Unholy Ground imm-2

by John Brady

  Minogue laid Mme Bovary and her waning fortunes aside. Iseult was baking something in the kitchen. This disturbed him. She didn't cook as a habit. Perhaps she was preparing for the domestic role with yours truly, Pat the Brain. Marx stood Hegel on his head. Ireland stood Minogue on his head. Pat the Brain has stood my daughter on her head. Was this a good thing?

  He listened to Kathleen's fountain pen. The living room scene could have been a study for the Dutch school. Twilight, wan evening glow on the side of Kathleen's face. What on earth was she writing? Letters, still? Maybe she was writing poems. Had he not noticed? Maybe that's what one of her poems was about, too: "On the blind narcissism of men: my husband, for example." God help him if she slashed like Sylvia Plath.

  "What are you at?" he tried.

  "I'm writing letters. It's not often I do it, so I'm going to plug away at it until I get sick of it," she murmured.

  "What's your daughter up to with the cooking? Nest-building?"

  "Don't be interrupting me. She's making muffins."

  Sorry for asking. Where was Daithi? Better not ask the boy's mother.

  Minogue fingered the Magritte postcard. He looked at it again in the yellowing light. He was afraid to turn on the light for fear of disturbing Kathleen. She was pacing herself to the daylight. Like talk, it didn't matter that the daylight had almost gone. Soon she'd look up from her papers astounded: do you know, she'd say, I didn't know it was dark; no wonder I can't see what I'm writing.

  Things inverted, things turned upside down. Very clever boyo, that Magritte. Look at it. The promise of water, all ready to drink in a tumbler, the umbrella skin-tight against its ribs waiting for the water that wouldn't come. Sort of impossible but possible too, maybe? It was an odd feeling, one that made him smile, a feeling of reordering after that vagueness of recognition. He thought of Magritte's Key of Dreams, pictures of objects with wrong names. Ha ha, very clever entirely.

  The phone rang. Minogue knew it was Kilmartin before Iseult picked up the phone. She called out of him. There was flour on the handle of the phone.

  "Hello, is this Matt?"

  It was a woman's voice, not unfamiliar. She sounded breathless. x

  "Yes, it is. Speaking."

  "This is Maura, Matt. I'm calling from the hospital. Jim had a bit of a turn."

  Her voice wavered a little.

  "Today around four. He called the nurse on the buzzer because he was feeling a bit queer," she continued. "But he was able to say a few words to me and he asked me to call you. Maybe it was something important ye were dealing with together, I don't know. Work."

  "What is it, Maura?"

  "They think it's a lightning infection," she replied. "They told us there was a big risk of infection on account of the part of the system, the body, don't you know. And he was taken very quickly with the symptoms."

  Minogue heard rustling. Maura sniffed.

  "How serious is this, Maura?"

  "Wisha, you know how they fib to you. I think they don't know. Jim's no spring chicken anymore. They do be talking about an inflammation. Then it's some-thing-itis. Then it's shock.'"

  Minogue heard more rustling, the phone being pushed into clothes, held.

  "You know how he consults you, Matt," she resumed nasally now. "This isn't the time to be beating around the bush. And I'm not phoning you to come in or anything. It's just that he mentioned you."

  "I'll be in directly. Would you like me to bring you in a bit of grub? Have you tea and a few fags for yourself?"

  "No, no, no. He's fast asleep, so he is. They have a tube in him and they want him conked out for a while. They have machines and yokes plugged into him so he's in no danger. Ah no, there's no point in you coming in, thanks very much."

  "Any little thing now, Maura?"

  "No, no thanks. Tomorrow maybe."

  Minogue remembered their son in the States.

  "Have you anyone with you?"

  "My sister and her husband are up staying. The will of God they came up to Dublin yesterday. Margaret'll stay as long as she's needed."

  She sounded strong, too, Minogue surmised as he hung up. He went slowly toward the kitchen to make the tea which customarily saw Kathleen and himself in front of the telly watching the news. Kathleen came out from the living room, squinting.

  "I'm half-blind, I am. Who was that on the phone?" she said.

  "Maura Kilmartin. Jimmy took a turn in the hospital. Nothing we can do for her tonight, I'm afraid. He's looked after as best as can be done. It's an infection, some blood thing. He was very chipper the other day, I will say. Maybe that was a sign," Minogue reflected.

