The Pig Did It (11 page)

Lolly had been right, right in every respect. It had been

Sweeney, and the proof was in his hands. Lolly was free. His aunt was free.

The sack became heavier. Aaron was walking again, his pace accelerating the closer he got to the house. He saw ahead of him his aunt staring out through the screen door. On her face was a stoic sadness. Aaron glanced back over his shoulder. Sweeney was standing, his hands at his sides, his mouth slightly open. He was leaning forward in the direction of the screen door. When Aaron turned again, his aunt abruptly moved back into the kitchen and disappeared. He took a few steps closer. When he looked over his shoulder again he saw Kieran Sweeney on his knees, placing one stone on another, reconstructing with patient fidelity the cairn his aunt had built to mark the grave of Declan Tovey.

5

A
aron was surprised. The pub—Dockery's—appeared to be a quiet place, more murmurous than raucous, a flow of talk interrupted by an occasional laugh, then dropping again to a level suggesting easy but animated discourse. The four tables lined along the wall were of such sturdy but crude construction that they seemed to have come down, generation to generation, from the drinking hall of an ancient chief. The chairs, in contrast, were made of bentwood with dark red leather seats, inherited from a tearoom or a sandwich shop. Two booths in the back seemed improvised from old cabinets, but again the tables were made of wood cut from the forest primeval and built by craftsmen indifferent to design. The tops, brown made black by time, were at least four inches thick, readily able to sustain the carved and scored markings that pitted and pocked their surfaces. The legs were, by contrast, a little spindly, cut it seemed from the staff of some pilgrim who had crossed the mountains long years before, the tables held up more by faith than by physics. The floor was unvarnished wood, raw wide boards better suited to the deck of a trawler than a dining room, shredded and splintered beneath the soles and heels of at least several generations.

It was the bar itself, however, that gave the room its distinction. Of heavy and highly polished walnut, it had the aspect of a high altar in the church of a somewhat prosperous parish, the niches and shelves rising to the height of the room itself, enshrining the bottles and glasses, the ambers and crystals, the opals and emeralds, statuary magnificent and well worthy of the worship they received. The top of the counter gleamed auburn, the reddish tint beneath the brown showing through like a promise that under the surface lay pleasures yet to be revealed. Blue traceries coursed through the white porcelain shafts that brought forth the ales and stouts and beers, the array of handles themselves suggesting a console to be played, an instrument requiring dexterity and stamina, not to be approached by the uninitiated or the ungifted.

There were no bar stools. If you couldn't stand, you should be off and away, a wise policy winnowing the wheat from the chaff, a means of sparing the upright the company of culls. The bartender, Francis—his name the word most often repeated on the premises with the possible exception of “fuck”—was a tall young man, lean and limber, with a wide jaw, a generous but seemly nose, nicely spaced brown eyes, and a proportionate forehead lightly screened by a fall of straight brown hair. To give him some distinction, he had a wide mouth and also a tongue the generous jaw and mouth could not oblige. Constrained by intrusive teeth, the tongue would block the air passing along its sides and give to the speech of handsome Francis a light slur, adding an
h
to an
s
, turning a “yes” into a “yesh.” For some this was a defect, for others a lure, and it was widely known that the good man's tongue was, more often than not, given an appreciation that easily compensated for whatever difficulty he might have with diction and enunciation.

Aaron would have preferred a booth along the far wall, but it seemed unfair and unwise to appropriate that much space for himself alone—especially since “alone” was the operative word for the evening. He wanted to be alone. And he was. It had been a difficult day, a day of distractions. His brain had been poked and jabbed and stuffed and turned here and twisted there, what with a skeleton and three possible killers, one of them his kin, one a woman of possible allure, and one a man who seemed to be the sworn enemy of the woman he loved, Aaron's enigmatic aunt.

The man was Aaron's preferred suspect—not just out of a chivalric impulse that would spare the ladies but an informed determination based, no more, no less, on the sure knowledge that one of the other suspects was a member of his family and the other a woman with auburn hair. From being their accuser, he was now promoted to self-appointed protector. So certain was he of his judgment that he'd been tempted, once left alone with the skeleton, to call the
gardaí
and let justice take what course it would.

Kitty had gone off to London to sign a contract for her latest completed effort: a correction of
Oliver Twist
in which Nancy reforms Bill Sykes, they marry and adopt Oliver, after which all three lead vitalizing and challenging lives in lower-class London. Kitty then, in a daring act of cross-fertilization, conspired to have Oliver later marry Little Nell—who, conveniently, failed to die but would, soon enough, in Oliver's arms.

