The Devil I Know (17 page)

He was prodding away at it with his hairy digits when he sat back and frowned. ‘Here, why did me wife call you this morning?’

This may come as a surprise to those assembled in this chamber but I am a dreadful liar. I gaped at Hickey and Hickey gaped at me and it seemed that we were building up to something – something big, something explosive, something that would splatter all over the ceiling – when my phone rang in his hand.

‘It says
Unknown
. Is that him?’

I nodded.

Hickey pressed the green button and raised my phone to his ear. ‘Hello?’ He lowered it again and looked at the screen. ‘Prick hung up on me.’

‘Oh.’ Your wife called me this morning because she . . . because I . . . because we . . . Because what?

My phone rang again. Hickey reluctantly returned it. I checked the screen.
Unknown
.

‘Hello? Yes, it’s me this time, M. Deauville. That was, ahm, Mr Hickey. Indeed. The board meeting went very well, thank you. Everything is in order. Ahm, on another matter, something has cropped up here. We’ve encountered an unanticipated expense pertaining to the farm in Oldcastle. One of the planning bonds has just doubled. No, not the County Council’s bond, it’s an additional bond concerning the ahm . . . the construction of the Metro. Ah. Is it? I see. Yes. I fully understand. Indeed, most unfortunate. Of course. The First Step was that we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol,’ M. Deauville and I chanted together, ‘that our lives had become unmanageable, and we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.’

I put the phone back in my pocket after we had completed a quick run-through of the Steps. Because she is worried about you. Your wife called me this morning because she is worried about you. She thinks you’re working too hard so she called me to ask after your welfare. Which is why her number showed up on my phone. That’s what I would tell him.

‘What’d he say?’

‘He says he can’t do it.’

‘He has to do it.’

‘Well, he says he can’t. He says the Market is nervous.’

‘About what?’

‘About a credit event.’

‘What’s a credit event?’

‘I don’t know.’

Hickey narrowed his eyes. ‘Something’s going on. Why is everyone pulling out? Why is McGee pulling out? Why is your lad pulling out?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You do know.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You knew everything in school.’

‘This isn’t school.’

He brought his fist down on the desk. ‘Fuck,’ he shouted, then conjugated the verb in the imperative. Fuck this, fuck that, fuck the other. Fuck you, fuck him, fuck the Viking. I looked down at the curdled milk and waited for the storm to pass.

The Portakabin door burst open behind me, as if some critical level of air pressure had been reached and we’d blown a gasket. I looked up and turned around. Hickey was gone, shot from a cannon. I sat back and looked at his calendar. Miss September had no hair other than on her head, which struck me as connected to some pathology of Hickey’s, what with his being so hirsute and Miss September being so—

Engine roar. I turned around in my seat again. The monster truck was revving at the door. ‘Are ya coming or wha?’ Hickey shouted from the driver’s seat. ‘Because someone needs to sort this gee-bag out.’

Which gee-bag? Didn’t matter. Any gee-bag would do. I pocketed my phone and followed him out.

‘This would be the day that the assault on Mr Dowdall took place?'

Who?

‘The Viking.'

Oh, him. The alleged assault. No, that took place the following morning. Hickey drove the few hundred metres down the road to the Viking’s green gin palace and parked in his loading bay. St Christopher was back on the dashboard, a dribble of glue oozing from his base. Hickey rammed the heel of his hand against his big horn and kept it there until Svetlana appeared at his window.

‘Yes, Mr Hickey?’

That turned my stomach – a woman with whom he’d had sexual relations calling him Mister. ‘Get your boss out here, love.’

‘He isn’t in the bar at the moment.’

‘When will he be back?’

‘He didn’t say.’

Hickey folded his arms over his belly. ‘Well, we’ll just have to wait for him then, won’t we?’

Svetlana nodded and returned to the bar. Hickey contemplated her arse, giftwrapped in the apron bow.

I checked my watch. ‘Are we just going to sit here?’

‘Yep. We’re just going to sit here til that cockhead comes out.’

‘Svetlana just told us he isn’t in there.’

