The Lake

by Sheena Lambert

  ‘So were you any help to the Garda, Coleman,’ she asked, ‘down at the lake? Did Fra … did the Detective ask your opinion on it all?’

  Coleman sat back on his stool and exhaled two sickly lungs of smoke over the counter towards Peggy. ‘The Detective seems to be managing just fine,’ he said. ‘He needs no counsel from me.’

  ‘I’m thinking it’s Cairbre O’Rourke’s child.’ Doctor turned towards them, setting the dregs of his pint down on the counter. ‘’Twas long said he’d put her in the ground somewhere. Little rip that she was.’

  He pushed the empty glass closer to Peggy. She ignored it.

  ‘She gave her mother a terrible time of it,’ he went on. ‘My money’d be on it being the O’Rourke child.’

  ‘Ara blather.’ Coleman didn’t look up from his glass. ‘Isn’t that girleen up in Dublin this past thirty years? At Saint Joseph’s. She must be forty years of age by now. Still causing trouble from what I hear.’ He half turned to his friend. ‘She’s no more in the ground than you are yourself.’

  Doctor pouted a little. Peggy knew he was after another pint, but she wouldn’t pour one until he had left the price of it on the counter first. The back door swung open and Jerome strode in.

  ‘Try that now, Peg,’ he said.

  Peggy pulled the tap, and after a moment the stout began to flow. She filled a glass and was about to tip the contents into the sink, when she realized that Doctor was eyeing it longingly through slitty eyes. She thought again of her mother.

  ‘Do you want to try this, Doc? See if the keg is good?’ She put the pint glass down on a beer mat in front of him. Without a word of thanks he lifted it to his lips and drank half of it back.

  ‘Possibly not the best pint I’ve had in this establishment,’ he said, his eyes shut tightly again. Peggy was about to tell him where he could go to find a better one, when Fergal Maher materialized before her.

  ‘Peggy.’ He smiled at her. ‘Two pints, please. And a Smithwick’s shandy.’

  ‘Taking it easy tonight, Fergal?’ Jerome said as he rinsed his hands behind the bar.

  ‘Up to Dublin in the morning,’ Fergal said, nodding. ‘I’ve a cousin, plays for the Kerry minor team.’ He looked over to where he’d left his two brothers sitting. ‘I’m driving the lads up, early doors. Don’t want to have a head on me.’

  She noticed his cheeks burn a deep red.

  ‘Ah, Kerry’ll run away with it,’ Jerome said, leaning on the bar. Peggy was about to laugh out loud at her brother’s sudden interest in the Gaelic football, but she decided the better of it.

  ‘What do you make of the body down at the lake?’ Jerome went on. ‘Mad stuff, isn’t it? And they think it’s a young girl now?’

  ‘Jaysus.’ Fergal seemed shocked at this news. He handed some coins to Peggy. ‘But it must be there years, no? If it was under the water. It must be all rotted by now? Jaysus.’ He shook his head. ‘Will they ever find out who it is?’

  Jerome shrugged. Fergal took a draft of the shandy.

  ‘They did find some, clues.’ Peggy looked from Fergal to her brother. She hesitated, not wanting to say more than she should. But then, if Frank had told her, it could hardly be a secret. ‘They found dog tags on her,’ she said, hoping she sounded as if she knew what she was talking about. ‘On the body. They have a name on them and everything. She was wearing them on a chain. Apparently.’

  The two men were wide-eyed at this piece of news.

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘No way.’ Jerome dismissed Peggy’s revelation with the shake of his head.

  ‘I saw them.’ Peggy glared at her brother. ‘Frank showed them to me.’

  Jerome looked at Fergal. ‘Frank’s the detective on the case. Peggy’s new friend.’

  Peggy slapped his arm. ‘Shut up, Jerome. Anyway,’ she finished pulling the two pints for Fergal and placed them in front of him on the counter. ‘I did see them. And they did have a name on them. So they’ll be able to trace whoever owned them. And hopefully, find out who she was.’

  ‘Wow.’ Fergal pushed the three glasses together in a triangle and lifted them in his big, meaty hands. ‘That’s shockin’ awful. Awful.’

