against the floor. They recognised me as their breed, just as I recognised them as my breed, since there have always been Irish setters in the castle. Several were depicted at their masters’ feet in the family portraits lining the hall. But I’m not here to give a history lesson.
I got down on my hunkers to caress their long ears. These two were beauties, the breed at its best – alert and agile, muscular and sleek, a map of liver-brown continents on the white sea of their backs. They kept their handsome heads on the floor and swallowed contritely. ‘That’s better,’ I told them.
They heard him first. Their bodies tensed. I looked up.
A tall lean figure of military bearing was watching us from the doorway. Arnhem 1944, rank of colonel. I got to my feet. Father lowered the rifle.
‘Heel,’ he said coolly in his own good time, and the two dogs scrambled over and prostrated themselves at his feet. He propped the rifle against the frame of the door and clasped his hands behind his back. I raised my chin and aimed a thousand-yard stare at the wall.
‘Why have you returned here?’
‘This is my home.’
‘This most certainly is not your home.’
‘I am your son.’
‘Only when it suits you.’
This was how we spoke, Father and I. If we spoke at all. I rested my eyes briefly on his face. Ninety-odd years of age and still possessed of his silver helmet of hair. He was already grey by the time I was born although old photographs reveal him to have been blond. It was about the only feature I had inherited from him. The fair hair and the height.
He circled me slowly, examining my person. The inspection had commenced. I directed my gaze at the wall again, or at a point just beyond it.
‘Have you come to apologise?’
‘I have not.’
‘Then this conversation is over.’
With that he left, collecting the rifle upon his exit. ‘Heel,’ he instructed the setters once more and they fell in line behind him. I remained standing to attention for some time in the wake of his departure, listening to the embers settle in the grate as the fire faded beside me, as I faded beside the fire. I don’t know why I’m talking about all of this in the past tense. Nothing is past. Everything is tense. You’ll forgive me, Fergus, if I leave it there for the moment.
Not for a number of weeks,
Not for a number of weeks, and when I did enter into a formal business arrangement with Mr Hickey, I did so at M. Deauville’s instigation. He called me the following morning wanting to know how I had come to find myself in one of my old haunts. ‘It was late,’ I said, ‘where else was I supposed to go?’ presuming he meant the castle, but no, he meant the Summit Inn. How had I come to find myself in the Summit Inn? I had no answer to that.
Didn’t I realise how foolhardy that was? he persisted. Didn’t I grasp that I was treading on thin ice? There were danger zones, areas of unusual turbulence, like sunspots on the sun, M. Deauville explained, and they were to be avoided at all costs. The Summit Inn was one such zone. The old man – if he was an old man: it was difficult to gauge M. Deauville’s age, but he was my old man in a way – the old man had kept me sequestered in airport hotels and conference centres. But I had strayed from the path.
‘I am sorry, M. Deauville.’ I was such a sorry soul that it was hard to quantify. Crossing Christy’s threshold had been reckless in the extreme. I blamed the shock of the crash, or the emergency landing, and I blamed D. Hickey. I still do.
‘D. Hickey?’ The name piqued M. Deauville’s interest.
‘Yes. Desmond Hickey.’
Tocka tocka on the keyboard as M. Deauville ran a check. ‘The property developer Desmond Hickey?’
I thought of the bag of grit sleeping it off in the back of his truck, arm in arm with the shovel. ‘Well, he’s more what you’d call a builder.’
‘And why did you agree to enter licensed premises with this individual?’
‘He said he had a
I got down on my hunkers to caress their long ears. These two were beauties, the breed at its best – alert and agile, muscular and sleek, a map of liver-brown continents on the white sea of their backs. They kept their handsome heads on the floor and swallowed contritely. ‘That’s better,’ I told them.
They heard him first. Their bodies tensed. I looked up.
A tall lean figure of military bearing was watching us from the doorway. Arnhem 1944, rank of colonel. I got to my feet. Father lowered the rifle.
‘Heel,’ he said coolly in his own good time, and the two dogs scrambled over and prostrated themselves at his feet. He propped the rifle against the frame of the door and clasped his hands behind his back. I raised my chin and aimed a thousand-yard stare at the wall.
‘Why have you returned here?’
‘This is my home.’
‘This most certainly is not your home.’
‘I am your son.’
‘Only when it suits you.’
This was how we spoke, Father and I. If we spoke at all. I rested my eyes briefly on his face. Ninety-odd years of age and still possessed of his silver helmet of hair. He was already grey by the time I was born although old photographs reveal him to have been blond. It was about the only feature I had inherited from him. The fair hair and the height.
He circled me slowly, examining my person. The inspection had commenced. I directed my gaze at the wall again, or at a point just beyond it.
‘Have you come to apologise?’
‘I have not.’
‘Then this conversation is over.’
With that he left, collecting the rifle upon his exit. ‘Heel,’ he instructed the setters once more and they fell in line behind him. I remained standing to attention for some time in the wake of his departure, listening to the embers settle in the grate as the fire faded beside me, as I faded beside the fire. I don’t know why I’m talking about all of this in the past tense. Nothing is past. Everything is tense. You’ll forgive me, Fergus, if I leave it there for the moment.
Not for a number of weeks,
Not for a number of weeks, and when I did enter into a formal business arrangement with Mr Hickey, I did so at M. Deauville’s instigation. He called me the following morning wanting to know how I had come to find myself in one of my old haunts. ‘It was late,’ I said, ‘where else was I supposed to go?’ presuming he meant the castle, but no, he meant the Summit Inn. How had I come to find myself in the Summit Inn? I had no answer to that.
Didn’t I realise how foolhardy that was? he persisted. Didn’t I grasp that I was treading on thin ice? There were danger zones, areas of unusual turbulence, like sunspots on the sun, M. Deauville explained, and they were to be avoided at all costs. The Summit Inn was one such zone. The old man – if he was an old man: it was difficult to gauge M. Deauville’s age, but he was my old man in a way – the old man had kept me sequestered in airport hotels and conference centres. But I had strayed from the path.
‘I am sorry, M. Deauville.’ I was such a sorry soul that it was hard to quantify. Crossing Christy’s threshold had been reckless in the extreme. I blamed the shock of the crash, or the emergency landing, and I blamed D. Hickey. I still do.
‘D. Hickey?’ The name piqued M. Deauville’s interest.
‘Yes. Desmond Hickey.’
Tocka tocka on the keyboard as M. Deauville ran a check. ‘The property developer Desmond Hickey?’
I thought of the bag of grit sleeping it off in the back of his truck, arm in arm with the shovel. ‘Well, he’s more what you’d call a builder.’
‘And why did you agree to enter licensed premises with this individual?’
‘He said he had a
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