Winterwood

by Patrick McCabe

  That was all I kept thinking as I drove - if only I hadn't met Piper Alpha the fool. If only I hadn't been unfortunate enough to meet him in Deep Pan Pizza. If only that hadn't happened, I kept repeating, as we carried onwards to our winterwood home.

  Late Nineties

  Five: Redmond Place

  THE EVENTS OF THAT summer, tense as they were, if not terrifying, even, they all seem so distant now. Part of the faded fabric of history, I suppose, and generally I tend not to think too much about them. A summer long past, yet another skin shed. Such were my feelings throughout the latter part of the prosperous nineties. Bill Clinton was still in the White House, and the North of Ireland had settled into a relative calm. It looked like we were entering into a whole new phase of optimism. I certainly was. Things had turned out spectacularly well. An extramural course I attended in DCU — my first real public outing as Dominic Tiernan, secured with the aid of impeccably forged references from the now defunct North London Chronicle amongst others - provided me with a very promising opportunity: a possible placing with a newspaper. A Dublin weekly which would soon be established, I was informed.

  To make a long story short, I was successful in my application. Obviously I had to be careful and more than a little economical with the truth. I was extremely nervous, I might as well be honest. But what with my leather jacket, long hair and ponytail, which I had dyed, I looked nothing now like the old Redmond Hatch, more like Willie Nelson, perhaps, or a New Age hippy-style executive. And, gradually, any worries I had in that respect began to recede.

  Anyway, as I say, I secured the position, at a generous salary commensurate with the prosperous times, which was wonderful. They even treated me to a meal to celebrate, as a result of which I found myself totally unprepared for what was about to happen later that evening, in the new apartment which I'd just moved into, in Herbert Park on the south side of Dublin. The moment I turned the key in the door I felt something was amiss - then I saw them: just a few random pieces of silver tinfoil lying there. Then - in literally a matter of seconds after I'd registered them — the depressingly familiar, unpleasant, sodden dampness. It seemed to fill the entire space. Then it came - I stiffened from head to toe. The voice was low but clear and audible.

  —Olson gave her The Heart's Enchantment. Did the Maltese cunt give your whore any books?

  It was coming from the direction of the potted plants beneath the window.

  It hurt me so much, hearing Catherine Courtney described like that. It made me resentful and angry and bitter. And now, more than ever, I wanted him to know. The time had come for me to act at last. I had been cowed and compliant for far too long. Now, finally, it would have to be made clear to Ned Strange that these insane provocations could no longer be indulged. I clenched my fists and steeled myself to confront him. I could just make out his shadow behind the potted plants. His name rose to my lips but then I heard him pleading helplessly, up to his old schemes and manipulative tricks:

  —You don't really believe that I would hurt a little boy, do you, Redmond?

  I snapped - I couldn't help it.

  —But you did, I cried. That is exactly what you did!

  Suddenly I smelt the most extraordinary aroma of roses. And looked up to see a businesswoman in a smart two-piece suit staring at me, spraying some perfume on to her wrist as she tucked her briefcase under her arm.

  —I think the weather is about to improve, she said, coughing politely as she pressed the security button.

  Troubling as that incident admittedly was, in retrospect I'm glad it happened. Because it pulled me up short, made me realise I would have to take myself in hand. And stop prevaricating where Ned Strange was concerned. If I didn't I would only have myself to blame.

  And I did, I'm glad to be able to say.

  Because the simple facts were, and I could see them clearly now, that any sympathy for the likes of Strange were always going to be a complete waste of time. All along I'd been deceiving myself, appealing like a fool to a good-natured side that simply didn't exist. The facts were there. There was only one way they could be interpreted. And the more I examined those, with the aid of my assembled cuttings and newspaper reports, the more I experienced a sense of gratification, as I sat there one evening in the corner of a dimly lit pub in Ballsbridge.

