After Rain (9 page)

    Rebecca’s real tears began, and when the sound of sobbing ceased there was silence in the room they had made their own. Gerard wanted to comfort her, as once his father had comforted his mother, saying he forgave her, saying they would try again. But their game wouldn’t stretch to that.

    They sat on the virgin floor, some distance away from one another, while the white shafts of sunlight faded and the washed-out yellow of the walls dimmed to nothing. Their thoughts were similar and they knew they were. The house that had been Rebecca’s would be Gerard’s because that was laid down now. Rebecca would come to it at weekends because her father was there, but she would not bring with her her mother’s sad tales of the theatre, nor would Gerard relate the latest from his father’s new relation ship. The easy companionship that had allowed them to sip cocktails and sign the register of the Hotel Grand Splendide had been theirs by chance, a gift thrown out from other people’s circumstances. Helplessness was their natural state.

A Bit of Business

    On a warm Saturday morning the city was deserted. Its suburbs dozed, its streets had acquired a tranquillity that did not belong to the hour. Shops and cafés were unexpectedly closed. Where there were people, they sat in front of television sets, or listened to transistors.

    In Westmoreland Street two youths hurried, their progress marked by a businesslike air. They did not speak until they reached St Stephen’s Green. ‘No. On ahead,’ one said when his companion paused. ‘Off to the left in Harcourt Street.’ His companion did not argue.

    They had been friends since childhood; and today, their purpose being what it was, they knew better than to argue. Argument wasted time, and would distract them. The one who’d given the instruction, the older and taller of the two, was Mangan. The other was a pock-marked, sallow youth known as Lout Gallagher, the sobriquet an expression of scorn on the part of a Christian Brother ten or so years ago. Mangan had gelled short hair, nondescript as to colour, and small eyes that squinted slightly, and a flat, broad nose. ‘Here,’ he commanded at the end of Harcourt Street, and the two veered off in the direction he indicated.

    A marmalade cat sauntered across the street they were in now; no one was about. ‘The blue Ford,’ Mangan said. Gallagher, within seconds, forced open the driver’s door. As swiftly, the bonnet of the car was raised. Work was done with wire; the engine started easily.

    In the suburb of Rathgar, in Cavendish Road, Mr. Livingston watched the red helicopter touch down behind the vesting tents in Phoenix Park. Earlier, at the airport, the Pope’s right hand had been raised in blessing, lowered, and then raised again and again, a benign smile accompanying each gesture. In Phoenix Park the crowds knelt in their corrals, and sang ‘Holy God, We Praise Thy Name’. Now and again the cameras caught the black dress of clergymen and nuns, but for the most part the crowds were composed of the kind of people Mr. Livingston met every day on the streets or noticed going to Mass on a Sunday. The crowds were orderly, awed by the occasion. The yellow and white papal flags fluttered everywhere; occasionally a degree of shoving developed in an effort to gain a better view. Four times already the cameras had shown women fainting — from marvelling, so Mr. Livingston was given to understand, rather than heat or congestion. Somewhere in Phoenix Park were the Herlihys, but so far Mr. Livingston had failed to identify them. ‘I’ll wave,’ the Herlihy twins had promised, speaking in unison as they always did. Mr. Livingston knew they’d forget; in all the excitement they wouldn’t even know that a camera had skimmed over them. It was Herlihy himself who would be noticeable, being so big and his red hair easy to pick out. Monica, of course, you could miss.

    Mr. Livingston, attired now in a dark-blue suit, was a thin man in his sixties, only just beginning to go grey. His lean features, handsome in youth, were affected by wrinkles, his cheeks a little flushed. He had been a widower for a year.

    Preceded by Cardinal Ó Fiaich and Archbishop Ryan, the Pope emerged from the papal vesting chamber under the podium. Cheering began in the corrals. Twice the Pope stopped and extended his arms. There was cheering then such as Mr. Livingston had never in his life heard before. The Pope approached the altar. Mangan and Gallagher worked quickly, though with no great skill. They pulled open drawers and scattered their contents. They rooted among clothes, and wrenched at the locks of cupboards. Jewellery was not examined, since its worth could not be even roughly estimated. All they found they pocketed, with loose change and notes. A transistor radio was secreted beneath Gallagher’s jacket.

    ‘Nothing else,’ Mangan said. ‘Useless damn place.’

    They left the house that they had entered, through a kitchen window. They strolled towards the parked blue Ford, Mangan shaking his head as though, having arrived at the house on legitimate business, they disappointedly failed to find anyone at home. Gallagher drove, slowly in the road where the house was, and then more rapidly. ‘Off to the left,’ Mangan said, and when the opportunity came Gallagher did as he was bidden. The car drew up again; the two remained seated, both their glances fixed on the driving mirror. ‘OK,’ Mangan said.

    Mr. Livingston heard a noise and paid it no attention. Although his presence in the Herlihys’ house was, officially, to keep an eye on it, he believed that the Herlihys had invited him because he had no television himself. It was their way to invent a reason; their way to want to thank him whenever it was possible for all the baby-sitting he did — not that there wasn’t full and adequate payment at the time, the ‘going rate’ as Monica called it. Earlier that morning, as he’d risen and dressed himself, it had not occurred to him that Herlihy might have been serious when he said it was nice to have someone about the place on a day like this, when the Guards were all out at Phoenix Park. The sound of the television, Herlihy suggested, was as good as a dog.

    ‘A new kind of confrontation,’ stated the Pope, ‘with values and trends which, up to now, have been unknown and alien to Irish society.’

    Mr. Livingston nodded in agreement. It would have been nice for Rosie, he thought; she’d have appreciated all this, the way she’d appreciated the royal weddings. When his wife was alive Mr. Livingston had hired a television set like everyone else, but later he’d ceased to do so because he found he never watched it on his own. It made him miss her more, sitting there with the same programmes coming on, her voice not commenting any more. They would certainly have watched the whole of the ceremony today, but naturally they wouldn’t have attended it in person, being Protestants.

    ‘The sacredness of life,’ urged the Pope, ‘the indissolubility of marriage, the true sense of human sexuality, the right attitude towards the material goods that progress has to offer.’ He advocated the Sacraments, especially the Sacrament of Penance.

    Applause broke out, and again Mr. Livingston nodded his agreement.

    Gallagher had wanted to stop, but Mangan said one more house. So they went for the one at the end of the avenue, having noticed that no dog was kept. ‘They’ve left that on,’ Mangan whispered in the kitchen when they heard the sound of the television. ‘Check it, though, while I’m up there.’

    In the Herlihys’ main bedroom he slipped the drawers out softly, and eased open anything that was locked. They’d been right to come. This place was the best yet.

    Suddenly the sound of the television was louder, and Mangan knew that Gallagher had opened the door of the room it came from. He glanced towards the windows in case he should have to hurry away, but no sound of protest came from downstairs. They’d drive the car to Milltown and get on to the first bus going out of the city. Later on they’d pick up a bus to Bray. It was always worth making the journey to Bray because Cohen gave you better prices.

    ‘Hey,’ Gallagher called, not loudly, not panicking in any way whatsoever. At once Mangan knew there was a bit of trouble. He knew, by the sound of the television, that the door Gallagher had opened hadn’t been closed again. Once, in a house at night, a young girl had walked across a landing with nothing on her except a sanitary thing. He and Gallagher had been in the shadows, alerted by the flush of a lavatory. She hadn’t seen them.

    He stuffed a couple of ties into his pockets and closed the bedroom door behind him. On the way downstairs he heard Gallagher’s voice before he saw him.

    ‘There’s an old fellow here,’ Gallagher said, making no effort to speak privately, ‘watching His Holiness.’

    Gallagher was as cool as a cucumber. You had to admire that in him. The time Mangan had gone with Ossie Power it had been nerves that landed them in it. You couldn’t do a job with shaking hands, he’d told Power before they began, but it hadn’t been any use. He should have known, of course.

    ‘He’s staying quiet,’ Gallagher said in a low voice. ‘Like I told him, he’s keeping his trap tight.’

    The youth in the doorway was wearing a crushed imitation suede jacket and dark trousers. His white T-shirt was dirty; his chin and cheeks were pitted with the remains of acne. For an instant Mr. Livingston received an impression of a second face: a flat, wide nose between two bead-like eyes. Then both intruders stepped back into the hall. Whispering took place but Mr. Livingston couldn’t hear what was said. On the screen the Popemobile moved slowly through the vast crowd. Hands reached out to touch it.

