But then in his mind’s eye he saw the sad face of Lolly McKeever, whose pig it had been. Resignation would be there, and no blame for him. She knew the pig. She knew its wicked ways. It got what it deserved. He would be praised for his efforts. Offers of restitution would be made. Refusals, reassurances would be admiringly spoken.
“Suueee! Suueee!” Aaron continued his advance, with the pig now getting closer to the cliff. But if he was successful, there would be a rotting pig on the beach. It would stink. It would be unsightly. It would take the crows and cormorants months to pick it clean. No one would want to take the trouble to retrieve the bruised meat and the broken soup bones. It would ruin everything. Unlike Jane Eyre, who, in Charlotte Bronte’s version, allowed herself, almost literally, to step—without acknowledgment or hesitation—over the broken bones of a dead madwoman and into the somewhat happy ending plotted for her from the book’s first page, Aaron could hardly be expected to step over or around a pig carcass during his mournful walks. This disruption of the prescribed cadence could not be permitted. The pig must not be driven off the cliff, or allowed to take the plunge of its own accord.
“Suueee! Suueee!” Dew from the grass was soaking through the leather of his waterproof boots, but he continued on. “Suueee! Suueee!”
The pig, as if weary of this repetition, stopped its rooting, looked once out toward the sea, sniffed the air with its upraised snout, then turned and began to amble back toward what remained of the vegetable patch.
Where he was driving the pig, Aaron had not the least idea. Perhaps this attempt to save the pasture was enough, to save the pig from the lure of the cliff and the call of the sea. “Suueee! Su-ueee!” His cries now were more an admonition than an encouragement, a way of saying “Bad pig” or “Naughty, naughty,” as if he were speaking to an impressionable dog and not to an indifferent beast.
The pig returned to the garden. Aaron thought he should make some show of driving it out, but since there was no produce left to save, he let the animal have its way. Perhaps it would content itself there, finding perhaps a small plot as yet undevastated with a few cowering grubs beneath. That it was welcome to them was Aaron’s only thought. He would leave it to forage as best it could until his aunt was up and would know what its morning feed should be—if she would agree to feed it at all after all it had done. She had set aside the leftover barley soup, had found a half-empty box of Weetabix and more corn flakes in the pantry and had mentioned some leftover chicken feed in the basement from the time more than a year ago when she’d wanted some fresh eggs and had brought in a small flock that a fox had finished off before the poor hens had had the chance to eat the first of three sacks she’d bought at great expense.
As for himself, Aaron would have no more traffic with the pig. He renounced all responsibility. He would restore the garden, he would repair the shed. But that would be it. To emphasize his resignation, he would now sit on the step leading to the kitchen door and purposely pay no attention to the pig, do what it might. But before he could turn away and head toward the screen door, he saw that one huge hole had been dug in the garden not far from where the fallen sunflowers lay. He tramped through the stubble, the torn plants, and exposed roots, to see what had excited the beast to such extraordinary labor. The hole went at least three feet down and there, at the bottom, was part of an old scarecrow, the lower pants legs sticking out of the still mounded earth at its head. It had on purple socks and heavy shoes, fairly well dressed for a scarecrow.
Aaron felt some impulse to cover it over and then realized where the impulse had come from. It wasn’t a scarecrow. Not with shoes and socks on, not with a visible anklebone and a bulge in the pants leg suggesting a knee. He cleared away more dirt. It was a human skeleton. Buried in the garden of his aunt.
3
Aaron walked slowly along the beach, his hands clasped behind him, one knuckle of his right hand pressing against his tailbone. He’d kept his boots on, and the sound of the pebbles beneath his feet was closer to a rattle than a grind. The waves peaked and collapsed about twenty feet from shore with a self-confidence that bordered on the smug. Clouds the shape and size of continents had risen in the west, but were staying close to the horizon, questioning the wisdom of taking on the open sea. The gulls glided silently, content to let the air do all the work, enjoying their mastery of the sky and the beneficence of the accommodating winds. To his right the sandstone cliff—more rust colored than sandstone red—rose almost to the sky, a fringe of pasture grass peering over the top, giddy in the wind, nervous at the drop between it and the rocks below.
