The Heather Blazing

by Colm Toibin

  As soon as he arrived back at the house he knew that Carmel and Niamh had been listening to the six-thirty news.

  “Well, you were busy this morning,” Niamh said.

  “Was it on the news?” he asked, as though it was a routine matter.

  “Do you think I should be sacked as well?” she asked.

  “Your father’s on his holidays, Niamh,” Carmel said.

  “That’s not what you said before he came in. My father thinks that unmarried mothers shouldn’t be allowed work,” she laughed bitterly.

  “What exactly is biting you?” he asked.

  “That poor woman in Monaghan. How could it be right to sack her?”

  “Read the judgment and find out,” he said.

  “Did you bring it with you?” she asked.

  “Of course I didn’t.”

  “I think it’s a disgrace, that’s what I think,” Niamh said. “It’s an outrage.”

  “But you would think that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I know about it. I know what it’s like to be a woman in this country, and I know what it’s like to have a child here.”

  “And I suppose you’re a legal expert as well.”

  They had supper in silence, which was broken only by the whimpering of the baby. He faced the window and noticed the first throbbing rays of the lighthouse glinting in the distance. He wanted to ask Carmel what she had said about him and his judgment before he came in, but he realized that he could gain nothing by doing so.

  “Do you want more tea?” Carmel asked him.

  “Yes, please,” he said. He tried to make his voice sound neutral, as though he was not annoyed with them. He was too tired now to want any further argument. He sat at the table as they cleared away the dishes.

  “We’re going to take Michael for a walk,” Carmel said to him. “Are you going to stay here?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Are you all right?” She put her hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m tired,” he said. “I’m glad to be here.”

  He stood up and walked into their bedroom, and rummaged through the suitcases until he found a book. He lay down on the bed, but as soon as he opened the book he knew that he was too tired to read. He knew that he would sleep. He took off his jacket and his shoes and rested on his side, facing away from the window.

  She woke him when she turned on the bedside lamp. He felt heavy and tired as he turned towards her.

  “It’s all quiet now,” she said. “You were fast asleep.”

  “Is it late?”

  “It’s after ten. You were on the news again. Not you, but there was a report about you.”

  “Nothing that they haven’t said before.”

  “The Irish Council for Civil Liberties—Niamh says that Donal is a member—have issued a statement.”

  “Our son and our daughter,” he said and laughed.

  “They’re fine people, both of them,” Carmel said.

  “I suppose I’m the one who’s wrong?”

  “No, you’re all right too,” she stood over him and smiled. “After a few days here you’ll be fine.”

  She lay down beside him, not bothering to take off her shoes.

  “I’m tired too,” she said, as she turned towards him and put her arms around him. “I don’t know why I’m so tired.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The shock of the alarm clock in the early morning. It was winter. He snuggled up in the warm bed, trying to stay awake, trying to lie on there until the last minute. His father was a light sleeper, the alarm would have woken him in the front room and he would stay awake until he heard some sound. Eamon dreaded the creak of his father’s footsteps on the bare boards of the front room; he knew if he did not get out of bed his father would come to rouse him. One more minute: he lay still in the warmth of the bed and waited. The tip of his nose was cold and the bed more comfortable than he had ever imagined. He felt sorry that he did not appreciate it more at night. Then suddenly he braced himself, he jumped out into the freezing air, and walked shivering across the floor to turn on the light.

  When he was dressed he felt less sleepy. He went out into the back yard and took the bicycle out of the shed and wheeled it around to the front of the house. There was a vague light over Vinegar Hill and the Turret Rocks. The ground was damp and as he rode down the hill he knew that he would have to watch for ice.

  He passed Parkton and Lymington House and the bottom of Pearse Road. He felt afraid as he rode past the dark trees at O’Flaherty’s, and the big old house lurking behind. He shivered with relief when he crossed New Street and started to freewheel down Spout Lane to the cathedral.

  Bill Devereux, the sacristan, was already in the vestry, unwrapping a bundle of candles.

  “It’s not too bad, now, this morning,” he said.

  “It’s freezing, Mr. Devereux,” Eamon said.

  “Not if you’re wearing warm clothes.”

  Eamon searched through the soutanes to find one which fitted him. Each time when he finished serving Mass he put the soutane he had used in a place which he tried to mark and remember, but it was never there when he returned.

  “If you don’t hurry up, I’ll have to light the candles myself,” Bill Devereux said. “There are new lilies on the altar and you’re to be careful with them.”

  He was ready now. The long pole had a cone below it to extinguish the candles when the Mass was over. He went out on to the altar and looked down at the vast shadowy church, dimly lit not for first Mass on Sunday. He reached up to the high candles on the altar. He had to use his two hands to angle the lighted wick against the wick of the candle, and he had to watch and wait to make sure that it was burning. When four on one side were lit, he walked back down the steps, genuflected, checked that they were still burning and then lit four on the other side. As he genuflected on his way back to the sacristy he noticed the lilies. They seemed carved from wax themselves, handmade, so pure in their colour and shape.

