Peeler by Kevin McCarthy Page B

the Auxiliaries had been brought over to Ireland on wages of a pound a day. They were to serve as an elite, anti-guerrilla force. Not for the Auxies the constraints of arrest or due process of law. They were feared and hated by republican and loyalist alike. O’Keefe assumed the lorryload that had passed was out of Macroom, billeted in the hotel there and, at present, officially running amok. Three weeks earlier the IRA had kidnapped two of their number. Their bodies had not been found. The Auxies, least of all, had no illusions as to their fate. No quarter given, none asked in return.
    O’Keefe shifted gear and accelerated, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the Auxiliaries. Five miles south of Ballycarleton, on the Timoleague road, he slowed and pulled the Trusty over in front of the Sheehan place. The house was typical of the area. An isolated, whitewashed cottage with a thatched roof, tucked under the dark shadows of the hills that rose steeply behind the small farm. Light glowed from two windows on either side of the front door.
    He shut down the bike and dismounted. Halfway to the woman’s door, a dog began barking. A cow lowed in its stall.
    ‘Who’s there? Show yourself!’
    Katherine Sheehan stood framed in the doorway of the cottage, light spilling out of the open door. She held an axe. ‘Come no further!’
    There was fear in her voice, but resolve too, as if she would use the axe if whoever was there came closer. O’Keefe stopped twenty feet from the house and removed his leather helmet and goggles.
    ‘It’s all right. Mrs Sheehan? My name is Sergeant Seán O’Keefe. I’ve come from the barracks in Ballycarleton. I got your address from Head Constable Murray’s file. I didn’t mean to –’
    ‘Nice of him to leave directions to my home in his papers.’ Katherine Sheehan lowered the axe.
    O’Keefe had never thought his visit might frighten the woman. He suddenly felt foolish. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Sheehan. I wanted … I wonder if I could ask you a few questions?’
    A young boy joined the woman at the door, wrapping his arms around her waist. She pulled the child closer to her.
    ‘I won’t be long, Mrs Sheehan. I know it’s a difficult –’
    ‘You know nothing, Sergeant.’ She set the axe inside the door and took the boy by the hand, leaving the door open behind them. ‘I’m giving the child his dinner.’
    O’Keefe stood for a moment on the stone path, unsure if he should enter.
    ‘Were you expecting me to bring your tea outside to you then, Sergeant?’
    The inside of the cottage was warm and smelled of boiled potatoes and cabbage, of lamp oil and turf smoke. The ceiling was low, inches only above O’Keefe’s head. A man of roughly O’Keefe’s own age was slumped in a chair by the fire, staring blankly at the glowing turf. Steam rose from the spout of the kettle hanging from its iron hook over the grate.
    ‘A fine evening,’ O’Keefe said to the man. ‘I’m Sergeant O’Keefe, out of Ballycarleton barracks. I hope I haven’t disturbed your evening, sir.’
    The man didn’t move.
    ‘Gerard can’t hear you, Sergeant. Gone with the fairies, he is.’
    The woman flashed a bitter, challenging smile, as if daring O’Keefe to mock the notion. Fairies, in this age of gunmen, motorbikes, telephones and long-range artillery shells that could blow a man into a million pieces so that his teeth became shrapnel. Fairies snatching the fit and healthy, leaving withered husks of men, women and children in their place. O’Keefe had lost his belief in most things, but he knew that farmers still ploughed wide, reverent berths round fairy rings in their fields. He had no mind to mock anything any more.
    Katherine Sheehan seemed to read his thoughts and softened a little. ‘Since the war. His body’s better but his head’s not right. God help him.’ She blessed herself.
    O’Keefe nodded. ‘There’s many came back like him. More than you’d think.’
    He had seen