‘See that?’ Hickey indicated the Range Rover Sport parked up ahead. ‘That’s his pathetic shitbox. He’s in there.’

A text arrived. I took out my phone and the screen screamed Edel’s name. Hickey turned his head. I hit delete without reading the message and returned the phone to my pocket.

‘Was that your man?’

‘No,’ I said, and then realised that I should have said yes. Yes, that was your man. It certainly wasn’t a text from your wife.

‘Here, what was all that earlier about a Power greater than yourselves?’

‘It’s one of the Twelve Steps, Dessie. “We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”​​’

Hickey kept his arms folded and addressed himself to the invisible listener standing at his window. ‘Sounds like a cult to me.’

‘AA is not a cult. It’s a recovery programme.’

‘An is the French fuck in this recovery programme too?’

‘I don’t think M. Deauville is French.’

‘Why do you call him Monsieur then?’

‘French is spoken in many parts of the world, Dessie.’

‘So where’s he from?’

I had first encountered him in Brussels. ‘He’s Belgian, I think.’

Hickey had no insight to offer on the topic of Belgians. He had no racially insensitive observations or random associations to submit. ‘Tell us again how you know this fella?’

‘He’s my sponsor.’

‘In the AA?’

‘Yes.’ Where else?

‘What’s a sponsor?’

I quoted the literature. ‘​“Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.”​’

‘An that doesn’t sound like a cult to you?’

He had me there. I conceded him his point.

‘So, would Fuckville be the one who told you that you’d die if you took another drink?’

‘M. Deauville didn’t have to tell me. I could see that for myself.’

‘But he did tell you?’

‘As it happens, yes.’

‘He’s brainwashing you.’

‘No, he’s supporting me.’

‘An everyone in the AA has one a these sponsors?’

‘Yes.’

‘So there’s, like, one geezer at the top? One big head-the-ball who knows everyone’s secrets because all the individual cells are reporting back to him, like in the IRA?’

‘It doesn’t work like that.’

‘How does it work?’

‘Not like that. It isn’t a military organisation. And it isn’t a hierarchical structure. “Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.”​’ I was quoting again.

‘Sounds dodgy to me.’

I nodded at Svetlana through the window to change the subject. ‘Are you still consorting with that girl?’

‘Who, the Russian bird? Ah sure, you know yourself.’

‘What does that mean?’

Hickey shrugged. ‘It means: ah sure, you know yourself.’

‘What about Edel?’

‘Edel?’ He smirked mirthlessly. ‘Don’t talk to me about Edel.’

Silence as my mind worried this nugget of information
into
shreds. What did
Don’t talk to me
mean? Was it the same as
Ah sure, you know yourself
​? I pressed my eye against this peephole into their marriage but I was on the wrong side of the door. The lens was distorted and offered conflicting views depending on where you stood.
Don’t talk to me
as in: Edel doesn’t love me any more, the marriage is gone, or
Don’t talk to me
as in: I suspect she’s having it off with another man an I’m going to kill him with my bare hands when I find out who he is.

He cleared his throat.‘Have you noticed anything funny going on lately?’

Here it comes. Why did my wife call you this morning? Why is she never around? ‘Funny?’

‘Yeah, funny as in men standing around.’

‘It’s a building site, Dessie. Men stand around.’

‘No, men in suits. I had to call me foreman over today. I says to him, “Who’s your man?” because this fella in a suit had appeared on site, but when me foreman looked over, your man was gone.’

‘So?’

‘So something funny’s going on.’

‘Like what?’

He addressed himself to the driver’s window again. ‘Might be the Tax Man.’

The phone chirruped in my pocket. Another text. I didn’t move. Hickey looked at me. ‘Are you going to open that or wha?’

‘I’ll open it later.’

‘Why? Is it your man again?’

‘No. It’s your wife.’

He laughed at that. He thought it was a joke.

At a quarter past one in the morning the last customer staggered out and Svetlana switched off the lights. I deleted the latest in Edel’s chain of texts and stashed the phone before elbowing Hickey awake. ‘Whuh?’ he said, sliding back up in his seat. ‘Where is he?’

