Creature of the Night (9 page)

I'd gone to bed so early that I was awake before eight
o'clock. I was going to try and sleep some more, but
then I remembered the hot tea burning my knees in the
trailer. I didn't want that to happen again.

My jeans were filthy, all stained with the spilled tea
and the pine resin and mud and everything. I badly
needed some washing done. There was a bin bag full of
dirty clothes that I'd brought down from Dublin, and
I took it downstairs with me and emptied it on the
porch floor in front of the bathroom so my ma couldn't
ignore it.

It was nice being up early and on my own. Even
Dennis wasn't up yet. The house was completely silent,
with no rustles or creaks, like the ghosts had all vanished
with the daylight. And the sun was out and the sky was
clear blue. You notice things like that in the country the
way you never do in the city. I was almost happy for a
minute, but I caught myself in time and remembered
how much I hated it here and how everything that mattered
to me was behind me, back in Dublin.

It wasn't Coley who called for me this time. It was
PJ. I didn't like that. Coley wasn't in the car, neither. I
asked where he was. PJ wouldn't tell me until I got in.

'He's in Ennis. He works three days a week in the
supermarket. He doesn't start till eleven but he got a lift
in with his brother.'

'Grease-monkey Matty?' I said.

He laughed. 'No. Desmond. He was just passing
through and he stayed over.'

'How many brothers does he have?'

'Four. And two sisters.'

He began to list them all off, then. Which one was
in the hotel business and which one was in Australia, but
I just looked out the window and switched off. He was
still talking when we pulled up outside the house.

'Right,' he said. 'We'll be cutting hay today. It's
promised fine until the weekend.' He started across the
yard and I followed him. 'We get contractors in to make
the silage but I always like to make a bit of hay for the
calves. They do better on it.'

He led the way into the machinery bay beside the
hayshed. 'We can't cut the grass until the dew's off it, so
we might as well give the mower a bit of a service.'

My job was to undo the blades from the old bar
mower, one by one, and clean the dried grass and mud
off them.

'It's an antique, really,' PJ said. 'No one uses these
old things now. But it's still working, so why bother
getting a new one?' He gave me a socket wrench and a
paint scraper. Nuts and bolts again. I didn't mind this.

When I unscrewed the nuts and washers I put them
in the zip pocket of my jacket. I seen PJ watching me.

'I'm not robbing them,' I said.

'I know you're not,' he said. 'It's a good place to put
them. I'm forever losing the fecking things.'

The blades were heavy. After I'd cleaned one with
the paint scraper I handed it to PJ and he went at the
chipped edges with a file, working nineteen to the dozen,
putting his back into it, working up a sweat. When he
had finished with them they were sharp, but not sharp
like the axe. You couldn't shave yourself with them.
They weren't supposed to be that sharp. When they were
all done we greased them and bolted them back onto
the bar.

It took us about an hour and a half, but I never felt
the time passing. Then it took us another hour or so to
take the hay shaker to bits and clean and grease the
drums and re-bend some of the wonky tines. And after
that it was into the house for more of Margaret's hot,
strong tea and ham sandwiches. I wondered how many
pigs that family ate in a year.

PJ drove the tractor down to the hay meadow. I stood
behind him in the cab and leaned on the wheel arch.
When we got there he gave me a rake with a yellow
plastic head and told me to come along behind him and
pull the cut grass clear of the long stuff.

'Just on the first go round,' he said. 'After that
there's no need.'

I'd been happier about my shoulder when we were
working on the machines. Once the stiffness from the
morning had gone out of it, it felt a lot better. But it was
useless for this job. The pull of the rake hurt it and after
a few minutes I had to try and do it with one hand. I was
getting nowhere fast. PJ stopped the tractor and called
me over.

'The shoulder still at you?' he said. 'Hop up here.'

He stood up out of the driver's seat and I got into
it. He showed me how to raise and lower the mower and
how to start and stop it. He stood beside me for a lap
and a half of the field, correcting my steering a bit to
begin with, then leaving it to me when I got the hang of
the widths and distances. Then he told me to stop, and
he got off and finished the raking while I carried on
mowing on my own. When he had been all the way
round, with one or two breaks to answer the phone, he
flagged me down again.

'You're very good for a beginner,' he said.

'I've done a lot of driving,' I said.

'I'd say you have,' he said, 'but even so you picked
this up very quick. Nice straight lines. Very accurate.'

