by Paul Murray
At least five minutes had gone by, and of my Laura, the real-life Laura, there was still no sign. I went to the door and looked down the pitch-black corridor. I couldn’t make out a single thing. Was she still in the bathroom? Had she passed out somewhere? Or – I remembered the way she’d been hanging off Frank earlier. Had she slipped off into a corner with him? I began to panic: imagining her in the back of his rusty white van, rocking back and forth on the way to his mantelpiece –
I hurried sightlessly in the direction of the stairs – but then from a doorway a hand reached out and grabbed my wrist, and before I had a chance to tell her we were in the wrong room, she was kissing me. It wasn’t the sort of kiss one cared to interrupt; in fact, as soon as her lips met mine, everything – everything – went out of my head. It was a kiss that surrounded one, delicate and bewildering as a flurry of snowflakes; and as they fell so gaily around me, they seemed to be telling me that no matter what happened tonight, I should not despair; that there would always be old stone houses and long reverberant kisses, things that existed eternally alongside the mutable world; things in which I belonged.
‘Laura,’ I crooned the word into her cheek, ‘Laura…’
Immediately I said it, something palpably changed. At the same moment our hands stopped moving; we stood there frozen in a tense silence that seemed to go on for far too long…
‘Charles?’
‘Great Scott!’
‘Get off me!’ Bel cried, pushing my hand from her thigh and recoiling with such vigour that I stumbled backward and whacked my head on the door-jamb. ‘Oh my God, are you all right?’ She stretched a hand towards me before being overcome with horror and recoiling again. ‘Oh my God, oh my God…’
‘Ow…’ I picked myself up off the floor, massaging my bump, and tried to get my bearings. ‘Ow…’
‘Oh my God – Charles, this is… this is extremely bad –’
‘I think I’m having an aneurysm,’ I gasped. ‘Bel, call an ambulance –’
‘Charles, get out of here!’ She pulled her hair, stamped her foot. ‘Would you please get out, please?’ Her voice hovered on the verge of tears. ‘Don’t you get that this is really, really bad?’
‘Well, don’t blame me,’ I said, beginning to feel somewhat offended. ‘You were the one who dragged me in here, I mean you practically manhandled me –’
‘It’s my room, Charles, I thought you were Frank, obviously.’
‘How could you possibly mistake me for Frank?’ I tucked in my shirt tails. ‘Frank’s wrists are like fire extinguishers. And he has that sort of characteristic smell…’
‘Fire extinguishers?’ She sounded quite agitated now. ‘Charles, what’s the matter with you? Where is Frank?’
‘Well, I thought he was with you.’ Although it was obvious where he must be: downstairs swiping the family heirlooms. Laura was probably helping him, she’d drooled over them enough –
‘Don’t move for a second.’ Bel edged cautiously past me into the hallway. ‘Charles, I… I don’t want you to touch me, ever again.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said as the indistinct outline of her backed away towards the stairs, ‘but look, there’s no point blowing this out of proportion, you have to take it in the spirit in which it was meant, which is a simple crossed wire –’
‘Just don’t, don’t move,’ she warned from further away – and then took off at speed down the stairs, calling for Frank.
Without quite knowing how, I found myself in Father’s study. I staggered over to the window, raised the sash and collapsed on to the sill, grinding my fists in my eyes. Alcohol beat through my head like a tropical storm. My mind kept taunting me with sensory details: the taste of her lipstick, the gentle bump of her teeth – ugh, ugh, ugh! I breathed in the night air, vigorously shook my head, but a kind of hideous retroactive process had been set in motion, and now the events of the evening reappeared before me like a ghastly carnival: the hepatic glow of a bronze Buddha on the dresser, Bel’s disembodied arm around Frank, glutinous oysters sitting lifelessly in their shells – my fingertips sweated on the windowsill and I wondered if I was taking leave of my senses.
‘Coo-ee!’ a voice sailed up out of the night.
What now? I looked, but couldn’t see anyone.
‘Coo-ee!’ it repeated. ‘Charlie! Down here!’
I leaned out. Frank was standing in the shadows directly underneath my window.
