by Oisín Curran
Now we retreated together to the siblings’ tiny house, where it stood tucked into its swampy stand of trees. It was hot inside, woodstove at full tilt, and Bill was there busying himself with paramedic paperwork, his scant red hair standing on end, a thick odour billowing out from under his powerful arms, blue eyes round and buzzing with frantic energy. His voice, always soft, had dialled down to a nearly inaudible pitch in recent weeks. Distracted and unbathed as he was, he welcomed us in warmly. He served us hot cider and fell to muttering mournfully with Pierce, as Apollo and I followed Artemis into their room, where we played cards and discussed The Count of Monte Cristo, which they had recently borrowed from me and read immediately.
Both of you?! Pierce’s voice suddenly spiked in the other room. One after the other? Or all at the same time?
Bill shushed him and their voices dove back down to a murmur.
But Artemis and Apollo were now glowering at each other, and then Artemis accused Apollo of farting, and when Apollo denied it, Artemis attacked him. As they rolled in a death grip, cards abandoned, I lapsed into my habitual neutrality by picking up Tintin and the Calculus Affair and, making myself comfortable, let the gasping of the siblings and the woeful murmurings of Bill fade into the background.
Later that night, at home, Iris tucked me into bed, while below I could hear Pierce and Myles talking as they would go on talking far into the night, until their conversation came to rest over a game of stalemated chess. As Iris kissed my forehead goodnight, I asked her what it was that Willard had done to Bernadette and Bill. Iris drew back and looked at me unhappily until at last she said, So, you did hear. I was afraid of that.
No, I said, I haven’t, that’s why I’m asking.
She stood and said remotely that when I was older she would explain, but not now. Then quite suddenly a spasm appeared to shake her body and she abruptly seated herself in the chair near my bed. I could see the sweat shining on her face in the moonlight coming through the skylight and thought that maybe the mention of Willard’s transgression was enough to wrack her, but then I remembered she was trying to stop taking drugs for her pain.
She rocked in the chair and began to apologize in advance for what she was about to ask. Her tone was so deprecating, so regretful, that immediately it triggered a deeply embedded guilt. It would require decades to learn of its presence and ferret it out. But guilt it was—a conviction that even though I knew not yet what she needed of me, whatever I provided could never fill that need, nor yet could I possibly deny her an attempt to fill it for she was already half-withdrawing her request even in the very act of making it, so sensitive was she to its importune nature, indeed to the importunity of any request ever made by her. But at last, strangled and disassembled, half-dead in fact, the request limped out, tacked onto the end of a long series of subclauses and caveats: would I, could I, tell her more of my horrible memory, my gruesome vision of my expedition to this life?
Ah, could I? It was a hard thing to call up at will. Usually a few scattered images tumbled into view unsought and I could then train them into the story. Yet here was Iris battling, not with Myles or the forces of the world at large but with herself, her own body. And although the mutiny of self was unknown to me at that age, still I looked hard in the back corners of my mind for the entrance to that subterranean world. And it seemed out of reach, for it was a curious feature of the place that when it overtook me it filled my mind to the brim, but when it receded, its effect dispersed like vapour and nothing was left but the faint outlines of people and landscapes, colours faded as though exposed to the sun for years.
But there, there now, a still life of explorers in a pallid jungle, because the desire to please my mother must have been an animating force in itself, the texture of their clothes (degrees of threadbare), the cocktail of curiosity and dread in their eyes, the rigidity of the pale grass through which they moved, all took on a shocking presence, like the sudden immanence of the side-lit paper on which I write these words, because it happens to all of us, I think, when sometimes our thought-fog rolls back and the naked world is there below us, free of us and our concerns. Just like that, those explorers begin to move and I hear the rasp of boots through grass, the chatter of subterranean birds.
In that jungle, on that island, I walk with Quill, who keeps stopping to collect bugs and flowers and to take pictures of the strange plants we pass. There are white flowers as big as her growing on top of tall trees. Hawk-sized silver butterflies fly from one to the other. On the ground we see tiny, golden snakes shining through stiff, azure grass. There’s a vine that climbs all over the trees like a pale green blanket. To make up for the plants, the birds are striped and spotted and feathered in every colour possible, so bright I can barely look at them. They’re everywhere. One looks like a heron but its beak curves long and black as it pokes through vines to watch us.
Quill spends a long time holding a magnifying glass up to a metallic-purple beetle crawling on a leaf. I look at the view through binoculars. We’ve been climbing for half an hour and are in a clearing. Below us stretch the lagoon and the water.
What do you see? Quill asks, still peering at the beetle.
I look at the horizon and the water. No sign of my Follower, but it’s out there—what’s that black speck in the distance? Heat steels up my arms on its way to the back of my head, but the speck resolves itself into the shadow of a wave. I let go of a breath I didn’t know I held. But that sudden burst of fear is enough to harden my resolve. Darkness pulses in my chest. I move the binoculars and find what I need.
I see Captain Severn, I say. He’s sitting on the beach, looking out to sea.
May I look? asks Quill, leaving her beetle.
I hand her the binoculars and she takes them, scans around, and then settles on the beach. I can see her smiling affectionately to herself as her gaze finds Severn.
