Twisted River

by Siobhan MacDonald

  He walked past red-brick Georgian buildings, some that had been elegantly refurbished, some with brass plates, others that needed care and attention. Every few blocks of this town had a different character. He hung a left and then another. A series of pleasant cafés greeted him, some with outdoor seating, people sitting outside smoking and drinking coffee. He followed this street until it narrowed into a lane with delis and butchers and bakeries. The sugary smell of baking made his mouth water. He suppressed the urge to go inside.

  He came to a junction with another street. Left or right? He turned to the right. Abruptly the atmosphere changed. Buses screeched and shuddered to a halt. It was busy, noisy. The smell of fried food and the acrid smell of vinegar. The smell of poverty. Women with deeply lined faces and large gold earrings looked at him suspiciously as he passed them at a bus stop. A hunched-over man stared at him. There was a glint in his eye. Oscar felt as if he’d stumbled on this street, uninvited.

  As he hurried past charity shops and shops advertising goods for under a euro, an altercation was taking place up the street. As he drew closer, he spotted a woman in a cotton-candy pink leisure suit with a pram. She was hollering abuse at a woman also with a pram and toddlers on the opposite side of the street. It was late October. It was cold. Yet the children were in T-shirts. Both women had orange permatans and their leisure suits separated in the middle, exposing Jell-O–like stomachs. Oscar shivered with revulsion. Passersby made a wide arc as they scuttled by, heads down. It occurred to Oscar that these women could do worse than heed Michelle Obama’s advice on weight. They were obese.

  Passing through another narrow lane, he found himself under the giant canopy of an outdoor market. The smell of curry mixed with the rich aromas of coffee and baked goods. Oscar’s mouth watered again. But he was not giving in. He meandered his way around stalls laden with cheese and olives, fresh pasta, and pesto. Some kid was playing the flamenco guitar with an older man. A woman with curly hair displayed handcrafted jewelry. A thought occurred to Oscar. Hazel wore blue well, so he got the woman to package a pair of blue earrings beaded with pewter. It was only a token—but it was an effort to reach out to her.

  A sudden whoosh of air whipped about his legs.

  “Come back here, you little scut!”

  A burst of dark blue energy whizzed by him. A policeman in pursuit.

  Jostled into a fish stall, Oscar stumbled and almost fell.

  What the . . . ?

  “You all right, sir?” the vendor enquired. “Young fellas with illegal fireworks. The guards are cracking down this Halloween.”

  It was time to make his way back to the house at Curragower Falls. Time to whip his family into action for the day. He hoped Hazel was ready to enjoy her vacation. He knew he sure as hell was putting in as much damned effort as he could.

  Twenty minutes later Oscar found himself back at the house. As he made his way up the narrow staircase and into the kitchen, he was relieved to see Hazel dressed and with a mug of coffee as she sat in the swing chair.

  “You went without me?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Going east—happens every time,” he apologized.

  “I was looking forward to showing you around. I thought it was something we could do together.”

  Christ, he couldn’t win.

  “Hon, we’ve got all week. I can’t have seen everything. Anyway, it was only a breath of fresh air.”

  “I suppose . . .” She looked away.

  “You slept? You were snoring when I went out.”

  “For a bit, yeah. But I was woken up. The doorbell went.”

  “Spike?”

  “No. Someone to read the gas meter.”

  Hazel still sounded despondent. Time for a peace offering.

  “I got you something.”

  “You did?” She looked up from her mug.

  “I thought they were pretty.”

  She did him the courtesy of looking curious as he handed her the small box.

  “You’re right, Oscar. They are pretty. Really pretty. I love them. Thank you.”

  Was it just words or did she really mean it? It didn’t matter. The important thing was that she was trying. Just like him. She really was.

  • • •

  It was cold. A wet kind of cold. No matter how much he stamped his feet, they still felt numb. His brain told him he was flexing and wriggling his toes, but he experienced no physical confirmation that this was actually happening.

