by John Brady
“Please God, we’ll see more of you so then, Mick?”
Minogue gave the barman a look sharp enough to cause him to elbow up from the counter.
“Jamesons,” he said. “Two of ’em. Don’t make a cod of them with ice or anything. Two bottles of stout for comfort on top of them. Pint of lager. Please.”
“Are you here for the meeting, is it now, Mick?” asked the fat man.
“What meeting are you talking about?”
“Beyond in the dining room. Master Howard’s in town tonight. The Development Association.”
“The Dan Howard re-election committee, you mean,” said Eoin.
The fat man’s cheeks made slits of his eyes when he grinned.
“God, they haven’t pulled the wool over your eyes, Eoin,” he said. “Wide-awake you are, boy.”
He turned his attention to Minogue and squinted out from the pouches around his eyes. The Inspector folded his wife’s twenty and handed it to the barman.
“I know you from somewhere… Ah, yes! You’re the brother, the Guard up in Dublin. Wouldn’t know you from Adam if I wasn’t seeing you here next to the brother. Wouldn’t know you at all.”
Minogue took custody of the whiskeys and the bottles of stout.
“Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t want to,” he said.
The fat man regrouped with a smile and a nod. The barman changed the channel on the television. Minogue followed Eoin to a table and sat next to his brother.
“Don’t mind that half-wit,” said Mick. “He’s Deegan from up the Saint’s Quarter. ‘As I roved out.’ Does odd jobs for the Howards. Since Tidy’s gone, I don’t think there’s much love lost between Dan Howard and your man here. Always trying to get a rise out of one or the other of us.”
Dimly the Inspector recalled a family of Deegans. He rolled a soupspoon’s worth of whiskey around under his tongue and then nodded it back to his tonsils. The heat detonated in his chest first. Minogue, one: early winter in the west of Ireland, nil. A man took an accordion from a case at a nearby table. Good, thought Minogue as the whiskey crept further through his intestines. Now he had an excuse for Kathleen: There was a session, my dear. How was he supposed to fob off advice on Mick or Eoin?
The musicians were soon loose and free with their instruments. A teenager with a pony-tail and the faint and distracted smile Minogue associated with expert musicians started to fiddle. The accordion player began to slip in the extra notes and flourishes which are the insignia of Clare composition. The bar began to fill. Deegan had left the bar for a seat next to the fireplace where he drank with two younger men. Minogue spotted him looking toward their table once. During a break in the music, Mick wanted to talk about hurling. Minogue made a big effort to appear interested, but the music and the drink had set his mind rambling. Several times he glanced down at his empty whiskey glass, but Mick didn’t get the hint. His own glass had remained half-full for the past twenty minutes. Mick’s hands had closed on one another as he talked and his hands worked slowly at stretching the fingers. Many would never straighten again, Minogue knew. God, another drink, he decided.
“Well, look,” said Eoin, and leaned sideways to see around standing patrons. “The man himself.”
Mick broke off his monologue, looked up and wrinkled his nose. Minogue caught a glimpse of several men as they came through the door and made their way toward the bar. A hand rose and waved across the heads of the crowd at someone unseen to Minogue.
“Who?” he said to Eoin.
“Dan Howard and the crowd from the PDDA. Howard makes a point of dropping in here for a jar after the meetings. Oh, and here’s the wife. Jacqueline Kennedy, I heard her called the other day.”
“A state visit,” grunted Mick. “His own damn pub and all.”
Some memory came faintly to Minogue, but it disappeared before he could place it. She had straight white-blonde hair, lately trimmed, framing a ruddy, tanned face. The Inspector was observing a woman who looked after herself, who had money and plenty of outdoor pursuits to make light of her years. Horsey maybe, he thought, with that fresh-faced, American sort of health. She wore a green loden over knee-length boots. A burrowing presence low under his ribs seemed to grow still. Confusion snared his thoughts tight; he realised that he was staring at her. From her gaze the Inspector knew that she was well aware of eyes on her. He watched her shrug off her coat. His throat was suddenly dry. He took a breath and tried to swallow.
