Carn (17 page)

XII

On her way to the Railway Hotel, Josie called at Abbeyville Gardens with a present for Tara and Darren Dolan. She stood on the doorstep with the neatly-wrapped package,
reddening slightly as Sadie appeared, both children clinging on to her. Josie held out the present. “Come in,” said Sadie. “Really Josie, you shouldn’t have . . .”

They sat in the kitchen and had tea and scones. The children squealed excitedly as they wound up the clockwork toy. Both women avoided eye contact and did not stray from safe subjects.
“The north is gone mad altogether,” said Sadie tapping her cup handle. Josie nodded. They spoke of Christmas and increasing commercialisation. At one stage Sadie became so nervous
because of the tension between them she almost blurted out, “It’s her Josie. She doesn’t want you here. But to hell with her. I’d love you to come. You were such a help to
me before.”

But she didn’t. They just sat there listening to the tick of the clock and watching the snow advance and retreat outside. Then Josie rose and said, “I just thought I’d come and
wish you all a Happy Christmas.”

Sadie felt her stomach heave. She thought of Josie alone in the cottage on Christmas day, of how much she liked the kids and pleaded silently with herself to ask her to spend the Christmas with
them but Mrs Dolan kept coming into her mind.
If I had known who she was in the first place she’d never have got in that door the like of her minding my grandchildren the house to herself
God knows what could have happened to them God forbid but she could have killed those children Sadie she could have killed those children don’t ever let her into this house again for if you
do you’ll never see me about the place again . . .

“Well good luck now Sadie—and wish Benny all the best for me, won’t you,” said Josie.

Sadie helped her on with her coat and said goodbye. She stood in the doorway and waved as Josie turned the corner . . .
Kill those children how would she kill them you stupid bitch or have you
any heart at all. Have you? Have you?

But that was no good now.

The glass door of the Railway Hotel swung open before Josie and a scarf of cigarette smoke wrapped itself around her neck as she walked into the bar. She removed her wet overcoat and hung it up
by the door. The barman spread his hands on the counter and winked, “The usual?”

Josie took the vodka and lime. She felt drowsy, the effect of the librium she had taken an hour before. The meeting with Sadie had depressed her. She drank the vodka in one gulp. The barman
refilled it without being asked.

A snake of tinsel curled itself around the trademarked mirror. Inside the oval of a Christmas card, a top-hatted city gent with a cane walked his dog through deep London snow. Santa Claus
grinned broadly. On the television, a newsreader’s deadpan voice announced,
A two hundred pound bomb exploded last night in the Catholic Ardoyne district of Belfast. Two people have been
killed and five injured, three seriously. The Archbishop of Armagh has condemned the bombing, describing it as an outrage and an abomination . . .
” The eyes of the younger men at the bar
narrowed as they listened. Then they looked away to put it out of their minds. The barman shook his head wearily, perplexed by it all. He leaned over to Josie and put his hand on her forearm. He
winked again and whispered into her ear, “They’d be better off enjoying themselves. Eh Josie?” He looked into her eyes. He squeezed her arm again and went off laughing.
Josie’s lips were dry and her eyes heavy. She drank another vodka. A distraught woman described the scene of the bombing. Bodies everywhere, she said. She tried to steady her voice as the
words stumbled out,
blinding flash, a loud bang, couldn’t see anything. Bodies everywhere
, she repeated,
whoever did this must be sick that’s all I can say
, she said as
she broke down again and shielded her face with her hands.

The scene came into Josie’s mind.

Bodies everywhere
.

The ambulance with its blue light turning, whitefaced policemen hauling away bodies in zippered bags. The two words would not go from her mind.
Bodies everywhere
. Bodies from the
past.

The cleaning woman from the Bunch of Grapes who had died in the old folks home with no one near her. A shrivelled frame in a grey mortuary, hands crossed staring at the ceiling. Jack the Lad,
the Northumbrian who often bought her drink, fading away in a bright airy hospital ward. A discarded suit of skin wept over by red-eyed relatives. A twitching body on Kilburn High Road, stunned
companions screaming, “How did it happen? We were only coming out of the pub—the lights were green . . .” Time standing still as the passers-by watched the life ebb from him, a
claw of blood on the side of his face, lips quivering like a helpless infant.

