The Night Swimmer (7 page)

Lemme see that notebook of yours.

I turned to a fresh page in the back and handed it to him.

Okay, O'Boyle said. You've heard of Mary Magdalene, right?

Sure.

Right, we startin' with Jesus. Most think he was crucified and then ascended, et cetera. The truth is that Jesus was a man, a man who simply survived a crucifixion. Nothing so special about that. No floatin' up to the right hand of the father, no supernatural shite. Just a carpenter with some good ideas, follow? So he gets out of there, and he and Mary Magdalene, who was his true love, they run off together, settle in a place in the south of what is now France, called Cathay, right?

O'Boyle started sketching diagrams in a hatched script. He connected his own name, O'Boyle, with an ancient race of traveling musicians, descended from Abel—of Cain and Abel—who entertained the Mongol emperors, and my last name, my maiden name, he connected to an ancient race of Gallic swimmers who swam the English Channel with copies of the teachings of Zarathustra tied to their heads. O'Boyle signaled for more drinks, and we were served by Sheila with a knowing grin. The man gulped his beer like a horse, so I was soon coughing up for another round.

Noah was the life giver, O'Boyle was saying, the new breath of life for mankind, starting fresh after the purge. And God gave him the name Noah, as an illustration of this new breath of life. Listen to it; No——

O'Boyle inhaled deeply as he pronounced the first syllable.

——ah!

Exhale.

Now you do it.

So O'Boyle and I are doing breathy chants of
No-ah
in unison and I notice the place is clearing out, the builders packing it in. When the builders are done, you should be too, in my opinion.

I really gotta get back, I said. It's a good walk you know. You should come to our pub, the Nightjar? In Baltimore?

Aye, O'Boyle said, fixing me again with his queer, apple-shaped eyes.

I gathered the sheets of scribbled paper that O'Boyle had spread across the table and made a pretense of arranging them and shoving them into my bag. I did think that perhaps this would be something I would want to examine later, but upon the light of day I swear it was like another language. In fact, a lot of it was another language, what O'Boyle called Celtish.

O'Boyle's caravan was on the western side of the island, but he walked me as far as the South Harbor, where we would part, I going to the left up the hill to Nora's, he to the right.

You are a seeker, O'Boyle was saying as we walked, a prospector of truths.

This man is insane, I was thinking. But I enjoyed his frank and open friendliness and attention.

O'Boyle pointed off to the right, up the road that led to the western head of the island.

See that stone house there? he said, just beyond that is Lough Errul, the lake, and the West Bog. Follow the path past the lake and to the edge of Coosnaganoa, near Dún an óir?

I've never been to that side of the island, I said.

Then follow that path, he said, and down inna wad of trees you'll see me chimney poking through. Tomorrow I want to show you something. Unless you have something else to do?

I'm gonna swim a bit, I said. Though that'll be in the morning.

Aye, O'Boyle said, the cormorant needs to dip her wings. Flop out with the sea dogs on Pointanbullig. I'll see you sometime after noon. Bring the husband, eh?

He's gotta run the bar, I said.

Right, some other time then.

You should come over to the Nightjar. We'd love to have you play. Certainly we'd stand you some drinks.

That'd be nice, he said. But 'm 'fraid I don't get off the isle much.

He hoisted the sack with his fiddle over his shoulder and waddled up the road, his jacket flapping in the wind.

*  *  *

On my walk that afternoon I crossed the windmill plateau and went down the eastern slope of the island, wading through waist-high gorse, the trail just a faint trace, stepping over the intermittent stone walls that ribboned across the hillside. Below, at the water's edge, was a small section of beach nestled in a slot of jagged black rock, a place called Coosadouglas, or Douglass's Cove. There was a long concrete boat ramp stretching into the water, mucked over with a rusty coat of algae and mosses. In the gravel lot at the top of the ramp, an old VW beater sat idling, a man behind the wheel.

