Himself

by Jess Kidd Narrated by Aidan Kelly

Overview

"A highly unusual tale set in a highly unusual Irish village full of dark secrets...Lushly imagined, delightfully original, and very, very funny, it hurtles along from the very first page" (M.L. Stedman, author of The Light Between Oceans).

Having been abandoned on the steps of an orphanage as an infant, lovable car thief and Dublin charmer Mahony assumed all his life that his mother had simply given him up. But when he receives an anonymous note suggesting that foul play may have led to his mother's disappearance, he sees only one option: to return to the rural Irish village where he was born and find out what really happened twenty-six years ago.

From the moment he sets foot in Mulderrig, Mahony's presence turns the village upside down. His uncannily familiar face and outsider ways cause a stir among the locals, who receive him with a mixture of excitement (the women), curiosity (the men), and suspicion (the pious).

Determined to uncover the truth about what happened to his mother, Mahony solicits the help of brash anarchist and retired theater actress Mrs. Cauley. This improbable duo concocts an ingenious plan to get the town talking about the day Mahony's mother disappeared and are aided and abetted by a cast of eccentric characters, both living and dead.

Himself is a simmering mixture-a blend of the natural everyday and the supernatural, folklore and mystery, and a healthy dose of quintessentially Irish humor. The result is a darkly comic crime story in the tradition of a classic Irish trickster tale, complete with a twisting and turning plot, a small-town rife with secrets, and an infectious love of language and storytelling that is a hallmark of the finest Irish writers.

Editorial Reviews

APRIL 2017 - AudioFile

This is a haunting—both literally and metaphorically—tale of a young man named Mahony, who is searching for the truth about his past and what happened to his mother. Narrator Aiden Kelly's lilting Irish accent is at once soothing and engaging. Although the story starts somewhat slowly as Kidd focuses more on lyrical writing than on plot, when the tension and mystery begin to build, they’re even more appealing. Kelly's matter-of-fact tone goes a long way to selling the ghosts (both human and animal) and other mystical aspects of the story. All in all, this literary and supernatural crime novel is heartfelt and enrapturing, qualities that are enhanced by Kelly’s narration. J.L.K. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

The New York Times Book Review - Katharine Weber

…hark[s] back to E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia stories of village gossip and skulduggery, though the secrets of Mulderrig are far darker. Add poisoned scones and letter bombs, and you have a fast-paced yarn that nimbly soars above the Irish crime fiction genre Kidd clearly knows very well.

Publishers Weekly

★ 01/30/2017
In her exceptional debut novel, Kidd explores the dark corners of the human mind in small-town 1970s Ireland, creating a haunting story that moves between the supernatural and the mundane. A murder mystery on the surface, the story digs past the traditional whodunit structure to paint a rich portrait of village life. Mahony, a charming young man who can communicate with the dead, returns to Mulderrig, Ireland, his birthplace, in search of the truth about his mother’s mysterious disappearance. As he dredges up the town’s best-kept secrets, the line between past and present blurs, ghosts of the departed shadowing the footsteps of those still living. Mahony’s quest is, at its core, a journey of self-discovery, yet his presence, much like his mother’s, creates a ripple that churns into a tempest, ultimately threatening the stability of the town as a whole. The lavishly populated cast of characters boasts unique quirks, hidden motivations, and a dangerous instinct for self-preservation. In Mulderrig, Mahony learns, all is not as it seems; the departed prove to be the least of his worries. While the plot hurtles along at a rapid pace, leading inexorably to the heart-pounding final conflict, Kidd injects ample doses of macabre humor and lyrical description in this memorable story from a strange, bold new voice. (Mar.)

Historical Novels Review

Debut novelist Jess Kidd is so sure-handed that this reader didn’t blink an eye about that dead girl, or any of the other dead characters loitering about the town’s streets, homes, and stores... [A]n ancient, long-retired actress, holed up in the guesthouse where he’s staying, may be the most memorable fictional character I’ve met in years. She’s fully original and fearless, and her machinations with both Mahoney and the local priest are laugh-out-loud funny... Kidd’s memorable page-turner features a unique voice, a concoction brewed of magical realism and dark humor... It would be a pity to miss reading this fine, funny and entertaining story,

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"For the love of all that’s right and true in the world, you’ve got to read Jess Kidd’s debut Himself (Atria), a fabulously imaginative, darkly comic Irish tale set 'in the arse-end of beyond' in a village called Mulderigg. Reading this picaresque novel is like nursing a pint in a pub while a seanchaí, a traditional storyteller, trills the air with magic and mystery and a local modulates the narrative with irreverent commentary from a stool in the corner...In Mahony, the author has created a literary descendant of Henry Fielding’s “Tom Jones” (also a foundling with parental issues), and in Mulderigg she’s imagined a literary neighborhood akin to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Macondo, a place populated with eccentric characters, living and dead. The plot races to an ending of Biblical proportions (as most Irish tales do) and it’ll bring tears to your sorry eyes and joy to your hardened heart."

