Twisted River (2 page)

“Oh, Kate! You don't think his father's two broken ribs happened by accident?”

“What do you mean?” The knot in her stomach pulled tighter.

“Polski Sklep's father is . . . was . . . a bouncer at a nightclub in town. He got beaten up in the lane outside. That was down to Flynn's old man.”

“I thought Frankie Flynn's dad was in prison.”

“And you think that stopped him?”

Kate sighed.

“How do you know all this, Mannix?” she asked, her plan of action now looking futile.

“Spike.”

Spike was Mannix's brother. The other half of the O'Brien brothers. As Kate tossed the vegetables onto the sizzling wok, her face set in a
frown. Spike would know. He was in the nightclub business. Spike was in any business that he thought would make him money.

“Hi there, honey.” Mannix's face softened at his daughter, who'd floated silently into the room. She was neatly dressed in her Girl Guides uniform. “Oh, shit . . .” he added.

“Aw, Dad, you haven't forgotten, have you? You said you'd take me to the Guides tonight.”

“No, no, of course, Izzy, that's fine. It's just that . . . no, never mind. Of course I'll take you.”

Izzy looked at her mother.

“You told him, then? About Fergus?”

“Yes, I told him,” said Kate, doling out four equally sized portions into black patterned noodle bowls.

“What exactly did Frankie Flynn write on that wall?” Mannix looked at Izzy.

Izzy hesitated a moment as if she didn't want to say.

“Well?” said Mannix.

Kate held her breath.

“Do you really want to know, Dad?”

“I really want to know,” said Mannix.

“‘Fergus O'Brien is a fucking spastic,' that's what it said.”

Kate felt like she'd been slapped across the face. For a few moments none of them said anything. Mannix's eyes narrowed.

“Did it, now?” he said eventually.

Izzy looked from Kate to Mannix, slowly drinking in their reactions.

“I hate Frankie Flynn.” Izzy's voice was ice-cold.

“Don't you worry about that little bollocks,” said Mannix, circling his daughter's waist.

“Mannix!” Kate protested, but noticed the profanity had softened Izzy's expression. She had the makings of a grin. Father and daughter were alike in so many ways. Quick to anger, quick to judge, impetuous.

“What are you going to do?” Izzy wasn't letting it go.

Kate squirmed, her parental authority under siege from the piercing stare of her young daughter. The truth was she didn't quite know. Not yet.

“Let's have dinner, Izzy,” she said breezily. “It's not your job to worry about this. It's mine and Dad's. Go downstairs and get Fergus, will you?”

Izzy opened her mouth as if to speak but clammed it tightly shut again.

“K,” she muttered.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me,” rhymed Kate, but her words rang hollow and trite. Izzy turned her back, but not before Kate registered the look of disgust on her daughter's face.

The meal was stilted and awkward, Mannix trying to cajole Fergus without actually addressing the issue, Kate aching to smother her fragile eight-year-old with love. She'd give him anything she could to protect himself. Anything to boost his self-esteem. If Fergus could only walk into that school with his head held high, maybe then he wouldn't wear the mantle of a victim quite so readily. If she could just conjure up something to make him more resilient, more robust. Maybe then Frankie Flynn would move off to prey on someone else. It wasn't a noble solution, she knew, but at the moment all she wanted was Frankie Flynn to leave her son alone.

Even though she'd prepared the meal just the way he liked it, she half expected Fergus would leave his meal untouched. Surprisingly, in between monosyllables, he ate. He did his usual circle trick with the vegetables. He picked a yellow pepper from the yellow pile, a carrot from the orange pile, and then some onions. And back to the yellow pile to start all over again. He was trying his best to put on a brave face in front of his father.

Izzy ate her meal in moody silence. As Kate cleared the dishes she knew they were going to have to do something about Fergus, but for the life of her she didn't know what. Something would come to her over the course of the evening. She went out to the hall to retrieve her satchel in the hope of going over some papers.

Mannix passed her in the hallway carrying a flowery pillowcase.

“Domestic skills at last?” Kate raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, this—it's for Izzy, something for Guides, I think.” His lips
grazed her cheek as he breezed past, freshly showered and having swapped his suit for jeans.

“I turned down that job today, by the way.”

Given the amount of agonizing she had gone through, she was surprised he hadn't asked her about it already.

“Job?” He looked at her blankly.

“The assistant head of department? The job that Simon offered me?”

