‘Eva! Lay off!’ He forced open her grip, pushed her away. ‘My letters!’ he said, standing over the bureau. ‘They’re gone! The letters, the papers, where – ’
‘Cool it, will you, fuck’s sake. They’re stashed. Real safe. I hid them from Ravarro. See I figured out what you’re scheming, weeks back.’ She spoke now with the conceit of perceived advantage. ‘Junk put away, pictures taken down, shit like that. Figured you were hauling ass.’
His hand demanded the items.
‘Could’ve told him. Be dick deep in shit now, wouldn’t you. Parole violation big time. Bum city, fleeing the jurisdiction, no authorisation.’
‘Joel Vida got clearance for me.’
‘No shit, Antoin. Fucking Antoin? On your passport, the new one. You a frog now?’
He demanded again what she had taken.
‘I feel for you, Tony. I’m serious. Always did, you know that. I would never never never rat you out. Your shit’s under the locker, safe; y’have to stick your hand under.’
He lifted the locker aside, grabbed the papers.
‘See, I protected you. Wasn’t for me you’d be riding the DOC Cadillac, back to the country club. Soooo.’ She cast off her turban, shook out her hair, and with the confidence of a woman submitted to by men she swaggered toward him.
‘Quit it!’ he said, his voice full of threat, trying to push her back. She bored forward, head lowered. ‘Stop it, fuck it!’ he yelled.
‘Whyyy!? You don’t have to love me, you jerk.’
‘Just quit it, will you. We’re friends.’
‘Friends?’ She spit out the word and bulldozed inside his guard. ‘What’s wrong, cat got your dick?’ He forced her head back. Until suddenly she let him go, stepped away, looking upset. ‘I’m sorry, Tony. I’m being very unfair. Amigos always, always amigos. We cool? I apologise. That was wrong of me, I know. You’re a gentleman. I care about you; you know how special you are to me.’ She turned aside, eyes to the floor. ‘I’m a schmuck.’
He did nothing but observe, realising that there was a side to her that he admired: this brusque, sometimes humorous woman who went after what she wanted, the men she wanted, and rarely suffered defeat. But the warning signs had been there from the beginning: her lustful staring, open sex talk, her pressing her breasts and pelvis to him at greetings and good-byes, things a raw teenager would have objected to, but not him, he thought, not soon enough. All he wanted now was to avoid trouble, bide his time, just five days left, then go.
He accepted her atoning hands, a brief touch. But instantly, her arms jammed her body to his again, head buried into his chest, and she let out a loud libidinous sigh. ‘Come on, come on, come on, Mr Ireland; it’ll be dynamite, you and me.’
‘I’m warning you, Eva. Last time, let go.’
‘Wanted to screw you since you got here. Y’must’ve known, stuck-up little prick.’
His hands found her throat, fingers and thumbs sank into her flesh, deeper in, until he made himself stop; he forced her chin up, glared into her face. ‘You want a real fucking problem?! I told you it’s not on!’
She let go, a look of imminent retribution in her face. ‘Y’don’t get it, do you? Think it’s weird: man fucks woman? Huh? Can’t talk, can’t fuck, huh? You ungrateful faggot, you don’t get to say no to me. Know what I’m saying? Get it? We have one killer of the time, or I talk to Jorge, your buddy. Now you get it?’
His explosion of power knocked her back, a two-handed thrust to her chest. Power he had not allowed himself to use since he’d left prison.
Her plump face froze, flushed. ‘Tough-guy! Fucking faggot! Car washer con – ’
‘Get out! Fucking now!’
‘Out?! Get out?! You forget, sucker, I’m on your parole team. You were a stray mutt; I took you in. This is my house, all twelve rooms. You get the fuck out, jerk!’
His eyes scoured the room for anything to anchor to, a memory, a meaning, a thing to come.
‘And take your third-grade poems with you. Think I don’t know? I read them. All of them. She must be a dork to hang with a dumb fuck, double-killer, loooooserrr – ’
He burst toward her, rammed both hands into her hair.
‘Gonna kill me too, faggot, like you did those other people? I’ll put you back in for life, fucker.’
