The Witch Elm: A Novel Read online

  Flashy Suit flipped a page. Martin arched his back—the crappy plastic chair creaked under his weight—and adjusted his waistband with his thumbs. “Jaysus,” he said. “I need to lay off the fry-ups; the missus is always telling me. Now, Toby: tell us about Friday night. Start when you left work, say.”

  “It’s kind of patchy,” I said doubtfully. This was an understatement. What memories I’ve got came back in fits and starts, over months; at this stage, depending on where I was in the pain-meds cycle, I was sometimes convinced that I was back in college and I had got way too drunk at the Trinity Ball and whacked my head falling off the Edmund Burke statue outside Front Arch.

  “You just give me as much as you can. The more the better. Even if it doesn’t seem relevant. Will I get you more water, before you start? Some of that juice?”

  I told them what I remembered, which at that point was basically a few flashes of the pub and the walk home, that one image of the two guys staring at me across my living room, and then a couple of bad moments when I’d been on the floor. Martin listened with his hands folded over his belly, nodding and occasionally interrupting to ask a question—could I describe anyone who’d been in the pub? anyone I’d seen on the walk home? had I felt like anyone was following me? could I remember turning my key in the outer door of the building, had there been anyone nearby? Behind him, the TV sputtered with endless bright jerky images, cartoon children throwing their arms out in a dance routine, perky presenters with eyes and mouths stretched wide, little girls holding up dolls whose sparkling practiced smiles matched their own. Flashy Suit shook his pen, scribbled hard, then went back to writing.

  Once we got to the central part of the night, the questions got more detailed and more insistent. Could I describe the guy reaching up to the telly? Height, build, coloring, clothing? Any tattoos or marks? What about the guy holding my laptop? Had they said anything? Any names? nicknames? What were their accents like? Anything unusual about their voices, a lisp, a stutter? High-pitched or low?

  I told them what I could. The guy by the TV had been about the same height as me, so five eleven? skinny, white, acned; maybe around twenty, as near as I could guess; a dark tracksuit, a baseball cap; no tattoos or marks that I’d noticed. The one holding my laptop had been a few inches shorter, I thought, a bit stockier; white; something in the way he held himself had made me think he might be older, mid-twenties maybe; dark tracksuit and baseball cap; no tattoos or marks. No, I couldn’t see what color their hair was, the baseball caps had hidden it. No, I couldn’t see whether they had beards or mustaches, their tops had hidden the lower halves of their faces. No, I didn’t remember them saying any names. Both of them had had Dublin accents, nothing distinctive about their voices that I remembered. No, I wasn’t a hundred percent positive (Martin had gone back to each question two or three times, wording it a little differently every time; after a while I couldn’t tell, any more, what I actually remembered and what I was confabulating for the sake of an answer); more than fifty percent; eighty? seventy?

  I was starting to lose my grip on the conversation. Talking about that night was doing things to me, more on a physical level than on an emotional one: a dark relentless fluttering in my stomach, a growing constriction in my throat, my hand or my knee leaping like a tic. And my pain meds were starting to wear off. The colors on the TV were harshening; the detectives’ voices and mine scraped at the inside of my skull. With a weak, sick urgency that was swelling with every second, I wanted this to be over.

  Martin must have noticed. “Right,” he said, straightening up in his chair and throwing Flashy Suit a glance. “That’ll do us for today. Plenty there to keep us going. You did great, Toby.”

  “Here you were worried you didn’t remember enough to be any use,” Flashy Suit said, flipping his notebook closed and sliding it into his jacket pocket. “We get plenty of people who weren’t hit in the head, still don’t manage to give us that much. Fair play to you.”

  “Right,” I said. My head was shimmering; all I wanted to do was keep it together till they were out of the room. “That’s good.”

  Martin stood up, arching his back with a hand to his spine. “My Jaysus, that chair. Any longer in that and I’d be in the bed next door. The doctor said you’ll be out of here sometime next week, yeah?” It was the first I’d heard of it. “You can have a look round your apartment then, let us know if there’s anything else missing, anything there that shouldn’t be. OK?”

  “Yeah. No problem.”

