Death and Nightingales

by Eugene McCabe

  He smiled through misshapen teeth. In the candlelight she could see clearly the whin fleck in his greeny eyes and the slight squint in his left eye. A hint of tinker? Of mongrel treachery? Sipping the strong black tea, she could not decide if the face was gentle or brutal, cunning or innocent, or a blend of all these.

  ‘This was your uncle’s house?’

  Ward nodded.

  ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘The mother’s in Blaney workhouse.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  He tapped his forehead with a forefinger.

  ‘She doesn’t know anyone this brave while.’

  ‘Brothers? Sisters?’

  Ward shook his head and muttered ‘None’.

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘When I was twelve, he walked out one night for good or bed . . . He never came back.’

  He continued eating, buttering more bread, sprinkling it with sugar, refilling his mug with tea. He stood suddenly, lit a storm lantern and placed it on the table. The lantern illuminated more detail than she had noticed earlier, the familiar clutter hanging from the chimney breast: snaffles, nose-tongs, gaffs, thatching needles and other gadgetry, some of it unfamiliar.

  Resting directly on the mantelpiece were two prints, one of the Sacred Heart, the other a graphic version of the terrified sinner being dragged from bed by horned smiling devils with reptilian eyes, cloven feet and long tails. She could sense Ward’s eyes on her back. Expecting comment she waited. Silence, till she was forced to ask:

  ‘Are you Catholic?’

  ‘What else could I be?’

  He thumbed up at the two prints on the mantelpiece:

  ‘The long-tailed lads look to be more fun than the boy with the showy heart.’

  She was surprised by both the casual blasphemy and the sound of her own laughter which seemed to reverberate around the high ceiling-boards. He smiled oddly, watching her.

  It was black dark when he led Punch down the hazardous lane to the country road, where again he thanked her with the same, odd formality. For days, weeks afterwards, she found herself going over and over every detail of that first meeting.

  It was mid-November, All Souls, when she saw him again. She was standing at her mother’s grave, which was isolated in an older area of the graveyard dominated by four very tall yew trees; one dead.

  A disembodied voice seemed to come from behind the dead yew. She then realised with a sudden heart-jerk that it was Ward’s voice. He came over, capless in a black Crombie coat which looked two sizes too big, a black-and-white check neck-scarf and fine black boots. The effect, she thought, was a cross between a bookmaker and a country undertaker. Images of a dream she had earlier that morning had been recurring all day, and as he approached now it was almost as though he could read her thoughts. Then she heard herself say:

  ‘Do you have family buried here?’

  ‘No . . . but I guessed you’d come and I know Billy’s away.’

  She nodded, as Ward said:

  ‘Maybe we could meet later?’

  Silence for a minute until she asked:

  ‘How? . . . Where?’

  ‘Brackagh.’

  ‘I couldn’t travel that lane in the dark.’

  ‘I’ll be on the county road.’

  She had been forced to lie to Mercy about posting a letter in the village.

  ‘It won’t go till tomorrow, Miss, you might as well wait till daylight.’

  ‘I’d like the walk.’

  ‘I’ll come with you so.’

  ‘No, no, Mercy, why should you . . . I’m not afraid of the dark.’

  And it was dark on the avenue and she was a little afraid. Gradually she began to see detail: railings, the verge, the gleam of pot-holes, lighted gaps to the west through the blackness of laurel and trees.

  The footpath through the scrub was glarry in places. It stuck to her boots, scraggy November briars dragging at her skirt and coat as her heart began to throb unevenly. About half-way down the path she could see across to Brackagh and the light of a paraffin lamp shining through the window of Ward’s cottage.

  She hesitated. He would be down there at his lane-entry on the county road waiting to escort her. What then? What do I know about him? Almost nothing. Am I being deeply stupid? No. I must get to know him better; that’s why I’m doing this, to get to know him better, isn’t it? Do I love him? He’s seldom far from my thoughts. And is that love? Fascinates me certainly. Do I even like him? Could be I more dislike than like . . . The false urbanity, the acquired drawl, the shrug, the dusty views, the strange courtesy more a barrier than true kindness; and he hates this landscape I love so much. Vain too . . . ambitious to be something else, to be someone else, to be somewhere else . . . all a first impression . . . Yes I must get to know him better, that’s why I’m going, isn’t it?