  And not only that, but gratitude too. Gratitude that justice in the case had indeed been done. That Ned Strange had indeed met the end he deserved. A shudder of schadenfreude went rippling through me and it had the most uplifting effect. I was delighted, actually, the more I went through the facts, spreading the reports on the table as I sat there. Overjoyed that he'd been tried, found guilty and sentenced to life. But that wasn't all I was pleased about — I had no problem at all admitting I was glad he'd done himself in, the least punishment he could expect to face after the heinous crimes the old fucker had committed. Which were an affront to humanity, nothing more and nothing less. May hell roast him, I found myself thinking, as I ordered another drink. Something which I think I'd have been afraid to do before. But not now. No fucking way — not now.

  —You'll never be free, Strange, I spat bitterly as I downed my double whiskey, you'll be lying there in that lonely cold grave till the mountains crumble and the pines rot away. Till your so-called snow whitens your lonesome high hills! You hear that, Ned? That's how long you'll be in there waiting - and, boy, do you deserve it, my friend! Nobody deserves it more than Ned Strange!

  I'd read that his coffin had been returned to Slievenageeha, to be buried in the cemetery near his home, the old familiar tumbledown cabin where he'd toyed with me, amusing himself for want of something better to do. But not any longer. Not any longer, Mr Ned Strange. Ha ha, I had to laugh. When I thought of how timid I had been in the past, afraid to contradict him, hopelessly, meekly, looking away. Ned fucking Strange, I thought.

  What on earth could I possibly have been afraid of?

  I sipped the alcohol as relief swept through me. Not surprisingly, I suppose, because after all, I now could accept, it was plainly evident that in his case justice had, in the end, been done. Justice which consisted of banishment to the outlands for all of eternity. No amount of trickery would ever succeed in getting him out of that. No amount of wiles or cleverly diverting 'yarns'.

  The simple fact was, now, whenever the name of Ned Strange came up — whenever you thought of that shoulder-rolling figure in his old plaid shirt and battered corduroy britches, whenever you thought of that old-time mountain man - there was only one word which would rise to your lips. And it wouldn't be 'Ned of the Hill' or 'good old Ned' either. No. There was only one name he would go by now:

  Ned Strange, the conniving, black-hearted paedophile.

  All the same, there can be no denying that human beings tend to be unpredictable. For, shaken as I was after all my deliberations, it was hard not to be just the smallest bit moved by what I happened to come across in Palmerston Park on my way back from lunch the following afternoon. Reminding me as it did of me and Ned on one of our more amenable days on the mountain, long before the appalling truth had emerged. I couldn't believe it when I saw it lying there, with its two legs stiff on a small bed of leaves. It was inevitable, I suppose, that it would remind me of him, of that special afternoon when he had erupted into a truly lyrical rendition of a song. It was winter and it was the snow which had prompted it — it being, as I recall, the first fall of the year. He'd gripped me by the arm and gasped excitedly:

  —I want to sing you this little ditty, Redmond. It's a tune by Hank Williams. It's all about a little birdie that dies.

  He'd sung it quite magnificently - let there be no doubt about that. Cradling the fiddle upon his shoulder and stroking the strings with the bow with such gentleness that the notes fell like the clearest drops of water, and he slipped off into a dream world, swaying from side to side, as the instrument, in a deep rushing undertone, mimicked the wind.

  —'Did you ever see a robin weep, / When leaves began to die?'


  In the light of such poignant memories, it was quite a precious moment, coming quite by chance upon it, that poor little robin. And, as I stood there looking at it, it really would have been difficult not to interpret it as a sign of some kind. A firm indication that our story was finally over - the story, I mean, of Edmund Strange and Redmond Hatch. He was in his grave now, in his Slievenageeha mountain home, and that was where he was going to stay. Being left with no choice but to accept now, finally, the grim sentence which had been pronounced upon him — total unrest for all eternity. Interred alone in the barren outland fields. Where even the thought of a rose growing was laughable.

  Somehow, as I stroked the robin's little domed head, I had this feeling that — this time for certain — Ned had, however reluctantly, accepted the situation and given in. At long last, capitulated. Accepted, after all this time, that his sentence - regardless of the behaviour of journalists, or anyone else for that matter — hadn't been in any way unjustified. That what he'd received he'd amply deserved. As though he were, at long last, confessing:

  —His pathetic little cries! I had no right to harm Michael!