‘All right?’ he said.
‘Ah, ha ha, yes, there you are,’ I revolved my hand weakly like an ailing monarch.
‘You look a bit rough, Charlie, were you pukin?’
‘No, no, quite all right, just a little… a little over-tired, I imagine…’ What was he doing out there? Shouldn’t he be inside, finishing his larceny?
‘I heard a noise so I came out to check it. Look who I found in the bushes!’ A satellite appeared by the moon of his upturned face: Mrs P, still looking decidedly somnambulant. I had entirely forgotten about her in the course of my doomed pursuit of Laura. ‘Oh yes,’ I said sheepishly. ‘She did, ah, wander off earlier on, now that I think of it.’
‘She was runnin around in the bushes like a mad thing, I don’t think she knows what she’s doin at all.’
‘Well, bring her in, would you, there’s a good chap –’
Mrs P made a contribution that was not audible from the second storey.
‘She keeps sayin that, who’s Mirela, Charlie?’
‘I don’t know, look, can’t you just –’
‘Hang on –’ A door opened and a tremble of light fell on the grass.
‘Hi Frank,’ said a new voice.
‘All right?’ Frank said. ‘What are you doin out here?’
‘I was looking for the bathroom,’ Laura said.
‘Maybe Charles knows where it is,’ he pointed up to me.
‘Hi Charles!’ she waved.
‘Hello, yes,’ I replied rather curtly, wondering how long this pantomime was going to go on for. ‘I think you were actually in the bathroom already, if you –’
‘It’s actually quite nice out, isn’t it?’ She had returned her attention to Frank. ‘Like sort of refreshing, is that why you came out?’
‘Look at all them stars…’ Frank reflected unconvincingly, craning his head back.
‘I say, Mrs P’s going to catch cold if you stand there much longer,’ I called down. ‘And Bel’s looking for you, by the way.’
‘Right you be, Charlie, right you be.’ He held the door open for Mrs P and Laura and followed them inside. I turned from the window and sat down at Father’s desk. On a sheet of paper was a row of faces, scribbled on with coloured pencils; it took a moment to see that it was the same girl in each picture. Beneath it were notes on the respective effects, his zigzags and hatching expressed as fiendish bracketed equations, strings of letters and indices that represented the colour, density and reactivity of the compounds in question. To most people, it was alchemy and nothing less; I confess it didn’t make much more sense to me. His portrait looked down on me from the wall. Why couldn’t you have a normal mortgage? I reproached him silently. Why did you leave us alone with this mess? He gazed back at me expressionlessly.
I composed myself, and considered the tattered remnants of my grand plan to save Amaurot. There was no question that the opportunity to leave behind any kind of inspirational message, or even a good impression, had by this point been lost. Death or no death, there no longer seemed much chance of Bel revising her opinion of me, coming to see me as noble, a good sport, etc. All I had managed to do was confirm her idea of Amaurot as some kind of South Dublin House of Usher. It was no wonder Frank seemed like a safe, responsible alternative. I had practically driven her into his arms. The whole thing had been a debacle from start to finish, and it struck me that if one tenth of this had happened to Christ during his last supper, it was debatable whether he would have bothered coming back from the dead.
Still, I supposed I had better get it over with. I got t
o my feet. As I did so, the painting caught my eye again. On the spur of the moment I decided I wasn’t going to leave it for thieves to take, or to be auctioned off. I seized the letter-opener from the desk and set to work cutting the canvas where it met the frame. From outside there came a guttural, otherworldly dialogue: I imagined wolves gathering, or some inverted horror film where a mob of irate monsters takes the torch to Frankenstein’s castle. The canvas came free: I rolled it up, folded it, and tucked it under the waistband of my trousers. Then, feeling marginally better, I fetched the bag of possessions from my room and made my way downstairs, planning to say goodnight to the others and then wait for death outside, where there was less chance of further embarrassment.
Voices were coming from the kitchen: but my first port of call was the dining room, where I picked up a candelabrum and saw to my satisfaction that the dresser, the cabinet, the nested tables had been stripped. Nodding to myself, I left the room.