  ‘What’s that you said, girl?’ The three of them turned to see Coleman looking up at Peggy. His face was pale. His forehead was furrowed such that his two wiry eyebrows joined in the middle, almost totally obscuring his eyes.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, Coleman?’

  ‘They found tags on the body. Is that what you said? The body at the lake?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Peggy smiled at Fergal as he stole away from the counter with his drinks.

  ‘Dog tags, you said? Like army tags? Metal things?’

  ‘Yes.’ She turned to the mirror behind her and straightened her hair-clip. ‘Maxwell. That was the name on them I think.’

  Coleman sat upright on his stool. He picked up his box of cigarettes and put them down again. Peggy saw him look up at Doctor, but the man seemed to have slipped back into his regular state of semi-consciousness and wasn’t paying any attention.

  ‘But it was a young girl, you said?’

  ‘Well, late teens they think. Maybe around my age, it’s probably hard to tell. Jerome, will you get the Delaneys two pints before they pass out? Carling.’

  Jerome did as he was asked. Peggy walked around the counter to collect some empty glasses. When she returned with them, she noticed that Coleman was still sitting upright, his eyes wide, like someone who had stuck his fingers in an electrical socket.

  ‘You all right, Coleman?’ she said. She put her glasses down and touched his sleeve. The cloth felt coarse and dirty beneath her fingertips. ‘Coleman?’

  Suddenly the old man leaned forward and heaved himself off the stool. He took one last swig from his pint and lifted the packet of cigarettes from where he had thrown them. He lifted his eyes to Peggy’s and stared at her for the briefest of moments. Then he turned away and walked out of the pub, pulling his cap from his pocket as he went, and planting it on his head.

  Peggy watched him go. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Half-past ten. She had never known a day in Casey’s Bar when Coleman Quirke hadn’t been one of the last to leave. Doctor suddenly seemed to become aware of his friend’s unexpected exit, and he leaned across the bar and took the half-full glass of stout from where Coleman had left it. He held it close to his body and looked around him like a child with a stolen biscuit.

  ‘What did you do to Coleman?’ Jerome asked as he passed behind her and reached for the ash bucket.

  ‘Nothing!’ Peggy shrugged her shoulders. ‘He just stood up and left. He didn’t even finish his drink.’ She looked over at Doctor, but his attention was back on the musicians.

  Jerome took a cloth from the sink and emptied the contents of an ashtray from the counter into the bucket. ‘Weird,’ he said. As he went to pass in front of Peggy he stopped, and stood for a moment, staring at the pearl hanging around her neck. Then he stood back, taking it all in, her best blouse, her mascara, her tamed hair. Peggy crossed her arms and glared at him.

  ‘Ah, Peggy,’ he said with a sigh and went to clean the ashtrays on the tables. Peggy was trying to think of a suitable riposte when the door through to the house opened behind her to reveal a very flush-faced Carla, followed by Tom Devereaux. Peggy’s jaw fell open when she saw the smug smile on her sister’s face, her fingers entwined in his. Tom’s shirt was open at the neck, and his eyes were gleaming. The general glow that seemed to surround them dimmed a little when Carla saw Peggy’s face, and she dropped Tom’s hand just as they came into the bar. Carla stared straight at her sister. Peggy lowered her eyes and busied herself at the sink.

  ‘Sit down over there,’ Carla said in a husky voice. ‘I’ll bring you over a drink.’

  From the corner of her eye, Peggy could see Tom’s look of self-satisfaction diminish as he realized he would have to cross from the safety of behind the bar to the very publ
ic space on the other side. He nodded in Peggy’s direction, but she decided it best to pretend that she hadn’t noticed. She stood with her hands in the water washing glasses, only looking up when his back was to her. She saw him scan the room as he made for a table in the far corner. No doubt he felt safe enough this far from home. But still. This was Ireland. You never knew.

