Winterwood

by Patrick McCabe

  We always had great fun walking through Queen's Park, with her sucking her lollipop and me singing the theme tune from My Little Pony, shouting 'Kimono!' and 'Pinky Pie!', the names of all the characters she loved. Sometimes we'd just stop and sit there in the park, telling stories - but that often wasn't such a good idea. For no sooner would you have finished than she'd want you to start all over again. Of course it would irritate you sometimes, if you'd been having articles rejected or whatever. But nonetheless you always did. Once we were in the little cafe and she started sobbing.

  —What's wrong, pet? I asked her, alarmed.

  She pointed to the ground where a great stag beetle was lying on its back, as a column of ants made off with its innards.

  —Don't let the mini-beasts get me, Daddy! she wept.

  —I won't! I assured her and took her in my arms.

  She was still sobbing a little bit.

  —Miss Greene says the mini-beasts are our friends. But if they were, they wouldn't do that!

  —Mummy! she would squeal when Catherine was with us. Daddy tells stories - about the Snowman!

  She couldn't get enough of that Raymond Briggs story. She watched the video over and over. She'd just sit there, rapt, with her tense shoulders up, as off he went, the little snowman waltzing, right out across the rooftops of the world.

  The new Kilburn flat we got off the housing association - it really looked fantastic now. The things that woman Catherine could do with interiors — she had completely and utterly transformed the place. And Imogen, by all accounts, was the playgroup star. They were always telling me what a character she was. They really were such beautiful times. All the more reason I was completely unprepared for it when I came home one day after buying a present, a polly pocket for Imogen's birthday, and discovered Catherine in our bedroom with a man.

  Once, having been mugged outside a pub in Hackney, I had realised, to my astonishment, that in such situations the anger you expect is not what you feel. In its place this banal and bewildering numbness. That was what I felt as I stood there, turning the polly pocket around in my hand.

  I had no idea who he was. I had never laid eyes on him before. I remember thinking he looked Greek or perhaps Turkish. In fact he was Maltese.

  We had these pink roses Catherine had planted in the garden: twining away there, so delicate and fragile. All I could see were those baby-pink roses, spreading right out across the neatly tonsured grass.

  I continued to write my articles, regularly submitting them to various magazines. But I didn't, unfortunately, have very much success. Which isn't all that surprising. They were hopelessly digressive and quite badly written, in retrospect. I just couldn't seem to keep my mind on the subject. Sometimes the pen would literally fall from my hand. Once, sitting at my typewriter, I could have sworn I saw Imogen, naked and blue, shivering with the cold, trying to catch my attention outside the window. It seemed so real I almost cried out. Before realising, at the last moment, that she was safe and asleep upstairs in bed, with her favourite duvet tucked up to her chin - the one with Zippy and Bungle, her friends out of Rainbow. It was stress that was making me think like that. I knew it was. That was what I told myself. You could hardly expect to experience marital difficulties without there being some outward manifestation of your inner anxieties, I reasoned.

  I decided to work harder at keeping us together. We'd been through too much to let it slip now. That was my state of mind, essentially, at the time. That was how I viewed our situation.

  Then one day I came home and the house was deserted. There was a note on the mantelpiece saying Catherine's solicitor would be in touch. You should never lift your hand to your wife. It's wrong, pure and simple. It's like something a throwback from the mountain might do, and nothing can excuse it in any circumstances.

  The hearing took place in early 1989, and after that, they returned to Dublin for good. Now on my own, London began to seem quite threatening and disorientating. It seemed, quite wilfully, to slide back its once-genial mask, coldly disavowing its formerly benign past. I was taken aback. I hadn't been expecting that. And it distressed me deeply — I won't deny it.

  I'd wake in the night, in the iron grip of unease. Having sensed this chilling presence in the room.

  I could feel it standing stock-still beside me. It was a horrible time.

  But spending my days drinking wasn't going to help things. I knew that. But nonetheless it didn't stop me doing it. I'd promise myself I would reform my ways. I'd wake up and say: 'Today I'm going to make the effort.' Then, almost immediately after this welcome and invigorating surge of new strength, I'd find myself helplessly thinking: They're gone.

