A Terrible Beauty

Katie stood up. Paul blinked up at her and his face was so pummeled and swollen that it looked twice its normal size. 'Paul?I'm not joking about this. Whoever attacked you, I'm going to have them arrested, and charged.'

Paul managed to struggle himself into a sitting position. His left eye was completely bloodshot, like a vampire's. 'Ouch, shit,' he said, pressing his hand against his side. 'Broken my fucking ribs.'

'Paul-'

'Katie?forget it. I made a bags of things, that's all. What you might call an error of judgment. If you start making a bother?it's going to be ten times worse. They'll kill me, the next time, I promise you. In fact they're probably going to kill me anyway.'

Katie gently touched his forehead, where his hair was sticky with blood. 'God, Paul, you're such a fool sometimes. Don't you realize how much I love you? Weren't we happy once? Wasn't everything perfect?'

He gave her a wry, puffy smile. 'That was then, Katie. This is now.'

'You can't let them get away with this, Paul. I need to know who did it. It's my duty to uphold the law.'

'I'm not telling you, Katie. I can't. They'll kill me. That's ifyoudon't kill me first.'

She sat back, and lifted her hand away from his knee. 'Why shouldIwant to kill you?'

'Well, I'm not much of a husband to you, am I?'

Katie said, 'It's about that girl, isn't it? That one at the Sarsfield Hotel?'

'God Almighty. Who'd marry a detective?'

'Tell me, Paul. It's about that girl, isn't it?'

'It's partly. But that's not all of it.'

'Paul, I'm calling an ambulance.'

He snatched at her sleeve. 'Leave it, Katie. The last thing they said to me was 'We bet your old lady's going to come looking for us now.' And what do you think I'd look like, if you did? A man needs his-manhood.'

Katie was silent for a long time. She needed time to think, time to get her balance back. Then she said, 'How about a drink? You should really go to hospital, but if you won't-'

'It's not so bad as it looks. They punched me around a bit, and kicked me all right. But you don't get anywhere at all unless you take chances, do you?'

Katie went across to the sideboard and poured him a large whiskey. Sergeant followed her protectively, and stood beside her when she sat down, panting. 'So what does this girl at the Sarsfield Hotel have to do with business?'

Paul shook his head. 'I made a mistake, Katie, that's all.'

'Yes, but who was she? And what did you do?'

'I suppose I was looking for something different. Escape, you might call it. The truth is that I still can't look at you without thinking about poor little Seamus.'

'You don't think thatIdon't blame myself for what happened to Seamus, every minute of every hour of every day?'

'I don'tblameyou, pet. God wanted Seamus back in heaven and that was all there was to it. But-I don't know. I suppose I thought you were magic, and that you'd never let us come to any harm. When Seamus was taken, I realized then that you weren't magic after all.'

'Paul, I was Seamus's mother but I'm not yours.'

He dabbed his nose with his fingertips. 'Oh, it was my fault, too. If my business hadn't gone to the wall you wouldn't have had to work.'

'What are you saying? That Seamus died because I went to work?'

'Well, I don't know. Maybe you would have paid him more mind.'

'Paul-I'm a career Garda officer. I would have carried on with my job whether we had a baby or not. And for you to suggest that he died because I neglected him-Holy Mother of God, what's wrong with you?'

Paul didn't say anything, but lowered his head and sniffed.

'Tell me about this girl,' Katie insisted. The central heating didn't come on for another three hours and she was trembling with tiredness and cold and exasperation.

'There's nothing to tell. We went to the Sarsfield and had a few drinks and it's the old, old story, isn't it?'

'Who is she?'

'That's the whole trouble. She's Dave MacSweeny's girlfriend.'

'Geraldine Daley? That tart?'

'I'm sorry, Katie. Losing your only son?that's not exactly an aphrodisiac, is it?'

She slapped him, hard, across the cheek. She didn't mean to, but she had done it before she could think. He shouted out, 'Jesus!'and lifted one hand to protect himself. 'Jesus, Katie. That fuckinghurt.'

'You don't think you deserved it?'