  “Great. If anything happens before then, we’ll make sure and update you.” He offered me his hand. “Thanks, Toby. We know this can’t have been easy for you.”

  “It’s OK.” His hand was huge, enveloping, and even though his shake wasn’t crushing, it set off a fizzle of pain all the way up my arm. I was still smiling and nodding like an idiot, trying to calibrate the smile to polite friendliness and positive I was veering off into a grim rictus or a crazed leer, when I realized they were gone.

  * * *

  Sean and Dec had both texted me a bunch of times to ask when they could come visit, but I hadn’t wanted to see them, or more accurately hadn’t wanted them to see me. After the cops’ visit, though, things seemed a little different; the car-thieves theory stripped away at least one layer of fear, the unreasoning terror that the men were still watching me from some nebulous darkness, unblinking and avid, biding their time till I got out of hospital and they could seize on their next chance. If Martin and Whatshisface were right—and they were detectives, experienced professionals, Martin looked like he had been doing this since before I was even born; they would know, wouldn’t they?—then all I had to do was buy a crappy Hyundai and keep my curtains closed, and I could handle that. The whole mess felt a small but solid notch clearer and more manageable; even the physical stuff seemed like it might, just possibly, be temporary. I texted Sean and Dec the next morning and told them to come in.

  They came straight from work, in suits and ties, making me fiercely glad that I had got a nurse to unhook my IV so I could take off the terrible hospital gown and (locked in the bathroom, bubbling with impotent anger, biting my lip till I tasted blood when my left leg refused to obey me) battle my way into the tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt my mother had brought in. They knocked gently at the door and practically tiptoed into my room, all braced to stay steady and neutral in the face of almost anything—“Jesus Christ,” I said cheerfully and snarkily, “it’s not a bloody funeral. Come on in.”

  Both of them relaxed. “Good to see you, man,” Dec said, breaking into a smile. He crossed fast to my bed and gave me a long, two-handed handshake. “Really good.”

  “You too,” I said, matching the handshake and the grin. It really was good to see them, good but strange; it felt like it had been a long time, like I should be asking them what they were doing with themselves these days.

  “Yeah, great to see you,” Sean said, shaking hands and giving me a very careful clap on the shoulder. “How’re you getting on?”

  “Not bad. I was pretty sore for a few days there”—the mushy slur in my voice made me flinch, but my jaw was still bruised and puffy, surely they would blame it on that—“but it’s wearing off. Have a seat.”

  Sean pulled up the visitors’ chair and Dec sat—gingerly, checking for IV lines—on the edge of my bed. “Loving the hair,” he said, pointing at my head—by this time I was showering and shaving (although both took a long time, and I sometimes had to sit down on the shower floor for a while when a dizzy flash hit), so the zombie-movie vibe had faded a bit, but I hadn’t got around to doing anything about my hair. “You could get into all the cool clubs, looking like that.”

  “You should shave off one eyebrow to go with it,” Sean said. “Start a hipster fad.”

  “I’m thinking of going for a”—I found the word just in time—“a Mohawk. Think Melissa would like it?”

  “I think you could get aw
ay with just about anything with Melissa, right now. Go for the Mohawk.”

  Dec had been absently tugging the edge of my blanket straight, and watching me. “You seem all right, man,” he said. “I mean, not all right all right, like I wouldn’t advise you to go entering the Ironman or anything. But we were scared you were, like, fucked up.”

  “Jesus,” Sean said. “You’re a real sensitive guy, you know that?”

  “Come on, he knows what I mean.” To me: “We couldn’t tell what shape you were in, yeah? Melissa kept saying you were basically grand”—which was nice to hear—“but I mean, Melissa; she’s always positive about everything. Which is great, don’t get me wrong, but . . . we were worried. It’s just good to see you’re OK.”

  “I am OK,” I said. Which I was, right then, or as near as possible: I had carefully timed my Pavlov-button dose of painkillers, holding off for more than an hour after the beep, through the spine-grating ache building in my head, to make sure I would be at the perfect point in the cycle when they arrived. “I have to get this tooth fixed, but apart from that I basically just need to take it easy for a while.”

  “Jesus,” Dec said, examining the tooth with a grimace. “Bastards.”