  And, before I knew it, would be sitting, as before, in some anonymous poorly lit pub. Some half-forgotten Irish labourers' bar where the curtains hadn't been washed in years, where Enya music played on a loop and old men wilted in corners, doing their best to anaesthetise themselves. I think I gravitated towards those pubs because just by sitting in them I could construct a pretty accurate picture of my future. A facsimile of the past the old men were defeated in - an outlands waste where all hope falls on stony ground.

  A desolate void where no roses grow.

  For a while after that, I found myself drifting from job to job — nothing to do with journalism, just casual labour to keep me in booze. I stacked shelves for a while, did a couple of months on the buildings. But I always kept thinking of them walking through Dublin city, Imogen's face growing older every day. She would be seven next year, I would find myself thinking, as my stomach turned over violently. In the end I could bear it no longer. I woke up one day and knew I had no choice — I had to return. But, before I did that, I took myself on a trip to the seaside — down the coast to Bournemouth, to be precise.

  When the woman on the coach asked me sympathetically:

  —Why are you crying? Is there anything I can do to help?

  I just shook my head and recounted to her what it had been like that first day we'd gone there. We'd brought Imogen to Bournemouth on a picnic.

  —On the way home, I explained, she was so tired. But she said it was the best day of her life.

  I looked away. My eyes were red-rimmed.

  —I don't think I can go on without them, I said.

  I made sure to say it to the hotel barman too, pretending to be drunker than I actually was.

  —I'm glad you remember me, I said, for you won't be seeing me around again. It gets to the stage where life isn't worth it.

  I didn't labour the point. Just gave enough information in order for him to remember when the police came inquiring.

  At about four-thirty that morning I went down to the seafront. There wasn't a soul around - just this great big empty, impassive moon.

  I deposited my pile of folded clothes at the water's edge, then turned around and simply walked away. In my head I could see the barman explaining, touchingly empathetic.

  —His wife had just left him. Pity, that. They seemed such a happy couple the first time.

  I knew they'd probably locate her too, the woman from the coach. That was all that was really necessary, I felt.

  I didn't return to London. I caught a bus and headed for Wales. To Holyhead and the Rosslare ferry with nothing in my bag but a few bits of clothes, along with everything I'd collected about Ned Strange from the mountain.

  I rented a bedsit in Portobello, on the south side of Dublin city, beside the canal, pragmatically — thankfully — using a false name, just in case things began to turn awkward. In the nights I'd stagger home from the pub and telephone these random numbers, rambling incomprehensibly about The Snowman, hanging up after hearing the voice of some confused and near-distraught housewife. It was stupid. I'm aware of that. But when you're wounded by betrayal, every single sinew in your body is stretched tight.

  It's like at any moment you expect to detonate.

  That was how I was feeling when, quite out of the blue, one day I picked up a copy of the Sunday Independe
nt and found myself staring at a shockingly familiar face. It was Ned Strange. His photograph covered half the front page. I would be perturbed, to say the least, by what I was about to read. He had hanged himself, apparently, in the shower of Arbour Hill prison, while incarcerated there for the sexual abuse and murder of a young boy. I remembered the name and the minute I read it I went cold all over, and remembered the heart-warming words:

  —I'm the bestest friend of Ned.

  It was the little boy with the freckles who'd helped him feed his chickens: Michael Gallagher!

  The subsequent account made me physically ill. To the extent that, when I had read the last sentence, I experienced this sense of some awful burden being lifted. As though the air all about me suddenly smelt sweeter. Just for having finished the thing. An irrational impulse impelled me to telephone Catherine, who was living in Rathfarnham now, to tell her about the horrific article. It was as though I felt it might elevate me in her eyes.

  I became embarrassed then when I reflected on that thought, just standing blankly there on the landing, abstractedly clutching the Bakelite receiver.

