The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf Page 13

  It was that, however, that had kept him from the writing, he was now sure of it. He simply did too much, trying to keep up with the cost of four mouths to feed. Christ, wasn’t there a beer in the entire kip? He stormed out into the cubby. When the wife had been around, he had always kept a nip there for just this sort of emergency. “What would you need from there?”

  “All that’s there.”

  So they could return—two old men—armed to the oxters on his boat? He’d lose it sure, if they shot somebody and it ever got out.

  “You’ll not find much, you’ll see. But we need it at the moment.”

  Canning prized up a floorboard, and there it was—a jam jar of potín that he must have hidden there maybe two years ago, when the wife had put her foot down about the pubs and the money he was spending. No, “Pissing our life’s blood over the bar” was her timeless mixed metaphor. But, then, she had done sciences not arts.

  Granted, potín wasn’t something to be guzzling at any time, to say nothing of the noon hour. You could never tell what it was made from or what yeasts had entered the mix. Ketones were created, some molecules of which were poisons, others hallucinogens; a wild batch of potín had been the ruination of many a man in Mayo and the West.

  But a wee taste would take the edge off his humor and get him on track. He only wished there was something to cut it with. “Need it where?” He twisted open the cap and took a slug, even before he got to the tap at the sink.

  “Killala. Nobody’ll think much of your coming and going, but take precautions. You’re to set off to Roonagh Point, like you’re puttin’ in there. No, better yet, do it. Then, comin’ back, feint a wee bit south toward Inishturk, before cuttin’ west of the island where Paulie can’t see you. If he thinks anything, he’ll think you’re out for a few mackerel,” which had just begun to run.

  The acrid liquor scorched down Canning’s throat along with the enormity of the request. Killala was seventy long miles north of Clare Island around Achill, Erris, Benwee, and Downpatrick heads, and then into Killala Bay. With either wind or tide against him or both, a trip like that would take him most of a day and night, all else running smooth.

  Twisting on the tap, Canning sucked the cold water straight from the spigot. “Can’t.” He sucked again.

  “What?” O’Malley asked unbelievingly.

  Canning straightened up and felt the heat work down through his body, warming his back and ribs which, he now realized, had been galling him only slightly less than his head and ear! “I said I can’t. Not today, not tomorrow, not for the next week!” Some of the O’Malleys arrive early; others might tarry on the island for a week. Canning’s trade would be brisk for at least that long.

  “Why ever not?” The old man was aghast. Mate to mate, islander to islander—helping out in a pinch was something that was done, no questions asked. You might need it yourself someday.

  “Because it’ll burn the arse out of any chance of my making a few quid during the rally, is why. Why can’t you get some of your friends up there to provide what you need?” Canning meant the Republicans.

  “You scut you, you know why.”

  Because, after what had happened on the island, the Republicans would want no part of it. And what O’Malley and Ford needed in addition to arms was an anonymous boat. Packy’s was probably now under cover in a shed or scuttled.

  “Well, I can’t, and I won’t, and there’s the end to it.” Canning tugged on the jam jar. Second sip he did not need a chaser. His young, strong body could cope with it, he thought heroically.

  “By Jaze, buck—you need a good beatin’, so you do,” Packy began giving out to him. “Would you remember, now, how ye’ got yehr bloody boat? Can ye’ tell me who’s responsible for that?”

  Stepping quickly to the counter, Canning slammed the handset into the cradle. And he had only just got into the toilet to throw some water on his face, when the phone began ringing again.

  “Colm—we know you’ve had trouble of late, but can you not come up here and give us a hand?” Clem Ford asked in his straitlaced English voice but with Irish syntax.

  It was all so fecking false Canning could scarcely contain himself. The son of a bitch had bought his way on to the island way back when and had the gall to stay; well, now he could bloody well buy his way back on. But, first, Canning would have his bit of fun with him. He moved back into the kitchen and the jam jar. “Whatever happened to ye’ now that ye’ need my help?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you at the moment. But sometime I will, please God.”

