apparition my enemy now?
‘Jack?’ I called out anyhow, throwing caution to the wind. I had the mad thought that he might have come to help me. But what had happened to him? Now he was closer and even odder, if I didn’t know better I would say he was singed, he was veritably singed.
The man stopped on the path, maybe astonished I had spoken to him. In fact he looked frightened.
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‘Jack McNulty?’ I said, as if that might be helpful. Surely he knew his own name. Now I’m sure I looked as uncertain as he did.
He spoke like a man who has not spoken for a few days, the words stumbling out of his lip.
‘What?’ he said. ‘What, what?’
He looked so solemnly scared I went down the path to the gate and stood nearer to him. I thought he might bolt away down the road, like a donkey after all. But I was just a small woman in a cotton dress.
‘You’re not Jack McNulty, are you?’ I said. ‘You certainly look like him.’
‘Who are you?’ he said, and gazed back towards the sea like he feared an ambush.
‘I’m no one,’ I said, meaning no one for him to fear. ‘I’m Roseanne, Tom’s wife – as was maybe.’
‘Oh, I heard about you,’ he said, but without the expected censure. He suddenly seemed very glad to be talking to me, to be meeting me. He raised his right hand a moment as if he meant to shake one of mine, but he let it drop. ‘Yes.’
I was so relieved, I was so delighted he had taken this tone with me that I wanted to joke with him, to be pleasant with him, to tell him all the things that had happened, just little things, like the two rats the night before that I had caught in the act of carrying away one of my eggs through a hole in the hut wall, a hole so small one rat had put the egg up on his belly and let the other rat pull him away through the gap!
Ridiculous. But it was the friendliness in his voice that did it, the mere simple friendliness, a thing I hadn’t heard for so long, and didn’t even know I missed.
‘I’m Eneas,’ he said, ‘Tom’s brother.’
‘Eneas?’ I said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m not really here,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t be here, and I should be gone shortly.’
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‘What’s the stuff all over you?’
‘What stuff?’ he said.
‘You’re all black,’ I said, ‘And grey, like ashes.’
‘Jesus, so I am,’ he said. ‘I was in Belfast. I was going back to France, you know. I’m a soldier.’
‘Like Jack,’ I said.
‘Like Jack, only he’s an officer. I was in Belfast, Roseanne, waiting for my ship, sleeping in a little hotel, when the few poor lousy sirens they have there went off, and in a few minutes they came in, the bombers, dozens and dozens and dozens, dropping their bombs at will, not a puff in the sky of an antiaircraft gun, not a puff, and all around me the houses and streets erupted. How did I get out, I ran like a demon along the ways, screaming I do not doubt, and saying wild prayers for the people of Belfast, and soon there were hundreds in the streets, all doing the same as me, people in their nightdresses and people naked as babes, running and screaming, and at the edge of the city we just kept going, and the waves of planes had come in behind us, all the while without mercy letting go the bombs, and an hour later, or maybe more, I cannot say, I was perched on the edge of a huge dark mountain, and looked back, and Belfast was a huge lake of fire, burning, burning, the flames leaping like red creatures, tigers and such, high high into the sky, and those that had run with me were also looking, and weeping, and giving out sounds like the lamentations of the bible. And I thought of the bit of the bible they like to give out in the seamen’s missions, where I used to frequent before the war, being just a wandering man, They who are not written in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire, and I trembled trembled to see the anger of the Lord, excepting it wasn’t the Lord, but those Germans away up nearer the stars, looking down on their work and I should think marvelling, marvelling as much as us.’
This man Eneas stopped. He was trembling again now. He 238
was in a bad state. The reflection of that lake of fire was still burning in his eyes.
