, just so you know – my eyes are always glad to see you … every time I fondly reminisce about your … skills.’

  ‘Jesus. Don’t remind me.’

  ‘Excuse me’ said Murph. ‘You should be very proud of yourself.’

  Laura rolled her eyes. She turned her head to the window.

  ‘Are you actually mortified?’ said Murph.

  Laura looked at him. ‘Not about you. But I do look back sometimes and think, “What was I like?”’

  ‘You were amazing!’ said Murph. ‘Johnny and I used to always say Laura gives the best—’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ said Laura, sitting up, glancing towards the door. ‘Would you shut up?’

  Murph laughed. ‘She’d hardly give a shit at this stage, would she?’

  ‘Of course she’d give a shit.’

  ‘She always knew Johnny was a boyo.’

  ‘Not with me she didn’t.’

  ‘Ah, she must have had her suspicions,’ said Murph.

  ‘Are you mad?’ said Laura. ‘She’d never have thought Johnny’d lower himself to me.’

  ‘Mind you – if she knew you fucked up his Final Trial for Ireland—’

  ‘Murph – shut up! And I did not fuck up his Final Trial. That was all Johnny.’

  Murph tipped his glass towards Johnny’s glory wall. ‘Do you not think, though, that if you hadn’t happened to bump into him in Dublin that night – wasn’t he on his way back to The Shelbourne? – then he might have been tucked up in his bed and not out punching the head off someone in Leeson Street?’

  ‘Why are you going on about that now?’ said Laura. ‘Are you trying to make me feel like shite? That was Johnny’s call. It’s not my fault he fucks things up for himself. And, anyway, I was the one got him out of trouble. Now, can you just shut up about it? I’m trying to enjoy the thing he actually hasn’t made a balls of.’

  After a while, Murph turned to her. ‘Do you reckon she ever got into the swing of blow jobs in the end – Edie?’

  ‘The shit that goes through your head,’ said Laura.

  ‘I’d say yourself and Frank are at it the whole time – are you?’ said Murph.

  ‘You need help,’ said Laura. ‘Has it been a while?’

  ‘Bless me, Father – it’s been three weeks since my last indiscretion. Laura’s here beside me, Father. You remember her – one of your biggest sinners. Would you like to say a few words to her? Do you miss her? I know I do.’

  Johnny and Terry stood inside the chapel, their eyes on the wall to the left, where Terry was shining the beam of his torch through the outline left behind when one of the confession boxes had been ripped out. Spray-painted in red, was the word KERR-O-SENE, and beside it, the stick figure of a girl, and around her head, a crown of flames.

  Johnny turned to Terry. ‘Jesus Christ. Don’t tell Edie. Fuck’s sake. Don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Can you smell it?’ said Terry. ‘It smells fresh.’

  19

  JOHNNY

  Castletownbere

  23 December 1989

  Johnny was stretched out on the sofa, one leg on the floor, the opposite arm up over his head. His green rugby shirt rode up, showing a taut stomach. The doorbell rang. He lifted his head, and through the net curtains could see a squad car.

  ‘Fuck.’ He got up, slowly. ‘Fuck.’

  He paused at the mirror, ran his hand through his hair a few times, and steadied his gaze. His eyes were pinched from tiredness. His jaw twitched. He scraped a fingernail down the corners of his mouth, and wiped it on his jeans. The doorbell rang again. He tucked in his shirt and walked into the hall, as his mother was sticking her head out of the kitchen.

  ‘It’s only Laura’s dad,’ he said. ‘It’s grand.’

  ‘OK, so.’

  He waited until she went back into the kitchen to open the door.

  ‘Johnny,’ said Colm. ‘Would you mind if I had a word with you?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Johnny. ‘Not at all. But … could you maybe come back around eight? I’m in the middle of something.’

  ‘I’m kind of in the middle of something myself,’ said Colm.

  ‘Oh,’ said Johnny. ‘Well, can we talk outside? The mother’s got a migraine.’

  ‘I don’t mind where we talk, boy.’

  The hairs on the back of Johnny’s neck stood up. ‘Good, good. Right.’

