Tara got Mavis in a bear hug, pinning her arms down by her sides. The pensioner then attempted to throw a kick into Bunny instead.
He looked up at them with wide eyes and a wounded, lost expression, his lazy left eye only adding to the air of despair. "I don't… how can… I'll fix this."
Tara felt Mavis relax in her arms again. Her anger turning to despair. "And how're ye going to do that? We waited for ye last night. Kept believing you'd turn up. That you'd sort it. How could you…"
Her voice trailed off.
Bunny stared at the ground.
"I'm… sorry." He spoke it in a whisper to the cold concrete floor.
"I'd have never believed…" said Mavis. "After all we went through. All them kids, where are they going to go now? All this time. You made 'em believe in you and then you… ‘tis cruel."
Tara released Mavis, and the older woman started to straighten her clothing.
"I'll…" said Bunny.
"You'll what?" asked Mavis.
Tara had never seen a man look so pathetic. Truth be told, she'd not known Bunny McGarry that long, but for the two months she'd been working at O'Hagan’s he'd been a regular fixture. Larger than life, big, bold, uncouth – yet touched with a kind of ferocious, wild-eyed charm. All gone now. He looked truly lost, staring into an empty distance.
When Mavis spoke, it was almost in a whisper. "The vote, there was hardly anybody on our side. Even the ones who'd promised, who'd… they all screwed us."
"You could get a lawyer?" said Tara.
"What's that gonna do?" said Mavis. "They've got twenty and we couldn't afford the one."
"How much did you lose by?"
Mavis looked at Tara, a couple of expressions flickering across her face.
"We didn't."
Bunny looked up at them, watery eyes full of hope.
Mavis glanced into her handbag as she spoke, feigning obliviousness to the two pairs of eyes now fixed on her. "As it happens, the fire alarm in City Hall went off before the vote could be completed. The building had to be evacuated."
"You set off a fire alarm?"
"No," said Mavis. "There really was a fire. By the way, someone…" she looked pointedly at Bunny before continuing, "will need to give our Janet's Darren a proper scare when this is done about playing with matches. He's been sent some of them whatcha-me-call-its… mixed signals."
"Ah, Mavis," said Bunny. "I could kiss you."
Bunny made to get up.
"You stay the fuck away from me with that sewer of a mouth of yours, Bunny McGarry. All I did was delay the inevitable. Every one of those bastards was voting against us, and they will do on Monday night at the rescheduled vote, I'm sure."
"I'll sort this."
Tara heard a crash in the bar outside.
"Boys!" roared Mavis. Tara and Bunny winced, albeit for different reasons. "You've got three days, Bunny. Our Lord came back from the dead in that time; pull out a miracle or so help me, you're going the other way."
Bunny beamed up at them with a disconcerting smile.
"Not a problem. Tara love, could you get me my trousers, please?"
"Ehm…" said Tara, "You weren't wearing any when you came in, Bunny."
"Right. Could you get me someone else's trousers then, please?"
Chapter Six
Two tubs of ice cream: Chunky Monkey and Cookie Dough – check
Two bottles of wine: one red, one rosé – check
Two massive brick-sized bars of chocolate – check
One box of donuts – check
One bottle of vodka, silly flavour optional – check
Phone locked in cupboard to prevent drunk dialling – check
Sweat pants – check
Saw Doctors T-shirt, two sizes too big – check
Six episodes of ‘Don't Tell The Bride’ recorded – check
One curry ordered, offensively hot – check
God, she loved a list – she really did! The trick, thought Brigit, to a proper pity party was planning. You couldn't totally mess up your life and then just improvise a full-on splurge of misery, you had to think it through beforehand. Yes, she had no job, no man, no future – but she did really know how to let herself go. She took pride in that.
She'd walked straight out of that disciplinary committee and made a list. Well, actually, she had said goodbye to a couple of the girls with the joyously demented air of a lottery winner, keyed Letch's BMW in the car park and then had a bit of a cry on the bus home. But after that, she had made a list. As she looked at it now, four hours later, she was still bloody proud of it. Fucking good list.
