Milkshake (34 page)

David was confused. This was the first opportunity Patrick
O’Sullivan had to explain his role in all this and it wasn’t what
he’d expected to hear. But why should David disbelieve him? After
all, the people who’d given him another version were an old school
friend he hadn’t seen or had contact with for the past twenty
years, and his mates who seemed to be little more than small time
local crooks, certainly kidnappers, if nothing else. What if it was
O’Sullivan who was telling the truth? David almost wanted to trust
him.

“This is the first time anyone has shown me any concrete
evidence of these rumours. Thanks for bringing this to my attention
tonight. Dave, I really appreciate it, believe me. Now, by coming
forward with this information you’ve probably put yourself in
danger. Somewhere out there, probably not too far away, these
people are very keen to get their card back.”

David remembered the bus that was already parked at the front
of the hotel when he arrived.

“We need to get you out of here tonight, my friend. First
thing tomorrow we can go to the police and get this all sorted
out.” O’Sullivan had already keyed in a number and his mobile phone
was to his ear;

“It’s me. Look, sorry to call so late, I need you to send a
car to the hotel. About thirty minutes? Good. I’ll call you back
with the details. Tell the driver to meet me round the
back.”

David was no longer sure what was happening. Had O’Sullivan
just called the police, some special government security number or
his own private protection? He hustled David towards the door. “Go
back to your room, Dave. Put the chain on the door, pack your bag
and don’t answer the phone. When I knock in about twenty minutes,
be ready with your stuff.”

Chapter 21

Patrick O’Sullivan grew up on the West Coast of Ireland. His
family owned a large dairy farming operation. Pat helped his father
in the milking sheds on pitch dark, cold wet winter mornings, or
cut hay in the summer holidays in bright daylight at ten o’clock in
the evening.

His father, a large, ruddy-faced man, inherited the family
farm and had ambitions to expand it. Within five years of taking it
over, he’d either bought out his neighbours or was leasing
substantial amounts of grazing pasture from them.

In the early seventies, this expanding empire caught the eye
of the Irish paramilitaries as they looked at diversifying into
activities giving them a legitimate income to make overseas arms
purchases. At this point in the troubled history of Ireland, the
Republican movement was going through a period of in-fighting as
different factions split from the old IRA. Battle lines were being
drawn.

Paddy O’Sullivan Senior resisted all attempts to allow arms
dumps to be secreted on his land, or outlying barns to be used for
small arms practise or explosives training.

There was another reason he was keen to keep strangers from
having free rein on his property. He’d been a keen and productive
home brewer for many years, well known locally as a reliable and
discrete source of poteen; Irish moonshine, illegal since 1760 but
nonetheless, widely produced and enjoyed throughout the Republic.
Paddy produced a potent and agreeable brew for his small group of
regular customers. He was always coming up with new variations of
ingredients which could be mixed and distilled to produce drinks
that one day he hoped to produce legally and in commercial
quantities.

One night, Paddy decided to experiment by adding small amounts
of cream to the base poteen spirit. He dripped small globules of
cream into glass test tubes of clear, neat spirit, lined up along
his work bench. The cream, being heavier than the spirit,
inevitably sank like cold white wax.

He picked one up, shook it hard, mixing the two opposing
liquids, then gulped down the contents. The sensation was not
unpleasant, the cream creating an unexpected smooth sensation in
his mouth which was quickly overtaken by the poteen burning
through.

He ran to the house and burst through the door, already the
worse for being the willing victim of that night’s experiments.
“Try this, Mary!” he shouted to Mrs O’Sullivan, sitting in the
lounge, reading. She wasn’t a regular drinker, and Paddy was shrewd
enough not to waste the stuff on her, but she was always willing
when offered a sample, although careful never to appear too
keen.

“Get away with ya now, Paddy O’Sullivan, Don’t come into my
house at this time of night stinking of booze and waving your
illegal brew in my face!”

