Shay said, “She’s no eejit. She only needed a hand.”
“Oh, I know that. But you’re the man who stepped up. I think it’s important for you to hear how much I appreciate that.” I swung Holly’s chair out of the bright pool of lamplight, and out of Shay’s reach, and had a seat. “Nice place you’ve got here.”
“Thanks.”
“The way I remember it, Mrs. Field had it wallpapered with pictures of Padre Pio and stinking of clove drops. Let’s face it, anything would’ve been an improvement.”
Shay slowly eased back in his chair, in what looked like a casual sprawl, but the muscles in his shoulders were coiled like a big cat’s ready to leap. “Where’s my manners? You’ll have a drink. Whiskey, yeah?”
“And why not. Work up an appetite for the dinner.”
He tilted his chair so he could reach over to the sideboard and pull out a bottle and two tumblers. “Rocks?”
“Go for it. Let’s do this right.”
Leaving me on my own put a wary flash in his eye, but he didn’t have a choice. He took the glasses out to the kitchen: freezer door opening, ice cubes popping. The whiskey was serious stuff, Tyrconnell single malt. “You’ve got taste,” I said.
“What, you’re surprised?” Shay came back shaking ice cubes around the glasses, to chill them. “And don’t be asking me for a mixer.”
“Don’t insult me.”
“Good. Anyone who’d mix this doesn’t deserve it.” He poured us each three fingers and pushed a glass across the table to me. “Sláinte,” he said, lifting the other one.
I said, “Here’s to us.” The glasses clinked together. The whiskey burned gold going down, barley and honey. All that rage had evaporated right out of me; I was as cool and gathered and ready as I had ever been on any job. In all the world there was no one left except the two of us, watching each other across that rickety table, with the stark lamplight throwing shadows like war paint across Shay’s face and piling up great heaps of them in every corner. It felt utterly familiar, almost soothing, like we had been practicing for this moment all our lives.
“So,” Shay said. “How does it feel, being home?”
“It’s been a hoot. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
“Tell us: were you serious about coming around from now on? Or were you only humoring Carmel?”
I grinned at him. “Would I ever? No, I meant it, all right. Are you delighted and excited?”
A corner of Shay’s lip twisted upwards. “Carmel and Jackie think it’s because you missed your family. They’re in for a shock, somewhere down the line.”
“I’m wounded. Are you saying I don’t care about my family? Not you, maybe. But the rest of them.”
Shay laughed, into his glass. “Right. You’ve got no agenda here.”
“I’ve got news for you: everyone always has an agenda. Don’t worry your pretty little head, though. Agenda or no, I’ll be here often enough to keep Carmel and Jackie happy.”
“Good. Remind me to show you how to get Da on and off the jacks.”
I said, “Since you won’t be around as much, next year. What with the bike shop and all.”
Something flickered, deep down in Shay’s eyes. “Yeah. That’s right.”
I raised my glass to him. “Fair play to you. I’d say you’re looking forward to that.”
“I’ve earned it.”
“You have, of course. Here’s the thing, though: I’ll be in and out, but it’s not like I’m going to be moving in here.” I shot an amused look around the flat. “Some of us have lives, you know what I mean?”
That flicker again, but he kept his voice even. “I didn’t ask you to move anywhere.”
I shrugged. “Well, someone’s got to be around. Maybe you didn’t know this, but Da . . . He’s not really on for going into a home.”
“And I didn’t ask for your opinion on that, either.”
“Course not. Just a word to the wise: he told me he’s got contingency plans. I’d be counting his tablets, if I were you.”
The spark caught, flared. “Hang on a second. Are you trying to tell me my duty to Da? You?”
“Christ, no. I’m only passing on the info. I wouldn’t want you having to live with the guilt if it all went wrong.”
“What bloody guilt? Count his tablets yourself, if you want them counted. I’ve looked after the whole lot of yous, all my life. It’s not my turn any more.”
I said, “You know something? Sooner or later, you’re going to have to ditch this idea that you’ve spent your life being everyone’s little knight in shining armor. Don’t get me wrong, it’s entertaining to watch, but there’s a fine line between illusion and delusion, and you’re bouncing along that line.”
Shay shook his head. “You don’t have a clue,” he said. “Not the first fucking clue.”
I said, “No? Kevin and I were having a little chat, the other day, about how you looked after us. You know what sprang to mind—Kevin’s mind, not mine? You locking the pair of us in the basement of Number Sixteen. Kev was what, two, maybe three? Thirty years later, and he still didn’t like going in there. He felt well looked after that night, all right.”
Shay threw himself backwards, chair tilting dangerously, and burst out laughing. The lamplight turned his eyes and mouth into shapeless dark hollows. “That night,” he said. “My Jaysus, yeah. Do you want to know what happened that night?”
“Kevin pissed himself. He was practically catatonic. I ripped my hands to coleslaw trying to get the boards off the windows so we could get out. That’s what happened.”
