Winterland Read online

  Though the truth is, in any case, be it in a legal document or a poem – or a musical composition – Gina likes it, she likes order and structure.

  Unapologetically so, in fact.

  Which is probably just as well, given the attitude she’s already picking up from these two guys she and her friend Sophie came with – not that she’s in the least bit concerned about their huffing and sighing. Time was when she would have been mortified and felt she had to explain herself somehow, account for her opinions, even feign opinions she didn’t have, but not anymore, not these days, and as they shuffle through the foyer now, she turns to one of them, the tall guy with the beard, and says, ‘So, I thought that was pretty cool.’

  ‘What?’ the guy says, looking down at her. ‘Jesus. No. I thought it was torture.’

  The other guy laughs.

  Gina rolls her eyes.

  Torture? Why is she not surprised? She knew that Barcode wouldn’t particularly be Sophie’s bag, but she hadn’t anticipated that these two guys – colleagues of Sophie’s – would be such boneheads.

  ‘You know what it reminded me of?’ the guy with the beard is saying. ‘Of when I was a kid, at mass, having to sit there. It was fucking awful.’

  ‘Well,’ Gina says, not interested in hearing any more of this, and reaching into her pocket for her mobile, ‘I thought it was sublime.’

  ‘Sublime?’ the second guy says. ‘Come on, it was boring.’

  With the music still echoing in her head – the subtle patterns, the mathematical precision, the clarity and grace – what’s the point of arguing, Gina thinks. After awful and boring she’s going to counter with words like clarity and grace?

  ‘Oh, what,’ she then says, ‘I suppose you’d prefer some boy band in white suits doing cover versions of Perry Como hits?’

  ‘Perry who?’

  Turning away, Gina sees that she has two texts and a voicemail. The first text is from Beth, ‘CU 4 lnch @ 1?’, and the second – characteristically unabbreviated and with full punctuation – is from P.J., ‘Remember I’m in London tomorrow. Intermetric, at 10.30. I’ll call you after.’

  When they get out onto Dame Street, the crowd starts breaking up and they’re able to move a little faster. Gina switches from holding the phone in front of her, staring at it as she walks, to holding it up to her ear.

  The voicemail is from one of her sisters. ‘Received at 9.27 p.m.’ Pause. ‘Gina, it’s Yvonne. Oh God. Listen. Ring me back as soon as you can, will you? Something awful’s happened.’ Gina’s heart sinks. ‘I suppose I’d better tell you. Young Noel is after getting shot. He was in a pub somewhere.’ She pauses here, almost as if to give Gina a second or two to respond, to say, ‘Oh my God’, which she does. Yvonne then continues, ‘Look, I’d better tell you everything, he’s dead. It’s just … awful. I’m heading over to Catherine’s now. Sorry for telling you like this, but what else could I do? Call me.’ That’s it. When Gina looks up, she realises that she’s not moving anymore and that Sophie and the two guys are already ten or fifteen paces ahead of her.

  Sophie turns, and sees the shock on Gina’s face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ She rushes back.

  ‘It’s my nephew,’ Gina says, putting a hand up to her chest. ‘I can’t believe this. He’s been shot dead.’

  Sophie’s eyes almost pop. ‘What?’

  Sophie is from Mount Merrion, not a place where people tend to get shot.

  ‘This is … awful,’ Gina says. ‘I have to get out to my sister’s.’

  She looks around, confused, still in shock.

  ‘There’s a taxi rank down here,’ Sophie says, taking her by the arm. ‘Come on.’

  The two guys are waiting, but Sophie disposes of them with a quick remark that Gina doesn’t hear.

  They then walk in silence for a bit, cross at lights, looking left and right, concentrating on that. Eventually, Sophie asks Gina which sister it is.

  ‘Catherine,’ Gina says.

  Sophie nods. After a pause she goes on, ‘Your nephew? God. How old was he? I have one who’s six and another one who’s still in nappies.’

