Collected Short Stories (20 page)

‘And you said a moment ago that you could smell nothing only paraffin.'

‘Well, I get the smell of him – and that's saying something.'

At that moment the dog walked under the table to his side and he made a kick at it and it yelped and ran under the sofa.

‘Come here, Brian,' she called coaxingly, and the dog came out and walked timorously towards her.

‘Either he goes out of this or I don't finish my breakfast!'

Without a word she got up and let the dog out.

‘Maybe that'll please you,' she said, coming back to the table. ‘Anything I love, you despise.'

‘That's a damned lie!'

‘It's true – and because you thought I was jealous of Delia you praised her.'

‘That's another infernal lie!'

‘It's too true, Tom. Nothing pleases you – you used to be so different. You used to be so jolly – one could joke and laugh with you. But of late you've changed.'

‘It's you that's changed!'

She took her handkerchief and blew her nose. She felt the tears rising to her eyes and she held her head, trying to regain her self-control.

A shadow passed the window. There was a knock at the door and she opened it to admit three of the boatmen.

‘We'd like to catch the tide, Mister O'Brien,' they said, and lifting the hampers they shuffled out of the house.

Tom finished his breakfast slowly and went upstairs. He came down after a short time, dressed and ready for the road. In a glance she saw that he hadn't a breast-pocket handkerchief, and telling him to wait for a minute she ran upstairs to get one, and coming down again she found he was gone. She hurried after him and overtook him at the iron gate.

‘Don't keep me back,' he said, ‘didn't you hear as well as I did that we've to catch the tide!' But she held him, and as he tried to wrench himself free she folded the handkerchief into his pocket.

‘Tom, don't go away from me like that!' and she looked up at him with an anxious pleading face.

‘You're making a fine laughing-stock of me!' he said, and pushing the handkerchief out of sight into his pocket he walked off.

She stood at the gate waiting for him to turn and wave his hand to her but he went on stolidly, erect, along the loose sandy road to the shore. He smoked his pipe, the road sloping before him, its sand white in places from the feet of the boatmen and dark with rain where it was untrodden.

The men were already in the boat, baling out the night's rainwater, and as Tom picked his steps over the piles of slabby wrack on the shore they kept calling out to him to be careful. They assisted him into the boat and he sat in the stern, his legs apart, and his arms dangling between his knees. The boatmen spat on their hands, gripped the oars, and in a few minutes were out from the shelter of the cove and saw ahead of them the black rock with its stub of a lighthouse like a brooding sea-bird. The men rowed with quick, confident strokes, and the boat rose and fell, cutting white swathes on the green sward of the sea.

‘Take your time,' Tom said, ‘take your time. You're not paid for sweating yourselves. We'll be there soon enough.'

They said nothing, and as they came nearer to the rock they saw the white path curving from the top to the water's edge and saw the waves jabbing and shouldering one another in mad confusion. They dipped their oars now in short, snappy strokes, their eyes on the three lightkeepers who awaited them.

‘Ye'll have to jump for it, Mister O'Brien, when we give the word. We'll get the cases landed first,' and while one held off the boat with a boat hook, two stood at the stern with a case waiting their chance to hoist it on to the outstretched hands of those on shore. When the cases were roped and landed Frank Coady jumped and alighting on the gunwale he balanced himself on one leg as lightly as a ballet dancer. ‘The fairy godmother!' he said, and folding his arms he spun round on his toe with emphatic daintiness, and then bowing he kissed his fingers to those on shore.

Tom O'Brien lumbered up to him putting his pipe in his pocket.

‘Now, Tom, my lad, let me give you a hand,' said Coady, stretching out his hand to him.

‘Get away from me, you bloody fool!' said O'Brien, steadying one foot on the gunwale.

‘Be careful now, Mister O'Brien, be careful!' the boatman shouted. ‘Wait till that big fellow passes. Take him on the rise!'

But O'Brien wasn't listening to them. He took his leap on the descent of the wave, missed the path, and was all but disappearing into the sea when the lightkeepers gripped him and hauled him ashore.

‘I'm all right! I'm all right!' he said, as they laughed at his soaked trousers, the knee-cap cut and the blood oozing out of it.

‘Are you OK, Tom?' shouted Coady from the boat.

‘Ah, go to hell, you!' said O'Brien.

‘He's a cranky oul' divil,' Coady said to the boatmen as he took off his coat and lifted an oar. ‘Now, my hearties, let us see how you can make her leap!' He pulled on his oar with all his strength: ‘Up, my hearty fellows! Up she jumps! That's the way to make her skip! I'll leave a pint for all hands in the pub! A pint from Frank Coady!'