  I had a few drinks that Sunday, then went back to the bedsit when my money ran out. I'll never forget that day as long as I live. All I remember is standing there on the landing sensing instantly that something was wrong. The sodden smell began filling up my nostrils - the familiar choking odour of Olson's book The Heart's Enchantment. I dropped the keys and froze to the marrow when I heard his voice, the softest of whispers. I turned then and saw him, his heavy frame suffused with a pallid spectral light, standing there smoking in the embrasure of the window, staring blankly out across the city. He lowered the cigarette slowly and faced me, his lip curling with unmistakable disdain.

  —You were going to phone her, weren't you? he sneered.

  Then he did the oddest thing: smiled in a warm and affectionate way, as he opened his hand, revealing a small bar of chocolate. He extended his hand, offering it to me.

  —I always like to bring a bar, he whispered mockingly, snapping off a square. Pushing it between his lips as he said:

  —You've made a big mistake, Redmond. You just don't realise yet how big.

  A few pieces of silver tinfoil fluttered to the floor as he drew in his breath and sucked his teeth in a parody of regret.

  —It really is lovely, Redmond. You ought to have had some. You will though, you will one day.

  I couldn't bear it. I wanted him to go. I was even prepared to abjectly plead:

  —Please, Ned!

  But when I looked again, he was gone and it was as though he had never been there. There was nothing but the curtain, blowing ever so gently.

  Just wavering there in the gentle night breeze, as the last faint wisps of the smoke wafted out into the moonlight, breaking up somewhere across the night city sky.

  Whenever I'm walking by the canal, I'll often think of that night and just how debilitating, how emotionally draining it had been. It had affected me so deeply, not just for days afterwards but weeks, as I reproached myself constantly for my humiliating lack of resolve. The words 'Please, Ned!' returned to plague me - despite the fact that the occurrence was nothing more than a manifestation of my internal difficulties. I vowed never to return to that bedsit. I left without giving any notification, abandoning most of my possessions, apart from my 'folklore' papers regarding Ned.

  I was fortunate enough to find a cheap place in a gentlemen's hostel, some miles away, across the river in Drumcondra. I know it seems rash but I never regretted it. It allowed me some space and some time in which to think. In retrospect, I think it was wise. Essential, even. There was nothing else I could realistically have done.

  It's nothing to worry about, I'd persuade myself, such irrational perceptions are common, even predictable, in times of emotional turmoil. I'd persuade myself: It's just a symptom.

  I couldn't afford for it to be anything else.

  My lodgings as it turned out were streets ahead of the place in Portobello - bright and airy and, in fact, considerably cheaper. It was inconceivable to me that my previously highly strung state could possibly persist in surroundings which were so unthreatening and congenial and suited to my needs. That was how it, unquestionably, seemed. At last, I felt, I'd made a worthwhile decision.

  Which is why, some nights later, I could have cried when I awoke with a start. The smell was in the room again - the very same damp and sickening smell. He raised the stogie slowly to his lips, standing there watching me at the end of the bed.

  —Red, he whispered, I've come to ask you something. Do you remember that song I was playing the very first day you came? To Slievenageeha, I mean?

  —Yes, I said.

  —Did it mean anything to you?

  I didn't understand. I shook my head. I could feel the cold sweat beginning to spread right across my body.

  —No, I replied.

  —No, he mimicked, quite bitterly.

  He breathed in, then out.

  —Do you even remember then what it was?

  I had to confess I didn't. I couldn't think straight. I was overcome with trepidation.

  —No, I repeated, almost shamefully.

  His voice began to rise out of the still and silent gloom, as he delivered the song in the style of 'high lonesome'. It sounded hopelessly plangent, desperately lonely.

  Here we both lie in the shade of the trees My partner for ever just him and me How long will we lie here O Lord who can tell? Till the winter snow whitens the high hills of hell.

  He remained silent for a long time afterwards. Then he said:

  —Does it still mean nothing then, Redmond? Well, does it?

  He shifted a little, sliding his hand deep into his pocket.

  —I want to lie beside you, Redmond, he said.

  He moved across the floor, edging closer to the bed.

