Chapter Eighteen #4
“Oh, Jesus,” Julie says. “You’ve a load to catch up on. I shoulda brought another bottle.”
“So Mart Lavin,” Yvonne says, propping her bosom on the table to lean over it and wave her fork at Lena. “D’you know what he done? You’re not going to believe this.”
“I think he’s gone mental,” Julie says. “Honest to God.”
“Mart Lavin’s not mental,” Sheila says, and Lena hears the echo of that old iron silence under her voice. Sheila has no love for Mart. “That fella knows what he’s at.”
“Saturday afternoon, right,” Yvonne says. “The pub’s packed. No one’s feeling the friendliest, we’ll put it that way. And Mart turns round and tells the whole place, at the top of his lungs, that Tommy Moynihan kilt Rachel ’cause she tried to stop him taking people’s land.”
“Right,” Lena says, eyebrows up. “Didn’t see that coming.
” She knows as well as Sheila how Mart Lavin works: slantways, coded, everything concealed behind layers of mazes and elaborate false doors.
This doesn’t sound like his style at all.
Like Sheila, though, Lena also knows that Mart always has a plan.
“See?” Julie says. “It’s been too much for him. I’m not surprised.”
“So Bernard McHugh starts doing his voice-of-reason bit,” Yvonne says, “only Mart and your Cal and all those lads tell him to get fucked. And then Mouth McHugh—”
“He’s disgusting,” Julie says. “He put his willy on Mattie Carroll’s neck when we were like ten, remember?”
“He doesn’t do that these days,” Yvonne says, “as far as I know. But he brought out the rumors about you”—Lena—“and your Cal hit him, and that’s when it all kicked off.
Sharks versus Jets, murder on the dance floor, please don’t shoot at the piano player.
Half the fellas in this townland have black eyes on them. ”
This time the anger reaches Lena more clearly. She doesn’t want Cal using her as a reason to throw himself deeper into this place’s dealings.
“And now,” Yvonne says, “there’s people saying Tommy done it, and people saying you done it, and people saying Rachel done it herself, and people who just wanta forget the whole thing and ‘move on,’ God bless their little hearts—”
“That’s Mel,” Julie tells Lena. “That’s why she’s not here.”
“—and every lot is going apeshit at all the other lots,” Yvonne says, “and it’s all gone to shite. So if we can dial everyone down a wee bit, chill pills all round, that’d be our good deed done for the day.”
Lena has no desire to do any good deeds for this place. “Right,” she says. “And then what?”
“Not sure about that part yet,” Yvonne says.
“I’m living life in the moment right now, if you know what I mean.
But at least that oughta make people pull their heads in a bit while they think twice about believing every word outa Tommy Moynihan’s mouth, and we’ll have a better shot at making it through the week without anyone else ending up dead.
Speaking of which, do you reckon Tommy actually did something on Rachel?
Or do you reckon Mart’s only saying that to stir people up against him? ”
“I think he did,” Lena says. Probably she shouldn’t say it, but she doesn’t care. “Yeah.”
There’s a brief silence. Yvonne takes a breath and nods. “God,” Julie says softly. “Tommy Moynihan, like. Of all people.”
“Makes sense, actually,” Yvonne says, “if I’m honest. Tommy’s always got what he wanted, and all of a sudden there was Rachel getting in his way. He’da been a lot more pissed off about it than you or me or anyone that’s used to the idea.”
“I wouldn’t say he kilt her,” Sheila says.
Lena turns sharply to look at her. Sheila knows, better than any of them, how killing can come up on someone out of the blue. Lena thought she was the one who would have the easiest time taking this on board.
“Why not?” she asks.
Sheila looks back at her out of tranquil blue eyes. “He might as well take the blame anyhow,” she says. “ ’Twas his doing, one way or another.”
“Is that why you were asking around about Rachel?” Yvonne says to Lena.
“No,” Lena says. “Back then, I thought she done it herself.”
“Then what? Don’t be telling me you were just nosy, ’cause I won’t believe you.”
Lena takes herself aback by realizing that she wants to explain.
It’s not just the gin and the sugar spinning her off balance; it’s the way things have transformed, her kitchen glowing sweet and safe as a storybook picture, the warmth and the brightness and the talk melting her from the inside out.
If Tommy’s minions are heading this way for an attack, they’ll take one look at the drive full of sturdy, mud-splattered cars and back the fuck off.
Yvonne’s snub nose and Julie’s wet tendrils of hair have a beauty that could break her heart.
