He studied the leftover froth on the sides of the glass. Maybe the barman was trying to fit him to some picture he’d seen but didn’t remember enough. Surely to God there weren’t pictures of him up, in the papers. Up on walls: “Wanted Leo Hickey. Murder.” Jesus! He folded his paper and looked down at the seat beside him for his cigarettes. He didn’t want to go, he realized. He didn’t want to be out there in the streets. He didn’t want to go back to the Park. He let himself lean back against the seat. He hadn’t been ten steps from the phone when he’d heard the the tyres of the squad car through the open door of the pub. Straight out the side door into the lane-way and through the Markets. What a pack of lying bastards, the Guards. They must have had the cars ready again, waiting for him. That could only mean they had him fitted for this, for Mary. Even that guy, the culchie who’d told him straight out: standard procedure, Liam.
Why was the guy still looking at him, for Christ’s sake? He stood up. The bar seemed to move with him. Hey! He felt in his pocket for the knife. The bar seemed brighter now. The barman was rubbing the counter again, but slowly now. He saw his own face in the mirror. A sight. No wonder he’d been keeping an eye on him. The anger began to drain out of him. He let go of the knife and grasped the coins instead.
“Here. Give us another pint there.”
He watched the barman pouring it, pretending to watch the filling glass but watching him at the same time.
“Any grub here, man? Sandwiches or stuff?”
“Crisps-”
“Okay. Three crisps. Smokey Bacon?”
The barman looked up from the glass. The two old geezers had stopped talking. Christ, why was the kip so quiet? Didn’t they have a telly or anything?
“-or peanuts,” the barman added.
“Yeah, well, all I want is the crisps, see? Smokey Bacon.”
The barman placed the pint on the counter. Why was he moving so slowly? He turned aside to get the bags of crisps.
“Three bags of Smokey Bacon,” he said. He turned back, placed them next to the pint and rested his hands on the counter-top to either side of the glass. Now he was looking straight at him. What the hell was this guy’s problem? Like this was such a fancy place they didn’t want riffraff or something? Like, it was so fucking exclusive or something? He let his hand slide back into the pocket. His fingers closed on the knife again. He imagined his hand coming out of the pocket so fast, the blade opened already and coming down on the guy’s hand: right through it, pinning it to the counter. Right into the counter.
His hand came out with the fiver crunched up inside. He dropped it on the counter. The barman spoke in the same flat voice.
“Five pounds.”
What had he ever done to this guy? Was it just the way he looked or something? Did he stink and he didn’t even know it? The bar seemed to be changing around him. Christ, he really should get a decent meal before he…
“That’s a hot one, I’m telling you all right,” someone was saying. He turned. One of the oul lads. His forehead was shining.
“Yeah,” he heard himself say. “Isn’t it.”
“But there’s going to be rain like was never seen before, I read.”
Something about the oul lad’s face reminded him of something, of someone he knew. Keeping the peace, he was. He must have been reading his mind. Could he know about the knife?
“Rain…”
“Oh, that’s a fact! If you’re to believe those chancers what give the forecast.”
The glass was cool and wet in his hand. He saw the downpour beating down the leaves of the chestnut tree which he had hoped would be his home. Of course it had to piss rain, he thought. It was always that way. The minute you thought you were getting somewhere. It came to him as a pain then, like that heartburn he used to get when he was a kid. Everything wrong. Just impossible. He brought the crisps and the pint back to the table and flopped down in the seat. He’d go out later, he decided. He had money and he had a knife. He didn’t really give a damn any more.
Her eyes filled with tears. Coming here, he said, but his lips didn’t move, coming here to surprise her was a very, very stupid idea. No sleep tonight if he were to tell Kathleen. If? When. He’d have to tell her. He stared at her. Paint had dried under her nails. Strands of hair had escaped her hair-band. Some part of him must have known already, he understood.
“Is that all you can say?” she whispered. “Try to say something funny.”
Things crashed about in his head. Grandfather; babysitting; bottles; nappies. He would always remember this time, this place. The big windows with peeling paint and putty which kept the studio like a fridge in winter-the landlord’s hint to Iseult and the co-op of just how annoyed he was that he had given them such a lease before the area had become so suddenly trendy several years ago.
“Sorry,” he said. “I only meant the Immaculate part.”
He turned aside and looked down into the street below. A cluster of young people whom Minogue took to be artists of some kind crossed the street below and disappeared into the pub. A girl with hacked hair and a green tuft shooting up from the crown pedalled by. The windows in the studio were wide open but it was still uncomfortably warm. Everything seemed very far away: the rest of the buildings, the streets and lane-ways already grey, the traffic noise from the Liffey quays a street away, his memories of Iseult’s childhood.
“Well, maybe it’d be funny some other time,” she said. She pulled the apron over her head. “I’d never thought of Pat as the Holy Ghost.”
She walked over to the windows and stood next to him. That cloud was there again, the one that looked like the mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb. It must be far out at sea.
“You get really tired,” she said. “I didn’t know that happened so much.”
“Well, this is your first time.”
“Don’t tell Ma-ever-but I thought straightaway of going to London. You know?”
He nodded. Like a hunter in the blind, dozing, he thought, awakening to a stampede all around him. Over him.
“It’s true,” she said. “The thing about Clare people. How they’re different. The sixth sense.”
“Clare people are cracked, Iseult. Everyone knows that. Exhibit number one here. Can we go out for a stroll or something? The fumes here are getting to me.”
She stopped in the middle of the Ha’penny bridge and leaned against the railings. The Liffey below was close to full tide. Vibrations from the passing feet came up through Minogue’s knees. A bus screeched on its way down the quays. There wasn’t a breeze.
“We must be in for a change of weather,” she said. “I’ve had a headache all day.”
Minogue let his eyes wander down the quays, taking in the sluggish swill of the river, the quayside buildings in a wash of honey-coloured light. He felt that Iseult and he were on an island in the middle of Dublin.
“I knew you knew,” she sniffed. “I felt it anyway. Really.”
“I didn’t really know,” he said. “I sort of thought maybe… Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s great news. I’m thrilled.”
She eyed him.