Martin Sloane (27 page)

For the first few days, Martin kept his eyes down as much as he could, knowing that the kids with the power to do so were already making categories, and staying unnoticeable was essential to avoid being placed on either end of the social spectrum. There was as much responsibility in being extremely popular as there was in being outcast, and Martin wanted to be left out of it all. Theresa was one of the chosen in her form: she had the appeal, the confidence and the looks, and she was already friends with the Raleigh girls, who commanded not only the form but most of the girls in the school. This was an added burden to Martin — Theresa advertised a disdain for him that threatened to make him the target of unwanted interest. Having a powerful sister was not something that would accrue to his benefit, especially if it was known she wouldn’t protect him. He watched uncomfortably as the social strata was wrought. The Chinese boy was established, without delay, as one end of the spectrum, and the strongest of the boys — the sporting ones and the loudest — balanced him off at the other. When it was all done, Martin was relieved to find he was without appeal to any of them, and he settled into an easy and mostly invisible existence.

In the third week, as the first cooling breezes of the autumn were arriving, Gabriel Hannah appeared in the class with his leather satchel held tight against his chest. He had been transferred out of the private school on Newcastle Road because his progress had been too slow. This was a dangerous stigma. Martin felt sorry for him (being added for such a reason after the beginning of school was a sure route to ostracism) but also afraid for himself, for he knew Gabriel would attach to him.

The younger boy, however, showed an almost adult restraint in his desire for friendship, and for the second time, too. (The first had been the subtle removal of kedgeree from Martin’s plate.) He would wait silently outside the school until Martin appeared, and then walk away. Farther down the road, he’d stop and wait for Martin to catch up. In this way, their friendship rooted. The two hours between four-thirty and six-thirty on schoolnights were generally assumed to be filled with tutors or sports, so the two boys would not be missed if they struck out on their own. They wished to be anywhere but in their own houses, and the sea, the lake, and the forest behind the university gave cover.

One afternoon in September, when the woods were at their fullest, the two of them walked deep into the one behind the school to look for birds. They’d given up on trapping woodcocks, with their beautiful bellies and long beaks, because they were hard to find, but the guidebook made them sound worth keeping an eye out for. The woodcocks were known to fly up as if shot from cannons, springing wildly from the undergrowth before plunging back into it. The prey this afternoon was cross bills, which Gabriel had read you could tell the presence of by the path of cracked pinecones that the birds would split in their scissored beaks. The male was a red-bellied bird, easy to see before the leaves changed. Gabriel carried a rough-made trap, a fruit crate and a string attached to a propping stick. Their bait was a ball of suet wrapped in cloth.

Martin hung back a little, more involved in the smells and textures of the forest than Gabriel, who craned his neck to look for the tell-tale silhouettes of old leaves and twigs against the sky that might mean a nest of crossbills or siskins. He was also occupied with the undermoss and holly, which he kicked over for centipedes and charlie bugs that curled up into segmented balls like armadillos. When he found a worm or grub, he opened the cheesecloth and pressed it into the suet. Tastier that way, he said. They came to a small clearing where the sun came down more directly, and here Gabriel set up the trap. It lay open like a jaw at the edge of the tiny space, half in shadow, with the string trailing back to the base of an oak where the two boys sat and shared a raisin bun.

How do you know anything is going to come this way? asked Martin.

Something eventually will. Birds eat all the time.

Martin started to get bored, but didn’t want to say anything. He’d sat with Gabriel on a number of occasions now, waiting for something that never came, and he decided that maintaining the friendship was more important to him than revealing his lack of interest in the hunt. He dug his feet into the soft moss around the base of the tree and took small bites of his half of the bun. They’d have to head back in a matter of half an hour or so, and when they did, they’d talk again, about this and that. Which was the thing he liked best about Gabriel. The sun moved diagonally against them, soon covering the box in complete shadow.

Listen, said Gabriel. There was a sound like
zizzeek,
but they couldn’t tell where it came from because it seemed to bounce around the canopy above them.

What is it?

A bird.

Which one, though?

