Paudi looked at him, snickered.
‘Sometimes a big man can’t do nothing but sit there and be fucking big, hah?’
The table was a small, fold-down plastic number. A shopping bag containing the latest consignment of weed sat on it. Dympna placed the satchel on the table, next to the shopping bag. Paudi did not unzip or otherwise inspect the satchel beyond giving the leather a gentle squeeze. He looked at Arm.
‘Is your boy better?’ he said.
Dympna raised his hand but said nothing. His eyes darted from Arm to Paudi, then back to Arm.
‘My boy?’
‘The little lad. Your little fella. The one can’t talk.’
‘It’s not a case of him getting better.’
Paudi considered this.
‘But he’s trainable, yes? If that’s the word.’
‘He is, I suppose.’
‘He’s a great lad,’ Dympna said blandly.
‘You never brought young Armstrong in before,’ Paudi said, addressing Dympna, ‘that’s a new thing.’
‘And what’s it matter?’ Dympna said.
‘It’s an observation,’ Paudi said. ‘Yes sir.’
Then he said, ‘I cannot believe Hector did not tell you about the dog. All that man cares about is his little bit snuck away in Ballintober.’
‘Women,’ Dympna muttered.
‘She has him under her spell,’ Paudi said. ‘He thinks he has her under his. But it’s the other way round. His brain is turning to mush, you know. The man has an unconscionable stack of sprays and perfumes sat in there by the bed.’ A horizontal crease spread in the middle of his beard. Paudi was smiling. ‘He baths himself every second day. He has these little nail clippers. He wants nothing to do with the silage. He forgets to feed the fucking dogs,’ he concluded coldly.
‘But sure the one out there will be fine anyway,’ Dympna said. ‘They eat anything, they have constitutions of iron.’
‘I will have to take it for a walk up the heather it if does not look like she’s improving,’ Paudi said. ‘It’s a pity. But that’s fucking that.’
‘That’ll be too bad,’ Dympna said.
‘But what’s this development about though?’ Paudi said. His hand returned to the satchel. He pinched a fold of the thin imitative leather between his yellow fingers. ‘You know I’m up here on my own. And in you bring the Arm.’
‘He’s just my lad,’ Dympna said. ‘A loyal skin.’
‘Loyal skin,’ Paudi repeated. ‘Loyalty among thieves, isn’t that the saying?’
‘Is it?’ Dympna said. ‘Well, say whatever you like, Paudi, consider me him and him me when it comes to our business.’
‘Speaking of projects, Valentino was on to you yesterday, yes?’ Paudi shifted his weight in his chair, the papers crackling around his thighs. ‘What’s the story with the molester?’
‘You mean Fannigan?’ Dympna said.
‘Another loyal skin, no doubt,’ Paudi smiled again. ‘You’re drowning in loyal skins, nephew.’
‘Fannigan is dead,’ Arm said.
Dympna laughed, a single dry bark.
‘Just so you know,’ Arm said.
Paudi tweaked the curl in his beard.
‘Really?’ Paudi said.
Arm stood up. He put his hand in his pocket and threw the blood-flecked stone out onto the table. It skittered to a stop against the satchel.
‘There you go. There’s a biteen of his fucking brains still stuck to that.’
Paudi picked up the stone. He turned it over in his hand.
Dympna forced out another laugh, this one huskier, faker. ‘He’s messing with you,’ he said, his voice on the verge of cracking.
‘Messing,’ Paudi said.
‘I’m not,’ Arm said.
Paudi looked up at Arm. ‘He’s not, either.’
Paudi oriented the stone until he had it set into the concave space between his thumb and forefinger. He held it like he was going to throw it, forefinger doubled tight against the stone’s curve, to maximise torque and spin. Then he threw it square between Arm’s eyes.
Dympna let out a yell. Arm snapped his head back and put his hand to the bridge of his nose. Dympna and Paudi stood up simultaneously and then all three men made their moves. Half-blind, Arm reached out and took a grip of someone’s shoulder. The shoulder recoiled from him and Dympna went face down over the table. The table collapsed and his whirling foot snagged the handle of the bucket by the fireplace, launching it into the air. It crashed to the earth in a plume of flurrying brown ash. Arm stepped sideways, barked a shin against the table’s edge. He was coughing; Dympna was coughing. Arm was trying to get himself facing where he thought Paudi was when Paudi spoke, his breath against Arm’s ear.
‘Stop now.’
Dympna righted himself and got to his feet. Waving his hands, he attempted to bat clear the pall of flitting, granular ash. He squinted through the pall at his uncle.
‘Is that a fucking gun?’ he said.
‘It is,’ Paudi said. Paudi had his back against the wall, the muzzle of a double-barrelled rifle pointing towards Arm and Dympna, its wooden butt tight against his hipbone. Arm looked at Dympna and tried to gauge from his expression how serious he should take the gun. Dympna was wearing a wan smile, as was Paudi, and for a moment it seemed as if the entire situation was no more than a momentary domestic awkwardness uncle and nephew were conspiring to prolong out of some pique of mutual amusement.
But Paudi kept the rifle levelled at them.
‘Easy, horse,’ Paudi said to Arm. Arm was rubbing his nose, blood coming from the bridge where the stone had hit.
‘Paudi. Come on. What the fuck?’ Dympna said, tight jawed.
‘I know what this is,’ Paudi said.
Paudi’s black eyes were shiny, charged, grimly tabulating.
‘The Arm. The quiet man,’ Paudi spat. Whenever the muzzle passed Arm’s gut he felt everything inside him turn to air. ‘Ready to pounce at the drop of a hat.’
‘Ah now, what? What the fuck are you saying?’ Dympna said. ‘Step out, both of you,’ Paudi said.
They moved carefully backwards out onto the porch and onto the unevenly grassed earth. It was still warm and bright outside.
‘Hands up,’ Paudi said.
Dympna and Arm complied.
‘This is a mix up, Paudi,’ Dympna insisted, but there was no conviction in his voice. Arm knew
