by Tom O'Neill
Dark was a bit embarrassed. His mam didn’t seem to be at all. She let a little time pass before she dried her face and went to the bathroom.
Connie nodded at Dark. He said, ‘Well done, there.’
Dark thought it best to wait a few days to tell him how little faith he had had in ‘lonmaree’ and ‘nobladee’ and their potions. How unsure he still was about what had actually happened. But for now he said, ‘Well, I hope you don’t let them wash that rat crap off you too quick. You know a horse got shot for that.’
‘Rat crap?’ The colour that had started to return to Connie’s cheeks, gave way to yellowness. He had a wild terror of rats. ‘Which of them told you to do that?’
Dark didn’t answer.
‘Please get some of those wipes,’ said Connie.
‘It’s what the bird and the stoat told me,’ said Dark. ‘Won’t that remove the cure?’
‘Not at all,’ said Connie. ‘The one of them is a liar and the other a prankster. It was something else that you picked up on your travels. Their only job was to guide you on the journey.’
‘What else?’ asked Dark.
‘In truth,’ said Connie, ‘I don’t know. Maybe something on you. What have you in those pockets?’
Dark would not tell him.
‘More likely though,’ said Connie, ‘it’s something inside you now.’ As he cleaned his face, he said, ‘And what’s this about a horse?’
‘Well, in fairness, Saltee wasn’t trying to kill the horse,’ said Dark with a grin.
‘Brilliant!’ said Connie. ‘Fantastic!’
‘What do you mean,’ said Dark indignantly. ‘What’s so brilliant? It was me he was trying to hit.’
‘I know, I know ...’
‘So much for the Dunbeacon stones that you used to say were supposed to be protecting us – where were they that day? Where were they when you got sick?’ said Dark.
‘Protecting you, Art,’ he said, ‘not me. Think about it, Art. You’re not exactly small. Yet a man who is able to shoot a red squirrel through the head from three hundred metres couldn’t even get a bullet to go near you? When that shot went astray he must have realised. You can’t imagine how much that will have rattled him.’
‘He trapped me in the lower field too, by the way,’ said Dark, feeling upset at Con dismissing his ordeals so lightly.
‘Did he? And tell me then. How did you get out?’
‘I ... walked out,’ said Dark, realising he wasn’t persuading Connie. ‘Listen, the second bullet was much closer.’
‘And who was bitten by the enchanted rodent that he sent to bite you? ‘
Dark was silent. Dark was finding it hard to take any of this in.
‘Sorry, Art, I’m not saying it’s great what he did to you. Any average person would have just given up. I’m just saying it’s great that you riled him enough to draw him from cover. I’ve tried to do that before, you know.’
Dark thought back on all the pranks and taunting of Saltee that he had assumed Connie and The Red had engaged in purely for entertainment.
‘He has a lot of track covering to do now,’ Connie continued, ‘and with a bit of help from us, that may turn out messy for him.’
‘I’d say you’re not going to be helping anyone do anything for a while,’ said Dark. ‘It will take time for you to rebuild enough strength to even support yourself.’
‘A few days maybe, at most,’ laughed Connie. ‘But what harm when I now have people I can give instructions to? I can do it all from the armchair. I won’t mind that at all.’
He told Dark that he was going to be home in two days and that he wanted Dark to have The Red and Sergeant Curtain there. ‘We need to strike while Saltee is still trying to cover up.’
‘Sorry Connie,’ Dark said, ‘but I don’t think they’ll be letting go of you until you are solid again. They know they made a mistake in releasing you the last time. They won’t want to repeat that. You know they were planning to slice your brain up, to see if you had lesions?’
‘They thought I had mad cow disease?’
‘I guess. Or else that it was something to do with witchcraft from the Congo!’
‘Well now, that’s a good one. How do you know what they were discussing, by the way?’ asked Connie, with something that sounded pretty close to admiration.
‘Ah,’ said Dark, ‘I might have some useful friends of my own.’
Connie laughed.
