Death and Nightingales

by Eugene McCabe

  ‘Better blind than deaf,’ Billy muttered as the Dummy now proffered a begging hand.

  ‘Beggary, for what?’ Billy asked.

  The Dummy rubbed the thumb and forefinger of his right hand together. He then joined his hands and placed them against his right cheek and closed his eyes.

  ‘Money for lodgings,’ Billy muttered. ‘Dumb you might be, McGonnell, but you’re an artful class of a beggar.’

  He placed a shilling in the Dummy’s hand and set off along the farm-pass leading to the quarry and as he walked, Billy Winters was thinking of treacherous wombs and treacherous wells and how everyone, less or more, has some shameful and painful secret to conceal. On the path leading to the spring-well he could see Mickey Dolphin’s slight figure stooping for water. What was his toddler called? A little girl; Christ in heaven, her name must be graven on his heart. Did God grin down on that, too? Suffer the little ones. Clobbers all of us this way or that. Crawling, running, shuffling till lights out and the Prince of Glory or the other fella; or nothing!

  The land began to slope down toward the Lower Lough. He could now see the familiar square tower and the roof-shapes of the crushing mill and riddle house and heard the skreeking noise of a steel drill-bit going down into the limestone. Forty holes would have to be drilled deep for the dynamite arriving at midday from Enniskillen under heavy guard in a sealed carriage. He became aware of Donnelly’s letter: ‘Expect the unexpected . . . be wary of all men at all times.’ Was there something unsaid? He could ask him tonight in the Town Hall.

  Nearing the edge of the quarry he paused at the top of a stone staircase leading down to the office. On good days like this he could see back to the spires and tower of Enniskillen Town Hall, and make out the county roads and by-roads, the avenues and mansions, the cottages dug into the landscape. For almost a hundred years this lough-side quarry had helped supply the stones that built them, the filler and gravel that paved them.

  There was a pyramid of fist-sized rubble beside the crusher. Beyond it were three acres of hacked grey-black limestone, the dried-up pools and paths rutted by slipes, carts and drays, which led to the far end of the quarry where, outside a large slated stone shed, there were tombstones, altars, a half-finished pulpit and marble fireplaces in various stages of completion. On the gable of the shed in bold capitals it said:

  VINTERS’ MONUMENTAL WORKS

  Years ago one of the Adamsons murmured, ‘Have we a Michelangelo here in West Fermanagh?’ High gentry very grand about trade. A tombstone-maker one step above an undertaker. In less than fifteen years the same man had squandered his paintings, sculptures, and marble staircase, his lands now reverting to cattle jobbers, rushes and ragwort. Billy’s father had once said, ‘Unless they have old money or marry new money or learn to trade like us they’ll disappear. Take care, son, and mind the old money, add to it and be kind to the land. That way you survive.’

  He had followed this advice, though solvency seemed pointless when everything in time would pass to indifferent kin: two married female cousins and their families near Dungannon. Who would then control and direct the work of this quarry, the farm and all that entailed? Was the codicil unfair to Beth? Old Patterson, coldly legal and sharply personal: ‘A will is about what you want, Sir, and of course the girl is deserving; but if you go first she could marry one of her own. And what then? Did we cross the sea and fight for that? Have we wrought here three hundred years to have it taken from us that way? No, Sir, you must be clear about what happens when you are gone. With respect, you made one blunder; do not compound it with another.’

  Far below, beyond the dust and clamour of the quarry, the levelness of the lough seemed fixed in a strike of sunlight so blinding he could scarcely make out the shape of Corvey Island and Tirkennedy beyond it.

  4

  Beth had gone up to her bedroom with the brass bed, the woodwormed floor, the ewer and the basin with its painted daffodils. Outside the window under the overhang she had almost ceased to hear a family of starlings, there since childhood; noisy, garrulous, friendly.

