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At that, Feargal belted into the kitchen and handed me Sol. “Look after the laddo, would you? I’ll go with Niamh. Moral support and all that.”
“Jesus, is she really that bad?” I asked.
“Ah no, not really,” Niamh said.
“Yes,” said Feargal at exactly the same time.
They gave each other a look that I didn’t want to start interpreting as they left the room together.
I sat quietly at the table and inhaled the sweet smell of Sol’s baby-shampooed hair as he began an attempt to remove the buttons from my shirt, and waited whilst what sounded like World War Three kicked off in the passageway outside.
The door swung open so hard that it smacked off the kitchen wall and nearly shut itself again, and Sinéad strode into the room. When I’d last seen her she was a gawky, sweet twelve year-old child who’d cried herself to sleep when I’d announced that I was going to have to go away for a wee bit.
Now I was confronted with a bleached-blonde, pissed, wild-eyed fury of a young woman who glared at me as though she were trying to make me combust. Feargal stood behind her and for such a laid-back guy he looked as worried as hell, which probably wasn’t the best of signs.
“Sinéad love, it’s good to see -” I began, but I didn’t get to finish. She strode over to me and snatched Sol from my arms. My nephew gave a screech of rage at being grabbed, and the darkness flickered at the very edges of my sight.
Sinéad turned on Niamh as she thrust the now-screaming baby towards her. “What the fuck are you doing, leavin’ Sol in here with him?”
“Sinéad, would you just calm down?” Niamh rocked Sol back and forth as she spoke, but he was having none of it and his howls only became louder.
Sinéad rounded on her. “Are you stupid or something? Everyone knows that lads who get fucked when they’re kids end up bein’ paedos themselves! And did you not read the trial reports? All that foul stuff he did when he was away? Jesus, I’m amazed you even let the filthy fuckin’ perv set foot in our house, never mind touch your own kid!”
Feargal stepped in front of Sinéad and completely blocked her from view as I tried to take in what she’d just said. “No,” I stated, surprised at how calm I sounded. “No, I wouldn’t do that.”
Niamh used her free arm to reach out to me. “Oh God, Tack love, no one thinks that, honest they don’t.”
I had to take a step away from her. Any kind of contact at that moment would just make things worse. “Sinéad said -”
“She was angry, that’s all. She didn’t mean it,” Niamh soothed.
“Yes I feckin’ did!” Sinéad yelled from behind Feargal, and he began to manhandle her out of the room.
“I… I wouldn’t harm Sol,” I said.
Sinéad struggled back into the kitchen for her parting shot at me. “Ha! You even bucked your own Da, Finn. Sinéad just telt us. You’d not be able to stop yourself, y’nonce!” she spat, and ran out into the street, closely followed by Niamh and a cursing Feargal.
My earlier questions were blown away by the only one that mattered anymore. What if she was right? I couldn’t see all that nice stuff with the internal dialogue and the deep breathing standing a hope in hell of working right now, and I didn’t dare take a risk of hurting anyone except myself.
I wearily stood and walked over to the press, hoping to find something that might shut me down.
I rifled through the shelves, but to my frustration my sister and her partner were clearly not big drinkers. There was a bottle of sherry with perhaps an inch left in it, some cans of shandy, and a novelty flask of advocaat in the shape of a Dutch clog that would have me puking my guts up long before I got even halfway pissed on the stuff. “Ah c’mon, give me something,” I pleaded. The next stage would have me thinking about using one of the carving knives in the block by the sink on myself. I really didn’t want to have to resort to that but I didn’t dare wait for Niamh and Feargal to come back in with Sol. I had to protect them.
Just as I was about to give up, I found what I needed hidden behind a bag of dried pasta: a litre of unopened Czech black absinthe, with the magic words ‘80% proof’ on the label.
Out in the street, Sinéad was still giving the neighbours a loud, profanity-filled floorshow despite Niamh and Feargal’s best efforts at appeasement, and I wondered how many seconds it would have taken Lilith to shut her up.
Not that it mattered, because Lilith wasn’t around.
I let myself into the bathroom and had just managed to bolt the door behind me before I started shaking again. I knew I would – could – never hurt Sol, but I also knew that the last time I’d begun to feel like this I’d spent the next two hours running around Santa Marita screaming at ghosts, lamping police officers and head-butting a church without recalling a minute of it. I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of that sort of thing, either.
I scrabbled in my jeans pocket and found the crumpled packet I’d stashed there before we left the hotel and lit my first cigarette in forever, before unscrewing the lid on the bottle of absinthe. I took a mouthful and just about managed not to choke; it tasted like pure Devil’s piss and actually physically hurt as it clawed its way down my throat, a combination of battery acid and methanol and about as far removed from the stuff that was swigged in Fin de Siècle Paris as it was possible to get, but after a few months away from the bottle I reckoned it was going to get me where I needed to go in about ten minutes flat.
With that in mind I took a deep drag of my smoke to hide the taste then took another three good gulps in one go and wondered if it was possible to die from absinthe-induced third degree burns.
Long minutes later the argument outside was still raging and Sol’s screams echoed around my skull. I wondered if he somehow sensed an evil in me that had been summoned to the surface by Sinéad’s words. Whatever chemicals were in the absinthe were already turning the world promisingly hazy, but what I was really aiming for now was a complete shutdown so I ground out my fag on the back of my hand and staggered to my feet to explore the bathroom cabinet.
As Niamh knocked softly on the door and called my name I opened the mirrored panel and was greeted by an old friend. The name on the label of the little white box might have said Feargal Kendrick, but oh, its contents were all mine.
