Winterwood (15 page)

And such sawing and scraping as would fill the woods then, as the leaping music screeched above the tops of the tall pine
trees.

Little Red often thought of'spilling the beans'. Of telling the nuns the actual truth about Florian's visits. Of informing
them just exactly what kind of 'hornpipes' were going on' behind that tall tree in the meadow. Hornpipes which included snapping
'likenesses' with his camera.

—I like to snap likenesses with me auld box brownie. The auld box brownie that I bought in America. Lift up your head now
and say cheese for Uncle Flossie. Stick your lips out like you're giving mammy a 'birdy'!

Little Red had one of those photos. He'd kept one all his life. The only one which hadn't been vile. But he'd destroyed it
in the end, torn it in pieces, one night he'd got drunk.

Little Red knew what the nuns would say. If he decided to 'spill the beans'.

—It's all lies and slander! Why we'll beat you to within an inch of your vicious lying life!

And so he said nothing. Being condemned as a result to dance his hornpipes over and over.

With warm sticky chocolate plastered over his face.

Eleven: It Isn't Hard to Know a Snake

C
ATHERINE AND ME HAD just left Blanchardstown behind when a shrill, twofold note came floating so airily out of her throat,
for all the world like the most timid little bird.

—Like a sweet lonely robin, I remember thinking, the speedometer fixed now at a steady fifty-five. Nothing too dramatic or
over-exciting this time.

A little robin so unnecessarily afraid, I thought to myself, so unnecessary, so
redundant.
There were no more 'afraid things' now, I assured her. We're simply going home, I said.

—Did you ever see a robin cry? I asked her, leaning back as I did so, smiling: Did you, Catherine?

I tugged my cap well down when I said it — quite pointlessly, really, for what possible difference could it make now?

Nonetheless it had really thrown me, her alertness, I mean, in recognising me.

—It isn't hard to know a snake, she had said with a depressing vindictiveness, a vindictiveness which surprised and deeply
hurt me.

There are some things which you're better off not hearing, even if people feel them about you.

—Why did you have to say that, Catherine? I asked her. Why? I hope you're not going to spoil things again.

My entire life, my very
soul
depended on our happiness in winterwood now. That was why I had bartered for it. And why I didn't want
anything to
remind us of the bad times we'd had together. But in another way she was right and I knew that. For when you live with someone,
you will always get to know so many things about them. I mean, look at all the things I knew about Catherine, the Knickerbocker
Glories she liked in the Sunset Grill, the way she hummed John Martyn songs. The only difference being that I
loved
those things and with Catherine that simply wasn't the case. I suppose a part of me still didn't accept it, and that was the
reason I kept insisting that I'd changed, trying to collect my thoughts as I drove.

—You'll see, Catherine, the more you get to know me, I said, that it's different now.

And it was true. I was far more chatty and outgoing for a start. But still aware enough not to make the same mistake I'd made
with Immy. No unnecessary displays of emotion, I told myself. Take it nice and easy and relaxed. 'Flowing' and 'light-hearted'
- those were the words which remained foremost in mind. Casual and relaxed but, more than anything, 'entertaining'. I related
a few stories about London after she'd departed, about the early days in the dark Drumcondra hostel. I had learnt so much
- in particular, not to burden a story with detail unnecessarily.

Taking your time in that old Slievenageeha way.

I decided it was better to be frank with Catherine, to be straight and direct. I asked her straight out what she thought of
my new image. I stroked my curly beard and grinned at her in the mirror. I swear I was the image of Uncle Florian and Ned.
And, of course, of my own deceased father. You wouldn't have been able to tell us apart.

—The men of the mountain! I said, just for the laugh.

She didn't answer. She was quiet now, and hostile, like in those Kilburn days I remembered so well.

She was under no obligation to answer me. Of course she wasn't. The two of us were adults. It didn't matter anyway. Kilburn
now belonged to the past. There was only one place that mattered now. Because it's been ordained, I said, two paths intersecting
which should never in the first place have diverged.

