Set in Stone Read online

  ‘Then what?’ she said. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘Nothing – just a letter from Danny, that’s all. More of the usual bullshit. Nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘From Danny?’ Lynda didn’t try to hide her alarm. ‘That’s always something to worry about.’

  Robert stooped and kissed her. ‘We’ll talk later. It’s nothing to get upset about. Just Danny being Danny, all over again. Same old, same old.’ He shrugged. ‘Trust me.’ He drained his coffee cup and smiled at her, but it was a smile without conviction. ‘Now I’ve really got to run. Call you later, okay?’

  Lynda saw the strain around his eyes, the pulled-down corners of his mouth. She noticed the shadowy bit under his chin that he always missed while shaving. Her stomach went into freefall. But she squeezed his hand. ‘Yeah. ’Course. I’ll be here all afternoon. Has Danny said anything in particular to upset you?’

  Robert shook his head. ‘No, no, not at all. I just don’t relish hearing from him, you know that. All his “poor me” crap. Danny, the eternal victim.’ His tone was impatient.

  Lynda’s questions hovered in the air between them, but she didn’t ask them. Instead, she searched Robert’s face for the truth and didn’t find it. His silences always made her feel edgy. She had never got used to them. ‘Let’s talk about it when you get home, then, all right? We’ll keep saying “no” to whatever it is he’s asking, just like we agreed. Don’t you worry about him – and I won’t either.’ She gave him a quick hug and brushed imaginary specks of dust off the shoulders of his suede jacket. She wanted to hold onto him for a few minutes longer.

  Robert missed a beat. ‘Yeah, well, I’m certainly not babysitting him again, not after the last time.’ He seemed about to say something else, but then changed his mind. ‘Look, gotta run. See you tonight.’

  She blew him a kiss; he waved from the front door.

  ‘Have a good day,’ Lynda called. She watched from the porch as he struggled out of his shoes and into his work boots, holding onto the Jeep’s open door as he did so. He fired his yellow hard hat into the back, and settled his briefcase beside him. With one arm slung across the back of the passenger seat, he glanced over his shoulder and reversed down the long driveway. All his movements were swift, confident. Lynda had always admired Robert’s physicality: it was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place, the best part of thirty years ago. He had towered over everyone else she knew in those days. His longish dark hair and grey eyes had been a striking combination, one Lynda had found irresistible. His body did what he asked of it: tennis, football, pouring cement, sawing wood. There was nothing too much for it. She still loved its solidity, tending now towards heaviness. Predictability made flesh.

  Lynda watched the receding headlights, saw that the Jeep’s paintwork was almost completely covered by a thick layer of greyish mud. She waited on the front step until all traces of Robert’s presence vanished and the car had disappeared down the hill towards the traffic lights.

  She stepped into the hallway and walked quickly back towards the kitchen. Once inside, she turned to where Robert had dumped the morning post on the counter under the microwave. Just the usual stuff: ESB bill, gas bill, flyers for yet another pizza joint. Impatiently, she pushed them aside and riffled through the remaining envelopes one more time. She must have missed it first time around. But there was nothing. Nothing from Danny.

  For a moment, Lynda looked at the strewn counter with disbelief. Then she moved over to the sink and filled a glass with cold water. She sipped at it, keeping both hands around the heavy tumbler. It helped to anchor her. Anchored by water, she thought. Not very substantial. Still, it was better than nothing.

  She went back out into the hallway and glanced at the bottom stair. But there was no envelope here, either. Sometimes, Robert tossed the post there, just outside his office. He’d leave it, reminding himself to deal with it later. She stood, feeling even more puzzled now. She and Robert kept no secrets from each other concerning Danny. That had always been their most solid, their most united, front.

  There was a faint breeze making its way through the flap of the letter box that still needed to be fixed. She must remind Robert, again, that there was a new one waiting to be installed. She wished that she could block off the letter box completely, seal it closed for good. Too much news of Danny had reached them that way over the years. That, and his sporadic phone calls, all of them brittle, all of them needy, sucking her and Robert in again before they even realized it. But it was well over three years since they’d heard from him now, long enough for memories of his last visit home to be, if not forgotten, then at least gratefully put aside.

