The Secret Scripture (29 page)

Some days later I was out on my porch, fussing over my roses. It was an activity that even in my distress brought a tincture of comfort. But then it is clear to me that any effort at gardening, even a haphazard, stop-go one such as mine was, is an effort to drag to earth the colours and the importances of heaven. It was cold that day and there were goosebumps raised along my bare arms. The very existences of the roses, not yet seen, furled so tightly and mysteriously in their green buds, was making me almost dizzy.

I looked back over my right shoulder because I heard someone moving along the road. Someone or something, it might have been an old donkey scuffling along, to judge by the noises. I didn't really want to be seen by man nor beast, even though there was such comfort in my roses. Maybe this year there would be a new look to them, not quite 'St Anne's' or Malmaison', but becoming slowly Sligo, 'Souvenir de Sligo', a memory of Sligo. But it wasn't a donkey, it was a man, a very strange man, I thought, because his hair was cut tight to his head in a sort of frizz, like a Negro jazzman, and his suit of clothes was a strange dark ashen colour. No, it wasn't a suit of clothes, more of a uniform of some kind. Even his face looked queerly blue. And to my astonishment I saw that it was Jack. Of course, that would explain the uniform, and him off in India wasn't it, fighting in the king's name – but if he was off in India what in the world was he doing in Strandhill, No-Man's-Land that it was?

And then it seemed suddenly colder than the mere cold of the treacherous Irish seaside day, and there seemed to be goosebumps added to my goosebumps. Wasn't this odd apparition my enemy now?

'Jack?' I called out anyhow, throwing caution to the wind. I had the mad thought that he might have come to help me. But what had happened to him? Now he was closer and even odder, if I didn't know better I would say he was singed, he was veritably singed.

The man stopped on the path, maybe astonished I had spoken to him. In fact he looked frightened.

'Jack McNulty?' I said, as if that might be helpful. Surely he knew his own name. Now I'm sure I looked as uncertain as he did.

He spoke like a man who has not spoken for a few days, the words stumbling out of his lip.

'What?' he said. 'What, what?'

He looked so solemnly scared I went down the path to the gate and stood nearer to him. I thought he might bolt away down the road, like a donkey after all. But I was just a small woman in a cotton dress.

'You're not Jack McNulty, are you?' I said. 'You certainly look like him.'

'Who are you?' he said, and gazed back towards the sea like he feared an ambush.

'I'm no one,' I said, meaning no one for him to fear. 'I'm Roseanne, Tom's wife – as was maybe.'

'Oh, I heard about you,' he said, but without the expected censure. He suddenly seemed very glad to be talking to me, to be meeting me. He raised his right hand a moment as if he meant to shake one of mine, but he let it drop. 'Yes.'

I was so relieved, I was so delighted he had taken this tone with me that I wanted to joke with him, to be pleasant with him, to tell him all the things that had happened, just little things, like the two rats the night before that I had caught in the act of carrying away one of my eggs through a hole in the hut wall, a hole so small one rat had put the egg up on his belly and let the other rat pull him away through the gap! Ridiculous. But it was the friendliness in his voice that did it, the mere simple friendliness, a thing I hadn't heard for so long, and didn't even know I missed.

'I'm Eneas,' he said, 'Tom's brother.'

'Eneas?' I said. 'What are you doing here?'

'I'm not really here,' he said. 'I shouldn't be here, and I should be gone shortly.'

'What's the stuff all over you?'

'What stuff?' he said.

'You're all black,' I said, 'And grey, like ashes.' 'Jesus, so I am,' he said. 'I was in Belfast. I was going back to France, you know. I'm a soldier.' 'Like Jack,' I said.

