Buried in a Bog (10 page)

T
he next time Maura looked at her watch, more than two hours had passed. She’d refilled their mugs with more tea, but even that interruption hadn’t stemmed the flow of Billy’s words. Maybe it was because he was thrilled to have an audience, Maura thought; most of his stories referred to people and places from a half century ago, and no doubt all of the pub’s patrons had heard them all before. Or maybe Old Mick had let him hang around to entertain the tourists with a bit of local color—or maybe simply because they were old friends. It would have kept them buying pints, and Billy had probably garnered his share.

Stop being so cynical, Maura!
Billy was a lonely old man who’d outlived most of his generation and was happy for someone to talk to. And she could learn a lot by listening to him.

They were interrupted by the sound of someone moving around the back of the building; then Jimmy came in through the door next to the bar. “Ah, Maura. How are ya?”

“Just fine, Jimmy. Is it opening time?”

“No hurry. You haven’t been turning them away at the door, have you?” He grinned.

“Not exactly. Billy here’s been entertaining me with his stories.”

“Good man, Billy! Maura, could I have a word with you?”

“Sure. Billy, you need anything else?” When he didn’t answer, Maura looked at him and realized that he’d fallen asleep. She stood up and joined Jimmy at the bar. “What’s up?”

“Have you given any thought to what we talked about?” he asked.

“You mean, working here for a bit?”

Jimmy nodded. “Mick says his grandma is over the moon to have someone to share her stories with—she was always close to yours. You’d be making an old lady happy.”

So Jimmy had talked to Mick about her. Mick apparently hadn’t changed his mind about the job offer. “She’s a lovely lady, but are you trying to push me into doing what
you
want?”

Jimmy contrived to appear hurt. “Now, why would I be doing that?”

Maura looked him in the eye. “You’re playing the ‘poor old lady’ card to get cheap help, is why. Not that I mind—I just want to be clear from the start about why I’m doing this.”

Jimmy cocked his head at her. “Would you rather I pulled the ‘poor lonely daughter’ card instead? Do it for Rose, then—she’d be glad of a woman’s company here.”

Did the guy have no shame? “Rose is a smart kid, and she shouldn’t be stuck here. So be warned: if I stay around, I may fill her head with plans to escape this place.”

“Ah, she’d never leave her da here all by his lonesome. She’s a good girl.”

And Jimmy should be looking out for his daughter, not himself.
Rose deserved better—the kid deserved a chance to see what the rest of the world was like, if only within Ireland—but didn’t a lot of Irish kids get jobs in other parts of Europe? Maybe she herself hadn’t had many options, but she could try to see that Rose knew she had some. “So what’s the deal?”

Jimmy sighed dramatically. “You Americans—always in such a hurry. You aren’t giving me half a chance to work my charms on you.”

Maura ignored his attempt to divert her. “How long are we talking about?”

“Until we know what’s happening to the pub, I’d say.”

“When will that be?”

“It’s for the courts to sort out,” Jimmy said. “Old Mick never married nor had children, but there’s still lots of his family around. Too complicated for me.”

“How long do Irish courts usually take to sort things out?”

“It depends,” Jimmy said.

That was no help. Her temporary job might last a week or six months, for all she could tell. “Any chance you’ll end up with the place, or Mick?” Maura asked.

“We’ll see. But that doesn’t concern you. All I can say is, the travel season will be upon us by June, say, and it’ll get busier, and we can use your help. You need more than a
week’s time to pay your calls on folk, and there’s nothing that’s drawing you back to Boston. We all win, right?”

So he was figuring months rather than weeks. Surely the Irish legal system wouldn’t take that long? More to the point, would that work for her? Maura had to admit that what he said made sense, though she was beginning to resent being constantly reminded that she had no life of her own. Of course, staying here didn’t move her life forward much, but it was marginally more tempting that going back to Boston and trying to pick up the pieces and start something new. Why not? Maura squared her chin and again looked him in the eye. “All right, here’s the deal. First, I need to figure out if I can swap my airplane ticket, and how much that’ll cost me. Second, I need to be paid enough to cover my room, feed myself, and put gas in the car, like Mick said, with maybe a little extra thrown in,. Tell me straight—can this place afford to pay me that much?”

“We can make it work, if that’s what you want. I’m hoping it won’t be long. Much like yourself, I’d like to know which way the wind is blowing so I can make me own plans.”

“All right. You make the numbers work, and I’ll stay. But I’ve got one condition: we clean up this place. It looks like some of the dirt is older than I am, and don’t get me started on the bathrooms.”

Jimmy grinned. “Yeah, Old Mick slowed down in his later years, and I don’t think he could see so well anymore—or smell. But the customers don’t come here for the shiny bar top, yeh know. They’re here to see friends and talk and relax.”

“They can’t do that in a clean place?”

“I suppose. Just no tarty bits like flowers in the window or new curtains and the like.”

“Deal. Should I start now?”

Jimmy looked startled for a moment. “Grand. No doubt people will be coming in to see if there’s any news about the body.”

“Is there?”

“Not that I’ve heard, not yet anyways. But who knows? They’ll be coming in either way.”

Maura took a deep breath. “Then I’ll do it. Until you get things settled.” She leaned closer to Jimmy and said in a low voice, “What’s the story with Billy, there? Do we charge him, or is whatever he gets on the house?”

“Mick gave him a free pass for life. I’d hate to be the one to change that.”

“That’s fine—I was just checking. Now, where can I find some cleaning supplies? Because I’m betting there aren’t any here.”

“The quick mart up the street’ll have what you want. You can’t miss it—it’s across from the church. Oh, and I’ll send Rosie over here to help you out.”

“What, you’re not planning to help? Only women can clean?”

