Angels in the Moonlight_A prequel to The Dublin Trilogy

by Caimh McDonnell

  “Nothing at all, but this place isn’t showing off your beauty to its full pot—”

  He reached up to push the hair back from the right side of her face and her hand shot up on instinct and slapped it away, harder than she would have done if she’d thought about it.

  “Hey!” Anger flashed in his eyes for a moment. “I was just—”

  “Sorry, I don’t like being touched.”

  He rubbed his hand. “No kidding. I was just playing.”

  “I know you were. Noel is your friend, after all.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “And you’d not be seriously trying to take his only member of staff. That wouldn’t be nice.”

  Nathan gave her a smile that didn’t reach his blue eyes. “Obviously, yes.”

  “So, what can I get you? Same as last time?”

  He nodded and she grabbed a bottle of Sol from the fridge, opening it with one hand while setting up two shot glasses of Stoli vodka with the other. A lime in the beer, and a sprinkle of black pepper in the vodkas, all done in a fluid series of actions. She’d been a good bartender in places a whole lot busier than here.

  “That’ll be—”

  “Noel said these were on the house.”

  Simone shook her head and smiled. “’Fraid not honey, that was the last round. These ones are gonna cost you. The man’s trying to run a business.” She said it with a jovial air, but she was more than willing to pull the drinks back if necessary.

  Nathan gave her another smile and then slipped a twenty-pound note out from his wallet.

  “Keep the change.”

  “Much obliged.” Cheap, then ostentatious. Pity the girl who fell for this routine.

  She turned to the register to ring them up and when she turned back, Nathan Ryan was gone and the big fella stood in his place, smiling sheepishly.

  She smiled back. “Hey, slugger.”

  “Howerya, how’s it going?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “So . . .” He shuffled his feet as he spoke. “Not to be a Moaning Minnie or anything, but my friend and I came here looking for a bit of live music?”

  Simone pointed over at the record player. “That’s Miles Davis live at Newport, it don’t get no better than that.”

  “I must respectfully disagree.”

  “That’s right, you think Billie Holiday’s ‘The Man’, don’t you?”

  He blushed slightly. “Lady Day, as she was known. I love her earlier recordings but some of her later works are a little more hit and miss, when her voice started to fade before her death in 1959. Still, poor girl had a hard life.”

  Simone tossed her towel over her shoulder. “Well now, somebody’s been studying!”

  He nodded. “I’ll be honest, I’m a late convert to the jazz cause, but sure aren’t those the people who turn out to be the most hardcore? There’s a bloke in the Liberty Market whose mortgage I’ve been paying over the last month, what with all the Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington I’ve been buying. All your fault, by the way.”

  “Woah there, cowboy – how am I to blame?”

  “I was perfectly happy with my Johnny Cash and Springsteen until you started singing. Now I turn up looking for my next hit and you’ve turned off the supply.”

  She laughed. “I’m afraid you picked a bad night. Noel is back in the office trying to teach a spreadsheet how to lie – he ain’t gonna play tonight.”

  He looked genuinely disappointed. “Right, so. I’d better console myself with some drinks then.”

  “Finally your round is it? Seeing as your buddy bought the first three, I was starting to think you were on a date or something.”

  “Ah no, he owes me a feed of drinks you see. I saved his life in the line of duty.”

  “Oh really? How so?”

  “Shark attack.”

  “Wow. Is that a regular occurrence on the mean streets of Dublin?”

  “No,” said the big fella, shaking his head. “Quite the contrary, that’s why he was so taken by surprise.”

  She laughed. “I can imagine. Same again?” She pointed to the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and he nodded.

  “So where did this shark attack take place?”

  “Well now . . .” He shifted nervously. “That’s a very complicated story, so it is. I couldn’t do it justice right here. I was wondering if, maybe, you’d let me buy you dinner and I can tell you all about it?”

  Her reaction must’ve shown on her face, because she could see the hope in his die and she felt a little guilty for it. “Sorry, I – I’m not—”

  “Oh right, no. Of course. You’re spoken for.”

