The Night Swimmer (24 page)

I'm sorry.

He didn't want our mother, Sebastian said, to find his body. Mick was quite the famous Egyptologist and cryptographic translator, one of the best in the world. He was under a lot of pressure.

I touched his arm, and he turned away from the shrews and looked at me. I had his full face now, that cone of warm, focused attention. He gazed at me like he could do it all day.

My brother was quite a prick, actually. Our father . . . hated the little bugger.

Sebastian sighed, rubbed his hands together.

Is your father still alive? I asked.

No. My father was the sixth Earl of Selwidge. We barely knew him. He left when we were young, went to America.

What was he doing there?

Oh, gambling mostly. He lost everything. Everything he could get his hands on.

More shrews joined the band in the grass. It soon was clear that there were two factions, warring with each other, moving fast, tiny gangs fighting over turf, a patch of grass on a long field that to them must have seemed like the whole of the known world. It was a strange thing to witness on an island with so few animals. There weren't even any insects; the wind was too strong. The flightless animals that do exist there, a handful of rodents and small mammals, all evolved anchoring techniques such as special hooked claws on the forelimbs, collapsible rib cages, spines telescoping to pack the animals into shallow depressions, burrowing abilities like those of moles, shrews, and weevils. Some had spiny jackets of fur, tiny tusks jutting from their upper jaws, flattened tails that could be wedged into cracks, or prehensile tails that could grip rocks or vegetation. Everybody was just hanging on.

*  *  *

In the short muddy yard behind the Five Bells there was a stunted fruit tree of unknown type and origin; early each spring it would produce several odd and singular fruits, like small red apples but perfectly round and with flesh like a pineapple or some other tropical fruit. Sheila served the fruit, simply sliced, in a bowl upon the bar one night each year. The pub patrons lined up to take a slice, eating it quietly and quickly. It was delicious; sweet and subtly sour, like a mango mixed with grapefruit, and the sticky juice remained on your hands for days, no matter how much you scrubbed with soap and water. Ariel tended to the tree, the central part of her nursing involving tying long ribbons of white cotton, old bedsheets torn into strips, to the tips of the thorny branches. The tree had only a few leaves even in the warm months of spring, and the ever-present wind whipped the streamers around in circular patterns of white light, like a storm of snow trapped in a glass.

*  *  *

The next week was the first and last time I saw Patrick drunk. He glowered at a table in the Five Bells, a surly expression on his lips, his hair hanging down over his eyes. He quaffed lagers when they were handed to him but did not enter into the conversation. It was a Friday afternoon and the pub was crowded with birders, builders, woofers, boat crews, and ferry guys mixed together among the small tables and barstools. The other woofers were also drunk but trying to put a good face on things, chatting amiably. I waved to the woofers but stayed by the fire. I sipped a cup of Sheila's mushroom soup and read Cheever.

When I'm unlucky I get drunk and go to the movies and return to Bristol. The idea is to get away from one place, but I never get away, I never reach another place. I try to struggle with the things that bind me, but I forget the nature of the bonds. I go to the movies. I get up at four and read until dawn. I do everything but the work that I came here to do.

At some point Kieran Corrigan slipped into the bar and was standing at the rail, sipping a pint of stout. Most of the patrons were bird-watchers, so there was no noticeable ripple of identification, but the woofers, most of all Patrick, certainly were on alert. He stared brazenly at Kieran, gripping his glass. The room took on the stale air of anticipation, warming and close, and people shifted uneasily. Akio put an arm around Patrick, squeezing him, whispering something in his ear. At the end of the bar Magdalene was holding Conchur's hand, palm open, and tracing his massive paw with her fingers. His hands were lined with grease and oil, his fingernails beyond recovery. Conchur stared at her, his heavy chin set, and I could see that he was embarrassed. He tried to pull his hand away, but she held on to it.

It's okay, Magdalene was saying, it's okay. My father was a mechanic. I know these hands.

