Jon’s face is animated, his eyes shine. Not for the first time, Danny thinks what a good-looking lad he is. A real ladykiller, if ever he’s seen one. Another nice bit of symmetry, that.
‘No, of course not. It’s been great.’ Jon drags deeply on his cigarette. ‘Like I told you, I never really expected to find you.’
Danny nods, pleased. ‘Well, I’m really glad you did. We’ll have to keep our distance for a while now, just in case. You’d better stay out of Dublin; lie low for a while. And don’t go near Tina again, either.’ Seeing Jon’s anxious expression, he smiles. ‘Don’t worry. It won’t be for long. It’s just that Tom Phelan might begin nosing around, put two and two together. We need a bit of distance.’ He grinds his cigarette into the ashtray. ‘But we’ll keep in touch, of course.’
‘How long before I can come and live with you?’ asks Jon, finishing his pint.
‘You want another?’ says Danny. ‘Bird never flew on one wing.’
‘Yeah,’ says Jon. ‘I’ll go for it.’
‘Here . . .’ Danny hands him a twenty euro note. He watches his son’s long, assured stride; sees his own younger self in the boy’s easy grace. He really did come out of the wide blue yonder, Danny thinks. First, a letter from some agency, asking whether he’d agree to contact with his son. That had been a bit of a shocker, all right. It hadn’t taken him long to put two and two together, given the boy’s age. At first, he’d thought: no chance. No way. Not me. But then, he’d got to thinking. And the boy had been useful, no doubt about it. Clever, too.
He’d found Tina, as well. And through her, Amy. Jon’s keeping his options open now, about Amy. He might or he might not, he says. At least he knows where she is, who she is. And he’d been angry at her, of course. Angry at his mother’s abandonment of him. It had been easy for Danny to be sympathetic, easy to fuel that anger, bit by bit. The apparently accidental meeting with Phelan in his local pub was a brilliant bit of detective work: the boy was a natural. That meeting was something Danny would be proud of himself.
Jon returns now with the two pints. He hands Danny the change. But he waves it away. ‘Keep it.’
‘Thanks, Danny.’ His smile is electric.
They’d decided, between them, that Dad was not appropriate. Neither was Father. ‘Danny’ seemed to be an admirable compromise. A symbol of their relationship as two adults; equals. Two Dannies. They’ve stuck with ‘Jon’ for the boy, though. Less complicated that way.
‘We’d better take ourselves off after this one,’ says Danny, looking at his watch. ‘I’ve a very early start in the morning.’
Jon nods. ‘What time will you leave for the ferry?’
‘About half-three,’ Danny says. ‘That gives me five hours of a kip. Should be grand.’
‘I’ll head off soon, then,’ Jon says. ‘Oh, here – I almost forgot.’ He reaches into the inside pocket of his parka and hands his father a package. ‘Your letters. You asked me to get them back for you.’
‘Good man,’ says Danny softly. He is surprised, gratified at his son’s thoroughness. Getting the evidence back was always a long shot. ‘I’m proud of you, d’you know that?’
Jon smiles. ‘You didn’t think I’d do it, did you?’ He shakes his head. ‘You come from a family of very sound sleepers.’ He looks pleased with himself. ‘Amazin’, the things you find in the dead of night.’
The both laugh.
Danny can see his son’s reluctance to go. They have bonded well, the two of them. Isn’t that the term? Bonded. Like woodworkers’ glue. ‘I’ll call you from the port,’ Danny says. He makes his voice gentle. ‘And we’ll see each other very soon.’
Jon hesitates. ‘And then can we talk about me coming to London?’
Danny nods. ‘Of course. I’ve lots of room in my flat. We’ll work it all out over the next couple of months. Maybe even head off somewhere exotic for Christmas. Would you fancy that?’
Jon grins. ‘As long as my work here is done,’ he says. ‘Can’t leave any loose ends.’
Danny drains his pint. ‘You be careful, now. No point getting caught at this stage. And change hostels, if you stay overnight in Dublin, okay?’
‘Yeah. Will do.’ He grins. ‘Left a bit of a bill in the last place, anyway.’
Danny looks at him. ‘Not enough to catch up with you, I hope?’