'Like Jack, only he's an officer. I was in Belfast, Roseanne, waiting for my ship, sleeping in a little hotel, when the few poor lousy sirens they have there went off, and in a few minutes they came in, the bombers, dozens and dozens and dozens, dropping their bombs at will, not a puff in the sky of an antiaircraft gun, not a puff, and all around me the houses and streets erupted. How did I get out, I ran like a demon along the ways, screaming I do not doubt, and saying wild prayers for the people of Belfast, and soon there were hundreds in the streets, all doing the same as me, people in their nightdresses and people naked as babes, running and screaming, and at the edge of the city we just kept going, and the waves of planes had come in behind us, all the while without mercy letting go the bombs, and an hour later, or maybe more, I cannot say, I was perched on the edge of a huge dark mountain, and looked back, and Belfast was a huge lake of fire, burning, burning, the flames leaping like red creatures, tigers and such, high high into the sky, and those that had run with me were also looking, and weeping, and giving out sounds like the lamentations of the bible. And I thought of the bit of the bible they like to give out in the seamen's missions, where I used to frequent before the war, being just a wandering man, They who are not written in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire, and I trembled trembled to see the anger of the Lord, excepting it wasn't the Lord, but those Germans away up nearer the stars, looking down on their work and I should think marvelling, marvelling as much as us.'

This man Eneas stopped. He was trembling again now. He was in a bad state. The reflection of that lake of fire was still burning in his eyes.

'Come in,' I said, 'just for a minute, and rest.' Whether this was a maternal instinct or a sisterly I cannot say. But suddenly an enormous rush of tenderness went from me to him. I thought, he is like me, a little. He has been cast out from his world, this world of Sligo. And I cannot say he looked like a villain. I cannot say he looked like a murdering policeman of old, of his legend – not that I knew his legend then. Indeed and indeed, how little I knew about him, how rarely his brothers had spoken of him – only with heavy sighs and meaningful looks.

'No, I cannot,' he said. 'You don't know me. I am not a man you want in your house. I'll bring trouble to you. Didn't they tell you, I have a death sentence on my head? I shouldn't even be here in Sligo. I have walked out of Belfast, and through Enniskillen, and just sort of came here, like a pigeon flying home and cannot help it.'

'Come in,' I said, 'and never mind any of that. I am your sister-in-law after all. Come in.'

So in he came. As he walked, little tumbles of black dust fell from him. He had walked all the way from Belfast, a long long way indeed, returning to Sligo like a pigeon – like a salmon looking for the mouth of the Garravoge. He seemed to me the saddest man I had ever met.

When I got him in the hut, I indicated to him without much ceremony to remove his uniform. The first thing he needed was a cup of water to drink, which he drank with a miniature ferocity, like he had a fire also in his insides that needed putting out. I had an old tin bath for my own use, and filled it with a few visits to the well, trying to keep the water clean, while my kettle came to boiling on the fire. Then I was able to take the chill off the bath with the boiled water, but no more than that. All this while the small ashen man stood in the centre of the floor in his long johns, and the cleanliness of that garment surprised me. He was a neat-boned, well-constructed man, not in the slightest plump like Tom, no, not a pick on him.

'I'll go out to the scullery now and put some cheese in a sandwich,' I said.

So for modesty's sake, I left him to it, and I could hear him stumble about a little as he took off his long johns, and stood into the tub, and gave himself a wash. I suppose an army man like him was used to cold washing, I hoped so. Anyway, there wasn't a squeak out of him. When I deemed it right, I came back in. He had suds-ed himself rightly, the tub was a boil of ash-streaked soap, and now was standing again in the centre of the floor, doing up the buttons of his long johns. His hair I now could see was a sort of russet red, even burned so close to his scalp. His skin was darkly marked by the sun, and his hands were rough and thick-fingered. I nodded to him as if to say, Are you all right? and he nodded back, as if to say, I am. I handed him the thick slice of bread and cheese, and he wolfed it down gently where he stood.

'Well,' he said then, smiling, 'it's nice to have family.'

And I laughed.

'I know what you mean,' I said.

Outside it was falling dark and my old companion the owl was starting up his motor. Now I didn't know what to do with him. I seemed to know him so well, at least the makeup of his body and his face, and of course didn't know him from Adam. And yet so gentle and strange a man I never had encountered. He was standing with absolute stillness like a deer on the mountain when he hears a twig snap.

'I thank you,' he said, with complete simplicity and sincerity. I was so affected to be thanked by another human being. I was so affected by hearing another human speak to me with grace and respect. I was standing still also now, staring at him, almost astounded.

'I can take the uniform outside and beat it,' I said, 'otherwise it would never be dry on the morrow.'

'No,' he said, 'leave it alone. I'm not supposed to wear it in the Free State. It'll do as it is, all covered over like that. I'll make my way to Dublin and try to rejoin my unit from there. The sergeant will be very worried about me.'

