Read Online After the Lockout by Darran McCann - Free Book Online

priest!’
    â€˜So what did you do?’ says Charlie.
    â€˜I flung my Pioneer pin at the chairman, the fat, red-faced bollix, and went straight to the nearest pub away from the fucken hypocrite gombeen bastards.’
    I take another drink. Charlie’s right, I’d better slow down. It takes a lot less poteen than whiskey to reduce a man to his hands and knees. There’s a bit of a spin to the room. TP McGahan hasa notebook and pencil in his hands. ‘How about a few quotes for next week’s paper? I work for the Armagh Guardian .’
    â€˜You don’t have a camera? I don’t want no photographs.’
    â€˜Go away and leave him alone, he’s giving me a dance,’ says the toothy girl with the dark hair and dark eyes I danced with before. She grabs my hand and leads me through the crowd before I can protest. We line up alongside three other couples and start into a lively reel, and though I’m supposed to dance with everyone in turn, my partner, whoever she is, keeps seizing me back. Her arms are surprisingly strong. Eyes dark and wild. Thick, black, black hair. White skin. Red lips curled in a pout like a spoonful of jam in a glass of milk. She’s probably about twenty-one and looks like Theda Bara. She could be gorgeous or she could be hideous. She smacks against me violently and I notice the other dancers stand back and give us plenty of room. I’m not sure if I want to hop on her or run for my life. ‘What’s my name?’ she says.
    I grope around for the faintest memory of this primal, kinetic creature, but there’s nothing. ‘Of course, I know you surely.’
    She laughs and throws her head about, sending her hair flailing, but her eyes, spread wide, never seem to waver from me. ‘Have I changed a lot?’
    â€˜Not a bit.’
    She’s strange. The dance ends and I’m glad to retreat from her. Charlie, Turlough, Sean and TP are standing by the door sipping poteen and watching me. Charlie shakes his head. TP still has his notebook out. He asks again if I have any quotes for him.
    â€˜I don’t think Victor wants his name going in the paper,’ says Charlie.
    â€˜Fire away, TP,’ I say.
    â€˜Why are you home?’
    â€˜To see my family. And I’m delighted to be back among my own people.’
    â€˜Is it true that you want Ireland to become communistic?’
    His eyes shift in his beak-nosed face. I shouldn’t indulge him, I really shouldn’t. Journalists are all the same. Weasels. Sometimes they can be harnessed and directed towards some useful work, but they’re no less verminous for that. ‘Are you going to stitch me up, TP?’
    â€˜Och, Victor, I’m just an old friend writing a puff piece for the local paper. I’m just wondering if you think people in County Armagh are ready for communism? Cardinal Logue in particular has taken a very strong line against it.’
    The girl, the one looks like Theda Bara, reappears and thrusts a bottle into my hand. Her eyes sparkle like the Liffey under gaslight, all treacherous depth. I sense, vaguely, that the lads around me are uncomfortable. I screw the cork from the neck and take a glug. I see Theda’s luxurious lips make an open-mouthed smile and I want them. The room sways. There was something I wanted to say.
    â€˜Victor? Cardinal Logue has taken a very strong line against communism,’ says TP, face expectant, pencil poised. There’s a bit of a crowd around us now.
    â€˜Let me tell you something about Cardinal fucken Logue,’ I begin.

TWO
    Â 
    Stanislaus sorted through the great ring of keys to the parish properties as he walked, coming to the correct key just as he reached the Parochial Hall. Someone had cleaned up around the side where Aidan Cavanagh had been sick. There were no windows smashed. In fact they looked clean – but if there was one thing broken or one item not put back where it was supposed to