Skin Deep

by Liz Nugent

  A neighbour hid him from the authorities with the collusion of all the islanders. He would have been thrown into an orphanage in Galway with no chance of adoption because of his injuries otherwise. And the school was threatened with closure if the numbers dwindled. So he went to primary school there until he was eleven. He was the last student there, when it shut for good.

  Of course, that meant that he never got proper treatment for his burns. They used old island potions and lotions. His face was just allowed to heal in the open wind. But the neighbour, Tom, raised Conor as his own son. The schoolmaster on the island was in on it too. Imagine that? They say it takes a village to raise a child, but in Conor’s case it was a whole island.

  Conor was supposed to go to the mainland for his secondary education, but Tom kept him on the island and home-schooled him. It all came out in the end when a census taker arrived. Tom was in serious trouble and it backfired badly on the islanders. The county council got involved and there was a new census done and the council used it to say that the island was lawless and needed to be controlled. They set up a ‘task force’ to assess the viability of the island.

  It was only ten years ago that he discovered he had a sister who had survived the fire. He had heard that you’d married a Westport lad in London, but even though he eventually found your adoptive mother Moira, like I did, and looked for you on the Internet when he was on the mainland (no broadband on the island), he couldn’t find any trace of you, though he knew that you and Dad had split up. Dad refused to meet him, apparently.

  Conor didn’t know anything about me at all. I let him tell the story, and then I told him what I knew. That his sister must be my mother. We laughed and we cried. Conor is forty-four and the youngest person on the island by two decades.

  Conor had the exact same fear as I did about leaving somewhere familiar. The similarities between his experiences and mine are not surprising, because we are both freaks. But Conor dealt with everything a lot better than me. He has no bitterness whatsoever towards the man who denied him treatment and the people who kept him hidden. ‘They love me,’ he said, ‘isn’t that something?’ He did venture off the island when he was older. He spent some time living in Galway city, scrounging a living as a painter, and he made friends there and had a community around him. He even had girlfriends, because he wasn’t a bitter old shite like me. But the lure of the wild sea brought him back to the island, he said.

  Anyway, I might finally believe in humanity because your brother is pure decent. We talked long into the night and all the next day, and I swear, it’s as if I have known him all my life. I was able to tell him about all of the trouble I have been in and the drugs and violence and prison. He never judged me for any of it. I don’t know how to describe it, but I felt like he was a priest hearing my first confession and that all my sins were forgiven. He is teaching me compassion. He made me see that perhaps you are as scared as I am of the world and its judgement.

  When I told him that I’d been writing to you, he was very excited. He thinks that you never responded because of the guilt you feel about me. He is absolutely determined to meet you, and at first we thought we’d make this trip together, but I just need a little more time. I am now as clean as a whistle and haven’t even smoked a cigarette since the night I met my uncle, but he is braver than me, so he’s going to find you on his own.

  I’m sorry for how angry I have been with you in the past. I forgive you for everything and I hope you’ll forgive me. Since our first meeting, Conor and I were able to track down where your bank is and Conor hopes to be able to find you through that. I’m not sure how he’s going to do it, but he has the courage of a lion and I hope you reunite and that Conor will be able to persuade you to come home. This could be a fresh start for all of us.

  Love from your son,

  Jimmy

  jmmyrssll@outlook.ie or 00 353 82 2413481 if you feel like talking.

  I threw up into the toilet bowl until there was nothing left in my stomach. I had killed my own brother. Was that worse or better than killing the son I thought had come to attack me? When he put his hand over my mouth, what was I supposed to think? When he reached towards me, was he trying to embrace me?

  It was a terrible mistake. Anyone would have done the same when faced with such a monster. He was so frightening.

  I should go home. James had forgiven me. I would make him understand.

  I threw Conor’s passport, phone and the room key and wallet into the sanitary bin and pocketed the cash.