As we approached the factory, I became overwhelmed by these absolutely fabulous thoughts of 'home' and 'hearth' with this
one single word appearing in my mind and obstinately refusing to go away: Pappie.

Auld Pappie.

—Pappie, I kept repeating, adjusting the mirror as I scrunched up my face, pushing back my copper locks.

I wanted to be the best father. I wanted to be the most adored father in the world.

Which is funny, of course, because that is exactly what Ned Strange had always wanted. Deep down now I could see that. And
began to feel a renewed compassion for the man. Because it was obvious to me now that much of what had happened, it, plain
and simple, hadn't been his fault. A lot of it had been simply bad luck. It could have happened to anyone really. Especially
anyone who'd had a difficult upbringing. As many of us on the mountain - regrettably had.

What they'd done to him in prison had been despicable. They'd urinated in his food, sprayed 'nonce' on the door of his cell.
He'd attempted suicide, I'd read, three times. Before, of course, eventually succeeding in the solitary cold of a prison shower
cubicle.

Which explained, the more I thought about it, why he'd shown such
concern
for me at times. As though he didn't want me, being a fellow mountain man, ending up being humiliated like that, or made unhappy
by women who didn't love me.

We were now approaching winterwood and I was explaining to Catherine how things had changed. How she had nothing to worry
about now.

—I've learnt, I told her. I've grown up, you see. Why, I daresay if you were to ask any of my workmates who of us all is the
most devoted father, I guarantee you this, they would seriously consider me.

I lit a cigarette and turned the dial to find some music on the radio. I was half-expecting to hear John Martyn. It didn't
happen, which I have to say surprised me.

—To give you an example, Catherine, I continued, only last week during the Christmas festivities, the girls from the brothel
next door to the office arrived laden down with bottles of champagne. Well, did that cause a stir or what! Larry Kennedy's
eyes were out on sticks!

I shook with laughter as I slid into the middle lane.

—Hmm, you look nice, says this hooker to me, and you know I'm not crude but before I know it she's down on her knees and —
Catherine, I'm not kidding you! - doing her level best to get me, you know, aroused, quite frankly!

I had to chuckle when I thought of it.

—But there was no way I was going to permit that to happen. Get up — do you hear me? I was on the verge of saying, Catherine.
Get up, I told you! What are you - a fucking whore? It was on the tip of my tongue, Catherine! Because, I mean, she was really
taking liberties. It was just so unnecessary, and so fucking coarse - you know? An uncomfortable situation, certainly, and
one which, at the time, could really have gone either way. Which is where Pappie came in, reliable Auld Pappie. As the whore
knelt beneath me, I smiled to myself and thought of good Auld Pappie with his great big twinkly open-hearted smile. Ah, Pappie,
I thought, the man with the greater life experience. The man who possesses that little bit of extra wisdom. That little bit
that makes all the difference. I touched her gently on the shoulder and laughed as I said:

—Get up out of that now — there's a good girl.

Which in the end saw that no one was offended. Absolutely no one. Even the prostitute was good-humoured about it all, swinging
her bag as she flounced off.

—Sorry, big fella. Didn't realise you were such a loyal husband! Ha ha!

It had worked perfectly. If only I'd been privy to such knowledge and self-possession before, I remember thinking, as I heard
my name called out, and I strode out the door to collect my fare.

But then, who ever succeeds, in early life, in grasping the fundamentals of such wisdom? What do you know when you're first
starting out? You know nothing. You think you're going to get married and that's the way it's going to remain for ever. You
believe it when they tell you that such a thing exists as marital bliss. You're overjoyed when you hear that what's facing
you is a lifetime of sensation and discovery and loving enchantment of the heart.

—You never pause to think that it might be all lies, I murmured aloud, half to Catherine and half to myself, as I slowed the
car and turned in off the road, to where the tall stately pines stretched majestically into the sky.