I hid a smile. He had no idea of the kind of stuff we
got up to in Dublin. The narrow alleys we went through.
The footpath corners between shops and parked cars.
One time I went through a gap between two garda
cars. It was so tight I left both wing mirrors on the
ground for them, but there wasn't a scratch on the paintwork
when we set fire to that car.

PJ looked at his watch, and then he looked me in
the eye.

'Can I trust you?' he said.

What kind of a stupid question was that? I'd rob
him blind if I got half a chance.

'To do what?' I said.

'To finish mowing this meadow and then go in and
do the next one in the same way. Starting on the outside
like we did with this one?'

I shrugged. 'Yeah, I don't mind,' I said. 'I can do
that.'

'Good,' he said. 'I have to go and talk to a fella
about getting my baler fixed. He's had it all year.'

We swapped mobile numbers and then he said: 'No
messing around now, you hear?'

I started the engine and engaged the mower. What
did he mean by that? What kind of messing around
could I do on a tractor? I could just see myself turning
up at Fluke's place.

'Hey, Fluke, guess what? I got wheels.'

I could just see his face.

But I didn't mind doing the mowing. It was
different, anyway. And what else was I going to do
between now and the weekend?

I had another massive feed in Margaret's kitchen and
then I mowed two little meadows on the other side of the
hill. Then PJ showed me how to take off the mower and
put the shaker on, and I went back and shook out all the
hay I'd cut. PJ came and went, or stood by the gate and
talked on the phone. Except on the roads I did every bit
of the driving. I pranged the shaker once on a gate post
but he said not to worry about it – things like that
happened all the time.

When we were finished for the day he gave me a lift
home. In the car outside the house he gave me a tenner.

'What's that for?' I said. 'I thought you were keeping
my money for the car.'

'I am,' he said. 'That's a bonus. And any other day
you work as hard as you did today I'll give you another
one.'

He came into the house with me to talk to my ma.
I was delighted to see she'd finally done the washing up,
and she'd washed my clothes and all, and they were in a
clothes basket on the kitchen floor.

PJ told my ma the book price on the Skoda was two
thousand, one hundred euro, and I could work it off at
fifty euro a day. If Lars hadn't turned up by the time it
was all paid off he would give the money to his mother.

'Does she live around here?' my ma said.

'No,' PJ said. 'She lives in Sweden, but I'm in
contact with her. She came over with her daughter to try
and find out what happened to Lars. That was a good
while ago. A few weeks after he left.'

'Did she find out anything?'

'No,' PJ said. 'She got the guards to ask a few
questions around the place but they weren't really
interested. They said it happens sometimes. People just
suddenly decide to change their lives and up sticks. They
usually turn up in the end. They had another look in the
house but they didn't find his passport or his driving
licence or his bank cards or anything, so he must have
taken them with him. They said he could be anywhere.'

'It's a bit weird, isn't it?' my ma said. 'I hope
nothing happened to him.'

'Ah, you'd know in a place like this,' PJ said. 'It's
very quiet around here. Very safe.'

After he left my ma said to me, 'How long will it
take you to work off two thousand, one hundred euro at
fifty euro a day?'

'I don't know,' I said. I could have worked it out but
what was the point? I had no intention of staying around
to do it. 'Have you got my fifty euro?'

'No,' my ma said. 'How could I get your fifty euro?
There's no bank machine in the village.'

'How are you going to get it, then?' I said.

'I have to go into Ennis tomorrow,' she said. 'I have
to see about signing on down here. But I can't go until
the afternoon. I have to go to a funeral in the morning.'
She seemed delighted by the idea.

'A funeral?' I said. 'Whose funeral? You don't even
know anyone around here. How could you be going to
a funeral?'

'It doesn't matter whether you know them or not,'
she said. 'It's different down the country. Everybody
goes. It's a community thing.'

'You're off your head,' I told her. 'No way you have
to go to it.'

'Well I want to,' she said. 'I like funerals.'

'How could you like funerals?' I said.

'They make me think,' she said. 'And anyway, I like
the incense and the flowers.'

I remembered now. Sometimes when we went to
mass in Dublin, me in my smart suit, there would be a
funeral. Incense swinging over the coffin. Dust to dust.
Ashes to ashes. I don't think I really knew what was
going on in those days.

