Free Falling

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  He handed her the leather lead he had found hanging on the wall. She clipped the lead to the halter and led the horse out of the stall. “We’ll just put them all in the paddock while we clean up,” she said. “God, it’s a mess in there. My shoes are already ruined.”

  She stood, frozen for a moment, staring at the manure and holding the rope attached to the horse. “What are we going to do, David?”

  “I thought you said we needed to remove them first,” David said, frowning.

  “No, I mean about everything,” Sarah said. She looked over her shoulder to make sure John was still outside tossing the ball he had found against the wall of the house. “Don’t you think we should try to get to Limerick? There should be an American consulate there.”

  “Sarah, no.” David shook his head emphatically. “If this was some kind of nuclear bomb that went off then there could be a risk of nuclear contamination in the cities.”

  “I don’t think staying here is a good idea,” she said. She looked around for a place to tie up the horse. She knew she was telegraphing her anxiety and frustration to him. He had started to stamp his feet and that made her more nervous. “We can’t even feed ourselves here. I want us to go to Limerick.”

  “Okay, Sarah, that’s crazy. How are we going to get there? Walk? It’s like two hundred miles or something.”

  “You just made that up!”

  “It doesn’t matter how far away it is,” he said, jabbing the pitchfork into a pile of manure and narrowly missing his topsider. “Even if the cities aren’t radioactive, it’s still a bad idea. For one thing, Americans aren’t going to be too popular wherever we go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean whatever has happened, it’s because of us. You get that, right? Either someone did this to us and the UK is paying the price of being our friend, or we retaliated. But however it went down it still adds up to the Americans being the ones at the center of this disaster.”

  Sarah stared at him, the will to fight left her as the realization of what he was saying began to sink in.

  “Should we…should we stay away from town, do you think? There are no laws now to protect us.” She clasped her hands as the fear sifted through her. “Should we stay out of Balinagh even?”

  “I don’t know,” Mat said, picking up the pitchfork again. “But I do think we’re safer here in the country on a whole bunch of different levels.”

  “Mom, I saw rubber boots in the room where all the saddles are hanging.”

  Sarah hadn’t noticed John enter the barn and wondered how much he had heard.

  “Oh, thanks, sweetie,” she said. She gave David a this-isn’t-over look and untied the horse, Dan, to lead him out to the paddock.

  “See if there are a pair for me, too,” he called after her.

  An hour later, all the horses had been fed and their stalls cleaned. David threw the pitchfork onto the muck cart and pulled the cart behind the barn where there was a huge pile of manure.

  “I wonder if I have a job to go home to,” he said to himself as he dumped the steaming horseshit onto the pile.

  “I guess we won’t know until communications have been restored.” Sarah came up behind him, and wiped her hands on a towel.

  He looked up at her. “That might take months.”

  “And you think we should just live here in the meantime?”

  “Got any better ideas?”

  She looked at the pile of horse manure. “My God, how our lives have changed in the blink of an eye.”

  “Come on,” he said, grabbing the cart to steer it back around the barn. “Let’s find the damn goat.”

  The goat was in the pasture with a kid.

  John was delighted. “Isn’t he cute, Mom?” He laughed as the baby goat jumped around him.

  “Does this mean we can’t milk her?” Sarah asked.

  “Were you going to milk her?” David asked with surprise.

  “Well, I assume that’s what Siobhan meant when we said we needed milk and she referenced the goat.”

  David laughed. “God, this keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

  “Do we let them run wild out here?” She looked at the huge pasture. “I mean, is this where they live?”

  “Beats the heck out of me,” he replied, running his fingers through his hair.

  “Do we feed them? Can’t make very nice milk if we don’t feed them grain, do you think?”

  “Sarah, I have no idea,” David replied. “I’m a city boy.”

  “Lotta help that is!” she said, laughing. “Just what I need on a farm in rural Ireland in the middle of a damn blackout with no food and no clue—a damn philosophy professor.”

