Thin Air (8 page)

‘James Bond,’ said Joseph, from behind his magazine.

‘You shut up, you,’ said Aine. ‘It was Aengus, wasn’t it Grandda?’

‘’Twas indeed. And when I saw Specks at the fair in Ballinasloe I said to myself, “Now. That horse there mightn’t be Aengus at all, but it might be. And if it is, wouldn’t I be the fool who didn’t make some attempt to buy him!”’

Aine laughed delightedly. ‘And is he Aengus?’ she said.

‘What do you think?’ said Thomas.

The front door banged loudly and, a moment later, Gerard’s car could be heard starting up and pulling off along the boirin. Thomas stood up.

‘Is that why the hole on the island is blocked with stones?’ said Aine.

‘No,’ said Thomas. ‘That’s another story altogether.’

‘Tell it!’ said Aine.

‘Go on,’ said Joseph.

But Thomas was back in the dreadful present, and the other story was a grim and frightening one, even for him.

Brigid passed a small cairn of flat stones. She peered briefly in among them but not too closely, afraid of what she might see. Far from finding the mountainside easier to. manage this time, she was more frightened than ever. She had a feeling that she was being watched and kept looking out for the goats. But this time, they were nowhere to be seen.

She stepped on a huge flake of limestone which wobbled noisily. The hare she had seen earlier, or perhaps another one, appeared from nowhere and loped off towards the hazel. Its coat shone red-gold in the sun. When it got to the edge of the woods it sat up on its haunches in the shadows and was camouflaged; one vertical line among many. Brigid kept her eye on it for a while, but the grikes demanded her attention and when she next looked up it was gone.

But it had calmed her, because of its familiarity perhaps, or because it had distracted her from the morbid thoughts that were scratching away at her consciousness but which she was not yet prepared to confront. By the time she reached the edge of the hazel woods she had one thought only and that was to cross through them and climb up the crag beyond, from where she could look down into the valley below.

Rathcormac was barely more than a village, but it had eleven pubs. Gerard visited them all. One or two of them were open for the desperate cases and the odd morning coffee, but most of them were still closed. It wasn’t a problem. Gerard knew all the publicans and none of them minded opening their doors to him, even though one of them had clearly got out of bed to do it. Some of the bars were still as they had been at closing time the previous night, the tables covered in overflowing ashtrays and sticky spills. Others were neatly swept and clean. All of them smelled of sour beer and fag-ends. By the third or fourth one, Gerard was beginning to find the smell nauseating.

Trish finished her breakfast and washed the few dishes, then turned the two fillies out into the paddock to stretch their legs. The boxes were in dire need of mucking out, since Gerard always did the bare minimum when she was away, but she decided to go and find out what was happening at the house first. Joseph was in the kitchen. He pointed with his chin at her frayed jeans and thick sweater.

‘And on the cat-walk now, we have Patricia Kelly in the hottest Paris fashions …’

Trish ignored him and went on into the sitting room to talk to Thomas.

None of the publicans had seen Martina. Most of her friends had moved away from the area, but those she still hung around with had been in town. By the time Gerard had checked the most likely pubs, the situation was looking grim. But he went on to the less likely ones and asked there, and even brought the photograph into the ones where Martina wouldn’t have been seen dead. He was wasting his time.

His last stop was O’Loughlin’s. He knew Martina hadn’t been there because he had been there himself. But he needed a small bit of comfort. Just one.

When Father Fogarty arrived, Joseph put the kettle on and retreated to the sitting room to fetch Thomas.

‘He’s afraid of the priest,’ whispered Trish.

‘Why wouldn’t he be?’ said Thomas, a little too loud. ‘Sure hasn’t he got sin written all over him?’

If Father Fogarty heard, he gave no indication of it. He was genuinely distraught at Martina’s disappearance. He came as soon as he heard, he said. His anxiety made Aine uncomfortable and she clung to Thomas as he settled himself beside the range in the kitchen.

‘You all right, then?’ said Joseph, hovering at the door.

‘We are not,’ said Thomas. ‘Come back here and make the tea.’

‘How is your mother taking it all?’ said Father Fogarty.

