Darkhouse

FIVE

‘Surprise!’ said Joe, carrying a large box into the kitchen. ‘Magic paint stripper. A tip from Danny. It will get through all that crap on the lantern house walls. I hope.’ He put it down by the back door. Anna ran towards him and jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist.

‘Hellooo,’ she said. ‘Welcome home to your wife!’

‘This is great,’ he said. ‘I gotta go away more often.’

She shook her head. ‘No, no, no. Never again.’ She kissed him all over his face.

‘I missed you,’ he said. ‘Way too much.’

She climbed down. ‘How did Giulio take to you leaving early?’

‘What could he do? He knew he’d screwed up. He always knows.’

‘He’s an oddball.’

‘I know. And I’ve got some of his genes.’

‘Don’t worry. I could never forget that.’

‘That’s going to take a while,’ said Joe, pointing to the paint stripper. ‘You have to put it on, cover it with paper, then wait a couple days, see what happens. It’s a big job for one little lady.’

‘Well, I’ll get some of the guys to help, if I can. But I couldn’t just hand the whole thing over to anyone.’

‘No,’ said Joe. ‘That would be a disaster.’

She gave him one of her looks. Joe laughed.

‘I’m going out to the workshop,’ he said. ‘Petey’s waiting.’

‘Already?’

‘I know. I can always sleep later.’

He was barely in the door when Petey started. ‘Did you ever hear how some lighthouse keepers earned extra money?’ he asked, not waiting for an answer. ‘They turned to shoemaking, prostitution and distilling. In 1862…’ He stopped suddenly.

‘What’s prostitution?’

‘Whoa,’ said Joe, searching his face to see if he was kidding. He wasn’t. ‘Uh, do you know what sex is?’

Petey went red. ‘Yeah,’ he muttered, his eyes downcast.

‘Well, some men pay to have sex with women called prostitutes. That’s prostitution. I guess those lighthouse keepers were renting some of their rooms out to these ladies.’

‘Oh,’ said Petey and moved quickly back to his comfort zone. ‘Around Waterford, smugglers used to come ashore with alcohol, candles and building materials and the keepers would store them until they needed to sell them on—’

‘Even in smaller lighthouses like this one?’ said Joe.

‘Yes,’ said Petey, ‘they would—’

‘Petey,’ called Anna, waving a ringing mobile phone at him. ‘Did you leave this in the house?’

‘Thanks a million,’ he said, answering the call. When he hung up, he looked traumatised. ‘My mother’s driving Mae Miller somewhere. She wants company for the trip back. I always have to go stupid places with her.’

‘That woman needs to give him more independence,’ said Anna when Petey had left. ‘She shouldn’t be dragging him around all the time like a child.’

It was three p.m. when Duke parked his car and headed down the main street in Tipperary town. As he stared in the window of a hardware shop, a tiny grey terrier trailing a tartan lead bounced over to him and looked up expectantly. Duke paused, then hunkered down to pet him.

‘Hey, little fella,’ he said, picking him up, holding him against his chest and letting the dog nuzzle him. ‘Aren’t you a beauty?’

The owner, a young mother, rushed over with a toddler on her hip.

‘Thank you so much. He’s unbelievable,’ she said. ‘Nuts.’

‘He’s a friendly little guy.’

‘Don’t I know it?’ she laughed. ‘Thanks again.’

Duke stared after them, then turned and went into the shop. Minutes later, he came out with a yellow and green plastic bag under his arm. He walked further into the town and stopped outside a fast food restaurant. A group of teenagers were inside, slumped on yellow bucket seats screwed to the grimy floor. He looked up at the sign. American Heroes was printed between two stars and stripes across a faded blue background. He walked in and a buzzer sounded. The waitress glanced his way, then turned back to her notebook. Her uniform was hospital-scrubs style and strained across her back, twisting into her thick thighs. Her dark hair was scraped into ridges across her skull and ended in a dry ponytail at the base of her neck. Duke watched as one of the boys pulled her notebook down, so he could read what she had just written. He laughed.

