He elbowed me provocatively, badgering me, repeating:
—Isn't that right, Redmond? Isn't that right, my comrade, my loyal fellow traveller?
He straddled the chair and remained silent for a long time. Then he lit a stogie and closed one eye, resting his elbow on his knee as he fixed me unyieldingly, his manner altering quite dramatically again. He drew a long breath through tobacco-stained teeth.
—Imagine her doing the like of that, Redmond, sliding her pins apart in order to pleasure a cash-rich cunt! A little innocent creature the likes of Annamarie Gordon! Giving her body to a snake like Olson. It's hard to credit. Hard to credit, Redmond, son.
He told me they'd first met in the winter of 1963. It was one of the severest winters on record. The valley had been snowbound for over two weeks.
—That was the first time I felt like someone, Redmond, he went on to explain. Felt like saying to myself: 'Yes, Ned, you've done it. You're somebody at last. She's turned you into a fully grown man.' After meeting that lady I was the king of the mountain. From that moment on, she made me believe that I could become someone special. That her and me, we could change the world. She changed it all when she said: 'I love you.' 'I love you, Edmund Strange' - she said that to me, Redmond.
Regarding my own pronouncement upon that particular subject, I had first revealed my innermost feelings to Catherine Courtney in a cafe in Cork City, in late summer 1980. I was eating a cheese omelette and she was having Black Forest gateau. I'd been building up to it for weeks.
—You have no idea how much I'm in love with you, I said.
—Oh Redmond, I remember her saying, as she put her hand, just wrapped it warmly and gently, around mine.
Ned had declared his feelings when they were walking together in the snow. He told me she had reciprocated fully.
—I just couldn't believe she'd uttered those words, he said.
They decided soon after that they would be married and planned the ceremony for a couple of years hence. They agreed that when their little baby arrived they would treat it as if it was the only child ever to be born in the world. There was no end to the presents they were going to buy for it. No end to the songs they intended to sing to it. They spent hours by a flowing stream, staring at their blooming rose and thinking up new names. They must have thought up at least a thousand. If it happened to be a boy they were going to call it Owen because that had been Ned's father's name and Annamarie said that she thought that would be nice. Ned just couldn't contain himself, he told me.
—It was wonderful being there, just sitting by that babbling brook. It was a far cry from the outlands, that was for certain sure, he said.
As far as a human being could possibly get.
Then it happened, that night he left the pub. He'd been having a few drinks with some farmers from the valley but had decided, simply on a whim, to go home. His pals asked him why he was leaving and he'd simply responded: 'No reason at all.' It certainly wasn't because he was harbouring any suspicions with regard to his wife's behaviour. For he'd never have dreamt in a million years that Annamarie Gordon would indulge in anything so base and heartburning as cheating. If you'd been forward enough to ask him why, that was what he'd have readily and honestly and confidently replied: 'Because it isn't in her.'
But that was where Ned was wrong. It was in her. A realisation which began to dawn on him, not so very long after he'd left the pub, when he found himself staring in amazement across the valley. As the headlights of a car — a limousine Cadillac — tore off down the mountain, his wife stood waving in its wake. That was John Olson's car, he mused quietly to himself.
A massive hand seemed to lift up the mountain.
When Ned arrived, he and his wife talked about nothing in particular. Then Ned said:
—I was wondering, Annamarie, whose was the car that was here just now?
Annamarie didn't answer. Maybe she hadn't heard him, Ned found himself thinking. So he thought he'd perhaps better say it again.
—Car, Annamarie replied, I'm afraid there was no car.
—No car, said Ned, well now, that's funny because the problem is there was. I seen it you see.
—Did you? said Annamarie.
—Yes I did, replied her husband.
Well, such a beating as Ned meted out to his wife that night. Talk about not lifting your hand to your wife. Why the poor woman was practically unrecognisable when he'd finished.
—Oh, yes! he'd laugh, slapping his cap against his knee as he continued his story. The women can be divils, Redmond! So you be careful — you hear me now, my young partner?
