The Night Swimmer by Matt Bondurant Page B

us as we talked.
    Have you spoken with Fred lately?
    Just today, I said.
    Bill frowned and pursed his lips.
    What?
    There . . . there was a problem of some kind. At the bar.
    Fred? With who?
    Not sure, Bill said. Hang on a second.
    He folded up his paper and took hold of my elbow and ushered me away from the Siopa Beag tables and the others who hung around waiting for the ferry.
    The customers, Bill said, some local guys. Heard things were a bit testy. Just a rumor.
    Bill held up his hands.
    I don’t know the whole story. I’m sure it’s nothing. You gonna come see Nell and me sometime?
    Sure, I said, but I don’t even know where you live.
    Ah, he said. Easy. Just take that little path to the right before you reach Nora’s. We’re the only ones up there. Around four Nell likes to have her tea on the terrace. Come any day.
    *  *  *
    Stephen-the-fucking-blow-in was on the ferry, and when I mentioned that Kieran’s people had been to the Nightjar, he whistled and shook his head. He told me about the pair of prize mules that he owned; apparently they could not be contained in their fields and had developed a tendency to get into other people’s gardens and cause a bit of damage. Stephen and his wife often visited their daughters, sometimes for a month at a time, arranging with someone to feed and look after the animals. Despite this, the mules would get free, and sometimes the minder would give up easy and the mules would wander for a week or more. Last time some of the islanders had appealed to Kieran to put a stop to it.
    Kieran sent his son Conchur over, Stephen said, to let me know that next time they’ll take care of it.
    How?
    Stephen shrugged.
    Whatever they want.
    Can he do that? I asked.
    Well, there ain’t exactly anyone here to stop him.
    What about the police?
    The guard? Who’s gonna call ’em? It takes them at least a day to get out to the island, and when they did Kieran would buy his cousins a beer and they’d all have a fine time.
    We were quiet awhile as the ferry threaded its way east, Stephen gazing at Sherkin, a mass of green gliding past on our starboard side. Island justice.
    He sighed and rolled his head around a bit, then told me a story about a man from Galway, a bird-watcher, who came to the island one season. The fellow got drunk at the Five Bells and ripped out the plumbing in the bathroom. The ferry refused to take him off the island, and no one gave him shelter or food for three days. The man was howling in misery on the hillsides, sleeping in caves. Stephen shrugged. We came around the point of Baltimore, the beacon up on the cliff, entering the harbor.
    Come see us, I said, at the Nightjar. I’d like you to meet Fred, my husband.
    Stephen looked at me with a sad expression, gripping his bag.
    Sure, Elly. Sometime, for sure.
    *  *  *
    The door to the Nightjar was propped open when I came up the hill from the harbor. There was a kind of stillness in the air, and the people on the docks and sidewalk seemed to glide past me with blank stares. A couple of men stood outside the Jolie Brisée, the pub a few doors down, watching me cross the street. When I came in the pub was empty save a couple of English bird-watchers at a corner table and Dinny perched at the bar nursing a pint. Fred was nowhere in sight. I went around the bar and said hello to Dinny, who nodded at me with a crooked grin. I found Fred in the kitchen huddled over the stove, making an omelet. He came at me with an exaggerated low-step and picked me up in a bear hug, kissing my neck.
    Sweet, sweet E, he said.
    I tried to look him in the eye. His face seemed especially ruddy and his mouth loose. He smelled of whiskey.
    Are you okay?
    I’m good, I’m good. Want something to eat?
    Been doing some drinking?
    A bit, a bit.
    How’s business?
    Fred shrugged and gestured to the front room.
    Whaddya think? Not real great.
    He slipped the omelet onto a