The Sin Eater(11)

Declan Doyle and Colm Rourke had never entirely forgotten their vow that they would one day go up to the devil’s watchtower and beard the mysterious, sinister Nicholas Sheehan in his lair. At odd intervals over the years they reminded one another of it. Wouldn’t it be a fine thing to do, they said, and wouldn’t it impress all the girls in Kilglenn and Kilderry too, and maybe even beyond.

But it was not until they were both nearly nineteen that they actually made good their boast, although as Declan said, it was not for the lack of wanting that they put it off so long. Colm said if truth were to be told, they did not actually put it off, rather it put them off. There were always so many other things they had to be doing. There were tasks in each of their homes – Colm’s father had died a few years earlier, so he had to help with carrying and fetching and daily errands. Declan, who had a full complement of parents, was server at Mass each Sunday, which meant attending extra religious classes. They were both in the church choir which meant a practice every Thursday so they could whoop out the Kyrie at High Mass while the rest of the congregation was surreptitiously sleeping off the poteen taken in Fintan Reilly’s bar the night before or laying bets on how long Father O’Brian’s sermon would last.

And there was school every day in Kilderry so they would not grow up like tinkers’ children without a scrap of book-learning to their name. They went there on the back of Fintan’s cart, which he took to Kilderry every morning to replenish his bar after the exigencies of the previous night, apart from Mondays since not even Fintan dared open his bar on Sundays. Declan’s father had promised to look out for a couple of bicycles for next spring so the two boys could cycle to school and back home, because Declan’s mother did not like him to be riding on a cart that stank of last night’s poteen and the gin Fintan kept for the hussies who enjoyed drinking it.

But no matter how they got there, both families were agreed that Declan and Colm must know how to read and write and to know a bit about history and geography. They had to learn some Latin as well, said the monks who ran the little school, and never mind about Latin being a dead language. It was not dead as far as the Church was concerned; in fact it was the universal language of Catholics. Imagine if they were to find themselves in a foreign country some day, and not know its language? How would they go on about confession in that situation? But if they could speak Latin, they could confess their sins in Latin and the priest – and never mind if he was French or German or Italian or anything else – would understand them.

‘Be damned to confessing sins in a foreign country, I’d be too busy committing the sins to care,’ said Colm, and Declan grinned and agreed it’d be great altogether to see a bit of the world.

Colm was good at mathematics and understanding about mechanical things. Declan shone in the classes for reading and writing. He was a dreamer, Colm sometimes said, to which Declan always retorted that didn’t the world need a few dreamers, and it a wicked place.

‘I’d like to be wicked,’ said Colm, his eyes glowing. ‘I’d like to create scandals and outrages, and I’d like to be talked about from here to – to England and America.’

But of the three children, growing up in Kilglenn, it was neither Colm nor Declan who created the scandal. It was Colm’s cousin Romilly.

The evening was one of the silent scented evenings that sometimes came to Kilglenn at that time of the year. Everywhere was drenched in soft violet and indigo light, and the ocean was murmuring to itself instead of roaring gustily – the sounds so soft you could believe the creatures of the legends were singing inside them. On a night like this, if you stood on a particular point on the Moher Cliffs you could persuade yourself you were glimpsing the sidhe dancing on the water’s surface – the ancient faery people who had chill inhuman blood in their veins, and who would pounce on the souls of men and drag them down to their world for ever.

‘I think I’d go with them without having to be pounced on,’ Colm said, as he and Declan stood looking out to the shimmering wastes.

‘It’s Homer’s wine-dark sea tonight,’ said Declan, staring across the water’s surface.

‘Wine was never that gloomy colour.’

‘Your trouble is you’ve no romance in your soul.’

‘I have plenty of romance,’ began Colm hotly. ‘In fact—’ He broke off and turned to look back at the path that wound back down to the village. ‘Someone’s coming up the path,’ he said.

It was unusual for anyone to venture out to this part of Kilglenn. Most people said it was too lonely and too steep, and the spray from the ocean was enough to give anyone a terrible dose of the pneumonia, but after a few drinks at Fintan’s, they also reminded one another that the devil had once walked those cliffs. You couldn’t trust him not to still do so if the mood took him – especially just when everyone had finally been relaxing and thinking he had left Kilglenn for richer pastures.

But tonight it was not the devil’s footsteps Declan and Colm could hear coming towards them through the warm, scented May twilight. It was Colm’s cousin, Romilly.

Her hair was dishevelled and streaming out behind her like copper silk, and her small face was tear-smudged. She ran up to them, gasping for breath, clutching Colm’s hands.

‘What’s happened? Romilly, what’s wrong?’

‘Sit down and tell us,’ said Declan, fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief.