Fegan reached up and took my hand from his shoulder. “It’s not me.”
He got off the stool and turned to the exit. I went after him, hopping and limping to catch him up.
“What was it, a crowbar?”
He kept walking. I reached into my pocket and found the handle of the plastic box cutter, the one I used at the warehouse. My thumb settled on the button.
“Whatever it was, it did the trick. I couldn’t walk for a year. My father had to carry me to the toilet. You better stop, Gerry.”
The box cutter came out of my pocket, the blade sliding out from the orange plastic handle with a stutter of tiny clicks. Fegan reached the door.
“Stop, you bastard.”
He looked back over his shoulder and saw the blade in my hand.
“Easy, Sean,” Mickey called from somewhere behind me.
Fegan turned his body to face me.
“So, what are you doing here?” I asked. “It was on the news last month. All the old crew, McKenna and McGinty, all that lot. There was a feud. Someone did them in. Is that it, Gerry? Did you run away in case whoever did them came after you? Did it all catch up to you?”
My hand trembled with adrenaline, my voice shook with hate and fear. I had dreamed of this, of taking from Gerry Fegan what he took from me.
“You didn’t run far enough,” I said.
Fegan took one step forward so the blade quivered beneath his chin. “No,” he said. “I can never run far enough.”
I felt Mickey’s lumbering presence over my shoulder. “Jesus, Sean, take it easy. Put the knife away.”
Fegan’s eyes locked on mine, cold and shiny and black as oil. No fear leaked from him. One movement of my wrist would open his throat, but the terror was all mine. “He won’t do it,” he said. “He’s not like me.”
I brought the blade closer so it reflected light onto his skin. “I will. I’ll do it.”
“No, you won’t. You can’t.”
What started in my belly as a laugh came out of my mouth as a whimper. “Why not?”
“Because you’re better than me,” he said.
From the corner of my eye I saw Mickey sidle up to us, a baseball bat gripped in both hands. “Sean, put the knife away. Mister, whoever you are, just turn around and get the fuck out of here.”
I felt the tears, then, bubbling up from inside me. Stupid, helpless child’s tears. Hot, scalding tears. “But look what he did to me. Just for a dance. I danced with the wrong girl and look what he did to me.”
A memory moved behind Fegan’s eyes. “McKenna told me to do it. He never said why.”
“So?” The words hitched in my throat. My legs threatened to crumble beneath me. “If he’d told you why, would it have made any difference?”
Fegan didn’t think about it for long. “No,” he said.
My legs had trembled all they could, and now they betrayed me. Fegan caught the hand that held the box cutter and let my body fall into his. The knife left my fingers and Fegan’s arms snaked around me. His breath warmed my ear.
“Michael McKenna’s dead now,” he said. “Him and the others, they’re all gone. But it wasn’t a feud. They’ve all paid for what they did. I made sure of it. Everybody pays, sooner or later.”
“Not you,” I hissed. “You haven’t paid.”
“I will.” His arms tightened on me. “But not tonight.”
I had a second or two to wonder where the knife was as Fegan and I danced in the doorway of Treanor’s Bar.
He slipped it into my pocket and his lips brushed my ear as he said, “I’m sorry for what I did.”
Then he was gone.
Mickey’s thick arms took my weight as the door swung closed and the cool night air washed around me. He guided me back to the bar, towards my stool, but I veered to the right, to where the shot of whiskey and pint of Guinness remained untouched. The black beer was still cold as my shaking hands brought it to my mouth.
Like I said, I am not a proud man.
The Catastrophist
Tom Shields sat quiet in the passenger seat, watching the fields roll past the window. Morning rain made tracks along the glass, water chasing water. Reminded Shields that he was thirsty. There hadn’t been time for so much as a cup of tea before they left the house.
Gerry Fegan drove the Ford Granada. Shields could have driven himself, but Paul McGinty had insisted Fegan do it, seeing as Shields didn’t have a license. Neither did Fegan, Shields might have argued, but there were certain men you didn’t argue with. Just accepted their word, even when you knew they were wrong.
The knock on the door had come late last night, waking Nuala. She had cursed as she reached for her cigarettes, an overflowing ashtray on the bedside locker beside the bottle of Buckfast, a few mouthfuls left at the bottom. She had lit the cigarette and swallowed the last of the wine.
Shields stepped around the empty crib on the way to the window. Five months and she still wouldn’t let him take it away. As if Ruairi would somehow reappear there, returned from wherever he’d been. As if he’d never been inside a white box and covered with earth.
They had fought before they went to bed, both of them drunk. Over something so stupid he could barely remember what it was. All he could remember was losing his temper, and unwilling to hit her, he had hit himself, again and again, until his head went light.
He and Nuala had endured the worst tragedy that could befall a person, they had survived it, yet he lost control of himself over something so trivial that it was now lost in the fog. Clearly, it hadn’t seemed trivial at the time. It had seemed terrible enough to make him ball his right hand into a fist and strike his own jaw.
Shields looked down to the street below, saw Paul McGinty and Gerry Fegan waiting beside the Granada.
