The Night Swimmer (11 page)

Bill lifted an arm high in greeting:

Elly!

The
Times
went flapping down the quay, Bill stumbling after, knocking the table over. Finn hopped his bike off the wall and raced after the paper, and leaning down like a Spanish gaucho in the reins he snatched the paper out of the air and came whizzing back to Bill, his face still serious and deliberate, glancing at me.

Thank you, Finn! Bill said. Elly, you have a moment?

Finn circled us as we talked.

Have you spoken with Fred lately?

Just today, I said.

Bill frowned and pursed his lips.

What?

There . . . there was a problem of some kind. At the bar.

Fred? With who?

Not sure, Bill said. Hang on a second.

He folded up his paper and took hold of my elbow and ushered me away from the Siopa Beag tables and the others who hung around waiting for the ferry.

The customers, Bill said, some local guys. Heard things were a bit testy. Just a rumor.

Bill held up his hands.

I don't know the whole story. I'm sure it's nothing. You gonna come see Nell and me sometime?

Sure, I said, but I don't even know where you live.

Ah, he said. Easy. Just take that little path to the right before you reach Nora's. We're the only ones up there. Around four Nell likes to have her tea on the terrace. Come any day.

*  *  *

Stephen-the-fucking-blow-in was on the ferry, and when I mentioned that Kieran's people had been to the Nightjar, he whistled and shook his head. He told me about the pair of prize mules that he owned; apparently they could not be contained in their fields and had developed a tendency to get into other people's gardens and cause a bit of damage. Stephen and his wife often visited their daughters, sometimes for a month at a time, arranging with someone to feed and look after the animals. Despite this, the mules would get free, and sometimes the minder would give up easy and the mules would wander for a week or more. Last time some of the islanders had appealed to Kieran to put a stop to it.

Kieran sent his son Conchur over, Stephen said, to let me know that next time they'll take care of it.

How?

Stephen shrugged.

Whatever they want.

Can he do that? I asked.

Well, there ain't exactly anyone here to stop him.

What about the police?

The guard? Who's gonna call 'em? It takes them at least a day to get out to the island, and when they did Kieran would buy his cousins a beer and they'd all have a fine time.

We were quiet awhile as the ferry threaded its way east, Stephen gazing at Sherkin, a mass of green gliding past on our starboard side.
Island justice.

He sighed and rolled his head around a bit, then told me a story about a man from Galway, a bird-watcher, who came to the island one season. The fellow got drunk at the Five Bells and ripped out the plumbing in the bathroom. The ferry refused to take him off the island, and no one gave him shelter or food for three days. The man was howling in misery on the hillsides, sleeping in caves. Stephen shrugged. We came around the point of Baltimore, the beacon up on the cliff, entering the harbor.

Come see us, I said, at the Nightjar. I'd like you to meet Fred, my husband.

Stephen looked at me with a sad expression, gripping his bag.

Sure, Elly. Sometime, for sure.

*  *  *

The door to the Nightjar was propped open when I came up the hill from the harbor. There was a kind of stillness in the air, and the people on the docks and sidewalk seemed to glide past me with blank stares. A couple of men stood outside the Jolie Brisée, the pub a few doors down, watching me cross the street. When I came in the pub was empty save a couple of English bird-watchers at a corner table and Dinny perched at the bar nursing a pint. Fred was nowhere in sight. I went around the bar and said hello to Dinny, who nodded at me with a crooked grin. I found Fred in the kitchen huddled over the stove, making an omelet. He came at me with an exaggerated low-step and picked me up in a bear hug, kissing my neck.

Sweet, sweet E, he said.

I tried to look him in the eye. His face seemed especially ruddy and his mouth loose. He smelled of whiskey.

Are you okay?

I'm good, I'm good. Want something to eat?

Been doing some drinking?

A bit, a bit.

How's business?

Fred shrugged and gestured to the front room.

Whaddya think? Not real great.

He slipped the omelet onto a plate and began chopping at it with his fork as we walked back into the main room. He had stopped shaving again, getting that furry-faced badger look that I didn't really like. There were a couple open books on the bar and a stack of scribbled notes. Every few weeks I would find new books about particle physics or hieroglyphics. The next month it would be the history of Constantinople, Italian opera, Henry James, Chinese navigators of the fifteenth century. He was currently into Spinoza. I picked up a used paperback copy of the treatise
On the Improvement of the Understanding.

He polished lenses, Fred said. For a living. Can you believe it?

Don't you say it.

What?

Don't tell me how that is such a great metaphor.

No, but listen, he said, his face a mask of due seriousness, this is interesting.

And I thought,
no, it isn't.
Only to you.

Whatever, I said.

I held out my arms.

So what happened?

Yesterday afternoon, Corrigan's guys come in, Fred said. You know the construction dudes? And a few other guys, ferry guys, in the jumpsuits? Anyway, they come in and sort of sniff around, just looking at stuff, and I say, can I help you gentlemen? all nice and shit. They just ignore me. I'm like, uh, can I get you a drink? Finally one says, don't bother. Not no thanks or even just no, he gives me
don't bother.

