Himself(63)

Mahony stands at the doorway. She’ll go alone, she says; she has her bike. He looks around him like a man waking up. The dead have amassed; they circle the cottage at a polite distance. They stand silently, eyes lowered, their caps in their hands, as if they are paying their respects.

Róisín opens the gate and for a moment Mahony sees her framed against the coast road, captured by the setting sun, her hair coming down around her shoulders. He waits for her to turn and wave but she doesn’t.

Mahony walks alone in the garden, finding things in the long grass. There are jam jars and hinges, bent spoons and pram wheels, a rusted bath of brown rainwater and a spent pitchfork. His inheritance.

He fills the jam jars with water and kicks through the brambles to the early roses that climb up the side of the cottage. They bow and dip in the breeze off the sea, confused by the clement weather, some budding, some already blown. He takes out his knife and cuts the thorny stems. Mahony puts roses in each room before he leaves. So that if his mother returns there will be light in the darkest corners of their shattered home. The dead nod and watch. Several smile, but not unkindly.





Chapter 30


May 1976


Shauna stands surrounded by towering mounds of laundry, reading the list she has found in the pocket of Mahony’s trousers.

She reads: Men from Mulderrig (between the ages of 15 and 80) and its Environs with the Use of a Vehicle During the Summer of 1949.

Jack Brophy

Eddie Callaghan

Pat Conway

Cathal Doyle (deceased)

Desmond Burke

Gerry Heeher

Pat Keenan (deceased)

Tadhg Kerrigan

Dr Maurice McNulty

Jimmy Nylon

She bites her lip and reads it over again, Desmond Burke, and her heart beats in time with the twin tub on a spin cycle.





Chapter 31


May 1976


‘Father Quinn is here to visit you, Mrs Cauley.’

Mrs Cauley purses her lips. ‘And he’s about as welcome as the clap.’

Father Quinn emerges into the clearing, stepping over piles of books. ‘If another time would be more convenient, Mrs Cauley?’

Mrs Cauley waves him towards a footstool.

‘I’ll leave you to it, Father,’ says Shauna, fixing Mrs Cauley with a look.

The priest sits down. The stool is uncomfortably low for a tall man. With his long legs folded awkwardly the priest has the air of a malevolent cricket.

‘Thank you for seeing me, Mrs Cauley.’

‘As much as I revel in your visits let’s make this snappy, I’ve a Dubonnet and a bed bath on the agenda this afternoon.’

‘It won’t take long, Mrs Cauley, I can assure you.’

Mrs Cauley feels a predictive itch starting up under her wig, a sure sign that this interview is unlikely to go her way. This notion is confirmed by one glance at the priest, for he is radiating smugness.

Father Quinn rests his long hands on his elevated knees. ‘It’s about Mahony.’

The itch goes mad. Mrs Cauley reaches for a cocktail stirrer. ‘What about him?’

‘I have made some enquiries.’

‘Good for you.’

‘I’ve traced him to a variety of institutions. I have it on authority from one Father McNamara that the records from St Anthony’s Orphanage alone show a history of criminal tendencies and profound instability.’

Mrs Cauley puts down the stirrer. ‘Mahony had a difficult childhood. One must expect fluctuations in the development of a person of character.’

‘Mahony then went on to commit a succession of offences and serve a number of custodial sentences.’

She waves her hand. ‘Who cares?’

‘A succession of offences, Mrs Cauley: disorderly conduct in a public place, affray—’

‘Boyish high spirits, Father.’

‘Then there’s accessory to automobile theft, resisting arrest and offending public decency.’

Father Quinn watches as Mrs Cauley’s lips draw a questionable curve. ‘Father, haven’t all God’s children sinned? I know I have. I’ve sinned long and hard and in a multitude of different ways. Like me, Mahony is reformed.’

The priest looks at Mrs Cauley through his knees. ‘You don’t quite understand, Mrs Cauley. By being here Mahony is breaking his current bail terms for aggravated assault.’

‘Aggravated assault?’

‘With a portable electric fire,’ says the priest triumphantly.

The itch goes mad.

The priest folds his hands together piously. ‘You see, Mahony is a wanted man.’

‘And I suppose you’ve told Jack Brophy all of this?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What do you want, Quinn?’

Father Quinn smiles. It’s his biggest yet.

Mahony looks out across the veranda. Across the lawn Johnnie is stalking one of the dead housemaids. Even in death she is ruffled, her hair coming down from under her cap and a chamber pot in each hand. Mahony taps on the windowpane and shakes his head. Johnnie stops, peers back at him and hastily fastens his trousers. He flitters up to the roof of the woodshed and sits pulling at the side of his moustache with a mutinous expression.

‘Low-down dirty f*cker,’ says Mahony.