‘I cannot,’ he walked by her, ‘just yet, Sister. I have to see my father on an important…’
‘You will not find him, Mr Cave.’
Jonah stopped, turned.
‘Where is he then?’
‘If you will come to the office, Mr Cave, I will tell you.’
He was in a chair and the piece of paper was across the desk before he had much chance to think anything else.
Sister Mauritius snapped open a fountain pen.
‘What are these?’ Jonah asked.
‘Release forms and settlement of account. Your father did not stop long enough to sign them. Since this home is no longer responsible for him we need to mark it officially.’
‘Well, mark it with an empty bed then,’ Jonah leaned back in his chair. ‘I am not signing anything. And I am certainly not handing over any more money.’
‘Routine. If you don’t care to sign them then you don’t care to collect what he has left behind.’ Sister Mauritius’s tone was clipped. ‘If you don’t care to settle the account then you don’t care to know where he has gone.’
‘What has he left behind?’
‘Everything.’
Jonah took the pen and signed twice in the designated spots. He took the bill and looked at the amount in disbelief.
‘He caused some damage before he left,’ Mauritius smiled coldly, revealing yellowed, uncapped teeth. ‘He also made the generous offer to pay for a friend’s funeral.’
‘My father has no money.’
‘You, I’m sure,’ she pointed a finger to the total underlined in red and then tapped the same finger at the place where his signature was required, ‘can look after things. If you care to examine the figures they will tell you that we are owed for his last month’s board and for some clothing we had to buy…’
‘My father had all his own clothes!’
‘Then there is the small matter of the member of my staff you assaulted yesterday.’
Jonah ignored this. ‘You said you could tell me where he is.’
‘I can, when we are finished here.’
Jonah passed over what notes he had remaining in his wallet.
‘That is all you are getting and be glad you get that.’
Sister Mauritius opened a desk drawer, put the money in and locked it.
‘He left yesterday afternoon. I have been told he was spotted in the town and then spotted with our former employee, on the beach. I think you will thank me that I have not brought the police into this matter.’
Jonah looked at her. Mauritius was a woman of many faults but she was not afraid of much. She feared what she saw in him.
‘This has been a deeply disturbing encounter for all my staff and for myself. You will see to it that your father does not set foot here again. You will take his belongings with you I hope.’
‘I will see he does not set foot here again. I will take his belongings.’
Jonah left the office and he took the boxes and suitcase of his father’s that had been packed and left on the bed. They filled his car and the evening had already closed in by the time he was ready to drive away.
He felt the pressure of something between his seat belt and his breast pocket. He pulled the car in and opened the small package that held the brooch.
He turned over his wrist and stuck the pin into one of the blue lines running beneath the milk-white surface and watched as the red drops, thin at first, then thick, poured down.
‘I am bled dry from all of this,’ he whispered.
He would leave none of us unspared that, he decided.
* * *
When Thomas left me he decided not to set out on the road, but to walk through the woodland.
He wanted the blanket of darkness around him, no prying eyes. It was past dusk now and the night wind had picked up. It bit through the thin suit fabric. He tried to move more quickly to get to the shelter of the trees, but the events of the day and night had left him with little energy.
It was not the leaden tiredness of before. His heart was light and purpose was his.
Thomas felt himself to be a new man, a man restored. His only concern now to protect me from Jonah.
This was why he wanted to go to St Manis, to collect his belongings so that he and I might leave together. I had told him I would go with him once Myrna was in the ground. He would remain with me in Solas until then.
The steepness of the walk caught at his calves in vicious bites, he knew that if he stopped it would be a long time before he started again. In the end his legs demanded it, his bad arm was also stiffened with the cold, rest was needed.
So he took up a spot under a tree, which offered kind shelter and he listened to the growth of the night sounds and the steady beat of his own heart and his eyes closed.
