Creature of the Night (4 page)

The religion didn't cheer my ma up at all, not from what
I could see, anyway. She was still mad at me and she
wouldn't talk to me at all when she first came in. Except
to say: 'Everybody else for miles around was there. I
don't see why you think you're so special.'

She'd brought two big bags of shopping from the
village and she banged around the kitchen putting things
away, slamming the doors of the presses and swearing at
the walls. Then she went into the sitting room and cried.
I knew why she was crying. She wanted me to go in and
say sorry. I used to do that when I was younger. I can't
stand it when she cries, and I used to go in to make it
better. Whatever it was I done I used to promise never to
do it again, and then usually she would cheer up and say
I was a great boy and all that crap. But I was wise to that
now. At least if she was crying she was out of my face. I
don't know why she still bothered. It was a long time
since that trick had worked on me.

I made myself a cup of tea and sat in the kitchen,
watching Dennis climb in and out through the dog flap.
My ma had left her bag on the back of a chair and when
Dennis was outside I robbed a fiver out of her purse. The
next time he went out I took three fags from her packet
and put them in my own. I didn't like her brand, but I
was too poor to be choosy.

'Take the dog out with you,' I said to Dennis.

'Bimbo!' said Dennis. 'Come on, Bimbo!'

But the dog wouldn't go. I couldn't find any string
so I cut one of the dishcloths into strips and knotted
them together and tied it around its neck. My ma called
me a vandal when she seen what I done but she was a bit
pleased as well, to see Dennis playing with the dog. She
was happier now, anyway. She always was when she'd
had an old cry for herself. But she still hadn't forgotten
about it.

'You should have come down,' she said. 'They're all
really nice. The Dooleys gave me a lift home and waited
for me while I did my shopping. They're gone home to
have their dinner now but their young lad said he might
call down later to see you.'

'Oh, good,' I said, but I think my ma missed the
sarcasm.

'He's sixteen. His name's Colman. Quiet lad. Not
like some.'

I went outside and looked at the Skoda again. It
gave me a lift to see the wheel I changed. It looked a bit
too clean compared to the others, but you'd have to look
hard to notice it. I moved away quickly in case my ma
seen me looking at it and got suspicious.

I didn't know what to do with myself. I was wired
to the moon, ready to take off but stuck here for at least
twelve more hours. I wanted another fag but I knew I'd
want them more during the drive in the night and it
would be better to save them. I resisted for about ten
minutes, then gave in and had one anyway.

What did anybody do around here? What did my
ma expect me to do when she dragged me down here?
Run around in the fields picking daisies?

I went over to the sheds and poked around in them
for a while. There were piles of junk in the smaller ones,
mostly old farm stuff, completely knackered and useless.
But there was a saw and an axe that looked like they
were newer and they gave me an idea. There was a big
stack of logs in the hayshed; just tree trunks, really,
maybe four metres long. There was a pile of firewood at
one end of them, but there wasn't much in it and the way
my ma piled it on the fire it wouldn't last long. I didn't
particularly want any more of her 'man about the house'
shite, but I really fancied myself swinging that axe.

So after I'd had my dinner I got it out and took it
into the hayshed. There was a chopping block at the
front, a big thick slice out of a fat old tree, and I dragged
one of the logs over and propped it across it. It didn't
want to stay. Kept rolling off whenever I hit it. I wedged
it with my breeze block but it still wasn't solid. The
whole log jumped sideways every time I took a swing at
it, and I spent more time picking it up and putting it
back than I did cutting it. But in the end I got it secured
and settled in to chopping.

It was harder than you'd think, though. For one
thing you need to keep hitting it in the same place, which
isn't as easy as it looks, and for another the axe didn't
really bite into the wood the way I thought it would. It
bruised it and flattened it, and now and then a chunk
would fly out in a random direction, but I hadn't even
got through one section of the log before I had to stop
for a breather.

I turned round and seen my ma watching me. She
smiled and opened her mouth but I knew what was
going to come out of it and I said: 'Just shut it, all right?
Before you start. Just leave me alone to get on with it!'

I didn't wait for an answer, just turned and picked
up the axe again and started to swing like a madman at
the wood. Bits flew all over the place, smacking me on
the shins and the arms. I hacked and hacked until my
heart was pounding like a road hammer, and when I
stopped to rest again my ma had gone.

