The Abstainer

by Ian McGuire

  Fergus shakes his head in disgust.

  “I knew from the start there was a badness in you. I’ve seen it in your eyes. I tried to help you for your dead mother’s sake, but some people can’t be helped.”

  “You worked me half to death, then you beat me until I bled. Is that what you call helping?”

  “I took you in when you had nowhere else to go,” Fergus answers. “I fed you up and put a roof over your head. Any punishment you ever got from me, you deserved it. If I’d beat you some more, then maybe you would have learned something from it. Maybe you wouldn’t be what you are today.”

  Doyle looks up through the mesh of black branches at the broken grayness of the evening sky.

  “I need my belongings before I go,” he says. “If you’ll get them for me, I’d be obliged.”

  He watches Fergus turn away and start to walk back toward the wagon. How long have I waited, he thinks? How often have I lived this moment out in dreams or masquerades and now it is arrived at last? He tugs the ax out of the stump and takes three quick strides forward. The blade is already in motion, arcing brightly through the darkened air, when Fergus, too late, looks around. For an instant, as the chipped steel edge cuts down into neck muscle and spine bone, the two men stand there, in the clearing, weirdly conjoined, the ancient ax and its sweat-stained handle stretched out between them like a blood-black cord.

  CHAPTER 32

  The boy will not leave his side. Even at night, they must sleep pressed together or else he suffers nightmares and wakes in the early-morning darkness, shouting out or shaking with fear. Whatever is wrong with him will not easily be made right. O’Connor understands that now. He had supposed that once they were away from Garnett and the mine, the boy would improve, if not immediately then soon afterward, but they have been in Harrisburg a month already and nothing has altered. He is stubborn and silent still. When at rest, he sniffs and peers about and scratches at himself like an animal. He is not stupid, certainly, he may even be clever in his own secret ways, but he knows almost nothing—simple arithmetic is a mystery to him, and so are the letters of the alphabet and the months of the year. He should rightly be in a school somewhere, O’Connor thinks, so he can learn to become normal, like other boys, but they have no money for that, and even if they did, he would never agree to go. He asks himself sometimes why he has chosen to add to his troubles in this way, but he already knows the answer: Michael Sullivan is dead, but this boy is still living. He failed once before, and now he has been given another chance.

  They live together in a single room in a cheap boardinghouse by the railroad yards. They hire out as day laborers when they can, and on days when there is no work to be found, they go fishing in the reservoir or sit in one of the city squares watching the Negroes dance for money and listening to the barrel organs. They have spoken to every Doyle listed in the Harrisburg street directory, and they have visited every draper’s shop and every barroom and general store in the city without reward. O’Connor knows he should properly go back to New York and start the search anew, but they are settled here, in their own way, and if they stay another month, or even two, he thinks, what difference will it make? The fury that drove him from Manchester has lessened, and, in its place, he feels uncertainty and emptiness and occasionally, growing between the two, like a weed between flagstones, a frail and incongruous kind of hope.

  One afternoon toward the end of April, as they are walking back to the boardinghouse along Water Street, O’Connor hears the owner of the feed store, a man named Walter Alger, calling out to him through the half-open doorway. They turn to look and Alger beckons them inside.

  “I have something you’ll want to know about,” he says. “There’s an old Irish farmer, a fellow named Fergus McBride, who lives about twenty miles from here. He has a nephew who used to live with him on the farm. That was ten years ago and no one’s seen him since. I haven’t thought of the nephew for years, haven’t had any cause to, but when Fergus came in here last week, I remembered right away.”

  He taps his wide forehead with his finger and winks.

  “Remembered what?” O’Connor says.

  “The nephew’s name was Stephen Doyle. He must have been the sister’s boy. Stephen Doyle. That’s the one you’re searching for, ain’t it? The very one?”

  “You say he left here ten years ago?”

  “The two of them had some kind of falling-out, I believe. I don’t know what it was all about. Fergus never told me and I never asked.”

  “Did you tell McBride about me? Did you say I was looking for a fellow with that name?”

  “Certainly I did. He told me his nephew was a bad character but not so bad as all that. He doesn’t believe he could be any kind of murderer.”

  “If he hasn’t seen him for ten years, how would he know?”

  “That’s what I thought too, but I didn’t like to say it to his face.”

  “Will he talk to me if I go out there to the farm?”

  “He might talk, but I doubt he has much more to say. Even if this nephew’s the man you’re looking for, Fergus can’t tell you where he is now. He could be anywhere at all.”

  “There might be another relative he could point me to, someone who knows where the nephew’s living now.”

  “That’s possible too.”

  “I’d almost given up,” O’Connor says. “I thought it was all finished with.”

  Alger grins and looks pleased with himself.

  “Then I done you a favor, ain’t I?” he says. “I put you back in the game.”

  * * *

  —

  Later that night, in their boardinghouse room, the boy asks O’Connor what he will do after Stephen Doyle is found. They are sitting side by side on the edge of the metal bedstead, sharing a can of oyster stew. From beyond the dusty window, they can hear the noise of crashing boxcars in the rail yards and the heaves and whistles of the steam engines as they pass by.

