‘This isn’t school.’
He brought his fist down on the desk. ‘Fuck,’ he shouted, then conjugated the verb in the imperative. Fuck this, fuck that, fuck the other. Fuck you, fuck him, fuck the Viking. I looked down at the curdled milk and waited for the storm to pass.
The Portakabin door burst open behind me, as if some critical level of air pressure had been reached and we’d blown a gasket. I looked up and turned around. Hickey was gone, shot from a cannon. I sat back and looked at his calendar. Miss September had no hair other than on her head, which struck me as connected to some pathology of Hickey’s, what with his being so hirsute and Miss September being so—
Engine roar. I turned around in my seat again. The monster truck was revving at the door. ‘Are ya coming or wha?’ Hickey shouted from the driver’s seat. ‘Because someone needs to sort this gee-bag out.’
Which gee-bag? Didn’t matter. Any gee-bag would do. I pocketed my phone and followed him out.
~ ~ ~
‘This would be the day that the assault on Mr Dowdall took place?’
~ ~ ~
Who?
~ ~ ~
‘The Viking.’
~ ~ ~
Oh, him. The alleged assault. No, that took place the following morning. Hickey drove the few hundred metres down the road to the Viking’s green gin palace and parked in his loading bay. St Christopher was back on the dashboard, a dribble of glue oozing from his base. Hickey rammed the heel of his hand against his big horn and kept it there until Svetlana appeared at his window.
‘Yes, Mr Hickey?’
That turned my stomach — a woman with whom he’d had sexual relations calling him Mister. ‘Get your boss out here, love.’
‘He isn’t in the bar at the moment.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘He didn’t say.’
Hickey folded his arms over his belly. ‘Well, we’ll just have to wait for him then, won’t we?’
Svetlana nodded and returned to the bar. Hickey contemplated her arse, giftwrapped in the apron bow.
I checked my watch. ‘Are we just going to sit here?’
‘Yep. We’re just going to sit here til that cockhead comes out.’
‘Svetlana just told us he isn’t in there.’
‘See that?’ Hickey indicated the Range Rover Sport parked up ahead. ‘That’s his pathetic shitbox. He’s in there.’
A text arrived. I took out my phone and the screen screamed Edel’s name. Hickey turned his head. I hit delete without reading the message and returned the phone to my pocket.
‘Was that your man?’
‘No,’ I said, and then realised that I should have said yes. Yes, that was your man. It certainly wasn’t a text from your wife.
‘Here, what was all that earlier about a Power greater than yourselves?’
‘It’s one of the Twelve Steps, Dessie. “We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”’
Hickey kept his arms folded and addressed himself to the invisible listener standing at his window. ‘Sounds like a cult to me.’
‘AA is not a cult. It’s a recovery programme.’
‘An is the French fuck in this recovery programme too?’
‘I don’t think M. Deauville is French.’
‘Why do you call him Monsieur then?’
‘French is spoken in many parts of the world, Dessie.’
‘So where’s he from?’
I had first encountered him in Brussels. ‘He’s Belgian, I think.’
Hickey had no insight to offer on the topic of Belgians. He had no racially insensitive observations or random associations to submit. ‘Tell us again how you know this fella?’
‘He’s my sponsor.’
‘In the AA?’
‘Yes.’ Where else?
‘What’s a sponsor?’
I quoted the literature. ‘“Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.”’
‘An that doesn’t sound like a cult to you?’
He had me there. I conceded him his point.
‘So, would Fuckville be the one who told you that you’d die if you took another drink?’
‘M. Deauville didn’t have to tell me. I could see that for myself.’
‘But he did tell you?’
‘As it happens, yes.’
‘He’s brainwashing you.’
‘No, he’s supporting me.’
‘An everyone in the AA has one a these sponsors?’
‘Yes.’
‘So there’s, like, one geezer at the top? One big head-the-ball who knows everyone’s secrets because all the individual cells are reporting back to him, like in the IRA?’
‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘How does it work?’
‘Not like that. It isn’t a military organisation. And it isn’t a hierarchical structure. “Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.”’ I was quoting again.
‘Sounds dodgy to me.’
I nodded at Svetlana through the window to change the subject. ‘Are you still consorting with that girl?’
‘Who, the Russian bird? Ah sure, you know yourself.’
‘What does that mean?’
Hickey shrugged. ‘It means: ah sure, you know yourself.’
‘What about Edel?’
‘Edel?’ He smirked mirthlessly. ‘Don’t talk to me about Edel.’
Silence as my mind worried this nugget of information into shreds. What did Don’t talk to me mean? Was it the same as Ah sure, you know yourself? I pressed my eye against this peephole into their marriage but I was on the wrong side of the door. The lens was distorted and offered conflicting views depending on where you stood. Don’t talk to me as in: Edel doesn’t love me any more, the marriage is gone, or Don’t talk to me as in: I suspect she’s having it off with another man an I’m going to kill him with my bare hands when I find out who he is.
He cleared his throat.‘Have you noticed anything funny going on lately?’
Here it comes. Why did my wife call you this morning? Why is she never around? ‘Funny?’
‘Yeah, funny as in men standing around.’
‘It’s a building site, Dessie. Men stand around.’
‘No, men in suits. I had to call me foreman over today. I says to him, “Who’s your man?” because this fella in a suit had appeared on site, but when me foreman looked over, your man was gone.’
‘So?’
‘So something funny’s going on.’
‘Like what?’
He addressed himself to the driver’s window again. ‘Might be the Tax Man.’
The phone chirruped in my pocket. Another text. I didn’t move. Hickey looked at me. ‘Are you going to open that or wha?’
‘I’ll open it later.’
‘Why? Is it your man again?’
‘No. It’s your wife.’
He laughed at that. He thought it was a joke.
*
At a quarter past one in the morning the last customer staggered out and Svetlana switched off the lights. I deleted the latest in Edel’s chain of texts and stashed the phone before elbowing Hickey awake. ‘Whuh?’ he said, sliding back up in his seat. ‘Where is he?’
‘He hasn’t come out yet.’
He shivered. ‘Jesus Christ, it’s bleedin perishing in here.’
Svetlana emerged and locked the double doors behind her. No sign of the Viking. Hickey looked up the road. The Range Rover Sport hadn’t budged. ‘Are you sure he didn’t come out?’
‘Positive. I’ve been watching all night.’