Booklist

"Every page of Kidd’s who-done-it novel is filled with magic, spirit, peppery characters, and ghosts of the village dead, including their pets, who are visible only to some...Kidd mixes the darkest capacities of these villagers with carefully observed whimsy and fantasy. Readers who enjoy a dollop of whiskey in their tea will feel right at home in Mulderrig.”

The Guardian

"Diabolical deeds, ferociously kept secrets, black humour and magical realism abound in Jess Kidd’s richly textured, thronging debut...The legions of murmuring, plaintive deceased are what most command our attention in the novel...both noirish crime thriller and rollicking comedy...Kidd has imagination to die for and a real command of plot and character."

New York Journal of Books

“Himself is a classic, feeding the reader through a multisensory smorgasbord of Irish euphemisms...The snappy dialogue in Himself is delightful and a strong asset to Kidd’s flawless storytelling. The story breathes metaphors into sweet descriptive prose, pulling at heartstrings and bursting with humor...Foul play, fantasy, and a glimmer of romance wrapped up in a suspense-filled ending, makes Himself a delicious, gratifying and ageless story.

Irish Examiner

"Page-turning and memorable . . . An exuberant rollercoaster of a read."

New York Times Book Review

"[A] fast-paced yarn that nimbly soars above the Irish crime fiction genre Kidd clearly knows very well."

Louis de Bernières

"I love this book. It’s a magic realist murder mystery set in rural Ireland, in which the dead play as important a part as the living. It’s one of those books that has you smiling as you read, and that you plan to read again very soon."

Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Himself is Jess Kidd's confident, engaging debut novel. It has a captivating ensemble cast, great jolts of humor and danger, hair-raising plot twists and just enough darkness to make the magic feel true. A thoroughly enjoyable read."

BookPage

Mysterious and lyrical... Moving between Mahony’s present and the village’s past, Himself is spun like a fairy tale and paced like a mystery told around a slowly fading campfire. Kidd is brilliant at setting the scene and painting it vividly with a twisted, comic voice... In Himself, the author revels in the magical and supernatural, deftly and often humorously melding superstition and folklore with real personal tragedy.

The Seattle Times

"[A] whimsical mystery... That’s the pleasure of Himself — the way the novel’s plot, with its delicate language and soft Irish lilt, wanders like lush green vines, never seeming to travel in straight lines. A villageful of characters emerge, all of them having a deft way with a line... The mystery here is how the living and the dead live side by side, and the joy is the music with which Kidd brings all of the characters to life."

M.L. Stedman

"A highly unusual tale set in a highly unusual Irish village full of dark secrets and engaging characters (not all of them still alive). Lushly imagined, delightfully original and very, very funny, it hurtles along from the very first page. A hugely enjoyable read. I can’t wait for more from Jess Kidd.

Sunday Express Magazine

"Kidd's brilliantly bold debut mixes up murder and mayhem with the eerily supernatural. It's a tender, violent and funny story told in prose that is lyrical, lush and hugely imaginative. Utterly unputdownable."

Electric Literature

"[Full of] glorious characters, worthy successors to those of Dickens and Dylan Thomas...Jess Kidd is an author who shows a poet’s way with words and rhythm in her evocation of Mulderrig...[with] a plot of which Agatha Christie would have been proud...[a] beautifully paced, sometimes funny, sometimes sad and ultimately heart-warming book."

Daily Express

"This striking literary debut is a darkly comic tale of murder, intrigue, haunting and illegitimacy . . . wickedly funny."

Financial Times

"An imaginative, witty study of small communities and their secrets."

Vanity Fair

"Over in Dublin, Jess Kidd’s Himself is her supernaturally skillful debut. Irish eyes are glowing."

