Colin Barrett - Young Skins - Stories

‘Calling at this hour, you can only be up to no good,’ he said. ‘Good luck!’

The house was set in off the road, a hundred-yard drive leading into it. Tall trees lined the front and sides of the property like battlements. Arm motored slowly by, caught sight of a large, two-storied building. Ramshackle, spare, but with a ghostly stateliness in its bones. Down along the road Arm pulled into a boreen. His back had settled into a dull throb. It was still difficult to breathe, there was a nagging sensation of being continuously winded, but Arm wondered if he wasn’t over the worst of it; that he had bled out all the blood he was going to.

He got out of the shitbox, left the dashlight on. He took a few steps down the boreen, tenderly squeezing his rent hamstring. The ache there was tolerable, though a sprint of any sort was out of the question.

On the other side of the ditch Arm could hear the big-bodied padding of cows, moving like barges through the long grass. Arm took out his mobile. The screen lit up, one bar of battery left. He thumbed through his contact list. He selected Dympna and pressed call. Arm could feel his heart as the line rang and rang out. Dympna’s voicemail. Spake and leave a message whoever you are, sham , went his recorded voice, bored and dismissive sounding. There was a beep and then the thirty-second void into which Arm could have spoke.

The boreen was divided from the field by a ditch, but where the ditch’s growth was not so hectic Arm could discern a wall beneath. The wall was comprised of interlocking lumps of stone, all buttressed, layered and balanced carefully against one another, unmortared, held in place purely by the tension of their placement, though some of the topmost rocks had fallen away. At a thin point in the ditch Arm scrabbled up the wall, found his footing at the apex and, from this point of elevation, considered the lay of the surround. The Mirkin house was three fields over, discernible only by patches of moon-bright whitewash through the perimeter of trees.

Two cows turned and shuffled towards him.

Arm looked to his phone again.

He scrolled down to URSULA D, last in the list as ever. Arm stared blackly at the lit screen and ground his teeth against the urge to call. Then he rang and Ursula, too, rang out. Arm cut off the voice mail and dialled again. On the second ring the connection clicked.

‘Hello,’ Ursula said.

‘It’s me.’

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘I was just ringing to see how Jack was.’

A pause.

‘He’s fine,’ she said with soft dubiety, as if she didn’t quite recognise Arm’s voice.

‘Is he settled down for the night or still up?’

Another pause. This was not a usual thing, this call and questions.

‘Douglas,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’

‘He’s up.’ The way she said it, Arm knew the boy was within eyeshot, and perhaps Jack was looking at her as she spoke to Arm. Jack knew, most of the time, when he was being talked about, could pick out the taut monosyllable of his name in the otherwise mashed white noise of human conversation.

‘It’s getting on for him to be up,’ Arm said.

‘It’s not that late,’ Ursula said, elaborating guardedly, like their talk was a code. ‘It’ll be bath time any minute now.’

‘And then bed,’ Arm said.

‘Then bed.’

‘Good,’ Arm said, relieved. ‘What are you at now?’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah.’

Another hesitancy. Beneath the electronic burr of the connection there came faint background ructions. Arm pictured Jack monkeying bare-legged from nook to nook, hunting for scraps of bread.

‘Nothing. A bit of washing,’ she said. ‘There’s the usual fucking mountain to get through.’

‘Sorry. Sorry for interrupting, like.’

‘That’s okay,’ she said.

‘Going to get a bit of study in tonight?’ Arm said.

She cleared her throat. ‘Might snatch a half hour alright, if I can be bothered.’

‘You will. You should,’ Arm said, as evenly and sincerely as he could. ‘You’ll get there in the end, you know.’

‘I intend to,’ she said, and then, ‘Douglas, are you alright?’

Arm could hear the edge of a smile in her question. The call had blindsided her, put her on the defensive, but now, Arm supposed, she had decided that he was being merely harmlessly strange, and it bemused her.

‘Yeah, no, I’m fine. I was just thinking. About nearly being killed on that fucking horse today.’

‘Oh,’ she said, and sniffed. ‘Yeah. That was great.’

‘It took some fucking turn against me.’

‘Must be a good judge.’

‘Leave off. You wouldn’t have really wanted me to break my neck,’ Arm said.

Ursula made a doubtful mmmm sound.

‘Didn’t think so,’ Arm said, ‘are you warming up to me again, girl?’

She tutted in mock disgust at the suggestion.

‘You cut, Arm, is that it?’

‘Look,’ Arm said, ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been around.’

‘You’re never out of my hair,’ Ursula singsonged.

‘In a useful way,’ Arm said. ‘You deserve better.’

‘Everyone deserves better, Douglas,’ Ursula snapped, her voice tuned to a clear low. Her attention had flowed elsewhere again; Arm could tell her eyes were back on Jack.

‘Maybe it’d be better the other way altogether, so.’

Arm heard her sigh. ‘What’s that mean?’ she said.

‘Nothing. Look. I’ll leave you to it,’ Arm said in a thick, drowned voice. He sounded faraway, even to himself.

‘Okay, Douglas,’ she said, and then, with a flicker of irritated puzzlement, ‘Where are you, Arm? It’s beyond quiet.’

‘I’m outside. In a field. Watching cows watching me.’

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Good luck with that.’

‘Thanks.’

There was another silence. Then she said, ‘Well, I’m best back to it here. Good night, so.’

‘Bye,’ Arm said as the line clicked off.

He went back to the shitbox. There was a toolbox in the boot, and in the toolbox a hammer. Arm clambered back up over the gap in the ditch and started across the fields.

Hector’s Hiace was tucked round the side of the house, on Arm’s side as he came up through the last field. Other than the stand of elms there was only a four-foot cement wall for a boundary, just about high enough to dismay a cow from trying to clotter over it. Arm limped quiet as he could through the yard. No dogs, thankfully. There was a light on in one of the downstairs rooms. The curtains were not pulled but there was a mesh drape. Arm went to the front door, knocked. There was no response for a time; he knocked again. Hector opened the door. He blinked and looked right at Arm.

‘Your brother went fucking mad,’ Arm said.

Hector went to close the door. Before he could Arm slugged him in the belly.

Hector bent, winded. Arm held the man’s shoulder lest he fall over.

‘Jaysus, Douglas,’ Hector hissed, once he had regained his breath.

‘You heard from him?’ Arm said.

‘Who?’

‘Paudi,’ Arm said, ‘in the last whileen.’

‘What? Paudi? No.’

‘Who’s there?’ came a woman’s voice from inside.

‘I’m coming in,’ Arm said. He had the hammer wedged down the back of his trousers. He pulled it out and pressed the prongs into Hector’s cheek, then slipped it back down his arsecrack.

Hector winced, ‘Douglas, whatever this is about we can talk again—’

‘Give me a greeting,’ Arm said, pushing Hector back and stepping inside the door. Up the hall drifted the pleasant smell of peatsmoke. The sitting room was in left, a set of stairs on the right. Hector, seeing he had no other option, recovered his composure and led Arm into the sitting room. Arm moved slowly to hide the hitch in his gait.