Read Online Cold Eye of Heaven, The by Christine Dwyer Hickey - Free Book Online Page A

losing moments. It’s like they’re falling out of a hole in his pocket. The Clery’s bag is back under his arm, the shape of a shoe through its skin. He pulls the shoe out, the unblemished surface of a new blank sole looks up at him, lightly tan in colour, a perfect archway of minute and pristine nails. Yet he can’t for the life of him remember collecting it. Was the girl in the red coat outside the pub then or before? Were the taxi men eyeing him hungrily? Did someone ask him if was he alright? And when did he remember that Jackie was his brother?
    And now here he is, standing in the island in O’Connell Street, looking up at the the glint of a giant needle that used to be Nelson’s Pillar. And thinking about the junkies again and trying to pull the two ends of the same idea together; the junkies and the giant needle. And staring up at the needle and imagining himself on the bus, the wall of the Park on one side, the scrag-end of the Liffey on the other. And the next thing is, he
is
on the bus, and crossing the river to turn into Parkgate Street, wondering how he got from staring up at the needle. To here. Splinters of light in his eyes again and a huge cruise ship rises before him. It takes a moment to grasp it – that’s right, the new criminal courts building. A big bellyful of glass. The falling sun spitting all over it; barristers outside flapping like crows on its steps.
    Outside the Slowey house the headlights of cars catch on the walls; doors clip into the darkness. Farley, from the side lane, watches the parade of condolence bringers. His arms are full – the suit in its cellophane wrapper, the few last-minute messages he bought in Centra, the Clery’s bag with the newspaper inside it, page turned out that says Francis Slowey is reposing at home. Reposing at home? That’d be a first.
    He lays everything down at his feet before fishing the Mass card out ofthe bag, then he moves into a cone of street light. Farley pulls a pen out of his inside pocket, opens the Mass card, lifts one knee and leans the card on it. He scribbles a name that comes out as approximately Father Clearihan – a mixture of Father Cleary that used to be, and that other bollix who taught him catechism when he was a boy. He puts the card back into its envelope, prints ‘The Slowey Family’ across it, and slips it into his pocket. Then he steps back into the shadows.
    The house of mourning is completely blinkered. Only when the front door opens to admit newcomers or let others out, can he see by a vertical strip of hall light, that a black wreath is pinned to the front door and that the door has been painted a different colour since the last time he was here. For some reason this bothers him, as if they’ve sneaked behind his back to have it done, as if somehow he should have been consulted. But he reminds himself that it’s been well over ten years since he’s crossed that door and the Sloweys were always a house-proud lot. Once he knew this house better than his own. He knew the structure and little secrets of each room. The press in the kitchen where the good biscuits were kept and the corner where Slowey kept his single malt whiskey. He knew the way down the back garden in the dark, to the den that Slowey had built for the boys on the bit of land he’d bought from the Corpo. He knew the downstairs toilet with the dodgy plumbing and the jacks upstairs with the walk-in shower. He knew where the Christmas decorations were kept in the attic, the spare fuses, the box with the kids’ old school reports in it. He knew the beds, the wallpapers, the family photos going up the stairs. The safe in the hot press. He knew all that and more.
    Farley retrieves his bundle and hoists it into his arms. In the street light he can see the frost honing; the pavements already glittering hard. A cold, cold January night. In the garden a group of people are smoking; the group changes formation