Downstairs in the kitchen, McGinty laid it out for him. Fegan would be back in the morning, six a.m., to bring Shields down to the border. A young lad had been killed, not one of their own, in a barn in County Monaghan. The barn belonged to Bull O’Kane, and a punishment beating had gone too far.
Now the lad’s family were threatening to kick up a stink. They knew they risked getting the same treatment as their son, but still they wouldn’t quiet down. They wouldn’t go to the cops, they weren’t that stupid, but they were agitating around the border village, in church, in the pub, in the GAA club. The locals were getting riled, questioning the Bull’s authority.
Time to sort it out, McGinty had said. Head down there, figure out what had happened, straighten everything out. Fegan would be the muscle, Shields the mouthpiece.
Shields didn’t like Fegan. Mid-twenties, tall and thin and quiet, a hardness to him that didn’t need bluster to back it up. Fegan might have been fifteen years Shields’s junior, but there was no question who was really in charge here. There were only three men in the world who had ever truly frightened Shields. One had been his father, ten years in his grave now. The other two were Gerry Fegan and Bull O’Kane, and not long from now, Shields would have to be in a room with both of them.
“Christ,” he whispered.
Fegan turned his gaze away from the road for a moment, then back again. He said nothing. Fegan hardly ever said anything.
They had planned a route this morning while Nuala slept upstairs. A Collins road atlas laid out on the kitchen table. A contact in the RUC had supplied a list of police and army checkpoints, and Fegan and Shields had mapped a way around them.
“Not long now,” Fegan said as the road markings changed.
They had quietly, secretly crossed the border. Soon Fegan steered onto a single-track lane, the car rocking and rattling over the rough surface. After five minutes they came to a single storey cottage, a few outbuildings surrounding it. A Land Rover stood in the yard, its tyres and doors caked in mud.
“Was it here?” Shields asked as the car slowed in front of th
e house.
“Yeah,” Fegan said, pointing. “That big shed.”
Fegan applied the handbrake, shut off the engine.
The front door of the cottage opened, and Bull O’Kane stepped through, his bulk taking up almost all its frame. A flat cap pulled down low and tight on his head to keep the rain off, an overcoat buttoned to the neck. Two men that Shields didn’t recognise followed him out of the cottage.
Shields opened the passenger door and climbed out, but he stayed there, one foot inside, the car between him and the Bull. Pushing fifty, Shields reckoned, but the Bull had always seemed older than that. The way powerful men do.
Fegan got out of the Granada, pulling his collar up to keep a little of the rain from his thin neck. Cold rain, hard drops like nails. The kind of January day when it feels like the sun forgot to rise.
“Gerry,” the Bull said, his voice deep and soft. “Tom.”
Shields returned the greeting with a nod.
“Sorry to hear about the child,” the Bull said.
“Yeah,” Shields said.
“You know these two?”
Shields shook his head.
The Bull pointed at one, then the other. “Barry McGowan, Fintan Hart. If you ever need to know what a pair of arseholes looks like, just think of these boys.”
The men each turned their gaze away, their jaws tight.
The Bull leaned his head in the direction of the same shed Fegan had pointed to a few moments before. A squat structure made from sheets of corrugated iron.
“This way,” he said.
The Bull and his two men trudged off towards the outbuildings, Fegan behind them. Shields waited before he followed. He never liked to have a man at his back when he entered a strange place.
The shed’s door creaked and groaned as the Bull opened it. He reached inside and a single bulb blinked on, a warm orange glow. A heat lamp like farmers used to keep the freeze out of their barns.
The Bull stood back, extended his long arm, indicated that Fegan and Shields should step through. Fegan did so. Shields said, “After you.”
Shields entered last, felt the heat of the lamp on the top of his head. He smelled animal shit. Fat raindrops clanged on the metal roof. Points of light leaked through holes in the walls. Steam rose from their wet shoulders.
One dark stain on the concrete floor.
“This is where you did the young fella?” Shields asked.
The Bull looked to his two colleagues. McGowan and Hart both looked at their feet.
Hart said, “Yeah.”
“It shouldn’t have happened,” the Bull said. “But it can’t be helped now.”
“What had the young fella done?”
Hart let the air out of his lungs and looked at McGowan.
The Bull’s huge right hand lashed out, the palm slamming into the back of Hart’s head. Hart’s feet left the floor, and he fell face first, his hands and elbows saving him. As he tried to rise, the Bull kicked him in the arse, sending him sprawling again.
“You see this man?” the Bull said, pointing at Shields. “This man has put more boys in the ground than anyone I know. When he asks a question, you fucking answer it.”
Hart got to his feet, went to McGowan’s side, rubbing his grazed palms.
“There was a fight in the pub,” Hart said.
“You and the young fella,” Shields said.
Hart exchanged another glance with McGowan. “The both of us.”
“Let me guess,” Shields said. “Did the young fella get the better of you?”
They didn’t answer. They didn’t have to.
“So you decided to teach him a lesson.” Shields spoke to the Bull. “Did they okay it with you?”
“They were supposed to just have his knees,” the Bull said.
“He kept fighting,” Hart said. “If he’d just took his punishment, he’d have been—”
“Stop talking,” Shields said.
Hart shut his mouth, an audible click as his teeth came together.
