On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland (18 page)

‘Remember now what I told you: go past Macker’s field, bear left into Eamon’s Lane, and at the end take a sharp left and Station Road beach will be staring at you, and may God go with you because I can’t.’

At 8.45 his partnership with the postman ended.

* * *

He spotted the figure in the distance, by the water’s edge. Uneasiness and doubt ran through him. He was already old in an unfamiliar world, he told himself. She was moving slowly toward him on the rippled sand, sandals in her hands. A woman who had held his destiny, and yet might. Then he noticed the first easing of the anger he’d been holding. What story would she tell today? He was not here to serve Lenny Quin’s dreams, nor rescue her from affluence or misfortune; he had troubles of his own. He caught his mind once again: pre-judging, catastrophising, but still living inescapably in her world.

Now she stood just four feet away, bearing kindness and hurt and the promise of reconciliation, clearly joyed by their nearness.

For a moment she was the woman she had been to him days before, the woman he wanted to possess. But she wasn’t, just a woman of lies and deceit. His gaze aimed past her. The brush of her hand shot his arms out as wings. She insisted, clasped his hand in both of hers; and she squeezed until the wildness in him abated and his eyes re-opened. In her face he read what had no need for words, that she understood, that she wasn’t giving in or giving up.

‘I’m so happy you came,’ she said. ‘We can just walk, if you like. Don’t have to talk.’ They began moving, divided, along the beach. ‘The top of Killadoon takes about three-quarters of an hour, a good walk. Feel up to it?’ She tugged at him.

He nodded, as if unconcerned with her joy, but in fact still deifying her while wondering how he’d deal with her absence from his life.

‘There’s a cosy little tea room up there,’ she said. ‘You’d like it. They have okay coffee. I used to sit up there. Quite often at one time. And, Tony, I do want to do what I said: tell you some things.’

Their journey by the waterline was silent, marked only by the arbitrariness of a blustery ocean. Hand in hers, he had grown responsive to her touch, sensations still igniting in him a sensuality he had no power over.

He tried to force his thoughts away, but his thoughts would not stay away. She was forbidden and distrustful, magnetic, commanding. But she was someone else’s.

Soon they left the beach, turned onto a trail that twisted up through thickets of gorse and heather until eventually a rocky clearing emerged. Above them seabirds glided, powerless against the air currents. Holding tightly to each other, they crossed the bare skull to a stone marker, from where they peered into a lightly-veiled blue universe.

It happened just then, first as Lenny was pointing to something. He said nothing. A half-minute later he noticed it again: her briefly stilled face, a fracture that lasted just seconds and passed without her acknowledging. He still made no comment.

To the south she pointed out Killary Harbour and its rocky headland, where the water glistened beneath green hills and white houses dotted the shoreline. Beyond this, the village of Renvyle stood out, and farther still like hands in prayer the peninsulas of Connemara. And eight miles out, as though it had fallen from the heavens, the island of Inishturk floated alone. She went on to identify Clare Island’s stony scalp and the grey and black cliffs of Achill towering above the foam, and lastly Mweelrea’s purples and browns lighting up.

She then retreated surreptitiously, until she stood on the cliff edge, above sea-blackened rocks more than a hundred feet below.

‘Lenny! Too close!’ Tony yelled, realizing what had taken just moments. He gestured frantically. ‘Get back. You’re too close!’

She glanced at him, before turning her face back to the ocean.

‘Move back! Lennnny! Lennnny!’ He began edging toward her, searching for anything to hold on to.

Her upper body swayed forward and back.

‘Nooooo! Lennnny! Lennnny!’

14

1980

Near Trinity College Dublin

In Davy Byrne’s pub the Friday night racket clattered on. The musk of rain-damp patrons suffused with the fog of tobacco and the aroma of Guinness. In every nook and booth and space, students fraternised while barmaids squeezed and pushed to distribute drinks.

In their favourite corner, Lenny Quin and Emer O’Hare had still one reason to celebrate: each would graduate in six weeks’ time, their four years of study over. Tonight though, that didn’t make up for their disappointment. Up to two hours earlier they had been planning to escape the city and head to County Mayo for the weekend, a three-hundred mile round trip. But at the last moment a friend’s Renault R4L had refused to start. Since then, both girls had been scratching around for someone with a car, a rarity, who they might inveigle with the attractions of Claire Abbey and Ireland’s remote west coast. So far, no takers had emerged. Around them now sat their band of a dozen or so associates, mostly fellow UCD students, some well on the road to inebriation.

‘Does Hamilton still have his jalopy?’ Lenny asked, her tone heavy with the brooding she had taken to.

