Young Skins (13 page)

He got out of the shitbox, left the dashlight on. He took a few steps down the boreen, tenderly squeezing his rent hamstring. The ache there was tolerable, though a sprint of any sort was out of the question.

On the other side of the ditch Arm could hear the big-bodied padding of cows, moving like barges through the long grass. Arm took out his mobile. The screen lit up, one bar of battery left. He thumbed through his contact list. He selected Dympna and pressed call. Arm could feel his heart as the line rang and rang out. Dympna’s voicemail.
Spake and leave a message whoever you are, sham
, went his recorded voice, bored and dismissive sounding. There was a beep and then the thirty-second void into which Arm could have spoke.

The boreen was divided from the field by a ditch, but where the ditch’s growth was not so hectic Arm could discern a wall beneath. The wall was comprised of interlocking lumps of stone, all buttressed, layered and balanced carefully against one another, unmortared, held in place purely by the tension of their placement, though some of the topmost rocks had fallen away. At a thin point in the ditch Arm scrabbled up the wall, found his footing at the apex and, from this point of elevation, considered the lay of the surround. The Mirkin house was three fields over, discernible only by patches of moon-bright whitewash through the perimeter of trees.

Two cows turned and shuffled towards him.

Arm looked to his phone again.

He scrolled down to URSULA D, last in the list as ever. Arm stared blackly at the lit screen and ground his teeth against the urge to call. Then he rang and Ursula, too, rang out. Arm cut off the voice mail and dialled again. On the second ring the connection clicked.

‘Hello,’ Ursula said.

‘It’s me.’

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘I was just ringing to see how Jack was.’

A pause.

‘He’s fine,’ she said with soft dubiety, as if she didn’t quite recognise Arm’s voice.

‘Is he settled down for the night or still up?’

Another pause. This was not a usual thing, this call and questions.

‘Douglas,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’

‘He’s up.’ The way she said it, Arm knew the boy was within eyeshot, and perhaps Jack was looking at her as she spoke to Arm. Jack knew, most of the time, when he was being talked about, could pick out the taut monosyllable of his name in the otherwise mashed white noise of human conversation.

‘It’s getting on for him to be up,’ Arm said.

‘It’s not that late,’ Ursula said, elaborating guardedly, like their talk was a code. ‘It’ll be bath time any minute now.’

‘And then bed,’ Arm said.

‘Then bed.’

‘Good,’ Arm said, relieved. ‘What are you at now?’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah.’

Another hesitancy. Beneath the electronic burr of the connection there came faint background ructions. Arm pictured Jack monkeying bare-legged from nook to nook, hunting for scraps of bread.

‘Nothing. A bit of washing,’ she said. ‘There’s the usual fucking mountain to get through.’

‘Sorry. Sorry for interrupting, like.’

‘That’s okay,’ she said.

‘Going to get a bit of study in tonight?’ Arm said.

She cleared her throat. ‘Might snatch a half hour alright, if I can be bothered.’

‘You will. You should,’ Arm said, as evenly and sincerely as he could. ‘You’ll get there in the end, you know.’

‘I intend to,’ she said, and then, ‘Douglas, are you alright?’

Arm could hear the edge of a smile in her question. The call had blindsided her, put her on the defensive, but now, Arm supposed, she had decided that he was being merely harmlessly strange, and it bemused her.

‘Yeah, no, I’m fine. I was just thinking. About nearly being killed on that fucking horse today.’

‘Oh,’ she said, and sniffed. ‘Yeah. That was great.’

‘It took some fucking turn against me.’

‘Must be a good judge.’

‘Leave off. You wouldn’t have really wanted me to break my neck,’ Arm said.

Ursula made a doubtful mmmm sound.

‘Didn’t think so,’ Arm said, ‘are you warming up to me again, girl?’

She tutted in mock disgust at the suggestion.

‘You cut, Arm, is that it?’

‘Look,’ Arm said, ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been around.’

‘You’re never out of my hair,’ Ursula singsonged.

‘In a useful way,’ Arm said. ‘You deserve better.’

‘Everyone deserves better, Douglas,’ Ursula snapped, her voice tuned to a clear low. Her attention had flowed elsewhere again; Arm could tell her eyes were back on Jack.

‘Maybe it’d be better the other way altogether, so.’

Arm heard her sigh. ‘What’s that mean?’ she said.

‘Nothing. Look. I’ll leave you to it,’ Arm said in a thick, drowned voice. He sounded faraway, even to himself.