“But, Mary, this time I think I might have just cracked it.
Take a wee sip of this.” He handed her one of the three glass
phials he’d managed to keep from spilling in the dark making his
way from the barn to the kitchen door. She eyed it suspiciously.
Already the cream and alcohol, which he’d shaken together in the
barn only moments earlier, were beginning to separate out again.
She took another close look at it and sipped, taking only some of
the spirit from the top. As usual. she winced and opened her mouth
wide, breathing heavily, allowing the cooling air to calm her
burning throat. “Fiery as usual,” she rasped.

“Shake the tube woman, mix the cream and the spirit, and take
another sip.”

She looked at him, eyes wide, as if he’d just asked her to
imbibe neat acid. The clock above the fire place chimed nine
thirty. She would down the rest of the tube in one go, then head
straight upstairs to bed. Hopefully, the full effects of a second
mouthful wouldn’t wreak its full vengeance until her head was
safely on her pillow.

Young Patrick, woken by the commotion downstairs, crept onto
the landing and watched his parents knocking back home-made hooch.
His mother frowned. Maybe Paddy was right, perhaps he did have
something here. “It’s a bit, well, a bit raw Patrick, a bit too
harsh for my taste, but the cream certainly gives it an unusual
texture on the palate. Let me try just one more.”

Paddy was taken aback. Usually Mary abused him for wasting
time on his useless pursuit of the perfect home brew. He handed her
the last phial and she headed into the kitchen. Intrigued, he
followed, half expecting her to throw it down the sink. “It needs
something to sweeten it up a bit.” She opened the sugar jar, took a
pinch and dropped it into the phial, shook it and then took a sip.
“Try that, now,” she said, handing the phial back to her husband
who stood, dumbfounded to be offered a shot of his own moonshine by
his wife.

He sipped. “Smoother, much smoother. I think we might be onto
something here, Mary. What else have you there in the pantry we
could try?”

“Not tonight, Paddy O’Sullivan,” she said, firmly closing the
door and pouring the remaining contents of the phial down the sink.
Paddy knew when to call it a night. It was triumph enough he’d
persuaded Mary to try his latest concoction, and it was a small
miracle that she’d opened up her pantry and actually offered
ingredients from within it. He’d try again in a day or
so.

Young Patrick, hearing the creak as the pantry door closed and
the sound of his parents moving towards the bottom of the stairs,
crept quickly back to his room, silently pulled the door behind
him, and climbed back into bed.

Now, in the solitude of his hotel room, this memory returned
as clearly as if it had happened only yesterday. A short time
afterwards, he was in bed, aware more than usual of the silence in
the house. His mother either read the paper or listened to the
radio in the evening. On this occasion, there were neither the
familiar voices, music and laughter, nor the rustle and noisy
shaking as she turned the pages of the newspaper, attempting to
unravel the mess his father made of it at lunchtime.

Curious, he crept once again to the top of the stairs that led
down directly into the main living area of the old farmhouse. Only
a table lamp lit the room, too dim to read by, he thought. Step by
creaking step, he made his way downstairs. If his mother suddenly
appeared through the kitchen door beneath him, he could say he was
after a drink of water, brazenly keep going, get his drink and go
straight back to bed.

Silence. The house appeared to be empty. It was usual for his
father to be working late into the evening on one of his projects
out in the barn, but for his mother to not be doing something
around the house was unusual, disconcerting for a ten year old used
to the security and certainty of routine family life.

He heard a familiar and welcome sound. His breathing which had
been shallow and hesitant returned to its usual rhythm. It was the
sound of his parents laughing together somewhere
outside.

He felt compelled to check everything was all right. Patrick
made his way, barefoot and increasingly cold, across the yard.
Depending on what he saw, he’d retreat, embarrassed but reassured,
back to his room. If he was caught then he’d heard noises, was
frightened and had come looking for them.