‘Come in,’ I said, ‘just for a minute, and rest.’ Whether this was a maternal instinct or a sisterly I cannot say. But suddenly an enormous rush of tenderness went from me to him. I thought, he is like me, a little. He has been cast out from his world, this world of Sligo. And I cannot say he looked like a villain. I cannot say he looked like a murdering policeman of old, of his legend – not that I knew his legend then. Indeed and indeed, how little I knew about him, how rarely his brothers had spoken of him – only with heavy sighs and meaningful looks.
‘No, I cannot,’ he said. ‘You don’t know me. I am not a man you want in your house. I’ll bring trouble to you. Didn’t they tell you, I have a death sentence on my head? I shouldn’t even be here in Sligo. I have walked out of Belfast, and through Enniskillen, and just sort of came here, like a pigeon flying home and cannot help it.’
‘Come in,’ I said, ‘and never mind any of that. I am your sister-in-law after all. Come in.’
So in he came. As he walked, little tumbles of black dust fell from him. He had walked all the way from Belfast, a long long way indeed, returning to Sligo like a pigeon – like a salmon looking for the mouth of the Garravoge. He seemed to me the saddest man I had ever met.
When I got him in the hut, I indicated to him without much ceremony to remove his uniform. The first thing he needed was a cup of water to drink, which he drank with a miniature ferocity, like he had a fire also in his insides that needed putting out. I had an old tin bath for my own use, and filled it with a few visits to the well, trying to keep the water clean, while my kettle came to boiling on the fire. Then I was able to take the chill off the bath with the boiled water, but no more than that. All this while the small ashen man stood in the centre of the 239
floor in his long johns, and the cleanliness of that garment surprised me. He was a neat-boned, well-constructed man, not in the slightest plump like Tom, no, not a pick on him.
‘I’ll go out to the scullery now and put some cheese in a sandwich,’ I said.
So for modesty’s sake, I left him to it, and I could hear him stumble about a little as he took off his long johns, and stood into the tub, and gave himself a wash. I suppose an army man like him was used to cold washing, I hoped so. Anyway, there wasn’t a squeak out of him. When I deemed it right, I came back in. He had suds-ed himself rightly, the tub was a boil of ash-streaked soap, and now was standing again in the centre of the floor, doing up the buttons of his long johns. His hair I now could see was a sort of russet red, even burned so close to his scalp. His skin was darkly marked by the sun, and his hands were rough and thick-fingered. I nodded to him as if to say, Are you all right? and he nodded back, as if to say, I am. I handed him the thick slice of bread and cheese, and he wolfed it down gently where he stood.
‘Well,’ he said then, smiling, ‘it’s nice to have family.’
And I laughed.
‘I know what you mean,’ I said.
Outside it was falling dark and my old companion the owl was starting up his motor. Now I didn’t know what to do with him. I seemed to know him so well, at least the makeup of his body and his face, and of course didn’t know him from Adam. And yet so gentle and strange a man I never had encountered. He was standing with absolute stillness like a deer on the mountain when he hears a twig snap.
‘I thank you,’ he said, with complete simplicity and sincerity. I was so affected to be thanked by another human being. I was so affected by hearing another human speak to me with grace and respect. I was standing still also now, staring at him, almost astounded.
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‘I can take the uniform outside and beat it,’ I said, ‘otherwise it would never be dry on the morrow.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘leave it alone. I’m not supposed to wear it in the Free State. It’l
l do as it is, all covered over like that. I’ll make my way to Dublin and try to rejoin my unit from there. The sergeant will be very worried about me.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ I said.
‘I’m a good soldier, you know,’ he said.
‘I’m sure you are,’ I said.
‘Not the deserting type,’ he said, unnecessarily. I could tell he wasn’t.
‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean anything by this, I mean, me standing here in my long johns, and you a stranger, but, the reason I came to Strandhill was because I used to have a girl, and she and me used to come down here, for the dancing of course, and her name was Viv, and she was warned off of me, you know, and I don’t see her. But I wanted to stand on the beach where we used to stand, looking out on the bay. You know, a simple thing like that. And Viv was a lovely-looking girl, she was indeed. And I wanted to say, and not meaning anything by it, but you are also the most beautiful-looking person I ever saw, you and she both.’
