Darkhouse (4 page)

Anna was sitting on the sofa with a book on Irish lighthouses open on her lap; almost two thousand miles of coastline and eighty major lighthouses to guard them. She turned to Joe.

‘You know, the motto of the Commissioners of Irish Lights is
in salutem omnium
, for the safety of all. It’s funny, I look at our little lighthouse and I feel safe. I can’t imagine how intense it feels when you’re out at sea in a storm, thrown up on massive waves and your whole life depends on that flashing light.’

‘You’ve gotta admire those keepers.’

‘Sam has some great stories. Some of the keepers used to play poker with the locals and used Morse code to tap out their hands.’ The phone rang and she jumped up to take it in the kitchen.

‘Oh hi, Chloe,’ she said. She listened for a minute and then she was pacing, stretching the
yellow cord across the room. Joe followed her in. He saw her frown.

‘No. I need someone who’s not going to come over here and get traditional. Greg’s work on Iceland was three Björks by an igloo. Not good enough. I was thinking of this Irish guy, Brendan—’

She rolled her eyes up to Joe at the interruption.

‘No, no, listen! I’ve seen his work, it is completely different. And he’ll avoid all those terrible clichés. I’ve made a few calls and apparently he’s amazing—’

She stopped again.

‘I didn’t say I wanted Irish models! We’ll use American or French girls, that’s fine. But this is an interiors spread, Chloe. They should not be the focus.’

She held the phone away from her ear, then brought it back when Chloe stopped.

‘OK, OK. I’ll call him, get him to send you his book and the spread I saw in the Irish magazine. Then you make your informed decision.’ She hung up.

Joe looked at her, amazed. Miles away from the office, she was still secure enough to stamp her feet.

‘What’s for lunch then?’ he said, teasing.

‘Chloe is so stupid,’ said Anna as she walked to the fridge. ‘Meatball sandwiches with barbecue sauce.’

He squeezed her tightly, wrapping his arms around her from behind. ‘I love your balls.’

She laughed in spite of herself. ‘
Tragique
. Oh, by the way, the doors should be here today,’ she said.

‘If they were still together and Jim Morrison wasn’t dead.’

Anna simply shook her head.

‘Come on, you love the bad ones,’ said Joe.

She stared at him. ‘
Quel curieux caractère
.’ He recognised the quote, from the French version of
Toy Story
. In the English version it was ‘You sad, strange little man.’

After lunch, Ray’s van bumped up the stony drive. Anna waved him towards the lighthouse. He took a left and drove down the sloping grass as close as he could get to the steps. He got out and threw his hands up in the air.

‘What am I supposed to do now?’ he shouted to her.

She jogged over to the bottom of the steps.

‘I’ll need to call in back-up,’ she said, laughing.

‘Love that cop speak.’

‘Can I have a look?’ she said, nodding at the van.

‘You can indeed,’ said Ray. He opened the back doors and lifted a layer of green tarpaulin.

‘Oh my God,’ she said, her hand to her mouth. ‘They’re beautiful!’

‘They’re wooden doors,’ said Ray.

‘No, no. They’re beautiful. You did an amazing job.’

‘Thank you. I had the picture of the old lighthouse doors pinned to my board the whole time.’

‘They’re magnifique,’ she said.

‘They could almost be magnificent,’ he said.

‘Stop that!’ she laughed. ‘You’re always making fun of me.’

‘I always used to make fun of the girls I fancied in school,’ he said, winking.

‘You flirting with my wife again?’ said Joe, coming up beside them. ‘I’m pushing forty here, Ray – thirty-year-old charmers worry me.’ Ray was the same height as Anna, but looked shorter because he was so broad. His dark eyebrows and constantly furrowed brow could make him look either incredibly sensitive or just plain stupid. He was neither.

‘The doors are great,’ said Joe, running his hand over the wood.

‘Don’t. I’ll get a swelled head,’ said Ray. ‘OK, now how’re we going to get these down? Where’s this back-up of yours, Anna?’

‘I’ll get Hugh.’

Anna disappeared to drag Hugh away from his tea and tabloids. Between the four of them, they hefted the doors to the lighthouse and secured them onto their hinges. Anna bolted them shut.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘I am thrilled. I am so grateful.’

Ray raised an eyebrow.

‘Not that grateful, pal,’ said Joe, putting a firm hand on his shoulder.

‘To be honest,’ said Ray, ‘I’m hanging out for the models who’ll be draping themselves over me for the photo shoot. I’ll be the “bit of rough”. Might wear an Aran jumper and tuck my jeans into my boots for the occasion.’

‘Anything else you need?’ asked Hugh.

‘No, no, thanks for your help,’ she said.

