Claire Kilroy: The Devil I Know

The plane finally came to rest. Somebody applauded but no one joined in. The bottle of precious amber had shot out of my sweaty palm. I rolled onto my belly and groped around on the floor but in my heart I knew it was already too late.

‘Leave the aircraft, leave the aircraft,’ the captain was chanting.

We were evacuated via emergency slides. A fleet of fire trucks had assembled on the runway to hose down the burning engine. Firemen hoisted us off the base of the slide and sent us reeling towards the flashing lights and coaches waiting beyond. ‘Keep moving, keep moving,’ they ordered us as we were hustled along. A sign over the terminal building shone yellow in the distance. Dublin Airport , it said.

‘Are you hurt?’ M. Deauville wanted to know as soon as I got the phone up and running. It rang literally the instant it located a network. He must have had my number on redial. I could barely hold the phone to my ear with the shake in my hand. Our emergency landing had made it onto the news — the television screens in the terminal were broadcasting images of the flaming aircraft. They said it was an emergency landing but it felt like a crash. Journalists were interviewing passengers behind me. ‘No,’ I assured M. Deauville, ‘I amn’t hurt, but I…’

‘Yes?’

I thought about the amber bottle. I couldn’t stop thinking about the amber bottle. The cool heft of it in my hand, the tiny pocket of sanctuary it promised. If I could just squeeze myself into the amber bottle and screw the lid back on, seal myself off. ‘I think I’m in shock,’ I told M. Deauville, ‘but it’s nothing physical.’ Actually, I’d broken a rib and deserved as much. There was no need to fuss.

Several passengers were taken to hospital with minor injuries and the rest of us were transferred to an airport hotel. It was a miracle, people remarked to each other over and over on the coach; a flock of worried sheep. A miracle, an absolute miracle, they bleated, until soon I was bleating it myself. Then I was on my own again, separated from the herd. The elevator bell dinged and I limped out onto a hushed hotel corridor hugging my aching side. I stared at the arrows on the wall. Bedrooms 600 to 621 were this way, and bedrooms 622 to 666 were that. I read the number on my key but for the life of me, I did not know which way to turn.

‘Mr St Lawrence, you claim your stopover in Dublin was unscheduled, yet the next day you attended a business meeting in the airport Hilton with the property developer Desmond Hickey?’

It is true that I ran into Desmond Hickey the following day in the Darndale Hilton, as he asserts, but to call it a meeting is to grossly overstate the occasion. It was a wholly chance encounter. I came down late the following afternoon to enquire after the whereabouts of my luggage when this total stranger accosted me.

‘I thought you were dead,’ he said.

I didn’t recognise him, but then, how would I? He could have been anyone under that balaclava of facial hair. ‘None of the passengers were seriously injured,’ I assured him.

‘Wha?’

‘I know. Absolute miracle.’

‘You were on that plane last night? The one that shat itself?’

‘Ahm.’ I checked my watch. ‘Why else would I be dead?’

The receptionist put down her phone. ‘I’m sorry, Mr St Lawrence. The airline still hasn’t located your luggage.’

‘You are him,’ said the hairy man.

‘I see,’ I said to the receptionist and thanked her.

‘You’re Tristram St Lawrence,’ he said as if outing a thief.

‘I’m sorry, can I help you?’

The man frowned. ‘But you’re dead?’

‘That was another Tristram St Lawrence.’

He looked at me askance. How could there be two of us? Two men with a name as uncommon as that? ‘Another Tristram St Lawrence,’ he repeated dubiously, unconvinced by this explanation of a death-evading trick.

‘I don’t quite seem to have caught your name, Mr…?’

He winked. ‘Ah, you know me.’ I looked at him blankly. He winked again. ‘Ah, you do.’

I took out my phone and frowned at the screen. Force of habit. When in doubt, I consulted M. Deauville. No new calls. Even M. Deauville had to sleep, whatever time zone he was in. I replaced the phone in my pocket and returned my attention to the stocky man. ‘I’m afraid I don’t seem to—’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your oul pal.’

‘Well, I…’

Then he laughed and it was the laugh that did it. Watching him laugh at me triggered a memory of him laughing at me many moons ago. It was the act of ridicule that I recognised, the utter freedom he felt in expressing it, and my utter powerlessness in having to listen to it. This man was never my oul pal.

He put his hands on his hips when he was finished. ‘Are you seriously telling me, Tristram, that you don’t recognise me? Because I sure as hell recognise you.’

‘I remember you now. We were in primary school together.’

‘That’s it! You have me. The little school.’ He thrust out his hand and gripped mine. ‘Jaysus, your hands are freezing. Dessie Hickey.’ Gick. Gicky Hickey. He looked fiercely into my eyes — we might have been making history. He had dispensed those same intense handshakes even back in the playground. Trying to be everything his unemployed father was not, I suppose, and who could blame him? ‘You were me best customer before you, eh, disappeared…’

I released his hand. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Ah, relax. I don’t deal any more.’

‘I have no idea what you’re referring to.’ I checked my phone. Nothing.

‘Here, I’m on me way out to the hill. Come on out an celebrate.’ He produced a set of car keys and tossed them up and down in the palm of his hand, a purse of gold with which to tempt me.

‘Celebrate what?’

‘That you’re not dead.’

‘I’ve to fly to the States tonight.’

‘Tonight is ages away. What are you doing between now an then?’

‘—’

‘Too slow. I’ll drive you to the airport meself. I’ll show you the hill an then drop you off at Departures. Can’t say fairer than that. There are a few people who’d love to see you. Come on.’

I looked at my watch and made a production of sighing to illustrate that the bargain he drove was a hard one, although the truth of it was that I had nothing better to do. I had lost my luggage and missed the Florida conference. ‘Go on,’ I said ruefully, as if acting against my better judgement, which I suppose I was, but I am a weak man. That is why I needed M. Deauville.

Hickey loaded me into his labourer’s truck along with the rest of the junk he’d accumulated — Coke cans and crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and Lotto tickets, rolled-up Daily Star s. He cleared the passenger seat of debris with a swipe of his hand. I climbed in and looked over my shoulder through a filthy pane of glass. The truck’s flatbed was stocked with tools — a spade, a ladder, a wheelbarrow, a variety of hammers and planks. A sack of grit slumped in the corner like a dozing drunk. I reached for my seat belt. Glued to the dashboard was a plastic figurine of St Christopher.

Hickey maintained a taxi-driver patter for the duration of the journey through the early evening traffic. Howaya getting on abroad, Tristram? You keeping well? An your da? How’s your da? Desperate business about your ma, poor woman. Ah, we were all very sorry down the town to see her go. She was well liked, so she was. Thought we might see you at the funeral but they said you were too busy…? Then a course we all heard you were dead. Must be some job to keep you away from your own ma’s funeral…? I heard you were high up in the world of international finance…?