  Colm stepped off the porch, and gave Johnny room to come out. Johnny floundered.

  ‘Will we sit on the bench, so?’ said Colm.

  Johnny glanced at the white iron bench in front of the living-room window that his mother had got the previous summer, and that, for some reason embarrassed him. ‘OK, so.’

  ‘How did last weekend go?’ said Colm.

  Johnny glanced briefly towards him.

  ‘The Final Trial,’ said Colm. ‘I heard you were up in Dublin. You made the probables, I’m told. Within a hair’s breadth of making the Ireland team. And then …’ He paused.

  Johnny were on a gnome he had never noticed in the front garden, whose expression looked like how he felt: uh-oh.

  ‘Do you know why I might be here talking to you about a game I no more give a damn about than …’

  Johnny rubbed his jaw. ‘No, Sergeant. I don’t.’

  Colm nodded. ‘Of course, you don’t. So, here’s how it went. The Friday, I’m guessing, you headed up to Dublin, you had your team meeting, went off for the couple of pints afterwards to settle the nerves … The plan was to go back to The Shelbourne at around ten o’clock, maybe, to get a good night’s sleep before taking advantage of an opportunity that most boys could only dream of.’

  Johnny’s heart was pounding. He started to smile at the gnome.

  ‘Did something funny happen next?’ said Colm. ‘Was it funny what happened next? When you bumped into my daughter up above to do her Christmas shopping? Seventeen years of age.’

  Johnny went very still.

  ‘And before I go any further,’ said Colm, ‘if you let on to Laura that we had this little chat, I will give you the land of your life. And you won’t see it coming, you prick.’

  Johnny swallowed.

  ‘And you’re thinking: But why would Laura tell her dad she was with me in Dublin? No one was supposed to know! That was a secret! Do you want to know how I know? Well, while you’re out gallivanting around Dublin, I’m fast asleep in my bed, hundreds of miles away, and I get a phone call. From Kevin Street Garda Station. And I’m thinking to myself: Why, now, would I be getting a phone call from a garda station in Dublin in the middle of the night?’

  Johnny glanced at him and Colm was expecting it, so they locked eyes. Johnny broke away fast.

  ‘Oh, it turns out they’d brought in some local lad I might know from Castletownbere,’ said Colm. ‘From a very respectable family, a fine rugby player, plays for Munster, apparently … because he was caught, buckled drunk, throwing punches around Leeson Street at three in the morning.’

  Johnny frowned.

  ‘Can you remember a bit of it?’ said Colm.

  Johnny let out a breath.

  ‘Well, you obviously don’t remember the part where my daughter, at seventeen years of age, asks a guard to call her daddy: “We have your daughter here with us, Sergeant.”’ Colm turned to Johnny, grabbed a handful of his shirt, yanked him to his feet. Johnny was broader, three inches taller. Christmas lights from the tree in the living room flashed green and red on th
eir faces.

  ‘How fucking dare you?’ said Colm. ‘I don’t know which made me sicker – having to hear that or having to hear myself say what a fine young man Johnny Weston is.’

  ‘I didn’t ask her to—’

  ‘Of course you didn’t!’ said Colm. ‘Do you think I don’t know that? You didn’t know your own name is what I heard. Laura was frightened out of her wits. Do you know what it must have took for her to have a guard make a phone call like that to me in the middle of the night? And to save your skin?’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘Honestly, I wouldn’t have—’

  ‘Honesty doesn’t come into it with you,’ said Colm. ‘Could you look me in the eye right now and honestly tell me that that wasn’t you I saw climbing out my daughter’s bedroom window the Bank Holiday weekend?’

  ‘Last Bank Holiday?’ said Johnny. ‘Laura was away with Edie that weekend.’

  Colm erupted. ‘Do you think I came down in the last shower? Jesus Christ, you have some neck, boy. Some neck. You haven’t an ounce of respect in you. Not an ounce.’

  ‘I don’t know what you want me to—’

  ‘Do you think I came down in the last shower? I’m asking you,’ said Colm.

