The Going Rate (41 page)

The man reached awkwardly into his jacket, sighing. Fanning listened to the city around him again, the wet murmur of the traffic and the empty dripping hush of the rain. Anyone with brains was at home in bed or in front of a television.

He glanced down again.

“Look, if it's any consolation, I'm soaked too. Now are you happy?”

The man's movements were slow and he was breathing hard. He muttered as he fumbled. Fanning looked up into the night sky bronzed by the city lights. He felt neutral now, not ashamed of what he had done. This surprised him a little. He and this fellow were here: circumstances were the way they were; it rained on everyone equally, just like Beckett wrote in that poem. He tried to see individual raindrops coming down through the light.

“You haven't a clue what I'm saying, have you,” he said to the Pole.

He caught only a hint of the sudden movement below. The Pole grunted and said something as he lashed out. Fanning was late stepping back. Whatever it was, it was hard, and it had run across his shin. Then he saw the reflected light on the knife as the man lunged again.

“You bastard,” Fanning said quietly.

He kicked at the arm and connected, drawing a muffled yell. There was a burning pain in his calf now. He didn't want to think about what it might be. His second kick got under the man's arm and hit something solid. The man drew his legs up and tried to put his arms over his face. He shuddered as Fanning kicked him again but he said nothing.

Fanning's breath came out in fast, separate clouds as he panted and cursed. He paused, stepped back, and looked down at his feet. Turning his leg toward the lamplight he saw the stain and the cut across the denim.

“Look what you did,” he said. “You lousy bastard. Look it!”

He wondered why it didn't hurt more, but he didn't want to lift the end of his trousers to look. The headlights that turned onto the street drew his gaze up. His whole chest felt unbearably tight and hot, his throat too tight to breathe or to talk. The car cruised down slowly toward him, too slowly. He shielded his eyes and squinted through the glare. There was no Garda sign on the roof anyway. He looked back down at the Pole, who was now propping himself up on one elbow and rubbing at his mouth.

The Pole said something thickly and he spat, and groaned softly and began touching his mouth.

The car had stopped. The driver stepped out slowly, left the door open, and began to make his way over.

Fanning began to walk away, ignoring the feeling in his leg but he knew the voice calling out.

Cully stood next to the man on the ground.

“He took out a knife. A knife?”

“What? On you?”

“My leg, I've got to go.”

“Wait– he knifed you, this bloke?”

A gloomy disgust had swept out of nowhere and taken hold of him. He was exhausted.

“You're serious?” he heard Cully say. “Talk to me. He knifed you?”

Fanning nodded. Before he turned away he saw Cully kick out sideways. The Pole's head jerked back and he rolled once. The sound came to Fanning late, and it sickened him. Cully had leaned over and was feeling around on the pavement for something. He kicked something metallic on the wet roadway until it stopped in a pool of water.

“Leave him,” Fanning shouted.

Cully raised his arms and he began kicking again, alternating his feet.

“He's not moving,” Fanning yelled. “Leave him alone.”

His whole body ached, as he made his way back.

“Stop,” he said. “Enough, this is just stupid.”

Cully was stomping with his heel now. Slowly and selectively. Fanning hesitated, pushing his fingers further into his ears.

“Stop it!” he yelled.

Cully lowered his arms and he stepped back.

“I'm getting out of here,” Fanning said. “You should too.”

“Why are you covering your bloody ears?”

“There's no need for this, I gave him a going-over.”

“A going-over? You?”

“We should never have come down here.”

Cully's face twisted up. He stepped over to Fanning quickly.

“He knifes you, and you're apologizing?”

“There's no need to do any more.”

“You're shaky, aren't you?”

“It's the coke.”

“Shaking like a leaf, you are,” said Cully and looked down at the Pole.

“I'm going to phone for an ambulance,” Fanning said.

“An ambulance? You can walk, can't you? As far as the car?”

“For him, he's not–”

“He's not supposed to bloody move,” Cully said. “What do you think this is?”

“He's unconscious, he's hurt.”

“I should bloody hope so! A bloke tries to do for you, some foreigner here, and you want to tuck the bastard into bed or something?”

Cully took a deep breath and tugged at his jacket. Fanning felt the chill now. And his face and eyes were getting the feeling he remembered from when being a child with that fainting thing. There was something pasty and sour at the back of his throat. The lights of the car swelled and receded. It seemed that Cully was speaking from a long way away.

“You're going to pass out,” he heard Cully say from a long way away.

He did not want to look again at the strange wetness around the man's head. It gave off a dull gleam that was different from the rain.

“I've got to go home,” he said.

Said it? Or thought it?

He was aware of moving, of awkward steps, and the sound of soles scuffing and scraping under him.

“Come back,” he heard Cully shout. “Don't be stupid, get back here! I'll drive you.”

No: he was jogging now, and it was effortless and smooth. He heard Cully shouting again, and the sound of tires and revving.

But how fast he could run, and how easily. He turned onto the quays. Traffic, sounds, and even a few people. He stopped and looked back for headlights coming around after him. Everything was still amplified, sharp, engrossing. A flurry of footsteps erupted nearby, and he pressed into a doorway. The racket was two girls half-running and half-staggering, their heels dragging and clattering on the roadway, their boyfriends pulling on their arms, coaxing them on.