When he woke it was with a start and there was no way of telling how much of the night had passed. He did not go on to St Manis, he cursed himself for having tried and having left me alone half the night. He turned and moved back down the hill with all the energy that had been lacking on the long walk up it.
* * *
Jonah Cave had been in the house for hours. There was no car; there was only a pile of Thomas’s photographs burning along with his clothes and books. It would have made for quite a blaze, a clearly visible blaze with which the son was calling the father. But the father had been caught up in acts of love.
So the bonfire had grown down and almost out by the time I approached, nothing left but a few charred rags and shoes and leather binders. There were no images of Thomas’s creation left. All was lost to him.
And to me. I walked into the kitchen. Eddie and Carmel in a twisted, still and bloody embrace on the floor. Jonah seated in a chair by the table, nursing a burned hand and bloodied head wrapped in a sheet he had pulled from over Myrna’s death.
He smiled terribly when the door opened. He said, ‘We are so glad to have you home. We were worried, you were away so long.’
* * *
Jonah had gone to his house and collected the things he knew he would need, he had gone to the garage for the petrol and come back to Solas. No longer watching, that was his intention. Doing from here on in.
He drove the car up the laneway and opened the boot and took out the things that represented his father’s life and piled them high.
Carmel, seated with Myrna in the back bedroom, saying prayers of her own kind over her, smelt the burning and came to the window. When she saw the fire-maker she grew afraid and stayed hidden behind the curtain.
Eddie would be home for his dinner soon.
Eddie smelt the burning before he saw the great pile of flame. He feared it was Carmel’s fire, the one she talked about in dreams. He heard the dogs barking frantically and dropped his ladder into the ditch and he cycled on without it and at the end of the lane he ran, pushing his bike up along, shouting, ‘Carmel! Carmel!’ He found only Jonah Cave, shivering, his arms wrapped around himself, his eyes on the fire. The dogs stood on the opposite side, snarling, afraid of what was around this man. The scent of Eddie carried to them over the burning only when he was right upon the house. The dogs scurried to him, tripping him up. Eddie kicked out at one and yelled at them to let him be.
‘What in Christ’s name are you doing?’
Eddie dropped his bike and ran at the tall man and the tall man looked up and cocked his head as if he had heard a phone ring and said, ‘I have no idea.’
‘If you’ve done anything to them I’ll tear you apart. Get out of here, get out of here before I call the guards.’
Jonah’s coat was long. It covered him entirely and it was only when he moved that Eddie saw the flash of steel. Carmel’s pale face appeared at the window. Eddie made sure Jonah’s eyes stayed on him.
‘Where is everybody?’ Jonah asked. ‘I knocked at the door and got no answer. What sort of a house is this where nobody’s home and nobody answers the door?’
‘The kind of house that has the measure of people,’ Eddie backed away.
‘What do you want with us? What are you burning, what right have you to burn on this property?’
‘What I burn is none of your business. My father?’
‘What about your father?’
‘He came to see Sive, I know.’
‘Well, you know they’re not here,’ Eddie insisted. ‘They’re gone since last night. Run out on us all.’
‘They will be back. I have some things to say to both of them. Then I’ll be on my way.’ Jonah smiled a reasonable smile.
‘You’ll be on your way now. There’ll be plenty of time to sort things out later,’ Eddie suggested.
Jonah walked towards Eddie.
‘You don’t seem to understand. I am the one who rectifies all of this and decides.’
‘I know that you have a quarrel with your father,’ Eddie tried reason. ‘But it is not with us. Why bring your trouble here?’
‘Because it is here that it started.’
‘Well, at least let me move myself and my wife away and off. We have brought you no trouble. We will bring you no trouble.’
‘I am not allowing anyone anywhere,’ Jonah’s voice was heated now. ‘You must go inside and wait. I’ll be along presently.’
Eddie walked by him; he saw again the glint of metal inside the great coat.
‘Where is your car?’ Eddie asked.
‘I dropped these things off and drove it somewhere,’ Jonah smiled, ‘discreet.’