‘He hasn’t come out yet.’

He shivered. ‘Jesus Christ, it’s bleedin perishing in here.’

Svetlana emerged and locked the double doors behind her. No sign of the Viking. Hickey looked up the road. The Range Rover Sport hadn’t budged. ‘Are you sure he didn’t come out?’

‘Positive. I’ve been watching all night.’

Svetlana pulled the shutters down and clipped them into place. She waved goodnight to us and then activated the key fob in her hand. The Range Rover flashed its hazard lights in response. In she got and drove away, just like that. We sat outside the empty bar on the empty street looking at the empty parking space, then Hickey exploded and punched the steering wheel which detonated the horn. The Viking was out there sniggering at us. We hated him. And he hated us.

Hickey started the engine. ‘Right. That’s it. I’ve had it.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘For a little drive.’

He turned right onto the West Pier and drove down the wrong side of the road. The pier was deserted. He could drive wherever he liked, I reasoned, trying to quell a flurry of alarm.

‘Beautiful moon out tonight,’ he noted. Although this was a perfectly valid observation – the moon was especially pure that night, and the sky especially clear – it was not the class of remark that might be expected from Hickey and it alarmed me further still. ‘Sometimes,’ he added, ‘I come down here to think.’

‘You wouldn’t come down here that often, then,’ I said, to get us back on track.

‘That’s funny, Tristram. You’re a funny man. Yeah.’ He
nodded
. ‘That’s what everyone’s been saying about you lately. He’s a bit funny, isn’t he, that fella? Something funny about him.’

It didn’t sound quite like Hickey’s voice. I was afraid to turn my head to check. ‘Who’s everyone, Dessie?’

‘Oh, you know. Everyone.’

We trundled past shuttered restaurants and fishmongers, the ship’s chandler and the ice factory, piles of ropes and nets. No sign of life on the quayside. The fishing boats had already departed for the night.

‘Do us a favour an pop open the glove compartment for me there.’

I leaned forward and clicked it open. A metal curve glinted amongst the truck’s manuals. I whipped my eyes away in shock. A gun.

‘Give us me flask there like a good man.’

I looked back into the glove compartment. A hip flask. It was only a hip flask. I took it out. It was full.

He glanced at the flask. ‘Be a star an take the lid off for me, would ya? I’d do it meself only I’m driving.’

I unscrewed the cap and held the flask out. Hickey swallowed a mouthful and did the post-pint sigh:
Ahhhhh
. The smell of whiskey filled the cabin. He handed the flask back.

‘Tanks a million. You’ll have a drop yourself.’

‘No thank you.’

‘Go on. Warm yourself up. It’s bleedin freezing in here.’

‘I’d rather not, thanks.’ A blatant lie.

‘Ah, sorry. Forgot.’

‘Not to worry.’ I put the cap back on.

‘I wouldn’t bother doing that,’ he smirked. ‘You’re only wasting your energy.’ I twisted the cap as hard as I was able.

We crawled along the centre of the pier. You would think we were leading a funeral procession. You would think there was a coffin in the back. Then Hickey took the truck out of gear and let it roll to a halt. He pulled up the handbrake but did not cut the engine. This is an odd spot to stop, I thought. Neither here nor there.

‘Is that a seal?’ he said suddenly, sitting up and craning his neck to get a better look.

‘Where?’ There were no seals in the harbour, as far as I could see.

Hickey pointed at the moonlit water. ‘A little black head popped up over there and looked right at me. It must of been a seal.’ He jumped in his seat. ‘There he is! It
was
a seal. Jaysus, me heart. For a minute there, I thought I seen the Devil again. Ah for fuck’s sake, Tristram, are you blind or what? Follow the line a me finger.’

I wasn’t looking at the water. I was looking at Hickey.

‘Look at the little fecker,’ he said, shaking his head in disapproval. ‘His skin all black and slimy like the Devil’s. The holes instead a ears, as if his real ears got burnt off in a fire. The sneaky little bollockses duck out a sight before you can get a proper look at them. Seals are disgustin if you think about them for too long.’ He turned to me. ‘D’ya know what I mean, Tristram?’

