‘Self-expression,’ Dympna muttered.
‘Hah?’ Arm said.
‘I should’ve learned to play guitar. Who the fuck would need a mouth then?’
‘You’d need a mouth to sing,’ Arm said.
‘Fuck the water, it’s time to drink.’
Just after nine, sufficiently wired and amped, the band struck up an introductory instrumental rumble that got a bit of a crowd drifting towards the stage. Brandon stood before the mike bulb, chin fixed to his chest, his fingers writhing along the guitar’s fret as the thunderhead of noise roiling around him grew in intensity. He laughed nervously, muttered thanks for coming, and began to scream.
Lisa slipped into the crowd to mingle, and Arm and Dympna hung back at the bar, downing Jack Daniels and cokes. Dympna cracked one set of knuckles, then the other.
‘Fuck them,’ he said finally.
‘Who, now?’ Arm asked.
‘Fucken you know who. They want to get involved at this end fine. Get involved. Don’t just lecture me because I actually went ahead and dealt with a problem.’
Dympna looked at Arm. ‘I dealt with it.’
‘I know,’ Arm said.
There was a pinch on Arm’s arse and Lisa ranged up by his side. She smelled good, she smelled close. She hooked her arm around Arm’s neck and asked if there was a single man in here with the wherewithal to show a girl a good time. Arm slanted his eyes at her. She tweaked his cheek.
‘Solid but unspectacular, love, that’s you.’
‘More drinks. Go. Go,’ Dympna declaimed sourly, jabbing Arm’s shoulder. Arm shed Lisa with a brusque duck and backstep and adjourned to the bar.
The rider from the farm was there. She was flanked by a couple of girls Arm half recognised, town natives in bitty black dresses, sand-blasted with fake tan. The rider was tomboyishly functional by comparison, in high-top sneakers, jeans and a corduroy jacket with elbow patches. The affiliation with the natives seemed cursory. Possibly housemates, Arm speculated, or maybe the two worked with her on the farm in some capacity.
They were all drinking cocktails, red syrup and crushed ice concoctions that resembled slush steeped in blood. The natives were daintily sipping from straws and watching the room to see who was watching them. The rider, elbows on the bar, back to the din, fiddled in a desultory way with her drink, working her straw through its ice-clogged depths. She picked a larger lump of ice from the drink and slipped it in her mouth.
‘Well,’ Arm said.
She looked at him.
‘I was at the horses today,’ Arm explained.
‘Oh. Yeah. Planning any more unscheduled visits?’ she said, biting down on the ice.
‘Well, you know,’ Arm said, and cleared his throat.
‘I don’t know, actually. You guys have a way of saying that. You know. Saying nothing.’
‘I guess I didn’t think there’d be any harm to it.’
‘You just have to be careful, working with those kids,’ she said.
‘No doubt,’ Arm said.
‘You know, one of them is yours. You know they’re delicate.’
‘I don’t know if delicate is the word. The kid seems to like it there, alright, though.’
She fiddled some more with her drink, then scowled over her shoulder.
‘What’s up with the band. Is it ironic or something?’
‘I know them.’
‘They’re fucking heinous,’ she said.
‘Well, I guess that’s how they’re meant to sound.’
‘Friends of yours?’
‘Yeah,’ Arm said.
‘But you know everyone, right? Local. How could you not.’
‘I don’t,’ Arm assured her.
‘What about that guy?’ she said, pointing at Dympna.
‘He’s a buddy,’ Arm admitted.
‘I bought some stuff off him before,’ she said.
‘Hah,’ Arm said.
‘Shady character,’ she said.
Arm flagged down the bartender and ordered a round.
‘How’d you end up here?’ Arm said.
‘Here, here?’ she said. She huffed out her cheeks. ‘I should get my backstory tattooed to my fucking forehead. It’d save having to recite it every time I open my mouth.’
‘You’ve relatives this way,’ Arm ventured.
She scoffed, ‘No. No. This is virgin territory for me. I was in Dublin, in college, for a while. Then I applied for and followed down the job. I can stay for like another half a year, if the funding for the farm doesn’t get cut and my visa holds out.’
‘How’s the money?’ Arm asked.
‘I do it for the love,’ she said.
‘And what do you do if the money’s cut?’
‘What will your boy do, is the question I’d ask if I were you,’ she said. ‘Me. I’ll be fine.’ She grazed the tip of her nose with a knuckle. There was a puncture dot above one nostril, where a piercing would go. ‘The world’s a big place and you can go anywhere. And actually—’ She caught the barman’s eye and made a curt circling motion above her drink. ‘—So could you. You were born and bred right here, am I right? What’s a guy in his prime do around here?’
‘I’m retired,’ Arm said.
‘Retired. From what?’
‘I used to box.’
‘But you don’t anymore? You’re pretty young for retired.’
‘I’m old enough. You’ve to be hungry and senseless for it.’
‘And you’re not?’
‘There was a lot of conditioning, a routine you couldn’t skimp on. I lost my spring.’
‘So that’s that. You do a thing and you’re good at it, presumably, and then one day you… just… stop.’
Arm took a sip of his drink. ‘I keep in trim. I can take down a civilian no worries, but once it goes that spring never really comes back.’
‘That’s a sad story,’ she said.
Arm shrugged.
‘You’re depressing.’
‘Cheers,’ Arm said.
‘That’s okay, though,’ she said, and took a drink. Arm stood beside her because there was no reason he shouldn’t. And neither did she seek to slink away, and after a moment Arm realised she didn’t necessarily want to. He leaned in enough so she’d hear.
‘You have to want to hurt people. That’s what the spring is. You have to keep wanting to hurt people.’
Arm could see their faces in the bar mirror, looming like moons above the miniature skyline of spirit bottles arranged along the back shelf. The neon changed colour and the light caught her nose, and this time Arm noticed
