The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf

by Bartholomew Gill

  Noreen’s responsibility was the several “ferries” that were plying the bay on this, the first day of the O’Malley Rally. Her husband had so arranged the scheduling of the boats that there would be only one going and coming each hour. It would mean that a number of the O’Malleys might have to wait a while on the mainland, but at least some of the boat traffic over to the island would be monitored.

  McGarr had taken himself up to the south slope of Croaghmore, where he could keep an eye on two of the other possible launching sites. They were in and near Portnakilly. The fourth site near the northeastern corner of the island was being watched by Paul O’Malley from his “quad’s quad” on the top of Capnagower. And finally, Bernie McKeon had a clear view the Gottschalk buildings, the Ford cottage, and the cliffs as far as Croaghmore. McGarr was in contact with all via handheld VHF radios that he’d had Bresnahan and Ward bring from Dublin the night before. Noreen kept hers in the camera bag that was strapped over her shoulder.

  “Excuse me,” she now said to the person closest to her. The ferry had left the dock at Roonagh Point for Clare Island and she would have to work fast. “I’m from the O’Malley Rally Committee”—she pointed to the name tag that was pinned to her jumper—“Are you an O’Malley?”

  The older man nodded and allowed his eyes to run down Noreen’s figure. Her trim and angular body was wrapped today in a red tartan body suit and a short black suede A-line skirt. Her stockings were black, her flats were brilliant red. With her bright copper-colored hair and turquoise eyes, she knew she looked perfect for the part.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Biloxi, Mississippi, babe.” And sounded it. “And you, where you all from?” The man winked at Maddie.

  “Down home.” Noreen jerked a thumb at the island. “We’re attempting to put out a yearbook with the names and photographs of every O’Malley who attends this year’s rally. We’re hoping to make it free of charge because of donations and adverts. Would you care to be in it?”

  “For you, darlin’. Anything.”

  “What did he call you, Mammy?” Maddie asked.

  Noreen ignored her. “Then let me snap your picture. You have the rare good fortune of being number one.”

  “Wouldn’t be satisfied any other way. What kind of camera is that?”

  “It’s electronic, a digital camera—no developing, no processing, it works like a video recorder, but the images are still and can be stored on the disk. And, of course, you can get prints, if you have a color printer.”

  “My, my”—the man shook his head—“and all I ever heard was how backward this place was.”

  Noreen swallowed an acid reply and wrote the man’s name and address on her clipboard, before moving to the next passenger. All the names and addresses would be sent immediately to Garda headquarters to make certain Irish persons of those names existed and to Customs & Immigration authorities to check them against the computerized list of foreign nationals in the country. McGarr would show the portraits to the barman and the two patrons at McCabe’s Bar who had seen and spoken to the crewman of the Mah Jong the night of the murder.

  And so it went throughout the day. There were O’Malleys from Sweden, Argentina, Uruguay, Brittany, South Africa, Canada, Malaysia, Anguilla, Chile, Djbouti even, with a small army from the States. But the only actual “Irish” O’Malleys seemed to be young people who had “come to party with the blood,” said one gawky young fellow with pimples. “Incest Is Best” was the hopeful pronouncement on the front of his voluminous T-shirt. He was dressed in “grunge,” so he told Noreen.

  “Names and faces, faces and names,” said Maddie, tiring of the duty during only their second “crossing” of the morning. “When can we go swimming?” Every time they passed the fine sandy beach that ringed the north side of Clare Island harbor the six-year-old peered wistfully at the other children splashing in the sunny water. Unlike the frigid Irish Sea south of Dublin where they usually tried to bathe, the water here—heated by the Gulf Stream—was warm, as they knew from their earlier visit to Clare Island.

  “After lunch, kid,” Noreen replied, repeating one of the many endearments she had been called by the various and high-spirited O’Malleys.

  The best was yet to come, “Hai, chick—aye-n’t yah gonna tike my pict-yah?” asked a young man with a shaven head and a brace of gold rings pierced through the lobe of one ear. Wearing a muscle shirt, he had tattoos on both immense biceps, made more obvious because of the whiteness of the skin on his upper arms—a death’s head with “K2” beneath it on the right and a Celtic cross on the left. There was a blue bat in flight on his deeply tanned neck.

