Himself(37)

‘Well now, Mahony, it seems you’ve set the cat amongst the pigeons with a carving knife.’

Mahony takes a cigarette from Tadhg and lights it. ‘Why’s that then?’

‘Mary Lavelle says that you have woken the dead. She says they reared up out of their graves the very moment you set foot in town.’

Mahony laughs.

‘It’s no joke, pal.’ Tadhg frowns. ‘You’re getting their imaginations riled; it’s affecting them.’

The dead drinker draws closer and tries to lick Mahony’s glass.

‘They just get caught up in it; it can happen to the best of us, the old superstition.’ Tadhg leans forward. ‘I remember a tinker scaring the life out of me once. She’d said she’d seen my grandfather riding around town on my mother’s back. The man had been dead six months and in that time my mother had suffered terrible pain. Now my grandfather was a bad bastard, God rest his soul, so you really wouldn’t want to be carrying him about your person.’ Tadhg raises his pint to his mouth. ‘But then Mammy went to the doctor’s and found out that it was sciatica she’d had all along.’

The dead drinker stares forlornly at Mahony’s pint.

‘It’s all this talk of your mother, her disappearance, murder even. You need to let it go. We both know Orla is out there somewhere, alive and kicking.’

‘I don’t know that, Tadhg.’

Tadhg reddens. ‘Where’s your evidence then? If Orla is dead then where’s her body?’ Tadhg shakes his head. ‘Where’s the crime here, Mahony? I don’t see one.’

The dead drinker nuzzles up to Tadhg’s shoulder, crying in quiet despair.

Tadhg screws his fag out in the ashtray. ‘Call off the search, Mahony. Enjoy the play, have your break and you’ll leave on better terms for it.’

‘That’s your advice?’

‘That’s my warning. You keep winding them up and every last one will take against you.’

Mahony shrugs. ‘And prove that they’re hiding something.’

Tadhg looks at him in disbelief. ‘Have you heard nothing? Drop it and move on. That girl was a curse.’

‘That girl was my mother,’ says Mahony, hard-eyed.

Tadhg looks away. He pulls out a handkerchief and gives his face the once-over. ‘Now there’s Jack up at the bar for me.’ He gets up. ‘Think it over, Mahony. Before it’s too late.’

The dead drinker follows Tadhg to the bar, hopping up onto the stool next to Jack Brophy to sit looking in boundless despair at a pint with a virgin head on it just like a drift of thick cream. Mahony finishes his drink and waves his glass at the bar boy for another.

Mahony looks at the outstretched hand in front of him.

‘You were asking after me, Squire?’ says the man.

Mahony gets up and shakes the man’s hand. ‘Aye, I was. Take a seat. Jimmy Nylon, is it?’

The man grins in delight. ‘It is. How did you know?’

‘I took a wild stab.’

Jimmy Nylon sits down and crosses his legs, ankle to knee, stretching his slacks to the limit. He has the look of someone whose soul got up and walked away in disgust a long time ago. He holds up his hands as if he’s parting a biblical sea of troubles. ‘Now, first off, whatever you heard about me isn’t true. I’m a lad with a bit of a reputation.’

‘You know what I want to talk to you about?’

‘I have an idea,’ says Jimmy, shooting Tadhg a furtive glance as he stands watching them from behind the bar with his arms folded.

‘Then what do you know about the disappearance of Orla Sweeney?’

As Jimmy begins to finger the flayed edges of his magnificent golden hairpiece, Mahony can only look on in fascination.

And rightly so, for Jimmy is a local legend, that much is clear. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that what you have, right there, is a man of unwavering purpose. A man who spent decades as bald as a rock until one day he left town in search of the right hairpiece, at the right price.

His travels took him all over Ireland.

Some said he’d killed a man for his wallet in Athlone and some said he’d bought it with the money left him by a maiden aunt in Ballycroy.

Either way Jimmy had struck gold. Literally.

He returned to town with a flaxen toupee of prodigious style and quality. Here, finally, was the perfect marriage of easy-care manmade fibres and a dazzling blond hue.

Jimmy leans forward in his chair and points at Mahony. ‘On the day Orla left town I saw her propping up the wall outside the General Store.’

‘Was she alone?’

‘She was alone an’ looked a bit downcast for herself.’

‘In what way?’

Jimmy sucks air in through his teeth. ‘Now don’t get me wrong, I never had anything against your mother. But it didn’t do to be seen to be involved with her. It wasn’t good for the old reputation.’

Jimmy’s hand travels down his leg to tap on his crossed calf then his knee and back again. Tap, tap. His fingers go up to rim around the cuff of his wig, then back down to his knee again.

Mahony smiles. ‘She wasn’t popular. I get that. The town wanted her out.’

Jimmy narrows his eyes, sensing a trick. He leaves go of his knee and hooks his hand up behind his back. ‘Ah now, I wouldn’t know about that. The truth is I felt a bit sorry for her. She was different, you see, running around the forest day and night. There was a notion that she wasn’t quite right, that she was a bit touched.’ Jimmy taps a pattern on the side of his head.