Winterwood (11 page)

I didn't want to hear any more of it. I wanted to go. Back to the city and my beloved Catherine Courtney. I was beginning
to wonder now would I ever bother coming back near Slievenageeha? His taunts had begun irritating me most profoundly now,
and my initial idea of compiling his 'mountain memories' into a book or biography of some sort had gradually, steadily, begun
to lose its appeal. Sometimes he'd just sit there and say nothing at all, staring into the fire, lost in its deep vaults and
chasms and winding galleries, dreaming of a girl in a simple blue dress. A simple blue dress with a matching hair clasp. Who'd
planted a flower to symbolise their love.

—Don't talk to me of enchanted days. I want to hear nothing of enchantment of the heart, he'd grind bitterly through tobacco-stained
teeth.

Once he asked me did I believe in God.

—Are you a believer, Redmond? he quizzed. You can tell me.

I nodded. Then he started the old talk about hell. What I thought about it. What it might be like. Before leaning back on
his chair and glaring, his knuckles paling as he gripped the handle of a mug:

—Three blasts of an archangelic trumpet before your soul's cast into the pit? That how you think of it, Redmond? A great
clock ticking: 'Ever, never: ever, never.' Eh? Or could it, maybe, be something even worse? The divil himself lying by your
side, shielding you, as the song says, from wind and weather? Could it, maybe, be like that, do you think? For ever!

I told him that I had to go, that Catherine would be expecting me.

—Catherine, he muttered, with deep, biting sarcasm. It won't last. Women, they change, and God help you when they do. Everything
they loved about you, why it turns around now and makes them sick. The only one who really loves you for always is your mother.
And she's a goddess. She's an angel. She's the only one who will never let you down. Except your daddy had to go and kill
yours, didn't he? Beat her crooked like you might a helpless donkey. Give her a haemorrhage so as you have to make up stories.
Make up stories about her dying in the chapel. Dying in the chapel and singing the stupidest childish songs.

I didn't answer him. I said nothing, just sat there smarting bitterly, bent double beneath the shadows. I stood up sharply.
He pushed me back down.

—Stay awhile more I told you!

I joined him sullenly for one last drink.

He drew on the stogie and arched his right eyebrow.

—So then, Redmond - the two of us. You and me. Are we related, do you think?

I turned away, dismissively, from him.

—No way, I told him, we certainly are not.

He looked at me again and said:

—You sure about that?

—Of course I'm sure.

—You don't sound sure.

—I told you
I'm sure!

—Red?

—What?

—We're
all
related! Every sonofabitch as was ever spawned on the slopes of this mountain! Don't you see that? Well, don't you, Red?

—I'm sorry, I said, I really must go.

—Red, you're not listening to me!

—I'm sorry. Like I said, I have to leave.

—Stay where you are, I said, Red! I mean
Nedl

He took me by the shoulders and forced me, uncompromisingly, back into the chair. Then he stood there, smiling, rubbing his
fist in a playful fashion. But there could be no mistaking the menace in his eyes. He towered above me, looking down without
flinching.

—All I want you to tell me is - if you and me's not related - then how is your name Hatch?

—It's just my name. It just happens to be Hatch.

—It just happens to be! It just happens to be! Did you ever
happen,
as you say, did you ever happen to look up what it actually means? What 'hatch' happens to mean in the Irish language? You're
not familiar with the Irish word
ait?
You do know how to pronounce that word, don't you, Redmond?

I did as a matter of fact. And was triumphant, at last, to be in a position to trump him.

—Yes, I replied cockily, it's pronounced 'atch'. It actually means 'place'.

He stood there and waited, stroking his chin as he pondered, biding his time with enviable control. Then slowly his grin began
to widen, stretching right across his face.

—Sure it does, he said. It means that all right. But it also means something else, you see.

I could bear it no longer.

—What does it mean! I snapped. What does it fucking mean?

—Easy, he cooed.

He flashed his incisors. I went cold all over.