  “A thousand pardons. I wanted to make sure I’d snapped everybody else before attempting yours,” Noreen replied, off put by the appellation.

  Sitting on the cap rail of the transom of the boat, he craned back his head and laughed. “Red hair. It’s fire for sure. Chick is a compliment where I come from.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Aus-tryl-ia, a’ course. Where else?” He was wearing leather climbing shoes with a thick wrap of hard rubber around the leather uppers. In front of him was a rucksack with a long-handled climbing ax protruding from the flap.

  “He called my mother a chicken,” Maddie said to the only other person whose picture they had not taken: an elderly man with wire-rimmed spectacles who seemed uncomfortable in the presence of the—was he?—skinhead.

  “What’s that maike you then?” The Australian ruffled Maddie’s brilliant, red curls.

  “An egg?”

  “Nai, you’re way beyond the egg staige, luv. You’re a pull-it.” He gently tweaked her nose. “That’s what you are—a pull-it.” He reached for her again, but she scurried behind Noreen.

  “I didn’t get your name,” Noreen said, raising the camera.

  “That’s because I didn’t give it.” Placing his hands beneath his biceps, he flexed his muscles like bodybuilders of old and tried to look stern. The neck of the muscle shirt had opened more completely to reveal a large wheel of purple bruising with a bright red center. “It’s Brando O’Malley,” he growled through his teeth.

  Noreen lowered the camera slightly. “Brendan.”

  “Brando.”

  “You’re having me on.”

  “With any luck at all. Me parents were big fans. They bought a projector and showed On the Waterfront to everybody on the ranch, the aborigines included, until there wasn’t a man jack within fifty miles who couldn’t recite the script from heart. It’s said I got my start during the love scene.” He pulsed his eyebrows. “I only hope I can avoid Brando’s curse.”

  Noreen snapped the picture and waited.

  Brando O’Malley puffed out his cheeks and extended his arms at his sides, as though pretending to be fat. “Boffo-lo-itis.”

  Noreen couldn’t help herself he looked so comical; she started to laugh.

  “Hubby around?” he added. “I’ll buy you a beer.”

  Noreen gave him a look, as though to say now he really was overstepping himself.

  “Don’t let me looks fool you. I’ve got more degrees than a summer afternoon and a tux in me tuck.” He pointed to the sack.

  Noreen turned to the final man with the wire-rimmed glasses, who said, “Don’t bother. I’m not an O’Malley.”

  “Really? And you’re coming out to the island? I hope you have lodgings booked.”

  He nodded. “I haf’ a place to stay.” He was an older man who was wearing a tan windbreaker and cap to match. Gloved hands were folded on the leg of twill trousers, and the stout walking shoes on his feet were mahogany in color. Like the young Australian, there was a sack in front of him, contents bulging.

  “German, are you?”

  “Swiss. Schweibert’s the name, Doctor Ernst Schweibert.”

  “And you’ve been to Clare before?”

  “Several times. I spent the summer of 1990 here.”

  “As part of the study?” Noreen meant the follow-up to the st
udy that had been conducted by the Royal Irish Academy in 1909–1911. Employing teams of scholars and naturalists, the Dublin group had examined every aspect of island life from flora to fauna to the underlying causes of emigration, which was then also a problem.

  The sixty-seven reports were bound under one cover and detailed everything from small species of fungi and algae that had never before been examined in Ireland, through “the razorbills that breed up to a thousand feet on the great cliff of Clare Island” in colonies too numerous to count, to the history, archaeology, place-names, family names, Gaelic plant and animal names, and agriculture.

  One of Noreen’s great buys was a well-preserved copy of the massive tome for a fiver which she found at a bookstall on the Dublin quays. “I priced that yoke by the pound, and there’s no hagglin’, missus. I’ve spent half me life humpin’ it in and out o’ the van.”

  Because of the comprehensiveness of the effort, there were continual calls throughout the rest of the century for follow-up studies. By the 1980s not only had scientific knowledge advanced but also investigative methods had improved so markedly that there was some suspicion that Praeger and his cohorts might have missed something. Which proved to be the case.