  They were squashed together in the seething red mass swarming about the rugby stadium. It was small by Giants’ standards but the energy inside felt huge. It was tribal, raw, and primitive. The kids were enjoying it too. And so was Hazel. She seemed relaxed now, unlike earlier in the day. She’d been on edge going to get the groceries. He’d put it down to using a stick shift after driving an automatic. They’d already decided that Hazel would do the driving, as she was more familiar than he was with a stick shift. But she’d been even more unsettled when she returned. She seemed to think that someone had been following her in the grocery store. He told her she was imagining it.

  “Take him down! Buckle him! Bury him!!”

  Next to them, a crazed fan with distended eyes roared at a player. His fired-up bulk jumped up and down in his seat, obscuring the view in front. The legend on his red sweater read “Irish by birth, Munster by the grace of God.” As he jumped up with his big bald head, he pumped the air with his fist. Oscar couldn’t tell if there was a behavior disorder in the mix as well.

  When another huddle took place in the center of the grounds, a now familiar ripple started up on the other side of the stadium.

  “Why are they singing about prison ships?” Oscar asked. It seemed an odd choice to sing at a game.

  “It’s a ballad about the famine, about people being deported for stealing,” Hazel shouted.

  “What’s the connection with rugby?”

  “Beats me.” Hazel said, shrugging. “Somehow ‘Low Lie the Fields of Athenry’ became a Munster rugby anthem.” And with sudden gusto she joined in.

  After repeated renditions Oscar was able to decipher most of the chorus and he sang along too. Oscar liked this game.

  He thought that if he lived in Limerick, it was easily a sport he might follow. He liked that fusion of brawn and passion.

  A few seconds later the whole stadium erupted as the red-shirted fans roared their approval at a hulking player who made it over the line with the ball.

  “Beautiful. Absolutely fucking beautiful,” said the man to his left to no one in particular.

  “Want one?” The guy turned to Oscar and pulled a squashed-up bag of jellies from his pocket. In the process a used cloth handkerchief appeared as well.

  “No, thanks. Watching my weight. But thanks anyway.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Oscar turned to look at Hazel. He raised his eyebrows and threw his eyes to heaven.

  “Nut job,” she mouthed. “Look over there, that woman’s got the right idea . . .” Hazel indicated a woman farther along the stands. She was wearing a black and red braided bandana around her forehead and was rearranging a rubber hot-water bottle under her sweater.

  “I can’t feel my feet,” said Oscar.

  “Me neither,” said Hazel, “but this is fun, though, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is,” Oscar agreed, trying to remember the last time his wife had said that anything was fun.

  She looked animated and pretty tonight and he was reminded of the first time he met her in Verona. She’d been alone and he remembered thinking her beautiful. Gripped by a curiosity he hadn’t felt since Birgitte, he’d found himself shuffling past the other tourists to get to her. From the very first instant, he’d felt the intensity of their connection. Unlike tonight, it had been hot in the amphitheater. He remembered the pinpricks of light from tiny candles lighting up th
e stone terraces. As she’d held her candle, he’d observed her in the flickering light. He’d studied that long blue vein that climbed from the hollow between her clavicle bones and up the slender column of her neck. She was slight. He liked that. Her features neat and symmetric. Not one extra ounce of flesh clung to her frame. Her skin was spare and taut. The way it should be.

  He’d noticed how her chin jutted out subconsciously. How many times had he seen that since? She did it when she was being stubborn. Birgitte too had been stubborn. But Oscar had been caught off guard. Once again he’d been seduced by that delicious cocktail of beauty and vulnerability.

  He remembered the sex. Staring into her eyes as he made love to her. He enjoyed the communion that allowed him to feel complete and utter ownership of her, the feeling of being one. That kind of intensity couldn’t last. As their relationship inevitably slipped into something habitual, he found it easier. He was more in control. He’d felt addicted to her and it made him afraid.

