John Brennan - Dead And Buried

They’d lifted Murphy’s body onto the table to do their work. Just a piece of meat, Conor insisted to himself, just another dead thing to dispose of – but all the same they kept Murphy’s face covered with the tarp.

When they got near the end, Conor noticed that Patrick was no longer crying. He could no longer hear his sobbing over the whine of the powersaw. He looked at the kid’s face, and wished he hadn’t. Patrick was still bone-white – but now his jaw was set and his eyes were clear – and, when he glanced up to meet Conor’s eyes, you could almost have said there was a smile on his skinny face.

‘You saved my life tonight, Con,’ Conor heard him say. He said it while he pushed down on the saw, while the sawblade dug into the flesh of Murphy’s shoulder – said it over the pattering of the spurting blood and the thick sound of the blade’s edge meeting bone, and biting. ‘I’ll remember it, you know. I came to you when I had nowhere else to go. And there you were.’ He glanced up again – there, again, the sickly, cold, crooked smile. ‘I’ll remember this,’ he said again.

All at once he threw the lever to kill the powersaw and the song of the whirring blade subsided to a deathly silence. Blood dripped in a syncopated rhythm from the tabletop and in between the tiles on the floor. They were both breathing hard; they both looked down at the tabletop, at what they’d done – at what’d once been Colm Murphy.

The furnace topped twelve hundred degrees when it was fully heated. It was fully heated now: its breath stung Conor’s raw eyes as he drew open the heavy doors.

‘In he goes?’ Patrick paused, panting.

‘In he goes.’

The legs went in first, heavier than they looked, like the foundations of a Colossus. Next they fed the arms, the elbow joints stiff already. The Catholic church didn’t burn bodies. No, they’d rather you waited till you got to Hell for that, Conor thought grimly. And now here were the mortal remains of Colm Murphy – not buried, not blessed – no, just burned, without a prayer said, without a candle lit. The torso went next.

‘Ashes to ashes,’ Conor murmured as he fastened the doors closed. The words felt empty. Conor looked at Patrick, his hair black with sweat. It was a scared, stupid kid who walked in here two hours since, Conor thought, as he began peeling off his overalls. Patrick followed suit. Not a kid any more. Then what? A man? Not yet.

In the bleak electric light the two of them silently stripped. Their bloodied clothes, their shoes, their overalls, the drenched tarp: all followed Murphy into the furnace. Last of all, the head – bagged up, the features pressing through thick plastic. Conor worked over the table and floor with a jet hose and the last of the Colm Murphy’s earthly remains was washed down the drain. Patrick, meanwhile, dug out fresh boots and overalls from the storeroom.

Then, outside in the first grey glow of dawn, they stood and watched the cold stars fade. Conor breathed deep, told himself that the air was clear here, that each new breath was making him better, cleaner, more innocent.

Patrick sucked on a cigarette and said through the smoke, ‘What now?’

Conor thought fast.

‘Go home,’ he said. ‘Clean the car. Not too clean, though – don’t draw attention. Find a backlot somewhere, do it there. Throw a blanket or something over the back seat – those bloodstains won’t come out easy.’ He looked hard at Patrick. ‘Don’t talk to anyone; not about this, and not about anything. Go to bed and stay there. Lay low. Forget everything.’

Patrick nodded slowly, then ground out his cigarette with his heel.

‘Right you are,’ he said. He squinted up at Conor. ‘I’m sorry about, y’know’ – a vague wave of one arm – ‘all that with the gun.’

‘Good.’

‘Suppose I was out of order.’ Patrick nodded again, thoughtfully. ‘You saved my life tonight, Con.’

‘Yeah. You said.’

‘I mean it.’ Patrick put out a hand. ‘I won’t forget this.’

Conor paused – he thought of Colm, and he thought of Christine, and he thought of what they’d just been through, him and Patrick, and he thought of how fucking tired he was – and he shook Patrick’s hand.

‘But forgetting this,’ he said warningly, ‘is exactly what you’ve got to do.’

An hour later Conor stood in the shower letting the scalding water rinse the sweat and blood from his skin. He didn’t cry. He felt like he was empty of everything except memories. He heard Christine banging on the bathroom door. It must’ve gone six; she’d be wanting to get ready for work. He closed his eyes and turned his face to the streaming hot water.

But closing his eyes didn’t help – all he saw was Colm Murphy’s face.

‘Ten years old – that’s a grand old age.’ A younger Murphy, this – even stronger, even louder, even bolder. His eyes sparkling. His arm round Conor’s shoulders. ‘Where’d’you play, Con? Right wing, is it?’

‘Aye.’

‘A wee Jinky Johnstone, are you, then?’

‘No,’ brave Conor said. ‘I’m Davie Provan.’

‘Davie who?’ Murphy laughed. ‘God, I’m behind the times. I can’t keep up. Well, Davie Provan, happy birthday to you – and I s’pose you’ll be needing this.’ And with a flourish Colm wrapped him in a thick cotton shirt – a shirt in green and white, with hoops and a proper shamrock badge and all – a Celtic shirt.

‘Wear it with pride,’ Colm said.

Now, in the searing shower, Conor reached out a trembling hand and turned the temperature dial, turning it up so that it was too hot to take – and then he just stood, taking it anyway, feeling his white skin burn red.

Present Day

THE HORIZONS seemed too narrow: everything seemed cramped, hemmed in, somehow. And there was too much bloody traffic. Still, Conor thought: this is Belfast. Even if it’s not the same Belfast you left behind, he added to himself.

He swung his Land Rover into a parking space outside the Cherry Tree pub, killed the engine and wound down the window. He could hear music coming from inside. A young lad with a ribbon-wrapped present under his arm walked by and went in through the rear door of the pub; before the door swung closed, Conor heard voices, music, laughter. Sounded like a good do. He wondered which voice was Ella’s.

Felt like his necktie was strangling him. Not used to it. He loosened his collar button uneasily and glanced at his reflection in the rearview. Look at yourself, Maguire, he thought – white as a sheet. What’s to be afraid of? What’s the worst that could happen? Two months ago you were handling a lion that came out of its anaesthetic earlier than it should’ve – and now you’re scared to death by the thought of a teenage girl’s birthday party. Get a grip.

But he couldn’t deny it. Again he glanced in the mirror – scared, and old . Hair starting to grey at the temples. Crow’s feet creasing the skin around his eyes. You look, he thought, like a middle-aged man. You look like a father.

He’d chatted to Ella a few times over the web. But how much can you learn about someone that way? – especially when you’re in an internet café in the arse-end of Mombasa and too busy fighting with a dodgy dial-up connection and shooing away the kids trying to sell you postcards to listen.

His daughter, he’d painfully come to accept, was practically a stranger to him. And then there was Christine. God only knew how she’d react. It was a miracle she’d even agreed to have him there.

Gathering up his card and gift – a handmade necklace he’d picked up in Nairobi – Conor struggled to think of the positives. Well at least his own family wouldn’t be in there. The Maguires didn’t stoop to socialising with Protestants. Hadn’t his own mother stayed home the day he married Christine? ‘That Prod woman’ was one of the nicer names old Mags had for Conor’s ex-wife.