Winterwood

by Patrick McCabe

  After a double vodka in a bar near the school, I climbed in the car and drove directly out to winterwood. It helped me so much, just sitting there knowing my baby was close by, the tears staining my face as I softly hummed 'Ribbons'.

  After that incident in St Jude's, I had a horrible dream. Even now I can't bear to think of it. Catherine is there and she's dressed in this ragged, revealing nightie. She's all painted up in a way you'd never have seen her. All I know is I'm lying underneath her and when she leans in to kiss me, I can feel her hot breath and these strange and distant voices starting to sing in an angelic choir 'May You Never', singing it so hauntingly it's more scary than beautiful and then you see why because when you look again it's not her, it's not Catherine, it's Ned. It isn't Catherine, it's Ned Strange and he's rocking back and forth. Rocking back and forth as he softly whispers in your ear:

  —Just remember, like I said - when it happens, you'll knowl

  For the purposes of my RTE documentary, I had made a number of reconnaissance trips back to the valley, and those earliest departures are amongst my most treasured memories. Casey and I had committed ourselves now to having a child and it was that we looked forward to more than anything.

  —What will we call him - if it's a boy? I asked her.

  She shrugged.

  —I don't know, she said, somewhat absently.

  —We'll call him Owen! I cried enthusiastically.

  —Baby Owen, she smiled, patting her — as yet — flat stomach with reassuring warmth: our one and only baby Owen!

  She was so good to me in those days. Like a mother sometimes. Which is ironic, what with her being so beautiful and statuesque and desirable and everything. She'd have my clothes all ready in the mornings, even checking my laptop bag for me, knowing if left to myself I'd be sure to omit something. We'd be like a pair of teenagers when she dropped me off at Heuston Station, insisting on accompanying me as far as the train, remaining there right until the departure whistle sounded.

  In retrospect, I suppose, I ought to have been a little more perceptive. I should have realised she was trying too hard. But I suppose if you had suggested such a thing at the time, in all likelihood, I'd have stubbornly refused to believe a word.

  When Catherine cried out in the back seat that day, just as I turned into Parnell Square, I got such a jolt that it rendered me speechless. For over ten minutes at least, I would say. It was only that I hadn't expected her to recognise me. Certainly not so quickly. Not with the beard and the baseball cap and everything. And it threw me completely, it really and truly did. No one likes lifting their hand to their wife, regardless of whether they're separated or not. The woman you love, the mother of your child. It doesn't matter how many misunderstandings there were.

  —Oh, Jesus, Catherine, I really am so sorry, I said.

  But her peals of panic turned everything upside down. Why had I done it? I asked myself. You have no idea how rotten it made me feel. She fell across the groceries and slumped across the seat.

  —It's going to be OK, darling, I said. You and me and baby Owen and Immy. After this all our problems are over.

  Listening to her heavy breathing, somewhat erratic at first but gradually becoming steadier, I started to chat to her and, slowly but surely, it made me feel good. Gradually, in time, coming back to my senses, instructing myself to relax and not to go making the same mistake again. The one I'd made with Imogen, I mean.

  So I kept on talking, maintained a constant dialogue, one that was nice and fluid and easeful: I wanted to put Catherine's mind at rest. In the middle of the story I caught a fleeting glimpse of myself in the rear-view mirror and for the first time it dawned on me just how easily, how ridiculously easily, in the baseball cap, I could have passed for Ned Strange. You could see the copper-red curls showing from underneath the baseball cap. Why, I literally could have been the man's twin! I thought.

  Which alarmed me momentarily, I have to say, when I considered the prospective effect on passengers. But I was pretty sure, on reflection, that most people by now had forgotten the old idiot. Perverts like him were in the news every day. Ned Strange was just another old relic, a forgotten memory from a country that had more or less vanished, now that the modern world at long last had arrived. There was nothing in the slightest to worry about.

  Ten: The Story of Little Red

  WHENEVER CASEY WAS AWAY, I'd buy myself a bottle of wine and sit in the conservatory thinking about things. About how far we'd come and how somehow I'd triumphed against all the odds. Which were always going to be stacked against you if you happened to be born in a place like Slievenageeha.

