Tim Winton - The Riders

‘You think your gals’ll take to this place, Scully?’

‘Well, I don’t think Jennifer’ll need convincing.’

‘How old is that little one?’

‘Billie? Seven, seven and a half.’

‘A grand life for her here. You can bring her into Birr to play with Con’s.’

The very mention of Conor Keneally caused Scully to go stiff with irritation.

‘And there’s a school bus by here to Coolderry. Nice little school.’

‘She’s not a Catholic you know.’

‘Aw, they don’t give a toss. And anyway, she might just become one. A little bit of civilization never hurt.’

Scully laughed. The thought of them trying to ‘civilize’ Billie! But they’d learn, and they’d like her. The Irish and her, they’d get on. They liked a bit of spirit, didn’t they?

It was dark outside now and rain fell, light at first and then in roaring sheets. The fire hissed.

‘You’re a lucky man to have a child,’ said Pete staring into the fire.

‘Yes,’ he said with his whole being. ‘Yes. It’s a surprise, you know, nothing prepares you for it. Nothing better ever happened to me. Funny, you know, but I’m so bloody grateful for it. To Jennifer, to God.’ He laughed self consciously. ‘You see, this stuff used to be automatic, you know, natural. Women aren’t so keen to have them anymore, not where I come from, anyway. They’ve got other fish to fry, which is fair enough. But they don’t realize, sometimes, what they’re missing, or what they’re withholding, you know? The power they have. I don’t know if Billie was an accident or not. I thought she was. It’s hard to tell, you see, with people. So I’m grateful, that’s the truth of it.’ Scully blushed. Yes. That was why he dressed her so meticulously when she was small, why he worried too much about seatbelts, why he infuriated the kid with lectures about tooth decay. It wasn’t like him, but she wasn’t to know. It was her, the fact of her. And when she fell from a bike or a tree she came running to him. It shamed him in front of Jennifer, the way Billie ran to him first. Did Jennifer feel what his own father must have felt, being the second parent? Maybe he just took it all too seriously. Perhaps other people didn’t feel these things.

‘You want some of your own, someday, then?’

‘Oh, I could imagine it,’ said Pete, refilling his glass and resting his boot on the hearth. ‘There’s just the little problem of matrimony, Scully. You know, if I wanted trouble, I’d move to Ulster. I like comin and goin as I fancy. And I have Con’s own when the urge hits me.’

Pete watched as Scully got up and lit his three candles at the sill. Both of them stared at the twitching candle-flame and the reflection it threw along the panes.

‘Did you ever come close?’ Scully asked. ‘To marriage.’

‘Aw, once. But I was young. There’s no point goin back on it. All the adventures are ahead of you, not behind. You got to go and find em. And I might say,’ he said with a mischievous cast in his eyes, ‘I believe in deliverin em now and then, too. You’ve been godly patient with my brother.’

‘Pete, we don’t —’

‘No, no, I thank ye for your understandin on this.’

‘Look —’

‘Can you meet me in Birr tomorrow mornin early, say seven-thirty?’

‘Sure. Why?’

‘Power corrupts, you know, but without it, you can neither cook toast nor take a shit. Seven-thirty.’

• • •

THE STREETS OF BIRR WERE almost light at seven-thirty next morning and its houses, shoulder to shoulder in the misty square, were grey and stirring with the shriek of kettles and the scuffle of dogs. Scully saw the van in the rain-slick high street and pulled in beside it as Pete climbed out grimly waving.

Pete led them to the little green doorway at the side of a shopfront. Pete knocked and blew on his hands.

A jaded and fearful woman let them in wordlessly.

‘Mornin, Maeve.’

‘He’ll not be up for hours, Peter. Don’t even bother yourself.’

‘This is Fred Scully from out at the Leap.’

‘Oh, yes, the Australian,’ she smiled wanly.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Scully, smelling boiled cabbage, cigarette smoke, turf and bacon fat.

‘Peter talks about you all day.’

‘Oh. I hope it’s not all bad,’ he said limply.

‘Ready, Scully?’

‘Ready for what?’ said Maeve Keneally.

Scully felt faint from the stuffiness and desperation of this house. It seemed no window had been opened here for generations.

‘Just keep the front door open, Maeve.’

Scully followed the postman through the gloomy house and into a foetid bedroom where Conor Keneally slept in his boots, and they took him by those boots, and dragged him off the bed, down the corridor with its greenish pictures of the Pope and the saints and Charlie Haughey, through the front door and out into the drizzling street where, finally awake, he began to struggle.

‘Watha fook! Geroffa me!’

‘We’ve got a job for you to do, so you can get in the van, Con.’ Pete hauled at his brother but the man slid back onto the lumpy pavement.

‘I’m in the fookin wet street in me jammies, you bastard eejit!’

‘Aw, Conor Keneally, you slept in your duds as ever. Get in your van.’

Conor struggled to his feet. He was bigger than his brother and redfisted. His sideburns were like flames down his cheeks as he braced himself against the Toyota van, copping a bit of PVC pipe in the back of the head as he staggered.

‘No one tells me.’

‘Shut up and get in the van,’ said Pete trying to smile.

‘Who’s gonna make me, gobshite?’ The big man straightened, smelling of the hop fields of the Republic. ‘You, Mr Post?’

‘No,’ Pete said, pointing at Scully. ‘Him.’

Conor struggled to focus on the scarred and wonk-eyed face of the Australian, who quite simply looked mealy enough to be up to it. It was no postman face.

‘Now, Conor, this is one of Mylie Doolin’s London boys and he needs a job done.’

The electrician slumped and held a great meaty hand to his head in horror.

‘Aw! Awww, fook me now! Jaysus, what’re you doin Peter Keneally, you eejit!’

‘Don’t be askin stupid questions. Get a meter box and all the guff.’

‘There’s one in there,’ Conor said, sickly dipping his head to the van. ‘I was after comin from Tullamore —’

‘Let’s go, then,’ interrupted Pete gruffly. ‘Our man will follow in the Transit.’

Conor covered his face with both hands now. ‘Holy Mother, Peter. Mylie Doolin.’

‘Aye,’ said Peter winking over his brother’s shoulder at Scully, ‘Mylie himself.’

He watched them climb into the Toyota with a jug of sloe poteen. A dog barked. The rain fell.

• • •

SCULLY STAYED CLEAR OF THE bothy all morning, keeping to the draughty barn to sand down and varnish an old mahogany chair he found in the loft. Now and then he heard shouts from the house: anger, exasperation, hangover, fear. It was funny alright, but he felt sorry for poor Conor, labouring in there with an imaginary gun at his head and a very real hangover inside it. Scully worked away in the giddy fumes grateful to Mylie once more.

Just before noon when he could stand the cold no longer he went inside and heard a transistor playing fiddle music in the kitchen.

Conor was at the table shakily filling out some paperwork, and Pete was throwing turf on the fire.

‘Power to the people, Scully.’

‘Don’t suck up, brother.’

Scully just grinned. Conor held out the sheets of paper to Scully who took them without speaking.

‘Now that electric drill will work, Scully, me boy,’ said Pete. ‘Bit of kneecappin, no?’