On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland (16 page)

‘You’ll be alright here? Isn’t Claire Abbey but it’s comfy.’

‘Perfect. I’ll be fine. Great.’

‘See,’ she said, pointing toward the window. ‘The silver moon. I often sit here at night. Looking out at all the eyes in the sky looking back at me.’

Neither said anything, just gazed at the heavens.

‘Does that sound kinda too – ’

‘Poetic?’

‘Mushy?’

‘No way! No way is it mushy. It’s artistic, sensitive; it’s nice.’

‘If you’re true to your word, Tony MacNeill, you must be the only man in Ireland who thinks like that. You aren’t having me on, are you?’

‘I mean what I said. How many men have you asked?’

‘Enough,’ she said, still fixed on the stars. ‘Enough to know better.’

‘Wrong kind of men.’

‘I was sure there was only one kind. Up to not that long ago.’ She turned abruptly and swept past him, ‘Night,’ she said, sounding wounded.

‘Goodnight, Cilla. And thanks.’ His call chased after her through the moonlit room. He cringed, wished he had chosen different words. Then he gave his attention back to the silver moon, the eyes in the sky that looked back in. What might they reveal of her, he wondered, this richer, deeper, different Cilla deBurca?

Behind him he sensed a presence.

‘Sorry,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I’ll be away in the morning, before seven. Sundays are early starts, but I’ll finish at two. Weather’s to be fine. Want to take a stab at Mweelrea, part way?’

He said nothing, just stared at her.

‘And I forgot to give you your goodnight kiss,’ she said without humour, as though a more resolute woman had taken over. She stretched up, and near his mouth placed a slow kiss.

He held her gently, her heavy black hair cool to his skin, still infused with rain. A rarely nurtured part of him urged his arms to clasp her, his mouth to kiss her, his hands to tease her damp curls. No one, save Lenny, ever stoked him so intensely, or made him feel so desired for himself, the youthful uncorrupted him.

They each conspired to hold, as though cautious of what the moment offered. Then his hands tightened around her, while the fight inside his head raged against surrender to the feel of her body against his, her touchable nearness. Then Lenny spoke. And everything in him obeyed. His eyes met Cilla’s. Words were not needed. She turned away.

‘See you,’ she said in a barely audible voice.

11

By early afternoon the next day, Sunday, waiting for Lenny was becoming impossible. At Greyfriars B&B Hotel he paced the small room, more on edge than at any time since the day he tasted freedom. The hours passed into night.

On Monday the shaking in his hands returned. He swore at the affliction, which had not struck since his early days in Rahway State Prison, when he was twenty-one. It had begun suddenly then, one week after he had ended the savage reign of Shift Commander King Kong Yablonski, and didn’t give up for 213 days, each scratched into a cell wall.

Right now the greatest good that could come to him was to know Lenny’s whereabouts and that she was safe. An hour, she’d first said, maybe two, until she’d be back. Then not till Sunday. Then Tuesday. He wasn’t accepting it, not this time, after a day and night that replayed constantly in his mind. Chill out, the voice in him warned, go out, walk, read, just twenty-four hours to go. But how many minutes? How many scratches in a cell wall? Hold off, just wait. No, he wouldn’t. There were no rules here, nothing forcing him to wait, no screws, no wolf dogs, no electric fences, no leg chains; he could do anything he wanted; and fuck it, he would! He swiped his jacket from the bed.

As he neared the top of the hill the Atlantic breeze whipped at him. Just then, the green Escort slowed, swung around, drew up alongside him, twenty yards from the entrance to Claire Abbey.

‘Let me guess,’ Cilla shouted from the car. ‘You were coming to meet me getting off work?’

‘Can I talk to you? Something serious.’

She nodded, as though with an intuition that what she was agreeing to would cause her strife.

He squatted down by the car window. ‘Something’s not right with Lenny; I can feel it. She said she’d be back yesterday; then a message said Tuesday. Something crazy is going on. You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if you knew?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know where she is. What’re you doing here?’

‘Going inside, talk to her father. What else can I do?’

‘He’s away, someplace foreign. Charity’s there. But you wouldn’t – ’

‘Will you help? As a friend?’

She turned her face away.

‘I know it’s not fair, Cilla. I know all about that. But you’re the only one.’

‘We have a key, inside, for her apartment. Not saying that’d be a right thing to do.’

