The New Policeman (3 page)

6

There was never enough time. The summer was always particularly busy because there was extra work to be done on the farm, but even in the winter, when the days were short and there was a more regular and manageable routine, the hours, the days, the weeks just flew by. Ciaran was a poet, born and bred in Dublin. Two of his collections had won prestigious awards. When he met Helen and came to live with her on the family farm, he had envisaged an idyllic lifestyle. His backyard was the inspirational range of limestone hills known as the Burren. He visualized himself living at ease, taking long walks, closing himself in his study for days and weeks on end and writing volume after volume of increasingly authoritative work. It had never happened. He supplemented his meager income
by doing readings and workshops and school visits, but even when he managed to arrange blocks of free time for himself he never seemed to get any work done. Recently, when someone had asked him what he did for a living, he had said, “I’m a poet,” and then added, “Allegedly. There’s barely time to think a thought these days. And even if a thought gets thunk, there isn’t time to turn it into a poem. Something is eating our time.”

It depressed him, but the harder he tried to make time for his work, the faster it ran away from him.

It wasn’t just the Liddys—or the Liddy–Byrnes, as some people called them—who were finding that there wasn’t enough time. Everyone was having the same problem. It was understandable, perhaps, in those households where both parents were out at work all day and had to cram all their home and family life into a few short hours. But it wasn’t just parents who complained of the shortage of time. Even children, it seemed, couldn’t get enough of it. The old people said it was because they had too many things to do, and perhaps it was true that there were too many opportunities open to them. Apart from the ubiquitous televisions and computers there was, even in a small
place like Kinvara, a plethora of after-school activities open to them, from karate to basketball to drama and back again. Even so, there ought to have been time for mooching along the country lanes, for picking blackberries, for lounging in summer meadows and watching the clouds go by, for climbing trees and making dens. There should have been time for reading books and watching raindrops run down windows, for finding patterns in the damp stains on the ceiling and for dreaming wild daydreams. There wasn’t. Apart from the inevitable few who regarded it as their solemn duty, children could scarcely even find time for making mischief. Everybody in the village, in the county—in the whole country, it seemed—was chronically short of time.

“It never used to be like this,” the old people said.

“It wasn’t this way when we were young,” said the middle-aged.

“Is this really what life’s all about?” said the young, on those rare occasions when they had a moment to think about it.

For a while it was all anyone talked about, once the weather was out of the way. Then they didn’t talk about it anymore. What was the point? And besides, where was the time to talk about time? People didn’t
call to one another’s houses anymore; not to sit and chat over a cup of tea, anyway. Everyone was always on their way somewhere, or up to their eyes in something, or racing around trying to find someone, or, more often, merely trying to catch up with themselves.

J.J. only just made it to the end of the drive in time that morning. The bus arrived when it always had, traveled the same roads, made the same stops it had always made. But these days, somehow or other, it always arrived late for school. The driver went way too fast along the narrow roads, bringing himself and his passengers within an inch of their lives several times a week. It wasn’t just him causing the trouble, either. Everyone drove too fast. Everyone was forever trying to make up lost time.

J.J. found an empty seat and sat down. He used to sit beside Jimmy Dowling every morning, but not anymore. Not since that day a week ago. That bad day. He hadn’t been able to face the other boys since, and was learning how it felt to be one of the outsiders. He wanted to ask his mother about what they had told him, but he couldn’t pluck up the courage. There must be some dark secret hidden there somewhere, or why had she never spoken about her grandfather before?
She had mentioned him, all right. He had learned quite a few of her grandfather’s tunes, and he and Helen regularly played them together. But other than that she had never told him anything about the man, not even that J.J. had been named after him. In a family like theirs, that wasn’t the kind of thing you kept quiet about. Not unless there was a reason.

The bus braked hard and squashed up against the hedgerow to avoid a cattle lorry coming in the other direction. Jimmy Dowling, who for some reason had been standing up, was thrown forward along the aisle between the seats. He fetched up beside the driver, who scowled at him and called back along the bus, “Stay in your seats now, you hear? No messing!”

The gears grated as he urged the old bus back up to speed, and soon they were hurtling toward Gort again. J.J. looked at his watch. They were already late. He could have sworn he saw the minute hand moving.

There were several empty seats ahead of J.J., but Jimmy Dowling passed them all by and dropped heavily into the one beside him. Was that why he’d been standing up? Was this an attempt at making up? If so, J.J. wasn’t sure he was ready for it. He looked out through the muddy window.

“Are you going clubbing?” said Jimmy.

J.J. watched wet fields full of wet cattle. Was it a joke? An attempt to stir up more trouble? He glanced across at Jimmy. He was looking down at his schoolbag, expressionless. In the seat behind them two girls were discussing eyeliners. It didn’t appear to be a setup. But Jimmy knew that J.J. wasn’t going clubbing. The night for his age group was Saturday, and on Saturdays J.J. played for dancing. At least, he always had until now. J.J. Liddy, that was. What if J.J. Byrne wasn’t into playing? What if he went clubbing instead?

“I might,” he said.

Jimmy smiled. “Good man. There’s a lift from the village at half nine.”

The bus skidded to a halt outside the school gates. Jimmy stood up and joined the file of students getting off. “I’ll meet you on the quay at twenty past. All right?”