  “I may go back to Ireland,” he says. “I’m not certain yet.”

  “Will you take me with you?”

  “If you want it, I will.”

  They continue eating slowly, passing a single metal spoon back and forth between them.

  “Will we go on a boat?” the boy asks.

  “There’s no other way to get there.”

  “I never been on a boat before. I never even seen the sea.”

  “The sea is something, a thing of wonder.”

  “What if I drown in it?”

  “You won’t drown in it.”

  “But what if I do?”

  “Then I’ll throw you a rope,” he says.

  The boy is smiling, which makes a change. O’Connor lets him have the last bite of the stew, then licks the spoon clean and puts it back in his pocket. He wishes, for a moment, that he was someone else, that he had never heard of Stephen Doyle or Michael Sullivan or Tommy Flanagan or any of the others, that the slate was wiped clean and he was free again, but he knows it is a childish way of thinking. It is too late for that now. He is what he is, and he must follow this path to its ending.

  * * *

  —

  Next day, they are up at first light. They boil water for coffee and oatmeal, then wash themselves at the pump in the yard. The air is still cold and the morning light is dim and gray as they cross the railroad tracks and the Pennsylvania Canal, but as they strike the Jonestown Road heading east the cloud cracks and the sun breaks through. The boy walks slowly but steadily; sometimes he whistles a tune. When they stop by a stream to drink and rest, he curls himself into a ball on the damp ground and falls asleep until O’Connor wakes him. It is early afternoon by the time they reach the McBride farmhouse. A tall, gray-haired woman opens the door. Her pale eyes are red-rimmed, and she smells stale and unwashed, as if she has just risen up from a sickbed. There is a child standing just behind her, a boy of ni
ne or ten with thick black curls and ears that jut out sideways. O’Connor tells the woman his name and explains they have come to speak to Fergus McBride. The woman glances away for a moment, then looks back at them again. She tells him that she is Fergus’ wife and her name is Anna McBride, but that Fergus is dead.

  “He was robbed and murdered coming back from Harrisburg,” she explains, her voice gruff and strained. “A huckster found his body lying by the side of the road a few miles away from here. We buried him two days ago in the churchyard yonder.”

  “Just yesterday I was talking to Walter Alger, the fellow who owns the feed store on Water Street in Harrisburg,” O’Connor says. “He told me he spoke to your husband only last week.”

  “Then that must have been the very day he was killed,” she says.

  He looks about the yard. The farm is tidy and prosperous-seeming. He has not heard any talk of the roads hereabouts being dangerous, and it’s an odd piece of misfortune, he thinks, to be robbed and killed so close to home.

  “I’m very sorry,” he says. “Can we help you at all? Is there any work that needs to be done on the farm?”

  She shakes her head.

  “I thank you,” she says, “but I have all the help that I need here.”

  She invites them to come inside, and they sit down together at the pine table. The room is cluttered and grimy and smells of pork fat and ashes. O’Connor can see that the woman is exhausted by grief. Her thin face is pale, and she moves with the slowness and imprecision of a sleepwalker. She gives them a jug of water to drink and they thank her for it.

  “Is this your son?” she asks O’Connor, looking at the boy.

  “No, not my son. His father died and his mother is elsewhere. I’m his guardian.”

  “How did you know my husband? I don’t recognize your face.”

  “I didn’t know him, Mrs. McBride, but I’m searching for someone, and I thought your husband might be able to help me.”

  “Then I’m sorry you made the journey for nothing. You’re welcome to rest here for the night if you wish. There’s a room above the stables, and I can give you supper too, although it won’t be much.”

  “Perhaps you can answer my questions?”

  “I doubt that I can. My husband kept his business mostly to himself.”

  “They concern your nephew, Stephen Doyle.”

  She looks surprised.

  “If you want to know about Stephen, it’s best to talk to him yourself. He’s working up in the pasture now, I believe.”

  There is a silent interval while O’Connor tries to fathom what he has just been told.

  “Are you telling me that Stephen Doyle is here on this farm?” he says eventually. “That he’s here right now?”

  “He’s been with us this fortnight since, and it’s a great blessing to have him. I’m not sure I could have managed all alone with my sadness. He’s been a great comfort to me, to both of us.”

  She reaches over and touches Patrick on his cheek, but the child flinches away.

  “I was told that he left you ten years ago and hadn’t been seen or heard of.”

  “He did leave us once, that’s the truth, but lately he returned. Is it Stephen you’re looking for?”

  The boy begins to speak, but O’Connor gestures for him to keep quiet. He looks back at Anna calmly as if nothing unusual has just happened, as if everything is still just as it should be.

  “Was your nephew ever in the war, Mrs. McBride?”

  “Certainly he was. They made him a captain by the end of it.”

  “In the New York Infantry, was it? The Eighty-eighth?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And he has two scars on his face from his service? One here and another one here?”

  She nods.

  “So you know him?” she says. “You’re a friend of Stephen’s?”

  “An acquaintance. I knew him in England. We two had some business dealings there.”

  “I didn’t know Stephen was ever in England. He told us he went back to Ireland once, but he didn’t say anything about England.”

