John the Revelator (24 page)

‘In here.' Fixer tapped the tape machines. ‘I'll explain in a minute. Just let it play.'

When the track finished, he clicked the stop button on each recorder and unplugged the connecting jack.

‘Now,' he said. ‘I've transferred your master track and stored it in the unit labelled A. It's clean. The infected frequencies have been quarantined in B. We call it ghost washing. To reinstate the master, set the desk to record and simply press the play button on unit A. It'll only take the length of the song. But keep the main-desk fader down unless you want room sounds corrupting your track.'

The American stared at the ancient tape machine.

‘This is state of the art production,' he said, ‘and you want me to take a feed from that thing?'

‘Relax. The integrity of the recording has been preserved.'

‘How?'

‘It just has. Trust me, I do this for a living.'

The American looked doubtful.

‘What about the other one? The one containing the weird noises?'

‘It'll need to be disposed of. I'll take care of it.'

‘That's it?'

‘That's it.'

Fixer placed the B unit in his briefcase and snapped it shut.

‘Just remember, keep the volume all the way down when you're reinstalling the track to the desk. I'll be at the hotel if you need me. You can return the other unit when you're finished.'

He descended the spiral staircase and let himself out and was soon lost in the commotion of the market place. He stuck his hand out and hailed a cab.

‘Boukhalef, please,' he told the driver.

 

When they reached the airport, Fixer paid the cabbie and checked in at the self-service terminal, then proceeded directly to the departure gate. He browsed through a couple of stalls and bought a cup of coffee from a vending machine. Half an hour prior to boarding, he stepped into the men's room, found an empty cubicle and shut the door. He dialled the studio. The American answered. He sounded anxious.

‘Listen,' he said. ‘Your black-box recorder. You took the wrong one or something. When I transferred the track back to the desk, all I got was those weird noises. I called by your hotel, but you weren't picking up.'

‘That's because I'm not there. Do you have a pen?'

‘Why?'

‘Just write this down.'

He called out the details. Had to raise his voice in order to be heard over an announcement on the airport PA.

‘Now,' he said. ‘If you instruct your client to deposit ten thousand dollars in that account by five o'clock this afternoon your time, you'll receive a package containing the unit with the clean track in a couple of days. Input as instructed. If the money doesn't go through to the account this afternoon, I erase the track. Do you understand?'

He hung up the phone and went to the bar at the end of the departures lounge. Ordered a dry Martini and sipped it, looking out the great slanted windows.

‘You've got the right idea,' the barman said. He sounded French.

‘Excuse me?'

‘Looks like you'll be here a while. All flights are grounded.'

He gestured through the windows. A yellow haze had descended on the runway.

‘Fog.'

***

With my mother in the hospital, Mrs Nagle could no longer justify staying in the house. She knew it too, and made a point of keeping out of my way. The daily visits to St Luke's kept me preoccupied, but the tension in the house soon grew so palpable it was like a headache.

‘Mrs Nagle,' I said one morning, standing with my back to the fire, ‘I don't know what I would've done without you this past while.'

‘Ah,' she said, getting her teeth into a walnut whirl, ‘think nothing of it. I couldn't see you stuck.'

I cleared my throat.

‘I'd say you must miss your own house though.'

She gnawed the chocolate coating off the walnut like a horse at a sugar lump.

‘Faith, I do not,' she said. ‘That kip is cold as the hob of hell. The landlord won't do a thing about it. Doesn't give a hoot if an old woman catches her death.'

I picked up the poker and gave the fire a stir.

‘Still and all though, you'd want to keep an eye on the place. It might get broken into if people think it's empty.'

She tossed her head in the air.

‘Sure there's nothing of mine worth taking.'

I tapped soot off the poker.

‘Thing is, Mrs Nagle, what with my mother in St Luke's and all, I can take care of things now. Your work here is done, as they say.'

‘Indeed and it's not,' she said. ‘Don't you need looking after?'

‘Oh, I'll be fine. I'm a big boy.'

She plucked up another chocolate and perched the box on the arm of my mother's chair.