Patrick murmured something to Akio, who released him and turned away. Patrick stood up, leaning a bit on the table, then made his way over to the bar where Kieran was standing. Patrick reached
across and gripped the rail next to Kieran and, with his head lowered, began to speak to him in a quiet voice. If Kieran was listening he gave no indication. Patrick grew more insistent, his body lurching a bit, and Kieran stepped back, smiling now. Other people in the bar had begun to notice the confrontation and conversations died down, the patrons nearest to Kieran and Patrick picking up their drinks and moving off. Magdalene still had Conchur's palm in her hands, murmuring to him, their faces close.

Such strong hands, she said.

A mistake, Patrick was saying, his voice rising, you have made a mistake. This island could be completely self-sustaining. You know that.

Patrick was now leaning in close, shouting in Kieran's ear.

But you won't let it happen. What I want to know is why?
Why?

The pub was now silent. Kieran stood there as if it wasn't happening at all, sipping his pint, setting it on the bar, patting his pockets and pulling out a cigarette, as if he was just a man at the pub having a drink.

You're scared of what he can do, Patrick said. You know you can't stop him.

Conchur, his eyes riveted on Magdalene, said something quick in Irish, and Kieran grunted in reply, a slight shake of his head. Then Kieran straightened up and addressed Patrick in Irish, something that sounded like a question. The other islanders in the bar shuffled and looked at the floor, muttering in Irish. Patrick narrowed his eyes and shook his head. Kieran smiled, as if he'd received the answer he wanted. He set his glass on the bar and placed a bill across the top. Then, the pub still quiet and watching, Kieran Corrigan shrugged on his coat and walked out, Conchur rising, disentangling himself from Magdalene, and following. At the door Conchur stopped and gazed across the crowd. When he found me he paused and wrinkled his eyes, nodded.
You again
. He glanced at the woofers, then back to me, giving me a quick wagging finger, and ducking his head he stepped out the door.

The woofers gathered up Patrick and took him home. They said
they laid him down in his little stall in the barn, where he crawled into his sleeping bag and laughed and seemed contented.

In the morning he was gone.

*  *  *

The next day was a Saturday, and in the North Harbor a group of women clustered around the Holy Well of St. Kieran. They had sprigs of wildflowers in their hair and carried baskets of white crepe streamers which they attached to a dark-haired young woman in a wedding dress. Each woman took hold of the end of a streamer until they all radiated from her like the arms of a delicate ivory starfish. The sky was clear and the sun bright and hot on my skin, and the island women reveled in it, taking off their sweaters and rolling up their sleeves. Sheila and Ariel each held a streamer, as did Nora, and they chatted and laughed with each other and other islanders who began to gather. I stood at a polite distance near the Siopa Beag. I know I was a familiar enough presence by that time to cause little interest, but I was still a bit surprised that none of the women acknowledged me.

There was a shout and the creaking of O'Boyle's fiddle and the buzzing chant of a jimby, and a group of men came down the Waist road to the harbor. They were dressed in somber shades of black, coats and pants pressed, some with ties, O'Boyle wearing a black coat and scarf. A man in a suit was at their epicenter and they clapped him on the back as they joined the group of women. He was a gangly, black-haired fellow with the wide mouth and features of a Corrigan. The bride and groom held hands and the rest arranged themselves behind them, the women trailing holding their streamers, followed by the men, then O'Boyle and the hatchet-faced man, who was plying the jimby, his face as expressionless as ever, bringing up the rear. I noticed Dinny skulking about the back in a somber black coat, but he flicked his gaze over me like I wasn't there. A gaggle of young children formed a series of lines at the front of the group, and with a simple hop-step to the whirring jimby tune, they led the procession along the Waist road. Other hangers-on, islanders,
a few birders, joined in the rear, so I followed as they trooped up the sloping northern road past Highgate's farm and toward the eastern end of the island.

