Winterwood

by Patrick McCabe

  As Ned looked up from his chickens and smiled. It really was an appropriate name: Auld Pappie.

  As Ned fed his chickens and whistled his jigs, the perfect picture of contented old age.

  In a way I suppose it was as if he himself were some kind of noble, immovable, magisterial mountain, which seemed to have existed, literally, for centuries. Long before progress of any kind began.

  —Since the very first of the angels got chased, as he might have put it himself, since the very first angel was fucked out of heaven!

  Now and then it would occur to me that something he'd said - or the manner in which he'd said it — somehow just didn't seem to fit. That he'd been trying too hard to impress me or something. Sometimes he'd even mimic my accent to my face. Other times there'd be this look — I didn't like it. It made me feel queasy, ill-at-ease.

  There was one particular evening - I find it humiliating to recall. He rested his chin on his hand and pulled his chair up next to mine. Then grinned.

  —Your father and me went to the ceilidh in Athleague. Your Uncle Florian was there. Boys, we drank more porter that evening so we did. And then we started into the hornpipes. Florian took his britches down and began to dance in the middle of the hall. Boys, me and your auld fellow we had ourselves a laugh! Because Florian, as you know, was a divil for the dancing. There wasn't a hornpipe in the book but he knew. And your father too, he had his moments. Oh, yes, me auld son, Daddy Hatch and his brother Florian were well known in this valley. You should be proud of them, they were a credit to the mountain, your beloved caring family. Even if they did put you into the orphanage — ha ha!

  He didn't flinch for a second. I could feel my cheeks burning. He just sat there twinkling, saying nothing at all. I was on the verge of protesting when, out of the blue, he lifted his leg, his shoulders heaving as he blithely expelled wind.

  —A reg'lar arse-cracker — the best today!

  Before I could say anything he had opened another bottle of clear.

  When I looked up again the sun's pale fire was lighting up the sky.

  In the aftermath of our 'session', I attributed my reticence to my predictable, pedantic, assumed new suburbanism. I'd simply been away too long, I reasoned, and had become more or less disconnected, alienated from the life I'd once known, as it once had been lived on the bare and barren mountain, in a sleepy little town which didn't even feature on the map. I had lost the skills. I hadn't it in me. I was much too conscious of embarrassment and unpleasantness. And he knew it. He knew I'd do almost anything to avoid confrontation. Which suited his purposes admirably, indeed perfectly. There was nothing he liked more than playing games.

  To put it plainly, he was amusing himself. Toying with me, really — what else could you call it?

  I consoled myself by thinking that if I had become debilitatingly civilised and grown apart from my people and background, then at least I wasn't alone, for everyone in the valley was doing exactly that — if the gaudy identikit housing was anything to go by, not to mention the transatlantic accents and the sprawling housing developments, with names more appropriate to Surrey than Slievenageeha: 'Meadow Vale', 'Primrose Demesne', 'The Chantries'.

  Which was why Ned, unencumbered as he was by any new and imported orthodoxy, had, by common consent, come to embody the authentic spirit of heritage and tradition. It was as if it had been decided that simply having Ned was sufficient. That was enough to keep them in touch with their fast-fading traditions and customs of the past.

  —Chuck chuckl you'd hear them laughing, as yet another 'Ned story' was uproariously related.

  —My mother used to keep chickens too, you know, in our own backyard, way back when times were simpler.

  —Isn't it great all the same, to have someone like Ned? Otherwise our kids would never know anything about our history.

  —Sometimes I think we're losing our soul, do you know that Mrs?

  —Not while Ned is here to remind us. He'll make sure we don't lose our way.

  —Now you're talking. 'The Pride of Erin' and 'Jenny's Chickens'.

  'Jenny's Chickens' — that was another favourite reel of his.

  —Chuck chuckl they'd laugh.

  —Chuck chuck chuck

  —Chuck chuck chuck, thank God for Ned Strange!

  It was the very first time I'd witnessed his anger and seen the depths of which he was capable. I was in no hurry to see it again. Even now I shudder, thinking of it. He had happened to come upon the old book by accident. It was an ancient and decrepit volume, sickeningly musty. His voice was trembling as he turned its sodden pages. I could just about make out the title beneath his thumb, lettered in flaking gold leaf. The Heart's Enchantment, it read.