Cassie too, from far away in the days of her childhood, laid out by neighbour women who spoke in hushed tones of the best woman who ever lived. They folded her clothes lovingly and touched their
lips with rosaries as they stared down at the padded coffin and said, “If there’s one sure thing Cassie Keenan is walking the roads of the next world this night. She well and truly
deserves her reward in the beyond.” Cassie Keenan too had left her bones and skin behind her on a settle bed and had taken her leave to a place where what she was due would be paid in
full.

Standing on a road that wound onward into a blueness that had no end, she smiled at Josie with a face that knew no care or distress and said,
If only you were here with me, my wee Josie, it
would be like it was all those days ago. You and me as one. Look at the sky. See how warm and clear it is. Did you ever see fields so green Josie pet?

Josie’s throat went dry and she ordered another drink. She looked away from the sweat prints on the side of the glass.
When you come here you will be truly happy Josie. None of it will
matter then. It will all be over.

The nausea rising within her threatened to bring on a physical sickness. Josie clutched her glass. The barman was talking to her but all she could see was the movement of his lips and the
contortions of his face. He filled her glass again. Smoke billowed to the ceiling. She was only vaguely aware of the presence beside her. The barman said, “Do you know Mr Murphy
Josie?”

She looked at the red-knuckled hands on the counter, the nicotine-stained fingers. She shook her head.

“Ah, but I know you,” said the heavily-built man. “At least I knew your father. The Buyer Keenan. Of course he was known high up and low down. Wasn’t a road in Ireland
that the Buyer Keenan didn’t know.” He placed his thumbs in his lapels and said to the barman. “That’s a fact. The Buyer Keenan knew every road in this country. Anybody will
tell you that. I’ll have to buy his daughter a drink now, won’t I? Fill them up again.”

Josie drank the drinks as they were set before her. He sucked the wet tip of his cigarette and talked incessantly but Josie heard little of what he said. The music in the lounge came to an end
and they stood for the national anthem. Josie took a last cigarette from the man and then stumbled to the door to get her coat. “Are you off Josie?” called the barman. “Are you
not going to say goodnight to us?” She heard the tail-end of his laughter as she went out into the night. She went to the café and ate among the latenight adolescents and drunk
farmers. She did not leave until well after one.

A policeman with a torch stood at the corner, the static spurting suddenly from the two-way radio by his side. Youths loitered, a discarded cigarette sailing across the street like a firework.
Cars slowed as the policeman scrutinised the interiors, then revved up and sped off towards the border. Josie set off in the direction of the railway. The policeman looked after her, tapping his
foot. The railway was littered with potholes. Passing the warehouses, Josie heard her name called. At first she thought it was her imagination and quickened her pace without turning around. Then
she heard footsteps behind her. She turned suddenly to see the barman signalling, the other man behind him in the warehouse doorway.

“Josie,” called the barman, “what do you say we have a bit of a party in your house? Just a couple of us, eh?”

Josie tensed and tried to steady the tremour in her voice. “No—I can’t. Not in my house. I have to go.” She turned from them.

“Why not? What’s wrong with us? Is there something wrong with us? There was nothing wrong with our drink earlier on, eh? Just a couple of hours. We could have a good time. Come on
Josie . . .”

She began to run.
Please Jesus please for Christ’s sake
, she repeated. In the distance she heard her name called over and over. Then, carried off by the wind, she heard, “Go
on then—you fucking ride!”

She stumbled twice on the twisted tracks before she reached the cottage.

Her heart was pounding in her chest. She closed the door behind her and barred it. Sweat broke out on her forehead. With trembling hands she lit the gas heater. She took off her wet clothes and
left them to dry. The scarlet lamp burned and the Sacred Heart smiled. She pulled on a dressing gown and fell into the armchair. She shivered as the barman’s voice echoed. She drifted in and
out of sleep. The lamp twinged.
That’ll be your father home from the market now, daughter,
her mother’s voice whispered,
get on up the stairs and pray to Our Lady. Do you know
what I’m going to tell you now Mrs Keenan? That husband of yours is known the length and breadth of Ireland. High up and low down, they know the Buyer Keenan. The Buyer is a well-respected
man.

