Stay

by Aislinn Hunter

  In the late afternoon Dermot comes out with a canister of tea and sandwiches. He comes across the field in his muddied boots and jeans, wrapped in a heavy coat even though the sun is up and the weather is mild. Flagon darts over the long grass at a distance behind him, her nose to the ground as she chases something across the length of the field.

  “I brought sandwiches.”

  Sean wipes his hands on his pants and takes the white plastic bag held out to him, sits down on the ground with it.

  “It’s going well,” Dermot says.

  Sean nods as he unwraps the sandwich from the plastic. He bites down on the thickly sliced white bread, turns the food around in his mouth, tastes cheese, lettuce and mayonnaise. Looking up he finds himself in Dermot’s shadow.

  Dermot crouches down and sets his own sandwich on the plastic bag in front of him. He opens the canister of tea and pulls a teacup from his coat pocket—white with faded roses around the border. He pulls a saucer from the same pocket. Sean laughs.

  “Just like my mother’s,” Dermot smiles. From his left coat pocket he pulls out another cup with an ivy pattern.

  They sit for a minute eating their sandwiches; then Dermot, tired of hunkering, crosses his long legs under him and hits the thermos with his boot. It starts to tip forward but Sean grabs it before it spills entirely.

  “Ta.”

  The boy nods, flicks tea from his fingers onto the grass beside him. Flagon comes up behind Sean, leans in, smells his hand.

  “She’ll take tea.”

  Sean puts his hand out and Flagon licks it for a few seconds before turning to stand the other way. She’s watching the far field, and beyond that, the road to town, her ears pushed forward.

  “Do you know much about the stars, Mr. Fay?”

  “The stars, is it?”

  Sean takes another bite of his sandwich.

  “Points of light in the heavens.” Dermot looks from the boy to the sky. “You know the sun is a star?”

  The kid sets down his sandwich and wipes the corner of his mouth with his thumb.

  “Plato. Do you know Plato?”

  The boy nods.

  “Plato thought the stars were divine beings. He thought, and this was back in the days of sandals and catapults, before the telescope, NASA and GPS—” Dermot raises his brow and Sean smiles, “—anyway, he thought that stars moved in a perfect order, circular orbits. And that the earth was the centre of the universe.”

  “Until Galileo?”

  “Copernicus, I believe. Although Galileo had some thoughts on it later.”

  Sean refills his teacup from the thermos and sips at it.

  “You have your sights on astronomy?”

  “Maybe.” Sean shrugs, looks over at the post he’s been working on.

  “The silent heavens mark all stars that swim the sky.”

  Dermot takes a bite of his sandwich. A sliver of lettuce falls out and onto his jeans. “That’s Virgil.”

  “What did you teach in Dublin?” Normally Sean doesn’t like to ask personal questions but this time it seems to fit the conversation.

  “Ask me what I learned,” Dermot corrects him. And he fixes his eyes on Flagon who, behind Sean, is still staring across the field.

  Best Deals Travel

  “I’M off.”

  “See ya.” Abbey picks up her cereal bowl and walks Ange to the door.

  “What time are you due at Connor’s?”

  “High noon,” Abbey says with a western drawl.

  Ange opens her purse and rifles through it. She finds her keys, puts them in her pocket and turns to go. “I’ll be back around eight.”

  “I’m doing a double shift so I won’t be back ’til midnight.”

  “All work and no play—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  A few days ago Abbey had agreed to cover two shifts for Anne-Marie so she could go to London for the weekend with her new boyfriend. Abbey and Anne-Marie had gone together to the Best Deals Travel Agency on Dawson Street for tickets. The whole office was covered in Irish flags and a banner hanging over the front desk read “Book Japan and Korea now! Special Cup rates!” Abbey had noticed a list that read “other destinations” on a chalkboard beside the banner. Anne-Marie was at the back desk talking to an agent while Abbey eyed the board: Toronto one-way—three-hundred and ninety-nine Euros.

