Borderlands (22 page)

As it
turned out, I missed him in McElroy's bar. However, I did find out that Johnny
had been there all of the day before - after his daughter's funeral - and had
had to be carried into a taxi at three in the morning - which meant he was
still lying comatose in the bar when someone torched my car - which meant he
slid right back down my list of suspects.

Finally, when
I had nothing left to do to avoid it, I drove back over to Lifford and to
Powell's house. This time I pulled into the drive where Miriam's BMW sat alone.
I knocked on the door twice and was about to turn and leave when I heard the
slamming of one of the internal doors. Seconds later, Miriam pulled the front
door open, her face flushed and her breathing heavy. Her breath smelt of
cigarettes and drink. She stood in the doorway, leaning slightly against the
doorframe, and smiled. "Come in," she said, and turned and led me
into the living room.

"Debs
said you wanted to see me, Miriam," I said, standing by the sofa.

"Sit,
Ben, please," she said, doing so herself. As she sat, she ran her hands
along the backs of her legs, as though to smooth out a skirt, but it was
clearly force of habit, for she was wearing jeans and a white, man's shirt with
the top buttons open wide enough to reveal the flush at the base of her throat
and the swell of her tanned chest. She seemed to be aware of my gaze for, as
she spoke, she fingered the collar of the shirt and rubbed her index finger
along the length of her collarbone.

"I
wished to apologize for my behaviour in your home the other night," she
said, smiling at me girlishly.

"I
need to apologize, too, Miriam, for what happened in the car."

She waved
her hand, as though wafting my words from the air.

"No
need, Ben. Just think of it as two old friends renewing their
acquaintance."

"You
wanted to speak about your father-in-law?" I prompted, already growing
uneasy with the direction the conversation was taking.

"He
saw someone again the night before last," she said.

"In
his room?" I asked.

"Not
quite. Outside. He said he saw shadows at his window, trying to peer in
through the crack in the curtains."

I was
reminded of our own experience several nights before. Could the two incidents
be linked? "He didn't see their face?" I asked.

"No,"
Miriam replied. "I just thought it might be important."

"You
could have phoned me with this, Miriam," I said, standing
up.

"I
know you're mad at me," she said quickly. "I know you hate me for
what I did to you. With Thomas."

"I
don't hate you, Miriam," I said.

"You
do. You're right. It was horrid of me. But, I've paid the price for it. My
wonderful husband. He's standing in the next election. It'll be the first time
he's stood near me in years. His waitresses and nurses, they do it for him. He
thinks I'm withered up. Used goods, he says." The words tumbled out
without pause, as if Miriam were somehow aware that if she stopped now, she
would never have a chance to unburden herself again. Or perhaps she just liked
an audience. "Am I used goods, Ben?"

"I
need to go, Miriam," I said, moving towards the door.

"You
used to be a better man than this, Ben. I remember. I remember touching you.
You were so excited you couldn't hold yourself back. I remember. You do, as
well. I know you find me attractive. Oh, Debbie's a great mother, I'm sure. But
would she do what I'd do? Remember you and me down by the water station? We
have unfinished business, Ben. Let's finish it," she said, playfully. She
moved towards me, swaying gently from side to side, her head lowered slightly
so that she looked up at me through her fringe. "No one need ever
know," she said. "Just a bit of harmless fun."

She was
close to me now and I could feel the heat radiating from her body. Her skin
seemed to emanate something more than warmth. I could smell again the exotic
coconut of her skin and taste again her mouth, cold and sharp. I wanted to feel
the soft tug of her lips. She put one hand on my chest, the tip of a finger
finding its way between the buttons and rubbing the hairs of my chest. She ran
her fingernail along the skin and something deep inside me began to well up.
She smiled at me with her mouth, but her eyes remained slightly out of focus,
as though she were not really there, and in their emptiness I saw my children
and my wife. I felt again Deb's neck and the softness of her hair. I took
Miriam's hand and lifted it from my chest, then moved away from her. Her smile
wavered, as if she could not understand what had happened. Then it faltered
completely as I moved backwards towards the door.

