Father's Music

by Dermot Bolger

  ‘Put your arm around me,’ I said. I couldn’t stop shivering. A larger boat emerged from behind rocks near the lighthouse. Luke was there on the small boat going to meet the big one, I thought, or controlling everything from the shore.

  ‘The problem was, it was such a good deal that everyone wanted in on the action,’ Al said. ‘If you don’t live in a country you don’t know what’s happening. Luke thought he had Dublin sussed. You didn’t get up other gangs’ noses, you tipped the IRA a few grand at Christmas in case they thought of shooting you and the police weren’t worth a wank. But it’s different now. There’s money made from drugs you wouldn’t believe. Christy was safe with the Commandant and the Cellar-Man. Even Big Joe Kennedy put up with Christy, although Luke steered clear of him. There were rumours that Luke let Joe’s brother drown when they were kids. But Dublin sprawls for ever now. There’s places Luke’s never heard of, where kids have no mercy for no one. Christy was a joke to lads like the Bypass Bombardiers, muscling in on everything. Suddenly pitches where he sold fags for years were gone. Legs were broken, you can’t get cigarette sellers. But Luke keeps squeezing him for money.

  ‘Then in October, a security van is robbed of three quarters of a million pounds. It’s years since Luke planned the like of that. But I never even saw Luke come over. He must have got wind the Bypass Bombardiers were tracking it and so he signs his brother’s death warrant. You don’t mess with these guys. McGann and the others have no idea whose toes they’re treading on till it’s over. By then the money has vanished. McGann’s mates want to run, only they’re broke and greedy. They squeeze Christy for their share. And the Bypass Bombardiers put out the word that unless they get half a million Christy is dead. And Christy walks into the video shop and, I’ll never forget it, he has to ask for the loan of twenty pounds. The man is skint and whatever deal Luke is doing, he’s not giving Christy a penny back. The heat is on Christy. He asked me to go for a drink and walking into the pub I never saw such respect, everybody nodding and keeping their distance. It was respect for the dead, do you understand?’

  We froze as a distant voice called ‘You-hoo!’ I lay flat on the grass beside Al although we couldn’t be seen. It was the owner of the house. She stood on the steps, staring around before calling for two waiters to come out. She must have found the door on the snib. She crossed the gravel, calling ‘You-hoo!’ and carrying something. Her voice was both facetious and menacing. Al edged back towards the trees. I followed and we watched the waiters spread out.

  ‘Come on, Trace,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s get the hell away.’

  I looked into the dark woods. I was scared to stay with Luke, but frightened to run away. Flight would suggest that I knew something. Al would never out-drive Luke if he guessed that I was heading for Dublin. Even if I reached London, Luke knew how to locate me.

  ‘Go yourself,’ I said. ‘I need to find my father.’

  ‘Leave it till another time.’

  ‘No. You’ve taken enough risks. Go back to London. I’ll meet you there.’

  ‘Don’t trust him, Trace. I don’t know what’s happening but I know you’re in danger.’

  ‘You-hoo!’ The call was getting closer. The woman’s eyes were so weird that it wouldn’t surprise me if she could see in the dark.

  ‘For God’s sake, go,’ I said. ‘You’re putting me in danger hanging around here. I was safer as a brainless tart.’

  ‘You were never that,’ Al whispered. ‘None of this would have happened if Joe Kennedy had bothered having Luke killed, like he threatened to when Luke was in jail years ago. But as usual the fucker wormed his way out of it.’

  ‘What was Luke jailed for?’

  ‘Assaulting a Christian Brother in a public toilet. He only served three months. I think he thought it would wipe the slate clean with the Commandant and the Cellar-man. But Christy said all they ever did was crack jokes about it until he left Dublin. They said Luke only hit Brother Damian because he’d offered to pay Luke with a bar of Kit-Kat like all the other times.’

  The owner stopped in the centre of the croquet lawn and switched on a powerful flashlight. Al hunched down behind a tree and I walked away from him, blinded by the brilliant beam. I put a hand up to shield my eyes and held my other palm out.

