he declared, ‘I’m about to make you a rich man.’
‘Hilltop is not for sale.’
After a brief hesitation, during which Hickey gauged whether or not to push his luck and for once decided against it, he selected the Toyota key from the ring and inserted it into the ignition.
*
I knew him. I knew him the second I saw him. I recognised him from his moniker. Tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed, buff and in rude – no, obnoxious – good health. An invader to this island if ever I saw one. Not an indigenous short-arse like Hickey or a gaunt Anglo-Norman like me, but a Viking right down to his marrow.
We came upon him on Harbour Road. Hickey was driving me back in silence when there he was. You couldn’t miss him. Everything about his bearing announced itself. I am here, his strut proclaimed as he strode up and down the frontage of a new giant green wine bottle of a bar, patrolling his strip while taking a call. A black Range Rover Sport with twenty-inch alloys was parked in his loading bay. He eyed it every time he passed. Or maybe he was eyeing his reflection in it.
His face was tanned and his collar-length hair tossed back in a salty tangle, as if he’d just come ashore after scudding the waves on his speedboat or longboat or yacht. He was rigged out in deck shoes and no socks. Wide-legged trousers in an off-white fabric, like linen only finer, as if fashioned from the fabric of sails. Whatever it took to advertise his nautical status was nailed to his mast.
People were seated at silver bistro tables on the pavement, installed like his personal audience. ‘That’s him, isn’t it?’ I said.
Hickey did not respond, other than to bristle and bridle in the seat next to me. He slowed the truck down to get a better look, for there is something almost pleasurable in being riled to that extent.
The Viking clocked Hickey’s approaching truck and nodded a greeting, or not so much a greeting as an acknowledgement: I see you, I know that you are there. Then he returned his attention to the phone. Hickey and his passenger were of little interest to him. ‘What a cock,’ Hickey remarked and I nodded. For once, we agreed on something.
*
‘Here we are now,’ he announced heartily as we pulled up outside the castle. Hickey was a great man for the hollow cheer when trying to end things on a positive note. Here we are now, is it yourself, you’ll be having another, ah ya will! He thought it made him charming, a bit of a character, a lovable rogue, but although he was fooling no one, it was still somehow endearing in its sheer ham-fistedness. His fists of ham and my feet of clay. How did we get so far?
‘Here we are now,’ he repeated, and inserted an expectant pause to prompt me to respond. I knew that I was forgetting something, but it wasn’t my lines.
‘Yes, well,’ I said, fussing over the catch of my seat belt. What was it I’d been meaning to do?
Hickey nodded at the castle. ‘Bet it’s deadly in there.’
That was one word for it. The castle was crawling with the deadly members of my deceased family – the ancestors on whose chairs I sat, in whose bed I slept, at whose table I dined. They say the place has a ghost now and I have every reason to believe them.
‘Tapestries an stuff . . . ?’ he nudged me.
Hickey didn’t strike me as the type who might harbour an interest in tapestries, still less know what one was.
‘I’d say they’re mad yokes,’ he speculated. ‘I never seen a real one . . .’
Mad yokes, yes, like the stolen Waterford chandelier. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have any genuine tapestries left,’ I said carefully. ‘The original hangings are long gone, replaced by replicas. Same with the paintings. Copies, the lot of them. The valuable stuff was sold off years ago. But keep that under your hat.’ This was not in fact the case. Hickey may have treated me like a blow-in, but I treated him like a thief.
‘Have youse a dungeon?’
I laughed as I climbed out. ‘Thanks for the
‘Hilltop is not for sale.’
After a brief hesitation, during which Hickey gauged whether or not to push his luck and for once decided against it, he selected the Toyota key from the ring and inserted it into the ignition.
*
I knew him. I knew him the second I saw him. I recognised him from his moniker. Tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed, buff and in rude – no, obnoxious – good health. An invader to this island if ever I saw one. Not an indigenous short-arse like Hickey or a gaunt Anglo-Norman like me, but a Viking right down to his marrow.
We came upon him on Harbour Road. Hickey was driving me back in silence when there he was. You couldn’t miss him. Everything about his bearing announced itself. I am here, his strut proclaimed as he strode up and down the frontage of a new giant green wine bottle of a bar, patrolling his strip while taking a call. A black Range Rover Sport with twenty-inch alloys was parked in his loading bay. He eyed it every time he passed. Or maybe he was eyeing his reflection in it.
His face was tanned and his collar-length hair tossed back in a salty tangle, as if he’d just come ashore after scudding the waves on his speedboat or longboat or yacht. He was rigged out in deck shoes and no socks. Wide-legged trousers in an off-white fabric, like linen only finer, as if fashioned from the fabric of sails. Whatever it took to advertise his nautical status was nailed to his mast.
People were seated at silver bistro tables on the pavement, installed like his personal audience. ‘That’s him, isn’t it?’ I said.
Hickey did not respond, other than to bristle and bridle in the seat next to me. He slowed the truck down to get a better look, for there is something almost pleasurable in being riled to that extent.
The Viking clocked Hickey’s approaching truck and nodded a greeting, or not so much a greeting as an acknowledgement: I see you, I know that you are there. Then he returned his attention to the phone. Hickey and his passenger were of little interest to him. ‘What a cock,’ Hickey remarked and I nodded. For once, we agreed on something.
*
‘Here we are now,’ he announced heartily as we pulled up outside the castle. Hickey was a great man for the hollow cheer when trying to end things on a positive note. Here we are now, is it yourself, you’ll be having another, ah ya will! He thought it made him charming, a bit of a character, a lovable rogue, but although he was fooling no one, it was still somehow endearing in its sheer ham-fistedness. His fists of ham and my feet of clay. How did we get so far?
‘Here we are now,’ he repeated, and inserted an expectant pause to prompt me to respond. I knew that I was forgetting something, but it wasn’t my lines.
‘Yes, well,’ I said, fussing over the catch of my seat belt. What was it I’d been meaning to do?
Hickey nodded at the castle. ‘Bet it’s deadly in there.’
That was one word for it. The castle was crawling with the deadly members of my deceased family – the ancestors on whose chairs I sat, in whose bed I slept, at whose table I dined. They say the place has a ghost now and I have every reason to believe them.
‘Tapestries an stuff . . . ?’ he nudged me.
Hickey didn’t strike me as the type who might harbour an interest in tapestries, still less know what one was.
‘I’d say they’re mad yokes,’ he speculated. ‘I never seen a real one . . .’
Mad yokes, yes, like the stolen Waterford chandelier. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have any genuine tapestries left,’ I said carefully. ‘The original hangings are long gone, replaced by replicas. Same with the paintings. Copies, the lot of them. The valuable stuff was sold off years ago. But keep that under your hat.’ This was not in fact the case. Hickey may have treated me like a blow-in, but I treated him like a thief.
‘Have youse a dungeon?’
I laughed as I climbed out. ‘Thanks for the
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