  He started to grin. “Well, I suppose I could analyze the bigger questions here.”

  “Yeah, that’d be helpful,” she said. “God knows, you’ll have time to do it, too.”

  They both laughed.

  “Are you guys okay?” John asked, frowning. He was holding the squirming kid in his arms.

  “We’re losing it!” Sarah said, still laughing.

  “Well, I wish you’d both chill,” he said. “You’ve got a child to think of.” Which just set them off even more, with David holding his sides and tears coursing down his face.

  That night they ate salted baked potatoes without butter and canned meat from the root cellar that looked and tasted like shredded Spam. John revisited his rickets question.

  “Look,” his mother said. “It’s only September so there should be berry patches somewhere. Tomorrow we’ll go looking. And there’s a jar of jam in the cabinet—”

  “With nothing to put it on,” John complained.

  “I’m going to make bread tomorrow,” Sarah said.

  “You are?” David asked.

  “We’ve got salt and water and bags of flour in the cellar. I don’t think I even need yeast to make it work.”

  “Eggs would be good,” David said as he got up to clear the table. “I wonder if we can meet up with our neighbors and maybe trade something for some eggs.”

  “How do we cook ‘em?” Sarah asked. “We’ll need butter or lard. This is all so difficult.”

  “Let’s just take this one step at a time.”

  “Who knows we’re here?” John asked.

  “What do you mean? Our whole family knows we’re in Ireland.”

  “What if they’ve all been killed?”

  “Don’t even say that, John. Our family is fine, I know it. They’re probably working right this minute to try to get us home.”

  “What if it’s worse for them? Maybe they don’t even have a house? At least we have a roof.”

  The rain began again as if to underscore the point.

  “Trust me, sweetie,” Sarah said as she kissed him. “If no one comes for us, we’ll get out and back home on our own somehow.”

  “Promise?”

  “Absolutely.” She looked at David and he nodded at John.

  “Promise, son,” he said.

  Sometime in the middle of the night, Sarah put a hand out to touch her husband’s shoulder but felt only the cold place where his body had been in the bed. She saw his silhouette as he stood at the living room window. She watched him staring out into the dark night. She knew there was nothing to see.

  Watching him, she could feel the anxiety and tension pinging off him in waves. “David?” she whispered.

  He turned but made no move toward the bed. “Go back to sleep, Sarah,” he said. “I’ll be there in a bit.” His voice sounded hoarse and muffled—as if he’d been crying.

  Sarah lay back down but now she couldn’t sleep either.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The first week of the crisis brought relentless worry, boredom, insecurity and joy into their daily lives. Unlike the hurried mornings of life back in the States, the days now began slowly and intimately. Sarah woke to the feel of her husband and son nestled beside her. Her husband was wiry and angular, solid and secure against the uncertainty of the coming day.
Her son was soft and tender, dreaming his little-boy dreams. She kissed David on his unshaven cheek.

  The morning light peeked in between the gaps in the curtains. It was cold outside and the floor of the small cottage was like ice to bare toes. Sarah took a long breath and relished the feel of her family safe in her arms. This was about the time each morning when worry about her parents crept into her thoughts. She had gotten more adept at pushing the thoughts aside realizing that they didn’t make her any more capable for the challenges of a coming day.

  “I’ll make tea,” her husband murmured into his pillow. He got out of bed and threw several logs in the woodstove.

  “What’s on the agenda for today?” he asked.

  Sarah snuggled down into the covers. “We were supposed to be taking a bike tour along the beach today,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “I don’t suppose that’s still on.”

  David stretched. “Yeah,” he said, “very funny.”

  He filled the teakettle and put it on the woodstove. Then he went outside to get the last of the milk on the porch where they’d placed it to keep it cold.

  “I wish we knew about what’s going on at home,” she said.

  “Let’s go back into town and see if there isn’t more news,” David said.

  “Are we gonna ride the horses today?” John said through a yawn as he sat up in bed.