  Ten yards further on she heard a voice in her head say ‘Don’t pretend you fool,’ and again the vividness of an early-morning dream came back, Ward’s hand up Mercy Boyle’s skirt and Mercy moaning, ‘God, I’m dying for it, Liam, come on,’ and while he was thrusting at Mercy she could feel his other hand pleasuring between her own thighs.

  All that morning she had been tempted to question Mercy about Ward. She could find no way. She kept repeating to herself, ‘a dream is a dream is a dream . . . it’s nothing’; and the more she told herself it was nothing the more it seemed like something.

  She stopped. What am I afraid of? Intimacy? No. Of being discovered by Billy Winters? Banished from Clonoula? Yes, I certainly fear that. Why then had she said ‘Yes’ in the graveyard this afternoon?

  Down somewhere ahead of her on the road, Ward was waiting in the dark. She remembered now the sudden jump and the rat death, and the effect of the greasy floor, the farm- and fish-tackle on the wall, the smoke-yellowed famine windows, the dying sinner, the Sacred Heart; no place for a tryst.

  She turned, went back to the avenue, down to the post office where she posted a letter, bought a bag of groceries and returned to her bedroom where she wrote:

  Clonoula,

  All Souls, 1882

  Dear Liam,

  Just now, from the avenue planting, I saw the light in your kitchen and could not go on. I am not sure why, unless it be that I’m blessed or cursed with an uncommon amount of common sense which tells me that secret meetings are silly and must soon be discovered. Open association would cause outrage here. B.W. has described you now and then with unkind words. That does not worry me overmuch. I could describe him with unkinder ones.

  I am sorry to have left you standing down there in the dark. I feel now I should have gone on. How otherwise can I ascertain the many things I want to know about you?

  What I am certain of is that you are seldom far from my mind and heart.

  Be patient as I must be. We’ll meet soon. Meantime you have my apologies . . . next time I’ll keep my word.

  Elizabeth

  The following morning she tore up the letter. Katie Carroll in the post office would have it steamed, read and closed again in ten minutes.

  Weeks passed: then months. Ward was gone, no one knew where for certain. Dublin? Glasgow? London? ‘Oh, some roguery,’ Billy said; ‘the like of that fellow could be married over there with a house full of children.’

  It was almost midsummer when Ward led Punch into the cobbled yard. He stood patting his neck talking quietly. There was sweat over its entire body. Beth was so startled to see him she was on the edge of trembling herself:

  ‘Where was he?’ she had asked.

  ‘Comin’ down the road hell for leather.’

  ‘Something must have frightened him.’

  ‘Horse-flies most likely . . . he’ll be all right.’

  ‘And where were you all this while?’

  ‘That’s a long story.’

  He had led Punch into the stable and began to wipe him down. She had carried water from the cistern, meal from the bin, and within minutes it was established that Billy Wint
ers was up at Annalong buying granite. He’d be gone a few days. They arranged to meet at the lough-side where the upside-down curragh was, before dawn on Friday the second of June.

  She had left a note on the kitchen table for Mercy; a lie. This troubled her. There was the likelihood that she could be seen by other lovers, by a beggar in the half-light of a midsummer’s dawn. She would have to go up the house-field ditch, and through the fort, then over to the ravine. Once down in the greeny-brown underwater gloom of the ravine floor, it was almost two miles following the rivulet to the shore of the lough, an unlikely place to encounter anything but otter, fox, rabbit, badger or squirrel. But there could be someone fishing on the lough as dawn neared. It was the foolishness, the risk that was so attractive, the longing to be reckless for a day or two, a time out of humdrum, a feasting on sin and senses.

  Can’t I advise myself, she thought. Am I lovelorn? Foolish? Fascinated? A moth to the candle? A rabbit in hawk-shadow? My heart ripped out for a dog to tear?

