Occasionally I’d stop to slap my palm against a gate or a telegraph pole to convince myself I hadn’t gone deaf. I knew I was in shock, but I was afraid to look behind in case he was there. I wondered who would find Luke and how long he would lie in that ditch. Everything felt heightened around me. Those drab motionless clouds might be the last ones I would ever see and now their shapes fascinated me. I had never seen moss growing on a stone wall like this or drenched fields of winter grass or ever listened to water purling down from a dozen hillside streams. I would have given so much to have walked through this landscape just once with my mother, to have had the memory of such a place where I could have brought her ashes to scatter. I thought of Gran too and remembered playing in her bedroom one childhood afternoon.
Only twice did a car pass by, splashing me with water from roadside puddles. I chose the turn for Glencolumbkille almost without thinking. After a mile or two I reached a turn and the sea suddenly stretched out to my left towards a huge headland looming across the bay. Below the road as it swung round another bend was a small pier with a few boats pulled up on the slip. It seemed an insular world, fortified by steep mountains and the wild Atlantic. I walked on until eventually and indifferently, I saw the village spread out in a loose scattering of houses before me. I walked for a long time without the village appearing to get any closer and then suddenly I was outside the first building, which had been a schoolhouse once. I could see a plaque dating from 1912.
A girl of eight or nine sat on the step wearing blue wellington boots which were too large for her. I stopped beside the gate and scanned the road behind me for any sign of the motor bike. There was so much I wanted to tell the child, yet I couldn’t make sense of my thoughts and felt unsure if I still held the power of speech. She observed me for a moment before calling back into the house; ‘Granny, here’s another stray lost without a word of English.’
A middle-aged woman emerged in a blue apron to scold the girl good naturedly for wearing her brother’s boots. The child pointed towards me and the woman approached, her tone officious now.
‘What is it? We’re closed for the winter.’
My throat was parched. I tried to swallow but it hurt too much. She observed me more closely, sensing something was wrong.
‘What has you out here in January?’ Her voice was almost suspicious. ‘Are you looking for somewhere to stay? Have you lost your bags?’
‘Please,’ I heard myself mumble.
The child had risen to walk over to the gate and stare at me. ‘I thought she was deaf and dumb,’ she said and her granny hushed her.
‘Whist, child, she’s only English.’ The woman looked at me, concerned now. ‘Are you in some sort of trouble? Where have you come from? Do you want to stay?’ I felt myself nod. ‘This is an An Oige hostel. Are you a member of the Irish Youth Hostel Federation?’
I shook my head. Concern or curiosity had softened her manner. ‘Maybe you’re a member of the English Federation?’
I shook my head again and gripped the bar of the gate. I felt my legs were going to give way, yet I didn’t want to collapse in front of the child.
‘You probably were a member some time,’ the woman said.
I shook my head a third time. The woman wiped her hands on the apron. ‘Have you never heard of a white lie?’ she scolded. ‘Maybe you once thought of joining or knew someone who did?’
The child tugged at the woman’s apron. ‘Let her stay, Nana.’
‘We’re closed,’ the woman said. ‘Officially I can’t let anyone stay, which means I can damn well let you stay whether you’re a member or not.’ She opened the gate and had to prise my hand off the bar. ‘Look at the state you’re in,’ she said, worried now, and instructed the child; ‘Molly, run in and lift out those clothes drying in the bath.’
With her initial suspicion gone, it was like the woman and child had adopted me. They sat me in the kitchen while she ran a bath. The girl returned to lay a cup and a plate of scones in front of me. The woman filled the teapot and set it down on the table. The radio was on but the station seemed to be in Irish. I tried to lift the teapot but my hand wouldn’t stop shaking. Tea splashed over the oilcloth until the woman held my hand and helped me to pour it. She set the teapot down, then took my hand in her own again and sat on the chair beside me. I saw the child linger in the doorway, knowing that if she came any closer she would be banished.
