Angels in the Moonlight_A prequel to The Dublin Trilogy

by Caimh McDonnell

  “Negative, control. But I can confirm Tommy Carter is still here.”

  Wherever the others needed to be, apparently he wasn’t required. Bunny pressed the button again. “Any news on O’Donnell, control?”

  “Alpha twenty-seven had visual. The same car that picked up Moran got him too. They’re gone.”

  “Roger.”

  Bunny put the radio down and looked over at Tommy Carter, who was smiling from behind his camera. He gave a nod of recognition in return. They’d been conclusively outplayed. As the song came to a close, Carter stood and clapped. The kids came running over. Bunny counted seventeen of them. They each got a fiver. Not bad for carol singing in November.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bunny turned off the car’s engine and sat still in the front seat, trying to gather his thoughts. It had been three days since the incident with Nathan Ryan. Three days since he had driven Simone home in the car he was currently sitting in. The car, a 1980s Porsche 928S LHD, was his one indulgence. He’d managed to acquire it from an insurance company for a song, seeing as it was technically a write-off. Then he’d pulled in a few favours and spent what Gringo had described as “two decent cars’ worth” of cash on getting it restored. He was too big for it and all the rest, but still, he loved it. At least, he loved it most of the time. On that night, it had felt like an utterly ridiculous thing. Like turning up to a funeral in fancy dress.

  He looked over into the passenger’s footwell for the hundredth time – at the brown stain on the floor where the blood from her wounded foot had seeped through the temporary bandage that he’d constructed. For each of the last three days he’d driven here, pulled up outside the building and then not gone in. He didn’t know what to say or how to say it. She had been shaken up, of course she had, he got that. They had driven here in absolute silence, bar some terse directions Simone had given him. He’d stolen glances at her as he drove. Her long black hair had once again hung in a curtain, shielding the right side of her face, where Ryan had hit her, obscuring the damage. She always wore her hair down on that side.

  After she had told him to pull up, they’d sat there in the car, enveloped in an oppressive silence. He hadn’t known what to say then either. Eventually, she had broken the impasse; her voice had held a strained tone, robbed of its natural mellifluous cadence. “I . . . I do not want this to become a legal thing. Don’t arrest him. Just let it be.”

  He’d looked at the side of her face; in the dim illumination from the streetlights, he’d been able to make out a swelling beginning to rise. She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap.

  “But . . .”

  “Promise me.”

  He’d run through and rejected several things to say. Then she had finally looked across at him with those dark brown eyes.

  “Alright.”

  “Thank you.”

  He had carried her to the car in his arms, to keep the pressure off her cut left foot, but she politely refused his offer to help her inside. Though she had spoken with anger and determination, he’d been able to feel the tremble passing through her body as she clasped her arms around the back of his neck.

  “It’s OK, I can make it from here.”

  “’Tis no trouble, I’ll—“

  “I’m fine.” There had been an edge of exasperation in her voice as she said it. Enough to make him stop offering to help. She had opened the door and moved herself around in the seat so as to be able to stand without placing too much pressure on her left foot. She’d started to rise, but then stopped, as if a thought had struck her. She half-turned. “Thank you.”

  He’d not said anything, just watched as she limped down the path, supporting herself on the metal railings as she worked her way up the half-dozen steps to the front door. She’d briefly fumbled with the lock before opening the large front door and disappearing inside, without a look back. He’d sat there for a few more minutes, trying to make sense of it all. Then he’d driven back to his house in Cabra, where he’d laid in bed alone and stared at the ceiling all night.

  Bunny puffed out his cheeks and looked at himself in the rear-view mirror. He looked exactly what he was – a man who’d hardly slept in three days.

  “C’mon, ye gobshite, man up.”

  With a nod to himself, he exited the car and started making his way up the drive.

  The house was in Rathmines, one in a long row of the old red-brick Georgian houses so common in the area. A lot of them were converted into flats, people being less likely to have a football team’s worth of children these days, or to require a management team of domestic staff to look after such a large-scale breeding operation.

