Figures of Fear: An anthology Read Online Free PDF

course to Kinsale Sands, where day and night the grey Atlantic washed, and washed, but could never wash away Michael’s guilt.
    Father Bernard said, ‘Nobody blamed you, Michael. Your parents didn’t blame you. The Gardaí said there was no cause to think that it was anything else but an accident so. Even your Kate didn’t blame you.’
    Michael turned away from the window. He had celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday only last Thursday, but he looked much older. His light brown hair stuck up like a cockatoo’s crest but it was beginning to thin and recede at the temples, and there were deep creases in his cheeks as if somebody had cut him with a craft-knife. When he sat down the daylight was reflected in his rimless spec-tacles, making him look blind.
    Father Bernard leaned forward and laid a liver-spotted hand on his knee. ‘Would you care to pray?’ he suggested.
    Michael said, ‘What’s the use? The only person who can answer my prayers is me.’

    ‘You’re still having the same dream?’
    Michael nodded.
    ‘Are you not still taking the pills the doctor gave you?’
    ‘Twice the dose, Father. Washed down with two glasses of Paddy’s.’
    Father Bernard sat back. He steepled his hands and stared at Michael for a long time without saying anything. He was obviously thinking hard. Behind him, the pendulum in the long-case clock wearily swung, but the passing seconds couldn’t help Michael, either.
    ‘Try once more tonight, Michael,’ said Father Bernard. ‘Try it without the pills and the whiskey. If you have the nightmare again, come back to me in the morning, early. Before ten if you can. I have to be visiting Mrs O’Leary in Ballyhooly. Poor old girl may not last another week.’
    They both stood up. Father Bernard’s knees clicked like two shots from a cap-pistol. His eyes were a very pale agate, as if they had been leached of their natural colour by all the years of pain that he had witnessed, and the endless rain.
    He laid his hands on Michael’s shoulders. ‘O my God,’ he intoned, ‘we love You above all things, with our whole hearts, because You are good and worthy of our love. We love our neighbours as ourselves for the love of You. We forgive all who injured us and we ask pardon of all whom we have injured.’
    Michael said, ‘Amen.’ When he looked up, his eyes were glistening with tears, and he had to wipe his nose with the back of his hand.
    Little Kieran had been fractious all day and Kate was exhausted by the time Michael put the key in the lock and stepped into the hallway.
    He hung up his coat. He could hear Kieran upstairs, honking in his crib like a baby seal. Kate came out of the kitchen in her apron, all red and flustered, her russet hair awry. She smelled of frying onions and ground lamb so he guessed it must be shepherd’s pie tonight. He kissed her and then he said, ‘Sounds like he’s teething again, poor little beggar.’
    ‘It’s those two big back ones,’ Kate told him. ‘I gave him Calpol to take his temperature down but he’s still so miserable. He nods off but then the pain wakes him up again.’
    I know the feeling , thought Michael. It’s the pain that can follow you everywhere, no matter how many glasses of whiskey you drink, no matter how many Sominex tablets you swallow. It comes after you through the fog of your exhaustion like the crocodile coming after Captain Hook and its ticking is the ticking of your bedside clock.

    He went into the living room and unscrewed the half-empty bottle of Jacob’s Creek shiraz that was standing on the sideboard. He could see himself in the mirror as he poured out two glasses. He didn’t think that he looked like himself at all, more like some rat-faced private detective who had been hired to see what he was up to. His eyes were so dead and watchful, in spite of all the turmoil that he was feeling inside.
    He took the wine through to the kitchen. Kate was standing over the range, stirring the lamb in a large saucepan.