The Emerald Lie

Chapter 3

I had been given a Labrador pup after my last case. I’d given him a red-and-white bandanna for the Galway team and for Willie Nelson. He whimpered if I didn’t wrap it around him at night. I was going to name him Boru for a departed friend and so he might choose his battles carefully but then, like my life, went with

“Storm.”

Not so much in a teacup as in situ.

In truth I had determined to stay detached from him, not to spare the love but to keep at a distance, like modern parenting. Not that I was necessarily a cold cunt but to protect myself. There was a previous dog whose horrendous death I had to keep at a remove even today. I was still raw from the discovery in my home of his torn remains.

But dogs . . .

Go figure

Have other plans.

Slowly Storm had melted away my resolve. Most evenings we went to feed the swans and round off that walk by sitting on the rocks and staring at the Atlantic Ocean. The whole of Galway Bay before us, I’d take out my flask of Jameson, have a few considered nips, and I’d be able to let my breath out. Storm slowly chewed his rationed treats. Finally I’d light my one and only daily cigarette, stare at the horizon, and yearn.

For what?

Fuck knows?

Storm would place one paw on my knee. Such tiny gestures signifying, if not hope, then a slanted comfort. Ease from left field as it were. To my back were the remnants of Seapoint. Once a vast ballroom, it was the center of all the social outlet in the city, home to the show bands. A whole generation had grown up with them, my generation, dying slowly and forever.

The Royal

The Capital

Dixies

And even the wonderfully non-PC

The Indians.

Man, I loved those days.

A singer from Belfast then, no Van but David McWilliams, had a fine tune,

“The Days of Pearly Spencer.”

Summed it all up.

Then.

That the PC brigade were still pursuing the Indians to change their name was a measure of just how much we had lost our sense of fun over the years.

An elderly Bohermore woman summed it up:

“You’re afraid to open your mouth these days.”

As Israel and Hamas continued to add to a daily number of deaths and no sign of peace, yet another airline went down, Putin continued to wreak havoc in the Ukraine, Bill Clinton was yet again accused of affairs, the country tried to delight in five Garth Brooks concerts. But one asshole councillor in Dublin managed to derail them, depriving the people of the only hope of a bit of fun they’d had in years. Not to mention the loss of fifty million to the country in revenue.

Enda Kenny, our leader, was the most despised man in the nation. He smirked daily over water charges, Garth Brooks, and just about any issue that was of note to his population.

Our former tone of humor was now replaced by an all-prevalent fear as medical cards were canceled, bankers walked free after hugely expensive trials, but one woman stood tall. An ordinary housewife, she had been systemically abused as a child and for fifteen years sought redress. Even after the supreme court turned her down, she persisted with frail strength all the way to the European Court of Justice.

And won.

A small brave lady.

The government set up a committee to gauge whether she merited an apology.

A collective,

. . . for fucksake

From everybody: well, everybody of basic human decency.

Just before the Galway Races kicked off, I got a call from the arts editor of the Galway Advertiser, Kernan Andrews, asking me to do an interview. Kernan was one of the good guys. He was doing a series, “Faces of Galway.”

I figured I was under the subheading:

“Battered Faces of Galway.”

What the hell, I’d get to sit down with Kernan, sink a few, shoot the s**t. We arranged to meet in Garavan’s. Grab the snug there and have if not privacy at least a certain amount of atmosphere. I recently had a new neighbor, an ex-army guy and—whisper it—British army.

Why you would retire to a Republican stronghold was beyond me. But he kept a low profile and his accent under wraps. We had shared a dram or two and he seemed to like Storm real well and when I had to get out alone, he would always be delighted to mind the pup. His name was

Charles Stokes.

He was usually addressed as Doc.

A good, no-frills UK name.

He’d done a stint in Northern Ireland and knew I had, let’s say, dealings over the border, but we had reached our own separate peace and, whatever flags we flew under, we had an appreciation of fine malt and Jameson. I brought the pup over to him early on the Friday morning, said,

“Believe it or not, I’m being interviewed.”

He was tall with a shock of steel to white hair, riveting stare with nigh on nonbreak hold. He adopted a very dry droll sense of humor. Said,

“Not helping with enquiries, one hopes.”

I handed over the pup’s dinner bowl and his cherished bandanna, said,

“Nope, an actual bona fide gig.”

He rubbed the dog, said,

“Talk as if you believed it.”