Jon shrugs. ‘Nah. People aren’t very bright, are they? I mean, they keep letting you away with stuff.’
Danny doesn’t reply.
‘Even the university,’ Jon goes on. ‘No one ever checked.’
‘Don’t push it,’ Danny warns. ‘If you get cocky, they’ll nail your arse.’ He stands up. ‘Now, you go on back to the B and B. I’ll wait ten more minutes. Okay?’
Jon zips up his parka. ‘Talk tomorrow then.’ He seems about to approach Danny, then changes his mind.
‘Yeah, talk tomorrow. And well done. Sterling work.’ He says this last with a London accent and Jon laughs. Then the boy heads downstairs. Danny watches from the window as his son crosses the Suir, making his way over the illuminated bridge. He turns to the right and Danny can see him look back over his shoulder at the pub. Dungarvan was an inspired choice, Danny thinks. Its off-season quiet is perfect.
Twenty minutes later, he, too, leaves. He crosses the same bridge, but turns left instead of right. As he does so, he tosses his mobile phone into the river. Then he makes his way towards the hire car. As he walks, he reviews his work of the past few months.
Robbie. Lynda. Amy. Tom. And Ciarán, of course.
Pity about Jon. But it can’t be helped.
A man can’t be tied down. A man needs freedom. Great gulping breaths of it. Danny presses the key fob and the lights blink, obediently. He starts the engine and heads towards Rosslare. Rosslare to Fishguard.
Fishguard to God knows where.
Epilogue
TOM LEAVES the pub, nursing his hand. He stumbles on the kerb and passers-by look at him and then look away again. They avert their gaze quickly, as though he is something unsavoury. He knows he must appear drunk, or stoned. Angrily, he wipes away the stray tears that keep on coming and coming.
He can’t go home. He won’t go home, not until this murderous rage has had a chance to settle. He has to get a grip, consider his options. If he has any left.
He wanders around the city, thinking about where his life has brought him. A sham, all of it. A fuckin’ sham. A job that didn’t want him. A wife that doesn’t want him. And all of those stupid dreams about a fishing boat on Lough Conn. Who was he kiddin’. He has no one to go fishin’ with, even if he could afford a boat. Wide Boy has screwed him nicely. Screwed all of them, as it turns out. Robert. Lynda. Him.
Amy.
And Amy has a son. Tom doesn’t doubt it, not for a moment. All Wide Boy has done is confirm suspicions he’s already had himself, suspicions he wouldn’t even have known how to voice, because he didn’t know what they were. Then it hits him. If she’s had a baby, then the problem, the fault between them, is his. Jesus. He starts to cry in earnest, sitting on the kerb outside McDonald’s. He sits there, not even trying to wipe his eyes. At midnight, a Guard approaches and tells him to go home.
‘I don’t have one,’ he says. But he stands up anyway, and shuffles off.
By the time he reaches the house, his knees are killing him. He knows they are, because they won’t move properly. But he can’t feel them, can’t feel anything any more.
Amy opens the door to him. ‘What’s happened?’ she cries. Her hair is tied up again, he notices, in that Amy Winehouse kind of way. It doesn’t matter any more. She isn’t real, nothing is real between them and never has been. That’s where his life has brought him.
He pushes past her and makes his way into the living room. It seems to have changed since this morning. There’s nothing here that is familiar. It looks suddenly bare and grim, like your woman’s garden after he’d wrecked it. He feels sorry for that now. And the paintings. It seems such a waste.
> ‘Tom, what’s wrong?’ Amy’s voice is catching on something. It might be a sob, but he doesn’t care any more. The kid gloves haven’t worked. Staying schtum hasn’t worked. All the love in the world hasn’t worked. He’s lost her, anyway. She belongs to Wide Boy.
‘I’ve been worried sick. I called your mobile and then the restaurant, maybe a dozen times. What is it?’ She stands in front of him, pulling at something on the sleeve of her cardigan.
Tom doesn’t look at her. He sinks into the sofa and says nothing.
She comes around to stand in front of him. ‘Tom?’ she says. Her tone is frightened now. She has never seen him like this. Her face has an odd look to it.
‘Why didn’t you tell me,’ he says. It is not a question.
