The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney Page B

so she’d been deposed, and the collaborating subordinate given a slap around the chops. Since then she’d learned conversational Russian and had assumed position as a kind of guide for girls whose penury pointed them towards sex work. She still fancied herself a madam, only now she believed her freelance status allowed her an attractive impartiality and an air of great benevolence. A whore had once told Jimmy that Tara kept unhealthy hours online, employing sockpuppet accounts to argue with anti-prostitution campaigners and cribbing about Catholic Ireland. That had tickled him. He was happy to give her delusions free rein; his managers used her on occasion as a finder or a go-between.
    Her front room was poky. There were magazines stacked on the shelves, clashing art on the walls. Beside the laptop on the coffee table was a mug with a delicate paper label hanging down the side. There was a chat window open on the laptop screen.
Of course hunni xxx Dont worry. My mom’s just come home brb. Don’t start without me plz luv u.
    Don let her get to u baby. B strong.
    “Online chat?” he said. “I thought your daughter was in bed?”
    “She was up a while ago, like.”
    He grinned and leaned forward. “Her ‘mom’ just came home and sent her to bed, was it? Was she up all night talking to nobbers? And drinking tea with labels on it; ah, she’s pure sophisticated.”
    “Can I help you with something, Jimmy?”
    “Probably,” he said. She went to fold her arms and changed her mind, for one brief moment falling into the chicken dance.
    “Tara,” he said.
    “Yes?”
    “I’m obviously looking for someone.”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you know where the fuck he is?”
    “Tony Cusack?”
    “That’d be the man. I have the right house so.”
    “Why are you looking for Tony Cusack?”
    “Why are you asking me?”
    Her hands made fists. She tucked each into its opposite armpit.
    “Seriously, Tara? Trying to ascertain what I know before choosing your best answer is only going to make me very pissy.”
    She pouted. “He’s drying out.”
    “He’s what?”
    “Drying out. You know. Some residential programme. The kids are with his sisters and he hasn’t been home in weeks.”
    “I didn’t see Cusack as the health-conscious type,” he said.
    “He’s not,” she said. “It was court-ordered.”
    “Court-ordered? Fuck me—what did he do to deserve that?”
    “What didn’t he do to deserve it?”
    “Seems a harmless sort, is all.”
    She seethed. “He’s not harmless. He’s a horrible man. Violent. Very violent.”
    “We are talking about the right Tony Cusack, aren’t we? Scruffy fella, big brown peepers, married a dago lasher with knockers out to here?”
    “Some people are just bad,” she said. “No matter how often you get lost in their eyes.”
    Her peevishness tickled him. “That doesn’t sound like the bleeding-heart Tara Duane I know.”
    “He’s a child abuser.”
    “Holy fuck, anything else?”
    “Yeah, actually. He put my front window in. With a hurley. Beat the glass through. And I have to live beside him after all that and I frightened of me life of him.”
    “Tony Cusack put your front window in.”
    “Yeah. So I’d advise you to have nothing to do with him.”
    “Why’d he put your window in?”
    “Why do you care?” she said.
    “I don’t.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Lovers tiff?” he asked. “Were you fucking him, Tara?”
    “Excuse me, I was not.”
    “Why else would a man blow your house down? Did you put the wrong tags on the bins? Stay up too late bawling along to ABBA? Come on, Tara. Why’d you fall out with him?”
    “Are you looking for him or questioning me?”
    “First one, then the other.”
    The light from the laptop screen dimmed as it switched to screensaver. Jimmy stretched and shifted back on the couch.
    “His oldest is a boy,” Tara said. “Sixteen. Last year he thought I was…”
    It was pause enough to draw out his laughter.
    “Jesus