Mr. Flood's Last Resort(60)

“That’s where the bathroom is. I’ve locked all the other doors on the landing against your beak.” He glances up at me. “And you can keep your eyes in your head and your hands to yourself. I don’t want you touching my curiosities.”

“I’ve no interest in your curiosities. When did you last have a bath?”

“1998.”

“A while, then. Let’s just pray the boiler behaves itself.”

He sips carefully from the glass, as if he’s getting accustomed to using his paws.

I wash up, glancing at his long thin back bent to his breakfast. Sometimes I wish there were no mystery; sometimes this is enough. There are moments when I don’t think about Mary or Maggie Dunne; I just get on with my job here. The process of packing and sorting, scouring and cooking, having the cats come and go after the mice.

“Is there no fecking toast in this house?”

“If you’ve manners there is.”

He throws me a look of disgust and sucks his dentures. I butter the old man more toast and put it down in front of him.

“It’s my birthday soon,” he says to his egg.

“It is.”

“I don’t want to spend it alone. I’m a tragic old bastard.”

“That you are.”

He frowns. “Would you have dinner with me, Drennan?”

Without thinking, I say it, “I will of course.”

He beams down at his plate.

*

THE BATHROOM is a vast dusty space, as inviting as a mortuary. I was expecting greater opulence: a roll-top bath with lion’s feet and gold dolphin-shaped taps. Something showy, like the red and white bedrooms with their doves and fountains on the walls, their secret passages cats can disappear down.

This bathroom feels too real.

A tall window disseminates a cheerless light. Everything is cold to the touch and the whole place asserts itself with a fierce smell of unbridled mustiness.

There are two sinks, both cracked, a lavatory and a bidet, along with a massive trough of a bath: a giant’s bath. Everything is spaced out, as if the pieces of sanitaryware are avoiding one another. The tiles that cover the walls and floor are white, veined with varicose blue. Dead moths, flies, beetles, and the hollowed-out carcasses of wasps litter the room, particularly the windowsill, which is swagged with cobwebs. I turn on the sink tap and it chugs with disuse, vomiting rust. I rinse the sink out and move over to the bath.

And I see her.

Her pale toes are curled over the lip of the bath, the nails unpolished, almond shaped. The ends of her hair are wet, dampened to dark blond, fair at the crown where it’s still dry. Her eyes are glazed, unseeing, gelid marble. She raises her hands in a languid kind of gesture, a kind of sleepy backstroke, and slips down into the water. Feet, legs, narrow chest: all are submerged. I see them float under the surface.

Maggie Dunne raises her arms again then stops midstroke and I see: her arms are ribboned with red; it runs down her arms, twisting patterns. She looks up at me, her face a pale pearl. Then it is under too. She drowns in gore.

*

I’M HALFWAY out the door before I look again. There is nothing in the bath but dust and desiccated spiders.

Cathal shuffles in wearing a dressing gown. “Just so you know. There’s no way I’m going to let you stand there gawping at my flute.”

“I’ve no interest in your flute.” I look around me, dazed.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing.”

I run the water until it’s clear, find a plug, and check he has towels, sponge, and soap. I set up the portable hoist I’d ordered last week, in case his arse gets stuck in the bath.

He frowns at it. “What’s that contraption for?”

“In case your arse gets stuck in the bath.”

“What kind of a gobshite gets stuck in a bath? Why would I get stuck in my own bath? Aren’t I nimble yet?”

“You can certainly sling your leg over your rubbish.”

He looks at me blankly. “What rubbish?”

“All right so, I’ll leave you to it.”

He takes off his dressing gown.

*

I’M WAITING in the hall outside the door. This is what we have agreed. Cathal has set out a chair for me and left me a pile of magazines. I can hear the echoes of his splashing, the squeak and groan of the bath as he moves his long limbs in it.

My eyes feel sore, tired.

In the next room Cathal farts, then starts to sing a dirty song.

I glance across the landing at the painting but Mary won’t meet my eyes. She has faded into the dark backdrop: a dim white blur of face and hands.

*

MRS. CABELLO, from the big house next door, is standing on the back doorstep with her nostrils flaring impressively. She looks at least twenty years older close up. Her hair is blow-dried into cascades of black waves and scraped back from her high-domed forehead by designer sunglasses. Her lipstick carries way beyond her lip line and her eyes are ringed with black kohl. I think of Renata and how she would appreciate Mrs. Cabello’s gloriously embellished outfit, from her gold sandals to her tight black cigarette pants.

Mrs. Cabello has a wide emotional range, from furious and distraught to angry and venomous. Despite her erratic mix of Spanish, English, and lyrical profanities, I have ascertained two things.