Cold Eye of Heaven, The (7 page)

Farley looks up and over the windows; the house appears to be empty now. In his time he'd seen every room of it occupied over and over; a mixed bag of oddballs through the years. A struck-off solicitor, nose the shape of a little red arse, sniffing around for a few crumbs. The tailor, of course. The dress-hire woman. And there was an architect that only came
in for an hour a day, sandwiches tucked under his jumper, like he was ashamed of them. A dodgy enterprise or two, usually called something with the word ‘Export' in the title.

Slowey & Co. had been the longest tenants; bit by bit taking over most of the rooms. Except of course for the top-floor flat where the sisters had lived. Three spinsters and one widow. The widow had lasted the longest: Jane, the youngest. Even into her seventies you could tell she'd been a looker, not because she still was, but by the way she behaved and the way she treated men, taking their attention for granted.

Farley climbs the steps and stands at the door. There's a planning permission sign on the wall beside it. He is leaning in to read it when the door jumps open, frightening the life out of him. A man standing there. ‘Alright?' he says.

‘Yea, I'm grand. Ta. I was just. I used to work here, you see and. For years, I did.'

The man has a bunch of letters in his hand, holding the door back with his foot while he racks through them. Behind him, the hall as dark as a cave. The same lino on the floor, old letters in a box on a table.

‘Were you looking for anyone in particular?' he asks.

‘Unless meself?' Farley says, then turns and comes back down the steps.

He stands on the street for a moment, a face in the flow of passing faces. The cold shudders through him. Tea. He was supposed to be getting a cup of tea.

Now in a shopping centre; blast of white light, a screeching baby. Too late he remembers the Mass card, after passing right by the church on the quays. Other churches pop up and down in his head – Marlborough Street; Whitefriars; John's; Adam's and Eve. Churches from all over the city. All very well, but which is the nearest because he hasn't a clue where he is now? One shopping centre bleeding into another; lights, glass, bawl -ing children. He needs a little rest, a sup of tea, sugar. Maybe a bun. And a newspaper to hide behind, he could check on the death notice, make
sure Frank really is dead. He looks for a cafe. But all he can see is a place with no front wall, opening directly out onto the aisle of the shopping centre; plastic tables, plastic trays, paper mugs of tea that you have to go up and get yourself and then stand like a thick looking around till you see a table and then climb over yourself to get to it, so you can drink your tea from your paper cup while the world goes by and gawks in at you sitting there in your plastic grotto. It doesn't even look as if there's a jacks in there and he'd be looking to have a piss soon enough. Is it too much to ask – a bit of comfort? Someone to serve him, maybe say a few words? Solid things all around his hands like a cup and a saucer, a stainless steel pot, milk in a jug – handles to hold on to – is
that
too much? Now if Bewley's was still going. But no point thinking about that.

He sits down on a bench in the centre of the aisle. Plastic fronds from an imitation palm tree behind him. On one side a woman sending a text. On the other side a schoolgirl staring into space. On the mitch, he'd say. Can't be much fun mitching on your own. A plain little one, face dotted with freckles. Lonely, he'd say. Something going on at home maybe. He'd like to talk to her, but already he can see she's wondering should she get up and leave because an oulfella has sat down on the bench beside her.

He watches for a while, shapes waddling by. The amount of fat people. Everywhere. Men, women, kids, even babies. The size of people these days. Years ago there might be one or two puddners in the whole school, or a fatso living around the corner. But now? Now the only skinny ones you see is the junkies. Or people who look as if they're just out of the cancer hospital or on the way in. His eyes feel tired; he closes them for a few seconds; vague sounds around him; a man mumbling somewhere close by, coincidentally about Bewley's; the chatter of footsteps; blurts of passing conversation. When he opens his eyes the youngone has gone, wandering down through the centre, he sees her little copper head. The woman still there, staring at him. She looks away and something about the way she does this makes Farley realize that the voice he's been hearing mumbling in the background, was his own. The light starts beating again. His head. A long skewer pierces through, then pulls out again. There's a rush of
pinpricks in his arm, a smaller one in his face. More unpleasant than painful. Peculiar. It lasts a few seconds. Then all clear again.