In a sea of obscenities, he ran her across the room, heaved her out into the hall. She thudded against the wall, crashed to the floor and quickly sat up, speechless. He kicked the door shut, sent a thud through the house. Then, shaking, he listened. At first, there was just ruffling, muttering.
‘Going down, sucker,’ she shouted moments later, her voice hoarse, sounding venomous. ‘Real quick, real quick. Fried fucking meat, dumb Irish jerk. Jorge’ll nail your fucking ass good.’
Her slapping footsteps grew fainter and fainter, until he could hear them no longer, then all he could hear was an incessant replaying in his head, over and over and over.
Eyes shut, he braced against the room door. The quiet spooked him, more than her raving and ranting. Spooked him this much, he knew, because of the favours she could call in, the quick damage she could do. But more immediately because of Ravarro, tough and dangerous, yellow-eyed mercenary, crazy man. A maze of thoughts flummoxed his brain. What should he do now, he asked, what could he do? Five days, nearly a week, to go.
He started packing away the few small items still on the bureau top: Kate’s letter, his half-read copy of Borstal Boy, father’s watch, his journal, hand-written poems, parole papers, new Irish passport; he then retrieved his ticket from Los Angeles International Airport to Dublin, undisturbed inside a sealed envelope he’d hidden well.
Minutes later a fit of doom choked him. He sat hard onto the floor. Felt the room become a cell, walls closing in, ceiling coming down, suffocating him. No bars to grip or steel to see, but that’s what it was, how it felt, how it smelt, another rotten cell. The darkness he thought he’d beaten, that he had beaten, it was still alive in him, coming back, and he had to make it stop, make the buzzing stop, make it all stop, find something, anything in his screwed-up life to hold on to.
He plunged his face into a sink full of cold water. Left it submerged as the air in his lungs grew scarce. Then a burst of air roared out of him and became a whine. His head went under again; he could go mad, he thought, maybe he had gone mad; same choice he’d had for nine years, give up, go mad; he’d fought it off every day for all that time; now pain like a knife in his lungs; but he could leave Arizona right now, go for good; he could do that, before the sirens came, before Ravarro came, because then he’d be dead again, and he wasn’t going back inside, insane or not, never going back, the one thing he could swear to; just get out now.
His face came up out of the water, blood-filled, coughing out a drool that splattered the glass, melted his reflection, until it all seeped away and left a man recognisable again. Had to stay sane, he warned himself, stay sane. She’d be crazy to call Ravarro. Or the cops. He had too much on her: cops, attorneys, politicians, councillors, in her bed. And she knew he knew. Too many would fall, big wigs in high places. The twosomes and threesomes he’d stumbled over, in the pool, the gazebo, inside the house. All moral crusaders. These were the fuckers to fear, who’d kill to stop him identifying their faces and license plates, soldiers against grass, gas chamber salesmen, smug hypocrites. Dangerous people. Make murder look like suicide: unstable ex-con takes own life, falls down mountain, drowns drunk in pool, puts bullet in brain. Eva’s boys.
Nah, he was losing it, he thought, imagining shit, turning into a screwball. No, he wasn’t. He’d nearly killed her, maybe he had killed her, banged her head, she could be dead. Felony murder, prison, lethal injection, odourless gas. No, she wasn’t dead. But she knew about Ireland, figured he was jumping out for good; she’d try to stop him, that’s how she worked: blackmail, make him stay, become her gigolo. And that would be that. No escape. No home. No Lenny Quin. Nothing. Couldn’t let that happen.
Maybe right now s
he was on the phone, spilling everything to Ravarro. But Ravarro would be miles away by now, abusing other ex-cons. Which meant he had time, a little. When Ravarro found out, he’d come for him; Ravarro would come. Calm down, he told himself. Think. Stay sane. Remember Joel Vida’s advice. Keep control, find options, choose. He’d slip away quietly.
Suddenly, a sound. Somewhere in the house. Someone. Couldn’t be Ravarro. Had to be her, he thought. Doing what? His head dropped into his hands. She wasn’t dead. He could make it, all set now, set to go. Everything he could call his, that had any value, was stuffed into two bags in readiness for this moment, five days premature as it now was. Five days to lie low, somewhere, anywhere but here. That was it. He was leaving Arizona, for good.