‘Tell you what,’ she answers, but there is a tremor to her voice. A dead giveaway, in his experience.
He fixes his gaze on a point above the fireplace. The focus gives him a sort of control. ‘That you have a son.’
She crumples. Her knees give way and she stumbles into the armchair just across from him. He notices that the crumbs have been cleaned from the carpet. The fireplace is swept, the brass polished. He almost laughs. Ironic. All done, all cared for when it no longer matters. Funny the things that catch your eye as your life falls away from you.
Don’t insult me now, he pleads silently. Don’t deny it. Just tell me the truth for once.
‘I couldn’t.’ That’s all she says. Amy looks down at her hands.
It’s the truth, perhaps. Tom is stunned by the simplicity of it. Somehow, her admission makes his rage leach away and he is left with nothing but peace. This is what he has felt between them for all these years. This has been the obstruction. This, and the other child: the one he hasn’t been able to give her. Now, at least, it has been named and naming it has stolen some of its power.
‘Danny Graham,’ he says. ‘I understand he’s the father.’
She looks at her husband, her eyes wide and horrified. ‘How do you know? Who told you that?’ she begins to rise from the chair.
‘Sit down,’ he says, more sharply than he has intended. Then, ‘Sit down,’ more gently this time. ‘I’ve met him. Worked for him. Although I didn’t know who he was – really who he was – until tonight.’ He sits forward on the sofa, his shoulders hunched, hands clasped in front of him. The knuckles show shiny white under the skin. They remind him of the punch he landed on that animal’s face. There is at least some satisfaction in that.
‘What sort of work?’ asks Amy. Her hands have begun to tremble. ‘What did you do for him?’
‘You don’t need to know,’ he says, ‘it’s nothing you need to know. Just some half-assed surveillance. Except that the real purpose of it was to destroy everyone he’s ever known.’
Amy laughs. The sound is bitter. ‘That’s Danny all right. How did he find you to help him do it?’
He shrugs. ‘It seemed to be a random meeting in the pub. But knowing him as I do now, I don’t think there was anything at all random about it. He targeted me. Targeted you. He can’t have been working alone.’
‘Where is he now?’ Amy looks around her. The terror in her eyes says that she expects him to burst through the door any minute.
‘Gone, I’d say. Out of the country. Things might start to get a bit hot for him if he stays. That’s all I’m going to tell you. It’s best you don’t know any more than you already do.’
He allows the silence to grow between them. It sits there, like a dog on a fireside rug.
‘At first,’ she says, as though answering the question he hasn’t repeated, ‘I was ashamed. They were different days, back then. My parents would have disowned me.’ She pauses. ‘They didn’t have a lot of charity in them. A lot of religion, but not a lot of charity. I left Danny when I knew I was pregnant.’ She shakes her head at the memory. ‘After our last few months together, I knew that I couldn’t bring up a child with him, not with him.’ Her look is pleading. But he isn’t able to respond to her, not yet. When he doesn’t, she continues, her voice flat. ‘I gave the baby up for adoption. Tina helped me.’
He looks up. ‘And your parents?’
‘They never knew. Tina and I manufactured a story between us. I pretended I’d got this great job in London. We had all sorts of celebrations. Instead, I went back to Tina and Jack’s house in Waterford and hid. Jack was great. He and Tina wanted to adopt my little boy, but I wouldn’t let them.’
‘Why not?’ he wants to know.
She shrugs. ‘Too much of a reminder. If I couldn’t be a mother, I didn’t want to be just an aunt. And pretend for the rest of my life. I thought a clean break would be better for all of us. In the end, they agreed.’
‘Why did you marry me?’
She looks surprised. ‘You were good to me; kind and generous. You came along at just the right time. I thought you’d help me recover, that we’d have our own family and I could forget.’ She winced. ‘I’m sorry. Sorry about everything. I was selfish. All I was doing was trying to survive.’
‘Did you love him?’
She smiles, looks at him directly. ‘What does a nineteen-year-old girl know about love? I was blown away by him, infatuated. He swept me off my feet. It didn’t last, though.’
‘Why not?’ He feels this compulsion to know the things that cause the most pain.