  The white shirt Abbey needs for work today is dirty—brown sauce on the sleeve. She rolls the cuff up twice and it isn’t as noticeable. Does the same with the other. The television is tuned to a BBC breakfast show Ange likes and the kitchen table is covered with exhibition photos from the Gallery where Ange works. A Cosmo, opened up to the “get your best hair ever” article, lies beside them. Crumbs from Ange’s toast line the crack of the page. Abbey goes into the bathroom and stands in front of the mirror. Then she opens the medicine cabinet and, finding the hairbrush, rakes it through her hair. There are times when she can see how much she looks like her father. And like Isabelle Shaw. And also like the one photo she’s seen of Frank’s real mother, Stella. She has the same narrow eyes, the same slight wave to the dark brown hair. Just before her sixteenth birthday Abbey had dyed her hair blonde, the same shade she remembered her mom using—Pure Platinum. Then she didn’t look like anyone, not like Frank, not like the Shaws, not even like her mother, although Jane, at Abbey’s birthday dinner, had said otherwise, probably trying for once to be nice.

  When Abbey told Frank she was going to Ireland she said she wasn’t doing it to hurt him. She was just tired of waiting for her mother to magically appear. Staying in Windsor meant waiting for the day they’d run into her. And Abbey watched for it all the time—imagined her mother in the Kmart, at the Magic Cuts, in the Shop and Save, at a phone box; imagined her mother, after seventeen years, simply boarding a bus.

  “What I have and what you have are two different things.” This was Frank’s response. “You know me, right?” thumping his chest, hitting it with his thumb. “You might not like me but I’m your father.”

  Abbey was changing his bed sheets and he was standing near the window, where he had a view of the neighbouring apartment building, the plastic flamingos on someone’s tenth-floor balcony, the potted plants, a pinwheel tied to the rail. There were strands of his hair on the pillow case—more than usual, as if it was coming out in clumps. Abbey’d wondered briefly if he pulled it out on purpose and then felt guilty for even thinking it. She tossed the dirty sheets into the hamper and went over to Frank. He smelled like piss, like piss-stained clothes.

  “Go take a shower, Dad.”

  “While you pack?” He’d turned back to the window. “Thanks, but I know that trick.”

  The last time Abbey saw Frank was a week before she left for Ireland. They’d had a row about her going. At the time she was calling it a vacation, though she had a work visa and thought she might stay as long as six months. She wanted to travel around, to find out more about where the Gowans and the Shaws had come from. The plan was to come back, nurse Frank through whatever it was he needed nursing through, maybe go full-time to the University of Windsor. But he wasn’t having any of it. He refused to let her go. Abbey’d pointed out that he couldn’t stop her, but dead-pan Frank had replied, “Oh yes, I can.” So Abbey had walked out on him, had gone over to her friend Lisa’s house to watch a video. Later, around one AM, Frank called Abbey on her cell phone, telling her to come home, insisting it was important.

  As soon as she opened the apartment door Abbey felt the heat coming off the flames. There was Frank on the balcony with his back to the railing, looking at her, at the blazing sway of the polyester curtains between them. The wind drew them towards him then billowed them back into the apartment in orange licks. The fire had already spread onto the couch, the spider plant in the corner, its wicker pot crackling. Frank stood in his underwear behind it all, a gas can in his hand.

  Abbey ran for the phone on the wall in the kitchen and dialed 911, screaming at Frank to get out of there, cal
ling him an asshole. The fire alarm went off, the sprinklers started. Frank stayed there, out on the balcony, watching her on the phone. All he had to do was step into the living room, toss the gas can over the railing, come forward. But Abbey knew he was waiting for her to save him.

  Draping a blanket over her head, Abbey reached past the curtains, waved her hand around until she found his wrist and pulled him through the flames. All the while she prayed to god that he’d drop the gas can, that he wasn’t trying to take her with him. The harsh clang of the fire-alarm was still going off in the hallway and the fire was climbing the wall above the couch, routing its way around the family photos Frank had asked Abbey to put up.

  Abbey pushed Frank out the door of the apartment and made him roll over the cinders that had caught on his jockeys. People in pajamas and overcoats came out of their apartment doors, hurrying for the exits. One of the neighbours, a middle-aged man, looked in Frank’s apartment then went in with a fire extinguisher, aiming it at the couch. The corner of the room was a mix of orange and yellow flames and Frank was laughing.

