As he came into his mother’s bedroom, Myles could hear the borders, back in their high-pitched barking, some joining Ben in his deep-chested growl. Why were they growling at Da? Could it be that they remembered he’d hurt Rover? Were dogs capable of revenge as a pack?
That’s when all hell broke loose. As Myles shuffled toward the damp outside bedroom, he heard his da crashing through the front gate. He could hear the distinctive voice over the din of the borders, shouting in a hoarse, drunken diatribe. Myles fought back his fear, thought he might be having a nightmare, an illusion soon erased by the menacing voice descending on the house. Abruptly, the dogs went silent, a silence that was almost deafening in contrast to the howling chorus of a moment ago.
Then came the hoarse, bullying voice again: “Get up Kitty Cusack! Get up and make me my tay! Goddamn you, woman. You bitch…you whore. Why don’t you have the door open for me when I come home? I’ll teach you to show some respect when I get my hands on you. How dare you humiliate me in front of Fanny Wilcox—a woman who never done you no harm. I’m gonna show the whole, cockeyed world who’s gaffer around here for once and for all…”
Kitty started to cry, first slowly, in a stifled sobbing; then in an anguished, high-pitched confession, in terror of what was about to unfold. The wailing, desolate sound was unnerving for Myles to hear, all by itself.
“Oh, a Cushla, this is a side of your father I’d prayed to the Blessed Virgin you’d never see. He can be so cruel when he has drink taken. I’m not worried so much for myself, but if he does anything to hurt you, I don’t know what I’ll do...I just don’t trust myself to …”
As the sentence trailed off in a wail, an ear-splitting thud from downstairs told Myles that Jack had just kicked down the kitchen door, which was never locked. The splintering timber could be heard for miles, it seemed, in the morning stillness. Cowering under the blanket, shivering in fear, Kitty and Myles waited for their fate to unfold. Cursing at Kitty, yelling for her to “Come down, bitch... I’ll teach you to …” Myles could hear his father staggering toward the dark stairwell.
Fighting back panic, gasping for breath, Myles’s own cowardice struck him, like a sharp kick to the pit of his stomach. What kind of man would be hiding like this? What kind of man would be putting up with this abuse? Had Mammie not just asked him for help? Well, she was going to get it.
A towering rage rose up through Myles’s body at his mother’s tormentor. No longer was this his charming, fun-loving da; this was just a violent, foul-mouthed, brute invading their home. All fear and compassion gone, Myles made a decision then and there: this beast was not going to make it up these creaky stairs even if he, Myles Hogan, had to die stopping him.
In one smooth motion, Myles sprang out of bed, grabbed the old single-gauge shotgun from its rack on the wall, and yelled, “She’s not comin’ down. If ya want the tay, make it yerself.” The words flew from his mouth, like he was channeling a grown man, someone older and braver. He cracked the shotgun, checked the live cartridge—just as he’d seen hunters do before sending out the bird dogs—and stepped toward the stairwell ready for battle.
Hearing his son’s trembling voice for the first time, Jack’s whiskey-fueled rage exploded anew. “Ah, the little bastard is going to challenge his da, is he? Well, I’m going to put some manners on you while I’m at it. You’ve been asking for a good whippin’, and now you’re goin’ to get it.” With that, he lunged for the stairs.
Myles pulled the heavy shotgun up to his shoulder, hands trembling as he fumbled for the trigger. He aimed the long barrel at the empty stairwell, yelling at the top of his lungs, “Come on! Ya bastard! I swear ta God, I’ll blow yer fecken’ head off if ya take one more step.”
From behind him, Myles heard his mother’s voice, calm and steady now—a complete contrast to the wailing victim of a few moments ago. “Give me the shotgun, Myles, right now, and step back from the stairs!” Myles was used to obeying his mother when she adopted that tone; despite his resolve, he reflexively handed over the gun. She motioned him to back up behind her with a quick snap of her head.
