by Paul Lynch
Coyle emptied the mugs and got up and went outside and found another tavern. He stood at the crowded counter casual among inebriates and he watched them drinking and he took his chances, a glass untended on a table and he curled his palm around it and when he turned around he knew he was exposed. Above the din rose a voice indignant and then a man quick-standing but Coyle was already gone.
He flitted the shadows that rested their backs upon the doorways and he skulked beneath the gaze of women who solicited him, come here to me you they said, their cheeks a brazen red and their bodies lolling in come-hither affection. Men tumbled from taverns and he sought refuge away from them cramped and bone-weary in a doorway blanketed dark, the smell of piss in the air hung with the voices clattering from the Cowbog, song or shouting they were up to it was hard to tell for singer and shouter approached all the same, and he listened to them barrack their way up the street and watched them kick past him and when a young couple came by and slipped giggling and groping in beside him, they did not see him get up and walk sullen to anyplace else, tired and terribly alone and the streets quietening down around him.
HE FOLLOWED THE MAN. Watched him hang first on the jambs of a tavern door circling the cobbles with his feet. And then the man humped himself heavy into the night dragging an old suitcase behind him. Well-dressed so he was and his face was curlicued with two gray whiskers that rose up near to meet his eyes. He pushed up the street as if heaving weight invisible before him. Coyle heard him wheeze and giggle and listened to the slow plod of his feet.
Gas lamps licked long shadows on the street. The man staggered and stalled and Coyle stepped back to wait against a wall, watched the man fumbling for something in his pocket and saw it was a handkerchief. The man put it to his nose and horned it twice and he leaned forward and began to walk and drag his belongings. He launched loudly into song but the words fell dead from the air as if he could not support them on his own, needed the accompaniment but found none, and he halted again for breath and leaned a hand against a wall. Like this they traveled on the barren street, stopping and starting and Coyle waiting each time behind him, following now behind him in the middle of the street until he became more certain of the idea within himself.
A lane leaned off right and the man turned to take it and he stopped again and dropped his case and stood legs apart, a pool of piss beginning to form at his feet, the urine forking then weaving into a confluence as it trickled down the hill to where Coyle was running upwards towards him now, coming at him sideways with a shoulder that toppled the man off his feet. The man hit the ground heavy on his side and a rasp of air left his lungs and Coyle rolled him over. No word of protest from the man but a low groan, the fetor of booze and sour sweat, and Coyle could not look the man in the face. He reached into the pockets and found a wallet and he took the notes inside and poured out the coins and he paused and put a single note back in the wallet and put it back into the coat and he looked around and then he stood and stole down the street.
He turned a corner, no idea where he was going but to find someplace to sleep. He heard the echo of footsteps behind him and onwards he walked, heard the steps continue behind him and he stopped to wait by a door. The steps died off and he started out again and then he heard them continue. He put his hand into his jacket and tightened a hand around the small bundle of notes and then he stopped and stood in front of the closed front of a shop and he waited. The shape of a boy appeared on the street. Eyes like a cornered rat. Coyle looked at him as he went past and the boy then stopped and turned and stood peering. Coyle looked back at him.
I seen what you done, the boy said.
Coyle pulled his hands out of his pocket.
You didn’t see nothing. Get to fuck.
I did. That man on the ground.
I done nothing so I did.
Aye you did and I seen it.
Coyle watched the boy and let his words hang in the air and then he coughed into his arm.
Get away before you make yourself some trouble. I’ve a pain in me chest and a pain in me head. I’m not in the mood for your shite.
The boy rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and then he took a step closer, his rat eyes peering.
Gimme some.
I’ll give you a lug and that’ll be the height of it.
I’ll tell so I will.
Coyle laughed. Who are you going to tell at this hour of the night?
There’s people so there is.
Listen wee fella. I donny want to hurt you so I don’t.
The boy was silent and Coyle stepped out of the doorway and the boy took a step back. Coyle walked past him and proceeded up the street. He wandered aimless with nothing now in his mind but sleep, and then he heard the boy was still following and he turned slowly and sighed. Hungry as I am. He waited for him and looked the kid in the face, saw the hard stare of hunger, and he dipped a hand in his pocket and took hold of a coin and threw it back down the street.
Go on, he said.
THE SNUFFLE OF A HORSE and the air kissed him cold and he tried to rub his body, stretched out his legs but found he could hardly move, his limbs dead to the world, and when he opened his eyes it seemed to be early morning, and he saw Jim beside him on a bale, his body robed in shadow but for the fierce gaze of his eyes and Coyle looked at him and he went to speak but he could not find the words and he fought against himself and when he found the power the words were strange in his mouth, sounded like the strangled words of some animal strange to him and they were not what he wanted to say and Jim looked at him sadly and lowered his head and when he spoke Coyle could not hear the words for they were not the words of his brother at all and by then they sounded far away.
The splash of water slapping onto hard ground and then he awoke. The shed lit by morning sun, web-weave on the ceiling and a horse standing placid. The barn doors were opened wide to the morning and he saw the world was still clad with fog. The air alive with the din and dance of the city in this new day and his chest tickled and he started to cough into his sleeve.