‘I’m off, too,’ said Ray. ‘If those doors get unhinged at all, you’ll know where they get it from.’

Anna didn’t understand. Joe laughed. She turned to him, taking his hand.

‘Let me show you my nightmare.’ She unlocked the new doors and led him up the winding staircase. They reached the service room and climbed the sloping ladder to the lantern house.

‘Look at this,’ said Anna, hooking the tip of her finger under one of the cracks in the wall. ‘Doesn’t move.’

‘Paint stripper?’ said Joe.

‘Not a chance,’ she said. ‘It’s taken years for it to get that way. And because of the temperature in here, it…’ she moved her hands in and out.

‘Got bigger? Smaller?’ said Joe.

‘No, no, the metal…’

‘Oh, expanded and contracted.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So I don’t know what to do.’

‘I could get some of the guys, scrape it off.’

They both shook their heads.

‘We’ll think of something,’ said Joe. ‘Do you have to do this part? I mean, the thing doesn’t work anyway,’ he said, looking at the old mercury pedestal, ‘and won’t the shoot be really from the outside?’ She knew he was half serious.

‘I’m not even going to answer that,’ she said. And besides, he didn’t know her plan.

Shaun dropped his bag on the floor of the small Portakabin he had seen lowered earlier that day onto the concrete at the side of the soccer pitch.

‘What the hell kind of locker room is this?’ he said.

‘Can you see a locker in here anywhere?’ said Robert, looking around the empty room. He liked to tease his friend. ‘It’s called a changing room, Lucky. We change our clothes in here. Even when we think our balls will be frozen off.’

Shaun discovered early on that teasing was called slagging in Ireland and if you weren’t getting slagged, there was something wrong.

‘Out of the way,’ said one of the boys, pushing past him. The rest of the team, miserable in shorts and T-shirts, ran towards the blinding floodlights. The pitch was bald, hard and unseasonably cold. Running in head-to-toe black Nike along the sideline was the coach, Richie Bates. He was twenty-five years old, six foot three and two-hundred-and-ten
pounds, every inch of his body carefully toned into hard muscle. His neck was short and thick and the top of his head was Action-Man flat. Richie was a guard, short for garda, singular of gardai, the Irish police force. He worked with a sergeant out of the small sub-station in Mountcannon. After an hour of play, he was still running up and down, roaring.

‘Come on, lads! Move it! Move it!’

‘It’s freezing,’ said Robert, jogging after the ball.

‘If you run, you’ll warm up,’ said Richie. Robert rolled his eyes. He had just come on. Everyone around him had hot red faces and white breath. He was still ghostly pale, but knew the slightest effort would turn him to crimson and make his eyes stream. He was not a sportsman. He sweated too much, he breathed too heavily, his hair fell across his face, his legs were dark and hairy, thick and slow. But he could appreciate the irony. He was the sports writer for the school paper.

Shaun had the ball and was heading for goal. He stumbled and landed hard.

‘Get up, Lucchesi!’ said Richie instantly. Shaun breathed through the anger. Richie blew the whistle. ‘Right, lads, that’s it. Off you go. Well done.’ No-one responded.

Back in the changing room, Billy McMann, a short, skinny twelve-year-old, was hunched shivering in the corner trying to do up his fly, but his fingers were curled and numb from the cold. He
caught Shaun’s eye and gave a weak smile. Shaun stepped over, quickly zipped up the boy’s fly and patted him on the head.

‘Thanks,’ said Billy, blushing.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Shaun.

‘Jesus Christ, Billy! Can’t even zip up your own pants?’ It was Richie, standing, laughing in the doorway.

Shaun stared at him. ‘Give the kid a break.’

Billy fumbled with his bag.

‘You need to toughen up,’ said Richie pointing at him.

‘There’s nothing wrong with him,’ said Shaun. ‘His goddamn fingers were freezing.’

‘Watch your mouth, Lucchesi,’ said Richie. ‘Or we won’t be calling you Lucky for much longer.’ His look challenged the rest of the room.

‘You’re not in uniform now,’ someone shouted from the back.

‘You watch yourself, Cunningham,’ said Richie. ‘Or I’ll be waiting outside that off-licence when you’re picking up your next six pack.’ He left.

A few of the boys groaned. Then Robert said, ‘You’re still a fag, Lucky.’ Everyone laughed.

‘Do you need a lift?’ Robert asked Shaun.

‘Nah,’ said Shaun. ‘My dad’s coming.’

He walked out of the school and stood by the gates, watching all the other parents come and go with their sons. Joe eventually pulled up in the Jeep.

‘You’re such a loser,’ said Shaun through the window. ‘I’ve been standing out here for, like, twenty minutes.’