When we reached the lowlands of Carhoona, near Douglass's Cove, the procession veered off to the left over a stone fence and through a field, the women and girls holding up their dress hems with one hand. In a small depression in the field stood a pond ringed with rock on one side. Before the pond stood two slabs of granite, each seven feet tall, about six inches thick, and a third smaller stone between them, creating a semicircle. One of the tall stones had a roughly bored hole through it, about waist high. The music trailed off, and the procession silently wound itself around the stones in a circle. A group of cows stood at the other end of the pasture, blinking in the sunlight. The bride and groom stepped forward and stood on either side of the stone with the hole. Each said some words in Irish, then they reached through the hole and held hands, prompting the crowd to break into cheers. O'Boyle started another reel, the jimby spun in the hatchet-faced man's hands, the cheers turned into a song, and the procession re-formed and trooped out of the field and down the road to the church, where the priest stood outside in his vestments, smiling broadly, his arms open.

The wedding party filed into the church and everyone else peeled off and wandered away, dispersing across the fields. I noticed O'Boyle sauntering off, playing a slow air on his fiddle. I followed him and called out his name. He spun around, his face lighting up, and I jogged to him and we walked down the gravel spillway to Douglass's Cove.

Not going in for the ceremony? I asked.

Nah. Don't go in much for the Catholics. Besides, the real ceremony already happened.

Those stones?

Yeah, O'Boyle said, Gallain an Chomalain, the pillar stones of Comolan. People been getting married here for four thousand years.

Where'd you go the other day?

O'Boyle stopped sawing at his fiddle and squinted at the ground.

Oh, geez, I was near. The swells were carrying over the bow and the engine got wet. Dinny's crap boat you know.

Why didn't you tell me?

I was yelling, he said, trying to get your attention, but you had your head down just churning away. No stopping you. I was hoping I could hold the position and you'd come by on the way back. But then the salvage boat . . . Yeah, I'm real sorry. Had to get a tow in meself. I was floating around out there for a couple hours.

Tucking his fiddle under his arm, he put his other arm around me, pulling me into his swaying mass, his funky root smell.

We still pals? I'm real sorry, El, really.

Sure. Come over to the Nightjar. I'll buy you a beer. You've never even been to our place.

O'Boyle slipped the fiddle in his rucksack and took out a bottle and offered me a sip.

Seriously, though, I said. I'm starting to take it personally.

Ah, 'fraid I don't get off the island much, he said sheepishly.

Really?

Yeah.

You know they have a ferry, leaves several times a day, goes right by here?

I pointed across to the smudge of the mainland.

Nah, he said. No ferry for me.

When's the last time you were off?

Can't really remember, O'Boyle said.

Really?

It's me home, you know.

Yeah, but don't you ever have a reason to go to the mainland? Just for the hell of it?

Nah.

I grabbed his arm.

Have you
ever
been to the mainland?

Well.

He ducked his chin and snorted into his collar. It seemed an amazing thing to me at the time, but now it makes perfect sense. There
was no other world for a man like O'Boyle. All Fred and I had ever done was move from place to place, seeking out something better. Fred and I left places without a thought, then later we would have fond remembrances, wishing we were back there again. We enjoyed this greatly; it was one of our favorite pastimes, this remembering of better times, a mix of imaginative nostalgia and regret. Sometimes I think we kept moving only so that we would always have an idealized memory of a place better than where we were.

I asked O'Boyle about the hatchet-faced man playing the jimby, and he told me that it was Padraig Cadogan, an old islander who had a farm on the southern side of the island. I told O'Boyle I'd seen him here in Douglass's Cove many times just as the afternoon ferry passed, each time taking a picture.

O'Boyle sighed and jammed his hands in his pockets, kicking among the stones by the water's edge. He nodded out at the rocky outcroppings in Roaringwater Bay between the island and Baltimore.

You see that little, low hunk o' rock? Call it Gascanane Rock. Named after Amhlaoibh Gascunach Eidirsceoil, killed at the Battle of Tralee in 1234. The current is extremely strong right there, between that bit and the next bit, called An Charraig Mhór. Lotta ships gone down at that point, trying to navigate into Baltimore. The legend says that a visitor should compose a poem to the rock on the way out to the island, or else you'll founder on the way back.

O'Boyle addressed the rock with an outflung arm:

O white breasted Gascanane, of the angry current,

Let me and all with me go past you in safety,