Tasha Kavanagh

"Jess Kidd is a genius. Her prose sparkles with wit, savagery and startling originality. I loved it."

Psychology Today

[A]n utterly charming darkly comic wonder of Irish magic realism. The ghosts in this small village are ever-present, but they keep their intrusions minimal, sweet, funny, and, at times, useful... The writing is captivating.

Shelf Awareness

Himself, Jess Kidd's debut novel, has an intricate, twisting, turning plot that weaves Irish mythology, magical realism and ghosts into a whodunit that is anything but typical of its genre... As Mahony's search for the truth unfolds, Himself draws on elements of Irish folklore in ways that make Kidd's novel feel both whimsical and ominous... Kidd combines these elements of magic and mystery with moments of wry humor and heartfelt emotion. A tribute to the classic Irish art of storytelling, Himself is a delight from start to finish.

Delaware Gazette

When he discovers that his mother may not have given him up, but that foul play may have led to her disappearance, lovable car thief and Dublin charmer Mahony returns to the rural Irish Village where he was born to find out what really happened 26 years ago and, setting the town on its ear, enlists the help of a brash anarchist and retired theater actress to solve this mystery.

Louis de Bernières

"I love this book. It’s a magic realist murder mystery set in rural Ireland, in which the dead play as important a part as the living. It’s one of those books that has you smiling as you read, and that you plan to read again very soon."

Daily Express

"This striking literary debut is a darkly comic tale of murder, intrigue, haunting and illegitimacy . . . wickedly funny."

Financial Times

"An imaginative, witty study of small communities and their secrets."

Booklist

"Every page of Kidd’s who-done-it novel is filled with magic, spirit, peppery characters, and ghosts of the village dead, including their pets, who are visible only to some...Kidd mixes the darkest capacities of these villagers with carefully observed whimsy and fantasy. Readers who enjoy a dollop of whiskey in their tea will feel right at home in Mulderrig.

School Library Journal

12/01/2017
Mahony spent most of his life believing that his mother abandoned him at an orphanage. In his mid-20s, he learns that she was murdered, so he returns to the town of his birth to uncover the truth. Aided by the wealthy and wily Mrs. Cauley, her sidekick Bridget Doosey, and his ability to see ghosts, Mahony shakes things up and slowly unravels the dark secrets of a small Irish town. Set mostly in the 1970s, the novel also moves to the 1940s and 1950s to focus on the events of the protagonist's birth and his mother's murder. Superstition and magical realism permeate the book, and nature lends a hand in hiding and revealing secrets. Rich in characterization, setting, and salty dialogue, this mystery and journey of self-discovery features some sex and violence but nothing too extreme. Teens will find the quaint town of Mulderrig and its inhabitants fascinating and fearsome. VERDICT A charming addition for strong readers who enjoy well-drawn characters and stories with a hint of magic.—Tamara Saarinen, Gig Harbor Library, WA

APRIL 2017 - AudioFile

This is a haunting—both literally and metaphorically—tale of a young man named Mahony, who is searching for the truth about his past and what happened to his mother. Narrator Aiden Kelly's lilting Irish accent is at once soothing and engaging. Although the story starts somewhat slowly as Kidd focuses more on lyrical writing than on plot, when the tension and mystery begin to build, they’re even more appealing. Kelly's matter-of-fact tone goes a long way to selling the ghosts (both human and animal) and other mystical aspects of the story. All in all, this literary and supernatural crime novel is heartfelt and enrapturing, qualities that are enhanced by Kelly’s narration. J.L.K. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2016-12-15
Lovable car thief and Dublin charmer Mahony had always been told he was left on the steps of an orphanage as a baby. But a deathbed confession reveals that there might be more to the story.Debut novelist Kidd paints a darkly magical tale of a man who revisits his birthplace of Mulderrig, a small coastal town in Ireland, to investigate the mysterious circumstances of his mother's death 26 years earlier. Mahony's mother, Orla, was a ragtag single mum with supernatural powers that townspeople found unsettling. But was that cause for her to be murdered? Or was there more to it? And what forces were at work when Mahony was spared the same fate as his mother the night she disappeared in the woods? Joining Mahony on his quest for answers are three women who add even more color to this richly drawn mystery about a town with more than its share of secrets. There's Mrs. Cauley, a feisty elderly actress with mystical powers of her own. Shauna is one of Mahony's many female admirers. And Orla's old friend Bridget joins the investigative team. When Mrs. Cauley stages a play with Mahony as the lead, she hopes it will lead to answers but instead unleashes a hell storm upon Mulderrig. The Irish hero finally gets the answers he has been searching for but not in the way he expects. Told in a unique voice with complex characters, the paranormal mystery will keep readers guessing whodunit until the very end—all while falling in love with the quirky cast. A darkly comic tale that is skillfully and lyrically told.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170595952
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	03/14/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	954,506

Read an Excerpt

Himself


Mahony shoulders his rucksack, steps off the bus, and stands in the dead center of the village of Mulderrig.