    ‘Keep your eyes on your man,’ a voice commanded, and Mr. Livingston knew it belonged to the one he had seen less of because it was gruffer than the other voice. ‘Keep company with His Holiness.’

    Mr. Livingston did not attempt to disobey. Something was placed over his eyes and knotted at the back of his head. The material was rough, like tweed. With something similar his wrists were tied in his lap. Each ankle was tied to a leg of the chair he occupied. His wallet was slipped out of the inside pocket of his jacket.

    He had failed the Herlihys; even though it was a pretence, he had agreed to perform a small and simple task; the family would return to disappointment. Mr. Livingston had been angry as soon as he realized what was happening, as soon as the first youth appeared. He’d wanted to get up, to look around for something to use as a weapon, but only just in time he’d realized it would be foolish to do that. Helpless in his chair, he felt ashamed.

    On the television the cheering continued, and voices described what was happening ‘Ave! Ave!’ people sang.

    ‘Pull up,’ Mangan said in the car. ‘Go down that road and pull up at the bottom.’

    Lout Gallagher did so, halting the car at the opening to a half-built estate. They had driven further than they’d intended, anxious to move swiftly from the neighbourhood of their morning’s work. ‘If there’s ever a squawk out of you,’ Mangan had threatened before they parted from Mr. Livingston, ‘you’ll rue the bloody day, mister.’ Taking the third of the ties he’d picked up in the bedroom, he had placed it round the old man’s neck. He had crossed the two ends and pulled them tight, watching while Mr. Livingston’s face and neck became flushed. He released them in good time in case anything went wrong.

    ‘You never know with a geezer like that,’ he said now. He turned his head and glanced out of the back window of the car. They were both still edgy. It was the worst thing that could happen, being seen.

    ‘Wouldn’t we dump the wagon?’ Gallagher said.

    ‘Drive it in on the site.’

    They left the car behind the back wall of one of the new houses, and since the place was secluded they counted the money they’d trawled. ‘Forty-two pound fifty-four,’ Mangan said. As well, there were various pieces of jewellery and the transistor radio. ’You could be caught with that,’ Mangan advised, and the transistor was thrown into a cement-mixer.

    ‘He’ll issue descriptions,’ Mangan said before they turned away from the car. ‘He’ll squawk his bloody guts out.’

    They both knew that. In spite of the ugliness Mangan had injected into his voice, in spite of the old man’s face going purple, he would recall the details of the occasion. In the glimpse Mangan had caught of him there was anger in his eyes and his forehead was puckered in a frown.

    ‘I’m going back there,’ Mangan said.

    The car’s hot.’

    Mangan didn’t answer, but swore instead, repeatedly and furiously; then they lit cigarettes and both felt calmer. Mangan led the way from the car, through the half-built site and out on to a lane. Within five minutes they reached a main road and came eventually to a public house. High up on the wall above the bar a large television set continued to record the Pope’s presence in Ireland. No one took any notice of the two youths who ordered glasses of Smithwick’s, and crisps.

    The people who had been robbed returned to their houses and counted the cost of the Pope’s personal blessing. The Herlihys returned and found Mr. Livingston tied up with neck-ties, and the television still on. A doctor was summoned, though against Mr. Livingston’s wishes. The police came later.

    That afternoon in Bray, after they’d been to see Cohen, Mangan and Gallagher picked up two girls. ‘Jaysus, I could do with a mott,’ Lout Gallagher had said the night before, which was how the whole thing began, Mangan realizing he could do with one too. ‘Thirty,’ Cohen had offered that afternoon, and they’d pushed him up to thirty-five.

    They felt better after the few drinks. Today of all days a bit of fecking wouldn’t interest the police, with the headaches they’d have when the crowds headed back to the city. ‘Why’d they be bothered with an old geezer like that?’ Mangan said, and they felt better still.

    In the Esplanade Ice-cream Parlour the girls requested a Peach Melba and a sundae. One was called Carmel, the other Marie. They said they were nurses, but in fact they worked in a paper mill.

    ‘Bray’s quiet,’ Mangan said.

    The girls agreed it was. They’d been intending to go to see the Pope themselves, but they’d slept it out. A quarter past twelve it was before Carmel opened her eyes, and Marie was even worse. She wouldn’t like to tell you, she said.