Carn (24 page)

He got his clothes and fumbled frantically for the door latch.

A light burned at the far side of the valley.

He began to run, his head spinning.

It was all over now. He would have to phone an ambulance. He couldn’t leave her there, her head was gone, there was no knowing what she would do to herself.

He had ruined himself.

Everything would come out now.

XX

The Australian inhaled the joint and passed it to Una. She giggled as she smoked, tears in her eyes. Don drummed on the dashboard in time to the music.

“Remember those summers we used to come out here? Lie here all day . . . remember Sadie?”

Sadie nodded and took the joint from Una. The car was filled with smoke.

“Pity we didn’t have this stuff then,” said Una.

The Australian put his arm around her. “Why don’t you come and see Bondi Beach with me Una?” he said.

“I’d be gone in a shot,” said Una. “What about you Sadie?”

Sadie was too drowsy to reply.

“We’d be a right looking pair on Bondi Beach now, all the way from Abbeyville Gardens.”

“Greatest country in the world,” said Don, nodding affirmatively to himself. “Greatest country in the world.”

XXI

Pat Lacey crossed the field.

The light was burning in Alec Hamilton’s house. How would he explain it to Hamilton? How could he explain what he was doing there at that time of night?

Jesus.

He thought of leaving her there. How could he be connected? They wouldn’t believe her.

He couldn’t. Not in that state. God knows what could happen to her.

Jesus Jesus.

The house rose up across the field. He couldn’t run much further.

In the farmyard Benny waited. A tarpaulin flapped in the light wind. His hands were wet. Inside he heard crockery crash against a wall. The voices became increasingly louder. He
shifted from foot to foot.

Why couldn’t they just find it and get the hell out, what were they doing? What was taking them so long?

Then the dread that had been stalking him began to take root as he thought,
It’s the wrong place, there’s nothing here
. . .

He started as a sheet of tin rattled against an outhouse wall. He tried to settle himself. His body had a skin of cold sweat. His stomach turned over.

You lying bitch!
cried a voice inside.

Then a woman crying.

Benny suddenly became aware of how tightly his teeth were clenched together.

Come on for Christ’s sake and let’s get out of here
. . .

In the distance a dog barked. Then at the side of the outhouse there was a rustling sound.

He stiffened.

He heard it again.

Was it the northman? What was he doing there? It was an animal. A dog or a sheep at the bushes. He strained to see but there was only darkness. Inside the woman cried out again and the Belfast
voice spat,
If you don’t tell me I’ll do it right here and now you bitch
.

Benny said to himself,
Easy easy
and waited for it to go but then close by he heard it again, and despite himself he cried out,
Who is it who’s there?

He only caught a glimpse of the face before the bushes sprang back and the man turned and ran. Benny shouted after him,
Stay where you are stay where you are
.

The man struggled to climb the wire fence back into the field. He wavered.

Benny called again. He was in the field and starting to run. Benny jerked backwards and the sound became bone breaking in his head. The man fell. There was silence for a split second then the
voices inside cried out,
What was that what the fuck was that? There’s someone shooting at us get down!

Benny stood back. The tarpaulin flapped and the sheet of tin rattled. Inside the house the lights were doused. There was no sound from the field where the man was. The northman came to the front
of the house. The shotgun hung limp in Benny’s arm. His legs were about to buckle under him. The door opened.

“What was that? Who fired that shot? Where did it come from?” Benny gestured towards the field. They climbed the wire. It looked like a pile of old clothes lying in the ditch. The
northman paled. He tilted Pat Lacey’s face upwards. It was covered in blood. “Jesus!” he said. “Jesus Christ!”

His voice quivered as he stood up. He turned to Benny and spat, “You bastard—you stupid bastard! Now you’ve gone and done it good and proper!”

He ran back inside. The Hamiltons were on their knees praying. The northmen lost their minds. They furiously erased all the fingerprints. They took the Hamiltons outside. They soaked the
furniture in petrol. Benny, half-dazed, wiped fingerprints from the window. The northman pushed him out of the way and snapped bitterly, “You’ve done your fucking bit pal. Stay out of
it . . .”

The Hamiltons stood in their nightclothes and watched the house go up in flames. A tarry smell began to fill the valley.

The northman pointed his pistol as them. “Walk. Get walking. And don’t stop. You’ve a lucky man tonight Hamilton. We know you have it somewhere—we’ll get you . .
.”

The northman pulled off his mask and shouted. “It’s every man for himself now. Move! Separate for fuck’s sake!”

In a split second the farmyard had emptied and Benny Dolan flinging the shotgun from him, sickened, and unable to hold his thoughts together, stumbled forward into the darkness.

XXII

Josie clutched at the table to steady herself. She feared she was going to vomit again. A searing pain went through her head. The open door swung idly.

Across the valley the sky burned.

You better say your prayers now. Say your prayers to the Sacred Heart . . . Look there He is, looking down on you, a right-looking sketch you are with sick on your face, your hands shaking
and your mind not your own. You made your bed and now you can lie in it.

“Pat—help me! Please Pat where are you?”

The door swung. The smoke rose up into the sky above the Hairy Mountains.
What was it? What did it mean?