‘Those Budweiser ads are hilarious – Oh, hi Charles.’
‘Well, well, isn’t this cosy?’
Frank, Laura, Bel and Mrs P were sitting around the table, illuminated by a single candle, cups of tea before them. Bel muttered something uncomplimentary as I came in.
‘Nice and cosy,’ I repeated, circling the table with my hands behind my back and staring meaningfully at Frank.
‘All right?’ Frank said. I smiled benignly. Let him pretend innocence for now; by this time tomorrow, his jig would be up.
‘Do you want some tea, Charles?’ Laura said. ‘We thought we should give your housekeeper some tea, like to warm her up, and then Frank said, why don’t we all have some?’
‘Found some Jaffa Cakes as well,’ Frank said, proffering the box.
‘Your hair is so shiny,’ Laura said to Mrs P, who looked positively catatonic and had not touched her tea.
‘As a matter of fact I was just on my way to bed,’ I said with a yawn. ‘But then I remembered I had something important I wanted to tell Bel.’
Bel made no response to this, other than adjusting her chair to face away from me.
‘ .. em, Bel?’ I ventured again, attempting to sidestep in front of her.
‘Charles, please, I don’t want to talk to you right now –’
‘Yes, but just a quick – I say, can’t you stop moving your chair around?’
‘ – or look at you. I’m sorry, but I can’t.’
‘It’s just that the thing is –’ gripping the back of the chair and sort of leaning across her –
‘Oh, what then?’ she exclaimed. ‘What is it?’
‘Um…’ Caught on the hop, I couldn’t remember what I wanted to say. I straightened up, tapped my foot, trying to think of something fitting. ‘Well, goodnight, I suppose, for a start –’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Goodnight.’ She crossed her arms and returned to glowering into her teacup.
‘Well,’ I said uncertainly, ‘that’s it, then.’
‘Yeah, g’night, Charlie.’
‘Goodnight, Charles, thanks for a lovely dinner.’
‘Right.’ I moved numbly over to the back door, feet heavy as lead.
‘Charles, where are you going, exactly?’ Bel said irritably.
‘Me? Oh, just popping over to the Folly for a minute.’
‘At this hour? What for?’
‘No reason,’ I said vaguely, my hand resting on the handle. ‘Just thought I might, ah, pop over…’
‘Fine.’ She turned away again, sounding exasperated.
‘Well, goodnight everyone.’ I opened the door. ‘And if for some reason I don’t see you again, then, ah… well, try to love one another, you know.’ I began to back out of the room. ‘Work for a better tomorrow, so forth. Though of course, I will see you. So it’s just, just something to bear in mind, give it the old college try –’ Overcome by emotion, I hurried out and closed the door.
The garden was cool and fresh. I leaned against the masonry and brushed my eyes. Frank was right: the sky was packed with stars. I stayed there a moment looking at them: candles in a grand celestial house, through which the gods bumped and argued, apologized and said goodbye.
I found MacGillycuddy behind an acacia tree, hands folded peacefully in his lap. Above him the video camera lay nestled in the fork of two branches, pointing at the dining-room window. I took it down and fiddled with the buttons until it rewound to the beginning, then brought the viewfinder to my eye. I fast-forwarded through dinner with Laura. Even at high speed it looked insufferably boring. Ignominious matchsticks wolfed food and wine, heads snapped back and forth like birds. Bel and Frank arrived. The matchsticks zipped about the room. Then the power cut: after a period of darkness, Laura came back with her candle. I saw Bel and Frank leaving and me returning, lighting the other candles; Laura’s and my brief moment of electricity by the cabinet, a split-second of insignificance.
Shortly afterwards we made our exit. I slowed the recording to normal speed. Some minutes passed and then a ghostly white figure appeared: Mrs P, making her somnambulant rounds. But then she was joined by others. The candlelight and the poor picture made it impossible to discern faces; all I could see were shadows – terrifying, overgrown shadows, moving slowly behind her like a witch’s familiars. In their black paws things glinted and disappeared. A freezing sweat sprang up across my back. I nudged MacGillycuddy. ‘MacGillycuddy! I say, MacGillycuddy, wake up!’
