Conor was doing all right for himself – owned a thatched cottage at the gate to a long drive that led up to where he was having a big house built, horses and cattle in the fields, new motor at the door. Gorgeous.
He was lunging a horse when I arrived. So I just leaned against the fence and enjoyed the feel of the place. I love watching horses. Maybe I’d have taken them up too if things had started off differently. I think it’s in the blood, y’know. Still, what with the old leg fucked, not much I could do about it now. If you saw me getting on a horse you’d think I’d been thrown by one. Odd how two guys from identical backgrounds can end up so far apart though. That’s what an accident of birth does for you, I suppose.
Some horseman, my brother. In different circumstances I’d probably even be proud of him. Ah well, back to why I’d come.
He unclipped the bay, slipped off its bridle and let it run loose.
‘Nice horse,’ I said.
‘Not bad.’
‘Red Dock’s the name.’
‘Conor Donavan. What can I do for you?’
‘I’m looking for a friend of mine – a girl I knew in London – by the name of Anne Donavan. The priest in the village said I’d find her here.’ It was bullshit. He couldn’t know her. She was a figment of my imagination. And I hadn’t seen a priest in years. Religion never added up for me.
The only Anne Donavan Conor knew was his daughter. She was the main reason I’d come. I wanted to get something straight in my mind about her. ‘She’s never been in London,’ he told me. ‘She’s below in the cottage, if you want to have a word with her, but she’ll tell you the same – she’s the only one by that name round here.’
Helpful sort of a brother. Strange standing talking to him without him knowing who I was.
Anne didn’t know me either when I put the same bullshit to her. I was three feet away from her but I could’ve been the Man in the Iron Mask for all she knew. And yet I was her uncle. Funny how people’s perception of each other based on the information they hold rules out what would otherwise form instant recognition of a fellow family member. That old saying ‘He comes from a close family’ applies only if they know who you are.
‘Everything is relative,’ a guy once said to me. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. I was only ten. ‘Except for you,’ he said. ‘You’re not relative. Not even to your relatives. No one gives two fucks about you, and I can do with you whatever I like.’
That’s me – not relative. What I do doesn’t count. Who gives a fuck?
‘Sorry I can’t help you,’ Anne said.
She was helping me just by standing there with no wedding ring on her finger and being old enough to have a baby (seventeen, I’d say – three years younger than me). I’d need someone to say he’d delivered it of course. I had it in mind to make Anne the mother of Mary Winters’ baby. Well, every child needs a mother. Call it the sentimentalist in me. Like everything else, it’s all a question of getting the paperwork right.
‘I wonder if it’s worth trying the local doctor,’ I bullshitted on. ‘He might know the Anne Donavan I’m looking for.’
I knew there wasn’t another one. But I double-check every detail.
She didn’t look as if he’d hold out much hope. Tight-knit farming communities, where everybody knows everybody else, y’see. She gave me directions to the guy who’d delivered me – Doctor Skeffington.
‘He’s the only doctor round here,’ she said. ‘He sits from four till six.’
‘Thanks.’
I didn’t go in to see him – the medical query I had in mind was best handled outside of normal visiting hours.
So I watched until he came out of his surgery and drove away in a Ford Cortina. New one, by the look of it. He was being called out. To a farm, as it happened, along a country lane wide enough for only one vehicle. Nice and quiet.
I reversed my car into the lane and sat trying to pick a few winners for the next day’s meeting until I saw his headlights coming back on and his car pulling out of the farmyard. Then it was just a case of opening the bonnet and waiting till he pulled up behind me. Considerate sort: he switched off his main beam so it wouldn’t blind me, got out and came round to where I was leaning over the engine looking browned off. Tall, skinny guy he was in a tweed suit, with a white moustache and hardly any hair.
‘Sorry about this,’ I said. ‘Just conked out.’ A new Merc, it was. ‘You’d think they’d be more reliable. Can’t depend on anything these days.’
‘Sure now, these things happen,’ he said. ‘And usually on a night like this.’ He buttoned up his car coat.
Seemed pleasant enough. I always liked that about country people. They’re so easy-going. Break down in the city and the cunts are ready to beat you out of the road.
‘You’re not going back towards the village?’ I asked him.
‘I am.’
‘Any chance of a lift?’
‘Jump in.’
‘Great. I better not leave her blocking the road.’
He gave me a shove. Didn’t take much. I’d chosen the brow of a hill, to save our backs, y’know. Just a matter of freewheeling her down onto the main road and in tight to the hedge then getting into his passenger seat.
‘Now,’ I said and came out with some tripe, letting on to thank him.
‘Ah, not at all,’ he said and set off, both hands on the wheel, eyes front. Careful driver. You’d have thought he was taking his driving test.
‘You’re a doctor, I see.’ His bag was at my feet.
‘I am.’
‘Busy?’
‘Sure now. January. You know yourself.’
I did indeed.
