Thin Air (13 page)

Joseph felt slightly nauseous on the way home. He wasn’t sure whether it was because of the two pints or the poisonous silence in the car. He felt considerably worse when they got home and found a police car parked in front of the house. Gerard ran in. Joseph crept in behind him.

A young officer was standing inside the kitchen door and Sergeant Mullins was sitting at the table with Brigid. He had a lot of handwritten notes in front of him.

‘What’s going on?’ said Gerard.

‘I’m just trying to put a picture together,’ said Peter.

‘What sort of picture do you mean?’

‘He was just asking a few questions,’ said Brigid.

‘About what? I already told him. It was a riding accident.’

‘What was?’ said Peter.

‘But what … what else could have happened her?’

‘We don’t know, Mr Keane. We have to be open to all eventualities.’

Gerard had kept his own worst fears in the dark. They emerged even as the sergeant spoke them.

‘It’s possible that she might have encountered someone.’

Gerard sat down heavily. Encountered. The word rang around his head.

‘I’ll go over and have a word with the stable girl, if you have no objections, Mr Keane?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Thank you for your help, Mrs Keane. I may have a word with Thomas as well.’

‘Thomas has a bad heart,’ said Gerard.

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Peter.

Aine was allowed to give Popeye his dinner.

‘Good dog,’ she said. ‘Good Popeye.’

The dog tried to be polite but for once in his life he had an appetite and it needed all his attention.

‘Maybe Martina is hiding,’ said Aine.

‘By God,’ said Thomas. ‘Maybe she is.’

‘I might have known where you were,’ said Brigid to Gerard. ‘But I’m surprised at you, Joseph.’

‘Ah, ’twasn’t like that, for God’s sake,’ said Gerard. ‘I was with Brian. We just stopped off for a quick one.’

‘A lesson in how to deal with difficulties, is it?’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’

There was a despairing moan behind them and Joseph shuffled off upstairs. In the silence that followed, both Gerard and Brigid were aware of the gulf between them but neither of them was able to bridge it.

Trish wouldn’t let Peter in. She hated men in uniform, no matter what colour it was and she had no intention of entertaining two of them on her own at this time of the day. She said that she’d be happy to talk to them in the morning. Peter Mullins didn’t push the matter. There was, after all, no evidence of a crime. Yet.

Brigid gave Joseph a few moments and went upstairs. She didn’t have to go to the door. She could hear him from the top of the stairs, sobbing in a voice that was no longer that of a child but not yet that of a man. She had no experience of what he was going through, and she found that she was too distressed herself to be able to offer any help. Reluctantly she left him and went back downstairs.

A
INE HELD TIGHT TO
Thomas’s hand as they walked up the track between the bungalow and her house. Sometimes Thomas played teasing games in the dark but he wasn’t in the mood for it now and she was glad. The night seemed full of horrors closing in behind them as they walked. She turned. Thomas’s outside light was on. It cast a faint glimmer out on to the lake behind it and it seemed to Aine that something white glided slowly across it.

She pressed her cheek against Thomas’s sleeve; warm wool smelling of tobacco and turf smoke. She skipped a couple of steps, hanging off his arm.

‘Grandda?’

‘Yes?’

‘Shall we play a joke?’

‘What kind of joke?’

‘Let’s pretend we found her!’

But Thomas had lost track of what she was saying. There was a car moving away up the boirin and it looked to him like a police car. He needed all his concentration to breathe deeply and to keep his knees from buckling.

Her granddad seemed to be tilting. Aine put his arm around her narrow shoulders and helped him along, and after a minute he was straight again. She ran on ahead to open the door.

The television was on. Gerard and Brigid were both looking at it but neither of them was watching. Aine ran in and jumped on to the sofa. Thomas followed, breathing with difficulty. Gerard jumped up and guided him into his own chair.

‘Was that a police car?’ he gasped.

‘’Twas, yes. But there was no news, Dad. It wasn’t bad news.’

Thomas nodded. Everyone waited. The concerns of Pat Kenny’s guests in the background seemed absurd. Brigid brought Thomas a small glass of brandy.

‘Your dog put up a hare on the island,’ said Gerard.

‘Did he?’ said Thomas.

‘He did. But it ran him off the edge, doubled back. He went right over and down into the lake.’

‘My God,’ said Thomas. He was recovering fast, and making short work of the brandy.

Gerard looked into the fire for a moment. ‘And then she vanished,’ he said.

There was a pause. Someone on the television tried to sell them toilet paper. Then Thomas said: ‘There’s magic in hares.’

Brigid looked up at him. ‘Is there?’ she asked.

Joseph’s room was silent as Brigid passed by with Aine. She hoped he was asleep.

Aine’s room was all a-clutter. She looked anxiously at her mother but for once she didn’t seem to have noticed.

‘I could be picking up my things while you got me a hot water bottle?’ she said.

‘Oh, no. Not tonight, sweetheart. I’ll be your hot water bottle.’

Aine changed into her pyjamas the way her friends had taught her on school trips to the swimming pool; without exposing any of the ‘naughty bits’. She always got changed that way, even when there was no one in the room. God might have been looking.

Brigid picked a few clothes off the floor and dropped them on to the spare bed then went over and stood at the open window. There was no moon. The mountains were just visible, black against black. A light breeze huffed at her and swayed the curtains. She closed the window.

Aine jumped into bed. ‘What shall we read?’

‘Let’s not read tonight. Do you mind?’

Aine shrugged and wriggled into the bed. Her mother stood for another moment then pulled the curtains. The springs creaked as she sat down on the edge of the bed and removed her shoes. Aine squeezed over as Brigid got in, lifting the covers high and snuggling them in around her shoulders.

She was slightly embarrassed. For years her mother had laid down with her at bed-time, to read a story or just to chat. But not recently. Not for a long time. Her bed was her castle, now, her nest, her place for private feelings and dreams and explorations. Her mother didn’t fit into it any more.

She pursued her own thoughts, but didn’t get far. She had heard Gerard and Thomas talking about the police before she had come up.

‘What does “encountered” mean?’ she asked.

Brigid drew a big breath. ‘Well. It means “met”, I suppose.’

Aine nodded, but it was an unsatisfactory answer. Martina might have met someone. So what? Who might she have met? Somehow she knew that it was not a question that she should ask. Her mother’s distress was heavier than Thomas’s. It was definitely much too big for the bed.

She turned on to her side and closed her eyes. Brigid stroked the back of her neck with gentle, possessive fingers. Aine allowed the pleasure to claim her until it became an irritant, then she lay still with great concentration, the way she did on Christmas Eve when her father was sneaking around, pretending to be Santa. It worked, and soon Brigid stopped. Aine felt her raise herself on to her elbow, look down at her, then get up slowly and carefully. She tucked the bedclothes in around Aine’s shoulders then went out of the room. Aine waited for a moment, then turned on to her back and stared up at the ceiling.

Brigid listened at Joseph’s door. She was just about to creep away when she recognised the faint leakage of electronic sound from a Walkman. She knocked. ‘Yeah?’

She went in. Joseph sat up on the bed and the earphones fell off. He fumbled with the controls.

‘Are you all right?’ said Brigid.

‘Yeah. Fine.’

‘Have you had any dinner?’

‘No.’

‘Why don’t you come down. I’ll heat something up for you.’

‘I’m all right. I’m not hungry.’

‘Come down anyway. Sit by the fire.’

He shook his head and put the earphones back on, closing her out.

Thomas insisted on going home and Gerard walked down with him. The breeze lifted their hair and the hem of Gerard’s jacket and dropped them again.

‘The wind’s getting up,’ said Thomas. ‘I’d say there’ll be rain.’

Gerard lifted the beam of the sheep lamp towards the clouds’. Thomas laughed.

‘’Tisn’t that good a lamp,’ he said.

They had come to his door. Popeye bounded around their feet and Gerard put out a fond hand to him as though there had never been anger between them.

‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’

‘I’m certain,’ said Thomas. ‘You look after yourself, now. And your wife.’ He called the dog and went in. Gerard turned away and gave a wry laugh at the idea that Brigid might need looking after. She was tough as old boots, that one, a strapping woman, made to go the distance. If he had realised how tough, he reflected, he would never have married her. But that was life. They laid their traps and you walked into them.