‘She’s fine,’ said Joseph.

There was a pause, then the priest turned to Thomas. ‘She fell off the horse, then, did she?’

Thomas discovered a hardness within him and felt it growing. He was angry with Joseph for his total self-concern and he was angry with the priest for his youth and his arrogant assumption that he was required here. He didn’t feel like playing the game.

‘We won’t know that until we find her,’ he said, and the omission of the word ‘father’ felt like a crime. ‘We’ll know nothing until then.’

Father Fogarty nodded, effectively silenced. Joseph poured water on to the tea.

‘Have we any biscuits?’ he said, rummaging in a cupboard. With an effort, Thomas lumped Aine up on to his lap. He didn’t normally do that and she was a little uneasy about it, but too polite to get down.

‘Tell me this,’ he said to her. ‘Did you ever see a rabbit eating a slug?’

Aine made a face and shook her head.

‘And did you ever see a slug eating a rabbit?’

‘No. Of course not!’

‘But wouldn’t it be handy if they did?’

‘Why would it be?’ said Aine.

‘Because there’d always be plenty cabbage then, wouldn’t there?’

Joseph giggled. ‘There always is plenty cabbage, Grandda,’ he said.

‘I suppose there is, now you say it,’ said Thomas. ‘All the same you’d wonder, sometimes, wouldn’t you?’ He raised his eyebrows to the priest who smiled awkwardly and wondered if he had missed something.

Joseph got cups out and poured the tea. Father Fogarty could think of no way to relieve the uncomfortable silence, but was rescued by the arrival of Mickey O’Grady and Anthony Daly, eager to help with the search. Soon after them, Maureen Griffin came with a tray full of sandwiches, as if it was a funeral. After that, Meg and Jamesy Kelly arrived with their two teenage daughters, Niamh and Jeannie. Everyone wore boots and carried jackets. Joseph emptied the teapot and put the kettle on again.

Some wanted to go straight away, but Thomas suggested holding on until more people arrived and Gerard came back. So they waited, spreading themselves out around the kitchen and catching up on all that was known. Before long Patsy Davitt arrived, then John and Sandra Mullins, and the questions and explanations began again until, to everyone’s surprise, a contingent of English hippies arrived from the New Age settlement on the mountainside. For once, the local people were glad to see them.

Brigid passed through the hazel without hesitating and climbed out the other side. It was like a test, an ordeal, and she had succeeded in it. She took a moment to congratulate herself, then remembered why she was there and turned to address the crag which climbed steeply away from her.

The goats had left clear indications of the best ways to go. Their paths, the goat streets and highways, were marked by wear, by dusty little passes between rocks, by the occasional broken tuft or earth-fall. Their droppings were everywhere, some fresh and shining like chocolate sweets, some older and paler and crumbly. If there was any smell from them it was too subtle for Brigid’s senses.

She followed the steepest trail. It was a climb rather than a walk, but although her shoes were inadequate the footholds and handholds were plentiful and it wasn’t dangerous. Twice she stopped for a breather, looking down into the darkness of the thicket below. Once the raven passed across the rock-face and its shadow brushed her body; a touch that was somehow more intimate than a kiss. A tingle of energy moved up her spine. She climbed on.

It was tough; another ordeal, another achievement. At the top she made sure of her footing and turned around, seeing at last what the goats saw, what the ravens saw, what she had come up there to see. Beneath her the valley and the lake were spread out like a map.

Some of the hippies knew Martina but some of them didn’t. More photographs were found and handed around. Martina on Specks. Martina on the beach at Fanore with Popeye, hiding behind a towel with a starfish on it. Martina looking cold and miserable at a horse sale. There was a strained silence as the photos went around, and then everyone talked at once.

When Gerard came back he had to leave his car halfway up the boirin. He recognised most of the other cars as he walked among them, and when he saw the priest’s his stomach lurched. The first thought that entered his head was his attempt to seduce Trish, and he thanked God that he hadn’t forced himself upon her. Only as he reached the back door did another thought occur; that the priest might have come to administer the last rites. A cold flood of panic washed through him and was followed by nauseous guilt. At the back door he paused and listened. It sounded as though there was a party going on in there.