—It means 'strange', Little Redmond. That's what it means. It means 'strange'. I'm surprised at you not knowing that now.
With you being an educated man and all.

I got up from my seat and tried to push past.

—Maybe you'll print that little nugget of information in your paper. Maybe you'll put that in your next article. I'm sure
your readers would find it most interesting! Red Strange from the mountain - sounds kind of familiar, you have to admit.

When I got to the door I demanded bitterly:

—Tell me this. Be honest. Have you been making a fool of me all along?

—You mean, like when I told you my stories about Annamarie and all?

—Yes, I said, exactly.

—When I told you I drowned the lying bitch in the river?

—Yes, I said, and averted my eyes.

—Yes, Redmond, I'm afraid your suspicions all along have been right.

He paused and sighed as he looked out the window.

—It was all lies, Redmond. I didn't drown her.

When I heard those words, I calmed down immensely. To the extent that I actually admitted it, in fact.

—I'm so relieved to hear that, Ned, I said.

—Oh, are you? he said. You prefer what I did instead then, do you?

—What are you talking about?

He said nothing. I demanded straight out:

—What are you talking about? What are you saying?

He pushed me back and stood in the doorway, flicking his tongue against the back of his teeth.

—I knifed her, he said. Just like I did the other fucking bitch, Carla Benson, the so-called beauty of Boston. Redmond, you
look pale. I think perhaps you need a drink. Why don't the two of us go right back inside?

I remembered the name Carla Benson well. Only months before he had described to me how he'd spent some months 'walking out'
with her, as he'd put it, during the time he'd spent in Boston. It had troubled me so much that as soon as I got back to the
city, I had gone straight to the National Library in Kildare Street and searched through the archives for issues of old American
newspapers. Being similarly relieved when I succeeded in establishing that the names didn't correspond.

Except that when I broached it with him, he was ready again.

—Aye, but you see, her name wasn't Benson. Her name wasn't Carla Benson at all. I lied about that.

He leaned over to me when he said it, his two eyes like slits.

—Carla Mclntyre - that was her name. Boys but I be's forgetful!

I literally ran from the cabin on that occasion. All the way down the mountain, I could have sworn I heard him laughing:

—Ned and Red! Together for ever! Till the winter snow whitens hell's highest hills!

I knew I shouldn't have gone back near the library — the first time had been ordeal enough. But as soon as I got back to Dublin,
I went straight there and ordered the American papers from the archive again. I kept insisting to myself that the whole idea
was quite preposterous, repeating what I'd been told a hundred times before. The same old refrain you heard in the mountain
pub - the same one I'd heard that very first day:

—Pass no remarks on Ned. Sure you couldn't believe the old fool's oath, I'm telling you.

I would have given anything for that to be the case. But there it was before me in black and white letters. The officer in
charge of the case was quoted as saying he'd never in his life seen anything like it.

—The poor woman was eviscerated. In fifty years' service I've never encountered such brutality.

As that which was inflicted on the unfortunate Carla Mclntyre.

In the
Leinster News
office after that, they noticed that I'd become increasingly irritable. I couldn't for the life of me seem to shake her name
off. I kept thinking of the officer and his description. Then I'd see Ned or
hear
him. Throwing back his head and saying:

—Boys O boys!

—You're like a bear with a sore head, my colleagues told me, lighten up.

Ultimately I knew I was faced with no choice — I would have to confront him. To that end I had rehearsed the scenario in my
mind. It was as though he could anticipate the thoughts inside my head and I found that deeply intimidating.

I sat in his kitchen, stammering awkwardly as I repeated my accusations. I felt such a complete and utter fool. His whole
body rocked with laughter.

—Boys O boys, but Redmond, I swear you're an awful man - where in heaven's name did you get such an idea? That I would go
and do a thing the like of that? Sure I've never been out of the valley in my life - I haven't even been fortunate to have
a girlfriend! Oh, sure, once upon a time there was a little sweetheart I had a dalliance with all right —a lovely little girl
by the name of Annamarie Gordon, as I recall. And I have to admit I might have been that little bit soft on her. But sure
what she want with an old mongrel the like of me? In the end, anyway, Redmond, she went off and married a doctor. Lives in
England or someplace now, I hear. But a lovely girl she was all the same. Now where in the divil did I put that jug of clear?