Shh —

The sound came nearer, and then stopped, and the next time they heard it, it was far away. Gabriel was stock-still, his head tilted to capture the sound, but Martin had had enough of sitting and doing nothing. At the edge of the clearing, some white mushrooms with broad umbrella-like caps stood straight against a tree trunk. He looked back at Gabriel, who had given up on hearing the birdcall again, and called him over. His friend unrolled the string to reach the edge of the sunlight.

They’re field mushrooms, Gabriel said.

Martin squatted down to inspect them. They looked like warts in the moss. We’re not in a field.

Close enough. Gabriel lay on his side and looked under the mushrooms. White gills, he said. If they were grey, it’d be a death cap, but this one is fine.

Sure. You don’t know anything about them.

Death cap can kill you in ten seconds. This is just a field mushroom, though. Harmless.

Martin poked it with a twig. It felt solid and hollow all at once. You can tell just by looking?

And smell. If it’s like honey, it’s the death cap. That’s how it gets you to eat it.

So it wants to be eaten, does it?

If you were a mushroom, you’d love a rotting body to root in. Gabriel took out a pocket knife and cut the stem without touching the mushroom. It tipped over into sunlight where it glowed a little green, like an underripe olive. See — white gills. Harmless.

Someone else might call that grey, though. And it does kind of smell like honey.

That’s the moss. Trust me. You want me to pop it in my mouth?

No.

I will if you want me.

No you won’t. I found it. If anyone’s going to eat it, I am. He took the knife from Gabriel and drove it down through the hard white cap. The flesh inside was an ethereal white, but even as they looked at it, it began to pale to a light pink, and then a ruddy red. Now it looks like meat, he said.

Might taste like a pork chop!

I’m sure. His death would be hard at first for his parents, he thought again, but then afterwards, they could move back to Dublin and pick up their old lives. Maybe he was supposed to have died on Temple Street, in the hospital, along with the boy who moaned and the girl with one black shoe. Death had had its fill on the other children, so it appeared, but he could give it another chance. He cut off a hunk of the mushroom about the size of his thumb. Everywhere he touched it, the mushroom became wet, as if the heat of his fingers were liquefying it. But before he could put it in his mouth, Gabriel emitted a shout of joy — Got you! — and there was the sound of the crate hitting the ground. Gabriel leapt up and ran to the other edge of the clearing and Martin followed. There, in the crate, its black eyes shining, was a woodcock the size of a gravy boat. It jumped around banging its head on the roof of the crate, screeching anxiously.

Ho-ly! said Martin. Gabriel was crouched on his haunches looking into the box. After a few more excited moments, the bird settled into the corner of the crate, trying to make itself tiny.

Look at her! Just look at her! She’s gorgeous!

It’s a woodcock, right?

You bet it is. This is like finding twenty quid! Hello, Woodie! Hello, sweetie! Did you like your suet and grubs?

The two of them stared into the crate, holding it down with their palms. In its dark square, the bird tried to stay equidistant from the two faces, its breast rising and falling quickly, and it jerked its beak up and down a number of times, as if it were swallowing something. It had dark brown wings and a grey underbelly, and just like in the book, its beak was a long dark needle, perfect for rooting worms out of muddy earth. Gabriel ran his fingers along the side of one of the slats and stroked her wings. The bird tried to peck at him.

I want to pick her up, he said. I’m going to break one of the slats and put my hand around her. You hold the crate down. Martin lay his arms across the top of the crate and Gabriel cracked open one of the thin slats on the side. The bird reacted violently to the sound, dashing herself against the other three walls. Gabriel reached in slowly, and Martin could see his open hand sweeping through the space.

She’s in the corner now, just move your hand left …

Gabriel’s hand flattened the woodcock against the back of the crate. He manoeuvred his fingers around her back and pressed her down, then lifted the crate up so it hung from his forearm. He transferred the bird carefully to his free hand, its legs kicking helplessly. Then he dropped the crate and held the animal, triumphant. Look at you! Just look at you!

Don’t grip her too hard, Martin said. She was a sight, so rare and so wild. Her eyes bulged in fear, her wings flattened tight against her. He wanted to hold her as well, and feel her heart beating hollowly in the palm of his hand. Gabriel passed her carefully to him, and then he had her, her buff head lying against his thumb, the cold claws of her feet scrabbling against his wrist. Gabriel … she’s so frightened. We should let her go.

