‘Mick!’ she said.
She’d seen me swing a foot at her moggy.
‘He’s after drawing blood,’ I said.
‘Ginger?’
‘I …’.
‘Show me.’ She was sitting up, propped in place by her hand.
When I did, she shook her head, her beautiful mane flowing over her shoulders. She had several moles between her breasts, shaped like some constellation of stars. The cut was little more than a scratch, but it hurt more than its appearance.
‘Isn’t he just the little fucker?’ she said.
Flecks of blood fell on to the red sheet.
‘Mick …’ she said, handing me her knickers to dress the wound.
Then she lay her head down on the pillow and brought my head to rest against her breasts and took back her panties.
‘It’s just a little prick,’ she says.
‘First your cat flashes a claw, now you.’
She giggled.
‘Mama will make it better,’ she said, before sucking on my thumb.
I thought of her bad teeth.
Neither of us had work the next day, so we took off for a drive in her aged green Nissan Micra, fluffy dice, pine freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror and pink backseat cushions in the shape of
a heart.
She drove slowly, never bringing the needle above forty, on winding country roads, to a craft village she often visited because she was friendly with the guy who owned the place. Sometimes, he got in new dolls.
‘Did you call down to see Siobhan, or are you going to?’ she said evenly, looking straight ahead.
‘What do you think?’
‘No … I suppose not.’
‘You don’t want to talk about it, do you?’
‘Same as you about marriage.’
‘That’s different.’
‘Both are very personal,’ I said, which killed conversation in the car for a few minutes.
Dee mentioned that we were nearly there, and after a short silence added, ‘I was going with that fucker Paul Henry for years … he was married and I fell for the usual: he loved me, was going to leave his wife, move in with me, yeah?’
His name lingered in the air.
‘I remember him … tall man, photographer … his family owned the studios on the main street,’ I said.
‘He’s dead.’
‘What happened, Dee?’
‘He died about six months after we broke up; he got bad pains all over his body. He screamed all the way to the end. The doctors couldn’t find a reason for his death. Sometimes that happens … you know, they can’t find a medical cause.’
She said it as though it were no bad thing.
‘Jesus.’
‘Up his hole,’ she said, then quickly, ‘we’re here.’
Differently coloured log cabins full of intricately crafted wares, from wool to potteries to glassware and woven garments we passed, not stopping until we reached Benny Ivor’s Wood Crafts. It was dark inside, made darker by the sinister mahogany African face masks hanging on the walls. The other walls held masks from Asia, wind chimes, and the floor counters had a variety of knick-knack ornaments, like fridge magnets, pens, packs of incense and trays. The man who had called Dee about the new dolls wasn’t in, but the girl said he’d left a package for her behind the counter.
‘It’s identical to the others you bought.’
I came alongside, and looked over Dee’s shoulder as the girl surfaced the white box from the bag on the counter. Lifting the lid, she said, ‘He said he hopes you’ll be satisfied with it.’
A plain cloth doll, flesh-coloured, about a foot long, featureless except for two black beads for eyes, stared at us.
‘Perfect,’ Dee said.
She paid with her credit card, a whopping €500.
Outside, I said, ‘That must be a rare doll.’
‘Extremely rare, yes,’ she said.
We ate in a little Italian bistro in town, themed with fishing nets, a picture of a harbour scene, a giant turtle shell. Rather than leave the new doll in the car boot, she’d brought it along in a shopping bag.
I said, ‘I didn’t see any other dolls like that in your house.’
‘No, I move them on, what’s left of them.’
‘Move them on?’
‘It’s a voodoo doll, Mick, there’s only so much life in them.’
‘I see.’
‘I’ve to think of a name for it.’
Over dessert of apple pie and custard, she started to give me cause for concern when she asked me who would be the one person in the world I’d most like to hurt.
After some moments reflecting, I said, ‘No one.’
‘Not even Siobhan?’
‘Why would I want to harm her?’
‘For your marriage failing for starters.’
‘That was my fault.’
‘Really?’ she said, dead interested.
So I told her I’d given an alibi to the lads, the police, about a friend of mine – he’d asked me to say I had been with him on a specific night, and twenty years on, guess what? DNA evidence was used to prove he had killed a young woman.
‘It’s not your fault that he did that,’ she said.
‘Tell that to Siobhan.’
‘She didn’t think you had a hand in the … we’re talking about Keevie Murphy, right?’
‘A-ha.’
‘Poor Keevie. She was a lovely woman.’
‘I didn’t know her.’
‘You must have, she used to work at the ticket kiosk in the cinema.’
‘I didn’t know her, know her … if you follow.’
She left none of her pie, not even the crumbs, which she called ‘Bystanders.’
‘And I had nothing to do with her death.’
‘Who said you had, Mick?’