  The first problem he’d expected to meet was figuring out which flat she was in. He climbed the stairs and looked for buzzers that weren’t there. He took a few steps back and looked around. He had been sure this was the place, but he was now starting to doubt himself. Most of these big old buildings did look the same and, seeing as it sat back from the road and he’d been rather distracted at the time, maybe he’d got the location wrong.

  He had just turned to head back down the steps when the door opened behind him. “I was wondering when you’d finally come in.”

  The voice had a firm if slightly high-pitched edge to it. Bunny turned around to see a nun of barely five feet giving him an assessing squint over wire-rimmed glasses. Greying hair peeked out from under her veil. She had striking blue eyes that couldn’t have dimmed much in the sixty-plus years they’d been skewering people.

  Bunny looked down at her and then looked behind him again. “Sorry, I . . .”

  She moved back to open the door wider. “So, are you going to stand with your mouth dangling open like an idiot or are you coming inside?”

  “Sorry, I . . . Sorry, Sister, I’m looking for my, ehm, friend.”

  The nun turned her eyes to heaven. “Yes, Simone. In you come – or would you rather go back to sitting in your car and gawping like a clueless dunderhead?”

  “You’re a . . .”

  “Nun, yes.” She blessed herself. “May the good Mother Mary bless us and save us if this is the deductive might the Gardaí are working with.” She waved her hand irritably in the air. “This monstrosity of a place is a nightmare to heat, so can you make a decision quickly, please, as this door is wide open and we’re not made of money.”

  “Sorry. Right. Of course. Sorry.”

  Bunny stepped inside, onto plush carpet in a large hallway, as the nun started pushing the door closed behind him. “Good gravy, thing weighs a tonne. Don’t help or anything will you?”

  “Sorry, Sister.” Bunny moved across, but too late to be of any assistance.

  “C’mon then.” The nun, in her dark grey habit, started shuffling down the hall at a surprisingly fast clip. The wall was painted a peculiarly unpleasant shade of orange. The air was an oppressive mix of air freshener and overly central-heated air.

  “Sorry,” said Bunny.

  “Do you start every sentence with sorry? It is tremendously annoying.”

  Bunny looked around him. “No, I just . . . Sorry.”

  She turned her head to look back at him. “Quite the silver-tongued devil, I see.”

  “Yes, ehm . . . Where am I?”

  “At last, a coherent question. This house is a retirement home for the Sisters of the Saint.”

  “The Saint who?”

  “Just the Saint.”

  “But don’t all saints have names?”

  “Clearly not.”

  Bunny felt like nothing was making sense, as if he was trapped in one of those stress dreams and he would look down in a minute to notice he had no trousers on.

  She pushed open a door to her left and waved Bunny through into a sitting room. A TV sat in one corner, showing horse racing with the sound down. Three sofas, covered in plastic sheeting, were angled towards it and a chandelier with only half its bulbs working hung from the ceiling above. On the left sofa sat a large-in-all-senses nun with a bag of wine gums
and, on the right, a nun of even shorter stature than the one who had opened the door. She seemed considerably older, too, although it was hard to judge, as she had her head back, snoring surprisingly loudly.

  Bunny’s guide spoke to the larger nun in that distinctive loud voice reserved for the hard of hearing. “Sister Assumpta, we have a visitor.”

  Sister Assumpta smiled a warm smile amidst immense rosy cheeks and nodded at him while chewing aggressively on a wine gum.

  The first nun pointed at her sleeping colleague. “And that’s Sister Margaret, but she’s out like a light. I am Sister Bernadette.”

  “Hello, Sisters, I am Bunny McGarry.”

  Sister Bernadette gave him an assessing look. “Really? And that’s a name these days, is it? Well, well.” She indicated the free sofa. “Take a seat. I’ll let Simone know you’re here.”

  “Right, I’ll . . .” Bunny quickly placed his hand over his eyes and turned around. “Jesus, sorry, ehm . . .”

  “What on earth is wrong with you now?”