  She decided now not to ‘go there’ as her children would advise. She didn’t care to remember. Instead, she tried to shrug off the images that were flashing by, thick and fast now, all their bells and whistles zinging. She walked back into the kitchen and poured a fresh mug of coffee for herself, put tea and toast onto a tray. Then she made her way upstairs to Ciarán’s room.

  Time he was up, and out of her hair.

  Time she got to work. That, at least, was a distraction.

  Danny is remembering.

  It’s been happening a lot, these days. Whenever the time approaches to go back – he no longer cares to think of it as ‘home’ – it’s as though his own personal cinema knows it. It plays the same vibrant reel over and over again – Technicolor, complete with sound effects – and reminds him of all the things he can never allow himself to forget. Before he knows it, his past becomes the most immediate present he has ever known, somewhere much more real, much more insistent than the here and now.

  Danny has begun to walk more quickly, his steps speeding up to keep pace with his thoughts. He is conscious of something stirring, prodding at the inside of his skull, needling him to respond. It’s like his recent practice bouts in the ring, where his opponent kept on hitting a vulnerable spot, a small, hot cut just above his right eye. Apart from the pain, and the trickle of warm blood that kept blinding him, what he can remember most is the rage. The other man’s jabbing left, the incessant, relentless focus of it, meant that someone was aware of his weakness; someone was taking advantage, exploiting it.

  Not for the first time, Danny finds it strange the way that tiny, insignificant things detonate memories. Right now, it’s the shadow that falls on the railway sleepers as the weak January sun creeps along the valley. But his day, the day he is remembering, was summer. He knows that because they were all wearing shorts.

  He can see his ten-year-old self and Tommy and Mick – both boys known locally as Twinnie McCormack, because nobody could ever tell them apart. In fact, the boys made sure that nobody could ever tell them apart. They got away with more, far more, that way. They made it their business to confuse the ever-watchful mothers standing in gardens, looking out their top windows, keeping an eye on their own brood as well as everyone else’s. The Twinnies didn’t fool their mother, of course, not even for a moment. That would have been impossible. But they fooled pretty much everyone else’s.

  Danny can see the three of them now, skinny freckled figures, playing by the railway tracks that used to run behind the council houses, seven streets over and a lifetime away from home. His mother didn’t like any of them playing there. Her lip would curl a little, saying it was no place for nice children. But Mrs McCormack didn’t mind. So Danny learned to go along with Tommy and Mick and just say nothing. He still remembers the excitement of retrieving the pennies, flattened hot and thin by the wheels of the train, the copper hen distorted, elongated, forever caught in mid-squawk. They were inseparable, the twins and him. Until the day of the cat. That was the day Danny realized that the world was not as he believed it to be, that it had a method and a logic of its own that could defeat him, sideline him, pushing him off his own rightful place at the centre of things.

  The cat had been a poor show, he remembers that, too. It was scrawny, wild,
its orange fur matted and dirty. But catching it had still been a triumph. Danny and Mick had made the trap together. First, they’d dug a hole in the hard summer ground, softening the soil with a bucket of water drawn from the McCormacks’ rain barrel, the one that squatted in their back yard. Into the hole the Twinnies placed the fish heads, stinking their way through the Evening Herald of the day before, bloody streaks making the print run.

  The Twinnies had claimed ownership of this part; Danny had been allowed only to watch. Their fish heads, their Herald, their privilege. Never mind. Danny had other, better things planned for later. He watched as the black ink stamped the news of yesterday’s events onto the Twinnies’ sweaty palms and forearms. Watched as the blackness made its way underneath their fingernails and into the creases – bendy ones, just like tiny smiles – around their knuckles.

  Mrs McCormack had wrapped up the fish heads the afternoon before, folding the newspaper at the top and bottom to make a snug parcel. Danny had watched at the kitchen table, fascinated at the way the fish eyes stared, cold and glassy, their mouths open, taken by surprise. Into the newspaper nest they went, along with the slimy, stringy guts and the glittering scales from their wavy blue and silver flesh.