‘Spell glass, Siobhán,’ he said flatly.

‘G.L.A.A.S,’ she said.

They all laughed.

‘G.L.A.S.S.,’ he said. ‘As in ass.’

‘That’s just ’cos I was writing too quickly,’ she said, blushing. She went back to the counter.

‘As in big fat ass,’ the boy whispered, loud enough for everyone.

The waitress stopped when she saw Duke. ‘Hiya,’ she said, awkward and eager. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’

She poured juice for the boy, then squeezed back behind the counter.

‘Now. What can I get you?’ she said.

‘Could I get a beef taco and Coke?’ Duke said, smiling as he looked into her eyes. He squinted at her name tag: Siobhán. ‘Sy-o-ban? Is that your name?’ he asked.

She laughed. ‘It’s pronounced Shiv-awn,’ she said. ‘It’s Irish.’

He smiled again. ‘Savawn? That’s not easy to say.’

She disappeared into the back room and Duke sat listening to the anxious conversation behind him.

‘That’s not your mum,’ said one of the boys.

‘It is,’ said one of the girls, ducking her head under the table.

‘Even if it was, she wouldn’t be able to see in,’ he said. ‘I’m waving at her right now.’

‘Stop it! She’ll see!’ she pleaded.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ he said, ‘you’re totally paranoid. There’s no point in going on the hop if you’re going to be freaking out.’

‘Is she gone?’

‘Yes, seeing that she was never there in the first place.’

‘It’s all right for you. I’m on report,’ she said, sitting back up. ‘Which means,’ she continued dramatically, ‘I get expelled if I’m caught missing school one more time.’

‘Well, I’m missing a major biology exam,’ said the boy, ‘and unless I have a pretty good story, I’m fucked too. I’ll be sent down to the lowest class. With the dopes.’

‘I’m only missing double music and a double free class,’ smiled the second girl. ‘And Mr Nolan can be worked on,’ she said. They all laughed.

Siobhán arrived with some fries, desperately trying to involve herself in their conversation. She was quickly back with Duke, her eyes down, rejected again by a cruel, casual remark.

‘People are idiots,’ said Duke.

She smiled. ‘Ah, they’re OK,’ she said, glancing back over at them.

‘You know? You’ve a really beautiful smile,’ he said.

She blushed. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘You do,’ he said. ‘Just thought I’d tell you. No big deal.’

She was called away again, but Duke stayed at the counter, talking to her every time she was free. He was the only person there when she closed up the restaurant two hours later, standing with her on the pavement as she snapped the lock on the shutters. When she was finished, she waited anxiously.

‘Come with me,’ said Duke, holding out his hand. She took it and smiled.

Anna stood outside the lighthouse with Ray, Hugh and Mark, the landscape gardener.

‘Here’s what we’re dealing with, guys,’ she said, handing them white masks. ‘There are layers of paint on these walls with rust underneath. We need to strip it all back to the bare metal, so we can preserve it and then paint over it properly.’

Mark started to speak.

‘Before you say anything, Mark, no, we couldn’t just scrape it off.’

He smiled and ran his hand through his wild blond hair.

‘I don’t even know why I bother,’ he said. ‘I’ve absolutely no idea what I’m doing. You should have left me on the lawn.’

‘Well, I appreciate this,’ she said. ‘You’ve no idea.’

‘Many hands and all the rest of it,’ he said.

She went on, ‘So what you need to do is put this stuff on with a trowel and cover it with this paper. Once we get that done, we can leave it for a few days. It should sweat the old paint off. Then we can see the real damage, see if any of the panels have to be replaced. So that’s it. Oh, and cover the floor with newspaper before you start.’

The wind whipped around Mountcannon harbour, rocking boats and tugging at sails. The concrete walkway thirty feet above was deserted except for Katie who stood swaying in the wind, her hands buried in the pockets of her pink hoodie. She turned her back to the boats and looked out to the ocean, lit in flashes by the sweeping beam from the lighthouse on the opposite headland.