“Oh, that . . .” he said dismissively. “Sexy Simon will have to look for his assistant elsewhere, I guess,” he added sarcastically.

Kate felt hurt. It had been silly of her to expect any acknowledgment or recognition of what she had just turned down. Mannix had somehow gotten it into his head that Simon's interest in her was more than professional. But Kate couldn't help feeling let down nonetheless.

“Ready, Izzy?” Mannix shouted, going down the stairs.

At the bottom, he turned round. “Oh, Kate, by the way, I'm calling over to Spike for a bit. We'll talk when I get back, okay?”

“Spike?”

“Kate, don't start. Give the guy a break.”

Her expression must have said it all.

“I didn't say a thing,” said Kate. “Pints in the Curragower Bar, then?” She kept her tone even. It wasn't as if they could afford them.

“No, Kate. I'm going round to Spike's flat. See you later,” he said, sounding resigned. He ushered Izzy out the door and slammed it a little too forcefully behind him. Kate sighed. She should have bitten her tongue.

Just before heading up to the study on the third floor, she looked in on Fergus's bedroom and was alarmed not to see him there. Not on the bed with his Nintendo. Not making models with his K'NEX. As she stood in the twilight she heard a heavy panting sound coming from the other side of the bed.

“Fergus?” she said tentatively, walking around the bed.

More huffing and puffing.

“What on earth are you doing?” Although it was perfectly obvious what he was doing.

He stopped then and propped himself up on one arm.

“Push-ups. Thirty tonight. And more tomorrow. I'm going to get up to a hundred a night.”

“Isn't that a bit much?” He'd never shown any particular interest in gym work before. Still, she smiled, glad to encourage any new endeavor.

“It's not too much . . .” he huffed. “I'm going to be a beast!”

“A beast?” Kate laughed.

“Yeah. I'm going to become an absolute beast. And then I'm going to kick the living crap out of Frankie Flynn.”

The smile froze on Kate's lips.

“Oh, but Fergus, that's not . . .”

He glanced up briefly, and then without answering he went back to his push-ups. Kate shut the door softly. She definitely had to talk to Mannix about this.

 • • • 

With a slew of papers spread out on the desk in the study, Kate tried to concentrate. She stared at the letter she'd received last week from Oberstown House, the young offenders' facility. They'd invited her to make a presentation to their further education students. Again, she was conflicted. The logistics were difficult. That was a trip the whole way to North County Dublin, a longer day at each end, and more upheaval for Fergus. As much as she relished the idea of broadening their student base and making their courses more accessible, she knew where her priorities lay.

Next, Kate attempted to jot down some advice on the portfolio proposals her second-years had handed in. But the words swam around in a slurry of language. What advice could she offer her own child? She looked around the book-lined room and at the woven tapestries hanging on either side of the long sash window. Darkness had now fallen and the lights from City Hall shimmered on the river.

And then it came to her. She spent so much time worrying about the future. Their future. Fergus's future. But the time was now. She needed to do something now. Putting the sheaf of papers to one side, she turned on the desktop and settled herself into the office chair. An hour must have slid by easily before she found what she was looking for.

“Oooooowwww!!!”
came an agonized howl from down the stairs.

Good Lord—what had Fergus done now? Tearing down the stairs, she nearly went over on her ankle. There, in the gloom, was Fergus, doubled over, holding on to a foot.

“What happened?” She rushed to comfort him.

“My toe is all messed up,” he said, sobbing.

“How did that happen?” His big toenail had split and blood was seeping out from underneath. On closer inspection, she saw that the edge of the toolbox was poking out from the cupboard door underneath the stairs. He had stubbed his big toe on the corner. She didn't doubt the pain and he was in full throttle now. The injury was the final straw in his day of humiliation.

“Dad . . . I want Dad . . . Get Dad!”
he howled.

“Let's put a plaster on first. He'll be home soon, Soldier,” she said, trying to placate him.

No go.

“Get Dad now! I want my dad now!”

The bleating descended into a pitiful moaning. Her heart went out to him. She wanted to scoop him up and squeeze him and cuddle the pain out of him. But it was no good. He wanted Mannix.

“Okay, okay, okay . . . hang on, I'll phone him.”

The stark light of her mobile lit up in the gloom.
“Calling Mannix mobile.”
It went to voice mail. There was no point in leaving a message. Fergus wanted him now. She knew what she should do. She didn't want to, but she knew she had to. She'd have to call him. She'd have to call Spike.

