Barefoot Over Stones Read online

  Con Abernethy was never seen anywhere without his faithful servant close by ready to shake a hand, pass on a request or stand a drink to grease a palm.

  Columbo’s constant presence meant that Dan had been slagged endlessly by lads in his class in Leachlara Community School. In the run-up to any election the ribbing became ever more vigorous.

  ‘So tell us, Dan, how does your mam feel when she wakes up to find your dad and Columbo in the bed with her talking quotas and strategy?’

  ‘Does Columbo eat the dinner with you all or does he have a dog bowl at the foot of the table?’

  ‘Will it be your mother or Columbo that gets the first passionate snog the night of the election count?’

  On and on it went and Dan coped by laughing the loudest of all. He could have swung a languid punch and knocked any of the smart alecs on the side of their cocky jaw. As the tallest of all his classmates, one punch might have been enough to silence a multitude. He decided early on that the relaxed approach was the best one. Leachlara had plenty to say about the Abernethys without hot-headedness from Dan giving them further ammunition.

  As an only child Dan relished the company of the lads in school. He found the quietness and order at home stifling. His father even ran his TD clinics from Shanahan’s pub on Main Street because his wife would not allow the great unwashed of Leachlara to step on her carpets or put their car keys on her French-polished furniture. In truth the dog-bowl-for-Columbo jibe was not too far off the mark. There was a green mug that he always got his tea in when he called to see Con. Columbo took it as an honour that he was so much part of the family he had his own mug. In truth Mary Abernethy did not want Columbo’s dentures, and the filth she imagined they carried, defiling the china. She mostly discouraged Con from bringing him further than the back door and certainly no further than the kitchen table, where the tiles could cope better than her carpets with anything that might fall from his shoes. Columbo felt he had a seat at the heart of Con’s home and that was an honour in itself. As for the trench coat that had earned him his nickname, well, she tried not to think where that had been and how long it had travelled without so much as a whistle of dry cleaning. She had made Con give Columbo a generous voucher for Harty’s Gentleman’s Outfitters in Tipperary when he topped the poll at the last election, in the hope that he would get a new overcoat. A pair of brand-new wellington boots for the ploughing championships seemed to be the only purchase so far and possibly some fabulously loud neckties which were whipped out with overwhelming pride for party functions, especially the odd nights in the Dáil bar when Con brought the faithful to the city to reward their hard and relentless work on his behalf.

  ‘Tell him to buy himself a decent coat, Con. He is no addition to you dressed like that.’

  Dan watched his mother vigorously clean the chair that Columbo had just vacated with a small lake of disinfectant. His father eyed his mother dismissively. ‘Columbo is not responsible for most of the foul smells around here.’

  Mary Abernethy, oblivious it seemed to her husband’s sharp dig, cleaned on like a woman whose very existence depended on the polishing cloth.

  Dan did wince inside when the mockery moved to speculating about Columbo sharing his parents’ marital bed. He could not remember a time when his parents had slept in the same room. As far back as his memory could recall his mother’s room had been at the top of the landing while Con Abernethy slept in the back of the house in a room that doubled as his office. While the Dáil sat he stayed in Dublin in the apartment he had bought near the Burlington.

  Mary Abernethy travelled to Dublin on only very rare occasions, usually to show her face for the first day of parliamentary business after a general election or at the annual party conference. On these occasions she mostly stayed in the Gresham, in a room overlooking O’Connell Street. Con’s apartment was small, she reasoned, and there was always bound to be some hanger-on from home wanting to pitch themselves in the TD’s place, anxious for a sniff at the pot of power. She preferred to hold court in Leachlara while her husband attended to business elsewhere. Her only son was her favourite project. He would turn out perfectly, she would see to that.

