The first time she lay tight against Jack Ferris she remembered the Catholic bachelor silently hanging from the tree and again imagined his member standing softly up out of his navy-blue trousers. It was not true, it had never happened in reality. But it did happen in her dreams. The erect penis meant death by hanging. Often in years to come she would jump awake covered in sweat to recall that a second before she had been making love to a disembodied penis. It was the penis of someone who wasn’t there. Only this male member jammed into her. She’d reach out to hold the person only to find him missing. The shock would bring her awake.

Then she’d realize with a terrible sense of unease that there had been no man there a few seconds before, only this disembodied penis making love to her. And her unease would be greater when she’d remember that the penis belonged to Matti Bonner. He, she’d realize in terror, had been the strange elusive man she had been reaching out to embrace and comfort. But in her dreams there was never anyone there but a nameless spirit in a state of arousal. In panic she’d flail out either side of her to touch him, and wake terrified to find no one, only this distant sexual joy receding fast from her scalded thighs. A phantom penis had been sent to pleasure her in her sleep from the world of the dead.

10. The Fenian Ledger

10

The Fenian Ledger

The chestnut trees blossomed. The Fermanagh village forgot Matti Bonner. But Sergeant Adams did not. Shocked by the death, he searched through his memory for the moment when Matti Bonner had betrayed by any word or gesture that he intended to take his own life. In the RUC station his fellow policemen had other things on their minds. But they said it was well known that he had threatened suicide.

“Did he never, ah, say nothing tee ye?” asked the desk officer.

“He did not mention this obsession,” replied Sergeant Adams, with a hint of regret.

“And ye that drove by his door most every day,” the desk officer said in wonder. Then he laughed. “It goes to show ye can never trust a Roman Catholic.”

But in Jonathan Adams’ mind the issue was one of delusion. For the past twenty years they had probably spoken to each other every day. And never once had Matti Bonner been anything but genial and offhand. They had an understanding. Now it made the Sergeant think he had imagined a friendship that did not exist. Matti Bonner had no confidence in him, the man’s tribal distrust had prevented him from asking for help.

He had taken his secret to the grave.

“The poor man must not have been well,” replied Maisie.

“And why didn’t he tell us?”