Himself(78)

Shauna starts to realise that this is the natural way of things: Mahony walking beside her, smiling and listening to her wittering on about the storm, about Mrs Cauley’s earplugs and Bridget Doosey’s theories. They move easily around fallen trees and craters of water. Shauna marvels at the ravines cut on either side of the road by rivers of rainwater, dammed here and there with dead rats, their eyes as bright as jet buttons. In the field a flyblown sheep is lullabied by gentle breezes, her rinsed wool lifting. She’s an earthbound cloud! Her open mouth sings of eternal love and her bloated tongue talks only of marriage. The crows picking over the flooded fields are dancing the fandango and the farmers that applaud them are their biggest fans.

As they walk back to Rathmore House they have all the time in the world and soon Mahony has his arm around her with not even an inch of air between them.

‘It’s just another kind of sleep,’ says Annie Farelly to the slumbering old woman. ‘You shouldn’t fear it at all, Mrs Cauley.’

As soon as she feels the unfamiliar kiss of a properly laundered pillowcase Mrs Cauley’s eyes flicker open. There’s no fear, only mild amusement, so that for a moment Annie falters, confused.

And then it hits her.

An illustrated copy of Wuthering Heights howls by, glancing her left temple.

Annie releases her grip on the pillow and looks around. There’s no one there. So Annie picks up the pillow again and applies a bit of heft.

Then all hell breaks loose.

A large-type edition of War and Peace starts the counter-attack proper. It launches down from the top of a ceiling-high pile onto Annie’s cranium, knocking her to the floor. Saved only by the coiled density of her perm, Annie is more than a little dazed as she drags herself up the side of the bed only to be set upon by The Complete Works of Jane Austen, which rain down variously on her head, arms and décolleté. Annie regains her feet just as The Magic of Ernest Hemingway begins a vicious offence on her ankles, snapping like an unschooled terrier.

Clutching her shopper against her chest, Annie makes a dash around the bed only to stop dead in her tracks. Up ahead, a huge darkly bound book appears to be mustering force. Masterpieces of Russian Literature rears up before a flock of flapping periodicals. For a moment it hangs ponderously in the air then it shudders open and begins to ripple its thick yellow pages. Annie screams and hurls herself at the French doors, stumbling out onto the veranda with a game copy of On the Origin of Species launching itself repeatedly at her rear to give her a good, thorough kick up her hole.

Mrs Cauley chuckles through her broken nose before the stage lights go out.

Shauna is setting the kettle on the hob when she hears Mahony roar.

He’s standing at the open doorway of the library.

Before him is a sacked city, a ruin.

Here and there a book still scuttles or flaps. Occasionally there’s a scraping groan as great plates of periodicals meet, jostle and finally settle. Every high-stacked tower has been toppled, so that Mahony can see right across the room.

A sharp wedge of light shines through the dusty air, illuminating an unsettling tableau. Mrs Cauley lies on the bed, wigless and blanket-less, with blood on her face and her closed eyes already bruising.

Two faded angels stand over her.

As Mahony steps into the room the taller of the figures shakes his head. The other brushes away the dim tears that have joined the downpour of his limp moustache.

Floating above the bed is a woven arc of books, a miniature vaulted ceiling. Spired with twists of paperbacks and lined with yellowed music scores.

Mahony slides forward over the litter of books and papers, hardly knowing he’s shouting.

Mahony holds the old woman in his arms. She has stepped off the stage at the Abbey Theatre to find Johnnie waiting in the wings. She trips up to him, shaking back her brown curls, her eyes on his. He smiles, straightens his tie and holds out his hand.

The next voice she hears is Mahony’s, gunfighter raw in her ear.

It tells her to get up. The bullet missed, see? The undertaker is pocketing his measuring tape and putting his hat back on; the bartender is sweeping up the broken glass.

She lets go of Johnnie’s hand and opens her eyes.

Dr Maurice McNulty dresses Mrs Cauley’s nose and wrist, and gives her a shot for the pain. He tells her that her injuries should be taken as a stark warning against the dangers of excessive reading. Mrs Cauley smiles through her butterfly of gauze and tells him that, on the contrary, books save lives. Dr McNulty looks unconvinced. He tells her that if an avalanche of books doesn’t claim her then the dust surely will. Bookcases are the way to go, he informs her, coupled with thorough and regular housekeeping. He looks pointedly at Shauna, and Mrs Cauley laughs like a drain behind her bandages.

Mahony surveys the blackening shadows of the trees as the daylight dies.

‘How long have you suspected him?’

Mrs Cauley shrugs. ‘It was a hunch only. But a phone call to Gavaghan’s confirmed that there was no burglary yesterday.’

‘And he knew I wasn’t here at the house. He’d met me on the way up here. The sly bastard.’

Mrs Cauley raises herself on one elbow. ‘Well, he found nothing. You have the photograph with you in your wallet.’

‘I left my wallet behind, up in the room.’

‘Jack took it?’

‘It’s not there now.’

‘I’m sorry, kiddo. Our one real piece of evidence.’ She looks closely at him. ‘Our enemies are breaking cover. We must be getting warmer.’