A wintry blast shook the rafters, chilling the candlelit bedroom. Myles recognized that voice, recalling terrifying images: Miss Breen’s bloody nose; the cowering Hannigan twins; the dead Tanner guard. In a flash, his rage turned to fear—fear for his da and the danger he was in. His mind raced. What should he do—beg her to stop? Jump in front of the gun? Start screaming to distract her?
In the end, he did nothing; just stood there, frozen at the terrible spectacle before him as Jack kept stumbling closer to the top step. Too drunk to navigate the steep stairs, he kept falling down, then dragging himself back up to continue the ascent. He was only one step from the top when he saw Kitty and the shotgun’s shadow in the dim light. Up until that moment, he’d kept up the drunken rant. Seeing the gun, he hesitated briefly, then charged ahead with renewed ferocity.
“Well, well, well…if it isn’t the fucken warrior queen herself. Kitty Commandant Cusack, the pride of Cumann na mBan. The vicious bitch who never quite got what she had coming... I’ve punched yer silly eyes shut before and will again, just for pointing that fucken thing at me. Who do you think yer dealin’ with here? The Tans? Do you take me for one of them eejets you can scare the shite out of with yer fierce fucken stare and general’s bearin’. Fuck you! I’m gonna teach you who’s gaffer around here …”
Kitty’s voice cut off the diatribe in that low, calm voice Myles had learned to dread: “No, Jack, that’s over. You’re never goin’ to lay a hand on me again. Not tonight; not tomorrow; not ever!” She said this without emotion, the shotgun steady as a rock, and without taking her eyes off her husband, who stood swaying in the stairwell, still wearing his faded overcoat and rain-soaked felt hat.
For a moment, Jack hesitated, cocking his head to one side—as if considering her words. Undaunted, he lurched over the final step, shouting: “Why, you miserable bitch, I’m gonna take that fucken shotgun n’ shove it…
That’s when Myles heard the thud of the hammer and saw his father’s white shirt explode in crimson across his chest, his body jerking backwards into the dark stairwell. Everything went into slow motion. He had ample of time to observe the details of Jack’s surprised expression, the wordless calm of his mother’s profile, and the humanlike protest of the creaky staircase as it absorbed the crash of the tumbling body.
The borders started up again. This time, the sound had gone from the high-pitched bark to keening—in unison, as if on some invisible signal. They were answered across the valley by other borders, keening back, their eerie chorus reverberating around the Sugarloaf Range.
Myles stared in horror as Kitty’s right hand slowly and steadily set the shotgun against the bedroom wall. She betrayed not the slightest tremor as she picked up the flickering candle and followed her husband’s tumbling corpse down into the kitchen. The turf fire was still smouldered in the grate, and a moaning wind swept down from the Sugarloaf, rattling the ancient doors and windowpanes. The borders continued to their ghostly keening as Myles absorbed the bloody scene on the kitchen floor, the same concrete floor where it all began a thousand years ago on that first magical evening in May.
An hour later, a somber, rain-soaked dawn was breaking over Enniskerry as Myles pedaled his Raleigh across the Dargal Bridge, just a mile from the parish priest’s house. Still in a daze, head down against the driving downpour, he relived the scene in the kitchen: his father’s blood-soaked corpse stretched by the fireplace; his mother calmly blowing the bellows, as if nothing had changed.
“Mammie, what are we going to do?”
“Go down to Enniskerry and fetch Father Cavanagh!”
“Right now, in the dark?”
“Right now. It’ll be light by the time you get there.”
“What should I tell him?”
Kitty slows the bellows, then stops, glancing around the room. The borders have gone silent, creeping into the kitchen, subdued, licking Myles fingers and lying down in a circle around Kitty, by the bellows. The ticking of the grandfather clock amplifies the heavy silence; hazel eyes meet blue, holding them in a longed-for caress through the miasma of the dying turf; then comes the calm, dispassionate response:
“The truth, son. Tell him the hard truth, like the good man you are.”
(The End.)