‘Okay, Douglas,’ she said, and then, with a flicker of irritated puzzlement, ‘Where are you, Arm? It’s beyond quiet.’

‘I’m outside. In a field. Watching cows watching me.’

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Good luck with that.’

‘Thanks.’

There was another silence. Then she said, ‘Well, I’m best back to it here. Good night, so.’

‘Bye,’ Arm said as the line clicked off.

He went back to the shitbox. There was a toolbox in the boot, and in the toolbox a hammer. Arm clambered back up over the gap in the ditch and started across the fields.

Hector’s Hiace was tucked round the side of the house, on Arm’s side as he came up through the last field. Other than the stand of elms there was only a four-foot cement wall for a boundary, just about high enough to dismay a cow from trying to clotter over it. Arm limped quiet as he could through the yard. No dogs, thankfully. There was a light on in one of the downstairs rooms. The curtains were not pulled but there was a mesh drape. Arm went to the front door, knocked. There was no response for a time; he knocked again. Hector opened the door. He blinked and looked right at Arm.

‘Your brother went fucking mad,’ Arm said.

Hector went to close the door. Before he could Arm slugged him in the belly.

Hector bent, winded. Arm held the man’s shoulder lest he fall over.

‘Jaysus, Douglas,’ Hector hissed, once he had regained his breath.

‘You heard from him?’ Arm said.

‘Who?’

‘Paudi,’ Arm said, ‘in the last whileen.’

‘What? Paudi? No.’

‘Who’s there?’ came a woman’s voice from inside.

‘I’m coming in,’ Arm said. He had the hammer wedged down the back of his trousers. He pulled it out and pressed the prongs into Hector’s cheek, then slipped it back down his arsecrack.

Hector winced, ‘Douglas, whatever this is about we can talk again—’

‘Give me a greeting,’ Arm said, pushing Hector back and stepping inside the door. Up the hall drifted the pleasant smell of peatsmoke. The sitting room was in left, a set of stairs on the right. Hector, seeing he had no other option, recovered his composure and led Arm into the sitting room. Arm moved slowly to hide the hitch in his gait.

The widow Mirkin was standing at the fireplace, poker in hand, tending or affecting to tend to the big fire going in the hearth. Arranged upon her breast was a silver brooch with a greenish stone set in it. She was in a red and rust brown dress, one of those ones that showed nothing—the sleeves went down to the wrists, the blouse up to the neck, and the hemline descended comprehensively beyond the knees. Her hair was dark brown, raked back from her forehead and set in place with a simple, girlish band. She had no makeup on, a crow’s-feet-riddled but decent face, Arm supposed, for an old dear. There was something faintly familiar about her, though beyond a certain age all old dears looked the same to Arm. The furniture, three chairs and a sofa, was festooned with corduroy cushions. The floor was carpeted, there was a crucifix on the wall, a framed portrait painting of a doe-eyed, winsome Christ. The fire spat and bubbled, the room was smotheringly warm.

‘An acquaintance of yours, Hector?’

‘By and by. He’s a friend and associate of a young relative of mine, a nephew. Douglas, Maire. Maire, Douglas. He used to box for the county.’

The widow’s eyes flicked over Arm, backed against the frame of the door.

‘The carriage would suggest so, alright.’

‘Did Hector not tell you I was coming over?’ Arm said to her. ‘He said it’d be okay.’

The widow looked inquiringly at her paramour. Hector was facing away from Arm, the bull neck above his collar empurpled and beaded with shine.

‘Well, now, he did not.’

‘My dear, I apologise for this,’ Hector said.

She hooked the poker onto its stand by the hearth and stepped daintily into the middle of the room. She brought her hands together.

‘Well you’ve intruded right into the middle of our nightcap, young man. I was just about to serve a toddy to Hector and myself. Can I fix you one? And sit down please, both of you.’

Hector turned to Arm and dropped into a chair. He gestured at the chair nearest Arm. Arm put himself in it, the rider’s surplus jacket straining across his chest.

‘Do,’ Hector said to the widow, ‘and cut us a few wodges of brack while you’re at it, dear.’

The widow left for the kitchen.

Hector from his seat regarded Arm. He raised his hand to his mouth and nipped at a hangnail. ‘Say what you have to,’ he said in a mild voice, ‘but say it low. She’s to remain out of this.’

‘Can’t you send the biddy away?’ Arm said.

Hector winced. ‘It’s her house, you fool.’ He bared his teeth as if in pain and licked his lips. ‘We could go, though, ladeen. We could go somewhere and sort this out.’

