by E. M. Reapy
‘What happened your eye?’ Fiona lifted Shane’s chin towards the light and inspected him. ‘Did he catch ya with a ring or something?’
‘Yeah. John Anthony, you know, that idiot Nordie from yesterday.’
Fiona took the kitten Christmas cups off the shelf and poured me and Shane some white goon. She took a plastic cup out of the bag and poured herself one.
‘Right lads, there’s something ye’re not telling me. Let’s have it. If we’re friends, we’re friends. If not, I’ll go now and ye can enjoy yer drink and we’ll leave it at that.’
We were awkward for a moment but I took a mouthful. And once I started it all came tumbling out. We went back to the hostel where we met Hopper, even told her his backstory. She sat there and didn’t react. She poured us another goon each.
‘It’s a bad act,’ she said. ‘To be honest, it’s a fucking very bad act. But I don’t understand. How did he get to here? Why haven’t you seen him since?’
I said I didn’t know. It was borderline impossible.
Shane said he had three whole weeks to walk it. Maybe he was a power walker. We laughed nervously. It wasn’t even funny.
‘Maybe he’s a ghost?’ Fiona said. Then none of us said anything for a while.
★
Henk had the barbie going at 6 p.m., we were well on it at that stage. Smoke came off the flathead on the griddle. On the side tray were some cut-up tomatoes, onions and lettuce and on the table beside the barbeque were loaves of bread, slabs of cheese, sliced mangos and potato salad.
Fiona and Shane had been flirting to no end in my room and I was expecting them to at least shift before dinner was eaten.
We were standing around the TV waiting for the food to cook. Shane was telling Fiona about underage county finals he’d won, cars he had souped up during the Boom and the famous places he’d been in Australia. She seemed impressed.
‘I’d have been nowhere except the pub,’ I said, ‘if it wasn’t for Lonely Planet over here.’
Shane smirked at me and I left them to it.
I went by Henk and asked him if he needed help. He declined and clinked my cup with his schooner. No sign of Hopper, which I’d come to expect though I kept looking for him. No sign of John Anthony either. Good job. Fucking gobshite.
The hot Asian chick said hi to me and giggled. I winked at her. Philly was by the smoking area and I gave him an elaborate ‘bonsoir,’ and bowed at him. He put his hand up.
Fiona and Shane grabbed us seats at the round table. She pointed at a few white lads and asked if any of them were Hopper. We said she’d know him if she saw him. Henk announced that the food was ready. There was a big upsurge with lots of bustle and laughter as a queue formed. Henk threw three big chunks of fish on my paper plate and joked with me.
When we got back to the table, Fiona asked, ‘Did ye ever eat raw fish?’
‘Nah,’ I said and Shane shook his head. ‘Is it nice?’
‘It’s an acquired taste, I suppose.’
Someone got their iPod and blasted out Bob Marley’s Greatest Hits. I rubbed my belly and looked at the stunning orangey-pink of the sunset and at the different people around me, eating, talking, chilling out.
This time of year in Ireland. Frost. Rain. Always. Winds that bit. People as grey as the sky. Wearing 700 layers of clothes but still having runny noses and chattering teeth. Shit closing down, companies laying off, everyone signing on, stuff half finished, half falling apart, scandals. Politicians. Bankers. Builders. I wondered if my auld lad had sorted his life out, had got past the shame of the bankruptcy. And Mam. Maybe I would give her a call tomorrow. I squeezed some more white from the goon pouch into my cup. Maybe I’d talk to both of them this time.
‘What we going to do about John Anthony?’ Shane asked when Fiona went to get another portion of potato salad.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He can’t be hitting us and threatening us. We have to show him he’s not the fucking boss of us.’
I sat and stared at Shane, the black eye was well on its way, greenish-blue underneath and a fatter eyelid than the other.
‘We should jump him,’ Shane said. ‘He’s not about so he’s either in his room or he’s scoring. And I doubt it’s the latter, the way he speaks to women. The two of us could take him.’
Fiona was zig-zagging and hello-ing her way back to the table.
‘Okay. But she doesn’t need to know. She’ll conk soon, she’s a wreck. Wait till she goes to bed. Then we get him,’ I said and we changed the subject before Fiona sat down.