He keeps losing moments. It's like they're falling out of a hole in his pocket. The Clery's bag is back under his arm, the shape of a shoe through its skin. He pulls the shoe out, the unblemished surface of a new blank sole looks up at him, lightly tan in colour, a perfect archway of minute and pristine nails. Yet he can't for the life of him remember collecting it. Was the girl in the red coat outside the pub then or before? Were the taxi men eyeing him hungrily? Did someone ask him if was he alright? And when did he remember that Jackie was his brother?

And now here he is, standing in the island in O'Connell Street, looking up at the the glint of a giant needle that used to be Nelson's Pillar. And thinking about the junkies again and trying to pull the two ends of the same idea together; the junkies and the giant needle. And staring up at the needle and imagining himself on the bus, the wall of the Park on one side, the scrag-end of the Liffey on the other. And the next thing is, he
is
on the bus, and crossing the river to turn into Parkgate Street, wondering how he got from staring up at the needle. To here. Splinters of light in his eyes again and a huge cruise ship rises before him. It takes a moment to grasp it – that's right, the new criminal courts building. A big bellyful of glass. The falling sun spitting all over it; barristers outside flapping like crows on its steps.

Outside the Slowey house the headlights of cars catch on the walls; doors clip into the darkness. Farley, from the side lane, watches the parade of condolence bringers. His arms are full – the suit in its cellophane wrapper, the few last-minute messages he bought in Centra, the Clery's bag with the newspaper inside it, page turned out that says Francis Slowey is reposing at home. Reposing at home? That'd be a first.

He lays everything down at his feet before fishing the Mass card out of
the bag, then he moves into a cone of street light. Farley pulls a pen out of his inside pocket, opens the Mass card, lifts one knee and leans the card on it. He scribbles a name that comes out as approximately Father Clearihan – a mixture of Father Cleary that used to be, and that other bollix who taught him catechism when he was a boy. He puts the card back into its envelope, prints ‘The Slowey Family' across it, and slips it into his pocket. Then he steps back into the shadows.

The house of mourning is completely blinkered. Only when the front door opens to admit newcomers or let others out, can he see by a vertical strip of hall light, that a black wreath is pinned to the front door and that the door has been painted a different colour since the last time he was here. For some reason this bothers him, as if they've sneaked behind his back to have it done, as if somehow he should have been consulted. But he reminds himself that it's been well over ten years since he's crossed that door and the Sloweys were always a house-proud lot. Once he knew this house better than his own. He knew the structure and little secrets of each room. The press in the kitchen where the good biscuits were kept and the corner where Slowey kept his single malt whiskey. He knew the way down the back garden in the dark, to the den that Slowey had built for the boys on the bit of land he'd bought from the Corpo. He knew the downstairs toilet with the dodgy plumbing and the jacks upstairs with the walk-in shower. He knew where the Christmas decorations were kept in the attic, the spare fuses, the box with the kids' old school reports in it. He knew the beds, the wallpapers, the family photos going up the stairs. The safe in the hot press. He knew all that and more.

Farley retrieves his bundle and hoists it into his arms. In the street light he can see the frost honing; the pavements already glittering hard. A cold, cold January night. In the garden a group of people are smoking; the group changes formation every now and then, somebody leaves, somebody new comes along. Here and there he recognizes, or thinks he recognizes, a figure from the past; the sound of a voice, a profile smeared in the light from the hall. Relatives of Slowey, work colleagues, pub friends, court acquaintances. He knows that each one, at some point in the
evening, will turn to another one, and, after checking first that no member of the immediate family is within earshot, ask, ‘So what's the story with Farley then?'

He turns away from the house and walks up the back lane. A soft light shows in the den, the cast of another light across the back garden from an upstairs window. He wonders where Slowey is laid out and if he's lying on a bed or already in a coffin on top of a table. And he imagines the shape of him lying there like some sort of a chieftain; long and large and quiet at last, and he wonders too what suit he'll be wearing and if he makes for a handsome corpse.

Farley takes the Mass card out of his pocket, holds it in his hand for a moment, then corner down, sticks it like a flag into the top of the back garden hedge.

He opens his front door. The silence sucks him in. He heels the door shut, unrolls the dry-cleaned suit and hangs it on the end of the stairs. Then he turns on the light and comes back to the door to bolt himself into his house. He opens the Clery's bag and removes the resoled shoe, then picks up its match from the floor and turns the shoes upside down. The two soles are a completely different colour. The new with its bright tan colour, the old a dark worn grey. After all that trouble. After all that day.