Dark wanted to stay a day or two just till he could be sure. But when Connie heard who Dark had deputised to take charge at home, he became very anxious for Dark to go back immediately.
‘Joey is my friend and he is sound,’ said Dark defensively. ‘He’ll take care of the animals better than anyone.’
‘Sound might not be exactly the right word, Art,’ said Connie. ‘The animals are in good hands for sure. You’re right about that. But if the farm inspectors come while he’s in charge, things might not go so well. I thought you’d heard about the misunderstanding about Joseph Banner’s hens.’
‘Of course I knew that,’ said Dark, trying to figure out what Connie was talking about. Then the pieces of a story he had heard from before he knew Joey came back to him. So he was that Joseph. The one who had been selling bantam eggs to neighbours since he was a small boy. Until he got a letter from the Department of Food telling him he was contravening EU food safety regulations and that his poultry could be confiscated. He took it to heart, loaded the old hammer action shotgun and locked the hens in the kitchen with him. After a ten-day siege that nobody else knew about, he concluded it was better to kill the beloved birds himself than let strangers come for them. He shot them one by one. Dark remembered now that Joey had no bowl to bring sausages across the river in. And that he was rather deaf.
‘That was ages ago,’ said Dark, trying to look unfazed. ‘He’s completely sound now. Isn’t he?’
‘Sound as a hound, but poor Joey has never been all that well disposed to anyone wearing a tie since that time,’ said Con. ‘It might be best to phone The Red for a lift home. He’s probably not far away.’
After The Red had dropped him to the house and had driven away down the lane in Kill, Dark went to bed and slept better that night than he had in a long time.
In the morning, Joey was disappointed to find him there. The dogs still got their treats before Joey headed away, grumbling. Dark inspected what they were eating more closely and noticed that as well as the chocolate there was Tayto and jam. Psycho got snappy with him when he tried to take the bowls away.
On the way to school, Dark decided he wouldn’t say anything about Connie. He didn’t want to jinx it. Maybe he would even wait until Connie was back to his full noise levels before he would say anything.
But his face must have revealed that something had changed. Two teachers asked him in their own ways. Before school, Mammy Úna came across the yard and said, ‘Well honey, how are things on this beautiful morning?’ Later, Buzzcock called him back after class and said, ‘Well, McLean, you look like you’ve finally had some rest. What news?’
To both of them, he just said, ‘Maybe a little better, thanks.’
At break time, Kevin left Ciara’s side to cross the grounds towards Dark. ‘How are things?’ he said.
To his own surprise, he found himself putting his hand on Kevin’s shoulder and looking in his eyes. He said this: ‘Kevin, I just want to say ... like ... Regardless of anything else ... I won’t forget. When I was in a deep hole, you went out of your way to help me. I won’t ever forget that. I am in debt to you and I will honour that bond at any time you wish.’
‘WTF dude?’ said Kevin. ‘“Bonds”? And “honour”? You seriously need to get off those RPG games, Arthur.’
‘I am just saying, whatever words you want to put it in,’ said Dark.
‘Anyway, what the heck do you mean, “regardless of anything else”?’ said Kevin. ‘What have I done to deserve that?’
Dark said nothing. He just put his hands in h
is pockets and kicked some pebbles, feeling a bit embarrassed. He had not intended to put any qualifications on what he wanted his friend to know. He had been determined not to let the other feelings tarnish it.
‘Listen,’ said Kevin, tired of waiting for an answer. ‘Lookit here, will you come with me.’
He grabbed Dark’s jacket sleeve and with surprising strength he pulled Dark. Dark could see where they were going and didn’t resist very much. He just became very nervous. Kevin was fed up and he kept saying, ‘Just come on will you, you big clown?’
When he was a metre in front of Ciara, Kevin said, ‘Right. Now I’m just tired of the two of you. One of you is more boneheaded than the other. Will you bloody well talk to each other. Please.’ He walked away.
‘How is your uncle?’ she asked after a bit.
‘Maybe a little better,’ he said, still not really able to look at her, though he could feel she was staring at him.