  I went to the Ryanair ticket desk and paid one hundred and fifteen euros for a one-way ticket to Dublin. The next flight didn’t leave for another two hours. I ordered a sandwich and nibbled at the corners of it, but I needed something else. Wine. I hadn’t eaten since the American’s steak dinner, but was that only yesterday? Time was expanding and contracting like the bellows of a concertina in play.

  I had killed Conor only twenty-four hours ago. How could I explain what I had done since then? When would he be discovered?

  I drank steadily until I was ready to make the phone call. I took the phone outside and dialled my son’s number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, it’s …’

  ‘Mam … Delia!’

  ‘Yes.’

  I started to cry.

  ‘Hey, I know this is weird, but …’ There was emotion in his voice too. ‘I guess Conor found you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It must have been a shock.’ A pause. ‘I can’t believe I’m actually talking to you, after all these years!’

  ‘I’m coming home.’

  ‘Are you? To Ireland? That’s … that’s great. When?’

  ‘Now. I’m in the airport.’

  ‘Wow, Mam, I mean, is it OK if I call you Mam? I don’t know what to say. Did Conor tell you our plans? You can stay too. We’ll be a family again … if you want … Is he there with you?’

  ‘Yes … no … I … he’s decided to stay on, for a holiday.’

  A pause.

  ‘Really? I’ve been trying to call him, but it goes straight to message. Mam, I’m so glad you’re coming. I’ve been clean for twelve weeks now. I feel strong, and healthy. I’m sorry, for everything.’

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’

  ‘Are you going straight to Westport?’

  ‘Inishcrann. I’m coming home. I’m the one who’s sorry.’ I broke down in sobs again.

  ‘Mam, it’s OK … there’s nothing … But I’m not sure about the island. I’ll meet you at Cregannagh village, all right? Tomorrow at six? Will you hire –’

  I couldn’t speak any more, so I cut him off.

  35

  Sitting in the boarding area, I was conscious that people were looking at me but I could not keep my emotions in check. When I got to the gate, an old woman came over to me with a tissue and said sympathetically, ‘Are you going home for a funeral?’ She took my hand and held it. She offered to get me a cup of tea.

  ‘Could I have red wine?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  The Irish, famed for their hospitality, generosity and gullibility.

  I drank more on the plane. When we landed in Dublin, I got a bus to the city centre and stayed in a bed and breakfast on Gardiner Street. There was an off-licence nearby. I ignored the first text messages from my son:

  See you tomorrow, I can’t wait. It’s going to be emotional. I hope you don’t get too much of a shock when you see me. I look weird. I know that you do too but it will be fine.

  I can’t reach Conor on his phone. Do you know where he was staying?

  Are you OK?

  I’ve looked it up. I don’t know if you’re hiring a car? If not, you can take an 8am bus from Busaras to Swinford, then the 2pm bus from there to Castlebar, and then 5pm bus to Belmullet. The Cregannagh stop is the last one before Belmullet. I’ll be there at six. Please come.

  To the last one, I replied, ‘Yes.’ I was too drunk to talk or to text more than
the word.

  I passed out and woke parched at 7 a.m. The nightmare was still present. The body had now been there for nearly forty-eight hours. I had taken a human life. If I was caught, surely I could claim it was manslaughter. How would I explain that to a jury? The neighbours in my building would soon smell the corpse. I checked my phone. It was 25 degrees today in Nice. His body would decay quickly in that heat. Nobody would know who he was. I couldn’t remember if I’d left the window open.

  Because social welfare was paying my rent, and I had to register using my passport, the name on the lease was Delia Russell. But everyone knew me as Cordelia. Would they be able to trace me? I had no friends in Nice, just acquaintances, clients. Nobody knew anything about me. That was the advantage of having changed identity so many times, and appearance.

  I showered and dressed and made sure I had my naggin of vodka to keep me company on the trip. I fantasized about living a solitary life on Inishcrann with my son. I had to look to the future. I had to put my brother out of my head.

  I bought my ticket at the bus station and prepared for the long journey. I bought headache tablets and fruit, and a magazine to distract myself, and boarded the bus.