A huge stone slab the size of a city bus blocked Aaron’s path. It had obviously lost its grip on the cliff and had slid down, unbroken, to the less precarious life on the shores of the sea. It brought to Aaron’s mind his aunt’s mention in a letter of a few years ago that she was increasingly certain that sooner or later the family land, or a part of it, would probably be tumbled into the sea. No further reference was made in subsequent letters except a parenthetical aside that she was considering the sale of the property while there was still enough of it left to assure an appreciable profit. Her plan was to sell it to some unsuspecting Englishman—some “subject of the Crown,” as she invariably put it—and a lawyer for British Petroleum had been mentioned with undisguised glee two years before, but that had been the last he’d heard on the subject.
But now the rock was there to remind him that the advance of the sea was a reality, slow no doubt and without threat for the moment, but a timely goad for his aunt to renew, perhaps, her sweet solicitations of one or the other of Her Majesty’s subjects before the acreage was further diminished in so rude and savage a fashion.
At the moment, however, a decision not his aunt’s but his own was being forced upon him. He could either squeeze between the rock and the cliff or take off his boots, still wet from the morning grass, wade into the surf, and make his way around the stone from there. He could, of course, climb up and climb down, but he preferred not to break the rhythm of his walk with unexpected excursions. Then, too, he could just turn back. He decided to keep his boots on but take the water route anyway. He wouldn’t even bother to roll up his pants legs. The stately pace must not be interrupted. If he got wet, he’d get dry. Discomfort he would accept as a mere change of condition, denying it the power to distress or disturb. And once past the boulder, he would take up his meditation of the lost Phila Rambeaux.
The water fussed at his ankles, then at his shins, then at his knees. There was more of an undertow than he’d expected, and he had to put his hand on the stone to steady himself as he went. When, just before he’d made the turn at the far side of the rock, the water rose to his crotch, cold and, for whatever reason, wetter than he’d expected, he considered going back. Maybe that would be best.
But he had made it to the far side and was safely back on the beach. He’d go on. The water now came right up to the foot of the cliff, lapping against the rock face itself. The tide was in. Soon it would go out. The beach would reappear. He would continue his walk.
As a concession to the tide he took off his boots and his socks after all, stuffed the socks into the shoes, tied the shoelaces together with a slip knot and hung the shoes over his shoulder. His pants legs he rolled to the knee. Thus prepared, he trudged on, the pebbles a pleasant and varied pressure against the soles of his bare feet, the tide respecting the waterline he’d set at the rolled cuff of his pants leg.
Now he would think of Phila. But other thoughts blocked his way. His aunt had not called the police. With the pig occupied in the pasture, they had, he and his aunt together, uncovered the rest of the skeleton. Aaron was allowed to use a spade from the shed for only the first few feet; their hands must do the rest so no damage would be done to what remained of the man lying there. Slowly the earth was scooped away, his aunt’s hands moving in an uninterrupted flow, one handful after another, as if she were clearing away water rather than earth. When Aaron was digging too quickly, his aunt
’s hand touched his arm, an indication that he should proceed more reverently. They were not rescuing the man. There was no need to hurry. (Even at that, they had, without consultation, cleared first the face, the head, then the rest of the body.)
It was not a gruesome sight. No flesh remained, only patches of what seemed like parchment stuck onto the cheekbones and jaw as if the man had nicked himself shaving and had applied bits of toilet paper to stop the bleeding. The earth-stained bones were brown, but the teeth, once Kitty had brushed the tips of her fingers along them, were a shining white, still planted firmly into the jawbone, a perfect row, a classic dental demonstration of what flossing and fluoride could do. With less care she wiped the forehead and the sides of the skull, not bothering to clear the eye sockets or dislodge the dirt from the nostrils. But when they came to the hands, she took the bones into her own hand, one by one, and gently scraped sway the earth, picking in among the knuckles, rubbing the tips of the fingers along the palm of her hand, as close to a manicure as she could get, given that the fingernails themselves had disappeared. For a moment it seemed that she was going to press the hand to her lips, but she simply held it, staring at it, then placed it again at the man’s side where it had lain for so long.
