Turbulent Priests (Dan Starkey 3) by Bateman Read Free Book Online

on the quay. As Charlie ran the Fitzpatrick to the dock we left the car again and stood up front, picking out details ashore. The town itself – a village really – was tightly clustered around the harbour. Small whitewashed cottages faced the sea. Taller, more modern terraces, with ground floors speckled here and there with shops, ran back up a hill towards a crown dominated by a church glinting in the autumnal sun. It was a beautiful day. Patricia slipped her hand into mine. I squeezed it. She smiled up at me, then at the island. ‘Lovely,’ she said.
    Charlie threw a rope ashore and a couple of young lads secured the vessel. Then he lowered the gate and I easedthe Fiesta up onto the dock. He waved. We waved back. Stevie managed a gurgle.
    ‘Welcome to paradise,’ I said and we both laughed.
    We were still laughing two hundred yards further on when we came to the pub.
    I’d done my research. There was one pub on the island. Jack McGettigan’s. He’d run it for thirty years. It was just a pub. He didn’t serve lunch. He didn’t have discos. There wasn’t even a dart board. He served pints and shorts and that was it, and that was all you needed. It was certainly all I needed. I’d idly fantasised about doing my thousand words in the morning in my lonely garret, contented wife and playful child notwithstanding, then sauntering down to the pub for a few drinks, then meandering home for a few hundred more words, a cuddle with the wife and a tickle with the child, then spending the evening talking it up with the locals and old Jack himself over a few more pints; maybe even sticking my head out the door every once in a while to see if there were any miracles taking place up on the hill.
    I stopped the car.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ Patricia asked.
    Suddenly I felt drained. Like Dracula had sucked me dry. ‘The pub,’ I said.
    Patricia nodded. ‘What of it?’
    ‘It’s closed.’
    ‘It’s early yet.’
    I shook my head and opened the door. ‘No, I mean, it’sclosed.’ I stood in the road. ‘It’s boarded up. It’s closed. Closed down. Look at it, Patricia.’
    She looked at it.
    ‘The fucking pub is closed.’
    ‘So it is.’
    ‘Did you know this?’
    ‘Jesus, Dan, how would I know it?’
    I left the door open and stepped up to the door. I pulled at it, but it was well secured. The windows too were boarded. ‘Jesus,’ I said.
    The two young fellas who’d secured the Fitzpatrick appeared behind the car. One had a Royal Mail bag slung over his shoulder. There didn’t appear to be much in it. He wore an Aran jumper and had curly hair which owed nothing to a hairdresser.
    ‘What happened to the pub?’ I asked.
    ‘Shut,’ he said.
    ‘For good?’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘Did Old Jack die?’
    ‘Nah, he’s around yet.’
    They walked on. I got back in the car. ‘Fuck it,’ I said, and slapped the wheel. ‘Is it too late to go home?’
    Patricia snorted.
    ‘This isn’t funny. I didn’t even bring a fucking carry-out.’
    She squeezed my leg. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, without a trace of sympathy.
    ‘Imagine closing a pub. Who ever heard of it? I mean, what do the people do?’
    ‘Dan, they make their own. That’s what they do in places like this. Poteen.’
    ‘Bugger poteen. I want my Harp.’
    ‘Dan, there’s a boat in a couple of days. Go back and get some supplies then if you’re that desperate.’
    ‘That’s a year and a day away, for God’s sake. What am I supposed to do till then?’
    ‘Suffer.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    I’d once tried to make poteen as a youth. It involved boiling a lot of potatoes and fermenting the residue. I didn’t manage to create anything even vaguely alcoholic, though I did get a nice stew out of it.
    I sat silent behind the wheel for a moment and tried to think things through. It wasn’t that the beer was so important to me: knowing it was there and available would in reality have been sufficient; I didn’t have to have it; but knowing that it wasn’t there and it