  When I was on the second bus, I got more texts from James.

  Did you hear from Conor?? I’m worried about him. He was really nervous about travelling.

  Did you ever use the name Cordelia?

  How did he know that? The same number came up when my phone rang, but I didn’t answer it. Then another text.

  Can you ring me? There’s something happening.

  And another one, this time with a blurred photograph of me taken from a CCTV image in Nice Airport.

  This isn’t you, right? You have scars, don’t you? French police are looking for you. But I think they have you confused with somebody else. You NEED to ring me.

  I changed on to the last bus to Cregannagh village. They had discovered the body already. My name was out there. How had everything happened so fast?

  That photo is all over Facebook and Twitter. Whoever she is, she took a flight to Dublin. They think it’s you. I’m on my way to Cregannagh. We have to go to the police and clear this up.

  I’m calling Tom Farrelly. He lives in Cregannagh now. He’s the one who adopted Conor. He’ll meet us there.

  I think Conor is dead. FUCK!!! What is going on? Why won’t you answer the phone? You better have answers for me.

  Tom Farrelly. Tom the Crow. My father’s best friend, who had told me to get off the island when I turned up there pregnant with James all those years ago. I got up from my seat, moved unsteadily up the gangway and asked the driver to let me out of the bus.

  ‘But you’re in the middle of nowhere here, only five minutes to Cregannagh!’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Are you all right, missus?’

  I didn’t realize I was crying again. Fear. Horror. Shame. Guilt.

  ‘Please, just let me out!’

  He slowed the bus to a stop.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, missus, you don’t look well.’

  I climbed down the stairwell and was relieved when I heard him release the air-brakes and move off again.

  I looked around at the road and I was nine years old again. The same stone wall where I’d lain down for a rest while I was waiting for Daddy to catch up with me. Maybe if I waited there, maybe if I lay down for a little bit and closed my eyes, Daddy would come.

  A screech of brakes alerted me to reality, and I saw my son for the first time in twenty-seven years. It couldn’t have been anyone else.

  ‘Mam. Get into the car.’

  His voice was harsh, the forgiveness he had expressed in the letter was gone.

  ‘James, I …’

  ‘It’s Jimmy,’ he said, looking me up and down. ‘When did you have the surgery?’

  ‘Seven years ago.’

  ‘Right.’

  I went to open the front passenger door, but he said, ‘No, get in the back and lie down. The guards are looking for you.’ I did as I was told. I had thought he was going to take me directly to the police station, but no, he was going to protect me.

  ‘Jimmy, I didn’t know who Conor was! Honestly, I thought he was going to attack me …’ My words were slurred.

  ‘Shut up. Don’t say anything until we get to Tom’s.’

  We drove for about ten minutes in silence while I lay down on the back seat. The car weaved its way around narrow country roads and finally took a sharp left down what sounded like a gravel path. We must have driven through the village of Cregannagh. When the car stopped, he told me to get out.

  I could see we were parked in front of an isolated modern bungalow, and behind it I could see the sea. I staggered a little, and James caught me by the arm and steered me towards the house.

  ‘I need to see the sea,’ I said.

  ‘Later.’

  The door of the house opened and Tom the Crow stood in its frame. Daddy’s best friend. White-haired and slightly stooped, but still wiry with strength.

  ‘Tom!’

  He stood back and let me enter into a large kitchen with a pine table and chairs in the centre. It was sparsely decorated, as if he had just moved in. But my eyes were attracted to photographs on the wall. One of them was an old photo of Daddy with his arm around Tom. Two beautiful, strong young men. I stood in front of it and traced the outline of Daddy’s face with my finger, the way I used to do when he was alive. The photograph was black and white and I had never seen it before. I had not seen that face in over forty years.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Tom.

  Tom the Crow

  I loved the bones of Martin O’Flaherty. I loved the madness in him and the jut of his collarbone where I rested my head over long nights at sea. I loved his voice and his walk and his eyes. He was tall and broad and strong, with a face carved by the wind as if he had been conceived by the rocks themselves.

