Chapter 57
57
I was in a deep sleep when my phone rang: Lenehan, 3.37 a.m. This could only be bad.
“Anna, there’s a fire at the farm. I can see flames.” He sounded panicked. “Fire brigade’s coming from Spiddal. I’m on my way over there now.”
I was up and out of the sofa bed and reaching for a light switch. “Be really careful. I’ll be with you asap.”
As the overhead bulb blazed, a clamor of complaint went up from my sisters and Mum. “What time is it? Twenty to four? In the morning ? Can someone please explain…?”
“A fire at Brigit’s.” I was throwing on clothes, then hurrying down the stairs to bang on Joey’s bedroom door. “Joey, it’s me. Wake up!”
“Anna?” A towel barely protecting his modesty, he looked sleepy. Another man from the Luke Costello School of Nudie Sleeping. “What’s up?”
“A fire at Kearney’s Farm. Get dressed.”
“Fuck!” Instantly he was awake. “Done deliberately?” As he turned away, he was already whipping off the towel, treating me to a glimpse of his delicious flank.
“I don’t know, but what are the chances? I’ll be downstairs at your jeep…” I’d just remembered Joey had returned to M’town without his car. A question began to form, some sort of anxiety. “I forgot, you don’t have it. We’ll go in mine. Mum’s. The Multipla.”
Out in the street, it was pouring rain. It took a moment to notice I was crunching on broken glass: the Multipla’s windscreen was shattered. In fact, all the windows were smashed and the roof had been bashed in: the car was undriveable. Adrenaline propelled me back up three flights of stairs for the keys to Helen’s car, then down again to the street, meeting Joey on the way. “The Death Star’s parked round the back of the hotel,” I said.
“What’s up with your ride?” By then we were outside and he saw for himself. “Holy fuck.”
In the Fiat, Joey was full of questions. “What did Lenehan say? How bad is it?”
“I don’t know,” I kept saying. “I don’t know. But the rain’s a good thing?”
“We can only hope.”
Before long, an orange glow appeared in the night sky.
“Is that…?” Joey said. “…That’s not the sunrise?”
“Don’t think so.” I felt sick. Then came the faint sound of sirens.
The farm gates were open. We bumped down the track, the sirens gaining on us. The old Kearney farmstead looked unharmed but just beyond it, lit by demonic orange light, people were hurrying with buckets of water: Colm, Lenehan, his brother Ree and men who must be nearby neighbors.
Emerging from the car, the noise was as shocking as the heat—a crackling sound of burning wood, wires, whatever it was. Dotted about the land, four—no five—of the newly built cottages were ablaze. My heart sank to my boots. This was no accident, a one-off calamity.
Joey caught Lenehan and yelled, “What can we do?”
“Find something to carry water, fill it from the tap in the yard, don’t get too close to the flames.”
A burning roar sounded, followed by splintering and snapping as part of a building collapsed. Shreds of blackened plastic floated in the wet air. None of this felt real. Adding to the dreamscape, the fire truck hurtled up the track, still blasting its siren. Stopping close to the nearest fire, the noise shut off abruptly. Several men and women leapt out, fanning across the grounds, towards the burning buildings.
“What’re they doing?” someone yelled.
“Checking for inhabitants!”
“They’re empty,” Colm hollered, running after a firefighter. “All the buildings are empty!”
“Get back . All of you get back . You’re making our job harder.”
That the firefighters had arrived was something. But it was hard to watch the flames continue to burn high and loud. Come on, come on, come on. Then a hose was unrolled, a thick rope of water was trained on one of the burning cottages and the tightness in my chest loosened a little. Joey and I exchanged a look of bleak relief.
“So what happened?” I was finally able to ask Lenehan.
“Dad was awake. He doesn’t sleep much. He saw the flames.”
More neighbors had begun to show up but the firefighters made them leave, taking Ree with them. Only Lenehan, Colm, Joey and I remained, the flames scorching our faces.
“In one of the emails”—I’d reached for my phone—“They said if we didn’t leave, their next step would be to burn the place. Something like that, anyway. Let me find it…here it is, Joey.”
From: [email protected]
Next time we’ll burn the houses won’t be just paint
“My God,” he said. “But ProudIrishPatriot1916 can be traced, right?”
“I think you’d need a warrant. Helen would know. But the police could easily do it?”
“Would someone be that stupid? To make a threat then carry it out?”
I didn’t know. “There’s something else, Joey. Misinformation has been posted on Facebook since January. An account called Local Hero. That’s where all the rumors about four-story buildings and poisoning the dolphins originated.”
“No idea who it is?”
I shook my head.
“You told me this wasn’t over. I should have listened.”
More townsfolk came, with umbrellas and flasks of coffee. A nimble, mustachioed man darted at me, placing a basket of still-warm muffins into my hands. It was only days later that I realized it had been Steve, the “mad” chef.
They were all sent away.
Suddenly things began to speed up when two fire trucks arrived from Galway city, carrying chemical extinguishers and extra hoses. Finally, one fire was out, revealing a charred, smoking ruin. Then a second inferno was quenched.
“Here we go,” Joey muttered—Sergeant Burke had arrived.
First he exchanged words with Colm, then he came to Joey and me.
“I hope you’re both happy,” he said. “Bringing this palaver here.”
“How can we help?” Joey was weary but polite.
“Need a chat with both of you. Come to the station nice and early in the morning.”
“Certainly.”
Burke gave us another glare then strode away.
I don’t know how long we stood in the rain, silently urging the fires to cease. But by the time the last one was out, morning had broken. The world was no longer satanic but postapocalyptic: charred ground, blackened stumps of wall, the baleful sun presiding over a gray-white smoking hell.
I looked at Joey: my hopelessness was mirrored in his eyes.
“We’ll head back, get some sleep,” he said. “Eat something. Reconvene later.”
As I drove back to town, I didn’t think I’d ever felt so defeated. “How bad is this?”
He shook his head. “Maybe it’s over.”