  —Would you like some chocolate, Redmond? Here, go on - have a bar.

  He forced himself on me - there was nothing I could do. Had his way that awful night, flashing his incisors as he pressed the chocolate into my hand.

  —There's a good boy, he said. Eat your chocolate for Uncle Ned.

  The tinfoil pieces drifted to the floor as tears of shame came coursing down my cheeks.

  Afterwards, he made it clear that it hadn't cost him a thought. He casually brushed the sweat from his forehead, buttoning his trousers with the wet stogie dangling from his lips.

  —That will give you something to think about, my friend. And don't get ideas about reporting it to anyone. They'll only think it's your imagination. They'll say you're telling tales. Fanciful yarns like you'd hear on the mountain. So don't waste your time. Let's keep it between us just you and me.

  His eyes danced with roguish black mischief as he said:

  —Here, this might help you. Prepare you for what is going to happen.

  He threw something on to the table and was gone without a sound. I climbed, trembling, from the bed. It was an old box camera photograph: a faded image of a little boy, standing in a hayfield on a sunny day, with the black cutout of the mountain rising in the distance, crested by tall pines. He was smiling from ear to ear - a shock of red curls hanging down over his face. I flipped it in my hand and tried not to shiver as I read the words:

  —For Little Red, the loveliest boy.

  I found myself staring into my own eyes. It had been taken in the mountains many years before, when I was little more than eight years of age. My Uncle Florian's handwriting was barely legible now, after all the time that had passed. I couldn't wrench my gaze away. The damaged innocence and hope in those eyes reminded me of nothing so much as the expression of Michael Gallagher, the boy who'd trusted and treasured Ned Strange as a friend, only to find himself rewarded in the most horrific way imaginable — sexually assaulted, then brutally murdered. I found myself wishing I had never known Ned Strange. Had never gone near him, or had anything to do with him.

  I didn't leave that room for days. I just kept waiting
—knowing that sooner or later he'd return.

  He didn't. All you could hear was the window rattling, and the sound of murmuring voices downstairs.

  I carried the photograph everywhere with me now. I kept expecting to turn a corner and find him waiting, patiently raising the stogie to his lips. As he looked at me without flinching, stroking his beard with that chilling, teasing patience.

  —Something dreadful is going to happen, Redmond, something really and truly dreadful. And when it happens, believe me, you'll know.

  The streets were cluttered with stilt-walkers and jugglers some protest to do with political prisoners. Drums pounded and bugles blared and an enormous papier mache green and yellow caterpillar went curving past me, making its way in the direction of Mount Street.

  At times, I'd find myself sitting in some cafe or half-empty pub, when, all of a sudden, a sensation of the deepest alarm would grip me, as though about to usher in an event of potentially deadly significance. To be classified into perpetuity as: the disappearance of the photographl

  A self-evidently illogical notion which, routinely, would manifest itself as folly when, almost numb with fear, I'd reach inside my pocket and locate it there within its folds, where it had been since morning, safe and secure.

  I cannot begin to describe the immensity of the relief triumph, even, which coursed through my body on such testing occasions.

  I began, however, to fear that such impressions — erroneous though they might be — would soon begin to extend to all sorts of other areas. That I might, eventually, have to learn the whole world anew: so unfamiliar might things soon become. And there appeared to be no resources available to me to draw on to counter it. Adrift in a land of exaggerated hypotheses, I'd lean over the toilet bowl and get sick once more. Repeating like some meaningless mantra:

  —I call myself Dominic Tiernan now but my name is actually Redmond Hatch. I'm Redmond Hatch and I live in Drumcondra. Drumcondra is in Dublin. I used to be married and I used to have a daughter. My daughter's name was Imogen and my wife's name was Catherine. Catherine and Imogen live in Dublin. They live in Dublin in Ireland in Europe. The road they live on is Ballyroan Road, Rathfarnham. I had found that out by calling up her sister and pretending she'd won a travel competition. It was devious, I know, something which might be expected from the likes of Ned Strange. But I had to do somethingl