Himself(6)
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
The dead are nowhere to be seen as Tadhg drives through the village, but the living have had their tea and are starting to show their faces. Tadhg drives slowly; he has the punnet of strawberries wedged between his great thighs and he doesn’t want them bruised. He tells Mahony that he would do anything for the love of a good woman such as Annie Farelly.
Mahony sees some young ones standing on a corner gassing; they turn and watch as Tadhg drives by. When Mahony leans out the window to blow them a kiss they laugh and push each other.
It’s just fun, he tells Tadhg. Mahony doesn’t want a girl. He never has, not even close. He’s happier alone – that’s the way it’s always been. He’ll freewheel for ever. He’ll never have a woman and a rake of kids hanging off him, holding him down.
They drive out past old stone-walled fields and whitewashed houses. Sheets and shirts jackknife on lines in the yards, catching the breeze coming up stronger now from the sea below.
Tadhg squints ahead at the dry rutted road and tells Mahony that Mulderrig is a picture of heaven, framed by the most ancient of forests. Didn’t St Patrick himself admire Mulderrig’s trees whilst chasing troublesome snakes about the place? And didn’t he bless this forest as he lashed through the undergrowth?
But then Mulderrig’s trees have always been under some strange spirit of protection. A matchless treasure in a hoard of bogs and lakes and mountains.
Down all the long centuries of change this little forest has prevailed, unharmed by settlers and undeterred by soil, or weather, or situation.
And the trees still hold strong. Their canopies drinking every soft grey sky and their roots spreading down deep in the dark, nuzzling clutches of old bones and fingering lost coins. They throw their branches up in wild dances whenever a storm comes in off the bay. And the wind howls right through them, to where the forest ends and the open land begins and the mountains rise up. This is the place where, on better days, the sun and clouds play out their endless moving shadow shows.
From the bowels of the mountains comes the River Shand. Born twisting, it weaves through stone and land and forest down towards town, where it flows out to meet the estuary. In some places the river is banked and forded, in others wild and forgotten. In most places it’s cold and tidal. In all places it’s a law unto itself. For the Shand is a river of unpredictable bends and treacherous undertows, of unfathomable depths and unreasonable habits, of cursed bridges and vengeful willows. Of Denny’s Ait: a sunken island, named for a drowned man, studded with gemstones, seen only at low tide, and then only rarely.
Now there’s a fork in the road. To the left is the narrow boreen that winds up to Rathmore House, just wide enough for a car. But Tadhg turns right onto a long gravel drive bordered by dour regiments of heathers.
‘Would you look at that bungalow Annie Farelly had built for herself. Isn’t it the bee’s bollox, Mahony?’
‘It’s deadly, Tadhg.’
Rendered in grey and brutal in design, the widow’s bungalow is entirely foreboding. At either side of the studded oak doorway, petulant stone horses sneer down flared nostrils. There’s more than a suggestion of battlements around the dormer windows and a thickly planted hedge surrounds the entire building.
‘It could pass as the gingerbread house. Magical, eh? And her net curtains – the fierce white of them. She’s a wonderfully house-proud woman.’
Tadhg hooks the punnet over one fat finger and grins apologetically. ‘I’d bring you in with me and introduce you—’
‘Ah no, Tadhg, you go. I’ll sit here and have a smoke for meself.’
‘You wouldn’t mind? I doubt if I’ll get a squeeze anyways.’
‘No, go on. Fill your boots. I’m grand here.’
‘Right so, I’ll just pop in for a minute.’
‘Take your time,’ Mahony smiles.
Tadhg hauls his big arse as politely as he can to the front door, where he stops, licks his hand and slicks down the front of his hair.
The door opens immediately and an astringent-looking woman comes out onto the doorstep. There’s a brief exchange, with Tadhg shifting on his feet like a schoolboy as she peers over at the car. She shakes her head and trots out onto the drive. With each step her head hinges forwards from her upholstered body and her mouth chews silent curses.
She steams to a halt and stands, aiming eye-daggers in through the car window. She takes in Mahony’s long hair, the holes in his trousers and the dirt under his fingernails.
‘This is a decent village. We don’t want any filthy dirty hippies here.’
Mahony takes in the immaculate rows of nodding pin curls and the blue eyes as joyless as a Monday morning. He smiles. ‘I scrub up all right.’
In a fight between them he would put his money on her. For the legs that emerge from the bottom of her plaid skirt are stout and muscled and there’s a decent curve to her bicep. A nurse’s fob watch is pinned to her strapping chest and at her hip she carries a set of keys on a loop like a jailer.
The Widow Farelly narrows her eyes. ‘I doubt that. I know your sort. With your drugs and your loose behaviour – well, you can move on. We keep a close watch here. We deal with troublemakers in this town.’
‘I bet you do. I bet you nip them right in the bud.’
Tadhg stands helpless on the path with his strawberries forgotten and his shoulders sloping. Dim faces have started to gather at the empty windows of the bungalow, quietly watching. Patient dead old faces that press apologetically through the windowpanes. Mahony resolutely ignores them.