He freed the window shade, exposed his shaking self to glare and heat. A big, hot, perilous outside that was once a world of green fields and boyhood freedom. A life lost, he thought. But maybe not forever. He’d make his break through the rear garden.
Outside, yellow grapefruits hung still and glistening; beyond them the rich blue of the Arizona sky, the cool blue of the pool, treasures he’d basked in in the eighteen months he’d been here. Under the acrylic canopy, his weight bench sat loaded. He whispered farewell to his time in this desert, this half-way house to nowhere. And then it was gone, this phase of his life over. His gut was ready for different air, different sky, for fields and mountains, a new life. One good chance to come, and what he would make of himself.
He manoeuvred through the yard, bags in hand, out through the side gate and past the yellow public utility truck parked next to his old white Mustang. As he placed his backpack in the trunk a blow from behind thudded into his shoulder, knocked his head against the lid. His reflexes pivoted him aside. Instantly, he was pumped up, ready to call on everything he had. The only way they’d get him, he vowed, was dead. As he spun back he recognised his attacker, Rip Wundt! Not Ravarro! Rip Wundt, a large roustabout type he’d seen about the place, utility company boss man, one of Eva’s boys. The blow had been meant for his head. Sucker punch. Designed to pulverise. Instead, it shot a spark into him, provided license, the rush he had once loved, that he had learned to un-love but had never dismantled.
His hard-hatted opponent shuffled and sparred, mouthing profanities, work-belt dancing around his middle, big frame leveraging for another strike.
Loose and focused, Tony timed his duck perfectly. The man’s fist tore through the air inches away, leaving his front unguarded. An instant was all the Anto MacNeill of old had ever needed. He shot forward, uncoiled a lightning right hand, shoulder behind it. It thudded into the utility man’s chest. Solid strike. Tony felt it all the way down in his thighs, and now he moved like old times, doing what he did well, already a second shot revving in his fighter’s brain, just like in Witchell Heights. But the man was still backing away, reddened, wrinkled. Tony had him. But no, no pursuit, he decided, his single strike was still working its poison. The man’s bulk had kept him upright; now his knees buckled, mouth and eyes askew, as he danced drunkenly. Tony suppressed the impulse in his fists, satisfied by the fact that he was still this good. No second or third hits. As he unwired he tried not to like how it felt, not like it quite so much. He hadn’t lost everything, he told himself.
The man didn’t fall as much as crumple in a heap of noise onto hot concrete, hard-hatless.
Tony slammed the trunk lid, climbed into the Mustang. Just then, Eva appeared on the garden path in her shorts and CSNY T-shirt, looking older than he’d ever seen her. Alive at least, he thought. Not another corpse he’d carry and curse and plead with for the rest of his long or short life. She glanced at the man on the ground, then back at the Mustang.
The car backed out of the driveway, braked hard. She gestured his doom. He rammed the stick into gear, stared once more at her, then he revved the engine until it obliterated Eva Kohler, until fear turned to power. Five days to go. He braced erect, locked onto the wheel, sank the gas. The Mustang roared free, out of Eva Kohler’s world, out of Jorge Ravarro’s world. For all time, he swore.
3
1963
Outside Aranroe Village, County Mayo, Western Ireland
Once more her gaze broke from the frosted-glass door. She drilled the end of her third Woodbine into the damp pavement, and through a cloud of blue fog she trudged up the rectory path, petite feet hop-scotching in her wake. Her insipid ring tolled the bells within the holy house and drew a hobbling shadow up the hall. The aged housekeeper led her and the child into a parlour of clashing patterns and lemon-polish air.
‘You’ll have to speak up, love. The old hearing is not what it was.’ The woman bent closer. ‘Who did you say will I tell Father is here to see him?’
‘Róisín Doyle. From Gorse Hill.’
‘Wee one’s full of go, isn’t she?’ The old woman’s warm eyes danced after the skipping child. ‘Speedy Gonzales, what? What age is she, love?’
‘She’s four now. Has me jaded.’
‘Gorgeous blue eyes, God bless her. A new pair of hips now and I’d be keeping up with her. Mind she doesn’t smash into Fr Coy’s crystal, or he’ll have one of his fits. I’ll go now and get him for you.’