  Dan felt the pressure of his mother’s ambition for him but he did not allow it to weigh heavily on his shoulders. He loved his mother, or at least he thought he must, but his father was his real companion in the house. He looked forward to him coming home from Dublin on a Thursday night because his presence made the shipshape house a shade unpredictable. The phone would start to ring checking that Con was back and party workers would troop to the kitchen table (through the back door, that was understood) to hear the gossip from Dublin and share any snippets of local news or dissent that Con would find useful before his Saturday-morning clinic in Shanahan’s lounge. Dan loved to join in these kitchen-table conferences and his presence was respected and encouraged by his father’s troupe of workers. Who knew? They could be looking at a future candidate. No one wanted to start off on the wrong foot with someone they might well be championing in the future. Whatever their reasons for tolerating him in their grown man’s world, Dan was grateful, not least because his father’s job and Dan’s access to his coterie of supporters gave him some sense of the world that lay beyond Leachlara, a world he planned to escape to at the first available opportunity.

  So it was with a mixture of affection and utter bemusement that Dan turned in the direction of the familiar booming voice that had interrupted Consultant Mackey’s lecture. Columbo was no stranger to the loudhailer style of delivery and had neglected to turn down the volume in the hushed surroundings of a corridor in a teaching hospital.

  ‘Heartiest apologies for interrupting the serious work at hand, sir, but I need a quick word with young Dr Abernethy here on urgent personal business.’

  Dan flushed. Columbo had awarded him his medical qualification about a year prematurely. He shot a glance at Consultant Mackey and he could see the look of withering disdain building behind the forbidding spectacles.

  ‘Well, it is most irregular to have a teaching slot interrupted but I suppose, Mr Abernethy, if your personal business is more important than my time then so be it.’ Then, beckoning to Dan’s fellow students, he said haughtily, ‘Further training, for those of you that remain interested, will take place in the Alphonsos Ward.’

  As if in one of the less eventful episodes of One Man and His Dog, the medical students set off in sheeplike formation in Consultant Mackey’s wake, leaving Dan and Columbo alone in the freshly deserted corridor.

  ‘Jesus, Columbo, what’s this all about? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Sorry, Dan, but I had to come and talk to you. It’s your father. Well, it’s your mother really that’s posing the problem but I suppose you could say that your father started it.’

  ‘What in the name of God are you talking about?’

  ‘They’re fighting again. At each other’s throats this time.’

  ‘For God’s sake, they are always fighting. They can’t fucking stand each other. So what’s new that has you hunting me down in Dublin about it?’

  Columbo seemed winded and Dan motioned to a bench at the end of the corridor. After Columbo had downed his considerable bulk on the low bench there was barely enough room for Dan. Impatience was rising within him, but it was directed at his absent parents so he decided to spare Columbo his more barbed thoughts.

  ‘It’s a bit delicate but I suppose you see a lot in your line of work. Makes you cope with the unpalatable.’

  ‘Has my mam taken a swipe at him or what? For God’s sake, Columbo, spit it out!’

  ‘Jesus, no, it’s nothing like that. She has only upped and taken into her head that your father is having a fling, and I’ll tell you this much it’s making the woman mighty sour. She looks like she is about to blow. She’s talking newspapers, Liveline, the lot.’

  ‘An affair? Who with, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Dan, a bit of faith in your father, please. There isn’t a more decent man in th
e town of Leachlara.’

  ‘Well, who does she think he is having the affair with so, or are you saying my mother is making it up?’

  ‘It’s a shocking misunderstanding really, nothing to it at all. There’s a girl, Leda Clancy, that does the odd night behind the bar at Shanahan’s. You know her, I’d say. She would be a daughter to Ted Clancy, a farmer from Briartullog above the town.’

  Dan nodded. He was beginning to suspect where this was going and his gut knotted at the sickening prospect. The Clancy girls were younger than he was. He thought one of them might have been living in one of his father’s houses on Leeson Street. He was there the night that her father arranged the flat for her with his dad.