Today Mulderrig is just a benign little speck of a place, uncoiled and sprawling, stretched out in the sun. Pretending to be harmless.

If Mahony could remember the place, which he can’t of course, he’d not notice many changes since he’s been gone. Mulderrig doesn’t change, fast or slowly. Twenty-six years makes no odds.

For Mulderrig is a place like no other. Here the colors are a little bit brighter and the sky is a little bit wider. Here the trees are as old as the mountains and a clear river runs into the sea. People are born to live and stay and die here. They don’t want to go. Why would they when all the roads that lead to Mulderrig are downhill so that leaving is uphill all the way?

At this time of the day the few shops are shuttered and closed, and the signs swing with an after-hours lilt and pitch, and the sun-warmed shop front letters bloom and fade. Up and down the high street, from Adair’s Pharmacy to Farr’s Outfitters, from the offices of Gibbons & McGrath Solicitors to the Post Office and General Store, all is quiet.

A couple of old ones are sitting by the painted pump in the middle of the square. You’ll get no talk from them today: they are struck dumb by the weather, for it hasn’t rained for days and days and days. It’s the hottest April in living and dead memory. So hot that the crows are flying with their tongues hanging out of their heads.

The driver nods to Mahony. “It’s as if a hundred summers have come at once to the town, when a mile along the coast the rain’s hopping up off the ground and there’s a wind that would freeze the tits off a hen. If you ask me,” says the driver, “it all spells a dose of trouble.”

Mahony watches the bus turn out of the square in a broiling cloud of dirt. It rolls back, passengerless, across the narrow stone bridge that spans a listless river. In this weather anything that moves will be netted in a fine caul of dust. Although not much is moving now, other than a straggle of kids pelting home late, leaving their clear cries ringing behind. The mammies are inside making the tea and the daddies are inside waiting to go out for a jar. And so Tadhg Kerrigan is the first living soul in the village to see Mahony back.

Tadhg is propping up the saloon door of Kerrigan’s Bar having changed a difficult barrel and threatened a cellar rat with his deadly tongue. He is setting his red face up to catch a drop of sun while scratching his arse with serious intent. He has been thinking of the Widow Farelly, of her new-built bungalow, the prodigious whiteness of her net curtains and the pigeon plumpness of her chest.

Tadhg gives Mahony a good hard stare across the square as he walks over to the bar. With looks like that, thinks Tadhg, the fella is either a poet or a gobshite, with the long hair and the leather jacket and the walk on it, like his doesn’t smell.

“All right so?”

“I’m grand,” says Mahony, putting his rucksack down and smiling up through his hair, an unwashed variety that’s grown past his ears and then some.

Tadhg decides that this fella is most definitely a gobshite.

Whether the dead of Mulderrig agree or not it’s difficult to tell, but they begin to look out cautiously from bedroom windows or drift faintly down the back lanes to stop short and stare.

For the dead are always close by in a life like Mahony’s. The dead are drawn to the confused and the unwritten, the damaged and the fractured, to those with big cracks and gaps in their tales, which the dead just yearn to fill. For the dead have secondhand stories to share with you, if you’d only let them get a foot in the door.

But the dead can watch. And they can wait.

For Mahony doesn’t see them now.

He stopped seeing them a long time ago.

Now the dead are confined to a brief scud across the room at lights-out, or a wobble now and then in his peripheral vision. Now Mahony can ignore them in much the same way as you’d ignore the ticks of an over-loud grandfather clock.

So Mahony pays no notice at all to the dead old woman pushing her face through the wall next to Tadhg’s right elbow. And Tadhg pays no notice either, for, like the rest of us, he is blessed with a blissful lack of vision.

The dead old woman opens a pair of briny eyes as round as vinegar eggs and looks at Mahony, and Mahony looks away, smiling full into Tadhg’s big face. “So are there any digs about the town, pal?”