  —Home of the inbreds, I laughed as I drank, hillbilly valley!

  Reminding myself to say it to Casey as soon as she got home.

  —Hillbilly valley! I could hear her laughing as we shared a glass, you sure did well to get outta that place. You did well to abandon them and all their malice, the ludicrous suspicions and hostility towards that great big world beyond their mountain — the civilised world, in other words, my darling. Where fathers and brothers don't fuck their sisters and mothers don't die of brain haemorrhages after being beaten by brutes to within an inch of their poor wretched lives!

  —Hillbilly Valley! I'd chuckle when she said it. Even if, somewhere, deep down, it hurt me a little. Because, after all, it was my home. And, whether I liked it or not, I had grown up there. Once upon a time I had been a little boy, had I not, who hadn't had any choice in deciding where he was born. Yes I had - had been a little boy with my own father and my own mother, even if I hadn't lived with them for all that long. The more I thought about it the sadder it began to seem. It was like a sad story that made you want to weep and bawl.

  I was glad that Casey wasn't there to see me, as I worked my way through three bottles of wine and, believe it or not, an entire box of Kleenex - which is not something, I'm sure, my wife would have been all that keen to see me doing.

  But I was fine by the time she got home. I had managed to get it all out of my system. You'd never guess I'd been thinking long and hard about the story of'Little Red', a sad weepy tale from a forgotten mountain valley.

  This is the story. Little Red lived in the mountain valley. He lived in the valley with his dad and his mam. But then one day it was decided that he wasn't to live with them any more. He was sitting by the fire warming his hands in their cabin when all of a sudden a large shadow appeared and fell across the floor. The little boy was surprised because he hadn't been quite expecting that. The shadow turned out to be that of a priest. In those far-off days it was the custom of clergymen to wear a hat. A great big broad-brimmed special priest's hat. This clergyman was wearing one and carrying a great big leather missal. Its zip was golden. He paused for a second before saying:

  —Little Red.

  Everyone called the boy that. Although he was sitting by the fire where it was warm he was still wearing his new overcoat. The one with the big buttons and the brown velvet collar. The one which his mother had bought him in Burton's of the city. The priest felt the collar and enquired of him softly:

  —Did your mother buy it for you, in Burton's of the city?

  Little Red confirmed that yes, indeed she did. She had done that. The priest looked away for a moment and then said:

  —Ah.

  Before pushing back his big priest's hat. Little Red formed the impression that the clergyman was very tired. He watched him rubbing his face with his soft, unweath-ered hands. Probably very tired, regularly delivering news of the sort he was about to hear. To the effect that the boy's mother Mrs Hatch wouldn't be dealing with Burton's of the city any longer or Burton's of anywhere for she had just been found dead whilst praying in the chapel.

  —Praying at the altar rails, he sobbed, we found her prostrate at the feet of Jesus. She's happy where she is now, my son.

  That was the story of Mam Hatch's death. Or as Ned used to say:

  —Your version of it, Redmond.

  It was still on my min
d when we set off for the valley the following day to start filming. We arrived at the Slievenageeha Hotel round about six and and I'd gone to bed early, for it had been a long drive and I had to rise at six. The first thing I noticed when I awoke around one was the wide-open window. Which I was absolutely certain I'd closed before retiring. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how that had happened. I went to get a drink but the taps were bone dry. I resolved to mention it to the manager in the morning.

  The following night wasn't any better. I woke at three, ice cold and shaking all over. But at least this time there was water in the taps. I had made it my business to make sure of that.

  —What in the hell sort of a hotel do you call this? I'd snapped at the manager.

  There was a force-ten gale blowing outside. You could see the mountains: rearing like horses before the face of the moon. Flashing their incisors and tossing back their fierce proud heads, ropes of saliva hanging from their pink lips. I did my best to keep my imagination in check. That was a problem I'd had as a boy. I sat on the edge of the bed, steadying the trembling glass in my hand, trying hard not to think about Florian. Being back in the valley had started it all again. I jerked when I thought I had heard his voice. Then I saw his face in the window: winking at me, in that awful way he did, raking his fingers through his mass of red hair. When I looked again, the face was gone.

