Chapter 139: The Confession in the Hall

The Kathleen came into the north cove at six o'clock in the morning and the whole of the sky was gold and the whole of the water was flat and the whole of the cove was quiet.

There was a woman on the slip.

Maire was sitting on the stones at the top of the slip with a lamp beside her that had gone out and a shawl round her shoulders and her grey plait down her back, and she was looking at the water and she did not turn round when we came in.

"There is a thing about a shore," she said, "that I have been sitting on since 1961. It has a memory and it has a mark and there is a line of stones under the water at the bottom of this slip that no wolf in that village has been able to say what it is." She turned round. "It is the old slip. It was here before the new one and it was used in 1961 and in 1979 and in 1981. And there is a thing under it that I have been carrying since 1961 and that I have not said to a living soul."

I got off the boat and went up the slip and sat down on the stones beside her.

"Say it," I said.

"There is a thing about the night of the fire," Maire said. "I was seventeen years old and I was in the hall with eight other wolves and we did not go up that hill. And there is a thing about a girl of seventeen who does not go up a hill. She goes down to the shore. She goes down to the shore because the shore is the one place in a village where a wolf can be alone and because there is a thing in her hands that she has to put somewhere." She put her hand in her shawl and took out a bundle wrapped in oilcloth and tied with tarred twine. "It is the ring of Maeve. Not the one that was in the press and not the one that was in the tin box and not the one that was in the safe. The true ring. The one that was on my grandmother's hand when she went into that house and that came off her hand when the roof came down. I went up that hill after the fire and I went into the ash and I found it and I put it in my pocket and I have been carrying it since 1961."

The whole of the slip was silent.

"And there is a thing about a girl of seventeen who carries a ring for thirty six years," Maire said. "She does not carry it because she is a thief. She carries it because a ring is a thing that a wolf can be made to give up and a ring that is in a pocket in a shawl is a ring that no wolf in a village is going to be able to take." She put the bundle in my hand. "It is yours. It has been yours since 1961 and I have been waiting thirty six years for a wolf of the line of Maeve to come down this slip and ask me a question."

I opened the bundle on the stones.

The ring was silver and heavy and the band was wide and the face of it was a crescent moon and it was blackened at one edge where a fire had got at it. It was the true ring of Maeve and it had been in an old woman's shawl since 1961.

"There is a thing about this ring," I said, "that the whole of the pack is going to hear. It is not a ring that a court is going to be able to say is a forgery and it is not a ring that a woman in a good coat is going to be able to burn. It is a ring that came out of a fire in 1961 and that has been in a shawl since and there is a mark on it that is the mark of the fire." I put it in my coat. "And there is a thing about the fourteenth that I have been thinking about since the ridge. It is a full moon and the whole of the co-op is going to be in a room in Galway and the seat is going to be vacant and the heir is going to be declared. And there is a thing about a ring. It is the seal of the seat and it has been in a fire and in a shawl and it is going to be on the table in that room on the fourteenth with the whole of the file and the whole of the list and the whole of the co-op."

The whole of the slip was silent.

And then Owen said, "There is a thing about the north cove that I have to say and then I am going to put my hands behind my head. I was in this cove in March and I was paid by a woman in a good coat and there was a boat in the cove and there was a lamp on the wall and there was a thing under the slip." He put his hand on the wall. "It is a box. It is an iron box and it is about the size of a strongbox and it has been under the old slip since 1979 and there is not a wolf in this village who has been able to get it out because the tide comes in over it twice a day and the stones on top of it weigh more than a wolf can lift." He looked at the whole of us. "I have been in this cove since March and I have been trying to get that box out and I have not been able to and I have been trying not to say a word about it because a hunter who says a word is a hunter who does not get paid."

The whole of the slip was silent.

"Then there is a thing we are going to do," I said, "and we are going to do it now and we are going to do it the way a pack does it. The tide is on the turn and the old slip is going to be dry for two hours and there are twenty wolves on that boat and a hunter who knows where the box is." I stood up. "We are going to get that box out of that slip before the water comes back over it."

The whole of the pack went down the slip.

It took two hours. The stones were wet and they were heavy and the whole of the pack worked in the water up to their knees with a rope and a crowbar and a lamp and the whole of it was the sound of stones going and water coming and a wolf saying a thing I could not hear. The iron box came out of the water at eight o'clock and the whole of the pack carried it up the slip and put it on the stones and the whole of it was rusted and green and the lock was gone.

Declan opened it with a crowbar.

There was a bundle wrapped in oilcloth and tied with tarred twine and a book bound in black leather with a clasp on it. And there was a thing that had been wrapped in a piece of sacking and tied with rope and it was a child's boot and it was very small.

The whole of the slip was silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," Cormac said, "and I have been trying to say it since the shop and I am going to say it now in front of the whole of the pack and the whole of the cove and the whole of the morning. The book is the book of the children and the list is the list of names and the boot is a boot that was taken off a child in 1979 and put in a box with the book." He put his hand on the box. "And there is a thing about a box that has a boot in it. It is not a record. It is a grave."

The whole of the slip was silent.

"The whole of the co-op is going to be in the hall tonight," I said. "Not in Galway. Not on the fourteenth. Tonight. In the hall in Dún Aonghasa with the whole of the file and the whole of the list and the whole of the ring and the boot and the book." I picked up the box. "And there is a thing about a hall that has a long table in it and a frame on the wall and forty wolves in it. It is a hall where a confession can be made."

We came into Dún Aonghasa at four in the afternoon and the whole of the village was on the pier and the whole of the village had heard.

The green door of the hall was open and there was a lamp on the long table and the frame was on the wall and the chair was at the head of the table and the whole of the co-op came in and stood along the walls and sat on the benches and crowded the door.

Mairéad was in the chair.

She had come down from Galway on the morning bus and she was in her black coat with her silver hair down and her hands folded and the whole of the hall was quiet.

"There is a thing about a hall," she said, "that I have been in since 1983 and that I am going to say the whole of it in tonight. I have been the Alpha of this pack for fourteen years on a title that my mother took by force and I have taken money out of this co-op and put it in the hand of a man in Galway and I have signed a sentence of the headland in the name of a wolf who was not in this village and I have called the hunters and I have put a woman in a boathouse with a rope round her neck." She put her hand on the table. "And there is a thing about the whole of it that I have been trying to say since the boathouse and that I am going to say now in front of the whole of the co-op. I did not do it alone. There is not a wolf in this hall who did not know and who did not take the boat and the mooring and the catch and the quiet nights. And there is a thing about a co-op that has taken the money and the boats and the quiet nights. It is a co-op that has been as much a part of it as I have."

The whole of the hall went up.

And then Tom stood up at the back of the hall.

"There is a thing about this hall," he said, "that the whole of the co-op has been trying to say since June and that it is going to say now. The Alpha has confessed the whole of it in front of the whole of the co-op and the whole of it is in a book and a box and a ring and a boot. And there is a thing about a confession that is made in a hall in front of forty wolves. It is not a confession. It is a thing that a co-op has to answer." He put his hand on the bench. "So I am going to ask the co-op for the thing that a co-op has not been asked for since 1961. A vote. Not on a claim. Not on a challenge. A vote on whether the woman in that chair is fit to be in it for one more hour."