‘Ham? He’s gone to Cork with Professor Farrell’s daughter,’ Jacko said. ‘Hands-on research. We can all go back to my gaf after here: few bottles, bit of smoke, sing-song; what d’you say?’

‘After last time? You nearly got us all dumped in jail,’ Emer said.

All except Lenny fired hoots around the table. ‘What about Tidey and Stroker?’ she asked into Emer’s ear. ‘Think they’d be up for it?’

‘Them maniacs, are you daft? Wouldn’t trust them with me granny. They’re down near the door. Stroker’s trying to chat up Mary Donnelly. Half-eejit! She could buy him and sell him. He told me I was looking ravishing. Male chauvinist pig.’

‘But Tidey’s okay. Has he still got his little yellow Mini?’

‘Drop it, you’re talking dangerous.’ Emer glanced around. ‘Don’t look now; here comes Wolfman Dermot and he’s seen you. He’s on his ear, can barely walk.’

‘Did he bring his Beetle?’ Lenny said. ‘That’s all I want to know.’ Both hid their snickering.

‘There yous are,’ said the big, stumbling, twenty-something man. ‘How’re yous?’

‘Ah, it’s yourself, Dermo,’ Emer responded as Lenny sent him a promising smile.

‘See you brung your snazzy camera, Lenny.’ Dermot craned forward. ‘Take me snap; are yeh, what?’

‘She’d have to be desperate,’ Emer said, ‘the state of you.’

‘It’s a Nikon F2, Dermot. And I don’t take snaps; I explained that to you before. But I might create a portrait of you. Soon maybe.’

‘Do one now. Will I do a pose for yeh?’ He folded his arms and bared his teeth.

‘Where did they dig you up?’ Emer shook her head. ‘You should be in films. Anyone ever tell you that? Return of the Abominable Tipperary Plasterer!’

‘Y’only take dirty pictures anyway, am I right, Lenny?’ Dermot said. ‘For museums.’

Lenny returned a demure reprimand, and added a smile.

‘Know the best thing about you, Dermot Connolly?’ Emer said. ‘Your mummy and your dada didn’t waste their few shillings trying to educate you. Ever hear of a photography gallery? Museums are for mummies, things that get dug up – like yourself.’

‘Nah, you’re wrong there. Y’are, you’re wrong. I have a ma and she’s not in no museum. Least she wasn’t when I went to work.’

‘You’re only hilarious, Connolly; I’m in stitches.’ Emer’s scorn drew hoots from all around the table. ‘And if you want to know, they’re not dirty pictures she takes, they’re nude studies. Not that you’d qualify.’

Dermot rose to speak but was engulfed by jeers.

He swore at the culprits then turned to Lenny. ‘I’ll buy yous a gargle, girls – or ladies, birds, youngwans, whatever yous are.’

‘Just because you’re plastered doesn’t mean you can insult us like that,’ Emer said. ‘We’re not ladies. Or girls. Or birds. Or youngwans. We’re female arts students, and you’ve no – ’

‘You’re very kind, Dermot,’ Lenny interjected. ‘I’ll have a vodka and white, please.’

Emer fixed a glare on her.

‘Vokka-n-white coming up,’ Dermot said. ‘Yourself, Emer? Or are you saving your lips for later?’

‘Watch your mouth, Connolly. I’m warning you.’

Soon Dermot returned with drinks, barging his way into the booth and crashing down next to Lenny. Over the next hour his hand probed often and was now set firmly around her waist. She raised no objections. Nor did she heed any of Emer’s under-breath swearing or elbow digs.

At closing time the group streamed out into Duke Street and loitered in the after-rain freshness. Dermot’s attachment to Lenny was now a two-arm lock around her midriff, as much to keep himself steady as a statement to the crowd.

‘Who wants to go for a spin?’ he shouted, rattling his car keys in the air. ‘Are yous on?’

Lenny snuggled closer to him, looped her arms around his neck, and launched into a long kiss. Emer’s face became a snarl. Lenny sneaked her a wink and went on.

‘I’m bursting for a piss,’ Dermot said, and scooted off.

‘What the feck are you doing?!’ Emer snapped. ‘You can’t mess like that! Stop it, you hear me? Just quit it.’

‘You don’t understand. This is our chance. I bet he’d let me photograph him nude.’

‘You’re loopy, bonkers. He’s a big dope. And you don’t like naked men. You said so.’

