Chapter 133: The Ridge and the Promise

The court sat until seven in the evening and the motion was refused and the whole of it was refused on a ground that no wolf in Galway had expected.

The woman with black hair put her hand flat on the table and said, "There is a thing about a file that has been got by a wolf who had no right to get it. It is a file that a court can set aside. But there is a thing about a file that has been got by a wolf who had no right to get it and that has been in a press in this building for thirty six years and that has a note in the hand of a man called Ahern in it. It is not a file that has been got by a wolf. It is a file that has been kept by a Keeper and that has been waiting for a wolf to come and open it." She looked at the whole of the room. "The motion is refused. The file stands. The court is going to hear the claim on the fourteenth of July with the whole of the co-op in the room and the whole of the file read out loud."

The whole of the room went up.

And then she said, "There is a thing about the fourteenth that the court is going to say before it rises. It is a full moon and the whole of the co-op is going to be in a room in this building and there is not a wolf in the west of Ireland who has been in a room on a full moon with the whole of a pack in it. So the court is going to do a thing that a court has not done since 1901. It is going to open the hold and it is going to put the whole of the co-op in it on the night of the fourteenth with the door open and a wolf of the court on the door and the whole of it is going to be a shift in a hall."

The room went silent.

"There is a thing about the hold," Ahern said. "It has a stone floor and a drain and a door with a lock on the outside. It is not a hall."

"It is not a hall," the woman with black hair said. "But there is a thing about a room with a stone floor and a drain and a door that can be opened. It is a room that a pack can be in on a full moon without a wolf in Galway seeing it. And there is a thing about a pack that shifts in a room in Galway on the fourteenth. It is a pack that is going to be seen by the whole of the nine and the whole of the co-op and there is not a wolf in the west of Ireland who is going to be able to say afterwards that the pack of Dún Aonghasa is a thing that has been broken."

We came out of the building at half past seven and the whole of Galway was grey and the rain had stopped and the whole of the nine were at the bottom of the steps with their coats round them and the whole of the eleven and the twenty were on the quay.

And Declan took my hand and said, "There is a thing about this evening that I have been thinking about since the motion. It is three days to the fourteenth and the whole of the co-op is going to be in a room in that building and the whole of the file is going to be read out loud. And there is a thing about the whole of it that no wolf in this city has said out loud. It is not a trial. It is a village that is going to have to decide what it is."

We went up through the town and out along the road to the north and the whole of it was quiet and the whole of it was wet and there was a ridge above the town with a wall on it and a view of the bay.

We sat on the wall.

"There is a thing about a future," Declan said. "I have been a man who did not think about one. I have been a man who got up and went to the office and came home and got up again and there was not a thing in it that was a future. And there is a thing about a man who has been in that for twenty years and who sits on a wall above Galway with a woman with gold hair beside him. He has to learn how to think about a thing that is more than a week away."

I put my hand on his.

"There is a thing about a future that I have been thinking about since the shore," I said. "It is not the seat and it is not the hall and it is not a file. It is a cottage on a shore road with a fire in it and a boat at the wall and a man who comes in from the harbor at six o'clock for his tea. And there is a thing about a cottage on a shore road. There are twenty of them in that village and there is not one of them that is not full of a thing that happened in it."

Declan looked at the bay.

"There is a thing about the shore road," he said. "The cottage your sister had is empty and it is going to be empty and there is not a wolf in that village who is going to be able to walk past it. And there is a thing about a cottage that a village cannot walk past. It is a cottage that is going to have to be lived in by a wolf who is not afraid of it."

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said. "And I am going to say it and it is not a thing I have said to a living soul. I am not going back to Dublin. I have been telling myself since June that I was a woman from Dublin who was going to go home when it was over. And there is a thing about a woman who has been in a village for a month and who has pulled a safe out of a well and who has stood in a hall and on a shore and on a pier. She is not a woman from Dublin any more. She is a wolf of that pack and she has sworn the oath in a garden and forty wolves said aye."

Declan put his hand on the back of my neck.

