The Devil I Know (3 page)

‘For a dead man,’ said Hickey.

Christy knocked off the tap. ‘Don’t mind that fella.’ Another beer mat; Christy’s pint completed the trio, racked in a triangle like snooker balls. The game was about to begin.

We waited for the tumult within the glasses to settle, the chaos that miraculously resolves itself into a well of black topped by a head of cream – a trick, a cruel trick – it never resolves, but lapses back into chaos the second you swallow it. A chaos so calamitous that you don’t know where to turn to escape it, but by then it is too late. The chaos is inside you. That is the nature of a pint.

I reached out to lay claim to the one nearest me. I rotated it on the beer mat, admiring its splendour from every angle. That pint was immaculate. Christy had outdone himself. I nodded my appreciation.

Christy raised his glass. ‘To the returned son.’ Hickey raised his glass and I lifted mine. A shake in my hand betrayed me. The two men glanced at each other. This was how they found me. Exactly as they had left me. A trembling wreck.

We clinked the bellies of our charges together. The stout was dense and the clunk was dull. A swell of cream spilled over the lip and coated my knuckles. It took every fibre of my being not to stoop to lick that cream away. I hadn’t fallen yet.

The other two sank their pints a third down in one go but I remained contemplating mine with an outstretched arm. My universe at that point in time had contracted to myself and that pint. We were a closed energy system.

‘I’ve been away a long time,’ I told the pint.

‘You have indeed,’ Christy agreed.

‘No wonder we thought you were dead,’ said Hickey.

The pint was cool and pure, tranquil as the moon. How patiently she had waited for me, knowing all along that I would come back to her, that sooner or later I would return. It was only a question of time.

Hickey was trying to get me to recount for Christy’s amusement the part he maintained I’d played in setting a Cortina on fire. I didn’t know what he was talking about. You
do
know, you
do
know, he kept insisting, pulling exasperated faces at Christy, and it occurred to me that if Christy wasn’t there, if the pub were empty and Hickey had me to himself, he’d have taken hold of the collar of my shirt and belted a confession out of me, for that is how D. Hickey did business. That is how he did business with me.

‘Ah, would you let the man enjoy his pint in peace, for the love of God,’ Christy interceded. ‘Sure look: he hasn’t even touched it yet.’

We all looked at my untouched pint and I brought it closer to my lips. I had never felt so pared down before, stripped so keenly to my basest elements. My darkest depths were contained in that vessel, a chalice I had crossed the earth to evade, pinballing from one hemisphere to the other, from one continent to the next, in the hope that if I kept moving it would not catch up with me, but now here it was, pressed like a coin into my hand by those who knew me, those who had known me as a child. This was it. This was what I was. A cubic pint of deepest black. I was holding my soul, distilled into liquid and aching to be reunited with my body, howling to be poured back in. I brought the glass closer again. I knew this would happen. I wanted this to happen. I still want it to happen. I always will.

My mobile phone rang. I put down the pint.
Unknown
read the screen.

‘Yes, M. Deauville?’ I called him Monsieur
and
he pronounced the Saint in my name as San, though generally he just called me Tristram. Hickey flicked the tip of his eager tongue over his moustache of foam and tried to earwig. I turned my back and retreated to a quiet corner.

‘No, M. Deauville. I’m, ahm . . . I’m still in Dublin. I’m waiting for, ahm . . . for my luggage.’ I checked my watch again – habit, habit. I didn’t give a damn about the time.

‘You mean, this minute?’ I looked around the pub. ‘This minute, I’m in the Summit.’

I lowered my head. ‘Yes,’ I admitted, ‘that is the name of a bar.’

I listened to him touch-typing on his keyboard,
tocka tocka, tocka tocka
. He was seated at his control panel watching his monitors, firing off instructions from his executive chair. That is how I pictured M. Deauville. A face illuminated blue by a bank of computer screens.

Tocka tocka
. ‘The Church of Ireland hall? Yes, I think I know which one that is.’ So many churches on our little peninsula. So many shots in the dark at salvation.