We’d have to go for it now, together. Otherwise John Anthony’d hammer me if he got me on my own.
★
As predicted, Fiona crashed. About half an hour after dinner, we carried her down to her dorm. She tried to lob the gob on Shane before we put the bedclothes over her fully-dressed body.
She gazed with drunken amour. ‘D’ya not want to? I do. That’s a big deal for me. A really big deal.’ She hiccupped.
‘Not tonight, when you’re sober we’ll talk,’ Shane said and kissed her hair gently.
‘Ya dashing bastard,’ I said.
Fiona was mumbling and said to wake her in a while, before we went to the nightclub and we laughed. I took off her sandals and put them by her bed. We switched the light off and left.
Outside her room, we hatched a plan as we drank.
‘We lure him out,’ I said. Shane nodded. ‘If I knock on his door and provoke him, he’ll come at me. You have to be ready for him.’
I’d wait. Plant one on him unexpected. Shane would join until we got him on the ground.
‘We kick the fuck out of him,’ Shane said.
‘If he fucking ever, ever messes with us again…’ I noticed how slurred my words were coming out.
‘Or Fiona,’ Shane said.
‘If he fucking ever, ever messes with us or Fiona again, he’s going to be – yeah.’
Shane agreed.
‘Another drink?’ I pressed the goon pump and filled our cups. I needed the courage.
‘Cheers.’
★
We went down the lane to where John Anthony’s room was. His was the only light on in the row. At the window, through a crack in the curtain, we saw he had his laptop open. He dipped into a bag of popcorn and shoved a fistful into his mouth. We couldn’t see what he was watching but from the noise that was leaking it was definitely a GAA game. Nothing sounded like Croke Park, the commentators and the crowd.
Shane paused, ‘Is it All-Ireland time again?’
I looked at his face to see if he was genuine. His eyes were wide and he was frozen with the question.
‘Shane, the All-Ireland was almost two months ago, we were in Perth watching it. In Northbridge, remember? The day after we beat the Aussies in the rugby?’
Shane blinked for a second and shook his head. ‘Oh yeah. Yeah, course I remember. Dublin. Jesus, my brain. Mad.’
‘Okay, focus. Are you ready for this?’
‘Are you?’
I paused. ‘Not really. Here, piss me off.’
‘What?’
‘Piss me off,’ I said and tugged him away from the door.
He pushed my arm. ‘What ya mean?’
‘I need to get more psyched. Make me mad.’
Shane looked blank for a second. ‘She likes you.’
‘What?’
‘She likes you. She does. But she wants me.’
I sniffed. He stared at me.
‘She wants me. My cock.’
I ground my teeth.
‘You ready?’ Shane asked.
‘Yeah, let’s go.’
He rapped on John Anthony’s door. I was leaning back into the wall behind me to be inconspicuous, my breath sped up and my legs went heavy with dread and rush over what we were about to do.
★
You can plan things all you want in life, down to the perfect last detail and still it won’t turn out the way you expected.
Yeah
John Anthony came to the door and his head turned sideways a bit when Shane threatened him. Yeah I jumped at him from the other side and landed a thump onto him. But it didn’t knock him down, it only pushed him away. He stood and for a moment he was still. Then he erupted. He wrestled me to the ground and belted me in the head at least six times with his quick fists. Blood gushed out my nose.
Shane launched on top of him, but that only made John Anthony’s weight crush me even more and clatter the back of my head against the ground, completely stunning me. I didn’t see stars like in them old cartoons, I saw flashing glaring white lines coming off every shape distinguishable in front of me. I groaned but couldn’t move. I tried to feel the ground under my palms and push myself up but I couldn’t. I don’t know how long it took for me to stop seeing white-hot lights everywhere.
