Part 31 (2/2)

She wasn't looking for an answer. She took a slug, fought with it for a while, but eventually conquered it. A true Starkey. Then she gave a big smile.

*Gee,' she managed after a bit.

She pa.s.sed the bottle back to me. I showed it to Duncan. *You first,' he said.

I sat it on my knee. *What's come over you, Duncan?' I asked.

He pursed his lips. *Just thought you might like a drink. You don't object, do you?' I shook my head. *Dr Finlay intimated that you might enjoy one.'

*Well, I do. I'm just surprised. At you. At it. I do believe you're starting to trust us.' I held the bottle up, swished the alcohol about. *I take it this is very definitely against the law. There hasn't been a repeal of prohibition, has there?'

*No. Of course not. We make it ourselves.'

I took another mouthful.

While I was incapacitated, Patricia leant forward. *We?'

*Uh, yeah.'

*We who?'

*Does it matter? Enjoy. There's not a lot of it about. And it's killed no one yet.'

*I like the ”yet”.'

*It's rocket fuel, Duncan,' I whispered.

He nodded.

In half an hour we were all drunk, and, as they do, tongues began to loosen. Duncan began to tell us a little more about his island. It wasn't a question of us a me a wheedling it out of him; he wanted to talk, and I fancied the alcohol had been his way into it, that he could say to us under the influence what he didn't have the confidence to talk about in real life. He was a big handsome fella, but he had the inert shyness of an islander, brought up to keep his own counsel. Now his mind was being asked to cope with things bigger than island minds were meant to, and he needed to talk it through in order to sort it out for himself. He started hesitantly a slow, slow, quick quick, slow, dancing around the facts, ignoring chronology, speaking as the ideas entered his head.

*There are six of us. Were seven.' He rubbed his hands quickly over his face, as if he were was.h.i.+ng. *Mickey. Mickey Murtagh. G.o.d rest his soul.'

*Seven what?'

*Seven of us as liked to drink a bit. We used to hang out together in Jack McGettigan's back in the old days.' He laughed suddenly. *The old days. Last year or two ago. Then Jack saw the light, and the Council saw the dark, and suddenly there was nothing to drink any more. So we set about making our own. Took a while to perfect. We had some supplies of the old stuff set aside, thinking something like a ban was on the cards, so we've mixed and matched a bit. Not much of the old stuff left now.' He took another swipe at the bottle, then pa.s.sed it back to me. *That day Mickey Murtagh made a run for it a took us by surprise. The search 'n' all. I had to get out of there pretty quick, up into the woods to dismantle our stuff before they found it and thought about doing the same to us.' He shook his head sadly. *Poor Mickey. Never was much of a swimmer, but still tried to save Mary. A good man, Mickey.'

I nodded sagely. *Seemed like it.'

*I never met him,' said Trish.

*A good man,' Duncan repeated. He let his eyes linger on Patricia again; before, it had annoyed me, but now I took it for what it was, friendly eyes on a pretty woman.

*So there's a gang of youse meet up somewhere and drink,' said Patricia.

*Aye. Talk and yitter about all this, and what we can do about it.'

*And what can you do about it?'

He gave a sad laugh and rubbed his sleeve across his mouth. He said a quick sorry. *Old habits die hard.' Patricia smiled. *What can we do? Not much. Sad, really. Our leading light sails off and drowns. The most constructive thing we've done so far is a bit of vandalism on a church.'

The graffiti, of course. *You did that?'

*Not me, no. I can spell. Willie . . . well, he was never one for the education. It was stupid anyway.'

*I got the Mary Reilly bit, but the letters, what was that all about? The AF . . . whatever.'

*AFLR,' said Duncan, spelling them out with a finger in the air. *Obvious, if you think about it, Dan. Alcoholic Front for the Liberation of Wrathlin.'

He let it sit for a moment. And then we all dissolved. It was a wonderful thought.

Patricia, having drunk marginally less, recovered first. *Are you serious, really? This Alcoholic F . . . thing?' she asked.

Duncan gave a little shrug. *More serious than we should be. Less serious than we could be. I mean, what are we? A teacher. A doctor . . .'

*Dr Finlay,' I said.

He nodded. *Anyway, half a dozen of us who aren't very happy about the way things are turning out.'

*Do youse believe in Christine?' Patricia asked.

*Believe?'

*You know what I mean. That she's the Messiah.'

*No. I don't think we do.'

*You don't think, or you don't?'

*We don't think. Maybe we should be the Agnostic Alcoholic Front. The point is, it's not Christine that we object to. It's what has grown up around her. The laws, the prohibition, the intimidation. The dictatorial nature of the Council, of Father White in particular.'

*But not Father Flynn?' I asked.

*Flynn's heart's in the right place, if you'll excuse the expression, but he's not a born leader. He's too nice. White's adept at playing people off against each other, at making promises, at pus.h.i.+ng through repressive laws.'

*I thought you islanders were a really tight-knit bunch,' I said, *but White's only been here a few months and he already seems to be running the show.'

*What gave you the impression he's only been here a few months?'

*I . . . well, I don't know. I thought . . . someone told me that he'd only recently arrived. I had the impression that he'd only recently converted to the McCooeys.'

Duncan shook his head. *You couldn't be more wrong. Father White's been in on it from the start. Sure wasn't he priest here for thirty years before Flynn ever came back?'

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