‘And what are you going to live on? You've no skill nor trade, nor no head for money. Just like your mother. She was a hard worker, but she wasn't a wealthy woman.'

Her use of the past tense riled me almost as much as the insincere look of sympathy she affected. She banished that look with the rest of the walnut whirl and approximated something like concern.

‘All the more reason for me to keep an eye on you. We're rubbing along just fine, aren't we? Anyway—' She faked a cough. ‘—I've given the landlord my notice. I allowed with the money I save on rent I can spoil you rotten. A young man needs a good woman to look after him. And your mother's in no fit state—'

‘Don't you say another word about my mother.'

She put a half-eaten walnut whirl back in the box and stood, hands on her big broad hips.

‘It's time you faced up to it, son. She's not long for this world. I'm the only family you have now.'

My stomach churned.

‘You're not my family, Mrs Nagle. You'll have to leave. I've tried asking you nicely, but you won't listen.'

She took a step back and drew herself up to her full height. I thought her head might bump off the ceiling.

‘John Devine,' she said. ‘How could you do this to me? Your mother would be ashamed. You're like my own son.'

She grabbed her coat from the back of a kitchen chair.

‘You need to cool off, me bucko,' she said. ‘I'm going out for a minute, and when I get back I'll make us a nice lunch and we'll forget all about this little tiff.'

She swept out the door, head high.

I put the poker down and slumped in the armchair.

I went through my pockets and found Har Farrell's business card and stepped into the hall and dialled the number scrawled on the back. He answered on the second ring.

‘Young John,' he said. ‘What way are you?'

It sounded like there were rashers frying in the circuitry of his phone. I told him about my mother having fallen sick, but he'd already heard, so I updated him on everything that had happened since Mrs Nagle moved in.

‘That conniving old bag,' he growled. ‘How can I help?'

‘I need to change the locks.'

He grunted.

‘Easy done. But we'll need to get her out of the house for an hour or so. Isn't she a holy roller?'

‘She goes to evening Mass every weekday.'

‘Good enough. Next time she leaves, ring. I'll be ready.'

I could almost hear his cheeks click from grinning.

‘I've been waiting a long time to get my own back on that old bag.
Athníonn cíaróg, cíaróg eile.
'

‘Come again?'

‘One earwig recognises another.'

***

When I arrived at St Luke's that day, the nurse made her usual comment about how my mother was lucky to have such a good son who visited so often. I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I had nowhere else to go, that a bossy old woman had taken over my home.

It was a fresh day, cold but bright, so I took my mother out into the garden. There was no one around. The possibility of breaking her out of that place, even for a little while, suddenly seemed very real. There was nothing to detain us.

I put my arm around my mother's shoulder and guided her through the trellis and down the drive. It seemed absurdly easy. To either side of us, psychedelic flowerbeds glowed, daffodils and bluebells all nodding their approval.

The front gate came closer with every step. I grew impatient with how long we were taking, so I placed my mother's hands around my neck and stooped and lifted her onto my back. She was no weight, and I was soon able to put a good distance between us and the hospital, my hands locked under her haunches, running as swiftly as possible, fast enough to spirit her away before she crumbled to her shinbones. As we approached the centre of the village I heard a sound so familiar it could've been coming from inside my head, a sound I wouldn't have believed was real only I felt my mother's breath in my ear.

She was giggling.

People gawked as we crossed the market square. I set my mother down on the shelf of the Father Carthy monument. A sour-looking woman in a housecoat marched up to me and said, ‘That woman shouldn't be out of doors.'

‘Mind your own business,' I said.

She huffed off, throwing suspicious looks over her shoulder. I glared in her wake, indignant and a little bit ashamed. Even though it was a mild afternoon, my mother was shivering. I rubbed her hands and tried to get her circulation going. We needed to be indoors, away from the prying eyes of busybodies who might recognise us and ring the hospital. Somewhere safe and warm.

Down Barracks Street and into Donahue's. It was a Saturday and the place was full of people watching the match, but the snug was free and nobody bothered with us. I ordered two hot whiskeys and wiped the dribble from my mother's chin with my sleeve and peered into her glassy eyes, tried to see beyond the veil of her glazed stare. The image came to mind of a child trapped under the surface of a frozen lake, clawing at the underside, a submerged shape bumping against the ice.