  In those early days he had her all to himself. As time went by, Hazel had needed more. She needed to save people. She needed to save them from themselves or circumstance. Oscar had grown resentful. Resentful of all these people and all their fucking causes. Why couldn’t the bloodsuckers latch on to someone else? Hazel was his wife. Couldn’t he be enough for her?

  When the rugby match was over the four of them hung on to one another’s coats so as not to be become separated in the melee of departing Munster fans. Their immediate company was happy, Munster having won. They were carried up the street in a swell of fans, their number dwindling every time they passed a pub.

  “Bit of a rough diamond, isn’t it, Limerick?” Oscar thought aloud.

  “Dad!” Elliot was disapproving. He knew the affection his mother had for her hometown.

  “It’s okay, Elliot,” said Hazel. “It’s an honest place. What you see is what you get. Rich and poor. Side by side. The posh china with the chipped cups and saucers. Everyone’s lives are knitted together here. There’s a lot to be said for it. Why should certain sections of society be shut away as if they didn’t exist . . . ?”

  “Oh, please, not another lecture!” drawled Jess.

  Jess had little patience and less diplomacy. But unlike Oscar she could vent her feelings with more impunity.

  “Do you think we could try surfing tomorrow, Mom?” Elliot sounded doubtful. He pulled his scarf around his neck. Hazel had some madcap idea about going to the coast to revisit her old holiday haunts. Oscar was already resigned to humoring her.

  “I don’t see why not, sweetie.”

  “It’s November soon. Seems a crazy idea to me,” said Jess, flicking her hair.

  “We can do crazy on vacation, right, Elliot?” Hazel put her arm around her son’s shoulders.

  They marched along, past betting shops, a chip shop, a liquor store. Small terraced houses spewed smoke into the night sky. Some draped huge Munster flags out top-floor windows. Raucous banter was tossed back and forth across the street. They arrived at the church and the Treaty Stone, their signal to turn right onto Clancy Strand. It was busy. Cars were parked nose to tail, and as they approached the Curragower Bar, crowds of people milled outside, drinking from plastic glasses. Laughter and the smell of tobacco filled the air. The covered terrace was thronged.

  “Miller time?” Oscar took Hazel’s hand and squeezed it.

  She considered it a moment.

  “I’ll give it a swerve.” She squeezed his hand in return. “Don’t let me stop you, though. You stop for a drink. I’ve got the keys. It’s only around the corner.”

  He was grateful to take her up on her offer. He had a whole six days more to go and already he felt the beginnings of cabin fever. Some head space was called for. Inside the bar, the atmosphere was fevered and it was difficult to get to the counter. It was elbows, big-bellied men, sweaty heads, and some of the widest necks Oscar had ever seen. He suddenly thought the better of ordering a glass of wine. A beer would do just fine.

  “Some match, wasn’t it?” shouted a woman into his ear. Her cheeks were scored with black and red face paint.

  “My first,” Oscar shouted back. “I’m only visiting.”

  “On your own?”

  “At the moment, yeah,” Oscar replied, smiling.

  “Come on, join me and my friends out the front.”

  And so he did. Beer in hand, he went and joined the woman, her Munster rugby jersey straining across her chest. He told Majella and her friends where he was staying and what he planned to do over the next few days. They insisted on buying him a pint of Guinness, and although the bitter taste was not to his liking, he made approving noises and managed to consume some of it before quietly ditching the rest in an outdoor plant next to a patio heater.

  When next he checked his Rolex, he saw it was nearly eleven. Time to get back. He thanked Majella and her friends for their kindness. He squeezed past two guys who looked hammered, smoking in the doorway.

  “Up Munster,” said the men as he left.

  “Up Munster,” he replied.

