Chapter Eighteen #2
Then he says, “That’s bullshit.” His voice is rising; the second of horror has left him furious.
“I know you’re going around saying—which is slander, by the way, and we’re considering taking legal advice—you’re saying my father did something to Rachel.
If you actually had witnesses, you’d have gone straight to the Guards. You’ve got nothing.”
“I’ve been here longer than you think, son,” Cal says. “And I learn fast. I don’t take stuff like this to the Guards any more.”
“Then what the actual fuck are you trying to accomplish here? Is this you trying to blackmail us? Or are you hoping I’ll, what, break down in tears and confess to—”
Eugene has forgotten all about the height difference and is right up in Cal’s face. Rip is starting a growl; Cal lifts a hand to keep him in place. He says, “I’m telling you this because you think the same thing I do. You think your daddy did something to Rachel.”
“No I fucking don’t. Who do you think you—”
“Yeah you do. You told me straight out, back in the hotel. You let Rachel in on your daddy’s plan, she didn’t like it, you said if he just waited she’d come around, but he wouldn’t wait. That’s what you told me.”
“No. I didn’t. I was probably talking all kinds of shite that day, unsurprisingly, with everything that was going on, and then you cornering me to harass me, but I never said any of that.
” Hearing all these things he doesn’t want to hear has sent Eugene into full fight mode.
He’s got a finger in Cal’s face, and he’s one step away from a chest-shove. “Prove it. Go ahead, prove it.”
Cal doesn’t budge. “Eugene,” he says, unhurried and unfazed.
“You gotta remember, this is new territory to you, but it’s not to me.
I’ve seen plenty of people in your shoes.
I know exactly how this plays out. You loved Rachel.
You were all set to make a life with her.
Right about now, you guys oughta be tasting wedding-cake samples together. ”
That stops Eugene. His eyes flinch shut against it. “Tell me something,” Cal says. “You still carry the engagement ring around with you, just in case this was all a bad dream? You got it in your pocket right now?”
Eugene doesn’t answer. All the lines of his face are drawn down by misery.
“Your daddy took all that away,” Cal says, “sooner than just listen to you for once in his goddamn life.”
Eugene’s eyes, bloodshot, open. He stares at Cal with no expression at all.
“That’s not gonna stop eating at you,” Cal says.
“You’re not the kind of limp-dick who can let that slide just because Daddy says so.
Probably you think you are, ’cause you’ve been letting him boss you around your whole life”—Eugene tries to break in, but Cal spent half his night in the armchair working out this little speech, and he’s not letting it go to waste—“but you’re a grown-ass man now, and he’s gone way over the line.
You’re trying hard to be Daddy’s good little boy, but take it from me: sooner or later, you’re going to snap and do something.
Hell, you’ve already thought about it. I get that right? ”
Eugene, breathing hard through his nose, presses his lips tight.
“I figured,” Cal says. “I told you, son, I know how this story goes. But I’ve got more news for you: you won’t do it.
You’re not a killer. And you’re not a suicide, either.
What you’ll do is cut and run. You’ll have a big blow-up with your daddy, maybe throw a few punches, tell him to shove his council election up his ass, and then you’ll flounce off and find yourself a job in London or somewhere. ”
That hits home. Eugene’s eyes flicker away. “And your daddy’ll pick out someone better-behaved to be his little bitch on the council,” Cal says, “and he’ll keep right on going with his big plan. You and Rachel both: thrown away like you never existed.”
Eugene is working hard to look like this whole conversation is beneath his notice, but he doesn’t have enough left in him to pull it off. “So,” Cal says, “I’m gonna give you another option.”
That gets a hard little snort. “Oh, wow. Aren’t you amazing.”
“You know something, Eugene,” Cal says. “Something beyond what you already told me.”
Eugene says, “There’s nothing to know.” All his muscles are so tight that he can barely get the words out.
“Yeah there is. Something your daddy said, or did. You weren’t sure till today, but there was something that had you worrying from the get-go. What was it?”
After a moment Eugene says, without looking at him, “And then what? If there was something. You go to the Guards?”
Cal says, “Is that what you want me to do?”
Eugene makes an angry twitch, halfway between a shrug and a spasm.
Cal understands why it isn’t a simple question.
All his life, Eugene has been defined by his standing within this place.