“Never passes up the chance of shaking a few hands toward the next election,” said Mick. “He has the music organised for the same night as the PDDA meetings. Cute hoor, by God.”
Dan Howard was six feet tall but looked even taller in his double-breasted suit. Black curly hair tinted with grey sat over his rosy, dimpled face. His eyes twinkled, his smile was steady and wide. Howard’s hand strayed to his chest and searched out his tie, brushing it tighter inside his jacket. He shook hands with a young couple sitting at the bar and smiled at the musicians. One of them hoisted a glass in return. Minogue watched Dan Howard’s impish, benevolent gaze sweep around the room. His winks and waves continued. He gave a thumbs-up and a gleeful wink to someone Minogue could not see.
“See the little fella under his arm,” said Eoin. “He’s a German. A bloody millionaire. He flies over every month for these meetings. I’m not joking you.”
Minogue caught sight of a white-haired man with heavy, hornrimmed glasses on a head that seemed larger than it needed to be. Howard’s wife wore a loden, he remembered. A gift, maybe.
“Fell in love with the place. Yes, he’s taken a special interest in our little corner of the world.” Eoin’s sarcasm brought Minogue’s eyes to his nephew’s.
“Spillner. He brings people here every now and then to buy places. Clare’s ambassador in Germany.”
Minogue looked over again at the group by the bar. Howard was still looking around the crowd. His eyes lingered on Minogue as though he were trying to recall a name to go with the Inspector’s face, and he smiled broadly. Minogue nodded back. Someone handed Howard a glass of whiskey. The German had made his way over to the musicians and was talking animatedly to them.
Howard moved away from the bar and worked his way around the tables. He paused by one to shake hands with an elderly man. He inclined over another to listen to a joke, his smile broader with anticipation. His eyes focussed on Minogue while he listened. He showed perfect, even teeth when he laughed. The fiddle player drew his bow across the strings, set his jaw and launched into a reel. Spillner pushed at his glasses, laid his glass down and began clapping.
Mick eased himself more upright in his seat and grunted.
“Look at him, would you, for the love of God.”
The music had restored Minogue, renewed his thirst. He stood and made his way through the crowd. Damn it all, he thought, he’d do his best to spend the twenty-quid fee his wife had given him for parleying with Mick and Eoin. Danger money. He watched the barman uncapping the bottles of stout.
“So how’s Dublin?” called out the barman.
“Ah, it’s all right. A bit like Mars by times. But I like it.”
The barman shrugged and turned to the till. The fiddle wailed high over the guitar now and Minogue’s blood began to race with the music. His foot began rehearsing in miniature the steps to a Clare Set. Howard was still on the move. Minogue could not locate Howard’s wife, but as he stepped away from the bar he spotted her sitting next to the German. While he clapped vigorously she was looking at the musicians with a faint smile. She glanced over suddenly and returned Minogue’s gaze for several moments. The Inspector felt the soft compression about his chest again. A nudge on his arm from another patron drew him around to face the bar. The barman was shouting at him over the music.
“Your change!”
Minogue returned to the table and fended off money held out by Eoin. He wanted an excuse to stand up so that he could see her again. What was it about her that looked so familiar? Maybe she had been inspecting him to
see if she could peg him from a family likeness. He thought of how her shoulders had rolled when she had slipped off the loden. And him like the world’s biggest iijit standing there, forgetting his change, staring at her. He took a gulp from his glass.
It was then that the Inspector noticed the customers moving away from the door. The man who now stood in the doorway seemed immune to the ruckus around him. He wore a thick black workman’s coat, a donkey jacket, with the collar turned up. Though he was tall and wiry, his shoulders were hunched under a mop of white hair. His beard was still almost completely black. The Inspector shifted to get a better angle and saw the plastic shopping bags dangling from the man’s hands. Others in the crowd had begun to look toward the new arrival now. The barman looked up from a glass he was filling and frowned. Several people edged closer to the bar. Minogue looked back at the bearded man. There was something more to him than that furtive alertness which Minogue associated with people who were cracked. In the animal shyness and caution was defiance.
