On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland

by Joseph Éamon Cummins

  ‘Let’s go now,’ he said. ‘It’s not how it seems at all.’

  At reception, the clerk produced the registration card. The bill had been paid daily, one day in advance, he explained, but not for today. And no calls or messages had come in.

  ‘It’s that so, just what I told you; he found a new place, nothing more,’ Leo said.

  ‘Don’t, please, unless you know something I don’t. He’d have told me, or left me a note.’ Suddenly, her features flashed alert. ‘I know! I’m back here one day early. He caught the early train this morning to Dublin, to surprise me! That’s what he was scheming on the phone last night. Kate!’

  She rushed back to the reception desk.

  A minute later Leo’s relief ended. Kate had heard nothing, and was now more concerned.

  Outside, Lenny insisted Leo should go on with his business. She’d phone later, she told him, as soon as she heard anything. She then hurried away toward the train station.

  ‘Dangerous manner of a morning, Miss Quin,’ the ruddy-cheeked female station master called out in greeting. ‘You’re not at your best at the minute. Something’s at you?’

  ‘Mairead, you know Tony, have you seen him?’

  ‘Your young American? When was it now, when did I see him, have to think about that.’ She inclined her face to the sky.

  ‘Just tell me, please, can you? This is very, very serious.’

  ‘Yesterday, must’ve been. Had to be. About two minutes after the Angelus.’

  ‘Twelve noon? Leaving?’

  ‘The 12.05 to Dublin.’

  ‘Dublin? No, Mairead, that’s not right, you couldn’t have. I spoke to him last night. He was here, in Aranroe. He couldn’t – ’

  ‘Only know what me eyes saw, Miss. Marched in them doors and onto the 12:05. Will you be back to see us? I called to him, thinking he was headed off home to America. All he gave me was a quare look, not even a slán leat.’

  ‘You’re absolutely certain, Mairead? I need you to be certain.’

  ‘Certain as you and me are standing here getting blown by the same breeze.’

  ‘Did he have anything – ’

  ‘Knapsack, big green one. Same as the day he got here asking about the da.’

  A whiteness fell over Lenny. The iron gate banged behind her as she left.

  ‘No cause to worry, grand looking woman like yourself,’ Mairead said, but Lenny was already well gone. ‘Now he’ll be writing you them nice love letters.’ The station master went on in the empty station. ‘Some lads are that sort, they say. Like them Viking fellas with the horns: came to Ireland for the nice Irish Catholic ladies, then ran off and left us. Never met one meself, and don’t want to; nothing but trouble, romances like that.’

  * * *

  The muddied yellow taxi came to a stop on the hill. Paddy lumbered out. ‘Some place I can take you, Miss?’

  Lenny’s gaze stayed with the ocean, out toward Inishturk and the deep western waters.

  Paddy moved to her. ‘I can tell something’s on your – ’ Lenny’s arms gripped him, clung to him. His hands hovered about then became her support.

  ‘C’mon now, c’mon outa that. Whatever it is it’ll work out. Not good to be letting little bothers get on top of you, you know that.’

  She eased out of his hold. ‘Tell me the truth, Paddy. You know about Tony leaving, don’t you?’

  ‘A glimpse, that’s all I got, truth of God. I was dropping off Chris Desmond, the big actor fella from Dublin, and, and – ’

  ‘What, Paddy?’

  ‘And he told me he’s making a picture over in Roscommon. Could you credit that, Roscommon, of all places. Couldn’t meet a nicer lad. Put a tenner in me hand when he – ’

  ‘Paddy. Please.’

  ‘Walking into the station; a glimpse, that’s all it was.’

  ‘A little innocent mix-up; nothing more, you’ll see, a tiny little mix-up.’ As he spoke, his big corpulent frame moved uneasily. ‘A pound he went to Galway, and I’ll be happy to take your money. Or over to Leenane for the scenery. You know how the lad likes to hike, up and down and sideways all over the place. That’ll be it.’

  Lenny turned away, gazed inland, to a land of rambling red fuchsia, small cottages and a string of Celtic crosses lording over weathered gravestones, and in the distance a land of valleys sweeping up into green velvet foothills and hard mountain rock, and beyond all these a world beyond Mayo.

  ‘He’s gone, Paddy.’ She sighed unrestrainedly.

  ‘In the name of God, will you not be saying silly things like that. Took a ramble, the lad, nothing more.’