‘Do, please, yes,’ I said to his offer to book me a taxi.
Tocka tocka
. ‘Five minutes?’ I checked my watch and only then registered that it was still set to Eastern Standard Time. ‘
Perfect
. I’ll be waiting outside.’ ‘Thank you,’ I added as the sheer gravity of the episode began to sink in. I had almost fallen and there was so very far to fall. M. Deauville had plucked me from the jaws of Hell. Again. Relief was followed by euphoria. ‘Thank you, M. Deauville. Thank you so—’ but he had already hung up.

I turned back to Hickey. He was alone now and perched sullenly on a bar stool. I returned the phone to my jacket pocket and offered him my hand. ‘Good seeing you again, Mr Hickey, but I’m afraid I must leave immediately. I have to take an important conference call.’

Hickey looked at my hand without accepting it. ‘It’s five to eight on a Friday evening,’ he pointed out flatly.

I withdrew my hand. ‘Not in New York, it isn’t.’ I raised a palm in farewell to Christy and headed for the exit. Hickey sighed and laboured off the bar stool. I pushed the door open onto rose sunlight. A yacht race was disappearing around the back of Ireland’s Eye and fishing boats were setting out for the night catch. Hickey joined me on the top step, a fresh pint in his paw, no doubt the one I’d put back on the counter. He kept his eyes on the view as he spoke.

‘I have something to show you,’ he muttered out of the side of his mouth. That was Hickey’s idea of discretion: act as suspiciously as possible. ‘A business proposition,’ he added when I didn’t bite.

I smiled perfunctorily. ‘Next time, Dessie.’ He made eye contact then. Both of us knew there would be no next time.

A taxi drew up at the gate piers. Every order issued by M. Deauville was carried out to the letter. That’s what money does. I picked my way across the sprawled dogs and opened the door to the back seat. ‘St Lawrence?’ The driver nodded.

I sat in and turned to reach for the handle. A hand held the door rigid. I looked up. Hickey was standing on the kerb.

‘Tristram, you’re a fucken dry shite,’ he said before slamming the door shut. That’s me, I agreed grimly as the taxi pulled away. I fixed my eyes on the road ahead and did not look back at the Summit. That’s me, yes, that’s who I am now and let no one forget it, least of all myself. I am Tristram the Fucken Dry Shite, Thirteenth Earl of Howth.

The taxi smelled not of youth and beer and summer, but artificial pine. I was sealed into the sterile safety of a moving body once more – M. Deauville had seen to it. I jammed my fist into my mouth and tasted the pint. I suckled the knuckle the stout had doused, the taxi driver eyeing me in the rear-view mirror all the while as we retreated back down to the bottom.

A brief note on how that episode ended, if I may. It ended as my episodes all end. As they all must end if I am to keep body and soul together. It ended in the circle.

The bottom of the hill was already in shadow. I had been banished from the realm of the gods. I kept my eyes averted as we passed the entrance to the grounds of the castle and continued on to the church hall.

We are drawn to churches. All those passions and redemptions and casting out of demons – you can see the attraction. The taxi dropped me off at the gates, the fare, as ever, taken care of by M. Deauville. I never carry cash. I never have to. I barely interact with this world. I am barely here. The driver departed, leaving me standing alone by the pillar. A breeze was blowing in from Claremont Beach, evocative
beyond
description
, not air but the essence of my past, the medium in which it is preserved.

The church gates were open but no lights burned. I checked my watch. Five past three, which meant it was five past eight. Had I the right hall? The car park was empty. Nothing unusual per se about that. We like to keep our gatherings discreet, and who can blame us? So we park down side streets or around corners and slip out individually after the meetings to go our separate ways, feigning that we don’t know each other although we know one another intimately. At least one of our number is here.

The hall porch was in darkness. I tried the door. It was locked. This did not unduly discourage me. There are generally a few precautions in place to prevent strangers from accidentally wandering in. I listened for voices and heard them, muffled and subdued. I walked around the side and sure enough, light was glowing through the fanlight over the back door. I’d found them.

I raised the latch and pushed open the door. The people huddled in the circle sat up at my intrusion. I approached to show myself, to reassure them that I was okay, that I was one of them and not some straying parishioner. I made the meek face, smiled the apologetic smile, and the meek apologetic smile was returned in kind, distinct as a Masonic handshake. We are all the same. Wherever you go, no matter what country or class or creed you belong to – or don’t belong to – we are all the same.