In the dim light of the hall he stands at the table before the smug, surly telephone. His reflection hangs above it in a gilt-edged frame. An old man, in a dark mirror. At what point, he wonders, does it become about fear? Fear of being caught talking to yourself, of pissing in your trousers, of pretending to remember a name, a place, a face you once knew well. Fear of getting done over by everyone out there; junkies, taxi men, youngfellas, kids. Fear of your own face in the mirror.

A clatter comes from the kitchen and now, instead of thinking about fear, he's feeling it. It tears through his heart then burns all the way out to the ends of his fingers and toes. His bladder. A burglar – he must have left the little window open again. He glances at the front door and wonders if
he has time to unchain and unbolt his way out. But he finds now it's no longer a question of time, it's a question of movement. And he can't move at all. The skewer goes through his head again, deftly inserting itself in as if it's testing a joint of meat. Then twists and pulls out again, leaving a halo of blinding scintilla around his head.

So this is it. Farley closes his eyes and waits. Another sound, like a voice. And yet not a voice. He opens his eyes. The sound again and this time he recognizes the coy, needy miaow of a cat. Around the door a fat black body appears. One paw stretches, then another. The cat gives him a deep green blink. Then he sashays into the hall and stops at his feet. Farley leans on the table and waits for his heart to resume beating. Slowly he stoops and lifts the cat up in his arms before painfully bringing himself back into a standing position. He feels warmth, strength, frailty, life. The cat miaows again. He hugs it closer to him, nuzzling his nose into its fur. His eyes fill up, his heart gives a little. ‘O Shifty,' he says.

FARLEY HANGS HIS COAT
on the rack, smoothes down his suit, settles the bag of presents he's bought by the wall. First to arrive. It occurs to him that this could well be the first time he's ever been completely alone, if not in the office, then certainly in this building. Even those times when he'd worked into the night or come back after the pub had closed because he couldn't bear the thoughts of going home – there'd always been someone. In a room somewhere. The sisters in the top-floor flat. The mad tailor. The parrot. Or that time with young Slowey.

He feels a bit spooked. The silent, dusky house around him. The long hallway. A sense of something or other prowling the empty rooms of the flat upstairs. He half expects to see Jane's painted face rise like a Venetian mask over the bannister: ‘O there you are, Mister Slowey, I wonder if I might inveigle upon you…?' No insult that she called him Slowey – whether fixing a plug or shifting a piece of furniture – they were all Mister Sloweys to Jane. He thinks now of the day she retired – how old she'd seemed to him then – a drama teacher in a secondary school. Her two elder sisters already dead and Chrissy in a home down in Meath. The loneliness of Jane after. You could see it trailing up the stairs behind her, hear it in the way she pounced on the phone the minute it rang. For a while
she'd taken to giving elocution classes to kids after school. The bored chant on winter afternoons through the floorboards: ub awb eeb; how
now
brown cow.

He opens his jacket and snuffles each armpit, worried now that it may have been a mistake to walk into work, what with the long day ahead, the retirement party after – by which time he could be stinking. But he'd enjoyed these past few days, walking into work, even though he'd never have done it but for the bus strike. And he'd enjoyed too the fact that he was fit enough to do it; fitter than most of them in here, young Slowey included. And the further fact, that after all the giving out about the carry-on of the taxi men on New Year's Eve, all the swearing to give the greedy bastards no more business, he'd been the one, the
only
one, to stick to his guns. All that aside. Walking the route he had so mindlessly made, first by car, later by bus, for near on to forty years, it had been sort of like doing it all in a slow-motion rewind, so that he'd remembered all sorts of odd things, like the names of shops that used to be, or the colour of doors on houses that once stood on this or that pile of rubble. People too; the old man in the dust coat who used sit on the bench at Wolfe Tone Park shooting at birds with his invisible rifle. Or the youngfella in the bright yellow sou'wester who used to sell newspapers at Sarah's Bridge – whatever happened to him? What he'd liked best though was the moment he came onto the quays and the first sight of the river, sturdy and dirty and looking at it,
really
looking at it, the way he used to do when he was a boy; noticing things. Like the blind-eyed river heads or the loose scabs of algae hanging off the walls. And the feeling then as he got further along, of being pulled into the machine of a city just as it was about to take off. Footsteps and purpose all around him. And the skyline all the way down to the sea where skeletons of cranes and half-constructed buildings rose up, reminding him of an exhibition in the Natural History Museum.