Eddie went into the house. Carmel put her arms around him.
Jonah Cave watched his father’s life-work and personal effects burn. He did not see the spirits of his father’s creations rise and curl up in the black smoke and reach for the heavens. He did not hear their sighs of release in having their images set free. He saw his act as the destruction of only one life and one purpose.
* * *
‘We have to find a way of warning Sive,’ Carmel whispered.
‘We cannot do that,’ Eddie insisted. ‘He is armed. Why did you not leave the house when he drove up?’
‘I did not even know he was here. I smelled the burning. The burning came to me first, Eddie. The burning tells me he will kill her,’ Carmel’s voice was louder now.
Eddie clamped his hand over her mouth and pointed a finger between her eyes.
‘No hysterics now, woman. This is not the time for them.’
Eddie watched from the window. The dogs had followed him inside and stayed close to Carmel. Jonah, arms folded, did not look at the house. Jonah, arms folded, studied his fire.
Carmel whispered again.
‘Gomez.’
‘We don’t need to hear your ranting, Carmel,’ Eddie spoke sharply. ‘We need to know what to do. We have to figure out what to do. This is some house, Sacred Heart of God. If we get out of this, Carmel, we are moving back into the town. Just you and me. Away from all of this.’
‘We have to make him stop,’ Carmel breathed.
‘What do you want me to do, Carmel? Go at him with my bare hands? Would you rather he killed me? We could go out the back way.’
‘I won’t leave until Sive comes!’
‘We would have a better chance if one of us stays here, I suppose,’ Eddie agreed. ‘You go, Carmel. I’ll make sure he doesn’t follow.’
She looked at him.
‘I won’t go without you.’
She drew her nails along the tabletop. He could not leave her now. He could not take her with him.
They left it for a few minutes, because neither could be the one to go or stay, because they could not be apart and because they were afraid of running now.
Jonah was knocking at the door.
‘If you had let me get the phone in here when I asked you—’ Eddie said as he lifted the latch.
‘Don’t let him in,’ Carmel pleaded.
‘Would you like him to blow the lock off? Get in the back room. Lock the door.’
‘Easy now,’ he said to Jonah as the tall length of him stooped to come in. ‘You’d have had the door off its hinges in another minute. Easy now.’
Jonah smiled at him.
‘I’m easy. I’m right as rain. A cup of tea please.’
Eddie went to stoke up the fire and hook the kettle over it.
‘Have you no cooker?’ Jonah asked politely, seating himself at the table, stretching his long legs out towards the fire. Eddie could feel the toe of his long boot only inches away from where he was stooped.
‘Sure, you know from the last time we have a cooker. But it’s nice to have tea from over the fire. It tastes better.’
Eddie had not gone into the scullery to put on the cooker kettle. He did not want to leave Jonah alone.
‘Where is your wife?’ Jonah enquired, again all politeness.
‘She’s in the back room. We had a death here only last night. She’s praying.’
‘Who died? The old woman?’
Eddie nodded. Jonah smiled and said, ‘My sympathies. Could you call your wife in here please?’
‘I told you, she’s praying.’
‘I’d like to see her please.’
‘She’s not gone anywhere,’ Eddie urged. ‘I’ll call out to her. Carmel!’
A yes came from the back bedroom. Carmel removed the sheet that was over Myrna’s face, she picked up the cold and lifeless hand and pleaded, ‘Help us, help us.’
It was enough for Jonah, hearing the voice from the room.
‘We’ll leave her where she is,’ he granted. ‘For the time being.’
The kettle whistled.
‘I’ll make that tea now,’ Eddie said.
The pot was drunk and the night grew darker. Eddie tried to keep the calm in his voice and movements.
‘We could do with whiskey,’ Eddie said soothing. ‘We could do with it now.’
‘Have you any?’ Jonah looked at him and looked through him.
‘I have,’ Eddie whispered. ‘It’s in the kitchen.’
‘Get it,’ Jonah said softly.