  The invocation was plain wrong in Ford’s mouth, and Canning felt his scalp tighten. “You brought the law down on us, so you did.” He raised the jar.

  There was a pause, and then, “And, I suppose, you’d like me to pay.”

  Canning nearly choked on the potín; now he was talking, and without Canning having to bring it up. Ford was a blow-in but a smart blow-in at that.

  “I’ll need to be paid for all the business I’ll have missed.”

  Canning heard Packy grousing in the background, “After all the help, the money, the jars—he’s just a cunt, a greedy cunt!” Which was the ultimate term of abuse, man to man, on the island. But Ford said evenly, “By all means. And what do you think that might be?”

  Ten trips, thought Canning. No, twenty, the potín told him. “A thousand pound!”

  “How much?” O’Malley demanded to know.

  But Ford said to him, “Please, Packy. Get a grip on yourself.” And to Canning, “Just so, Colm. Whatever you say.”

  There was more roaring in the background.

  “When do I get me money?” Canning killed off the jar, thinking that he should soon lay some ballast on his belly or he’d be in no form to take any wheel. But with a thousand quid in the offing—hell, he’d treat himself to a slap-up meal at the hotel.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get it.” Ford said in a voice that sounded tired and—was it?—disappointed, which put a bit of wind up Canning. But another little voice counseled, It’s only the potín, Colm. Calm yourself. Eat, get on the boat, make your killing. By age or by enemies Ford will soon be gone, and you will have taken your last bite out of him. And a good bite at that.

  Still he managed, “When we get back here?”

  “If you like. I’ll see if I can manage it then.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  “I said you’ll get your money.” Ford rang off.

  CHAPTER 15

  JUST AFTER NOON, Noreen McGarr stopped the car at the foot of the bald, gray-green mountain that had dominated their view out the windscreen ever since Maddie and she had left Westport. It was time for her six-year-old daughter to learn a thing or two about her country’s history and culture.

  “This is Croagh Patrick, which means ‘Mountain of Patrick.’ It’s the holiest hill in all of Ireland. Do you remember what happens here?”

  Maddie had to crane her head to look up at the top. “It’s not a hill, it’s a mountain. Do people climb it?”

  “That’s right. Thousands of them all on one day. Can you see the paths winding up the sides? Some of them do it with bare feet. Shall we give it a go?”

  “With bare feet?”

  “Unless you think you’d prefer your shoes.”

  A redhead, like both her mother and father, Maddie was quickly out of the car and ahead of Noreen on the rough stony path. But as the grade increased toward the 2,510-foot summit, Maddie’s pace slowed markedly. “Wouldn’t you say it hurts?”

  “Not at the moment, but I’m sure it will in the morning.”

  “No—wouldn’t you say it hurts their feet, climbing this barefoot?”

  “It does, sure. Some of them come back all bloody.” And sometimes not at all, she did not add; in most years the mountain claimed at least one penitent with a health problem. “But that’s why they do it.”

  “To hurt themselves?”

  “Well, to mortify the flesh, I think. That means they hurt themselves
to pay for sins they believe they might have committed during the year. Those sins might also be of the flesh.”

  Maddie waited for a better explanation, and Noreen took her hand. “You see, it’s part of a religious observance. Actually two religious observances. The first one began many, many years ago—some say as many as two thousand years ago—when this mountain was called Cruachain Aigle, which means ‘Mountain of the Eagle.’ One night in the summer, people from near and far would take food and drink and climb to the top of this mountain so they could watch the sun rise in the morning.”

  “Like a picnic.”

  “Exactly. It was their celebration of the first fruits of the harvest that they rightly believed the sun, whom they called Lugh, was responsible for.”

  “Because without the sun plants can’t grow,” Maddie chimed in. Her father had a garden, and the two of them had discussed it.

  “Right again. They even named the day after Lugh, calling it Lughnassa, which was one of the four great festivals of ancient Ireland.”