  —Look!, he spat, his fucking name is on it. 'John Olson'. He gave it to her as a present, the miserable fucking whore. I knew I wasn't wrong. I wasn't wrong about Annamarie Gordon!

  It was the first time he'd ever mentioned Olson in my company. John Olson was a local man who'd made his fortune in the US.

  —He thought he owned the place, he went on, used to drive around in this big fancy limousine Cadillac. You shoulda seen that conceited face. I've decided to honour you with my presence. So you can count yourselves lucky. You can count yourselves lucky, mongrel scum. That's what Olson was thinking to himself. That's what that look of his was saying, Redmond. Look at me - so what do you think? Am I king of the mountain or am I not? Are you lucky or not to have me home? O Slievenageeha, I think that you are. I think that you are very fortunate indeed. And I should know. After all, I'm Mr John. I'm Mr John fucking Olsonl

  He scrunched the stogie beneath the heel of his boot.

  —Cunt, he said. Cunt and hoor: I'd as lief have cut his throat. As true as I'm standing here in my own fucking kitchen. Do you hear me, Redmond? Are you listening to me, boy?

  I kept hoping against hope that his mood would change - as it so often did, without any warning. That he'd, out of nowhere, erupt into laughter, insisting then that it had all been a joke.

  He didn't, however. He just stood there in silence, picking at the damp book as it disintegrated in his hands. Staring, with a fierce and deeply troubling tenacity of purpose, at the blurred italicised signature: 'To Annamarie from John Olson with love, Slievenageeha 1963'.

  I began to dread hearing John Olson's name. But whether I did or whether I didn't didn't seem to amount to a whole lot of consequence.

  —I'm not sorry for what I done to him, he'd bawl. That was why I went to America, Redmond. They think I didn't go. They think I never went near the States. That's what they say. That's what they'll tell you down in the pub. That's what he told you that first night. I know. I heard him. Auld Ned would never be able to do the like of that. He'd never ever stray beyond these hills. These hills are his home, the only home he knows.

  He hissed:

  —But that's where they're wrong. For Ned did stray. He did go to America. He went there - and a lot of other places too. But they'll never know, the ignorant fools.

  I tried to come up with an excuse to get out. But it was as if he was defying me to do exactly that. He persisted with his monologue. I had never heard anything quite so venomous, even from his mouth. I shifted uneasily in the chair. He looked at me accusingly.

  —You want to say something. To me. What is it you want to say, Redmond?

  —You said you did something — to John Olson, I said. What was it you did, Ned?

  —I hurt him bad. I cut him with a blade. No I didn't. I beat him. I beat him to within an inch of his life. That's what I did to Olson the snake, Redmond.

  His eyes filled up with loathing. I caught a glimpse of my ashen face in the window.

  —Why did you have to do that? I asked him.

  It sounded stupid. I can see that now. I ought to have said nothing.

  He teased his beard and then, all of a sudden, snapped:

  —Why? Did I hear you say why, Redmond? Because he deserved it, you stupid cunt! He deserved it on account of him a
nd my Annamarie!

  It was as if all the shadows in the room had suddenly decided to converge on my chair. As though, collectively, to pose that very same conundrum: why are you asking stupid questions, Redmond?

  Foolishly, I had spilt some of the clear down my jacket. You could see that he had noticed, but had decided to let it pass. He upended his mug and broodily continued:

