Claire Kilroy: The Devil I Know

Hickey yanked the door open and tore in there like a terrier. He reefed all 200 pounds of the Viking out of his seat by the scruff. I had never seen strength like it. I stepped out of his way to watch. The man was still struggling with his Armani zipper when Hickey flung him across the dusty laneway as if he weighed no more than an old coat.

‘Ya dirty bollocks!’ he was shouting when Svetlana screeched past in the Range Rover, swerving to avoid the sparring pair. Would she pay for it, I wondered as she veered around the corner — never to be seen again as it turned out. Neither she nor the Viking’s SUV. But she already had paid for it, I realised. Paid a disgusting price.

I turned to the men. Hickey had the Viking up against the wall. Yes, that is when the alleged assault on Mr Dowdall took place, although there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. Me? No, sorry, can’t help you there, Fergus. I didn’t see a thing.

‘To return to the issue of the—’

Fergus, Fergus, Fergus, Fergus, I know you feel obliged to occasionally butt in, as well you might considering your outrageous salary (which is a whole other crime against the Irish State, but that’s another day’s work); however, would it not be best for all concerned at this stage if you simply let me bash on? I’m getting to the really good bit, which is the really bad bit, the bit that still makes me shiver.

Hickey and I took up position on the barstools of the Evora, our arses lined up in a row with the arses of the fishermen. My arse was born to be there. It had assumed its rightful seat. I did my post-pint sigh: Ahhhhh. Hickey’s stranded truck was the talk of the town. There was heated speculation surrounding the upcoming spring tide: how high would it go — as high as the truck? — and whether the truck’s enormous tractor tyres would set it afloat. ‘Not my problem,’ Hickey stated, basking in the attention. ‘D. Hickey ain’t paying for that.’ But he was. We would all pay for it, many times over and for the rest of our lives.

When the fishermen climbed down from the stools to go home to their beds, we took our business around the corner to the Cock, which was just unbolting its doors to the late-morning trade. It was good to be out and about.

‘Howaya Gick. Who’ve you got there?’

‘Lads, it’s Tristram. You remember Tristram. Tristram St Lawrence, from the little school.’

‘Castler? I thought he was dead.’

‘Nah, he’s just gee-eyed. Look at the cut of him. Stocious, so he is.’

It was all about pacing so I stuck to the pints. I drank until I was sober again. Sober enough to take myself into the jacks to scrub the hardened gullshit off my trousers. My ribs were killing me. I pulled up my shirt to discover a purple bruise. I came out looking like I’d pissed myself, they said, but at least I wasn’t covered in shite. Another round of pints and a good laugh, both at my expense. Put it on my tab, I told the barman. I never carry cash. Hickey didn’t wash the Viking’s blood from his shirt, which darkened as the day progressed from a valorous scarlet to a tarnished brown.

On the television set mounted over the bar, chief executives were being perp-walked out of the bank in New York that had collapsed the day before, taking all the money with it. Hickey kept disappearing to answer his phone. ‘Tell us if you notice any dodgy Xs standing around,’ he confided in my ear when he returned from one of these calls.

‘Dessie, the Tax Man is not an individual person, per se. And he isn’t even necessarily a man these days. Could be the Tax Woman. Have you ever considered that?’ Hickey just looked at me and shook his head as if I could never begin to understand.

In the late afternoon we took off down the hill again to survey our interests, two men of the world. The foreman was waiting for us outside the Portakabin. ‘What the fuck is this?’ Hickey demanded, gesturing at the deserted site. The machinery was frozen mid-manoeuvre — loads suspended in the air, the arms of diggers reaching out — as if a spell to arrest time had been cast.

‘It’s the men,’ the foreman explained, but it wasn’t the men: it was the money. It had stopped flowing and so had everything else. The site had ground to a halt. The money hadn’t appeared in the men’s accounts that morning, and it hadn’t appeared the week before either, which was the first I’d heard. Deliveries were no longer arriving through the gate. Creditors were banging at the door. The men had walked off the site, taking with them as much equipment as they could carry in lieu of two weeks’ wages.

The foreman removed his helmet and held it out to Hickey, upturned like a begging bowl. ‘Really sorry boss,’ he said, and seemed to mean it. He paused on his way to the gate and glanced back. ‘Oh, and em… the Gardaí were looking for you.’

He allowed his eyes to drop to the bloodstains on Hickey’s shirt before hurrying away muttering apologies. And that was the end of him. He vacated the premises with his hands in his pockets and his chin on his chest. Would he pay for it? No two ways about it. Him and all the other workers in the country, many times over and for the rest of their lives.

‘That’s great,’ said Hickey when he was gone. ‘That’s just fucken brilliant.’ He placed the foreman’s helmet on the ground, jogged back to get a run at it and kicked it with his builder’s boot. The impact was crisp and hollow, a sound that in normal circumstances would have been swallowed by the general racket. Now that the general racket had ceased I found I missed it. I could hear myself think, which was the last thing I needed. The helmet smashed into Block 7 and dropped onto a stack of bricks. A half-unwrapped toilet stood next to the bricks, the lid up.

What then? What next? There was no next. I stood there assessing the damage. The greater part of me still is and always will be. Hickey’s hotel had two illegal storeys. Only one of the apartment blocks was complete. The other seven stood shelled with gaping window openings. It had fallen apart so quickly. As quickly as it had begun, I suppose, and with as little warning. Building site to bomb site overnight. We were witnessing the remnants of a dead civilisation, one that had left nothing but wreckage in its wake, the Vandals or the Goths. Except that it had not been civilised at all. Civilisation was the wrong word.

‘We’ll have a cup a tea,’ Hickey pronounced. I assumed this was sarcasm but followed him into the Portakabin just the same. I took my place in the paint-spattered chair, and, sure enough, he set about making two cups of tea, manhandling the yellowing jug kettle onto its plastic base as he had a mere twenty-four hours earlier before our world had crashed. It gave him something to do with his hands. He was still having trouble connecting with the power supply.

‘Can I help?’

‘You? Help? With a faulty appliance? Stop the lights.’

There was comfort in the routine.

The orange switch finally lit up and he shovelled four spoons of sugar into his cup — no, five. Six in total. I suppose it was good for the shock. The peaty brown tea was similar in colour to the dried blood on his shirt. He added milk and curdled floaters rose to the top. The milk was still sour. ‘Ah dear,’ he said with unexpected stoicism, then opened the window and horsed the carton out.

His mobile phone rang. He smirked when he saw the name on the screen and showed it to me. Ray Lawless . Hickey shook his head. ‘At least that greedy prick will take a hit. Every cloud.’

Yes, every cloud. Every rainy Ray cloud. Speaking of which. I turned to the window. A downpour was coming. And then the downpour came.