‘I was busy. I’m trying to pack.’

‘You forgot.’

‘No, I didn’t. Just get in, Shaun.’

‘What’s your hierarchy of things to remember, Dad? Like on a scale of one to ten, where do I come in?’

‘Here we go,’ said Joe.

‘Yeah, well, it’s a pain in the ass. You can remember everything for work, but—’

‘Drop it,’ snapped Joe.

‘Jeez, relax, would you? I’m the one who got stood up here. Again.’

‘I said drop it,’ said Joe, too loud. They drove the rest of the way in silence.

They were just in the door when the phone rang. Joe picked up.

‘Come back, all is forgiven,’ said Danny Markey.

‘Please stop calling me at this number,’ said Joe. ‘I told you. It’s over.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know the drill,’ said Danny. ‘It’s not me, it’s you.’

They laughed. Shaun made a face at his father’s transformation.

‘So things that bad?’ asked Joe, ignoring Shaun.

‘You’ve no idea,’ said Danny. ‘I’m with Aldos

Martinez or All Doze – guaranteed to help you sleep or your money back. And if that’s not enough, I’m
out last night, date with Maria, and my wife calls looking for me. And this rookie on the TS tells her I’m finished hours ago. I go home telling her the hard night I’ve had and she knees me in the downtown area. I swear to God. What happened to, “He’s out on the road, I’ll get him to call you.” I’m gonna rip the guy’s rookie head off next time I see him. He’s a retard. Clancy called to fuck with him, pretended he was some pimp looking for his girl Juanita Sophia Marguerita whatever and the guy leaves his desk to go check. I shit you not. Anyway, it’s like everywhere I look I’m getting screwed.’

‘Wish I was there to offer my support,’ said Joe.

‘Yeah, yeah, sure,’ said Danny. ‘So how are those ugly Irish broads?’

‘They’re doing great,’ said Joe. ‘Want me to pass on your regards?’

‘Sure,’ said Danny. ‘I’ll come over, wrap myself round one of those wide backs.’

‘Hey, Shaun isn’t doing too badly with his Irish girl.’

‘Yeah, but I’ve seen the pictures. Katie’s an exception. Let me tell you, if he ever gets tired of her…’

‘You’re a sick man, Danny. A sick man.’

‘True,’ said Danny. ‘Anyway, I was wondering if you’re coming back for your birthday.’

‘What are you, a girl?’

‘It’s a big deal. When I’m old like you I’ll want you to make a big deal over me.’

‘I don’t know what I’m doing for my birthday, Danielle, but maybe we could have a sleepover—’

‘You sound like me. A guy tries to do the right thing…’

‘Look, I don’t know what I’m doing for my birthday. But I’m in New York tonight.’

‘What?’

‘Giulio is getting married tomorrow. Don’t ask. I don’t know if I’ll make it into the city. I’m only there a couple a days.’

‘Call me. I’ll come to the airport, meet you for a drink or something.’

‘Sure.’ He saw Anna walk in. ‘Danny, I gotta go catch a flight. Here – maybe you should talk to my lovely lady wife about any birthday plans.’

‘Hmmm, French accent…’

‘Jesus Christ. No-one is safe.’

Anna smiled and took the phone from Joe.

‘Bonjouuur,’ she said. Joe could hear Danny whooping.

The taxi driver guided the red saloon along the winding tree-lined road. One hour ago, he had picked up his first fare of the morning at Shannon airport. He had been talking ever since.

‘That’s what we need over here – Rudy Giuliani. The guy cleans up a whole place like New York and our politicians can’t clean their own backsides.’ He looked in the rear-view mirror. He got no response. He kept talking.

‘I ended up in Harlem once, you know. Only white guy there, I swear to God. And I’m from Cork and in Cork, we call everyone “boy”. We say “How’s it goin’, boy?” or “What’re you havin’, boy?” Well, I tell you one night in Harlem straightened me out fairly quickly. My mate, this big black guy, tells me, “Someone will pull a gun on you here if you call them boy.” So I started calling everyone “man” instead. “Hey, man, how’s it goin’, man?” Now I’m back here and I’m saying “man” and they all think I’m nuts.’ He turned back to his passenger. He drove on. ‘Right,’ he said after two quiet minutes, ‘here we are. Will this do? They usually seem to have a few good deals.’

‘This is great,’ said Duke Rawlins.

Brandon Motors stood on a winding back road, sloping down a field by a red-brick bungalow. New and used cars lined the grass, fluorescent green and pink price tags wedged behind their windscreen. The Car of the Week was mounted on a slanted wooden platform edged with green and gold bunting. The dealer stood beside it, nodding to the car and then to Duke. Duke shook his head.