But there was someone else there. Colman Dooley.
Leaning against the telegraph pole beside our gate. It
wasn't a good start. He was watching me, and he was
laughing.

'I'm Colman from up the road,' he said, coming into the
yard. 'Coley, if you like.'

He was taller than me and a lot broader as well.
Beefy. I let him take the axe from my hand. He looked at
the blade.

'It's blunt,' he said, with a big grin and a laugh
behind it. 'Completely useless. You might as well be
hitting it with a lump hammer.'

I felt the blood in my face. 'I know,' I said.

'Come up to the house,' he said. 'My grandfather
will sharpen it. He has the knack.'

I shrugged. 'I don't care.' I'd had my go with the axe
and that was all I wanted. I didn't care whether the
wood got chopped or not.

'Come up,' he said. 'He'll do it in ten minutes.'

'Don't bother,' I said, but he turned back towards
the road with the axe in his hand and I found myself
following him.

'Do you want to tell your mother where you're
going?' he said.

'No,' I said.

His bike was leaning against the hedge. It was a
fancy mountain bike with suspension. He picked it up
and handed me the axe. We walked up the road, him
pushing his bike and me with the axe on my shoulder.

'How far is it by the road?' I said.

''Tisn't far,' he said. 'About a mile maybe.'

'Your grandma came across the fields yesterday.'

''Tis shorter all right,' Coley said. 'But it's boggy. I
didn't want to turn up in my wellies. You might have
laughed at me.'

But he was the one who was laughing. Every second
time he opened his mouth a laugh came out of it. I didn't
like it. It felt like he was laughing at me. I wanted to
knock the stupid grin off his face, but I kept my spare
hand in my pocket where it was safe.

After another while he said: 'Sure, you weren't to
know.'

'Know what?' I said.

'About the axe. Being blunt and all. How would
you know about things like that? I don't suppose you see
too many axes in Dublin.'

I shrugged. I wished he'd shut up about it.

'I might ask my father for the chainsaw,' he said.

I thought a chainsaw was a murder weapon. 'What
for?' I said.

'Go through those old sticks like butter,' he said.
'We'd make short work of them.'

Coley told his grandfather my name was Robert. My ma
must have told him that. She always did when she was
trying to make an impression on someone, the stupid
bitch. No one called me Robert, not even her. I got called
Rob, Robbie, Bob, Bobby, Bobser, Robser – so many
names I sometimes forgot who I was. The one I liked
best, though, was what Beetle called me sometimes.
Roberto. It wasn't the name so much as the way he said
it. He only used it when I did something really cool, like
snatching the latest model Nokia or throwing off a garda
car with a handbrake turn. Then he would say
'Roberto!' rolling all the Rs, like a ringmaster looking
for applause for some brilliant acrobat or something.

'RRRoberrrrto!'

Maybe he'd say it tonight when I turned up with the
Skoda. I felt the phone in my pocket. No texts from any
of them. No calls to see if I was OK. But then, that
wasn't our style. We only contacted each other when we
were looking for action.

'You can call me Rob,' I said to Coley's grandda,
but I meant it for Coley, really.

His grandda looked at the axe. Coley was grinning,
but trying not to.

''Tisn't work, I suppose,' his grandda said, getting
up out of his chair.

'Of course it's work,' his grandma said, coming out
of the kitchen. 'But nobody seems to care any more.
They even open the shops in Ennis on a Sunday now, can
you believe that?' She was looking at me but I didn't
know what she was on about and I just shrugged.

'Sunday is just like any other day now,' she said.

''Tisn't really work,' Grandda Dooley said again.
He winked at me and went out the door. Me and Coley
followed him out into the yard. There was any amount
of buildings and barns out there, but he went to a
row of small stone sheds, a bit like our ones only these
were in better order. He unlocked a padlock on one of
them and we followed him in. On one side were farm
tools leaning up against the wall – forks, shovels, rakes,
another axe and a pickaxe, sledgehammers, crowbars.
On the other side was a smart workbench with rows of
hand tools and a grinder, bolted on.

'Fetch a bucket of water, Colman,' he said. And
then, to me, 'We used do it all by hand, you know, with
whetstones. Very slow.' He looked at the axe again and
laughed, just the way Coley did. 'This one would have
taken me half a day. We'll do it in half a minute, now.'