  “But you said there were two ob—”

  “—servances. That’s right.” Noreen had to stop and catch her breath. Although a trim woman still in her thirties, what with the demands of her picture gallery in Dublin and her duties as a wife and mother, she had little time to exercise. “There is now a different observance, because the people of Ireland changed their religion.”

  “I know about that.”

  “You do, do you?”

  Maddie nodded. “People are either Catholic or Protestant unless, like us, they don’t have a religion.”

  That vexed Noreen. She was from a Protestant background, her husband’s was Catholic; they were sending Maddie to a nondenominational school in Dublin, largely so Maddie could avoid thinking in the categories that still scarred Ireland to this day. “You know other children in your school who are neither Catholic nor Protestant.”

  Maddie nodded. “They’re Jews, then. Or, like me, nothing.”

  Again stung by that, Noreen said too strongly, “That’s not true. Just because we have no religious affiliation doesn’t mean we don’t believe in God.” It was the phrase Noreen had used when filling out Maddie’s application form. “And some of your other friends are Muslims and Hindus.” She could have added Bahaists, Shintoists, Quakers; the school, like much of Dublin itself, was thoroughly catholic. “You can be spiritual without being a member of an organized religion.”

  Maddie considered that, as they climbed higher. “Is that what we are, then—spiritual?”

  “You could say that. It’s what all religions aim at.”

  “Then, we’re religious and spiritual.”

  “Spot on. That’s us entirely.”

  “What about the second festival?”

  “Well, that began—as I said—when the people of Ireland were changing their religion to what’s called Christianity.”

  “Is that Catholic or Protestant?”

  Noreen was astonished by how thoroughly the schism was invested in the mind of her six-year-old, especially since she seldom heard such distinctions drawn at home. “Actually, it’s both. And one early Christian was named Patrick.”

  “You mean, Saint Patrick.”

  Jesus, thought Noreen, the Irish fixation with religion must be imbibed in the water or inhaled in the air; to her knowledge nobody in their house or family had ever spoke to Maddie of saints or sinners. “I do, although at the time he was simply Patrick.

  “At any rate, it has been recorded that in the year 441, Patrick climbed to the top of this mountain, where he fasted and prayed for forty days that the people of Ireland would embrace his religion.”

  “The one called Christianity.”

  Noreen had to pause again. She was winded, but the air—now that they had gained some height—was fresh, and she felt more invigorated than she had in many a day. “Yes.”

  “What’s praying?”

  “Asking God for guidance and spiritual help.”

  “What’s fasting?”

  “Doing without food and only taking wee sips of water now and again.”

  “For forty days? How many is forty?”

  They climbed forty more steps up Croagh Patrick.

  “And did he not die?”

  Noreen decided to skip the bit about fasting, prayer, meditation, and visions. “He was a young man at the time, and who’s to say he didn’t nibble the odd wildflower. But I myself believe that a person of his…dedication well might not have eaten in all that time.

  “At any rate, his stay on the mountain was so phenomenal that it gave rise to a myth.”

  “What’s a myth?”

  “A good story that people keep telling over and over, even if we know it can’t be true. Like the stories about Cuchulain and Finn MacCool,” that Noreen had been reading now to Maddie for years. “This one has to do with the fact that there are no snakes in Ireland.”

  “There aren’t?”

  Noreen shook her head.

  “That’s good.”

  “I agree.”

  “I don’t like snakes.”

  “Why?”

  Maddie shrugged. “I don’t know, I just don’t. How could you?”

  Noreen couldn’t herself. “So, this myth says that the reason there are no snakes in Ireland is that Patrick, who had special powers, collected all the snakes, drove them up this mountain, forced them to jump off a cliff, and they died.”

  “How did he do that?”

  “It’s said he had special powers. It’s probably one reason they call him a saint.”

  “Saint Patrick.”

  Noreen sighed, having corroborated the very foolishness that she wished to avoid. Of course, it was all part of the culture, which Maddie should know.

  “Why didn’t the snakes bite Patrick?”

