The Newest Scheme

My ‘Uncle’ Conn, that is, Cornelius McGlinchey, had always been tricky. He has his own, unique, sense of humour and was the most incredible liar I’ve ever met, but it was his scheme with Pat Conroy that nearly had me committed to the asylum.

Conn wasn’t even my uncle, at least I don’t think he was. He had become attached to the family as a young’un around 1984, caught in the age-gap between my Dad’s generation and mine. Granny never talked about the specifics of his joining the sprawling family, dotted as we were over three counties, but would stare over the rim of her teacup, into the range, and say ‘He’s more of a cousin, but he’s a special boy,” as the mysterious, shadowy forces that obscure old scandals would draw in.

My mother was more earthy. “He’s a complete lunatic,” she would say, “but he’s got a big heart,” and then giggling, “and he’s a wonderfully dreadful fellow, a complete crook.” That was Conn for you, the family’s prize black sheep. As bent as a nine-pound note and loved by all for it.

And now his newest scheme, with the estimable Conroy, and I had somehow become witness to it. I’d been in London when the world economy had decided to commit harakiri, and in quick succession my job, my flat, and my girlfriend had become non-existent. I was cooling my heels back home in Crock-na-nalt with nothing but a broken heart, the clothes on my back and a chip on my shoulder.

“When you meet him, Frank, don’t come across as too ‘city’ eh?” said Conn, sketching the word with his fingers as he bounced on the balls of his feet and stared down the long drive to the little road that wound up over the hill from the village. “Be professional but not too professional.” Conn had dressed for the occasion in his best acid-washed jeans and a Dire Straits t-shirt. “In business it pays to make the most of the human touch.”

Jesus, he’s been watching ‘Dragon’s Den’ again, I thought.

Conn’s ‘business’ was a sphere as variable as the truth of his provenance. He went through phases, little whims that took him on ‘ventures’ and led him all over the world. Every time I caught up with him, he was expounding on the fail-safety of his newest brainwave and was eagerly ransacking the outdated community library in Cloughbawn, which mostly was an archive of local compilations of ghost stories, self-published autobiographies from local celebrities and the greatest airport potboilers of the 1980’s, for further information. Last year he had been an impresario, managing a little prog band in Trondheim, the Moon Harvesters, where he had picked up Siv, the latest girlfriend. She was beautiful and slightly jagged, like a flint axe. She wore a cape daily, smoked clove cigarettes and pranced about in knee-high deerskin boots.

Two years before that he had ventured into winemaking, in Donegal. By circumventing the weather, the necessary generations of experience and the suitability of having any taste for wine; by setting up hydroponics works in his boat-shed and calling in favours with ‘friends in America’, there were weeks of optimism, before he realised that it would be ruinously expensive, before the vines, crammed in their pods behind his old brown Hiace van, so much as hinted at a grape. He sold the hydroponics set-up to some students and then didn’t speak to anyone for weeks, such was his anguish. At least they said they were students.

And now this, standing in the July drizzle with an anxious, depressed mood tattooed onto my personality, and Uncle Conn seeming fit to burst his seams, I felt a pang of familial foreboding.

Pat Conroy was about sixty, with a trucker’s gut, and the blonde mullet of a sub-villain from that Miami cop show. He waddled out of the pickup, hitching his jeans up over his expansive arse, and tottered up to us on toothpick legs with his hand outstretched. He had a penchant for cowboy gear, it seemed, with the metal heels of his boots clicking on the tarmac and bolo tie, slightly too short, sticking out from his belly like a dowsing rod.

“How’s she cutting, boysh?” he roared. “It’s a quare old evening.”

I just stared at him as the rain got heavier.

I wasn’t party to the business negotiations myself, as Conn, presumably aware of the threat of corporate espionage, insisted on having a ‘face to face’ summit with Conroy down by the turf stack. The two men, one gangling and mad, the other squat and hunched, chatted in a low rumble. I sat, half-watching them, my eyes on the November 1998 edition of Woman’s Own magazine while Siv read her tarot cards. The two men spat and shook hands, Conn handed over a fat envelope, and then the Cowboy tottered back to the pickup and emerged grunting with a large brown paper box. The cardboard at one end had succumbed to the rain and, as he handed the box over, a long thin metallic tube fell out onto the drive. Conn gave a supremely shady look around, there wasn’t a living soul in a half-mile in either direction, then scooped to retrieve the tube, and hurried to the boat-shed with his delivery clutched like a new-born.

The box looked heavy, unwieldy. And that tube that had fallen out? I wondered at what the man’s Cavan, (maybe South Armagh?) accent might indicate. A glut of bad thoughts raced through my mind as my eyes stared blankly at ‘10 Winter Ways to Turn the Heat up in the Bedroom’. Had Conn gotten himself mixed up with the IRA? They ran guns sometimes still, I presumed, and there were rumours of cigarette smuggling, adulterated petrol, currency fraud at the Border. I imagined the boathouse being used as a weapon’s dump; rifles in the rafters, pistols by the dried peas, hand grenades behind the Hiace.