I shifted uneasily in the chair. His intensity showed no sign of abating.
—Yes, you be careful, Redmond. For the women'll say: What car? they'll say. Nope sorry seen no car, what man? I seen no man there was no man in here! There was no man's tallywhacker inside of me, Ned! That's what they'll say! And keep on saying it until there's damn all avenue open to you but—
A desperate cry escaped his lips.
—I didn't mean to do it, Redmond! I didn't mean to drown her, I didn't! Say you understand that, Redmond, my boy! She shouldn't have permitted his tallywhacker in! A long pause ensued. I couldn't believe my ears. He was sitting with his back to me but there could be no mistaking it - he was laughing again. I wanted to get the hell out. I felt cold all over.
—Oh, the women! I heard him chuckle. The women are divils because they leave you no choice! Get in there, Annamarie, get in like a good girl! Ha ha, you bitch 'Glug glug,' she says!
The night was drawing in and I longed to get home. All I wanted was to get back to Catherine. We'd been planning to go to Rudyard's that weekend. That was a restaurant she'd loved in what is now Temple Bar. Whenever we had the money we always made a point of going there.
When I came back to myself, Ned was standing above me, blubbering, with the tears pouring out of him like some heart-broken little baby. I consoled him as best I could, staring out the window, trying to think of nothing but the woman I loved. Trying my best not to hear Ned's heart-broken pleas, as they struggled to free themselves from his confused and bitter soul. A soul which, once again consumed by wicked mocking laughter, swept out into the night and the tall imprecating pines.
When Catherine's solicitor wrote to me and told me that, irrespective of my protestations, I had no rights whatsoever apart from those stipulated by the court of law, I wandered the streets of London, scooped-out and empty, steered towards the place where no roses grow, the exterior darkness where there is only stony ground. Where even the idea of a rose would seem farcical. I'd think of Ned and what he used to say:
—Them's the outland fields, Redmond. The most barren fields in the world. And I ought to know - for I wandered them long enough.
I sat in Queen's Park the best part of a day. You never know how special ordinariness is until you wake up one day and it's gone. Queen's Park was where me and Immy had invented winterwood. I remembered that day so vividly. We'd been having breakfast that morning and unexpectedly The Snowman came on. We continued eating our cornflakes, the pair of us mesmerised as we watched him walk on air, oblivious of all the little houses below.
—He lives in it, doesn't he? I remembered her saying. That's where he lives, in winterwood, Daddy.
—Oh, yes - perhaps he does! I said, not thinking.
—Of course he does, you silly man! she chided me. Him and the Snow Princess!
I laughed and nodded.
—Whatever you say, my dear, I said.
We'd sit there on that bench as she twisted her bobbin and sang songs to herself, adrift in a private world of her own. Then, all of a sudden, she'd point up and say:
—Look! He's walking in the air . . . !
I wouldn't be concentrating and she'd bristle whenever I'd say:
—Who? Who's that, Imogen?
—Oh, youl was all she'd say.
Because, of course, she'd have meant the Snowman.
For some reason as I walked tho
se desolate London streets, more than anything I'd keep thinking about the day we had bought the coat. The woman in Harrods could see how excited we both were.
—It really suits her, she'd said as she fixed the collar, she's a picture. What's her name?
—Immy, I said, without thinking.
—Imogen! my daughter corrected, slapping me playfully with her mitten.
—Well, Imogen's a picture, the assistant insisted.
To show you just how much those days actually meant, once, when I happened to be passing a children's clothes shop on the Kilburn High Road, out of the corner of my eye I saw a coat the very same as Immy's. I'm not saying it was exactly the same - just similar. All I could think of was: I wonder what they're doing in Dublin right now? I would have caught a plane right there and then but it simply wasn't physically possible.
It was to be some time before I found myself in a position to do that. And there were a few things I had to think about first.
Before I — as Ned might have had it — combined with myself in 'bold conspiracy'.
