“Hey, I don’t know you and I have no desire to remedy that.”
He smiled, showing some seriously bad teeth, said,
“I had a pub in Forster Street and you were more than a regular.”
I moved to go. The pup was showing signs of maybe gnawing on the guy’s leg and I wasn’t sure I’d stop him. Before I could answer, he added with a smirk,
“I barred you.”
That didn’t really jog my memory a whole lot. I’d been barred from the best and the worst. I said,
“You take care now.”
I leaned on the care letting it be something else entirely. He seemed reluctant to let it slide, said,
“They caught that lunatic, the guy who was killing people for speaking badly.”
I thought, Emily will be pissed. He was on her to-do list. I looked out at the bay, dark clouds were forming on the horizon, I said,
“You need to get home before the storm.”
He laughed, near spat,
“Weather never worried me.”
I gave the pup a rub on his ear, turned to go, and asked,
“Who’s talking about the weather?”
“... self-dramatizing types with small, unpeopled lives.”
(India Knight, writing about women who have no children)
Emily was curled up on my couch when I got back. The pup, with no fanfare, leaped onto her lap, settled down for a kip. I said,
“Feel free to break into my apartment as the feeling grabs you.”
Then I saw the tears on her cheeks. I asked,
“Hey, you okay?”
She made a supreme effort, focused, then spat,
“Do I seem okay? But I’ll be fine. I’m always fucking fine.”
I let out a slow breath, said,
“Whoa, just trying to show some concern.”
She rubbed the pup, said,
“Keep it for some fool who gives a fuck.”
I didn’t answer, let the harshness be its own resonance. She heard it, tried,
“Sorry, I’d been reading India Knight and, you know, I used to admire that cow, then she demolishes women without children with the cruelest sentence in the language.”
I said,
“But you’re young, you can have a whole hurling team of kids.”
She scoffed, intoned,
“You see me as the mothering type. I mean, seriously?”
Hmm.
I said,
“Some breaking news: they got the Grammarian.”
Got her attention. She said,
“That’s awkward.”
Of the many things I thought it was, that wasn’t the first to spring to mind. I asked,
“Why?”
“Hard to kill the fuck in jail. Not impossible, but difficult.”
To argue with her would just be wasted energy. I said,
“Let it go. If the guy is guilty, he’s done.”
She gave me a long look, said,
“Sometimes, you might well be the weakest shite I know.”
Ouch.
I went with a smile, said,
“But you keep on coming back.”
Shook her head, said,
“Don’t flatter yourself, Taylor, I love the pup.”
I opened the door, asked,
“If there’s nothing else?”
She put her hands on her hips, glared, said,
“You don’t get it, do you?”
I headed for the fridge, pulled out a longneck, and, like a good ole boy, flipped off the cap. Looked impressive, I think. Said,
“I get that you are some weird hybrid of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Carol O’Connell’s Mallory. You should read Boston Teran’s God Is a Bullet, but alas, the novelty has worn off and I am seriously tired of you so here’s the thing: fuck off.”
I drank off half the bottle then moved to physically grab her and sling her. She recoiled in total ferocity, hissed,
“You put a hand on me, I will tear it from the socket and feed it to the pup.”
Spittle leaked from the corners of her mouth and her eyes were locked on derangement.
She took a deep breath, said,
“This fucker, this Grammarian, he was part of my father’s circle. You remember dear old Dad, right? Who liked to rape girls.”
Phew.
I said,
“Your father is dead and any talk of a circle of... others... was never proved.”
She was violently shaking her head, said,
“You seriously believe my father operated for so long on just... luck?”
I tried to keep a conciliatory tone, said,
“I understand you’d want to believe a conspiracy and keep the flame of vengeance hopping but there is one thing you have to concede.”
Her eyes said she wanted to rip my head off but she went with,
“What’s that?”
“He’s in jail, done deal.”
Now she laughed and, with fierce bitterness, asked,
“In this country you know who the best lawyers are?”
I said,
“The ones not in jail.”
She ignored that, said,
“Protestants. They may have lost the land but they still have the juice and guess what, that bollix in jail is... da da, Protestant.”
I was never going to get anywhere. I said,
“How about you get some rest?”
That lame line they trot out in B movies when they run out of script. She grabbed her bag, said,
“I’ll see myself out and, oh, thanks for fucking nothing.”
I fed the pup, left a bowl of water, and then took off after her. It was time to discover where she lived or stayed. She rented cars as she needed them but was now on foot.
Determined.
For a person as paranoid as she was, she didn’t seem to think someone might follow her and took no precautions. I trailed her to an apartment block in Nun’s Island. It was that new popular fad: gated. We had come full circle, from a country that prided itself on not locking its doors to electronic gates and security guards.
Did we feel safer?
Did we fuck?
I watched her disappear inside a three-story building and wondered who she was when she got to her own space. Did she relinquish all the personas, let out her breath, and just be?
I’d wait until she took off somewhere and then break in. I needed to be sure she wasn’t likely to return and find me as she was quite likely to shoot me. Whatever her various contradictory feelings for me, invading her space was not going to fly; she’d go berserk.
I headed back into town and all the speculation had worked up a thirst. A light fog was hovering over the city and made it seem like a serene place. Or maybe it was just so much mist. I went to Garavan’s and grabbed a stool at the bar. I didn’t recognize the barman and was grateful, chat was not on my agenda. Ordered a pint and a Jay. The guy knew his craft, let that pint slow-build. I held up the glass with the Jameson, the gold sheen promising so much. Never ceased to light up my hope. That what?
I’d find some peace, respite?
Not so much no more.
Those days were buried.
I was thus musing when a man stood beside me, ordered a large brandy, and let out a sigh, said to no one in particular,
“Tis a whore of a day.”
He looked like, as Daniel Woodrell once wrote, sixty stiches short of handsome. He knocked back the brandy, shuddered, muttered,
“Christ.”
I knew that feeling. Would it take or resurface? That pure moment of heaven and hell, then it righted and he belched, said,
“Fuck, I needed that.”
Now he could settle into drinking. He got a pint and drank a healthy half, then, at last, surveyed his surroundings, me. He said,
“Grand oul day for it.”
Indeed.
There would probably be an hour of bonhomie, then he’d begin spoiling for aggro. I debated on the wisdom of chancing another round before the curtain fell. He was falling into the I love every-frigging-body, and launched,