I stood, undecided about whether to buy another drink or make ready to leave, when I saw Gunter Prunty looming in the doorway. I shrank back into the shadows but it was too late: he'd spotted us. He made a beeline for our table, big barrel chest bulging under an AC/DC T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. He had a sleeve-length tattoo on each arm, some sort of Celtic symbol that snaked and spiralled all the way from his shoulders to his elbows.

I met his eyes and steeled myself for trouble. Gunter stared, unmoving, as if stumped for words.

My mother's hand went out to her drink, but she misjudged and knocked it off the table. The glass bounced off the tiles, splashing whiskey, and rolled between Gunter's motorcycle boots. He stared at the glass a moment, then crouched and picked it up and placed it on the table. He strode over to the bar and put his foot up on the rail, beckoned to one of the girls serving and jerked his thumb in our direction. The girl nodded. I wasn't sure what was going on. Maybe he was trying to have us thrown out. I couldn't decide whether to stay put or get my mother out of there, but then the bargirl came over carrying two more whiskeys on a tray.

‘That gentleman at the bar paid for these,' she said and pointed at Gunter, who was getting stuck into a pint of stout.

It was the first time I'd ever heard him called a gentleman. He took his glass and went out the back for a smoke. My mother watched him go. We sipped our whiskeys, but my mother seemed to lose interest after a couple of slurps, so I helped her to her feet and took her outside and hefted her onto my back. I started to walk, didn't know where, but we had to keep moving.

My feet led me straight across the square and through the chapel gates and under the arch. I dipped my hand in the holy water font and blessed myself and daubed a bit on my mother's brow and led her to a pew. We had the whole chapel to ourselves. The solemn atmosphere and dim light were calm and comforting. Beams of light slanted diagonally through the stained-glass windows and pooled on the floor, the colour of oil in water.

After a few moments my mother's chin dipped to her chest and she began to softly snore. I let her doze and listened to the faint dripping sounds and echoes of shuffling footsteps as the occasional pensioner wandered in to pray or light a candle.

My eyes took in the stone saints, the fourteen Stations of the Cross, the soft light favouring the tabernacle, the statue of the crucified Christ, His face turned away as if in disgust. We were on our own. Nobody was watching over us.

I put my head back until it touched the pew and stared up at the domed chapel roof until I felt dizzy.

The tolling of the Angelus bell brought me back into focus. Soon the priest and the altar boys would be preparing for evening Mass. Mrs Nagle would be getting ready to leave the house, pulling on her woolly hat and coat and spraying herself in sickly sweet perfume.

Outside, the setting sun had turned the whole village honey-coloured. I hoisted my mother onto my shoulders once more and we set off for the hospital, my footsteps slow. The smell of fried onions caught my heart, that Saturday smell from when I was small, my favourite day, when my mother was off work and I'd laze around and read my comics while she cooked us a steak.

Smells flooded the evening, smoke from the chimneys, real smells mingling with imaginary ones drifting from the past, the smell of my mother's perfume as we walked to Mass on Sunday, the smell of incense in the chapel, the no-smell-at-all of Jamey's house, the smell of Ollie's apple drops, the fried eggs my mother made me and Jamey, the white-scared smell of sweat in Ballo Garda Station, the smell of strawberry juice on my hands all summer, the reek of the rubbish dump, the smell of Molly Ross's body as she straddled me, the flyspray smell of Mrs Nagle, the smell of Jude Udechukwu's cologne, the smell of Maggie's breath against my skin, the smell of the creepers and flowers hanging from the trellis at St Luke's, the carbolic soap smell as they buzzed us through the door, the nurse's face puce with anger as she took my mother from me and instructed one of the attendants to wrap her in a blanket and put her to bed, and then she took me into her office and gave me a roasting, telling me how my mother could have caught pneumonia or hypothermia and was I trying to kill the woman or what. The next time I came to visit, she warned me, I wouldn't be allowed in unless I wore a security anklet.