Lolly was making another attempt to get her pigs to market and, like Kitty, would not be available for consultation and decision until late tomorrow. Lolly's last words before driving off were, “Don't go burying the bones till I come back.” Kitty, on leaving for the airport, had issued a similar decree, adding, “Hell do all right until I'm home.”

Aaron had given himself a few moments alone with Declan bedded down in the priest's room. He would let the skeleton itself tell him what to do: call the
gardaí,
bury him again, or let him enjoy his rest after so frantic a day, what with the arranging and rearranging by the accused and accusing women. When Aaron had stared down at the skull, he'd seen nothing but delight. By the grin Aaron could tell the man was reveling in all the fuss. The last thing he wanted was a quick resolution. This prompted Aaron's resolve to toss him back into his grave with his sack of tools and to cover him over with dirt and cabbages and stones and any other irreverent implement he might find in the vicinity.

But then either the women or the pig would dig him up again. The only solution was the
gardaí.
When Aaron lifted the phone in the kitchen, however, he was reminded that the authorities might not subscribe to his theory of the murder, that Sweeney, for all his preferred guilt, might be innocent and the accusing finger pointed at someone whose protector he now was. He put down the phone. Declan Tovey could enjoy his rest. Aaron would eat the hot dogs his aunt had left in the refrigerator and, possibly, heat up the canned tomato soup she'd pointed to on the pantry shelf. He would feed the pig the pellets from a fifty-pound sack Lolly had donated from the back of her truck. He would shower and clothe himself in the studied casualness best suited to his particular brand of pretension. He would then go down the road to Dockery's and leave behind the distractions that had lured him so far from his set purpose of flaying himself with thoughts of Phila Rambeaux. All the livelong day Phila had been given only scraps and leavings, moments of attention that never managed to lengthen sufficiently to allow for actual suffering. What the beach had not achieved, the bar would surely provide. Here in the crowd he could be all the more solitary—even if the room wasn't all that crowded. He would stand here, at the end of the bar, unnoted, unremarked. He would look at nothing but the mounting bottles and into the few spaces of mirror unblocked by the sacred display.

Since he wanted a long drawn-out descent into the depths, he would drink with measured sips as befits someone pondering his loss, a man who has given himself over to numbering like rosary beads the sorrowful mysteries of his recent life, thoughts that would sustain his sense of injury and nourish his belief that he was beyond all possible succor.

Trapped somewhere in the thin membrane between the conscious and subconscious there was a knowledge that he, Aaron, was obsessed by Phila rather than in love with her. He had chosen her to love him—which, in turn, would save him the trouble of having to love her. And he had been willing to do almost anything he could to achieve her compliance. When she declined the honor—without giving it an even cursory consideration—the rejection provided Aaron with all the elements needed to persuade himself he was in love: jealousy, rage, sorrow, yearning and inconsolable need.

But he wasn't in love. He had, quite simply, been denied what he had wanted, and now the components of thwarted love had been appropriated to himself in support of the tantrum his efforts had earned him. All this Aaron knew and would not deny if he were to force some confrontation between himself and himself. But for the time being he made the usual excuse: Suffering was suffering, no matter what its source, no matter the worthiness or unworthiness of its cause. His anguish was real, and the egotism of its origin was of no account whatsoever. That Aaron had brought his sufferings upon himself was beside the point. The suffering was there. And fool though he may be, he was still a fool who embodied the tenacity of human longing, the ability peculiar to his species, to yearn and yearn again without repose, even when all hope had died.

“Aaron McCloud,” Francis said. “You've come back. And looking brilliant.” They shook hands. Aaron ordered a pint of Guinness.

After the appropriate time of drawing and resting, Francis set the glass in front of him. Aaron took a fair gulp. The taste, of course, was of sour coffee, a taste he'd come to enjoy, but there was, unavoidably, as always with Guinness, the disappointed expectation. The dark brown liquid had the appearance of root beer and Aaron, try as he might, could never get beyond this early preference.

He took a second gulp. His disappointment lessened and he knew that by the time he had emptied the glass, his maturation from root beer to stout would have been accomplished and he could, with full commitment, order a second pint.

“I hear you got yourself a pig,” Francis said.