  ‘To Dublin? No note or call?’

  ‘Probably hopped off at Westport, or anywhere he liked a few miles down the road.’

  For a moment nothing in her face moved. ‘The 12.05 stops in Dublin. Nowhere else. One hundred and sixty miles away.’

  ‘Look, if you want Paddy McCann’s opinion, Tony’s a good lad. He’ll be ringing you before the day’s out and everything’ll be grand. Then you can hand over the pound you’ll owe me, and if you want to double it now we’ll shake on it.’

  Over the following minutes Paddy’s humour and bravado sought to lift the prevailing mood. After a wordless interlude Lenny reached out and squeezed his hand.

  ‘One thing I have to say to you,’ Paddy said, strain in his face. ‘All of thirty years ago I stood not a stone’s throw from this very spot. With your sweet mother, God rest her soul. Last I saw of her alive. What I want to say is you’re every bit as grand a woman as she was. I promised meself I’d get the courage to tell you that one day, and now I did and I don’t regret it.’ Just then, as though jarred by his reminiscence, a graveness transformed him. He yanked open the car door. ‘In you get,’ he said. ‘I’m running you home.’

  ‘No, no, I’m walking. Fresh air, it’ll do me good, it’s what I need. Definitely, no.’

  ‘Sorry, Miss, can’t let you. Can’t. Not taking no for an answer. Not this time, I’m not.’

  Lenny’s head shook with finality. ‘Thanks for caring, Paddy. For so long. But I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You’re not yourself today and the day’s supposed to turn bad: bad thunder and lightning, bad hailstones, all sorts of terrible things. Them clouds’ll tell you that. C’mon.’

  He waited by the car, holding the door open. Lenny did not move.

  ‘In you get, c’mon. I can be a hard man when the humour’s on me.’ Before his hand reached her she started forward and sat into the car.

  As the taxi laboured up Aranroe Hill his chatter punctuated the mood. ‘Have you know I used to be junior cruiserweight champion of all Western Connaught. Could’ve knocked out all them big black American fellas: Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, all them fellas, if I had a mind to, and been the first world champion from tiny little Aranroe, and been famous. So now, aren’t you the lucky girl you didn’t tangle with the champ . . . ‘

  20

  The pounding shot him awake. He tried to remember. These bare plaster walls, bare striped mattress, in this hole, what brought him here?

  The raps came again, louder and longer, someone at the door. What time was it? He scanned the grungy room. At one end, high up, were two blocked-up windows, light coming in through gaps at the top.

  Another clatter of knocks shook the old wooden door.

  ‘Mr Vida, Mr Vida. We know you’re in there.’

  It was a woman’s voice, sharp, demanding.

  ‘It’s Mr and Mrs Kelly, the proprietors. Y’alive or dead in there or what?’

  Tony pulled the chair-back from under the brass knob and opened the door just a sliver. Staring in at the little they could see of him was a sixtyish couple, each looking as dilapidated, he thought, as the room in which he had just found himself: a stern-faced woman in a navy housecoat and a headscarf knotted under her chin, next to her a rail-thin, silver-whiskered man in a worn-out suit.

  ‘The daughter said you’d be staying just the one night,’ the man said. />
  ‘So what?’

  ‘It’s twenty past four, that’s what!’ the woman said. ‘You’re supposed to be out hours ago or cough up for another night. That’s how it works around here.’ She banged an elbow into her partner. ‘Tell him, Patsy.’

  ‘Yeah, Mr Vida. Joel. But it’s grand if you want to shack up for another night. Cosy little room, good bit warmer than down below. Perfect for two. It’s just that the rent was to be due at, em, at – ’

  ‘At twelve o’clock, same time it’s always due,’ the woman said. ‘But you wouldn’t wake up any time Patsy called you.’

  ‘Could’ve knocked harder but I said no, us men do like a bit of a lie-on when we can get it, especially of a Sunday. If a man doesn’t get his sleep, I always say, he’s no good for nothing, especially the ladies.’

  Tony tried to shake the grogginess from his head. He pulled paper money from his pocket and began unfolding it. ‘How much?’

  ‘Seven quid for last night; thirteen for the two, a pound discount,’ the man said. ‘That be okay, Joel? Run you all the way up till tomorrow.’

  ‘Thirteen pounds for two nights?’ Tony said. ‘Who was that woman last night; black curls, dark skin, the one I spoke to?’