“There’s no work here.” Tadhg crosses his arms high on his chest and sniffs woefully.

Mahony produces a half pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and Tadhg takes one. They stand smoking awhile, Tadhg with his eyes narrowed against the sun, Mahony with a shadow of a smile on his face. The dead old woman slips out a good few inches above the pavement and points enigmatically down towards the cellar, muttering darkly.

Mahony increases his smile to show his teeth in an expression of considerable natural charm altogether capable of beguiling the hardest bastard of humankind. “Well, the last thing I need is work. I’m taking a break from the city.”

“It’s the city, is it?”

The dead old woman draws close enough to whisper in Mahony’s ear.

Mahony takes a drag and then exhales. “It is. With the noise and the cars and the rats.”

“Rats, are there?” Tadhg narrows his eyes.

“As big as sheep.”

Tadhg is outwardly unmoved, although he sympathizes deep in his soul. “Rats are a very great problem in the world,” he says sagely.

“They are in Dublin.”

“So what brought you here?”

“I wanted a bit of peace and quiet. Do you know on the map there’s nothing at all around you?”

“It’s the arse end of beyond you’re after then?”

Mahony looks thoughtful. “Do you know? I think it is.”

“Well, you’ve found it. You’re on the run in the Wild West?”

“Seems so.”

“A lady or the law?”

Mahony takes his cigarette out of his mouth and flicks it in the direction of the dead old woman, who throws a profoundly disgusted look at him. She lifts her filmy skirts and flits back through the wall of the pub.

“She was no lady.”

Tadhg’s face twitches as he curbs a smile. “What are we calling you?”

“Mahony.”

Tadhg notes a good firm handshake. “Mahony it is then.”

“So will I find a bed tonight or will I have to curl up with those antiques on the bench there?”

Tadhg withholds a fart, just while he’s thinking. “Shauna Burke rents out rooms to paying guests at Rathmore House up in the forest. That’s about it.”

“That’d be grand.”

Tadhg takes a thorough glance at Mahony. He’ll admit that he has a sort of bearing about him. He’s not a bad height and he’s strong looking, handy even. He’s been into his twenties and he’ll come out again the other side none the worse for it; he has the kind of face that will stay young. But he could do with a wash; he has the stubble of days on his chin. And his trousers are ridiculous: tight around the crotch and wide enough at the bottom to mop the main road.

Tadhg nods at them. “They’re all the rage now? Them trousers?”

“They are, yeah.”

“Do you not feel like a bit of an eejit wearing them?”

Mahony smiles. “They all wear ’em in town. There’s wider.”

Tadhg raises his eyebrows a fraction. “Is there now? Well, you wouldn’t want to be caught in a gust of wind.”

Tadhg can see that the girls would be falling over themselves if this fella ever had the notion to shave himself or pick up a bar of soap. And Mahony knows it too. It’s there in the curve of his smile and the light in his dark eyes. It’s in the way he moves, like he owns every inch of himself.

Tadhg stakes a smile. “You’ll need to watch the other guest who lives up there, Mrs. Cauley. The woman’s titanic.”

“After what I’ve been afflicted with I’m sure I can handle her.” And Mahony turns his laughing eyes up to Tadhg.

Now Tadhg is not a man given to remarkable insights but he is suddenly certain of two things.

One: that he’s seen those eyes before.

Two: that he is almost certainly having a stroke.

For the blood inside Tadhg has begun to belt around his body for the first time in a very long time and he knows that it can’t be good to stir up a system that has been sumping and rusting to a comfortable dodder. Tadhg puts his hands over his face and leans heavily against the saloon door. He can almost feel a big fecker of a blood clot hurtling towards his brain to knock him clean out of the living world.

“Are you all right, pal?”

Tadhg opens his eyes. The fella who is having a break from Dublin is frowning up at him. Tadhg reels off a silent prayer against the darkest of Mulderrig’s dark dreams. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his forehead. And as the hairs settle on the back of his neck he tells himself that this fella is really no more than a stranger.

Whatever he thought he saw in his face has gone.

In front of him is a Dublin hippy passing through the arse end of beyond.

“Are you all right?”

Tadhg nods. “I am, of course.”

The stranger smiles. “You open? I could do time for a pint.”

“Come inside now,” Tadhg says, and resolutely decides to lay off the sunshine.

