Inch Levels

by Neil Hegarty

  ‘I’m not going.’

  She paused, then seemed to gather her strength and said again, ‘You’d better.’

  He said, ‘Why?’ More abruptly than his usual manner, to be sure, perhaps his patience was wearing thin.

  ‘Because you’d better.’ She glanced again at the window. ‘Because he’ll be back soon and –’

  ‘And he won’t want to see me.’

  ‘Not you,’ she told him. ‘Anyone in uniform. Anyone at all.’

  He paused.

  ‘And because he did this,’ she said. She held out her wrist. ‘And other things here,’ and she pointed at her legs, ‘with his belt.’

  He stared at her.

  ‘So you’d better go.’

  ‘Or I’d better have a word with him,’ Anthony said; and she shook her head violently at this, and moved rapidly across the room.

  ‘No. That would be worst of all. You’d better go.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  She paused now, but only for a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I want you to go too.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  She shook her head slightly. That was all. But she was aware of the din in her head. She had heard the town band tuning up several times over the years, in preparation for a Christmas or Easter or summer concert in the Temperance Hall – and this noise in her head was like that noise: discordant, appalling, deafening.

  It had been like this all morning – all the previous night, in her quarters at the hospital, lying in her narrow bed and looking up at the curved, damp metal ceiling of the hut; listening to the other girls arrive home in the early hours, whispering and laughing in the darkness, finally falling asleep. She had lain awake the whole of the night, unable to sleep because of that terrible din in her head; before getting up in the darkness and catching the first bus heading north, heading for – home, she should say. But not home: she was here only because there was nowhere else to go.

  She had walked as slowly as she could up the lane. In springtime, these familiar hawthorn hedges were white and heavy with blossom, these banks were a haze of bluebells: now, in freezing December, the hedges were a different white, hoary with frost; and the banks frosted too, and muddy-brown in sheltered crevices where the chill could not reach. The low winter sun was rising as she turned the last corner: it was just clipping the roof of the house and shining cold into the near corner of the yard. She paused on the step, girding herself, then turned the handle and walked into the kitchen. And there the scene was laid: her father bent, setting the fire; Cassie at the range, busy with porridge.

  This was the same scene that she remembered, in which she had participated, morning by morning, year by year since Cassie came to live with them. The only difference had been in the light, in the fall of sunshine on the ground, on the white walls of the yard outside, varying minutely as month had followed month. In May and June and July, these white walls were splashed with a glowing white from the sun, high then in the sky; now, in December, the sunshine barely touched that far corner, before sinking again behind the roof. The inside of the house – this dusky, smoky kitchen – never saw the sunshine.

  Brendan turned from the hearth: and she saw at once that he was furious: raging, she thought, raging and furious; as though a threshold suddenly had been crossed or a dam broken. She watched him standing there, his eyes gleaming with rage – and immediately she was fighting the impulse to run.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Worse, much worse than she expected. It flashed through her mind to use this welcome as an excuse, to seize her opportunity and take to her heels out of the place. But go where? – and now Brendan was striding across and taking her by the wrist and bringing, dragging her into the centre of the dark room.

  ‘We’re surprised to see you here, aren’t we, Cassie? We haven’t heard a peep out of you these weeks and now here you appear…’ He paused for breath: Cassie had her back pressed to the range; she looked petrified. ‘Bold as brass,’ Brendan went on, ‘and healthy as a trout too, from the look of things. What’s been keeping you healthy as a trout, eh? The British army paying you and feeding you and putting a roof over your head, is it?’ His grip tightened, bulging eyes uncomfortably close to her own. ‘No shame, have you? And coming back now to flaunt it in our faces? Why didn’t you just stay away for good? No shame. Your mammy’ll spinning in her grave at having such a daughter.’ His breath was hot on her cheeks. A pause and then, ‘Cooking and so on for them, I hear you are. Well, you didn’t do much of that for us, did you? That’s a new talent for you, isn’t it?’

  ‘I came to see you, to see how you were doing,’ Sarah said at last. Then, in a rush, ‘No, that’s not it. That’s not why I came.’

  ‘Needed time off from the Army, is it?’