  One case was already packed. The second contained shoes, some books and a few toilet things. This case was half-empty. She opened it and picked up Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, Dickens and William Carleton. A card used as a marker fell to the ground, a photograph of archaeological excavation at Pompeii. Replacing it in a book she became aware of forgotten correspondence under newspaper lining in a chest of drawers. She removed a bundle of linen, lifted out the newspaper uncovering envelopes of different sizes. She then replaced the newspaper and linen and sat on the bed, glancing at sentences, half-reading notes, letters and cards. One bundle was marked ‘Mam’. As she put it in the case an image came back of her mother saying:

  ‘If I happen to go first . . . Don’t lay me out in my wedding dress . . . use the one with the lace collar, the green one . . . and make sure my own name is on the stone: Maguire.’

  What an image to return now. She could feel her eyes swimming as she methodically tore up the rest of the correspondence. A note from Ward she put in the pocket of her dress. A letter she had received in Castel de Cortese near Naples she now found herself reading quickly and then re-reading. Written two years ago, it was from Billy Winters.

  Clonoula,

  August 9th, 1881

  My Dear Elizabeth,

  Now I begin to see the place you describe. Naples is a very long way from home.

  You ask me for news. It’s quiet here mostly. Yesterday I rowed out to Corvey, your island. The business of punting cattle out and back to thirty unmannered acres is a doubtful one. Today I posted to Enniskillen for Matthew Gemmel’s funeral. He cut his throat poor fellow. Loneliness, the minister said. Again there are rumours afloat that I am to sell Clonoula, that the quarry is bankrupt and that I have become an inveterate night tippler. All wishful talk from my well-wishers hereabouts!

  Our meadows are all scythed, saved and stacked in the barns, lofts and haggard; about three hundred rucks in all. The yard smells sweet and summery. Our cattle will be content this winter.

  Soon I’ll have hooks out to the barley and pullers out to the flax. Did I tell you I tried out a field of linseed? It flowers blue like the grotto at Capri you wrote me about. People stare at it. It’s worth coming back to Fermanagh to view such a wonder: a blue field under a black sky.

  Let me say now that I would love to see you home again. I can give you a few good reasons for returning. Firstly you belong here, you play the piano well and sing sweetly when persuaded! For the six months you were here, you managed the yard and dairy better than any working steward. Every room in the house is missing your presence! Will you think about this? I promise to conduct myself as honourably as any man in Ulster. Do you believe me? Do I believe myself? Absolutely.

  The new dispensary doctor is a young man called Bell. I called on him after Gemmel’s funeral. He tells me my chest pains are ‘intercostal neuritis’ and that I’m as healthy as a goat. I think you’d like him, a quirky sense of humour, a real Ulsterman.

  I grow benign with the years believe me, and every day I miss you.

  You have at all times my deepest love,

  Papa

  Could anything be more genial. ‘You belong here’; ‘Every day I miss you’; ‘At all times my deepest love’.

  She was uncertain what to do about the letter; she placed it in her pocket, took it out and replaced it in the case, took it out again and then slowly began to tear it in small pieces aware as she did so of Mercy’s footsteps on the staircase, then her voice:

  ‘Are you up there, Miss?’

  ‘I am, Mercy, yes . . .’

  ‘Would you like me to scrub out the kitchen or start straight in to churn?’

  ‘The churning, Mercy, I’ll be down in five minutes.’

  Some time today she would have to tell Mercy she would be leaving here at dawn tomorrow; for good, most likely. That would be difficult. Meantime she would have to behave as naturally as possible.

 
She continued to destroy the correspondence, occasionally tearing out an address which she placed in the open case. She then closed the case, put it under the bed and went down with the paper debris and funnelled it into the kitchen stove. When it was burning well she left the kitchen, through the pantry to the back hall and out to the cobbled yard.

  She could hear from the dairy opposite the back door the rhythmic splatter of Mercy churning.

  In the cool, sour smell of the flagged dairy Mercy was plunging the churnshaft up and down to a rhyme she heard at home:

  ‘Come butter, come butter, come butter, come;

  Every lump as big as my bum.’

  Beth moved now to relieve her:

  ‘It’s small lumps we’d have Mercy to match your bottom.’

  ‘Oh God, thanks Miss, I’m wringin’ wet, soaked through . . .’

