‘Easy. Slow down. Easy through Sligo. Who do you think you are? Stirling Moss?’
Motives.
Could we look at the possibility of creating a situation where the blabbing mouths of the political posturers were silenced once and for all? That, as Shakespeare said, is a consummation devoutly to be wished. Worth getting blisters on your backside for.
But. Oh but, but, but, is it worth, ha ha, breaking eggs for? I often wonder to myself why I don’t use that brisk word … kill. It makes me feel uneasy, that’s why. Manus has a gun on his person. Manus has no scruples. Does he really have a dream, or merely no scruples?
I would think that I am probably driving across Ireland with a chrysalis beside me. One day, he too, like so many others with no scruples, will emerge, blossom from his chrysalis state into a free-flying political posturer. For that it is not worth getting blisters on your…
Do I really have to do this to prove my identity?
Or am I just too lazy to do it any other way?
Why was I born with a silly name like Jackson Cuffe around my neck?
If my father hadn’t been shot and I hadn’t been the recipient of a considerable sum of compensation, I wouldn’t have a car in which to drive Manus interminably silent miles. What then? What other menial task would they have entrusted to me?
I depress myself at times.
‘Pull up here, for a minute or two. I want to piss and have a couple of words with the lads.’
Jack drew in to the side of the road and stopped. The lorry stopped about twenty yards behind them. Manus got out of the car and walked back along the road.
Jack opened the door of the car and got out to stamp the stiffness from his bones. It was very cold and starry bright. The huge flint-sprinkled sky hung silent above him. His hands were silver, the road, the low thorn hedge and the hills, quite silver, naked, nowhere to hide. He could smell the sea, hear though no sound, only the low voices of the three men talking secrets.
He got back in the car and banged the door closed to dispel the unease that came to him sometimes with night silence. The inside of the car smelt disagreeable. He rolled down the window and waited until he heard Manus’s footsteps returning along the road, then he put out his hand and started the engine.
Manus settled himself into his seat and groped for chocolate.
‘That’s okay,’ he said. ‘Want a piece?’ He offered a bar of Kit-Kat in Jack’s direction.
‘No thanks’
‘I’ve told them to give us twenty minutes. That’s in case your man is around.’
‘If he is?’
Manus dropped the paper on the floor and began to eat the chocolate. ‘That’s your problem. You’ll think up something to get him out of the way. If that happens, if we’re seen … or rather if you’re seen, you’ll have to spend a couple of days with your mother. I’ll go back to Dublin with the boys in the lorry.’
‘What’ll I say to her? She’ll be extremely amazed to see me.’
‘You’ll think of something. Move it.’
‘Sure they won’t get lost?’ asked Jack, jerking his head backwards towards the lorry.
‘If they get lost, I’ll have their balls.’
There was no light, no movement at the station. Jack stopped the car and Manus got out.
‘It’s a bugger of a night. You could hear the grass growing and see it too.’
Jack nodded.
‘Get on down anyway and see if he’s at the house. If he is we’re elected.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Give us half an hour minimum. That’s fifteen minutes … and half an hour… keep him occupied till ten-thirty. I’ll see you back in Dublin.’
‘If he’s not there?’
‘Don’t go in. Come back up here and park the car outside the door. If he comes back it’ll be up to you to occupy his mind. I’d say he’d be at the house below.’
He closed the car door quietly and pointed down the hill. Jack nodded and drove off.
They lay on the sofa in front of the fire, half-drunk with love and wine. The flickering light from the fire made their bodies seem to writhe, but they were in fact quite still, quite peaceful. They heard nothing but the sound of their own breathing, the pumping of two hearts. They heard no car, no latch click, no steps in the hall. The first moment they were aware of Jack’s presence was when he opened the sitting-room door and switched on the light.
‘Mother… oh Jesus God!’
Helen stared, confused across the back of the sofa for what seemed like a long time before she gathered into her mind what was happening.
‘Jack.’
She stood up, fastening the buttons down the front of her shirt.
‘You never told me you were coming down.’
She bent and picked her skirt from the floor and stepped into it.
Roger sat up, rubbing at his eye as if it were paining him.
‘Hello, Jack.’ His voice was composed.
Helen picked up his trousers and dropped them on top of him.
‘You should have let me know you were coming. I think we’ve probably eaten all the food.’
‘I don’t need food. I tried to phone but I couldn’t get through,’ he lied.
She nodded, not believing him.
‘I think I’ll just…’ He backed out of the room into the hall… ‘just, bathroom.’
He disappeared and they heard him running up the stairs. Roger got up from the sofa and pulled his trousers on.
‘I suppose we’ve shocked him,’ said Helen. ‘Oh dear … I hope we haven’t appalled him.’ She giggled. ‘His face was appalled. I hope he doesn’t do anything awful up there.’
‘Don’t be silly, Helen, he’ll just recover his equilibrium and then he’ll come down. You’d better give him a large drink.’
Helen was punching at the cushions on the sofa.
‘Is this sordid?’ she asked, suddenly anxious, ‘or really a bit funny? It’s not very dignified.’
‘It would have been one hell of a lot less dignified if he’d arrived ten minutes earlier. A whisky? I’m having a whisky. To induce the correct light-hearted approach.’
