Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series Book 2)

by Cindy Brandner

  He shook his head angrily. “Well ye’ll forgive me if I do give a damn.”

  “I understand,” she said quietly, realizing the words were a mistake the minute they crossed her lips.

  “No, I don’t think ye do understand,” Casey said, dropping the roast into the pan. Small droplets of blood sprayed across the clean countertop.

  “Then perhaps you’d trouble to explain it to me,” Pamela replied tersely.

  At this rather delicate juncture Lawrence came into the kitchen, arms full of the model aircraft he and Jamie had been painstakingly piecing together over the last several Sundays. He cast an eye at the abused roast and opened his mouth before Pamela could stop him.

  “We’re not goin’ to Jamie’s for dinner?” he asked in dismay. Pamela shook her head, eyebrows drawn down in warning. It was too late, however, for Casey threw the butcher paper in the sink and left the kitchen. A moment later they heard the back door slam.

  “I didn’t mean...” Lawrence trailed off uncomfortably, chin stuck in the notch of a miniature propeller.

  “It’s alright,” she said. “He’s just a little prickly right now. He knew our lives went along without him, but now he’s feeling out of place and uncomfortable in his own home.”

  “Are ye goin’ after him?” Lawrence asked, looking uncertainly at the space where Casey had been.

  “No, he needs some time to himself. I’ll go out and talk to him when he’s calmed down.”

  “How do ye know...” Lawrence’s question died on his lips as a huge thump was heard from outside. “Shouldn’t we go see if he’s alright?”

  Pamela shook her head. “No, he’ll not do himself any damage, but I wouldn’t lay odds on the survival of the shed.”

  She gave him a half-hour before donning her shoes and coat and walking out into the wet, brown yard. The air was chill with mist, clinging in droplets to the sodden foliage. She walked slowly, half-dreading what she would find. The shed was quiet, the walls however, were still intact.

  She found him inside, standing by the bench, back to her. The door he’d been mending when he was lifted was still lying where he’d left it, six months previous. It was battered beyond recognition at present, though. Casey still held the hammer in his hand, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The knuckles of both hands were bloody and swollen.

  “T’was either this or that damned dresser. I thought ye’d mind the loss of the door less.”

  She crossed the small space of the shed, not daring to touch him just yet. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  Casey snorted derisively. “Talk about it—what is there to say? I’m gone a few months an’ the man has taken over every corner of my life. He’s finished the roof on the house, the lad’s crazy for him, Finbar’s pinin’ over him, and he’s raised the damn sheep. Would it have been too much for him to leave me a wee sheep for myself?”

  Pamela gave an involuntary laugh and Casey whirled, flashing a look of frustrated anger at her. Then he bit his lip and a small laugh escaped. Then another and soon they were both helpless with it. They laughed until tears ran down their faces, the laughter itself taking on a slightly hysterical quality.

  Pamela finally sat, weak, sides aching. Casey was still bent over the worktable, back shaking, though silent now. It took a moment before she realized it wasn’t laughter that caused him to tremor in such a manner.

  She stood and put her hand to his back, smoothing the heavy wool of his sweater under her palm. “Casey?” she said tentatively.

  He nodded tersely, and she waited, hand still running the length of his spine in a rhythmic manner, trying to impart through her touch, balm for the pain he was feeling. She left his name hanging in the air, knowing better than to try to push him into talking before he was ready. It took several long moments before she felt the tension in his body begin to ease. Then he spoke, voice hoarse and low.

  “I’m grateful that he looked after all of yez, an’ then I’m angry to have to be grateful to the man. He took care of all the things I’m supposed to look after, an’ he did it smooth as silk.”

  “Smooth as silk?” It was Pamela’s turn to snort. “We were a mess after you were lifted. Lawrence was out at night trying to knock off soldiers.”

  That stopped Casey cold. “Tryin’ to knock off soldiers?”

  She nodded and told him briefly of Lawrence’s contretemps with the security forces, which had included stone throwing, and a Molotov cocktail or two. She carefully omitted Jamie’s role in extricating the boy from a premature death at the hands of an irate security unit and an even more intolerant police force.