The normality of it flooded him with relief.

He waited a few moments, and then made his way toward the lights and crowds of the city centre.

Chapter 41

F
OR A MOMENT
, Fanning didn't know if he was still in the dream. It was he himself who had shouted.

“God almighty!”

That was Bríd's voice.

“What was that? Was it you, Dermot?”

He couldn't straighten up. He was stiff everywhere. He heard Bríd's slippers sliding on the floor.

“Jesus,” she whispered. “That was you yelling?”

“Sorry.”

His arm was asleep. The chair back had dug into his shoulder and lodged there.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I must have fallen asleep. I got home late – don't. No, no light. Please.”

She stood in front of him, waiting. He began to rub at his face.

“You're in a fierce state. Did you go overboard on the drink?”

The reproach and suspicion in her voice didn't bother him now.

“I'm just exhausted. I got home, sat down for a think, and…”

“Well there's a can of something there by the side of your chair.”

He raised his back slowly from the chair.

“Beer,” he said. “Right. I didn't even get to it then.”

“And your phone,” she said, stooping. She picked it up with two fingers and held it out. “It's soaked.”

“It'll be okay in the morning.”

He knew she was holding back questions. The pins and needles were like fire down his arm.

“There's a smell of something. Petrol. Do you smell it?”

“Right, yes. Well, I helped a fella push his car off the road there. Broken down.”

Her tone changed again.

“You got soaked, I bet.”

He shook his head. He was pretty certain now that the knot in his shoulders would morph into a headache.

“Dermot. Dermot?”

“I'm here.”

“Are you okay?”

“I'm half asleep. That's all.”

“But is everything okay? That's what I mean.”

“Everything's okay,” he said. “Yes.”

“Whyn't you come to bed when you got home?”

“Ah, you know.”

“Do I? I thought I was getting the come-hither earlier on.”

“I know you need your sleep,” he tried. “I didn't want to wake you. Was Aisling wandering around in the night?”

“No. Not yet. If she slept through that, she'll stay asleep. Jesus, Dermot. I only heard you like that once, remember after the accident?”

“Sorry,” he said.

She took a step toward the chest of drawers and leaned against it. He could still feel her battle between annoyance and worry.

“Did anyone phone?” he asked.

“What, in the middle of the night, you mean?”

“After I left.”

“Who were you expecting?”

“No-one, actually.”

“Colm Breen, maybe?”

“Not funny, Bríd. Not this hour of the night.”

“Or that Guard you were supposed to talk to?”

He started in the chair.

“What Guard?”

She folded her arms.

“Oh whatever his name is. How would I remember? You said you were going to get a meeting with him. The research thing. Oh, what's his name! Molloy? No – Malone. You pointed out his name in the paper last month. Him.”

He sat back slowly.

“That never panned out,” he said. “No.”

He straightened his back, and then arched it as far as it would go, and sat forward in the chair.

“Jesus, Dermot! Your trousers! What happened?”

“I know.”

“They're wrecked, so they are! And the dirt? My God.”

The light hurt his eyes.

“That's not just muck and dirt, Dermot. Tell me what happened?”

His throat felt blocked. A sharp pain ran down the middle of his chest.

“Stupid stuff,” he managed to say. “I was out in some fields. Barbed wire. Dark of course, and didn't see it. Stupid. Embarrassing.”

She knelt by his leg.

“Don't mind embarrassing,” she said, her voice now thick with concern. “Think tetanus.”

“It's not that bad.”

“Well what the hell were you doing out in some field in the middle of the night, and it pouring rain, do you mind me asking?”

“You don't have to believe me,” he said. “It's okay.”

“Oh don't try that on me,” she said. “Let me see it, you have a cut there.”

He drew back in the chair.

“I'll take care of it,” he said evenly. “It's okay. Thanks.”

She looked up sharply.

“How could it be okay? It's more than a scrape. What on earth were you at?”

“Nothing, Bríd. Nothing.”

Her expression was all too familiar to him now, coming from a place between exasperation and fright.

“If I wasn't so knackered coming home, I'd have changed, and you wouldn't be giving me the third degree. I didn't plan to fall asleep, did I?”

“Can't you accept that I am worried? What's so hard about that?”

He was almost glad that his anger had made him alert now.

“Bríd. For the love of… Give over a minute, will you? We're adults, okay?”

“What does that mean? Or should I ask?”

“It means you know the score. I know the score. When did you start to be my mother, or something?”

“Christ, that's rich. Your mother?”

“Remember? Remember what we were?”

“You're still drunk. Or something.”

He grasped her forearm, and began to massage it.

“Remember what we said, what we swore to one another? How we wouldn't end up like, well, my parents? The whole married thing? We'll live the way we want, not in some prison full of clichés and stupid habits and all that?”

“Dermot. Listen. This is basic.”

“That's what I'm saying! We don't give up who we are. We do our thing– you do yours, I do mine. We don't, you know, do surveillance on one another.”