Barefoot Over Stones (13 page)

Columbo scrutinized his political charge intently. There had been many things that could have mired Con Abernethy in scandal down through the years. His business dealings were shady in the extreme and, if he were pushed, Columbo would have to concede that Con was incapable of cutting a straight deal. There always had to be a little something extra for him, a pot of cash to sweeten the handshake. He had enough money stashed in foreign credit card accounts to buy up most of the houses that snaked the length of the single street of Leachlara and he had a clutch of houses in Dublin all offering up their rent every week to bolster his already healthy finances. Con being fingered because of his crooked wheeling and dealing was always a live prospect for Columbo to deal with every day he stood as Con’s main defender. Plenty of others had stumbled while trying to make hay while in public office. It was Columbo’s job to stop Con falling through the cracks of his own making, but Leda Clancy and the disaster that might ensue if Con could not keep his ink dry was something that he felt at a loss to control. He would have to broach it and that was likely to go down like a lead balloon. Still, no man was bigger than the party and no man was big enough not to need reining in from time to time.

‘You need to keep your nose clean, Con, between now and the election. Do nothing that you could not stand over if it were found out. Let your head do the thinking for you. Do you get my drift?’

Con shoved closer to Columbo, leaning his shoulder against the older man’s considerable bulk. He didn’t want anyone to hear what he was about to say but neither did he want Columbo to miss a word. ‘You are a great man for the canvass, Columbo, and I don’t know where I’d be without you, but anything else I do is none of your fucking business. I promise discretion but I owe the blasted lot of you nothing else. Now stand the house a drink for me and make sure you keep the receipt.’

A chastened Columbo did as he was told and when the drink was all delivered to gasping mouths Con made his way up to the top of the bar where Leda was waiting for him. The flip top of the counter was up in anticipation of his arrival. As glasses were raised to his health and generosity around the bar nobody, not even Ted Clancy, noticed that he had his hand on Leda’s thigh, groping it roughly and hungrily, helping himself to her as if she were his own, something he might have paid for. She listened while he told her he had a flat and a job waiting for her in Dublin, a way out he said, away from Leachlara for good.

‘You are eighteen now, aren’t you?’ Leda nodded. What difference did a year make when she had a chance like this? ‘Leave everything to me, Leda, and you will never look back.’

It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her and Leda did not have to think twice about accepting his offer.

Con parked Columbo’s car outside the church where he had told Leda he would meet her when she had cleared up at Shanahan’s. He had told Columbo to take home some of the straggling drinkers in his Mercedes, a perk because of the hard work that was to come in the run-up to a possible election.

Columbo had wordlessly obliged. He had to admit that he liked having the boss’s car parked outside his house from time to time. It said things to people, flagged how important he was to the preservation of power. Usually it was a status symbol, but tonight it seemed to him a symbol that his card had been marked. Limits had been drawn for him by Con, lines over which he was not to pass. Parking the car next to the path that ran the length of his terrace was a task that cored the very middle of him. Yes, he could tap into power and yes, he numbered many important people as his acquaintances, but tonight none of that made him feel any better. He clicked the key fob to lock the car and went to his front door without looking back. As he drifted into a fitful sleep he wished that his own car was parked outside and that Leda was safely home.

It was after one when Leda finally finished work and got into Columbo’s car. She had had lifts in it many times before and Columbo had always made sure that the front door was opened and the hall light switched on before he would swing the car round in the rough avenue and make his way home. Con drove swiftly to the disused quarry halfway between Leachlara and Briartullog. The Clancys had played there as children, climbing the face of the quarry, kicking the shale with their worn-out shoes and writing their names with sticks in the sand. Leda knew what was going to happen next. She had invited it but her lack of experience bothered her. What if he knew she was clueless: would he lose interest?

