Creature of the Night (18 page)

I wanted to rob a car. I wanted the buzz of driving too
fast, the pure adrenaline rush that was the best way
in the world of forgetting your problems. But I didn't
have the energy to go looking for keys on my own.
Beetle could smell an open door or an unwatched
jacket a mile away, but I never could. So I stayed out
for the rest of the night, walking the streets around my
own part of town, backwards and forwards.

A fella asked me if I wanted tablets. Two hours later
I passed him again and he asked me the same thing. I did
want tablets, but I wanted a place of my own, away
from Fluke, away from his ma and my ma screaming at
each other all through the day and night. My five
hundred was staying where it was and there was no way
I was going to touch it, even if I had to starve.

I wasn't scared of Dublin at night. I belonged there.
But she didn't, the little woman. I kept seeing here everywhere,
out the corner of my eye, like she was following
me. I knew she wasn't really there, but all the same it
scared the shite out of me.

I wondered how she killed Lars, when he was so big
and she was so small. He had a torch which the guards
found. He must have gone in the hole after her, wearing
his blue shirt. It wouldn't have been hard for her to kill
him once he had his head down that hole. All she needed
to do was to stick him in the right place in his throat and
wait for him to bleed to death. After that she had to cut
him into small pieces so she could carry them across the
road and bury them under the mud around the cattle
feeder. It must have been some night's work for a person
the size of Dennis.

I was glad Coley didn't believe me. I didn't want the
guards finding her, even if they could. I thought of what
her life must have been like, living under the ground like
that. She was all on her own, Dennis said so. All on her
own, with nothing but darkness, day and night.

I couldn't get it out of my head, what I done to
Fluke. My own cousin. I kept saying to myself that I
never meant to do it, that I never meant to hit him so
hard, but it wasn't true. When I hit him I wanted to hurt
him. Maybe I even wanted to kill him, for what he done
to me, pushing me out of the gang and that, treating me
like a kid and bringing in that other lad and never saying
a word about it. And when I thought about the way
I went mental I couldn't help thinking about Psycho
Mick, and how maybe that was what I'd turned into,
because of what I said about him to the guards.

I seen the little woman again, looking into a rubbish
bin, but it was just a dog, and it ran off when it seen me.
I wondered where she was now. Out in the dark without
a home, the same as myself. I felt sorry for her. She didn't
set out to kill Lars any more than I set out to smash
Fluke's face. If he'd left her alone and not gone after her
she wouldn't have hurt him. She wouldn't have hurt
Dennis, neither. He wasn't after her like Lars was. He
was her little friend and he got her milk for her and gave
her biscuits and small little squares of pink and yellow
cake.

And I gave her Roses. No wonder she wanted more
of them. Imagine what chocolate must taste like to someone
who spends all their life eating beetles and worms.

I didn't even notice the morning coming until I passed a
café that was open. I still had about eight euro left, and
I got a full Irish breakfast for that, including toast and a
whole pot of tea.

'What happened to the other fella?' the man behind
the counter asked me.

'What?' I said.

He sent me into the jacks to look in the mirror. I
had a massive shiner and my lip was swollen out like
Mick Jagger. I thought it looked cool, but I wished it
hadn't happened now. It wouldn't help my chances of
getting a room.

'I fell off my bike,' I told him when he asked me
again. I didn't want to think about what happened to the
other fella. I remembered the blood coming through
Fluke's fingers.

After my breakfast I wandered around a bit more,
but I didn't want to go too far because I had to go to
Beetle's in the afternoon. So when the sun had warmed
up the air a bit I went into the park and went asleep
under a bush. I kept my jacket on instead of using it as
a blanket like I usually did. I didn't want some scumbag
robbing it with all that money in the lining.

My ma rang me about half ten.

'Where are you, you little bollix?' she said.

'I'm asleep,' I said.

'Where?' she said. 'Carmel's been in the hospital all
night with Luke. He's got a broken nose and eleven
stitches in his face. What did you do to him?'

'He started it,' I said.

'Oh, Bobby,' she said. 'What am I going to do with
you?'

'Nothing,' I said. 'Just leave me alone.'

I couldn't sleep again after that. I walked around
the streets until my smokes were all gone and then I went
round to Beetle's. I was early, and his da had to get him
up out of bed.

'You can go back to sleep if you want to,' I told
him. 'Just show me that website first.'

Three days later I landed up at the flat. My ma opened
the door.

'Where the hell have you been?' she said.