“Let me get this straight, then. This young fella beat the two of you in a fair fight, so you thought you’d have his knees. He wouldn’t just lie down and take it, so you stoved his head in.”
McGowan spoke now. “It wasn’t like that.”
“No? That’s what it sounded like to me. Which one of you actually did it?”
McGowan pointed at Hart, took a step away.
Hart’s eyes widened as his gaze flitted from face to face. “It was the both of us. We both did it.”
Shields turned to Fegan.
Fegan shrugged and said, “Up to you.”
Shields nodded towards Hart.
Fegan reached behind his back, pulled a small semiautomatic pistol from his waistband. He racked the slide to chamber a round, thumbed the safety, and aimed it at Hart’s forehead.
“On your knees,” Fegan said.
Hart’s face went slack. McGowan began to shake.
“I said, get on your knees. Both of you.”
Hart lowered himself to the floor, his eyes welling. “No, no, don’t, I swear to God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
McGowan backed away as Fegan approached, the pistol still trained on Hart’s head.
“You too,” Fegan said.
McGowan did as he was told. A dark stain appeared on his crotch, spread down his thighs.
“Hang on,” the Bull said. “I didn’t agree to this.”
“I was told to come down here and sort this mess out,” Shields said. “That’s what I’m doing.”
The Bull stepped between Fegan and Shields. “You don’t do my boys without my say so.”
“It’s not your decision to make,” Shields said. “Get out of the way.”
“Watch who you’re talking to,” the Bull said, glaring. “You don’t come onto my land and tell me what to do. Not if you ever want to leave it again.”
“McGinty gave me authority to fix this any way I see fit. Your boys killed a young fella because they got their arses kicked in a bar fight. The people round here need to know that kind of shit isn’t tolerated.”
“The people round here need to know who’s in charge,” the Bull said, stabbing a meaty finger at his own chest, his voice rising. “Me. I’m in charge. And we stand by our own men, no matter what.”
“I’ve been given a job to do,” Shields said.
“I don’t give a fuck about your job. Gerry, you shoot this boy, you’ll have to shoot me too. If you don’t, you and Tom will never make it back across the border.”
Fegan didn’t move, didn’t flinch, kept his finger on the trigger.
Gerry Fegan wasn’t afraid of anyone. But Shields was. He kept it hidden, kept his face blank, his voice even and calm.
“We have a problem, then.”
“Looks like it,” the Bull said.
“What do we do about it?”
The tip of the Bull’s tongue appeared between his lips, wet them. “How’s the wife coping? It’s hard, losing a baby.”
“That’s none of your business,” Shields said.
“Maybe not, but you might want to think about how she’ll take losing a husband.”
Shields said nothing.
“There’s a phone box in the village,” the Bull said. “Let’s go.”
Shields sat in the Granada’s passenger seat, watching the Bull through the glass of the phone box. Fegan sat on the car’s bonnet, watching McGowan and Hart as they waited in the Land Rover.
The phone box stood at the middle of the village’s single street, opposite a pub. The same pub where the fight had broken out. Shields imagined it: the raised voices, the calls for calm, we’ve all had a drink, just leave it. Then the explosion of violence, the fists swinging, glass shattering.
A hundred yards along the s
treet, beyond the last buildings, the border lay. The village in the North, a whole other country visible from where Shields sat. He’d joined up, sworn the oath, to fight for that border to be scrubbed out. Almost twenty years ago. Thousands dead, but the border survived. Not a single rotten thing that Shields had ever done had made his world any better. That thought kept him awake at night.
The Bull pushed the phone box door open and stepped out, let it swing closed behind him. Shields got out of the car, didn’t meet the Bull’s stare as he went to the box. He entered, felt the air inside thicken around him. It smelled of piss. A scattering of coins lay on top of the small shelf. The phone’s handset dangled by its cable. Shields lifted it, brought it to his ear.
“Well?” he said.
“We’ve reached a compromise,” Paul McGinty said.
Shields swore beneath his breath. “What sort of compromise?”
“Five grand to the parents,” McGinty said. “The Bull’s going to put that up himself.”
“Five grand,” Shields echoed, the box giving his voice a hollow resonance.
“It’s a decent chunk,” McGinty said. “The government will probably give them a pay out too, so they’re doing all right out of it.”
“They lost their son, for Christ’s sake.”
“McGowan and Hart,” McGinty said. “Take their knees. You can do it yourself, if it makes you feel better. Use Gerry’s gun.”
Shields felt his anger rise. He swallowed it, breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth.
“That young fella beat them in a fight,” he said, “so they took him out to a barn and beat him to death. You think a few quid and a visit to the hospital is a fair price for that?”
McGinty sighed, a distorted rush of air against the mouthpiece.
“You know what you are, Tom? You’re a catastrophist. Anything goes wrong, you think it’s the worst thing ever. Even with everything you and Nuala suffered over the last few months, you still haven’t learned to keep perspective. You have to learn to let some things go. Not everything is a catastrophe, you know? So, some young culchie messes with the wrong boys, gets what’s coming to him. And you know what? The world’s going to keep turning.”
The Traveller and Other Stories Page 13