  As he made the short walk back to the house, a violent crackling disturbed the night. Oscar flinched. A shot rang out and then another. Alarmed, he looked across the river to what looked like project housing in the distance. And then it dawned on him. Small puddles of color blemished the sky. It wasn’t shots that he was hearing. It was fireworks. He’d forgotten it was nearly Halloween.

  “Kids in bed?” he whispered as Hazel opened the door.

  Hazel didn’t answer. She looked over his shoulder into the street. She too must have heard the fireworks.

  “Kids in bed?” he asked again.

  “Did you see?” she asked nervously.

  “See what?”

  “You didn’t notice?”

  “I heard some fireworks, that’s all. What’s up?”

  “Ssshhh. Upstairs.” She quickly locked the door, sliding the chain into position across.

  The kitchen was in darkness except for a small halogen light coming from the cooker hood. The drapes were drawn across the large window. Slowly, Hazel padded across to the window, gingerly peeling the edges of the drapes apart. She peered through the gap.

  “Sure you didn’t notice anything?” she asked again.

  “What’s wrong, Hazel?”

  “Out there,” she whispered. “Across the street. Someone staring at the house.”

  “Really? Show me . . .”

  The little park with its benches was deserted. He stayed watching for a few moments. But there was no one there. A cab screeched to a halt a few feet away and sounded the horn. Seconds later, a party of high-heeled women, barely clothed, fell laughing and shouting from a nearby house. They piled into the cab and drove off. But there was no one in the park. Hazel’s breath was short and rasping as she stood behind him.

  “There’s no one there, Hazel.”

  He let the drapes fall back in position.

  He looked at her. “It’s a public-seating area, Hazel. I don’t see what the problem is.”

  “I know that, Oscar, but there was someone sitting there in a hoodie, just staring at the house, staring up at this window. That’s why I closed the drapes. I was sitting here in the wicker seat looking at the falls and the lights on the river when suddenly I saw this hooded face staring up at me.”

  “There’s no law against that, Hazel.”

  “I know that. But whoever it was, was taking photographs, I’m pretty sure. I saw the glow of a cell phone . . .”

  Thud!

  Thud! Thud!

  Hazel let out a small yelp and stared at Oscar, eyes wide with alarm.

  The sound of running feet.

  “What the hell?” She grabbed Oscar’s arm.

  Startled, Oscar hurried to the window again. Three or four figures in sweatpants were sprinting up the street. Senses
on alert, he hurried down the stairs. Jess was outside her bedroom door, groggy but curious.

  “What’s going on, Dad?”

  “I’m about to find out,” said Oscar.

  Releasing the chain and opening the door with caution, he immediately spotted the reason for the commotion. A soggy mess was sliding down the door frame. Oscar craned his neck and could see that the two downstairs windows had also been hit. He wasn’t going to deal with this now. They could deal with it in the morning.

  “Well?” said Jess, shivering in the stairwell.

  “Eggs. There’s egg smashed all over the front door and the bedroom windows.”

  “Eggs?”

  “A prank, I guess. A Halloween prank. Who knows? Anyway, back to bed. Mom wants to get an early start for this trip to the coast tomorrow.”

  Hazel was waiting, white-faced, at the top of the stairs.

  “Eggs,” said Oscar. “That’s all. Kids playing a prank.”

  Hazel looked done in. Oscar was beginning to wonder about the value of this vacation to Ireland. As he lay next to her in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar house he wondered what to do. It was taking Hazel a long time to get back to her old self this time. Her behavior was becoming increasingly difficult.

  As he turned on his side and snuggled in next to her he wondered if a few slaps could really have had such an effect on her?

  • • •

  Oscar hadn’t expected much from the trip to the coast on a fresh October day. For one thing, Hazel’s driving made him edgy. He’d already decided to keep his mouth shut and he’d been very patient so far. Taking in the sights of County Clare proved to be just what Hazel needed. She didn’t mention the strange events of the previous night, telling them instead of her teenage exploits in the seaside towns of Kilkee and Lahinch.