She heard their voices as she stood among them all those years ago, their huge red hands dangling in front of her eyes as the Buyer stood at the bar, his stomach thrust out as he boasted,
No
man in this town would ever best me. The Buyer’s the roughest man in this town
.

She lay there for an hour and then there was a gentle tap on the door. She pulled the dressing gown about her and said, “Who is it?”

There was a long pause. “It’s me . . . Pat.”

Josie loosened. She went to the door and opened it. He looked away from her, his lank hair falling about his face. She took him inside to the dry warmth of the kitchen. He sat on the sofa, his
eyes downcast. She spoke softly to him. He looked slowly upwards as if expecting to confront his executioner. She sat beside him and dried his hair briskly with a towel. When she was done, they
went to the bedroom. He ranted breathlessly with his eyes closed about the priest and how he should have stood up to him. “But I can’t Josie—it’s as if they’ll find
out my secret if I stand up to them. I didn’t want to do what the priest asked me. I don’t believe in it. He talked me into it. I’m fifty years of age, Josie. I’m a
hypocrite and a liar. I get sick to my stomach when I think about it. I’m ashamed Josie, ashamed, ashamed . . .”

When it was over and she had done what he wanted, she stroked his face and he blubbered to God how sorry he was about it all but Josie, he said, you like me don’t you, you don’t
think I’m disgusting do you Josie do you . . .”

His arm fell limp and he began to wheeze in a fragile sleep punctuated with sudden uneasy cries. The protection of the drink and the drugs was beginning to wear off. Josie became agitated.
The length and breadth of Ireland
, the voice said to her again. But this time she felt the hard leathery rasp of her father’s hand on her cheek and the smell of porter came into her
nostrils. Stiff as a board she looked up at his bloodshot eyes as he stroked her hair with trembling hands.

Not a woman about this place since our Cassie died, wee pet. It’s gone to rack and ruin. If only there was a woman would come in to see after you and me. There’s no skin on
God’s sweet earth like the skin of a woman. Jesus like the skin of a woman.
And as he quivered on top of Josie’s body, outside the window the sun rose and Cassie was far away and
would never come again, he cried bitterly as his body jerked,
I treated her bad. I treated our Cassie bad and I’ll be damned in hell for it I should never have laid a finger on you my
darling wee Josie.

Cassie stood beneath the blue of the sky and smiled down the length of the winding road at Josie Keenan. She beckoned to her. But he was not there. The Buyer Keenan was nowhere to be seen. His
cries came to her and the words again
bodies bodies
.

His face was not the face of the Buyer Keenan as she knew him. It was old and cracked and from his mouth issued a sort of howl as he cried,
The Buyer Keenan known the length and breadth of
Ireland what happened to me where are the two women I loved?

And on that grey road were random bones and littered skulls and as he stared up helplessly at the red sky above him and the burnt grasses that stretched as far as the eye could see, the buyer
Keenan knew there was nobody now but himself. Through his tears he cried a terrified laughter and fell on his knees, the sound of his voice carrying for miles beyond.
You don’t know me do
you I’m the Buyer Keenan they all know me here like the length and breadth of Ireland I know it if you want to know the way to this place just keep walking till you’re dead and take the
first right for Paradise ha ha ha ha ha ha . . . but you’ll find no Cassie here, poor Cassie’s a long way from here . . . and me and her will never meet again . . .

Josie tried to fight the tears coming to her eyes. It did no good, she told herself. She rose but she could not shake off the touch of Cassie’s hand on her cheek as she said, “What
if it had happened another way pet—who are we to know?”

Josie sat by the window but, brittle now after the flight of her protection, she could not halt any of it as it came at her. A small skeleton in the ground, a boy with a soft face, Culligan
taking her hand as they sauntered through the streets of Dublin marvelling at the flocks of pigeons clustering around the statues of patriots. The Buyer taking her smiling through the coloured
waves of people in the huge department stores.