‘I swear, Cilla, I won’t involve you. You’ve got my word.’

‘And you and me,’ she said. ‘What d’you think? Anything in that?’

‘Cilla – ’

‘Forget it. Dreaming, that’s all. You want the key?’

‘Listen, Cilla – ’

‘Forget it; it’s okay. It’s your life.’

‘I won’t forget it.’

‘Men are just brilliant at saying things like that.’

‘I mean it.’

‘You’d have to look like a golfer. That Charity one has eyes in her big fat Maggie Thatcher hairdo.’ She pulled repeatedly at a dangling curl.

He watched but didn’t intrude.

‘Gets into a fit if she sees a tiny little mouse. Even afraid of bumble bees.’

‘Cilla . . .’

‘Imagine. Bumble bees. Afraid.’

‘Cilla . . .’

‘Wait here. I’ll get you a golf trolley. Colin owes me a favour, the greens-keeper. Pull it after you, in around the back, act like you’re a golfer. Her apartment has a birdhouse in front of it. I’ll be back, few minutes.’

Staring out, he rode the giant breakers ripping the coast and tried to look inconspicuous to passing traffic. Invariably, he found himself returning waves. Ten minutes passed. It was getting harder to stay calm; his mind flitted with calamities of all kinds. After a while he turned his back on Claire Abbey, gazed south to Mweelrea, purple and brown and bare. Twenty minutes. Something’s gone wrong, he suspected. The day was duller now, just a watery sun. Storm brewing, maybe; noisy wind, no gulls crying. He pulled his watch out of his pocket. Twenty-five minutes.

Then it ended. Spitting stones on the shoulder, the Escort pulled up inches from him.

* * *

Peering from under the cap Cilla had provided, he hauled the trolley along the path, rounded the castle wall. Suddenly footsteps sounded, approaching, from beyond the border hedging. He froze, in sight of the birdhouse, caught a glimpse of her through a gap. Reflex set him back in stride. From around the turn the figure took form, the VanSant woman, marching toward him. He couldn’t run. Maybe she wouldn’t even look at him, or notice his climbing boots. If she did, the game was up. He speeded up. Before she got to him his shaking fingers held the peak of his cap, tipped it up and down, obscuring his face. She passed without a nod. He recorded her fading heel-stabs in the cinder. At the next break in the hedging he ducked in, checked, she had vanished.

At his shoulder stood the birdhouse, beyond it the brown door bearing the Liffey God knocker Cilla had described. With the trolley concealed, he reconnoitred his surroundings, then pushed twice on the doorbell, with no response. A minute later he was inside, standing stiff and quiet.

He called out a greeting, expecting no answer, but wondering if someone answered, whose voice it would be. And what he might say, or do. Heart pumping, he crept in. The apartment seemed big. But not noiseless. He called out again, and waited. No answer came. A minute passed. Maybe he should leave, he thought. He had no right. What if he walked in on something that was none of his business? Or was caught inside? Prison, not that he was ever going back. But the thought was unnerving. He should go, get out now; he’d do that, he decided. Then keys rattled. Outside. The scrape of someone at the door, coming in, into Lenny’s apartment. The door bolt turned. Seconds earlier he had noticed a bicycle wheel poking out of an alcove. Now he swept the curtain aside, ducked in, lying as he landed, in semi-darkness, hard edges poking into him.

As daylight burst into the hall he steadied the curtain, tried to muffle his breathing. His legs would have to wait, so too whatever was sticking into his back. Through the gap at the floor his eyes followed a pair of men’s black polished shoes squeaking into and out of downstairs rooms, sometimes doubling back, then climbing the stairs, no one calling out in expectation of finding anyone home. Then came sounds of drawers being pulled out and pushed back in, and then the man coming back down the stairs, stopping in front of the alcove, an arm’s length away, followed by a phone being dialled.

‘Dominick, where are you?’ the demanding voice asked. ‘Leave that. Come over to Leonora’s place. Bring my cart.’ Then a pause. ‘No! I said leave that. Get over here. Now, please.’

The accent sounded American, Tony thought. So the body in the shoes was Charles Quin, probably. And Dominick was Boxer Dunne, now on his way over. It made sense. In another way it made no sense.

Growing achey and with sweat stinging his eyes, he put a picture on every sound, tried to place the footfalls. He braced himself for exposure, how he’d explain his presence, what he’d say, what he’d do. He’d be compelled to act, if only to run, as a last resort. Then the feet creaked the stairs, ascending again, moved about, seemingly searching for something.