  Mrs McCormack had filleted the dozen or so mackerel without fuss, joking away with the three boys as they drank glasses of MiWadi and ate fluffy biscuits – white ones only: the boys wouldn’t touch the pink – three pairs of elbows resting on the kitchen table. Danny had often seen Mrs McCormack use her swift, precise knife. He admired the way she moved, the whole cut and thrust of her. She’d put the tightly wrapped parcel into the bin when she was finished, washed her hands with Sunlight soap and dried them on the tea towel.

  ‘Off you go, boys,’ she’d said, throwing the words back over her shoulder as she looked out the window. ‘Off you go outside and play. The sun is still shining.’

  Once she’d left the kitchen, the Twinnies lifted the lid off the galvanized bin that stood just outside the back door, trying not to make any noise. Then Tommy leaned in very carefully and pulled out the parcel. All three raced to the embankment together where adventure lay, waiting for them to begin.

  Danny and Mick covered the hole with a length of blue sacking, stolen from Mr McCormack’s shed. On top of that, they placed leaves and twigs and a handful of dirt. That was Tommy’s idea – he had insisted on it. He’d seen it in a book, some story or other about hunters in India trying to snare a lion. Or was it a tiger? Danny could never remember that bit. Tommy had probably got it wrong, anyway. But the twin claimed that it would fool the cat into thinking it was on solid ground. Even Mick had thought that that was stupid. The cat wouldn’t have time to think about anything at all, he said. It would fall into their fishy trap and then they’d capture it. But they did it anyway, sprinkling the thin surface of the sacking to camouflage it.

  The Twinnies always stuck together, even if they didn’t agree with each other. Danny knew it would not be a good idea ever to try to come between them.

  It was Tommy’s job to make the noose. He was good at making things; his long, sure fingers plaited the strands of twine together. When everything was ready, they hid, the three of them, crouching behind a clump of wild, scratchy bushes that produced millions of fat blackberries in autumn.

  They hadn’t actually thought about what they would do afterwards, once they’d caught the cat. At least the Twinnies hadn’t. But Danny had. The previous night, that was all he had thought about, with a hot, hard pleasure stirring between his legs. He knew exactly what he wanted to do.

  ‘Here it comes,’ Tommy’s voice was a high, excited whisper. ‘Here’s the cat.’

  The scrawny animal, sure enough, was making its way across the scorched ground, heading straight for the sacking. Its tail was up, flicking from side to side. It was as though the tip had an eye, like a periscope breaking the surface of the sea. It glanced jerkily first right, then left, checking for trouble. The cat’s ribs seemed to undulate along its orange coat. They were so prominent, so distinct that Danny could count them. The paws were furtive, taking soft, sneaky steps, as though the cat was already suspicious of what lay ahead.

  The three boys kept very still, and Danny remembers holding his breath. Suddenly, there was a flurry of movement: of cat and clay and sacking. Tommy darted out from among the trees, a blood-curdling, whooping sound coming from his normally quiet lips. Mick followed, stumbling forward, his hands already in the hole, pressing down on the sacking, keeping the spitting, writhing cat in one place while Tommy slipped the noose over its head.

  It was done, over, almost before they realized it. Tommy pulled sharply on the noose, and the cat dangled at the end of his home-made rope, clawing wildly at the air. The boys were all laughing now, shouting, doing an Indian war dance around the struggling cat, who was showing no signs of quietening.

  ‘It worked!’ Mick was jubilant. He punched his fist in the air. ‘It worked!’

  ‘Will I let him go now?’ Tommy’s arm was tiring. He was holding it out from his body, leaning forward, his arse stuck out in the air. The cat was frantic, clawing, hissing, trying to make contact with something, anything at all. No wonder Tommy was keen to keep his distance, keen to let it go now that the thrill of the chase was over. But it was the wrong question to ask. Danny knew it was the wrong question to ask. Letting the cat go was not in his plans, whatever the Twinnies might feel.

  ‘NO!’ he shouted.

  The Twinnies stopped and looked over at him. He thought that Tommy looked frightened. The freckles were standing out on his thin face, his cheeks were getting redder by the minute.