It was a masterful performance and there is no doubt about it. He could simply, effortlessly, run rings around me. And I know
that, although maybe it's not something to be particularly proud of, there have been many times since that day I called to
the house and collected Immy when I would have given anything to have possessed even a
fraction
of Ned Strange's formidable resourcefulness. The tiniest percentage of his linguistic dexterity, the meagrest portion of his
adroitly evasive, exculpatory strategies.

Labyrinthine schemes and plans, always presented with a big, open countryman's honest face. They were as natural to the man
as eating or breathing. Beside him in these respects I was a pygmy, an ingenu. A minion of no worthwhile consequence. Even
just thinking about it humiliated me.

I mean, I could see how efficiently he would have conducted himself on such a day as that appalling one in Deep Pan Pizza.
When I'd been stupid enough to stop the car. I could imagine just how effortlessly he would have dealt with such a dauntingly
difficult situation - skilfully sidestepping each successive challenge. Encountering Piper Alpha wouldn't have posed a problem
in the slightest. Right there on the spot, without even having to think, he'd have concocted some perfectly plausible story,
some wryly amusing anecdote which would have validated without question his presence in the restaurant. As opposed to my hapless
procession of stuttering maunderings: I'm here to do this, I'm here because of that.

It really is awful to be tongue-tied in that way, and there can be no doubt but that it proved
very, very
much to my advantage indeed that the Scottish oil-rigger happened to be — as he eagerly explained, as though under the impression
that we enjoyed some kind of special relationship —leaving for South Africa that same evening.

—Goodbye, Dominic, I heard him calling in the distance.

I thought I'd faint before getting back to the Escort, to the sanctuary of love and my beloved, at last, now slumbering, daughter.

I have never in my life been in need of such resources as I was that day we motored erratically along the highway, my driving
at times proving almost as inadequate as my conversational skills. Which, in the end, represented almost a parody of Ned Strange's.
To give you an example: instead of remaining calm - twinkly-eyed, even, as he, doubtless, would have done — and launching
myself easefiilly into some devil-may-care narrative, I instead began to relate this detail-heavy version of that day in the
park when the two of us had discovered the robin, my hopelessly sentimental disgressions only serving to confuse little Imogen
further. It was just so
stupid,
that's the only way I can describe it!

My gestures too — it seems so obvious now — they really were wholly and utterly inappropriate. Much too large and unsettling
by far. Operatic, almost, for heaven's sake!

The difference between me and Ned was that it came as second nature to him to act as though he
owned his
audience. Not caring a damn whether you listened to his story or not. Thereby, of course, ensuring that you
did.
That was the paradigm I ought to have emulated.

It was a pitiful performance. I accept that now.

On top of which, I almost crashed the car. Twice. When Imogen's eyes opened I heard her squealing, over the screeching brakes:

—
Daddy!

Redmond Hatch, the poor man's Ned Strange. All I could say was, if he and I were twins, then I was the weak and ineffectual
one. 'Combine with oneself in bold conspiracy'? The idea was laughable. I'd never be Ned Strange.

I simply wasn't up to the task.

Entertain? Why, I couldn't even entertain my own daughter, I remember thinking, burning with shame.

For once upon a time I would have taken her little hand and told her not to be worried in the slightest. About the stupid
'afraid' things or anything else. Would have just squeezed that hand gently, reassuring her after the manner of any ordinary
father. Instead of foolishly waving my arms, compressing almost every experience we'd ever had into one single exasperating,
quite impenetrable account. Hopelessly over-stimulating the child, who was in a state of extreme anxiety in any case — and,
as if that wasn't bad enough, almost killing the pair of us into the bargain. It's pretty obvious now that someone was looking
out for us.

—I won't let you down! I could have sworn I heard, at one point.