Jimmy held up both hands in protest. “Nothing like that! Only I’ve got to talk to our distributors and such.”

Maura had to wonder how much time he spent on business calls and how much hanging out with his buddies somewhere else. “Then while you’re at it, get some more snacks, preferably some whose expiration date is in this century, not the last.”

“Right, I’ll take care of it. See yeh later!” He escaped out the back before Maura could make any more demands.

“You hold him to it, young lady,” Billy suddenly volunteered.

So he hadn’t been asleep. “You heard?” Maura came around the bar and sat opposite him again.

“Enough. He’s not a bad man, just likes to take the easy road, if you know what I mean. So you’ll be staying on, at least for a while?”

“Looks like it. But you probably heard that the first thing I’m doing is cleaning this place up. Gran would be horrified by the state it’s in.”

“As long as you don’t think I’m part of the rubbish and throw me out as well.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Billy. I have a feeling you have a lot more stories I should hear.”

“Ah, you’re a good girl, you are. Your gran would be proud.”

Maura hoped she wasn’t blushing. “I’m going to go get some cleaning stuff, pick up a sandwich. Can I bring you anything?”

“No, I’ll be fine. I’ll pop into me own place, where I’ve got the fixings.”

“You live far from here?” Maura asked.

“Just the other end of the building, the last door on the right. I’ve two rooms on the ground floor.”

“Did Old Mick own the whole building?”

“He did. Some of it’s empty, now—he couldn’t be bothered to find lodgers, the last few years. But he didn’t need to, he said.”

“You have any idea what’s going to happen to the place, once it gets sorted out? Did he say anything to you?”

“It’s not coming to me, I know that much, but Mick never said more.” Billy began to extricate himself from the depths of the chair, and Maura hesitated over whether to offer him a hand. Still, he managed well enough, and once he was upright she found that he was shorter than she was.

“Will you see me out?”

“I’ll even see you to your door—I’m going that way.”

“Ah, yer too kind.”

Maura gave a brief thought to whether the place should be locked up when no one was in it, but she couldn’t imagine there was anything worth stealing, and it wasn’t like she had a key anyway. She made a mental note to ask Mick or Jimmy about their policy for locking up—and their ideas about opening and closing times, since they’d been all over the map so far. She dropped Billy off at his door—which, she noted, wasn’t locked either—then proceeded up the street toward where she remembered seeing a gas station. On the same side of the street, she came upon the Catholic church. It seemed surprisingly large, with a spacious parking lot. It must have been built when there was greater allegiance to the Catholic Church. A cemetery climbed up the steep hill behind. Maura wondered how anyone could manage a burial there. The mourners would have to be mountain goats, though maybe those difficulties kept the burial part of the funeral short. Was Old Mick buried there? She marked both the church and the cemetery for later exploration; right now she had more pressing things to do, like see what was under the grime in the pub, and if anything could overcome the stench of generations of drunken guys missing the mark in the loo.

She found the small market easily enough, and to her surprise it looked much like any mini market back in the States. Even the packages looked familiar—until she read them more closely. Apparently international companies picked different names for different markets. She stifled a giggle: no way Fairy Liquid would sell in the U.S., but here it seemed to be an ordinary dish soap. The sandwiches were a bit boggling as well. Did she want to eat something labeled “fish paste”? Since she was in no hurry to get back to clean, she took her time, going up and down the couple of aisles and reading labels. The sugar bore the title
siúcra
in addition to “caster sugar,” and there was some bottled drink called “barley water” that looked positively nasty. Despite the unfamiliar brand names, she was able to collect the basic cleaning materials she needed, including rubber gloves. It cost her much of her remaining cash, and she wondered if the pub would reimburse her. Well, duh, if she was working there, she could take the money she needed from the till—if there was enough there. What kind of bookkeeping did the place use? Silly question: the most likely answer was, none at all, no matter what Jimmy said. Well, that wasn’t her problem. She’d take what she needed first and let Mick and Jimmy worry about the rest of it. And if they couldn’t manage to pay her, she’d be out the door.

When she returned to the pub, laden with two full carrier bags plus a packaged sandwich, Rose was already there. She looked up and smiled happily.

“Da says you’ll be staying on for a bit?”

“Looks that way,” Maura replied.

“Well, I’ll be glad of the company. I don’t often have anyone to talk to behind the bar here. Well, there are plenty
who come in to chat, but it’s not personal, like. Some days it’s so dull I watch the American shows on the telly.”

“I know what you mean. Listen, I told your father that the first thing I wanted to do was give this place a good cleaning. Maybe he thinks it’s not important, but I refuse to work in a filthy dump. Are you okay with that?”

“Of course. I’d’ve done it myself, but I didn’t know where to start, it’s that bad. What’s your plan?”

“I’m starting with a sandwich. Let me eat my lunch, and then we can dig in. Can you hand me a Coke? And do I have to keep a record of what I eat or drink?” Usually in Boston no one had cared if the bar staff helped themselves, as long as it wasn’t the expensive stuff, but she wanted to start off on the right foot here.

“Sure, go ahead, and don’t worry about it. Just tell me what to do with the cleaning bit,” Rose said cheerfully.

“I’ll take the toilets. I wouldn’t ask anyone else to do something even I hate to do.”

“You’ll hear no complaints from me,” Rose said, smiling.

T
hree hours later Maura declared herself finished. No customer had even poked a head in, and Maura didn’t know if she was worried or relieved. She wouldn’t call the bathrooms clean, exactly, but they were substantially less filthy than they had been when she started. They were also stocked with paper towels and toilet paper, although she’d exhausted the pitiful supply she’d found. She’d have to tell Jimmy to order more. And some more lightbulbs.