  Without turning, Bunny pointed back over his shoulder in the direction of Sister Assumpta, who was in the middle of removing her clothing.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake! Assumpta, dear, this isn’t the doctor. Put yourself away, will you? That’s a good girl.”

  Bunny stared resolutely at the door as there was the sound of movement behind him.

  “You can turn around,” said Sister Bernadette. “Crisis averted.”

  When he turned back, Sister Assumpta was fully dressed once more and had gone back to staring at the horse racing, seemingly unaffected by the misunderstanding.

  Sister Bernadette pointed at the sofa again. “Sit. I’ll go and get Simone.”

  “Right.”

  Bunny sat down and aimed a polite smile at Sister Assumpta, but it appeared she had entirely forgotten his presence.

  After a few long minutes, the door opened and Bunny stood as Sister Bernadette re-entered, followed by Simone. She wore a baggy jumper, jeans and a wary expression. Her left foot was bandaged. The hair on the right side of her face hung down but it couldn’t entirely hide the bruising that had blossomed up on her cheek or the swelling on her lip. She looked both younger and older at the same time. Diminished, somehow.

  Sister Bernadette clapped her hands together once and looked between the two of them. “Right, well I’m sure you two have a lot to be talking about.” She raised her voice. “Sister Assumpta, come with me to the kitchen, dear.”

  Assumpta pointed at the TV in mute protest.

  “You’ll live without the gee-gees for a few minutes.” She grabbed Assumpta’s hand and then leaned across to Simone and lowered her voice again. “I’ll leave Margaret here. She’s out like a light, and besides, she’s not understood either side of a conversation since the Berlin Wall came down.”

  Simone nodded and smiled nervously. “Thanks, Bernadette.”

  Bunny and Simone watched them leave and then turned to look awkwardly at each other. Simone gestured towards the sofa and Bunny sat down again. She came and sat beside him.

  “How are you?” Bunny asked. Up close he could see the rust-red bruise that started below her swollen eye and stretched backwards into the shadow of her hair.

  “I’m OK.” She waved a hand at her face. “It looks worse than it is. No broken bones or anything.”

  “Right. Did you go to the hospital?”

  “No.” She nodded back towards the door. “Bernadette knows someone.”

  “Still, though, you should see a proper doctor, to be on the safe side.”

  Simone gave a weak smile. “Apparently, the old gent was Ireland’s leading heart specialist. Bernadette knows lots of people.”

  “Right. Good. I mean, well . . . y’know.”

  “Yeah.” She shifted nervously in her seat. “I just wanted to say . . . I’m sorry.” Her big eyes, looking wet, flickered up to his momentarily.

  “What?”

  She looked up again, slightly taken aback by the shock in his voice.

  “What are you talking about? You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”

  “No, no – I do. You were helping me and I was very rude to you. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s a shower of bollocks.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Is this how you normally accept an apology?”

  “It is when I don’t deserve one. Now you listen to me. You were attacked. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Yeah, but if you hadn’t come along . . .”

  Bunny moved closer. “Simone, listen to me. You don’t have to apologise and you don’t have to thank me, alright? None of this was your fault. You need to be clear on that.”

  She nodded.

  Bunny fidgeted. “So, ehm, you’re a nun then?”

  Simone pursed her lips for a moment, then nodded before turning away.

  “Right. Good. Great. Well done you. Fantastic. Sorry about all the . . .”

  Bunny stopped talking as he noticed Simone’s shoulders shaking. Was she crying? Oh God, what did you say to comfort a crying nun? He thought about putting his hand on her shoulder and then thought better of it.

  He jumped as she suddenly burst out laughing, holding her hand over her mouth as she turned to him with a glint in her eyes.

  “Oh, you cow!”

  She laughed harder, pushing at his shoulder playfully as she did so. “Oh, honey, I needed that. You do make me laugh.”

  Bunny could feel his face going bright red. “Yeah, very funny. Making me look like a right gobshite.”