‘This place still freaks me out,’ said Shaun, coming up behind her, pointing at the six-foot wide walkway that had no railing for its entire length. ‘I mean, your choice here is flaying your ass on a rusty skip then suffocating to death in a pile of rotting nets or,’ he looked down on the other side, ‘crashing onto some huge rocks and drowning.’

‘It’s like – which would you rather die in, a barrel of pus or a barrel of scabs?’ said Katie.

‘What?’ said Shaun.

‘It was one of my granddad’s favourites,’ said Katie. ‘I’d probably go for the scabs.’

‘Which sounds like a good idea, until they’re scratching at the inside of your throat, then you’re inhaling them into your lungs…’

Katie shook her head. ‘Ew.’

Shaun pulled her into his arms, pressing her head against his chest, squeezing her close. She looked up at him and he knew how she felt.

‘I still can’t believe you asked me out,’ she said.

‘What? Why? You’re a babe. Why wouldn’t I ask you out?’

‘I am not a babe,’ she said, hitting him. ‘It’s just that you arrived looking like…like a big American footballer or something, with your perfect teeth and we all thought that none of us would have a hope. I just think it’s weird that here I am.’

‘You’re crazy. You’re really beautiful. You make me laugh, you’re smart, you’re cute—’

‘Aw, that’s so nice.’

‘It’s not nice, it’s true.’

He took her hand and they moved against the wind back down the steps. They walked along the harbour, then past the sweaty windows of Danaher’s and up a winding road behind a short row of shops. They stood at the sign for Seascapes Holiday Homes.

Straight ahead, was an empty tree-lined dead end. To the left, the road sloped steeply into a second, larger cul-de-sac, where fifteen fourbedroom holiday homes faced out towards the border of trees. Lights were on in three of the houses, each of them close to the entrance. Shaun’s boss, Betty Shanley, lived in the first one, but she was out of town for the night. Shaun and Katie took a right, running along the trees and down the slope, glancing around quickly before Shaun slipped the key into the door of the last house, number fifteen, and they both fell into the hallway, laughing.

‘I put the heating on earlier,’ said Shaun.

‘Yeah, I can smell it,’ said Katie, wrinkling her nose at the stale air from the storage heaters.

‘Would you rather freeze your ass off?’ asked Shaun.

‘No.’

‘Do you feel a bit guilty?’ he asked.

‘A little bit.’

‘Me too. It’s just…Mrs Shanley. She’s been good to me. And to mom, when mom was her nanny or au pair, whatever.’

‘I know. But I’m sure our parents did stuff when they were our age.’

‘Let’s not go there,’ said Shaun.

‘Yeah. Ew.’

‘Are you ready for your surprise?’

‘I get a surprise? Cool!’

‘Go to the fridge.’

Katie hunched down and pulled open the fridge. In it was a tiny chocolate cake in the shape of a heart, a half bottle of wine and a white rose. She smiled up at him.

‘That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me in my whole life,’ she said. ‘You are adorable!’

‘I know it’s not original, but what the hell.’

‘Shut up. I love everything. I love you.’

Joe sat down at the table with the mail that arrived that morning. He looked down at his plate – spinach ravioli with a side of broccoli. His glass was filled with freshly squeezed orange juice. He leaned back to see his dessert in a bowl by the stove. It was custard with something brown hitting the surface. Stewed prunes.

‘Why didn’t you just cut to the chase and slap two laxatives down on my plate?’

‘Pop a pill,’ said Anna. ‘Your answer to everything. It’s because of those killers you get all blocked up.’

He smiled at her mistake. ‘There is nothing wrong with my insides.’ He opened a letter from a cut-price phone company, glanced at it and tossed it aside. Anna kept talking.

‘Your breath stinks. I know what that means.’ She pointed to his abdomen.

He laughed out loud. ‘It’s too easy to be blunt in a foreign language. How would you like it if I said something nasty to you in French?’

She shrugged. ‘All you know is bonjour. And I’m not nasty. I have to look after you, because you are no good.’ He loved her quirky phrasing. ‘You’ve been on an aeroplane and you’ve been wound up by your father. I know your jaw hurts and you’ve been taking things.’

