‘You can’t blame yourself,’ I said. ‘I’m just surprised you came tonight.’
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘We can’t let setbacks get in our way.’
He took a pull of his cigar and I realised that my suspicions were right all along. He was a total chameleon, a conman who felt nothing for anybody. I remembered his hands on my neck that first night. He could have killed me and thought nothing of it. Luke studied my face, concerned.
‘What’s wrong, Tracey?’ he said. ‘I’m here to apologise for the row. I’m sorry about the shop, but we’re so busy before Christmas that I was miles away. You were gone before I’d time to say anything.’
He hadn’t realised I was talking about Christy. He thought I didn’t know what had happened.
‘I don’t fucking believe this,’ I sneered. ‘You don’t even let death get in the way of a quick fuck!’
I backed away, ready to flee and Luke reached a hand out.
‘Don’t fucking touch me,’ I shouted. Then I looked at his eyes and realised that Luke hadn’t heard the news from Dublin.
‘Where have you been all day?’
He looked confused by the question. ‘I was in Holland since Friday, buying stock from a tile shop closing down over there. I took the van across. It’s parked outside still.’
‘Oh my God.’ I paused but couldn’t find a way to soften the words. ‘Luke, I’m sorry, but your brother Christy was shot dead in Dublin.’
Only when I held up the sodden newspaper did Luke realise I was serious. His face changed. He took it from me and turned away. I saw his head move as he scanned the blurred columns. Newsprint had stained my hands, the words printed backwards across my fingers. I looked up and realised that Luke was no longer attempting to read. He was silently crying. I went to put my arms around his shoulders, then stopped. Luke had always maintained an emotional distance between us. I could only watch, afraid that any attempt to console him would be rejected.
‘Would you like me to go?’
‘No. Please.’ He walked to the window and put his hands on the pane. I could see him reflected in it and he could see me.
‘You were close, weren’t you?’ I said.
‘He could beat the crap out of me, but he’d murder anyone who put a finger near me as well. I was fifteen before I’d clothes of my own. I lived in his hand-me-downs, vests, underpants, even his shoes sometimes.’ Luke turned. His face seemed to have aged a decade. ‘Even adults were scared of him. He’d take on blokes twice his size and beat them. Yet I was the one always trying to mind him.’
I knew by the way Luke stood that he wanted to be held. I put my arms around him and he buried his face in my hair where I couldn’t see him cry. I recalled a story he once told me, set on a factory roof somewhere in Dublin called Rialto. Luke had heard that Christy and an older boy were breaking in there but he knew their plan was inept. The roofs were slippery after rain as he crossed valleys of corrugated iron and hammered glass, searching for them. A watchman’s torch flashed below, followed by an alsatian’s muffled bark. Then, somewhere among the rooftops, he heard sporadic sobbing. It was too dangerous to call out. Luke waited till the crying resumed, then took a bearing and slid down a gully, where a loose rivet ripped his jeans and flesh. His boots collided with Christy, who rocked back and forth, his crying frightening Luke more than the danger of being caught. Luke stared at the glass below on the concrete floor. The light was bright enough to make the shards sparkle and for Luke to see that the fallen figure lying there had a broken neck.
I stroked Luke’s hair, which was thinning and greying at the roots with traces of dandruff. I felt so desperately sorry, but there seemed nothing I could say to console him. I could see those boys in my mind, Luke trying to guide his brother like a blubbering child along the rooftops as he watched for the security guard and unchained dog. Luke had known how to escape. But Christy had seized up, unable to climb down, even after they heard the body being found and knew the police had been called. Luke remained, minding Christy until the firemen raised their ladders, although he knew he would also be charged and sentenced to an Irish industrial school.
Luke raised his head and wiped his eyes.
‘You should go home,’ I said. ‘People will be looking for you.’
‘I don’t like home,’ he replied. ‘Before meeting you I thought that what I wanted wasn’t important. I put my head down and got on with working for my family. Suits aren’t meant to contain feelings. I should go home, there’s business to take care of. But fuck it, Tracey, I don’t want to ever leave this room.’
‘You’ve no choice,’ I said quietly. ‘You’re needed there.’
‘Come with me.’
I thought of his wife and children. ‘You know I can’t, Luke. But I’ll drive with you if you want and see you get safely there.’
‘I didn’t mean home here,’ Luke said. ‘It’s Dublin I hate. I haven’t gone back for years. I’m not sure I can face watching gangsters queue up to shake my hand and knowing one of them set Christy up. Come to Dublin. It would mean so much to know you’re there. I need you with me, Tracey. Please.’
LUKE’S WIFE AND CHILDREN would be arriving from London on a later flight. It was a fact Luke simply had to live with, he explained, normally you got hassled by the police at Dublin airport. The family name was enough, it just took one detective trying to get himself a reputation. This was why Luke had deliberately raised his children in England. Now he wanted them kept away from all that. I was discovering that Luke had an excuse for everything, even taking his mistress with him on a flight to Dublin while his wife and children travelled alone.
Security at Dublin Airport was non-existent. The terminal was like a cathedral of homecoming, with Christmas trees and clock-work Santa Clauses in the centre of each luggage conveyor belt. People collected their luggage, then drifted through the blue channel where nobody was on duty. No official paid Luke the slightest heed. Crowds thronged the arrivals hall, greeting returning family members. Luke’s younger brother, Shane, had arranged to meet him. I could see him trying to place my face.
‘Who’s she?’ he asked suspiciously as Luke put the bags down.
‘Stick around for Carmel and the kids, Shane,’ Luke replied, ignoring the question. ‘They’re on the next plane. We’ll get a taxi.’
But Shane still stared at me. He had an open, innocent face. In soft light he would still pass for someone in their twenties. I remembered him acting as a peace-maker in the Irish Centre. ‘Ah, for Jaysus sake, Luke,’ he cottoned on, more exasperated than annoyed.
‘Don’t worry,’ I told him. ‘Luke’s just some cheap lay I picked up on the flight over.’
Shane threw his eyes to heaven, then picked up the cases and led the way to the car park. Luke’s wife could make her own way into Dublin. There was an uneasiness between them, with my presence preventing Shane from discussing family matters. I felt Luke had placed me there like a shield. At the car Luke asked to drive and Shane mumbled about him not being covered by insurance before grudgingly handing the keys over.
Shane sat beside him in silence as we drove on to the motorway. I noticed that Luke didn’t turn for Dublin, but drove in the opposite direction to where it petered out into an ordinary road again. The unease I’d known on the flight returned. It had gnawed at me since driving with Luke to the corner of his street in London and watching from the shadows as he reversed past his neighbour’s ornate pillars