‘You’re crying,’ the woman said, ‘and you don’t even seem to notice. What’s wrong with you, child? Were you robbed above on the hillside, or did someone hurt you? There’s a payphone in the hall if you’d like to phone home.’
I shook my head dully. Through the window I saw a squad car speeding up the hill. The woman followed my gaze.
‘That sergeant,’ she mocked, ‘the only time you see him speeding is when he’s hurrying home for his tea.’ She squeezed my hand again. ‘Is there no one I can phone for you? Would you like me to maybe call a doctor or the guards?’
‘There’s a man …’ I began. ‘A man out there …’ I couldn’t continue. I lowered my head and Luke’s face stared at me, with his skull torn asunder in the ditch. After all the acts our bodies had shared, I had left him lying like that. Luke had never claimed to be good or bad, he said nobody did anything for one reason only. Even though he had used me, I was more than just a decoy. Time had been running out for him, everyone knew he had to land those drugs somewhere. But he could have chosen anywhere in Ireland, knowing the police would follow him. Part of him had wanted to bring me to my father, that part which was in perpetual conflict with the Luke who had exploited me. Yet conflict didn’t seem the correct word. I doubted if Luke even noticed how effortlessly he acquired different personalities at different times.
The only way I could remember him now was as a dozen photo-fits that never quite matched. How could I tell the woman which Luke it was who lay in that ditch? Somewhere off the Irish coast a small boat had docked by now, but I had no evidence of that and no idea where. Luke must have lain awake, dreaming of this final big payday which he had staked everything on, even his brother’s life. Yet no matter how high the stakes, they would never have been enough to quell the dread of poverty I had glimpsed within him.
The woman squeezed my hand again, trying to coax me to talk. ‘What man?’ she asked. ‘Was he your boy-friend? Had you a row? Is he after leaving you out here with no bags or nothing?’ I saw her check my arms and face for signs of an assault. ‘Or was it a local man. Did anyone …?’ She said something in Irish to the girl in the doorway who retreated from sight. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying? Are you all right?’
I nodded my head slowly. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the back of Luke’s head caving in as he disappeared into the ditch. The woman let go my hand and rose. She touched my hair, unsure of what to make of me.
‘I’ve water run for a bath,’ she said. ‘You might feel better able to talk then.’
She led me down a corridor where a door led into the hostel. There had to be shower units there, but the woman brought me into her own small bathroom built on to the back of the house. She had put scented salts into the bath and bubbles of foam floated on the surface. There was a child’s duck and a plastic toy boat at the side and sea shells with traces of sand on them. I needed a fresh tampon badly and had to ask her for one.
‘I’m beyond all that,’ she said, ‘and the child’s mother is away working in Scotland for the winter. I’ll have to send Molly down the town.’
I lay in the hot water, awaiting the child’s return. I lowered my head so that just my mouth and nose were uncovered. Soon Luke’s car would be found and then his body. The police from Killybegs would come looking for me but what would I tell them? Luke had walked away from me deliberately, giving me back the role of cheap tart with his last words. I was a nobody, too stupid to know anything. Luke had understood the safety of ignorance and calculated the best chance for my survival. He had sought and expected no mercy, grasping human na
ture so well that even a faceless assassin did his bidding. Perhaps he had recognised that Christy’s fate would also be his own. Leaving that hotel on the first night, I had looked back and carried away the image of a man found dead. For once Luke had misjudged the odds. He must have known the Bypass Bombardiers were closing in. Death was stalking him, even as he had tried to re-unite me with my father. Now it had found him along the sort of country lane he had once walked before dawn to pick fruit with his brothers.
I lowered my face fully under the water and opened my eyes. I could see the green foam merging above me again. I felt nothing, not even the need to continue breathing. The door must have opened although I hadn’t heard it. The child’s face leaned over the bath, distorted by the bubbles. She stared down until I broke the surface.
