Short Storm

by Hegarty, David

  He paused, frowning at the window.

  “There was something more to it than that.”

  He spoke then with decisiveness.

  “He was uncertain.”

  He turned to look at his wife.

  “That’s it. He was unsure of himself.”

  He waved his hand again.

  “Oh, he made all the right sounds, said the right words, but they didn’t quite come out right, and not because he was lying or trying to hide anything. It was because he didn’t feel right. Didn’t feel sure, and your brother is a man who usually does know where he’s going, whatever the route. Only now he doesn’t. He’s lost, and that feeling is alien to him.”

  Doyle looked at his wife and spoke quickly. He didn’t want to alarm her.

  “He’s not panicking. Don’t think that. He’s not. He’s just off course a bit and needs to put himself back on it. This is the first time he’s ever had to leave the country with a very slim prospect of ever returning. He’s bound to be a bit edgy.”

  “Did he want anything? Money? Clothes? Messages to anyone?”

  “No. Apart from yourself. He said to tell you you’re a great girl.”

  He added a smile and a levity to his voice that he didn’t really feel.

  “And that your old man isn’t too bad either.”

  Her head fell forward. Between sobs she spoke brokenly to him.

  “It’s as…as much as…as we can hope for.”

  “He’s with a good man. He’s got Gustav on his side.”

  She calmed at his words, seeming to find comfort in his very willingness to help her. Her hand dropped to his knee, squeezed, rubbed his thigh, and squeezed again.

  “He’s certain about one thing,” she said, and her voice was calmer, almost even. “My old man isn’t too bad at all, at all.”

  A long deep sigh steadied her breathing and her voice.

  “Sean,” she said, just that.

  Without speaking, they left the room and walked hand in hand to the door and up the stairs.

  Later, after they’d made love and talked, and Eileen had fallen into a deep quiet sleep, Doyle rose from the bed and went to check the boys. The sight of the children gave him a focal point. He was troubled by what Eileen had told him of the priest. He wondered what Father Tom might have been after. Why had he been asking about Steven? Did he know? Would anyone from Dublin have told him? The only ones who could have, would have to be someone involved with Steven’s activities. Which would mean Father Tom was involved one way or another.

  He wandered through the house, closing locks, bolts and windows. It gave him the feeling that he was up for a purpose other than accommodating a persistent and restless conscience. After a while, with no more bolts to lock, two unfinished cups of tea, and no solution in sight to the problem, a fatigue of sorts crept into his mind and he went quietly up the stairs. Maybe it’s tension, he told himself. He’d heard of that. Fellows came in for bouts of distress when they’d too much to think about and too many problems on their minds. What he had seen was that hard work never killed anyone. He’d known that all along. What got to you was worry.

  He felt tired and slightly relieved. He knew there was nothing wrong with his life at this stage. He climbed into bed, shifted the pillow, got up on one elbow for a moment to listen to his wife’s breathing, then lay quietly down as sleep drifted in over his thoughts. In that insensate area between being awake and being asleep, noises and faces wandered in and out of his mind. He knew the feeling well. He often experienced it on the boats when he came off watch and slept in his chair in the cabin. He welcomed these half-dreams now. He knew sleep was passing over him, putting him down into quiet darkness with the rest of the night.

  He ignored the sound of the squeaking car brake, the low hum of an idling engine, the brittle silence when the engine was switched off. He thought he was dreaming.

  The men in the car watched the house. The top landing light was still on. The rest of the windows were dark. Within minutes, the men’s’ eyes had become accustomed to the night.

  From the back seat Maguire leaned forward and said quietly into Pritchard’s ear,

  “We’ll wait for a while. Then, when it’s time, you can show us the best way in.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cullen’s eyes stung. The pitch and roll of the huge trawler, adrift in the moderate sea, made it difficult for him to read, to think, or to concentrate on anything other than keeping himself on an even keel and not falling over. He was glad he’d had no alcohol. Gustav had wanted him to drink. The Frenchman had come out from the girl’s cabin and leered at him, as he had the day before. Cullen wondered how the girl lasted. Gustav was a bull. He just never seemed to stop. He was constantly sipping something, a brandy one time, beer the next, a carafe of red or white wine another, then either brandy or whiskey again. The man was never drunk either, or never seemed to be. The eyes were always alert and clear with fresh-looking unswollen lids. Like an athlete, he was never puffy or dozy-looking.