  ‘No. No. I don’t.’ said Johnny.

  ‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand – it’s a lad like you – wanting for nothing, his father working hand over fist to send him off to boarding school to put manners on him, and he swans back home like he owns the place. How in the name of God you got a lovely girl like Edie Kerr to go out with you is beyond me.’

  He grabbed Johnny’s shirt, and shook him hard. ‘Have you anything at all to say for yourself?’

  Johnny thought about it. ‘Thanks for … thanks for sorting that out.’

  ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my girls,’ said Colm.

  Johnny nodded. ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘So if I was you,’ said Colm, stabbing a finger at him. ‘I’d stay the fuck away from both of them. Stay the fuck away from Laura, and stay the fuck away from Miriam.’

  20

  Edie and Clare stood in the stable yard arch watching the rain pouring down.

  ‘I’m not looking forward to this,’ said Clare, pulling up her hood.

  ‘Can I keep the guest jacket, though?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Edie, pulling up her own hood. ‘And the Hunter short wellies.’

  ‘The suites are beautiful,’ said Clare.

  ‘Do you think she enjoyed the night?’ said Edie.

  ‘Helen? She had a ball,’ said Clare. ‘You do know she’s gone to bed by choice and not because she was having a bad time.’

  Edie laughed. ‘True, but there’s something about someone going to bed early.’ She turned to Clare. ‘Are you enjoying the night?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Clare.

  ‘Right,’ said Edie, gesturing ahead. ‘Let’s brave this.’ They walked down the path to the inn.

  ‘I still can’t get over Patrick,’ said Clare.

  Edie laughed.

  ‘Seriously,’ said Clare. ‘Money and power. They’re like Spanx for men.’ she paused. ‘Tiny dick, probably.’

  Edie leaned away from her. ‘Clare Brogan!’

  ‘Edie Kerr!’

  ‘You brat!’

  They exchanged glances. ‘You’re actually blushing,’ said Clare. ‘And we both just used our maiden names. Is that the night that’s in it or are we about to be doomed? To … the singles scene.’

  They laughed.

  ‘Though I’m sure Patrick’s having the time of his life,’ said Clare.

  ‘Probably,’ said Edie.

  ‘I think we can all take some credit for how well he turned out,’ said Clare. ‘He had no life until he started hanging out with us.’

  ‘I know,’ said Edie. ‘I remember being so conscious that he knew we wanted to be friends with him, not just because he saved us, but because …’ She paused. ‘Well, we never gave him a chance, did we?’

  ‘But we weren’t mean to him, either,’ said Clare.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Edie.

  ‘And all he had to do to gain one life was to save four,’ said Clare.

  ‘Poor Jess,’ said Edie.

  ‘Poor Murph, more to the point.’

  They arrived at the back door of the inn. Edie turned the latch and they walked into the boot room.

  Clare inhaled. ‘Love that smell. So … laundry room to the left and …?’

  ‘Miscellaneous to the right,’ said Edie. She walked down the hallway and glanced back. ‘What do you mean “poor Murph”?’ She stopped. ‘But – he knows no one thinks it’s his fault.’

  ‘Well, of course everyone says that,’ said Clare. ‘And most people believe it. But Murph never will.’

  ‘But all the rest of us made it out alive,’ said Edie.

  Clare shot her a glance. ‘Like two out of three ain’t bad?’

  ‘No,’ said Edie, irritated. ‘Just—’

  ‘I’m kidding,’ said Clare. ‘Look, you can understand that’s going to stay with him. It’s Murph, for God’s sake!’

  ‘I know,’ said Edie, ‘but—’

  ‘Enough!’ said Clare. ‘Take me to the library.’

  Laura stood outside in the smoking area, her shoulders up to her ears, squinting as she took a drag on her cigarette. She saw Johnny walking by, his head down, holding the hood of his rain jacket closed under his chin, the wind inflating it.

  She shouted over. ‘You look like you’re walking to school.’

  Johnny stopped. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘What are you doing out here?’

  ‘Jesus, I don’t know …’

  He laughed, and came over. He pointed to her cigarettes. ‘Can I rob one?’

