“Why does a guy get his car burned?”
“And you stay out of it,” said Cully.
“We’re here for research, remember? Research means questions?”
“Told you,” said West Ham. “Now you see: bloke’s a prick.”
Cully leaned around the headrest.
“A few minutes ago it was knees knocking and teeth like castanets with you,” he said. “Back up in the woods there.”
“If you’d told me what was going to happen, it would have helped.”
“And now you’re getting into it here?”
“If you’d explained things…”
“Explained,” said Cully. “What explained? This isn’t school.”
He turned back in his seat, and he rapped West Ham in the arm again.
“Oh come on. Back on track there, gunner.”
“You know what I think,” said West Ham.
“Cheer up, for Christ’s sake.”
“Don’t push it no more. This is different.”
“Mutiny in the ranks?”
Cully’s mockery didn’t draw any more response. They gained the entrance to the valley and turned down toward the city. West Ham drove carefully now.
“Give me some of that,” said Cully. “Don’t be a wally.”
“What? What have I got?”
“Wot? Wot?” said Cully. “You know bloody ‘wot.’ Some of that jungle rum you got. That’s wot.”
Chapter 38
West Ham left the car running outside the chipper. He slammed the door, still grinning at something that Cully had muttered. He seemed to be unsteady on his feet as he walked, rolling his shoulders and shaking his head. Cully offered Fanning the rum again.
“No,” said Fanning. “Thanks.”
Cully sucked on his teeth after a swig, and he screwed the top back on.
Fanning sat back against the seat again and he watched the reaction of the girl behind the counter to West Ham’s order. A couple of teenagers were eating fish and chips at a seat next to the window.
“He’s a pretty good friend of yours, isn’t he?”
Cully turned.
“Westie? Why are you asking?”
“You let him say what he wants to. Calling you a Paddy?”
“That stuff doesn’t matter,” said Cully.
“In England, it matters, I’d say.”
Cully hesitated.
“Well we’re not in England, are we. We’re here in Dublin for a bit of a lark. It’s me showing him about, isn’t it.”
“Doesn’t look that thrilled to be here.”
“Leave West Ham out of it, this thing.”
Fanning could still smell petrol. Maybe it was on his clothes, or on the seat.
West Ham was counting out exact change. The girl at the cash register looked quickly up to his face from his money, and then back. He said something to her as he handed over the money. She smiled nervously and began counting. Three teenaged boys came down the footpath by the clothes shops and entered the chipper.
“You don’t mind sitting in a stolen car here,” Fanning said.
“Do you?”
“I’ve never done it before.”
“Look,” said Cully, “the cops don’t care. They’ve got enough to do. Why should they put themselves out over it? Insurance covers it. Nobody cares, believe me.”
“Murph will care.”
West Ham had the same shambling gait on his way out of the chipper.
“I don’t know about that,” said Cully. “Be interesting to find out, I suppose.”
“You don’t sound like you care much.”
“‘The rain in Spain falls mainly down the drain.’”
“On the Plain. It falls on the Plain.”
“What Plane?” West Ham asked as he opened the door. “Are we going back?”
The greasy heat from the fish and chips came out as vapour.
“It’s nothing,” said Cully.
West Ham sampled some of the chips, holding them between his teeth and breathing on them. He made no move to offer them around. Fanning noticed the first drops of rain sliding down the window.
“You might as well just pour lard into your arteries,” said Cully.
West Ham’s eyes met Fanning’s in the mirror.
“You stick to your carrot juice and tofu then.”
Cully shifted in his seat.
“I’ll drive,” he said. “You can stuff yourself.”
Fanning heard West Ham mumble something as they exchanged seats.
“What,” said West Ham after swallowing a chip.
“I can drop you somewhere else,” Cully said to him.
“Christ, now? Get a few drinks, see what’s up.”
“Later on, maybe,” said Cully, and he pulled over.
West Ham grunted, but slid out of his seat and stepped out onto the footpath without complaint. Neither man said goodbye.
Cully crunched reverse twice before finding it.
There were few enough people walking along the footpaths. Buses swished by in a haze of drizzle. An ambulance passed by slowly, followed by a Garda squad car. Fanning stole a glance at Cully. He seemed unconcerned.
“So, you like motoring about in a hot car,” Cully said.
Fanning looked over for a moment.
“I’m not sure.”
“That means you do,” said Cully. He braked for the turn by the Rotunda Hospital, and turned onto Parnell Square.
“I’ll tell you how I know that,” he said pausing to avoid a taxi, “how I know you like it. You would have said so if you didn’t like it. ‘Not sure’ means you do, but you don’t want to admit it. It’s a middle-class thing.”
“Ah, psychology,” said Fanning.
“Call it what you like. It’s true.”
“A weakness, you think, no doubt.”
Cully shrugged
“I don’t care,” he said, “if it is or isn’t.”
Parnell Square was almost deserted.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re getting rid of this thing. You can study that. Write about it. Anyway, it’s not too far. Then, who knows.”
“Why did you tell West Ham to go his own way?”
“Don’t need him for this. Do I. Gets in the way sometimes.”