Well, that was a lovely speech. And he didn’t mean anything by it, unless it was to speak the truth. I was suddenly flushed with a sort of pride, that I hadn’t felt for a long time. This man, and he didn’t know, spoke like my father when my father wished to say something important. There was a sort of strange old flounce to it, like out of a book, the very book I still guarded and cherished, old Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici. And he was a boy from the seventeenth century, so I don’t know how that lingo had crept into Eneas McNulty.
‘I know you’re a married woman,’ he said, ‘so please forgive me, and you married to my brother.’
‘No,’ I said, also in the interests of truth, and before I could 241
think better of it, ‘I am not a married woman. Or so I’m told.’
‘Oh?’ he said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You see, I have had my own death sentence spoke against me.’
Then he was standing there and I was standing there. And I went over to him like a mouse, quietly, quietly, in case I would scare him, and took one of those calloused hands of his, and led him into the room behind, where the owl was better heard, and Knocknarea more easily seen, from the poor feather bed. Then after that later, we were lying there like two stone figures on a tomb, quite as happy as any moment of childhood.
‘I think Jack told me your father was in the Merchant Navy,’
he said after a little.
‘Oh, yes, he was,’ I said.
‘Like myself – and Jack too, you know.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Oh, yes. And he said your father was in the old police then, wasn’t that it?’
‘Jack said that?’ I said.
‘I think he did. And I was interested to hear that of course, since I was in myself. Which of course cost me dear in the end. But sure, we didn’t know. We seem to like to be signing up to things, the McNulty boys. There’s Jack now in the Royal Engineers. And even young Tom himself going off to Spain with that Duffy character, hah?’
‘O’Duffy. Did he? I didn’t know that.’
‘O’Duffy, that’s right. I should know because he was head of the new police after. Yes, Tom went off, so I’m told.’
‘And how did he get on?’
‘Jack said he was back in two weeks. Jack didn’t think much of Tom going off giving support to Franco now. No. Anyhow, Tom came back. Disgusted he was. Broke with O’Duffy then entirely. He had them stuck in trenches with rats eating their 242
toes, and O’Duffy himself off somewhere, Salamanca I don’t doubt. Living it up. Ah well, sure.’
‘Poor Tom,’ I said. ‘That lovely uniform, gone to waste.’
‘Oh, indeed,’ said Eneas. ‘So he wasn’t in the police then, your father?’ he said, innocently enough, chatting in the moonlight.
‘What sort of love-talk is this?’ I said, not wanting to offend so innocent a man. He laughed anyhow.
‘Irish love-talk,’ he said. ‘Battles, and who you’re for, and all that.’
And he laughed again.
‘When was all that anyhow, going to Spain and everything?’
I said.
‘Oh, ’37, I suppose. It’s a long while back, isn’t it? Seems like.’
‘And do you hear any other more recent news of Tom?’
‘Oh, just that he’s thriving, you know. The coming man and all that, you know.’
And he looked at me then, maybe fearing he was upsetting me. But he wasn’t really. It was nice to have him there. His leg was very warm against my leg. No, I didn’t mind him.
The medical doctor was in to me a while ago. He didn’t like the rash on my face, and indeed he found it on my back also. Truth to tell I have been feeling a little tired, and I told him so. It was strange, because usually as the spring got going outside I perked up in myself. I could see in my mind’s eye the daffodils ablaze along the avenue and I longed to go out and see them, give them a raise of the old hand in greeting. Such long lurking under the cold wet earth, and then, all their resplendent joy. So that was strange, and I told him so.
He said he didn’t like my breathing either, and I said I liked it well enough, and he laughed, and said, ‘No, I mean, I don’t 243
like that odd little rattle in your chest, I think I will give you some antibiotics.’