  “I didn’t do any damage to the lilies,” he said when he came to the sacristy.

  “You’re very serious this morning,” Bill Devereux laughed.

  There was a red carpet in the room where the priest was dressing. Eamon waited as Father Howlin placed the green and gilded chasuble over his head. He had learned the word for each thing: the amice, the alb, the girdle, the stole, the maniple and the chasuble. Usually, when Father Howlin was dressing he did not speak, but turned and indicated with a nod that he was ready to go. Then they walked out on to the altar and the Mass began.

  “Introibo ad altare Dei,” the priest began in Latin, and Eamon called out the reply which he knew by heart without having to look at the altar steps in front of him. He liked the Latin sounds, just as he found comfort in the smell of the candles, the shape of the chalice, the squat curve of the ciborium and the small red curtains inside the doors of the tabernacle. When he had begun to serve Mass first, he had been so interested in each thing that he had often forgotten to call out the response, but usually there was another server there. This morning, however, he was alone so he had to concentrate.

  He went around to the side steps to pour the wine and the water, and came back to ring the bells by his side to alert the people to the imminence of the consecration. He watched for the raising of the host and rang the bells before bowing his head. And then at the raising of the chalice, he rang the bells again to break hush in the vast cathedral.

  When Mass was over he came back to the sacristy to find that two other servers had arrived. Bill Devereux motioned Eamon to come with him to ring the twenty to eight bell, while the others could put out the candles and prepare the altar for eight o’clock Mass. Eamon kept his soutane on. They walked past Calvary and crossed to Our Lady’s altar. Bill Devereux opened the small side door with a huge metal key and they walked up the winding stairway until they came to the stem of the spire. From there, they looked down into the body of the church where a few people had already gathered for the next Mass.
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br />   “Some people come to two Masses,” Bill Devereux said. “You’ll probably come back with your father.”

  “I’d say so, all right.”

  “We’ll make a saint of you yet.”

  He pulled back the bolt and opened the door which led on to the ramp, which in turn led to the spire. It was a clear day now, but there were still patches of mist over the river.

  “We’d better hurry up, or we’ll be ringing the twenty-to bell at a quarter to. Do you know what that is?”

  “What is?” Eamon asked.

  “Ringing the twenty-to bell at a quarter to.”

  “No.”

  “I thought that you knew everything. It’s an Irish Bull. Did you ever hear that before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, go home and tell your father that nine o’clock Mass next Sunday will be at ten o’clock and ask him what he thinks of that. Will you do that?”

  “Yes, I will.”

  Bill Devereux took the rope in his hand and pulled it firmly, holding it hard and not letting go until he had to; there was no sound, his face was taut with concentration. He pulled again, this time harder, holding on once more for as long as he could, and now the first ring came, booming down to them, loud enough to fill the air.

  “You do it,” he handed the rope to Eamon. “You should be strong enough.”

  Eamon held the rope, he could feel the great weight of the bell, he tried to pull evenly without jerking the rope.

  “That’ll wake the whole town up now,” Bill Devereux said. “Men, women and children.”

  When they went back to the ramp the day had become brighter. They stood there looking over the rooftops towards the river and the vast red-brick mental hospital beyond it.

  “That’s a grand day now,” Bill Devereux said, and waited there, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm. Eamon stood beside him, freezing.

  “Look down there towards the river,” Bill Devereux said. “Look down now.” He held Eamon, who was shivering with the cold, by the shoulders. He pointed. There was a creamy mist like white, thick smoke, hanging over the river.

  “I’ve never seen it like that before. Do you know that? In all the years. It’s never been as white as that.” He shook his head. “You’d think you would have seen everything.”

  * * *

  When he had changed out of his soutane, Eamon put on his coat and went out the side door to get his bicycle. He free-wheeled down Cathedral Street into the Market Square. As eight o’clock rang out he passed a few latecomers rushing up towards the cathedral. He stopped in the Market Square and bought a newspaper for his father. In Court Street a street light was still burning, and there were lights on in the front windows of some of the houses in John Street. He went to Corrigan’s for the milk. His father had given him the money to pay the week’s bill. When he knocked at the door, Mr. Corrigan came out in a collarless shirt and looked at him.

  “You’re too early altogether. What has you up at this hour?”

  “I was serving Mass.”

  “The cows aren’t milked yet. You’ll have to come back. Unless you want yesterday’s.”

  “No.”

  “Come back then around nine or half nine.”

  He wheeled his bicycle up the hill. He noticed that the curtains in his father’s room were still drawn. He would be asleep now, but Eamon’s coming in, no matter how quiet, would wake him. He put his bicycle into the shed and went into the house through the back door which he had left unlocked. There was a smell of gas in the kitchen, he checked the cooker and the grill; his father sometimes did not remember to turn off the gas. But everything was turned off. He went into the back room and drew the curtains, listening for some sound from upstairs, but there was nothing. He tiptoed upstairs to the toilet, still listening for a sound from his father’s bedroom.

