The Visitors

by Patrick O'Keeffe

  In so many words that’s what Zoë said.

  Zoë. Sweet Zoë. A name I then used to say quietly to myself. And I still conjure up Zoë. In the secret life, I do. Zoë, who at the end of that fall semester quit her English studies at the university, broke up with her boyfriend in Austin, and moved back east to live closer to her mother and father. Zoë enrolled at Fordham Law School. Zoë fights now for those on Death Row. And you quit the studies soon after Zoë did, but you stayed on in that town. You became an English teacher at the best local high school. A professor at the university who liked your work put in a good word for you. He and the high school principal were racquetball friends. And the week after you were offered the job, you met Emma on a Sunday afternoon at a book sale in the public library. She was holding four fat English novels that were written before 1900. You had three books on gardening. Emma looks a bit like Zoë in the face. But otherwise they are not alike. And not too long after you and she met, you left that flat on West Washington Street and moved in with Emma, who teaches math at a high school outside the town. And two years later you and Emma bought a house in the town. A blue two-story with three bedrooms, an unfinished basement, a roof and a driveway that need repairs, though there are lovely old shutters on the windows, a wide deck out back, a backyard that you both wish were bigger, but on all sides the maples shade it. And in what feels like the most contented of times you stand at the deck railing and stare into the splendid maples. And what you see then are glimpses of what you never did see. Seamus Lyons is prying open a tin of rat poison with a soup spoon in the lean-to at the back of his father’s shed. His hands shake when he sprinkles the poison onto the stew. Tess and Kevin are sitting on a bench on the deck of the Holyhead ferry. A cold wind blows stinging seawater onto them. Their arms are around each other. And Walter unzips the backpack, reaches his steady hand in, stands calmly up from the couch, and levels the gun at Kevin. Kevin laughs. You must be fucking joking me, he says. And those words you imagine to be his last. And you bite your lip and turn from the deck railing, walk into the house, and stand next to Emma, kiss her, wipe down the countertop. Whistle while you unload the dishwasher. Add a little water to the rice cooker. Set place mats and silverware on the table. Change the music. And while doing all this you and Emma are talking. Though you are never talking about what you see when you stare into the maples. No. Friends are coming over for dinner. And that house wasn’t blue when you bought it. You painted it a light blue before you moved in, and after you moved in you dug and planted a flower garden in the far corner of the yard. You never mentioned to Emma why you did any of that. Either way, Emma was delighted with it, but on that warm August afternoon I picked up Deirdre’s necklace from the picnic table and dropped it into my pocket. Then I crossed the deck and picked up the brown paper bag and headed down the deck stairs. It was on my mind to walk down to the wall and ask Anton how the work was going. No. What was on your mind was to go down and tell Anton there was aggro between the two men in the house, and it was making you a bit nervous. I had paused on the middle step, was staring down at the sunny gravel. The reason I paused was because I wanted to go back and tell Kevin that the shirt Walter was wearing was a present from Una on my seventeenth or eighteenth birthday. But then you imagined Kevin looking at you like you were bonkers. Interfering.

  —Why don’t you go for a walk, Jimmy.

  I stood on the gravel path. Sunlight through the trees made patches of the yard grass a vivid green. The grass was still flattened from where you and Deirdre had walked from the stream the evening before. Anton was lightly tapping a stone with a small hammer. His shirt was off. His back was to me. Lines of sweat ran down it. And I felt it wrong to disturb him. And so I turned to the miles of trees behind the house. The goat was grazing at the edge of them. It raised its head and stared at you. Then it bounded into the trees. And so I headed toward them.

