Chapter 86: The Cooper and the Council

Arthur was sitting on a stone at the back of the boathouse with his stick across his knees and his old face grey in the lamplight, and when I said his name he did not look up.

“Arthur,” I said. “You have been the cooper of this co-op for sixty years and you have kept the minutes and you have kept the records and you have been at every meeting since 1949. And there is a thing about the Council that I have to ask you and I am going to ask it now in front of the whole co-op and you are going to answer it.” I crouched down in front of him. “The Council has been taking money out of this co-op for thirty six years. Not the rent. The rent was the Alpha’s and the enforcer’s and it went to Ahern and to Korkut. The Council is a different thing. The Council is in Galway and it has a Keeper and a Rolls and a file. And there is a thing in the co-op’s books that has been going out of this village every year since 1961 and that is not the rent and that is not the catch and that is not the co-op’s dues. What is it?”

Arthur did not answer for a long time.

“It is the tithe,” he said.

“What tithe?”

“The tithe to the Council. Every pack in the west pays a tithe to the Council in Galway and the tithe is a tenth of the catch and it has been a tenth of the catch since 1901. And this co-op has been paying it every year and I have been writing it in the books every year and the Keeper of the Rolls has been signing the receipt every year.” He looked up. “And there is a thing about the tithe that I have never written in the books and that I have never said out loud. The tithe is not a tenth of the catch. It is a tenth of the catch and a tenth of the moorings and a tenth of the hall and a tenth of the shore. And the Council has been taking a tenth of the shore since 1961 and it has been taking it through the enforcer and the enforcer has been taking it through the Alpha and the Alpha has been taking it out of the co-op’s money.” He put his hand flat on his knee. “The Council is not a thing that is above the theft. The Council is a partner in it. And the Keeper of the Rolls has known since 1961 that the deed was signed by a woman who had taken the seat by force and he has taken his tenth every year and he has never once asked a question.”

The boathouse was very quiet.

“Then there is a thing about the letter that I have to say,” I said. “Kern is not a man who is coming down here on his own. He is the Keeper’s man and he is the man who buys the shores and the Keeper is the man who signs the receipts and the two of them have been doing it since 1961. And a man who comes down here in the morning with a letter and a trusteeship is a man who has been sent by the Keeper to close a file that the Keeper has been keeping open for thirty six years.” I stood up. “And there is a thing about my sister that I have not said and that I am going to say now. In March she made a claim and the claim was answered and she was put in a boathouse and a sentence of the headland was signed in Korkut’s name and countersigned by Kern. And Kern countersigned it because the Keeper told him to and the Keeper told him to because a claimant who makes a noise is a claimant who brings a man from Galway down this coast to look at the shore.” I looked at Ahern. “The sentence of the headland was not Mairéad’s idea. It was Kern’s. He wanted the claimant out of the way before the claim made a noise and he used the Alpha to do it and he signed the paper himself.”

Ahern was looking at the letter in his hand.

“And there is a thing about the hunters,” he said. “The men from Sligo. The Kelleher men. The salvage crew told me about them on the pier and I have been sitting on it since. The hunters were paid by the Alpha in 1995 and 1996 to put a scare into a pack in the north and the scare went wrong and a wolf died and the Council never found out. And there is a thing about a pack in the north that a man in Galway would want to put a scare into.” He looked up. “A pack in the north that is being built by a woman called Eileen out of wolves this territory has thrown out is a pack that is going to make a claim on the shore. And a man who owns the shore does not want a pack in the north making a claim.”

Arthur got up off the stone.

“There is a thing I have to say and then I am going to go home and I am not going to say another word tonight,” he said. “In 1995 the Alpha came to my workshop and she said, Arthur, I need a paper drawn up and it is a paper for the Council and it is a paper about a payment to a company in Sligo. And I said, what company, and she said, a salvage company. And I drew up the paper and she signed it and I put it in the book and I did not ask a question because I had not asked a question since 1961 and I was not going to start in 1995.” He put his hand in his coat and took out a folded paper and put it on the stones. “I took it out of the book tonight. It is the paper. It is a payment to a company in Sligo and the company is called Kelleher and Sons and the sum is two thousand pounds and the date is the fourth of August 1995. And there is a thing about the paper that I did not see when I drew it up and that I saw tonight. The payment is signed by the Alpha and countersigned by the enforcer and there is a third signature at the bottom and the third signature is the Keeper of the Rolls.”

The boathouse went silent.

“The Keeper signed it,” I said. “The Keeper of the Rolls signed a payment to the hunters.”

“He signed it and he took his tenth and he has been taking his tenth since 1961.” Arthur picked up his stick. “And there is a thing about tonight that I am going to say before I go home. The woman who is standing on that headland in the fog is not going to fight a fair fight. She has been Alpha for fourteen years and she has never fought a fair fight in her life and she has a paper in her hand from a man in Galway that says the sentence of the headland is lawful. And if she wins tonight, the paper goes into the file and the file closes and the Keeper takes his tenth for another thirty six years.” He looked at me. “So do not let her win.”

I went out of the boathouse into the fog and the whole co-op came with me and the moon was up over the headland and the ring of stones was full of wolves.

And then, out on the water, there was the sound of an engine.

It was a boat and it was coming in fast from the south and it was not one of the boats of this village and it was not the Star of the Sea. It came out of the fog and into the harbor and it came alongside the pier and there were men on it and one of them had a long case on his shoulder.

And on the shore road behind us, in the fog, a woman’s voice said, “There they are. The whole co-op. And the woman from Dublin with a book in her hand.”