  ‘That’s me daughter, Veronica,’ the woman said. ‘She’s married, for your information.’

  ‘So?’ Tony said.

  ‘Very happily married!’ the woman said. ‘Doesn’t want no bother. Get me? You can keep your fancy to somebody else.’

  Tony’s confusion turned from the woman to her partner.

  ‘So far, so good,’ the man said cheerfully, tipping up and down on his toes. ‘The marriage, I mean, so far so good. But time’ll tell. They only tied the knot on Wednesday. But don’t let that stop you, squire; no shortage of women round here.’ He swung his forearms in rhythm with his pelvis. ‘Tons of sexy birds not very far away, if you get me, Joel. And you with that tan; the birds here go mad for a tan, they do.’

  The woman glowered at her partner. His face dismissed her. ‘He’s not one, I’m telling you, missus,’ he said, then addressed Tony again. ‘She thinks she’s psychedelic. Says she can smell a copper a mile away. Copper me arse, says I; I never laid eyes on a copper with a suntan.’

  ‘Cop? Me? No.’ Tony’s head was clearer now, but he was still bewildered at the pageant playing out in front of him, wondering if it might all be a delusion, similar to whatever it was that had happened to him hours ago up on Old Factory Hill.

  ‘And you wouldn’t be one of them other fellas either, I can tell,’ the man said. ‘You know them fellas, them other kind of fellas, the homosexual fellas?’

  Tony shrugged again.

  ‘Well then, as horny as meself I’d say y’are.’ The man leaned forward, massaging his hands. ‘Can’t get enough of the ladies, am I right? Oh, I am, I’m right, I know I am. I can see you’re a man after me own heart, and if you don’t mind me saying, very handsome too, and nicely put together, the bod I mean, nice and – ’ With a look of self-consciousness, he fell silent.

  ‘So I’ll give you the score,’ the woman said, poking at the first of her upstanding fingers. ‘You pay up in advance, fifteen quid, no horseplay, no handcuffs or ropes or any shite like that, a half hour and no more under no circumstances, except if you pay more. Them’s the rules, and we don’t break them for no one.’

  ‘Wait a minute, hold on. You mean this, this is a – ’

  ‘Sundays y’have a bigger pick, so you’re in luck,’ the man said. ‘You’ve Daisy and Caddy and Brett, take your pick, all in the parlour right now waiting only for you to give the nod. And Queen Bula, she’ll be over any minute now; a black pearl, I call her, from Zamboraland or some foreign place like that.’

  ‘Memory gone again?’ the woman snapped. ‘Leaving out your little pet?’

  The man rolled his eyes. ‘Myrtle’s below, too, Mister Joel. Lost her voice a few days back, cold went down on her chest, but she’s a fighter, and gor – ’

  ‘Stop there! I’ve heard enough.’ Tony braced the door with his foot as he fished in his pocket.

  ‘If you’re a bit squeezed, Mr Vida,’ the man said, trying to poke his head in the door, ‘we might be able to let you off another quid. Daisy’s obliging that way.’

  Tony dropped coins into the woman’s outstretched hand.

  ‘Four quid! Where d’you think y’are? Four quid won’t buy you a pack of frenchies.’

  ‘Look, maybe we can do it for ten, Joel,’ the man interjected. ‘Can you swing ten little smackeroos?’

  ‘That woman, last night,’ Tony said, ‘Veronica – ’

  ‘Told you, didn’t I? She’s not available,’ the woman said.

  ‘Not definitely, definitely not available.’ The man talked with the air of someone piecing together possibilities. ‘Depends, Missus. That’s what she said. Depends. On the cut of the customer and things like that. Wouldn’t hurt to ask.’

  ‘That’s me own flesh and blood you’re talking about, Patsy Kelly.’ The woman snarled. ‘Them days are gone; she told you.’

  ‘Didn’t say she’d do it. Only tell her she’s a chance to make a few bob.’

  Tony’s raised hands forced a respite. ‘Veronica told me nine pounds for the room, that’s what I gave her. And four makes thirteen, for two days. Now go. Go away. Understand?’

  ‘Daisy’d never disappoint you, Mr Vida, I swear, she wouldn’t; does anything you ask. Great value for your hard-earned cash.’

  ‘Fuck it, listen! You want cops all over you? Not cops like me. Unfriendly cops? Then go away.’

