Chapter 123: The Moon and the Ferry

The house on the road out of Galway to the north had a white gate and a red shed and a boat at the bottom of the garden and the gate was open and the boat was not there.

We came up the lane at eleven in the morning with Ahern and two wolves of the Court and Declan and Padraig and the whole of the nine behind us, and the shed was empty and the kitchen door was open and there was a cup of tea on the table that had been poured and not drunk.

Margaret was in the chair by the fire with her hands in her lap and her face grey and she looked up when we came in and said, "She has gone. She went at eight this morning and she took the boat and she took the car and she took the whole of the desk and she did not say a word to me and I have been sitting here since."

"Where did she go?"

"She did not say. She put a thing in my hand and she said, give it to the woman with gold hair when she comes." Margaret put her hand in her apron and took out a folded paper. "And there is a thing about it that I have to say before you read it. She was not angry and she was not frightened and she was not in a hurry. She poured a cup of tea and she left it on the table and she put her coat on and she went out to the garden and she did not look back at the house."

I opened the paper.

It was four lines and it was in the hand that had been writing letters for thirty six years.

"There is a thing about a woman who has been in a house on a road for thirty six years. She knows the tide and she knows the moon and she knows that a court in Galway is going to sit on the fourteenth with the whole of the co-op in the room. So she is not going to be in Galway on the fourteenth. She is going to be on the water and she is going to be in the north before the moon is up and there is not a wolf in Galway who is going to stop her. Unless a wolf comes down to the ferry at Dun Laoghaire at four o'clock and stands on the pier and says the whole of it out loud in front of a hundred passengers. E."

I read it twice.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," Ahern said, "and I am going to say it before any wolf in this room says another word. It is a trap. She has put a time and a place and a boat and she has done it because she wants a wolf on that pier at four o'clock. And there is a thing about a woman who has been in a house on a road for thirty six years and who has just lost her Keeper and her enforcer and her house. She has nothing left but the one thing she has been doing since 1961. She is going to make a wolf stand on a pier and say a thing out loud in front of a hundred passengers and she is going to do it because a hundred passengers are going to hear a woman from Dublin say the word werewolf on a pier in Dun Laoghaire."

The kitchen was quiet.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said, "and it is the thing that the whole of this room has been avoiding since Monday. If she gets on that ferry and she gets to the north, there is not a thing in that file that is going to matter. She is the one wolf in the whole of it who has been writing the letters and taking the children and paying the hunters and she is the only wolf who can say the whole of it in a court and put the whole of it in a file. And there is a thing about a wolf who has been in a house on a road for thirty six years and who has never once been in a court. She is not going to be in one. She is going to be in the north and she is going to be a woman with a boat and a house and a whole lot of money and there is not a wolf in Galway who is going to look for her twice."

Declan put his hand on my arm.

"There is a thing about the pier at four o'clock," he said. "It is a hundred passengers and a ferry and a gangway and there is not a wolf in Galway who is going to hear a woman say the word werewolf on a pier and think it is anything but a woman who has lost her mind. And there is a thing about a woman who has lost her mind on a pier. She is not a wolf who is going to be believed. She is a wolf who is going to be taken away by the guards and put in a room and there is not a wolf in that room who is going to be a witness for the fourteenth."

"Then I am not going to say the word werewolf."

The whole kitchen turned round.

"Then what are you going to say?" Ahern said.

"There is a thing about a woman in a house on a road who has been writing letters for thirty six years," I said. "She has been writing them to a co-op and to a council and to a keeper and to a woman in Athlone. And there is a thing about a letter that is written in a hand that a whole village knows. It is a letter that can be read out loud on a pier in front of a hundred passengers and every word of it is a thing that a woman in Galway wrote and signed with her own name." I put the paper in my coat. "So I am not going to say a word on that pier. I am going to stand on the pier and I am going to read a letter."

The whole kitchen was silent.

"Which letter?" Declan said.

"The letter she wrote to the Alpha in April," I said. "The one that said the woman from Dublin is to be hunted on the headland at the full moon and the wolf who takes her is the wolf who keeps the seat. It is in the case and the case is in the court and it is signed with her name and it has the mark of the Council on it and it is dated. And there is a thing about a letter that says a woman is to be hunted. It is a letter that a guard in Dun Laoghaire is going to take seriously and it is a letter that a hundred passengers are going to hear and it is a letter that is going to be in the paper in Dublin on the fifteenth." I put my hand on the table. "So I am going to read it out loud on that pier at four o'clock and she is going to hear it and she is going to have to do a thing about it and there is not a thing she can do about it that is not going to be seen by a hundred passengers."

The whole kitchen was silent.

And then Padraig said, "There is a thing about that plan. It is a good plan and it is the only plan and there is a thing about it that the whole of this room is going to hear before we get in the car. If she is on that ferry and you read that letter on the pier, she is going to have to come off the boat. And a woman who has to come off a boat in front of a hundred passengers is a woman who is going to be in a mood to do a thing that no wolf in Galway is going to see coming." He put his coat on. "So there is going to be a wolf on that pier who is not going to be reading a letter and who is going to be watching the gangway. And I am going to be that wolf."

We went down to Dun Laoghaire at two o'clock and the whole of the pier was grey and the ferry was at the wall with her gangway down and the passengers were coming along the road with their bags.

And at four o'clock I stood at the foot of the gangway with the letter in my hand and the whole of the pier in front of me and I read it out loud.

The whole of the pier went quiet. The passengers stopped with their bags and the man at the gangway stopped with his clipboard and the whole of it was a hundred people standing still in the grey afternoon and a woman with gold hair reading a letter about a hunt.

And then a woman's voice said, from the deck of the ferry, "There is a thing about a woman from Dublin that I have been saying for thirty six years. She does not know when to stop."

The whole pier turned round.

Eileen was standing at the top of the gangway with her white hair pinned up and her good dark coat on and her hands at her sides.

And there was a man beside her in a good town coat with his grey hair combed and his face like a retired schoolmaster and it was Korkut.