The tears in his eyes were jabbing at him as Jamie stared at Danny, fighting every inch of himself to restrain the muscles that screamed red at him “Right, I understand Emmy, tell me if I got any of this wrong…it’s now 2007, not 1800 and something but here he is again! He came here and found you, although this time perhaps he wasn't planning on that, but was about to do it all over again, Look at yer! He has done it all over again, because he wants to get back at me?…Fuck him.. I am going to kill him”

Emmy clenched her teeth and held tight to his jacket “Not on my account…not again! Please Jamie…Christ ...They might not shoot you this time but they will take you away from me, it has to be different this time, please it has to be” The few days they had known each other would barely hold him, but the past just might and Emmy dragged his face back to hers with her hands “Joe...you have to stop this for all our sakes”  She didn’t want to let go of him, not for a minute, floods of ripping guts pain twisted against the thought, the three of them caught in a swirl of hard wood and stained faces, of sad wailing relatives at the graveside, slammed shut pious doors and cold earth.

Emmy could hardly speak for the swell of loss in her throat and the stab in her belly, her hands reaching to  hold herself in check “The baby is gone...he paid for that already, and it didn’t bring the baby back Joe! I lost it and you too. Jesus. Do you have any idea what it was like for us to see you on that fuckin’ door? To know you were gone? And Lord knows it wasn’t all about me, but I knew why he was dead at that moment, what that set off. I saw you tear it all up, kill him and any future you might have had and fuck it was a slim hope to start with. But I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t stop you. All I had was you on the front of every newspaper and in the eyes of every copper I met…strung up like a bloody dog. But it is done Joe. Not again, I won’t let you do it again”

“Emmy…” His face in front of hers would have broken her in two, but for the need she had now for this man, here and now, made her pull the words out of her chest “Jesus! Look at him will yer?” In truth his eyes had hardly left the friend he had shared two part lives with, except to wipe the stinging salt from his face, but now she too stared at the sight in front of them. Danny looked like he might leap from the window or fall to the floor, his face crumpled and swollen both, nothing from his lips that made any sense except for ‘sorry’.

Caught in a silence of understanding but without the least clue how to do what needed to be done they stood frozen, the steady thud of footsteps up the stairs the only indication that there was a world outside of these three.  “Fuck…” Jamie turned to look at the splintered wood and grimaced “there’ll be trouble of a different kind now”

“Holy Mary Mother of God!! What happened to my door?” the breathless red face of Mrs Murphy appeared at the top of the thin stairs before her large frame filled the small landing and Jamie stepped up to meet her

“I can explain..” though the moment he said that he wondered exactly how and winced a bit as the landlady strained her neck to see past him into the room to where Danny sat his heavy body swaying on the bed and Emmy unsure what to do with her hands, her mouth red with blood still and the sort of eyes one might see in the headlights

“Is he alright? I let him in – said he was a friend of yours! All the saints! Now what happened to her! If one of you boys…I won’t have that in my house...no Jamie…I’ve a mind to call the Garda!” she was past him before he could move, something to do with determined women that he thought for a fleeting moment he had always surrendered to

Jamie took a deep breath and shifted his weight as he spoke quietly “Aye he is...was a friend that is, and yes he did that” almost to himself as her body moved into the space between them, plump fingers gingerly prodding Emmy’s mouth

“Come here love, let me look at you, oh you need something on that, come with me. Did one of these lads do this? Never mind the Garda I will have his guts for garters so I will..”

“It is nothing really, nothing, and just a misunderstanding, Danny here got me mixed up with someone else, no police please Mrs Murphy” Emmy closed her eyes and pleaded for her to stop

Mrs Murphy nodded as she narrowed her eyes “All the same you need some ice and some of my salve on that lip, come with me darlin’” and with something of a dismissive look took in Jamie and Aaron, a deep heave of her chest before she instructed “well someone will have to pay for the door! It was only a favour to your uncle you know, I didn’t expect my room to be in this state I can tell yer now!”

