The Hiding Place(14)

“Good question. Still working on the answer.”

I wait. Brendan is not the type of friend who calls just to inquire about my well-being. If there are no reports to the contrary, he presumes I am alive, which is good enough.

“Someone was asking about you in the pub the other night,” he says.

“Someone?”

“A woman. Small, blond. Pretty, but kind of hard.”

My stomach cramps, my bad leg throbs harder.

“Did you speak to her?”

“Feck, no. I slipped out as soon as I saw her. Some women just radiate bad news.”

“Okay. Don’t go back.”

“But they serve the finest steak-and-kidney pie outside of my dear old mammy’s kitchen.”

“Get a cookbook.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“No shitting. Don’t go back.”

“Christ.” There’s the click of a lighter and the sound of inhaling. “What did you do? Pawn her jewelry? Run off with her life savings?”

“Worse.”

“You know what my dear old mammy would say?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

“The quickest way to bury a man is to give him a spade.”

“Meaning?”

“When the feck are you going to stop digging?”

“When I find the treasure?”

“The only thing you are going to find, my friend, is an early grave.”

“I love our little chats. They’re so uplifting.”

“If you want uplifting, watch Oprah.”

“I have a plan—”

“You have a death wish.”

“I just need a bit of time.”

He sighs. “Have you ever thought you need professional help?”

“When I’ve sorted this out, I’ll think about it.”

“You do that.”

He ends the call. I do think about it. For about ten seconds. I owe Brendan that. We’ve known each other for around three years, shared an apartment for a year and a half. He was there for me when no one else was. But Brendan is a recovering alcoholic. That means he is into things like confession, forgiveness and redemption. While I am more into keeping secrets, bearing grudges and holding on to resentment.

Sometimes, I wonder how the hell we even became friends. I guess, like a lot of relationships, it was a mixture of circumstance and alcohol (on my part, at least).

We used to see each other regularly in a pub close to where I lived. Casual hellos morphed into conversation one night. We began to sit together and chat over a drink—orange juice for Brendan, Guinness or whiskey for me.

Brendan’s company was easy, undemanding. About the only thing in my life that was. The foundations of my comfortable middle-class existence were fast crumbling beneath my feet. My job was hanging by a thread and I was struggling to make the rent on my apartment. When I was six months in arrears, my landlord came around with his two burly brothers, kicked me out and changed the locks.

My choices of accommodation were suddenly limited. Should I choose the studio apartment with the suspicious stains on the walls, or the basement flat with mold and what sounded like a tap-dancing ensemble living upstairs? Not to mention, I was restricted to looking in the sort of neighborhoods that Batman might think twice about sauntering around on a dark night.

That was when Brendan suggested I move in with him.

“Feck. I’ve got a spare room that’s just wasting gas and electricity.”

“That’s a kind offer, but I can’t afford much in the way of rent.”

“Forget the rent.”

I stared at him. “No. I can’t.”

He gave me a look. “As my dear old mammy would say: ‘You can’t fight the wolves at your door when you’re wrestling a lion in your living room.’ ”

I considered. I thought about my other options. Forget lions; I might well wake up to find rats nibbling my eyeballs.

“Okay. And thanks.”

“Thank me by sorting yourself out.”

“My losing streak can’t last forever.”

For a moment his face clouded. “It better not. From what I’ve heard you owe money to people who don’t take installments—they take kneecaps.”

“I’m working it out. And I’ll pay you back. I promise.”

“Too feckin” right you will.” He grinned. “I enjoy a nice back rub before bed. Don’t hold back on the massage oil.”


—



I reach for my beer, realize it’s empty and crumple the can in my hand. I stand to get another then decide a visit to the bathroom might be in order. I walk across the living room and flick on the hallway light. It grudgingly ebbs into life. I place my foot on the first stair. It creaks, predictably. As I climb the narrow staircase I try not to think about Julia Morton dragging her son’s body up here, step by creaking, laborious step. An eleven-year-old boy is heavy. And deadweight is heavier. I remember.

The landing is cold. There’s no radiator up here. But that’s not it. This isn’t normal cold. Not the cold I experienced when I first walked into the cottage. This cold is different. Creeping cold. A phrase I haven’t thought about since I was a kid. The type of cold that wraps itself around your bones and settles, like a lump of ice, in your intestines.