  Simone rubbed her sleeve across her eyes and took a moment for her breathing to return to normal. “No,” she said, “I’m not a nun.”

  “Yeah, I know that now. So . . .” Bunny looked around him. “What are you doing here?”

  Simone’s expression changed again. She looked pensive. “I can tell you some of it, but you’ll have to trust me. I’ll tell you what I can.”

  Bunny shrugged. “OK.”

  Simone looked at the fire as she spoke, and her voice dropped to a low, steady timbre, as if she were delivering a prepared statement that she had practised a hundred times.

  “Back in the States, I got into some trouble. Let’s just say I fell in with some bad people and some very bad things happened.”

  “Like—”

  She shook her head firmly. “I really can’t say.” She pointed back at the door. “It ain’t just me, you understand. The sisters.”

  Bunny held his hands up. “OK, but how did you end up here?”

  “I was in trouble and running. I had nowhere to go, and I ended up in this church. Hurt. Bleeding. Broke. Scared. What is it they say? No atheists in foxholes? Well, I guess I needed Jesus because nobody else could help me. I collapsed on this altar and, when I came to, there’s these two nuns, Mary and Joan. I told them all that had happened and . . .”

  Bunny went to ask a question and stopped himself, but Simone still sensed him trying.

  “I can’t say why, but I couldn’t go to the police, OK? I know that’s something you find hard but, well, not all police are like you.”

  “Is that why you wouldn’t go this time?”

  She nodded. “I can’t. The sisters, they got me out of New York. Got me here. I’m not . . . I’m not legal in this country.” She shot him a nervous glance. “I know I shouldn’t be telling you all this, but I reckon it’s better than you going looking. It ain’t just me, you understand. I got to protect them. The people looking for me, they won’t ever stop, but we reckon they don’t know I’m here – not unless someone tells them. I guess . . . Look, it’s up to you what you do with that information, but make sure they’re left out of it.”

  Bunny looked into the fire. “I’m not going to say anything.”

  Simone gave him a long look. “Really?”

  He shook his head. “Besides, in this country, nuns are more powerful than the law.” He lowered his voice. “And considerably more scary.”

  “I heard that.” The voi
ce came from behind the door.

  Simone rolled her eyes and raised her voice slightly. “Bernadette, is eavesdropping not a sin?”

  “I’m sixty-six and a virgin. I think God will forgive me a couple.”

  Simone cleared her throat pointedly.

  “Fine.” As the sound of her footsteps disappeared down the hall, Bernadette raised her voice so they could clearly hear her talking to herself. “It’s our house and they’ve taken over the only room with a television in it. What do they expect me to do? Assumpta – will you put your clothes back on!”

  Bunny smiled. “Never a dull moment around here.”

  Simone nodded in the direction of the still-snoring Margaret. “You should be here when she wakes up. Swears like a sailor, farts like a 21-gun salute.”

  “She sounds like a right laugh. Anyway, I should probably get going.” Bunny nodded towards the TV and stood up. “Don’t want to be in the way.”

  “Sure,” said Simone, standing beside him. “Thanks for coming by.”

  She opened the door and showed him back down the hall.

  “Oh,” said Bunny, “I dropped into Charlie’s. Noel is very worried about you.”

  “Yeah, I should ring him. Bernadette says he keeps calling. I just, y’know, don’t know what to say.”

  “You’ll figure it out. And when you feel up to it, well, you know your adoring public is always eager to hear you sing.”

  She gave him a bashful smile. “We’ll see.”

  She opened the door onto the cold early evening air. It washed over them; a welcome relief from the oppressive heat of the house.

  Bunny stopped and stood as if transfixed by the view.

  When he spoke, his voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “Simone, how bad was the thing that happened in New York?”

  She stood looking out into the street for so long that he wondered if she was just going to pretend that she hadn’t heard the question. Then slowly she turned to face him. She raised her hand to brush back her long hair from where it hung over her face. Past the swollen eye and the dark bruise lay something worse. A river of callused, burned skin snaked down from above her ear, down the side of her face and onto her neck.