moving behind the reflections in the glass. He heard the baskety metal clash of the shopping carts shoved away. Minogue thought of Debussy. Music under water, shimmering. Everything slow. Iseult had taken Kathleen and himself to a recital in the Art Gallery some weeks after he had come out of the hospital. Minogue had been astounded at what he had heard. He was sure the doctor had been wrong about the hearing loss. There in the hall, with the musicians warming up, the sounds had been like a dream. They walked toward the great hall, Minogue hardly feeling his feet move under him, quite lost to the gathering sounds which washed over and enveloped him. Was that what it was like when you kicked up your heels and your soul took off? Like a big underwater cave and everything changed and shining.
Silly to be thinking of Agnes McGuire and that at the same time. And then that young Guard in the car, dead now, just like that, like he never lived, another gravestone being made, an editorial on the outrage. What was the use of it all?
To Minogue's left, a movement between cars caught his eye. Ahead of him, the glass was now a darkening mirror. Rows of cars to his left and right in the mirror. Minogue wondered if he should go to a record shop later. A flicker of movement registered in Minogue's unconcern. He stepped over a worn yellow line. Debussy was like breathing under water, so it was. Minogue was vaguely aware of a soft hiss of tires on the tarmac. As if you could swim next to the dolphins and go into coral caves. Minogue realised that he was not surrounded by cars anymore. In a ridiculous second, he was standing on the strand in Lahinch, again a child, with the ebbing tide pulling the grains away from under him. He'd feel the tug and he'd turn and realise how far away the others were. All the way to Boston, Mam said as she pointed out over the waves.
Minogue heard the squeal as the tires bit in. He stopped. He looked to his left to see the car bearing down on him. A silhouette and beads of old rain on the glass. The engine roared and gulped as the automatic grabbed onto second gear. A pulse ran up to Minogue's scalp. Where? Minogue's body was all wrong for heading for the kerb ahead.
Still he moved a foot awkwardly in that direction. He dropped onto his flexed knees with his arms spread in a move from a deadly Chubby Checker dance. This can't work, he was thinking, as his body ran ahead of him, shifting from foot to foot awaiting a decision. / can't stay here I'll be run over and killed. Where? Don't think. Minogue's take-off foot wrenched him back toward the parked cars. His brain followed. He could feel rather than see the speeding car change direction. His legs seemed so long and so slow. They weren't really propelling him, he was tottering. The car was a breath away, bigger, final. The space between the Fiesta and the Mini parked ahead of him seemed huge but unattainable. The colours of the cars were now almost luminescent. The rush of the approaching car filled up all the space under the clouds.
Then Minogue was on his knees, pitching forward. His palms grazed along the wet tarmac. His shoulder bounced off a panel. His legs took him over on his side and he catapulted over the downed shoulder, heels drumming a door on a car and the tar grinding and pulling his hair as his head came over. The cars trembled and wavered as the white car shot by the gap. Tiny drops of water sprayed up from its wake fell lightly over Minogue's face as he lay there. A dull burning came from his forehead. He tried to get up, his hands splayed on the tar. They might come back, I don't know.
His leather soles slipped and he fell down again. It felt dangerous to be so near the underside of cars, so close to the wheels. As he elbowed up again, he felt wetness at his knees and in his socks. He crouched between the cars. Then he darted to the back of the car and looked up through the back window. A white car was speeding out onto the Kilmacud Road. It bounced on a kerb and moved abruptly around cars. As it passed out of his sight, Minogue heard horns blowing. He was trembling, ready for doing something but there was nothing now. His body was twitching. He began to breathe deeply as he leaned on the Fiesta. He looked up to find a middle-aged woman, head and shoulders, two car roofs over from him.
'Are you a'right now?' she called out.
Minogue's body was beginning to tighten and ache.
'Did you see that, Missus? Did you see that car?'
'What car, now?' she said, softer.
'A white car. This minute.'
'No, I didn't.'
Minogue swore.
'And your head. Is your head all right?' she asked.
Minogue reached up to the burning. His fingers showed orangey blood.
'Here, I have an elastoplast in the car. Come here. What happened to you at all?'
Minogue leaned on the bonnet of the car. His neck was beginning to hurt.
'Well, Missus, unless I'm mad entirely, someone tried to run me over.'
The woman stood away from Minogue and raised a hand to her mouth. Her eyes widened.
'On purpose? Go away, you're codding me,' she whispered.
'Indeed and I'm not, ma'am,' Minogue said resignedly.
'But that sort of thing only goes on in…' she hesitated.
'In America? In the movies is it? I wish you were right,' Minogue replied.
'Shouldn't we call the Garda then?' she whispered.
Minogue had found enough control over his trembling to flick at the particles of wet dirt which had been ground into his coat. He looked quizzically at the woman who was suspended, tongue over lip, in that ageless motion of trying to get the sticky parts of the elastoplast away from the wrap without dropping the whole thing or sticking her thumb into it. He bowed to let her apply it to his forehead.
'Thanks very much now. Sure I am the police, there's the rub,' Minogue murmured.
The tanned man hissed as he spoke into the phone.
'I don't give a shit. Take anything that'll lead them further out of there and get to hell out of the place as fast as you can.'
The tone of the man on the other end turned more petulant.
'After all the trouble we went to? There's a lot of me own tools in there as well. That'll take time. I mean to say, I can't just walk out the door. Look-'
'Shut up for a minute and listen. There's been a royal screw-up with that Mercedes you had in the place. Sooner or later the cops will trace that car to your place, and you won't be whining about your tools then. Just get them and get out. Go take a holiday or something.'
'Here, it wasn't me who handed over the car. And those tools cost me a fortune, mister. Lookit, whoever you are I don't care. I just did the plates and built hidey holes for a few cars. I don't ask any questions.'
'Exactly. You don't ask any questions. No one will know you worked out of that place. We looked after everything else. If you did what you're supposed to do, there'll be nothing to tie you to that place. It's all a dead- end, the cheques and the rental thing. Christ, you couldn't have been in the place more than half a dozen times.'
'But who'll pay for me tools?'
'Look. You've never been fingerprinted so no one can trace you unless you damn well hang around! Don't you know they have one of those guys in custody?'
'Here now, hold on a minute,' the mechanic said. 'I don't want to know who I'm doing this for. A job is a job. I do the work and I gets me pay. Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. I'm like the three monkeys, you know what I mean? And I don't like being let in on this stuff either. It's none of my shagging business.'
The tanned man spoke quietly into the telephone now.
'Listen here now. It'll become your business if you don't get out of there inside of five minutes. If by any little remote chance, I get the slightest irritation because you screwed up somewhere… you'll be getting a new face knitted for yourself. You'll be playing with fucking Lego for the rest of your life, do you hear me?'
'I'm not deaf.'
'Where did you leave that Merc off for those guys anyway?'
'Ah sure I didn't have to leave it off anywhere. Just outside in the back lane here. I left the key under the wheel like that other fella told me. Your pal, whatever his name is.'
The tanned man almost threw the phone across the room. His hand tightened around it. Outside the bloody garage, of all the places on this island. Outside the garage. That was the bitter end.
The mechanic listened but heard only breathing on the line.
