‘I –’
He put a finger to my lips. His skin was very warm and very dry.
‘Shhh … my doe. Don’t be afraid of me. I’ll protect you.’ I looked at him. It felt so nice and warm. Like I was safe here. Like I could believe him. But he was Lon, and this place wasn’t real. I couldn’t move my arms. I tried to blink.
‘I’m not your doe,’ I muttered.
He swallowed.
‘… Maddy?’
‘Lon …’ I said, and noticed that my voice was different here, all soft and purring. I sounded like a kitten. Like a dream. He leaned towards me, his eyes darkening.
‘Have I been here before?’ I asked him. Something in the smell, the look. This place. I knew it. He leaned in to me. I felt the urge to run my fingers all across his skin. It was difficult to remember that I hated him, that Oona is the one I want that way. That he was my sister’s and not mine.
I tried to think of solid things again. Of salt. Of water. Metal, blood and earth. Tea. Of cups of tea. The sitting room in our old house in Cork. Of comfort things. I sucked them in like breath.
He bent to kiss me. Everything was slow and fast at once. I could see his lips, parting like the entrance to a cave. The glimmer of his teeth. I took it in.
Not mine. I blinked as if my eyes could hurt the air.
Could impact.
I blinked again, as though I had an angry eye infection. Outraged, repeated blinking.
The veil around his face became less gauzy. He was clearer now, and so was I. What was I – what were we – doing?
‘You’ll need to leave, if you are going to be like that,’ he snapped at me. ‘If you can’t be a good girl, then get out.’
His voice sounded deeper, harsher, older as he said that. I saw him wave his fingers over my face.
Then nothing till I wake. The morning pouring bright through the windows. The green of garden and the black of furze. The grass rust-coloured towards the mountains. I wonder if I could find that lake again. I think I could. It wouldn’t be the same though.
I walk the seven hundred or so miles to the kitchen and check the shelves. The box of salt I left under my bed has been replaced.
It’s Mam. I know it is. Always tidying. She’s hidden it away from prying eyes. The evidence. The oddness of her daughter. And it is odd.
I am odd.
Do I, deep down, so deep down I shudder at the thought of it, somehow fancy Lon? Is that what that dream was? An explanation for why I don’t like him, that I’m jealous?
I drum my fingers on the hard oak table. I’m not going back to sleep, I know. I put the radio on and make fancy coffee in Mam’s French press. I’m worrying about the salt again, thinking of a secret place to hide it, when Brian comes in.
‘Hi, Madeline,’ he says, in his sing-song voice, as if it were perfectly normal to have a stressed-out teenager sitting in the kitchen all alone so early in the morning.
‘Welcome back,’ I mumble, hoping he will go away and leave me to my stress.
‘Thanks. I only got in late last night. A few hours ago, really. Tried to sleep but –’ he shrugs his shoulders – ‘nothing doing, as the fella says. Can I have some coffee, please?’ he asks. In his own house. He’s always so polite.
‘Help yourself,’ I say, gesturing towards it.
He does, and sits beside me. He’s wearing flannel pyjamas and a navy blue towelling dressing gown. He looks like a dad in a television show.
‘What has you out of bed?’ he asks.
‘I had a bad dream,’ I tell him. ‘You?’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Madeline. I wanted to get up rather than continue to disturb Sheila with my tossing and turning. And there’s a phone call I’m expecting in –’ he checks his watch – ‘half an hour or so. But coffee first.’ He takes a sip and smacks his lips. ‘This is very helpful. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ I say, and I smile at him. Then, ‘Brian?’
‘Yes,’ he says, his face is open, honest.
‘You know the way you told me to come to you … if Mamó was … strange or something?’
His shoulders straighten, and I see him put a new self on, like a suit. Something authoritative. He sips his coffee, waits for me to speak. He knows I will.
‘We found this dead fox. Me and Catlin did,’ I begin, feeling stupid articulating it. ‘And there was something wrong about it. It wasn’t like badgers on the road, rabbits in the field. A person did it. Sliced it open, in the middle of the crossroads.’
He nods stiffly, and says, ‘Go on.’ I notice the sing-song tone underneath his words again, and something else, flitting over his features. Only for a second. Barely for a second. But still. There. I don’t want to say too much, I realise. But what exactly is the right amount?
‘And Mamó – she told Catlin to wait, and ye would come home. And I … we went back there, and cleaned it up. And she told me to be wary of Ballyfrann, but that it wasn’t her place to tell me why. Brian, why should I be wary? Should I be afraid for Catlin or for Mam?’
He lets out a long, distracted sigh. I can see him composing the answer in his head. Not lying, but deciding what to tell me. I get the sense it won’t be all he knows.
‘I’ll answer the second question first. No, Madeline. You don’t need to be afraid for Sheila or your sister. This can be a complicated place, and its secrets aren’t mine to tell, and some of them are … difficult to put into words for people who haven’t grown up here. But one thing is certain: everyone in Ballyfrann was terrified of my father. Self included. And, because I am his son, there is a certain level of respect accorded to me and mine.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘This all sounds a bit criminal.’
‘I’ll be honest with you, he wasn’t far off it … There’s too much to go into this early in the morning, but he was not a good man, Madeline. And I am trying my best to be one.’
‘We never knew our father, not properly.’ It comes unbidden.
‘And, sometimes, I’m not saying that it’s so in your case, that can be a good thing.’ He closes his eyes. ‘I find this stuff excruciating to talk about, and I’ve done a lot of therapy … which, if he were still alive, would be enough to get me written out of his will, most likely.’
I smile politely. I don’t know how we got from me asking questions about Ballyfrann to unpacking Brian’s childhood issues, but I don’t feel qualified to have this conversation, and it’s very warm in the kitchen. I sip my coffee, to give me time to think. To clear my head.
‘What was the fox?’
Brian swallows. ‘From your description, Madeline, I’d say it may have been a sort of prayer. Something similar to what Mamó does with her … workings, and to what you do yourself – the salt Sheila found under the beds.’
I look at him again. His eyes are fixed on a point above my head, his face is stoic. He looks like he is wearing a mask. Maybe Brian just doesn’t like talking about his feelings. A lot of people don’t. I don’t. His tartan slippers drum against the flagstones. I look down at my toes. One of them has dirt under the nail. A little grey. When I lift my feet, there are little sweat marks in their wake. His voice still going, weaving up and down.
‘… I know I probably haven’t given you everything you need to know, but this is an old place. A lot of history. And, it will take time.’ He swallows again. ‘I don’t want to ask you to keep anything from your mother, but I will say that I was hoping to share with her gently, and in my own time, the more unusual aspects of the village. And it would feel odd, to have you as my confidant and not her.’