Scully.â
âDonât suck up, brother.â
Scully just grinned. Conor held out the sheets of paper to Scully who took them without speaking.
âNow that electric drill will work, Scully, me boy,â said Pete. âBit of kneecappin, no?â
Conor paled.
âCâmon, Pete,â said Scully, speaking in Conorâs presence for the first time that day. âGive the bloke a break.â
âThis fookerâs not Irish!â
âAustralian,â said Scully.
âDesert Irish, you might say.â
The table crashed forward and Conor was reaching for his brotherâs throat when the noon Angelus suddenly sounded on the radio. Without hesitation, both Irishmen went slack, and adopted the prayerful hunch, snorting and trembling, as the church bell rang clear. Wind pressed against the panes. The firesank on itself, and the bell tolled on and on into the false calm. Scully watched the fallen forelocks of the Keneallys and fought the fiendish giggle that rose in his neck. And then the last peal rang off into silence. The men crossed themselves and Conor Keneally noticed how upright Scully was, how his hands stayed in his pockets.
âGood Christ, heâs not even Catholic, let alone Irish!â
âAnd thatâs not all,â said Peter, chuckling and preparing to be pummelled. âHe thought Mylie was in gaol for the VAT.â
Conor looked at Scully with a sudden mildness on his face â pity. âJaysus, man, where did you go to school?â
âElsewhere, you might say.â
âYou bastards.â Conor slapped his cloth cap against his knees. âYou fookers had me banjanxed. Heâs not with the Provos at all, is he.â
âIâm sorry,â said Scully.
Pete tipped his head back and laughed, and he didnât stop for a moment as Conor dragged him outside and rammed him into the door of the Toyota, and he kept it up as his roaring brother beat his head against the roof, holding his ginger forelock and slamming down once, twice until the big man let go and stood back and began to weep.
âOh, God, my life.â
From the door of his house which poured music and the smell of burning soil, Scully watched as Pete grabbed his brother and held him fiercely in the wind. The big man sobbed and dripped tears and snot. His roadmap face glowed with shame and despair and a kind of impotence Scully had never seen before. Peterâs hands were in his brotherâs ginger curls and he wept too, his eyes averted, his head high in the wind.
Scully went inside and stood by the fire, hung the kettle on the crane, threw on some more turf. The radio played a ballad, and a womanâs mournful voice filled the cottage. He went back to the front door and offered the Keneallys a cup of tea. They straightened up, accepted with dignity and kicked the mud from their boots.
Ten
O N THE ELEVENTH OF D ECEMBER , a Friday with sunlight and sharp, clean air, Scully stood at a sink full of hot water and sang in his broken, growly voice, an old song he had heard Van Morrison bawling yesterday on the radio.
But the sea is wide
And I canât swim over
And neither have
I wings to fly . . .
The house smelled sweetly of turf and scrubbing. There was crockery on the pine dresser and a shelf beneath the stairs with old paperbacks on it already. There was a birch broom inside the door and a stack of larch kindling by the turfbox. An oilskin hung from a peg on the chimney wall above his Wellington boots. Beside him, the little refrigerator hummed on the flagstones. There were cheap curtains on the windows, blue against the whitewash, and the sun spilled in across the stainless steel sink. Admit it, he toldhimself, you like it, you like the place now that itâs full of things. Because you love things, always have.
Scully was like his father that way. No matter what the Salvos said, the old fella thought certain objects were godly. Briggs and
âDonât suck up, brother.â
Scully just grinned. Conor held out the sheets of paper to Scully who took them without speaking.
âNow that electric drill will work, Scully, me boy,â said Pete. âBit of kneecappin, no?â
Conor paled.
âCâmon, Pete,â said Scully, speaking in Conorâs presence for the first time that day. âGive the bloke a break.â
âThis fookerâs not Irish!â
âAustralian,â said Scully.
âDesert Irish, you might say.â
The table crashed forward and Conor was reaching for his brotherâs throat when the noon Angelus suddenly sounded on the radio. Without hesitation, both Irishmen went slack, and adopted the prayerful hunch, snorting and trembling, as the church bell rang clear. Wind pressed against the panes. The firesank on itself, and the bell tolled on and on into the false calm. Scully watched the fallen forelocks of the Keneallys and fought the fiendish giggle that rose in his neck. And then the last peal rang off into silence. The men crossed themselves and Conor Keneally noticed how upright Scully was, how his hands stayed in his pockets.
âGood Christ, heâs not even Catholic, let alone Irish!â
âAnd thatâs not all,â said Peter, chuckling and preparing to be pummelled. âHe thought Mylie was in gaol for the VAT.â
Conor looked at Scully with a sudden mildness on his face â pity. âJaysus, man, where did you go to school?â
âElsewhere, you might say.â
âYou bastards.â Conor slapped his cloth cap against his knees. âYou fookers had me banjanxed. Heâs not with the Provos at all, is he.â
âIâm sorry,â said Scully.
Pete tipped his head back and laughed, and he didnât stop for a moment as Conor dragged him outside and rammed him into the door of the Toyota, and he kept it up as his roaring brother beat his head against the roof, holding his ginger forelock and slamming down once, twice until the big man let go and stood back and began to weep.
âOh, God, my life.â
From the door of his house which poured music and the smell of burning soil, Scully watched as Pete grabbed his brother and held him fiercely in the wind. The big man sobbed and dripped tears and snot. His roadmap face glowed with shame and despair and a kind of impotence Scully had never seen before. Peterâs hands were in his brotherâs ginger curls and he wept too, his eyes averted, his head high in the wind.
Scully went inside and stood by the fire, hung the kettle on the crane, threw on some more turf. The radio played a ballad, and a womanâs mournful voice filled the cottage. He went back to the front door and offered the Keneallys a cup of tea. They straightened up, accepted with dignity and kicked the mud from their boots.
Ten
O N THE ELEVENTH OF D ECEMBER , a Friday with sunlight and sharp, clean air, Scully stood at a sink full of hot water and sang in his broken, growly voice, an old song he had heard Van Morrison bawling yesterday on the radio.
But the sea is wide
And I canât swim over
And neither have
I wings to fly . . .
The house smelled sweetly of turf and scrubbing. There was crockery on the pine dresser and a shelf beneath the stairs with old paperbacks on it already. There was a birch broom inside the door and a stack of larch kindling by the turfbox. An oilskin hung from a peg on the chimney wall above his Wellington boots. Beside him, the little refrigerator hummed on the flagstones. There were cheap curtains on the windows, blue against the whitewash, and the sun spilled in across the stainless steel sink. Admit it, he toldhimself, you like it, you like the place now that itâs full of things. Because you love things, always have.
Scully was like his father that way. No matter what the Salvos said, the old fella thought certain objects were godly. Briggs and
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