I sighed, and asked her if she wanted to finish my dessert. Her eyes had been on it like I’d felt the eyes of her dolls on me.
‘Only if you’re not eating it,’ she said.
I slid it across. She licked her spoon, and then said, ‘Go on …’.
‘Siobhan believes that I must have had a doubt about him at least once in all those years … at least one. She said the killer had a history of violence towards women.’
‘Had you?’ she said, chewing pie.
I’m not given to lying, in spite of the alibi that I had to retract in court, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit the truth to Siobhan and now Dee. I had doubts, but I buried them, and I did so because he had something on me: a brief affair I’d had with his sister.
‘No … he was a friend who I thought I knew.’
Dee simply fixed her eyes on me, and they wouldn’t have looked out of place in one of her dolls.
‘He raped me … and if you hadn’t lied for him that wouldn’t have happened. He’d have been in gaol. I don’t fucking believe you. You had your doubts, for sure. Well now, you’ve had your last fling, Mick … I had to sleep with you … it was part of the recipe.’
‘The what?’
‘Recipe, duh!’
She laughed, and I thought we’d blown away the coals of burning tension.
Back at the house, she said I could stay the night, but in the spare room. She was deadly calm, polite. I couldn’t wait to get away the next morning. I said we must meet up again sometime, but she just pierced me with those ice eyes, her arms folded across her breasts. She muttered ‘Goodbye’ and closed the front door before I was even a quarter of the way down her garden path.
Lately, I think about her in the way I used to about the circumstances surrounding Keevie’s murder: I keep my thoughts to myself. About this, though: if I say anything people wil
l think that I’ve flipped. Dee won’t fit into the back of my mind. Her face, her eyes, those dolls, my blood on her sheet, that Voodoo doll …. The fierce, shooting pains in my legs and arms. Nightmarish health issues, rashes and coughs that perplex my doctors and leave them unable to heal.
Netanya
In Netanya that summer, Mike had met a girl called Tabitha. She was just back in town that very day after finishing a stint of annual military service in Metulla at the border with Lebanon. She was tall, though not taller than Mike, and she carried no spare weight. They had been sitting at different tables next to each other under The Scotsman’s long yellow awning. They had an anxiety and impatience about them, as though they were waiting on friends to show, and had grown tired of waiting. She had on faded jeans, a short-sleeve white blouse and flip-flops she had eased from her feet. She had painted pink toenails. Her long black hair had been towel-dried, and was still wet from a swim or a shower. She sipped at her espresso and lit a cigarette. He caught her eye and gestured for a light. She smiled and handed him her plastic lighter, which had a blue eagle insignia, and they sat and smoked without saying a word; they people-watched and checked their mobile phones as though willing a message to come through. When it looked like she was getting ready to leave, he invited her to join him until her friends arrived.
‘I’m not waiting for anyone in particular,’ she said, with hint of a Chicago drawl.
‘Just killing time,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
She looked at him as though posing a silent question, intended for herself, he thought, perhaps wondering what sort of guy he was beyond the crew cut, the half-starved look, the craggy face with the forehead scar. His navy T-shirt was his best clean one, his black jeans his only pair, his sandals expensive and a birthday present from his sister. Half hobo, half hippy. Free spirit. It was the image of himself he liked to portray – but Mike was someone who liked to every so often shake off the shackles that he was convinced had him bound: he was a soldier mechanic.
‘Are you UN?’ she said through a haze of blue-grey smoke she’d exhaled.
‘No,’ he lied, ‘you?’
Her facial expression told him he was way off. She picked up her pink shoulder bag and sat at his table. He straightened up, and wished he’d shaved or had taken a shower with the cockroaches back in his hotel room.
‘I thought you were from the Golan or Lebanon,’ she said.
He shook his head, ‘No, I’m not with the UN.’
‘So, you’re a tourist.’
‘I’m working in a kibbutz just outside Qiryat Shemona. I’m free this weekend and, well, we were to meet here,’ he shrugged.
He was nursing a beer, and asked if she’d like one. She said she’d like a Macabbi.
She was 28, she told him, when they were in the middle of swapping personal details. She’d asked him to guess, and he’d got close at 27. Tabitha worked in a jewellery shop specialising in diamonds. He was 32. An idea occurred to her that he had been married and the marriage had broken up. He shook his head, swigged on his beer and eyed her steadily, allowing a smile to crease his lips when he thought he saw the corners of her eyes crease with disquiet.
‘You’re still married,’ she said.
‘Are you?’
‘No. I never …’ she said with a deep trace of sadness in her tone, which comes from the badly let down, the betrayed, the wronged half of a love affair.
She drew the tip of her forefinger down the bottle, a line through the moisture. Then she picked at the corner of the label, glanced at him a couple of times. He could smell the coconut shampoo she’d used, and also a trace of perfume.
