Mr. Flood's Last Resort(24)
The best thing to do was take bacon rinds or, if not, a few crusts that had been in the fat. Bread and jam would also work. Oranges wouldn’t cut it. You threw the scrap at her bastarding paws just before you got to the gap in the fence. She would put her muzzle down to eat and you could get past with your legs intact. She’d look up and realize you were getting away and rush down alongside the fence barking. Sometimes we heard Mister Boland’s voice telling Lady to shut the fuck up, sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes we saw Mister Boland himself, sometimes we didn’t. If we saw him he would nod fiercely at us. The top of his head was narrower than the bottom, his neck went unshaven, and his eyebrows went in a straight line. He had a gap in his front teeth and a big burgundy bulb of a nose.
Legend had it that Mister Boland had shot his wife and four children and cemented them into the floor of his pigpen. He was looking for a new wife and children now; this was common knowledge.
He would watch us pass, all the way down the lane, his eyes on Deirdre, taking in her swagger and her summer dress, her white sandals and her red heart-shaped leather bag. Lady watched too, slunk low at his side, all hackles and stare. Deirdre would keep her head up, her nose in the air. At the bottom of the lane she would flick her hair and look back at Mister Boland over her shoulder.
The other way to Pearl Strand was through the car park and past Noel Noone’s kiosk. Old Noel had a wall eye. So, he could keep one eye on Deirdre and one eye on me as we went down to the beach, even if we walked five feet apart.
There were two main dangers with Old Noel. The first danger was getting his spittle on you, for the man had only three teeth in his head and when excited, as he always was when he saw us, his chat was peppered with spit. The second danger was being caught inside the kiosk with him. Go too near and he would hem you in and before you knew it you’d be stuck between the buckets and spades and the bamboo beach mats. Then he would put his old, dry, spatulate fingers on your arm, or your face, or your hair. And he would tug and pinch and stroke. All the time talking nonsense in his strange, high, giddy voice, flecking your face with saliva.
*
“NOW, THINK about it really, really carefully, Maud,” said the guard. “Don’t rush, now.”
I waited, not rushing.
“So apart from Mr. Boland you’re saying you never saw anyone else when you went to the beach?”
“We saw the old fella in the kiosk.”
“Noel Noone? So apart from Mr. Boland and Mr. Noone you never saw anyone else?”
“Never.”
“And you’re certain your sister never met anyone down on the beach?”
“There was only ever the two of us.”
“Yourself and Deirdre?”
I nodded.
“Every single time you went?”
I nodded.
“You’re sure of that, Maud?”
I nodded.
The guard nodded too, but with less certainty, as if she wasn’t convinced by my answer but it would have to do for now. “You’re off to your new school now?”
“I am.”
We were staying with Granny until Deirdre came back. Granny had enrolled me at the local school because just waiting for Deirdre all day every day wasn’t healthy for anyone.
The guard gestured at the brush and the bobble in my hand. “Will I do your hair?”
I nodded.
She had me stand in front of her chair as she plaited. Then she turned me to face her and put the plait forwards on my shoulder and brushed out the tail end, curling it around her finger. I watched her hands move: gentle, capable hands with strong fingers and neat, square nails.
“There.”
“Thank you.” I felt my plait. This would be the nicest my hair had been since Mammy had stopped doing it.
The guard smiled so that it lit up her eyes. Her eyes were hazel and bulgy and kind. I liked her.
“Do you get to drive the car fast with the sirens on?” I asked.
Mammy walked into the kitchen. She had shadow-ringed, inward-looking eyes and a mouth she held pressed in a thin hard line, as if she was trying to stop flies getting into it. She’d ruined her good cream dressing gown with a coffee stain down the front. She exhaled cigarette smoke and threw the guard a look.
The guard smiled at me. “We take turns driving the car.”
“You an’ him?” I pointed at the other guard, who was outside the back door talking into his radio.
The guard nodded.
“Could you get me to school on time for my first lesson?”
Mammy let out a hiss of air and looked up at the heavens. She screwed her cigarette out vehemently in a saucer and leant up against the sink.
“Mrs. Drennan?”
Mammy turned on the tap and put her hands under it, palms upwards, as if she was trying to catch water.
“Mrs. Drennan?”
“Just get her out of my sight,” she said.
CHAPTER 8
“And you say Gabriel Flood wore loafers?”
“Yes, but how is that relevant, Renata?”
Renata is especially glamorous today, clad in an appliquéd romper suit and feathered mules. Instead of her usual headscarf she has plumped for her Rita wig, the deep auburn chiming perfectly with the emerald rhinestones on her epaulets. She looks out of place against the homely backdrop of her kitchen; she really ought to be propping up a slot machine in Las Vegas with a pocketful of dimes.