Everything was going according to plan. She'd polished off the bottle of red wine, one of the ice creams and all of the donuts, save for the one she had thrown at an episode of Don't Tell the Bride. She had done a lot of shouting at that show. It was perfect for her purposes. Watching men plan a wedding by completely ignoring their wife-to-be's every wish, and instead giving their nuptials a Formula One/zombie/reggae theme was a wonderful reminder of what a waste of oxygen they were. Admittedly, there had been a bit of a hiccup when she hadn't realised that an episode had ended, and she’d spent quite a while shouting 'Leave the bastard!' at what turned out to be a Panorama special on prison reform. To be fair, while it was an odd theme for a wedding, it was by no means the worst.
Brigit belched, which gave her a handy reminder that she must have eaten one of the bricks of chocolate at some point too. She was also halfway through the bottle of rosé. She was very drunk, and having a bloody wonderful time chasing highly-calorific oblivion. Phase Two – where she would inevitably throw up, followed by her Indian food being delivered – was bang on schedule. The rookie mistake in this situation was to have your Indian food first, then get stuck into the “death by chocolate” portion of the evening.
"No, no, no," she said, and then realised she wasn't talking to anyone. Mind you, the bloke on telly had just told the bridesmaids that they had to buy their own dresses, because he'd rented a fucking paintball arena.
"Prick!" she shouted.
This was the Conroy system; you had your Indian food after your drunken chunder (number one) because ice cream left a decent aftertaste, whereas recycled tandoori left the kind of sour reminder that could wreck a good drunken buzz. This was the upside of repeatedly getting screwed over by people you trusted, you really learned how to bring your A-game to the post-apocalyptic pile-on.
The doorbell rang. The Indian food was early, or late, or… the clock was being unhelpfully vague.
Brigit dragged herself to her feet. Right – bit early – but OK. She'd take the food, pay the nice man and then go talk to Huey on the big white telephone. Having stood up, she realised it was about that time. She hung onto the wall for a bit, until gravity stopped pissing about.
OK, good. She had planned ahead for this bit too, drunken genius that she was. The thirty euros was sitting beside the door. The food had come to a lot less than that but she factored in a big tip, as she was inevitably going to make a drunkenly suggestive remark to the terrified delivery guy. That was fine, but this time – she was not going to do the accent. That had been a real low point the last time. OK, good. She could do this. She adjusted her boobs a bit, then felt something funny. There was a moment of terror when she found what appeared to be a lump, but it was soon replaced with the joy of finding a chunk of chocolate that had somehow made its way into her bra. She scoffed it then patted herself down.
The doorbell rang again.
"I'm coming, ye prick!" OK, easy now. The delivery guy had done nothing wrong. Well, assuming he was a bloke, he almost certainly had… but not to her.
She moved forward with more speed than she had intended, and fell into the coat-stand a bit. She steadied herself, picked up the money and opened the door.
Standing in the hallway was Paul.
"Jesus!" she screamed, before hurling the money at him and slamming the door closed.
On many an early-morning commu
te to the job she now no longer had, Brigit had planned in exquisite detail what it would be like the next time she saw the cheating scumbag. She would be:
Sixteen pounds lighter;
Fabulous, and;
On the arm of a ridiculously muscular but highly sensitive beast of a man. On a particularly weak morning, she had looked through the pictures of the Leinster rugby squad and narrowed it down to three.
In none of those situations had she taken Our Lord’s name in vain, thrown money at Paul and then slammed the door. There had briefly been a different version of a plan for tonight that had involved something like that happening, but then she had sensibly crossed ‘order male stripper’ off her list. She planned to stay classy, at least as far as anyone else knew.
She risked a sideways glance at the mirror beside the door and then quickly stared back at the floor. It was as bad as she had feared. Her mind started unhelpfully assembling another list: red wine mouth – check; inevitable ice cream on face – check; donut dust and chocolate stains on T-shirt – check; hair a mess – check; and… oh God, she really fucking hated lists!
Brigit started softly banging her head against the door.
