Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies

‘Just like that, Jimmy?’

‘Just like that.’

‘I did you a good turn, boy.’

‘And what d’you want? A fucking medal? Cusack, if we lived in a world where good deeds meant anything I’d have played along, but this isn’t that kind of world, and this isn’t that kind of fuck-up.’

‘You dragged me into this.’

‘I did.’

‘And how do I know I’m going to get out of it at all?’

‘Coz I fucking said so. We’re going round in circles, Cusack.’

He moved back towards his old friend, and felt — and was astonished at it; it was something he’d taken for granted for far too long — the sickly satisfaction at seeing the other flinch and then cower. His guts twisted. He caught Tony’s shoulder again. Half a man, halved.

Jimmy spat, ‘Don’t think I’m completely black-hearted, Cusack. We have history. I respect that. Do this and we’re square. Don’t do this, and… Well. You know you’re going to do it because you don’t have a choice, do you? Father-of-how-many, knock-kneed killer.’

The front door slammed.

Jimmy turned, hand still on Tony’s shoulder, and into the kitchen came, he guessed, the little prince.

‘What’s going on?’

Jimmy pinched Tony’s shoulder and said, ‘Well, fuck me. They grow up so fast.’

The kid was the spit of his ould lad. A touch taller and missing the gut, the benefit of his mother’s genes in these and other refinements; a good-looking lad, Jimmy thought, not your typical scut. He was out of the scut’s uniform, too, in a smart jacket and black jeans instead of the tracksuit and sovereigns combo. ‘Ryan,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’m right, amn’t I? The heir to the Cusack fortune. Well, how are you today?’

‘Can I help you with something?’

‘That’s not a very helpful tone.’

‘Well let me re-fucking-calibrate. D’you want something?’

Jimmy whistled.

‘Not so much a chip-off-the-ould-block as he looks, is he?’ he said to Tony. ‘Fire in him, though this town’ll have something to say about that eventually.’ Back at Ryan he said, ‘I do want something, and I got it. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.’

He released Tony.

‘Friday,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to you then.’

The son moved out of the way as he walked past and back into the cluttered hallway, back out through the grubby door, back down the driveway lined with ragwort and dandelion, back onto the street outside and its concrete footpaths dashed with gum and bird shit.

He wondered, as he walked, about the sprained turns that made a man a murderer. Jimmy didn’t consider himself a member of that family; no, there was something sicker to murder than pragmatic judgement, which is all he ever engaged in. Tony Cusack was one kind of man: shuffling from one weak comfort to the next. What darkness was in him had been so well buried Tony himself likely didn’t know it was there to call on, when his position as man and father and household god was threatened. But then maybe he did. And maybe the boat was a tool seized to carry out another task in a long schedule. You just don’t know, do you?

He unlocked his car door and as his fingers closed around the handle a voice caught him and spun him back again.

‘Hey!’

It was the young lad. Murderer or not, Tony Cusack wasn’t bold enough to bellow dissent.

Ryan Cusack strode right up and stopped just short enough to leave room for swinging fists.

‘What the fuck was that about?’ he said.

Jimmy laughed. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You. My dad. In my dad’s house. Just now. What the fuck was that about?’

Jimmy closed the gap between them.

‘None of your fucking business, pup.’

There was a height difference. Jimmy thought: A good gut-punch will sort that out if necessary .

‘Watch me make it my fucking business,’ said the boy.

‘Aw, stop,’ sneered Jimmy. ‘I know what you’re at and I appreciate it, I do. Showing off your baby claws is how you little fuckers learn. But you don’t practise your play-acting on me, because I will put you in the ground. And your daddy after you.’

He meant to turn away. He didn’t. There was, all of a stark sudden, too much there to turn away from.

Beyond Ryan’s shoulder was a heavy stone sky and the dark, thick green of overgrown grass, and between both the reds and greys and browns of the suburban terraces. The boy was dark as his father, but lacking the ruddy palate of these hills and their rusted air. Here was a changeling who’d laid claim to the landscape and the place had grown up around him. Jimmy curled his lip.

Ryan said, ‘You don’t come into my house, and threaten my father, without giving me the chance to put you back in your box.’

Jimmy pushed against him; Ryan stood solid.

‘If you had any idea who you were talking to,’ Jimmy said, ‘you’d be cleaving out your tongue on your fucking knees. Boy.’

‘I know full well who I’m talking to. Phelan.’

Jimmy bared his teeth.

‘Well, look at the fucking balls on you. That must be the Neapolitan talking, because it sure as shit isn’t your father.’

‘Funny that, isn’t it?’

‘Fucking hilarious. All I had left to know about you was how you spoke to your betters. Part-time half-grown dealer scum, Ryan Cusack. Kicked out of school, time under your belt already and a future bright as a bruise.’

‘Spot on, boy. And your problem with my dad is what?’

‘Hoho! Like a dog with a bone. Why don’t you ask him?’

‘Because I’m asking you.’

‘The question is, Ryan, would you like it if I told you?’

Jimmy stepped back again, leaned against the Volvo and folded his arms. The boy’s fingers curled into fists. Fifty feet away, Tony Cusack hovered at his hall door. Jimmy nodded towards him.

‘He’s afraid for you, Ryan, but more afraid for himself. Watch him.’

‘Maybe he’s not afraid for me at all.’

‘No, he is. Always thinking about you. Oh, you’ve no fucking idea. But he won’t come out here after you, because you’ve gone and gotten yourself into deep, deep shit. Didn’t he warn you, when you went rushing out the door after me?’

Ryan snorted. ‘There’s a problem, I sort it.’

‘What, you think getting banged up in borstal qualifies you to butt heads with me?’

‘You bothering my father in my kitchen qualifies me to butt heads with you. You want something, talk to me about it. My dad’s no good to you. And you fucking know it.’

‘Oh, hark at this! Are you falling on your sword, kid?’

‘Maybe.’

Jimmy nodded at the house again.

‘What did he tell you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘And you don’t reckon that’s because he doesn’t want you sticking your oar in?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Does he normally get you to do his dirty work, Ryan?’

‘If there’s dirty work needs doing.’

In the doorway, Tony Cusack pushed his hand over his forehead.

Aloud, Jimmy wondered, ‘After all he’s done, the man throws his boy to the fucking wolves.’

Ryan said, ‘So. What the fuck was that about?’

Jimmy swiftly measured outcomes. In front of him, the young avenger waited, a sharp twist to the corner of his mouth. Tony Cusack never once looked like coming over the threshold to reclaim him.

‘All right,’ said Jimmy.

Underneath logic and strategy, he was burning. Anger, more than was reasonable, caught his breath and quickened his pulse. He had no time to put a name to it, but he recognised its tincture from the same processes that had fucked his place in the world he’d made since he’d brought Maureen home from London. There were more out there like Ryan Cusack, boys half Jimmy’s age for whom reputation was a thing to be taken from someone else.