‘Are you wondering who that is?’ Emily’s question confused and startled me. I hadn’t realised that I’d stopped in front of that picture of Rainsford House of old, again – the one with the mystery man I still couldn’t place.
I turned to look at her, resting my eyes on her profile for a moment, buying myself a little time before what was to come.
‘I know it’s one of your lot alright, a Dollard I mean, the nose and the long face,’ I said eventually, my finger gesturing lazily in its direction.
‘It’s Thomas’s father.’
‘Really? I always thought of Hugh Dollard as a heavier-set man, fuller in the face.’ She didn’t answer me but looked away from the picture quickly, like she regretted starting talking about it in the first place.
‘And to what do I owe the pleasure, Mr Hannigan? You don’t usually join us for breakfast or for anything for that matter,’ she said, smiling at me. ‘You’re looking well.’
Emily pointed me in the direction of one of the seats in the foyer but I kept on to the bar. I made my way to a table far into the corner of the lounge. Well, I had to be careful, you never knew who might be about listening in, despite the early hour. I sat and rubbed a hand over my chin wondering where to start.
‘We have a bit of unfinished business, you and me,’ I said, ‘well, me and your family, I should say.’
‘I don’t like the sound of this. Are you finally calling in the loan?’ she asked, sitting opposite, looking fierce worried.
‘It’s nothing like that. No, this goes back even further.’
I tried to order the words jumbling about in my head. But they scurried about like a pack of frightened sheep, not one of them brave enough to take the lead. I eyed the bottle of Bushmills on the shelf and wondered would it be rude to ask at this hour. But I thought better of it. I could hear my fingers drum the table and, in the distance, the pots and pans clattering in the kitchen behind the bar. The odd time a silhouette passed the frosted window of the door. I looked at Emily one last time as she shifted in her seat, her hands clasped together under her chin, leaning eagerly forward, elbows on the table, waiting for me to finally spit it out. In the end I simply reached into my pocket and set the coin free at last. King Edward VIII sat on the table in front of her.
I watched and didn’t watch her, if you get me, kind of half-watched, glancing every now and again at her silence and her eyes as they darted between it and me. My hands did a merry dance between my pockets and the curve of the table. My lips pursed and started some mad airy whistling. I felt as much of a gibbering wreck as the day I stood in Berk’s line up when the coin first went missing. Emily finally picked it up and gave it a good once over.
‘But this, this…’
Her eyes turned on mine.
‘Aye. It’s the original. The one Thomas lost.’
‘Oh dear God!’ She dropped it and it bounced under the table. Emily shot up to standing as if she’d touched a live cable. She kept staring at the spot where it had been and backed away. Her hand to her mouth, lost to me. I’d have happily left right there and then. Skipped out of the place never to see it again. But, you see, that’s the thing about here, isn’t it? This bloody place, it keeps reeling me back in and I keep letting it. After a bit she came forward a little, then backed away again. Her own private waltz.
I reached to retrieve the coin. Not so swiftly as the first time a Dollard dropped it. I held on to the table with one hand and stretched my other under, my fingers wriggling about trying to locate it. I knew if I had to resort to kneeling, there was a danger of my never getting up again, at least not with any dignity. Arthritic knees. When I brushed against the metal, I grasped it and put it back, dead centre on the table.
‘It was me that took it. I’ve had it all these years. It wasn’t a deliberate plan to rob it, Emily.’ My eyes looked for her. ‘I didn’t even know what the bloody thing was or that it was valuable. It was simple, childish revenge, that’s all.’ I waited to see if she would offer me anything in reply but when she remained silent, I gave it another go. ‘He wasn’t the nicest of men, Thomas, back then…’
I fingered the scar on my face; coughed, a bit ashamed of my childish attempt at an excuse; got up to go in around the bar to pour myself some water, the Bushmills still seeming a step too far. I gulped down the coldness of the liquid and, when there wasn’t a drop left, I made a slow return to my seat, peeking at her every second step or so, bringing two full glasses with me. I laid them down.
But still, she didn’t budge.
‘Water,’ I commanded.
She considered me for a second before making her way back. I watched her feet until they disappeared under the table as she sat. I admit I couldn’t hold her eye and looked off at the long window at the end of the room to see the beginnings of the town’s waking. Lavin standing at his open door raising a hand to the newspaper deliveryman’s truck that spluttered away down Main Street.
‘But all this time, Mr Hannigan,’ she began, calling me back, ‘all this time, with the hotel and me, you knew you had it and never said a thing.’ She kept up the staring, boring into me like I was some massive disappointment. I sipped at my water and found Lavin again, carting his papers into the shop. ‘And even when I told you the story of what that bloody thing has done to us, to Thomas, you never said a word? Not a word. Just let me blab on like a fool.’
She looked away, unable to bear me.
‘Emily, I’ve never considered you a fool. I have nothing but the greatest of—’
‘But that’s what us Dollards have always been to you – fools, to be used for everything you could get your greedy hands on.’
I stared at the table and felt my own anger rise. Greedy. I’d heard her alright – greedy. The coin looked small now. The thing that felt heavy in my hand for years was like a halfpenny shrinking away from danger. I tapped the base of the glass on the table. My foot began to keep pace as the water in my glass jumped and lapped at the sides. I thought of Tony, dying in his bed, hiding the coin under his sweat-soaked pillow. Tony’s funeral. My mother, my father, terrified of losing all they had. The beatings. And Molly and you. And Sadie. Oh God. Sadie. All I had lost came back at me. A big tsunami of hate and sorrow. How sorry I felt for myself. Out beyond in the foyer, I heard the voices of the reception staff, greeting their guests, giving instructions on how to get to the dining room for breakfast. The smell of fried bacon reached me. My stomach howled but I kept tapping. My dentures bit down on my lip holding it all in.
‘I mean, we’ve all nearly lost our minds because of this, because of you.’
Emily shoved the coin in my direction. I watched its un-wantedness spin towards me and hit my elbow, ricocheting away from me before landing just on the edge of the table. The coinage that never fecking was – how much I really wished that were true right at that moment.
I’m ashamed of what I did next, but I felt as mad as a raging bull. I took that bloody thing in my hand, bounced it once then threw it across the room, hitting the bar counter, propelling it back on to the hardwood floor.
‘You’ll forgive me, Emily,’ I shouted, heaving myself up to standing, my fist hitting the table, ‘if I was busy burying my wife and wasn’t thinking about the Dollards for once in my bloody life!’
The words spat out of me as I leaned over the table right into her face. Blood pumping, veins straining, on the verge of some furious meltdown. Instead it was the tears that came. Big sobs of the stuff. I grasped hold of the sides of the table to stop myself falling. And I looked at her, through my welling eyes, a helpless fool, my wall tumbling down.