by Roddy Doyle
And Mildred locked her eyes back on the half-sister’s.
—Clothes.
The half-sister was talking to me now. I did it in a dead man’s heartbeat, got back into the suit, the toe-capped boots – laced and all. I took my fedora off & Son’s head and kicked the legs from under him.
—Don’t, she said. —My threads.
—I’ll hold the gun for you.
—Do what I said.
I gathered clothes that kept trying to slide through my grip. But I captured them, and her coat.
—Open the door.
She answered before I asked.
—There’s guys outside, a naked doll with a gun will live a couple seconds longer than a doll in her party dress.
—Fair enough.
The hall was dark – I looked – and empty. A shape against the opposite door. Brotman.
Olaf’s half-sister flicked the gun barrel; they all followed her command. Johnny No, & Son, Mildred, the other lads, huddled in a corner, hands up high, on the blind side of the open door.
I stepped out into the hall.
She followed and shut the door.
No steps, no mad rush to catch us.
She fired into the door.
We ran.
4
We ran.
The warehouse wall was cold and sharp against my back. The gun barrel was pressed into my neck, the heat of its use burning, taunting – Get out when you smell the cordite – daring me to move, cough, blink. And five, six more guns staring at me, ranks of hard men waiting for their turn. I couldn’t move my eyes, judge numbers; I couldn’t talk. The barrel pressed deeper into my neck, deeper, inviting me to budge and die.
I heard the match, then smelled it. I couldn’t see flame, or smoke. Then the photograph was in front of my eyes; I saw it burn and curl. It broke into weightless, black chunks and drifted up in the rising air, away from me. The wedding dress, the brooch, the glowing hair – the creases at the photograph’s edges, the tears and folds and stains, the records of the years hidden in a fugitive’s wallet; I watched the thin flame turn them all to nothing.
Then he shot me.
I could go home, I thought. It was 1924, nearly ’25. The new Irish state was up and three years old; all fighting would be over. The triggermen were dead or politicians, or somewhere here, like me. It would be safe there now. I missed Miss O’Shea like a sudden wound, and Saoirse, the daughter I’d held only once, when she was five months old.
—I have a daughter, I told Olaf’s half-sister.
—In New York? she said.
—No, I said. —Further.
—Know her name?
—Yeah, I said. —Freedom.
—Jeez, she said. —That’s a tall order.
I couldn’t think of what she’d look like now; no picture came to me. And the only picture I had of her mother was in my wallet, in New York, with three hundred and thirty bucks, under Hettie’s mattress. Her eyes had been blue, but all babies’ eyes were blue – Hettie had told me that. And a quick, gummy grin that had made me weak. Every movement under the cheeks, in the fingers that grabbed my beard – I could remember them all; I could feel them. I’d been on the run when I saw her. I’d become an old tramp and wandered for months, pushed out of the towns by men who were searching to kill me. But she’d seen her da behind the dirt and hair, the young lad in there, in the eyes looking out at her. She’d seen me, and I wanted to see her now.
—I’m going home, I told Fast Olaf’s half-sister.
—Me too, she said. —Come on.
We stumbled in the black dark I’d forgotten existed outside cities.
—Where are we? I said. —D’you know?
—Haven’t known since we went over the Hudson.
Six, maybe seven days ago.
It was a clear, cold night. There were more stars up there than ever came out over Ireland. The sky was alive with triumph and malice. I stopped looking, but one sharp light kept stabbing at the corner of my eye and wouldn’t go away.
—Hang on, I said.
Then I yelled at the sky and my dead brother.
—Fuck off!
—Feel better?
—No.
—Come on, daddio. Step lively.
I slept black for half a day and woke with my hands on frost; it lay white and fine on top of the quilt. The window was shut but early winter had made it in. I was alone in the bed. The room felt long empty, like she’d never been in it. I hadn’t a dime. Or a coat. Or, I realised when I took on the day and slid out of the scratcher, a fedora. She’d taken my fuckin’ hat.
Then I saw it. The fedora. Through the diner window. And it suited her as much as it had suited me. She was sitting at a table by the window and there were two women with her, their heads in under the brim, as if sheltering from rain. I was outside, off the sidewalk, standing on the ice-hardened muck of the street. It wasn’t snowing now but it was cold and there wasn’t much heat in a pair of braces. But it was good to see her.
I watched.
All three faces were looking at the table. Fast Olaf’s half-sister looked up now and again, and the other two followed, and stared and nodded. Then back down they’d go, gawking at something. The women were young and older, daughter and the mammy. Country women. Leaner than the Irish brand but not much different. A bit harder around the mouth and eyes, and maybe straighter-backed. Faded flowers in the dresses. Hats that went on for town and came off back home. These girls didn’t look like they sang or danced on Sunday night but they sat there, gobs hanging open, wild in love with the half-sister.
I pulled open the door and went in. The heat and coffee set me swaying; I hadn’t eaten in days.
Two neat black hats and my fedora.
I went to the counter, just recently wiped shiny.
—What’s yours? said the fat girl who stood behind the counter with the cloth.
—Coffee. Please.