  Her lip trembled. She shook her head. ‘No, that’s not it.’ Impossible to say what it was. What was she doing here, when it all began here?

  Cassie hadn’t moved – but now, though still pressed against the range, she said, ‘Will I make some tea?’

  Sarah nodded. Yes, some tea, but before she could say anything, her father released his terrible grip and as he pushed her away from him she flung her hands out – and caught her mother’s copper bowl that stood poised on the shelf. It fell to the flagged floor and rolled away.

  A dent showed on the lip of the bowl.

  There was a silence. Brendan was staring at the bowl, at the dent.

  ‘Now look what you did.’

  ‘I didn’t –’

  ‘Look what you did,’ Brendan repeated, still gazing at the floor, the bowl.

  Cassie said again, ‘Will I make some tea?’

  But Brendan was taking off his belt. In a familiar way: deliberate and purposeful and very slow. ‘I’ll give you tea,’ he said.

  When he had finished beating her – on her back and her legs – and when Cassie’s screams had died away into whimpering, he put his belt back on, again in a familiar and deliberate way and left the house.

  ‘Tea!’ he said as he was going. ‘Give her some tea now, if she wants it.’ And Cassie brought tea – and yes, she and Sarah drank: standing, of course, for Sarah’s pulsing stripes would not allow her to sit. Cassie picked the copper bowl from the floor and set it in its place. Then, she gathered the washing into the basket: Sarah stood in the heat of the range and watched Cassie go out into the yard with the laundry; and then watched as Cassie turned and stood stock-still in the middle of the yard. And now there was Anthony, framed in the window; and that din rang louder in her head, as though someone was raising the volume notch by notch.

  It seemed that there was a choice to be made, once and for all.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ Anthony said. ‘I’ll go down to that pretty park by the water, and I’ll wait for you there. I’ll wait for one hour, no more. And if you don’t come, I’ll leave.’ He looked at her. ‘And that’s the deal.’

  She looked at him.

  ‘That’s the deal, Sarah,’ he said again. And after a moment, ‘And something else too. You weren’t loved here, in this house: or not by everyone.’ He looked at her red, swollen wrist. ‘That’s plain enough. But you’re making a mistake if you think that because of this, you can never be loved anywhere else. That’s a mistake, Sarah,’ he said and now he got up from the chair. ‘There’s plenty of love to go around,’ he said, ‘and you need to remember that: and there’s still time.’

  Without another word now, he left the kitchen: the door closed behind him and she saw him nod to Cassie and go to his jeep. He was gone.

  She waited until the sound of his jeep vanished into the distance, and then she went out into the yard to where Cassie was standing: there, on the frosted triangle of yard where, at this time of the year, the sun never reached. She must surely be freezing, standing there for so long in that chilly, deeply shadowed yard, and her hands damp besides. But she showed little sign of it if she was: her nose was perhaps a little more red and the rest of her
face a little more white than usual; her hand, when Sarah took it in her own, was cold. But she wasn’t shivering and her teeth weren’t chattering: she remained still and motionless.

  ‘Will you not come into the warm?’ Sarah said. Cassie shook her head. ‘But you can’t stand out here all day,’ Sarah said, ‘can you? Come into the warm, Cassie.’ But she shook her head; Sarah clicked her tongue in exasperation and turned to go. Do as you please, she thought but did not say; instead, a few beats of silence, broken only by the crunch of her feet on the frost-covered ground. Do as you please. You’ll catch your death out here, but do as you please.

  Then Cassie spoke.

  ‘You should have gone with him.’

  Sarah paused, looked back, shrugged.

  ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘You should have,’ Cassie said. ‘You should have gone back with him.’

  Sarah shook her head again. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘It’s what you should have done,’ Cassie said.

  The same sentence, again and again: Sarah’s hands flew up in frustration, her temper broke suddenly.

  ‘I couldn’t,’ she screamed. ‘I couldn’t, I couldn’t, it was a mistake, don’t you see that?’

  But Cassie only said, again, ‘It’s what you should have done.’ She seemed to gather herself. ‘You can begin again. You can begin again. Can’t you?’

  ‘And what will you do?’