He walked on down to the lake and shone the torch out over the water. The island was just beyond the reach of the beam. He turned it off and waited for his eyes to adjust. The light from Thomas’s house cast a glimmer on the black water. It was moving now, under the influence of the wind. Tiny, regular waves ran and danced. The black hump of the island appeared out beyond them. Gerard didn’t know why he was looking at it or what he expected to see. But when he remembered the dog scrabbling at the mouth of the souterrain a black wave of fear closed over him and he switched on the lamp and shone its light around him in a full circle. The wind flicked the collar of his jacket against his cheek and tossed his hair right off his forehead. It was going to be a wild night.

The old house was full of silverfish and small, dark moths. By day they sat on the rough, whitewashed walls. By night the silverfish scuttled and the moths flew lightly against the bare bulbs or the screen of the television.

Mildew stained the walls. A spider city expanded slowly in the larder. In the unused parlour, the wallpaper hung off the walls.

Gerard had never intended that Trish should live like that. He had offered to get a plasterer in and to paint the place himself if she would choose the colours. Somehow she hadn’t got round to it, but now she wished that she had. Normally she didn’t see much beyond the sink, the cooker and the television. Tonight she saw everything. She saw the dark, smoke-stained ceiling and the dirty brown paint on the doors and windows, the flimsy wiring, the ancient fuse-box above the fridge. She saw a bent, ineffectual bolt inside the front door and a broken catch on the rotten sash window. It was not a safe place to be.

The gutter-pipe that Gerard had promised to fix started to rattle. Trish turned on the telly. The wind snuffled at the window. She turned the volume up. Pat Kenny smiled benignly upon a pair of singing nuns. Trish tried to work out if it was supposed to be funny. The rain came like a wave to batter against the window and Trish swore. Whatever was or was not out there, the yard would have to be prepared for the storm.

She searched out her torch, put on her coat and fastened all the zips and toggles. She left Pat Kenny and the nuns grinning at each other and went out into the night. The torch had new batteries but it was still practically useless. Trish had to knock it against her hand to get it to work, and then it flared and dimmed and flickered. As she reached inside the tack room for the light switch it went off again, leaving her to grope in a gaping darkness while the wind behind her snatched at her jacket. When she found the switch the whole place lit up in a blaze and The Nipper, whose appetite was vulpine, called softly in the hope of breakfast.

Trish shut the top doors, one by one. The new fillies were huddled together in the corner, peering out apprehensively.

Trish flattered them with baby-talk as she closed them in, envying their comfort and their friendship. A bucket blew across the yard and she ran to catch it. When she put it back into the feed shed she saw the old mare’s rug, neatly folded as she had left it.

Trish almost turned away; almost succeeded in convincing herself that she hadn’t seen it, that the thought of the old mare standing out in the storm had not crossed her mind. But she failed. If she didn’t put the rug on the mare, she wouldn’t sleep.

Gerard saw the stable lights go on and turned off his lamp. He watched Trish’s silhouette as she closed the top doors and felt a surge of warmth towards her. She was a good girl, without doubt, and one of the best riders in the county. He wished he could tell her that. He wished he could start again. He couldn’t get it out of his mind that his lust, his sinful intentions were somehow connected with the disappearance of Martina. If only he could put it right, wipe the slate clean.

Trish folded the heavy green canvas rug over her arm. The wind snatched the tack-room door from her hand as she went out and slammed it against the wall. She closed it and shot the bolt home before the next gust could rise. Crossing the paddock, bent forward against the storm, she scolded herself for trusting the weather. The lake was notorious for its rapid changes of mood. Boats got into trouble quite regularly, capsized or driven aground by the sudden squalls. A few years ago a German tourist and his young son had been drowned there.

How many years ago?

Seven?

Trish shook the thought out of her mind and glanced around. The torch was making things worse with its flickering, creating shadows which bloomed and bulged. She turned it off and trusted to her eyes.

Thomas wished he had accepted when Brigid had offered to have oil-fired heating put in for him. No matter how well he succeeded in shielding his mind, his body seemed to be absorbing the day’s shocks and reacting to them. He was exhausted. Lighting the fire seemed to be a mammoth undertaking, but he was cold. He needed it. As though in agreement, Popeye had parked himself so close to the fireplace that he was practically inside it.