“Calling Spike mobile
.
”

No answer. She'd try the apartment landline.

“Hi, Spike, it's Kate.”

“Kate—my favorite sister-in-law!”

Kate squirmed. She was Spike's only sister-in-law.

“Can I have a quick word with Mannix?”

She heard his breathing and could almost see his languid movement as she heard him drawing on a cigarette.

“Sorry, Katie. No can do. Haven't seen my bro for weeks.”

“Oh, I see . . . Oh, well, then . . .”

“But if he pitches up, I'll get him to give you a bell, all right?”

Spike was enjoying this—the fact that Mannix had lied to her.

“No problem—I'm sure he'll be home soon.”

“I'm sure he will, Katie.”

She hated being called that. And he knew it.

“Thanks.”

Now she wished she hadn't called.

“Where's my dad?” Fergus said, sniffing, still in a heap on the floor.

“I don't know,” she said snappily, sympathy for her son now replaced by a gnawing sense of unease. “I don't know where your dad is.”

It was only then that she remembered Mannix had wanted to tell her something when he'd come home from work. As she coaxed a bruised Fergus upstairs with hot chocolate, she tried to dampen the worry that had lodged in her gut.

Where was Mannix? And why had he lied about going to Spike's?

CURRAGOWER FALLS

EARLY SEPTEMBER

T
hings had been getting a little uncomfortable for Mannix. He'd always liked the view from the edge, it made him feel alive. But there were lots of balls in the air at the moment. Too many, in fact, and some of them needed to be taken out of circulation. He'd tried to do that tonight. It would take time before he knew if it had worked.

Sitting in the VW saloon, he felt as if he were skulking—like some of the other characters who drew up in the lay-by. They looked like they were waiting for something or someone. But Mannix's business was done. He was taking a breather, trying to cool down with the damp night air coming in off the river.

The passenger window had jammed halfway down. Like him, the car was beginning to show signs of wear and tear. It was a relic from his former job. They'd allowed him to keep it as part of his severance package, a little sweetener to make sure he'd go quietly in the end.

He hadn't seen that one coming. No, sir, not at all. Normally, his instincts were good, but he'd been caught off guard. It had been two years ago now, but he still winced at the memory. All those years in the same company, going in as a technician, Kate encouraging him to
take night classes, and gradually rising up through the ranks. They'd become used to the pay rises, the bonuses, the stock options, the dividends. It had become the natural order of things.

Mannix had never been more pumped up and manic than during that time, investing and reinvesting. Like an addict, he'd enjoyed the rush it gave him. He'd started taking bigger risks. He started in on property. The apartments first and then the beach house. It seemed like the only way was up. Then one day it was simply as if someone suddenly called time on the party. It was over. He watched the wealth he had amassed fizzle away like air seeping out of a gaudy party balloon until it collapsed, all shriveled and sunken. He hadn't seen that one coming either. But he was not alone there. It was a global meltdown.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror without turning on the cabin light. The light from the streetlamp by the boat club was enough. In the amber half-light he looked clammy and shaken. His face was still blotchy and he'd have to somehow change his shirt when he got home. Examining the stains on the pale blue cotton, he became aware of a movement in the shadows to his left. He pulled the beanie farther over his head and slunk down in his seat, not wanting to be seen. But the figure hovering by the railings was not interested in Mannix. It hovered by the bouquet of flowers that was tied there and then crouched down to read the messages pinned to the torn cellophane. A tribute to a soul that the river had swallowed. After a few moments the figure got up again and shuffled off into the night. “Christ,” said Mannix to himself. “No matter how bad things get I hope I never end up in the river.”

A loud guffaw and the sound of chatter interspersed with the urgent wail of an ambulance making its way over the Condell bridge. Two figures were making their way out of the boat club and joking together.

Shit!

Mannix recognized them both. He thought the place would have been locked up by now. Everyone gone home. He slunk even farther down in his seat. He didn't need any questions about where he'd been the last few weeks. How come he wasn't training? His scull was on a rack inside. It hadn't been out on the water for months.

“All right there, sir?”

Mannix jumped. A garda car had pulled up alongside him, and a female garda was now looking at him disapprovingly.

“Yes, Garda, of course.” He pulled himself into an upright position and smiled broadly. “Is there a problem?”

She looked at him as if she were trying to make up her mind. “Some of the residents . . .” She gestured to apartments on the other side of the road. “Some of them have rung in with complaints of soliciting . . .”

