Chapter 155: The Truth at the Water's Edge

They brought her down the shore road at first light with a wolf on either side of her and the whole of the village on the sand.

She was in a good dark coat and her white hair was pinned up and her hands were at her sides and she walked down the slip the way she had walked into the hall in June and into the court in Galway and into the barracks on the night she said the whole of it.

The whole of the pack was on the sand and the whole of the co-op was behind it and the whole of the nine was at the top of the slip with the woman with black hair in front.

Eileen stopped at the water's edge.

"There is a thing about a woman in a good coat," she said, "that I have been since 1961 and that I am not going to be for another hour. I have said the whole of it to a wolf in a cap and a notebook and I have signed it and there is not a judge in Dublin who is going to be able to say I did not. And there is a thing about a woman who has said the whole of it and signed it. She has one thing left in the world and it is not a paper. It is a thing she wants to say to the whole of a pack before the guards take her away."

The whole of the shore was silent.

"Say it," I said.

"There is a thing about the fire in 1961," Eileen said. "I set it. I was nineteen and I was in the hall and I was told that the shore was going to be sold and that the Alpha was going to bring the Council down on the whole of it and that a fire would settle it. And there is a thing about a girl of nineteen who is told that. She does not ask who told her. She takes the can and she goes up the hill." She put her hand on her coat. "And there is a thing about the whole of it that I have not said to the sergeant and that I am going to say now in front of the whole of this pack. The woman who told me to go up that hill was not my mother. It was a man in a good coat and he was standing in the hall with a paper in his hand and he was thirty five years old and he had come down from Galway in a car."

The whole of the shore was silent.

"Say the name," I said.

"His name is Kern," Eileen said. "He has been the Keeper of the Rolls of the Council of Alphas for thirty six years and he was the man who came down this coast in 1961 with a paper and a can and a thing he said to a girl of nineteen in a hall. And there is a thing about the whole of it that I have been carrying since 1961 and that I am going to say before the guards take me. The whole of it was not a woman in a good coat and it was not a woman in a black coat and it was not a village that was frightened. It was a man in an office in Galway who has been running a coast for thirty six years and who has been putting a paper in front of a judge and a can in front of a girl and a receipt in front of a Council."

The whole of the shore went up.

And then Kern came down the slip.

He was in a good coat with his spectacles on the end of his nose and his hands at his sides and the sergeant was behind him with two men.

"There is a thing about a woman in a good coat," he said, "that I have been in a room with since Friday and that I have been in a house on a road with since 1961 and that I have been putting a paper in front of for thirty six years. She is a woman who has said the whole of it and signed it and there is not a wolf in this village who is going to be able to say she did not." He put his hand in his coat. "And there is a thing about the whole of it that I have to say before the guards put a hand on my arm. She is not lying. I came down this coast in 1961 and I was in that hall and I put a thing in front of a girl of nineteen and I have been putting a thing in front of a girl of nineteen ever since." He took his hand out. "There is a paper in my coat. It is the second file. Not the one under the floor in the north. The one I have been carrying since Friday. And there is a thing about a man who has been carrying a file in his coat for a week and who is standing on a slip with the whole of a pack in front of him. He has been deciding whether to put it in a fire or on a table."

The whole of the shore was silent.

"Put it on the table," I said.

Kern looked at me for a long moment.

"There is a thing about a wolf who has been in that village for a month," he said, "that I have been trying to say since the pier at Dun Laoghaire and that I am going to say now on this slip in front of the whole of the co-op. She is the only wolf in the whole of it who has not taken a thing. Not a boat and not a mooring and not a word in the ear and not a tenth. And there is a thing about a wolf like that. She is the only wolf in the west of Ireland who is going to be able to put a file on a table and have the whole of a coast believe her." He put the paper on the slip. "It is the whole of it. Every name since 1901 and every sum and every receipt and the name of a judge in Dublin and the name of a man in the north and the name of a wolf on the Council of Alphas in London. I have been carrying it since Friday and I have been trying to find a reason to put it in a fire and I have not been able to find one."

The whole of the shore was silent.

And then the woman with black hair came down the slip.

"There is a thing about this morning," she said, "that the whole of this shore is going to hear and then it is going to be in a file in Galway before the evening. The woman Eileen has said the whole of it in a barracks and on a slip and there is not a wolf in the west of Ireland who is going to be able to say she did not. The man Kern has put the second file on this slip and it is going to be in a court in Dublin and in a court in London and in a newspaper before the year is out. And there is a thing about a man who has been the Keeper of the Rolls for thirty six years and who has put a file on a slip." She put her hand out. "He is not a Keeper. He is a man in a good coat who is going to be in a room in Dublin for the rest of his life."

The whole of the shore went up.

And then a wolf came down the slip from the top of the road.

He was somewhere in his forties and he had a broad face and a small scar on his chin and a good coat and a case in his hand and he was the enforcer of the region and his name was Ahern.

"There is a thing about this morning," he said, "that the whole of this shore is going to hear and that I have been trying to say since the office in Galway. The Council of Alphas is not nine wolves who have been lied to. It is nine wolves who have been taking the tenth out of every pack on this coast since 1901 and who have signed the receipts and put them in a file and there is not a wolf in that building who is going to be able to say he did not know." He put the case down on the slip. "And there is a thing about a man who has been the enforcer of this region for three years and who has been in that building and who has read the whole of the file. He is not going to be the enforcer of this region by the evening."

The whole of the shore was silent.

"Say the rest of it," I said.

"The rest of it is a thing that a wolf in a good coat is going to have to hear," Ahern said. "The Council of Alphas is going to be in a room in London before the year is out and there is not a wolf on it who is going to be able to say he did not know. And there is a thing about a coast that has been paying the tenth for a hundred years. It is a coast that is going to have to be told the whole of it by a wolf who has not taken a penny." He put his hand out. "The Court of Alphas has declared the woman Niamh the Alpha of Dún Aonghasa and the whole of it is in a file and the whole of it is going to be in a newspaper before the month is out. And there is a thing about a wolf who is the Alpha of a village on a coast and who has a file on a slip and a pack on a shore. She is the only wolf in the west of Ireland who is going to be able to put the whole of it back together."

The whole of the shore went up.

And then the whole of it went quiet.

Because a thing had come down the slip that no wolf on that shore had seen in a month.

It was a wolf. It was a big grey wolf with a long muzzle and a coat like frost and it was standing at the top of the slip with its head up and its tail straight and it was looking at the whole of the pack.

It was Mairéad.

She came down the slip at a walk and the whole of the shore stood aside for her and she stopped in front of Kern and put her nose against his hand.

And then she shifted.

"There is a thing about the whole of it," she said, "that no wolf on this shore has said out loud and that I am going to say before the guards take the both of us. I have been the Alpha of this village for fourteen years and I have been in it since 1942 and there is not a wolf on this shore who has not been a part of the whole of it. But there is a thing about a man in a good coat who has been in a hall since 1961 and who has been putting a paper in front of a girl of nineteen. He is the whole of it. He has been the whole of it since 1961 and there is not a wolf in this village who has ever seen his face."