‘He was a bully,’ she says, simply. ‘Oh, not physically. But he had me wrapped around his little finger.’ She laughs, shortly. ‘A counsellor told me he was a master manipulator. She was right. I’d have done anything for him. But he never wanted a relationship. I knew that once he got fed up with me, he’d be ready to move on.’
‘Did he know about your son?’
She shakes her head, emphatically. ‘Absolutely not. I left the day I had the pregnancy test and I never saw him again.’ She stands up and searches the shelf behind her for cigarettes. She smokes only rarely, now. Her and Tina used to be like trains, he remembers, the pair of them. Puffin’ away like there was no tomorrow. She lights up and continues speaking, this time without looking at him. ‘To be honest, I kind of fell apart after the birth. I had a spell in hospital, with post-natal depression. Tina looked after everything for me, the adoption, everything. I never even wanted to hold my son. Some mother I’d have made.’
Her face is like steel.
‘Danny told me once that he would make everyone pay who had ever hurt him. He was talking about his family at the time. That even if he had to wait thirty years, forty years, he’d pay them all back for what they did to him. And the truth is, they did nothing to him. He did it all to himself.’ She tips her ash into the ashtray. ‘I guess he included me in that, too.’
Tom sits quietly. ‘I’m tired,’ he says.
She nods. ‘I never meant to hurt you, Tom . . .’ She stops, sighs. ‘I hate that line. It’s what Danny used to say, over and over, before he went out and did exactly the same thing all over again. It sounds like an excuse. But I mean it, I really do.’ She stubs her cigarette out. ‘I’m glad it’s out in the open. Relieved. It’s really strange, but the longer it went on, the harder the secret was to keep.’ She looks at him. ‘I wanted to tell you, Tom, but the way . . . the way things turned out between us, I couldn’t. I just didn’t know how to.’ She stands up. ‘I’ll go, tomorrow. Maybe in a few months, we can meet up and sort out what we’re going to do. When we’ve had time to think.’
He nods. ‘Where will you go?’
She smiles. ‘Where I always go. To my sister.’ She stands, rubs her hands on her jeans, an old, old gesture. ‘I’ll sleep in the spare room tonight.’ She makes her way towards the door.
It’s for the best, he thinks. Too much water under the bridge. Suddenly, he has an image of a garden, a woman, a tortoise set in stone. Himself with a crowbar, taking things apart. The bleakness of it takes his breath away. ‘Wait,’ he says.
Amy turns. ‘Yes?’
He can hardly believe what he’s saying. But he means it. Oh yes, he mean
s it. And he means it despite – or perhaps because of – Wide Boy. ‘I don’t want you to leave. If you leave, he wins. And all of this’ – he gestures around him – ‘has been for nothing, has meant nothing, ever.’
She looks at him. Her voice is incredulous: ‘You want me to stay?’
He pauses. ‘Let’s just say that I don’t want you to go. It’s a bit different. What I really want is that he doesn’t win. I don’t want him to win. And I don’t want to live on my own, that’s the truth of it. I’m fifty-five years of age, Amy. I want a bit of peace.’
He watches as her eyes begin to fill. ‘Maybe we’re no great catch, either of us. But I still love you, Amy. And somewhere, I think you might like me enough to keep going. I’m tired of seeing things destroyed.’
She walks back towards him. Her eyes search his face. She’s weeping now. ‘Tom, I do love you,’ she says, sobs catching at the words and then letting them go. ‘I love you and I want to stay. I do.’ She pushes his greying hair back from his forehead. ‘Do you really think we can do it?’
He puts his arms around her and holds onto her. Holds on for dear life. ‘I don’t know.’ Then, ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes.’
She buries her face in his neck. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers. ‘You are a good man.’
Outside their window, there are shouts all along the street. Car engines rev into life. Partygoers call out to each other. There is laughter, cat-calling. All the sounds of the inner city. The watcher listens.
Tom listens.
He’s home. Amy’s all he’s ever wanted.
He’s home.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks, as ever, to Shirley Stewart of the Shirley Stewart Literary Agency, for more than I can say.
To my wonderful editor, Trisha Jackson, and all the team at Macmillan: Eli Dryden, Ellen Wood, Kati Nicholl, Clare Stacey at Head Design, and Imogen Taylor.
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