‘I’ll stick to wine.’
Jack came into the room.
‘Whisky?’ asked Roger. Jack nodded abruptly and walked over to Helen who was standing with her back to the fire.
‘What’s all this anyway?’
‘What’s all what?’
‘This … this …’ He pointed towards the sofa.
‘Have your drink, Jack dear. There’s no need for you to get all worked up.’
‘I’m not worked up.’
Roger came across the room and put a glass of whisky into his hand.
‘I’m embarrassed. I’m ashamed. For God’s sake, I might have had someone with me.’
‘But you didn’t,’ said Helen. ‘And anyway if you’d said you were coming down we would have behaved in a more appropriate way.’
‘Would you mind very much opening this bottle of wine for your mother? I can’t use this corkscrew.’
‘Yes, I do mind. My mother’s had enough to drink already. I can see that by looking at her.’
‘You’re being a bit grotesque,’ said Helen, coldly.
‘Grotesque. I’m being grotesque. That’s good. Do you know how grotesque you’re being? Nauseatingly grotesque.’
‘Jack …’ She put out a hand and touched his shoulder. He shuddered her hand away.
‘Don’t you touch me.’
Roger took Helen’s hand in his.
‘You’ll have to get over your nausea, young man, because your mother and I love each other and …’
‘Love … what do you mean love?’
‘I’m sorry that you don’t know the meaning of the word yourself.’
‘She didn’t love my father. How can she love someone like you? You’re both making fools of yourselves.’
Helen uncoupled her hand from Roger’s.
‘You go home, darling. Jack will pull himself together and
then we’ll talk about all this. Just Jack and I will talk about it.’ She smiled at him and nodded her head.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
She put her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth.
‘I love you.’
He held her for a moment.
‘Yes,’ he said.
As he moved across the room, Jack suddenly became aware of what was happening.
‘No. Don’t go.’ He made a move to follow Roger, but Helen took hold of his arm.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He pulled at her fingers. ‘I’m sorry. Stay. Let’s talk.’ Roger, in the doorway, raised his hand and smiled at Helen.
‘Courage,’ was all he said.
‘Roger,’ called out Jack.
Helen took hold of his shoulders and pushed him down into a chair.
‘Call him back, Mother. I’m sorry. I was stupid. Please …’
‘Don’t be silly, Jack. If you want to have a vile conversation, have it with me. I don’t want him hurt.’
Jack gave her a push that sent her sprawling onto the floor. He jumped out of the chair and was away out of the room.
‘Roger.’
She heard his voice in the hall.
‘Roger.’
She heard him almost wail outside in the road.
Roger’s car drove off and then after a moment Jack followed. For some inexplicable reason he had his hand on the horn and she heard the blaring twist away along the road.
She got up from the floor.
How absurd we are, she thought. How easily we become affected by panic. I will be calm, domestic. I will clear away the signs of our panic. I will open the wine, bang the cushions, set straight the rugs, polish the glasses. They will be back soon and there will be no more panic.
Then there was the first explosion. The house shivered and the glass in the window cracked from the top down to the bottom, and shards, slivers, splinters, slid scattered across the floor.
I didn’t think that anything else mattered.
As in a fugue the shattering glass recurs and recurs, punctuates the rhythm of my life. New endings, new beginnings occur. Each shattering unveils the eye. Damian pointed out to me, though, that there was one fact about which only he and I were aware.
Neither the police, nor the coroner, judges, lawyers, nor the news men, nor the casual devourers of news, no one at all in fact was aware of the presence of Manus at the station on the night of the explosion. There was no trace, no inkling of his presence, though we knew that he must have been there. He must have started running when he heard the blaring of Jack’s horn. Up behind the station, onto the hill he must have run, off the roads and up among the whins and the grazing sheep.
After they had gathered together the bits and pieces, the sad human detritus from the hedges and the surrounding fields, after identifications, investigations, and enquiries, it was officially stated that four men had died. Two, young men, whose names I have forgotten, who had been in the lorry when the accident happened; poor Roger, half-drunk with wine and love; and Jack whose hand was still on the horn as he ran into the back of Roger’s car.
Needless was Roger’s word.
I mourn the needless dead.
The recollections that I keep in my head are part of my private being.
On canvas, I belong to the world. I record for those who wish to look, the pain and joy and loneliness and fear that I see with my inward and my outward eye.
All those questions.
God-given.
And no answers.
In moments of viciousness, I quite like to think of Manus running up over the bare hills. Cold hills with little shelter. I like to think of him alone, frightened, exposed under the bright moon, the flinty stars, running.
Running.
Running.
About the Author
Jennifer Johnston is a preeminent voice of contemporary Irish fiction. Her long list of accolades includes the Whitbread Literary Award for The Old Jest, the Evening Standard Award for Best First Novel for The Captains and the Kings, and a Man Booker Prize shortlist mention for Shadows on Our Skin. Her recent Foolish Mortals was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Decade by the BordGáis Energy Irish Book Awards. Johnston has authored seventeen novels and five plays. She lives outside Derry, Northern Ireland.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1984 by Jennifer Johnston
Cover design by Mimi Bark
ISBN: 978-1-4976-4646-9
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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The Railway Station Man Page 21