I said nothing. I didn’t know what he meant but I knew he meant something. The pilot light at the top of the beacon on the East Pier was pulsing behind his head. It seemed quite close but a deep channel of water divided us. Deep enough and broad enough for trawlers to pass.

‘God knows what you’d find if you dredged Howth Harbour,’ Hickey remarked. ‘God knows
who
you’d find, more like. I used to think when I was a kiddie that there was this big plug you could pull an the whole thing’d go whirling down the drain. All the boats’d be left sitting on the bottom, keeled over on their sides. The fish’d be flipping about in the mud. They’d find the skeletons. An the seals. Yeah, the seals’d be snared rapid. Here, give us that.’ He grabbed the hip flask as if I’d been hogging it. ‘Ah, ya sly bastard,’ he said with a wink when he discovered the tightly screwed cap. He wrenched the thing open and knocked back another mouthful, making a face as if the contents burned:
Ahhhhh
. I closed my eyes and inhaled the fumes.

‘You’re very pale, Tristram. That’s another thing everyone keeps saying about you. They say: he’s very pale, isn’t he? Hasn’t he gone very pale? He wasn’t always that pale, sure he wasn’t? Death warmed up. That’s what they call you behind your back. Did ya know that? Death warmed up. Something funny there. Jaysus, it’s fucken freezing in here.’ He ratcheted up the heating dial.

I didn’t rise to it. Accept the things you cannot change.

‘Good to be alone though, isn’t it, all the same? Just you an me on our own beside the sea having a nice friendly little chat. No one to interrupt us. Bit a peace and quiet from the wife. I always felt that this was my turf down here. You rich kids had the hill, the run a the mountains an that. The coves an the rock pools on the other side, the sunny side. South-
facing
. Isn’t the Dublin Bay side south-facing? Isn’t that right, Tristram? Some dickwad grows grapes up there, I heard. But we had down here.’ He lightly depressed and released the accelerator for emphasis. The engine revved but it was disengaged. The truck was going nowhere.

Hickey gestured with the flask at the boulders buttressing the end of the pier. They formed a staggered descent to the sea. ‘That’s where we’d go fishing, me an the lads, down on the rocks. Mackerel an herring. Smoked cod. We’d be sitting there casting lines an drinking tins for hours. These inner-city heads would come out on the Dart an the lot of us’d be talking absolute shite, total fucken rubbage. They thought we were posh! They were in bad shape, them lads. On the gear, ya know yourself. Not the gear you were on. I took care a you, Tristram. I made sure you got nothing but the best. But these poor fuckers. They were on the dirty stuff. The night’d usually end in a punch-up. Then we’d shake hands. They were good lads. Best days a me life. But there’d be these rats crawling around between the rocks.’ The engine note rose and fell. ‘Sea rats. Have ya ever seen a sea rat, Castler?’ I blinked. No one had called me by that name in years. I had almost forgotten that I had been that person. ‘They’re black with this greasy, spiky fur, like them young fellas with the gel in their hair. You’d see them scuttling around between the cracks. The rats, not the young fellas, ha ha. It’s like the seals. The rats an the seals. This place is literally crawling with them. This place is coming down.’ He shook his head and took another swig from the flask.
Ahhhhh
. That smell. Lord, that smell.

The surface of the sea was ruckled black and silver. Like life, I remember thinking, for in my heated state of mind everything reflected my predicament. The surface of the sea was like life: an overwhelming, unending onslaught of peaks and troughs, but silence and darkness if you let yourself go under. As I had gone under once before. And must never go under again. ‘It’s late,’ I said, looking at my watch.

‘Ah get a life, Castler, it’s not that late. Plenty a time for sleeping when you’re dead. You’re not in the grave yet. Though we all heard ya were. I suppose it was kinda odd that there was no funeral. If you had of been dead, you’d of had a funeral. I only just thought a that now. I’d of went along. Signed me name in the buke an that.’