He was hungry for her, grinding into her, artlessly and wordlessly taking his own pleasure. It had been such a long time. He didn’t look at her face and it seemed not to occur to him that it was her first time. Tonight was about him and no one else, nobody’s business but his. He slumped back against his seat, breathing heavily but otherwise silent. For her part Leda was glad the first time was over and that it hadn’t really hurt. Con would keep his promise to her. She would see to that. He smelt of cigarettes mingled with expensive aftershave and recently gulped whiskey. Leda had smelt of perfume, soap and the fresh sweat of a hard evening’s work but afterwards she smelt only of him.

The applications for the J1 visa to America seemed straightforward enough and Ciara picked up two. She would persuade Alison to come with her. It would be the best time, swishing around Boston or Cape Cod with money in their pockets and the sun high in the sky. They could pretend that they were Oscar Wilde’s or James Joyce’s grand-nieces or great-grand-nieces. She would work out which one would be chronologically plausible, obviously. The Americans loved the young Irish, but they were fairly well up on their heroes too so there was no point in trying to tell a blatant lie. Sure they would walk into good jobs, preferably not on the burger line of some highway fast-food place. She could do without the monotony of that and she was certain that Alison would prefer a change from a café job too. Now that Dan Abernethy was snared the shifts at the Daisy May had surely fulfilled their purpose. She could see him any time now and not just when he fancied a coffee. No, a job in an art gallery or museum or in one of those massive American bookshops with coffee houses and four-piece jazz bands playing in the basement would do nicely. Good sociable hours so they could get out every night and meet anyone worth meeting and spend their money. Ciara raced home, skipping her Tuesday-evening lecture such was her excitement.

‘What do you mean you don’t want to go? Are you off your head? This is one of the main reasons I came to college, the chance to spend the summer abroad. We can spend the summer in Dublin next year or any time at all but we would be raving mad to pass up on this.’ Ciara shook the treasured visa applications in disbelief. Sometimes Alison needed a good boot.

‘I wasn’t actually planning on spending the summer anywhere but at home in Caharoe. I kind of promised Mam and Dad that as soon as the exams were over I would head for home. They want me to work at the surgery because Maggie is going on maternity leave.’ Alison was surprised that Ciara had presumed she would be keen on going. Sure they had talked about it, but in general terms only, saying that it would be great to do it some time.

‘They could get anyone to do that job instead of you. A temping agency would supply someone at short notice. They are probably only obliging you by giving you the job when they could easily get someone else. I bet you if you were to ring them now they would tell you to go and not to be daft. Look, if I can scrape the money together you have no excuse. Better still, I will ring your dad now and tell him that you would love to go to America but are worried about letting him down. I would have the whole thing sorted in a few minutes. Sure Dick Shepherd and myself are drinking buddies. I could charm him in an instant.’

Alison was in a panic; the last thing she wanted was Ciara taking up the reins to fight a battle on her behalf that she didn’t want to win. ‘Look, Ciara, I don’t want to go. I want to go home. My folks miss me and I miss them and I would like to spend the summer there. Besides . . .’

‘Besides what, Alison? Dan Abernethy is here and that’s why you want to stay, like a gillie at his beck and call? I should have known it would boil down to proximity to Dan. Don’t you trust him? Don’t you trust that he would still be here waiting for you when you came back? It’s pathetic, Alison. He would go if he were in your shoes, make no mistake about that. He wouldn’t be afraid to leave your side. He’s the first guy you have ever gone out with. Don’t you think you need a bit of perspective? There could be a bigger, better, sexier doctor or lawyer in Boston or New York just waiting to sweep you off your feet but you will never know because you are too bloody timid to find out.’ Ciara flung the visa-application papers at the fireplace in disgust before collapsing on the couch exhausted by her own rage.

‘Are you finished your rant?’ Alison asked, her voice a total contrast in tone to her flatmate’s. When Ciara refused to answer Alison took it as permission to speak without interruption or heckling from a temper out of control. ‘I have promised my folks to go home for the summer and I don’t think there is anything timid about that. They pay for everything for me and the least I can do is to keep my tiny side of the bargain. I do miss them. For as long as I remember it’s been just them and me and I have found being away from home for weeks at a time fairly hard to get used
to. Whereas you seem happy enough to give the odd phone call and skip the visits entirely. I would like to go to the US but not this summer, Ciara. Maybe next year or the year after.’