It finally faded and I turned and saw Shane was on the ground too, further away. I saw John Anthony’s knee rising in the outside light and coming down. Shane was sputtering and moaning. Where was everyone? Had they not heard the noise? I drifted away from Shane’s cries and the GAA inside John Anthony’s room, my hearing went down the lane, back to the main farmhouse where the iPod blared a strumming guitar. The mango farm choir doing a group sing-along. Fucking Wonderwall by Oasis. Behind that all the insects whirring and buzzing, the nocturnal birds hooting, the possums and crickets and frogs and geckos. I zoned back in. John Anthony kicked Shane in the head, in the side, in the stomach. Spit was exploding from his mouth as he shouted down at him. I sat and wobbled upright.
The lyrics of Wonderwall drowned my headspace.
Then John Anthony’s voice came into my mind, menacing but clear, ‘I always keep a knife in my pocket. In case things get out of hand.’
I stumbled towards him. He was baring his teeth and something human was gone from his eyes as he pounded Shane, he was pure beast.
I composed myself and reached for his pocket, hoping with all my life, hoping. God please God, Jesus, Mary the Virgin, St. Patrick, Zacchaeus, fucking all of ye up there, help me. I stuck my hand in, grabbed the knife from it and flicked the blade.
He was already turning, acknowledging what was happening, I had to go quick.
The blade. My hand was shaking. I drove it towards him. His neck.
I plunged it in.
The side of his neck.
My face got splattered by his blood, hot and pumping out of him.
He held his neck, the handle of the knife and fell in slow motion to the ground. Shane was looking up at me.
John Anthony stayed down. He gurgled.
He stopped making noise. I didn’t move. I couldn’t.
‘Oh holy fuck,’ Shane said. ‘Oh holy fucking fuck.’
★
‘I’m going to get Henk, okay. Stay, okay?’ Shane said.
I did what I was told.
I looked at John Anthony. He was dead. I killed him.
Henk came striding down the path with Shane limp-running beside him.
‘He’s dead. I killed him,’ I said to Henk.
Henk made some sounds and put his hands on his hips and ran his fingers through his hair. He took a swig out of the hipflask in his breast pocket.
He said, ‘Get the ute, now,’ to Shane and threw keys at him. Shane shuffled back the lane.
Henk touched John Anthony’s forehead and said, ‘You young people. I’ll never understand it. You could be out hogging or shooting or spearfishing but instead you attack each other.’
Rest of it was sketchy. I couldn’t keep with it.
Wiping my face. Blood. Headlights, ute, Shane, driver’s door shut, Shane squeezes my shoulder, heave, we heave John Anthony into the back, insects crawling on the headlights, crawling on him, Shane says he’ll clean, go, go will ye.
Henk driving, Shane in the rearview mirror, a blanket or something, farmhouse slipping away into the distance, fucking Wonderwall, headlights, Hopper!
Hopper there!
There in the trees, stop, go back, Hopper, nothing, I thought it was him.
Henk hands me his hipflask, he tells me more – drink more, son. Hopper, he’s there, I swear to God he’s there, I saw him, by the dip in the track, he was just standing, my nose, my nose is broken, I can’t touch it, it makes me cry.
We pass the packing sheds, Hopper’s walking down in front of the ute, he’s looking at me, he’s looking in the window at me, Hopper, I shout again.
Henk brakes, you need to stay calm, mate, calm. But it was Hopper, Henk. He’s not a ghost. Is he a ghost? I think I killed him too. I fucking killed him too.
★
It’s cool by the river. Henk does the work. He says Mother Nature will sort it. I know he means the crocodiles or the dingoes.
Henk puts his hand on my shoulder. I’m looking down at the river slap against the bank or imagining it because I can’t see much. It’s black out.
‘Son, life is made of incidents. They test a man’s courage, his morals, his faith. I don’t think you struck out from a place of evil.’
‘We disappear, Henk,’ I said. I was still entranced by the water.
‘What?’
‘We disappear. Us Irish. That’s what they say about us. As workers. We work hard but we disappear.’
Henk waited. The moonlight lit his face.
‘We all have to go, Henk. It’d be the only way. If the lot of us fucked off, no one would notice one of us gone. That’d be the only way. We’ll go tonight. Us and Fiona.’
★
Henk drove us to the nearest town. It took over four hours. Fiona was sobering and clueless.
‘Where are we?’ she asked. ‘What’s going on?’
‘We left,’ Shane said.
‘Why?’
‘It’s okay.’