  “Did the cops get them?” Sean asked.

  “Nah. They think the guys were mainly after my car, so they’re keeping an eye out for that. But I’m not holding my breath.”

  “Hope they drive it off a bridge,” Dec said.

  “Fuck it,” Sean said. “You can buy another car. Just take it easy and get better. Speaking of which—” He held up a big, stuffed paper bag and passed it to me. “Here.”

  Inside were a sheaf of magazines—Empire, the New Scientist, Commando—a Bill Bryson book, a sudoku book, a book of crossword puzzles, a little model-airplane kit, and half a dozen packets of fancy crisps in a variety of surrealist flavors. “Hey, thanks, guys,” I said, touched. “This is great.” I could no more have done a sudoku puzzle or built a model airplane than piloted a fighter jet, but the fact that they thought I could warmed me right through.

  “No problem,” Sean said, giving the chair a baffled look as he tried to get comfortable. “Keep you occupied.”

  “We figured, if you actually were all right, you’d be bored off your tits,” Dec said.

  “I am bored off my tits. Any news?”

  “Oh yeah, there’s news,” Sean said, forgetting about the chair. “Guess what he’s gone and done”—jerking a thumb at Dec, who was managing a nice blend of sheepish, defensive and delighted with himself.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Worse,” Sean said darkly.

  “Oh Jesus,” I said, realization dawning. “You haven’t.”

  “He fucking has.”

  “Jenna?”

  Dec had his arms folded and his chin out, and he had gone a fetching shade of pink. “I’m happy. Is that all right with you?”

  “Dude,” I said. “Did you get hit on the head too? Remember what happened last time?”

  Sean turned up his palms: Exactly. Dec and Jenna had gone out for less than a year, during which they had broken up like six times. The last time had been a dramafest of epic proportions involving Jenna showing up at Dec’s work four days running to beg him through sobs to try again, cutting the letters “FUCK YOU” into a T-shirt he’d left at her place and couriering him the remains, and shooting off furious incoherent wall-of-text messages to all his Facebook friends including his parents.

  “That was last year. She was going through a lot. She’s sorted her head out now.”

  “He’s going to wake up one morning with his dick in his mouth,” Sean said.

  “He should be so lucky,” I said. “He’s going to wake up with a thing, a positive pregnancy test in his face.”

  “Do I look thick? I use johnnies. Not that it’s any of your—”

  “She’s not thick, either. All it takes is a pin and boom, who’s the daddy now?” I was loving this, every second of it. For the first time since that night I felt almost normal, I felt like an actual real person. I hadn’t realized just how rigid with tension my whole body was till some of it melted away, and the dissipation was so ecstatic that I could have laughed or cried or kissed them both.

  “Fuck off,” Dec said, aiming a middle finger at each of us. “The pair of yous. I’m happy. If it all goes tits-up, then you can say I told you so—”

  “We will,” Sean and I said, together.

  “Be my guests. Until then, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. And you”—me—“you need to be extra nice to me. Want to know why?”

  “Don’t go changing the subject,” Sean said.

  “You shut up. Here,” Dec said to me, leaning in, with one eye on the door and a grin lurking. “What meds are you on?”

  “Why? You want some?” I tilted my IV bag invitingly in his direction.

  “Ah, deadly. Just give us a quick sip.”

  He pretended to reach for it; I swiped his hand away. “Fuck off. I’m not sharing.”

  “Seriously. What’s in there?”

  “Painkillers. The good stuff. Why?”

  “See?” Sean said, to Dec. “Told you.”

  “He didn’t say what kind of painkillers. It could be—”

  “What are you on about?” I demanded.

  Dec reached for his inside jacket pocket and, with that eye on the door again, produced a silver hip flask. “We brought you another present.”

  “He brought you another present,” Sean told me. “I said he was a fucking eejit. Mix that with serious meds, you could kill yourself.”

  “What’s in there?” I asked Dec.

  “Macallan’s, is what’s in there. Sixteen years old. Cask strength. Only the finest for you, my son.”

  “Sounds like the business,” I said, holding out my hand.

  As soon as it came to crossing the line, of course, Dec looked taken aback. “You sure?”