Wait – maybe she'd imagined it? Drunk people hallucinate things all the time. That was definitely a thing that happened.
"Brigit, are you OK?" said a familiar voice from behind the door.
Oh fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
"Yeah," said Brigit, with all the confidence she didn't feel, "I'm fine, and I don't need you ye… ye… prick! So piss off!"
"I can't leave," said Paul through the door.
Brigit took a look around her. Oh God, she hadn't…
No. This was definitely her apartment. For one horrible second she thought she had gone looking for him. That would have been pathetic.
"You and… your prick… ye prick… can prick off." C'mon, thought Brigit, you know way better swear words than that. Pull it together, girl!
"Bunny is missing," said Paul.
"Missing what?"
"No, missing. As in missing, as in nobody can find him."
"Like hide 'n' seek?"
"He has disappeared."
"So?" said Brigit, thinking to herself, why don't you go find him Paul? Oh yeah, because you've no idea how to be a detective. Oh, she should have said that out loud. That would have been a good one.
"So," said Paul, "I've no idea how to find him. I don't know how to be a detective."
Damn it!
"I need your help," he continued. "Look, can you open the door so we can talk about this?"
"No!" said Brigit, stamping her foot for emphasis. "I'm never, ever opening this door or anything else to you ever again, ye… prick!" Seriously – she knew hundreds of swear words. She had three older brothers. "Me and my friends are having a party and then later, a man is going to deliver some Indian food and… and, I'm going to have sex with him!"
"OK," said Paul. "The delivery guy is actually here with your food. He's standing right beside me."
"Right, good. Tell him I will be with him presently."
"Ehm… he's gone again."
"Not him," said Brigit. "A different guy. He plays rugby for Leinster."
"And he delivers Indian food?"
"Shut up!" said Brigit, "shut the hell up! You don't get to break my heart and then come around here and make me feel stupid. I feel stupid enough when you're not here ye… ye… oh for… what's another word like prick?"
"Arsehole?" said Paul.
"Thank you," said Brigit. "Arsehole!"
"I know all that Brigit, and I'm sorry, I really am, more than I can ever say… but Bunny is missing and I've no idea how to find him. The Gardaí don't care and I'm scared, all right? I've not got the first clue what to do. You're way smarter than me, and you understand this stuff."
"You're damn right," she said, punching the door with her fist. "I'm a… a… bloody good detective, probably… maybe. Never really had the chance. But I would have been!"
"So please," said Paul, "help me find Bunny."
"No!" she said. Even drunk as she was, she could hear how petulant her own voice sounded. "Not helping you do anything. I will find Bunny. You can… shut the hell up!"
Brigit nodded her head at the closed door. She may have started badly, but she was rallying. "I will do it. Me. On my own."
"OK" said Paul.
"You…" said Brigit, "I need you for absolutely nothing! Nothing! Although, write down the stuff about the… y'know and push it through the letterbox. Details and things."
"You don't have a letterbox."
"Are you giving me cheek?!"
"No Brigit. Sorry Brigit."
"Write it down, and I will deal with it tomorrow."
"OK."
"Now piss off you… you…"
"Arsehole?" said Paul.
"Yeah. That!"
"OK."
Brigit stood there and quietly listened to the soft rustling sounds from outside in the hall. Then she watched as a folded A4 piece of paper was slipped under the door. Then she listened for a couple of more minutes as Paul stood out in the hall. Then she heard him head down the stairs and out the main door.
And then she went and threw up.
Chapter Seven
"Hoi, sleepy bollocks!"
Paul awoke to the unpleasant sensation of a hurling stick jabbing him in the ribs. His eyelids flickered open to catch a brief snatch of perfect azure sky, before Bunny McGarry’s bulbous face loomed into view and eclipsed everything else. Even by his high standards for incandescent fury, Bunny seemed angry.
"Bunny?" said Paul.
"Feck me, there's no end to the master detective's powers of deduction. Yes, ye skinny-arsed soap-dodger, Daddy's home. And what the fuck is this bullshit?"