  “Christ,” he breathed out as she finished her tale, “I’d no notion. Ye never said a word in any of yer letters either, woman,” he finished accusingly.

  She shrugged. “There seemed little point in worrying you about things you couldn’t do anything about. We managed.”

  “Aye,” he said dryly, “with Jamie’s help.”

  “And Robin, occasionally,” she said, knowing it had to come out at some point.

  He tilted his head, eyes narrowed. “Robin?”

  “Yes, he kept an eye out for us. He dropped by from time to time, to make sure we were alright.”

  “Can’t say that comforts me.”

  “The man’s your best friend. I think he felt duty bound to keep an eye out for us.”

  “The man was my best friend, there’s a lot of years between the boy I knew an’ the man he is now. Most parts of him will be a stranger to me. Besides it wasn’t him that I asked to look after yez, it was Jamie.”

  “But it’s Jamie you’re angry about.”

  “Aye, well much as it pains me to admit it, I trust the man with my life. Though it’d be comforting if he couldn’t handle every damn thing that comes his way with such skill. Here he was juggling about twenty different balls at once, an’ I was like a monkey in a cage, impotent to do a damn thing, not a man at all.”

  “What do you mean ‘not a man’? You’re as much a man as any male walking the planet.”

  He shook his head, some of the frustration leaking back into his face. “It makes ye feel helpless to live in such a way. That they could take me from my bed, an’ not have to charge me, not have to have anything other than a vague suspicion to lock me behind bars and keep me there like some damn dumb animal without rights.”

  “I was angry too. There wasn’t a thing I could do to stop them. And no legal way of getting you out either. I just kept slamming into brick walls and then when I came to see you and you sent me away...” she trailed off, throat thick with tears.

  He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her gently. His body still shook with the residue of fury and hurt. “I’m sorry for that,” he murmured into her hair. “It was my pride that was at fault, I couldn’t stand for ye to see me that way, behind bars, powerless. I felt that I wasna’ a proper husband to ye, an’ then when ye lost the baby an’ I wasn’t there to comfort ye...” he took a deep breath, voice husky with emotion.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Aye, the logical part of me knows that, but the male side of me doesn’t. I’d never been so helpless before ye, an’ I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t want to think what the screws might have been doin’ to ye, an’ you not sayin’ a word, for a minute or two of time with me. It’s—” He faltered, a tremor rippling down the line of his throat. “It’s like they’ve castrated ye in a sense. They’ve all the power an’ ye’ve none, no matter how much rage ye might feel at it all.”

  She merely nodded, knowing that protesting wasn’t going to change what had been done to his sense of himself, his life and his pride, when he’d been torn from Liam’s house that August morning.

  They stood that way for a time, the fragile shelter of the shed seeming the extent of the world for those few moments.

  “I’m glad you’re home,” she said finally, “and so is Lawrence.”

  “I know,” he replied, “’tis just my pride’s taken a
few blows this week, an’ I’m feelin’ like the proverbial square peg, tryin’ to wriggle itself into endless round holes.”

  “It’s going to take time for all of us,” she said, feeling some of her own tension ease now that Casey had blown off the worst of his.

  “Aye, I know Jewel. ‘Tis just hard on a man to realize that life goes on rather tidily without him, an’ the hell of it is that I worried about ye all, an’ hoped ye were managin’ without me, then when ye go an’ do just that, it hurts me to see it.”

  She nodded, moving away and straightening his sweater, removing a wood splinter that had fixed in its weave. “We manage without you, man, but we don’t really live.”

  He brushed the back of one bruised hand across her cheek, dark eyes as present as she’d seen them since the morning he’d been lifted. “Thank ye for that, Jewel.”

  “It’s only the truth.”

  He gave her a shaky smile, then looked ruefully at the battered door.

  “I suppose I’ll have to build ye a new one now.”

  “I suppose you will,” she said, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

  “Aye well, first things first,” he replied and walked to the doorway of the small shed.

  “And what’s first?”