Patrick decided it would be better to peer through the small
window first and in that way decide if he should make an innocent
entrance. The naked brilliance of an uncovered bulb cast a stark
clinical light around the inside of the barn. Patrick could see his
parents and someone else standing by the workbench against the far
wall. They were drinking from small glasses, talking and laughing.
Why were they socialising in the barn? Surely the house was warmer
and more comfortable at this late hour?

Patrick heard a bang. Half-blinded by the brightness he had
just been staring intently into, he could just make out in the
gloom the shape of Tess, the family dog, running out through the
open front door and across the yard towards him. He tried to
silently shoo her away, but she misunderstood his waving and barked
a loud greeting back. Paddy cursed. “Who let the bloody dog out at
this hour?”

Patrick ran through the barn door, following the panting Tess.
“It was me, Da,” he puffed, pretending to have just chased the dog
all the way from the house. “She was scratching at the door to be
let out and woke me up. She just ran, so I ran after her and … ”
Tess looked up at him as if she believed every word of
it.

His parents accepted the explanation. Their focus at that
moment was on their guest; a smartly dressed man who Patrick now
recalled, over thirty years later, wore a tie, a long black
overcoat and immaculately polished black brogues, caked on the
soles in farmyard soil. He looked out of place standing there in
the barn but otherwise seemed at ease. The empty glass in his hand
was probably the explanation for his relaxed demeanour;

“Mr Templeton, this is my son, Patrick. Say hello to Mr
Templeton, Patrick.”

Patrick smiled awkwardly. He knew Mr Templeton was the reason
he hadn’t received a clip round the ear. In fact, if it hadn’t been
for Mr Templeton and his parents' laughter, he wouldn’t have been
standing in the barn in his pyjamas in the first place. “Now then,
Pat, Mr Templeton here has come all the way from Dublin to try a
wee drop or three of my latest home brew.”

His father stood aside revealing his workbench conspicuously
covered by one of his mother’s best white linen tablecloths. Set on
the cloth were a number of small whisky glasses and a decanter of
liquid. Patrick smiled as he recalled its colour - cat sick brown
his mother would have called it. “This, my son, is going to make us
rich. Mr Templeton here is from one of the big distilleries and
he’s made me an offer on the rights to make this stuff on a
commercial basis.”

“What is it?” Patrick asked innocently.

“This my boy, is a mixture of the finest Irish poteen, the
best cream in County Cork and a few secret ingredients which I
shall divulge in full to Mr Templeton on satisfactory conclusion of
our negotiations. Now back to bed with you before you catch your
death.”

“Can I try some?”

Paddy took a perceptible step back in mock horror, more for
the benefit of his wife and their guest. He was secretly quite
proud his ten year old son was showing such a keen interest in
alcoholic beverages. Young Patrick had no idea what it
was.

“Sure you can, son.”

Patrick took the freshly filled glass from his father, barely
half a mouthful even for a small boy. He held it up briefly to
inspect it, as he had seen his father do in the past, and knocked
it back in one go.

In hindsight, the vaporous aroma should have warned him a
split second before his tongue caught first the smoothness of
chocolate and cream, instantly followed by the spirit, burning all
the way down his throat and into his stomach. He wretched and,
holding the glass out for his father, ran out the barn, across the
yard, through the door and into the kitchen where he clasped his
lips around the cool metal of the cold water tap and gulped until
the heat in his mouth receded and the awful taste had
gone.

He blocked that evening from his mind until a few months later
when one Saturday afternoon a brand new Range Rover pulled up
outside the house. Patrick came running out to greet the
stranger.

He’d never seen such a big car. He’d never seen a new car. It
was pristine, except for the tyres already encased in mud from the
mile long drive up the track from the road. It reminded him of Mr
Templeton; immaculate except for the shoes. Then there was the
colour. His dad called it tan. But it was the same cat sick colour
of the drink he had sold the rights to in order to purchase the new
vehicle.