He turned on the grinder and the wheel began to
spin. Coley came in with the water and his grandda
stood it on the bench beside the grinder.

'You'd better stand back now,' he said. 'And I'll
have to find my goggles.' He laughed that little laugh
again. 'There'll be a lot of sparks flying around. I'm
blind enough already.'

He put on his goggles, dipped the head of the axe in
the water and touched the side of the blade against the
wheel. He was right about the sparks. A huge shower of
them flew up from the steel, like a firework.

He dipped the axe in the water again and returned
it to the wheel. Then again, and again, he dipped it and
ground it and dipped it and ground it, and he only
stopped when he took it over to the door to look at it in
the daylight. It took a lot more than half a minute. It was
at least ten minutes before he was happy with what he
done, and then he turned the axe over and began again
on the other side.

''Tisn't as easy as it looks,' Coley said. 'I tried it
once with a penknife. It turned pure blue. You wouldn't
cut mud with it now.'

'We're getting there,' his grandda said. He took it
over to the door again. 'We just have to get the burr off
it now. See it there?'

I looked closely and seen what he was pointing at –
a little rough ridge of metal running along the edge of
the blade.

'We'll take that off with a small stone.' He clamped
the axe in a vice and dipped a square pink stone in the
bucket. It was smoother than the big round one on
the bench grinder. He ran it along one side of the blade
and then the other and he showed me the bits of the burr
coming off on it, like grey sludge.

'That'll do it,' he said. He let the axe out of the vice
and handed it to me. 'Keep it turned away from you
now. We don't want any accidents.'

'You could shave yourself with that,' Coley said.

'You could,' his grandda said, 'if you had a very,
very steady hand.'

They both laughed and this time I joined in.

I was itching to try out the axe but Coley followed his
grandda back into the house and his grandma had tea
ready, all laid out on the table with cups and saucers and
cake and biscuits and milk in a jug, like something out
of an old film.

Coley sat down but I didn't. I was thinking about a
quick getaway.

'Sit down, sit down,' Grandma Dooley said. 'You'll
have a cup of tea.'

And before I knew it I was at the table. There was
something about Coley and his grandda, like they were
going along with the flow instead of always against it all
the time, and somehow I had to go along as well. I
wasn't so sure about his grandma, though. She had
sharper edges.

She said, 'Did you leave out the milk last night?'

I looked at Coley. He was grinning up at the ceiling.
Sometimes I wondered if he was all there.

'I don't know,' I said. 'My ma might have.' I knew
she hadn't.

'I hope she did,' Mrs Dooley said. 'I hope she did.'

'What would happen if she didn't?' I said.

She shook her head, all serious. 'Bad luck to upset
the fairies. You wouldn't know what might happen.'

'Like what?' I said.

But she didn't answer that. She poured out the tea
and Coley reached for cake. I did, too.

'Is the house all right for you?' she said.

I said, 'It's fine. Very nice.'

'Fierce wind last night,' she said.

'Fierce,' Mr Dooley said. 'Very unusual for the time
of year.'

'You didn't lose any slates?'

'I don't think so,' I said.

'Good.'

We ate and drank. Mr Dooley sounded like a straw
at the bottom of a milkshake. I could see Coley trying to
hide his grin again but I kept a straight face. I had to. If
I started laughing I'd never stop.

Mrs Dooley said, 'There was only ever one child
reared in that house.' I wondered if she ever talked about
anything else or if she was for ever stuck in the same
groove, like the rabbit at the dog track. 'Fifteen years she
lived in that house and nobody ever saw her. Nor her
mother, neither. Himself used do all the shopping and
suchlike. Things a man shouldn't have to be buying.'

I was reaching breaking point. I didn't dare look at
Coley. I just kept my head down and stuffed my face
with cake. But the next thing she said cured me very fast.

'They murdered her for a finish.'

'Murdered who?' I said. 'The child?'

Mrs Dooley nodded. 'So they said. Put them in
prison and all. The two of them.'

'I don't believe they did it,' Mr Dooley said. 'They
never found a body or any evidence or anything.'

'I don't know whether they did or they didn't,' Mrs
Dooley said. 'But poor Peggy wasn't right in the head,
that much I do know. Right from when the baby was
born.'

'That can happen,' Mr Dooley said.

'It can,' Mrs Dooley said. 'These days they know
how to treat it. I suppose they weren't used to it, then.'