  ‘Well, she has taken a bit of a shine to your father and your father has been very nice to her – like he is to everyone else in the town, I may say.’ Columbo’s indignation was rising with each snippet of the drip feed to Dan. His master was under fire and arms were to the ready for his staunch defence. ‘He even brought her to the Dáil outing that last time we came. Very important to get the young vote, you know, and your father never forgets the young. You know that, Dan.’

  Columbo could see that Dan was struggling with the news. No response was forthcoming so he gamely continued. No point in letting silence fester. Dr Abernethy here was going to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

  ‘She is a grand girl really but I suppose you could say that she has had her head turned by your father. Some louser is after making a note into a hymn for your mother and between the jigs and the reels she has put one and two together and come up with the atomic bomb. I tell you this much, if I got my hands on the fucker that’s spreading this slurry about an innocent man—’

  ‘What makes you so sure it’s not true?’ Dan’s voice was no louder than a whisper.

  ‘Jesus, am I not after telling you that there’s nothing to it? Only some little wily weasel getting to your mother and trying to spoil all your father’s hard work? No civil word is coming from your mother’s direction. If this blows your father is a goner. The girl is still in school and there is no way it’s going to look good. The thing is, Dan, they need you home. Now. Today.’

  ‘I can’t. This is my life right here. This hospital, lectures, being a doctor. I can’t just head off home to Leachlara to sort this mess out. If it’s a misunderstanding they will get over it without my being there.’ Dan was saying the words but he knew in his heart and soul that before the evening was out he would be asking his tutor to sign him off ward duty and picking the right moment to tell Consultant Mackey that his private business was indeed more important than his medical training, for a few days at least.

  Columbo retreated up the corridor of St James and Pious Wing having extracted a promise from Dan that he would be at Leeson Street Bridge at nine o’clock, ready to accept a lift to Leachlara. His belly hit the cold air first and he dragged the edges of his coat together to barricade himself against the slicing wind. Business done he ambled his way to the hospital car park and onwards to the bar of Buswells where he would while away the hours until night fell. There was always someone there that he could tap for information and see if word of the trouble for Deputy Abernethy had seeped outside Leachlara. If they moved fast he hoped that the whole sorry mess could be contained, a blip in an otherwise smack-smooth year. In these circumstances, Columbo firmly believed that it was an excellent idea to be seen keeping the bright side out, just in case someone was watching and sniffing a touch of scandal.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Naas road was hospitably and unusually clear of heavy traffic. Not even the wet glare of the damp roads was doing anything to delay Columbo as he cruised his way to Leachlara with Dan in absolutely reluctant tow. He might as well have been mute, not in a sullen way but totally preoccupied, so Columbo had decided to leave him be. He had of course made some valiant attempts at conversation, but Dan was having none of it. Faced with a wall of silence unwilling to crumble, Columbo turned up the radio and concentrated on getting to Leachlara as soon as possible. He adhered to the speed limit erratically and mostly unintentionally. A frivolity such as a speed sign was not going to obstruct important business; besides, he did happen to know a few people who could quash a summons if the need arose.

  At teatime he had rung the Abernethy house to have a quick word with Con. He felt triumphant that he had snared Dan and was bringing him home to ease the pressure on Con and defuse a nasty situation for the party. His boss was edgy on the phone and didn’t seem half as grateful as Columbo felt was his due. Maybe Mary was in the vicinity and causing tension, he reasoned to himself through his disappointment. The conversation was brief, with Columbo blaming a bad line so that the awkwardness between them would not have to be acknowledged. A thaw set in on his passenger as they covered the last miles to Leachlara.

  ‘I’m not sure what you all think I can do, you know. When Mam goes off the deep end she generally has to make the return trip all by herself. If Dad has tried and failed – well, then I’m not sure I have a hope in hell. It’s a mistake me coming down. Sure neither of them listens to me.’

  Columbo waited, not wanting to interrupt Dan’s sudden bout of loquaciousness, but Dan just as quickly fell silent again. Columbo dived in with rousing encouragement.