He started eating the ravioli and then laughed to himself.

‘You know, pretty much everything sounds sexy in that accent,’ he said.

‘You’re nuts,’ she said.

‘What about them?’

‘Now you sound like Danny.’

Joe was smiling as he picked up a letter from the bank. He tore it open and frowned.

‘Why has four hundred euros gone out of my account? To a furniture store in Dublin.’

‘Oh. I went a bit over budget on the bathroom.’

‘What?’

‘I overspent on the fittings.’

‘That’s not what I meant. I meant what the hell are you thinking? Again! I presume the magazine isn’t going to pay me for this, either.’

‘No, but you know this is important to me.’

‘Yeah, I do, but I’m not gonna go bankrupt for it. You know what I’m up to now? Two thousand euros on a house I don’t even own. “I ran out of money for the bedroom, the living room…”’

‘It’s worth it. I’ve never had a project like this, something I’ve done from start to finish. This will change my career.’

‘And what if it doesn’t?’

‘What do you mean what if it doesn’t? All along it’s been your job, your job…’

‘Yeah. The one that’s kept you and Shaun financially secure for the last eighteen years. What would have happened if I had given up a few years ago to try something new?’

‘I would have supported you.’

‘With what, for Christ’s sake? You do not live in the real world. Regular people have budgets. The magazine has a budget. I have a goddamn budget. But that’s no good, right? That’s too normal for you, right?’

‘That’s not true.’

‘What you’re doing is selfish.’

‘In the end, it will work out. I’ll be making a lot of money. I’ll buy you some nice things.’ She tried a smile. Joe ignored it.

‘I have everything I want right here, Anna. I’m not always looking for something better.’ He finished his meal in silence.

John Miller leaned heavily on the bar, his hand clamped on a pint of Guinness, a glass of straight whisky beside it. Ed Danaher was nodding patiently at him. Usually, he was cranky and brusque. Yet people opened up to him because if they were lucky, he could bark out a useful truth. He rubbed the ends of his black moustache, then pushed up the sleeves of his white shirt.

‘Is that so, John?’ he was saying. ‘That’s a dreadful thing altogether. What did you do?’

‘I got drunk,’ smiled John. ‘And I haven’t looked back since.’

Ed laughed with him.

‘Seriously,’ said John. ‘I stayed with a friend. But he was a bigger loser than me. The two of us just drank ourselves into oblivion, morning, noon and night. That was when my brother, you know, Emmett, came to get me. Sally had a restraining order against me, I couldn’t see the kids.’ Tears welled up in his eyes, sorrow quickly shifting to anger. ‘I still can’t see my own fucking kids.’

Ed had learned to say nothing when the barflies were on their rollercoaster.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said John. ‘I may be bitter, but I haven’t quite twisted yet.’ He swayed on his chair, looking around the bar, his elbows against the back of the chair, his movements loose.

Joe arrived in and walked up to the bar.

‘Hey, Joe,’ said Ed. ‘How’re things, how’s the woman herself?’

‘Things are good. Anna’s run into a few problems with the lighthouse, but you know her—’

‘Now, here’s a man,’ said John, gesturing wildly, ‘who has it all.’

Joe stared at him. John thrust an arm his way.

‘John Miller,’ he said.

‘Joe Lucchesi.’

‘I know who you are, all right,’ said John, ‘Anna’s husband. Shaun’s father…’

‘You in local intelligence?’ said Joe, smiling briefly.

‘Once you’re a local, you’re in,’ said John.

‘Really?’ said Joe tightly, trying to get Ed’s attention again.

‘I’m only messin’ with you,’ said John.

‘Sure,’ said Joe.

‘Don’t be gettin’ funny on me now,’ said John, pushing lightly against Joe’s chest.

‘Let me get you a drink,’ said Joe. ‘Ed, a Guinness for me and a Jameson for Mr Miller here.’