“It was ’cause of Trey,” she says. “Right from the start, she thought someone kilt Rachel. But she was there taking for granted that that made no difference to anyone. Whatever story suited this place best, we’d all just haveta bite our tongues and go along with it, no questions asked; no choice.
Trey wants to live here. I couldn’t let her go the rest of her life thinking like that. ”
She’s watching Sheila for any sign that this is overstepping, but Sheila is just listening, chewing on an ice cube.
“I didn’t even think there was anything much to find out,” Lena says.
“I just wanted to find it, whatever it was, and tell the world. To show her she doesn’t always haveta bow down to what this place wants. ”
She’s almost afraid to look at Yvonne and Julie, in case now they think she’s mental, but both of them are nodding too, unsurprised.
“They’re a right pain in the hoop all the same, aren’t they?
” Yvonne says. “Kids. All this shite that you’d never do for yourself, not in a million years, ’cause it’s too hard or too dangerous or…
But there’s the bloody kids, needing it done. And away you go.”
“When mine said they were leaving,” Julie says, glancing around like she’s confessing something terrible, “I was glad. I mean I wasn’t, I was in bits, I still bawl my eyes out, but a part of me was only delighted they’d be starting out fresh, somewhere they knew no one. None a this.”
“I wish Trey hadda wanted to leave,” Lena says. “I wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“That one never bowed down to anyone unless she wanted to,” Sheila says, fishing another ice cube out of her glass. “She’s getting the hang of this place, is what she’s doing; learning how to work it. She’ll be grand.”
“No,” Lena says. “God. The last thing I ever wanted was her getting the hang of this place.”
“That’s you,” Sheila says. “You go on and live here your way. She hasta do it hers.”
They look at each other. Lena thinks of everything she did to get here, all the jam and the careful questions and the funeral and Mrs. Duggan and facing down Tommy Moynihan. She can’t tell any more how much of it was ever for Trey’s sake.
They sit silent for a little, drinking their drinks. The room has warmed. Julie catches Yvonne’s eye, and a little wry smile passes between them as they remember something together; Sheila cuts Lena more cake. The wind blows long, steady gusts of rain against the windowpanes.
“Fair play to you,” Julie says to Lena, in the end.
“Not really,” Lena says. “Look where it got me. And I never even did what I was after.”
“Yeah, about that,” Yvonne says. “I’ve a favor to ask you.”
“Go on,” Lena says. A part of her feels like she should be wary, but she can’t find it in herself.
“OK,” Yvonne says. She blows out a quick breath and takes a sip of her drink to brace herself for this.
“The night Rachel died, yeah? Like I said, I’d to pick Sophie up from her pal’s that evening—she passed her driving test, did I tell ye?
” Yvonne adds parenthetically, “but I didn’t want her driving in the dark, in that weather.
So I was going through the village, around seven, maybe a bit after.
And Rachel was there. Knocking on Noreen’s door. ”
Julie’s mouth is open in surprise; she didn’t know this story either.
“I reckoned she was calling in to Noreen’s Ella,” Yvonne says, “or else Claire had sent her to drop something round, ’cause she was holding something, like a box or something.
And I thought they shoulda texted first to check, ’cause I knew Noreen and Dessie and the kids were after going into town to the cinema, so there’d be no one home only Mrs. Duggan, and she doesn’t answer the door.
But I didn’t really think about it, d’you know the way?
All I thought was Rachel was after going out in the rain for nothing and she hadn’t even brought the car, and I couldn’t give her a lift home ’cause I was going the other way. ”
“You never said that to me,” Julie says.
“I know, yeah. I never said it to anyone, ’cause afterwards I thought I musta got it wrong.
’Cause when Noreen rang me later, right, to say Rachel was missing, I said to her, ‘Wasn’t she at yours?
I saw her outside your door earlier.’ And Noreen said no, sure Rachel knew from Ella that they were going to the cinema, and anyhow, Mrs. Duggan woulda said if she’d come to the door.
So I thought it musta been someone else.
Sure, the girls all have the same hair these days, and half of them have that same jacket; it coulda been anyone.
Maybe I shoulda said it anyhow, but…” Yvonne glances around the table, troubled.
“God, no,” Julie tells her. “You were right. Sure, it’s not like you were talking to her and she said something that coulda been important. All you’da done is start a loada rumors and send everyone off down the wrong track.”
“I’da done the same as you,” Sheila says.
Yvonne nods, but she’s looking down into her glass, not comforted. “I wish I’da given her that lift,” she says quietly. “I was running late, so I didn’t even think…It wouldn’ta done Sophie any harm to wait a few extra minutes.”