  —Some people say that if a woman does you wrong, that if she happens to stray from the conjugal bower, then what you got to do, what your responsibility is, is to search in your heart and see if you can extend her some small measure of forgiveness. But me, I don't happen to believe that, you see, Redmond. I searched in my heart all right but I couldn't find anything that was of any use to me in there. Nothing. I tried Jesus too - him and all his other do-good cronies. But they were no use neither. Nope. No good, my boy. Not worth a flying fuck. Do you find that disappointing, Redmond? Well if you do, I apologise for that. Anyway, it had upset me so bad I had to ask her again. Annamarie my darling, I said to her, why did you do it? Why did you let Olson put it in you, his tallywhacker? But she wouldn't tell me - just kept on saying she hadn't permitted it. Until I swear, my friend Redmond, I swear I couldn't take it any more and says to her: Annamarie you know now what's gonna happen. No, she says, what is it? Annamarie, I says, it's the cellar. Oh no, she says, not the cellar. Yes I'm afraid it is, I said. But, you know - you know the saddest thing, Redmond? She never repented. Not once. Every time I looked in her eyes I could see she was still thinking of him. That old snake — he was still on her mind. Damn near broke my heart so it did.

  —So what did you do? I asked him. My saliva formed a thick and distasteful ball inside my mouth.

  He lowered his eyes and gazed at the floor. Then he raised them again and flashed his incisors. The look he gave me chilled my blood.

  —You'd like to know, wouldn't you? Who knows —maybe I'll tell you. Maybe I'll tell you one day, just how it ended between us. Between me and the lovely Annamarie Gordon.

  It was the last thing I wanted to hear, anything connected with good loving gone bad. For in those days my marriage to Catherine was close to perfect. A flawless union. The sort of partnership people dream about. We'd met at a dance in July 1980, in a town in County Cork where I'd been covering some local story. I can't even remember what it was now. She was one of the Courtneys, a well-known merchant family in the area. Her beauty was unique: it's as simple as that. It was unusual to find someone like her working in a bar, I remember suggesting to her. She laughed and said she'd been studying at UCC, history and philosophy, but had failed her finals and not bothered repeating.

  —These things happen, I said, somewhat vacantly, discreetly trying to avoid her lovely green-blue eyes.

  We ended up dating and within three or four weeks —well, if you're talking about enchantment of the heart then all I can say is I came to know quite a bit about that particular subject. Not to put too fine a point on it, I fell head over heels in love with Catherine Courtney. Telling her things I'd never have told anyone.

  Which was regrettable, obviously, in the light of what happened.

  I made it my business to travel down from Dublin whenever I could. I used to love sitting in the pub with her while she had her lunch. She told me she adored the musician John Martyn - at that time I'd never even heard of him. A situation which I went about rectifying straight away and the next time we met, I presented her with an album of his called Grace & Danger. There was a track on it she grew to love. It was called 'Sweet Little Mystery' and any time I heard it, it thrilled me. It was as if John Martyn had somehow known. If that doesn't sound too foolish. A lot of what she said I never even heard — too busy staring at her lips or at her hair. Then one day I found myself saying:

  —Catherine Courtney, will you marry me?

  I hadn't given her any warning at all.

  —Yes, she said. Yes, Redmond, I will, leaning forward and taking my hand.

  I couldn't believe my luck. I just sat there staring in silence — like a simpleton. Then she laughed and kissed me on the cheek. She was wearing a silver necklace which she fingered a little nervously, abstractedly playing with the dangling charm, a shining initial, the letter 'C.

  —Look at you! she said and laughed again, a tincture of pink appearing on her cheek.

  We were married exactly six months after that, in 1981. I was forty and she was twenty-two but the age difference didn't matter one whit. That was what she had said and that was what I knew.

  It was the greatest day of my life. No question.

  We rented a basement flat in Dublin, in the south city suburb of leafy Rathmines, in an old rambling rundown Georgian house in Cowper Road. It wasn't much but it was all we could afford. It didn't matter, we told ourselves - it wouldn't always be like this. Sooner or later our ship would come in.

  —And who knows, maybe we'll be able to afford a mansion, she used to say, tossing her scarf back, with a kind of impish devil-may-care laugh.

  At weekends we used to visit houses that were for sale — just for amusement and something to do. There was one she took a special shine to. It was situated in the suburb of Rathfarnham, on Ballyroan Road. It had a lovely little apple orchard out the back. I could tell by her expression that she really loved that house.

  —Maybe one day, love, I remember saying, squeezing her arm as we strode towards the bus stop.

  You'd hear her humming and it would do your heart good. She was humming it on the bus that day going home.