‘Keep your fucking money,’ slurred John. ‘Keep your fucking wife and your son and your lighthouse and your perfect—’

‘Whoa, buddy…’ said Joe.

‘Do you hear this shit?’ said John.

Ed put Joe’s pint on the bar and turned to John.

‘That’s enough now. Maybe you should take a walk out to the jacks, get a bit of air in your lungs.’

John snorted, but got up and left.

‘Don’t mind him,’ said Ed. ‘His wife left him, he can’t see his kids. They’re at the other side of the world, he’s pretty cut up about it.’

‘No shit,’ said Joe. ‘But I wasn’t the one who changed the locks.’ He smiled and headed for the snug. He watched John Miller lose his footing on the stool when he came back from the mensroom. His eyes were buggy and shot off in opposite directions like a fly. Joe was smiling to himself when Ray and Hugh walked in to join him.

‘What are you so happy about?’ asked Hugh.

‘I was just looking at wino-man over there with his bug eyes and it reminded me of this fruit fly experiment. It was for some research on alcoholism, because fruit flies live on fermented fruit and even though they can still go hyper or pass out like we do, they never get addicted.’

‘Can people sign up for those experiments?’ asked Hugh. ‘I’d say they’d give you a rake of pints.’

Frank Deegan sat by the door of Danaher’s watching his wife, Nora. Gruff, opinionated, fiercely intelligent Nora. She had a brandy in her hand and an imaginary cigarette between two bony fingers. She was ranting at her friend Kitty about an artist who had hung up on her when she asked him would he show his work at the gallery she was planning for the village.

‘The little shit,’ she said, then looking at Frank, ‘excuse my language. Trying to cultivate this image of himself as some unpredictable genius. When he’s just a reasonably talented, broke, borderline-alcoholic, shoeless, dwarf. And – predictably – he called me back and said he’d do it. And I know it’s because he needs the money. Possibly for sandals and a smock.’

Frank and Kitty laughed. Nora knocked back the last of her drink, her short, blunt strawberry blond hair swishing across her high cheekbones.

‘Brandy, sarge,’ she said, handing out her glass, winking at her husband.

‘Back at the house,’ he said. ‘Look at the time.’ It was eleven-thirty, unstrictly closing time.

Nora glanced at Kitty. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘it’s never pleasant.’

Frank stood, not quite reaching his slender wife’s five feet eight. He ran a hand through his thick grey hair, smoothed down his dark green golf sweater and stretched his arms out by his side. Nora had seen him perform the same routine for forty years. He caught her watching him and he winked.

Ray, Joe and Hugh were leaving at the same time and stopped in front of him.

‘Uh-oh,’ said Ray, putting an imaginary bullhorn up to his mouth. ‘People, step away from your glasses. Please put down your glasses. We are now three point four seconds past closing time. I repeat. Step away from your glasses.’

Frank smiled.

‘You need any help clearing the place, sergeant?’ said Ray. ‘You could cuff a few of these guys. Joe would probably get a kick out of frisking them, wouldn’t you?’

Frank and Joe laughed.

Mick Harrington pushed through them on his way out with a large brown paper bag full of bottles.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Hugh. ‘It’s Fr Merrin.’

Mick looked at him. ‘You know, the Exorcist. He comes in, he takes away the spirits,’ Hugh explained.

Mick gave one of his hearty laughs. ‘I’ve got about twenty pissed Spaniards down at the harbour that I have to keep lubricated,’ he explained. ‘This is my second bar run of the evening. Their boat’s being worked on and they’re hanging off it singing shite drinking songs.’ He turned to Joe, ‘By the way, if Robert is with Shaun, tell him to go home. Someone better keep the wife company.’

‘They’re out,’ said Joe.

‘Looks like there’ll be a big black mark beside both our names, then,’ said Mick.

Katie stopped and held her head back, squeezing the corners of her eyes. The tears still fell. She started walking again, quickly, desperate to be home in her bed. Suddenly, a set of tail lights came to life in front of her, the car tilted across the ditch. She squinted into the glare and slowed her pace until she was close enough to know something was very wrong.