  Cassie’s clear, light laugh. ‘Follow you, maybe. But I’ll look after Brendan, first.’

  Brendan?

  ‘He gave me a home. I’ll stay with him, until it’s all over.’

  ‘And then what?’

  But now Cassie had said all she could say. That was plain: and in the face of this, Sarah walked across the frost and into the house, leaving Cassie and the tub of wet laundry standing in the middle of the yard. Sarah wanted to shout, to bawl back through the open door: and then what? And then what? But she knew Cassie: knew she had said her piece, would say no more; and besides, there had been enough raised voices this morning. Brendan might come pounding across the frozen fields if there were any more, and then there would be hell to pay.

  For a while, she moved around the dark kitchen, from table to sideboard to table again; the fire was dying in the grate; the room was growing cold. She expected Cassie to appear at the door, but no figure appeared framed in it. At last, Sarah moved in exasperation to close the door, to keep the heat in; but before she did – before she gave it a good, satisfying slam – she peered out into the icy yard. She expected to see – what did she expect to see? Not Cassie standing in the same chill corner: for even Cassie could not continue to stand in the one spot for ever. What, then? Perhaps Cassie engaged in some chore: sweeping the place out, or something. But no: the yard was empty, except for the laundry. There was nobody in sight, not a soul.

  After a moment, she realised something else: that the din in her head was gone. That silence had taken its place – that the past was in the past, yes; and that the future was a clean, empty space – and that surely twenty minutes must have passed, twenty-five, perhaps, since Anthony left.

  And quickly now, she caught her coat from its hook and her bag from the ground, and left the house and began pounding up the lane. Towards the white gate posts, towards the town, towards the sea.

  *

  At the corner of the lane, Cassie stopped, looked left, looked right, looked straight ahead, looked right again. Danger could come from any direction, but right was the real danger, what Father Lynch would call the True Danger, though he was talking about sin: right was the sharp corner, and right was the town too, and the shops and the Green leading down to the sea. Right was – too many people, too much noise; she felt tight and dry-mouthed there in the town, in the shops, doing what needed doing. It had become a little easier, maybe, with practice: with Sarah away, she had had to do the shopping, do what needed to be done; she was used, now, to people saying hello, Cassie, and that’s a nice day, Cassie and staring at her, taking her right in. She was used to it, but that didn’t mean she liked it. Her mouth was dry now, as she turned right and bent around the corner, and towards town.

  The road, never busy, was empty this morning: the hedges on the other side were white with frost; and the road itself glittered under the cold sun. The icy air stung and her mind stung too: I’m not properly dressed, she thought, I’m not warmly dressed. I’m a holy show, she thought, and they’ll all be looking at me and looking at me even more now. But I have to go. She knew she had to go, she had to see if she could find him.

  This had come upon her, in the second after Sarah had marched into the house, leaving the door open wide behind her, letting the heat leak and flow out of the house. She stood for a moment, watching the black rectangle of the doorway – and then moved quickly: out of the yard and up the frosty lane. This was a thing she had never before done: what? to leave the farm, the house, her work in the middle of the day? and all driven by – but driven by what? Driven by something she could not have expressed, even if Sarah sat her down hard in a chair and grasped her shoulders and said tell me, tell me! She couldn’t have told her. She only knew what she had to do, which was to go after that man, Anthony, and beg him to come back. What would she say? – even supposing he had paused in the town, even supposing she could by some fluke catch him and speak to him. That was all; that was all she knew.

  No: not all. There was more than this: I have to, I have to find him, she thought, walking, swinging along the icy road. The first houses were coming into view now, the blue sheet of the icy sea to the left, the distant cliff face on the far shore shining under the winter sun. I have to, I have to; Cassie, you have to. Her hands were fists, balled into her pockets. I have to, she thought, and if I don’t find him, it will be too late. She thought of a ball of wool unravelling, rolling away into a shadowy corner. I have to find him: that was all she thought as she half-walked, half-ran down the incline of the road and into the town square.