  "'You know not the day nor the hour,'" Kathleen whispered in awe.

  Although the muffins were warm and piquant from the lemon, Minogue received little succour from them. Later, when the news began splashing images of Beirut on the screen, he levered himself up from the chair. As he stood up, the Magritte postcard fell out of his book. He picked it up and replaced it inside the front cover. Turned on its head; inside out. Inverted, the surprise: a fresh approach. Minogue took a swallow of tea and turned a page. The print was meaningless, but he tried harder to read.

  Minogue abed could not sleep. He brooded instead. Better than four out of five murders were done by family or acquaintances of the victim. More concern for Combs now that he was dead. Living like that, awaiting disposal in the morgue. Who to send this man Combs back to? He heard Kathleen lock the kitchen door and test it. There was some odd, scattery music coming from Iseult's room. New Music, they called it, music with lots of beats in it. It reminded Minogue of Charlie Chaplin caught up in a conveyor belt.

  The house settled on itself with ticks and creaks. The weather forecast had said that clear skies would be coming their way overnight, all the way from Norway, if you please. Jimmy Kilmartin might finally and involuntarily have secured a wife's attendance at his bed with the turn he took. Minogue wondered if it wasn't a bloodclot and the hospital had fibbed to Maura. He imagined a clot finding its way up arteries, around bends, unknown to Jimmy until it struck. More sounds from the end of the day: taps being turned on, brushing from the bathroom. The toilet flushed. Water spiralled quietly, gurgling down a pipe somewhere. All the things you miss when you don't pay attention to them, he thought. What would Jimmy do now? He might lose a faculty if it was a stroke.

  Minogue was still pretending to be asleep when he heard Daithi come in the hall door. His movements had the excessive carefulness of the guilty drunk. He dropped his keys on the mat in the hall. Minogue heard him swear in what his son would have thought was a whisper. At least Kathleen hadn't stirred.

  Minogue stole out of the bed. He managed not to step on his slippers as he eased his dressing-gown from the hook on the door. He glanced at Kathleen's face in the pallid light from the landing. Asleep still. He remembered the creaking step near the top of the stairs and avoided it entirely. It was quiet downstairs now. Had Daithi gone out again? The hall light was still on. Minogue stopped and listened. He heard the steady, brittle tick as the pendulum swung on Kathleen's antique clock in the living room. A scratch then, surely someone lighting a match. Minogue opened the door to the living room. The lamp over the television was on now. Daithi was slouched in the armchair with a cigarette handy in the ashtray. His eyes were closed. Minogue smelled the beer-breath from the doorway. His eyes still closed, Daithi reached out for the cigarette again.

  "Smoking in your sleep, is it?" Minogue murmured.

  Daithi started from the chair, his eyes bulging. The ashtray clattered to the floor. Daithi scrambled after it. He lifted the cigarette before it had burned into the floor.

  "Jases, Da, don't do that. You nearly gave me a heart attack."

  "I thought you were asleep. I didn't want you burning the house down."

  He saw in Daithi's eyes the glaze of tiredness and detachment which drink brought.

  "Just having a smoke before I hit the sack," said Daithi. He began stubbing the cigarette. "But sure it's pas
t my bedtime."

  "Hold your horses there like a good man. Now that we're here," Minogue began, "it's not often we get the chance, that our paths cross, I mean…"

  Daithi's chin went down as he gave his father a baleful look. Minogue recognised the exaggerated gesture, even more ham coming from someone who had drink on them.

  "You're not going to give me a lecture, are you?"

  "I was half-thinking of it," Minogue answered. "But I don't want to waken the house. Can you keep your voice down?"

  Daithi's face matched the conspiratorial whisper.

  "Can't you do it tomorrow, the lecture?"

  "It's not really a lecture at all. I just wanted to know… how you are and so on," Minogue whispered.

  He sat on the edge of the coffee table. He wondered if his anger was lurking about close by, somewhere he couldn't detect it. Daithi took the butt from the packet and relit it.

  "Like, life? The meaning of life and all that?"

  "Something like that, yes."

  "Well," Daithi said as his eyes fixed on the thin rope of rising smoke, "I'm studying for me exams so I don't make an ujit of myself and fail them again. Then a job, I suppose. Am I getting warm?"

