When Kilmartin went to see him one Sunday, Minogue was asleep. Kathleen had fallen asleep in the chair next to the bed. The broadcast of the hurling match could be heard from the transistor radio. Clare and Offaly at it. Why did Kilmartin remember that detail? Something had impressed itself on him, this scene of a sleeping couple, one supposed to be watching over the other.
Kilmartin had begun a note to leave with them, rather than wake them. Just as he finished, the daughter came in, Iseult. A name out of the past, a darkly Celtic presence: jet-black hair, the same as Minogue had had, tall. A long peasanty black dress and a shapeless coat. Fashion, is it? The fine arts stuff sent them all a bit off. Minogue stirred awake. His eyes opened and he was fully awake, just like that. A book slipped off the bed and woke Kathleen. She replaced it. A book by that fellow Victor Hugo, Les Miserables. What kind of a shagging book was that to be reading and him barely back from the dead after that bombing? A year ago nearly.
Kilmartin stood and looked out the window. The street might as well be a carpark with the traffic. Les Miserables, he thought, stubbing out the cigar. Must have been set in Dublin. 'Fucking city,' Kilmartin whispered, almost disinterestedly.
CHAPTER TWO
On Sunday morning, Minogue and his wife left after Mass in Kilmacud at about a quarter to ten. Mrs Minogue, more devout than any of her family, much favoured the condensed richness of a quick sermon. She infinitely preferred the apt word to the hyperbole which the younger priests seemed to be fond of. Father O'Rourke still gave them the goods though. His sermons lasted about five minutes and they were deceptively simple. Then, on with the Mass and the next thing you knew, you were out the door three quarters of an hour later. That was just about time for Minogue to be more or less awake.
Their children confused Minogue's silence in the mornings with bad humour although he rarely had a cross word to say. He usually said nothing at all if something irritated him. Through twenty-four years, Kathleen Minogue knew almost all the signs: his head would go down, his eyebrows would raise a frown on his forehead. He'd look around for more tea or maybe fiddle with the cup. It was Minogue's idea to make the walk down the pier in Dun Laoghaire after Mass on Sunday. The idea was to let their two children get up late and make all the fuss and hullabaloo they wanted. Iseult could be depended on to come in at about one and Daithi before three every Sunday morning. These hours started when both of them started university. Minogue wondered if that was cause and effect.
Kathleen was for putting the hammer down, 'as long as you're in this house, you'll… ' kind of thing. Minogue's own anxiety about their children brought him to a delicate equilibrium. He persuaded Kathleen to hold off on her plan, but every now and then he had to renegotiate with her. The idea was not to talk about Mass or coming in late but to come back home by about mid-day Sunday after a walk and read of the papers. Iseult would have dinner on and Daithi would be presentable, no questions asked. It worked.
Kathleen had been making the mistake of going to wake up Daithi on Sunday mornings. When she had opened the bedroom door, not only was the room like the wreck of the Hesperus, but there was also an appalling smell of stale boozy breath and a night's release of beer farts. Minogue had then been pointed toward the stairs and encouraged in no uncertain terms to rouse their son, express the joint parental disapproval and air the room. Minogue, who had been on a tear manys a time at Daithi's age but now knew better and feared for his insides, worried about Daithi's crowd. A crowd of engineering students put next to a rake of drink brought on a lot of high jinks.
Minogue climbed into the car and handed the Sunday Press to Kathleen. The car rocked as it took Minogue's weight. While Kathleen began scanning the headlines, Minogue fumbled the keys into the ignition.
'Dun Laoghaire, for a walk, will we?' he asked.
'Down the pier is it? Tell him Inspector Kilmartin, that is to say, Jim Kilmartin, called. I'll telephone him at dinner time. Good day to you, now.'
In Minogue's Kilmacud home, Daithi put down the phone and cursed his awakening by a policeman, no less. Daithi's neck was stiff and his bowels were groaning. A part of his mind registered that seeing as he had swallowed about seven pints of stout the night before, some issue would have to come of it and rapidly. Iseult eyed him and murmured over her handmade teacup.
'Well, brother. In the arms of Bacchus last night?'
'What?'
'Did you fill up well last night?'
'And if I did? I'm not the kind of yo-yo to sit around like the artsy-fartsy crowd talking about the state of the world.'
'Like me?' Iseult said.
'Like your pals, anyhow.'
'Did you hear about the Irish homosexual, brother dear? Preferred women to drink.'
'Nothing personal, I suppose. You want me married off like the Ma, is that it? '
'Arra no, stay home and look after your mother,' she replied.
'You're cracked, so you are. When'll the parents be home?'
'Half past twelve.'
'An Inspector Kilmartin will be calling for the Da on the blower.'
'Matt, did you read that someone told Gay Byrne to eff off on the 'Late Late' last night?' Served him right, thought Minogue. Byrne and the rest of them were a crowd of yobboes.
'No, I didn't. What prize will the fella be getting? For his candour I mean,' Minogue said.
'Now would you lookit,' Kathleen said quickly. 'I suppose he got a rise out of this fella. Liam Cullen. You know, that painter who makes a religion out of being from Dublin.'
'Well, they're your crowd, Kathleen. Good Auld Dublin,' quipped Minogue. He inched the car into the line-up leaving the church carpark.
'Well, Dublin or not, there was no call for making a show of us with the language,' Kathleen added.
'They give the name of the young lad killed the other night.
Inside in Trinity College. Jarlath Walsh. He's not a Walsh we know, is he now, Matt?'
'I can't place him, no.'
'Not Jackie Walsh in Bray, his lad?'
'No, that's Brendan.'
'God, isn't it terrible, a young lad to be murdered like that?' Kathleen said.
Minogue allowed that it was. As Kathleen read on, Minogue's thoughts ran adrift.
Minogue would have liked to buy one of the British newspapers, like the Observer or the Times. Minogue used to buy the Sunday Telegraph years ago, but since the North, the newspaper had come out in the open as a Tory rag. Minogue tried the Times and the Observer, but they shoved in enough slurs to turn him away from them. The Irish Sunday papers were rags too.
Approaching Monkstown, Minogue awoke to the understanding that he had not remembered driving away from the church. How had they made it to here and him daydreaming? He glanced over at Kathleen. High cheekbones on her, her eyes disappeared when she laughed. Was she fifty this year?
'Do you know something? I'd love to pick up on the French again. I'll get myself a Paris Match ' Minogue said to his wife.
The car breasted the hill looking down into Dublin Bay. Howth rested across the postcard-blue water, beyond the East Pier.
Kathleen looked over at him. Senile dementia, it had been called in her mother's day. At fifty-two? Clare people are a bit off anyway.
'Would you now, lovey? Maybe you can teach me a bit and we can go on a holiday to France someday.'
She's learning, thought Minogue. Far more effective than coming out with 'Matt Minogue, are you going a bit quare?'
Minogue smiled. He parked the car close to Dun Laoghaire train station. Kathleen and he began strolling toward the pier.