The sailor longs for the sea, she says warmly.
Is that all he longs for? I ask, heart skipping.
Quill smiles slightly, mistaking my intention.
What do you mean?
I just wondered, I say, trying to maintain an innocent, neutral tone, If he was watching for Chisolm.
Quill frowns slightly, puzzled.
My mother is long gone, Severn knows that.
Probably, I say, But sometimes it’s hard to give up on the people you care about.
Care about? snorts Quill. My mother is a grasping, manipulative snake. Why would Severn care about her?
Keeping my face carefully blank, I say nothing and stare out to sea. I can feel Quill’s gaze hardening on my cheek.
What did you see? she demands, her voice rasping slightly.
Nothing, I say, shaking my head.
What did you see?!
She grabs my arms and stares into my face. There’s a sudden, wild look in her eyes that makes me regret my plan. Again I deny seeing anything, but it’s too late. Her gaze drills into me with a frightening, lunatic force. Reluctantly, hesitantly, I describe seeing Chisolm summon Severn to her cabin, his expression of despair as he gazed at Quill’s back. And I tell her of the look that passed between the two of them after Severn nearly drowned battling Lutra—the look of mutual disappointment that he resurfaced alive.
Quill lets go of me and backs away slowly, eyes wide, face hollowed out, shaking her head with disbelief. Then suddenly she turns and crashes away through the forest.
What have I done? I drop the binoculars and run. Straight through the trees and bushes in her wake, calling her name, telling her to stop, that I was wrong, I saw nothing. But she knows, she knows. Once I said it, she knew it, she always knew it, but couldn’t.
Tiny bears, birds with hoofs. No time to stop for these surprises. No time to turn back. I feel like I’m going to throw up, but at the same time pressurized with a force that surges me under, over, around, and out of the woods in a few minutes, in time to se
e Quill yelling at Severn, Severn trying to hold her, Quill breaking free to run down the beach, Severn in pursuit. I chase them. Can’t believe how fast they’re going. In no time, Quill’s at the end of the beach and scrambling up the bluff toward the clifftop, Severn close behind. I follow, sprinting up through the tall, white grass as fast as I can. Can’t see anything ahead until I stumble out onto the clifftop.
Please, Severn says quietly.
He’s talking to Quill, who stands at the edge of the cliff looking down at the waves far, far below. She doesn’t seem to hear him. She leans out into the wind. If it drops, so will she. My heart falls at the thought. No, no, no, no. This isn’t what I planned. I just wanted to rattle the cage. To get us going again.
Severn starts forward but stops when she turns her head and looks at him. I would stop too. The look is the worst I’ve ever seen. It isn’t angry. Not sad either. Disgust.
Rook staggers out of the grass behind me—he must have seen the chase. Severn doesn’t look at us. Quill does, but she looks without seeing. Then she does. She sees me. She gives me a short, strange, nod. Severn reaches a hand toward her. She glances blankly at him, then turns and steps into the air.
There was a time in my life, says Myles, when I too was in such inner turmoil that I contemplated ending my life. This Quill character strikes me as somebody suffering from deep psychological conflict. But what is the source of this conflict?
Love, obviously, said Iris. We were eating a late Saturday-morning breakfast. On the couch nearby, Pierce snored lightly.
Love? said Myles, puzzled.
Yes, of course, said Iris. She’s in love with Severn and just discovered he had an affair with her mother.
How do you know?
Weren’t you listening? Would you please stop slurping your oats?! You eat like a peasant.
Well, I am a peasant! Where do you think my people come from?
Your mother doesn’t eat like that. I feel like I’m in a barnyard. It’s turning my stomach.
So don’t listen!
I’m trying not to!
Pierce remained undisturbed by all this. Last night’s bourbon had shut down his ears. I could barely hear the exchange myself, so often did food etiquette feature as mealtime debate that it receded into my background. I turned from my underground vision to breakfast, which was cooling rapidly. Must fill up on oats, as Myles and I had plans. Some weeks before, he had come across an old wooden dory in the barn of a house he was painting. The owner had no interest in it, so Myles loaded it onto the top of the car and brought it home. To me it looked in bad shape, but Myles insisted that with a little attention it would be seaworthy again. He’d been worrying away at it since, plugging cracks with caulking, scraping and repainting the hull. Now, he was convinced, it was ready for its maiden voyage, despite the fact that winter was settling in. Iris considered the expedition crazy and dangerous. She insisted I squeeze a life jacket on over my thick coat.
Down at the bay, we slid the dory over the thin coating of snow into the high tidewaters and there she floated reassuringly. Once in, we tipped out our oars and began to row. Myles was in the bow and I in the stern. It was a calm day, the air cold, water colder. We were warmly dressed for land, but out on the waves the wind began to seep in. As did water. Slowly at first, then with gathering speed.
Ack, ack! to my left. I looked over to see a river otter, head just above nearby waves, peering at us and yelling in an unfriendly way.
Reminiscent of your Lutra, said Myles. Don’t worry, otter. We’re not here to bother you.
