He carefully rehearsed each step until he had it down by heart. First have her handle the gun to get her fingerprints on it—all the detective comics made this point. Then teach her to aim it. Next, take the gun away in mock anger at her awkwardness, start to walk away, turn around, aim and fire at point blank range. Easy. Like shooting a jackdaw on a fencepost.
For several weeks, as the days grew shorter, Myles began to panic, badgering Mrs. Wilcox about her promise to go hunting. She kept putting him off; it never seemed to be quite the right time. Maybe she was on to him, evil mind reading evil mind. He seldom slept for more than a couple of hours, and when he did, his dreams turned to nightmares of blood and gore from which he’d awake screaming. Even daylight brought little relief, his mind still a chamber of horrors: Father Cavanagh’s voice condemning him to hell; Mrs. Wilcox’s mangled ghost at the window; Myles hanging from a scaffold at Mountjoy Gaol, body twisting in the wind.
He was sweeping out the cowshed when Jimmy Dunphy’s high-pitched whistle sent the borders into their frenzied greeting. They knew Jimmy, but never ceased to announce his arrival full-throated barking, delighted at the chance to show off their guarding prowess. This time, Jimmy was lucky: Kitty was there to greet him with her steady smile, which faded when she saw the little green telegram in his arthritic fingers.
He went into his ritual delivery, which infuriated Kitty and destroyed any chance Jimmy had of being invited in for a tea and scones. Myles came up from the shed at the sound of the borders, just in time to hear Jimmy’s hackneyed plea, “Maybe I should wait in case you want to send word back.” This time, Myles didn’t say anything; he just gave Jimmy a hard stare as Kitty abruptly turned her back on Jimmy and trotted down the stairs, tripping over the borders as they swarmed with the excitement of the moment.
Halfway to the kitchen, Kitty pulled up and said, “Oh, My God, the telegram is for Fanny. Do you know where she is?” Myles had seen her go for her regular walk about an hour earlier, and he instinctively grabbed the telegram and ran in the direction he’d seen Mrs. Wilcox go.
He met her at the hazel corral, walking slowly toward the farmhouse, taking in the warmth of the sun as it rose from behind the Sugarloaf. She looked small and vulnerable, and, for a moment, Myles felt sorry for her—guilty of his wicked design on her life. Seeing him sprinting toward her, she immediately erased his feeling with, “Well, well…if it isn’t our knuck, snooping around, are we?” Myles just stared at her in his practiced nonchalance, held up the telegram and said, “Mammie said this is for you. The postman just delivered it.”
Fanny snatched the telegram from Myles outstretched hand and slit the little green envelope with one sharp flick of her talon-like fingernail. Myles watched her as she read the brief message. After several seconds, she looked past him with her glass eye and muttered, “Oh, Dear. I must go back at once. There’s been a dreadful death at Windgate. Poor Peter Boyle, one of my boarders, has hanged ‘isself in the upstairs bathroom.” With that she turned and shuffled toward the farmhouse in her bandy-legged gait, puffing and panting, with Myles jogging behind her at a fast clip to keep up.
Mrs. Wilcox quickly related her story to Kitty. Jack was out in the fields, fixing fences, and Myles ran down to tell him the news. He said nothing, just came back to the house, briefly spoke with Fanny, then grabbed Myles Raleigh bike and rode off to Enniskerry to book a taxi for Fanny’s departure.
Next morning, as the sun’s first rays edged across the Sugarloaf Range, Myles ambled up from the parlor to find Mrs. Wilcox packed, with Ned Delaney’s green Vauxhall idling at the road gate. She asked Myles for a hug and, without hesitation, he clung to her, sobbing as though his heart was breaking.
“Wot’s a mattah? Don’t take on so. I didn’t even think ya liked me…Blimey! Our knuck ‘as a ‘art aftah all.”
“Bye, Mrs. Wilcox. Sorry we didn’t have a chance to go hunting. Maybe some other time—if you ever come back.”
“Aye, son. Maybe then. Between you n’me, that may be a while. I doubt I’ll be back. But you can come visit me in Birmingham. I know a lot o’ young ladies that’d like the cut a yer jib, if ya know wot I mean. Take care, lad. Yer not such a bad knuck, after all…”
The Hogans–all three of them—waved goodbye as Delaney’s taxi disappeared around the bend in the Wexford Road. They walked back to the house in silence, like a funeral procession, each in a private turmoil they dared not speak.
