Fegan remembered Ronnie’s hands most of all, and he knew why. They were like his father’s. When he could get the work, Fegan’s father had also been a chippie. Except, since he was Catholic, the shipyard never had any use for him.
Mixed in with the bad times, when he came home drunk and stinking, there were good times. Like the day, when Fegan was very small, that his father borrowed a car and took him and his mother to Portaferry on the shore of Strangford Lough. They went across the Lough and back three times just for the pleasure of riding the ferry. Then his father went to the pub while Fegan and his weeping mother got the bus back to Belfast. He didn’t come home for three days.
Of details from those good times, few as they were, it was his father’s hands Fegan remembered best. He recalled the coarse and bony feel of them, the hardness and the warmth, long fingers stained orange by nicotine.
Fegan was nine years old when he last held them. It was in his parents’ small bedroom on a cold morning. The wallpaper bubbled and peeled with damp. He remembered how the mildew smell mixed with his mother’s floral scent when she entered. She sat down on the bed, picked up a hairbrush, and scraped it across his scalp.
A few minutes passed before she asked, “Who were you talking to when I came in, love?”
“No one,” he said.
The boar hairs scratched like nails. His collar felt like fingers wrapped around his neck, making a tickly sickness at the base of his throat. He watched her in the mirror over her good mahogany dressing table. He stood with his hands on the cool wood. Her eyes were red and wet.
“You were talking to someone. Was it your friends? The ones you fib about?”
“No,” he said.
She swiped the hairbrush across his backside and the sting forced him up on his tiptoes, his buttocks clenched.
She resumed brushing. “Don’t be telling lies today of all days, Gerald Fegan. Who were you talking to?”
He sniffed once and stared hard at her reflection. “Daddy,” he said. The brush stopped at his crown. The bristles gnawed at his scalp. She blinked once and a crystal bead escaped her left eye. “Don’t,” she said.
“It was Daddy.”
“Your Daddy’s going in the ground today.” She placed the brush on the bed beside her and gripped his shoulders hard. Her breath burned his skin. “They’ll screw the lid down soon, but it’s still open. I didn’t make you look at him because I knew you didn’t want to. But I’ll make you look at him now if you tell me fibs like that. Do I have to make you look at him?”
Fegan wanted to shake his head to please her, but his desire for her to know was greater. “He was holding my hand,” he said.
She spun him around to face her. Brilliant light flashed in his head as her palm slammed against his cheek. He staggered, but she held firm to his shoulders.
“You listen to me, Gerry.” Her face became pointed like a bird’s, pale and fierce. “No more of this . . . this . . . devilment. No more. Do you hear me?”
He opened his mouth to argue, and another lightning bolt struck his cheek.
“Not one more word. You don’t see anyone. You don’t talk to anyone. You turn away from them. Do you want people to think you’re mad? Do you want to end up in the hospital with all the soft-headed old men living in their own filth?” She shook him hard. “Do you? Is that what you want?”
Blinded by tears, Fegan shook his head. He wanted to wail but the cry stayed trapped in his chest. It swelled between his ears until at last air came tearing into his lungs. It burst out again in hacking sobs. He collapsed into his mother’s bosom and let her arms circle him.
“Oh, wee pet, I’m sorry. Shush, shush, shush. Quiet, now. If you’re quiet they’ll leave you alone. Always be quiet.”
She took his wet face in her hands and smiled. “Turn away from them and be quiet. The devil can’t go where he’s not wanted. Do you understand?”
He nodded and sniffed.
“Good boy,” she said. “Now go and polish your shoes.”
Thirty-six years ago. Fegan didn’t like to think of time, and how he could never hold on to it. But sometimes it couldn’t be avoided. He was twenty-six when he went inside and thirty-eight when he got out. The seven years since had drifted past almost unnoticed. Nearly half a lifetime wasted. Fegan shook the thought away and turned his mind back to his task.
He sat at the table beneath his window, his shirtsleeves rolled up. In the daytime it gave him light to work. At night, a desk lamp arched over the tools placed neatly about him. For this job he had masking tape, files, wire wool and olive oil. He set the stone on some newspaper and used a soft cloth to wipe away the swarf, the tiny specks of metal left by the abrasion on the masked-off pieces of fingerboard.
The radio on the sideboard murmured soft blues music. Fegan didn’t understand it, the droning chords and the mournful voices, but he had a notion of learning to play the C.F. Martin guitar when it was finished. Ronnie had said it was a collector’s piece, but guitars weren’t for collecting. They were for playing, he said. So Fegan listened to the radio while he worked, hoping some of its music might seep into him.
When the music stopped and the presenter said the news was coming up, Fegan reached across and turned it off. Everyone was talking about McKenna. Politicians, cops, security analysts - the reporters had even started interviewing one another in their rush to squeeze every last drop of blood out of the story.
Fegan picked up the whetstone and ran it along the fingerboard again, back and forth, the rhythm soothing him. Nine o’clock. He hadn’t had a drink tonight. Like every other night, he promised himself he wouldn’t. Somewhere beneath his heart he knew he would break that promise. He knew they would come again tonight, even though he had given McKenna to the boy. They wanted more.
They wanted Caffola.
Fegan swept the stone back and forth, smooth movements flowing from his arm.
Be quiet
, he thought.
Turn away from them and be quiet
.
Balance and patience.
A tingling gathered in his temples the way electricity hangs in the air before a storm. He closed his eyes and let the stone’s rhythm fall in step with his heart.
Balance and patience.
Sparks flashed behind his eyes.