‘Nah,’ Arm said, sitting up. He could not get comfortable in the chair.

Hector’s brow writhed in frustration. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘let’s not do this here.’

‘She has money,’ Arm said.

‘What happened?’

‘Today was delivery day. So we went out. As usual. But that brother of yours lost it, the mink. He whipped that rifle out at the drop of a hat. He brought a gun out on us, Heck.’

Hector’s expression flickered through Arm, as if he was scrutinising something way off in the distance.

‘Dympna,’ Arm went on. ‘He shot Dympna. He shot him. He, Shot, Him. Took a couple of potshots at me as I was getting out of dodge.’

‘Where is Dympna now?’ Hector said.

‘He wasn’t looking too healthy at all last I saw. Not at all last I saw. He took the brunt of that gun from less than a foot away.’

Hector swallowed a groan. He sat back and looked longingly at the fire blazing in the hearth, his wide face roseate.

‘But this one has money, yeah?’ Arm asked again.

Hector ran his hand down his leg and began absently rubbing the shin Arm had dinted.

‘There’s a nice lump blooming there already,’ he said eventually. ‘I need to talk to my fucking brother.’

‘He’s halfway to Timbuktu by now,’ Arm said, ‘or else he’s fed himself a bullet. Either way he’s leaving you up the Swanee.’

The widow returned, three steaming drinks on a silver tray and a couple of thick triangles of brack. She handed Arm a drink, a small plate, and placed a slice of the brack on the plate. Hector got the same treatment before she resumed her position, sentinel by the fireplace.

‘Just the toddy for myself,’ she announced.

‘What’s that smell?’ Arm asked, holding the cup below his nose.

‘Cloves,’ she said. ‘Have a taste.’

Arm nipped at it. ‘Whiskey.’

‘That’s what a toddy is,’ she said. ‘Yours is not so strong as it only occurred to me in the kitchen that you must have driven across the county and will be soon enough driving back again, so I made it mild.’

She looked from Arm to Hector and smiled thinly.

‘So this lad is not your relative? Maybe I’m biased but I think I see a bit of a resemblance.’

‘No, no, my dear,’ Hector said, summoning up a smile for his biddy. ‘He merely works with my nephew. Our resemblances only extend as far as the fact we are both handsome men.’

‘Well now, Hector, maybe that’s it,’ the widow Mirkin chortled, and Arm saw that she was in fact a little tipsy. She eyed Arm over her drink as she took a sup.

‘Can I ask what the emergency was?’

Arm felt no particular urge to say anything. Hector looked at him and fumbled for words.

‘There, well, it’s only that it seems there may have been some kind of accident at the farm.’

‘An accident?’ the widow said gravely, her hand fluttering to her brooch. She looked from Hector to Arm.

‘We may have to go, now, my dear,’ Hector continued. ‘Myself and Douglas, I mean. I don’t want you concerned.’

‘What on earth happened?’ she asked.

‘The nature of the incident is not, fully, ah, apparent yet,’ Hector blustered, ‘we’re not sure how serious it is.’ He balanced the plate of brack on his chair’s armrest and stood up. Arm left down the victuals and shot to his feet too, a bolt of pain crackling through his middle.

‘Hector, what is the matter?’ the widow demanded. Hector girded himself and stepped forward. ‘Let’s just fucking go, Douglas,’ he growled, bustling crabwise past Arm, chest out but a cringe distorting his face, like Arm might go for him. Hector stepped out into the frame of the door.

‘Take another step yonder and I’ll break both your fucking ankles, Heck,’ Arm said.

Arm thought the widow might shriek or otherwise take fright at this articulation, but she was gazing in a spellbound way at the chair he had stepped out of. Her face was white, her expression shrunken.

‘What has happened to you?’ she said in a frail voice.

Arm looked back at the chair. A purplish stain had soaked down into the seat.

‘Oh, God in heaven, you do not look well. You are not well,’ the widow said.

‘Maire Mirkin,’ Arm said, ‘I am sorry. I am on your premises under false pretences. But if I am, then so too is this sidling cunt in the jumper.’ Out came the hammer and Arm pointed it towards Hector. Hector’s face had gone tight, clotted.

‘Hector,’ the widow said.

‘Maire Mirkin,’ Arm continued, ‘What does this fraud do? Show up with flowers, smile and charm. Throw a few quid your way to keep the house in trim, buy a nice thing or two in town. Well he has been playing you for a fool. His kind is poisonous. You’ve been letting a snake in through your door.’