Luckily the sun has a desperate struggle to get in through the windows of Kerrigan’s Bar, but if it can seep through the smoky curtains it can alight on the sticky dark wood tables. Or it can work up a dull shine on the horse brasses by the side of the fire, unlit and full of crisp packets. Or it can bathe the pint of stout in Sergeant Jack Brophy’s hand to an even richer, warmer hue.

“Jack, this is Mahony.”

Mahony puts his rucksack by the door.

Jack turns to look at him. He nods. “Get the man a pint, Tadhg. Here, Mahony, sit by me.”

Mahony sits down next to Jack, a strong square wall of a man, and, like all mortals, he begins to feel soothed. Mahony isn’t to know that Jack has this effect on the mad, the bad, the imaginative, and skittish horses, whether off duty or on. Ask anyone and they will tell you it’s what makes Jack a good cop—a great guard. For here he is working his stretch of the coast, sorting out the wicked, the misjudged, and the maligned without having to once raise his voice.

Tadhg puts a pint in front of Mahony.

“Now, tell me about it,” says Jack, barely moving his lips.

Mahony could tell him about it. Mahony could start by telling Jack what happened last Thursday.



Last Thursday, Father Gerard McNamara walked into the Bridge Tavern with a black leather folio in his hand and an envelope inside the folio. He was seeking one of St. Anthony’s most notorious alumni and had started by visiting the bars within a one-mile radius of the orphanage. For Father McNamara was heeding the advice of the local guards along with the principle that a rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; it usually lands and festers right next to it.

Mahony was emanating from the jacks with a cigarette in his mouth as Father McNamara came round the side of the bar.

“I’ll have a word with you, Mahony.”

Mahony took out his cigarette and squinted at the priest. “Sit yourself down, have a drink with me, Father.”

The priest threw Mahony a caustic look, put the folio on the bar, and unzipped it.

Mahony pulled himself back up onto his stool and took hold of his pint with serious dedication. “Ah, excuse me, I didn’t shake your hand, did I, Father? You see I’ve just touched something far from godly but just as capable of inflicting bliss.”

Jim behind the bar grinned.

Father McNamara extracted the envelope from his folio. “Sister Veronica passed away. She asked for this to be given to you.”

Mahony looked at the letter on the bar.

“Have you got the right man, Father? Sister Veronica wasn’t exactly head of me fan club now, was she? Why would she be leaving me anything? God rest her pure and caring soul.”

Father McNamara shrugged. He didn’t give a shite; he just wanted to get out of the pub.

Mahony watched Father McNamara zip up his leather folio, put it under his arm, and walk back out through the saloon door into the weak Dublin sunshine. Mahony finished his pint, ordered another, and looked at the envelope. Then he found himself remembering.

He was no more than six.

Sister Veronica said that there wasn’t a letter left with him. Wasn’t he a little bastard that no one wanted and why would anyone be writing letters for him?

Sister Veronica said that his mammy was too busy working the docks to write.

Sister Veronica said that his mammy had only brought him to the nuns instead of drowning him because she couldn’t find a bucket.

But Sister Mary Margaret had told Mahony a different story, while she had taught him to hold a pencil and form his letters, and recognize all the major saints and many of the minor ones.

Once upon a time Sister Mary Margaret had answered a loud knocking at the door of the orphanage. It was very early one morning, before the city was awake. All the pigeons had their heads tucked under their wings and all the rats were curled up tight behind the dustbins. All the cars and lorries were asleep in their garages and depots, and all the trains slumbered on their tracks at Connolly Station. All the boats bobbed gently in the harbor, dreaming of the high seas, and all the bicycles slept leaning along the fences. Even the angels were asleep at the foot of the O’Connell Monument, fluttering their wings as they dreamt, quite forgetting to hold still and pretend to be statues.

The whole wide city was asleep when Sister Mary Margaret opened the door of the orphanage.

And there, on the steps, was a baby.

Of all the things in the world!

A baby in a basket, with a quilt of leaves and a pillow of rose petals.

A baby in a basket, just like Moses!

The baby had looked up at Sister Mary Margaret with two bright eyes and smiled at her. And she had smiled right back.

Mahony clung on to the bar. He couldn’t light a cigarette or pick up his pint, he couldn’t move, the sweat was pouring off him. He closed his eyes and right there in his memory he found Sister Mary Margaret, as she was the last time he saw her.