Whenever she came to a grub or wormlike creature working its way through the earth or along one of the bones, in and through the clothes, she would pick it up and drop it on the mound growing at the side of the hole. A flat stone, a shard of hard sharp flint, lay in the chest and next to the skull was a round rock like a misplaced pillow. These his aunt rubbed and scraped until they were cleaned, as if they too were skeletal parts deserving of care. She then placed them, the round one on top of the flat, at the head of the grave. Other stones were added, two taken from the crook of the left arm, one from the pelvis, two from the right thigh, others from the folds and wrinkles of the worm-tattered clothes. By the time they’d uncovered the body, she had built a small cairn marking at last where the man had lain.
There was a baseball cap on the head, and he was wearing what must have been his Sunday best, a suit of dark wool. Navy blue it seemed, the purple socks and the impressive shoes, the heels well worn. His shirt, shredded now into strips, could have been white, possibly even starched, the rim of the collar still jabbed into the jaw. Like a half-eaten nut at his throat, what had been the knot of a tie held a few wisps of dark silk that reached down past the first button of the suit coat. Someone had neglected to tuck it in. The tattered clothes, the holes with the bones showing through, the opened seams suggested that their deterioration was no different under the earth than it would have been above. If the clothing was not in such fine condition, it could be said that this was the natural state arrived at after doing harsh and awful service, the world and the weather having had their way, one moment a rip here, a tear there, a hole appearing now, a slit then, until a Sunday suit had taken to itself the effects of the working day, the unending labors, its payment for the privilege of being worn on a good man’s back.
When the body was completely uncovered, Kitty sat back on her haunches and spoke for the first time since she’d instructed Aaron to use his hands instead of the spade. “This is Declan Tovey,” she said. “I know him by the cap and the suit and the shoes and the tie. Didn’t I sew this button on myself.” She reached down and lightly touched the second button on the jacket. It came loose and slipped away, down to the side. “Well, nothing stays forever, does it?” She withdrew her hand and put it on her lap. “We all thought he’d gone off, as usual, to who knows where, and here he’s been all this time.” Again she reached down, now to lift from his sleeve a lump of dirt. She put it on the mound at her side, then leaned over and took yet another clump from his pants leg, and one from his chest as if she were picking lint, occupying herself as she spoke. “He could build a house with four boards and enough stones for a chimney and make the roof of water reeds cut from the bog not far inland. The last of the last. A troubadour, but with strong hands instead of a song. A journeyman who never stayed but always came back. And then the work would get done where there’d been no man to do it. That shed he built, and now it’s Lolly McKeever’s pig wrecked it to a ruin. And it’s Lolly McKeever put this poor man here, and it’s only right Lolly McKeever’s pig has dug him up. Put him here she did, so the blame would come to me, that I was the one murdered him. And look at the way she’s buried him! Just stretched him out and dumped the dirt on him and only three feet down for a pig to find.”
Aaron had kept alert for a pause where he might interject some expression of astonishment or ask a pertinent question, but he soon realized it was a vain hope. The monologue, the soliloquy, the extended speech fueled by a fiery passion was, he knew, an Irish invention, one of the country’s more notable contributions to the stultification of the civilized world. The Greeks had merely “anticipated” the form, which had reached its destined fulfillment in, of course, Shakespeare, who, as is generally known, was Irish, his use of the soliloquy the proof of it—if proof of the undeniable was needed.