  She dressed and left her bedroom, avoiding the creaking board in the upper landing, the door with the tell-tale hinges in the lower hall. Then the kitchen. Silence, but for the wall-clock.

  She wrote on the back of a used envelope in pencil:

  Dear Mércy,

  1.30 a.m. Tuesday.

  Message by hand just now from a troubled friend.

  Back tomorrow night or Saturday at latest.

  Work-list on dresser.

  Don’t let men bully you.

  She signed it: Beth.

  And then scribbled a P.S.:

  Mince leftover mutton for today’s dinner.

  Key of pantry and cellar in drawer of sewing machine.

  Get Mickey to help you churn.

  Keep back door locked.

  Others have no business in kitchen or house apart from mealtime.

  If Corranny cow calves, keep beistings.

  If nervous at night, get your sister Etta to stay.

  Wrapped in newspaper, she took brown bread, butter, a small jar of milk, sugar, a portion of smoked bacon and tea, and put them in a canvas bag. When the dawn coolness met her outside she went back to the basement hall and put on a rainproof jacket. She then left from the yard by going through the kitchen garden and from there into the haggard. Then up by the house-field ditch to the fort field, all the time keeping out of sight of the house. Nothing but the sound of cattle cudding under trees, the occasional bleat of lamb or ewe, the sudden flurry of pigeons in the pine-tops round the fort.

  She went through the fort towards the ravine, a black cleft in the brightening landscape. It was just gone three o’clock. The two hundred feet of path to the rivulet led down, she knew, at a broken thornbush. Twice branches caught at her dress, the second time unstitching the front seam. When her foot caught in the bare forked roots of ash, they grazed her ankle. It became darker as she went lower, fern fronds growing evilly from the mossy branches of elongated oak. Utter silence and solitude as she reached the floor of the ravine with its grave-wide rivulet, its bed of rust-iron stones under brown pools flecked with amber foam.

  At first she thought it was the cry of a vixen calling her cubs. No? Behind, ahead, above? It seemed to be approaching, a creature in distress . . . bird or beast . . . There it was again, closer, almost human-sounding. Flying? Running? Could it be . . . an infant cry? She felt the creep of horror at the nape of her neck as she strained, trying to see. The squealing seemed alongside her. Then she saw it . . . a white owl grounded, a baby rabbit gripped in his talons, the hooked beak tearing ravenously into the wriggling upturned stomach. Suddenly her voice blended with the rabbit squeals as she stumbled towards them crying out.

  The owl backflapped into flight, still gripping its prey, until it gained enough height to circle and glide away toward the lough, down the dark winding rivulet, the rabbit squeals growing fainter and fainter, the cries so human she felt tears smarting in her eyes.

  She took off her left shoe and stocking. The knuckle of her ankle looked bruised. Sitting on a dry stone, she immersed it in a pool. The water was soothing. She then watched it dry on another stone as a faint throbbing pain returned. From the pocket of her riding jacket she took a small penknife, cut a thornbush and used a few thorns to close the torn seam of her dress. Away high above Tyrone the sun had risen, light now filtering down into Fermanagh; down into the ravine, sharpening the undertones of grass, leaf, bark and moss, fern and water.

  She began walking, crossing and re-crossing the rivulet dozens of times to avoid tentacles of briar and clumps of tall anaemic nettles. For the last quarter of a mile the height diminished with every step, until gradually the landscape opened on either side to fields sloping towards the shore of the Lower Lough. She had been concentrating so much on her footing that she was startled to see Ward sitting on the side of the curragh, staring out at the water. Instinctively she stepped behind a screen of alder as she thought, What am I doing here! I must be mad.

  Through the alder, she watched Ward roll and light a cigarette, muttering to herself, ‘What’s wrong with you. Don’t be silly.’ She began walking towards the shore.

  Hearing her come, Ward pushed the tarred coracle half into the water and said:

  ‘You hurt your ankle?’

  ‘Am I limping?’

  ‘Just what you’d remark.’

  ‘I caught it coming down.’

  ‘It’s tricky enough in daylight.’

  ‘You must know it well.’

  ‘I do.’

