Himself

by Jess Kidd

  She watches with wonder as the cloud of soot comes to a halt at the foot of her bed. It hangs there for a while, arranging itself into a denser patch of a darker pitch. The morning light catches the particles as they move, giving the cloud a showy kind of shimmer. Mrs Cauley leans forward and pokes it with her walking stick. It quivers for a moment then re-forms.

  An excitable person, thinks Mrs Cauley, with a cracked sort of nature, would remark on the fact that the soot is taking on a definite kind of shape there. Mrs Cauley scratches her scalp as a wolfhound-shaped cloud of soot cocks its head to one side and looks back at her.

  Something catches Mahony’s eye: a waist-high blur moving parallel to him in the field beyond. When Mahony stops, the blur stops too.

  ‘Let me take a piss, Desmond.’ Mahony walks over and the blur draws nearer to waver behind a stone wall.

  He stares at it. ‘Ida?’

  Her face is unfocused, blurred. All Mahony can really make out is the blue of her cardigan and a blotch of bright hair. Her voice comes to him low and hissy. ‘Get away. Go home. You will get hurted. He will hurt you.’

  Mahony glances over his shoulder. Desmond is holding the map at arm’s length and squinting through a lopsided pair of glasses. ‘Wha’ him?’

  The blur dances, its voice an angry sob. ‘You’ll get hurted. To death even.’

  Mahony realises that Ida is stamping with frustration.

  ‘We’re going into the forest to look for Thomas Sweeney.’

  ‘No.’

  The blur suddenly fades.

  ‘Ida?’

  He can’t see her but he knows that she’s still there and that she’s frightened. He can feel it. He can feel the careful step of her foot on broken twigs and the folding of her dimpled knees as she crawls further inside a sprawling hawthorn. He knows that she is hunkering down and covering her ears. He can almost hear her hum her happy tune.

  He walks back to Desmond, who looks up, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his forefinger.

  ‘If we cut across the next field there’s a path that should take us to the river. Thomas has his main residence due north from there, and then there are a couple of probable boltholes I know of. We should cover them all in a few hours.’

  ‘Right so,’ says Mahony, and puts his hand in his back pocket to check for the haft of his knife.

  In the fields around Rathmore House the swallows have started flying into the ground. They lie with their wings snapped, dying in the furrows, with their feet curling and their eyes turning filmy.

  Inside the house every fireplace, from the shell-shaped affairs in the bedrooms to the grand marble job in the library, is expectorating extravagantly.

  From soft terminal gasps to the heartiest of coughs, every fireplace joins in and together they raise great marauding packs of soot clouds.

  Mrs Cauley roars muffled commands from her wheelchair, where she sits with her head wrapped in a bed sheet like a geriatric Lawrence of Arabia. Shauna makes do with a pair of knickers; she has the leg holes hooked over each ear. With streaming eyes she raises her broom and curses each outpouring that rushes through her legs.

  Neither of them is surprised that in a moment of crisis a man is nowhere to be found.

  Soon the soot is everywhere.

  It bounds over beds and under doors and licks at the windows. It rolls down the stairs fighting and tangles itself up in the curtains. It wags itself apart over occasional tables and lies doggo beneath sideboards or under rocking chairs.

  ‘Go and find Bridget Doosey,’ Mrs Cauley says to Shauna, her voice made distant by the bed sheet. ‘There’s something fishy about all of this.’

  They speak little. Desmond frets with the map from time to time, wondering which field to cross, or if they are too far down to catch the right path. Mahony drops behind to watch him. Surely the man’s harmless?

  But he could be a giant if he pulled back his shoulders and sometimes there’s a desperate kind of look in the eyes that squint out from behind the glasses.

  Mahony searches in his pocket for a fag and sets to light one, hardly hearing the car draw up alongside.

  ‘You all right there, fella?’ Jack Brophy leans an elbow out of his squad car.

  Mahony realises that he’s walking alone. Where Desmond has vanished to is a mystery but Mahony doesn’t miss a beat. ‘I’m grand, Jack, yourself?’

  ‘Grand. Enjoying this bit of weather?’

  Mahony nods and looks up at the sky, a rain-washed blue without a hint of cloud.

  Jack smiles. ‘Where are you heading?’

  ‘Nowhere. A bit of a stroll just.’

  ‘A stroll, is it?’ Jack slaps the side of the door with the flat of his hand and nudges the car into gear. ‘Well, give my regards to Desmond behind the wall there.’

  The squad car bounces over the tracks up towards Annie Farelly’s.

  Desmond stands up behind the wall.

  ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ says Mahony.

  Desmond gives Mahony a cock-eyed look.

  ‘Jesus wept, will you give me that map, Desmond? Come on.’

  All over town the strangest things are happening.

  In Mulderrig Post Office and General Stores spiders are swarming. From big square russetty house spiders to dotbodied spindle shanks spiders, from flying spiders to money spiders, it is clear to Marie Gaughan that every last arachnid in Mulderrig has arrived at her shop.

  Now Marie is not a woman of a nervous disposition, but the sight of great regiments of spiders marching over the tinned peas and the packets of semolina is enough to send anyone on the turn. She throws down her mop and locks herself in the back room, pressing newspapers into the crack under the door and chain-smoking menthol cigarettes with a shaking hand.

  An army of rats is marching across the basement of Kerrigan’s Bar. Tadhg has never seen the like of it before. He puts on an oven glove and reaches down to pick one up. Its legs keep moving like a wind-up toy. The rat snarls like a bad Elvis impersonator; Tadhg shudders and puts it down.

  In the parochial house Róisín Munnelly hides under the table as a colony of bats swirl around the kitchen. They land on the floor and drag themselves towards her on leathery knuckles; she swipes at them with a dishcloth.

  A clan of badgers knock Michael Hopper down on the Carrigfine road.

  Mrs Moran is nearly drowned by a labour of moles. They surge across the lawn in velvet waves as she stands weeping on a garden chair.

  Mulderrig proclaims that nature has turned insane.

  Mrs Cauley, unaware of these aberrations of nature, has been singing lullabies to the fireplaces. The fireplaces, becalmed by her golden voice, have stopped expectorating and started listening. So that by the time Shauna appears in the hallway with Bridget Doosey, the outpouring of soot is no more than the odd dyspeptic burp and the occasional smutty cackle.

  Bridget Doosey sucks air through her teeth. Shauna begins to cry.

  Mrs Cauley rolls her eyes. ‘It’s only a bit of soot. Dry your arse and wheel me into the kitchen. You might as well cut us a few sandwiches while you’re standing about wailing. Doosey, you get the medicinal brandy out and pour us all a large one.’

  Shauna sits down at the kitchen table and takes a deep breath. She fans her hands over the oilcloth, lowering each finger in turn. She is surprised at how dirty it is; she makes handprints in the fine dusting of black.

  There is a hot draft on her ankles and she lifts up the edge of the tablecloth. Underneath the table a dog-shaped cloud of soot turns belly up for a scratch.

  ‘Oh God, there’s all soot under here.’

  Mrs Cauley nods. ‘Yes, but that’s an Irish wolfhound.’

  Shauna knocks back her drink in one.

  Bridget looks under the table. ‘I’d say that was more of a terrier.’ She pours another brandy. ‘Of course, this isn’t normal soot. It’s a sign.’

  ‘What sort of sign?’ Shauna wails.

  ‘A sign that a terribl
e storm is coming,’ says Bridget.

  Shauna points to the window. ‘But there’s a clear blue sky.’

  Bridget nods, ‘And doesn’t it seem harmless? Don’t be fooled, Shauna. There’s a tempest on its way that will level this town.’

  Mrs Cauley wipes her face with a corner of her sooty kaftan. ‘Well, we’d better get another one down our gullets then, for fortification.’

  By the time Jack Brophy arrives Mrs Cauley is in the drawing room conducting the Glenn Miller Orchestra on the record player and Bridget Doosey is flapping the soot back up the chimney with an ornamental parasol. Upstairs, Shauna is dancing and coughing along the corridors with a wicker rug beater, her pink-rimmed eyes streaming.

  All of them are twisted on brandy.

  Jack returns to his car and comes back up the drive holding a gas mask confiscated from an armed robber in Castlebar. Shauna puts it on with a whoop of delight and waltzes off again.

  Bridget raises a vase full of brandy. ‘Chin, chin,’ she roars.

  Jack laughs. ‘I won’t ask. May I?’

  Mrs Cauley nods and Jack turns off the record player. From the hallway they can hear the muffled strains of a song of Shauna’s own design.

  Mrs Cauley smiles up at him, her face filthy and her eyes bright. ‘To what do we owe this pleasure, Jack?’

  Jack takes off his cap. ‘I’m afraid I’m not here on pleasure, Merle.’ He glances at Bridget Doosey.

  Mrs Cauley waves her hand. ‘Say your piece, Jack, don’t mind that old crow, she knows all my business soon enough anyway.’

  Jack puts his cap down on the table and runs his fingers through his hair. ‘Someone matching Mahony’s description was involved in a robbery this morning.’

  Mrs Cauley stops smiling. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Gavaghan’s Wholesale was turned over.’

  Bridget anchors her broom in the middle of the Persian carpet. ‘On the Carrigfine road?’

  Jack nods. ‘There’s a witness. The assistant caught the thief red-handed and took a hiding for it. He’s up in the hospital now.’

  ‘What has this to do with us, Jack?’

  ‘The witness gave Mahony’s description, Merle.’ Jack says quietly.

  Mrs Cauley shakes her head. ‘No way; it wasn’t Mahony.’

  Bridget sweeps herself forward. ‘He must be mistaken.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ says Jack. ‘But it’s my duty to check it out. You understand that, don’t you, Merle?’

  Mrs Cauley nods slightly.

  Jack puts his cap back on. ‘Is he here? I’d like a word with him.’

  Mrs Cauley purses her lips. ‘He’s not in at the moment.’

  ‘Have you seen him this morning?’

  ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘Time? Oh come on.’ Mrs Cauley gestures around the room. ‘I’ve had my hands full, Jack, as you can see.’

  ‘I see. Is it OK if I go up to his room? Take a look around?’

  Mrs Cauley looks doubtful.

  ‘I could come back later with a warrant?’

  ‘I’ll call Shauna.’

  ‘There’s no need to bother her. I’ll go on up myself. I know the way. The guest room to the front of the house?’

  Mrs Cauley draws herself up in her wheelchair. ‘What did you say the name of the witness was?’

  Jack goes out of the door. ‘I didn’t.’

  As Jack gets into the squad car he holds his hand up to Bridget at the window.

  Bridget drops the net curtain. ‘I don’t know why he’s smiling, when there’s a biblical variety of storm coming.’

  Mrs Cauley frowns.

  Bridget pulls on her cardigan. ‘Now don’t fret. Mahony wouldn’t get involved in that kind of thing. You know that. There are a thousand Irishmen fitting his description: tallish, dark and handsome.’

  ‘Of course it’s not bloody Mahony. Someone’s trying to frame him.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  Mrs Cauley looks up. ‘Something doesn’t feel right. With him.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘That one, Brophy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’

  ‘Well then, neither do I.’ Bridget ties a scarf about her head, tucking her sooty hair under it. ‘You worry about that lad too much. Mahony is cast iron, you know that.’

  Mrs Cauley nods. Thoughtful.

  ‘I’m off home to shut the felines in. I’d advise you to batten down your hatches, old lady.’

  Mrs Cauley, already a million miles away, waves her hand. ‘Leave that bottle where I can reach it, Doosey.’

  Chapter 40

  May 1976

  The portents are right, as portents usually are, whether anyone heeds them or not: later on that day a biblical storm hits Mulderrig.

  Down by the quay the fishermen are stunned. For in the space of a rapid fart the waves in the bay have gone from flat to grown. Above them the lightning is hopping and the thunder comes in sudden deafening peals. The wind slams past them, forcing their eyes shut and ripping the nets from their hands and the caps from their heads. It’s all they can do to stagger back up the quay, and when they fall in through the door of Kerrigan’s it takes three of them to close it behind them.

  Bridget Doosey listens to the storm roar with her windows closed and her back door bolted. She has cats under the quilt, an illustrated guide to forensic toxicology and a freshly wicked lamp for the night ahead.

  She shakes her head and thinks about the poor women with their wash out and their knickers all blown away in the blink of an eye. She considers the farmers in the fields, holding on for dear life to a cow, or a sheep, or a goat, or a gate. She hums a Patsy Cline song to the kittens huddled at her armpit. And what of the young ones who’ve crept into the forest for a bit of loving? You wouldn’t want to be out in this with your trousers round your ankles. You’d take it as divine punishment and you’d never get your flute out again. Or, just think it, the mammies with the babies squalling terrified in their prams. Oh Lord, imagine them, dropping shopping and grabbing little Martin and Michael. Running up the hill with the storm at their heels. Ah Jesus, run, save yourselves, save your children.

  She wonders why she didn’t see it coming, having fireplaces of her own and being used to keeping an eye out for such things.

  A thought suddenly strikes Bridget.

  She eases herself out from under her cats, wanders over to the fireplace and runs her finger along the hearthstone. There’s dust, dead moths and cat hair.

  But not a speck of soot.

  So there’s more to this storm than meets the eye, and Bridget Doosey is betting it has most to do with one particular occupant of Rathmore House. And so, cursing her meddling tendencies, Bridget puts on her good gripping boots and winds herself into a sheet of tarpaulin the size of a topgallant. Then, taking hold of a stout walking stick and thanking the Good Lord for the ballast in her behind, Bridget Doosey sets sail for Rathmore House.

  It was no surprise to Shauna that the men of Rathmore House were nowhere to be found the moment she needed a bit of help. She’d to get every one of the animals in herself. Blown all ways across the courtyard with a chicken under every arm and the roof tiles skittering along the ground after her.

  Shauna sits at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in her hand.

  Apart from the rioting storm, all is quiet at Rathmore House.

  Mrs Cauley has fashioned herself a pair of earplugs from the obituary page of the Western People and settled down with her suspect list to embark on a bit of ratiocination. Apart from her usual demands for leg rubs and advocaat cocktails Shauna knows she’ll get no further conversation from the old woman.

  Shauna closes her eyes and listens as the house sings the backing vocals to the song of the storm outside. Floorboards groan and windowpanes shudder. Somewhere a door slams in time while the keyholes whistle the high notes. And then a loud banging starts: fast, near, persistent. Shauna opens h
er eyes and lets out a cry of horror.

  A beast is hurling itself against the back door.

  It’s clawing at the door handle and fogging up the glass. It screams out to her with two twisted mouths and kicks the doorframe with its many tangled limbs.

  Desmond and Bridget sit in the chairs Shauna has drawn up for them at the foot of Mrs Cauley’s bed. They each hold a full glass. The pair met on the road to Rathmore House and helped each other through the storm. Bridget is blithely smoking a cigarette with her feet up on a footstool. Desmond is still insensible.

  Mrs Cauley watches Desmond closely; she knows that expression. ‘Desmond, look at me.’

  He shudders. ‘It’s my fault he’s out there.’

  Mrs Cauley nods. ‘It is of course.’

  ‘A man is out there alone in the forest because of me. Lost and in danger. I must go and search for him.’ Desmond makes a half-arsed attempt to shake off the blanket tucked around his knees.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing, Daddy. You’ll sit there and dry off.’ Shauna flicks at him with her tea towel as she bends to put an ashtray next to Bridget’s elbow. ‘Listen to Mrs Cauley, she’s already told you there’s nothing you can do.’

  Bridget exhales and waves her cigarette at him. ‘What you have to understand, Desmond, is that this is Mahony we’re talking about. He’s a Dublin orphan, which means that he could survive on an iceberg in just his socks. You, on the other hand, are as helpless as a fruit fly out there.’

  Desmond lets out a soft whine. ‘How can you know that?’

  Bridget sneers and downs her whiskey. ‘Aside from that is the obvious fact that this is no ordinary storm; it has a design to it: a supernatural design. This storm is here to help Mahony, not finish him off.’

  Desmond looks at her in bewilderment. ‘I don’t even know what you are talking about.’

  Mrs Cauley sits herself up in the bed and frowns at him. ‘That’s enough, Desmond. Be quiet now.’

  Bridget holds up her empty glass to Shauna for another. ‘A supernatural variety of storm will always be heralded by rolling clouds of soot from every fireplace and a rake of diving swallows. Exactly like today, eh?’