  He turned and smiled. “What do ye think? I’m goin’ to go help the lad build an airplane.”

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Beyond Borders

  IT WAS WITH NO LITTLE TREPIDATION that David approached the headquarters of the West Belfast Housing Association. He felt more than a bit ridiculous in the dark wool cap and sunglasses, which were rendered even more absurd by the rain sheeting down like the clouds were attempting to piss themselves out for good and all. However, if it came to a choice between looking like an ass, or being called out on the mat once again by his superiors in London over his ‘reckless’ association with a known Fenian, David, all things being equal, would take looking like an ass.

  There was a soldier strolling the street, eyes narrowed against the streaming rain. One would think Pat really was a notorious rabble-rouser, given the amount of attention the British Army seemed intent upon giving him and his organization.

  David waited until the man turned his back to the rain, hunching his shoulders to provide shelter to the cigarette he was lighting. Then David sidled up to the door and tapped on it lightly.

  It opened a minute later and a very annoyed looking man glared out at him.

  “Hi,” David said, feeling suddenly in possession of ten thumbs, two left feet and a Union Jack stamped upon his forehead.

  Pat merely continued to glare. He looked thin and tired, but in entirely much better condition than he had been when he’d left the prison.

  “Can I come in?”

  Pat made a rather sarcastic hand gesture. David decided he would ignore it in the interests of avoiding the soldier, who was likely to turn about any minute now.

  He stepped in over the threshold and drew in a shocked breath. “Christ, what happened here?”

  “Yer workmates decided to give the place a renovation free of charge. Thoughtful of them, no?”

  The small two-roomed office looked as though it had been hit by a hurricane. Books, ledgers, and papers were strewn about. The shelving Pat and his brother had built was smashed and torn away from the walls.

  Pat turned his back on him and continued with his work, which was patching a hole in the wall that someone had punched through. David joined him, picking up books that had been torn from their bindings and stacking them on the edge of the big oak desk that he knew had been a present from Jamie Kirkpatrick when Pat had opened the Housing Association. A long ugly scar marred the surface of it. He sighed. There were times this ugly little war was more than he could bear.

  “So,” Pat’s tone was deceptively amiable, “what brings ye down here to slum with the Irish?”

  “I just came by to see if you were alive and well,” David said, blowing tiny fragments of broken glass off of a copy of Michael Collins’ The Path to Freedom.

  “Alive, yes,” Pat stood and faced him, face cold with fury. “Well? What the fuck do ye think, David?”

  “Fair enough,” David replied. “I just wanted to be certain you weren’t one of the bodies lying in the morgue.”

  Pat laughed, a harsh sound that sent skitters of glass down David’s spine. “Well it wasn’t that yer fine laddies didn’t give it their all, I only missed bein’ one of them by sheer grace of God. Disappointed?”

  “I think you know better than that,” David said somewhat stiffly.

  “I think I know pretty much fuck all about ye, David. That’s what I think.”

  “I thought we were friends.” The hurt in his voice was unmistakable.

  “I was wrong—I made a mistake, but I’m clear now. No Englishman, particularly one whose entire existence is riddled with secrets, can be a friend of mine.”

  “Well,” David said, voice near to inaudible, “I’m more sorry than I can say to hear that.”

  “Not nearly as sorry as I am,” Pat said acidly. “I trusted ye, that makes me a right fool, doesn’t it?”

  David shook his head, feeling suddenly very weary. “No, Pat trusting someone doesn’t make you a fool. Thinking that somehow in this mess I could be a friend to you,” he shrugged, “well I’m afraid that I’m the real fool here.”

  “Did you know?”

  “Know what?” David asked, though it was more of a reflex, for he knew what Pat meant by his question.

  “Know that they brought the Paras in to kill us?”

  The dark eyes bored into his own, and David was glad that he did not have to lie to the man; he didn’t think he was up for subterfuge today, not here leastwise.

  “No, I didn’t. How can you think I would sit on that kind of knowledge?”

