Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly (Detective Sean Duffy #6)(7)

“Well, I’m not going to try to force you. Every time I’ve tried to force you to do anything it hasn’t worked. Backfired in me face, so it has. I still regret sending you off to that bird-watching camp on Tory Island. You cried and cried and I don’t think you ever picked up a birding book again after that.”

“Damn right. To this day I can’t tell the difference between a woodcock and a bog snipe,” I said and my father, who was easily pleased, erupted into gales of laughter (for, of course, as I’m sure you know, a woodcock and a bog snipe are the same thing).

Dinner that night was a high-spirited affair. One of Dad’s neighbours had caught a massive sea bass and mum had cooked it in a white wine sauce with scallops and potatoes while Beth and I took Emma down the beach to throw stones at the breakers.

We sat in the dining room under the portraits of JFK and the Derby-winning horse Shergar (both assassinated in their prime) while a turf fire burned in the range and rain lashed the windows.

Beth, Emma and Mum stayed at home while Dad and I trudged to The Lost Fisherman for the village’s big event of the week if you didn’t count mass on Sunday (and fewer and fewer people did, with each fresh week bringing a fresh church scandal). Dad introduced me to all his golfing cronies and told them that with me on the team we were sure to crush those arrogant bastards from the GAA.

In the event the GAA performed poorly and by the final general knowledge round it was between the golf club and the bowling club for the prize pool of fifty quid. Marty O’Reilly said that there would be a tie-break question.

“This is the question and I want you to be very precise with your answer. No shouting out from any of the other teams. All right, here goes. What were the very first words spoken from the Apollo 11 astronauts on the surface of the moon? Everybody get that? Good. As usual, write your answers on the card and bring them up. I’ll give you two minutes to think about it. Stop that! No whispering from any of the other teams!”

“The very first words from the moon?” Davy Smith said in a panic but I knew there was no need to worry because my dad was grinning to himself.

“Never fret, Alfred knows,” I said.

“Do you know right enough, Alfred?” Big Paul McBride asked.

“Look over there at them bowling boys. They think they know the answer but they don’t!” Dad said, almost rubbing his hands with glee.

“What’s that supposed to mean, Da?”

“A lot of people think the first words spoken on the surface of the moon are ‘That’s one small step for man – that’s one giant leap for mankind.’ But it’s not. It’s not even ‘That’s one small step for a man’, which Armstrong claims he says. That’s what Armstrong said when he first stepped off the bottom rung of the ladder of the lunar lander, but him and Aldrin had been talking in there for an hour by then.”

“What is it then?” Jeanie Coulhouln asked, on the edge of her seat.

“I’ll tell you what else it’s not, it’s not ‘Houston, the Eagle has landed’, either. Everyone thinks it’s that, but it’s not that,” Dad insisted.

“OK that’s what it’s not. What’s the right answer?” Jeanie asked.

“Well,” my father began, smiling at us beatifically like the Venerable Bede. “Not many people know this, but as the lunar lander, the Lem, as it was called, was touching down on the moon they had a little light to let them know when they’d actually touched down. It was the contact light and as soon as they touched down on the surface Buzz Aldrin had to tell Armstrong that the contact light was on so he could turn off the engines. So they touch down and the light comes on and Aldrin says ‘Contact light’, ergo the very first words spoken on the moon were ‘Contact light’.”

“Are you sure now, Alfred?” Big Paul said, poised with his pen. “This’ll be the first time we’ve ever won outright.”

“I’m sure,” Dad insisted.

We wrote our answer on the card. The bowling club wrote down their answer and we both handed the cards up to Marty.

Marty grabbed the microphone and dramatically shook his pinched, aged face from side to side. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are not going to believe it! Both teams got the wrong answer! Both teams got it wrong so this week there’s no clear winner and we’re going to divide the pot. The bowlers wrote ‘That’s one small step for man’ and the golf club lost their heads completely and wrote ‘Contact light’, but the right answer, is, of course: ‘Houston, the Eagle has landed’!”

When we got home the rain had stopped, so Beth, Emma and Mum met us at the beach at the end of the lane.

“How did it go? Did youse win?” Mum asked.

“I don’t think Dad wants to talk about it, there was a bit of a shouting match at the end there, let’s just get inside and change the subject,” I said quickly.

Dad, who was still red in the face, said nothing and marched down to the library, where we heard discordant and angry music that might well have been Bax and Bix.

The next morning I packed for the pilgrimage to Station Island with sleet and hail hammering the windows. It was the first week of March but we were still firmly in the grip of winter. I sat on the window ledge and caught my breath. For the last few weeks I’d been having trouble catching my breath in the mornings. If I wasn’t worried about a diagnosis of cancer or emphysema I would have gone to the doctor before this. I’d cut way down on the smokes, maybe it was time to cut them out completely?