Bunny stepped back and Paul looked around him. He was on a beach, surrounded by a perfect summer's day. He was sitting in one of those old-school deckchairs that were really nothing more than a length of cloth dangling from a basic frame; the ones that offered nothing in the way of lumbar support. Bunny McGarry was standing in front of him holding a hurling stick in one hand, which was no great surprise, while wearing a figure-hugging red dress, which was. It didn't look good on him. While the garment was supposed to cling, in Bunny's case it appeared to be doing so for dear life. His beer belly protruded unflatteringly over the waistline. He appeared to be one good sneeze away from Incredible Hulking the whole thing to shreds. The red also clashed with his face. Anybody who had ever been a member of the St Jude's under-12s hurling team had learned a sample colour chart of the shades of Bunny McGarry as a matter of survival. His face was currently a 'run for your life' deep burgundy.
"Ehm," said Paul, "I think this is a dream."
Bunny threw his hands out in exaggerated frustration. "Of course it's a fecking dream, ye shandy-drinking shite-sipper, are you suggesting I'd wear this by choice?"
"It's …"
Paul glanced to the left. His mysterious, unnamed client – the woman he was refusing to refer to as the lady in red – was now sitting there, sipping on a cocktail and showing little interest in proceedings. She was wearing the same dress. The Devil in the Red Dress; those words stuck in his head, like a half-remembered song.
"See," said Paul, "it's a reminder of her."
"Great," said Bunny. "I've done a Lord Lucan and you're trying to get your hole off some low-end Kim Basinger wannabe."
Paul tried to stand up but found he couldn't.
"No, it's just… I got…"
"Ara – stop whining. At least you've got someone who knows her arse from her elbow looking for me now."
Paul glanced to his left again. Brigit was now sitting beside his client, in an identical deckchair and an identical dress. When he saw her, an icy bolt of shame and regret shot through his chest. Not that she wouldn't have looked good anyway, but he wondered if his subconscious was photoshopping the image a little, to maximise his rightly deserved pain. Brigit gave the other woman a disparaging s
ideways glance before focusing on the phone she held in her hand. Paul didn't need to see the screen to know what she was looking at. She was flicking through those pictures again. Every time she swiped forward, she shot him a look of pure hatred that felt like a punch in the solar plexus.
Bunny pointed the hurl at Brigit. "That's assuming, of course, she is willing to temporarily put aside her anger at you and your wandering penis."
"Brigit," said Paul, "I'm so sorry. I don't know how… I don't remember. I didn't…"
"Oh for feck’s sake," exclaimed Bunny loudly, "I'm the one who has disappeared, and you're all 'me me me, wah wah wah' – grow a pair, would ye?"
"Alright," said Paul, "what do you want from me, Bunny?"
Bunny lowered his voice. "I need you to go on a spiritual journey; to forego all material excess and become one with the universe. Only then will you find your spirit guide, an animal that'll show you the path to enlightenment."
"Really?"
Bunny barked a laugh. "Yeah – I'm all about that dead-guy-in-a-bathtub Jim Morrision Wankanory bollocks. What you need to do is pull your head out of your arse."
That did sound more like him. "But I've no idea how to find you."
"No kidding. That's why you need Miss Leitrim over there. Getting her involved is the only thing you've got right so far. Let her get on with it. She ain't gonna let you in until she is good and ready; she made that very fecking clear."
"So, what do I do in the meantime?"
"Your actual fecking job. You've got a client and the rather urgent need to get the moolah to set up the agency, which is a key step in your awful plan to get the woman you love back and have something approaching a life. What did I always tell you, back in your hurling days?"
"If the ref doesn't see it, it didn't happen?"
"No."
"Whack it and hope for the best?"
"No!"
Paul looked up at Bunny who was pouting down at him, his lips pressed together in an ominously familiar, tight seal; like he was doing all in his power to hold back the inevitable wave of sweary invectives. It was ingrained in Paul's psyche that if you gave Bunny the wrong answer on the first two attempts, then keep quiet. Three was never the charm.
The Day That Never comes (The Dublin Trilogy Book 2) Page 6