"There is a thing about the fourteenth," he said. "The seat is vacant and the heir is declared and the whole of the co-op is going to be in a room in Galway with a vacant seat in front of it. And there is a thing about a vacant seat. It is not going to be vacant at the end of that night. There is a wolf in that village who has been in it for a month and who has done the thing that no wolf in it could do and there is not a wolf on that shore who is not going to be looking at her when the vote is called."

"Declan."

"And there is a thing about the man who is going to be beside her," he said. "He is not going to be the Beta. He has said it on a shore in front of the whole of the co-op and he is going to say it again in that room. He is going to be a wolf who has taken five hundred pounds out of the co-op's account and who has stood in a door and let a thing happen and who is going to be in that room on the fourteenth with the whole of it read out loud. And there is a thing about a wolf like that. He is not fit to hold a rank. He is fit to stand beside a woman and to say the whole of it out loud and to do the thing that has to be done." He turned my face to him. "So I am going to ask you a thing and it is not the thing I asked you in the hotel in Galway. It is the thing a wolf asks a wolf when there is a wall and a bay and a future in front of them. Whatever happens on the fourteenth. Whatever the co-op does. Whatever the vote is. Do you want a cottage on a shore road with a fire in it and a boat at the wall and a man who comes in from the harbor at six o'clock for his tea?"

I put my hand on his chest.

"I want the cottage," I said. "And I want the fire and the boat and the man. And there is a thing about the whole of it that I have been thinking about since the cove. It is not going to be a cottage with two wolves in it. It is going to be a cottage with a boy in it who has been in the hand of the Alpha since he was fourteen and who is going to need a place where he is not a thing that was broken in 1994. And there is a thing about a boy who has been told that his whole life. He is going to need a room and a door that shuts and a wolf who is not going to ask him a question."

Declan put his forehead against mine.

"Then there is a thing about the fourteenth," he said, "that I am going to say and then we are going to go down this ridge and get something to eat because I have not eaten since the fog. It is not going to be the end of it. It is going to be the beginning of it and there is going to be a village that is split and a file that is in a court and a woman in a room in Dublin and a boy who is going to have to learn what he is. And there is a thing about all of that. It is not a thing that a wolf can do alone."

The whole of the bay was grey and the lights of Galway were coming on and the rain had gone.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said, "and it is the last thing and then we are going to go down and get something to eat. There is a pack. Not the co-op. A pack. There is a woman with a grey plait who was banished in 1963 and a man with a wooden leg and a wolf of ninety one years old with a pair of boots from the north. There is a hunter who has been on this coast since 1994 and a fireman off the watch in Galway and a woman who has been the post office for thirty years. And there is a boy who is the son of Siobhan and a woman from Killybegs who is the heir of Maeve." I put my hand on the wall. "And there is a thing about all of them. They are not going to be a co-op. They are going to be a pack. And there is not a wolf in the west of Ireland who has been in a pack like it."

Declan looked at me.

"Then there is a thing about the fourteenth," he said, "that is going to be a thing that no wolf in Galway has seen. It is not going to be a court and it is not going to be a vote. It is going to be a pack that is choosing itself."

And then, from the road below the ridge, a voice said, "There is a thing about this evening that the whole of you are going to want to hear before you go down that ridge."

It was Ahern. He had come up the road with his case in his hand and his face grey and he was out of breath.

"The woman in the room in Dublin," he said. "She has been in a room with a wolf on the door since Friday and she has been seen by a lawyer this afternoon and the lawyer has put a paper in front of the court. She has named a wolf. She has named the wolf who set the fire in 1961 and she has named the wolf who was in the house on the hill and who carried the can and she has named the wolf who has been in a house on a road since 1961 and who has been writing letters and taking children." He put his hand on the wall. "And there is a thing about the wolf she has named. It is not her. It is a wolf of ninety one years old and a pair of boots from the north and his name is Arthur."

The whole of the ridge was silent.

"And there is a thing about a woman in a room in Dublin who names a wolf of ninety one years old," Ahern said. "She has done it because a wolf of ninety one years old is a wolf who is going to be in a court in Dublin and not in a room in Galway on the fourteenth. And there is a thing about that. It is not a defence. It is a trade."