  Downstairs, he spread a piece of butter as thinly as he could across a thick slice of bread. He put jam on the bread. Later, he would have the sausages which his father had got for him the previous day, but his father would have nothing because he was fasting for communion. He could only drink water. Eamon wondered what Mass his father would go to. It was probably too late for nine, and his father did not like ten o’clock Mass because there were too many children. So it would be eleven. He did not understand how his father managed to fast that long. Maybe today he would miss communion.

  He set to lighting the fire, rolling a piece of newspaper into a tight knot and then placing some lighting twigs, which he got from the shed, around it. He observed it carefully while it lit, before adding more sticks and some turf and a few pieces of coal.

  His books were on the table where he had left them the previous night. His English composition was already written, and his maths. His father taught history and Irish. There was never anything to learn in history, Eamon forgot nothing that his father said. He knew the Plantations: Laois in 1555, Munster 1575, Ulster 1598 and later in the reign of James I. Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509, he divorced Katherine of Aragon in 1533. Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 and she died in 1603, the same year as the Treaty of Mellifont. Sometimes his father examined them in dates: Eamon had to be careful not to show that he knew more than anybody else in the class. The others got things mixed up, they had the Flight of the Earls before the Battle of Kinsale, which, as his father said, made no sense.

  Some things were not so easy. Unseens in Latin he found difficult. He hated guessing, but Mr. Mooney told them not to leave gaps, they would get no marks for gaps, so he was forced to guess. He worked hard at his vocabulary, and now that he was in his second year, Mr. Mooney only asked him a question when nobody else knew the answer. He sat now at the table in the back room in the quiet morning with the fire crackling in the background and started to work at his Irish, writing down all the words he did not know on one side of the page and their English equivalents on the other, trying to remember each Irish word, how it changed in the genitive if it was a noun, and how to form the past if it was a verb.

  After some time he heard his father and he went upstairs to him.

  “I’m going down to get the milk,” he said.

  “I heard you getting up,” his father said. He was sitting on the bed still wearing the top of his pyjamas. “I’d say it was very cold. We should get you a pair of gloves.”

  “I won’t be serving Mass for much longer.”

  When Eamon came back his father was sitting by the fire reading the paper.

  “Have you had your breakfast?”

  “No.”

  “Have it now then, because I won’t have anything. I’m fasting for communion.”

  Eamon melted the lard on the frying pan and fried the sausages. He did not have tea, as he knew that it was rationed, and he left it for his father. He cut a slice of bread and poured a mug of milk. The milk was still warm. He carried the food into the back room and cleared a space for it on the table.

  “Was there much of a crowd at seven Mass?” his father asked.

  “Not many, there were more at eight Mass.”

  “Who said Mass?” his father asked, still reading the paper.

  “Father Howlin.”

  “A real howlin’ sermon,” his father said.

  “There’s no sermon at seven o’clock Mass.”

  “They don’t need it, I suppose. They’re very holy all the people at seven o’clock Mass.”

  “Are you going to eleven Mass?” he asked his father.

  “I am.”

  “I think it’ll be Father Doyle,” he said.

  “You’re the one with the inside information,” his father said. “Those sausages would make your mouth water,” he continued.

  “Do you want one?” Eamon held it up on his fork and laughed.

  “Don’t tempt me. If the Pope says that you can’t eat, then you can’t eat. What’s good enough for Rome is good enough for me,” he smiled and looked into the fire.

  “What’s an Irish Bull?”

  “What do yo
u want to know that for?”

  “Bill Devereux told me to ask you.”

  “An Irish Bull? The Easter ceremonies will be held at Christmas, that’s an Irish Bull.”

  “Nine o’clock Mass will be held at ten o’clock. Is that an Irish Bull?” he asked.

  “It would suit Bill Devereux better to be lighting candles and saying his prayers,” his father said. “Will you tell him I sent him that message.”

  They walked along the Back Road together to Mass. Everything looked different now in the clear daylight. It was hard for him to imagine how afraid he had been just a few hours earlier when he had passed the gaunt trees at O’Flaherty’s, now that it was bright and he was walking with his father.

  The cathedral was crowded. They walked up the men’s side in the centre aisle until they saw a man his father knew who moved over and made a space for them. Even as the Mass began people moved up the church looking for space.

  They sat down for the sermon. The priest talked about the importance of the home, but Eamon did not listen after that, he looked around him and thought about school and how he would wash the potatoes when he went home and grill the chops, which Mrs. Doyle had shown him how to cook. It struck him that he should not have come to a second Mass. Soon, he would stop serving Mass altogether and attend only one Mass with his father on Sundays.

  The priest walked from the pulpit back to the main altar, there was the noise of people coughing and shuffling in their seats. At first he thought that his father was going to sneeze—he had the habit of sneezing in confined spaces—and he hoped that he would be able to find a handkerchief in time. But his father was not sitting down any more, he was trying to stand up, and the people in front turned to look as his body jerked forward as though something was lifting him. He let out a moan suddenly as a few men from behind held him and then lifted him out of his seat into the aisle and loosened his tie. They tried to lead him out of the church, but there seemed to be no life in him, and they had to lift him and carry him towards the door.