Claire Kilroy - The Devil I Know

I sat back down on the paint-spattered chair and watched him make a cup of tea. He made only one, so I presumed it was for him until he placed the mug in front of me. ‘There,’ he said as if setting me a challenge. Which he was. Curds of sour milk floated on the surface. ‘Thanks, Dessie.’ I adjusted the position of the mug but did not raise it from the table.

He sat down on the other side of the desk, put his head in his hands and shook his great mane slowly. Oh Lord God, I realised, he knows. He knows that I am in love with his wife, and that his wife is in love with me. How could he not know? The birds were singing about it in the trees. The sun was shining about it in the sky. Yes, we had been seeing each other all summer, Edel and I, but that is a private matter.

I sat there awaiting my punishment like a schoolboy. A girly calendar was tacked to the wall behind Hickey’s head. Miss September’s breasts were as hyper-inflated as the tyres on his truck. Finally, he raised his face. ‘The Viking,’ he told me darkly.

‘Oh,’ I said in relief. ‘Why, what of him?’

Hickey averted his face, as if he couldn’t yet bring himself to speak of such things, and it was insensitive of me to ask.

‘What? Has he ratted you out with Svetlana?’ That would explain why Edel had come to me in the first place. The spurned wife.

‘The Russian one? No, she’s grand. It’s her pimp that’s giving me a pain in the hole.’ He resumed his slow, sour headshake, and his mouth performed a series of expressions of revulsion, as if nauseating words were teeming inside it, filling it with bile until he could hold them in no longer. He sprang to his feet and threw open the door. I thought he was going to puke but instead he hawked a gullier into the yard where it sizzled in the sun, glutinous with agro.

He shut the door and returned to his seat. ‘The Viking’s after getting to Ray.’

‘Getting to him?’

‘Yeah. He wants the Metro North diverted to service his land.’

I was missing something. ‘What does the Viking want with the Metro North? The Dart’s already servicing Howth.’

‘Not his land in Howth. His land in some kip I never heard of on the other side a the M1. An he gazumped us on diverting the Metro this morning. It’s going to terminate in his farm, not ours.’

‘But our farm is worthless without the Metro.’

‘Correct. We’ll be down ninety-eight million.’

Ninety-eight million. Could we really have paid that? I lowered my eyes to the curdled milk. ‘Well, we’re just going to have to cough up even more to the Minister then, aren’t we? How much is he extorting from the Viking?’

‘€300,000.’

‘Bloody hell. So we need to come up with €310,000.’

‘Nope. We need to come up with half a mil.’

‘That’s not how bidding works. You go in with your lowest offer.’

‘This isn’t bidding. This is bribing. The Minister says it’ll cost half a mil in “professional fees” to get the Metro North diverted to service our farm. He read in the Irish fucken Times this morning that we’re going to make a profit of over a hundred million on the new urban quarter so he wants a slice. Fair’s fair, is what he told me. Otherwise, the Metro North goes east to the Viking’s field. An oh yeah, he wants this “professional fee” to be delivered as a package.’

‘What, in a big brown envelope?’

‘No, a financial package. He wants a certain amount a the apartments from the farm — he hasn’t said how many yet — to be placed in various offshore trusts that can’t be traced back to him. He’s had a spot a bother in this regard in the past, as we all know. Plus we’ve to throw in the redevelopment of his gaff to include a 3,000-square-foot extension to the side an rear with swimming pool and gym. I mean, we can’t just hand the man half a million lids in cash, obviously.’

‘Obviously.’

‘Except that he wants half a million lids in cash to be handed to him first.’

‘What?’

‘This is it. He wants half a million lids lodged as a “planning bond” an when he gets his apartments and extension he’ll give us our cash back.’

‘I’ve heard it all.’

A knock on the door then. Hickey threw his head back as if this were the final straw. ‘Oh Jesus Christ what !’ he shouted at the ceiling.

A labourer in a helmet inserted his head. ‘There’s a man here from Iarnród Éireann, boss. Says the railway owns the north-west corner of the site.’

‘Tell him to go and shite.’

‘Fair play,’ said the labourer and shut the door.

‘The Viking,’ Hickey said bitterly, stoking his rage. ‘Because a that ponce, we need an extra quarter mil. I’m already at the pin a me collar. Where am I going to find that sort a money?’

‘The country is awash with money. Ask McGee. I mean, he’s throwing cash around.’

‘Not any more, he isn’t. He says he has a liquidity issue, not a solvency one.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Dunno. He just came out with it. I rang him an says, Ulick, be a good man an loan us some extra money there for the Minister; an he says, Dessie, we have a liquidity issue, not a solvency one, but the fundamentals are sound. Then he says we said we’d take care a the Minister.’

‘No, you said you’d take care of the Minister.’

‘Yeah, but you’re me shady associate. So when I says I’ll take care a something, that means we’ll take care of it.’

The top buttons of his shirt had come undone, revealing a lewd tangle of chest hair. I didn’t like to gawp so I focused on Miss September’s cleavage instead. ‘The writing’s on the wall, Dessie. It’s time to pull the plug.’

‘We can’t pull the plug. The contracts have been exchanged. We have to get that shagging Metro redirected or else we’re down ninety-eight million for a farm that isn’t even any good of a farm, according to the Irish Times , although all farms are dumps if you ask me. So go talk to your money man about spotting us the extra quarter mil. Dickville. Give him a bell.’

pp M. Deauville. I had exchanged contracts on his behalf for scrubland that didn’t even register on a GPS. ‘It’s not that simple, Dessie. I can’t just call him.’

‘Why not?’

‘I just can’t.’

‘Let me talk to him then.’

‘You can’t either.’

‘A course I can. It’s his investment too. He’ll thank you in the long run, believe you me.’ Hickey took out his mobile phone. ‘What’s his number? Call it out to me there.’

‘Trust me, Dessie. I can’t tell you his number.’

‘Give us your phone.’

‘No. Hey!’

He grabbed my phone because that’s how he had operated in school — by simply appropriating the things he wanted. And that’s how I had operated too — by simply letting him.

He was prodding away at it with his hairy digits when he sat back and frowned. ‘Here, why did me wife call you this morning?’

This may come as a surprise to those assembled in this chamber but I am a dreadful liar. I gaped at Hickey and Hickey gaped at me and it seemed that we were building up to something — something big, something explosive, something that would splatter all over the ceiling — when my phone rang in his hand.

‘It says Unknown . Is that him?’

I nodded.

Hickey pressed the green button and raised my phone to his ear. ‘Hello?’ He lowered it again and looked at the screen. ‘Prick hung up on me.’

‘Oh.’ Your wife called me this morning because she… because I… because we… Because what?

My phone rang again. Hickey reluctantly returned it. I checked the screen. Unknown .