  And there he was: his jeep parked by the stone wall that marked the edge of the Green, by the flight of old stone steps that descended into the Green and so down to the shingled foreshore. She ran down the steps and onto the pinched winter grass – and there was Anthony himself, sitting on a stone bench and looking down at the sea. There he was; and Cassie stopped and looked and drew a breath. Here was a chance to say what she wanted to say, and she took it.

  ‘This is her chance,’ she said, ‘to get away from here, from Brendan, to begin again – and I’m afraid of what will happen if she doesn’t.’

  And that was it. That was all. That was what she wanted to say.

  That was what she was afraid of: a hole, shadowy and terribly deep, that was opening up in front of Sarah, in front of all of them, if she didn’t get away. She has to get away, cried the voice in her head. ‘This is her chance to get away,’ she repeated, and then it seemed as though she ran out of words, suddenly, all of a sudden. She had nothing else to say.

  He cleared his throat.

  I will howl, she thought, like a dog. Like a dog on a bad, wet day, when he wants to get inside, when he sits and howls at the door, like their farm dogs. He won’t, he isn’t listening; if I howl like a dog he might listen.

  But she couldn’t howl, not like a dog or like any animal. Her throat was caught.

  And then he spoke.

  ‘I can help Sarah,’ he said, ‘if she wants to come away. If she wants to stay at home, then she can stay at home.’ He shrugged, ‘and if she wants to come with me, then she can do that too.’ He looked at his wristwatch and said, ‘And she has about thirty minutes to decide. Thirty minutes. Can I call you Cassie?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, we have time to kill, Cassie. Let’s take a little walk in this park, and you can show me what there is to see.’

  He was trying to be kind; and she smiled a little.

  ‘Those steps,’ she pointed, ‘and we’ll be at the water. We can walk for a few minutes by the water. To Shell B
each and back.’

  ‘Shell Beach,’ he repeated. ‘That’s pretty. A few minutes, you say?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Let’s do that, then.’

  They descended carefully the further flight of stone steps that led down to the sea. Her shoes crunched on the frost; the frost furred the grass on either side of the path; the water ahead was smooth, like a sheet. And blue, she thought, as blue as – as anything could be. Bluer than the sky, bluer than – than my hands; and she looked at her blue-tinged, icy hands. Bluer than anything; and now they reached the foot of the steps and turned left, taking the footpath along the shore. We’ll walk, she thought, and Sarah’s angry face and tears rose into her blue face. We’ll walk a while, and then we’ll turn and there will be Sarah, waiting for us.

  A little gang of six or seven boys were on the path: they were kicking a football ahead of them; they pushed ahead, heading for the beach too; they disappeared around a turn. Otherwise, all was calm and silent: nobody else was about on this chilly morning; the only other moving creatures the gulls, white with black throats and black eyes and black wing tips and the tips of their beaks red like blood, hanging and wheeling over the water or perched motionless on the rocks. She remembered again the oystercatchers that walked so fast – so fast! she thought, by the edge of the water, their little feet, their little legs, they moved so fast I couldn’t even see them. She laughed, almost, at the thought. Her spirits were rising now. We’ll walk to the beach and then we’ll walk back and Sarah will be there.

  But at Shell Beach, a shallow crescent between tall jagged piers of rock, they stopped. The football lay abandoned on the fine sand: and the boys had formed a little curving line ten feet or so from the object on the sand. There were gulls here too, many of them poised motionless on each rocky pier: motionless, but now these creatures turned their heads, their red-tipped beaks in unison, their black, bead-like eyes watching with avidity as Cassie and Anthony stood there, arrested on the path; before turning in unison again to watch the curving line of boys on the sand.

  And now in a moment, Anthony swore and jumped from the path down to the sand, bellowing a warning as he crunched across the shells. But already two or three of the boys were moving towards the object, which was glossy black and very large – three, four feet across, three, four feet high – and set with black spikes. An ugly thing – and she knew what it was. One final frozen moment of watching the scene there on the sand below her: the gulls silent, intent, greedy; and Anthony pounding across the fine white shells; and the boys turning and scattering – but not all of them, for now one stretched out a hand to touch these vicious spikes. And now Cassie ducked behind one of the tall piers of black rock, just as the world seemed to erupt around her.