Colin Barrett - Young Skins - Stories

The widow Mirkin was standing at the fireplace, poker in hand, tending or affecting to tend to the big fire going in the hearth. Arranged upon her breast was a silver brooch with a greenish stone set in it. She was in a red and rust brown dress, one of those ones that showed nothing — the sleeves went down to the wrists, the blouse up to the neck, and the hemline descended comprehensively beyond the knees. Her hair was dark brown, raked back from her forehead and set in place with a simple, girlish band. She had no makeup on, a crow’s-feet-riddled but decent face, Arm supposed, for an old dear. There was something faintly familiar about her, though beyond a certain age all old dears looked the same to Arm. The furniture, three chairs and a sofa, was festooned with corduroy cushions. The floor was carpeted, there was a crucifix on the wall, a framed portrait painting of a doe-eyed, winsome Christ. The fire spat and bubbled, the room was smotheringly warm.

‘An acquaintance of yours, Hector?’

‘By and by. He’s a friend and associate of a young relative of mine, a nephew. Douglas, Maire. Maire, Douglas. He used to box for the county.’

The widow’s eyes flicked over Arm, backed against the frame of the door.

‘The carriage would suggest so, alright.’

‘Did Hector not tell you I was coming over?’ Arm said to her. ‘He said it’d be okay.’

The widow looked inquiringly at her paramour. Hector was facing away from Arm, the bull neck above his collar empurpled and beaded with shine.

‘Well, now, he did not.’

‘My dear, I apologise for this,’ Hector said.

She hooked the poker onto its stand by the hearth and stepped daintily into the middle of the room. She brought her hands together.

‘Well you’ve intruded right into the middle of our nightcap, young man. I was just about to serve a toddy to Hector and myself. Can I fix you one? And sit down please, both of you.’

Hector turned to Arm and dropped into a chair. He gestured at the chair nearest Arm. Arm put himself in it, the rider’s surplus jacket straining across his chest.

‘Do,’ Hector said to the widow, ‘and cut us a few wodges of brack while you’re at it, dear.’

The widow left for the kitchen.

Hector from his seat regarded Arm. He raised his hand to his mouth and nipped at a hangnail. ‘Say what you have to,’ he said in a mild voice, ‘but say it low. She’s to remain out of this.’

‘Can’t you send the biddy away?’ Arm said.

Hector winced. ‘It’s her house, you fool.’ He bared his teeth as if in pain and licked his lips. ‘We could go, though, ladeen. We could go somewhere and sort this out.’

‘Nah,’ Arm said, sitting up. He could not get comfortable in the chair.

Hector’s brow writhed in frustration. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘let’s not do this here.’

‘She has money,’ Arm said.

‘What happened?’

‘Today was delivery day. So we went out. As usual. But that brother of yours lost it, the mink. He whipped that rifle out at the drop of a hat. He brought a gun out on us, Heck.’

Hector’s expression flickered through Arm, as if he was scrutinising something way off in the distance.

‘Dympna,’ Arm went on. ‘He shot Dympna. He shot him. He, Shot, Him. Took a couple of potshots at me as I was getting out of dodge.’

‘Where is Dympna now?’ Hector said.

‘He wasn’t looking too healthy at all last I saw. Not at all last I saw. He took the brunt of that gun from less than a foot away.’

Hector swallowed a groan. He sat back and looked longingly at the fire blazing in the hearth, his wide face roseate.

‘But this one has money, yeah?’ Arm asked again.

Hector ran his hand down his leg and began absently rubbing the shin Arm had dinted.

‘There’s a nice lump blooming there already,’ he said eventually. ‘I need to talk to my fucking brother.’

‘He’s halfway to Timbuktu by now,’ Arm said, ‘or else he’s fed himself a bullet. Either way he’s leaving you up the Swanee.’

The widow returned, three steaming drinks on a silver tray and a couple of thick triangles of brack. She handed Arm a drink, a small plate, and placed a slice of the brack on the plate. Hector got the same treatment before she resumed her position, sentinel by the fireplace.

‘Just the toddy for myself,’ she announced.

‘What’s that smell?’ Arm asked, holding the cup below his nose.

‘Cloves,’ she said. ‘Have a taste.’

Arm nipped at it. ‘Whiskey.’

‘That’s what a toddy is,’ she said. ‘Yours is not so strong as it only occurred to me in the kitchen that you must have driven across the county and will be soon enough driving back again, so I made it mild.’

She looked from Arm to Hector and smiled thinly.

‘So this lad is not your relative? Maybe I’m biased but I think I see a bit of a resemblance.’

‘No, no, my dear,’ Hector said, summoning up a smile for his biddy. ‘He merely works with my nephew. Our resemblances only extend as far as the fact we are both handsome men.’

‘Well now, Hector, maybe that’s it,’ the widow Mirkin chortled, and Arm saw that she was in fact a little tipsy. She eyed Arm over her drink as she took a sup.

‘Can I ask what the emergency was?’

Arm felt no particular urge to say anything. Hector looked at him and fumbled for words.

‘There, well, it’s only that it seems there may have been some kind of accident at the farm.’

‘An accident?’ the widow said gravely, her hand fluttering to her brooch. She looked from Hector to Arm.

‘We may have to go, now, my dear,’ Hector continued. ‘Myself and Douglas, I mean. I don’t want you concerned.’

‘What on earth happened?’ she asked.

‘The nature of the incident is not, fully, ah, apparent yet,’ Hector blustered, ‘we’re not sure how serious it is.’ He balanced the plate of brack on his chair’s armrest and stood up. Arm left down the victuals and shot to his feet too, a bolt of pain crackling through his middle.

‘Hector, what is the matter?’ the widow demanded. Hector girded himself and stepped forward. ‘Let’s just fucking go, Douglas,’ he growled, bustling crabwise past Arm, chest out but a cringe distorting his face, like Arm might go for him. Hector stepped out into the frame of the door.

‘Take another step yonder and I’ll break both your fucking ankles, Heck,’ Arm said.

Arm thought the widow might shriek or otherwise take fright at this articulation, but she was gazing in a spellbound way at the chair he had stepped out of. Her face was white, her expression shrunken.

‘What has happened to you?’ she said in a frail voice.

Arm looked back at the chair. A purplish stain had soaked down into the seat.

‘Oh, God in heaven, you do not look well. You are not well,’ the widow said.

‘Maire Mirkin,’ Arm said, ‘I am sorry. I am on your premises under false pretences. But if I am, then so too is this sidling cunt in the jumper.’ Out came the hammer and Arm pointed it towards Hector. Hector’s face had gone tight, clotted.

‘Hector,’ the widow said.

‘Maire Mirkin,’ Arm continued, ‘What does this fraud do? Show up with flowers, smile and charm. Throw a few quid your way to keep the house in trim, buy a nice thing or two in town. Well he has been playing you for a fool. His kind is poisonous. You’ve been letting a snake in through your door.’

The widow was staring at Hector, but she was listening to Arm.

‘He wants your money,’ Arm said.

‘Money,’ the widow said.

‘Yes. The money. The money. Now go and get it,’ Arm said.

‘Money,’ she said again.

‘Yes. Money,’ Arm said. ‘Whatever’s on the premises. In the attic, under the mattress, sewn into the bed linen, I couldn’t give a fuck where it’s hid, Maire, whether it’s cash or coppers or gold or silver, but go and get it for me.’