—Coming up, she said, and lumbered off before I realised she’d left the coffee steaming at my elbow. It put the heat back into my hands, and I listened to Fast Olaf’s half-sister.
—That sound right to you? she said.
The other two women nodded, looked at one another, and nodded more vigorously. The half-sister was looking into her cup.
—Nothing else in there this morning, she said.
She put the cup down.
—One of you ladies got a hand I can hold?
Again, they looked at one another.
—Which? said the mother.
—Left, right, don’t matter much, said the half-sister.
—Which of us? said the daughter.
The half-sister shrugged.
—Don’t know, she said. —Yet. Could be both of you, could be neither. Depends on the life force you got. And you both got it. In spades, I’d say.
I couldn’t see faces but I knew they were smiling, anxiously.
—I can’t predict if the life force don’t want me to predict. Sometimes it keeps itself to itself. And sometimes it burns the skin right off my fingertips, just about. So. Who?
An older fist crept across the table and opened onto the half-sister’s open hand. She touched the palm with the fingers of her other hand.
—Wow.
—Is it something good? said the daughter.
—Don’t know yet, said the half-sister. —It is something, though.
She closed her eyes, and opened them.
—Children.
She was right on the button. Mother and daughter jumped in their seats.
—Am I close? said Olaf’s half-sister.
—Grandchildren? said the mother.
—Not sure, said the half-sister. —But wow.
She looked from the open hand to their faces, one to the other.
—Don’t know who they are but I do feel children. And lots of them.
The mother took her hand back and clapped it to the other, one happy, at-last peal. The daughter leaned forward.
—When?
She pushed an open hand across the table. Her mother caught the cup sent tumbling by the elbow.
Olaf’s half-sister touched the hand.
—Something here.
She looked up.
—Soon.
—How soon?
—Quite soon.
She looked down again, and let her finger wait at the pad below the daughter’s thumb.
—They’re in there.
—Oh, my! said the mother.
The fat girl behind the counter was looking at it all.
—Want to read mine?
—Be right with you, toots, said the half-sister.
Mother and daughter tried to find the room to hug each other.
—Are you sure? said the mother.
—It’s what I’m seeing, said the half-sister. —Good news, I hope.
—Oh, yes.
—Goody.
They were too excited now to stay any longer. They stood up, got their legs out from under the table.
—Thank you so much, said the mother.
—Pleasure, said Olaf’s half-sister.
The mother was climbing into her coat. Then she remembered, and stopped. One arm in one sleeve, she opened her bag and dug in.
—Please, she said. —We must—
—Nope, said the half-sister. —It’s on the house.
—But.
The daughter was suddenly terrified; her children would fade from the lines in her hand.
—But, she said. —You must take something.
—Thanks, said the half-sister. —But nope. It’s a gift I got, it’s a gift I give to you. Now shoo on home and get down to some knitting.
—Why? I asked her as she parked beside me at the counter and the mountain wind whipped at the door as mother and daughter dashed outside.
—Why whatee?
—Why my hat?
—Psychology, daddio. It’ll make them talk.
—Grand, I said. —But I want it back. And why didn’t you take the money?
We were broke. At least, I was.
We were two weeks on the lam and two days here, Mister and Missis Dalton, in Sweet Afton, with a room in the Trout Hotel that looked onto one of the town’s two crossed streets. Not far from big mountains and the Hudson river. The train passed through twice a day, and stopped just once. Hens patrolled the crossroads.
—They’ll come flocking, said the half-sister, quietly. —Wait and see. I’m a miracle, you know. I take their money, I’m less of a miracle. I might even be a grifter. Specially if the skinny one don’t consider herself pregnant in the next day or two. Now, let’s see what’s to see.
She looked down at the fat girl’s wet hand.
—Wow, she said. —You like your men dark and dangerous, honey?
—Like, nice dangerous?
—What other kind is there?
And she was right. They came with curls of hair, with little knitted pants, a sock – relics of little dead ones – and sometimes clothes for babies not yet born or conceived. They came for news of birth and money, land deals and the afterlife. They came with new-baked pies, buckets of apples and, sometimes, often, the folding odds. On the steps of the Trout Hotel, in and outside the diner, Billy’s Happy Lunch, they waited for Fast Olaf’s half-sister. I left her to it; I’d seen that shite in Ireland.
I broke the ice in the water pitcher every morning before I washed, tapped through it with my bare elbow. She’d be gone before me. The ice was thin where she’d broken it an hour before. I didn’t see much of her in the day, the odd glimpse, her head, still under my hat, in the diner window, her leg as she climbed into a car. And we didn’t talk much in the night. We pawed and ate each other till the walls sweated and we lay back under the blankets and coat and listened to our moisture on the wall turn to ice and slowly rip the wallpaper.
—Busy these days, daddio?
—Not really.
—Don’t I know it, she said. —Want to get busy?
—There’s not a lot to be busy about here.
—Where’s your spunk, daddy? We’re partners, right?
That was news.
—Are we? I said.