He laughed then, loudly. “Me? Soliciting?”

Fuck sake! He'd been accused of a lot of things but this was definitely a new one.

She didn't respond but looked wordlessly at a couple of long-legged women leaning against the trunk of a huge sycamore tree a few yards away.

“Garda, I assure you, I'm just enjoying the night air.”

She looked at him dubiously, eyeballing him as her window wound slowly upward. The squad car crawled off, doing a three-point turn outside the boathouse, and crawled in his direction again. In the rearview mirror, he could see that it had pulled in to where the two women were now smoking. It was laughable. That was all he needed—a charge for soliciting.

Mannix turned the key in the ignition and the shiny green numerals on the dash read 9:55. He flexed his arms on the steering wheel. He could turn around and drive back up the strand, over the bridge, and home. He'd try again to tell her. He'd tried earlier but she'd deflected him. Maybe it was fate. He wasn't meant to tell her. But he knew that wasn't true.
He was definitely going to tell her
 . . .

Or he could go to the Curragower Bar for just the one.

That's where she thought he was going to end up anyway. He wouldn't get any brownie points for coming home early, not with the mood that she'd been in these last few weeks. Preoccupied with Fergus and their finances. Still, he'd take her preoccupation over the explosive spats that had erupted out of nowhere when he'd been unemployed.

He was procrastinating. He knew that. He should go home but
the anonymous conviviality of the Curragower Bar was very appealing. It had been a long day. He succumbed to the lure of the bar.

“Mannix.” His neighbor turned around and saluted him as he walked into the bar.

He wasn't going to get the anonymity that he had hoped for.

“Roger.” Mannix jerked his chin, returning the salute.

Mannix scraped a stool alongside him. In the tiny bar there was nowhere to hide and there was no point in offending the man. There were only two other couples in the front bar and they were deep in conversation.

“Pint?” asked Roger.

“You're grand. I'll get my own,” Mannix replied, signaling the barman, pointing at Roger's pint, and holding up one finger.

After a while, he smelled a faint tang of salt and sweat and felt embarrassed as it dawned on him that the waterproof running jacket he'd found in his kit bag in the back of the car probably hadn't been washed since the last time he was out with the club. He'd needed something to cover up the stains. Had that female garda noticed? Probably not in the dark of the car.

“I hear you're back in the saddle,” said Roger by way of a conversation opener. It was the last thing Mannix wanted to talk about.

“Yeah, coming up for six months now.” Mannix sipped from the creamy head.

“Tough going?” Roger addressed his query to Mannix's reflection in the mirror behind the counter.

Roger considered work of any description tough going. He'd been on the dole for years, and he wasn't called Roger the Dodger for nothing. In fact, he wasn't even called Roger. It was something more like Sean or Harry.

“Under the capitalist's yoke,” said Roger, sighing, when he didn't get an answer.

“Well, it sure beats hanging around like a tool all day!” said Mannix, who was beginning to regret coming in now. Roger irritated him, coming over all superior as if he were somehow against work on
the grounds of some high-minded ideology or principle. Roger was a lazy arse and that was the holy all of it.

“Ah, I dunno,” drawled Roger. “Where else would you want to be on a sunny day apart from sitting on the deck out front here, looking at those mad young fellas trying to canoe up the falls?”

He turned then and looked directly at Mannix, his hooded eyes slowly blinking, lizardlike. It was then that Mannix noticed the curl of the lip and realized that he was being taunted.

“Feck off, Roger.” Mannix smiled, thinking that he should really relax a bit. Not let things get to him so much.

“Well, I'm not exactly living the dream, I'll give you that,” said Mannix, opening up. “My new boss is twelve years younger than me, what do you make of that?”

What did he expect Roger to say? How could he really expect Roger to commiserate? To empathize? What would Roger know of Mannix's belittling daily grind? Of how it felt to bite his tongue and rein in the caustic comments that bubbled to the surface in the face of constant corporate drivel. It was a job. That was all. He should be grateful. And Mannix knew he just had to grin and suck it up.

“That's what happens, you see, Roger . . .” The dark sticky liquid was beginning to hit the spot. “When you're back into the workplace after a break . . . you have to start at the bottom all over again.”

“I suppose . . .” replied Roger, talking again to the mirror.