Then he gave me real news. He said the whole main body of the hospital had been cleared out, and the two wings up my end were the only ones still going. I asked him if the old dames had been cleared out and he said they had. He said it was a terrible job, because of the bed sores, and the pain. He said I was very wise to keep moving about, and not have the bed sores. I said I had had them when I first went into Sligo and hadn’t liked them much. He said, ‘I know.’
‘Does Dr Grene know of these changes?’ I said.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘he has masterminded the whole thing.’
‘And what will happen to the old place now?’
‘It will be demolished in due course,’ he said. ‘And of course you will be put in a nice new place.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
I was suddenly frantic, because I was thinking of these pages under the floor. How would I gather them and keep them secret if I was to be moved? And where would I be moved to? I was in turmoil now, like that blow hole in the cliff the back of Sligo Bay, when the tide comes in and forces the water into the rock.
‘I thought Dr Grene had mentioned all this, or I wouldn’t have said anything. You’re not to worry.’
‘What will happen to the tree below, and the daffodils?
‘What?’ he said. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Look, I’ll have Dr Grene discuss all this with you. You know. That’s his department and I am afraid I have strayed into it, Mrs McNulty.’
I was then too weary to explain yet again, for the millionth time in sixty years and more, that I wasn’t Mrs McNulty. That I wasn’t anybody, wasn’t in fact anybody’s wife. I was just Roseanne Clear.
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chapter twenty
Dr Grene’s Commonplace Book
Catastrophe. The medical doctor Mr Wynn, having gone up to attend Roseanne at my request, has inadvertently let the cat out of the bag vis-à-vis the hospital. I mean, I think I thought she knew, that someone would have told her. If they did, the information flew out of her head. I should have been wiser and prepared her. Mind you, I don’t know how I would have broached this, without a similar result. She seemed most distressed that the bedbound old ladies are gone. Actually I feel we have all been moved on much quicker than we wanted, but the new facility in Roscommon town will be ready in a while, and there were complaints in the paper that it might be lying unused. So we bestirred ourselves in a final push. Now all that remain are the people here in Roseanne’s block and the men’s wing to the west. They are mostly old codgers of one sort and another, in their black hospital clothes. They are also very unhappy to hear of imminent plans, and actually what delays everything now is that there is nowhere for them to go. We cannot put them out on the road, and say, right
, lads, off you go. They gather about me like rooks, when I talk to them in the yard where they do a bit of walking about and smoking. These are some of the fellows that were so helpful the night there was a fire in the hospital, many of them carrying old ladies on their backs, down the long stairs, quite amazing, and afterwards making jokes about it being a long time since they went with a girl, and wasn’t it nice to do the foxtrot again, and related jests. They are certainly not mentally ill the most of them, they are just the ‘detritus’ of the system, as I once heard them referred 245
to. One of them that I know well fought in the Congo with the Irish army. A good few of them in fact are ex-army men. I suppose we lack a place like Chelsea barracks, or Les Invalides in Paris. Who would be an old soldier in Ireland?
Roseanne was actually sweating in her bed when I went in to her. It may be a reaction to the antibiotics, but I fancy it is simple fear. This may be a terrible place in a terrible condition, but she is a human creature like the rest of us, and this is her home, God help her. I was surprised to find John Kane there, with his gobble-gobble voice like a turkey, the poor man, and though I was suspicious of him, he actually seemed concerned, old rogue that he may be, and worse.
Truth to tell I am not so sanguine about all this myself, and feel very much hurried and harried, but all the same it must be a good thing to be getting new premises, and ones not streaked with rainwater in some of the rooms, and gashes in the slates of the roof that we could get no one to risk fixing, because I am assured the timbers themselves are going. Yes, yes, it is a deathtrap, the whole building, but at the same time the element of depreciation has been scandalously ignored and never funded, and what could have been maintained has been let go to hell. And a species of hell it most likely appears to the untutored eye. Not Roseanne’s eye.
The Secret Scripture Page 23