  The ship lurched as a long swell passed underneath. The engines had stopped and the ship was drifting. Cullen wondered why. It had been like that for over a quarter of an hour now. He lifted himself from the chair. Walking unevenly, with long, short, irregular steps to accommodate the moving floor, he worked his way to the cabin door. He opened it, peered about, and climbed the stairs to the deck, emerging amidships. He stepped over to the railing.

  Clouds had gathered, shifting in large, black-bellied masses over the sea. The water had greyed. The swells were shorter, steeper with a touch of menace in their lifting and dipping. The wind had chilled and he noticed white breaks of surf here and there in the sea. Zipping his jacket to the throat, he moved slowly along the railing. He didn’t like the feel of the sea and the boat pitching underneath him. It added to his sense of helplessness. That was what was bothering him, he decided. His feel of complete dependence on others. At other crisis times, he had always retained some form of control. He could have decided before whether he would run, attack, hide, confront, fly, drive, swim, or whatever. But this time his life and his circumstances were that much out of control. The last time he’d felt that kind of helplessness was when he was fully pledged to the Organisation. Where they went, he went. That was it. He could not do it. That was why he’d broken. Once he’d decided on his own way, his own ends, he’d felt a sense of freedom immediately, even before he’d done his own freelance work. It was the decision that gave him the alternative and, once he knew it was there, he’d felt better. That was what was wrong this time. He had no alternative. The end was mere survival, at the hand of someone else, Gustav or one of his contacts.

  He thought of the money. Just lying there. He’d worked for it. Well, he conceded, taken the risk for it. He wondered how safe it was. Kelly he trusted. Louis Kelly was a good lad. Tight mouth and he hated Maguire and his crowd. A hard man too, thought Cullen. It’d take a lot to get anything out of him. But then he thought of Kieran O’Brien. His feelings changed. He felt a combination of revulsion for O’Brien and fear of O’Brien’s disloyalty. How the hell had he ever taken him on? What had possessed him? He even remembered thinking when he’d agreed to bring O’Brien in on the job that he would probably regret it. Now he did. If O’Brien had half a chance, he’d be in touch with Maguire and Maguire would be on Cullen’s trail for the money. Especially if Maguire thought that Cullen had left the country and the money was still around. God knows what Maguire would do. The evil bastard.

  Cullen banged his fist in anger at himself on the rail.

  “Do you always talk to yourself? Or is it only when you’re angry?”

  The voice, feminine and deep, had an amused, but not unkind tone of ridicule. The face supported his notion. There was a smile lingering behind the whole of it, hesitant, unsure of itself. He straightened up from the rail.

  “I didn’t realise I was talking out loud,” he said.

  “You weren’t, but you could have been from the way you we
re looking at the poor sea.”

  Her eyes and face turned to the waves and the sky.

  “Do you think the sea and the sky are responsible for your troubles?”

  She looked to him again. The smile was apparent this time. All over.

  “What troubles? Who said anything about troubles?”

  But even as he asked, he knew he was being too defensive.

  The smile stayed, but she shrugged and looked out to sea again.

  He kept looking at her, leaning his weight on folded arms on the big painted metal tube that balustraded the deck from stem to stern. His own eyes were stinging and the wind didn’t help. He had to press one knee against the metal support to keep himself from swinging off the rail. It wasn’t easy. He watched her. She held the rail, arms outstretched, eyes half closed, taking deep easy breaths. Her hair whipped and danced in the wind. Her body swayed gently in opposing rhythm to the pitching of the ship. She looked at him again. Her smile broadened, lifting the eyelids, turning a full beam onto him. He tried to smile, felt a grimace corkscrew his face into a rictus of discomfort.

