Cold Eye of Heaven, The by Hickey Christine Dwyer

Author:Hickey, Christine Dwyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Published: 2011-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

Farley steps into the small square hall and stands at the parlour doorway. Ma, still on the sofa, but asleep. Jackie, conked out on the armchair by the fireplace, head flung back, mouth dropped to one side, looking a bit like Da after he’d had the stroke. A banana skin on the floor at his feet, a few stray Jelly Tots scattered on the chair beside him, the wrapper of the Club Milk on the fire grate. On the table a bottle of sherry that must have been in the press since God knows how many Christmases ago. Two cans of Guinness from the back of the fridge scrunched up in the fire grate. The room stinks.

Farley stays in the hall and tries to shake off the day. He puts his back to the wall, pressing it, stretching. Weary now, the turning points are slurring through his head. The fax man, the doctor, the woman with the black hair crossing over the car park of the West County Hotel. And the car, always the car, moving one minute through silent, deserted streets, the next through streets that are overrun by hysterical fans. Danger everywhere; fellas swinging out of lamp posts or hanging out of car windows. One of them, who had been standing on the roof of a moving van, had slipped off and landed on the road right in front of him. If he’d been going any bit faster…

He’d slammed on the brakes, got ready to call an ambulance. But the youngfella had bounced back up again: ‘If you love Packie Bonner clap your hands. Clap your hands!’ And he’d felt like getting out and knocking him down again with a punch.

Finally, the bloke in Rathfarnham, answering the door with a grin on his chops. A little gurrier with a Hitler moustache, full of himself with his three taxicabs on view through the open door of the garage and his little ponytail and his sovereign ring on his middle finger. The grin of course dropped the minute he copped what Farley was at. Cute little fucker, knew the drill right enough, throwing his hands up in the air, backing off – ‘Here, you never touched me with that. It’s not legal unless you touch me.’ Then pouncing on the door and trying to close it in Farley’s face.

But his foot got in first. He could have decked the little bollix there and then. To hell with the consequences, to hell with the fact that he could lose his licence or that some of the guests were beginning to notice and that in a few seconds’ time he’d be making a run for the car. Farley reached in, grabbed him by the arm and through his teeth said, ‘How about I stick it up your arse – it’ll touch you then?’ Then he’d shoved him away. ‘They’re your kids, for fuck sake. Your kids.’

There could be trouble over that. But if there is, Farley tells himself now, it’ll be tomorrow’s trouble.

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