No, said Gabriel. I have an idea — we’ll give her the mushroom. Then you’ll see it’s safe. Martin didn’t want to, but Gabriel went back for the other half of the mushroom lying in the moss and held it in front of the bird’s beak. It didn’t want to eat. Come on, Woodie. Have some of this.

Martin pulled the bird away from him. Let’s not be cruel. Just leave her be.

Don’t you want your question answered?

No. I don’t. Not anymore.

Fine scientist you’ll make.

I never said I wanted to be a scientist. I don’t know what I’ll be. He could feel the bird relax in his hand, like it had given up fighting. Maybe I’ll be a builder.

You mean an architect?

No. I want to be the person who makes the building.

Sure, said Gabriel. You with bricks on your shoulders. He craned his neck to get a look at the bird. Hey … what’s wrong with her?

The woodcock had gone completely limp. Her feet hung loose against Martin’s arm and her eyes had stopped moving. Instinctively, he dropped it, and the bird tumbled like a shuttlecock to the ground and lay still. Oh god, he said. I’ve killed her —Were you squeezing her?

I was holding her loosely, I was! He squatted down, the bird’s form clouded to him behind a thin mist in his eyes. Look what we’ve done, Gabriel! I wasn’t thinking about her for this What do you mean, for this?

Martin reached down, blinking back tears, to close the bird’s wings. But as soon as he touched it, the animal leapt up and struck him the forehead, drawing blood with the tip of her beak. Then she hit the ground again, her wings fully open, and she flapped violently against the undergrowth, flipping herself twice on her back and then righting before she burst up in a flare of brown and grey and flew back into the darkness of the forest. They heard her voice as she vanished,
zizzeek
. Martin stood and looked where she’d gone, stunned at the pain behind his eyes. He touched his forehead, mingling with the blood whatever residue from the mushroom remained on his fingers. Gabriel turned back to him and his eyes went to the cut above Martin’s nose. Blood ran down. She got you good, he said, and he got out a kerchief from his back pocket and reached out to sop the wound, but Martin pushed his hand away.

Leave it, he said, and he began walking back to the road.

XI.

THE GOOD BOOK OF MYSTERIES. 12" X 10" X 3" PAPER, BOARD, SOIL, BRASS. A BOOK, ENCRUSTED WITH EARTH, IS HELD TOGETHER BY A RUSTED LOCK BETWEEN TWO PIECES OF GLASS.

BALLYDANGAN, BALLINASLOE, AUGHRIM, KILREEKILL.

Molly walked across the yard, a grey fog with a shaft of pale yellow running through it from the light of the shed. She pushed the door open. He was sitting there, his back to her, his hands unseen and busy with something in front of him. He looked behind himself when he felt the air on his neck. I’m not very good at obeying other people’s rules, she said. Especially when I’ve got a bus leaving town in two hours.

He turned fully to her. I’m sorry, he said. I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just I need to be —

It’s fine, she said. She walked to the desk looking around her, up at the busy walls with their shelves and cubbyholes, and then leaned her hip against his desk and looked down at a doll’s head whose eyes were staring out at one of the side walls. The fortress of solitude, she said.

I just come here to wind down.

Is this regular life? Parties and openings and people applauding?

God no. Thankfully. I feel like an idiot at these things. Always tongue-tied.

Well, there’s
thank you
, and
you’re very kind
, and
it was wonderful of you to come
.

There’s also
You know, I have an uncle who paints
.

She laughed and leaned down on her forearms on the desk, casting her eyes over its attractive clutter. There were orphaned objects all over it — an old
Collier’s Magazine
with the shape of a sparrow cut through it and a wooden toy, a sparrow, of course, embedded in the space. A nearly invisible incursion, as if indentical birds in two different flocks had just changed places with each other. Somehow, this altered the world, but in a way she could only feel rather than explain. She reached out and touched the bird. It was level with the surface of the magazine. Behind and around the magazine, cogs from a clock. Do these go together? she asked.