He was staring straight ahead through the murky windshield, looking out over the water to Sherkin and the mainland. I sat on the stone wall on the hill and for a few moments we both enjoyed the sweetness of the fading afternoon light. A little later the dull thrub of the ferry engine reverberated off the rocks in faint echo and soon the ferry chugged around from the left, heading to the mainland. The man stepped out of the car and walked down the boat ramp to the water's edge. It was the hatchet-faced man with the small dog again. He stood watching the ferry as it rounded into view, navigating a low cluster of rocks, barely visible above water. The man pulled out a Polaroid camera and took a picture of the boat as it showed us her stern, heading east to the mainland along the northern edge of Sherkin. After it receded into the fog of the swelling sea, he walked back to his car, flipping the picture between his fingers, the small panting face of his dog in the front seat, wet nose pressed to the glass, looking at me.

After he left I went down to the beach and picked around the rocks and boat ramp, the plasticky strands of sea thongs and channeled wrack strewn about, almost artfully placed on the rocks. The ramp was slick and pocked with small whelks and barnacles, but with care it could be a decent swimming entry. Sherkin lay about a mile to the northeast and that could be done quite easily if the weather was
clear. Nobody had used the ramp in a long time and I wondered why someone constructed it here, on this end of the island.

Walking along the beach to the north I came across a deep canyon at the base of the cliff. A mangled pile of metal and rubber drifted among the glossy rocks, the water sloshing around the tires and fenders of smashed vehicles clearly driven off the cliff. A few molded mattresses wedged among the rubble, a shattered armoire, stacks of Sheetrock, concrete hunks with whiskers of rebar.

The hatchet-faced man with the dog returned to Douglass's Cove every afternoon as the late ferry passed, and every time he took a picture of its stern as it turned to Baltimore. I spent many afternoons there, and I began to enjoy our shared moment, I on the bluff above, the dog licking the car window, the hatchet-faced man and his solitary vigil.

*  *  *

That next afternoon I arrived at O'Boyle's caravan, set down in a crease in the boglands, wedged in a stand of what seemed to be bamboo and elephant ears. His caravan was a faded blue and white striped egg set on rocks, a stovepipe cutting through the roof at a jaunty angle. Under the caravan was a nest of rusted cans, rolls of wire, car parts, and a sleeping black and white sheepdog. A set of oil drums sat by the door, brimming with reddish fluid, a stack of crab traps, a tangled wad of fishing nets. Behind his little grove a square space of earth had been cleared by machine, a kind of foundation dug and two walls of cement block, and the skeleton of a kitchen cabinet set. The caravan rocked as I neared, and O'Boyle came banging out the tiny door, his jostling bulk in a white tank top and black cargo pants, barefoot, carrying a mug, bellowing an Irish greeting.

Projects, O'Boyle said when I inquired about the oil drums and nets, a bit of work I'm doing.

I asked him what his occupation was, besides the fiddle playing, which he told me he did only for free drinks.

Bit o' this and that, he said. Odd jobber.

And the walls?

Oi, that's me new home, he said. Kieran's buildin' it for me. That's our arrangement.

What kind of arrangement?

I does the odd jobs, O'Boyle said, 'e builds the house. Each job is a bit more, you know what I mean? I do a bit for 'em and he puts up a wall, a bit more and perhaps I get a gas range, chest o' drawers, that sort of thing.

O'Boyle led me back on a narrow trail wandering over and around boulders on the edge along the sheer cliffs overlooking Roaringwater Bay. Past the spine of a hill, when we climbed over the last fence, the ground dropped away in a steep, grassy slope to a field of water-slicked boulders covered with lichens and barnacles. The sea dashed itself here in broad strokes, foaming black into small pools brimming with spiny urchins and sea lettuce. A spit of crumbling land led to a grassy plateau held out over the water like a platter, and there perched the remains of a small castle, its interior walls and floors exposed on the island side. The causeway was long gone, and to get to it would require ropes and some measure of rock-climbing ability.

Dún an óir, O'Boyle said, the Castle of Gold.

The castle was built around 1450 by the Corrigan chieftains, O'Boyle told me. In 1603 attackers hauled their ship's cannon to the hilltop overlooking the castle and pounded it into submission, which is why the land-facing side of the castle is destroyed and the sea side fully intact. The finger of land pointed west to the spire of Fastnet, and it was called the Castle of Gold because of the way the setting sun exploded through it. O'Boyle told me that an alternate legend was that a seventeenth-century Corrigan chief called Finn the Rover hoarded his pirated gold there, but nothing was ever found.

