Claire Kilroy - The Devil I Know

‘Ah no,’ I declined, and Christy made a swatting gesture to indicate that he would brook no refusal. Christy knew what the spirit ached for and how to minister to its needs. All men stood equal before him in their thirst, from the heir to the estate to the layabout’s son. Hickey pushed his twenty across the counter. ‘Put your money away,’ Christy instructed him, and set a second pint on the go with his name on it, followed by a third for himself.

‘They’re all coming back to us, the wandering souls,’ he observed as he returned to my pint and eased more stout into the glass. Two-thirds full now — the tension. ‘From New York, London, Saudi Arabia, what have you. The wives go there on shopping holidays now. Isn’t that right, Tristram?’ He raised an eyebrow in my direction without removing his attention from the task at hand, a pro. I nodded avidly: that’s right, Christy. Shopping holidays. I’d have agreed with anything by then.

‘Buy the fucken places up these days, don’t we?’ said Hickey.

‘True enough,’ Christy conceded. ‘But you won’t find a good pint in Dubai. You won’t find the like of that.’ He selected a beer mat and set my pint upon it with the pride of a master craftsman. ‘Now,’ he said with satisfaction. We fell quiet to consider the voluptuous curve of the glass.

Christy reached for a second beer mat and placed Hickey’s pint beside mine. ‘You’re looking well all the same, Tristram,’ he said as he topped up the final glass.

‘For a dead man,’ said Hickey.

Christy knocked off the tap. ‘Don’t mind that fella.’ Another beer mat; Christy’s pint completed the trio, racked in a triangle like snooker balls. The game was about to begin.

We waited for the tumult within the glasses to settle, the chaos that miraculously resolves itself into a well of black topped by a head of cream — a trick, a cruel trick — it never resolves, but lapses back into chaos the second you swallow it. A chaos so calamitous that you don’t know where to turn to escape it, but by then it is too late. The chaos is inside you. That is the nature of a pint.

I reached out to lay claim to the one nearest me. I rotated it on the beer mat, admiring its splendour from every angle. That pint was immaculate. Christy had outdone himself. I nodded my appreciation.

Christy raised his glass. ‘To the returned son.’ Hickey raised his glass and I lifted mine. A shake in my hand betrayed me. The two men glanced at each other. This was how they found me. Exactly as they had left me. A trembling wreck.

We clinked the bellies of our charges together. The stout was dense and the clunk was dull. A swell of cream spilled over the lip and coated my knuckles. It took every fibre of my being not to stoop to lick that cream away. I hadn’t fallen yet.

The other two sank their pints a third down in one go but I remained contemplating mine with an outstretched arm. My universe at that point in time had contracted to myself and that pint. We were a closed energy system.

‘I’ve been away a long time,’ I told the pint.

‘You have indeed,’ Christy agreed.

‘No wonder we thought you were dead,’ said Hickey.

The pint was cool and pure, tranquil as the moon. How patiently she had waited for me, knowing all along that I would come back to her, that sooner or later I would return. It was only a question of time.

Hickey was trying to get me to recount for Christy’s amusement the part he maintained I’d played in setting a Cortina on fire. I didn’t know what he was talking about. You do know, you do know, he kept insisting, pulling exasperated faces at Christy, and it occurred to me that if Christy wasn’t there, if the pub were empty and Hickey had me to himself, he’d have taken hold of the collar of my shirt and belted a confession out of me, for that is how D. Hickey did business. That is how he did business with me.

‘Ah, would you let the man enjoy his pint in peace, for the love of God,’ Christy interceded. ‘Sure look: he hasn’t even touched it yet.’

We all looked at my untouched pint and I brought it closer to my lips. I had never felt so pared down before, stripped so keenly to my basest elements. My darkest depths were contained in that vessel, a chalice I had crossed the earth to evade, pinballing from one hemisphere to the other, from one continent to the next, in the hope that if I kept moving it would not catch up with me, but now here it was, pressed like a coin into my hand by those who knew me, those who had known me as a child. This was it. This was what I was. A cubic pint of deepest black. I was holding my soul, distilled into liquid and aching to be reunited with my body, howling to be poured back in. I brought the glass closer again. I knew this would happen. I wanted this to happen. I still want it to happen. I always will.

My mobile phone rang. I put down the pint. Unknown read the screen.

‘Yes, M. Deauville?’ I called him Monsieur and he pronounced the Saint in my name as San, though generally he just called me Tristram. Hickey flicked the tip of his eager tongue over his moustache of foam and tried to earwig. I turned my back and retreated to a quiet corner.

‘No, M. Deauville. I’m, ahm… I’m still in Dublin. I’m waiting for, ahm… for my luggage.’ I checked my watch again — habit, habit. I didn’t give a damn about the time.

‘You mean, this minute?’ I looked around the pub. ‘This minute, I’m in the Summit.’

I lowered my head. ‘Yes,’ I admitted, ‘that is the name of a bar.’

I listened to him touch-typing on his keyboard, tocka tocka, tocka tocka . He was seated at his control panel watching his monitors, firing off instructions from his executive chair. That is how I pictured M. Deauville. A face illuminated blue by a bank of computer screens.

Tocka tocka . ‘The Church of Ireland hall? Yes, I think I know which one that is.’ So many churches on our little peninsula. So many shots in the dark at salvation.

‘Do, please, yes,’ I said to his offer to book me a taxi. Tocka tocka . ‘Five minutes?’ I checked my watch and only then registered that it was still set to Eastern Standard Time. ‘Perfect. I’ll be waiting outside.’ ‘Thank you,’ I added as the sheer gravity of the episode began to sink in. I had almost fallen and there was so very far to fall. M. Deauville had plucked me from the jaws of Hell. Again. Relief was followed by euphoria. ‘Thank you, M. Deauville. Thank you so—’ but he had already hung up.

I turned back to Hickey. He was alone now and perched sullenly on a bar stool. I returned the phone to my jacket pocket and offered him my hand. ‘Good seeing you again, Mr Hickey, but I’m afraid I must leave immediately. I have to take an important conference call.’

Hickey looked at my hand without accepting it. ‘It’s five to eight on a Friday evening,’ he pointed out flatly.

I withdrew my hand. ‘Not in New York, it isn’t.’ I raised a palm in farewell to Christy and headed for the exit. Hickey sighed and laboured off the bar stool. I pushed the door open onto rose sunlight. A yacht race was disappearing around the back of Ireland’s Eye and fishing boats were setting out for the night catch. Hickey joined me on the top step, a fresh pint in his paw, no doubt the one I’d put back on the counter. He kept his eyes on the view as he spoke.

‘I have something to show you,’ he muttered out of the side of his mouth. That was Hickey’s idea of discretion: act as suspiciously as possible. ‘A business proposition,’ he added when I didn’t bite.

I smiled perfunctorily. ‘Next time, Dessie.’ He made eye contact then. Both of us knew there would be no next time.

A taxi drew up at the gate piers. Every order issued by M. Deauville was carried out to the letter. That’s what money does. I picked my way across the sprawled dogs and opened the door to the back seat. ‘St Lawrence?’ The driver nodded.