  “No, nobody speaks for me. I am not in need of a man.”

  “Lesbian?” He blurted it out and then looked instantly embarrassed. “I mean, not that – oh God, nothing wrong with it, and I’m not saying that, y’know, you not wanting to go out with me would mean you were, I was just – and the last girl I sorta asked out, nice girl, like – just happened to be, so I thought I was perhaps on a run of—”

  She raised her hand to stop him before he used up all the oxygen in the room.

  “No, I’m not a member of that particular branch of the sisterhood, I’m just not interested in a relationship. I’m only passing through and . . .”

  “Right. Yeah.” He nodded. “But you’ve not got a fella or that back home?”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t even got a home back home no more, but still. I mean thanks, sincerely. You seem sweet and from the brief bits of your conversation I can understand, I’m sure you’re excellent company – if translation services are provided – but I’m not in a place where that’s something I’m looking for.”

  “Right.”

  “I mean from anyone. Not to blow my own trumpet but I turned down the dude before you and he was throwing in a job.” Simone read his expression and felt herself blush. “Not like that.”

  “Course not,” he said. “Right so, you’re single, just not interested.”

  “In anyone,” she added quickly.

  “Ah right, so it’s not that you don’t want to go out with me . . .”

  “It’s that I don’t want to go out with anyone.”

  “You’d rather be alone?”

  “Exactly.”

  “No strings.”

  “Yep.”

  “No attachments.”

  “Free and easy.”

  “Grand. Well, in that case, I respectfully decline.”

  Simone stopped and looked at him for a moment. He smiled back at her.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your refusal.”

  “Yes?”

  “With the utmost respect, I decline it.”

  “Run that by me again? There may be a cultural misunderstanding here.”

  The big fella picked up one of the whiskeys and knocked it back. Then he pulled a whiskey face.

  “Same again?”

  He nodded.

  She poured.

  “So, as I was saying, I think you are the fecking bee’s knees. You’re beautiful, you’re smart and you’ve got a voice that frankly pisses on all the angels in heaven.”

  “Eloquently put.”

  “So, if you don’t mind, I might politely hang around the place and check in every now and then, just in case you change your mind.”

  “I see.”

  “In fact, fair warning, I might even take a crack at wooing you.”

  “And what would that consist of?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve no idea. I’ve never really done it before. Chocolates?”

  She shrugged. “Diabetic.”

  “Flowers?”

  “Hay fever.”

  He placed both of his hands on the bar and looked down, breathing out theatrically. He looked up. “Let me guess – vegetarian, too?”

  She shook her head.

  “Thanks be to Christ. Only veg I can cook is spuds.”

  “I tried to warn you, I’m hard w
ork.”

  He pushed himself off the bar and straightened up. “But it seems like you might just be worth the effort.”

  “OK.” She felt the wide smile on her own lips, coughed and looked down. “Well, thank you for the warning. You really are too damn cute, but I think you should maybe direct your full-on charm offensive in another, more deserving, direction.”

  He nodded. “Thanks for the advice. I respectfully decline that too.”

  “Damn. I’ve turned you down once and now you’ve turned me down twice.”

  He put a tenner on the counter and picked up the glasses. “Well, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to learn to cope with rejection.”

  “I guess so.”

  “I’ll be off so.”

  “Wait a sec,” she said. “I don’t even know your name.”

  He put the glasses down again and quickly ran his right hand down his jeans before extending it. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Bunny.”

  She looked down at his hand and then back up at his face. “No momma in her right mind gave you that name.”

  “Ehm, no.” He blushed in a way that was a little bit adorable. “Everyone calls me that though.”

  “Not any more.”

  “OK,” he said, lowering his voice, “’tis Bernard.”

  She took his hand and shook. “Bernard, my name is Simone. It is lovely to meet you, and once again, may I politely decline your offer of romance.”