  ‘Uh …’ Gina scrambles in her head for an answer. ‘He’s only a few years younger than me. Twenty-five, I think, twenty-six.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘My sister had him when she was very young. It was …’ She trails off here.

  Gina is the youngest in the family – what used to be called an afterthought, or even a mistake. She’s only thirty-two, ten years younger than the next one up.

  All of her siblings are in their forties.

  Growing up, Gina could just about relate to Catherine and Michelle as sisters, but with Yvonne and Noel it was a little different. By the time she was only a year or two old they’d already left home and as a result she didn’t see them that often, so they were really more like an aunt and an uncle to her. She loves them to bits, of course – but it still feels, even today, like they’re from another generation.

  ‘That’s so sad.’ Sophie says as they approach the taxi rank. ‘Were you close to him?’

  Gina is about to respond to this, but she stops. What does she say? The guy is dead.

  She shakes her head.

  She opens the back door of the taxi and leans against it. ‘OK. Here we are.’

  ‘Gina, do you want me to come along with you? As far as the house even?’

  ‘No, you’re grand, Soph. Thanks. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  As Gina gets into the taxi, she waves back at Sophie.

  ‘Dolanstown,’ she says to the driver, and then gives him the full address.

  The car pulls away from the rank, swings around and heads back up Dame Street. In order to avoid conversation with the driver, not that this is likely to work, Gina takes out her mobile and starts texting. She quickly rain-checks lunch with Beth, acknowledges P.J.’ s message and then wonders – thumb poised, still staring at the display – if she should call Yvonne or just show up at Catherine’s.

  She looks out the window.

  But what’s Yvonne going to tell her on the phone that she didn’t say in the message?

  ‘Miserable night.’

  See?

  Gina turns, glances into the rearview mirror and meets the taxi driver’s eyes.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, and looks away.

  That’s all he’s getting.

  ‘You were out for a few jars yourself tonight, yeah?’

  Oh God.

  ‘Hhnn.’

  She gets this a lot with taxi drivers, especially going home at night, but really, what do they expect her to say? Yeah, bud, I’m well locked, me, no self-control at all, so pull in anywhere that’s convenient for you there and off we go?

  ‘Town’s fairly busy.’

  ‘Hhnn.’

  The taxi driver pauses, regrouping, and then, ‘I see on the news there the Taoiseach’s after putting his foot in it again.’

  OK, OK, maybe she’s wrong. Maybe it’s not the erotic charge of her being a young woman on her own, in a short skirt, with drink taken, in his cab. Maybe he’s just bored and trying to make conversation.

  Whatever. But not tonight.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ she says, ‘I’d prefer not to talk.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says.

  Was that a little huffy? She stares at the back of his head. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No, no,’ he says, ‘you’re fine, you’re fine.’ But of course that won’t do. After a moment, he has to add, ‘No problem there, miss. None at all. And no offence taken either. Whatever the customer wants. That’s what I always say, always have, and I’m twenty years in this game.’

  In order to shut himself up, he reaches down and flicks on his radio. There are speakers behind Gina and the music is quite loud. What’s playing is some awful eighties thing she vaguely recognises – it’s soft rock, FM, irredeemably lite.

  What did the Taoiseach say? Suddenly she’s curious.

  But in the next moment she’s back with the im
mediate reality of what’s happened – her nephew, her sister.

  For as long as she can remember, Gina’s been hearing stories about young Noel, about how he was always getting into trouble and breaking his mother’s heart. Catherine raised him on her own (with financial help from their brother), and she did her best in difficult circumstances, but the kid was undeniably a handful. He was hyperactive, rebellious and physically very big – so much so that by the time he hit his teens he was pretty much out of control. He got into all the usual shit, joyriding, shoplifting, burglary and, of course, drugs.