Aine was being entertained by Niamh Kelly, who was down on all fours in the sitting room pretending to be a bull. A sudden hush fell over the kitchen and she crept out to the hall. Her father was standing in the doorway opposite, his face very pale. There was a mumble of voices.

‘How’re you, Ger. Any news?’

He shook his head, and it seemed that everyone in the room began to breathe again. They all moved backwards or sideways to make a kind of circle. The table was covered with knapsacks and flasks and half-finished cups of tea but it was cleared in seconds when Joseph dug out the Ordnance Survey map for the area. Then the huddle closed in around it and Aine could see no more. She turned back to Niamh but she had joined the throng and was clearly not playing any longer. Suddenly alone and frightened, Aine went back to the sitting room and turned on the television.

Thomas took a general’s role, giving lots of orders and declining to do any of the footwork himself. No one objected. The young New Agers bent over backwards to be helpful, as though their purpose in life was to atone for the original sin of being born English and they had been presented with a rare opportunity. One of them, a bearded young man called Sam, raced off to town to get parts of the map photocopied. The others stayed and offered everything they had: themselves, their dogs, their horses, bits of rope, a method of sending smoke signals if anyone should find Martina.

Gerard stayed quiet and let his father make the decisions. When Trish came in, he ignored her. More people arrived. Everyone had suggestions. Everyone was heard. Sam came back with the maps and they were distributed. People formed themselves into small groups, and Thomas teamed Joseph up with Father Fogarty to search the lake-shore. Both of them were surprised to find themselves included among the searchers, but neither of them had the neck to beg off.

It took a surprisingly long time for everyone to get organised and out. Trish had her own idea and Thomas agreed to it. Gerard elected to go to the island, and when Thomas suggested he should take someone with him he chose Popeye. Sam offered him a copy of the relevant piece of the map and he managed to be civil as he declined it. On the doorstep he turned back and called to Thomas.

‘Where’s Brigid?’

Thomas shrugged. In the sitting room, Aine heard the question and the silence. She tried hard to think where her mother might be, but she was sure that this time she really didn’t know. A nasty kind of worry tried to wriggle into her head, but she hummed loudly to keep it out, and turned up the volume on the television.

From her perch on the crag Brigid saw the straggling convoy of cars, vans and tractors crawl up the lane from the house and disperse. She was moved by the sight. Year by year the community became more disparate as the old people died off and strangers moved in. Everyone filled their time with their own business and seemed to have none of it left to spend with others. Yesterday Brigid would have said that the community was dead. She could not say that now.

She could see a lot from where she stood but not as much as she had expected. The valley was full of hedges and hummocks and trees, any of which could be concealing a prostrate figure. A couple of times as she scanned the landscape inch by inch her heart skipped at a flash of colour in a hedge or a gateway but by now she had come to recognise a certain shade of yellow and a certain shade of blue as belonging to fertiliser bags. She was sure that Martina had no clothes in either colour.

But she could not picture what Martina might have been wearing. She had not been up when Brigid had left for work the previous morning; most days she wasn’t. Still scanning the valley, wishing that she had a pair of binoculars, Brigid tried to imagine her daughter’s day.

She would have got up late; ten o’clock or so. A small breakfast; she was always on a diet. Where would Gerard have been? She must ask him what he knew. But then what? What did Martina do with her days? Would she phone someone? Was there a boyfriend somewhere, perhaps?

Brigid realised how little she knew of her daughter. They were polite to each other, but not warm, not intimate. Now that she came to think about it, she saw that Martina always held something of herself in reserve; hidden. Not like Kevin. She knew everything about him. When she thought of him her heart warmed. But Martina was just Martina. Always there; dependable as daylight.

But maybe there was more. Maybe there was a whole side to Martina that Brigid didn’t know at all. Something that was always turned away from her, like the dark side of the moon.

One of the search party cars had turned on to the road which led up towards the mountain. It stopped at a gateway and two people got out. Then it carried on for another hundred yards or so and parked. Two more people emerged. They spread out across the fields and a dog skittered here and there between them. Brigid could have saved them a lot of walking. Even so, she was glad that they were there.