—Oh, come on, daddio. Sure, we are. We’re stuck here together, until it’s safe to toodle back. We got here together. We’re in the sack here together. I got things you want, you got things I can use. Sounds as near to partnership as I’ll ever need or want. Till it’s safe to go back. Till it’s safe for me to go back. They won’t be looking for me. Not for long, anyways. You now. You’re a different story, I guess.
—I’m going home, I told her.
—Yare. But you’re the guy. They’ll remember you. They’re still looking, I’d guess. They’ll stop but they’ll remember. Good-looking guy, Irish. Too good looking for his own good, you know. They hate you. If all those guys was girls, I’d be on the list. They’d want to change my identity with a hammer. The dolls do hate me, but they ain’t the guys. That Mildred is my only worry. But with a bit of that Irish luck you got there, she’s floating at the bottom of the East River, and serve her right too. So, I’m going to drift back into Dodge one of these days and no one’ll notice except what I want them to notice. There’s a new doll in town. You, though, daddy, are a different little story. They’ll be looking everywhere for you. They won’t stray out this far, I don’t think, but you can’t go any nearer. We’re stuck here, daddy. So we might as well be partners. So, what do you say?
—Okay, I said.
—Pow.
—We should celebrate.
—I don’t think so, daddy, she said.
We were a month out of New York.
—Cos I’m the partner who’s been doing all the partnering.
She put a small wad of folding cash into my hand. I couldn’t see it, but it had the feel that only clean money had.
—We can’t go back without the boodle, she said.
The money was gone, back to wherever she hid it. The bed didn’t creak; she didn’t seem to budge.
—So get partnering, she said. —Shouldn’t take too long; they’re out there for the taking. Find water, pull teeth.
She’d told me; I’d told her.
Just after we’d run, before we knew we’d got away. Under her coat, under the sniggering stars.
—Dead, she’d said when I asked her about her father. —But still breathing. I’ll bet. Somewhere.
—What d’you mean? I asked.
—Well, the Pop went to work one fine day and never came home. Never went to work, neither. Just walked away. Wearing a pair of shoes he’d cut and stitched for himself. Left Mama with nothing but a pair of shoes that he hadn’t made because the ones he made were too expensive.
—Do you remember him?
—Yare. I was six but I remember him alright.
There was nothing for a while. I put my hand on her hair.
—He was nice, she said. —He sang, you know.
She took my hand off her hair.
—Legally dead, she said. —That’s what the Pop is. His uncle or something in Europe died and left some boodle that amounted to twenty bucks, just about, to the Pop. Mama couldn’t get it because the Pop wasn’t dead. But he wasn’t alive neither, if you get the drift. So she stomps off to the courthouse and has him declared legally dead. And I don’t blame her. He’d been gone two years. Then she went and married again, and I do blame her for that one. What about you, daddio?
And I told her. About my father, and the water that ran under Dublin, and Dolly Oblong and Alfie Gandon; I spoke all the rest of the night. My mother, Granny Nash, my brother Victor, the other fucker above us – she blew him a kiss and we watched it hit and fizzle – I gave her the lot. My father’s escape into the dark, his death, my fight for Irish freedom, and Miss O’Shea.
—And she’s in whatever Sing Sing is called over there?
—She was, the last time I saw her.
—Wow, she said. —What a gal.
—Yeah.
—She�
��d get us out of this little situation, I’d say.
—Yeah.
—Wow.
So, she knew that water could find me; I’d told her about my underground escapes. But I didn’t get the teeth thing.
—The market, she said.
—What market?
—You haven’t noticed?
—No.
—Look at the teeth next time you’re out there, daddy.
—They’re bad?
—They’re bad everywhere. But look at the faces, daddy. They’re hurting.
—I never pulled a tooth in my life.
—Doesn’t matter. Long as you pull the right one.
And that was it for a while. I wandered what there was of the town and out, into the county. And I remembered something: if a fine man stood in the same spot long enough, he’d be offered a job. So I’d stand and look at a pile of uncut lumber. I’d hear a screen door being grabbed by the wind, and a woman’s voice, offering to let me cut it. I’d go at the cords of poplar and elm – names because the women told them to me – and I’d cut them down to stove length. I’d fill the freezing air with grey and red wood dust. I’d bring the scent of spring to the raw red noses of the women. The heat would work its way from my saw hand, to my feet, in under my new cap. My fedora was still on the half-sister and there wasn’t another one to buy in town. The women paid me, quicker than the men. My growing pile of wood, the strong dust in the cold-dead yard; it made guilt scratch at the men, and they always took the saw back and got working. That, and the sight of their women standing stock-still in the sawdust storms or pushing their faces into kitchen window glass.
—Missis’ll feed yah, then you’d best be gone to where you’re going.
And they’d guard me till I was on the road and facing the rest of the world. It kept me going, the wandering and work. But I was still nervous. We weren’t far enough away. I’d been on the run before; it never stopped, even under the ground.
Back in Sweet Afton, I’d stare at an empty wagon, a full truck, and I’d be invited to fill or empty it. The snow threatened and gusted, and stayed long enough to soak up blood marks on the sidewalk outside the slaughterhouse. I left my jacket hanging on a post. I froze but I wasn’t going to get dirt on my duds, or the blood-soaked snowflakes that the wind swept up and tossed around me.