He tried to reposition; his muscles had cramped. A slight roll provided some relief and a better view of the hall.

The door knocker clacked twice. New feet appeared.

‘Mr Quin, I’m here.’ It was a man’s voice tainted with the politeness of subservience. He plodded past the curtained alcove, deeper into the apartment, emitting cologne.

‘Dominick!’ the man upstairs shouted.

The scuffed sneakers scooted back to the front door. ‘Right here, boss.’

‘Did I tell you to come in?’

‘Just standing here, boss, just waiting for you to tell me what you want me to do.’

‘You have the cart?’

‘All ready to go. Got here rapid, like you said. I brought your clubs in case you might have forgot to remember to tell me.’

‘Wait outside. Pull the front door.’

Tony caught sight of the figure exiting: Boxer Dunne. He looked bigger than he remembered, fatter around the middle, still stuffed into a bad suit. The train station shit-head from last year. He’d seen that face only once. He’d see it again, he suspected, soon.

Five minutes passed before the man upstairs descended and moved into Tony’s view: Charles Quin. The man in the white Mercedes at the castle gate. In spite of all the rummaging, it seemed he was leaving empty-handed.

The whine of the golf cart had died away before Tony emerged, stiff-legged. It was only then that he noticed the photographs, clusters of small framed prints. Inside the nearest room his eyes ran full circle. At least ten magazine covers in large frames: Vogue, Harpers, Cosmopolitan, Self, and others he hadn’t heard of. But it struck him that there was no life in this room, no feel of it being lived in, just a gallery. Nothing seemed touched, no papers, no open books, no sat-on sofas. The second room, farther down the hall, had neither the décor nor the deadness of the first. Instead, colourful paintings, pillowed sofas, ornate rugs.

He had no idea what he was looking for. Nothing seemed conspicuous. He checked his watch; he’d been in the apartment ten minutes. More time brought more risk. Another few minutes, he decided, then he’d get out.

At the top of the staircase he pushed open a door. And froze. His eyes followed an arc. Lenny Quin stared at him. And so too a second pair of eyes, a man, a stranger. All in photographs. Forty or more, all black-and-white, most hanging, a few standing. Four or five of Lenny, maybe seven of the two of them, all the rest of the man alone, portrait studies. In a sculpted heart above the bed their unity was evident, Lenny radiant in all.

Why? His heart thumped, he tried to make sense of it. Beyond what was clear. What did this mean for him? He wasn’t the man in her life, obviously. The man in the photos, she was his. Without question. That’s where she was gone, to be with him. Cilla knew, he figured, even tried to tell him in a round about way, then helped him learn for himself.

On a wicker stand near the bed lay items of men’s clothing neatly folded: shirt, pants, a pair of polished but well-worn boots, an Australian ranch hat with snake-skin band.

A chill cut through him. No need for any more, the voice inside him said. Just leave. Someday meet someone he could trust. Fucking fool. Should have known. He never belonged in this snob class. His face distorted, fists rose up, trembled in the air. He could deal with it better in his core, he thought, from where all his victories had sprung, the resource Joel Vida had shown him. Deep down in his core. The sacred place. Where he had found how to survive. There, he hoped, he could deal with this.

He subdued what he could, regained some composure, picked up a small double-heart frame. She shook in his hands, looking sparkling, joyful. Why not, with her beauty, he said silently, why not exploit the privilege of women beautiful to men.

He pulled open the top bureau drawer. Prescription containers, lots of them, many full. Chemist-shop labels on all: Lenny Quin, Aranroe. Drugs. The names meant nothing to him. White pills, blue pills, small orange ones. Was she ill, or addicted? Was that it? Part of it? Did it even matter now?

His anger at his naivete deepened. Crazy world: the words kept repeating in his head. Harder than fighting on the streets, where he’d never gotten caught out; was always ready, people couldn’t fuck with him without facing him, and he was never so dumb to trust. Now life felt dark again, suddenly, the darkness that started with Jesus Pomental’s dead eyes. Get away, one voice in him said, go. How could he? No home, no country. He rammed the drawer shut, spun away.

And there she stood. In front of him. Real. Alive. Pallid. Blond, black polo and blue jeans. Wordless. Lenny Quin. He backed away, staring, until he reached the window, then turned his face from her.