  "You're not an ujit at all."

  "I'm an ujit to the expen-to the extent, I mean, that I should have had me exam the first time around. It's a waste to be studying again."

  "Don't you learn better this time around?"

  Daithi drew on the cigarette.

  "I dunno. It's not exactly the most thrilling stuff."

  "Are you anxious for a change, maybe?"

  Daithi blew out a think stream of smoke.

  "Aren't we all, Da?"

  Minogue almost stopped then. He felt the anger like a bull behind the gate, pawing the ground.

  "Restless, though?" Minogue tried.

  "You get fed up slogging away at the same stuff," Daithi murmured, watching the ribbon of smoke. "Especially if you let people down by not doing something right the first time around."

  "Who's sitting in judgement here? You didn't let me down at all. Nor your mother. You're too tough on yourself. A harsh judge. Did you ever read any of that Scott Fitzgerald fella?"

  Daithi shook his head.

  "The Great Gatsby. Lovely stuff. Nick says this: 'Reserving judgement is a matter of infinite hope.' Nice one, hah?"

  "Maybe I should have done the artsy-fartsy stuff like Iseult does, or Pat."

  "The psychology, is it?"

  "Yes. All you have to do is write a load of bullshit and they won't fail you. It's easy for them. There's no right or wrong answers."

  Minogue thought about that for a moment. His son blew a well-formed smoke ring across the room.

  "Did you get to thinking that maybe you'd have liked to try some of that stuff instead of what you're at now?"

  Daithi's snort quivered a smoke ring hanging in the air between them.

  "Does it really count in the end?"

  "In the end of what?"

  "Jobs, the future. The real world. I mean, does anyone really care about that stuff anymore? Everyone's still shooting and starving one another when you turn on the news."

  Minogue's thoughts back-pedalled.

  "It's true for you, I'm sure," he allowed. "Anybody'd get tired of stuff and they studying for so long. It's natural to want a break, isn't it?"

  "You're telling me," said Daithi slowly. Minogue took his chance then.

  "But hardly in a pub every evening."

  Daithi stubbed out the cigarette with care and returned his father's gaze.

  "It's not every evening. And who says I'm in a pub anytime I'm not here around the house?"

  "I have no small experience with drink myself, Daithi. Before you were born, I'm glad to say."

  "So you can't preach, then," Daithi said quickly.

  It had slipped out, Minogue realised instantly. Daithi knew it, too.

  "If you're looking for hypocrisy in people, you'll find any amount there, easy enough. But you won't find much else if that's your approach."

  "I didn't use that word."

  "You would have liked to. You'd have been entitled to."

  Daithi shook his head in exasperation. Minogue's thoughts raced.

  "Ah, Jases, let's forget I ever mentioned it." Daithi placed his hands on his knees, anxious to go.

  "I wish you'd stop saying 'Jases.' It distresses your mother no end. It's a coarse expression."

  "And she told you to lay down the law about it. Even though you're…"

  "I'm what?"

  "Ah, come on. Ma's the only Catholic left in the house. Didn't anyone tell you?"

  "All I'm asking is that you don't give her offence with it."

  Daithi stifled a belch and yawned.

  "You know what I'd like to know? How come you never got up and emigrated to the States like you used to talk about?"

  Minogue scrambled for an answer but found none.

  "You see?" Daithi pressed home with his finger jabbing the air. "You're all right. You have your trips to Paris and your books and your ideas to play with, but what does it all add up to?"

  Words ricocheted around Minogue's mind, but they would not settle. Daithi stood up.

  "It adds up to a compromise, I suppose," Minogue said at last.

  "Who's being hard on himself now, but?" a rearguard Daithi asked, swallowing another yawn. It seemed like a grimace of pain to Minogue. He wanted to tell Daithi that he loved him, but the atmosphere seemed to curtail emotion. The anger had receded. Minogue felt the first creeping touch of sadness, familiar and inchoate. Failure? Couldn't put it in words for Daithi. My own son, I can't talk to.

  Daithi stumbled on the leg of the sofa as he headed for the hallway. Reflexively, Minogue grabbed his son's arm. Daithi turned, surprised. The embarrassment swept the slackness from his face. Both knew what had happened and that neither would say anything about it. Minogue's hand still remembered grasping Daithi's arm.

