The New Policeman (12 page)

Paddy O’Brien

2

For some reason that was not at all clear to J.J., the party had come to an end and people were wandering off in each of the three available directions.

“Maybe they didn’t like my tunes,” he said.

“Why wouldn’t they?” said Marcus.

Devaney was struggling with the bodhrán, doing something with a small wrench. The drum, as far as J.J. could ascertain, appeared to be resisting the process and was emitting loud, goaty bawls. Despite the racket, Maggie had dropped off to sleep again.

J.J. watched Devaney for a while, trying to work out what was going on. “Anyway,” he said, “I don’t see why you’re so keen to get rid of your time. I wish I had half as much of it.”

“We don’t want it,” said Maggie, without opening her eyes.

“We don’t want any time at all,” said Jennie.

“It’s a mistake,” said Aengus. “Something has gone wrong. It shouldn’t be here.”

J.J. was beginning to think the whole thing was some kind of elaborate wind-up, engineered by Anne Korff.

“What would you do without time?” he asked.

“Live,” said Maggie.

“Things have already started dying,” said Cormac.

“What?” said J.J.

“Look,” said Cormac. He pointed to a black speck on the floor underneath Jennie’s chair. J.J. bent to examine it. It was a dead fly.

“That usedn’t to happen,” said Cormac.

J.J. laughed incredulously. “You should see my house,” he said. “It’s crawling with dead flies. Well. Not exactly crawling, but—”

“And so it should be,” said Maggie, her eyes opening again. “But it shouldn’t happen here.”

“This is Tír na n’Óg,” said Aengus. “The land of eternal youth. But that fly got old. It got old and then it died. That oughtn’t to happen.”

Devaney thumped the bodhrán with the wrench and the struggle, for the moment at least, ended.
“We have a desperate problem,” he said.

“It’s called time,” said Maggie.

Aengus looked up at the sky, as he had done several times since J.J. had arrived. “You see the sun?”

“I do,” said J.J. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said Aengus. He pointed to a spot in the sky, almost overhead. “But it used to be there.”

“Of course it did,” said J.J. “And later on it will be there”—he pointed to the west, above the horizon—“and after that it will go down.”

“That’s what we don’t want,” said Devaney.

“But…”

Aengus pointed upward again. “That’s where the sun belongs. In this world.”

“What? Always?” said J.J.

Maggie sighed wearily. “We never used to have any ‘always,’” she said. “There was only ever ‘now.’”

“Something’s gone dreadfully wrong,” said Aengus. “That’s why we were hoping you’d take it away with you.”

“Back where it belongs,” said Cormac.

“And good riddance to it,” said Devaney.

J.J. had gone beyond disbelief and was slipping toward cynicism. “What I don’t understand,” he said, “is why you’ve all been playing tunes and dancing all afternoon. If your problem is as serious as you say it
is, why aren’t you trying to do something about it?”

“He has a point,” said Jennie.

“He does,” said Maggie.

“The truth is,” said Aengus, “we’re not very good at worrying about things.”

“We haven’t had much practice,” said Devaney.

“Lucky you,” said J.J. “I could give you a few lessons.”

“Great,” said Aengus.

At that moment the bodhrán started banging and bleating wildly. Devaney picked up the wrench, then changed his mind and put it down again. He stood up and hurled the bodhrán out into the middle of the empty street. As it touched the ground, it turned into the brown goat that he had been chasing up the road when J.J. first encountered him.

J.J. stared at it. He could take all the nonsense about dead flies and eternal youth with a pinch of salt, but he had just seen something happen that was impossible. The goat shook herself, recovered her dignity, and wandered away along the quay.

“Can we start now?” Aengus was saying.

“Hmm?” said J.J.

“Worrying lessons,” said Aengus. “Can we start them now?”

THE SETTING SUN

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“Well,” said J.J. He was still stunned by what he had seen on the quay and was having difficulty marshaling his thoughts. “I suppose…I mean…you don’t really worry on purpose.”

He was walking up the main street of the village with Aengus, who wanted to get some tobacco.

“No?” said Aengus.

“No. You just think about something that’s a problem and it just happens.”

“There must be more to it than that,” said Aengus.

They were outside the pharmacy, and J.J. stopped to have a look in the window. It was full of ancient bottles and jars and boxes. A row of little brass buckets offered powders of different colors, and one was full to the brim of a shining liquid that looked to
J.J. as if it might be mercury. In the dark recesses of the shop he could just make out more odd goods: pestles and mortars, globes, brass beakers engraved with unknown scripts. J.J. smiled to himself. Séadna Tobín, the man who ran the pharmacy in the other Kinvara, would get a great laugh out of this.

“What are all these things?” he asked Aengus.

“Ingredients,” said Aengus. “For alchemy.”

“What’s alchemy?”

“The art of making gold.”

“Really?” said J.J. “You can make gold out of these things?”

“I don’t think so,” said Aengus. “But I don’t suppose there’s any harm in trying.”