  ‘I went for a walk,’ I said in my most stupid voice. ‘I fell. I cut myself.’

  A simple bandage would have done, but the owner wasn’t letting me away so easy. She washed the cut over and over, squeezing it for splinters of glass and dabbing it with stinging iodine. She seemed reluctant to release my hand.

  ‘Not everyone gets cut with Waterford crystal glass,’ she said. ‘Your young friends will be impressed.’

  ‘I’m sorry I broke it,’ I told her, ‘I needed some air. I slipped.’

  ‘Accidents happen,’ she replied, starting to bandage my hand too tightly. ‘Especially when people step out of their natural environment.’

  ‘Does your husband run the hotel with you?’ I tried not to show she was hurting my hand.

  ‘It’s a country house, dear,’ she corrected. ‘He left me for a less interesting woman.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ I realised that sympathy was the worst emotion I could show.

  ‘Have you foreign languages?’ she asked

  ‘Just A Levels in German and French.’

  ‘I’m fluent in both those and in Italian and Spanish. It’s useful with the tourist trade. But of course she could do things with her mouth that one can’t learn by Linguaphone.’

  We looked up as the front door opened and Luke entered. He stopped, surprised to see us in her office. I could sense the owner’s body language change.

  ‘We’ve had a little accident,’ she said, ‘but she’s as right as rain. Had you a nice evening out?’

  ‘It was fine.’ Luke was curt as he eyed me up. I tried not to act differently, but it was only now when he was here that I realised how scared I was. ‘You’re shaking,’ he observed.

  ‘I think I’m in shock,’ I replied. ‘I cut my hand.’

  Luke banished the owner with a glance and brought me upstairs. He examined the bandage and called her a silly bat as he undid it and bound it up again. I found it hard to look directly at him. He decided I needed a brandy and telephoned for two to be brought up. I wanted him to let go of my hand. There was a knock and he took the drinks without a word, then took off his jacket and started on the buttons of his shirt. He looked at me.

  ‘It’s late,’ he said. ‘You should get undressed.’

  ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘It’s a big bed. Go on, I’ll soon have you warm.’

  He walked to the window and undid the drapes, then beckoned me to come over. I could imagine Al out there, shivering in the woods as he looked up. For a moment I wondered if Luke could know.

  ‘Come here,’ he urged softly. ‘You have to see this. It’s beautiful.’

  I had already taken my white sweater off. The cuff was stained with blood. It would look too suspicious if I put it back on. Luke was waiting, watching me. Reluctantly I walked to the window in my jeans and bra. He reached for the brandies on the side table and handed me one.

  ‘You are cold,’ he said. ‘Your back is covered in goose-pimples.’

  He put his hand on my neck and began to stroke my back. We were framed in that square of glass. The bigger ship was still out there, near the lighthouse. How much crack or heroin would three quarters of a million pounds buy?

  ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Luke said, with awe in his voice. ‘What a view.’

  But I couldn’t see out properly. The light in the room was so strong that our own image was reflected back as Luke drew me closer towards him. His fingertips very lightly brushed my breast. If he knew of Al’s presence he was taunting him now, flaunting his possessions. He kissed my neck.

  ‘Goose-pimples,’ he laughed. ‘They taste different. I don’t mind, you know, about your friend coming.’ I froze, not knowing what sign to make to
warn Al. Luke laughed again. ‘I mean it would be worse if your period didn’t come. This afternoon was nice but sex isn’t why we came here.’

  ‘No.’ I couldn’t seem to make my voice go above a whisper.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me?’

  ‘What?’

  He put his brandy down and turned me slightly so that he could slide both arms down and tuck them into my jeans where they rested against the tip of my pubic hair. He laughed, delighted with me, and kissed my ear.

  ‘You really are cold,’ he said. ‘Take off those jeans that were driving every man in the dining room mad and get away to bed. “What?” she asks. How many brandies had you, Tracey? I’ve found out where your father is, that’s what. It cost me a fortune in drink. I’ll tell you about it in the morning.’

  ‘Tell me now.’

  ‘It’s late, you’re befuddled. It will wait till the morning. Away to bed now.’