  I was standing in the fire pit when I heard the first shot—a big fire pit, perfectly round, with crumbling walls—and I was lifting out rocks that had fallen off the wall. The shot didn’t sound the way I thought a shot might. It sounded like a beer can when you tear the ring back. Though I knew immediately what it was. And I was running toward the house when the second shot was fired. But then I stopped. Stopped, panted, swatted at the insects, stared into the quiet trees, and then went back to the fire pit. When I finished flinging out the rocks I gathered up armfuls of withered leaves and flung them out. The goat stood a few feet away. It chewed and stared. Anton’s voice had echoed by then. My name shouted three times. But I kept at what I was doing, and for a minute or so I allowed myself the luxury of thinking that Walter and Kevin had stepped back out onto the deck. The whole thing was sorted out. Beers were opened. Cigarettes were lit. But there I was, on my knees, digging a grave with a flat sharp stone. The fire pit had no floor, and I dug through the layers of ashes from fires lit in the past. It took about fifteen minutes. It wasn’t hard. I had this fierce energy for it. A square hole. Ten by ten. Twelve inches deep. I pared the walls with the stone until I was satisfied that they were straight. I wished I had a spirit level with me. And when I was done I stepped out of the fire pit and plucked a few maple leaves and the goat was still there and still looking at me when I knelt again in the fire pit and layered the grave with the leaves. I opened the lunch bag to the sound of the sirens. I took out the whippoorwill’s body. It was about half of a body. No head or neck or shoulders. He’d blown those right off. Blown them off the evening before by the stream—but you go back and forth on that. Some days you think him, not the deer. Not so on other days. And when and if Deirdre brings it up you always say the deer—nevertheless, dried black blood on dull brown feathers. The body fitted the grave perfectly. I scraped the clay back in with the stone. I stamped the clay with my hand and put some more maple leaves on top and put the digging stone on top of them. Sirens still wailed. Then up from my knees and out of the fire pit. I said part of a prayer. One my father recited on his knees. I might have said more of it but I recalled only a part. The goat was gone. I headed into the trees. Away from the house. Hearing only the birds and the insects. Sunlight flashing through the branches like it did on the first day. I was thirsty. I might have drunk a beer. And I’d forgotten the cigarettes. Then the trees were behind me and I was standing near the edge of a wide ravine. I had no idea how long I had walked. I stepped right up to the edge and stared in. Sharp rocks, roots, bushes, and, far below, the thick treetops. I felt dizzy but kept on staring. The goat appeared a few feet away. It planted its hooves on the edge and looked out. It had no fear. My mother is walking through the field behind the house where I grew up. My father is at the top of the field. He is mending a fence next to the sycamore tree. We played in that tree when we were children. My father built a swing on it. Tess asked him to. My mother is taking my father a mug. The handle of the mug is broken off. She walks in a hurry. She forever does. The mug holds a raw egg and a corkful of whiskey. My mother took this to my father every day when he was working. My father is wearing his woolen pants with the suspenders. His shirtsleeves are rolled up. There is tangled white hair where his shirt is open at the neck. My mother is wearing an apron. Her hair is up in pins. It’s August. And they talk about whether the rain will or won’t hold off. My father looks at the sky and turns to my mother and says there’s no fear of rain—there’s no fear of rain, there’s fear of rain, was the way he used to put it—and he drinks the contents of the mug in one swig and hands it back to my mother and puts his hand into his pocket and takes out a box of matches and his Sweet Aftons. He lights one. They talk about hay needing to be brought home from the meadow where the river is. She has jobs waiting in the kitchen. It’s close to milking time. And she looks down at me and asks me kindly to go and turn the cows in. I can’t remember what her face looked liked. Can’t remember, but I stepped back from the edge of the ravine. Stepped back, unzipped my pants, and pissed over the edge, this long and lovely piss into nothing, while thinking about
those who turned away from people and places. Dreamers. Recluses. Fools. Artists. Saints. Queers. Misfits. Lawbreakers. The goat was gone, for the last time. I turned back. I told myself to not forget the clock and the notebooks. And I didn’t. I stopped for a while at the fire pit and looked down at the grave. When I came out of the trees a heavyset blue-eyed policeman walked quickly toward me and abruptly held his hand up. Three or four more policemen were standing on the deck, which was wrapped in the yellow tape. Police cars parked around the house like boats at a marina. Spinning sirens making no sound. I told the policeman I was visiting the guy who owned the house, and that I knew Anton. The policeman shook my hand. He was Anton’s first cousin. Anton was at the morgue. He’d told his cousin about me. Said I must have gone hiking right after lunch. Then the policeman looked down, kicked at the grass with his right foot, rested his hand on his gun, looked up, and said that the body of the guy who owned the house was found on the large rug in the middle of the room and the other guy’s body blocked the sliding door. They had to cut the glass out of the sliding door to get in. Gun was in the other guy’s hand. And I turned from the policeman’s flashing blue eyes to the deck and said that it was the most beautiful house I’d ever been inside.