I came out when they were finished chatting and Pat Conroy gave me a piercing look, with a mouth like a cat’s arse beneath his moustache, the wad of cash sticking out of the pocket of his leather waistcoat.

“Is he solid, that wan?” cocking his head towards me.

“Sure, he’s family. He knows how to keep his mouth shut.” said Conn.

“He’d better.” said the Cowboy and tightened the bolo clasp under his chins.

By the time I was set to meet my mother for lunch the following day, I had convinced myself that I had seen a pistol suppressor.

“The Guards are doing a lot of raids,” she said over crab linguine, “make sure your Uncle Conn isn’t getting you into trouble.”

I kept mute, my anxiety rising.

“Get some sleep, love, you look terrible.”

I spent the next week in a state of concern, trying to keep out of the way of Conn, and growing sick of the Siv and her clove-smoky silences. I went jogging, took to swimming in the afternoons, and hung around with Dónall McKee, who had just taken over the house up the mountain at Shee-na-nalt after the death his uncle, Seamus.

We rubbed along well together and would drink in Jonjo’s pub in the village with his girlfriend and her pals. They were a fun bunch, and it was nice to spend time with them, but at the back of my head, I saw that cardboard box and the black metal within. I lay awake at night, listening to the waves and seeing the twin strobes of the lighthouses swipe away the hours, my mind formulating dark scenarios.

“Can you stay somewhere else tonight?” asked Conn one Friday in Jonjo’s, as we watched the match. It was coming up to the Harbour Festival, and the place was crowded with tourists. We saw packs of Americans and Germans through the pub window roaming, obesely, through the village in waterproof ponchos. I coughed into my stout.

“Crash with us.” said Dónall,

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Conn gave a very mysterious look and his moon-struck smile and tapped his nose.

“Just a wee venture.”

I got very drunk with Dónall and the gang. We celebrated the football, drank some more, then walked to the hotel to find fun with the tourists. I got into a lovely chat with a lady from Maui, and she of course had to come back with us to Dónall’s to break open a bottle of tequila. I spent too much time moaning, complaining about London, about Conn’s mad schemes, about life. I eventually pretended to enjoy myself, my friend from Maui giving me sleepy smiles.

It was about two in the morning when we went outside for a sniff of air. We had spent the while telling ghost stories, and now a spliff was passing. I watched the stars with a nice buzz on. The soft howl of the wind playing over me, and I noticed, from the corner of my eye, a flash.

I rubbed my eyes and let out a groan, the weed had been stronger than I was used to.

Another flash.

I stumbled to a stone wall and peered down the valley towards Conn’s cottage. There it was again, a bright flash that illuminated the front of the cottage and froze an image in place, a man standing with his hand outstretched.

Dónall had come up.

“They’ve come for Conn.” I gasped and pelted off down the boreen.

By ‘pelted’, I mean of course ‘shambled’. It’s hard to pelt when you’re very drunk and stoned. Dónall gave a whoop behind me, and called the rest, and soon, we were all shambling down the hill, a charge of giant toddlers.

The cottage was dark, empty. I raced into the boat-shed and by the light of the swinging bulb I searched, my anxiety reaching a pitch.

“What are you doing?” It was the Cowboy.

“Where is he, Conroy?” I grabbed his shirt and thrust him into the wall.

“Someone’s coming.” called Dónall.

A group of dark figures were in the lane. They marched, all in black, their faces obscured, with a figure ahead of them carrying something metallic in his arms.

Balaclavas, rifles. Ah fuck.

Conroy squeezed past me and tottered out to meet the squad.

“Thon nephew of yours is a lunatic!” he squealed.

The lead assassin took off his hat and gave a cheery wave,

“I thought you were staying at Dónall’s?’

I spluttered, but Conn, exuberant, carried on into the boat-shed. The group of large, poncho’d, tourists lingered behind him, clutching their books and fiddling with their headlamps. Siv, in a top-hat and morning coat, stood silently.

“Do you like the gear?” He was unhooking the rig.

It wasn’t a gun. It looked like a camera rig, but with homemade electronics. He reeled off the components as it disassembled.

“A K2 meter, infrared camera, temperature gun, voice-activated capsule, thermal aura reader.”

A minibus was pulling up into the drive, “We’re exploring the old church on Sunday, so remember to book early.” called Conroy, collecting tips and herding the tourists.

My friends stared, I stared, there was a lot of staring. Conn grinned and handed me a book. ‘Ghost Tales of Crock-na-nalt’. He began to pack the gear back into the brown paper box.

Inside the cover was a leaflet. I squinted at it in the light of the bulb.

‘MCGLINCHEY & CONROY LIMITED PRESENT

DONEGAL GHOST TOURS

OUR TRAINED GHOST HUNTERS EXPLORE THE MOST HAUNTED PLACES IN IRELAND. (NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED!!)’

“But the flashes?” I asked.

Conroy raised a camera and blinded me.

“I was testing it for the group photo before you charged in, Rambo.” He snapped.

Trying valiantly to maintain a dignified hauteur, I placed the book down then walked away from Conn’s idiot grin, down the drive. Siv gave me a cheery wink.

Sniggers followed me as I walked into the night.