She stumbled as she went out across the field, calling his name over and over, answered only by her own voice.

XXIII

The shot rang out and rolled across the Hairy Mountains.

Don switched the radio off sharply. “What the hell was that?”

He opened the car door. He went across the field. Then he turned and beckoned to the Australian. “Come on—let’s see what’s going on.”

They got out of the car. Thick smoke was drifting above the valley.

“We better get the fuck out of here,” said Don, whitefaced.

Sadie went cold when she looked down into the valley. The Hamilton house was in flames. Two men in balaclava masks ran towards the woods. The smell of the fire was beginning to drift over the
fields.

“Jesus,” said the Australian, as Don went back hastily to the car. He started the engine and called through the open window. “Come on.”

Una pulled Sadie’s arm and said, “Let’s get out quick Sadie . . .”

Sadie had turned to follow them when she saw Josie emerge from the woods and cross the fields in the direction of the house. She cried out with all her strength.
“Josie—Josie!”

They called to her again from the car. Down in the valley, Josie stumbled and rose again, still making for the house.

Far away Sadie heard the engine and the sound of their voices as she ran down into the valley.

The voice that called wasn’t Cassie’s voice. With all the strength that was left in her, Josie called her name and wept bitterly when they came at her again.

Call all you like she won’t come. Why should she come when she never did before, no matter what lies you tell yourself. Where was she when you came home from your school? Where was she
then Keenan? The door open to the fields and the dishes stinking. She did as she pleased and cared for nothing or no one. Saint Cassie was a lazy bitch and the whole town knew it. She came from a
bad crowd, couldn’t be good. That’s you and all belonging to you. Look at you, the cut of you like an auld mangy dog lying in a ditch. How will your precious Cassie explain that to her
good friend the Sacred Heart of Jesus, what will she tell Him about her precious daughter lying there half-daft and the track of every tramp in the country left on her? She’ll tell Him
you’re not hers, that’s what she’ll tell Him. For you never were Keenan, there never was a day with catkins. There never was a check dress or forget-me-nots.
For-get-me-nots my eye, you dreamed it all, you wanted it to be that way didn’t you? What day did you and her ever have? You dreamed it all, every word. The Buyer Keenan beat her all right
and beat her he should have for she never made a dinner, out half the day and the house a filthy den, that was your Cassie, left you and him for days while she walked the roads and pleased herself,
and what would you expect from a hoor only a hoor. And the Sacred Hearty, He’d look well with the likes of her. He’d have nothing to do with a slut like her. The Buyer and her were well
met, wasn’t one but knew it, catch them saying it but they knew it right enough. You’d no mother Keenan, if you had where is she now?

A beam fell in the burning house.

The voice called,
Josie Josie
. Who was it? It was Cassie calling,
Josie Josie do you hear me wee pet, don’t mind their bitter lies they’re jealous always were, they hated
us, they hated me for I wouldn’t taint my tongue with lies the like of theirs that’s why they hate you, it’s all bitter lies all of it and don’t let me tell you different. I
did all I could for you and him and now I’m here wee Josie, look over here, that day is here again, you remember, the sun and the catkins and the sky blue and never-ending. There’s just
you and me now wee Josie just you and Cassie Keenan. I’ve waited all this time.

Cassie smiled, it was the saint smile that Josie knew, the smile it had always been, and Josie saw it all now, their words were lies, all bad lies that faded now as Cassie’s arms
outstretched and Josie fell, a child again, back into the warmth of her mother’s body.

The smoke choked her and Cassie’s arms folded about her.

Sadie did not reach her in time. She stood there before the flames trying to scream, her face raw. Then she fainted.

When she awoke she found herself lying on a makeshift bed covered with a coat. Above her a female officer proffered a mug of coffee. Somewhere a typewriter clacked.

‘Where am I—I have to see my kids. Where are my kids?”

A redfaced man in a raincoat grinned. “You’ll see your kids when we’re ready,” he said. “You have a lot of talking to do before you see anyone, you Provo
bitch.”

He turned and went out, closing the door loudly behind him. The policewoman smiled.

Sadie took the mug with trembling hands.

XXIV

The news of the shooting of Pat Lacey spread like wildfire. No two versions of the story were the same. The charred shell of the Hamilton house was surrounded by police and
military. The workers in the factory listened hungrily as a neighbour of the Hamiltons repeatedly described the sound of the shot, the cries, and the crackling of the flames. The northmen had
managed to escape. Benny Dolan had been found wandering blind on the border.

Pat Lacey shot dead.

No one could believe it.

His daughter Una had been taken to hospital suffering from shock. The town was struck dumb. Nobody wanted to raise their voice in case they might somehow be implicated. In the factory the name
of Benny Dolan was on everyone’s mind and on nobody’s lips. Maisie Lynch broke the silence by announcing that she had always known there was something about Benny Dolan.
“Let’s face it,” she said. “His father was a murderer.” The famous politican returned to the town and spoke bitterly on the television, saying that it was time to take
off the kid gloves and root out the vermin, anyone that would hunt an old man and his aged wife out of their house in the dead of night was nothing more than scum. Was this what we had sunk to? he
asked, and the people of Carn felt that he was speaking directly to them from the television screen.