Sanctuary Read Online Free PDF

couldn’t remember the words.

 
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10

Ice
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    I looked round. Not a feather in sight, not even a black one.
    As I turned into Grattan Park, I knew I was only about five minutes from Ridge’s house and I slowed my pace, reluctant to face the scene I expected, to see her fucked and bedraggled from booze. And saw an off-licence beckoning. It was a new one, but then, in my years of dryness God only knew how many had opened up. The water might be poisoned, but by Jesus, we weren’t letting the virus affect our drinking habits.
    Sure enough, a sign in the window proclaimed, ‘Our ice cubes are made by Alto.’
    So, a company had sprung up to meet the need forpurified ice? When I was a child, ice was something you might see on Christmas Eve.
    I went in, saw the bottles of tequila on display – another trend I’d missed. Shots of tequila being de rigueur for the young, wealthy kids who hit the clubs . . . ‘De rigueur’ – took me years to find a way to use that, never mind figure out what the hell it meant.
    On the wall was a poster advertising Philip Fogarty and Anna Lardi in concert. I clocked the rows of cigarettes and had a pang for another addiction denied. I grabbed a bottle of Grey Goose, because it came with a free T-shirt and I figured Ridge hadn’t been doing a whole lot of laundry.
    The kid at the register was non-national. Rang up my bottle and said, ‘That be twenty-eight euro.’
    Me thinking,
That be fucking exorbitant
.
    He put the bottle and the T-shirt in a bag that screamed,
off-licence
.
    I paid him. He never said ‘thank you’ or anything related to it and I was about to say something when I heard, ‘Taylor, back on the drink?’
    Turned to see Father Malachy, my nemesis, an adversary for so many years and, worse, a friend of my late mother.
    We might actually have become, if not friends, allies of an uneasy kind when he enlisted my help for a case. A priest had been murdered and Malachy, desperate, had turned to me for help. I did concludeit and, albeit a terrible conclusion, the case had been solved. Not my finest hour. He didn’t know the full details, only that I’d helped him. Thus you’d expect, if not gratitude, at least a certain appreciation.
    But no, it made us more combative than ever.
    He reeked of nicotine, his black priest’s jacket was littered with dandruff and ash, his teeth brown from his addiction.
    I said, ‘Good to see you, Father.’
    It wasn’t.
    He eyed my purchase, said, ‘You couldn’t stay off it, could you?’
    The temptation to kick the living shite out of him was as compelling as ever. Instead, I thought of the letter I’d received and asked, ‘What do you know about benediction?’
    He was taken aback, silent for a moment.
    â€˜Why? What do you want to know?’
    I had him intrigued and pushed, ‘I got a letter, a threatening one, with the signature “Benedictus”.’
    He shrugged. ‘Benediction is a blessing, but in your case can only be a curse.’ And he moved past me, heading for the cartons of cut-price cigarettes.
    I resisted the temptation to kick him in the arse.
    It took some doing.
    I said, ‘See you soon.’
    Without even turning round, he spat, ‘Not if God is good.’ Nice ecclesiastical parting remark.
    I got outside, rage rampant in my head, and in an effort to calm down recalled an incident a few weeks back with Stewart.
    I’d been in some state, with Ridge in the hospital, the booze calling and regrets about my aborted getaway to America swirling in my head, and I’d run into Stewart. He’d taken one look at my face and suggested we go back to his place and, like, chill.
    Chill!
The way these young Irish talk.
    But I’d gone. He’d given me a Xanax and whoa . . . jig time, I was enveloped in if not the cloud of unknowing, certainly the mellow shroud of laid-back