Mr Dooley slurped his tea. 'She maintained it
wasn't her baby at all,' he said. 'That was the start of it.'

'It was,' Mrs Dooley said. 'She swore it was a
changeling.'

'What's a changeling?' I said.

'A fairy child,' Mrs Dooley said. 'Her baby stolen
away by the fairies and their own child left in its place.'

'And was it?' I said.

But neither of the old people answered that. They
looked at each other and they didn't say anything for a
while, and then Mrs Dooley said: 'Poor Peggy never got
out of prison. She died there. Joe came back and he lived
out his days in the house. He was ninety-three when he
died and I don't believe he enjoyed a single day of his life
there without Peggy.'

'It's a great house, then,' I said. 'Full of happy
memories.'

Mr Dooley and Coley laughed.

I said, 'How do they know the little girl lived
for fifteen years if no one ever seen her? How do
they know they didn't kill her when she was a babby?'

I wish I never asked that question. The answer
creeped me out.

Mrs Dooley said, 'There was a nurse used call at the
house every month. Mary Crowley was her name. She
used see the child all right. But she would never talk to
anyone about her. Whatever she knew, she took it with
her to the grave.'

'And besides,' Mr Dooley said, 'we used hear her.'

Mrs Dooley nodded. 'She had this terrible little
voice. You'd hear it sometimes, if you were walking past
the house. There were words in it but the sound was too
high pitched. Like a cat trying to speak. Calling for her
mammy or whatever it was she wanted. But sharp, like,
as if she was ordering, not asking.'

'You'd even hear it from here the odd time,' Mr
Dooley said. 'The night-times were the worst.'

Grandma Dooley nodded again. 'Sometimes you'd
think it was the sound of the wind, and then you'd
realize there was no wind. Just this high shrieking, like
something out of hell. You couldn't tell if it was pain or
anger or both. There were times we used sleep with the
pillow over our heads for fear we'd hear her.'

Mr Dooley said, 'Once you got that sound in your
head there was no way you would sleep again that night.'

I thought they were winding me up and I looked at
Coley, but he wasn't grinning any more. He said, 'I never
knew that. You never told me about the voice.'

'We didn't tell you when you were smaller,' Mrs
Dooley said. 'We didn't want to scare you. And you
wouldn't want to be telling your little brother, either,'
she said to me.

'Nor my ma,' I said. 'She's bad enough as it is. She's
terrified of the dark.'

Mrs Dooley looked at me like I had two heads. 'I
never heard of a grown woman afraid of the dark
before,' she said.

'I'm not afraid of it,' I said. But I was glad, all the
same, that I wouldn't be sleeping in that house another
night.

Coley's da was in the yard when we went back
out. Coley asked him for the chainsaw and he gave me a
long, hard look. Then he said to Coley, 'You know the
rules.'

'I do,' Coley said.

'And you both have to stick to them.'

'We will,' Coley said. And then he said to me, 'You
have to set the wood up right every time. And you have
to keep the work area clear. And if you're not working
the saw you have to stay four paces away. And you have
to wear goggles all the time.'

They both looked at me, expecting something.

'Sure,' I said. 'Fine by me.'

We crossed another yard with more sheds and
barns. In the open bay of a huge steel lean-to, the bottom
half of a man was hanging out of the bonnet of a Land
Rover.

'My brother Matty,' Coley said. 'He's a mechanic
down in Ennis. At the weekend he fixes up old cars for
a hobby. He's a greasoholic.'

'Cool Land Rover,' I said. I had a thing about Land
Rovers and was always trying to rob one, but we never
got the keys to one.

'It's mine,' Coley said. 'My uncle gave it to me. It
needs a lot of work.'

'And can your brother fix it?' I said.

'He can fix anything,' Coley said. 'But I'd say I'll be
married by the time that thing is up and running.'

'Can I see it?' I said.

'You can,' he said. 'But maybe some other day. If
we don't get that wood cut soon the woodlice will have
it all ate.'

As we walked back down the road, me with the axe and
a can of petrol, Coley with the chainsaw, I said to him,
'Is it true? That story about the child?'

'It is,' he said. 'It's as true as that mountain is standing
over there.'

But when I looked at the mountain I couldn't make
it seem real at all. That whole place, with its smells
and its sounds and its stories, was just like a long, green
dream.