  At first Abbey let Frank lean on her as they went down the stairs and across the concrete driveway. But once they got to the front lawn Abbey let him go, and he crumpled into the grass. This was his way of begging her to stay. And if she did, and if it only worked for a while, he’d do it again. They both knew this. Abbey looked at Frank lying in the grass, thinner than she’d ever seen him—yeah, okay, dying—but trying his best to ruin her life as he went. He laughed again and Abbey began to walk away. Frank tried to get up and follow her but a fireman came over to him to see if he was hurt. The fireman’s two gloved hands held Frank down.

  “Sir, I’ll need to examine you … Sir …” and Abbey was already at the far edge of the lawn.

  “Abigail?” He’d raised his voice. “Abbey, come back—”

  When Abbey looked over her shoulder, Frank was using his bony arms to push away the oxygen mask they were putting over his mouth.

  “Abbey!”

  Abbey started running then, trying to remember what clothes she had at Lisa’s, what she could take with her to Ireland. Her bank card, plane ticket, and passport were all in her backpack. She thought about what she’d want from the apartment and then realized she never wanted to see Frank again. She could walk away from all of it. Abbey ran ten blocks as if he was behind her, her heart thrumming up in her ears, the sidewalk tilting towards the road. When she reached Riverside, she stopped and looked around to see where she was. The Detroit skyline was lit up on the far side of the park. Her fingers kneaded the stitch in her side and her breath was visible in the night air. She was on Water Street, which meant Lisa’s house on Highland was only four blocks away. She made for the hill. The smell of gas on her clothes from carrying Frank down the stairs. What had he been thinking? What if she hadn’t come? The street lamps loomed above her as she came to the top of the rise, and turned onto Elm, moving through a circle of light one second, and heading into darkness the next.

  The Bog Man

  MICHAEL is a few inches down into the soil, his right arm sore from constantly brushing away the earth. The peat is moist here, so he has to apply pressure to get it to lift. Gerry beside him is using the trowel, removing the peat, the dead roots, by the shovel-full. Una’s on the far side of the dump site going through the surface layer of peat with a screen. It’s Monday, their second day at Maam, and protocol dictates that if Michael doesn’t find anything by the end of the week, the boys can go back to working this part of the field, can pat the three of them on the back as they’re leaving.

  “Una?” The girl—cropped black hair, almost Asian eyes—looks over from the far side of the pile of peat. “Give us a hand here, will ya?” Michael nods his head toward the northeast corner of the pit. Una stands up, brushes the dirt off her khaki shorts. White bra straps poke out from under her yellow tank top. “You can use the small shovel. You and Gerry work from the corners.” Michael draws a line out from the corners with his fingers.

  “From here?”

  “Yes. And don’t be afraid to dig down. Just pay attention to any resistance.” Una picks up the small shovel and Gerry, looking over his shoulder, watches her step into the pit, lean over, pitch the blade into the ground. Michael catches his eye and shakes his head. It’s not quite a reprimand, more a look of consolation. She’s out of your league, out of mine. Una’s nineteen, smarter than both of them, a feminist who wears tight t-shirts with slogans like “Porn queen” printed in block capitals across the front. Gerry’s more out-going, and maybe, in Michael’s opinion, a bit too chummy, but he gets the work done. Despite her cautious nature, Una is the first student of Michael’s who has ever excavated a find in the field. She’d just finished her first year classes and was working that summer with the WU at the Bog of Allen when she found a trackway. Dug most of it up before the fall term began.

  In all his years as an archeologist, as a student, associate professor and professor, Michael’s never unearthed anything of consequence with his own hand. He’s worked next to people who’ve come across pottery shards, a broken bead; there was a girl in Dublin working ten feet away who found a lead bulla. But Michael hasn’t spent enough time digging to warrant a find. He has a gift for pulling papers together before presentations, for making it all sound worthwhile and good. He even fakes a certain glamour when attending funding meetings, discusses great finds as if every dung heap in every corner of Dublin could contain them. And the truth is, he believes they could. Michael spends most of his time pouring over other people’s papers or arranging for the preservation of objects traveling from Dublin to museums around the world. He teaches Archeological Methodology and Conservation Science as a sessional in Galway. He makes a trip out to Maam once every six weeks to supervise the WU. Occasionally he takes up the brush. But not like this. Not for years. Down on his knees in Maam bog—the thought of it gets him laughing. An English bog man. This is what the Irish have made me.