The otter paused at his voice but then, startled by a splash at the shoreline, vanished underwater. The splash revealed itself to be Bear, a neighbour’s black Newfoundland dog that was so excited by the unusual sight of a boat in the bay that she decided to investigate. She closed the distance to us quickly and began to paw speculatively at the gunnel. Speculation turned to pleading, then a determined attempt to climb on board. Letting her up would have capsized us definitively. I found a stick floating nearby and threw it for her by way of distraction. Bear headed off to retrieve the stick. Meanwhile the boat was taking on more and more water. I gave up rowing and began to bail, suggesting to Myles that we should bring the craft about and head back to shore before she sank.
Not at all, said Myles, rowing valiantly for the far side of the bay. She’s perfectly seaworthy. Shipping a bit of water is normal.
It’s more than a bit, I said, grimly bailing.
The bay was forest-lined, but the leaves had dropped with the deepening winter. That muted colour scheme (grey trunks, green conifers) under a cloud-blocked sun was getting me down. That and the fact that our boat was sinking. Here we lived a minute’s walk from the water and had never owned a boat until now and no sooner did we put to sea than we sank. Between Myles’s energetic rowing and my increasingly frantic bailing, we managed to make it to the far side of the bay. By then we were ankle-deep in freezing brine and had to tip the boat over to empty it.
Remarkable synchronicity with your story, said Myles cheerfully between gasps of effort as we flipped the dory over and propped it on our heads to portage back home. He seemed undaunted by the boat’s performance, as though the attempt alone were sufficient to call the mission a success. He was talking about the appearance of otter and of Bear and Bear’s attempt to capsize us and was proposing Lutra as a fusion and magnification of the two animals we’d just encountered.
And don’t think he hadn’t noticed how my tale of stowing away on board the Lizzy Madge was later echoed strangely by Bayo’s account of his flight to North America.
As he said that, I suddenly remembered the image collection.
two people up to their ankles in a sinking boat
A patch of heat on the back of my scalp began to spread, and I fought dizziness to keep the boat upright on my head; cold salt water dripping from it into my hair failed to cool my skin. What about the other pictures?
an old building full of music
an accident on the road
a refugee
Was I or was I not making up this story?
Makes you wonder, said Myles, heaving the boat back up over his head, If art imitates (inhale) life or it’s the other way (exhale) around (inhale).
What do you mean? I asked, startled. Had he been reading my thoughts?
Aristotle, he said. Art is a mirror held to nature. Famous (inhale) philosophical (exhale) dictum.
But this is a memory, not art, I said.
All stories are forms of art, even if they’re memories, he said.
Anyway, I don’t like it, I said, trying to shake the hot uncanny. This dictum. What a waste of (inhale, exhale) time. Why would nature need a (inhale, exhale) mirror?
Nature might be vain, he laughed. But even if it doesn’t need it, we need the mirror to see nature more clearly.
This seemed ridiculous to me. Why not just look at nature instead of mirroring it? Myles said this would be ideal, but for some reason the human mind needed to mediate experience to grasp it. The mirror frames the world’s chaos, organizes it.
What chaos? I asked. I don’t see any chaos.
But Myles was on a train of thought and wouldn’t be shaken from it. As it happens, he went on, The whole point of Zen practice is to experience the world here and now. Not in a mirror.
Did this mean, I wondered, that if you were practising Zen you wouldn’t need art?
Maybe. But I prefer to think you could use art as practice, said Myles. Take Basho for instance,
Year after year
on the monkey’s face
a monkey’s face.
or,
How admirable,
to see lightning and not think
life is fleeting
or better yet
In the field
attached to nothing,
the skylark singing.
That’s good, I said, I like it. But what, I went on as we heaved the boat up the driveway and hoisted it back onto the sawhorses for further repair, What about Jules Verne? Or Robert Louis Stevenson? Or Lord Dunsany? Or Poe?
Escapism, said Myles. Delightful stories that elasticize the imagination (to paraphrase Yeats), but they won’t lead you to any deeper understanding of the things that really matter.
What really matters?
Suffering and death.
There’s a lot of suffering and death in Poe.
Hmm.
This last uttered in the skeptical, indeterminate tone that signalled the end of the conversation or, at least, of conversation on the subject at hand. We had, by this time, entered the house, and Myles put on the radio. When not reading or sitting in meditation, he loathed silence. It came, I theorized, of growing up in a household full of siblings. His brain required background babble or it became lonely. On the radio was Morning Pro Musica with Robert J. Lurtsema, who had by this late hour diverged, to Myles’s disgust, from the usual Baroque fare and plunged into the atonal world of twentieth-century composition.
That. Was, intoned Lurtsema slowly, Concerto. Grosso. 1. By. Alfred. Schnittke.
Schnittke, Myles muttered. Why is he always playing Schnittke? It’s unbearable.
But now, to his relief, the news came on. As usual, it wasn’t very good and, as usual, it seemed to give Myles morbid pleasure, perhaps because it confirmed that we were indeed dwelling in the vale of tears about which he’d heard so much since infancy.
Tikhonov replaces Kosygin in the Troika, he muttered, turning down the volume, Thatcher tests another nuke in Nevada, and the Cold War rages farcically on.
