The Closet of Savage Mementos by Nuala Ní Chonchúir Read Free Book Online Page B

in The Strathcorry, Sam?’
    ‘Three years.’ She flicks her cigarette butt into the path of an oncoming car. ‘I was the new girl once.’
    Sam pushes open the door of The Windhorse and I follow her inside. The pub is busy; some of the herring boats are in and the bar is lined with welly-wearing fishermen, all of them in plaid shirts and jeans – the Kinlochbrack uniform. The blood and guts smell off the men makes me want to be back at the staff house, safe in my room, in my bed. Sam walks up to a group and greets each of them by name; unlike herself, she is laughing and chatty and I stand behind her. I watch a couple who sit side by side on one of the banquettes like two magnets repelling each other. The woman lifts her drink to her lips, sips, puts it down. Her husband slurps from his pint, lowers it. They look straight ahead, the distance between them on the seat stretching to miles.
    Sam turns away from the fishermen and hands me a pint of lager; her smile drops.
    ‘Relax, Lillis,’ she says, ‘you’re always so wound up.’ She points to free seats near the happy couple and I shuffle ahead of her and sit.
    ‘I don’t feel wound up,’ I say, my shoulders turning to iron as I say the words.
    ‘I’ve seen you coming out of the church on Ardmair Street,’ Sam says. ‘Devout, are you?’
    ‘No, I like to go in sometimes, to think.’ I swig my pint.
    Sam snorts. ‘You know you might be better off taking a wee job on the Isle of Barra. That’s where all the Catholics are.’
    ‘Hardly all of them; there’s a small congregation in Kinlochbrack. Struan is a Catholic. Of sorts.’
    She looks away even as I speak and lights a cigarette. I watch the door, thinking Struan might make a late drink. I am feeling away from myself after having only half a pint and I am struggling to find even one reason to stay out with Sam. It’s clear she doesn’t like me and I certainly don’t like her. Sam tosses her head and drags on her smoke. Her hair is greasy, something I have noticed about her before, and I’m afraid to breathe too deeply in case I smell its unctuous heat.
    ‘Is it serious?’ Sam says, whipping around to stare at me. Her eyes are violet-blue, like Achill marble – the strangest I have ever seen.
    ‘With Struan?’ I say. ‘Well, I like him. It’s early yet.’
    ‘Huh,’ she says. ‘Watch him, that’s all I’d say. He’s one of those blokes who always has to have a woman by his side. Always. It’s not long since the last one.’ She eyeballs the couple nearby; they are still staring ahead, blank faced. ‘Look at them: Sadness and Charisma. That will be you and Struan in ten years’ time.’ She laughs, a dull, short noise that she coughs out of her throat.
    I get up and go to the bar; the fishermen clear a space and stay silent while I order another pint for Sam. When I turn away, one of them says something; I miss it but the others snicker.
    ‘That’s Struan Torrance’s bird,’ a voice says.
    ‘Oh, aye? Is she working at the inn? She’s bonny.’
    I go to the toilet and come back to the bar for Sam’s drink; the fishermen are discussing the trial of some locals who were jailed for cocaine smuggling in the harbour. They laugh about the long sentences the men face, but their relief that it is not them is clear.
    ‘Twenty-five years Murdo got.’
    ‘Fuck me.’
    ‘He was always a stupid bastard.’
    ‘He better keep his arse to the wall inside.’
    They all laugh. Sam is missing when I get back to our table, so I put down the pint I have bought for her beside her half-full glass and leave.
    I am surprised to find a cloak of mizzle over the village when I step outside the pub; the evening had been so clear. This is the Scottish weather I have been waiting for; I am tired of the uncharacteristic sunshine that has lit up the days since I arrived. The moon is a cotton-edged blur above the loch now and the boats bounce in the harbour, knocking against each other like drunken dancers.