  “What’s your field?” Noreen asked the man.

  “Palynology. Actually, I’m a paleobotanist.”

  Now Noreen’s interest was piqued. Having closely followed the reports of the symposia that were given in 1989, 1990, and 1991, she knew how successful the recent study had been. In both archaeology and paleobotany, it had been something akin to hitting a mother lode or winning the World Cup. And dramatic, since the earlier study had claimed that, whereas Achill Island to the immediate north abounded with identifiable Mesolithic structures, there was none on Clare Island.

  But taking a walk one morning, an Irish archaeologist, who had decided to explore as much of the island as possible, happened upon what he thought was a Bronze Age monument, a fulachta fiadh. When he returned with his colleagues, the group immediately found four more.

  The same archaeologist was then told by islanders of another site that “might be something.” Hiking to it, their guides brought them past two more fulachta fiadh before pointing to a large collection of stones. The archaeologist rushed forward, unable to credit what he was seeing—a Stone Age court tomb or burial vault. It meant that people had inhabited Clare Island for at least fifty-five hundred years. Or perhaps seventy-five hundred. It was difficult to date the site precisely.

  Another spectacular find occurred in paleobotany. “Were you present when that core sample was brought up?”

  The elderly man nodded. “Not only was I present, but it was at my suggestion that Coxon took the sample where he did. Of course, he’s never acknowledged that.” The man raised his head and surveyed the island that they were fast approaching.

  Coxon was Peter Coxon of Trinity College who, in taking a core sample from a fulachta fiadh, came up with a complete, unopened, and glistening hazel nut. It was as fresh as the day it fell from the tree, seven thousand years ago.

  Which was the kind of touch with the past that Noreen thought of as mystical. Bending to Maddie, she now said, “You know the ice I told you about?”

  “The glacier that was once here?”

  “That’s right. After it melted, the first plants to appear in the glacial debris were grasses, docks, and meadowsweet. Then trees appeared, one of which was hazel.”

  “Like the nuts?” They were a favorite of Maddie, especially when wrapped in Cadbury milk chocolate.

  “Within only two hundred years of its first arriving here, hazel trees covered this island, some of them growing to forty feet. Two hundred years is no time at all in the history of the earth.”

  Maddie gazed up at the bald eminence of Croaghmore and its green and treeless flanks. “I don’t see any trees. Aren’t there any left?”

  Noreen turned her head to Professor Schweibert and waited; it was her test.

  “After hazel, other varieties of trees appeared, until around seven thousand years ago when man began using wood for heat and shelter and perhaps even clearing some land for cultivation. The climate then was a degree or two Celsius warmer and drier than it is now, and it remained so for about two thousand years.”

  Curiously, the man’s accent had disappeared; he sounded like an anchor on the evening news.

  “But when it changed and became cooler and wetter, the soil could not replace the trees that were taken, as farming techniques improved and the population increased. Blanket bogs and iron pan appeared. Even so, in the sixteenth century, Grace O’Malley describes Clare Island as being partially wooded. In the next century, however, the British cleared Ireland of its trees for various reasons but mainly military, a wood being a place of refuge.

  “Now, to answer your question, little one.” Schweibert looked down at Maddie. “There are still some hazel trees, an oak or two, some birch willow and holly—all confined to a small area in the lee of a hill up there in Lassau.” He pointed almost due north, as the boat now entered the harbor. “But they’re mainly dwarfed. There’s too much wind and rain and too few nutrients in the soil.”

  Schweibert glanced up at Noreen, his smile thin, his eyes clear and hard.

  CHAPTER 22

  “DID YOU MANAGE to meet that boatload of young women?” Noreen asked Ruth Bresnahan. She and Maddie had just joined McGarr and his staff at the Bayview Hotel for a working lunch.

  From the windows they could survey the harbor. There Garda Superintendent Tom Rice was presently stationed to photograph and interview any celebrants arriving by private boat. McGarr had also asked the “ferry” captains to suspend operations for the noon hour.

  “You mean the Amazon in the mango bikini? Moira O’Malley from Howth?”