  ‘Good God, Dan, they idolize you! Don’t you see that is why I am bringing you home? You are Exhibit A. You are the reason that this tripe your mother is peddling will never leave the four walls. You are the bomb-disposal unit of the Abernethy house. Your mother would never risk your future or embarrassment no matter how pissed she is with your father.’

  ‘Columbo, when you came to the hospital today you said it was all a horrible misunderstanding, that Mam was blowing things all out of proportion. Can I take it that you are now admitting that something actually happened between my father and Leda Clancy?’

  Columbo didn’t answer. He was getting angry with a cautious driver in front who was pedantic about being in the thirty-miles-an-hour zone, but mostly he was just buying time. Con Abernethy’s house was only five minutes away and he had to deliver Dan in the best possible form, ready to put his shoulder to the job of calming Mary Abernethy down.

  Dan knew what his silence meant and he reacted as if he had been kicked in the gut. ‘For Jesus’ sake, Columbo, there is no point lying to me. Why didn’t you just tell me what you knew about this rather than bringing me here like some kind of blindfolded social worker to iron this shit out? If my dad is shagging a schoolgirl don’t you think I might need to know the truth?’

  The Abernethy house was coming into their view, fully illuminated in a copse of trees and set back from the main road. It had been a rector’s house originally and had now been owned by the Abernethy family for two generations. The copper and russet tones of a beech hedge lined the curling avenue and the bare bark of a Virginia creeper clad the elegant walls with its branches framing the imposing entrance. Columbo slowed the pace to a respectful limit as he proceeded up the avenue. He brought the car to a halt in the yard that ran round the side of the house and led to the back door. When the car was silent, save for the radio, he turned to give Dan one more shot of adrenalin before he left the cocoon of the car.

  ‘Look, your father is a good man. If he has slipped and made a mistake – and I am not saying for sure that he has, mind – but if he has, then it’s one slip-up in a glorious and unblemished life.’

  ‘You’ll be nominating him for canonization next and we both know, whatever he is, my father is certainly no saint.’

  Columbo allowed himself a small sigh of relief at Dan’s stab at humour. Maybe all was not lost. ‘All I am saying is talk to them. Bring your mother down from the roof where she has perched herself. She will give herself heart failure and we don’t want that.’

  Dan wasn’t so sure Columbo felt that benignly about his mother: a bout of ill health for her would probably be utterly convenient because it would put the genie back in the bottle and harmony would be restor
ed, temporarily at least. Still, there was no point in blaming Columbo, the party, or Leda Clancy for that matter. The Abernethys had brought this crap on themselves and it looked as if he had been appointed mediator supreme. He grabbed his holdall from the back seat where he had flung it when he had got in at Leeson Street Bridge. ‘I take it you are not coming in then?’ he said, trying to get a rise out of Columbo. He knew that tonight of all nights his father’s apostle would offer to swim laps of Lough Derg instead.

  ‘Ah no, Dan, it’s late and you will need your own time to sort this out. I’ll talk to your father in the morning. Maybe call round even. To tell you the truth, I’m hoping to make Shanahan’s before they close because I told a fellow I’d meet him there.’

  Lucky bastard, Dan thought as he ambled his way to the back porch. The outside light was on and a gleeful array of moths flirted in the brightness. With a heavy heart he turned his key in the back door and went inside to see who and what was still up.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The family silver was laid out carefully on the dining-room table. Goblets, platters, butter dishes, a cream and jam set, teapots and milk jugs lay in glistening array before Mary Abernethy’s satisfied eyes. She had been collecting pieces for years in auction rooms around the county, adding to what her in-laws had left in the house when they died. It was a handsome collection by any standards, though grudgingly she had to admit that her husband’s public life had garnered its own fair share of silverware. If it had not been spoiled by the engraving of his name and that of the blasted party she might have the same regard for it as she did for the pieces she had squirrelled herself.