The barman left the glass on the counter half-filled and lifted the hinged countertop. Men around the bar made way for him. The bearded man noted him coming toward him but returned to looking around the groups in the bar. The fiddle player left the guitar and the accordion to account for the melody and began to soar and fall around it. The German millionaire was smiling broadly, swaying from side to side on his stool. The barman’s face was set in an expression of resolute regret as he talked to the bearded man. The bearded man kept looking at the faces in the pub. The barman’s hands went to his hips and he nodded toward the door. The bearded man looked at him for a moment, seemed about to say something, but pivoted. Minogue saw that the bags seemed to be crammed with newspapers. So still had the collie been in the shadows behind that Minogue was surprised when it stirred. Minogue looked up from the animal to find the man’s eyes staring at him. The intensity held his eyes for a moment before returning to the barman’s. The barman nodded at the door again and shrugged. The bearded man left. The collie trotted out, its eyes locked on the man’s boots. Minogue looked to their wake until the door swung back, then sipped from his whiskey. Ah, good heart, he tried to decoy himself. The drop of malt, the soft drift into comfort: there’s always whiskey.
Mick leaned over and murmured into Minogue’s ear.
“That poor divil. Your man there, the go-by-the-wall. You know him.”
Mick shifted slowly in his chair and Minogue saw his brother’s face seize with pain as he moved.
“That envelope back at the house,” Mick added, sucking in air.
“Was that Jamesy Bourke?”
“None other.”
Minogue watched as Mick rubbed under his chin with the back of his hand.
“There’s a family that’s scattered to the four winds. The mother only died a while ago. Three year. I tell a lie. Four. Four come the Christmas. She lived there alone and died of a broken heart. Jamesy was let out under guard for the funeral and he was gone again until a few months ago.”
“Let out,” Minogue repeated.
“Don’t you remember that fire? The dead girl? A Canadian girl? I suppose it’s ten or twelve years or more now. She was burned to death in a cottage she was renting. It was Jamesy set the place on fire and she inside. A love thing that went sour on him. He got a life sentence as I recall.”
Minogue thought of the envelope he had dropped into the suitcase back at the farm. Crossan, the barrister, was working in some capacity for Jamesy Bourke. Something lurched into his thoughts then. Had Bourke known he’d be here tonight? Had he come to talk to him?
“I heard he lost his mind in prison,” Mick murmured. “Took a knife to a warder and had time tacked on to his sentence for it…”
“But he’s-?”
“Ah, he has medication and that.” Mick flicked his head. “So far, so good, I suppose. No run-ins with anyone. Yet. But there’s plenty of people didn’t want him coming back here at all. They cross the street or turn around rather than have to pass him. The poor divil. Lonely there by himself. There’s only Jamesy and his dog left above in the cottage. Very fond of the dog. You’d hear him talking away to the dog and they walking the roads, the two of them. It was the mother, God rest her, scraped that little house out of the farm after she was rid of it.”
Mick shrugged and began massaging his hands again.
“There was bad luck on that family, there’s no doubt,” he added.
Minogue stood and began to thread his way toward the toilet. Dan Howard was still on the move, shaking hands with a man just in the door of the pub. When he returned Howard was gone. The musicians’ faces looked redder but more determined, but neither the German nor Mrs Howard sat next to them now. Newcomers occupied the table, faces vaguely familiar to Minogue. He nodded at them and smiled, trying to place them, believing that he knew the family at least. He sat down next to his brother with faint dismay still hanging in his mind. Eoin raised his glass and tipped it against his uncle’s.
“Your health, now, Uncle Matt, and all belonging to you.”
The edges of the road glistened under the streetlamps and the night air was astir with the breeze in off the sea. Minogue felt its presence as it rolled and lapped up to the shore below the village. He paused on the threshold of the pub and watched a rain so fine as to be almost mist bloom under the rim of the streetlamps. The door of the pub hissed closed behind him, swallowing the talk within. He listened more keenly now, but he still couldn’t be sure that it was the hush of the sea he was hearing. The smell of seaweed from the harbour, mingled with turf-smoke, thickened the air around him. Eoin blundered out the door, nearly pitching him into the street. “Sorry, Uncle Matt.”