  The summer Michael turned twelve, his father, a crane operator in Millwall, took him to the British Museum. They went up the steps, through the doors and into the main foyer. Stopped there. Looked up at the domed ceiling. It was off-white with gold coffers, a simple design. This was the first time Michael saw how set apart they were. Maybe it was a matter of education, or class, but everyone else entering that building kept going, right past it, as if they’d seen a hundred such ceilings before. When he thinks about it now, he remembers how they spent the day wandering around, both of them amazed at the smallest things: Egyptian combs, a bent sunflower pin, cuneiform carved on the side of a stone. But what he thinks of most is that ceiling. Not the Sutton Hoo exhibition, the photographs of the site, the archeologists in their garrison caps and fedoras, a large pit behind them; but the ceiling, and his father next to him, looking up.

  Michael leans forward with the brush in his right hand, sweeping it back and forth over the peat. He pulls at a thin white root with his left hand, snaps it. Gerry and Una are due back from their break any minute. Then Michael can take one, walk around the field, get the circulation in his legs going again. His back is aching. Sitting up, lifting his arms overhead, Michael breathes in and then exhales deeply. Listens. A group of frogs are sounding out in a nearby trench. Under that, there’s the dull roar of the tractor engines carried over the bog. Every now and again, the clang of machinery; once in a while, someone shouting. Sitting back on his heels, Michael undoes the buttons of his jacket. The clouds have moved past the sun. The wind coming off the lake has died down. The peat underneath him is warming up. Layers of it have been brushed and shoveled away, are drying outside the pit. With the sun comes the sound of kestrels. Shielding his eyes, Michael looks up. Sees nothing. When he looks back down and across the bog, he notes that the stockpiles in the sets to the west are coming along. They look like the spines of wild animals; black plastic covering the tops of the ridges like manes. Tomás’ crew is working their first set today, and looking north Michael can see three ma
chines going. Tomás is milling one field while someone else ridges the field behind him. The harvester is two fields behind them. Tomás’ first set is coming along, although they’ve yet to move all the smaller ridges to the central field. Standing up in the pit, Michael sees the whole grid of the bog reaching out around him. The rich brown of it, a copse of bushes near the lake. He flexes his back muscles and stretches his neck, first to one side, then the other. Drops his chin to his chest, rolls his head back. Above him, a kestrel flying in wide circles. Michael imagines the bird looking down over the field, what it would see. A man standing in a small pit. The ground turned over around him. The bird thinking nothing of it and flying on.

  Dialectics

  HAVING lied to the administrator about his credentials, Dermot makes his way across Maam, a “guest” badge pinned to his shirt. He hops onto the light-rail car and takes a seat, hoping to find Michael. The two Bord na Móna workers on the far bench haven’t a clue about the dig.

  “Sure, there’s always a dig somewhere.”

  “Wouldn’t say now, where it might be.”

  “You’ll likely be doing the circle for hours.”

  “Pack a lunch?” The laughter is at his expense, but he finds Michael fairly easily, in the form of an orange WU sign posted at the edge of the fifth field.

  “There’s your man now,” called out as he jumps off.

  Michael’s been at it three days, with Una and Gerry helping out in the afternoons, the three of them working quietly, concentrating on the task at hand. At ten, when Michael sees Dermot crossing the field, he has two thoughts: How in hell’s name did he find me; and thank god for the company. Gerry, when he did talk, didn’t seem to have anything much to say, and Una tended to stop working when the conversation got even remotely interesting.

  Michael spends the next hour listening to Dermot yammer on about bogs. “The summer of 1919,” Dermot starts, “Alcock and Brown flew the first non-stop powered flight over the Atlantic. All was going well until the two men came in over Clifden.” He stops, takes a drag off his cigarette. “The wind shot up and the plane went ass over tail with it. Nose-down in Derrygimla Bog.” He kicks at the peat. “What’s ‘bogach’ in English, Michael?”