J.J. nodded and looked at his watch again. Ten minutes late. At least they wouldn’t be the only ones. All the buses were late these days.

THE RECONCILIATION REEL

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7

In the Garda barracks not far away, the new policeman was getting a grilling from his superior. He had contrived to put his notebook in the pocket of his trousers and his trousers through the washing machine. The trousers had come out very well. The notebook hadn’t. What was sitting now on Sergeant Early’s desk was little more than a lump of papier-mâché. Lucy Campbell and all the other bogus and nonbogus residents of Kinvara who had been caught after hours in Green’s pub would not now be fined. Mary Green would not be fined either; nor would she be in any danger of losing her license. Garda Treacy’s notebook was intact. It had not been through a washing machine or undergone any other form of abuse. But in a court of law, should it come to that, it
contained only half the names. Larry O’Dwyer’s sorry excuse for documentary evidence would not stand up. The case would be laughed out of court.

“Not a good start, O’Dwyer,” said Sergeant Early.

Larry had to agree.

“Don’t teach you about washing machines in Templemore, I suppose?”

“No, Sergeant. No, they don’t.” The truth was that nobody had ever taught him about washing machines. If his landlady hadn’t gone out with her friends for a drink the previous evening he wouldn’t have dreamed of attempting to find out about washing machines. As it was, he considered it a tremendous achievement to have made the thing work at all. But if he was looking for congratulations, he would have to look elsewhere.

“Can we rely upon you to take care of a new notebook?”

“You can, Sergeant.”

“Leave it in the station when you go home every day, all right? If it looks as if it needs a wash I’ll take care of it.”

Garda Treacy burst out laughing, but the sergeant succeeded in keeping a straight face. Larry tried to count the raindrops on the window behind the desk.
He had to keep the lid on his temper. That was Rule Number One. If he lost it, there was no telling what havoc he might be tempted to wreak. That would do nobody any good.

“Now,” said Sergeant Early, “I’ll issue you with a new notebook. Go with Garda Treacy up to Des Hanlon’s garage. Someone broke in there last night and stole most of his tools. Have a word with him and then take a look around.” He turned to Garda Treacy. “You’ll know where to start.”

Treacy nodded and went out. Larry took the new notebook and trudged out behind him. People’s things were important to them, he knew, especially if they needed them to make their livings. But searching for stolen things was not, Larry O’Dwyer was fairly certain, the reason that he had become a policeman.

THE DRUNKEN LANDLADY

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8

The kitchen was full of the smell of lamb stew and fresh bread when J.J. got home. Ciaran stayed out in the yard, unloading the beer barrels into the converted barn where the dances were held. J.J. dropped his schoolbag and was putting on the kettle when Helen came in from the cheese room, which opened off the utility beside the kitchen.

“Good day?” she asked, pulling off the silly white cap that she was obliged, under EU law, to wear when she was making cheese. “Want to have a quick look at those tunes before dinner?”

J.J.’s thoughts stalled and a massive anxiety descended upon him. “I’m knackered,” he said. “And I have to put on a wash.”

“Do that, then,” said Helen. “I’ll make you a cup
of tea. It won’t take long for you to get up to speed with the tunes. You know most of them anyway.”

It was true. J.J. had been hearing traditional music since before he was born. He knew hundreds of tunes, possibly thousands. During the dancing class the previous week, Helen had remembered a couple of old jigs that she wanted to teach him, and they had come up with a few reels that he had known at one time but needed to go over before he could play them well enough for the dancers. Like most young people who have been brought up in the tradition, J.J. had an ability to learn new tunes that was phenomenal. He had been playing since he was five: the whistle first, then the flute, and now the fiddle as well. He had been going to workshops with top musicians around the area since he was nine or ten. He could learn those new tunes in five minutes and the others, the ones he had forgotten, would come back to him easily. All they needed to do was play them through a couple of times. But he was reluctant now to take out the instruments. If he did, he would have to tell his mother that he wouldn’t be playing tomorrow, and he wasn’t ready to do that. Not yet.

“Go on,” Helen was saying. “Put on your wash.” J.J. ran up the stairs. Every surface in his bedroom
was littered with medals and trophies and plaques. If he jumped on the floorboards the whole room rattled. He had made, in school woodworking class, an open-fronted cabinet for displaying them all. It had brackets for mounting it on the wall, but it still sat on the floor, leaning against the chest of drawers, just another of those little jobs that were on the long finger, waiting for that imaginary time when he finally caught up with himself and had a few moments to spare.

He had amassed all the prizes over the years—for playing the fiddle and flute, for hurling, and for dancing. In his final year at primary school he had been unbeatable at step dancing. His teacher thought he could be all-Ireland champion, but secondary school put an end to her hopes for him. Michael Flatley and Riverdance might have wowed the whole country, the whole of the western world even, but they cut no ice among J.J.’s classmates in Gort. Dancing was uncool. Only nerds did it. J.J. gave it up. Playing music was a bit less unacceptable, to begin with at least, and J.J. had carried on with the fiddle and flute, attending fleadhs and piling up the medals and trophies. He would still be doing it now, if it hadn’t been for the time factor.