Jamie grimaced at the thought and pulled himself up, “Aye of course” she looked expectantly still and he nodded lightly “I will be off and get some money now, from the bank down the street, just to set it straight so as you don’t have to worry” In fact he wasn’t sure at all that he had anything like what was needed, except that he needed time and Danny out of this claustrophobia, either way he would find a phone...Seamus would smooth it out, or at least loan him the cash “ I’ll take him with me an all, I would think he needs some air”

“Don’t you be bringing him back here mind…friend or no friend! There’s plenty of other places that puts up the likes of him”

“Mrs Murphy…aye well alright then” but his eyes were on Emmy now, his hands threaded in the short hair at her neck and held her tight against his chest “are you OK? I’ll not be long I promise yer”

“I have some bruises, and my lip hurts, but yeah I am alright” so that might have been a bit of a lie, in fact her hip ached like a horse kicked it, her mouth stung and her legs were jelly but she looked back at him with something like a smile “you need to talk to him, I will be alright”

A serious dark face caught hers for a gentle kiss before he turned back to Danny, his head in his hands on the edge of the bed. “Come with me, Aaron, come with me” Heavy hands caught each other, as if the first time since that bullet and Danny clutched to stand upright. Caught in a rush of panic, Emmy grabbed the side of the bed and at Danny too, her hands twisting his in a grip that was both desperate and hate and pity all in one, unable to speak she stared up at his grey eyes, her own spilling over despite herself, and she quickly tuned her head

“Don’t be too long Jamie” alright so she was about ready to cling to his legs, her body aching to keep him close, but a simple reiterating plea was about all that came out

“You know that I won’t”

**

The kitchen down in the basement was full of boiled greens steam and cremated lamb. Around the room furniture that would have been the best that HP could offer in the 70’s but was showing it’s age and it’s tiredness. Emmy took up the offer of one of the plastic upholstered pine imitation antique chairs, her head full of it all and wondering what on God’s earth she was doing. Mrs Murphy bustled around, her mouth in stony accepting disapproval and gentleness both “I have a sister love, you can go there...whilst they are out, I thought it best get them out of here, you can never tell with those sort, likely as not to turn nasty...you know…tell me it’s non of my business, but I have seen it all before”

Despite an overwhelming swell of protest, she tried to keep from curling against this woman’s breast for comfort “Thank you…I don’t think he meant to Mrs Murphy. He was angry, just angry and he didn’t mean it, not to hurt me really” A click of the landlady’s teeth was an indication of her opinion on that old story and she shook her head

“They all say that love, but call me Doreen, they all do”

But Emmy couldn’t stop now, as if she had been having this conversation for a century with herself “He’s not a bad man Mrs Mu..Doreen…stupid and cowardly and well… he was left behind somehow, you know?”” she felt her shoulders crumple “but I have thought about it a lot what he did” she winced a bit at that, hoping the  landlady would pass over the fact that it had barely been 30 minutes in her mind “maybe he was just a dumb paddy who got picked on his whole life.”

If Mrs Murphy had a thought on that she didn’t say, just pressed a souvenir tea towel from Galway Bay stuffed full of Bird’s Eye frozen peas to Emmy’s lip and reached over to turn off the grill, which was threatening to incinerate the already well done chops underneath it. No chance of food poisoning the brave souls entertaining the optional evening meal here tonight, but certainly the possibility of some well exercised jaws. She mumbled about finding a tin of mixed veg somewhere and stood back a bit to rummage in a high cupboard. “Still Seamus will be disappointed in your Jamie, I daresay…letting that brute off like that…” she didn’t finish her sentence for the plea in Emmy’s eyes and changed the subject in mid flow “how long did you say you have known him darlin?”

**

The old iron streetlamps made sparkles in the muddy water of the Liffey, transforming it like Cinderella ready for the ball, expectant of the night to come. Jamie leant over the bridge to look down into the current, his sense though all exactly where Danny stood  a little way off behind him, bristling anticipation of something neither of them could define “This flows all the way out to the sea, out to where them boats sailed for down under. Our fathers…

“Came from a different place. Protestant and Catholic. Didn’t seem to matter when we were boys did it? We just ran with the wind, leapt in the Creek, followed the same girls…”

Jamie furrowed his brow and looked back to where Danny was rolling a fag leaning on the lamppost, calm now and for all the world like he was meant to be there, perhaps he was. “Is that what you think this is about? Fuckin’ religion?”

“In the end you stuck with yer own, the Quinns and the Lloyds and the ‘struggle’. I wasn’t part of it, thought I was for a bit, but you wanted more”

“Of course I bloody did! So did you! Did yer think we could run about in them Ranges forever Aaron?”

Danny closed his eyes to hold it all in “Maybe”

Jamie shook his head “You’ve got a short memory! You were the one with the selection- I know, I helped you build the bloody fences and stole half the horses you had in the paddocks, you were the one married all tucked up cosy with a wife, oh and some coppers for company” he paused a little to see if it still stung “I was out in the fucking bush, you forget, trying to keep alive mainly, but also we was organising you know that! And me mate…yeah what I thought was me mate, decides that not only will he not join us, that he’d rather share his marriage bed with filthy traps, but that my girl is his for the taking…It has fuck all to do with religion. You decided Aaron, you!”

“Aye and you decided to shoot me..”

“Jesus I will turn you over into this bloody river. God help me, yes I shot yer! You knocked her about and you killed her baby! It was a line Aaron, you drew the line and it changed me. It felt like me blood ran cold as stone”

“I didn’t mean that! Christ Joe...you know that”

“Aye well you said that, it is easy enough I would say, but let me tell you something else- just so yer know what you did. After that I took her down to Melbourne, you know that fancy church, the big yellow one? We went to find a priest for her, not that I had much time for them as you recall, but she wanted one and we couldn’t go to Greta nor Avenel on account of her family. She was all in pieces, with losing it and for all that she knew there was not going to be no white wedding she wanted the babby most of all because she already loved it, being me and her, and she wanted it’s soul blessed, wanted it’s soul blessed so it didn’t go to hell like it’s father. And you know what the bastard priest said? He said she was akin to a whore and that she was lucky her family didn’t disown her, she had no one Aaron and no comfort even from those fuckers, and me of course…well I was off back to the bloody hills”
Aaron stepped up to the bridge his shoulder just touching Jamie’s, staring with wild eyes at the rage and the tears before Jamie spoke again “so don’t you tell me this is about the fucking Church…” a huge wrack hit his chest “I don’t know whether to kill yer or  hold onto you Aaron. Jesus Christ..”

Neither of them were breathing much, though the solitude they had was an illusory one amidst the tourists and locals out for the evening in the city, it was as if they were someplace else and Jamie shivered against the cold stone “I needed you with me, you was my mate…Jesus I did and you knew it! I sent that letter to you, pleading with yer. And I got my answer, I got your answer didn’t I? Fuck your girl, fuck what you are fighting for, and fuck you, dead if possible”

Danny’s face was filled with horror “Joe…that wasn’t how it was!”

“That’s exactly how it was! How else would you read it? I heard what you said to me Ma, I heard what you were doing with them coppers, and then I saw it plain as day, her all battered and the baby gone” Jamie was openly weeping now, dark lashes stuck together and a flush in his face, oblivious to the few glances of passers by and the wide berth their loud words were causing “I didn’t want to shoot yer, but I had my answer, which side you were on, and it wasn’t mine!”

Danny’s large frame enveloped the smaller one of Jamie, cotton clad arms holding him down “It wasn’t like that Joe!  I was an idiot like they said I was. I am. There isn’t a sorry I can say…not enough, it was all messed up. I just didn’t know what to do. I made a mistake, Christ seems like I made a few now too. Them coppers were buzzing round me all the time, pushing me, promising me things and the next minute treating me like I was nothing, making me a fool in front of the whole town and me family.” Neither of them were letting go of the hardness of the embrace, almost painful in it’s strength, Danny’s voice softer now though, pleading “You know when we was lads, you always had the ideas, you always worked it out, whether we was scrumping or fighting them other kids, you knew what we had to do, and there I was on me own, everyone out fer me blood and you off with Ned and I didn’t know anymore. I were battered pillar to post! Joe…don’t…we will be alright, Jesus Joe, we will be alright”