  Everyone loved him, Uncle Florian. There wasn't a tune he couldn't play. Slip-jigs and hornpipes and high reels and polkas. You name it, Florian could play it. He had played at hundreds of ceilidhs. Not just in Ireland but all over the world - in Newfoundland, Cape Breton and Argentina too. There was nowhere him and his fiddle hadn't been. There was also talk of him having lived in America. But that couldn't be confirmed. And Florian wouldn't help. He'd just sit there grinning as he bared his teeth. Bared his teeth and tapped his foot.

  There were some people in the valley who couldn't abide him, however. Who judiciously went out of their way to avoid him.

  —Malice, you'd hear them whispering in the pub, there's a very bad drop in that wicked bastard. I'd just be afraid it'd travel down the line. That's all I'd be afraid of. Especially now the mother is gone.

  Which it most certainly would - if Uncle Florian had anything to do with it.

  Well anyhow, the day finally came when the car arrived to take away Little Red, driving him off to the home of Holy Jesus. The home was run by the Nazareth nuns.

  —There's damn all option open to me now, now that herself has been taken up to heaven, but to send the little fellow to the nuns in the orphanage, his father offered by way of explanation. For me and Florian, sure we don't understand things the way women does. We're just not fit to look after him any more. Isn't that the truth?

  His brother Florian nodded gravely.

  —As long as we make sure to visit him regular, he said, then dammit to hell, it mightn't turn out so bad. I'll see that it won't, for I'm the boy that won't forget that little feller. He's a topper, that's what he is. Why, I'll bring him chocolate every week. I'll bring him a dang-sweet bar of chocolate!

  —You're a good one, the boy's father replied, and produced the clear to reward his brother.

  —We all stick together here on the mountain, he said, and we won't let him down, that young feller of mine.

  —Now you're talking! Florian cried. We'll go down to that orphanage every week. And, maybe when things has kind of improved, he'll be fit to come home and live here for ever.

  —Back home to the mountain when things has settled!

  —Good health! cried Florian, emptying his mug. As a matter of fact I'll visit the boy this very coming Sunday!

  So the following Sunday what did the occupants of a certain grey, utilitarian building hear disturbing its tranquillity? What sound came creeping to the good sisters' ears?

  Why, the unmistakable screech of Florian's fiddle, as it mimicked the wind with its deep rushing sound.

  Florian's oft-stated preferred dance of choice was the hornpipe. He liked jigs and reels - but by and large always plumped for the hornpipe.

  —Get up out of that, he'd say with a flourish of his bow, and show your uncle the cut of your heels!

  As he sawed out the melody in four-four time. Shoving down copious swallows of the clear.

  Throughout the dance, you would notice his eyes, especially when approaching the close of the tune.

  —I'm The Twinkletoe Kid! they seemed to say. And you'll dance it, damn you. You'll dance that hornpipe till your fucking heels bleed!

  The sisters loved to see him coming. They asked him to play 'The Last Rose of Summer', the Thomas Moore song. And it must be admitted that he played it quite magnificently. It wasn't like the other tunes. It was softer, more lyrical and gentle and mellow. With the notes like drops of water falling slowly in the stillness. Which was why they liked it so much. And why they probably thought that Florian's soul was something similar in texture to its sad drifting heart. They said he was the nicest man who'd ever visited the orphanage. They knew about the rumours but they didn't believe a word. They loved his chat. He told them yarns about places he'd been. They lapped them up. Stories about Cape Breton and America and Argentina. Places they had never been to before in their lives — how would they? They were only ordinary old country girls. Ordinary old country girls who had never left the slopes of Slievenageeha. Never once in their quiet, exemplary lives. Uncle Florian was like something from their dreams. Secret dreams about which they never dared to tell anyone. Never a word about the night-time visitors who would slip from the shadows with dark eyebrows and teeth and something they had which pleasured you - and of which most emphatically you could never speak. That's what they thought when Florian arrived, lifting up his bow to play the 'bowld' Tom Moore. That's what they were thinking of when he'd stroke his chin, stroke his chin and give them a wink. Saying he liked hornpipes — especially with Little Red. They were afraid if they listened to Little Red's stories, especially the ones about being 'scared of the hornpipe', that Florian would disappear and never come back for as long as they lived. So they said to Little Red:

  —Button your lip, you moaning little minnie!