He’s been raised despising its people as dumbass yokels; probably this is the first time it’s ever occurred to him that he needs them, not just for practical purposes, but for everything he is, inside and out.
Without their esteem, he’s an office drone in a big city where the name Moynihan means nothing to anyone.
If Tommy gets deposed, by the law or by the townland, then Eugene dissolves, just more mist over the fields.
“I won’t know the answer till I hear what you’ve got to tell me,” Cal says. “But I guarantee you I’ll do something. I can’t promise your daddy’ll get what’s coming to him, but I can promise he won’t get away with this scot-free.”
For a second, Eugene could go either way. All the massive weight of grief and of years’ pent-up rebellion is surging against his walls like floodwater against a dam; Cal, watching his face, sees its force buckling him from inside. When he catches his breath like it hurts, Cal thinks he’s going.
The Moynihans build their dams heavy and thick. In the end, Eugene reverts to what he knows how to do. He sticks his chin up and manages to give Cal the look of disgusted disbelief that Tommy Moynihan’s son and heir is supposed to give to some uppity blow-in who doesn’t know his place.
“You’ve got some fucking nerve,” he says. “That or you’ve lost your fucking mind. If you come anywhere near us again, I’m calling the Guards.”
“You do that, son,” Cal says. Unlike Eugene, he’s under no illusion that this is the end of the conversation.
That weight isn’t going anywhere, and the cracks are only going to keep growing.
He just hopes Eugene’s dam breaks before everything else around here does.
“I said what I’ve got to say. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.
Meanwhile, you go home and ask your daddy why he was heading for the bridge that night. See what he says.”
Before he’s finished talking, Eugene whips around and strides off. Cal stands at the bend and watches him try to keep up an outraged dignity while dodging puddles, till another twist in the lane takes him out of sight behind the ragged hedges.
Cal’s phone beeps. Trey: Whatd he say
She and Kate are still hanging out on the ridge behind Nance Maguire’s, watching Eugene flounce home. Cal texts back, Nothing good yet but we’re close. Any chance you guys can keep an eye on that house tonight? Let me know if anyone goes anywhere?
Dont know bout that its a school night we should be in bed
Yeah right, Cal texts back. Thanks. Trey sends him a thumbs-up emoji.
Rip shoves his nose into Cal’s hand, looking for some appreciation of his restraint in not eating Eugene. “Good boy,” Cal says.
Around lunchtime it starts raining hard.
Lena has called in sick to work. She sits at the kitchen table, feeling the cold numb her hands and listening to the rain striking her house on all sides.
She thinks of Sean; how this weather, waterlogging the fields to uselessness, would have sent him half-wild with fear, and how she would have worked day and night to draw him out of it.
She tried everything she had to keep him with her, and never understood till now why none of it made a blind bit of difference.
The dogs are restless, from lack of exercise and from her strangeness.
Nellie tries to play with Daisy, Daisy skulks away into corners and finally gives Nellie a nip, Nellie yelps extravagantly and looks to Lena for redress.
“No,” Lena says, to both of them. She should give them to Cal or to Trey, but she needs them here.
They’ll have to take whatever comes, alongside her.
The dogs hear it coming first, and lift their heads, their fractiousness instantly forgotten. It takes a moment before Lena catches, through the relentless battering rain, the swish of a car turning in at the gate. She knows it’s Breege, come back to get her, one way or the other.
The second car brings the dogs to their feet. “Sit,” Lena says, but they don’t hear her, or maybe she didn’t say it. They strain towards the door. The third car sets off a low moan deep in their throats.
Lena stands up and, through the rush of lightheadedness, goes to the sitting room and finds Sean’s shotgun.
She can’t tell what she’s going to do with it.
The rain roars all around her like the river in flood, but the crunch of footsteps and the jumble of voices in her front yard rise up through it, coming for her.
The dogs keep up their tense, warning moans.
She stands at the end of the hall, watching the front door. The hall looks strange, too long and too dim; the door is tiny, wavering a million miles away. The gun in her hands is the one solid thing.
The banging on the door, when it starts, doesn’t make her jump. She hopes if she closes her eyes and lets herself fall, the roaring water will sweep her away before they can get her.
A woman’s voice, with a laugh breaking through, shouts, “Jesus, Lena, would you ever let us in, we’re drowning here!”