  We had to hide that part of ourselves, because, well … when I was a child, a ram caught mounting another one was shot dead, and his owner, Peadar Carroll, was mocked and called Peadar Pansy for the rest of his life. They say it drove him insane, but Inishcrann drove everyone insane in different ways. I knew Martin to be ferocious in his temper and I knew his humours to be wild, but I loved him still. I didn’t know for sure that he loved me until after he was dead.

  I never came first with Martin. The island did. He was possessed by Inishcrann, obsessed with it. Our passion for each other was kept hidden. But Martin hated himself for it, and not even because what we were doing was against God, but because what we were doing would never produce a child. Martin felt responsible for the island. He had a notion he was descended from the high kings that once ruled in forgotten centuries. He was always hounding the women on the island to know if they were pregnant, and if not, why not. By 1964, there was a handful of male babies and toddlers on the island and every woman was already married off.

  I felt sorry for Loretta. It was my fault, though she fell for him as hard as me in the beginning. Martin and I both knew we’d have to try to marry and produce children eventually. Martin was so handsome, he could have his pick of the tourists, but he was so stubborn, he wanted an Irish girl, if he had to have one. He was approaching thirty-five, and he still hadn’t been able to form a friendship, never mind an attachment, to any woman. And then along comes this pretty little American girl doing some project to do with plants, a botany student, she said. She photographed them. She took that photo of Martin and me, the one I still treasure. I thought she was a child, but the way she looked at Martin told a different story. She was nineteen years old, she said. She was staying in Mary Scurvy’s guest house, but her gang used to come to my mother’s bar every night after their dinner, looking for chat and company. It was rare to see a woman in a bar in those days. But she got away with it because she was a foreigner. I talked to her and heard a little bit about her life in America and her parents. She asked me coyly about Martin, if he was single and where he
lived. Women were never interested in me, not that that bothered me in the slightest. I knew Martin wouldn’t be interested in a Yank, but one night she told me that she was half Cheyenne, and I thought maybe he might like her after all.

  Three times a year, Guts O’Neill from Lisdoonvarna would tour the islands with a projector and a few reels of film. Whoever had the whitest sheet would bring it to the schoolhouse, where it would be pinned to the wall and became our screen. We loved those old cowboy films the best. Martin always took the side of the Indians though, declaring that the cowboys were stealing their land. He said the Indians were a native people who lived by their own traditions and should never have been persecuted and run off their own land. He said that Mayo County Council would try to do the same to us.

  When I told Martin about Loretta’s roots, he began to take an interest. Privately, he said to me that maybe Indian and Celtic blood would be a good mix, bringing together two ancient civilizations. It was selfish of me, though, not to point out that she was too young to make a decision like that, to throw up her life.

  I always knew I was going to have to share Martin with a woman at some stage, and although we both knew that she was being used to populate the island, she was willing. He had his own house then in the village, his family were dead and long gone, and though he was thought peculiar even in those days, he still had the respect of the islanders. I liked Loretta too. We had something in common, after all – we both loved Martin.

  Loretta’s friends and tutors told her she was crazy to stay on the island at the end of that summer. Her mother objected to the marriage in the strongest of terms and insisted that Loretta go home to Minnesota immediately. But Loretta was as stubborn as her husband-to-be and she married him regardless. She had settled well into the community in the four months she’d been there. In fact, it was Loretta who finally made Nora and Mary come to the bar for the first time. I thought Mam would throw a fit to see island women in the bar, but she looked at it practically. There was an extra few bob in it and, regardless of what Father Devlin said, she could find no mention of women in bars in her Bible. Nora Duggan was Loretta’s maid of honour. Loretta’s mam wouldn’t come. Martin was disappointed not to meet his Native American motherin-law. Loretta asked me to give her away at their wedding. Afterwards, I watched my lover walk down the lane arm in arm with his new wife. It should have provoked some strong emotion in me, but I had always known it must happen. I was dreading my turn, if the truth be told.