'I'm sure he will,' I said.

'I'm a good soldier, you know,' he said.

'I'm sure you are,' I said.

'Not the deserting type,' he said, unnecessarily. I could tell he wasn't.

'Do you know,' he said, 'I don't mean anything by this, I mean, me standing here in my long johns, and you a stranger, but, the reason I came to Strandhill was because I used to have a girl, and she and me used to come down here, for the dancing of course, and her name was Viv, and she was warned off of me, you know, and I don't see her. But I wanted to stand on the beach where we used to stand, looking out on the bay. You know, a simple thing like that. And Viv was a lovely-looking girl, she was indeed. And I wanted to say, and not meaning anything by it, but you are also the most beautiful-looking person I ever saw, you and she both.'

Well, that was a lovely speech. And he didn't mean anything by it, unless it was to speak the truth. I was suddenly flushed with a sort of pride, that I hadn't felt for a long time. This man, and he didn't know, spoke like my father when my father wished to say something important. There was a sort of strange old flounce to it, like out of a book, the very book I still guarded and cherished, old Thomas Browne's Religio Medici. And he was a boy from the seventeenth century, so I don't know how that lingo had crept into Eneas McNulty.

'I know you're a married woman,' he said, 'so please forgive me, and you married to my brother.'

'No,' I said, also in the interests of truth, and before I could think better of it, 'I am not a married woman. Or so I'm told.'

'Oh?' he said.

'No,' I said. 'You see, I have had my own death sentence spoke against me.'

Then he was standing there and I was standing there. And I went over to him like a mouse, quietly, quietly, in case I would scare him, and took one of those calloused hands of his, and led him into the room behind, where the owl was better heard, and Knocknarea more easily seen, from the poor feather bed.

Then after that later, we were lying there like two stone figures on a tomb, quite as happy as any moment of childhood.

'I think Jack told me your father was in the Merchant Navy,' he said after a little.

'Oh, yes, he was,' I said.

'Like myself – and Jack too, you know.'

'Oh, yes?'

'Oh, yes. And he said your father was in the old police then, wasn't that it?'

'Jack said that?' I said.

'I think he did. And I was interested to hear that of course, since I was in myself. Which of course cost me dear in the end. But sure, we didn't know. We seem to like to be signing up to things, the McNulty boys. There's Jack now in the Royal Engineers. And even young Tom himself going off to Spain with that Duffy character, hah?'

'O'Duffy. Did he? I didn't know that.'

'O'Duffy, that's right. I should know because he was head of the new police after. Yes, Tom went off, so I'm told.'

'And how did he get on?'

'Jack said he was back in two weeks. Jack didn't think much of Tom going off giving support to Franco now. No. Anyhow, Tom came back. Disgusted he was. Broke with O'Duffy then entirely. He had them stuck in trenches with rats eating their toes, and O'Duffy himself off somewhere, Salamanca I don't doubt. Living it up. Ah well, sure.'

'Poor Tom,' I said. 'That lovely uniform, gone to waste.'

'Oh, indeed,' said Eneas. 'So he wasn't in the police then, your father?' he said, innocently enough, chatting in the moonlight.

'What sort of love-talk is this?' I said, not wanting to offend so innocent a man. He laughed anyhow.

'Irish love-talk,' he said. 'Battles, and who you're for, and all

that.'

And he laughed again.

'When was all that anyhow, going to Spain and everything?' I said.

'Oh, '37, I suppose. It's a long while back, isn't it? Seems like.'

'And do you hear any other more recent news of Tom?'

'Oh, just that he's thriving, you know. The coming man and all that, you know.'

And he looked at me then, maybe fearing he was upsetting me. But he wasn't really. It was nice to have him there. His leg was very warm against my leg. No, I didn't mind him.

The medical doctor was in to me a while ago. He didn't like the rash on my face, and indeed he found it on my back also. Truth to tell I have been feeling a little tired, and I told him so. It was strange, because usually as the spring got going outside I perked up in myself. I could see in my mind's eye the daffodils ablaze along the avenue and I longed to go out and see them, give them a raise of the old hand in greeting. Such long lurking under the cold wet earth, and then, all their resplendent joy. So that was strange, and I told him so.