‘My wife is dead,’ he said quietly, giving her a look before averting his eyes.
She left the label alone, studied him.
‘What happened?’
‘What happened? Childbirth happened.’
Her features grew pensive.
‘Her heart gave out,’ he said evenly.
‘The baby?’
‘My son. He’s alive. Healthy.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Three … he’s three.’
‘Shouldn’t you be with him?’
‘Are you hungry? I’d like something to eat that won’t cost too much. What do you recommend?’ he said.
After they’d eaten, they went to the beach with a few bottles of beer. He could pop the lids with his teeth, and this both enthralled and alarmed her. She said it was a feat she would never attempt; she loved her teeth too much, and wanted to keep them for as long as possible. They sat on a towel he had gone back to the hotel room for, using some minutes there to quickly wash under his arms and his genitals – he couldn’t find the condoms he carried everywhere with him, and didn’t want to delay any longer than he already had done. Besides, he was sure she would have one in her shoulder bag.
They were in a dune, off a narrow beach. A band played in the beach bar down the way from them, belting out a Bob Marley song about Buffalo Soldiers. They heard its faint strands, the quiet shush to shore of the waves, and then, in the middle of laughter at something witty he had said, they kissed and ignited the fuse to their passion. Afterwards, they lay side by side, her leg draped over his thigh, her fingertips light on his chest, his arm a pillow for her neck, his fingers caressing her shoulder.
Finally, they sat up, drank their last beers and smoked their last cigarettes. A half-moon and an expanse of stars beaconed in the cold ink of the skies. Sand had got in between his toes, the crevices of their behinds, under their fingernails, and irritated his athlete’s foot.
Naked, she left him and walked into the sea and began to wash herself, to wash him from her. He followed her example, and later stood shivering on the beach as she used the towel to dry herself. The fabric was thin, and when it was his turn he dried himself as much as was possible in her wet.
‘Do you want to come back to my apartment for coffee?’ she said.
‘Sure.’
It was late, almost dawn, when they reached her place. He was glad of the black sugary coffee, the bread roll she’d spread with jam for him. She said she lived there with her parents, but they had gone to visit her mum’s parents in Nahariya, and wouldn’t be back until Monday evening.
‘So,’ she said, sitting beside him, focusing on not spilling any of her coffee on the sofa.
‘So,’ he said, smiling.
‘When are you due back at the kibbutz?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I see.’
‘But you know what a kibbutz is like … I can wait till Monday.’
She sipped at her coffee and said, ‘We have tomorrow, then.’
‘Today,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes …’.
Sunday was five hours old.
He said, ‘Anything special you’d like to do?’
‘Make love,’ she said, putting her mug on the coffee table, ‘but don’t go trying to bite my neck … I’ve to meet and greet people, you know?’
He nodded, ‘You’re okay, you know?’
‘Okay?’ she said, puzzled, before it came to her. ‘Yeah. You?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I knew that … I didn’t have to ask,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I’m going to shower and get the sand out of my hair …’.
‘You want alone time or will I join you?’
‘Alone time. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
She smiled and left. He heard the bathroom door open and close, a bolt being drawn across. This puzzled him, but he didn’t dwell on it. He watched CNN on TV, and fell asleep midway through a report about an earthquake in Pakistan.
*
He recognised the symptoms when they appeared, and tried to deny them to himself, but after a week he presented himsel
f to the Regimental Aid Post at UN Headquarters about six kilometres across the Israeli border in south Lebanon. The doctor was Polish. He did the tests, including one for HIV, and said, ‘You have contracted venereal disease, but we will not have the results of the AIDS tests for about six weeks.’
‘Shit.’
‘When are you to return to Ireland, Sergeant?’
‘Next month.’
‘Do you know this woman well?’
‘I spent a weekend with her.’
‘You may have given this to her, yes?’
‘No. I haven’t been with anyone else. Not for months. Not since I came to Lebanon five months ago,’ he said, lying.
‘You’re married?’
‘Yes.’
The doctor had a handlebar moustache. He was about 55. He peeled off his plastic gloves.
‘Big problem for you,’ he said.
As if I don’t already know that, Mike thought, feeling panicky about what lay down the road. Moira – Jesus – we don’t use condoms. She’ll be mad for it when I get home – what will I say, what will I do? Fuck.
As he binned the gloves, the doctor said, ‘You should see this woman, maybe, and ask her if she has AIDS … this is the big important question for you. VD is the best you hope for … let’s hope it is not syphilis or AIDS … not anything so major for you or for your wife.’
Back in his billet, he lay on his bunk under camouflage mosquito netting. He’d got three days’ leave, begrudgingly and reluctantly granted by his Commanding Officer, who had only relented after receiving a call from the Polish doctor to advise him that it was a necessary situation.
Deadly Confederacies Page 16