  Peggy could sense Carla’s presence beside her like a rabbit might sense a fox. Her body burned with the indignation she was afraid to verbalize. While she struggled with what to say, Carla pulled a pint of beer. Peggy looked at her sister, standing brazenly behind the taps as if nothing was wrong. As if she hadn’t just appeared from the house hand in hand with her married lover. As if her married lover wasn’t sitting twenty feet away from them right now, waiting for a post-coital pint of Guinness.

  ‘Don’t even start,’ Carla said, not lifting her gaze from the drink before her. ‘Just mind your own bloody business.’

  Peggy’s jaw opened involuntarily again, but she closed it with great effort. Her sister’s audacity stunned her. She wasn’t up to having this conversation with her now. Not here. Not with a full bar.

  Their brother, it seemed, felt otherwise, and just at that moment he appeared in front of them, standing next to Doctor, who was still nursing Coleman’s pint. He slapped the white plastic tub of cigarette butts and ash down on the bar in front of Carla.

  ‘Are you fecking joking?’ His eyes were black, his voice low but threatening. Peggy was a little taken aback. ‘You’re not sitting here in the bar, with him.’ He tossed his glossy black head back in the direction of Tom Devereaux, who was trying to look inconspicuous. ‘You can do what you want in the house, but you are not having him and his wedding ring here in the bar for the whole of Crumm to see. Bring those drinks into the kitchen and I’ll send your friend into you, after I’ve had a little chat with him.’

  ‘Don’t you effing dare,’ Carla hissed back at him. Her elevated position behind the bar meant she had to lower her face to meet Jerome’s. Peggy could see her white knuckles gripping the bar tap.

  ‘It’s none of your effing business who I drink with in this bar, or any other. Don’t you effing dare try the father act with me. Who the hell do you think you are?’

  Peggy stood rooted to the floor, her hands submerged in the suds. She wanted to intervene, but she didn’t want to create more of a scene than her siblings were making already. She could see Bernie O’Shea looking at them and over at Tom. Oh she’ll be loving this, the auld bitch, Peggy thought.

  ‘Get him the fuck out of here.’ Jerome’s voice was thick with threat.

  ‘Jerome, please,’ Peggy whispered. She could hear her own voice break. The Delaneys chose that minute to conclude a set, and the sound level in the room suddenly dropped. Carla opened a bottle of cider and poured it into a glass. Peggy could see her sister’s hands shaking. Jerome hadn’t moved from where he stood facing her over the counter. And then she sensed Carla’s capitulation. She watched her lift the two full glasses and stare straight at Jerome.

  ‘You are such a hypocrite,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Who cares who I’m seeing? It’s no one else’s business. I’ll see whomever I want to see.’ She stood up straight and tossed her head so that her long straight locks flicked over her shoulder. Even her hair looked defiant. ‘So you can feck off with yourself Jerome Casey. Stay out of my life. And I’ll stay out of yours.’

  ‘I’ll let your friend know you’ll be in the kitchen with those,’ Jerome said without a pause.

  ‘No. Don’t you fecking go near him. For all I know you … ’ She stopped suddenly … Peggy was shocked at the weight of antipathy she could feel radiating from her sister.

  ‘Peggy,’ she said, ‘tell Tom I’m bringing these out to Ma’s old seat in the back garden.’ Her eyes flickered over to Peggy and back to her brother. Peggy saw the tears waiting to fall.

  ‘I feel sorry for you,’ Carla said, and turned towards the back door. Peggy didn’t see Jerome’s reaction, for just then a customer came up to the bar to order drinks.

  ‘I’ll get those,’ Jerome said. His voice sounded normal again, but Peggy was still shaking.

  After Carla and Tom’s brief appearance in the bar, it seemed to Peggy that the evening took on a different colour. Jerome hardly said another word to her, but served drinks and cleaned glasses in silence, his face dark, his expression sombre. Peggy tiptoed around him, afraid to catch his eye in case he might speak to her with the anger and hostility he had used with their sister. The noise level seemed higher than normal even for a Saturday, and she was getting a headache. She wished the music would stop. It seemed to be making things worse. The four randy fishermen were now standing around the two Delaney boys like gamblers at a cockfight, cheering the musicians on with their whoops and claps and drunken attempts at dancing. One of them tried to get Peggy in a twirl with him, but she pushed him away without any of her usual good humour. She’d give him a kick if he tried it again.