  “Yes, I don’t see her boat anywhere.” Not only was the harbor crowded with private boats, the picturesque lane that traced the shoreline was thronged with strolling O’Malleys in various stages of undress. The balmy weather was holding.

  “She mentioned something about diving.”

  Said Ward from the sideboard where he was making a plate from the platters of sandwiches and salads that had just been delivered, “After she asked you—well—out, I guess you’d call it. What were her words again? ‘Do you swim? Of course you do—you’re made for swimming. We must plunge together. I could teach you how to dive.’” Bresnahan’s jersey didn’t help.

  White, skintight, and sheer, it said “Oh!-Mmm!-Alley-Cat” across the protrusive front; on the back was. “If you tickle me fancy, I’ll purr in your ear.” Beneath the garment could be seen a black strapless bikini. Her shorts also were sheer, exposing her well-tanned, shapely legs and much of her lower-middle anatomy. Unlike Noreen, who freckled, Ruth Bresnahan was a redhead who, with carefully measured exposures, could acquire a nonred color.

  “Ah, you’re just jealous she didn’t ask you.”

  “She could tell from my lack of diving equipment”—Ward waved a hand at his chest—“I wasn’t her tank of oxygen.”

  “Speaking of good air—how’s Bernie doing up at the lighthouse?”

  Noreen assumed the question was addressed to her, since her husband was in the next room showing the electronic portraits to the barman and two patrons from McCabe’s. “Great, as far as I know.”

  “Not grousing yet?”

  At the sideboard, Noreen began fixing Maddie a plate. “Peter said he was surprised there’ve been no complaints.”

  Bresnahan eyed Ward. “But wouldn’t he be better placed here at the hotel?”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—considering how he fancies chat and all. I’m sure he’d be on a first-name basis with half the O’Malleys in one short session.”

  It occurred to Noreen what was afoot, having glanced at a brochure in the Roonagh Ferry of the new guest accommodation at the lighthouse. “The Last Temptation” was surely the temptation to succumb to, when on Clare Island: a big bed in a turret on a four-hundr
ed-foot cliff overlooking the wild Atlantic; Continental cuisine prepared by a master chef; long restorative walks in the brisk air with all those marvelous views of Clew Bay, Achill Island, and Grand Turk to the south. All on the Garda Siochana and so far from Dublin that no police snoop would cop on, as it were. “You could ring him up, see how he’s faring.”

  “Splendid idea. I’m glad you thought of it. After all, four eyes are better than two.” Bresnahan reached for the phone.

  Unless, of course, they were locked into each other.

  “Bernie! Bucko! How’s every little thing up in your ivory tower?” There was a pause, and then, “What do you mean, who’s calling? It’s your colleague and sometime acolyte in matters of the spirit—whoever did you think it was?”

  As Bresnahan paced the carpet by the phone, Noreen decided not for the first time that Ruthie was without a doubt the most beautiful, big woman that she knew. She had at once voluptuous size, shapeliness, and color. Add to that definite spirit, not just a little bit of Dublin wit, and a goodly measure of Kerry country craft, and you had a rather spectacular human being. Little wonder that she had corralled, so to say, the wandering Ward.

  “Speaking of higher callings,” Ruth continued, “where do you think I’m phoning from? I won’t make you guess, which is cruel. Why, the bar of the Bayview Hotel.” Ruth winked at Noreen. “It’s a brilliant place. Great craic with O’Malley-this and O’Malley-that splashing out gobs of money. This round is from the cousins in New York, that one from Sydney. It’s like a bidding war in an auction room with everybody on a first-name basis.”

  She listened for a moment. “So—the bar at the Bayview doesn’t have a phone. Call it…poetic licensed premises. You seem a bit glum, chum. Tell me, now—has solitary assignment made you a little gah-gah? Or goo-goo? You know, the one white wall that surrounds you. Or, could one be the loneliest number that you’ll ever know?”

  There was no response, and Bresnahan could only assume that McKeon—Dubliner that he was—had never been forced to listen to country and western music, as everybody who switched on a radio in the West did. “Hang on, Bernie, the chief is passing the cabinet. Excuse me, Chief—as long as you’re up, I’ll have that other glass.”