“Of course he wouldn’t stay with her,” his aunt was saying. “The scrawny thing, even with all those pigs to make his life worthwhile and keep him busy. And she’d keep him busy all right. The slut. Couldn’t bear to let him off of her. Had to have him on her and all over her at every hour of the day and night, and hear him calling out her name and sucking every last bit of her flesh into his lovely mouth, no matter where the flesh might be. He’d search it out and take it to himself. Like a beast, then tender as a babe. And must he go? And couldn’t he stay? And didn’t every last thing she had belong to him? Just so he’d come back to her and cover her over with himself and his hands and his mouth and the crush of his chest and the hold of his arms and the tickle of his toes along her skin and the great heave of himself mining for what’s known to be beyond the price of gold. But he wouldn’t stay, not him. Had to go. Her time was up. Onto his back, slung across his shoulder, the black bag with the tools and the socks and the warm sweater and the cap that’s on him now. And nothing for her but the need of him. And so what could she do but bring him down with a hit on the head, the greedy slut with her slavering all over him and her moanings day and night.”
Aaron wanted to keep his aunt from saying more, but there was no stopping her. Now she was cleaning the dirt from the cheekbones and the forehead, forcing the skull to move from side to side. “No farther than the door would she let him go, and she bashed him on the head. And he’s dead on the floor. So what can she do but bring him here and put him where the cabbages were going to grow. And look at him now, without even a sheet to cover him over, the stingy slut, she was that pissed off at him.”
Kitty had taken up the left hand and was picking the dirt from the joints, blowing on the bones with quick breaths to make sure the job was properly done. “Well, we can’t let him here like this, not in the state he’s in. It’s hardly a decent grave if every pig that comes along is going to snout its way into his crotch. Come on. I’m going to need your help.” She let the hand fall onto the thighbone and stood up. When Aaron got up from where he’d been kneeling, his foot knocked against a cabbage and sent it rolling down into the grave, onto the crotch recently mentioned by his aunt.
“Bring the cabbage,” she said somewhat mournfully. “It’ll do for lunch.” She headed toward the house. The screen door slammed.
Aaron knelt down again and leaned into the grave to retrieve the cabbage. The earth beneath his knees began to give way. He braced himself against the mound of dirt but couldn’t figure out how to stand up without sliding down on top of the bones. As he pondered, the earth itself decided to continue its shift. He went facedown onto the cabbage, his knees touching the dead man’s shoes. A worm was feasting on a cabbage leaf. Aaron slid his left arm out and put the hand next to Declan Tovey’s elbow. The right hand he put next to the man’s other elbow and, in effect, he began doing pushups, which at least took his nose out of the cabbage and away from the worm.
He heard t
he screen door slam again. Now his aunt was at the side of the grave. “What are you doing now? Whatever is it? You are the peculiar one, aren’t you? Well, stop it and get up and come help.”
Aaron rested his forehead on the cabbage, slackened his arms, and thought he’d rest a minute before making another try. His knees were on Tovey’s shinbones, the skeletal fingers touching his thighs. The worm had left its leaf and was crawling along the side of Aaron’s nose. He brushed it away, but it clung to his fingertip. He wiped the finger against the dead man’s coat, just below the shoulder. The cloth parted at his touch, a readymade hole into which the worm might crawl.
“Get up from there. This is nothing for anyone to see, whatever it is.”
“I slipped.”
“I can’t hear you. Stop muttering, and get up and get out of there.”
Aaron did as he was told, with his aunt’s help. He’d had to shove aside the one leg, and if it hadn’t been for the strong hold of his aunt’s hand, he would have slipped back down and probably broken the shinbone where his knee had been resting. “I slipped,” he repeated.
“Please. Spare me.”
“Well, I did.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Kitty had in her other hand what looked like a folded tablecloth with strewn daffodils for its design. But when she flung it open, billowing it out in front of her, he saw that it was a bedsheet generous in size and brilliant in its yellows and greens, a field of flowers one would like very much to lie down on. Aaron assumed his aunt would cover the body with the sheet so it wouldn’t be exposed while they waited for the gardaí, for the police. But such was not the case.
The Pig Did It Page 4