  Over the next few years, whenever the sisters met, an increasingly weary Catherine usually went out of her way to avoid the subject, and since Gina herself was pretty busy, doing her diploma in computer programming and then starting work, she hardly ever saw her nephew and heard very little about what he was up to. Though lately his name has been cropping up in the papers – and most recently in a Sunday World article she saw about the massive profits being made in DVD piracy.

  Biting her lower lip, Gina now looks up and around. St Patrick’s Cathedral flits past on the left, a new apartment complex on the right.

  She’s unsure what to think – though really, in Dublin, getting shot in a pub can mean only one thing, can’t it?

  As if to confirm this, the song on the radio finishes abruptly and a news bulletin comes on.

  ‘All the latest for Dublin at eleven,’ the announcer says, sounding as if he’s about fifteen and has just drunk a quadruple espresso. ‘A man in his mid-twenties has been gunned down in the beer garden of a south-side pub. It happened just before nine o’clock this evening. Witnesses claim the gunman fired three shots into the victim at point-blank range and then made his escape on a motorbike. The incident has all the hallmarks of a gangland killing –’

  Gina closes her eyes.

  ‘– and it is believed that the dead man, who hasn’t been named yet, was known to the Gardaí.’

  Oh God. Poor Catherine.

  Gina shifts around in the seat and tries to shut out the rest of the bulletin. She’d like to ask the driver to turn the radio off, or at least to turn the volume down, but she feels she’s used up any goodwill she might have had with him. She also knows that this is ridiculous. But they’re turning at the KCR now and moving pretty fast – so why rock the boat? When she arrives at Catherine’s house she’s going to need all the composure and self-possession she can muster.

  After the sports results, weather report and an ad break the music comes back on, still eighties, but this time a little less grating.

  A few minutes later, the cab turns into the road where Catherine lives, a small crescent of semi-detached houses built in the fifties – and barely half a mile from where Gina, her sisters and Noel were all born and grew up. Gina hasn’t been out here for a while and she soon remembers why. Despite growing up in Dolanstown, she has always found the design and layout of the place – as with so many of Dublin’s suburban housing estates – to be soulless and oppressive.

  At night it’s not so bad, she thinks. It’s dark, street dark, and the atmosphere is a little different.

  ‘This is fine,’ she tells the driver, ‘just here on the left.’

  The cab pulls up.

  Gina pays and gets out. It’s colder than it seemed earlier, and she’s suddenly conscious of what she’s wearing – short denim skirt, floral print top and pin-striped jacket – all fine for wandering around town in, but a little bonkers for out here, for this.

  There’s nothing she can do about it now, though – not that Catherine is going to register what Gina, or anyone else for that matter, is wearing. But Yvonne or Michelle might, and the last thing she wants to see is them exchanging glances.

  Look at madame.

  Is it Gina’s fault that they have no social lives anymore? Is it her fault that they are both stuck in a time warp? Is it her fault that they never got out of Dolanstown?

  But she’s being ridiculous again, and she knows it, and she knows why, too. It’s displacement. Because this is going to be really hard. The level of Catherine’s grief will be unimaginable. No one will be able to help her. No one will have anything more to offer her than a hug and a few platitudes.

  Approaching the house, Gina takes a deep breath.

  The first thing she notices is an SUV parked in the driveway.

  This can only be Noel’s.

  She rolls her eyes. Every time she sees Noel, which of course isn’t that often, he’s driving something different.

  As she’s passing the SUV, she peers into its tinted windows. She sees nothing except her own reflection. Up ahead, the hall door of the house opens and Noel himself comes out. He’s wearing a heavy overcoat and appears to be in a hurry. When he spots Gina, he rushes up to her, takes her by the hand and kisses her on the cheek.

  ‘How are you, sweetheart?’

  ‘I’m OK. How’s Catherine?’

  He makes a face, shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders – each time about to say something, each time about to make an assessment, each time defeated.

  Gina nods along.

  Eventually, Noel says, ‘The Guards have just left. They say she can’t go in to identify the body until the morning.’