‘Why have you been avoiding me?’ she asked suddenly.
Dark didn’t quite know what to say to that.
‘You’ve been staying at the furthest distance you could get from me in the school grounds. And looking away whenever I look at you.’ She was so angry that she was almost crying. ‘I don’t understand what I did wrong.’
‘I thought ...’ Dark started. ‘When you didn’t answer my texts and then you didn’t let me talk to you after you were in Magill’s office?’
‘After Magill phoned my parents, my dad went mad and took my phone. So I’m sorry, but I didn’t get your texts.’
Dark said nothing.
‘And he checked my messages,’ she continued. ‘He announced to my mum that Magill was right. I was hanging around with one of the “bog trotters” from Kill.’ She paused, and her frown melted to a grin. ‘What? I’m only relaying what he said. It’s not like it’s what I think. Maybe.’
‘What do you think?’ he said.
‘My dad has theories on everything,’ she continued. ‘Yeah, when he has his golf club committee around, he always says Kill was never civilised: no Viking, Norman or Cromwellian ever ventured into those bandit hills and that you can’t even tell the travellers from the “uncouths”. He pretends he’s joking, but he’s not really. “Funny business goes on out in that valley”,’ she mimicked.
‘And what do you think? Mammy Úna lives out in those hills too, you know?’ It was true. Dark had only found out recently that she lived with Queenie. True but irrelevant.
‘Who?’
‘Miss Moriarity,’ said Dark.
‘Sorry to have to admit this,’ she shrugged. ‘It makes my dad sound worse than he really is, but Miss Moriarity living out in Kill wouldn’t necessarily redeem the locality in his view. He says if it weren’t for the tyranny of the trade unions, “unbalanced” people like her would long ago have been kicked out of teaching. She’s “unbalanced” of course, because her partner is a batty Kill native – nothing whatsoever to do with the partner being a woman. Because my dad is of course not in any way uncouth.’
Dark decided not to tell her how his mam joked with Connie about the doctors and bank men of the Mullet establishment. The ‘small-town embarrassed classes’, she called them. He wasn’t quite sure what that meant but he was pretty sure that Ciara wouldn’t appreciate it very much. Instead he merely paraphrased something Connie had said, the night one of the less regular card players made the mistake of skitting about Joey Banner. ‘You say the word unbalanced like that’s a fault?’12
‘Well I suppose we each have our natural talents,’ said Ciara. Dark was only beginning to realise that she was teasing him.
‘Anyway, the next day,’ she said, ‘Magill just brought me in to gloat and to tell me that my dad was talking about sending me away to boarding school or getting “the Kill go-boy” expelled if I started falling into bad company. That was why at first I was confused, and scared.’
‘And now,’ said Dark, ‘are you not still scared of being sent to boarding school?’
‘I was never scared of that,’ she said indignantly. ‘That would never happen. My mum wouldn’t allow it. She gave out yards to Dad when she found he’d read my texts and thrown my sim card away. Dad makes a lot of noise when he’s angry, but he wouldn’t try that. But getting you expelled. I knew you wouldn’t exactly resist. You would probably have gone willingly, having already half-expelled yourself. I didn’t really want to test him on that, irritating pain though you might be.’
‘Magill can’t even look me in the eye anymore, let alone expel me,’ said Dark.
‘Whatever,’ she said dismissively. ‘Anyway, here we are again. I’ve told you everything, as usual. And you’ve told me nothing. As usual.’
Dark was quiet for another minute. Then he said, ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’
‘Yes. Where?’
‘A cup of coffee, maybe?’ said Dark. This time she fetched her bag.
Two days later, Dark’s mam brought Connie home. He needed help getting out of her car and he told her that she’d need to get something less dainty than an Alfa if she wanted him to be seen with her. Once he had fully unfolded, he was able to stand and make his way inside to his chair, from which he immediately asked why The Red and Sergeant Curtain weren’t here yet. For a messer, he could be very single-minded. They were on their way.
