Chapter 103: The Escape in the Rain

The rain came down on the pier in a sheet and the whole co-op stood in it and looked at Mairéad with the paper in her hand and her silver hair flat to her head.

“Say that again,” I said.

“I am going to give you to them,” Mairéad said. “The debt is five thousand pounds and the co-op has no money and a hunter who is not paid takes his payment in another way. So I am going to give them the wolf the woman in Galway wants and the debt is paid and the village is safe.” She put her hand out. “And there is a thing about it that I am going to say in front of the whole co-op. I have been the Alpha of this village for fourteen years and I have done a great many things that no wolf should do and I have done them for this village. This is the last one. And I am not going to pretend that it is a good thing. It is the thing that is left.”

The whole pier was silent.

“You are not going to give anyone to anyone,” my sister said. She had come up the slip with the grey coat over her arm and her gold hair flat to her head and her face was white. “There is not going to be a payment and there is not going to be a wolf put on a boat. There is going to be a trial in Galway and there is going to be a file with every name in it and there is going to be a co-op that has done the thing the Council wants it to do.”

Owen had his hands at his sides and his cap in his hand and he was looking at Mairéad and at me and at the whole co-op.

“I am not going to take a woman out to the deep water,” he said. “I have done a great many things in my life and I have never put a weight on a woman's feet and I am not going to start tonight.” He turned to the men behind him. “Put the case in the car and get in the cars and go back to Sligo. There is no payment in this village and there is not going to be a payment and I am not going to be a man who takes a wolf who has been asking questions and puts her in the sea.”

The men behind him did not move.

“Owen,” one of them said. “We have been paid.”

“You have been paid with a paper that is not worth the ink on it,” Owen said. “The co-op's account was closed on the twenty seventh and the paper was signed this morning and there is not a bank in Galway that is going to honour it.” He put his cap on. “Get in the cars.”

The men looked at each other and then at Mairéad and then at Owen and then they went to the cars.

And then a light came on at the top of the slip.

It was a big car with a Galway plate and it had come down the shore road without a sound and it was standing at the top of the slip with its headlights on and its engine running, and the driver's door opened and a woman got out.

She was old and she was thin and she had white hair pinned up and a good dark coat and a face like a dried apple. She came down the slip in the rain at a walk and she stopped at the bottom of it and looked at the whole co-op and said, “There is a thing about this village that I have been saying for thirty six years and that I am going to say now in front of the whole of you. It is a village of wolves who do not know what they are and who have been told what to think by a woman in a house in Galway since 1961.”

The whole pier was silent.

“My name is Eileen,” she said. “I am the daughter of the woman who took this seat in 1961 and I am the sister of the woman who has been sitting in it for fourteen years and I have been the Alpha of this pack since 1961 and I have never set foot in it since 1961.” She looked at Mairéad. “And there is a thing about this village that I am going to say and then I am going to go back to Galway and I am not going to come back. It is a village of wolves who have done what they were told and have not asked a question and have not looked at a book and have not read a page. And a village like that does not need a wolf to be given to a hunter. It needs a wolf to be given a book.”

She turned round and went up the slip and got into the car.

And then the rain came down harder and the whole pier was full of lights and shouting and the cars were turning on the slip and I did not stay to watch it.

I took my sister by the arm and I took Cormac by the arm and I said, “Run.”

We went up the shore road with the rain in our faces and the whole co-op behind us and the cars turning on the slip and the sound of Mairéad shouting a thing I could not hear. We went past the shop and past the church and up the lane behind the priest's house and into the garden of the cottage on the shore road and in through the back door.

Declan was already there. He had the lamp lit and the fire going and he was standing at the table with his hands flat on the wood.

“There is a thing about tonight,” he said. “The whole co-op is on the pier and there is a car on the slip and there is a woman in Galway who is going to write another letter in the morning. And there is not a wolf in this village who is going to stand against her because there is not a wolf in this village who knows what a letter from Galway means.”

“Then there is a thing we have to do,” I said. “We have to get to Galway before the morning. Not for the letter. For the file. The file is in a house in Galway and the file has every name in it and the whole of it is on paper and a woman in a house in Galway cannot burn a file that is in a bank in Galway and cannot burn a file that is in a church in Galway and cannot burn a file that is in the hands of the Keeper's own clerk.” I put my hand on the table. “And there is a thing about the file that I have been thinking about since the church. Ahern has the file from his father and the file has the note in it that says the title is defective. And the note is in the hand of a man who was a coward and who tried to leave a trap. And the trap has been sitting in a file in Galway for thirty six years and there is a clerk in Galway who has been keeping that file and who has been keeping it because a clerk keeps a file and does not read it. And there is a thing about a clerk who does not read a file. He does not know what is in it.”

Declan looked at me.

“You want to go to Galway,” he said.

“I want to go to Galway and I want to put the whole of it in front of the Council and I want the whole of it read out loud and I want the name Kern in the file and I want the name of every wolf who has been taking money out of this pack since 1961.” I looked at the whole of them. “And I want it done before the sun is up because a woman in a house in Galway is going to write another letter in the morning and the letter is going to say the pack is under trusteeship and there is not a wolf in Galway who is going to argue with it.”

The rain came down on the roof. The fire was going and the lamp was on and my sister was sitting in the chair by the fire with her grey coat over her knees and Cormac was standing at the window.

“There is a boat,” Declan said. “The Cormorant has a cracked stern gland and she will not take the sea. The Star of the Sea is at the pier and she is fuelled and she is fast and the man in the hood is on her and he knows the coast from here to Galway.” He picked up his coat. “And there is a thing about the morning that I have to say before we go. If we go to Galway and the file is not what you think it is, there is not a wolf in this village who is going to be able to come back. Not you and not your sister and not Cormac and not me.”

I put my coat on.

“Then we had better be right,” I said.

We went out through the garden and down to the cove and along the shore in the rain with the whole village behind us and the pier ahead of us, and the Star of the Sea was at the wall with her light going and the man in the hood was on her deck with a rope in his hands.