  “Why don’t you stand up?” she asked, fine strands of auburn hair flitting and streaming across her face.

  He straightened, feeling immediate relief in his back, shoulders and thighs. He held the rail in both hands, as she did. He let the air drift deep, deep, deep into his lungs, as he had watched her do. It wafted out in a long hard sigh. He felt better, less tense and, he realised, glad of her company.

  “Do you know why we’ve stopped?” he asked.

  She shrugged again and spoke,

  “Oh, Marcel said something about a message from Ireland to wait. Not to return but to hang about for further orders.”

  She gave him a quizzical look.

  “Where are you going? What are you going to do in France? Will you live there?”

  He heard her questions, but her first statement stayed in his mind. What the hell was going on? What message was she talking about? Who had radioed Gustav? Where was he?

  He left her, moved in long strides, a sudden sureness coming into his step even on the continuously rolling deck, towards the big wheel-house. He mounted the stairs, fast, forceful, pulled the door out and stepped inside. Gustav was leaning over a chart, a brandy bottle, a glass and a steaming cup of black coffee on the table beside him. He looked up briefly at Cullen, then turned his attention back to the chart, saying absently,

  “Sit down. Have a drink.”

  Cullen ignored the offer.

  “Why have we stopped?”

  “Orders,” answered Gustav, keeping his eyes and his mind on what he was doing. “Don’t worry,” he continued, “we’ll soon be moving again. Just some kind of message I have to wait for.”

  “What sort of a message? A parcel? Like the one I brought?”

  Gustav halted his work on the chart. He blinked, photographing the position and progress in his mind. He raised his eyes to Cullen.

  “M’sieur, I am the captain of this vessel. You are here as my guest. Not as a paying passenger, or anything else which gives you the right to question what I do or don’t do. You do as I say, when I say, how I say. Our business together is finished. You delivered your parcel. I collected. There is no more. You are as much under my command as any of the crew.”

  He lifted his glass and swallowed a quick, large mouthful. He looked in the bottom of it then raised his eyes again to Cullen.

  “Even if you are allowed the privilege of idleness.”

  He shrugged, started back on the chart.

  “Go. Have a drink. Find Elaine. Amuse yourself. I’ve a ship to run. Business to attend to. It is none of your affair. I will let you know when we are coming near France.”

  “When will we be starting?”

  Gustav stopped, blinked at his paper, then raised his face to Cullen. As if he was explaining to a recalcitrant child, he said,

  “I will tell you when we are near France. That is all you need to know.”

  He returned to his work.

  Cullen turned and left the wheel-house. He wasn’t going to get any more from Gustav, but his fears had been allayed. He turned to the stern of the ship. The wind had risen and the sea was a dirty grey. The clouds seemed lower, rolling in patches over the angry water. White, breaking waves were increasing, small but fast, throwing wisps of fine wild spray.

  Cullen looked at Elaine. She had not moved. He watched her holding the rail, legs apart, face turned into the salty wind. Her thin coat flapped and wrapped around her. She moved in perfect rhythm to the roll of the deck. She seemed lost, enthralled, alive to her own sense of the elements. She seemed part of the nature around her — wild, flamboyant, unencumbered. The shock he’d had a few moments before had frightened him. Badly. The relief flooded into his veins. He had a feeling of freedom, abandon.

  As if in anticipation of the rise of his excited spirits, the vessel shuddered slightly. The engines started again and the propellers churned the cumbersome hull into the running seas. She was underway. He was going with Gustav. Going to France. Getting away from the problem. The trouble wrong with his life.

  Elaine looked up at him. She must have felt his gaze, he thought. That can happen. People can catch thought waves from others in this world. It’s bound to happen. When the thinking and feelings are so intense, they become a physical force, so your very soul becomes alive with your own heart and pulse and life. How could it not transmute? How could it not take its own spiritual form and fill the atmosphere and the object of your perception with its power? He moved down the steps, his eyes fixed on her smiling face. Her face held his gaze, not challenging it, but welcoming him into her own existence, absorbing him. That was what he wanted. No. That was what he needed. He felt it. She did too. He knew it. Could see it in her warmth and life, as if they’d known each other from the beginning of time and had no other destiny. Time was still. There was neither sight nor sound nor anything else in existence that could be a part of them. It was perfectly natural.