  Mercy went over and leaned against a wide slate shelf with its crocks full of buttermilk, skimmed milk, whey, and cheeses wrapped in muslin. She took a handful of ragged muslin from a box and began wiping her face, neck and arms as she watched Beth continue the churning. A kind mistress to work for, a bit stand-offish, or shy or something, but a picture to look at: her strong arms working the shaft, her blouse tightening and loosening to the movement, the Parnell locket swinging rhythmically. Spiteful catty ones said the Winters girl was platter-faced, and she was a bit maybe, but her skin was beautiful – and her eyes. And her voice was lovely – throaty, sort of – and when she laughed it was so merry she was like someone else. But it was hard to make her laugh. Why were there so few men callers? Did she frighten them off? Too educated? Polite and proper? The way just now she said ‘bottom’ instead of ‘bum’, ‘arse’, or even ‘backside’, and the way she was so nice about the locket. Mercy could tell she didn’t really like it; which was hard to make out, because almost everyone in Ireland was ready to die for Mr Parnell. And the way she keeps on trying to get me to talk her way: to say ‘did’ instead of ‘done’. There was a near fight about that one day; Mercy had cried and Beth hadn’t corrected her since. Odd hours they did reading and writing together and Beth had shown her how to make Clones Lace. Mercy was grateful and counted herself one of the luckiest girls in Fermanagh.

  In less than ten minutes the cream had turned to crumbly butter. In the silence of the work that followed – kneading, scalding, salting and shaping – they heard the stone-crusher grinding to a stop in the quarry below. Half an hour later the lumbering steel-shod wheels of Ward’s draycart could be heard coming down the county road from the townland and tenancy of Brackagh.

  ‘That’s Liam Ward’s dray,’ Mercy said. Beth did not respond.

  ‘The fellas goin’ now is . . . a bad lot mostly.’

  ‘In what sense, Mercy?’

  ‘Well, the ones you’d meet at a dance or a ceilidh . . . they’ve no notion how to talk to a girl, less manners nor a dog, they’ve no . . .’ Mercy searched for the word, could not find it, and shrugged, ‘They have . . .’

  ‘No gentleness?’ Beth suggested.

  ‘It’s up against a wall they want you or down in a ditch, and no talk.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘I’ve never met one of them not like that.’

  ‘And your Mayo friend Constable Shanley?’

  ‘Oh, he’s afeared of his shada that fella, a gossipy auld woman, “information” is all he’s after, and I told him things I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘You did?’ Beth said. ‘Like what?’

  She could see the momentary embarrassment in Mercy’s face.

  Coming home late from a crossroads dance Mercy had been drawn to the dining-room by the lighted window and the sound of piano-playing. Looking in she had seen Beth playing, the boss standing behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders, the tips of his fingers close to her breasts. Mercy could tell from Beth that she was either afraid or in a temper, or both. She had crept in the back door and lay listening, and heard talking in the bedroom across the corridor. Then, after a while, Beth came in and got in beside her. Mercy pretended to be asleep and though she made no sound she could sense that Beth was crying.

  ‘Like what?’ Beth asked again.

  ‘Like telling him about Biddy O’Gorman, the way she was big as a haystack one day and all of a shot she was thin as a rake and nothing to show for it. There was talk. Some said it was born dead and others that it was made to die; you know the blather and spite they go on with about here. Then the day after I told Seamus Shanley the Constabulary came and searched O’Gorman’s. They found nothin’. He must’ve squealed.’

  ‘God help her,’ Beth said.

  ‘The devil mend the men,’ Mercy said. ‘Tommy O’Hara, Willie Dawson, Liam Ward, and God knows who else. She was a giddy thing, Biddy, man-giddy.’

  Alerted to hear Ward’s name, Beth turned away from Mercy’s eyes. Mercy was glad. She had told Shanley about the night scene and the piano, and sensed afterwards that he had probably told Sergeant Cassidy. And if Cassidy knew, Inspector Quinn knew, and Dublin Castle knew; that made her an informer by accident.

  Albert, a sixteen-week-old pig, was fed skimmed milk by Mercy for the last time as Beth scalded the churn, dash and butter makers, then placed them to air in a flyproof cabinet.

  Crossing the yard towards the kitchen, she said:

  ‘I might go up and rest a while, Mercy.’

