The Spy Across the Water by James Naughtie

The Spy Across the Water by James Naughtie

Author:James Naughtie [Naughtie, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784080228
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00


Oh Ghrá Mo Chroí, I long to see the boys of the old brigade…

Noise and smoke, drinking and singing. It was hard to hear anyone talk.

He looked around. As he turned away from the bar, past the banners draped on the end wall and the huddle of people round the little stage where the band sang behind a row of pint glasses lined up like footlights, he saw Liam at the door. There was an accordion and a skin drum hanging from the roof above him. The lights were picking up the grey in his hair, and Keane thought it wasn’t just his imagination that made Liam seem weary, a tired figure who just at that moment, standing on the edge of the crowd apparently unsure about whether or not to join, looked lost and alone. An illusion surely, because hands of welcome stretched out to him even as Keane looked across, and the smile that he’d enjoyed earlier in the day wiped away the sadness that he’d seen etched there. But underneath the back-slapping, Keane could see the mark was there.

He waved across the room.

After a few minutes, because Liam went first to the table where the Viking and four others were sitting, they found themselves squeezed together at the bar. Liam was wearing the battered brown leather jacket that gave him the look of a man of the road. Keane noticed he’d had a haircut and carried a coolness that was missing in the rest of the sweaty throng. His eyes were dancing, scanning the crowd. ‘There’s a party later,’ he said quite loudly, because it was hard to be heard. ‘Come along. Just follow me when I go.’

Then, heaving into him as if he’d been pushed forward by the crowd behind and might fall over, he spoke into Keane’s ear. ‘Any news?’

Keane winked, and raised his glass. They drifted apart in the crowd.

Keane enjoyed a bit of singing, and spent a while at the Viking’s table, where he learned nothing.

Soon after midnight, Liam waved him to the door. ‘A bunch of us are going to carry on.’ Seven of them piled into two yellow cabs and headed west.

He had worked out on his previous visits that the Viking lived with at least three others. It was into their apartment that they decamped, and there were more of them. There was plenty of beer. The Viking produced a wooden box, and rolled some joints. Liam said no, which everyone accepted without argument, but Keane joined him and a few minutes later they were alone on a sofa while the others followed a guy who’d got out his guitar in another room.

‘I haven’t even told you my name, Patrick,’ he said. ‘It’s Cathal.’

‘Sure,’ said Keane. ‘Someone said.’

They smoked.

The Viking said, ‘I suppose it’s peculiar for you, coming from London and all that, to find yourself with us. Surely?’

Keane said not really, because he’d so many Irish friends at home and he felt comfortable hanging around in the bar. ‘Identity’s a strong thing.



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