  Part Three

  A month ago, around the middle of July, Una sent a brief e-mail. She was visiting Chicago for a few days in August. She gave the dates and the name of her hotel. Might I come and see her? I wrote back that I would, and wrote no more. Over dinner that evening I told Emma an old neighbor from home was visiting Chicago in early August, and I’d like to visit him. Emma said the timing was perfect. She’d visit old college friends in Pittsburgh.

  Friday morning. August fifth. Emma dropped me off at the train station. We kissed and said we’d see each other on Sunday evening. I boarded the train. Emma drove on to Pittsburgh. A little over five hours later I walked out of Union Station, headed across the bridge then down past the shops on the Miracle Mile. Una’s hotel was a few blocks northeast of there. The man at the desk rang her room. He put down the phone, told me the room number and the floor. I scribbled them on an index card. When I looked up he smiled and said she’d been expecting me to arrive sooner.

  I walked along corridors of fat carpet, past flowers in vases on small round tables before oval mirrors. I knocked on the door. No answer. Knocked again. I pulled the index card out of my pocket. The right door, but the wrong floor. Three more up.

  The door was ajar. A breakfast tray on a stand in the hall. A bagel on a plate. A folded white napkin. I tapped the door with my knuckles. She said to come in. I pushed the door in, stepped across the threshold, but did not shut the door. A large room. A stalwart bed, with all sorts of pillows piled high. She was standing at the window, next to a floor lamp and a leather armchair. Her back was to me. The light inner curtain was drawn. The heavy outer one was pulled back. Her shadow was on the inner curtain. The blurred outline of the tall buildings surrounded her. She was as tall as they were.

  —I expected you sooner, Jim.

  She did not turn. Her arms were folded.

  —The train was late, Una. And I walked from the station.

  —You know this city, Jim.

  —I’ve brought students on day trips to one of the museums. So few of them see what’s so beautiful about Cézanne’s apples.

  —I heard about you being a secondary school teacher, Jim. Do you like it?

  —I do, Una. But how are you?

  —Fine, Jim. I spent a few days in Boston with Kevin’s ex and his two girls.

  —I guessed you were there, I said.

  —The two girls look like him, Jim. One is a bit mad. She was caught with hash or grass in school, but they’re doing all right. His ex is very gracious. And I was treated like a terrorist at the airports. I could not abide living in this country, Jim, but Kevin’s ex asked about you. I told her I was going to see you. She wishes you well. She thinks of you fondly.

  —I met her the day after it happened, Una. She told me her plans for the cremation. She said that’s the way Kevin would have wanted it, but she would hold off on the ceremony to give all of you a chance to fly over. She invited me to fly back for the ceremony. Offered to pay for the flight, but I told her it was best left within the family—

  —We understood that, Jim. She and I drove down last week with the two girls to where we dropped my brother’s ashes high above the wide river. Seven years ago this week, Jim, if you can believe it. The train went by like it did on that day. A mile-long train from end to end. The ex and I knelt on the rock and said prayers. So did the two girls. I left flowers there. Wildflowers I went and picked.

  —You met Deirdre.

  —I did, Jim. The ex arranged it. Deirdre is so fond of you.

  —We keep in touch.

  —She said you help her out with college.

  —Deirdre needs no help from me.

  —She says how lucky she was to meet you.

  —We hit it off. Deirdre is the best.