  ‘And why not . . . you’ve been up half the night . . . better again you’ll miss Blinky Blessing cuttin’ poor Albert’s throat!’

  ‘Can you manage on your own?’

  ‘I’ve seen it too often, Miss. When it’s over I’ll call you . . . we can take tea to the bog together.’

  They crossed the yard, filled and carried a basket of logs from the corner of the turf shed. As Mercy loaded the fire-box of the stove Beth came in from the pantry with two glasses of lemonade. She placed one on the table then stood looking out of the window to the yard, as though alone. When she left without a word Mercy went out to the hall and called up the staircase:

  ‘Take a good rest for yourself, Miss.’

  Beth’s voice came down remote from the upper hall:

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mercy.’

  Mercy stood listening till she heard the click of the bedroom door. Quare and moody today and it her birthday. Funny feeling in the dining-room at breakfast, both falling over each other to thank me for filling a teapot. Is the boss up to his old tricks or some new ones, and what did I blurt about Shanley? ‘Told him things I shouldn’t have’ . . . and the steady way then she looked and looked till I blushed up. Janey Mack I wouldn’t harm her for all the oats in Ulster! She knows that, fonder of her than any fella, and ten times more than Shanley, with his bare-faced lies. ’Twas a neighbour says he split on Biddy O’Gorman. Liar! The worst neighbour ever wouldn’t tell on a girl in trouble that way, not hereabouts. Shanley it was, for certain sure. He’ll rise high in the world that fella, crown-shawning round the clergy and the Crown. Bad cess to the day I met him, full of himself with the full of his drawers. At least I didn’t let him that night, nor any other. Imagine having a baba like him, may God forgive me. I’d drown it before I’d rear it, the toady face and the moany noise of him, asking me was it real silver here in the house or the pretend stuff, and what was the maker’s name on the good Delft? How in God’s name would a girl like me know the like of that. And what sort of man would want to know the like! An auld woman and sneaky along with it. I’m well shot of him.

  Mercy drank her lemonade and went out to the round steel tub in the yard to wash and prepare potatoes for the main meal of the day.

  5

  The look-out-cum-office was perched half-way up the quarry at the top of a limestone staircase. Its dusty gable window looked down on a view of the lower lake and islands and across to Tirkennedy. Directly below, Billy could see Ward’s draycart with its two grey geldings clattering through the entrance. Blessing was sitting alongside him:

  ‘That’s Ward and Blessing,’ Billy said.


  R.I.C. Inspector Joseph Quinn came over, stood alongside Billy and looked down:

  ‘An unholy brace of hoeboys,’ he said.

  He was a dark grey-faced Mayo man with a jutting mouth. Every Christmas, Billy gave him a box of apples and a bottle of whiskey. They understood each other very well. Tommy Martin, seated at a high clerk’s desk in the corner, muttered:

  ‘Steal the winkers from a nightmare . . . if they were let.’

  Far below, on the floor of the quarry, men signalled with their arms up to stop Ward’s horses, some pointing to the quarry top where a steel rig was drilling the last of three dozen forty-foot holes ten feet back from the quarry face. Constable Seamus Shanley and two other policemen were supervising and checking the unloading of dynamite delivered two hours earlier by steel coach from the railway station at Enniskillen.

  ‘How many men have you watching?’ Billy asked.

  ‘What you see . . . and three lads you can’t see.’

  ‘A waste of time,’ Tommy Martin said.

  ‘You think?’ Quinn asked.

  ‘The guts of four thousand sticks to pack into them holes . . . they’ll be all day at it, up and down with boxes filling and tamping and firming every hole. I don’t care how many men you have watching . . . they’ll nick a few unbeknownst to anyone . . . Am I right, boss?’

  Billy shrugged.

  ‘How? We can count, and we’re not blind.’

  ‘You can watch and watch and still be codded,’ Tommy said, and then nodded towards Ward and Blessing.

  ‘That pair down there . . . who in hell could watch the like of them?’

  Billy turned to Quinn:

  ‘Do you want to talk to him now about the glasshouse thing?’

  The Inspector shook his head.

  ‘We’ve nothing to go on . . . he gets up to all his capers in the dark, you’d have to be an owl to catch him’.