Emerald Germs of Ireland

by Patrick McCabe

  “Pat! Pat! What is wrong?” he then heard his mother cry, his heart beating wildly in his chest. Only then did he realize that the entire hut was in silence. Beside him, he noted, his mother looked quite fetching in her native hair accessories.

  “Oh, Mammy! The things I dreamed!” Pat cried out. “I never want to dream them again!”

  It was then that true—true terror!—knifed its way into the core of Pat’s very being as his mother’s expression contorted bitterly and she hissed, “Then you shouldn’t have committed the most vile of all the sins! Matricide!”

  “No! No! Mammy! It’s not true! I didn’t mean it!”

  But it had all been nothing save the mere consequence of the fevers deep within him, and his mother’s words came soothing once again, “It’s nothing, love. Go back to sleep now, won’t you?”

  Pat trembled as he replied, “Oh, Mammy! I’m so glad we’re back together again, you and me!”

  His mother smiled and nodded.

  “Yes. It’s been quite a long time. But now—you’re here! Ssh now and go to sleep, alanna.”

  There was something about his mother’s expression that unsettled him not a litde, and the faint sound of the pulsating bongos somewhere in the distance did nothing to alleviate it.

  That Pat’s instinct on this occasion should have proved to be so accurate is tragic, yes, but there can be no denying that only hours later, before the light of dawn had yet touched the rattan door of their home, the woman he knew as his mother was standing above him, displaying upon her countenance—the skin of which was drawn tight as papaya over a crude outline of bones—the coldest and most impassive of expressions, which seemed to echo the unmistakable iciness of her speech: “No mother ever loved a son as I did you, Pat McNab. Why did you do it? Why did you have to do it? Why?” The taut breathing of the middle-aged woman seemed to fill the small enclosure as from her pocket (she was attired in a crude imitation kitchen smock of animal fur) she produced a ghastly replica of the voodoo lexigram and placed it beneath his pillow. Her lips were thin and uncompromising as she said, “Maybe if you’d come earlier, I could perhaps have forgiven you. But I’ve had enough of it in my time—from that father of yours, as you well know! But still you had to go and leave it! Why did you have to leave it so late, Pat?”

  “Mammy!” squealed Pat as his eyelids shot open, only to be dazzled by the all-engulfing foxfire-flash which consumed the hut, the piercing cry of a phantasmagorical demon bird pealing across the sky as a spear thudded into the wall of the hut, the goat’s terrified bleats as distress flares sent out by the damned. It was then that the familiar words, but this time intoned as if by a harpy from the further reaches of some pitiless place, reached the ears of Pat McNab: “I wander the streets and the gay crowded places Trying to forget you but somehow it seems …”—until an all-consuming nausea, then a blackness, enveloped Pat and he awoke to perceive a distorted dance of gamboling flames and before him a familiar figure which seemed behind its horrendous mask (large whorled eyes, random swishes of color) to speak with the voice of an animal.

  Pat squealed as he found himself set upon and stripped in toto of his clothes, a single fragment of cloth carelessly arranged about his private parts. The large-breasted native woman retreated in silence as the voodoo witch doctor gestured with his spear.

  “No! No!” Pat found himself crying helplessly as he was borne aloft by three warriors whose greasy bronzed skin shone brightly in the moonlight, his wrists expertly shackled to the skeleton of a bamboo trellis, as, hopelessly cruciform, he divined before his eyes the coiled shape of a cobra snake—on either side of him placed a steaming cauldron of boiling oil. At once, the bongos began their complex rhythm, as so many fingers tapping out a beat of torment on his temples.

  “No! No!” cried Pat, his heart leaping with hope, incongruously—and, as it transpired, foolishly—as he discerned the words of the pith-helmeted white hunter who had abruptly emerged from the damp undergrowth.

  “I’m afraid you’ll find it’s a bit late for that, old boy. My understanding is that they have already passedjudgment.”

  “Who?” Pat, summoning all his resources, choked, “What are you talking about? Already passed judgment? Who are you?”

  “Siggerson,” the hunter replied, “Clifford Siggerson. Cigarette, old fruit? No, of course not! Silly of me!”