I wanted to answer her but my mouth was busy,
grinding my teeth or something. And anyway, I didn't
know.

I lay down on the sofa and I thought I was awake
all day, watching the white walls bending and stretching,
but my ma told me later that she tried to wake me twice
and I didn't know who she was.

But I knew who she was when I got up, and I knew
as well that my whole five hundred euro was gone up in
smoke.

Me and Beetle must have had a brilliant time.

'He can't stay here,' Carmel told my ma when she came
in. 'Not after what he done to Luke. Look at the state of
him!'

'Well what can I do?' my ma said. 'He won't take
any notice of anything I say.'

'He should be locked up,' Carmel said. 'He should
be in a mental home.'

'Don't be ridiculous,' my ma said. 'He's not that
bad.'

'Well I don't care,' Carmel said. 'I couldn't give a
shite what happens to him at this stage. All I know is he's
not staying here.'

'Well what's he going to do then?' my ma said.
'Where's he supposed to go?'

I was lying on the couch again, and that question
wouldn't leave me alone. It kept ringing through my
head all night, whether I was awake or asleep.

'Where's he supposed to go?'

I heard Fluke come in and storm around the house,
slamming doors and swearing. I heard Carmel yelling at
him to leave me alone.

'Where's he supposed to go?'

I heard my ma laughing with her sister, and then
rowing with her, and then I heard her screaming at
Dennis, and I went back to sleep. Someone came in
and turned on the TV. Someone else came in and turned
it off again.

'Where's he supposed to go?'

I heard Dennis crying outside the bathroom door. I
heard sirens speeding through the night and lads down
in the courtyard, saying goodnight to each other in
broad daylight.

'Where's he supposed to go?'

I was awake now, and I knew the answer.

I got up off the sofa and put my shoes on and felt down
the back of it and got a two euro and a twenty-cent
piece. There was another euro down the back of the
armchair, but I still had a long way to go.

I got seven in change out of Carmel's purse that she
left in the kitchen – some people never learn – and
another one-fifty in small change out the bottom of a jar
which had pens and rulers in it. Still not enough. It
would have to do.

Fluke's door was open. He was snoring through his
broken nose. I didn't look at his face. I pulled my backpack
out from under the pile of clothes and cushions on
the floor. It still had everything I needed in it – my tools,
my toothbrush, my clean clothes. I hadn't opened it since
we arrived. I must have smelled like a drain, but I wasn't
going to change now. I could do it somewhere along the
way. I knew I was pushing my luck but I reached for
Fluke's jeans. Coins clinked in the pocket but he didn't
wake up. I put my hand in the pocket. There was a note
in there as well as the coins. I closed my fist around the
lot and backed out of the room with my bag.

And I was gone.

The garda tape was still up around the ring fort, and the
hole in the middle of it gaped open, all black and silent.
No way the little woman would be going back there any
more. Would she find another place, another safe hole in
the ground, where she could be a little woman again? Or
would she stay a badger for ever, a creature of the night?

Was it the same with me? I was homeless, driven
out because of what I done. Maybe that would be my
future as well, being a creature of the night, mixing with
others like me. But maybe, just maybe, I had one last
chance.

Margaret opened the door to me. She got a shock
when she seen me and she didn't even say hello. She just
called back over her shoulder for PJ.

He looked older. They both did. And there was
something else different about them as well, like they
had lost some of their trust in people. Maybe it was me
that robbed it off them. Maybe I needed it for myself.

'Hello, Bobby,' PJ said. 'What are you doing here?'

'I had to come, didn't I?' I said. 'I haven't finished
paying off the car.'

They both looked at me and I knew what they were
seeing. The black eye, the split lip, the way my skin
would be looking after those three days on the gear. I
seen Coley behind them, just his head poking out round
the kitchen door.

That pain was inside my ribs again and I kept
swallowing and swallowing but it wouldn't go back
down. I looked back at PJ. He pulled in a long, deep
breath and it took him ages, as if all the clean air of
Clare wasn't enough to fill him. And when he let it out
again he said: 'All right, Bobby. I suppose we'd better let
you in.'

One time I had a tooth pulled out and for ages afterwards
there was a hole in my gum and I couldn't keep
my tongue out of it. I just kept poking away at it all the
time. The Dooleys planted trees around the ring fort but
the hole in the ground is still there, and my mind keeps
poking away at it like the hole where the tooth was. I
can't leave it alone. The little woman has a track worn
for herself in my brain.

