Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies

Tony barely jibbed. His son gave him a roll of notes. He closed his hands around the gift and said, ‘Where did you get this?’ and his son stared into the distance like a mariner mourning the fleet and said, ‘A bit of work, that’s all,’ and Tony knew then what he’d birthed.

Briefly, he considered asking this new Ryan what to do about Tara Duane, but wouldn’t that give wings to an ugly truth? The conversation turned back to the car. Tony thought of histories etched on his son’s skin and felt sick. He watched Duane’s house, imagining her peeking from behind the sitting-room curtains, plotting how she was going to stitch them both up. Ryan said, ‘I’m saving for a GTI but this’ll do for getting Karine to and from the shops in the meantime,’ and his father patted the bonnet and laughed weakly.

As Christmas rushed him he thought of Jimmy Phelan’s visit the year before, the half-drained bottle of whiskey he’d brought as a fuck you. Three December evenings in a row he contemplated picking up the phone and asking J.P. for help. Each time he stopped himself with bitter rationale. Jimmy Phelan wasn’t his friend. He had slung his sins around Tony’s neck and Tony had bowed and let him.

Two days before Christmas, the house from which he and Jimmy had removed poor Robbie O’Donovan went up in flames.

He only realised when he saw the photos on the front of the Echo . Two engines blocking the quay, the dampened smoke smothering the river, the sky above, stained. He read the report and was relieved to find there had been no one in the house at the time and no one hurt in the buildings around it. Preliminary investigations suggested faulty wiring — the property was ancient, after all — so the guards had ruled out foul play. Tony knew better. He had grown cynical enough to assume that the guards knew better too.

He supposed the fire turned the page on a black chapter of his life.

But he wasn’t the same man who had stumbled onto J.P.’s path nearly four years before. The tidy removal of the crime scene couldn’t draw a line under what had happened. Robbie O’Donovan was still dead. Tony Cusack had still washed his blood off the floor. Tara Duane had still used the wound as leverage.

On Christmas Day young Linda came over to compare presents with Kelly. Can in hand, Tony asked after her plans for the new year. She said she’d organised to continue her training in a salon in Glasgow, where her dad lived. She said she’d be leaving in the second week of January.

Kelly said, ‘Think of all your mam can get up to with you out from under her feet,’ and Linda shuddered treacherously.

Pallid in the glow of the Christmas tree lights, Ryan stared straight at the telly, feigning apathy.

Tony made up his mind.

The day before the scheduled blaze Tara Duane was all zest and merriment, as if she was relaying instructions for a supermarket sweep.

‘So what’ll happen,’ she said, placing a mug of milky tea on the table in front of him, ‘is that I’ll leave the house at six o’clock, and take care to be seen here and there in town, and I won’t come home until you phone me to tell me that there’s been a terrible incident, or…’ and she winked, ‘that the job is done.’

Tony hooked his fingers around the handle of the mug. He’d watched her make the tea and was satisfied she’d neither drugged nor spat in it. Still didn’t make it any way appetising.

They were sitting in her kitchen. Efforts had been made to emphasise its owner’s nonconformity — colourful, mismatched crockery, tea towels with cheeky slogans, holiday knick-knacks arranged on the windowsill — but the baubles didn’t mask the decay. Piles of clothes had been set on the table and left for so long they’d become musty. The wall behind the dustbin was streaked brown and grey. The top of the cooker was thick with old grease. It was as if the resident had died months ago. Tony watched Tara Duane prep her own tea. She could easily have been a shade, remembering nothing but the most twisted flashes of what she once was.

‘You don’t need to worry at all,’ she enthused, sitting across from him. ‘I’ve thought of absolutely everything. I’ve sold off some valuables because Melinda’s just left and I’ve taken that opportunity to sort my stuff out. See? Makes total sense. You’re going to throw the bottle into the kitchen leaving the key in the door behind you — I’ll give it to you now, so we won’t be seen together tomorrow — and it’ll be like I simply forgot to lock it before going out. You know what a bad idea that is in a neighbourhood like this. You call me straight away because we’re neighbours and you noticed the smell of smoke. And if anyone sees you leaving by my back door it’s really easy to say, Well yeah, I stuck my head in and realised the fire was out of control and I immediately called Tara and then the fire brigade , yeah? And then I tell the Council I was right all along and they move me out of here. And that’s that!’

No bother on her at all that she was explaining an elaborate ruse to a man only involved because of his incurable hatred.

‘Best for all of us, I think you’ll agree,’ she said. ‘This house has always been too big for me and Melinda. There are families who need it more than I do. So! Any questions?’

Tony remembered the banshee by the lake. He shook his head.

‘Great!’ she said. ‘Oh, have a biscuit, for God’s sake. Do me a favour. I’m watching my figure!’

He hadn’t planned to have a couple beforehand but he was no more able to stop himself drinking than he was to stop the act itself.

He lay in his bed and wept the poison out in preparatory ritual. Thought, Am I even able to see this through? Will I get caught? and then, What will my kids think of me? They wouldn’t understand. What’s a father to them, except someone who makes their dinners and ensures the house doesn’t fall down around their ears? Not even that, Tony Cusack . What’s a father to them, except someone who boozes and stumbles and fights and spews? They wouldn’t understand that this was something he had to do, and he could never make them.

Every now and then he picked up his mobile and checked the hour and at 3 a.m. he slid out of the bed and stood by the front window and looked out at the estate.

It was raining. Wind shook the shrubs and hedges in neighbouring gardens, banged a gate somewhere across the way, slapped the windowpane. There were no lights on in the houses directly across the green. Nothing stirred but the night’s own breath.

He stood there for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, then found his feet.

Even if one of his children woke up they would pay no mind to his nocturnal roving; it wouldn’t be the first time insomnia had tortured him. He dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen, opened the back door, and looked out. No lights in the houses backing onto his, either, except the usual glow from some of the neighbours’ bathrooms.

It was the kind of night that could go on forever.

The key turned in Duane’s back door. He stood for a moment in her kitchen, inhaling the scent of air freshener coiled through stale smoke and grease. Then he picked his way through the darkness into her hall, the layout identical to his own heap, checked the sitting room for signs of life, and crept up the stairs. The bathroom light was on and its door left ajar.

A creak on the step third from the top. He wondered what he’d say if she woke and caught him. If he claimed to have been overcome by night-time fervours and desperate for the loving touch of a spindly bitch, would she believe him? Would she cast him aside, his being all grown up and therefore way too fucking old for her?

He tried the door to the front bedroom and was momentarily bewildered by the decor, fittings and fragrances. His eyes tuned into the dark and he made sense of the shapes around him. Posters, perfumes on the dressing table, the Playboy bunny on the bedclothes. The bed was empty. This was the daughter’s room.