The man chairing the meeting stood up and unhitched an extra seat from the stack in the corner. ‘We were just about to begin,’ he said, carrying the chair into the circle. It was a small meeting. Six men and one woman. One damaged
woman
. Young and attractive but no good to us. By virtue of her presence there, we could never have been interested in her. Nor she in us. Let’s not kid ourselves, lads.

The exchange of meek smiles continued, the nods of welcome and recognition – I had never been to that place in my life, never met those people, yet they recognised me as piercingly as I recognised them. We recognised each other’s nature. You as well? their eyes asked, and I did the sheepish smile, the afraid-so shrug. Yes, me as well.

Down at the back on a trestle table, the tin of plain biscuits and the Burco boiler presided, the bag of white sugar congested into boulders by spilled droplets of tea, the mismatched mugs that smelled of Milton fluid, the stained teaspoons and carton of milk. Those items were our guardian angels, offering whatever homely consolation could be hoped for under the circumstances. They would never hit the spot. The Burco geared up to boiling point and simmered down, geared up to boiling point again and simmered down, dreary as windscreen wipers.

‘Any anniversaries?’ the chairman enquired after the
prayer
.

I stood up. ‘Hi, my name’s Tristram and I’m an alcoholic.’

‘Hi Tristram,’ they said in unison. Hi Tristram, fellow prisoner, fellow lifer, you’re an alcoholic.

The blood was raging inside my skull, crashing like waves against rocks. My mobile phone was in my breast pocket, next to my heart. I touched it briefly for reassurance before clearing my throat to speak. ‘It is one year since my last drink.’

The circle clapped as I stood there in disgrace. An act of supreme paradox, applauding my shame. My face burned and I sat back down.

Night had fallen by the time the meeting was called to a close. I stood on the kerb and waited for a taxi. None arrived. I checked my phone. No missed calls. No instructions from
M. Deauville
. I had missed the late flight.

I gave it another twenty minutes before making my way to the ribbed stone columns of the castle entrance for the first time in twelve years. The street lights ended at the public road and the avenue beyond lay in darkness. It was not how I had envisaged my return.

An outbreak of barking erupted from the gate lodge. A small white form came barrelling out of the shrubbery and lunged at my ankles. I kicked out and it veered past, all scrabbling claws on the tarmac. ‘Toddy!’ called a voice from the past and I caught my breath.

The dog beat a retreat. A figure was limping straight off the storybook pages of my childhood, a crooked man who walked a crooked mile. He edged up to see what had tripped his trap, pausing about six feet shy of me to peer into my face. I couldn’t quite make out his. My eyes had yet to adjust to the dark.

‘Is it the young master?’

‘Larney?’ I said in amazement. ‘You’re still alive?’ I had to keep from blurting, gauging that he must be over a hundred by now, for Larney had been an old man when I was a boy, and a young man when Father was a boy, having served our family since he himself was a boy.

He ventured another step towards me, sidling crablike as ever, his body as twisted as an old vine. I had watched him once when he thought himself unobserved. I was on my way home from school when I came upon him in the woods. No limp. He looked almost normal, a working man from the village. ‘Ha!’ I had cried, plunging out from the trees, ‘caught you!’ Larney had reverted into his hobble and raised his hands to shield his head from a beating. The panic on his face had sent me backing off uncertainly, for I was just a child, and so, I realised, was he.

He drew up alongside me, head cocked like a bird, his upper body thrust forward and bobbing slightly. ‘You’re home, so, are you?’

Though I could make out his white teeth, the rest of his features remained dim. He was smiling wildly. I knew better than to mistake this for joy at my return. Larney always smiled wildly. It was an act of ingratiation, a plea not to inflict pain.

‘Yes, ahm . . . That would appear to be the case.’

The voltage of the smile did not waver. Indeed, he registered no surprise whatsoever at my appearing out of the blue, as if it were the most natural thing in the world that I should pitch up unannounced in the night like this. As if nothing had changed in the intervening years. As if there had been no intervening years.

‘All is well with himself up above,’ he offered, although I had not enquired after my father’s health. He had not enquired after mine.

‘Right.’