And himself.
With him around, no one would get close to me. But I would never get close to him.
He fussed around a little bit with the plate and what was coming out of the pot and a jar of red jam by the cutting board. “It’s Sinead’s specialty. It’s not fancy but it will fill you up, like.”
“Yeah?”
“Potato bread farl,” he said. “One with beans. One with jam.” He handed me the plate and then went back to get his own. Then he sat down next to me at the table. A knife and fork were in front of me, and I used them to scoop up some of the beans. Then had a bite of the bread.
“Did she make this for you a lot?” I asked, stepping carefully into unknown waters, expecting at any second for him to snap my hand off for trying. He’d destroyed me last night. Laid waste to the person I was. The conceptions I had about myself. I’d like to think I took a couple of chunks off him too. But I could never tell. Not with him.
“Once,” he said. “One time. But she told me then that it was her specialty. Though, I figure she might have been lying.”
The food was salty and rich and we both ate like it was the only thing that mattered.
“What was the one time?” I asked, and he shook his head without looking at me. Like he wasn’t going to tell me that story. I pulled the bread, which was sort of flat and stretchy but tasted like butter and salt. I ate the edges around the jam.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Saving the best part for last. You don’t do that?”
“God no.” He laughed. Again. It was almost like I was dreaming. “Gives the assholes a chance to knick it. You’ve got to have the best part first or you’ll never get it.”
“Did you learn that at the school up there?”
“You’re really fishing, aren’t you?”
“If, in a few hours, we’re never going to see each other again, what’s the harm in telling me?”
“If, in a few hours, we’re never going to see each other again, what’s the point?” he fired back, his blue eyes shuttered.
I shrugged and set down the food. I wasn’t hungry anymore and wasn’t tired either. He ate quickly, the plate pulled close like at any moment it might get taken away. I remembered the way he’d eaten when we’d sat in that bullshit office Caroline had given me. He’d eaten like we were in a fine-dining restaurant. All manners and grace.
“I’m never going to understand you, much less know you, am I?”
He laughed once more over his food and then sat back with his cup of coffee. “Princess,” he said. “I sincerely hope not.”
“Has anyone?”
“Caroline,” he said, surprising me. “She . . . knew me. Or a part of me, anyway. Or maybe she just made me feel like she knew me. Like the worst parts of me and . . . she thought they were admirable. Useful.”
I think you’re admirable, I almost said, but kept the words behind my teeth.
“But she just wanted . . . what did that Morelli call me? A junkyard dog?”
“She could have found one of those anywhere,” I said. “I think she must have seen something special in you.”
“That’s because you still think something about Caroline is pure.”
“Why else would she—?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug, like it didn’t matter, but I could tell it did. It had to.
“Why did we come here?” I asked, leaning back, my stomach full. Bold because I was running out of time to know him. And I wanted so badly to know him.
He stood, picking up his plate and taking mine back to the sink.
“Because no one would ever think to look here,” he said. “Because it’s the edge of the fucking world.” The dishes clattered in the sink and he turned on the water. Abruptly, he turned it back off. “She was the only one who ever helped,” he said. “That’s why we’re back here. Because Sinead, at huge cost to herself, when she found out what was going on up at the church, she raised bloody hell.” He turned to face me, braced against the counter and the night sky outside the window. One lonely light on in the vestry window.
“Father McConal was running out of ways to punish Tommy. Nothing worked. He’d beat him and starve him. Wouldn’t let him sleep. But then he’d found out that Tommy was feeding those fucking cats. Tommy loved those cats, Poppy. He’d named ’em. Fretted over ’em. Found any reason to help Father Patrick with the garden. But McConal found out and he had them all killed. Twenty cats. Can you believe it? Tommy went absolutely mad. Screaming and crying and promising to do anything. Total surrender, the one thing he’d promised he’d never do. But Father McConal didn’t give a shit at that point. He didn’t care about Tommy’s soul. He only wanted to hurt him. So, the cats were killed and two nights later, Tommy hung himself with a sheet in the bathrooms.