‘You have made your point, Alison, but don’t tell me it has nothing to do with Dan because I won’t believe you.’

‘Yes I am looking forward to seeing Dan during the summer, but he is staying in Dublin on a placement so I won’t exactly be in his pocket clinging on for dear life. Thanks for pointing out that he is my first boyfriend, as if that makes me some sort of a freak. I know it might not last but I don’t think there is anything wrong with hoping that it might or enjoying it while it does.’

‘You are just doing the typical girl thing, putting your life on hold for someone whom you have just built up in your head as Mr Perfect. It pisses me off!’

‘Only a few weeks ago you were singing Paul Crampton’s praises, saying he was sound, sexy and funny. The list went on and on. I bet you wouldn’t be going to America if it had worked out with him and we wouldn’t be sitting here fighting like cats.’

‘He was just a little dickhead like all the rest of them. I should have added big-headed, pretentious and spineless to the list. It would have made it a touch more accurate.’

‘Jesus, that bad, was he?’ Ciara hadn’t really told Alison the ins and outs of how they had broken up, just that it was finished and that his name was a pile of dung to be stepped over in conversation. ‘What exactly happened, or do you not want to talk about it?’

‘I went to the loo in Harty’s the night after that stupid rugby match that he persuaded me to go to. I overheard a friend of his telling Paul that I didn’t seem like his type. Well, I waited for Paul’s answer to put him in his place. He didn’t realize I was standing behind him and he told this little upstart that there was room for all types of fillies in his stable while he waited for his thoroughbred and no better man to put them all through their paces.’

‘My God! You poor thing, what did you say?’ Alison was incredulous. What kind of a horrible person would talk like that about Ciara? Paul had seemed so sweet too.

‘Oh, talking is too good for a prick like that. I landed a pint of warm Smithwick’s on top of his head and while he was struggling to see through that I kneed him in the groin to make his insignificant little willy shrivel like a three-day-old sausage dipped in vinegar. It felt good, even if I did get some beer on my green slingbacks. A small price to pay, I suppose.’

‘I am so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me before now? You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.’

‘I fully meant to tell you. I called to an off licence on the way home and got the bottle of rosé that’s sitting in the fridge, but you and Dan were here cuddled up on the couch looking like Tracy and Hepburn before they did the dirty deed so I took myself off to bed. There was no point in ruining your night too.’

‘I could have told Dan to go. He would have understood. And seeing as you’re fishing for information, no, we have not done the dirty deed, as you so charmingly put it.’ Alison blushed. It was no good. She could never carry off talk like this and keep her composure.

‘I should bloody hope not. A girl has to have standards. You will have to wait at least a year so he respects you.’

‘Would you cop on with your standards, Ciara Clancy, seeing as you have no intention of ever adhering to your own rules of engagement? You wouldn’t have even waited this long!’

‘You cheeky wagon! I will thank you not to take pot shots at my virtue. I have the highest of standards: I just haven’t met any man who even comes close to deserving my good behaviour. Trust me, Ali, they are all plonkers really, even the delectable Dr Dan. Now crack open that bottle of rosé. I am parched.’

Alison got two glasses. She would have just a little taste to keep Ciara company for a bit instead of letting her drink alone. She hadn’t really liked the taste of wine any time she had tried
it. She found the bottle opener buried deep in the utensil drawer and looked at the bottle without a clue what to do next.

Ciara got to her feet. ‘It’s a screw top, honey, just like Paul Crampton’s brain.’ She poured two generous glasses. Alison nearly fainted at the measure. She had never even drunk a fraction of that.

‘That’s a bit much for me, Ciara. You know I don’t really drink.’

‘Oh, this stuff is like TK Lemonade. It’s barely alcoholic. Besides, if I can’t bring you to America with me, the least I can do is show you how to drink a glass of wine without losing the run of yourself entirely. Call it part of your education. The off-syllabus parts are my speciality.’