Chapter 129: A Wolf in the Rain

The boat came into the harbor with her light going and the whole of the shore watched her and the rain came on at half past five and the whole of it was grey and wet and the sand was dark.

She was a small trawler and she was old and she had a name on her bow that I could not read in the rain and she came alongside the wall and a man got off her onto the pier.

He was in a dark coat and a cap and he had a bag over his shoulder and he came along the shore road with the rain in his face and the whole of the twenty turned round and looked at him and nobody said a word.

He stopped at the bottom of the road and put the bag down on the sand.

"There is a thing about this morning," he said, "that I have been saying to myself since the fourteenth of June. I am a hunter out of Sligo and my name is Owen and I have been on this coast since 1994 and I have been paid by a woman in a black coat and by a woman in a house on a road and I have done a great many things that I am not going to be able to say out loud in a court without a wolf in the room looking at me." He put his cap in his hand. "But there is a thing about a hunter who has been on a coast for three years and who has been in a cottage on a cliff and who has been on a boat in a fog. He has a bag and the bag has a photograph in it and the photograph was given to him in April by a woman in a house on a road and he has been keeping it since April because a hunter who is paid to take a woman out to the deep water and who is given a photograph of the woman is a hunter who knows what he is being paid for."

The whole of the shore was silent.

"Give it to me," I said.

He opened the bag and took out a photograph and gave it to me.

It was my sister. It was my sister in front of a cottage with a white gate and a red shed and she had her grey coat over her arm and her gold hair going grey at the temples and she was looking at the camera with her head a little to one side and there was a date written on the back in a hand I did not know. The fourteenth of June.

I turned it over. The date was the fourteenth of June and under it, in the same hand, there was a line.

"The woman is in the cottage and she is not to be taken until the vote. E."

Declan read it over my shoulder.

"There is a thing about a photograph," he said. "It was taken on the fourteenth of June and it was taken by a woman in a house on a road and the whole of it was in the bag of a hunter since April." He looked at Owen. "And there is a thing about a hunter who keeps a photograph of a woman he is paid to take out to the deep water. He is not a hunter who is paid to take her out. He is a hunter who has been keeping a thing that is going to hang the woman who paid him."

Owen put his cap on.

"There is a thing about me," he said, "that the whole of this shore is going to hear and then I am going to go and sit in the shop and wait for the morning. I have been a hunter all my life and I have done a great many things for money and I have never once been in a court and I have never once been asked a question. And there is a thing about a hunter who has never been asked a question. He has been a man who does not exist. He is paid in cash and he goes home and there is not a wolf in Galway who knows his name." He put his hand on the bag. "And there is a thing about a man who does not exist and who has been given a photograph. He has been given a thing that makes him exist. He has a name and a photograph and a date and a woman in a house on a road who wrote a line on the back of it. And there is a thing about a man who has all of that and who has been keeping it in a bag since April. He has been waiting for a wolf to come and ask him."

The rain came down on the sand and the whole of the twenty were standing in it and the whole of the nine were behind them.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said, "and I am going to say it to the whole of this shore and then we are going to go up to the shop and get out of the rain. The whole of it is going to be read out loud on the fourteenth and the whole of it is going to be in a room in Galway with nine wolves and the whole of the co-op. And there is a thing about a photograph that was taken on the fourteenth of June and given to a hunter in April. It is a thing that is going to be in that room and it is a thing that is going to be in a file with the whole of the rest of it." I put the photograph in my coat. "But there is a thing about the fourteenth that I have been thinking about since the cove and that I am going to say now. The whole of the file is going to be read out loud and the whole of the co-op is going to be in that room. And there is a thing about a co-op that is in a room in Galway on a full moon. It is not a co-op. It is a pack and it is a pack that is going to have to do a thing that no pack in the west of Ireland has done in a hundred years."

The whole of the shore was silent.

"Shift in the hall," Arthur said.

"Shift in the hall."

The whole of the shore stirred.

"There is a thing about a shift in a hall," the woman with the grey plait said. "It has not been done since 1901 and there is not a wolf in this village who has been told why. And there is a thing about a thing that has not been done since 1901 and that no wolf has been told why. It is a thing that was forbidden by a woman who had a reason to forbid it." She put her hand on her coat. "The reason was a woman in Galway. She has been running this village for thirty six years and there is not a wolf in it who has been allowed to do a thing in a hall because a hall is a place where a wolf can see the whole of the pack at once. And a woman who has been running a village from a house on a road does not want a pack that can see itself."

The rain came down.

"Then there is a thing we are going to do on the fourteenth," I said. "We are going to go into that room and the whole of the file is going to be read out loud and the whole of the co-op is going to be in it and the seat is going to be set aside and the heir is going to be declared. And then we are going to do the thing that has not been done since 1901. We are going to shift in the hall and the whole of the pack is going to see itself." I put my hand out. "And there is a thing about a pack that sees itself for the first time in thirty six years. It is going to be a pack that is going to know what it is."

The whole of the shore said aye and it went out over the sand and up the road and into the rain.

We went up to the shop and Nora opened the door in her nightdress and put the kettle on and the whole of the twenty and the whole of the nine came into the back room and sat down on the floor and the chairs and the counter and the whole of it was wet coats and steam and the smell of tea.

And then Padraig came in from the road with his coat over his head and a paper in his hand.

"There is a thing about this morning," he said, "that I have been on the telephone about since four o'clock. The sergeant in Galway has been in the court building since Monday and he has been in the room with the file and he has been reading it and he has found a thing that no wolf has found." He put the paper on the counter. "The whole of the file has a page in it that was written in 1961 by a man called Ahern and it is the note that says the title is defective and that the Council is to hear the claim itself. And there is a thing about that page that no wolf has ever looked at. It has a second note on the back of it in a different hand and the note is in the hand of the woman who was in that house on the night of the fire."

The whole shop went quiet.

"Read it," I said.

Padraig read it.

"I am the daughter of Maeve and I have seen the whole of it. The woman who set the fire is Eileen and the four wolves who came down the coast with the paraffin are from the north and their names are on the back of this page. And there is a thing about the whole of it that no wolf is going to believe. The woman who set the fire is not a wolf. She is a woman from Galway and she has been in this village for a week and she has been in the hall every night and she is the one who told my mother that the shore was going to be sold. Her name is Eileen and she is nineteen years old and she is the daughter of the woman who is going to take the seat."

The whole shop was silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said, "and it is the thing that the whole of this village has been waiting for since 1961. The woman who set the fire was not a wolf. She was a woman from Galway and she was nineteen years old and she is the woman in the house on the road. And there is a thing about a woman who is not a wolf and who set a fire in a house on the high ground. She is not a wolf who is going to be tried by a Court of Alphas. She is a woman who is going to be tried by a court in Dublin and there is not a wolf in Galway who is going to be able to say she is not."