“Oh. Yeah.” Aaron, who was still wondering how Francis had known his name, was even more astonished to realize that his troublesome acquisition had become common knowledge. And if the pig were a known presence, what about Declan Tovey? How could Tovey's bones—of far greater consequence—have escaped the notice of whatever omniscience kept its all-seeing eye trained on local events large and small? Aaron considered posing a few leading questions that might encourage Francis to tell what he knew, but decided that at the first dropped hint, the reporter in Francis would be roused and Aaron would be subjected to an inquisition leading to an inevitable confession that would implicate his aunt and deliver into the hands of the
gardaí
the grinning bones of the felled thatcher. Aaron would keep his mouth shut for a change. And besides, he had come for other purposes than to discuss a renegade pig and the unearthed corpse of a murdered vagabond. He assumed that his self-exile from the other customers would be respected and he could now move on to his assignation with the elusive Phila Rambeaux.

Francis had put both hands on the top of the bar, one on each side of Aaron's glass.

“Lolly McKeever says it isn't hers, but I wouldn't be too quick to believe. An old animal, they say, and Lolly's ashamed. Still, to disown your own pig.” He shook his head.

“You want it?” Aaron asked. “It's yours if you say so.”

“No. Not me. I work nights, like this [thish], and it wouldn't be fair to the pig.”

Aaron decided not to follow the logic of this statement. Instead he took several good gulps of the stout, expecting that Francis, impatient with this suspension of their talk, would move down the bar and converse with those who had no sufferings to indulge, no grievings to enjoy. But as he drank he saw over the rim of his glass, in the mirror behind the bar, the entrance of Lolly McKeever, conjured, it would seem, by the mere mention of her name. A man was with her, taller than Lolly but shorter than Aaron. He was wearing a dark suit, a white shirt with a thin knit tie, and, if Aaron saw right, heavy-soled shoes in want of a shine. His dark hair, slicked back, gave him a look suggesting an inborn potency, a look to which Aaron had long aspired but had yet to achieve. Aaron's impression was reinforced by the gesture the man was making toward a table not far from the door, a casual command, a gesture that could be made only by someone never known to displease or to disappoint. Lolly, without pause, slid into the chair next to the wall, leaned forward and put her elbows on the table.

She was wearing a pair of trim tan slacks and a woolen sweater of Aran origin. She seemed to have cut her hair and, in the intermittent light of the room, it had become darker and more severe. She was less attractive than he remembered, but the man's presence at her side suggested that she was more desirable than he'd thought.

The man chose not the chair next to her but the one opposite. He slouched slightly and put his hands on the table. Lolly was talking. They had been talking when they'd entered, and this seemed a simple continuation, the subject of sufficient interest to sustain itself during the rubric of their arrival and the ordering of their drinks. Now the man leaned forward. Lolly, after a moment, leaned back but without taking her eyes off the man's hands. She cocked her head to the left, skeptical perhaps but more likely an increase of interest. Now Lolly leaned forward. Aaron waited for the man to lean back, but even after Aaron had downed another drawn-out gulp, the man kept his forward position.

Aaron looked down into his glass. The thought that he himself had taken the trouble to make himself presentable for the evening offered some relief. He hadn't intended to get all dressed up, but before he'd realized what he'd done, he had dressed in a stiffly woven white shirt, a pair of pressed khaki pants, and the Alfani shoes that had had the mud cleaned off. He'd combed his hair, then tousled it to give himself a more athletic look. Examining himself in the mirror he'd become convinced that he had been, in these two days in Ireland, transformed from a somewhat drab man now past thirty to someone newly arrived at the fullness of his youth, the eagerness of his early years firmed into manly assurance, the sweet smooth flesh now textured with experience, the hesitant eyes made bold, ready for any condescension that might prove necessary, the lips freshly plumped as if they, like his penis, could swell in anticipation of uses soon to come. His clothes felt tailored, fashioned expertly to accommodate the broad shoulders, the tapering torso, the hard thighs, to say nothing of the slender hips and the resolute buttocks—long seen as vestigial evidence that he was descended from centaurs. The tousled hair, in its well-crafted chaos, provided not only a proper crown but would reassure the onlooker that here was civilization at a moment of true fulfillment: the snakes of the Medusa not only tamed and domesticated but divinely transformed in their writhings into the curls and locks and errant strands that, while tumbling comfortably into one another, still suggested the presence of the primal, the potential reversion to mythic terrors and uncontrollable consequences.