To alter the path of my life before I was destroyed.
After they'd gone, every day, without fail, I went to that park. I read Maurice Sendak over and over. And thought about the old days. Not just with Immy but with my own parents as well. Before my mother died she used to come to my bedroom late at night and turn the night light way on down. Then, ever so softly, she'd start singing 'Scarlet Ribbons', the song mama loved. She used to tie a little ribbon to the bars above my bed. Tie it in a little knot, she said, and it will keep you safe and free from danger.
—It stands for our love. Little Redmond and his mam. A little red ribbon that signifies their love. I love you, Little Red - for you're the only thing that keeps me alive.
That was what my mother said after she sang. After she'd sung our song 'Scarlet Ribbons'.
There was a haberdashery near the flat in Kilburn. I bought some ribbon there. I kept it in my pocket and twined it around my fingers.
—'Scarlet Ribbons', I'd hum to myself, wandering the aimless outland streets.
I even brought it home to Ireland, associating it, subconsciously, I suppose, with winterwood.
—You make up stories, I heard Ned whisper, you make up stories the very same as me. I know that because I know about your mother. She didn't die in a church. She died of a brain haemorrhage brought on by your father's beatings. That's how she died, you auld lying trickster!
—Shut up! Shut up, do you hear me? I'd snap - against my better judgement. But he knew how to get to me.
Then I'd see him laughing — his shoulders rocking as he teased his beard.
—The mountain and the pines will always be with you, Redmond. Always make sure you remember that. Always and everywhere you'll bring them with you.
How right he'd been. Every single place I went.
As a matter of fact, back in 1981, long before the truth about Ned's nature had emerged, I had actually been giving serious consideration to bringing Catherine home to Slievenageeha, around the time my first folklore articles had begun to appear in the Leinster News. Articles which increased Ned's popularity quite considerably, I have to say.
—I don't know how to thank you, Redmond, he said. You're like a son to me now after all you've done.
Every Sunday the kiddies arrived at the schoolhouse for the ceilidh. They came from all over. Its growing popularity was truly astounding. But I had taken pains to emphasise its down-home, neighbourly aspect.
—The Slievenageeha Children's Ceilidh is about nothing so much as good neighbourliness. A happy community kicking up its heels and having itself a whale of a time.
For far too long, ceilidhs, I contended, had been seen as the preserve of a few worthy zealots intent on preserving 'authentic' Irish culture. Restricted to a couple of earnest convent girls dancing a hornpipe in a draughty school hall, stiff as boards with their arms by their sides.
—That day is gone, I wrote. A new day dawns for Irish ceilidh. Now it's all about exuberance, good humour and excitement. And it is all happening at Slievenageeha schoolhouse every Sunday at 3 p.m.
The great thing about Ned - apart from, of course, being a wizard with the bow - was that he was a terrific music teacher. And, it goes without saying, a wonderful communicator.
—And he's just so solid and dependable, everyone said. It's like he's your father or something. It's like you could trust him with just about anything, really.
'Ned of the Hill', I called him in my articles. He thought it was the 'bee's knees', he told me. Slapping his thighs, chuffed as he guffawed:
—Ned of the Hill! Well, I have to hand it to you, Redmond, you're a good one! As a result he started to sing it at the ceilidhs, the famous old ballad of the same name. Sawing away as he stuck out his chest, the kids singing along (he'd taught them all the words) as his strong, proud voice rang out across the valley:
Adeir Eamonn a' Chnoic: a lao ghil's a chuid Cad do dheanfainn-se dhuit? Mara gcuirfinn ort beinn dom ghuna?
Which meant, as he explained:
Says Ned of the Hill: my love fond and true What else could I do? But shield you from wind and weather?
One day, over a glass of clear, he looked up at me and grinned as he said:
—There's good words, ain't they, Redmond?
—Yes, I wholeheartedly agreed, really lovely lyrics, Ned. I like them.