  And demanded that in future he look forward to Florian's visits. Those Sundays when Florian would say:

  —Right, sisters. Me and me nephew is going off for a ramble. I have a few things to tell him about the goings-on at home. A few little bits of private business, you understand.

  —Very good then, Florian, the good sisters would say, but make sure to come back to say goodbye before you go.

  —I will indeed, sisters, have no fear of that, my dears.

  Throwing his arm around Little Red's shoulders as off they went down the slopes into the meadow. Where Florian stamped out his stogie and grimaced. Before grabbing a hold of him and muttering with a grunt:

  —Right so, Redmond. In here with us now behind the big tree. This is a good place as any, for you and me to dance our hornpipes. We can dance in here till our fucking heart's content! Get over there now till I get out my fiddle! Till I get out my fiddle, well boys - ah - dear, ha ha!

  And such sawing and scraping as would fill the woods then, as the leaping music screeched above the tops of the tall pine trees.

  Little Red often thought of'spilling the beans'. Of telling the nuns the actual truth about Florian's visits. Of informing them just exactly what kind of 'hornpipes' were going on' behind that tall tree in the meadow. Hornpipes which included snapping 'likenesses' with his camera.

  —I like to snap likenesses with me auld box brownie. The auld box brownie that I bought in America. Lift up your head now and say cheese for Uncle Flossie. Stick your lips out like you're giving mammy a 'birdy'!

  Little Red had one of those photos. He'd kept one all his life. The only one which hadn't been vile. But he'd destroyed it in the end, torn it in pieces, one night he'd got drunk.

  Little Red knew what the nuns would say. If he decided to 'spill the beans'.

  —I
t's all lies and slander! Why we'll beat you to within an inch of your vicious lying life!

  And so he said nothing. Being condemned as a result to dance his hornpipes over and over.

  With warm sticky chocolate plastered over his face.

  Eleven: It Isn't Hard to Know a Snake

  CATHERINE AND ME HAD just left Blanchardstown behind when a shrill, twofold note came floating so airily out of her throat, for all the world like the most timid little bird.

  —Like a sweet lonely robin, I remember thinking, the speedometer fixed now at a steady fifty-five. Nothing too dramatic or over-exciting this time.

  A little robin so unnecessarily afraid, I thought to myself, so unnecessary, so redundant. There were no more 'afraid things' now, I assured her. We're simply going home, I said.

  —Did you ever see a robin cry? I asked her, leaning back as I did so, smiling: Did you, Catherine?

  I tugged my cap well down when I said it — quite pointlessly, really, for what possible difference could it make now?

  Nonetheless it had really thrown me, her alertness, I mean, in recognising me.

  —It isn't hard to know a snake, she had said with a depressing vindictiveness, a vindictiveness which surprised and deeply hurt me.

  There are some things which you're better off not hearing, even if people feel them about you.

  —Why did you have to say that, Catherine? I asked her. Why? I hope you're not going to spoil things again.

  My entire life, my very soul depended on our happiness in winterwood now. That was why I had bartered for it. And why I didn't want anything to remind us of the bad times we'd had together. But in another way she was right and I knew that. For when you live with someone, you will always get to know so many things about them. I mean, look at all the things I knew about Catherine, the Knickerbocker Glories she liked in the Sunset Grill, the way she hummed John Martyn songs. The only difference being that I loved those things and with Catherine that simply wasn't the case. I suppose a part of me still didn't accept it, and that was the reason I kept insisting that I'd changed, trying to collect my thoughts as I drove.