“You know what this kid asked me the other day—my boss, bearing in mind that this kid is barely out of braces . . . asks me where I see myself in five years' time. Asks
me
what my short- to mid-term goals are, what my long-term career plan is. And all the while I'm sitting there like a spanner, staring at the downy fluff of the baldy beard he's trying to grow.”

“Oh, sure, I know where you're coming from . . .” said Roger, with conviction.

Like fuck, Roger knew. He couldn't possibly know the daily humiliation Mannix faced.

The couple in the corner looked over in Mannix's direction. He
was talking too loudly. Far too excitedly. The other couple must have made a silent exit, slipping out unseen into the night.

“Ever think of joining that brother of yours?” Roger was swilling the dregs of his pint around in a circle.

“Spike?”

“Yeah, Spike . . .”

“Oh, I thought about that one many a time . . .” Mannix grinned ruefully. When he lost his job it seemed like a no-brainer. The most obvious thing in the world to do. But he hadn't made much progress with the idea. A brick wall would not be putting too fine a point on it.

“Was chatting to Spike in here last week,” said Roger, gulping the last foamy dregs and slapping the glass back down noisily on the counter.

“Spike likes the pint in here, same as me,” said Mannix, also finishing his drink.

“Yeah, haven't seen him at all this week.” Roger paused. “A couple of guys came in here looking for him last night . . . the Bolgers, I think.” Roger addressed the mirror again, casual as you like.

“Is that right?” said Mannix, slipping off the stool and putting his beanie cap back on. Suddenly he felt uncomfortable again. Time to go.

“You off, then?”

Roger seemed disappointed to be curtailed in his line of questioning. “You won't have another?”

“Can't afford it, mate,” said Mannix, heading for the door. As it was, he shouldn't even have had any. But after the night he'd had . . .

 • • • 

It was quiet enough when Mannix entered the street. The tide was gurgling over the rocks, and as he headed around the curve in the road he heard the swish and plop of a fisherman's line. Lately, when he couldn't sleep he'd thought about joining them, but then he didn't want to give Kate any cause for further consternation. He hoped she'd unwound a little over the last few hours.
He wanted to get this over with.

As Mannix neared the house he looked up to see a glow coming from the top floor. Kate was in the study. She must be working late tonight. The rest of the house was in darkness. He carefully opened
the front door and entered the stillness of the house. The kids' bedroom doors were shut, not a sound coming from either.

He sniffed. Mixed in with the lingering smell of stir-fry was a musky vanilla scent wafting down the stairs. Kate had lit a candle.

As deftly as he could, he turned the knob of Fergus's room. In the sliver of light cast from the hallway, he could make out a small tuft of Fergus's white-blond hair poking out from underneath the Spiderman duvet. His wire-rimmed glasses were neatly placed on the bedside locker. The duvet rose and fell softly under the haunted face of King Kong on the poster above the bed. Fergus was in the refuge of sound sleep. A rustling sound came from beside a pile of neatly folded clothes in the corner. Darrow—Fergus's guinea pig—scrabbled about in his cage.

Pushing the door a little wider, Mannix made out a collection of figurines on the floor beside the bed. Fergus hadn't played with those in a while. They were normally kept in the large toy chest in the hallway. A shiver coursed down his spine.

The pageant that played out on the board disturbed him. Each assembly of figures scattered around the board depicted a scene of combat. Okay, so the figures and models were soldiers and tanks, it was to be expected. But these were not the usual scenes of sentry duty or sniper positions—the collections of figures were now cast in scenes of carnage, mounds of soldiers heaped on top of one another. He'd even fashioned a rope and hung one soldier upside down from a tower. The figure dangled eerily in the draft of the doorway. Mannix shivered.

He must have stood in the doorway for a good few minutes or more, brooding, when a muffled cough interrupted his rumination. So Izzy was awake next door after all. Poor Izzy, forced to grow up too fast for his liking, too sensible, the childish giddiness she was entitled to slowly squeezed out of her.

“Izzy? You awake?” he whispered.

No answer. Yet he swore he heard her cough and click her bedside lamp. The room was in darkness save for a chink of yellow streetlight coming in through the curtains and glowing eerily on the cast of Izzy's arm. She'd made it with her mother in the Art College, and the
white plaster of Paris model was now proudly mounted in a wire frame on her chest of drawers.

Mannix stumbled on a discarded shoe as he edged closer to the bed.

“Izzy?” he said, more loudly this time.

She sat up in bed with a jolt, turning on the bedside lamp.