Near the shore he turned his head and saw his wife awaiting him.

‘There she is, my hearty men! Knitting and waiting for her darling Frank!' He threw down his oar and perched himself on the bow ready to jump ashore.

‘Take care you don't go like O'Brien,' they laughed.

‘O'Brien's as stiff as a man on stilts! Here she goes!' and he jumped lightly on to the rock and spinning round he warded off the boat with his foot.

In a minute he was in his wife's arms, and linked together they went off slowly along the sandy road, and for a long time the boatmen could hear him laughing and they knew he was laughing at O'Brien.

Through the iron gate they went arm in arm. Mag O'Brien was outside her house with the dog and as Frank drew near he told her with much joyous relish how Tom had cut the knee of his trousers.

‘He wasn't hurt?' she said.

‘Hurt – not a bit! He strode up the path after it like a man in training for the half-mile. The only thing you need to worry about is to get a nice patch.' And taking Delia by the hand they swung across to their house, stood for a minute admiring the whitened doorstep, and going inside they closed the door.

Mag withdrew and sat for a minute at her own window that overlooked their house. Her head ached, and she thought how careless she was in forgetting to pack a bandage or a taste of iodine that he could daub on his bruised knee. One can't think of everything, she said, and she laid her hands on her lap and gazed across at Coady's house that was now silent and still. With an effort she got to her feet and withdrew from the window, and taking a stick she called her dog and set off through the iron gate and away to the shore that was nearest to the rock.

She scanned the rock and the white path down to the sea. If only he saw her and came out on the parapet as he used to do and signal to her she'd be content – her mind would be eased. She sat down on a green slope and waited. There was no stir about the rock, only a gull or two tilting and gliding above the sea. She got up and waved her hand. The dog scratched at the ground, leapt sideways, impatient to be off. She waved again – still there was no sign that she was being seen. She turned and felt the soft wind – it was light and tired: exhausted after its rampage. She stretched herself and stood facing it but it was too weak even to shake her hair. If only it were strong, blowing against her with force she would delight in it. But there was no strength in it – it was indolent and inert, as tired as an old man. She looked once more at the Rock, and seeing a black whorl of smoke rising from it she knew that it was Tom putting on a good fire. He would take a book now, or a bottle of Guinness and his pipe and after that he would close his eyes and sleep.

The dog barked and ran up the slope after a rabbit. She followed after him and looking to the right she saw the iron gate and the clump of houses she had just left. There was nothing there but silence and sunlight, and behind her the stir of the cold sea.

The sun was setting, spilling gold light on the low western hills of Rathlin Island. A small boy walked jauntily along a hoof-printed path that wriggled between the folds of these hills and opened out into a crater-like valley on the cliff-top. Presently he stopped as if remembering something, then suddenly he left the path, and began running up one of the hills. When he reached the top he was out of breath and stood watching streaks of light radiating from golden-edged clouds, the scene reminding him of a picture he had seen of the Transfiguration. A short distance below him was the cow standing at the edge of a reedy lake. Colm ran down to meet her waving his stick in the air, and the wind rumbling in his ears made him give an exultant whoop which splashed upon the hills in a shower of echoed sound. A flock of gulls lying on the short grass near the lake rose up languidly, drifting like blown snowflakes over the rim of the cliff.

The lake faced west and was fed by a stream, the drainings of the semi-circling hills. One side was open to the winds from the sea and in winter a little outlet trickled over the cliffs making a black vein in their grey sides. The boy lifted stones and began throwing them into the lake, weaving web after web on its calm surface. Then he skimmed the water with flat stones, some of them jumping the surface and coming to rest on the other side. He was delighted with himself and after listening to his echoing shouts of delight he ran to fetch his cow. Gently he tapped her on the side and reluctantly she went towards the brown-mudded path that led out of the valley. The boy was about to throw a final stone into the lake when a bird flew low over his head, its neck astrain, and its orange-coloured legs clear in the soft light. It was a wild duck. It circled the lake twice, thrice, coming lower each time and then with a nervous flapping of wings it skidded along the surface, its legs breaking the water into a series of silvery arcs. Its wings closed, it lit silently, gave a slight shiver, and began pecking indifferently at the water.

Colm with dilated eyes eagerly watched it making for the further end of the lake. It meandered between tall bulrushes, its body black and solid as stone against the greying water. Then as if it had sunk it was gone. The boy ran stealthily along the bank looking away from the lake, pretending indifference. When he came opposite to where he had last seen the bird he stopped and peered through the sighing reeds whose shadows streaked the water in a maze of black strokes. In front of him was a soddy islet guarded by the spears of sedge and separated from the bank by a narrow channel of water. The water wasn't too deep – he could wade across with care.