  The hunter produced a silver cigarette lighter and fired his tobacco with a flourish. “No,” he continued, “I’m afraid it’s not looking good for you, old bean. You see—they take a dim view of that sort of thing here. Kill brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, fathers even. But mothers? ‘Fraid not, old chap. Mother is sacred. As I’m sure you’ve gathered. Ha ha!”

  The hunter’s insouciant gesture led Pat’s terrified eyes in the direction of the carved icon which was clearly a homage to the revered state of motherhood—a smiling, middle-aged face gazing lovingly looking down upon her many children. The awesomeness of his predicament dawned on Pat.

  “You’ve got to help me! Please—you’ve got to help me!”

  The helmeted animal pursuer gravely shook his head, proceeding toward the towering foliage.

  “Stop!” shrieked Pat. “Where are you going? Come back, you English bastard! You can’t leave me here like this! Go on then, you miserable fool—with your stupid hat! Ha ha! I don’t care! O God! Why did I have to do it! It could have been so beautiful! We could have ruled the whole island, me and Mammy!”

  With that, the manacled Gullytown man fell in a dead faint In his sleep, an almost imperceptible smile of happiness played upon his lips. For, in that slumber, he saw what might have been. His mother clapping at a table as he, attired in a colorful South Seas-style T-shirt and espadrilles, swiftly disposed of his mint julep and authoritatively shushed the appreciative crowd.

  “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “May I say how wonderful it is to be here tonight at the Club Tropicana. We’d like to continue with another song for you now and with your permission I’d like to ask someone special to join me onstage—Mrs. McNab? If you would be so kind?”

  It was a very shy but nonetheless enthusiastic Mrs. Maimie McNab who negotiated her way stageward through the tables, her son taking her hand as he pecked her on the cheek and they began—as one!—to sing their favorite song:

  An Irish boy was leaving

  leaving his native home

  Crossing the broad Atlantic

  To foreign lands to roam

  And as he was leaving his mother

  While waiting on the quay

  He threw his arms around her waist

  And this to her he did say:

  A mother’s love’s a blessing

  No matter where you roam

  Keep her while she’s living

  You’ll miss her when she’s gone

  Love her as in childhood

  Though feeble old and gray

  For you’ll never miss your mother’s love

  Till she’s buried beneath the clay!

  “Oh, Mammy!” Pat heard himself cry as he drew his mother to his bosom, about to peck her tenderly on the cheek when—foxfire flash!— a poison dart shot from a blowpipe protruding through the trees went fleetingly past his cheek, the native would-be assailant tearing back into the undergrowth.

  “Come back, you bastard!” Pat heard himself cry. “You can’t leave me tied up here! I’ll murder you!” The voodoo mask looming, approaching now as from behind it, a confident, familiar voice growled, “Oh yes! You’d do that all right!”

  “What?” Pat gasped.

  “But you won’t, you see. For your murdering days are over.”

  “Who’s that? Who’s that?” Pat squealed.

  With agonizing slowness, the mask was removed and Pat found himself staring into the face of the woman who had carried him for nine months—his own mother!

  “Mammy!” he cried aloud—for no reason that he could determine, illogically consumed by a feeling of well-being—”It’s
you! Thank God!”

  His mother smiled.

  “That’s right, son. It’s me. I came at last.”

  Pat smiled broadly, his heart pounding furiously within his chest.

  “That’s right, Mammy,” he smiled, “you did.”

  There was a sickly, acidic quality to his mother’s smile as she continued, “Yes, I did. I didn’t leave it until it was too late. Like some people.”

  Pat’s cheek jerked nervously.

  “What, Mammy? Ha ha. Mammy! You’re a gas, woman! Mammy, will you take these knots out? They’re hurting my wrists!”

  “Yes, I will, Pat,” agreed his mother. “After all—you don’t have too long left, do you?”

  Pat’s eyes widened.

  “What, Mammy? Ha ha—oh now! What, Mammy? Mammy, what do you mean?”

  His mother clicked her fingers and, instantaneously, two warriors were at Pat’s side. Within seconds, they had her son released from his bondage. Despite himself, Pat was in quite a jittery state as he presented himself before his mother, towering rigidly above him. (Or so it seemed, although she was actually smaller than him!)

  “Phew!” he gasped. “Thank God for that! Mammy—would you look at the state of this place! The sooner we’re out of here the better, if you ask me!”

  There was something troublingly wry about Mrs. McNab’s expression as she contemplated the nails of her right hand.

  “Isn’t that funny now?” she replied. “And you only a couple of days ago saying it was just about the most fantastic place on earth!”

  The corners of Pat’s mouth expanded and contracted almost simultaneously.

  “Aye, I know, Mammy but that was a couple of days ago—look at me now!”

  Mrs. McNab folded her arms.

  “That’s you all over, isn’t it, Pat?” she said. “No matter how beautiful something is, you always spoil it in the end. Somehow you always manage to spoil it, don’t you?”

  Pat swallowed, a Niagara of saliva glutinously making its way past his tonsils.

  “No, Mammy. I don’t,” he replied hopefully but without the conviction demanded by the circumstances.

  His mother lowered her voice, strangely impassive now.

  “Ah you do, Pat. You do. No doubt you’d do the same here if you were let. You’d do exactly the same here if you thought you’d get away with it.”

  Pat cried out, unable to help himself.

  “No, Mammy! I would not! Now, Mammy, that’s not fair!”

  “Turn all our dreams to dust, that’s what you’d do!” went on his mother. “Every wonderful day we’d have on this island—you’d go and destroy it, just like you did all the other ones.”

  Such was his emotional state that Pat’s voice was virtually a croak.

  “Mammy, I didn’t mean that!” he pleaded. “That wasn’t meant to happen!”

  There was a heartbreaking wistfulness in his mother’s eyes.

  “Went and took your own mother’s life! Robbed her of her living breath and left her lying there as cold as stone.”

  In Pat’s eyes tears were gleaming now.

  “It’s not my fault!” he erupted. “You wouldn’t leave me alone! Why couldn’t you leave me alone?”

  Suddenly his mother—quite unexpectedly—extended her hand and whispered softly, “Do you know something, Pat? I love you. Will you dance with me? One last time—dance with me?”

  Pat’s cheek spasmed abruptly.

  “One last time? Please, Mammy. Please don’t say that,” he said.

  His mother studied her crossed hands. Together they fashioned the shape of a flesh eagle.

  “I’m sorry, Pat,” she said, “it’s the law. You know the law.”

  Pat brought his brows together with a tension that was almost painful.

  “The law, Mammy,” he croaked. “What are you talking about?”

  Before Pat’s mother had a chance to reply, the voodoo man appeared out of nowhere, from behind his fearsome mask brandishing a steamy wooden beaker, which he aggressively shoved at Pat.

  “What is it, Mammy?” Mrs. McNab’s son called out—near terror evident now in his voice. “What is it he’s giving me? Mammy, what is in this mug? Please!”

  His mother looked away, impassively.

  “I’m sorry, Pat,” she responded, “you must, I fear. It is the law, you see.”

  The voodoo man jabbed Pat on the shoulder with his spear, maneuvering him toward the proffered receptacle. Tearfully, he felt his lips tentatively make contact with the rim.

  “That’s it, love,” he heard his mother say, “for those you have deprived of life by both callous hand and kitchen implement, retribution you must now make. With the life you call your own.”

  “Please, Mammy,” begged Pat.

  His mother tilted the beaker upward his lips with a hand that was unmistakably gentle but firm.

  “That’s it, love! Come on now!” she entreated. “Soon it will be all over.”

  Splashes of the foul, repellent liquid cascaded across Pat’s chest. It was as some vile combination of Creamola Foam and whiskey, with a tincture of jeyes Fluid.

  “Come on, love,” he heard his mother repeat, “drink up. The law must be obeyed.”

  Pat forced the thick liquid down his scorched, raw throat.

  “That’s it,” said his mother, “another litde drop now, love.”

  Pat spluttered awkwardly as he downed the remainder of the vessel’s contents.

  “Very good,” said Mrs. McNab. “Come on now, sweetheart. Give me your hand like a good boy.”

  With great trepidation, Pat succumbed to her warm embrace as they began to slowly waltz in the firelight, fiercely observed by the voodoo man from a circle of bronzed, statuesque native warriors. Pat felt his mother’s hot breath on his cheek as she whispered into his ear, “You know what’s sad? You know what’s sad, love?”

  A lump the size of a large thumb began to form itself in Pat’s throat.

  “What, Mammy?” he asked. “What is it that’s sad?”

  “That it had to end this way,” went on his mother. “For you know what? If it hadn’t, we could have lived every word of our song. Every single word of it!”

  All Pat’s nerves seemed to go on alert at once.

  “Mammy! Please! Don’t! Don’t say it!”

  But Mrs. McNab gave no indication of having heard her son.

  “Around this fire—perhaps for all eternity, we could have sung—together we could have sung our song!”

  Her eyes slowly closed as out into the hot tropical night floated familiar words:

  I wander the streets and the gay crowded places

  Trying to forget you but somehow it seems …

  She paused and squeezed his shoulder.

  “Come on, Pat,” she coaxed him, “that’s my boy!” as, stumblingly, his cheeks on fire, he began:

  My thoughts ever stray to our last real embraces—

  But before he could complete the phrase, a wave of intense nausea swept over him and the trees began to metamorphose before his eyes, capering now as if rendered alive!

  “Agh!” cried Pat.

  “It’s going to be all right, I tell you!” his mother reassured him.

  “Help me, Ma!” Pat wailed as the mountains melted into liquid.

  “It’s going to be all right,” a soft voice insisted from far away, as though from the heart of the deepest valley. “Soon it will be all over.”

  “My stomach,” Pat groaned. “My insides are in flames!”

  “Come to me, love. Come to Mammy,” coaxed Mrs. McNab, putting her arm around Pat’s shoulders.

  “O Mammy! The pain! It’s like a thousand vipers!”

  “Come on, love,” said his mother. “That’s it! Lie down here!”

  It was clear to Pat that he was now close to death as palm frond-bearing natives swept toward him in a wave, a newfound kindness in their eyes, robust bass voices delivering a semicalypso version of his mother’s favorite song in a style reminiscent
of Paul Robeson, “Again I will wander where memory enfolds me, over the sea on the island of dreams.”

  A blanket of moss served as a pillow for Pat’s heavy head.

  “Are you comfortable now, love?” he heard his mother say. “Drink this last hot drop like a good boy. Go on now, there!”

  Terrified, Pat complied with his mother’s wishes.

  “That’s better,” he heard her say, his lids weighty as those of dustbins beginning at last to close, her voice merging with that of the islanders as they sang—so beautifully!—before she rose, and, weaving in the firelight, began what might be called a strange, finger-extending “Britt Ekland”-type of dance, her face at last contorting in what can only be described as a series of elastic, willful, and gratified expressions as her mouth became lopsided and she hissed (so like a snake!) close to his ear: “Over the sea on the island of dreams” before slithering away once more, chuckling, “Ha ha ha!” horribly, out of each of her sides a leathery, bone-bisected wing unfurling as she became as a screeching demon-creature swallowed up by the living, palpitating darkness of the undergrowth.

  The dawn light as it broke was a brilliantly polished sword which remorselessly cleaved into the soul of Pat McNab as he stood bent above the bowl of his bathroom toilet, discharging the contents of his stomach into the opaque waters below. “Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus Christ!” were the only words which could be heard as the first starlings and thrushes prepared themselves for a day of song.

  There was something forlorn about the discarded aluminium container which lay abandoned on the kitchen floor with its skull-and-crossboned label PARAQUAT-POISON prominently displayed. From the bathroom, the heartbreaking cries—punctuated by intermittently raucous evacuations—resonated until the entire house seemed to become nothing so much as an enormous sob. It was all Pat could do to wipe his stained mouth with his sleeve and tumble down the hall when he heard the sound of the front-door bell.