  —Oh, Jim, Tommy keeps telling me that Kevin and I brought all this trouble on the family and everyone else has to pay the price. He says we’re the fault of Seamus—

  She pressed her right hand flat against the window. I thought she was crying. I was about to go over. She took her hand away. She wasn’t. I stayed where I was. She folded her arms.

  —I’m sorry about it all, Una. I don’t know what else to say.

  —I know you are, Jim, but Tommy says Kevin and I could never get enough. He says we wanted what we didn’t have, what others had that we didn’t need, and we just went and helped ourselves to it. But Tommy would have become a priest, only our father made so much fun of him over it. I think Tommy’s still bitter over it.

  She undid her arms and turned from the curtains and switched on the floor lamp. I put my hands in my pockets and looked down when the light came on. Then I looked back up and pulled my hands back out. She was looking over at me. The father’s eyes. No lipstick. The face lovely, but bonier. The hair straight, tightly cut, neatly parted to the left. A tight black suit and white blouse.

  —How is your family, Jim? Sorry I haven’t asked.

  —Where should I start, Una?

  —Your sisters, Jim. I remember them, and the younger brother who’s away.

  —Australia fits Stephen. It’s like he was born there. Hannah rang two weeks ago to tell me Coleman Daly had died.

  —The man at the Junction, Jim. My father never liked him.

  —Hannah says he was dead in the house for a few days before anyone found him, but his funeral was the biggest she’d attended in a long time. And Tess is living with an English painter she met at art classes a few years ago. He was her teacher. They’ve moved to the Galway coast. Tess paints and works part-time in a restaurant. She’s having an exhibition next summer. Emma wants to go over for it. I haven’t made up my mind yet. But you’re still in London, Una . . .

  —For now, Jim, but I’m moving to Berlin in a month. I’ve bought a place there. It’s a big loft. Very nice. But I can’t sell the house I built at home. You can’t sell anything there now. We’re back down in the doldrums again, but I never even finished building the house, Jim. I only saw the plans. I thought it might be a lovely surprise not to see it till it was finished. I’ve no idea what I was thinking.

  —Una’s mansion of many rooms, I said.

  —Is that what they call it there, Jim?

  —So Hannah says.

  —But I sold off some of the shops in London, Jim, so I’m fine in that regard, but remember that night in Dublin?

  —Which night?

  —Which one do you think? The last one, Jim.

  —I’m sorry about that night. It came into my mind in the train.

  —You don’t need people that much, Jim, and I used to think back then that you were always living your life someplace else, but that night I followe
d you, Jim. You don’t know that.

  —I didn’t.

  —I tried to find you, and sometimes I think that if I’d found you that night it might all have all turned out in a different way.

  —It doesn’t matter, Una. You know it doesn’t. And it wouldn’t.

  —You’re right, Jim. Doesn’t. Wouldn’t. But you ran down the stairs. I put on my coat and followed you down. You banged the hall door and vanished so fast. Like into thin air. But I walked up as far as the North Circular, I don’t know why I went that way, I must have looked up there and thought I saw you, but then I came back down and I ended up walking all the way up to Griffith Avenue. I pressed your bell for a long time, and I came back up Drumcondra Road and walked down the bank of the dark canal. I stayed out walking all night . . .

  —But how’s the mother, Una?

  —She’s strong, Jim. Tommy and her go to Mass every morning. But I’ve offered you nothing to eat or drink.

  —I’m fine. I ate breakfast. And I’d a few doughnuts on the train.

  —So are you going to come away from the door or not?

  —I’ll come away from the door if you come away from that window.

  I turned and shut the door. We sat on opposite sides of the bed. The quilt was covered with drawings of red, yellow, and green leaves of all shapes and sizes. She reached her hand down and gently stroked the leaves.

  —It’s so lovely where Kevin’s ashes were flung, Jim. There’s a laurel grove close by. We walked through it. I took photos, and I took one of that long train. And boats going up and down the lovely river. My brother was such a brave man.

  —He was, Una.

  —No one could best him, Jim. He stood up to things. Stood up to people.

  —That he did, Una.

  —That man murdered him because he was jealous, Jim. Jealousy was the reason.