"Goodbye,
Miriam," I said. "I want to go home to my family. I'm sorry if I gave
you the impression that there was something else there."

She set her
face defiantly against the shafts of winter sunlight streaming down the
hallway. "Get out, you useless shit!" she spat. "See if your
wife will be a whore for you on the back seat of a car."

As I turned
to open the door, I came face-to-face with Thomas Powell, who flashed his most
political smile. He looked freshly showered, his hair still damp and slightly
spiked. He had recently shaved and smelt strongly of aftershave, despite it
being late afternoon. "Have I missed something?" he said.

I did not
tell Debbie of my visit to Miriam Powell, and all evening I debated with myself
over the real reason for it. Miriam had sensed the unfinished nature of our
relationship; but it was also vanity on my part. Miriam Powell would still
sleep with me out of pity, or charity, or some obsessive need to debase herself
even further.

Perhaps she
wanted revenge against her adulterous husband. Perhaps she just wanted to
enjoy herself.

If I had
not seen the emptiness in her eyes, would I have gone ahead and given myself to
her and given away all that was important to me? I told myself that I would
not. And, as I kissed my children goodnight and curled up to sleep behind
Debbie, I believed that to be the truth.

I dreamt
that night of Miriam Powell. She and I were together in the back of a car,
parked behind the cinema. We were kissing and her breath was hot and urgent
against my ear as she pressed her cheek to mine. Over her naked shoulder,
through the windshield, I could see the body of Angela Cashell lying on the
grass. Debbie was standing over her, shaking her head. Miriam tugged at my
shirt, flicking open the buttons, and I heard shouting. Rubbing the condensation
from the window, I looked across to another car, parked beside us. The light
was on inside and I could see Costello with a faceless woman. She had brown
hair and brown eyes and her body was scarred and abused. She looked at me and
screamed. Then the car I was in began to move. Behind me, flames forked out of
the boot and I believed I could hear the petrol bubbling in the tank, ready to
explode. My stomach lurched, and when I looked again, Terry Boyle was sitting
beside me, the fetid smell of his breath and his scorched flesh thick in my
mouth and nose, the charred remains of his hand clasped on my knee. Then Whitey
McKelvey was driving, his face contorted and frozen, his hands lying useless on
the melting wheel, which spun wildly out of all control.

Sunday, 29th December

I awoke at
four in the morning with an irresistible need for food. I settled for coffee
and a cigarette, which I smoked at the back door as Frank lay in his basket,
watching me with critical eyes. I went out into the garden, which was frozen
under a clear night sky. The stars were bright and numerous. The moon was
almost new and as thin and curved as a curl of lemon rind. I inspected the
outside of Frank's shed while I walked to keep myself warm. At the back, hidden
under the branches of the fir hedge, I finally found where the boards had
rotted and broken and Frank had been squeezing in and out. Inside the shed, the
hole was hidden behind bags of cloths that we had used to cover furniture when
we had painted the house. I saw, too, the stain of blood on the floor from the night
of the hunt and knew, though I had tried not to think on it, that if Frank were
killing livestock, sooner or later he would have to be put down.

I lay on
the sofa that night, unable to dispel the thought that whoever had attacked my
home would do so again. I sat awake till dawn. Then, having turned on early
morning TV, I must have fallen asleep. I woke cramped and uncomfortable, my
face hot and stubbly. My eyes were dry and sore and my skin smelt of salt and
sweat. Penny stood looking at me, her head bent to one side.

"Did
you and Mommy fight?" she asked, with a matter-of-factness that I found
disconcerting in my five-year-old daughter.

"No,
pet. I couldn't sleep, so I came down here," I said, trying to smile,
while I stretched the crick out of my neck.

"Why?"
she asked.

