Jig by Campbell Armstrong Page A

surface of the oval table where the reflected faces of the Fundraisers, like men drowning in clear water, looked back at him.

4
    Dublin
    The girl told Patrick Cairney he had the eyes of a devil, which he found amusing. She was called Rhiannon Canavan and she was a tall red-haired girl with wide hips and small sculpted breasts, and she lay in Cairney’s bed in his tiny flat near the Fitzgibbon Street Garda Station, which was close to the main road between Swords and Dublin and not the quietest place in which to live. Cairney stretched out alongside her, feeling himself slip into that dreamy place at the end of intense lovemaking. He placed the flat of his hand against her belly, and she purred as a cat might, rolling her long body towards him and circling his legs with her own.
    â€˜The eyes of a devil,’ she said again, and she bit Cairney lightly on the side of his neck.
    â€˜And you’re a vampire,’ he answered.
    â€˜A hussy is what I am. Or it’s what you’ve made me anyhow. For the love of God, what am I doing here? Did you put something in my drink, Patrick Cairney?’
    â€˜I didn’t think you noticed.’
    â€˜I remember seeing this funny little envelope in your hand.’
    â€˜Himalayan Fucking Powder,’ he said. ‘Ancient Tibetan secret recipe. Guaranteed.’
    â€˜You say wicked things.’ She sat upright, straddling him. Her breasts swung slightly in the half light of the room. In the distance, the sound of a police car could be heard whining in the night.
    â€˜I don’t think I’d personally like to live with the police on my doorstep,’ she said.
    â€˜Why? What have you got to hide?’
    â€˜Obviously nothing,’ and she arched her back, tilting her face away from him. She was, so she had told him in the pub, a nurse in the Richmond Hospital, and he wasn’t to think that just because nurses had poor reputations she was going to hop into the sack with him straight off the bloody bat, even if he did have the eyes of the devil and his charming American manners into the bargain.
    â€˜Nurse Canavan,’ he said in a fraudulent Irish accent. ‘I am having this Jaysus of a pain between my legs. Can you do anything about it, out of daycent Christian kindness?’
    â€˜I think I have the prescription for you,’ and she swung her body around, lowering her face to his groin and taking him softly into her mouth. And then she moved away from him, rolling on her back, and he entered her even as he continued to hear the sirens of police cars outside in the night. There were depths here, Cairney thought, and he was afraid of them. In the half light of the room Rhiannon Canavan had her eyes closed and her mouth open, and she was holding on to Cairney as if he were a carnival ride that scared her. Spent, Cairney fell away from her, but she still held on to him.
    â€˜Are all Americans that loud?’ she asked.
    â€˜I’m an average screamer,’ he told her.
    Nurse Canavan reached for a cigarette and lit it, and her face was briefly illuminated by the flare of her Bic. She had a wonderfully straight Irish jaw, a fine generous mouth, and high cheekbones which gave her face a certain delicate strength.
    â€˜So tell me,’ she said. ‘You’re at Trinity, did you say?’
    â€˜Trinity,’ Cairney answered.
    â€˜And you’re one of them wealthy Americans that comes over here to study at Daddy’s expense, is that it?’
    Cairney shook his head. ‘Daddy’s money can’t buy happiness. Besides, he doesn’t support me. I have a small income from teaching undergraduate classes at Trinity. He’s never really approved of my studies. He doesn’t see the point to them.’
    â€˜I must say he has a case, Patrick Cairney. It seems to me a young man like yourself shouldn’t be poking around so much in the past.’
    â€˜And where should I be poking?’
    â€˜You know