I been in a lot of places where I couldn't sleep.
Wings, wards, dormitories. Troubled people make a lot
of noise at night. There were times when I made a lot of
noise myself, trying to beat a way through. Trying to
fight myself instead of everyone else.

Sometimes in the darkness I seen loads of little
people marching across Ireland and dancing in the fairy
forts, but I know those times were dreams or flashbacks.
But then I think maybe there were loads of them out
there, even if I didn't see them. Maybe Ireland is teeming
with little people, half badger, living under the ground.
Or maybe Dennis's little woman was the last of them.
What if her parents swapped her for Peggy's babby and
went and died themselves, and she was the very last of
her kind in the whole of Ireland?

I heard Dennis talking downstairs in Joe and
Peggy's old house, and I know that wasn't any dream. I
heard the dog flap rattle. I seen a badger running away
through the hedge. A badger. Maybe that's all it was. But
I feel her terror, being driven away from the only place
where she felt safe, and I feel Lars's terror when he sees
her with that little knife in her hand coming towards
him, and he realizes he's stuck with his head down the
hole and he can't get out.

How long would it take to bleed to death?

Then I remember that it's all mad stuff and I don't
believe any of it. And then I start back at the beginning
again, and my head goes round and round, same old
paths, same old thoughts.

Dennis was fourteen last week, and the number rang all
kinds of bells for me. It seemed important for me to see
him, so I picked him up and drove him down to Clare.

'To visit that place where we stayed,' I told him. 'To
see how much you remember.'

We went to Dooleys' first but there was no one in.
I was half disappointed and half relieved. The last time
I was there was for Grandma Dooley's funeral a couple
of years back, and PJ had a few too many and said a lot
of embarrassing things about me to anyone who would
listen. He thinks the world of me, PJ does, no matter
how many times I let him down.

We drove on up to the top of the hill and looked
down at Joe and Peggy's house from there. The forestry
is over my head now, but they didn't plant inside the ring
fort and you can still see it, just about. The hole is kind
of healed around the edges by grass and stuff, but still
black and gaping. It still gives me the creeps.

'Remember?' I said to Dennis.

He just shrugged. He isn't like me, Dennis. He's
kind of slow and dreamy, not wild at all. He goes to
school every day but I don't think he's up to much there.
He has some kind of special classes, I think, but he
doesn't talk about it. Not to me, anyway.

We drove down to the house. The Dooleys sold it to
some young German people and they turned the stone
shed into a workshop or studio or something, with lots
of glass. There were apple trees and vegetable gardens
and a polytunnel, but the house was pretty much the
same as when we had it. From the outside, anyway.

'Remember it now?' I said.

He shook his head. There didn't seem to be anyone
home so we went in around the back. There was no green
bowl outside the window. There was a new back door with
no dog flap. I tried the handle but it was locked. Not that
it would be so hard to break in. I stepped back and looked
up at the window in the gable end.

'That was my room,' I said to Dennis. 'You had a
small little room under the roof.'

He looked across at the orchard. Some of the trees
still had bits of white blossom. Beyond them the edge of
the forestry was like a black wall. I didn't know if it was
the right thing to do, put trees there. I went to go over
and have a look, but I got a sudden notion that I might
see a path, a little animal track disappearing in among
the trees, and I changed my mind.

'You don't remember the dog?' I said. 'The little
woman? The guy who was murdered?'

'I remember getting my fingerprints taken.' He held
up his fingers and looked at the tips of them. 'I remember
the black ink.'

They never got anyone for Lars's murder. They
interviewed Kevin Talty three times but they never
charged him. Doesn't mean he didn't do it.

But the fingerprints on the bloody knife. Tiny
fingerprints. They didn't match Dennis's.

'I remember something else,' he said. 'I think I do.'

'What?' I almost didn't want to hear.

'A spanner,' he said. 'No, not a spanner. A torque
wrench. Is that mad?'

I laughed at him. 'No. Not mad. There was a torque
wrench.'

I still have it, that torque wrench, but I don't keep
it in with my other tools. It was cheap and useless. It
broke the third time I used it. But I keep it anyway, to
remind me that it was once the most important thing in
the world to me. And in a way, it still is.

'Show me your fingers again,' I said to Dennis. He
held them up, pink and soft and clean.

I showed him mine, and he looked close, at the
black grease deeply ingrained in all the little lines. It
made me laugh. If I had a nice ham sandwich now, I
could probably leave a decent pawprint in it.