  That, thankfully, was the tune he was playing now. You could sort of feel it permeating the placid air. I said a prayer in thanks to the poor little robin. Just like Imogen and I had done that day.

  Because me and my Immy, we'd found one too.

  Catherine had only just started working in Victoria Wine at the time, a mere stone's throw from Queen's Park station. I'm not pretending it was much of a job - to tell the truth they paid an absolute pittance. But it made us as proud as if she'd been crowned the Queen of England. I'll never forget the size of Imogen's small hand. There were leaves blowing around, lovely autumn leaves, just like there'd been in Palmerston Park. As though it were a premonition - as if somehow, instinctively, I could feel they were about to leave me - every so often I'd squeeze her hand tightly.

  —Ow! she'd say. That hurt! and she'd lift her hand and gaze at it, affronted. Her little reddened fleshy hand.

  —We're rich, I remember her saying, now Mummy's working.

  Our cries of laughter pealed simultaneously. There was a great spreading beech in the middle of the park and it was just by the litter bin then that I saw it - a little robin redbreast, stiff as a board. With both its legs sticking up in the air. Imogen cried when I lifted it and stroked it. Out of nowhere a tear sprang to her eye.

  —How did it die, Daddy? she said, but I couldn't speak. I just shook my head.

  We buried it that evening in our garden. When the landlord heard what we had done he called to the door and demanded we dig it up. Apparently in our zealousness we had gone and disturbed some tenant's flowers. He said there were rules about that sort of thing. You might have expected us to have been hurt and angry - to have remonstrated, perhaps, and caused an unpleasant scene. But we didn't. We didn't even tell him we had buried a little robin. We were much too preoccupied for that. Preoccupied with our own happiness and well-being as a family. And we didn't share our private secrets. No one in winterwood ever did. So instead we just disinterred him and buried him the next day beside a tree in Queen's Park.

  —I hope the mini-beasts don't get him, Dad, I remember her saying.

  —They won't, I promised her.

  We made him a cross, just the humblest little cross, fashioned from rushes. I went over to Hackney marsh specially to get them. As a child I had seen my mother make one. There was a bitter wind blowing as we stood there that day with the autumn leaves all whirling around.

  One on which - in happier times - you might have heard the voice of Ned Strange, before things had gone so dreadfully wrong. Singing his heart out, with the children all around him, some of them with their lower lips trembling pitifully as he told the story to all his 'little ceilidh partners', all about a little robin who had died alone.

  Died alone, one day in the snow.

  I remember him reading me a passage once, a piece from one of his tattered old westerns, pouring a mug of clear as we sat there by the fire, reading each sentence with an infinite, practised patience. The fire spread its enormous shadows on the ceiling, as he sipped from his jar and drew heavily on his stogie. Far off in the valley, a stray dog bark went sailing, dying somewhere miles beyond the mountain. There was a sepia photo of his father on the mantelpiece, standing in a field, wielding a scythe in an old plaid shirt. It made me unsettled - bearing, as it did, an uncanny resemblance to my own red-haired father. When I remarked on it to Ned, he just laughed and said:

  —You're from the mountain, Redmond. What do you expect? And I'll tell you something else - deep down, you know, you're flawed the very same as me. What do you say, Red? Think you're like me — a liar and a deceiver? Are you a bit crafty, do you think? Leave out the bits that'll implicate and incriminate you?

  —Shut up! I retorted sharply. I don't want to hear!

  He laughed and then pretended it had all meant nothing.

  —We're ordinary simple country folk, ain't we, Red? Mongrels, indeed! That's what they call us. Inbreds. Watchful and suspicious. Every one of them being married, they'll tell you, so much that they all end up being their own grandmothers.

  His eyes flickered wilily.

  —Grandmother. I'm not my own grandmother. We're not mongrels, are we, Redmond? Take you now. You're a sophisticated city boy. What with you working on a big paper and all.