“Can we go in?” said J.J.

“No, no.” Aengus took him by the elbow and steered him clear of the doorway. “It’s full of leprechauns. You don’t want to get mixed up with them.”

“Why not?”

“Tricky little people,” said Aengus. “But pure mad about gold.”

“So they’re the ones who buy this stuff?”

“They are.” J.J. looked in the window again. “How do they
pay for it if you don’t use money?”

“They pay with gold.”

“Eh?” said J.J. “Where’s the sense in that?”

“No point in asking me,” said Aengus. “I never did get a grip on the concept of profit.”

Inside the shop a number of shrill little voices embarked upon an angry argument. As J.J. followed Aengus away from the window, he noticed that the dog had followed them. She limped up to him and he rubbed her ears.

“What happened to her?” he asked Aengus.

“I don’t know,” said Aengus. “She was like that when she appeared.”

“Appeared from where?”

“From the other side. Your side.”

“But why doesn’t anyone do something about her? She must belong to somebody. Surely?”

“She does,” said Aengus. “She belongs to Fionn Mac Cumhail.”

“Fionn Mac Cumhail? But he’s not real. He’s just a character in a story.”

“Not at all,” said Aengus. “He’s as real as you or me.”

“I suppose he might have been once,” said J.J., “but it must have been an awful long time ago. How old does that make the dog?”

Aengus shrugged. “How would I know? Can you tell from her teeth?”

“That’s not what I mean,” said J.J. “If she was Fionn Mac Cumhail’s dog, she must be ancient. Hundreds and hundreds of years old. When did she appear?”

Aengus looked up at the sky again and pointed. “When the sun was there,” he said. “And now, if you don’t mind, I have to nip in and get that tobacco.”

He went into Burke’s shop, or what would have been Burke’s in J.J.’s version of the village. It didn’t look like a shop now. All he could see through the window was a few old wooden shelves covered in ivy. He was about to follow Aengus in when the dog shoved her head up under his hand again, looking for more sympathy. He scratched her under the chin and bent to look at the wound. Another drop of blood fell from it, and another. Whatever that nonsense was about Fionn Mac Cumhail, the wound was still fresh. A good vet would almost certainly be able to do something about it. But were there any vets here?

J.J. walked back along the street, and Bran hobbled at his heels. At the square he crossed over to the house that ought to have been the vet’s practice. He knocked on the door anyway. If Burke’s was a shop, and if the
chemist’s was an alchemist’s, then perhaps there might be some version of a vet in the house. But the door was opened by Drowsy Maggie.

“Hello again,” she said. “Have you come for a tune?”

“No,” said J.J. “I was looking for the vet.”

“What’s a vet?”

“A vet. You know. A doctor for animals.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing,” said Maggie. “We don’t have them here, anyway. Nor doctors, either.”

“You don’t have doctors?”

“What would we want them for?”

“To make you better,” said J.J. “When you’re ill.”

Maggie shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that here. If you’re well you’re well and you won’t get ill. If you’re ill you’re ill and you won’t get any better. I wouldn’t worry about her. Nobody gets any worse, either…” Maggie hesitated. “At least, that’s the way it was”—she pointed at the sky—“when the sun was where it ought to be.”

J.J.’s head was beginning to spin. “But she’s in pain,” he said.

“She is, isn’t she?” said Maggie. “Poor Bran. Are you sure you don’t fancy a tune?”

THE GOLD RING

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The new policeman arrived into work bright and early on Monday morning. He was sent, along with Garda Treacy, to make house-to-house calls along the route that the missing boy would have taken between Anne Korff’s house and the village. To Larry’s relief, Anne Korff herself was not at home. He had, during the journey from Gort, already referred to her once as “Lucy Campbell,” and he didn’t want any further confusions arising.

They brought a photograph of J.J. with them and showed it to everyone they found at home that morning, but no one remembered seeing the boy on Saturday. One or two people, however, had seen Garda O’Dwyer. After the second reference to his beautiful fiddle playing, Garda Treacy said, “We must get a
listen to you sometime. Where do you play?”

“At home, mostly,” said Larry.

“Does Sergeant Early know?”

“I don’t think so,” said Larry.

Treacy stopped the car outside the next house on the road, but he didn’t get out. “He plays himself, you know. The banjo.”

“A monstrous instrument,” said Larry. “They should have left it in America where it belongs.”

“Don’t let the sergeant hear you say that,” said Treacy.

“I won’t,” said Larry.

They returned to the station for their lunch, and afterward they drove to the village to continue with their inquiries. They started with the shops. Word of J.J.’s disappearance had reached everyone by that time, and the two guards met with a lot of concern, but no information.

They were in Fallon’s supermarket when they ran into Thomas O’Neill, one of Kinvara’s oldest residents. He was buying milk and had already paid for it, but he stayed beside the cash desk when the two guards came in. He listened as Garda Treacy began to interview the girl who was at the till, then he stepped up close to Garda O’Dwyer.