  ‘I have an idea.’ Danny walked over to the Twinnies, holding out his hand for the cat. They didn’t stop him. In fact, he could see relief pass over Tommy’s flushed face, like a cloud shadowing the sun. He held out the cat, its hissing silenced now. Tommy’s gesture was an abrupt, sinewy one. Here, you take it, then. I’ve had enough.

  Danny grabbed the noose with both hands, hoping that he wasn’t already too late. The cat was still breathing, just, although its eyes were becoming milky. He didn’t have any time to waste.

  Turning his back on the Twinnies, he raced down towards the railway tracks. Danny could hear them shouting behind him, but he didn’t stop. He was always able to run faster than they were. He could see the train now, snaking its way towards him, although he couldn’t hear it yet. His hands started to tremble and he could feel his thing beginning to grow hard again. He stumbled as he reached the tracks, almost losing his balance. The cat was quiet now, its paws jerking weakly at the air from time to time.

  Quickly, he bent down. He pushed the animal into position on the rail, its head dangling uselessly to one side. The metal glinted back at him, warm in the sunshine. Using the noose, he tied the cat’s head as close to the rail as he could manage, laughing out loud as the rest of its body flailed, its paws making feeble contact with nothing at all. Fresh air – just like when Tommy tried to box and his punches fell back uselessly to his sides.

  Then Danny ran, further down the tracks, seeing the Twinnies standing a good way up the embankment. He waved to them to come and watch, but they seemed to be rooted to the spot.

  And then he forgot all about them. He stopped and turned to watch the approach of the train, his heart hammering. He had a great view of what came next: the loud, fat slam of the wheels, the blood spurting high up into the air, the rusty blur of colour. Grinning hugely, he waved to the train driver, who hooted back at him, heard the train’s shrill, mournful whistle. The man didn’t even know what he had done, would never know. The cat’s head had been sliced off cleanly, more cleanly than Danny would have thought possible, and rolled to one side, as though it had just turned to go to sleep. The rest of its body was reduced to mush. All that was left was a dark stain on the railway sleepers, a furry shadow of its former life.

  When he looked up, the Twinnies were gone. He was disappointed. They should have stayed, should have waited for him. He was fi
lled to the brim, tingling with excitement over what they had just done: the chase, the capture, the execution, all of it. But when he went to knock in for the Twinnies, their mum, tight-lipped, told him they weren’t going out to play. They were staying in to have their tea.

  That night, Mr and Mrs McCormack came to call. He could hear their voices downstairs, make out his father’s answering rumble. Then light, cautious footsteps up the stairs: Robbie, his pansy older brother. At thirteen, he was still weedy, scared of his own shadow.

  ‘You’re in trouble,’ he said, breathless. ‘Daddy’s goin’ to kill you!’

  Danny stuck his two fingers up in the air, and his brother retreated, startled into silence.

  It wasn’t the worst hiding he’d ever had. Even if it had been, he wasn’t going to show it. Part of him felt that it was worth it, anyway, and part of him didn’t feel anything at all. He had always known, somewhere deep inside him, that this was not the sort of things mummies and daddies wanted to know about. They’d have preferred it if he hadn’t brought it home to their doorstep.

  He remembered the way his mum had shrieked when their own cat, Titus, had brought back stiff and broken birds, trophies, and placed them gently at her slippered feet. But she didn’t want them. She’d shouted at Titus and screamed at Dad to take the bodies away. Because they made her sad.

  Danny hadn’t known what to make of that.

  But he knew that his mum and dad felt they had to fix something he had broken. Or stop him doing it again. Or both. Whenever he got into trouble, there were usually tears from his mother, hiccups as she dabbed at her eyes with a tiny lace handkerchief. Then an earnest talking to from his father, and sometimes, but not always, a hiding. His father seemed unconvinced by punishment; his heart was never in it. This will hurt me more than it hurts you: that kind of thing. But still, it seemed that he felt duty bound to show his wayward son the error of his ways. That was why Danny had learned to keep things separate, private. He could never trust others to see the world the same way he did.