Ireland. Of all places, Ireland, and it was down to Mylie Doolin, that silly bugger.
Scully had originally come to the Republic for a weekend, simply out of respect. It was the country boy in him acknowledging his debts, squaring things away. They were leaving Europe at last, giving in and heading home. It seemed as though getting pregnant was the final decider. From Greece they caught a cheap flight to London where they had things stored. The Qantas flight from Heathrow was still days away, but they were packed and ready so early they went stir crazy. In the end, Scully suggested a weekend in Ireland. They’d never been, so what the hell. A couple of pleasant days touring and Scully could pay his respects to Mylie Doolin who had kept the three of them alive that first year abroad.
Fresh off the plane from Perth, Scully worked for Mylie on dodgy building sites all over Greater London. The beefy Irishman ran a band of Paddies on jobs that lacked a little paperwork and needed doing quick and quiet for cash money. On the bones of his arse, Scully found Mylie’s mob in a pub on the Fulham Road at lunchtime, all limehanded and dusthaired and singing in their pints. The Paddies looked surprised to see him get a lookin, but he landed an afternoon’s work knocking the crap out of a bathroom in Chelsea and clearing up the rubble. He worked like a pig and within a few days he was a regular. Without that work Scully and Jennifer and Billie would never have survived London and never have escaped its dreary maw. Mad Mylie paid him well, told him wonderful lies and set them up for quite some time. Scully saved like a Protestant. He never forgot a favour. So, only a weekend ago now, Scully had driven the three of them across the Irish midlands in a rented Volkswagen to the town of Banagher where, according to Mylie, Anthony Trollope had invented the postal pillar box and a Doolin ancestor had been granted a papal annulment from his horse. That’s how it was, random as you please. A trip to the bogs. A missed meeting. A roadside stop. A house no one wanted, and a ticket home he cashed in for a gasping van and some building materials. Life was a bloody adventure.
He worked on till dark without finishing, and all down the valley, from windows and barns and muddy boreens, people looked up to the queer sight of candles in the bothy window and smoke ghosting from the chimney where that woollyheaded lad was busting his gut looking less like a rich American every day.
Three
SCULLY HACKED GRIMLY AT THE claggy ground, his spirits sinking with every chill roll of sweat down his back as he inched his way along the last stretch of trench in the mean light of morning. He was beginning to wonder if maybe this job was beyond him. After all, he was no tradesman and he was working in a country where he knew none of the rules. And he was doing it alone. Every time he saw that forlorn heap of clothes and refuse out behind the barn he’d begun to see it as his own. Would it happen? Sometime in the future a lonely pile like that marking his failure? Man, he was low this morning. He wasn’t himself. He watched a blur tracking uphill across the ridge. A hare. Funny how they always ran uphill. It dodged and weaved and disappeared into fallen timber.
Dogs barked in the valley below. He rested again, leaning on the smooth hickory handle of the mattock, and saw a car, a little green Renault van, labouring up the lane. Scully threw down the mattock hopefully and slugged across the mud in his squelching wellies to the front of the house where, thank God, the AN POST van was pulling in cautiously. He wiped his hands on his mired jeans. The driver killed the motor and opened the door.
‘Jaysus,’ said a long, freckled shambles of a man unfolding himself like a piece of worn patio furniture. ‘I thought it was the truth all along.’
Beneath the postman’s crumpled cap was a mob of red hair and two huge ears. Scully stood there anxiously.
‘So there’s someone livin back in Binchy’s Bothy.’
‘That’s right,’ said Scully. ‘My third day.’
‘Peter Keneally. They call me Pete-the-Post.’
Scully reached out and shook his freckled hand. ‘G’day.’
The postie laughed, showing a terrible complement of teeth.
‘Would you be Mister F. M. Scully, now?’
‘That’s me.’
‘You’re the Australians, then.’
‘One of them, yeah.’
‘By God, you’re famous as Seamus around here already. Jimmy Brereton down there by the castle says you saw this place and bought it in less time than it takes to piss.’
Scully laughed. ‘Close enough.’
‘Signed the papers in Davy Finneran’s pub, no less.’
‘Yeah, did it on the spot. And they say the Paddies are stupid.’
The postman roared.
‘My wife had… a feeling about the place,’ said Scully, needing to explain himself somehow, knowing that no explanation could sound reasonable enough for what they had done.
‘Well, I suppose that’s nothin to be laughin at, then.’
Scully shrugged. ‘It does seem stupid at certain moments of the day.’
‘Ah, but it’s a fine spot up here, high and away. And you’re very welcome.’
‘Thanks.’
Scully scraped mud from his boots and looked now at the pale envelope in the postman’s hands. The two men stood there poised awkwardly for a moment.
‘Thirsty work, no?’
After a long moment Scully realized the man needed a drink.
‘Don’t spose you fancy a nip?’
‘A nip?’ The Irishman squinted at him.
‘A dram,’ said Scully. ‘I know it’s early.’
‘Ah. Weeeell, it is a bit sharp out still.’
‘I’ve got some Tullamore Dew inside.’
‘That’s a mornin whiskey alright,’ the postie said with a wink.
They went inside by the fire and Scully threw on a rotten fencepost. In the pale light of day the interior was foul and dismal.
‘Excuse the mess.’
‘That Binchy always was a dirty auld bastard, rest his soul. This is the best I’ve seen the place.’
‘I’ll get there.’
‘That you will, Mr Scully.’
‘The name’s Fred. Everyone just calls me Scully, even the missus.’
‘Well, if it’s good enough for her…’
‘They still had all his clothes and everything in here.’
‘Ten years, so. It just laid here rottin. Got to be people were nervous of it. Still, the Irish love to frighten emselves half to death.’
‘I would have thought his family might have come and taken his things.’
‘There is no family, poor man. He was gardener to the castle like his father before him. Everyone’s dead.’
‘Including the castle,’ said Scully. ‘When was the last time anyone tended to that garden?’
‘Oh, it was burnt back in the Troubles. No one’s lived in it since. The lords and ladies went their way and the Binchys stayed in the gardener’s bothy. It was left to them. Binchy and his Da grew some spuds and did a bit of poachin. They liked to drink, you might say.’
‘Oh, here.’ Scully dug the bottle out of his cardboard box and poured a little into tin cups.
‘Cheers.’
‘Slainte:’
The whiskey ran hot all through him. He only really liked to drink after dark.
Scully looked anxiously at the pale envelope in the postman’s hand. It was a telegram, he could see it now. He curled his toes inside his boots.
‘Your wife had a feelin, you say?’
Scully squirmed, lusting for the telegram, glad of the company and a little embarrassed about his own presence here. He couldn’t imagine what the Irishman must think of him.
‘Yeah. Yeah, she just went all strange and said this is it, that she felt she’d been here before, like déjà vu. She had this odd feeling that this is where we should live.’