  He cracked his knuckles, before glaring at me as he spat. There could be no mistaking his antipathy now.

  —Oh, yes, you're so fucking sophisticated — just like Olson! He was sophisticated too, the fucking snake!

  I didn't want to hear any more of it. I wanted to go. Back to the city and my beloved Catherine Courtney. I was beginning to wonder now would I ever bother coming back near Slievenageeha? His taunts had begun irritating me most profoundly now, and my initial idea of compiling his 'mountain memories' into a book or biography of some sort had gradually, steadily, begun to lose its appeal. Sometimes he'd just sit there and say nothing at all, staring into the fire, lost in its deep vaults and chasms and winding galleries, dreaming of a girl in a simple blue dress. A simple blue dress with a matching hair clasp. Who'd planted a flower to symbolise their love.

  —Don't talk to me of enchanted days. I want to hear nothing of enchantment of the heart, he'd grind bitterly through tobacco-stained teeth.

  Once he asked me did I believe in God.

  —Are you a believer, Redmond? he quizzed. You can tell me.

  I nodded. Then he started the old talk about hell. What I thought about it. What it might be like. Before leaning back on his chair and glaring, his knuckles paling as he gripped the handle of a mug:

  —Three blasts of an archangelic trumpet before your soul's cast into the pit? That how you think of it, Redmond? A great clock ticking: 'Ever, never: ever, never.' Eh? Or could it, maybe, be something even worse? The divil himself lying by your side, shielding you, as the song says, from wind and weather? Could it, maybe, be like that, do you think? For ever!

  I told him that I had to go, that Catherine would be expecting me.

  —Catherine, he muttered, with deep, biting sarcasm. It won't last. Women, they change, and God help you when they do. Everything they loved about you, why it turns around now and makes them sick. The only one who really loves you for always is your mother. And she's a goddess. She's an angel. She's the only one who will never let you down. Except your daddy had to go and kill yours, didn't he? Beat her crooked like you might a helpless donkey. Give her a haemorrhage so as you have to make up stories. Make up stories about her dying in the chapel. Dying in the chapel and singing the stupidest childish songs.

  I didn't answer him. I said nothing, just sat there smarting bitterly, bent double beneath the shadows. I stood up sharply. He pushed me back down.

  —Stay awhile more I told you!

  I joined him sullenly for one last drink.

  He drew on the stogie and arched his right eyebrow.

  �
��So then, Redmond - the two of us. You and me. Are we related, do you think?

  I turned away, dismissively, from him.

  —No way, I told him, we certainly are not.

  He looked at me again and said:

  —You sure about that?

  —Of course I'm sure.

  —You don't sound sure.

  —I told you I'm sure!

  —Red?

  —What?

  —We're all related! Every sonofabitch as was ever spawned on the slopes of this mountain! Don't you see that? Well, don't you, Red?

  —I'm sorry, I said, I really must go.

  —Red, you're not listening to me!

  —I'm sorry. Like I said, I have to leave.

  —Stay where you are, I said, Red! I mean Nedl

  He took me by the shoulders and forced me, uncompromisingly, back into the chair. Then he stood there, smiling, rubbing his fist in a playful fashion. But there could be no mistaking the menace in his eyes. He towered above me, looking down without flinching.

  —All I want you to tell me is - if you and me's not related - then how is your name Hatch?

  —It's just my name. It just happens to be Hatch.

  —It just happens to be! It just happens to be! Did you ever happen, as you say, did you ever happen to look up what it actually means? What 'hatch' happens to mean in the Irish language? You're not familiar with the Irish word ait? You do know how to pronounce that word, don't you, Redmond?

  I did as a matter of fact. And was triumphant, at last, to be in a position to trump him.

  —Yes, I replied cockily, it's pronounced 'atch'. It actually means 'place'.

  He stood there and waited, stroking his chin as he pondered, biding his time with enviable control. Then slowly his grin began to widen, stretching right across his face.

  —Sure it does, he said. It means that all right. But it also means something else, you see.