‘I got you these.’ She handed me the package. I noticed she had swapped her brother’s boots for more feminine sneakers. I waited for her to go but she stayed, staring at my body.
‘What were you doing under the water?’ she asked.
‘Bring me a scissors,’ I instructed her, ‘or a sharp blade.’
‘Do I tell Nana?’ she asked. I immersed my face beneath the water and closed my eyes to watch Luke’s brain explode. I opened them quickly and surfaced but she was gone. I dried myself and put on the only clothes I had. I found my way to the dormitory. It was a spartan room crowded with triple bunk beds with horsehair mattresses and iron frames. Three tall windows let light into what must once have been a classroom. The air smelt of must and cold. The woman had left out sheets for me and two extra blankets. I lay on a low bunk and watched the last light drain from the sky. The dormitories of Saint Raphael’s would have been bigger, eighty boys asleep in each room, dreaming of cars, revenge and women. Only Luke’s dreams had been of things which could never be realised. Part of him had never grown up, perhaps it was all we ever had in common. But there came a time to grow up or to die.
The ditch would be dark now where he lay, if nobody had found the car yet. When spring came, flowers and berries would grow along the hedgerow as hikers walked past with thick boots and foreign accents. Nothing would ever be said about him. No plaque would mark the spot and nobody would place flowers. This was tourist country where outsiders left no trace and Luke was as much a foreigner here as I was. Only the old bachelors who used the road would ever glance towards the ditch where he had lain.
I must have entered a different stage of shock because the trembling in my hands had stopped and I was curiously calm. I wanted to mourn Luke but didn’t know which man to mourn. At his funeral every mourner would remember a different one. Had he ever allowed himself to be himself, even when alone? I closed my eyes and saw him pick himself up after that first shot and stagger forward. His brain burst open and I watched him fall one last time. I couldn’t seem to remember his face any more, there was just blackness before my eyes. I looked up and the child stood beside my bunk holding a long pair of sharp scissors.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.
‘Go away.’
The child stared at me, then turned and left the room. But she was too young to keep girlish secrets. She must have fetched her granny because after a few minutes the door opened and I heard footsteps run forward. By then, I was crouched in a ball beneath the high windows. The woman grabbed the scissors from my hand, but she was too late. I saw specks of blood on the shining blades as she dropped them into her apron pocket.
‘Your beautiful hair,’ she said, ‘whatever have you done to it?’
I raised my hand. I hadn’t felt pain when the scissors grazed my scalp. Clumps of long blonde hair littered the floor with a tint of black at the base of the roots. The woman placed her arms around me and let me cry, rocking me back and forth without a word. She must have said something to the girl because she was gone and some long time afterwards – I didn’t know how long – the child returned with a woman in her thirties who knelt down to inspect my scalp.
‘You look a mess,’ she said. ‘I have a salon down the road. Do you want me to shave it all off?’
I nodded and they brought me back out into the kitchen and placed a towel around my shoulders. A boy of twelve was there, whom the woman banished with a few words of Irish. The girl gathered up my hair from the dormitory floor and carried it in.
‘But you’ve lovely hair,’ she said, almost in tears. ‘I would kill to have blonde hair like that.’
The hairdresser worked gently, shaving my scalp, trying to soothe me down and help me talk.
‘Maire tells me it was a man,’ she said. ‘Did he do something to you? The local guards are all men themselves, but there’s a woman guard I know in Donegal town. Would you like me to phone her or else a doctor? We’re worried about you.’
‘I just wanted rid of this hair,’ I said, surprised at how calm my voice sounded. ‘It’s been driving me daft this past fortnight.’
‘You see the men come up from the pub to a dance here,’ the hairdresser said, ‘half-drunk for courage, eyeing us up like heifers in a mart. Get me the hell away from here, you say to yourself, off to some place with a bit of panache. But they’re still the same wherever you go. The clothes might be different or the hair styles and they’ve fancy ways to hide it, but you’re still a heifer in a mart.’