He heard steps outside and he tried to stop his coughing and then a figure appeared out of the mist. The nebulous form of a short man took solidity before him, a bucket in each hand, and the man put them down on the ground when he saw Coyle. Would you looky here, he said.
Coyle looked at him and the man scratched his head. Come here Martin and look at that. The man pointed. Another man loomed into shape and put down his pails and peered inside and the two men stood looking at the man covered in straw. Coyle stood up. Sorry to bother ye, he said. I didn’t mean any harm so I didn’t.
The man slung his thumb backwards into the air and then shook his head and smiled. Go on, get.
MACKEN WAS SITTING on his own spooning porridge downstairs in the tavern when Gillen shoved his bowl alongside him. Morning, he said. Macken grunted. Gillen pointed his finger towards the ceiling and lowered his voice to a whisper. How do you figure Faller knows where to find him?
Macken spooned more porridge then picked up a cup and slugged down the remainder of the tea. He just does.
Gillen watched him. I mean, there’s loads a places any man running could go to.
Macken licked the spoon then shoved the bowl away from him and stood up. He put on his jacket without looking at the other man and spoke then as he was leaving the table. There’s two ways he can run, he said. He can get out of here by catching a sailing or he can leave the city by going south through Bishop’s Gate where I’ll be waiting for him. Any man serious about getting away wouldn’t bother to do anything else.
He began walking towards the door when Gillen called out after him. Hey, he said.
Macken stopped and half turned. What?
I know what happened to your eye.
Go an fuck off.
I heard the rumors about what you were doing with that man.
Gillen laughed and shimmied his hips mockingly at him and Macken snapped his body around stunned and pulled a knife. I’m sick of your
shite, he said. He went towards the youngster and Gillen ran around the other side of the table and made a leap for the stairs.
FALLER’S WEAPON SAT fat on the table like some ornate beast that had winged down obscure, the flesh of both barrels burnished bright and detailed with exotic flourishes while the wood stock was a consortium of animal carvings, eyes and tails and mouths engorging each other so that it looked like some pageant of evil was unfolding. The end of the grip led to a beast’s head, some kind of creature mythic with fangs poised as if to devour the hand of the shooter.
Gillen sat in the room above the tavern watching him take apart the gun. The room was sparsely furnished but for two beds, a bunk and a single, that took up the other wall. He had seen Faller unholster it and leaned forward to look, a flintlock pistol double-barreled, and he looked at his own gun meager on the bed, a flintlock with a single bore made of plain wood and steel, inferior on all counts not just in style but in substance too. He looked at the double barrels and followed the line to the weapon’s firing mechanism, the frizzen curling upwards like the ear of some kind of thing demented, and his gaze trailed till he was looking at the holder of the gun, noticed Faller’s deep breathing, a man in concentration or contemplation perhaps, for who was to know whatever it was that man was ever thinking, and then every short while he would lift his head up to look out the greasy window.
Gillen stood up and peered out the window too.
We’re for the quays are we? he said.
Faller continued to take apart his gun as if the man beside him never spoke. He unscrewed the plate and removed the frizzen and placed it on the table and he took a cleaning jig and swabbed gently the throat of the gun, working it up and down to remove any powdered residue. He took a brush in his hand and cleaned the weapon’s vent hole and wiped the frizzen and he took a can and oiled all the parts. Gillen listened to the man’s breathing and the tock of a clock in the hall and he cleared his throat.
What’s it like? he said. He wrung his hands and put them back on his lap. To shoot, I mean.
The question hung in the air unanswered and Faller tilted his head to the window and began assembling the gun. Each part was handled with care and attention, the parts lifted orderly from the table and smoothed with long fingers. When the gun was assembled Faller raised the weapon and half-cocked each chamber and he turned around and pointed the business end of the handgun towards Gillen’s face. The young man stared at the weapon’s snorting cavities.
You haven’t killed a man have you? said Faller. He placed the gun back down on the table.
Gillen slumped back in the chair. I seen it done.
You’ve seen it done?
Faller removed a bag from a pouch hanging on a chair and put it on the table beside the gun. You’re not the kind for it though.
I am so.
You’re the kind that panics.
Faller looked at him and his moustache rose up to meet his nose as he smiled. He took from the bag a parcel containing a cartridge box and put it on the table. To be the last thing a man sees before he dies, Faller said. Nothing will make you feel more alive.
How do you mean?
Faller lifted the gun and nosed the barrel towards the ceiling. He bit into a cartridge and poured some powder into the pan and closed the frizzen and poured the remaining gunpowder down the barrel and then held the gun in front of him admiring it.
It’s quite a moment, said Faller. To be the sole judge of that person on earth. You meet his eyes and there’s an understanding quite like no other.
Gillen’s eyes wandered to a dark stain slugged on the wall and he looked upon the thinning fog out the window. In his mind he saw the face of Coyle looming over him and he sucked in his breath. Killing’s a dirty business, he said. There’s no pleasure in it.
Faller smiled at Gillen. And what would you know?