Eoin fiddled with the car keys and Mick paused to blow his nose. Minogue heard a dog bark up the street. A man laughed raucously somewhere. The dog howled as though struck and then began barking again. In between barks, Minogue heard laughs and a guffaw. He walked beyond the car and stopped by the forecourt of a garage recessed in from the street. From there he saw Deegan poke at the shopping bag. Bourke held the bag of newspapers tighter. The streetlamp reflected off his eyes as they darted from Deegan to the other two. The dog made another run at Deegan but moved to avoid a boot from one of Deegan’s cronies.
“What’s in the bag, professor?” Deegan called out over the dog’s growling. “Dirty pictures, hah?”
Minogue remembered that same tone of bogus kindliness in the sadistic teachers of his youth. Jamesy Bourke wrapped his arms around the bag and his eyes fastened on Minogue. Eoin and Mick now stood beside him. Deegan caught sight of the Minogues and turned to face them. The two men with him, young, with the slack smiles of men who had been drinking, turned also.
“A man can’t stop and water his horse without some quare fella lying in wait and looking on,” said Deegan. “Isn’t that a divil?”
He glanced at the collie and then raised his arms and hissed. The dog recoiled, barking furiously. Deegan laughed. Still chuckling, he ambled by Mick. The two younger men followed.
“Tell me something,” Minogue said as they passed. “Is it just the Hallowe’en or are ye like this every night of the year?”
Deegan slowed his jaunty gait. Minogue noted how thick he was in silhouette. One of the men’s shoes scuffed on the edge of the footpath and he took an extra step to steady himself.
“Ah, the polls down from the big city, bejases,” Deegan drawled. “Enjoy your little holiday now, can’t you, and then go home to Dublin without worrying about us humble folk down here. We can look after ourselves.”
The Inspector turned back to where Bourke had been standing. He was gone.
Minogue laid the envelope on the chest of drawers and began to finger his laces loose. Kathleen looked out from behind a paperback.
“I think I remember it now,” she said.
“He was released just a few months ago.”
Kathleen retreated behind the book. Her tipsy husband stared at the picture on the cover. A girl with long h
air and her dress off her shoulder had her leg around a Robert Redford type inclined over her. Smoke-puffing cannon and soldiers busied themselves in the background. He stood and let the trousers drop, sat down on the bed and drew the trousers around his heels. Was it cold in Dublin too? Hoey. Where was Aine again? Zimbabwe. Hot there, no doubt.
“Not a word out of him,” Minogue murmured. “Just walked off.” The damp air brushed against his bare legs. The room had been his parents’ and the wallpaper was a half-dozen layers thick.
“Who? Mick?”
“Jamesy Bourke. I thought he might come over and say something. But he just took off, himself and the dog.”
Kathleen laid the book face down.
“God, can’t you stop reminding me about that fella? You come home with a few jars on you and the first thing, you want to tell me all the gory details about it.”
“Wait a minute there. You’re one of the ones helped set me up for this little ‘job’ that bloody barrister Crossan wants me to do.”
“Did you talk to Eoin or Mick about the future even? No, you didn’t.”
“There was music.”
“There was music. Of course there was music. There’s always something getting in the way.”
“I can’t just waltz in and start talking about selling the farm.”
“Maybe not, but here you are, to top it all off, sitting there this last half-hour reading that stuff in the envelope. Some kind of a lunatic. God, it gives me the creeps, man.”
“What time did Crossan phone again?”
“Half an hour after you left for the pub. Maura asked me first. I told her to tell him you worked better around food. Twelve o’clock, the Old Ground in Ennis, tomorrow.”
“I was obviously working under the delusion that we were on a holiday of sorts here,” he muttered. “But you seem to have my schedule well in hand. The set-up at the pub with Mick and Eoin-”
“Ah go on, would you. I gave you twenty quid to kill the pain there.”
“-and now you’re setting up appointments with Crossan-”