  ‘Yes, you bollocks.’

  ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘Your crack earlier. About the kids being Frank’s.’

  ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘It was a joke.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean it wasn’t ignorant.’

  ‘You’re such a cranky bitch.’

  Laura rolled her eyes.

  ‘How are you, anyway?’ he said. ‘You’re looking great.’

  ‘I look like shite. I’m wrecked.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ He held eye contact with her.

  ‘Stop that,’ she said.

  ‘Stop what?’ He smiled.

  ‘That’s how it always started.’ She turned away and blew out a straight line of smoke.

  Johnny laughed.

  ‘How are you doing?’ said Laura. ‘You look a bit … under pressure.’

  ‘No, no. Just a lot going on.’

  ‘The place is fabulous. I’ve driven by enough times. And I had a good gawk at it online. Lovely royal engagement photo of you and Edie. “About us”.’

  ‘Livin’ the dream.’

  ‘Is it massive work?’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘Unfuckingreal. We had no idea.’

  ‘Myself and Frank got a kitchen extension and it was nearly the end of us.’

  ‘Multiply that by a million. We were arguing over a door knob at one stage.’

  ‘And is it doing well for ye?’

  ‘Ah, you have to take a hit the first few years. But I may have made a couple of miscalculations. Things like being closed from November to February. You know yourself – the business is just not there. But other than that, we’re getting the bookings, the reviews are great … apart from the shite ones. People are coming back. When the spa’s done and the lap pool’s in, and the chapel turns into whatever we actually agree on, that’ll make a big difference.’

  ‘So, go on – tell us,’ said Laura. ‘Who wrote the bad reviews?’

  Johnny’s head jerked towards her.

  ‘I knew it!’ she said. ‘I knew you knew something.’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘No … it wasn’t anyone. I don’t know who it was.’

  Laura nodded. ‘You’re a shit liar.’ She took a drag off her cigarette. ‘I’ll get it out of you before t
he night’s out.’

  Johnny gave her a resigned look.

  ‘It’s someone local,’ said Laura. ‘Does someone have it in for you?’

  Johnny raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Are you serious?’ said Laura. ‘I was only joking.’

  ‘Don’t say anything to Edie.’

  ‘Sure, I don’t know anything! Tell me! Who am I going to tell?’

  Johnny glanced at her. ‘No …’

  ‘It’s someone I know,’ said Laura. ‘Is it?’

  ‘You’re such a pain in the hole.’ He paused. ‘Kind of.’

  ‘You have to tell me now.’

  ‘It’s a weird one,’ said Johnny. ‘So not a word to anyone. Because that would be a serious shitshow.’ He tilted his head to the right. ‘The Jameses.’

  ‘Next door?’ said Laura. ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Seriously.’

  ‘There’s no way—’

  ‘Well – I got it traced and it was their IP address.’

  ‘That can’t be right.’

  ‘I know.’ He shrugged.

  ‘But who would it be?’ said Laura. ‘It’s hardly Val, and she a guard. No way.’

  ‘Mam’s well in with her – she’d have a lot of respect for her.’ She paused. ‘And it wouldn’t be Seán. He’s a dote. Who’s left? The kids? How old are they?’

  ‘The youngest girls are whatever age – still having bouncy castles for their birthdays,’ said Johnny. There’s a son, Cian, he’s sixteen, but he’s harmless. And the eldest is Mally – she’s nineteen. But she’s Dylan’s best bud. I’m trying to figure out if she hates us more than she loves Dylan.’ He paused. ‘Well, not “us” – me.’

  ‘Why does she hate you?’ said Laura. ‘I mean, does she know who you are?’

  Johnny rolled his eyes. ‘Sadly, she does – a fat dad who fights with her best friend and “doesn’t understand him”.’

  ‘Still, though – a review like that would be a bit extreme. Like, she’s nineteen. She’d want to have a bit of cop on at that age.’

  ‘What – like us?’ said Johnny.

  Laura smiled. ‘Seriously, I don’t know what to make of that.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Johnny.