He was not even seven. At first he had held back from climbing up, for fear that he would break her. But Sister Mary Margaret had smiled down at him, so he scaled the arctic landscape of the bed. Without that smile he wouldn’t have known her.

Sister Mary Margaret had a cancer the size of a man’s head in her stomach and was as good as dead under the ground. That’s what they had told him but he’d come to see for himself.

He sat next to Sister Mary Margaret and let her wipe his nose with her handkerchief although he was too old for it. It took her hours because she kept falling asleep. He had wished to God that he wasn’t trailing great lanes of snot. But Mahony always had a cold from the fact that the tops of his fingers were often blue and his socks were never quite dry.

She had looked at him with her shrunken face on one side and he’d looked back at the ridge of her eye bone.

“A letter was left with you,” she whispered. “Sister Veronica took it.”

But then Sister Dymphna appeared and gave him a fierce slap and marched him out of the sanatorium.

Mahony wiped his eyes and glanced around the bar; the drinkers were sculling through their own thoughts and the barman had gone to change a barrel. He was safe.

He looked at the envelope in his hand.

For when the child is grown.

A good solid schoolteacherly hand, slanted in all the right places.

On the back of the envelope was a seal of sorts. A tiny medal of wax stamped with the shape of some old coin or other. He liked that: Sister Veronica had kept it back from him but she hadn’t opened it.

Mahony broke the seal.

Mahony will tell you to his dying day that the arse fell out of the barstool just after he opened that envelope. Then the barstool fell through the floor and the whole world turned itself about.

But then, when Mahony looked around himself, everything was exactly the same. The same smeared mirrors over the same dirty seats. The same sad bastards falling into their glasses and the same smell crawling out of the gents.

Inside the envelope was a photograph of a girl with a half smile holding a blurred bundle, high and awkwardly, like found treasure. Mahony turned it over and the good solid schoolteacherly hand dealt him a left hook.

Your name is Francis Sweeney. Your mammy was Orla Sweeney. You are from Mulderrig, Co. Mayo. This is a picture of yourself and her. For your information she was the curse of the town, so they took her from you. They all lie, so watch yourself, and know that your mammy loved you.

His mammy had loved him. Past tense. Mammy was past tense.

They took her from him. Where did they take her?

Mahony turned over the photograph and studied her face. God, she looked young. He would have put her as his sister rather. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen.

And his name was Francis. He’d keep that to himself.

Mahony lit a smoke and turned to the drinker next to him. “Paddy, have you been to Mayo?”

“I haven’t,” Paddy said, without lifting his chin from his chest.

Mahony frowned. “Jim, what’s in Mayo?”

Jim put down the tea towel. “I’m fucked if I know. Why?”

“I’m going to take a trip there, see how the land lies.”

“Grand so.”

Mahony stood unsteadily and picked up his lighter. “I’m going. I am, Jim. Fuck it. What have I got to keep me here?” He included the bar with a wave of his cig. “Nothin’—name one thing.”

“Parole,” said Paddy to his navel.



Mahony takes a taste of his pint and watches as Jack Brophy rolls a cigarette, deftly, with one hand. A hand as strong as a tree root, brown and calloused with big square cracked nails and deep gouged old scars. Mahony watches Jack and feels his brain slow a little. He breathes in tobacco, good soil, driving rain, calm sun, and fresh air off the broad back of the quiet man.

Still. He’ll tell Jack nothing of what happened last Thursday.

Mahony smiles. “The truth is I’ve come here to get away from it all.”

A collie noses out from behind the bar.

When it turns its head Mahony sees that it only has one good eye, the other rests messily on the dog’s cheek. Its ribs are caved in, leaving a dark sticky ditch. A dog that broken would have to be dead, and of course it is, fuck it.

Mahony sucks air in through his teeth and looks away.

The dead dog turns to lick Jack’s hand, which trails down holding his cigarette, but its muzzle goes straight through and the dog, finding no response, folds itself up at the foot of his master’s bar stool and rests the good side of its face on its faint paws.

Mahony studies his pint. “All I really want,” he says, “is a bit of peace and quiet.”

Sometimes a man is in no way honest.

“Aye,” says Jack. The word is little more than an exhalation of air. “So that’s it?”

Mahony feels no malice. He could tell them, ask them; he could start right here.

The two men look at him.

Mahony picks up his pint. “That’s my story. I have no other.”

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