  He removed his hands from my jeans and coaxed me towards the bed with a soft possessive slap on the backside, then laughed again as he drew the curtains shut. I went into the bathroom and put in a clean tampon. I found the longest tee-shirt in my bag to wear in bed. I waited for as long as I could before coming back out. Luke had already turned the light off. I had to grope my way across to find the bed. I lay on the very edge, trying almost not to breathe, pretending that I wasn’t really there.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I WAS TOO FRIGHTENED to sleep. All night I wanted to use the toilet but I was scared of waking him. Luke slept peacefully, his breathing quiet and regular. Dawn took an eternity to come and even then made little impact through the heavy drapes. I heard squalls of rain turn to sleet against the window. My geography of Ireland was poor but with every passing hour I wondered how close to Dublin I might be now if I had risked fleeing with Al. I didn’t know if he had driven off to sleep at Saint John’s Point or, if after watching us again in the window, he had decided I wasn’t worth the risk any more.

  Luke slept on his back, with his mouth slightly open. Yesterday I had been nervous of confronting my father, now I knew the stakes were far higher. This sleeping figure beside me had killed McGann when he asked too many questions. Before that he had let his own brother be shot. A week didn’t go by without some minor Dublin criminal opening his front door to be greeted by a gun. How many others had Luke set up? A bishop’s palace seemed a bizarre place for my life to end if everything went wrong. Yet Donegal was where it had begun. I might have known every twist of these hills if life had worked out differently.

  Luke stirred. I rose to get away from him and walked to the window. Cold light filtered through a gap of brightness. I put my eye against it and saw the gravel path and the croquet lawn with trees beyond. After a moment I noticed movement there. It wasn’t Al though, but an older man in a dark anorak. Only when he looked up at the house did I recognise him as Detective Brennan from Dublin. He spoke into a walkie-talkie before disappearing among the trees. The police were on to Luke. I had to stay calm and act natural. If I found an excuse to leave the room I could run across the gravel and into their care. But that would be to admit that I knew something illegal was going on. It was safer to remain a clueless bimbo being deceived.

  ‘What time is it?’ I froze at Luke’s voice, then turned from the gap in the drapes.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘There’s a watch beside you.’

  Luke leaned across to check the time. ‘There’s nothing like country air to make you sleep.’ He sprang from the bed where he had slept naked. He slapped his chest and rubbed his chin. ‘There’s silver in the stubble,’ he declared. ‘Do you know that song?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure how could you? You English have forgotten all your songs.’ Luke began to sing a full-throated paean to the glory of middle age. He walked into the bathroom and I heard him slap cold water heartily on his face, then pull the wooden shutters open. His footsteps stopped. I knew he was looking out at the woods. Somewhere in his baggage a gun had to be hidden. He would use me as a hostage if he saw the police. He came back out and stared at me wearing that long tee-shirt.

  ‘I feel like the cat who got the cream,’ he laughed, admiringly. ‘Put some clothes on, and don’t be driving me daft.’

  I dressed in my heaviest clothes, even wearing an extra jumper as if for protection. We went downstairs where everything looked normal. Breakfast was being served in a room with curved walls. I ran ahead of Luke to take the chair facing the window. He laughed.

  ‘She loves a nice view in the morning,’ he told the owner. ‘That’s why I’m sitting here.’

  He sat in front of me with his back to the window and I spent the meal trying not to stare out above his head. The sleet had cleared and a leaden dullness hung about the dripping trees. I wondered where Al was and if he had stumbled into the police. I knew they hadn’t been tipped off by him. There were too many early morning raids in his childhood for Al ever to trust them. Carl had told me about the pair of them once mistaking a squad car for a taxi after taking two girls home and being beaten down the cells. Luke leaned across to pour my tea.

  ‘You haven’t touched your breakfast,’ he said. ‘I know you’re nervous but you should eat.’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ I replied. ‘I didn’t sleep well.’

  He studied my face intently. Something moved in the trees and I couldn’t prevent my eyes from tracking it. Luke turned to watch a cat jump from a branch and shake itself dry before darting across the lawn. He looked back.