‘Something bad’s happened,’ she said in a dreamy way then gasped and quickly sat up straight. ‘Shit lads. What happened?’
Shane hushed her and pulled her close to him to go back to sleep. ‘It’s sound, just trust me.’
‘Where’s my stuff?’
‘We packed it, it’s fine,’ Shane said and kissed her hair.
‘But—’
‘Fiona, please,’ I said.
The way she looked at me was haunting but eventually she nodded and tucked herself into Shane.
Me and Shane were silent. I was dying to sleep but I couldn’t. It was weird because I could see Hopper everywhere, not John Anthony. Henk drove fairly well. We only met one other car on the road before getting to the town.
We got out and Henk hollered at a truck driver that had parked beside us. He spoke to him for a few minutes then returned. He said he had arranged a lift for two of us with the truck driver who was going to take a quick nap. The other one would have to wait and get a bus when the station opened at 8 a.m.
Henk helped us get our stuff out of the back. He kissed Fiona, shook Shane’s hand and pulled me in for a massive hug.
‘What about – you could post – I…’
I wanted to ask him about my wages but I couldn’t. I couldn’t make the sentence tactful in my head and I couldn’t risk pissing him off.
‘Son, you just forget about this. I don’t need police snooping around the mango farm. So you forget about this, leave it behind you. You’re young. Leave it. Enjoy your life.’
He wet the shoulder of my t-shirt with his tears. Then he let go.
★
Shane got us three cups of coffee in the small petrol station down the road. We were sitting on our rucksacks and morning was torturing us with its brightness. Shane had a proper shiner now and he was pressing his lips real tight to stop them shuddering. He had a tremble in his hands.
‘I’ve been thinking. I’ve been thinking, I’ll be the one who gets the bus somewhere. I’ll get the bus to somewhere I can get a flight. Gonna go across to Sydney. Good few of my cousins are there. I – I can’t do any of this anymore. Ye take Henk’s trucker lift to Perth. You know, it’s not because of – it’s just I have to, like – I have to g
o.’
He kissed Fiona on the lips for a few seconds. ‘Look after him,’ he said.
He nodded at me and I nodded back.
He took a drink of his coffee and turned away from us before I’d see him cry. He walked down towards the petrol station again and I watched him go.
He was the best friend I ever had.
★
The trucker was a heavy-set man with a thick Australian country accent, he said far like ‘faaah.’ He offered us some from the bags of crisps, cookies, chewy sweets he opened and even when we declined he made us take some.
‘Need a doc, boy?’ he asked when he saw me grimace blowing my nose. The back of my throat had the tangy taste of fresh blood and it was making me nauseous.
‘It’s okay, I’ll get it checked in Perth.’
Fiona was pale and quiet. She scribbled at drawings in her sketchbook. One of the farmhouse and the orchard around it. She was good, I could clearly see my room, Shane’s room, the courtyard, the smoking area, the laneway where I murdered John Anthony.
The roads were dead. The trucker played Kiss and Cat Stevens. Sometimes he switched to radio, to Triple J, and they played ‘Brother’ by Matt Corby every few songs. His voice cooing made my chest tighten.
I tried to sleep and when I’d eventually fall into something, I didn’t dream of the lads, I dreamt of sitting at the kitchen table at home. The auld lad eating lamb chops, Mam fussing all over him, fussing all over me. I dreamt of the ground being marshy from rain and the little drops on the windowsill as I looked outside to the grass. I dreamt of the stove and warming myself by it and I dreamt that I could go back in time. I woke up whimpering to Fiona stroking my hair and telling me it was going to be alright.
She didn’t ask any more questions. She made some small talk and she made me eat during the truck stops. I was bruised. Broken.
Because I’d been a bit shitfaced, it sometimes felt like it hadn’t even happened. That I didn’t go for his knife, that I didn’t thrust it into his jugular.
Why didn’t I stab him in the face? Or the hand?
Sometimes it felt like it wasn’t even that much of a sensation, to have taken a life. It was like cheating on a girlfriend. Bad thing. Unfair. But happened in the spur of the moment. You move on. Did that mean I was a sociopath? Would I kill again?