Claire Kilroy: The Devil I Know

‘Tristram,’ she began carefully, and joined her palms together as if praying for the right words to come, and I couldn’t help but admire the gesture, as I had admired all her gestures, all the flourishes her hands had performed, although the solemnity of this one warned me to be afraid of what she was about to impart. She took a deep breath to fortify herself, and so did I. ‘Tristram,’ she said again, ‘I realise that this isn’t the best time for you to hear this, in light of your father’s sudden passing, but they’re going to come after your assets now, and some assets can’t be hidden. Some assets can’t be stashed. JCBs and diggers and all that junk parked on the driveway can be made to disappear, as can sums of money, but assets like a castle, assets like your grounds? There’s no place to hide assets like that. There’s no way of sheltering them. It’s unlikely they’ll remain yours for much longer, I’m afraid. All I can suggest is that you go down and strip the place of valuables while you still have a chance.’

Hickey’s voice butted in behind her. ‘Where are the Hobnobs, love?’ At a time like this.

She turned and I caught sight of him over her shoulder, standing with his back to us in the kitchen, barefoot in his jocks. Not that hairy after all. ‘They’re in the cupboard, Des.’ Wearily, as if they’d been over this a million times.

Hickey contemplated the wall of identical white high-gloss units. ‘Where’s the cupboard, love?’

‘Oh for God’s sake, I’m coming.’ She turned to me. ‘I have to go. Let’s be fair about this: we all partied. But now the party’s over. Go home, Tristram.’ She closed the door in my face.

The last thing I saw was the chandelier that Hickey had stolen from Hilltop. But why would Hickey want my chandelier? A chandelier was just a big light bulb to a man like him. It was her. She had spotted it. It had caught her eye, so she had instructed him to take it down. Strip the place of valuables while you still have a chance . ‘Keep it,’ I said to the shut door. ‘Keep the chandelier. It’s made of glass, just like you.’

I reeled down the driveway, turned to gape at the ranch in disbelief, reeled down the driveway some more, turned to gape in disbelief some more. I reached the row of palm trees and planted myself there like one of them, still hoping that she’d relent, as if a woman like her had the capacity to relent. A woman as hard as her, a woman as brittle as her, a woman made of glass. I could see that now. I could see right through her now. Transparent as glass.

The journey back all along the blooming heather was a series of random footholds that either rose up to meet my step or pulled sharply away. It was wild mountain time. I tripped on tussocks and plunged into ruts, checking continuously over my shoulder for her slight figure, walking backwards for whole stretches, still praying that she’d come after me, that it was a test, or a trick or, well, anything. Anything other than what it had been. Go home, she had said, knowing that there was no home. That with Father dead the castle had passed to me, and through me, the perfect conduit, and was already gone, gambled away. She had worked it out before I did. She had done her sums. Hickey hadn’t been doing the sums. She had been doing them for him all along.

Where are you ? the Baily lighthouse flashed, majestic upon its rock.

I’m down here , the lighthouse at the tip of the East Pier flashed back . Come get me .

I’m trying , the Baily signalled. I’m stuck.

I stopped and crouched over at Michael Collins’s rock. The pain was a fist clenching my heart. ‘Please stop,’ I asked it, ‘please let go,’ but pain doesn’t listen, pain doesn’t obey. My mind was grubbing about in tiny circles. It was digging little holes. The sheer fall of mountain into the sea might have demarcated the end of the world and the end of mine. If I hurled myself into the black depths in full view of her home, she would never look out her picture window again without seeing the precipice over which she had driven me.

Don’t think I didn’t give it serious consideration.

May I have a glass of water, please?

Thank you, Fergus. That’s better. But not much.

And my father lying dead in his coffin with only his housekeeper to mourn him. His name was Amory but I always called him Father. He never called me Son.

And Larney not lying dead in his coffin. That was the other thing. Dead, and yet out and about.

The lighthouse beam swept the bay. Here! I’m down here. Please come.

Oh Jesus, I can’t, I’m stuck.

I felt the tremble of an incipient mental decline, a twinge on the gossamer threads of my troubled mind, alerting me that something nasty had alighted on my web, a black and ugly article. The signal was gaining strength. Rail tracks tingle before the train comes down the line and something big was coming down mine. Then my phone started fizzling. I took it out of my pocket and stared at it. The thing was fizzling like a shorting fuse. I turned around, I don’t know why. I do know why: I sensed a presence. The moors were deserted. I needed a drink. Oh God, oh Jesus, oh anyone who would listen, I needed a drink. I needed one then, and I need one now.

*

Larney was lying in wait for me in the rhododendrons. Larney had been lying in wait for me all my life. Larney is lying in wait for us all. We know not the hour. He had an absolute corker ready for me; game, set and match. He chose not to reveal his face, but instead called it out from the cover of the glossy shrubs.

‘What walks upright and yet has no spine?’

I kept moving and my phone kept fizzling and the train tracks kept tingling away. Something big was coming down the line, something nasty.

He shuffled out and the whole forest shook, down to the last leaf. ‘Are you not playing?’ he taunted my retreating form. ‘Are you not playing with the rough boys any more?’

I started to run and he limped after me, the two of us threshing through the dark. He knew those trails as well as I did. Like the backs of our hands.

‘Answer me, young master: what walks upright and yet has no spine?’ I could feel him wheezing down the back of my neck.

‘You!’ he answered when I did not. ‘You have no spine.’

That wasn’t the corker. He still had the corker up his sleeve.

‘Wait, wait, wait ,’ he called after me, demolishing the undergrowth in his path. ‘I’ve got a better one for you. Are you ready?’

This was the corker. And no, I wasn’t ready.

‘Who is Monsieur Deauville?’

I stopped dead in surprise. Larney stopped too and so did the racket. ‘Where did you hear that name?’

‘Every soul in Christendom knows that name. I’ll make you a deal: answer the riddle and I’ll let you go free.’

I took off down the hill again, listening to him, despite myself. Considering his offer. He was hard up behind me again in no time.

‘But there’s a catch, young master. You have to answer the riddle correctly. So here we go: who is Monsieur Deauville?’

M. Deauville is my sponsor.

I didn’t speak the answer. I merely thought it. But Larney contrived to hear it all the same.

‘Wrong answer, young master,’ he declared with glee. ‘Monsieur Deauville is not your sponsor. Now, as I said, there’s a catch.’

We emerged from the gardens onto the top of the avenue. And that’s when I heard it. Tocka tocka . The catch. I turned around. Larney was trotting across the tarmac. My eyes dropped to the source of the sound.

‘Larney,’ I said, and pointed. ‘Your feet.’

Larney looked down at his feet. His teeny tiny little feet, not much bigger than champagne corks. He broke into a mocking jig to showcase them. Tocka tocka, tocka tocka . Not fingertips flying across a keyboard but the sound of hooves.