'Well, you better have my fifty euro for me when I
come home,' I said. 'You just better.'

I don't know what bed Dennis slept in that night or
whether he went to the toilet or had another tea party with
his little friend. I slept like the dead and woke to the sound
of my ma banging around in the kitchen. I thought I'd
overslept and got up quickly and pulled on my filthy jeans.
But she was just up early, still in her purple dressing gown,
and she had the ironing board out again.

'Are my clothes dry?' I said.

'They're hanging on the line in the hayshed,' she
said. 'You'll have them for tomorrow.'

I looked at the skirt she was ironing. 'You can't
wear that,' I said.

'Is it too short?'

She began hunting through the pile on the table. I
made tea and put on some toast.

'I could wear my green dress, I suppose,' she said.
'Would that be better?'

She ran upstairs to get it but I wondered why I'd
bothered. She would still get herself up like a tart. Too
much make-up. A couple of strands of her hair hanging
down over her eyes and sticking to her bright red lipstick.
She knew no different. I shoved the clothes off the
table on to the floor and sat down to drink my tea and
wait for my toast. It had just popped up when Coley
arrived at the door.

There were just the two of us that day because PJ had to
show someone round a couple of houses and then go to
the funeral and after that he had to go and catch up on
things in the office. We had to wait for the dew again
and we were supposed to tidy up the yard while we were
waiting, but it was pretty tidy to begin with so mostly we
just messed around and told each other stories.

Some of mine shocked him a bit and the worst ones
wiped the grin off his face for a while, but some of
his were pretty gory as well. Like the bull that killed his
six-year-old cousin and the fella down the road who lost
his leg in a tractor accident. Margaret was out at the
funeral so we made our own tea and ham sandwiches.
Coley washed up afterwards and dried all the dishes and
put them away. I would never have believed it if I hadn't
seen it with my own eyes. How could a big fella like that
be such a wuss? I couldn't watch him without bursting
my shite laughing at him, so I went out and had a smoke
while I was waiting for him to finish.

Coley wasn't old enough to drive the tractor on the
roads but he did anyway. He said he had to sometimes
because his da couldn't be coming home from work to
drive a quarter of a mile and there was no traffic on
those roads anyway, and all the local lads did it. I said it
was disgraceful and that I was going to turn him in to
the guards. He laughed but I just shook my head.

'The law's the law,' I said. 'The law's the law.'

It was an easy day. One of us drove the tractor with
the shaker and the other one went along with the rake to
pull wet bits out of the ruts where the shaker couldn't get
to them. My shoulder was much better and I could
manage that now, as long as I didn't let the rake get
snagged in the grass. The sun was so hot and the hay was
drying so fast that we turned it all twice, once in the
morning and then again in the afternoon. Coley said his
da wanted me over the weekend as well to help put it
into windrows and bale it, but I said he was out of luck.

'Matty will have to help then,' Coley said. 'He
won't like that.' And he laughed.

* * *

My ma was in great humour when I got home and I said
I wished there was a funeral every day and she said so
did she. I made her give me the bus fare as well as the
fifty euro and she said it wasn't part of the deal but she
knew it was and she gave it me anyway and there wasn't
even a row about it. But later on that evening her mood
changed. She got a phone call from her sister and they
had a huge screaming match with my ma storming
round the house crying and slamming doors and swearing
at Carmel like she was in the room with her. I never
asked her what it was about. Me and Dennis watched
the telly and pretended it wasn't happening. When the
ads came on he said: 'Bobby?'

I said, 'What?'

'She has no mammy or daddy.'

I was only half listening. I was watching an ad for
my favourite kind of cider. 'Who has no mammy or
daddy?'

'The little woman,' he said. 'She lives all on her
own. It's because she's old and they're dead now.'

'Dennis,' I said. 'Do you know the difference
between waking up and dreaming?'

He thought about that for a minute, then he said, 'I
dreamed Mammy was dead, but she isn't, is she?'

She wasn't. She finished abusing Carmel on the
phone and came in to sit on the sofa and bawl her eyes
out. I didn't care what time it was. I went to bed.

* * *

My arms and face were a bit burned from all that sun
but I slept well anyway and I got up early. I was in such
a hurry to get out the door and start thumbing to Ennis
that I was nearly at the village before I realized what I'd
seen on the kitchen table.

That little green bowl again, lined with a filmy
white coating of milk.