Minogue glared at Iseult. She shrugged. It could have been Orla.
“Not to put too fine a point on it, yes.”
“You want me to show you how to draw the curtains is it?”
“I think I can manage that part.”
“Another one of those Buds, Matt?”
Minogue crouched this time. McKeon Velcroed the curtains carefully. The yellow light overhead was weak. Minogue listened to the feet outside, felt the boat rock with the steps.
“As if I gave a shite, Matt. You know what I’m saying?”
Minogue nodded. The pain in his forehead was taking a long time to ease.
“Come on now. You’d have to see the funny side of it wouldn’t you?”
McKeon took his can and popped it.
“Come on now, Matt, relax. Let them do what they want. Sure they’re only observing their religion. That’s in the constitution, isn’t it?”
Minogue liked this second can of beer more than the first. McKeon eyed him.
“Gas, isn’t it? Two oul geezers locked inside the cabin.”
“It better not be locked ”
“Only joking. But look at us, out in Killiney Bay, with their two so-called grown-up daughters — ”
The yelp and the sudden tug on the boat had Minogue up even before he heard the two splashes. He was on the deck in time to see Iseult surface. Her hair was all over the water. He tried not to look at the huge white belly glowing, the enormous nipples. A whale, is right.
“God, it’s bloody cold!!”
“Are you okay?”
“Go on back, Da! I’m fine.”
He looked at the water for shark fins, and turned to the sky. Every pastel color was there, depthless, a seamless move to the sky, lilac, lemon -
“Go on, Da! We’re fine!”
He backed down into the cabin. McKeon beamed, and raised his can.
“A toast!”
Minogue slid in under the tabletop. The colors would be changed completely in another minute. He’d search for the first star out toward Wales.
“To our mad families, Matt! To the mad country that made us!”
Minogue studied the maudlin intensity in McKeon’s face. Banish misfortune and all that? Everything counts and nothing matters, yes. What if this ludraman was right. The Irish, he thought: for all our proprieties, our pragmatism, our loyalties here, we cheer the rebel hand.
“Come on now,” McKeon said. “The world’s gone mad — you have to admit. There’s two highly educated girls, all right, women — out there — both of them the blackest, bloody pagans. One of them won’t listen to anything except GOD — here, do you know them?”
“ ‘Daddy’s Girl’?”
McKeon cackled.
“My God, you do! Here we are, two gamogs up in dirty Dublin, doing our bit for some pagan ceremony or other! Madness…! Come on now — put up your glass, your tin, there! Get rid of that long face there ”
Minogue heard laughter outside, splashes. So there were mermaids after all. He’d look out from his perch at Tully Cross some evening searching for them in the water. He took a longer swig from the can.
“Mad,” McKeon whispered. His eyes had gone moist in the dim light.
Minogue didn’t want to feel sorry for him. He pulled the curtain aside. “I want to see the water there,” he said “The colors.”
McKeon’s voice startled him.
“ There was a wild Colonial Boy
Jack Duggan was his name ”
Holy Jesus, Minogue thought. McKeon banged his can off Minogue’s.
“Come on there Matt, you know this one‘”
It was Orla’s laugh he heard.
“ He was born and raised in I-er-land
In a — h- a place called Ca-ha-s-el-maine
“- arra, Jases, now, is the captain of the ship the only one singing? What? Sure we’re home free now, Matt! It’s the law of the sea, me bucko: sing!”
“I don’t want either of the women to drown trying to get away from the sound of me singing The Wild Colonial Boy!”
McKeon slapped him on the back.
“Ah God, you couldn’t be that bad. Sure listen to me, man — I haven’t a note in me head.”
Minogue gave him the eye. McKeon laughed.
“Those two out there have us written off anyway,” McKeon said with a yawn. “Well mine has, I mean. Orla thinks she has me codded. But she hasn’t.”
He popped another can and drank from it.
“About the singing, is it?”
“Christ, no! Orla hates me, man. I’m a pig. A bollocks. A male chauvinist pig bollocks. A patriarchal male chauvinist pig bollocks.”
The boat yawed. Minogue cocked an ear.
“What are you thinking. Sharks is it?”
“They’re in long enough.”
“Ah, sit down. There’s a ladder. They can climb out.”
Minogue weighed his can.
“Aren’t you a bit hard on yourself there?” he tried.
“Not a bit of it,” said McKeon “She hates me.”
“Is she gay?”
“No, she fucking isn’t. It’s the times we’re living in. Everybody hates fifty-one-year-old successful males. You listen to GOD, don’t you? The one about families. ‘Do You Believe’?”
“I think so. Maybe.”
“Well okay. This is what it’s all about. It’s about me not being the modern sensitive chap, that’s what I think. I love her, you know? She’s me daughter like, but she drives me around the fucking twist. So I just ignore her. ‘Da, bring me out in the boat. Today, half-seven.’ ‘Yes, love. Whatever you say, love.’ That’s how I’ve learned to operate.”
Minogue drained the can. He could tell Kilmartin that he had a lost sibling in McKeon. A millionaire, Iseult had said.
“What would you suggest then?”
“I don’t know,” said Minogue.
“Well you’re the bloody detective, aren’t you? A Clareman too, aren’t you?”
“Well, I was, I am I suppose.”
McKeon tapped his temple.
“The second sight and all that, your crowd in Clare?”
“So they say.”
“Come on. I should be the cop, shouldn’t I?”
McKeon had a can out, opened and next to Minogue’s hand before the inspector could say anything. He accepted it and nodded his thanks.
Minogue watched McKeon wipe a trickle of beer from the corner of his mouth.
“Did you ever wonder if yours hated you?”
“Well, when she wasn’t so pleased with some of the edicts, when she was younger like.”
“Really. I heard you were a pushover. The tough guy stops at the front door?”
“Was that in some review of the art thing as well?”