  “The time was brief. It may have slipped from his mind.”

  “If you’d like, I can send Patrick up to the pasture now to tell Stephen you’re here.”

  “It’s better if we go up there ourselves, I think.”

  She nods again, then frowns.

  “Is something the matter?” she says. “Is Stephen in some trouble?”

  O’Connor is trying to keep his voice steady now, to betray neither surprise nor alarm.

  “No,” he says. “At least, none that I know of.”

  O’Connor glances again at the boy, then stands up from the table.

  “We won’t keep you any longer,” he says. “Thank you for your help.”

  In the yard, O’Connor takes Garnett’s service pistol out of his pocket and checks its readiness, then tips back his head to the sky and screws his face into a scowl. The boy watches him.

  “What will you do now?” he asks.

  “I’ll do what it is I came here to do.”

  “I can help you.”

  “No, you can’t. You’re too young. I would have left you back in Harrisburg if I’d had any notion Stephen Doyle was going to be here.”

  O’Connor pushes the gun into his belt and presses his hands together in front of his face as though offering up a final, furious prayer. If Doyle is here on the farm and Fergus McBride has been murdered, then he knows there is a chance that Doyle killed his uncle, and the only reason he would do that is to protect himself from discovery. If that’s the case—if he suspects that he is being looked for—then there is every chance he will have armed himself. O’Connor is not afraid for his own life, but he wishes the boy was somewhere else entirely. He doesn’t want these actions to be witnessed or shared; he wants the dread weight of them to be his alone.

  “You stay where you are,” he says. “Wait here for me.”

  “What’s a guardian?”

  “That’s just a word. It’s not important.”

  “But what does the word mean?”

  “It means I protect you, until you can protect yourself.”

  “How long does it last for?”

  “A year,” he says, “two years, maybe more.”

  “Let me help you to kill him.”

  “No, I won’t do that. I can’t.”

  He tells the boy again to stay where he is, that he will be back soon enough. As he walks off along the dirt track toward the pasture, he remembers his father in the jail cell in Armagh on that last afternoon before they took him away to Spike Island, how he held each of them in turn and kissed them hard and made them promise they would never forget the evil, thieving bastards who were to blame for all their sufferings. He spoke it like a blessing, when really it was a curse, a way of binding them to him forever. Daniel O’Leary, the man he had murdered, was the son of Charles O’Leary, the bailiff who had evicted O’Connor’s grandfather from his farm near Forkhill almost twenty years before. Cherish your bitterest memories, feed them carefully, and let them grow—that was the rule his father had lived by and the rule he wanted his children to live by too. O’Connor has labored all his life to forget the past, to put those years behind him, but he wonders now if his efforts have all been in vain and if the ghost of Paul O’Connor, vexatious and vindictive, has been living inside him all along, hidden away, silent and all-controlling.

  He walks another fifty yards along the path as it rises slowly up past the hog pen and the smokehouse, then stops where he is and stands for a minute looking off into the pale distance. The wind is twitching the tops of the elm trees and, in the field behind, the sheep are bleating. He feels his conscience coiled up tight inside him. It is one thing to risk himself for the sake of vengeance, he knows, but the boy is an i
nnocent, he has no part in this, so why should he be sacrificed too? For whose sake? He looks down at his feet for a moment, spits once into the dirt, then turns about and starts walking back the way he came. When he reaches the yard, the boy is still standing there, his boots half sunk down into the mud, motionless and with the same empty look across his face.

  “We’ll go back to Harrisburg,” O’Connor says. “I’ll tell the police what we’ve learned. They can come out here and arrest him.”

  “I thought you intentioned to kill him yourself.”

  “So I did, but I changed my mind about that,” he says. “This other way is better.”

  * * *

  —

  They have been walking for an hour when it starts to rain. Water drips off the bare branches of the trees and collects in runnels in the plowed fields on either side. Dark clouds drift across the limestone sky. O’Connor wonders if he has made yet another mistake, if he has betrayed his own cause yet again. If they can hitch a ride, it will be three more hours back to Harrisburg, but with the boy, if they have to walk all the way, it might be five or six. When Anna McBride tells him about their visit, Doyle will know it’s not safe to remain on the farm any longer, and by the time O’Connor persuades the police to come out, he may be ten miles away already, twenty even. They may never find him again, however hard or long they look. All this way, all this suffering and trouble, he thinks, and nothing to show for it. He should feel disappointed or enraged, but he doesn’t. He is pleased to be away from there and glad that the boy is out of danger.

  As they walk along, the boy starts singing a song about a man named McGinty who left one day and never came back again. His voice is frail but steady, and when he finishes O’Connor asks him to sing another, but the boy tells him they should rightly take it in turns.

  “You sing the next one,” he says, “then I’ll go after.”

  The rain has stopped, but they can see it falling still over the hills off to the north, the dark lines angling down. O’Connor hasn’t sung a song in he doesn’t know how many years, he hasn’t wanted to until now, but when he tries it, the words and tune come back without any effort, easy and unbidden, as if they have been lying dormant inside him all that long time like seeds buried deep in the black earth.