After tea Connie said to his assembled group, ‘Right, no time to waste, the rat has stuck his head out of his den. Arthur tells me Saltee has a deer rifle. I doubt, given his record, he has a license for that, Jim?’
‘No ways,’ said Sergeant Curtain. ‘But you’d have to prove he has one.’
‘I believe he may be after burying an animal in the last few days,’ said Connie to The Red. ‘It shouldn’t be too hard to find the fresh grave at this time of year. Before he gets to plough over the ground, you might give a quick nosey around up there and see where the JCB has been at work. Maybe the bullet stayed in the skull.’
‘Only home a few minutes and already giving orders,’ grumbled The Red.
‘He can’t do that, Connie, it’s too dangerous,’ said Dark, very alarmed.
‘Don’t worry, Art,’ said Con. ‘Saltee won’t see him.’
‘Arthur is right, Con,’ said Curtain, putting on a slightly more officious tone. ‘It’s good there’s a sensible person in the house.’
The Red and Connie looked at each other and laughed.
‘Sometimes sensible at least. Not like some,’ said Dark’s mam, coming in from the back porch to get her reading glasses. She went out to her papers again.
‘At times, I think the town people are right,’ said Curtain in a lower voice, scratching his behind. ‘There’s a little madness flows along the banks of the Brown River. Anyway, you are putting the little man in harm’s way with this mission, Connie. I’d be better to do it myself, officially. The Red is not exactly inconspicuous.’
The Red puffed out his chest, covered tightly in a luminous yellow Village People teeshirt.
‘I can see you’re in disco mode today, dude,’ said Con to The Red. ‘But maybe you should take off the gloves at least.’
‘Blow it out your ass, cowboy,’ said The Red, as he pulled white cotton further up his stout forearms. Much as he resented Connie telling him to go, he was also not going to be told by anyone else that he could not go. The Red was out the door before they had anything more to say to him, and soon they could see him diving into the far ditch of the back field. Con reassured Curtain: ‘Don’t worry, the scut is only seen when he wishes to be. Just shut the door would you. His people are great ones for opening doors but no good for shutting them.’
Curtain looked very confused. Con winked at Dark, as though Dark should understand. Dark didn’t know who the Red’s ‘people’ might be, but he remembered the open door.
Dark and Connie raided the medicinal supply of Red Bull and biscuits while they waited. Curtain made himself coffee.
‘Another thing I want to know,’ said Dark. ‘Why did Saltee neve
r charge me for destroying the shop?’
‘Destroying?’ said Connie. ‘I thought you said you just took a crumpled leaf of some sort?’
‘Whatever,’ said Dark, slightly embarrassed. ‘But wouldn’t pressing charges have been the obvious thing for him?’
‘That, I can’t figure,’ said Connie. ‘It’s not like the man is shy about the law.’
‘He had a slight problem there,’ said Curtain. ‘A strange thing happened the evening of the break-in. Saltee came in with Hogg to demand your arrest. But Hogg was not in good form. He was looking nervous and had bruises and welts around his head. Before he could sign his statement, one Dan Kelly caught up with them. He walked into the charge room behind them waving his thorny little walking stick. Without a word Hogg bolted, high-tailed it out of the station. All became clear.’
Dark now remembered the moustached man on the pavement.
‘When Saltee persisted with the charges,’ continued Curtain, ‘Kelly stepped up and said it was him who did it. “Indeed, and I did,” he shouted. “It was me who broke every bottle and shelf in the place and the security cameras too. And what’s more, I’d do it again.” As proof, out of his satchel he pulled fistfuls of broken glass, powders, tablets and leaves. Saltee said, “Fine, he didn’t do it, but charge him anyway, the plague of a man,” and he walked out in a rage. Of course, we couldn’t charge Dan Kelly. The poor man has never been right since his son went mad on Saltee’s bath salts. And besides, despite the broken cameras in the shop, we had clear footage of everything from the garage on the other side of the street. Dan only reached in to grab himself some evidence after the real culprit ran in full view up the street.’