  The woman side-eyed her partner. ‘Told you. I knew it. Y’wouldn’t listen.’

  The man’s face morphed into stillness; he gave a token wave, then he and the woman stole off down the corridor.

  21

  Gusts blowing in off the Irish Sea were now beating the southerly airstream into a vortex. After Navan and Kells the bus headed directly into the turmoil, made worse by the flatness of the terrain. The reds and russets of early autumn now swirled as debris on the passing bogs, and in the distance spears of sunlight lit up random green patches.

  Onboard, an atmosphere of guts had given way to edginess among the two dozen or so passengers, whose hands now locked to metal bars and seat-backs.

  Tony wriggled to find comfort, and if he could, sleep. It was already Monday, the insane weekend past but not over. If the bus didn’t get blown into one of the lochs, he thought, he’d be in Aranroe by 2pm. Loads of time, right on plan. First thing he’d do was grab four or five hours of sleep somewhere, then clean up and get something to eat; he’d be at the station by ten for Lenny’s bus from Dublin, just as he had promised her.

  Things would work out, he told himself. But Aidan Harper still hijacked his every thought. He knew what he had to do about that, and how he’d do it. He’d figure himself out too. And maybe come to understand what it was that had taken him to the top of Old Factory Hill, so much time in the dark, drifting, unaware. What had possessed him? All the silent words then that would not stop streaming through him, a well that wouldn’t shut off, and the bedlam in his brain that had left him out cold, a still-unremembered journey that ended in the Kellys’ seedy house. He felt exhausted now, too weary to even wonder what it all meant, if he had dreamed it all, if he’d ever know. Time for peace now within the storm, time for rest among these anxious passengers.

  Over the following hour he dozed off occasionally but only for minutes, roused each time by the swerving and jarring of the bus. Eventually, he stretched his legs across the adjacent seat and lowered his head onto his rolled-up jacket. Soon he was dreaming, falling back into old darkness, old realities. He forced himself awake, into the yak and hum of half-sleep. But soon he was losing again, slipping back beyond rescue, into the hell of his past.

  * * *

  The buzzer blared, the light flashed red, crimson red, on off, on off, gears clunking, steel shifting. Fear surged in him, turned him cold. He glared as the riveted wall slid asid
e, not knowing what to expect but certain of whom. King Kong Yablonski. Prison Shift Commander. Abuser of cons. Rapist. Whose eyes had been on him for four nights, since he’d started the library job, midnight shift. All the cells had the talk. All knew Yablonski for what he was, knew that outside he was a dead man, with real contracts on his grey missile head, that his luck and lust and viciousness had run thirty years, that if he dared leave the prison even for a day he could die a hard death, that payback was coming sooner or later. Not soon enough, Tony feared.

  Then there he was, black-uniformed, leering, in all his big flesh, tobacco-brown mouth, club thumping against his thigh.

  Tony held out both books, books he’d been ordered to deliver. Right from the start it had felt wrong. Now he knew it was, this big sick shit reading books.

  A hand gesture ordered him in.

  ‘Have to get back,’ he said, as blank as he could, offering the books again. Yablonski’s eyebrows tightened. Tony was certain now, something was going on. The voice in his brain screamed stop, don’t go through the door, not with a pervert armed and deadly, cut off by steel. But here no one said no; there was no way to say no, no rights, no recourse, no justice, no escape. After midnight, the only power that reigned was towering over him, rapacious eyes sizing its prey.

  ‘Inside!’ Yablonski commanded, the club hot-dogged in his hands. Tony remained still. Yablonski approached, blood in his cheeks. No rights, no choices here, the facts scorched Tony’s mind. No opportunity to fight, or escape. He edged forward, crossed the steel track.

  * * *

  The sound of his own outburst shot him upright in the seat, to be met by a busload of staring passengers. Then another gust set them all back to bracing, to navigating the road that was taking them to their destinies.

  He tried to slow his pounding heart, settle his shaking. Seven years had passed since that night, since King Kong Yablonski. He was twenty-one then, but it was branded to his soul in all its detail.

  Minutes later, he refolded his jacket, lay back across both seats. He’d rest, stay awake, hold Lenny in his thoughts and senses: her Opium scent, dancing hair, her smooth warmth wrapping around him, just Lenny and him, their nights together at Greyfriars and Rock Cottage, light at last in the misery he had lived, let it fill his mind.