  “Because, as the myth has it, Patrick stepped on shamrocks all the way up this mountain, and the snakes—being evil and knowing the shamrock is the symbol of good”—to say nothing of its more recent national significance—“couldn’t bite him, as long as he remained on the shamrocks.”

  For a while they climbed on, Maddie looking to left and right as though for snakes and shamrocks. Noreen loved her concentration; she could virtually hear the wheels of her mind turning. Finally, Maddie asked, “Is it a silly story?”

  “That’s for you to decide. There are no snakes in Ireland, and in many ways what Patrick brought was good.” Noreen was blown; she could not go on. “Have we climbed high enough?”

  Maddie looked up. They had not climbed even halfway, and the great mass of the mountain still lay before them. Yet, in turning to look down, they were presented with a glorious view of Clew Bay. In the far distance Clare Island with its own tall, bald mountain looked like a final sentinel in the distant Atlantic.

  “Have you had enough information for a day, or can I tell you something else? About the land?” Like her father, Maddie had a definite feel for what Noreen thought of as mise-en-scène or, here, the environment. “See this mountain we’re on?”

  Maddie nodded.

  “And see that mountain on the last island in the bay?”

  “The big one?”

  “Yes, that’s the island we’re going to. Don’t they look alike? The mountain on the island is a continuation of this mountain, and there are others in the chain to the east. But do you know that not so very long ago in the life of the earth it was possible to walk from this mountain to the mountain on the island?”

  “You mean, there was no water?”

  “There was, but the ocean was much lower then. All over the world it was far colder than it is today, and when it rained and snowed over the land, the water was frozen to ice and could not flow back into the ocean. At that time, there was a land bridge between Roonagh Point and Clare Island.

  “Then around ten thousand years ago the world got suddenly warmer, the ice began to melt, the oceans rose, and Clew Bay filled up with water.”

  “Whatever happened to the people
on the island?”

  “There were no people on the island then, as far as anybody knows. People didn’t begin to arrive there until around seven or eight thousand years ago, and it had to be by boat, since the bay was filled by then.”

  “How much is a thousand?”

  “How much is ten tens?” Maddie was well into her sums at her school.

  “A hundred.”

  “A thousand is ten hundreds.”

  Looking out at the island, Maddie thought for a while. “Eight thousands is a great lot altogether.”

  “Of course, there’s another explanation of how Clare Island got where it is.”

  Maddie’s eyes widened, as though to say, There always is, and Noreen wondered at her child’s opinion of her. As a girl she could remember being critical of her own mother’s serenity in the face of all the bracing details that made sense of the world.

  “It’s a big boulder that one Druid launched at the head of another Druid.”

  “Did it hit him?”

  Noreen shook her head. “It went wide.”

  “I like that story better.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “IS SIGAL A Jewish name?” Ruth Bresnahan asked Hugh Ward, as they drove past the shop of the jeweler and gold merchant and tried to find a parking place. The Coombe, however, was a narrow through street and there was not a place to be found.

  “It can be, although it’s more usually spelled with an e after the i.”

  “Odd, but you don’t usually think of there being many Jews in Ireland. Remember that passage from Joyce?”

  “In Ulysses?”

  “Was it Ulysses?”

  Ward nodded. “Deasy saying to Daedalus, the reason there are no Jews in Ireland is because she never let them in. It was dead wrong then, dead wrong now. Jews have been in Ireland for eight centuries that are known about and perhaps even before that. Henry the Third made Peter of Rivall the chancellor of the Irish exchequer and gave him ‘custody of the King’s Judaism.’ That was in 1232.”

  Bresnahan eyed Ward sidelong. She hated when he knew more about some subject that was—or, at least, should be—common knowledge. Before their liaison they had been rather at each other’s throats in Murder Squad meetings. In fact, it had been Ulysses and Joyce that had brought their agon to a crisis, the resolution of which was their present state of involvement. “How do you know all that? There’s a parking place there, if you haven’t noticed.”