—You do, do you? They're very like one I was singing that first day. The very first day you arrived in Slievenageeha. Do you remember that one, Redmond? It was about hell, Redmond. Hell. Do you know how long it says you might expect to dwell in such a place? Do you know how long, Redmond, as a matter of fact? You don't, well I'll tell you.
He pinched his nose and roared phlegm into the grate, before launching into his 'high lonesome' song:
Here we both lie in the shade of the trees
My partner for ever just him and me
How long will we lie here O Lord who can tell?
Till the winter snow whitens the high hills of hell.
He shivered ominously. Then he looked at me again and said:
—That's how long, Redmond. That's how long you and me can expect.
I must have dozed off and when I came to, I called his name but he was nowhere to be seen. The door was wide open as the wind came blowing in from the mountain. He didn't arrive back until the following morning. I had no idea where he'd been and he didn't offer any explanation.
Acting as if nothing at all had happened.
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What the papers had reported, no one could have imagined, not in their worst nightmares.
The Independent photograph, particularly, painted the ghastliest of melancholic scenes, a dismal shot of blacks and slate-greys, with the blurred pines beyond the factory possessing a deeply sinister aspect.
Whenever I read about it, deeply familiar but unwelcome feelings would return once more to torment me and I'd see him standing there, looking out of the dark.
—Something dreadful is going to happen, Redmond, and when it does, believe me — you'll know!
I eventually came to see, however, by simply concentrating, just how absurd it had all been.
The man was dead, for heaven's sake - hadn't he hung himself?
In a prison shower of all places. The evidence was there in black and white. Of course it was. It was hard not to laugh. In the end I became embarrassed, actually, that I had ever given it any credence. He hadn't even been there. In the bed or in the landing or anywhere else. Such are the unfortunate by-products of emotional trouble, I told myself. It got to the stage in the end where I had almost completely forgotten the whole ridiculous episode.
I was a new man, truly, and it really was wonderful. I hadn't undergone anything like the old stress in months. So that, I remember thinking, I probably wouldn't have been able to describe such a condition if I'd been asked to. I was moving closer to a
state of complete contentment. Very at ease with myself indeed.
Which was the way, I knew, things were destined to stay. Those were the thoughts which were going through my head as Immy and I drove onwards towards winterwood. When I pulled up at some lights, it seemed like I'd been waiting for ages for them to change. And it was at that point I smelt it, the heart-sinking sodden dampness. You hear of people saying the blood just 'drained from his face'. But you rarely, if ever, witness it happen. I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror and I'm not exaggerating when I baldly state it was the colour of death.
I didn't have to turn. I knew he was there. His leering eyes staring from the window where he was parked. He looked like he'd been drinking for days. Suddenly he shot forward as the lights turned to green.
—Soon, Redmond, soon, I heard him say.
I know I ought never to have stopped in Blanchardstown it almost ruined things. But I couldn't stop thinking about Sweet Valley High, which Imogen had been watching instead of Pony. It unsettled me so much because I hadn't been expecting it. Which was why I reacted as soon as I saw the restaurant, rising up out of nowhere, just appearing through the haze of rain: Deep Pan Pizza.
—Who's for salami and who's for pineapple? I could hear Catherine crying.
Slumped in the back seat, poor Imogen was moaning. She'd been asking me for something, but what with all that happening I couldn't focus on what it was. I think she was saying her mouth was dry - and it upset me. But I never intended to shout at her. There is only one reason why I spoke harshly to Immy, and three words explain it - Piper fucking Alpha. He was the reason I snapped at my daughter:
—Shut up, Immy! Do you hear me now!
It had happened as soon as I returned to the car. It was stress, that was all. The only other time in my life I had ever spoken to my daughter like that was the time she had spilt the paint over herself, in Kilburn. She had been playing with some poster paints and went and got her clothes covered in them. Things hadn't been going well that week, either, you see. I'd had three articles turned down one after another and Catherine had been giving me a very rough time. But that didn't matter now, I told myself. Not now that we were almost there.