  “Hey, guy, how long you been awake?”

  “Don’t worry,” John said, pulling on his jeans. “You guys didn’t say anything important.”

  “We’re going back to Balinagh today,” Sarah said.

  “I’m not walking,” John said flatly.

  “We could all use the exercise.”

  “I want the little brown one,” John said to his Dad. “You know? The one with the white blob between his eyes?”

  “That’s called a star,” his mother said.

  “So I’ll call him Star,” he said happily. “Which one you want, Dad?”

  David poured the tea into three mugs. “Maybe we should take some time getting familiar with our mode of transportation,” he said.

  “Maybe there’s a horse cart of some kind.” John looked from parent to parent with growing excitement. “I’ll look in the barn.”

  “Let’s approach one challenge at a time,” Sarah said, but she couldn’t help but think: Would the bike tour have been as much fun for him?

  “Right,” David said, settling on the bed with them. “We’ll have our tea and rustle up some kind of breakfast, then go check out how to work the horses.”

  Sarah looked at David with worry and misgiving. They stood in the middle of the small paddock. The two horses and one pony were tacked up and stood quietly.

  “Now, remember, John,” Sarah said, standing next to John and the chestnut pony. “This is not like a go-cart—”

  “Mom, I know,” her son interrupted impatiently. He held the reins to the pony. “I’ve ridden before.”

  “This is not like how you’ve ridden before, John.” Her voice was stern. “This is not nose-to-tail riding. You have to actually control him.”

  “Mom, I can do it.” John faced the pony and called over his shoulder: “Somebody give me a boost up.”

  “Come on, Sarah,” David said reassuringly. He patted the quiet bay gelding that he would ride. “It’ll be fine. Up you go, sport.” He lifted his son onto the pony and helped him get his feet into the stirrups.

  “This helmet is too big for me, Mom. It keeps dropping down in front of my eyes.”

  “You have to wear a hard hat, John. Just walk around the paddock and get used to him,” she said.

  “Need a leg up?” David handed Sarah the reins of the big bay named Dan.

  “I forgot,” she said. “You used to ride a little?”

  “Kind of,” he said, lacing his fingers to boost her up. “Had a girl friend in high school who rode.”

  With a sigh, she bent her knee and accepted the lift up onto the large bay’s back. She took a deep breath, felt the horse move beneath her, and then exhaled. Her hands collected the reins and her legs tucked around him as if she’d never stopped riding. Now that she was on, she felt herself relaxing just a bit. She watched John jogging along the fence line. His hat was bobbing up and down on his head.

  David swung into the saddle of his horse.

  Sarah shifted her weight and closed her calves around Dan. The horse moved toward the center of the ring.

  “Wait up, John,” she called. “Let me fix your helmet.” She approached John and his pony.

  He smiled broadly. “This is so great, Mom,” he said. “Star is really easy to ride. I’m ready to go!”

  Sarah smiled, but the pit of fear and uneasiness returned to her stomach at the thought of their venturing out of the paddock along the roadway. She adjusted the buckle on his helmet for a tighter fit.

  “Try that, sweetheart,” she said.

  David trotted over to them.

  “Everybody ready?” he said. “I figure if it takes us four hours to walk it, it should only take us two by horseback to get there, stay a couple hours and two hours back. We don’t want to get back in the dark.”

  “David, I’m not sure about this,” Sarah said. “Why don’t we take some time to get comfortable with the horses first? If they haven’t been ridden in awhile, they could easily decide to take off for Balinagh at a dead run.” The feeling of panic would not go away. She knew she was transmitting her unease to her horse.

  “It’s just that...” David ran his hand over his chin. “If we don’t go now we’ll have to put it off until tomorrow.”

  “If we put it off ‘til tomorrow, I’ll be more relaxed,” Sarah argued. “And I’ll have made sandwiches from the bread I was going to make today.”

  “It’s okay, Dad,” John said. “We can just explore today.”