Molly had forgotten about us and retreated into being a child again, absorbed in some make-believe game with the loose strands of hair. The kettle sang and the woman poured a strong measure of whiskey and sugar into a glass which she half filled with boiling water. She added cloves and pressed it into my fingers.
‘Drink that up,’ she said, ‘it will put some heat inside you. I’ll get some dinner on. Guests in the hostel cook for themselves, but we’re glad of company this time of year. Every young one is away, even my own daughter, having to leave two children behind. Put your head down after dinner and sleep. Sleep is a great healer. I should know.’
The whiskey burnt against my throat. I was drinking too fast but I put it to my lips again. The hairdresser produced a mirror and handed it to me. I didn’t recognise myself but it was a long time since I had. Yet my face seemed more like my own with the blonde hair gone. The news was being broadcast on the radio, low in the background. I heard the name Duggan mentioned and asked what was being said. The hairdresser listened and then translated with a dismissive shrug.
‘Just another Dublin gangster found shot dead. It says the man’s brother was only killed a few weeks ago.’
For all his craving for respectability that is how Luke had ended up, another gangster meriting a few seconds in Irish on the radio. The police would be here soon. If I had sense I should go to them first.
‘When did they find the body?’
‘Around lunch-time.’
‘But he wasn’t …’ I stopped. The hairdresser didn’t seem to notice. She was drying her hands with a towel.
‘He was driving a van near Waterford,’ she said. ‘They hijacked it, emptied out whatever was in the back and shot him. It’s worse than New York down there, they’re animals.’
The boy appeared at the kitchen door and called his sister. She looked up, torn between him and playing with the blonde hair. He called again and she dropped the hair and ran to obey, with the blind loyalty of the youngest in a family.
Seven o’clock came and then eight. I hadn’t taken my clothes off as I lay on the bunk, curled up into a ball with the blankets tightly wrapped around me. I had ceased to see Luke’s death in my mind, or even to be haunted by the moment when I thought I was going to die; the image of the visor reflecting back the green bushes and my own scared face, and the feel of a gun brushing against my cheek. What perplexed me was the memory of that faint aroma, almost totally swamped by the stink of petrol fumes, and why it had made me think of Gran. I don’t know how long the child was standing beside my bunk before I turned and saw her. She wore a long scarf which was obviously her grandmother’s. I closed my eyes and suddenly placed that scent. I saw myself at her age sneaking
into Gran’s room to try on clothes before the mirror and breathing in that reek of musk which had always pervaded her wardrobe.
‘He’s here,’ the girl said. ‘I know it’s you he’s come for.’
I had an image of Luke stumbling down the hillside like Frankenstein’s monster, undead and unslayable. But it couldn’t be him. The child beckoned. I wondered if a motor bike was parked outside the gate, its engine running as a faceless knight waited to break the spell. Except that the knight was no longer anonymous. Not only had I been played for a fool, but Luke had been played for one too.
The gravel in front of the hostel was lit by light from the kitchen window where the boy was doing his homework. Al stood by the gate, staring at my shaved head. He looked shaken but I couldn’t decide if he had heard the news about his father yet. I walked to the gate, but didn’t open it. Everything had changed since we hid among the trees last night. Life might have been so different if I had only gone with him to Dublin.
‘Thank God you’re safe, Trace,’ he said. ‘I’ve been so scared for you.’
I should have told him about his father immediately but there were things I needed to know for myself. The girl stayed back in the doorway.
‘Did you actually see Luke sleep with your mother?’
Al looked puzzled by the question. ‘Christine saw it. She told me.’
‘What else did she tell you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said. ‘How did you get away from him, Trace?’
I studied his face carefully. He appeared to have taken such risks for me, yet there was nothing or nobody I could be sure of any more.
‘Why wasn’t Christine’s boyfriend at her father’s funeral?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ Al asked.
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