‘Lenny glowed. ‘Full, fleshy body, little or no hair. Glorious. Think of Steichen’s sensual work. Or Weston’s luminous human forms, full tonal range, smooth planes – ’

‘Fecking strait jacket; that’s what you need! You’d ask Wolfman Connolly to strip for you? That what you’re telling me? You’re a lunatic.’

‘Shush, Emer, I’m not serious. Listen, here’s the plan: when he comes back, tell him I’ve gone to the toilet. I’m going to buy a small bottle of Jameson.’

‘Too late; they’re closed.’

Lenny charmed her way past the doorman, back into Davy Byrne’s pub, and returned minutes later carrying a brown bag. Into Dermot’s ear she whispered that she had decided against driving to the mountains; she and Emer were going back to their flat on Leeson Lane and he was welcome to come along; the only condition, she told him, was that he would let her drive his VW Beetle there.

With a miss-aimed kiss, he handed over the keys. As the purple Beetle cruised along Kildare Street Emer fed Dermot the Jameson, faking her own swigging. The car circled twice around St Stephen’s Green, then doubled back along Nassau Street and a couple of times around Merrion Square, adding at least two miles to the one mile journey. At that point Dermot was spread-eagled across the back seat, snoring loudly.

‘Men: a means to an end,’ Lenny said. ‘He promised we’d all head off to Mayo tonight if I made love with him first. You heard him.’

‘Liar. I heard no such thing. And don’t even say things like that.’

‘We’ll grab our gear and hit the road. When he wakes up, you say you found him in bed with me in the flat. He won’t know any better.’

‘That’s kidnapping. We’d be in big, big trouble; we’d go to jail.’

‘No way. Student prank. And we get what we want – a car.’

‘I won’t forget this to my dying day. Could be today, if he wakes up. Then both of us will be dead. I hope he kills you first.’

‘You’re right. We should smother him, bury him in the woods. Nobody would know.’

‘Now I am really frightened. Of you.’

‘Lenny’s fit of laughter pulled Emer into hilarity that went on subsiding and re-igniting.

‘What will happen to us, Len, you and me, after we graduate?’

‘Don’t sound so down. We’ll survive.’

At the flat they flung their bags into the boot and shortly after midnight cruised out of Dublin. They had pulled it off. Just as they had done with so many challenges in their four years together at UCD. Now, hands drumming against vinyl, Lenny Quin and Emer O’Hare, like wolves to the moon, crooned in unison to
Band on the Run
as the purple Beetle hummed through the starless dark of an April night. Bound for County Mayo.

* * *

The car moved slowly through the gates and along the side of the darkened Abbey.

‘Dermot! Wake up!’ Emer slapped him. ‘Wake up, you big fat lump.’

‘He’s not going to,’ Lenny said. ‘We’ll carry him inside.’

They climbed out of the car into a chilly western air and yawned and stretched. Just then a bright moon gave way to clouds blowing in off the Atlantic. Ignoring Dermot’s growls, they hauled him out of the car until his feet hit the ground, then hooked his arms over their shoulders. At the apartment door Emer pinned him upright against the entrance.

‘Damn it!’ Lenny said. ‘I left my door key in the kitchen in Dublin.’

‘What?! You couldn’t, at this hour. Is anyone awake in the hotel?’

‘They’d all be in bed. And I am certainly not ringing the bell. Damn!’

‘We’ll have to sleep in the car. It’s half-four.’

‘Haul that monster back into the car? No. Anyway, we’d freeze.’

‘So, what do we do? I’m banjaxed,’ Emer said. ‘He’s got about fifteen keys on his key ring; one of them might open the door.’

Three keys seemed like good fits; one even turned promisingly. But none would unlock the door. Lenny swore with increasing intensity as she retried the keys.

‘Len . . .’ Emer’s face turned to dread; she grabbed Lenny. ‘Len, I heard something. Out there. Coming from over there. I know I did.’ Their eyes fixed on the fluttering sycamores. ‘Holy God. What is it, Len? Len?’

Lenny listened, scouring the bushes.

‘Len, what is it, what’s out there? I heard – ’

‘Shhh, will you! Has to be someone we know.’

‘I know nobody. In the middle of the night?’

The noise came again, cinder scraping on the path close by. Emer caught on to Lenny, while trying to hold Dermot in place. Then came the sound of footsteps, growing louder. Both girls held their breaths.

‘Watch out!’ Lenny shouted. Emer screamed. Dermot was falling forward. They grabbed him, jammed him back against the entrance.

Out of the shadows a person was moving toward them.

They stood clutching Dermot, waiting.

‘Is that yourself, darling?’ The figure came into light from above the door. ‘I thought it might be yourself.’