  Sarah realized, although he’d done a good job of hiding the fact, David was anxious to get word on their family back home, and the status of things—like rescue. She leaned over and squeezed his hand.

  “Let’s don’t rush it, darling,” she said. “We can’t afford any accidents, okay?”

  David nodded. “Of course,” he said. “No problem.” She could hear his disappointment.

  “Come on, sport. Let’s check out who our neighbors are.” They moved through the open paddock gate.

  “Which way, do you think?” he said, squinting down the road that led from Cairn Cottage.

  “I guess we should follow the road,” Sarah said, grateful that at least there wouldn’t be cars on it since the crisis.

  “I’ll lead,” John said.

  He trotted ahead of them between ancient, moss-covered drystone walls down the narrow, winding drive that led away from the cottage. The horizon was almost treeless. Sarah tried to remember how far away the ocean was. She thought she could smell it. The sun came out from behind wispy grey clouds to warm their backs as they rode.

  “Just move with your pony,” Sarah called ahead to John.

  “Relax, Sarah. He’s doing fine. How about you?”

  “I just know how easy an accident can happen,” she said, feeling the girth on Dan to see if it was tight enough.

  They trotted down the one-lane country road lined with rhododendron, Scotch broom and hazel. They rode without seeing another soul.

  “How long do you think we’ll be stuck here?” Sarah said.

  “I don’t know,” David said, clicking to his horse. “Maybe a few months. Maybe longer.”

  “You think we’ll be home by Christmas?”

  “I have no idea,” he said. “I hope so.” He trotted his horse away from her to catch up to John.

  Sarah watched them both on the road ahead of her. Her spine stiffened, which slowed her horse. Not be home before Christmas? Was that possible? Her mind raced to remember all the appointments in the next few months back home that would have to be rescheduled, all the bills that would go unpaid. Would they lose the house? Was the house st
ill there? Instead of relaxing, as it seemed David (who had actually begun to hum) was beginning to do, Sarah felt the worry and anguish overcome her. Within minutes, her thoughts turned to the specific, incapacitating anxiety that hovered just beneath the surface of her every waking moment: what had happened back home? Were her parents still alive? As her son and husband rode ahead of her, oblivious, Sarah began to sob silently into the one hand that wasn’t clutching her horse’s mane for dear life.

  Mack Finn sat in a plastic lawn chair outside the broken down caravan, a small pile of cigarette butts at his feet. His hands rested on his knees as he stared out across the scrubby Irish landscape. How strange that the world could look so totally different, he marveled, from one day to the next. Just yesterday, his bastard old uncle had physically thrown him into that bush just beyond his favorite pissing spot, and now the old sot was lying there himself, nearly but not quite buried beneath a quarter foot of muck and mud and weeds.

  And wasn’t it Mack Finn, himself, who had put the old tosser there?

  He heard the soft sound of crunching gravel just over his left shoulder as someone approached from the rear. He waited.

  “Oy, Mack.” The young boy stood near the end of the trailer, as if afraid to directly confront Finn.

  Finn lazily beckoned to him to approach. He didn’t take his eyes off the brown and grey landscape of the Irish autumn. He didn’t look at the faltering, approaching boy.

  “Dee-Dee says to ask ya what we’re to eat,” the boy mumbled, rubbing his dirty hands up in down his jeans in a nervous tic.

  Finn could smell the boy’s fear and he smiled to himself. With Uncle Liam gone, he thought with satisfaction, they’ll all be afraid of him now.

  The eldest of five children in a poor gypsy family that once numbered in the hundreds, Finn felt the rank of protector and guardian of the flock which had finally, belatedly, come to him. Proud of the fact that he had left school at eleven—been forced to when he was caught trying to root that daft scanger in the class behind his—Finn grew up rough and he grew up ready. No one had given him a break. No one had given him a hand. Now, at twenty-two, he’d already spent seven years in an English prison learning more than school could ever teach him.