Twelve: A Bar of Chocolate

S
o IT'S AULD PAPPIE Tiernan they call me now, and the name fits me like a glove — I really have grown into it.

—There he is, Auld Pappie! you'll hear them calling, and look, he's in early again! Putting everyone to shame, Auld Pappie,
so you are!

I'm always showing them photographs of my kids.

—Every cent goes on his youngsters, they say, dotes on them, he really does.

Although 'likenesses', as Florian used to call his photographs, might be a more appropriate term, since for obvious reasons
I can't publicise my actual family.

—This is Cara, she's my eldest daughter, I tell them.

These indeed are the blissful days. Each day when I'm driving through the city I never fail to remind myself just how lucky
I've been. How utterly fortunate: unlike poor Ned Strange, whose last days on earth were truly appalling.

For how else could you describe the poor man sitting there, minding his own business in the prison yard, reading his westerns
and harming no one at all. When, out of nowhere, he looks up and sees this little lean-faced inmate, clearly intent on causing
trouble. Staring down menacingly, kicking the book out of Ned's hand.

—It's a good thing to be a nonce, he says, that's a good thing to be, isn't it? It's a good thing to abuse a child. Take away
his innocence and then go around acting like you're some harmless old man. We know what you're at, cunt.

Using your stories to
get
them to like you. Conning them up to the two bloody eyes. Sharing your tobacco and playing your poxy fiddle. You're going
to get it now, you fucking nonce! You won't walk out of here alive!

It turned out that the little bastard had a spanner underneath his coat. Laying into Ned, with the guards just standing there
as if nothing was happening.

I'd read all that in the magazine
Irish Crime.
To be fair, it was quite a reasonable and balanced report. Unlike the tabloids who'd sensationalised everything. Making a
skit of how Ned had tried to
get
the prisoners on his side, convincing them that he'd actually
adored
Michael Gallagher. And hadn't intended any harm to come to him at all.

How could he possibly ever have been attracted to him sexually? he'd repeated constantly, with tears of heart-break flowing
down his cheeks. He was just an old man, for heaven's sake, he kept insisting. All he'd ever wanted was a wife and a little
child. He would never -
never!
—
have harmed little Michael.

—I loved him, don't you understand? he told them. Why can't you understand? He was the star of my ceilidh. He fed my chickens!
I adored Michael Gallagher! I would never have harmed a hair on his little head!

They didn't believe him, however. They told him he was a liar. Went further and insisted that he was lying through his teeth.
Then the rumour started about him actually losing his mind. That was what was happening now, it was said. Sitting in the corner
muttering to himself, eating bits of paper and trembling. But then it transpired that this too was an act. That all he was
doing was laughing at them. That he didn't give a damn about anything they did or said. That he wasn't even afraid of them.
That he'd been making fools of them all, all along.

—He used to laugh into my face, one of the warders was quoted in the magazine as saying, he'd stand there grinning and offering
you chocolate. 'Michael used to love it, officer, you know,' he'd say. Make you shiver so it would, the way the dirty, creepy
bastard stared.

It was a pity the warder had had to see it like that, I thought. I could understand it, though, for I'd once myself thought
in the very same way. Would indeed have insisted, without question, that Ned's intentions all along had been to murder Michael
Gallagher, with no particular motive at all.

The fact is that to someone like Ned Strange such thinking would have been inherently abhorrent. Certainly without doubt he'd
been longing for many years for a family of his own — in particular, as he'd told me on many occasions, a little boy. But
he wouldn't have kidnapped a child solely for that reason, to experience what family life might be like, even for a ludicrously
short time.

No, that wasn't it at all. Ned Strange had sexually abused Michael Gallagher all right - just as he'd done to another person
in a room in Portobello, one night long ago now best forgotten.

—Poor Little Michael, I remembered him saying, as my skin crawled, imagine trusting the likes of me. I suppose it's the chocolate,
Redmond, ha ha. They just can't say no to the chocolate, can they, the little bestest friends of Ned?