  She went behind the bar and pretended to tidy the till. Jerome stood rinsing glasses behind her. His silence was like a presence behind the bar with them. Peggy slammed the till drawer shut and looked up at the clock.

  ‘Will you call time?’ she asked. She stood next to Jerome at the sink, challenging him to look at her. He wouldn’t.

  ‘I’m going outside. I need some air.’

  Jerome glanced up at the clock and back down into the sink. ‘Right so,’ he said.

  When she saw she would get no more from him, she turned and walked through the bar to the front door. A few thirsty customers tried to get her attention as she went out, but for the first time in her life, Peggy Casey flatly ignored them.

  FIFTEEN

  The quiet of the night outside The Angler’s Rest rang in Peggy’s ears. She stood totally still for a few moments, her eyes closed, breathing in the crisp, cool air; air blown up from the lake, carrying with it scents of the last cut of hay and the jasmine that her mother had planted in their own back garden. She took deep, cathartic breaths, purging her lungs of the smoke she had been breathing inside all evening. The smoke, the noise, the tension stayed behind her, inside Casey’s Bar, and she just stood and allowed the dark cloak of the night outside to wrap itself around her.

  She went to sit on the old bench propped up against the wall next to the front door. Her legs tingled with relief when she took her weight off them. If only she could relieve the tension she felt in her heart as easily. She had never seen Carla and Jerome speak to one another like that before. It had upset her. Sure, they’d had their arguments growing up as all siblings had. With only two years between them, it was only natural that they should fight. Sitting there, she could very easily recall plenty of occasions when Carla had turned her attention away from teasing her to teasing her brother who, it occurred to Peggy, had never done much to warrant her ire. She remembered Carla and her friends taunting Jerome about his hair on a regular basis. Jerome had always had beautiful hair. Not unlike herself, Peggy thought, removing the clip and letting it fall around her shoulders. Dark, thick, glossy hair. Carla had most likely just been jealous of it. But sitting on the bench outside of the bar now, she could remember clearly back ten years, could picture the big tree in front of where she now sat, could picture a coven of fourteen-year-old girls sitting on the grass, school bags scattered around them, white shirtsleeves rolled up and white knee-socks rolled down. Girls, becoming aware of the power they could wield, and choosing to wield it on a young Jerome, walking home alone from school, lost in his own teenage thoughts. Peggy tried to remember where she might have been during the encounter. Possibly in the very same place she now sat. And her stomach twisted as she remembered the cruel remarks and vicious rumours given a voice that afternoon. Remembered the embarrassed young man, stoically walking past the gaggle of giggling girls. Enduring. Absorbing.

  Now that Peggy thought about it, she realized there had been many such encounters. It wasn’t so surprising to her that Carla should
treat her brother like that. But something had changed now. Jerome had taken a stand with Carla tonight. And Carla had backed down.

  Two years of finding their way in a world without parents had meant that the Casey children had evolved, grown into adults. Their places in life had been shaped. Their places in the family too. Jerome and Peggy may not have chosen to be the ones to continue the family business, but that was what had happened, and this evening had shone a spotlight on the new order of things. Peggy felt a rush of feelings all at once. She saw clearly now what Frank had seen earlier that day down at the lake. This was her life now. Her business; hers and Jerome’s. It was no longer their father’s place. They were in charge. Theirs were the only important opinions, and they laid the law in the place, even when it came to Carla. Carla had seen this evening that which Frank Ryan had seen within hours of meeting the Caseys. So why had it never occurred to her before? And why did she now suddenly feel so conflicted, sitting out here on the old wooden bench under the anaemic light of the Harp sign fixed to the wall above her?

  The sounds of the bar suddenly amplified, and the door swung open beside her.

  ‘’Night, Peggy.’

  ‘’Night now, Peggy.’

  ‘Goodnight now, lads.’ Peggy tipped her head at the two men leaving the bar. ‘Safe home.’