‘What, what?’ he mumbled, half-opening his so-called all-seeing eyes. ‘I was awake already.’
‘No you weren’t, you were fast asleep.’
With a groan he heaved himself up from the ground. ‘Aren’t you dead yet?’
‘No – blast it, MacGillycuddy, couldn’t you watch for one hour?’
‘The video worked, didn’t it?’ he replied grouchily, pulling twiglets off his back.
‘Well, it filmed something,’ I said. ‘But it doesn’t make very much sense. According to this Frank is entirely innocent and it’s actually Mrs P who’s been behind everything, with the help of some sort of beings, possibly supernatural beings.’ I thrust the camera into his hands. ‘See for yourself.’
He replayed the tape. ‘How about that,’ he said when it was finished.
‘Well, what am I going to do? You don’t think Mrs P’s been associating with beings, do you?’
‘It’s hard to tell…’ MacGillycuddy scratched his head noncommittally.
‘Damn it, didn’t you see anything? I’m paying you to monitor, aren’t I? Why weren’t you monitoring?’
‘I can’t monitor in candlelight, can I? I’m not Brother Cadfael.’
‘What?’ I said.
Anyway, he continued sourly, if supernatural beings were behind the furniture theft, I would be better off with a priest. He added that I might have some difficulty finding a priest willing to accept my bouncing cheques. I replied to the effect that if lack of funds was his problem, there were bound to be some children having birthdays tomorrow whose cards he could intercept. He responded with an unsavoury remark about inbreeding. I punched him on the ear. He retaliated with a dig in the kidneys, and before I knew where I was we were tussling on the twigs and dirt of the shrubbery. MacGillycuddy was one of those wiry types and had a ruthless streak; it might have gone badly for me had I not espied, from beneath his armpit, two burly shadows – the same shadows that had guest-starred on the video, I was sure of it – shuffling across the lawn with the piano. ‘Look!’ I wheezed.
‘Oh, the old “look” trick,’ MacGillycuddy snarled. ‘I’ll teach you how to look –’
‘For the love of God!’ I howled as MacGillycuddy’s fingers delved into my eye-sockets. ‘The thieves! They’re behind you!’
MacGillycuddy by this point was winning the fight by such a margin that he could afford to snatch a glance backwards. ‘Holy fuck!’ he whispered, relinquishing my neck.
‘Well, come on!’ I staggered to my feet. ‘After them!’
The shadows were moving in the direction of the Fo
lly, at a fair clip considering their heavy load. I was hampered by my ankle, which MacGillycuddy had stamped on, and he seemed reluctant to run on after them himself; nevertheless we were gaining ground when a third party stepped into our path. He was smaller and squatter than the others, with a knobbly, richly bruised face.
‘Evenin’,’ he said.
‘Look here,’ I gasped, massaging my throat, ‘I don’t mind about the ottoman, or… or the ramekins, but the piano – I don’t know if you’re a musical man yourself, but there’s a sort of a bond between a man and –’
‘I don’t know nuttin about ramekins,’ the new arrival interrupted. ‘I was just wantin to have a word wi’ Frank.’
‘With Frank…?’ Suddenly my eyeballs returned to their customary location and I realized who this fellow was. It was the cunt from the pub. A look of deadly intent seared from his eyes. He was here for vengeance.
‘Now if you could just go in,’ the cunt said quietly, ‘and ask Frank if he’d pop out for a minute…’
We were trapped in a gang war! Could things get any more downmarket? I looked at MacGillycuddy. MacGillycuddy looked at me.
‘Run!’ said MacGillycuddy.
The door slammed behind us just as more cunt-like presences appeared out of the trees. We burst panting into the kitchen, where Laura was still prattling to Frank and Bel was trying to coax Mrs P out of her chair. Bel rose, startled.
‘I thought you’d gone to bed. What’s going on? Who’s this?’
‘MacGillycuddy’s the name, Ignatius MacGillycuddy.’
‘Aren’t you the postman?’
‘We haven’t time for this,’ I cut in. ‘The fact is –’ The doorbell began to ring and did not stop.