  “Your declination is again, respectfully, declined.” He realised he had been shaking her hand for slightly too long and let it go. Then he picked up his drinks. “Lovely to meet you properly and I look forward to my advances being declined many times in the future.”

  “OK then.”

  “Bye.”

  “See ya.”

  He turned around and started walking back to his table.

  “Wait.”

  He looked back at her over his shoulder.

  “Billie, Nina, Dinah, Ella – you never told me which one was your favourite?”

  He winked and continued walking away. “Still you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Simone heaved the door closed and on the third attempt she heard the lock click. The sticking door was one of the things on a long list that Noel promised, at least twice a week, that he was going to fix tomorrow. Normally she didn’t lock up alone but the boss had met some friends for an early dinner. He was a bad drinker, or a very good one, depending on your alcohol-related goals. Two glasses of wine and he was giddy as a schoolgirl, three and he started to get messy. In economic terms, he was a very cheap date. When he’d come back to the bar, he’d stumbled down the steps and landed in a heap. He’d then sworn profusely at the stairs and ranted about a non-existent slope that was apparently very deceptive. Simone had cleaned up the scrape on his knee and stuck him in a taxi back to his flat. A stream of invective-smattered promises had assured her he was going to rest his eyes for an hour and come right back. She hadn’t held her breath for that to happen.

  She locked the two Chubb locks, double-checked everything and then put the keys through the letterbox, careful to give it enough oomph to make sure they weren’t reachable by any endeavouring soul with a straightened-out wire hanger and larcenous intent. Noel could get in tomorrow with the spares. He’d do the clean-up and be all apologetic for his no show the night before.

  She turned to leave. “Damn it!”

  As her right foot hit the first step, a thought arrived just too late to catch its bus. She’d left her damn heels on. She wore two-inch heels behind the bar and on stage, but switched to sneakers for the walk to and from home. It was three miles each way and her feet already ached from standing up all night. The blue crushed-velvet pencil dress she was wearing had been a lucky find in a charity shop down by the Quays. One of her best days in a long time. She’d always loved the dresses of the Fifties, back in jazz’s golden era. A velvet dress – when she shut her eyes, she could be singing in the Royal Roost, with Lady Day sitting in the back booth, nodding her approval. The heels had required several more weeks of thrift shop safari. Her old singing teacher, Verna Douglas, had rules on many things, not least of which was that you treated the stage with some respect. Even now, she could hear her deep, sonorous voice as it boomed out in that rundown shack of a community centre: “That stage is a church where you go to worship the Lord, and you will show up on time and in your Sunday best.”

  Simone sighed. Tips had been slow tonight, so even if she lucked into a Dublin taxi – unlikely at the best of times – she wouldn’t be able to afford the damn thing. She’d have to soak her feet when she got home. Welcome to the glamour of showbiz.

  She looked at the grey sky as she mounted the steps and tightened the belt on her overcoat. Maybe she’d get lucky and the weather would stay kind. A large truck thumped past the top of the alleyway as she began to walk up the cobbled slope. She cast her gaze downwards; even without the heels, it paid to watch where you walked in this town late at night, lest you walk through the end of someone else’s over-indulgent evening.

  A hand grabbed her arm from behind. A choked scream escaped her lips as a sickening wash of panic filled her chest. She turned with her fist cocked to see Nathan Ryan, his hands up in the air, an alarmed look on his face. “Woah, easy.”

  “Christ, Nathan, you scared the shit out of me.”

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry. I was just passing—”

  “Passing? In a dead-end alley?”

  “Well,” he conceded, “I was nearby. We had a big corporate thing at the restaurant for one of the banks and the CEO gave me this . . .” He pulled out an ornate bottle that had been crammed into his overcoat pocket. “Cognac, Rémy Martin, bloody good stuff. Expensive too. Coupla tonne a bottle.”

  “Whoop-dee-doo. Who the fuck comes up behind a woman at 2 am? Goddammit!” Her pulse was still racing.

  “Alright, sorry. Jesus, calm down.”