Rolling up his short trousers he began to wade, his arms outstretched, and his legs brown and stunted in the mountain water. As he drew near the islet, his feet sank in the cold mud and bubbles winked up at him. He went more carefully and nervously. Then one trouser fell and dipped into the water; the boy dropped his hands to roll it up, he unbalanced, made a splashing sound, and the bird arose with a squawk and whirred away over the cliffs. For a moment the boy stood frightened. Then he clambered on to the wet-soaked sod of land, which was spattered with sea gulls' feathers and bits of wind-blown rushes.

Into each hummock he looked, pulling back the long grass. At last he came on the nest, facing seawards. Two flat rocks dimpled the face of the water and between them was a neck of land matted with coarse grass containing the nest. It was untidily built of dried rushes, straw and feathers, and in it lay one solitary egg. Colm was delighted. He looked around and saw no one. The nest was his. He lifted the egg, smooth and green as the sky, with a faint tinge of yellow like the reflected light from a buttercup; and then he felt he had done wrong. He put it back. He knew he shouldn't have touched it and he wondered would the bird forsake the nest. A vague sadness stole over him and he felt in his heart he had sinned. Carefully smoothing out his footprints he hurriedly left the islet and ran after his cow. The sun had now set and the cold shiver of evening enveloped him, chilling his body and saddening his mind.

In the morning he was up and away to school. He took the grass rut that edged the road for it was softer on the bare feet. His house was the last on the western headland and after a mile or so he was joined by Paddy McFall; both boys dressed in similar hand-knitted blue jerseys and grey trousers carried home-made school bags. Colm was full of the nest and as soon as he joined his companion he said eagerly: ‘Paddy, I've a nest – a wild duck's with one egg.'

‘And how do you know it's a wild duck's?' asked Paddy, slightly jealous.

‘Sure I saw her with my own two eyes, her brown speckled back with a crow's patch on it, and her yellow legs …'

‘Where is it?' interrupted Paddy in a challenging tone.

‘I'm not going to tell you, for you'd rob it!'

‘Aach! I suppose it's a tame duck's you have or maybe an old gull's.'

Colm put out his tongue at him. ‘A lot you know!' he said, ‘for a gull's egg has spots and this one is greenish-white, for I had it in my hand.'

And then the words he didn't want to hear rushed from Paddy in a mocking chant; ‘You had it in your hand! … She'll forsake it! She'll forsake it! She'll forsake it!' he said, skipping along the road before him.

Colm felt as if he would choke or cry with vexation.

His mind told him that Paddy was right, but somehow he couldn't give in to it and he replied: ‘She'll not forsake it! She'll not! I know she'll not!'

But in school his faith wavered. Through the windows he could see moving sheets of rain – rain that dribbled down the panes filling his mind with thoughts of the lake creased and chilled by wind; the nest sodden and black with wetness; and the egg cold as a cave stone. He shivered from the thoughts and fidgeted with the inkwell cover, sliding it backwards and forwards mechanically. The mischievous look had gone from his eyes and the school day dragged on interminably. But at last they were out in the rain, Colm rushing home as fast as he could.

He was no time at all at his dinner of potatoes and salted fish until he was out in the valley, now smoky with drifts of slanting rain. Opposite the islet he entered the water. The wind was blowing into his face, rustling noisily the rushes heavy with the dust of rain. A moss-cheeper, swaying on a reed like a mouse, filled the air with light cries of loneliness.

The boy reached the islet, his heart thumping with excitement, wondering did the bird forsake. He went slowly, quietly, on to the strip of land that led to the nest. He rose on his toes, looking over the ledge to see if he could see her. And then every muscle tautened. She was on, her shoulders hunched up, and her bill lying on her breast as if she were asleep. Colm's heart hammered wildly in his ears. She hadn't forsaken. He was about to turn stealthily away. Something happened. The bird moved, her neck straightened, twitching nervously from side to side. The boy's head swam with lightness. He stood transfixed. The wild duck, with a panicky flapping, rose heavily, and flew off towards the sea … A guilty silence chilled the boy … He turned to go away, hesitated, and glanced back at the dark nest; it'd be no harm to have a look. Timidly he approached it, standing straight, and gazing over the edge. There in the nest lay two eggs. He drew in his breath with delight, splashed quickly from the island, and ran off whistling in the rain.