  It's just that sweet little mystery that's here in your heart It's just that sweet little mystery makes me cry.

  I continued working for the Leinster News, serialising my articles and going down to visit Ned. Rathmines then was a lovely place to live and Catherine got work in the various bars, frequented in the main by students. I used to meet her in the Sunset Grill after work, a little place not far from the library. Our treats at that time were Knickerbocker Glories.

  It was stupid, I know. Love makes you like that.

  We continued living in Cowper Road. Then our firstborn, a girl, arrived two years later, in March 1983. We decided to call her Imogen, after Catherine's grandmother. She was a wonder, really. To look at, to listen to, everything. Every day I woke up she filled my heart with pride. Catherine Courtney had been given to me as a gift. And now there was Imogen. She had her mother's looks - the green-blue eyes and the very same laugh. I used to take her in the evenings and wheel her buggy through the streets of Rathmines, before we'd meet her mother in the Sunset Grill, after her shift had ended in the pub.

  You looked at Imogen's curls and felt guilty — why, you thought, should you be so privileged? Occasionally I'd receive a bonus and I'd arrive home unexpectedly with a present — an album or a book for Catherine, maybe, and something from the Early Learning Centre for Immy. That was what I called her now. The odd time we'd get down to Slattery's for a pint - if the girl upstairs offered to babysit. But generally we didn't bother. We didn't want to, to tell the honest truth. We were just as happy to sit and listen to John Martyn or watch Dallas on the telly. Dallas - we were crazy about that.

  —I lawrv you Jay-Awl Catherine used to say.

  It became a kind of catchphrase of ours.

  —I lawrv yon Jay-Awl we'd laugh, as Immy gurgled and Catherine sat in the firelight, reading, wiggling her toes as she serenely turned the pages.

  On my way into work, I would find myself lapsing into a daydream, unable to understand what it was I had done to deserve such bounteous, unmitigated good fortune. But then nothing, of course, nothing, is ever as simple as that.

  You should never really expect it to be.

  We had been in Rathmines for almost four years and fully intended to carry on doing just that when, in March 1985, the Leinster News unexpectedly went into liquidation and, after months of looking around the city with little or no success, I was on the verge of becoming really worried when — quite out of the blue — I was offered a position with a s
mall newspaper in London: the North London Chronicle. Which, at first - I won't pretend otherwise - I was quite hesitant about. It seemed such a big step with a young child and everything. And details of the salary were vague, to say the least. But after some time talking it over, Catherine suggested that I ought to take it. She had been toying with the idea of going back to college, she said, for some time. And London would provide lots of opportunities - perhaps it was time for us to broaden our horizons.

  To make a long story short, I called them and accepted.

  We moved to London some weeks later and initially things, I have to say, they looked really positive. But then, unfortunately, fate intervened and we encountered, I suppose, what you might call another small piece of misfortune. The North London Chronicle was bought out by a rival and the core staff— including me — were let go without a settlement. Initially, there was a lot of bellicose talk in the pub, with the union official pledging retribution and vengeance. But in the end, as I had anticipated, his passionate belligerence all came to nothing.

  But even then, Catherine Courtney and I remained undaunted, picking up pieces of work here and there. I spent a while on a freesheet in Cricklewood and Catherine did stretches in an off-licence called Victoria Wine and various cafes and bars. Then we discovered that if one of us didn't work we would actually be better off, qualifying both for income support and housing benefit. We debated it for a while but then I decided that I could work from home, submitting articles on a freelance basis. It worked like a dream - dropping Immy to the nursery every day, before coming home to sit down at my typewriter. With the result being that, against all the odds, we found ourselves now attaining an altogether new level of happiness. Something neither of us would have ever considered possible. Considering how contented we had been to begin with. It really was quite remarkable. And it made me feel so — why, just so proud. All I kept thinking was: the miraculous things that, in adversity, can happen to an ordinary man and woman. Just so long as they're fortunate enough to be in love. There is no happiness or joy that can come close to the feelings you experience in such a blessed situation. I picked up Imogen every day at the same time, chatting to her the whole way home. Such a chatterbox she was becoming!