  She could hear the drunken slur in his words now, and noticed that the knot was askew on his necktie.

  “How’s about a drink to settle your nerves?”

  “I don’t drink, Nathan.”

  “Really?” He looked down at the door to Charlie’s. “But you . . .”

  He was typical of his type, never paying that much attention to the world around him unless there was something in it that benefited him.

  “Yeah. I’m sure there’s the occasional vegetarian working in an abattoir too.”

  A grin fell across his face and his left hand dipped into his pocket. “Well actually, I’ve got a little—”

  “I don’t do that either.” She was fully aware of what would be in his pocket. The man had monumental self-confidence to fall back on, but she’d still noticed how it would occasionally have been given an unnecessary boost when he came back from the toilets, and how his cold never quite cleared up.

  “What vices do you have?” he said with a leering grin.

  “I ain’t got time for your bullshit, Nathan. Good night.”

  “OK, look”, he said, dancing around with surprising speed to stand between her and the top of the alley. “I’m sorry. I was a bit of a dick. I didn’t think. No offence intended. Cards on the table – I like you, you like me, how about I cook you a nice late dinner?”

  “It’s 2 am.”

  “And normally getting one of the finest chefs in Ireland to cook you an individual meal would cost an arm and a leg, but, seeing as it’s you, I’m willing to reduce my rates.” He threw in a bow and grinned up at her.

  She was hungry but not in the least tempted. “There’s no need to open your restaurant for me.”

  “Don’t need to. My place is just over—”

  Simone took a step back. “Yeah? No kidding. No thanks, Nathan. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  He straightened up and frowned in a look of genuine consternation. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s late, you’re horny and I’m tired – and I’m only prepared to fix one of those things.”r />
  “There’s no need to be a bitch about it.”

  “Yeah, I’m the one who’s totally out of line. Good night.”

  “Look just, just . . .” He spread his arms wide and she stepped to his left to get by him.

  He laughed a little and moved to block her. “Just wait a s—”

  When his arm appeared in front of her, she instinctively slapped it away.

  There was an explosion of glass and overpriced brandy as the bottle slipped from his hand and shattered on the cobbles. A smattering of splashes hit her tights, the liquid cold. She looked down at the shattered glass and smelled the brandy’s sweet aroma mingle with the crisp night air. Somewhere in the distance, an alarm was ringing. Nathan’s mouth dropped open in an “O” of outrage. He raised his eyes from the bottle to look at her. His lips curled into a snarl. “You fucking bitch!”

  “It was an accident.”

  A klaxon blared in her mind.

  Run.

  Run.

  Run.

  She tried to push by him. He moved his frame again, but this time it wasn’t playful; hip checked. Her mind raced: she could calm him down, try and say she was sorry. Trapped – the word crashed into her mind. Dead-end alley. She put her hands up in an attempt to get by him again, throwing herself at him now. He moved his right foot a step back to steady himself as his left hand grabbed a fistful of her long hair and yanked it hard. She could feel strands pull free from her scalp as her head was snapped backwards.

  She looked up into his eyes and both did and didn’t recognise who she saw. This man didn’t look like Nathan Ryan any more, not a version familiar to her – probably not a version familiar even to himself. She did recognise it though. This was a beast she’d met before.

  She went straight for those eyes, jabbing a forefinger into the left one as hard as she could. A sound, half snarl, half howl, escaped from his lips and he wrenched her further backwards by the hair. She didn’t even see his right hand as it flew up in a backhanded slap that sent her pinwheeling around.

  Her hair released, she stumbled. Head spinning. Amoebas of fractured light skated across her vision. The right side of her face was burning. Burning again. A different burn than before, but burning nonetheless. She staggered backwards down the slope. There was nothing to grab to right herself. The heel of her right shoe snapped off as her legs went from under her. She landed face first in wet plastic. The sickeningly sweet stench of wasted food filled her nostrils. The Peking Palace’s rubbish. They closed at midnight.