Plenty o' folks been through it with a fork, he said. In the hard times some islanders lived there. It became a refuge for the outcast, you know?

O'Boyle paused and mumbled something in Irish with his eyes closed.

We walked through a set of stone fences, avoiding the cattle that
eyed us dully. The cattle gates were the best areas, O'Boyle told me. Perhaps the transition or moving from one field to another brought the cows to some distress, but either way they seemed to defecate an extraordinary amount in the narrow passes between the stacked-stone walls that lined the fields. Most of the fields were empty, and some were even nearly overgrown with gorse and heather. At the first gate we came to the cow patties were numerous and of obviously different ages, some still wet and fresh, and others hardened and sprouting vegetation.

It was these that O'Boyle began to inspect and pick through, his jeans gapping and his shirt rising up to give me a wide view of his plentiful ass. After a few minutes he slapped his knees and then, kneeling, motioned to me.

There she is, he says. It's the nipple that you have to look for.

He held a thin, tender mushroom by its stalk between his second and third fingers. He brushed the top with his other hand, and I could see the small, almost pink protrusion. After looking closely for a few minutes I could see that in almost all the older cow patties in the gateway, sprouts of the very same mushroom swayed slightly in the wind. Across the gate and into the entire next enclosure I could see more of the mushrooms, clustered in small sections. There must have been hundreds.

There's so many of them, I said. Why don't you just gather them up all at once?

O'Boyle winced and rubbed his eyes.

They don't keep. Unless you dry them out, they go soft and nasty in a day or two. Drying them takes out the flavor, and the real power of the thing.

He plucked a particularly tall specimen and stuck it into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully, as if appraising a fine piece of chocolate.

What do they taste like?

O'Boyle plucked another from its fecal roosting place and proffered it to me.

Tastes like mother earth, that's what it tastes like.

Shouldn't they be washed?

O'Boyle brushed at the stem and cap with his fingers.

There you are then. Clean.

Maybe some other time, I said. But thanks.

He shrugged and popped the mushroom into his mouth like a piece of popcorn, swallowed, then straightened suddenly, coming to attention like a military cadet, his eyes wide, like he was listening intently for something. I heard nothing but the roar of wind mixed with sea.

What?

Sorry, he choked. It's nothing . . .

He looked around wildly, patting his pockets, his lips pressed into a thin line.

What's the matter? I said.

O'Boyle was spinning, like he was trying to get his bearings. He stopped, facing the direction of the Waist, and stared for a moment as if he could glean something from this distance. Then he turned and regarded me seriously.

Do you not hear it? he asked.

He held his chin up, sniffing at the air. The only sound I heard was wind, and I told him so. We stood that way for a few moments.

Sometimes, O'Boyle said, the island is full of wondrous noises. Sometimes I think I'm dreaming. Such . . . beautiful melodies.

His eyes glassed over with tears. He stuffed a handful of mushrooms into my hand, turned and galloped over the field, hurdling the first stone fence with astonishing dexterity, moving like a man possessed. I stuck the wad of mushrooms in my pocket, thinking that Fred would certainly be interested. I walked to the road and started back, O'Boyle now a tiny figure cutting across field and fence at a flat-out sprint, heading toward the North Harbor as if he was being reeled in like a fish.

*  *  *

Kieran Corrigan's new plans for the island included holiday accommodations, a three-story-high staggered line of row houses with
kitchens and full baths. Adjoining this would be a new pub and restaurant and general store. The guesthouses would obstruct the view of the South Harbor from the deck of the Five Bells and the few other residences clustered on the Waist, but there was nothing to be done as Kieran was also the senior member of the Cape Clear zoning board. A few of the builders were always lurking about, standing alone at even intervals around the buildings with their hands in their pockets and smoking, as if they were guarding the site. Kieran had a kind of bunkhouse built into the complex and for the builders the construction site, the Five Bells, and the bunkhouse seemed the sum total of their existence. After work they would come up the road to the pub for a pint and a smoke, then they dragged themselves back to the bunkhouse and fell into their beds like drowned men.