  Chapter Twenty

  So, he thought, this is Elaine. He gazed at the ceiling above him. It was a simple stipple, glossed so that reflections of the sea and the sun, which had parted the clouds earlier, gave shapes and waving images on its surface. She lay beside him. He turned to her, feeling the gentle weight of the satin sheet fall around his limbs. She slept lightly, unmoving, her back to him. He raised himself on one elbow and deftly lifted the hair lying across her face and studied her profile, etched into the soft pillow. Her skin was darker than he’d thought. She had no makeup on. Her colour was her own, on the body too. He lifted the sheet to look. A uniform tan went all the way to her hips, where her body whitened in the shape of a small bikini. Her thighs stretched off into the depths of the bed. He felt affection and liking for her. Gently he laid the sheet over her again. Her body gave a small convulsive twitch, then she lay motionless again.

  He looked at his watch. Half past seven. God, he’d been with her for over five hours. He was hungry. He wondered about Gustav. Did he know that she and Cullen were in the big cabin? Did he know what they’d been at? How well they’d done it? Cullen thought of Gustav ravaging Elaine the night before. Curiously, he felt no sense of outrage or of injustice about it, like he always thought he might in a situation like that. Then again, he thought, that was before he had had anything to do with her. She certainly didn’t seem to mind.

  He thought of how they’d done it. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever been with. He doubted he’d have got near her on dry land and under ordinary circumstances. She was kind of woman who was surrounded, followed and revered by those fancy stylish types on the Continent. He imagined her on a terrace of a sun-drenched hotel in Monaco. She’d been generous with him, not only with her body and her ways — God, that had been something! — but also in her warm and kind appraisal of him as a man. She had even complimented him as a lover. He nearly laughed, feeling a giddy lightness in his head and around his stomach. He felt he’d done the right
thing, now more than ever. This was living. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but ideas began to filter in through the confusion as to how he might find a direction. There was, he felt, a combination of luck and forceful effort guiding his life. He felt he might be getting a hand on the controls again. All had gone right this day. The fright he’d got when the boat stopped had done him good. It had put things into perspective. Things weren’t as bad as his imagination had tried to tell him. It was amazing, he thought, how a simple statement, a five second, ten word sentence, can calm the troubles of your world, free you from the petrifying clutches of terror, and let you get on with your life. He regarded his matinee with Elaine as a good omen.

  He was grateful to Elaine. He liked her for her warmth and kindness. He was not fooling himself either. He knew he had no claim on her, didn’t want one anyway. They were two members of the human race helping each other. She had been profuse in her thanks to him after they had done it. He wondered about that. Surely it wasn’t that nobody had ever pleased her before? Possible. A lot of these fancy fellows chase the girls and mark them in their books like notches on a gun. It was nothing to do with love or liking, hardly to do even with sex. More a symbol to themselves of their irresistibility. They collect female forms. A sort of external masturbation. They may as well pull it, he thought, or buy a rubber doll. He felt a light shudder in his chest, realised he was smiling up at the ceiling. The sheets rustled.

  “The first time I saw you today, you were chastising the sea. Now you’re laughing and having a private conversation with the room.”

  Her voice hadn’t changed in its light mockery, but that was all right. She could mock herself too. He liked her more.

  “Uh-huh,” he answered, still looking at the ceiling.

  Her mention of the afternoon punched his memory and the cause of his earlier anger came to his mind. He thought of Maguire and resented him for intruding on his peace and contentment. He remembered the money. Jesus, he’d have to get it! He would have to go back there sometime. He had some money now, but that wouldn’t last long. No doubt whoever Gustav handed him over to in France would expect some. The fuckers always did. And he and his kind couldn’t operate without them. Parasites.