There was half a bottle. Eddie wondered whether to pour some of it off, down the sink, or whether to give it all to Jonah. He was still deliberating when the voice came.
‘Now. Get back here now.’
Eddie went to the back door, called, ‘Coming!’ as he unbolted it.
It opened.
Eddie came back with two tumblers. Jonah waited as he filled them and watched and sipped.
The hour slipped by and Jonah did not stop until there was an empty bottle. Eddie had matched him for every second drink.
‘Waiting,’ Jonah said, ‘is a boring business.’
Eddie nodded.
The drink had rubbed off the edges of Jonah’s need. But the ache was still there and the ache grew into a pain in his head that pounded against his temples. His stomach was cramped and rough gas rose up to the back of his throat. He rubbed his hands at his temples and his stomach heaved and he leaned forward and retched.
‘Have you eaten all day?’ said Eddie. ‘I could get you a sandwich.’
‘I couldn’t eat. What man could eat when his own father and his own woman go off together? What man could eat with all that goes on against him?’
Eddie nodded.
‘I will have words with her about that. She should not have done that.’
Jonah looked at him.
‘You’re not her father.’
‘God, no.’
‘Then you’ll say nothing to her. She is my concern now.’
Eddie rubbed his damp hands along his thighs.
‘When did you start going with her?’
Jonah did not answer. There was silence for a time. Then Jonah said, ‘She is not worth this.’
Eddie was quick to agree. ‘You’d be better off with someone else.’
‘I chose her. You cannot help who you choose.’ Then it happened. Jonah’s stomach heaved and his head pounded and it seemed as if I would never come home and he roared suddenly, ‘Get your wife out here! She’s been hours in there.’
‘Listen,’
Eddie spoke with the care a cat walks a thin ledge. ‘You have no row with her. Leave her out of it and we’ll sort this out together – man to man.’
‘Get her out I tell you.’ Jonah drew out the gun from his coat and then the long blade. ‘Get her out here.’
Eddie called Carmel. Carmel let the hand of Myrna fall. Myrna did not rise to help them. Myrna did not turn to watch Carmel leave the room.
Carmel went to Eddie and Eddie took her hand.
‘That’s nice,’ Jonah said. ‘Tell me about your daughter.’
Carmel looked at Eddie, Jonah sprang from his chair and pulled her by the hair towards him.
‘Tell. Me. About. Your. Daughter.’
Eddie reached for Jonah’s other arm.
‘Get off her, get off her now. You’re making it worse for yourself.’
Jonah threw Carmel back in the chair.
‘Did you warn her that I was here? Did she come back another way? What is taking them so long?’
Jonah began walking up and down. Then he stopped and turned to Carmel again, who was weeping softly and curled up on herself in the chair.
‘What sort of woman allows her daughter to take up with an old man?’
He moved towards Carmel carrying the blade, which glinted in the firelight. Carmel reached for Eddie.
‘Easy now,’ Eddie whispered, trying to keep the fear from his own voice.
‘I’ll be easy when she talks. Talk woman, talk about your daughter.’
Carmel looked at Jonah.
‘My daughter is Sive.’
Jonah smiled.
‘And what else can you tell me?’
Carmel wiped her eyes and watched the fire reflected in the blade, and it was to that fire she spoke.
‘You don’t need my daughter. Have me. I know what to do. I’ve done it before, many times. I know what to do, I do what makes you happy.’
‘I don’t want you,’ Jonah’s lips curled around the words. ‘I don’t want what any man can have. Sive had you for an example. No wonder,’ he licked his dry lips.
Eddie put his head in his hands.
‘We could all do with another drink, Carmel,’ he said softly.
The overhead light was uncovered, it cast harshness all about, and there were no welcoming shadows to shrink into.
‘Get the other bottle of whiskey, Carmel,’ Eddie repeated. ‘In the kitchen. The one by the door.’
The Lost Souls' Reunion Page 24
