Ken Bruen - The Devil

Like the very last lines of Under the Volcano . They’d thrown a dead dog into a hole after the consul’s body. It gave, I felt, a nice literary touch to the proceedings.

On my way home, I found a phone box that hadn’t been vandalized.

Rang the Guards, said a man was drowning in the canal.

I didn’t mention the dog.

He’d had his day.

Next day, I went to see the tinkers.

Once treated as the dregs of our caring society, they’d moved up a notch since we started to resent the non-nationals. Not a huge leap for them, but they were getting less abuse than before.

I’d worked a case with and for them, and thus was regarded as close to clan as an outsider is ever going to get.

As a child, I remember, every Monday the skin woman would come, collecting discarded potato skins to feed her pigs.

Little did she know, the fucking skins were our dinner most days.

She did this for years.

After her death, it was disclosed that she never had any pigs.

I went to see her sister, Peg, who it was claimed had the gift of the sight . Yeah, I know, HBO already have the series. Before Ghost Whisperer , Crossing Over , Sixth Sense , before all that, she was quietly dispensing such things as she intuited.

Her caravan was perched on the football field in the Claddagh.

Recently, asbestos had been discovered there and house prices had plummeted.

Guess she didn’t see that coming.

But I was clutching at straws.

She lived alone and, unusual for a traveller, not a dog in sight, or even a pig.

I came prepared.

Bottle of Jameson,

dozen cans of Guinness,

carton of cigs, and at nigh ten Euro a pack, I was hurting.

Plus a fresh salmon I’d bought from one of the local ‘snatchers’. How fresh was it going to be from our now perennially poisoned water?

I knocked on her door, on the Evil Eye symbol where most people would have their spy hole.

She opened the door slowly. If you’re a tinker, you always answer slowly. Stared at me, said,

‘Jack Taylor.’

I handed over the booty/bribe, said,

‘I need a reading, Peg a gra .’

She waved me in.

A tall woman, had to be near eighty now, her hair neatly styled, and those piercing blue eyes, cataracts forming but not dulling the sheer intensity. She had that regal bearing some women achieve no matter what shite comes down the road.

Wearing a Connemara shawl, the real deal, hand sewn and passed from one generation to another.

Long skirt that swished as she moved.

Her sole jewellery was a miraculous medal, gold of course.

The caravan was spotless, and devoid of furniture save for two hard-backed chairs, one wooden table and a narrow bed, neatly made.

Zen, in fact.

Like most of her generation, she switched from Irish to English at will. Like the song goes,

and speak a language

that the foreigner does not know.

We sat, she opened the Jay, poured liberal amounts in heavy Galway crystal tumblers, toasted,

‘ Dia agus a Mhathair leat .’ (God and His Holy Mother with you.)

I said,

‘ Leat fein .’ (You too.)

The neat Jay burned like false hope.

She cracked two cans of the Guinness, pushed one across.

‘ Ta an doireachdeas leat .’ (The darkness is upon you.)

No fucking around, then.

I told her the whole story.

She never interrupted, just sipped from the Guinness, her eyes glued to my face.

Finished, I sat back, knackered, and took a long swig from the Jay.

She asked,

‘Did you take money from him?’

Fuck.

Tricky ground.

I scratched the card he sent me, won the big one, but I could easily have lost…right?

Didn’t fly.

If I lied to her once, I was history.

I told her.

She nodded, said,

‘He owns yer arse.’

I asked,

‘What will I do?’

She reached behind her for a pack of Sweet Afton.

They still made those suckers?

My dad used to smoke them.

Lord rest him.

I remembered the lines of the Scottish poet Burns on the front.

Reading me expression, she said,

‘ Deanamh caitheamh tobac dubthal thremous leat .’

Sounds freaking ominous, right?

It’s the current government warning on packs and tells you that terrible things will happen to you if you smoke.

Next, she produced an old box of Swan matches, offered both to me.

Rough.

I hadn’t smoked for three years.

Fucking quitting was just one of the many afflictions I’ve endured.

But to refuse?

Couldn’t.

Bollix.

I took two out, handed her one, fired us up.

The smell of sulphur was like a bad joke.

Coarse, no filters on these babies.

The real deal.

She took a deep drag.

Me too.

Christ Almighty, they kicked like a demented Guard on late-Saturday-night drunk tank.

Her face, impossibly lined, seemed to suck into itself.

My first inhalation had me dizzy.

Delicious lethal delight.

In answer, finally, as to what I should do, she said,

‘ Rith .’ (Run.)

Took me a moment to catch the twinkle in her eye.

She asked,

‘Do you believe in the Devil?’

‘I believe.’

She extended her palm and it took me a moment to catch up.

Cross her hand with silver.

Like all the shite I’d paid a fortune for wasn’t enough?

I found a two Euro coin, not silver but jeez, who was keeping count? I placed it dead centre in her palm and she closed her hand, intoned,

‘ Uber,

ubris,

iosa .’

A lot of other stuff I didn’t grasp, seemed a blend of Irish and Latin.

She commanded,

‘On your knees.’

I did as she told me.

She rose, stood over me, then pulled a small phial from her pocket and began to sprinkle it over me. Said,

‘Holy water.’

Or poison.

Who knew?

She said another long prayer and my leg was acting up. Eventually, she took a leather thong, a miraculous medal attached, hung it round my neck and said,

‘ Mhathair an Iosa leat .’ (God’s Mother be with you.)

Unless the Madonna was packing serious heat, I felt I was fucked.

She motioned me to rise. We were done.

I had an envelope ready, laid it on the table.

She said,

‘Thanks, son.’

She poured us both a farewell Jay, asked,

‘Can you kill a man?’

She knew my history, what I had done in the past for the clans, but this was a different dance.

I said I could.

She muttered,

‘ Ta tu an bronach nach bhfuail feidire leat a rith .’

Literally, it means you are the kind of person who is not able to run, but it has bronach in there which gives a whole other dimension, meaning what a sadness, you aren’t the type to quit.

I wanted to shout, I would if I could, but I can’t .

But she already knew that.

We were done, and to my astonishment she hugged me.

Blame the damn cigarettes, but I felt me eyes well up.

As I headed for the door, her parting line was,

‘ Is anois an t’amall an fear seo a marbh .’

There are various translations for this, but in a nutshell it means,

‘Kill him now.’

After Taylor left, Peg said a small Novena for him. Like all the tinkers, she had a deep love for the man.

All those years ago, when young tinkers were being slaughtered, their bodies thrown in the fair green, did the Guards help?

She gave a bitter laugh.

Did they shite.