Fegan put the stone down and lowered the guitar to the felt sheet that protected its lacquered finish. He stood, went to the sideboard, and poured two fingers of Jameson’s and the same of water. The whiskey warmed his center as the shadows crept along the walls.
Balance and patience.
7
“So, who do you think got McKenna?” McSorley asked as he hauled the steering wheel to the left.
Campbell looked back over his shoulder to where the old man lay on the van’s cold floor, whimpering inside the pillowcase that had been placed over his head.
“Don’t worry about him,” McSorley said.
Campbell returned his attention to the winding country road, involuntarily pressing his foot against the worn carpeting, trying to brake for McSorley. He’d waited for his mobile to ring all day. He had to force himself not to check for missed calls every ten minutes. The anticipation gnawed at him.
“Well?” McSorley prompted. “Who do you reckon?”
“Whoever it was has got to be fucking crazy,” Campbell said. “Or stupid. They won’t get away with it. The boys won’t let it go. They’ll break the ceasefire if they have to.”
The van hit a pothole and Campbell had to brace himself against the dashboard. The old man cried out as he bounced between the van’s inside wall and its floor. Comiskey and Hughes were back at his tiny cottage, holding his wife until Campbell and McSorley returned with the contents of the post office safe. It was only a short journey into the village.
“I suppose you’d have been one of the boys going after him, eh?”
Campbell tried to read McSorley’s face, but darkness obscured all but the watery sheen of his eyes. “Might’ve been.”
“No need to be shy with me, Davy. We’re mates, eh? You don’t talk much about what you got up to in Belfast.”
“Not much to talk about.”
McSorley gave a chesty laugh. “Oh, aye. I bet there’s not.”
His face took on a sickly glow as they cruised into the village, its street lights washing them in orange. “I heard a story about you and some boy who tried to set up Paul McGinty. I heard you beat the life out of him.”
“Yeah?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“Well, people talk. You can believe whatever you want.”
The van’s headlights picked out the green
An Post
sign and its brakes whined. The engine juddered as it died. McSorley gave the old man one quick glance and turned back to Campbell.
“Some of the lads don’t trust you,” he said, his eyes narrow.
“You mean Comiskey?”
“Him and some of the others. They think it’s a bit funny, you just upping sticks and coming down here to us. Seeing as you were so close to McGinty and all. Some of the lads are worried about you.”
Campbell let his hand wander to his thigh. His jeans stretched tight over the Gerber knife in his pocket. “Are
you
worried?”
McSorley’s tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek, making his stubble bristle. “I don’t know. It could be McGinty sent you down here to keep an eye on us, see what we’re up to. Or it could be like you say: you just wanted to see some action.”
Campbell kept his eyes locked on McSorley’s. “Like I said, you can believe whatever you want.”
A sly grin spread on McSorley’s face as he nodded. “I think you’re all right, Davy, but I’ll tell you this.” He raised a finger at Campbell. “You ever prove me wrong, you better run like fuck, ’cause I’ll skin you alive.”
McSorley splayed the bills out between his fingers. The balaclava didn’t mask his fury. “Three hundred and twenty fucking euro?”
Campbell felt a guffaw climb up from his belly, but he trapped it in his mouth. The woollen mask made his beard itch.
The old man cowered on his knees in front of the open safe. McSorley grabbed his pyjama collar with his free hand.
“Three hundred and twenty? I didn’t do all this for fucking three hundred and twenty, you miserable auld shite. Where’s the rest?”
The old man raised his shaking hands. “That’s all there is, I swear to God, that’s all.”
McSorley shook him back and forth. “Quit talking shite and tell me where it is.”
“I swear to God, that’s all. We only open half days. There’s some change in the till. You can have that if you want.”
“Christ!” McSorley released the old man’s collar and shoved the notes into his pocket. He pointed to the counter at the front of the shop. “Davy, go and empty the till. And fill the bag up with fags. That’s all we’re going to get. Fuck!”
Campbell went to the till. The next morning’s meagre float lay in its open drawer. He scooped up bills and coins, guessing them to total no more than forty or fifty euro, and dropped them into the sports bag. The shelves behind the counter were stacked with cigarettes and he swept them into the bag, on top of the money, feeling like a petty thief.
Feeling like it?
No, that’s exactly what I am
, he thought as cigarette packets fell at his feet.
Like a fucking druggie stealing fags to feed his habit.
He cursed under his breath.
“Come on,” McSorley shouted. He dragged the old man by the wrist, not even bothering to bind and gag him again.
“I’m coming,” Campbell said, shoving the cigarettes down into the bag.
McSorley stopped at the door. “I said come on, for Christ’s sake!”
“All right!” Campbell pulled the zipper shut and hoisted the bag over his shoulder. He followed McSorley and the old man out to the street.
McSorley dragged his whimpering captive to the back of the van and opened the doors. Something across the street grabbed the old man’s attention: a light at a window.
“Help.” The cry was weak, but he tried again. “Help!”
McSorley went to cover his mouth, but the old man found the strength to push his hand away. “Help me! Help!”
Campbell walked towards them.
“Shut up or I’ll fucking do you one,” McSorley hissed as the old man writhed in his grip.
The bag slipped from Campbell’s hand, and he peeled the balaclava back from his face.
“Help me! Somebody! Help!”
The rage was white-hot and glorious as Campbell let it rain down on the old man’s head, and the force of it sent McSorley reeling. Blow after blow, the anger burned brighter, until the old man was a limp shape dangling from the van’s lip.