  ‘Which means it’s going to be a long night.’

  ‘Yeah, looks like it.’

  They both shake their heads.

  Gina then says, ‘So what happened? Do we know anything?’

  ‘No. I made a couple of calls a while ago. No one knows a thing.’ He pauses. ‘You do realise what he’s been up to for the last few years?’

  ‘Well yeah, I read the papers,’ Gina says. ‘But it’s not like anyone ever talks about it.’

  ‘No. I suppose. Catherine had a hard time with it, understandably.’ He looks around, shivers from the cold and turns back to face Gina. ‘But anyway, from what I’ve heard it was unexpected.’

  ‘Weird.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Noel then looks Gina up and down. ‘Jesus, are you not freezing in that get-up?’

  She nods yes, then says, ‘I was in town at a gig. Going on to a party. What do you want?’

  ‘No, I’m just saying.’ He looks at her again. ‘Here, do you want my coat?’

  He starts taking it off. She puts a hand out to stop him.

  ‘No,’ she laughs. ‘Are you mad?’

  This is so Noel.

  He shuffles the coat back on.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m grand.’

  He reaches out and strokes her cheek.

  ‘You’re my baby sister,’ he says, ‘and I love you. I wish I saw you more often. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah, of course.’

  ‘How’s the software business?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she says. It feels weird to be talking like this, casually, as if nothing has happened. ‘We’re under a lot of pressure at the moment.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Well, with the downturn and all.’

  Gina and her business partner, P.J., run Lucius, a small software-development company. They started up with some decent venture capital behind them, but that was back when the economy still seemed unassailable. Now, after two years, they have yet to launch a product on the market, and P.J.’ s trip to London is an attempt to drum up some potential customer interest.

  ‘It’s a living,’ she adds, half defensively. ‘Not that my bank manager is too convinced.’

  Noel squints his eyes at this.

  ‘What?’ Gina says.

  ‘Are you all right for money?’

  She nods. But that’s not enough, apparently. ‘Yeah, I am.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Noel,’ she says, ‘that was a joke.’

  Though actually it wasn’t. Since Lucius started up, they’ve been working on the same software package – a suite of integrated data-management tools – but their burn rate has been pretty startling of late. In fact, the VCs are beginning to get alarmed, which is q
uite serious, because if they pull the plug now there won’t be any salaries at the end of the month. There won’t be any jobs.

  For anyone.

  ‘Look, I’m fine,’ she adds. ‘I am, really. Thanks.’

  Noel shrugs his shoulders.

  Gina raps her knuckles gently against the side of the SUV. ‘So, where are you off to?’

  Noel exhales and looks exasperated all of a sudden. ‘Oh, I’ve got to go and pick something up in town. I’m meeting someone.’ He glances at his watch. ‘I’ll be back, though. Half an hour, forty-five minutes.’

  ‘Whatever happened to office hours?’

  He snorts at this. ‘You must be joking.’

  ‘I suppose I am. But listen,’ she says, ‘Richmond Plaza? It’s amazing. Really. I look down the quays at it every morning when I come out of my building. It’s transforming the skyline.’

  ‘Well, that’s the idea,’ Noel says. The firm he’s a partner in, BCM, are the structural engineers on this docklands development. ‘Let’s hope we make it to the finishing line.’

  Gina furrows her brow. ‘Why wouldn’t you? Isn’t it almost finished?’

  ‘It is, yeah, of course. And we will.’ He looks out, over her shoulder, hesitating. ‘It’s just that, well, you know what it’s like these days. And you wouldn’t believe the headaches involved.’ He looks at his watch again, and adds, ‘This, for instance.’

  Gina notices for the first time how gaunt Noel looks. He is pale and has bags under his eyes.

  ‘And what is this exactly?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to know, believe me. It’s a situation, engineering stuff, an unholy bloody mess.’ He waves a hand in the air, as if to magic it all away.