  ‘You’re very pale,’ he said, concerned. ‘I hope I did right bringing you here. We’re lucky it’s winter and he’s older now. Back in the 1950s when Ciaran Mac Nathuna and Breandán Breathnach were trying to track your father down, they often had to chase him through the Derryveagh Mountains and right to the tip of Inishowen.’

  ‘Have we far to go?’ I tried to keep the conversation normal.

  ‘We’ve all day to get there. Michael James Dwyer told me last night that your father played a few nights in Byrne’s pub in Carrick before Christmas. He was seen in Glenties at Midnight Mass and these first weeks of January he winters out with John Cunningham’s widow who has a pub beyond Glencolumbkille.’

  ‘Can you not just leave me outside the pub right away?’ I asked. ‘I’d like to go in alone.’

  ‘Early morning is no time to land on an old man,’ Luke said. ‘Let’s take a drive first. It’s magical here, Tracey, even in winter, Slieve League falling into the sea and dozens of tiny roads across to Glenties that your father must have walked a thousand times. I’m not defending him, but if he did desert your mother, at least try to see what lured him back here.’

  Luke paid the bill in cash, like he’d paid for everything so far, as though not leaving a trail. We drove out the gates and turned left for Killybegs. A car was pulled in a hundred yards further on. The driver kept his head down but I recognised the anorak. The road was relatively quiet. I used my side mirror to try and guess which of the vehicles occasionally appearing behind us were following Luke.

  ‘Listen to this for playing,’ Luke said, switching on a tape. ‘Johnny Doherty recorded in a cottage in the 1960s. The only power supply they had was the car battery. You can hear the engine left running all night outside in the yard. Doherty often played duets with your father. No one could match the tight playing of the pair of them. The only fiddler alive who’d come close is James Byrne.’

  Fiddle music filled the car as Luke tapped his fingers lightly on the wheel. I wondered if he was remembering the night he had first lowered earphones over my head. We passed a tractor and a truck crammed with two tiers of frightened animals bound for slaughter. Their faces stared out from tiny air-vents. I didn’t know where Luke was bringing me. I just hoped the police were not too far behind. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the music. My mother had been seduced by playing like that. Now, years later, it could be leading me to my death.

  I opened my eyes as we entered the fishing port of Killybegs. T
here were pubs opening up and cars and trucks parked on the quayside beside the line of moored boats. Last night Luke must have met one of these skippers. How long had he been planning this trip? Even if I hadn’t contacted Luke again I knew he would have found a way to convince me to travel to Donegal. This was what the tape on Christmas night had been about. Luke drove through the town and a mile further on we swung left, away from the main road. This track was narrow and twisty as it bordered the coastline. We climbed a steep hill cutting us off from the mainland. Few cars would pass this way. I knew it couldn’t be a route to Glencolumbkille. Luke sensed my nervousness and smiled.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ he asked. ‘Look to the west and the next dry land is New York. Old women here a hundred years ago cried far less if their sons went to New York instead of Dublin. Dublin was somewhere foreign they couldn’t imagine, but New York was directly out there beyond the mist.’ He slowed the car and stared out. ‘It’s like the far end of the earth.’

  The words chilled me. We rounded the bend and I saw a blue Hiace van parked beside the ditch, with its paintwork flaked and rusty. I glanced behind but the road was empty. Two men with the look of fishermen got out of the van. Luke stopped twenty feet from them and reached across to pat my knee.

  ‘Wait here a second,’ he said soothingly, ‘I’ve a spot of business.’

  This was how inconsequential Luke thought I was, too stupid to grasp what was happening before my eyes. All the nights of drugs came back, sharing joints in Harrow, popping Es and micro-drops with Honor and Roxy and those dawn fields where I’d watched people smoke heroin to come down after raves. I’d never thought much about this side of it, the money made and lives lost. I couldn’t believe the drugs were stashed in that van. Luke wouldn’t risk carrying them himself, unless Christy’s death had left gaps in his plan. Then I realised that couriering them to Dublin was probably my job. I’d been successful once before without even noticing. This was the reason I’d been brought here, to be used again.