Shay said, “Da got fired that day.”
Da got fired on a regular basis, when we were kids, up until people more or less quit hiring him to begin with. Those days were nobody’s favorites, specially since he usually ended up with a week’s wages in lieu of notice. Shay said, “It gets late, he’s still not home. So Ma puts the lot of us to bed—this was when the four of us were all on the mattresses in the back bedroom, before Jackie came along and the girls went into the other room—and she’s giving out seven shades of shite: this time she’s locking the door on him, he can sleep in the gutter where he belongs, she hopes he gets bet up and run over and thrown in jail all at once. Kevin’s whingeing because he wants his daddy, fuck only knows why, and she tells him if he doesn’t shut up and go asleep, Daddy won’t come home ever again. I ask what will we do then, and she says, ‘You’ll be the man of the house; you’ll have to look after us. You’d do a better job than that bollix, anyway.’ If Kev was two, what would I have been? Eight, yeah?”
I said, “How did I know you would turn out to be the martyr in this story?”
“So Ma heads off: sweet dreams, kids. I don’t know what time of night, Da comes home and breaks the door down. Me and Carmel leg it out to the front room and he’s throwing the wedding china at the wall, one bit at a time. Ma’s got blood all down her face, she’s screaming at him to stop and calling him every name under the sun. Carmel runs and grabs hold of him, and he smacks her across the room. He starts shouting that us fucking kids have ruined his life, he ought to drown the lot of us like kittens, slit our throats, be a free man again. And believe me: he meant every word of it.”
Shay poured himself another inch of whiskey and waved the bottle at me. I shook my head.
“Suit yourself. He’s heading for the bedroom to slaughter the whole bunch of us on the spot. Ma jumps on him to hold him back and screams at me to get the babies out. I’m the man of the house, right? So I haul your arse out of bed and tell you we have to go. You’re bitching and complaining: why, I don’t want to, you’re not the boss of me . . . I know Ma can’t hold Da for long, so I give you a clatter, I get Kev under my arm and I drag you out of there by the neck of your T-shirt. Where was I supposed to take yous? The nearest cop shop?”
“We had neighbors. A whole shitload of them, in fact.”
The blaze of pure disgust lit up his whole face. “Yeah. Spill our family business in front of the whole Place, give them enough juicy scandal to keep them going for the rest of their lives. Is that what you would’ve done?” He knocked back a swig of booze and jerked his head, grimacing, to keep it down. “You probably would, and all. Me, I’d’ve been ashamed of my life. Even when I was eight, I had more pride than that.”
“When I was eight, so did I. Now that I’m a grown man, I have a harder time seeing where locking your little brothers in a death trap is something to be proud of.”
“It was the best bloody thing I could’ve done for yous. You think you and Kevin had a bad night? All you had to do was stay put till Da passed out and I came and got yous. I would’ve given anything to stay in that nice safe basement with yous, but no: I had to come back in here.”
I said, “So send me the bill for your therapy sessions. Is that what you want?”
“I’m not looking for any fucking pity off you. I’m just telling you: don’t expect me to go running off on a great big guilt trip because you had to spend a few minutes in the dark, once upon a time.”
I said, “Please tell me that little story wasn’t your excuse for killing two people.”
There was a very long silence. Then Shay said, “How long were you listening at that door?”
I said, “I didn’t need to listen to a single word.”
After a moment he said, “Holly’s after saying something to you.”
I didn’t answer.
“And you believe her.”
“Hey, she’s my kid. Call me soft.”
He shook his head. “Never said that. I’m only saying she’s a child.”
“That doesn’t make her stupid. Or a liar.”
“No. Gives her a great old imagination, though.”
People have insulted everything from my manhood to my mother’s genitalia and I never batted an eyelid, but the idea that I would diss Holly’s word on Shay’s say-so was starting to get my blood pressure rising again. I said, before he could spot that, “Let’s get something straight: I didn’t need Holly to tell me anything. I know exactly what you did, to Rosie and to Kevin. I’ve known for a lot longer than you think.”
After a moment Shay tilted his chair again, reached into the sideboard and brought out a pack of smokes and an ashtray: he didn’t let Holly see him smoking, either. He took his time peeling the cellophane off the packet, tapping the end of his cigarette on the table, lighting up. He was thinking, rearranging things in his mind and stepping back to take a long look at the new patterns they made.
In the end he said, “You’ve got three different things. There’s what you know. There’s what you think you know. And there’s what you can use.”
“No shit, Sherlock. So?”
I saw him decide, saw the set of his shoulders shift and harden. He said, “So you get this straight: I didn’t go into that house to hurt your mot. Never even thought of it, up until it happened. I know you want me to be the evil villain here; I know that’d fit in great with everything you’ve always believed. But that’s not the way it went. It was nothing like that simple.”
“Then enlighten me. What the hell did you go in there to do?”