Fred chewed thoughtfully, regarding the ceiling.

And there was this other fellow lurking outside. Huge motherfucker. Watching through the window. So, I say, whaddya guys want then? Then this one dude in a ferry jacket just sort of stares at me and then flicks a cigarette on the bar. So I say, hey asshole, what's your problem? And then a couple of the construction guys with the shaved heads, they get all bristly and step to the bar and start muttering shit in Irish. Then a big group of bird-watchers came in so they all just left.

You know Bill just told me, out on Clear, that he heard something bad happened.

Jesus, Fred said. News travels fast.

What do you think they were doing?

Fred shrugged and forked some omelet into his mouth.

Guess just checking the place out. Right Dinny?

Dinny touched the rim of his glass in reply, his eyes fixed on the bar. I thought about the builders on the island, working on Kieran Corrigan's holiday homes, the men on the ferry in orange jumpsuits. Why would they come in here? Would O'Boyle know something about this?

I glanced at a couple of the other books.
Electrical Conductors & Small Appliance Repair, The Wormhole Next Door, Time: A Traveler's Guide, Smelting for Beginners.
For a couple years Fred had been talking about what he called the Problem of Time Travel Wish Fullfillment. It was based on the idea that all of us have some imaginative episode in which we travel back in time and are able to become gods among men with our ability to dazzle the poor natives with our modern knowledge and technology. Except, he said, who really knows how to make gunpowder besides a Connecticut Yankee and Captain Kirk? Could you describe an internal combustion engine to the king's philosophers, and even if you could, how could you possibly attempt manufacture?

This again? I asked. What about the novel?

This
is
for the novel, he said. The protagonist has a sort of unhinged friend who is obsessed with this. I figured I should try the experiment myself so I can write about it. I'm thinking of starting with something like a clothes iron.

A clothes iron, I said. So you can amaze the medieval period with your ability to press tunics and get the wrinkles out of stockings?

Managing the steam action is key, he said. A clothes iron upside down is a hot plate. A cooking tool, a source of portable heat, a localized heat source. The possible applications are endless. Also, the construction is relatively simple, compared to a toaster or something.

Fred reached under the bar and pulled out a roll of dusty burlap. He set it on the bar and uncovered a small, rusty pickax.

Found this in the back storage room, he said. I gotta find some iron ore, first. To be true to the principle of the challenge, I can't use modern methods to find it, like maps or something. Just my own senses. But there's a lot of rock around here and I think my chances are good. Dinny's got a cousin with a used Peugeot that I might buy. Then I can get a library card at the university in Cork. You too.

He wrapped the pickax in burlap and put it back under the bar. Arranging himself on the stool, he returned his attention to his remaining scraps of omelet.

I walked back into the kitchen area and motioned for Fred to
follow. His flip-flops slapped as he sauntered in carrying his plate. I closed the door behind him.

I'm gonna stick around more, I said, help you out here.

Don't worry about it, Fred said. There's bound to be some locals who don't like us, you know? We'll smooth it out.

What about
him
? I nodded toward the bar. He
is
a Corrigan, you know.

I know. But he's different. We've had a few chats. Like getting wine from a turnip, but we talk. He's on the outside, like he's been ostracized from the family or something.

Does he ever say anything about us, or the Nightjar?

Not really. But free beer does wonders.

I put my arms around his neck.

I should stay here more.

Fred made a long
blaaaat
noise with his mouth.

Are you kidding? This is the easiest job in the world. I love it. You should do what you want. That was our agreement.

Why would they care? I said.

Who?

The Corrigans. I mean about us.

Fred set his plate in the sink and started washing his hands.

Look, he said, I don't give a fuck who these Corrigans
were
or
think
they are now. It's just a pub. We aren't
doing
anything to anyone, and it's just going to take some time for us to be accepted. Gotta lay down the charm. This time next year we will be the most popular place in Baltimore.

It's our pub, I said.

That's right. The Nightjar. It's our new life.

He kissed me on both cheeks and my forehead and we held each other awhile. Out in the bar Dinny pushed his empty glass aside, slipped off his stool, and made for the door. The English bird-watchers in the corner were bent over their sketchbooks. Fred was trying to be calm and relaxed, but I could see he wasn't. In three days, if the weather held, I was going to swim out to Fastnet Rock, O'Boyle my safety boat. I don't know why I had decided to keep
the swim to Fastnet a secret from Fred. There wasn't a good reason for it.

Fred reached into the fridge and retrieved his glass of whiskey. He raised it to me as for a toast.

And I'm gonna let some fucking local assholes come in the bar,
my bar,
and threaten me? No chance.

 

When the beginnings of self-destruction enter the heart it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.

One could, with a touch, break the laws of the city and natural world, expose the useless burdens of guilt and remorse, and make some claim for man's wayward and cataclysmic nature. And for a moment the natural world seems a dark burden of expensive shoes, and garters that bind, tiresome parties and dull loves, commuting trains, coy advertisements, and hard liquor.

The Journals of John Cheever