  “Jesus, dude, you’re the one who brought it. Or are you just, just prick-teasing?”

  “I know, yeah. But would you not Google the meds first, see if—”

  “What are you, my mum? Hand it over.”

  He threw a dubious glance at the IV bag, like it was an untrustworthy dog that might go for my throat if it was disturbed, but he passed me the flask. “He’s right,” Sean told me. “For once. Google the interactions.”

  I uncapped the flask and took a deep sniff. The whisky filled my nose, rich with raisins and nutmeg, with reckless late nights and helpless laughter, idiotic stunts and long earnest meandering conversations, everything that stuck up a middle finger in the face of this godawful place and all the last godawful week. “Oh yeah,” I said. “Dec, dude, you’re a genius.” I tipped my head back and took a huge swallow. It burned beautifully, generously, all the way down. “Hah!” I said, shaking my head.

  The two of them were staring at me like I might spontaneously combust or fall over dead at any moment. “God,” I said, starting to laugh. “You should see your faces. I’m fine. Here—” I held out the flask. “You pair of pussies.”

  Surprisingly it was Sean who, after a moment, let out a laugh and took the flask. “All right,” he said, raising it to me. “Here’s to living dangerously. A bit less dangerously from now on, yeah?”

  “Whatever you say,” I said, still grinning, as he swigged. The booze had hit my system and whatever it was doing in there, it felt great.

  Sean came up blowing like he’d been underwater. “Jesus! That’s beautiful. If it kills him, I’d say it’s worth it.”

  “Told you,” Dec said, reaching for the flask. “To living dangerously.” And when he lowered it, smiling beatifically: “Ahhh. Chapeau to me, if I say so myself.” But when I held out my hand, he didn’t pass it back to me. “Save the rest, yeah? In case y
ou need a little pick-me-up later on. This place would have anyone browned off.”

  “I’m not browned off. I get to lie around all day with women in, in nurse outfits bringing me breakfast in bed. Would you be browned off?”

  “Still. There’s not a lot left; hang on to it. Just stick it in here—” He started shoving stuff aside on the shelf of my bedside locker.

  “Oh Jesus, not like that. Give me it.” I grabbed the flask off him and started rooting through the locker for something to wrap it in. “The nurse in charge, or whatever they call it, she’s batshit crazy. I had a fan, right? She took it off me because she said it would spread germs. If she catches me with this she’ll, I don’t know, give me detention or—”

  The locker was on the right side of my bed, and in order to reach it more easily I had switched the flask to my left hand. I felt it slipping free, grabbed wildly for it, and watched powerlessly as it slid through my fingers like they were made of water, bounced off the blanket and thudded dully onto the floor. The cap was loose; a trickle of whisky spread on the rot-green flooring.

  There was an instant of frozen silence: Sean and Dec wide-eyed and uncertain, me unable to breathe. Then Sean leaned sideways to pick up the flask, tightened the cap and passed it back to me. “Here,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said. I managed to get the flask bundled into a plastic bag and stuffed into the bedside locker, with my shoulder turned to the guys so they wouldn’t see how hard I was shaking.

  “They get your hand?” Dec asked, easily. Sean found a paper napkin on the trolley table, tossed it on the floor and started wiping up the spill with his foot.

  “Yeah. A kick or something.” My heart was skittering out of control. “It’s fine. The doctors say there’s some, like, some nerve damage, in my wrist? but no big deal. A couple of months of physio and I’ll be fine.” The doctors had in fact said nothing of the kind. The neurologist—a flabby, ponderous old guy with the clammy pallor of someone who had been held in a basement for several years—had refused, smugly and flatly, to tell me anything at all about whether or when or to what extent I might expect to get better. Apparently that depended on a lot of factors, which he had of course no intention of listing for me. Instead—talking over me every time I stumbled or slurred, eyes sliding off me like I was beneath his attention—he had drawn me helpful cross-sections of my head with and without hematoma, informed me that my residual disabilities (“that means the problems that haven’t gone away yet”) were “really very minor” and that I should consider myself lucky, told me to do my physical therapy like a good little boy, and then left while I was still trying to find some way of getting it through to him that this was actually my business. I still got light-headed with fury just thinking about him.