  He pointed to a seat in the back of the boat. When she was sitting, he took off his boots and stockings, rolled up his trousers and pushed the curragh clear of the stony shore. As it floated out into deep water she could feel him easing his body into a kneeling position behind her. She then felt both his hands on her shoulders. As he steadied both the balance of his body and the curragh, she turned to say, ‘Am I in your way?’ and was surprised by the alarm in his voice as he shouted: ‘Keep still!’

  She kept very still, holding both sides. It steadied. He clambered past her very carefully and sat on the middle board. He then began pulling out the oars and fixing them into the oarlocks, and although he smiled she could see that he was tense and he seemed unnatural.

  ‘I’m sorry, Liam . . . did I frighten you?’

  ‘These things cope very handy.’

  ‘That’d be a silly start to the day.’

  ‘Or a bad end,’ Ward said, ‘I don’t swim.’

  ‘I do,’ she said, ‘I’d save you!’

  He began to row over a membrane of grey stillness, miles and miles of water. High above them the hysteria of early feeding swallows sounded faintly and seemed as small as the insects they were feeding on.

  ‘Dear God, it’s quiet . . . look.’

  Ward nodded.

  ‘Is that bad for fishing?’

  He nodded towards a pattern of circles fifty yards away.

  ‘They’re feeding . . . that’s good.’

  He shipped the oars, took an otter-board from the floor of the cot, and placed it in the water. She could see fly-lines with dozens of coloured flies attached to the board. Ward was ensuring they were not tangled. Satisfied, he aimed the otter-board towards the feeding trout giving it a small push to get it moving. It seemed to propel itself sideways towards the feeding trout. She could see why it was called ‘an otter’ – dipping and wriggling slightly as it moved through the water. Fascinated, she watched as it passed to the left of the feeding circles. It up-ended, and disappeared for a moment, as the water became suddenly alive with trout pulsing and flashing as they tried to disengage from the barbed hooks.

  Ward balled the slack, pulling the board back toward the curragh with a circular hand-movement. It reminded her of a woman spinning wool. She could see from the tension on the line that the hooked fish had remained hooked. In less than two minutes there were five trout, two of them a good size, flipping, somersaulting on the floor of the cot. He pointed at her feet and said:

  �
��Under your seat . . . the priest.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘It’s a gaff . . . and don’t stand,’ he said with an odd grimace.

  She leaned forward, groping under the seat. Her hand closed on something steel, a blacksmith-made gaff with a hooked head. Ward held each fish and dispatched it with an accurate blow to the skull. He then unhooked the trout, tidied up the tangled fly-lines and main-line, and placed the otter-board between two wooden ribs of the cot. She could sense that he was very pleased with himself.

  ‘Is it as easy as it looks?’

  ‘Less or more.’

  ‘And can you catch them like that every time?’

  ‘Less or more.’

  ‘Which is it, less or more?’

  ‘It’s more slaughter than sport . . . It’s not legal.’ He was rowing again. For a man so narrowly built, he seemed strong, the cot gliding over the surface so smoothly that she scarcely noticed the pull of the oars as they plunged and surfaced in a dripping arc, entering and re-entering almost soundlessly.

  In little over half an hour, they had reached the natural jetty at Corvey Island. Ward pushed the cot under a tunnel of overhanging alder and thorn, tied it to a root and climbed up the steep bank on to the island.

  She had gone ahead to the bothy, a single-roomed herd’s cabin. When she was a child she could remember tin being ferried over to avoid the nuisance of thatching. Inside there was an open hearth with a swinging potholder, one table, two chairs, a settle bed with a straw mattress, two windows with board shutters on the inside, one dresser scarce of Delft, its lower cupboard containing pots, pans, basins and buckets.

  Through the open door she could see the sun shining on a crag at the water’s edge. On the crag a cormorant perched very still, its wings tensed for flight. There was a surface spring-well a hundred yards from the bothy. When she returned with an enamel bucket full of water, Ward had the fire going and was gutting the trout. She fried the fish and they ate them at the board table with bread and butter. Then they drank tea and talked until midday and beyond. At one stage Ward, looking out at the lake, had asked or said: