Free Saints and Sinners by Edna O’Brien Page A

asked.
    "Car."
    The car drove in at a hectic speed, lights fully on, and then drove off again, with a vengeance.
    "Ah, youngsters, hoping there was a disco," Wynne said, having come back in with the white sauce for the salmon. But he was not listening to her, he was only listening now to his own thoughts and his appetite had gone. He drank a few more swigs of the wine and jumped up.
    "Toilet," he said and reached out and touched her sleeve. She watched him go, something so wounded about him, his clothes clinging to his thin body, his sleeves rolled up as he tugged at the loose doorknob. Then, peculiarly, he ran back and took his jacket off the back of the chair.
    Since he was away for quite a while, Wynne, who had been coming in and out, brought an old dented cloche to put over his dinner, as both of them watched through the open door into the dark passageway. The two dogs, so inert a short while previous, raised an ongoing terrible howl, as if catastrophe was about to befall the house. Wynne said it portended thunder, as they never yelped at visitors, not even at tradesmen, but the onset of thunder always sent them crazy. She predicted that presently there would be flashes of lightning, the grounds and the meadow intermittently lit up. They waited, but the summer lightning did not come.
    "I wonder what's keeping him," Wynne said.
    "He's not used to drink," Mona said quietly.
    "Lovely man ...lovely smile," Wynne said, and again looked, expecting him to appear, in that quick, stealthlike way of his.
    At length, Wynne said, "Do you think I should get Jack to go and investigate?"
    They had left the dining room and were in the hallway facing the door that said Gents, with the metal G askew on a loose rusted nail. Mona thought how awful if he had passed out and how ashamed he would be. Jack was summoned from where he was stationed, close up to the television screen, and rising he muttered something, then went into the Gents and closed the door behind him. Soon Wynne pushed it in so that they could be of assistance.
    "He's not here," Jack called.
    "Where is he then?" Wynne shouted.
    "He went out ... he got change for the pay phone," Jack said, and instantly she guessed that he had gone to phone one of his comrades to come for her, as he would have to disappear.
    The dogs were already on the avenue, running back and forth in a froth, and ready to tear anyone to pieces.
    Both women ran and Jack followed behind, calling after them.
    People stood on the far side of the gate, muted and in shock. Shane lay half in and half out of the telephone kiosk, his eyes, his tobacco-colored eyes, still open, staring up at the sky with its few isolated stars. He was gasping to say something, but the strength had almost left him. He could not say what he most wanted to say. The onlookers stood in a huddle, baffled, not knowing who they were looking at, or why he had been slain while simply making a telephone call. The guards had already been called, and one woman, who had been first on the scene, said she had heard him repeatedly utter, "Oh Jesus, oh Mary," but her companion stoutly contradicted that. Mona wanted to kneel by him and shut his eyes, but she was too afraid to stir. If only someone would shut his eyes, but she dared not, for fear of them. He looked so desolate and so unbefriended, the breath just ebbing away, and the instant it left him, she let out a terrible cry. He was dead. Dead for a cause that others did not believe in, and as if on cue a youth who had been going by stopped, dismounted his black brutish motorcycle, threw down his helmet, and crossed with the officiousness of a pallbearer. Looking down at the corpse, he recognized Shane and repeated his name with evident outrage and disgust. He seemed almost ready to kick him. The group recoiled, stricken, not only with fear, but with revulsion. The brief spate of pity had turned ugly. Wynne shrieked at Mona— "A murderer ... you brought a murderer under my roof where my