The young woman pulled off her paisley head-scarf and shoved it into her raincoat pocket. In the glass of the cabinet she frowned, pressed into place errant wisps of her tight red hair and wiped a wet finger under both eyes. Five minutes passed before the room door creaked in.
She jumped to her feet. The curate, a large, not un-handsome man in his late twenties with a coal-black mane, stood before her, expressionless.
‘Hello, Father.’
The priest’s attention dropped to the child, still lost in play on the buffed linoleum.
‘Shh, shh, shhhh!’ His outburst silenced the room. The child ran to her mother, who struggled to lift her.
‘Fr Coy,’ the priest announced, yanking a chair away from the table and flopping onto it. ‘So. You’re here about the bingo.’
‘Oh no, Father, no. No, I want to get married, Father, here in Aranroe, in June, in St Brigid’s, to an American man.’ Her words poured out as though otherwise they might go unspoken.
‘An American?’ He picked a pen and a small black notebook from his inside pocket. ‘How long have you been seeing him, this American?’
‘We’ve been going serious since before Christmas, father, but I knew him before then but we didn’t – ’
‘The child?’
‘The child. She’s my daughter. Leonora Marie.’
‘So. You’re Róisín Doyle, widow?’
‘Oh no. No, Father, I’m not. I was never married. And the man, he’s not Catholic, Father, not at the minute, but he promised me he’ll convert over for me.’
‘This man: name, date of birth?’
‘Charles Kenneth Quin, with one n, Father, in the Quin, I mean. He’s a few years older than myself. Can’t remember right now what his date of birth is. I think it’s – ’
‘How older? What’s this “a few years”?’
‘He’s I think thirty-four now. Thirty-four or thirty-five. His father owns a big ranch, Father, in Texas, in America.
‘That’s it? Nothing else you know about him?’
‘He’s tall, and he’s nice looking.’ She stalled, almost smiling, as though drifting into her thoughts. ‘He went to college and got letters after his name. And he climbs mountains, Father; that’s why he came here the first time, in ‘58; he wanted to be the first American person to get to the top of Carrantuohill and he nearly got all the way up except that it started lashing rain and he had to come down. And he stuck the American flag up there, and we think it’s still there. He’s got one brother and no – ’
‘Your age?’ The priest’s eyes remained in his notebook.
‘Age. Twenty-two, nearly twenty-three. Charles is very well-to-do, Father. He’ll give Leonora a good home, and send her to good schools. He’ll do that. He wants to buy a hotel here. He wants to buy Claire Abbey; he has his ow
n big apartment up there now, so we’ll be staying in St Brigid’s parish.’
‘Why isn’t this man with you? Or does he not think the Church is important enough?’
‘Ah no, no, he does, Father, he does definitely. He’s good like that, except he’s in America at the minute. He goes lots of places on business. But he comes here all the time, to the Abbey. That’s where we met, Father.’
‘That a fact now? So. And you believe this is a union God will bless? Meeting in a bar, a public house? Did no one teach you anything at home about the evils of drink?’
‘Claire Abbey? It’s a fancy hotel, Father, for rich people from America and places like that, and golfers. I’m there part-time since I was in secondary school and I’m full-time now, ever since I came home from Liverpool. It’s really posh, you should – ’
‘Unmarried. Female child born out of wedlock. Hid away in pagan England. And I take it this older, absentee, non-Catholic, millionaire American is the father?’
Her body tensed.
‘I won’t ask again.’
Still she said nothing.
The priest slapped the table. ‘I asked you a question, Miss Doyle.’ He lunged his large face at her. ‘Is he, or is he not, the man responsible for this, this individual?’
‘Sorry. Sorry, Father, I can’t answer. Sorry.’
‘So, so, so. The father could be him. Or maybe any of a number of other men you’ve sinned with. And you have the nerve to come – ’
‘No! No, that’s not it, Father. That’s not what I mean.’ Her fingers coursed through the child’s wild auburn locks. ‘There was only one. Only one. Just that I don’t want to say.’
‘Oh, you will. You’ll say alright, mark my words, if you’re to hold any hope of being married in my parish.’ He gavelled his pen against the table. ‘I’ll warn you again, my patience is not inexhaustible. Father’s name?’
On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland Page 4