  "There is life after school, you know," Minogue offered.

  "So I hear," Daithi murmured. "The house, the kids and the mortgage. Mow the cat and feed the lawn and all that."

  "You're not even asleep and you're having nightmares."

  "Goodnight, Da."

  "I'm going to work on a good speech, you know. I'll have all the answers next time," Minogue whispered after him.

  Had Minogue caved in and taken a nip of whiskey from the cupboard then, he might have been tempted to turn on the radio very low to see what classical music the BBC was putting out at this hour for insomniac aesthetes. At any rate, the BBC didn't carry the news until the following morning.

  Radio Telefis Eireann called it "an ambush" in their late headlines, which came on just before the television service signed off at a quarter to twelve. The motorbike had followed Mervyn Ball along Ailesbury Road from Donnybrook-no great distance-but the tag car had been parked just beyond the Y turnoff to Shrewsbury Road. Ball had looked into his mirror to see the motorbike's beam still bobbing, following him onto Shrewsbury Road. He had a few seconds to decide that this might be something to worry about.

  Ball down-shifted his Saab from the third gear into second. He kicked the accelerator onto the floor and held it there. The Saab shot ahead and he pushed it back into third. The motorbike kept pace, however. There were no other cars moving on the road. Ball thought there were two figures on the motorbike. He was less than two minutes from the British Embassy and residence on Merrion Road. Unlike the Ambassador's armour-plated Daimler, Ball did not rate a earphone. He glanced in the mirror again. The light seemed to be falling back a little. He was into the top end of third gear now, at seventy-five miles an hour, with a finger's width left on the tachometer before the needle would enter the red. Could it just be two twits fresh out of the pub, farting about, looking for a lark?

  Ball almost went for his brakes when he saw the car pulling slowly out from the row of parked cars ahead. He held his hand on the horn and shouted instead. The car did not stop. It t
urned out almost broadside onto the road. Ball's foot itched and wavered over the brake pedal. The engine's torque slowed the Saab quicker than he had expected. He remembered that he was still in third gear. The car ahead stopped abruptly in the middle of the road. Ball shouted again, knowing that he had been caught. He remembered, or rather, his reflexes acted to head for the rear of the car which straddled the broken line ahead. Ball felt the surprise start at his diaphragm and run up his face like a current where it was now shock. Like an electric jolt, it raced to his scalp and seemed to leap off, taking the top of his head with it. He wanted to deny, to make something stop. Everything was so completely unfair. There had to be a chance to explain. He heard himself shout again and a part of him, oddly disengaged and slowed and crazily patient, told him he was panicking.

  It had been drilled into Ball in training that a driver, no matter how experienced, almost never had a blocking car ready in reverse gear if the quarry tried to squeeze through the trap behind. The back of a car was lighter when struck and in any forward gear the car would have at least some give so that it could be shunted. If the quarry was going fast enough and the impact was near to ninety degrees, that is.

  Ball's twelve thousand quid's worth of seven-month-old Saab screeched through the gap behind the car. It glanced off the back bumper, shuddering, and bounced to the side as it hit. Ball saw the other car hop, a hand come up against a face in the window. All the glass in the passenger side of the Saab came out as he careened off the parked cars. The Saab slowed as it ran along their sides. Ball saw the bonnet pop up in front of him, but the safety latch held. Sparks showered in through the broken windows along with the deafening shriek of metal on metal. The steering seemed to have given out. He wrenched the wheel and the Saab slewed into a course which wavered over toward the right-hand side of the road. The horrible rending of metal and glass stopped. Ball jerked at the wheel and felt the car's suspension hit bottom as he brought it back to the middle of the road. He was down to twenty miles an hour. There were car headlights in the distance.

  Ball felt an exhilaration surging up through his chest. Everything was clear and sharp. There was a hissing in his ears. He looked in the mirror and saw a figure standing by the open door of the car which was now facing back up Shrewsbury Road. No sign of the motorbike. He pressed the horn and held it. The yellow quartz streetlights flooded, emptied and flooded a garish light into the car as it picked up speed again. He noticed that his hands had been cut. His face felt warm. Even with the air rushing in the windows, he could smell his own beery breath and the comforting stench of his own sweat. His head was pulsing.