Something had died during Fanny’s stay. Like a cuckoo preying on a robin’s nest, she’d killed the innocent laughter and family joy they’d known just a few weeks earlier. They all intuitively knew that feeling was gone forever. The only question for Myles was how he would get through the next few days without letting his relief, grief, and anger spill out all over the kitchen floor. What was he going to say to his Da? To Mammie? To his pals in school? To the snooping neighbors?
Predictably, Jack took the line of least resistance: as soon as the green taxi was out of sight, he promptly changed his clothes, pumped up the Raleigh tires, and muttered something about going to Borris to talk to Jimmy Doran about a horse. From the look on Kitty’s face, Myles knew she didn’t believe a word of it. They had no reason to trust him or believe a single word he said. Myles could see some combination of worry and alarm on his mother’s face. It was a new look—one that he had never seen before.
No longer able to stand the furtive look on his da’s face, Myles hastily dodged out to the hayshed to pursue his chores. From there, he could overhear his parent’s voices, raised in anger. Kitty spoke first: “How do I know you’re going Dorans? You always make up some cock n’ bull story when all you’re doing is goin’ to the Joyce’s pub. Or are you just going back with Fanny to Windgate? Why don’t you just be man enough to tell me this time, not sneaking off, as usual?”
Jack, his soft tenor now hoarse with anger: “I’ll do whatever I feckin’ well please, and no woman is going to tell me where I can come or go. I’m was goin’ to Jimmy Dorans, but now I think I’ll just go straight to Joyces. Why the hell not? Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. It’s all the same to the high and mighty Kitty Cusack. You can go straight to hell, woman, for all I care.” Myles heard his mother mutter something unintelligible before they broke off with his da slamming the kitchen door behind him and storming into the farmyard with his hat and coat on.
As Jack angrily wheeled the bike toward the road gate, the borders suddenly became excited and barked menacingly at his back, the way they did at departing strangers. Irritated at the ruckus, Jack wheeled on the closest border collie, Rover, and booted him viciously in the ribcage. The young dog whined and ran toward Myles for comfort, as Jack slammed the gate behind him with a few muttered curses at the dogs.
That night—the first without their odd guest—the ramblers arrived at dusk, as usual, their expectations high. The borders kicked up their usual racket, but quickly settled down to enjoy the routine camaraderie. Mrs. Wilcox’s presence had not dampened the rambler’s spirits or concentration one bit. It would take more than her awkward attempts at participation to do that. In fact, they’d been more than gracious to her—Myles noted with some resentment.
He’d hoped for a show of support; instead, he’d become the target of tiresome lectures on the virtues of being polite and ‘not letting his family down’. “That’s a good one”, he thought bitterly, “I’m the one who’s disgracing the family by not cozying up to this glass-eyed creature from Birmingham.”
When Jack was not home as the ramblers ambled in, the disappointment and curiosity was palpable. From the forced humor and the knowing looks, it was clear what they were thinking: The worst, the obvious, why not? Had that not been born out since Fanny’s arrival in August? Surely, there was no reason to assume things were going to be suddenly hunky-dory. They could barely restrain the winks when Kitty told them that “Himself” had only gone to Borris to see Jimmy Doran. They knew better. The more Kitty reassured them, the more pity Myles could detect in their ruddy faces.
They knew all along the arrangement couldn’t last and, while they felt sorry for Kitty and Myles, they felt even sorrier for themselves. Myles could see it in their sad faces, looking at the door as people drifted in, staring past each familiar face to see if Jack might be among them. Then the shattered look when it was ‘only’ Packie Breen, Jim Gallagher, Danny Doyle—the regulars.
By eleven o’clock, the neighbors had disbanded, and Jack had not come home. With mumbled words of comfort, “Sure, he probably just got held up at Dorans…” each little group wandered off into the moonlit night.
About 2A.M., the borders started up, waking Myles from a deep sleep in his own room upstairs. He peeked out the window and could see them in the moonlight, swarming around the road gate. It seemed as if someone was trying to come in the gate, someone they didn’t know. Who could be coming at this time of night? This went on for some time, about a half hour, then they fell back, growling and seemingly cowed. Then all fell silent, and Myles fell back to a fitful sleep.
Around 3am, Myles came suddenly awake with an urgent hand on his shoulder. His mother was shaking him, a strange tension in her voice: “Myles, wake up! wake up! Will you please come into the other bedroom with me? Your father’s been drinking and I’m afraid.” Like he’d been stuck with a hot poker, Myles sprang out of bed. His fearless mother afraid? He’d never known her to be afraid of anything or anybody in his whole life. What could she be afraid of? What was his Da going to do to her?
(to be continued next Friday)