The younger man fiddled with his hands. Faller took between finger and thumb the ammunition for the gun, two bullets fat and round like marbles. He dropped each one down a barrel and took the ramrod and pushed the bullets down the gun’s throat and stood up and stretched his hand around the bulk of the weapon and with a long thumb put each chamber on half-cock. And then he put on his hat.
COYLE WALKED AIMLESS through the city. The ache in his feet something terrible like it was trying real bad so it was to drag a man down into the earth. The fog tearing now into tendrils that exposed the working noises of the city, the clatter from carriage and trap and the barking from men’s voices. He put a hand into his pocket for some oats and they sat on his tongue like sawdust. He went to a horse trough and scooped some water quickly into his mouth and ignored the passing stare of a gentleman.
The sun was gaining power over the brume and then it began to rain. He tightened his hat and buttoned his coat and stood in the doorway of a shop. Signs for tobacco surrounded him each side and he watched two women plump and well-dressed join him in front. One of them turned with a wobbling double chin and took a glance at Coyle, appraised him fully for what he was, and he ignored the look and watched vaguely elsewhere. The rain began to stipple the street with stubby thick drops and he heard the door of the shop squeal open to a bell tinkle and close behind him. A man stepped out and looked up and down at the sky and then he blinked with his single eye. Coyle looked up and saw the profile of Macken and his body tensed at the sight, saw the man dally under the awning and pull a newspaper from his pocket and begin to read. Coyle pulled his hat over his eyes and slumped down into the wall as if the building was something he could merge into while Macken stood with Coyle obscured to his limited field of vision. Macken turned the page of the newspaper and folded it and put it close to his face and he put it down and put a hand into his jacket and looked at a timepiece from his pocket. The jowled woman leaned over and asked him the time. Near eleven, he said. He folded his newspaper and put it into his jacket and turned to the two ladies and nodded to them and he left pushing up the street. Coyle lifted himself out of the wall and stood a minute and then he pushed through the ladies and watched Macken disappear. What the fuck, he said. Loud mutterings from one of the women behind him and he turned and walked across the street.
HE WALKED AGAINST THE RAIN, his hat visored against it, and he was wondering what he would do. The road south and there was Macken walking in the direction of it. What the fuck, he said. He shrunk away from the people milling past him, turned for a side street and stopped to cough. It dug into him deep, emptied him out, and he saw Macken’s face in his mind, the single-eyed shock of it, and when he stopped his insides were sore.
The rain softened and then stopped and he walked on aimless without certainty where he was for. He walked past a boy leaning on a wall, saw the features of the youth from the night before and quickened his pace and then realized it wasn’t him. The boy was chewing from a thick wadge of buttered bread and in the other hand he held an onion and he took bites out of it as if it were an apple. Coyle put his hand into his coat and secured in a fist the cash and he shook the oats loose from his pocket scattering them onto the street.
He walked further on looking for some place discreet to eat. He saw a shop and stopped outside it looking in the window. Loaves of brown-crusted bread. And then he felt an arm reach around him, his neck in a lock as if the intention was to pull him to the ground, and he twisted out of it in alarm. Wild-eyed he looked up. The Cutter stood smiling with his hands on his big-boned hips and then he did a quick dance for him. I was wondering where ye got to, he said. Are ye coming?
Coyle shrugged. Huppidy hah.
He followed watching over his shoulder. The Cutter chatting away saying he was off for some food and a drink and what a wild head he had on him. He followed him towards the Cowbog and into a bar and he cast his eyes nervously about. The place a spill of shadows and half empty. Nothing here to be afraid of. They sat down beside a dancing fire. Two bowls of tripe soup so thick you could stand on it and two cups of beer and The Cutter did all the talking. He giggled to himself as he
told his stories, yarns accumulated from the night before that took on magnificent proportion as he told them, stretched out his arms wide as if to demonstrate the realm of them, and when he was done telling he would slap his belly and laugh wholeheartedly. Coyle supped on his cup and saw that it was dirty and he tried hard to listen but found it hard to talk in return and then there was the fact that his entire body was weakening.
AN HOUR OR TWO PASSED and something not right. His throat tight and a wheezing in his chest. The beer in front of him unwanted and the crowd swelled on top of him, the darkness in the tavern tightening around him and he felt the need to escape. He stood up from the table and turned around. He threw his gaze to the top end of the tavern and there it met the eyes of Faller and their eyes locked, formed a bridge that linked these two men over the heads of all others. And then the man was pushing through the crowd a good head over most of the men, his hands to the shoulders of those that blocked his path, and he made light of them beneath his weight as he shaped his body into a charge. Coyle turned and made for the back door, fumbled at the latch, his hand shaking and the door, it would not open for him, stiff as it was, and he leaned back and gave it a kick and he found himself facing out into a narrow yard where the weather had closed in darkly, rain falling down from a sky that kept on giving, a sky that had never once been the same since the day he was born and for all the days he was not born, yet a sky that had remained exactly the same. And the sound the rain made as it fell to the earth filled up the moment with a kind of peace.