A fiddle launched into a rousing intro. It was soon joined by a guitar and the hollow thuds of a bodhran. Maura and Kathleen were standing up now, trying to see into the crowd.
“Sit down, can’t ye?” Kilmartin hissed.
The crowd seemed to heave with the music as Joey Mad began to howl out the words.
We sat in Bewleys Restaurant there,
We talked and laughed without a care.
“You know, says she, the time just flies
I thought how small talk always lies.
Joey Mad began to shout out the chorus. Kilmartin rolled his eyes.
Oh, Dublin town’s a desperate town,
But I’m a desperate man.
The Chief Inspector leaned in and shouted into Minogue’s ear. “At least he got that last part right. It is fucking desperate!” Minogue looked at Kathleen and Maura. They were swaying from side to side in their seats, clapping gently, smiling. The whole pub seemed to be lurching somewhere with the music. He felt his heart was beating in an empty space. Other voices joined in louder as Joey Mad bit into another verse. Maybe he’d be better off outside, away from the crush and the racket.
What were we then, sixteen or so?
Why did you leave, I’d like to know?
Escape, run, travel-I began.
But you’re back, says she, each chance you can.
Oh, Dublin town’s a desperate town,
But I’m a desperate man.
Someone whooped. Kilmartin stood and waded into the crowd. Kathleen, swaying, caught Minogue’s eye and winked. Something gave way in his chest then. The music seemed to grow even louder. But as the fiddler let the instrument free and it wandered away from the melody, the guitar fought with the fiddle, soaring and falling with it. The bodhran player was up to the hunt and he smiled and closed his eyes while his hands became a blur. The mob seemed to surge as it moved, egging on the musicians. Kathleen’s face had taken on colour, Minogue noted. He must write to Daithi tomorrow. She felt his stare and turned. For several seconds her face took on that frown he remembered from that day they’d had a puncture high up over the Burren. There was something beyond anxiety in that look, he believed. He raised an eyebrow at her. He felt the muscles in his cheeks begin to give way. God, he thought, he seemed to be finally climbing out of this. He leaned in toward her and grasped her hand.
“You’re the wild woman now to drag me up here. It’s like cold water thrown in your face.”
“Had to be done,” she said. Her eyes had lost the fear and they glistened now. “You were turned in on yourself too long, man.”
“We must come here again when it’s as mad, so.”
Kilmartin was back with a clutch of drinks in his hands. He stooped in over the table and placed the glasses down firmly. For a moment, Minogue thought of tagged exhibits being positioned on the table under the bench.
“I had to walk on a few head-cases to get to the bloody bar,” he shouted into Minogue’s ear.
Pilgrim, exile, tourist, son,
Leaving here I thought I’d won,
Next time I’m back, I’ll bring a sign
Hey, while I’m here, this town is mine!
Voices roared throughout the pub. Still Minogue heard Joey Mad spit out the words.
Oh, Dublin town’s a desperate town,
But I’m a desperate man!
“Jesus,” Kilmartin broke in between Kathleen and Minogue. “People buy that, you know!”
More whoops erupted and the fiddle returned to race with the guitar.
“They pay good money to hear this clown tell ’em something like that!” Kilmartin’s mockery stopped abruptly.
“Christ,” he said, too softly for Minogue to hear, but the Inspector turned his head in the direction Kilmartin was looking. John Tynan, Commissioner of Gardai, raised a glass of amber-coloured liquid in wry salute. Kathleen had noticed too. She leaned into her husband.
“Are you in trouble? Are we in trouble, I mean?”
Minogue shrugged. He picked up his drink and headed into the crowd. Kilmartin followed. Blocked for several moments by two women executing an impromptu two-step to the repeated chorus, Minogue turned to his colleague.
“How come he’s here?”
“Well, he phoned earlier in the day. Asked if you were around or if I’d be in touch with you. I happened to mention that you-well, Kathleen, I mean-had invited us up to this madhouse for a jar. Social, like.”
Minogue probed for sincerity in Kilmartin’s eyes before making his way toward the Garda Commissioner.
Tynan stepped out the front door of the pub and into the yard. Minogue and Kilmartin ambled with him toward the wall that flanked the Barnacullia road below.
“Lovely,” said Tynan.
“Before your man inside started his shouting and screeching,” said Kilmartin.
“The view, I was thinking,” said Tynan.
The Commissioner leaned his elbows on the wall and looked out to the lights mapping the coastline of Dublin. North of the city, a plane’s winking lights floated down to meet the waiting airport lights. Behind them came the muffled rumble of the pub. The door opened and blew music out into the night, stealing it back as it slammed shut.
“A lot of our tax-free artists, musicians and the like, live up around here,” Tynan observed.
Minogue guessed that Tynan had attended parties in such houses.
“Social Welfare,” Minogue murmured. “Sort of grows on you.”
A trill sounded from somewhere on Tynan’s upper body.
“Excuse me,” he said, and he pulled out a telephone from inside his coat. He fingered a switch and turned away. Kilmartin elbowed Minogue and winked. Minogue felt like punching his colleague hard in the shoulder.
“Give me a half an hour, then,” Tynan said. The door of the pub opened again.
… a desperate town,
…and I’m a…
Tynan dropped the phone down the inside of his coat.
“Apparently I’m late for something. So says Rachel.”
Why come up here then, Minogue thought. Tynan’s clairvoyance startled the Inspector.
“I heard you’d be doing some of your recuperating up here tonight,” he said. “So I decided to drop by.”
Kilmartin took a drink from his glass, shuffled and looked out over the lights.
“Well. How is it with you?”
“Everything takes time.”
“You got off to a false start there in the County Hospital in Ennis,” Tynan said.
Minogue had been waiting for Kilmartin’s gibe about his mad rush to get out of County Clare but it had yet to be uttered.
“I didn’t realise the shape I was really in,” Minogue said. “It was almost like a dream, I remember thinking.”
“A bad business,” said Tynan. “But you did right.”
Minogue wanted to contest this. He had already detected in Tynan’s gaze that the Commissioner knew something about him from talking to others. Minogue had spoken but once to the Commissioner, when Tynan had phoned him at home.
“Well, now. Did Jim pass on the word to you?”
Kilmartin was now swaying slightly from the knees. He did not look away from the lights below.
“No.”
“The Squad stays as is,” said Tynan. “That’s what I decided.”
The Commissioner turned to Kilmartin with an eyebrow up.