  “Well someone did, didn’t they? I mean—” Pat suddenly raised his fist and brought it down hard on the counter next to him. “What the fuck is it David?! Do we remind you of a part of yourselves that you despise? The part that isn’t orderly or predestined for greatness. Do we remind you of the one place where you’ve failed again and again?”

  “Perhaps it’s only that you’ve something in you that we don’t. Maybe we resent you for that.”

  “Aye,” Pat snorted, “such as what? Humanity?”

  “I hardly think people who bomb their own to pieces have a corner on the humanity market.”

  “Get out.” Pat’s voice was flat, but David had seen him so before and knew the man was furious, and likely to strike at the least provocation. David stood, hat in hand both literally and figuratively, wondering if Pat would just finish him off this time altogether. He certainly looked entirely capable of doing so, eyes black with fury and his breath coming in uneven puffs, like a dragon about to shoot fire from his nostrils.

  “Is there a reason yer still standin’ there? I told ye to leave. Are ye deaf?”

  “It’s not that,” David said, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly. “It’s only that I can’t afford to be seen leaving just yet.”

  Pat raised an eyebrow, the corner of his own mouth quivering suspiciously. “I’d ask why, but I’ve a feelin’ I’m safer in my ignorance.” He shook his head and heaved a sigh of capitulation. “Well I’ll not have ye thinkin’ the Irish have no manners. Would ye like some tea?”

  David smiled, ever the polite and charming Englishman. “I’d love some, just don’t slip any arsenic in it.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” Pat said, filling the kettle from the groaning pipes. “Who is it out there today? The wee redhead or that dark one with the nasty skin?”

  “The dark one with the nasty skin. He was off having a fag, so I slipped in when he wasn’t looking, but now,” David flicked the curtain back into place, “he’s on guard and doesn’t look to be leaving any time soon.”

  Pat merely gave him a narrow glance, but didn’t comment further.

  David continued to clean up as Pat prepared the tea
and dug in a cupboard for a packet of biscuits that had escaped the general destruction of the rest of the rooms. A picture of Sylvie, looking positively sprite-like in a yellow cardigan, sat on the desk. The broken glass had been painstakingly removed, though the picture was cut up rather badly anyway. He had to admit they complimented one another, she so small and fair, Pat big and dark, though not as formidable as his brother—a man whom David held in certain regard, mostly composed of fear. Casey’s file had crossed his desk in regards to Patrick, during his time in the jail.

  “I suppose I owe ye thanks yet again,” Pat said gruffly, when they sat. He stirred his tea with more force than was strictly necessary.

  David looked up in surprise. “For what?”

  “I know ye had a hand in gettin’ me released.”

  David looked down at his teacup, running a finger along the chipped rim. “Not officially I didn’t. You’re rather lucky to have a friend such as James Kirkpatrick. He’s a little daunting when it comes to getting what he wants.”

  “Aye, he’s that.” Pat’s glance flicked away for a moment and he seemed quite absorbed by the green swirls that decorated the cheap table where they sat. “It seems a great risk for ye to take. I don’t imagine yer bosses would be too pleased to know ye helped to free such a dangerous criminal as myself.” This last was said with a certain amount of acid.

  “It was worth the risk.”

  “Why?” Pat was looking at him directly now, and David felt the strange slippage in his stomach that he always did when the man looked him in the eye. He swallowed hard; it felt as though something large and sharp was lodged in his throat.

  Pat was right about the risk, though even he did not fully appreciate the hazards David had chanced in pulling strings to get him released. Secrecy was a normal, if not natural, part of his life. But there were times, like now, that David wished he could confide it all in someone else. Perhaps though, he thought, squaring his shoulders, there were things one could be honest about.

  “Because what I feel for you doesn’t have a border, nor a flag. It doesn’t seem to much care what the conditions or politics of this country or any other are. No,” he put a hand up to halt the protest he saw forming on Pat’s lips. “I’m not asking you for anything, I don’t have expectations. I just needed to tell you—when I thought it might be you dead I regretted that I’d never had a chance to tell you how I feel. Even if all you felt was disgust in return, still I needed to have it said.”