"Because
I couldn't sleep and didn't want to wake anyone else."

"Okay,"
she said. "Can you move, please? I want to watch television." Then
she sat down at the end of the sofa, having given me just enough time to lift
my head out of the way.

As I
showered, I ran over the dream of the night before and resolved to face the
thing I dreaded: confronting Costello over Mary Knox.

For the
second time in a week, I found myself walking up Costello's tarmac driveway, my
innards constricted. The morning sky was a brilliant blue, the white shreds of
cloud contrasting all the more strongly. The sun shone low in the sky,
struggling to clear the mountains in the east. However, the temperature had
dropped again overnight and a skin of ice was forming on the water in the
concrete birdbath in the centre of the Costellos' front lawn.

Emily
answered the door and smiled in a confused way. "Is something wrong,
Benedict? You look terrible."

I could not
look her in the eyes, holding in my pocket the diamond ring that her husband
had given to a prostitute twenty-six years earlier. The eldest Costello child
was thirty-five.

The Super
appeared behind her, tucking his striped shirt into his voluminous brown
corduroy trousers. "Benedict," he said, smiling. "Come in."
He had not yet shaved and his hair stood slightly on end.

"I'd
like a word, sir. If you don't mind," I said, refusing to cross the
threshold into their home out of respect for Emily.

He looked a
little startled, but nodded and lifted a heavy quilted coat off the hooks
beside the door and followed me out to the car. "What's up, Benedict? Is
this about McKelvey again?"

I took the
ring out of my pocket and held it up between my thumb and forefinger.

"Cashell's
ring," he said. "So what?" Then he saw the photograph which I
took from my pocket and he said simply, "Ah."

"Who
was Mary Knox?" I asked, making it sound more personal than I had
intended.

"Let's
go for a drive," he said.

In 1976,
Ollie Costello was a sergeant with Lifford Garda. He had been married for ten
years. On a June night, when the sky was royal blue and the moon was white and
low above the hills, he was passing the Coachman Inn nearly an hour after
closing time and noticed lights shining from the gap under the closed doors.

He hammered
on the double doors and was finally admitted. As the noise of the revellers
died around him, he saw a group of men crowded around the edge of a platform
which doubled as a stage for the local auctions. None of the group had noticed
Costello yet, for their attention was fixed on a woman who stood on the stage
above them in the process of peeling her petticoat and underwear from her
sweating body. The men cheered as inch after inch of white flesh was exposed,
while the woman writhed and wriggled to some silent music that pounded in her
head. It was a spectacle both ridiculous and strangely sensual.

"Right,
madam, that's enough," Costello said finally, banging on the wooden
platform with his truncheon as the gathered spectators hastily dispersed.

"Ain't
never been called a madam before," she said, winking down at him while she
continued to gyrate, almost naked. He climbed onto the stage, struggling to
shift his weight sufficiently to pull himself up, then removed his jacket and
put it around her, suddenly conscious of the half-moon of sweat which had
darkened the underarms of his shirt.

She wrapped
his jacket around her, holding it closed with her hands, and swayed slightly,
dizzy as a result of both her dancing and the drink she had taken. Costello put
his arms around her to steady her, and took her to the Ladies, where he stood
guard while she got dressed. Then he led her out to his car before returning to
the bar and cautioning the owner, Harry Toland, for his breach of license.

When he got
back to his car, the woman who had said her name was Mary, was sprawled in the
back seat, pulling the foot of her tights down slightly to shift the hole in
them from her big toe to one of the smaller ones. The car smelt of cigarette
smoke and drink and sweat and feet and worn stockings. Costello wound down the
window and took out his notebook. He flicked on the light in the car and asked
the woman for details. He cautioned her that she could be charged with lewd
behaviour and asked if she had someone she wanted to contact. As he did so, he
watched her in the rear- view mirror, suddenly aware that the beads of
perspiration clinging to her face and chest were making him vaguely excited.