The Water Children

by Anne Berry

  The meal on Richmond Hill is a success. He has spaghetti and she has grilled trout with new potatoes. There is a long-stem red rose in a swirling clear-glass vase on the table, and the restaurant has cleverly used empty Chianti bottles as candle-holders. The flames reflected in the green glass are multiplied romantically, and the warm light gives their reed-wrapped bases a golden harvest hue. Afterwards they cross the road and search out an ideal spot to gaze down on the winding river. The yellow pools of lamplight illuminate the grassy banks, and make the towpath a glimmering snake. The water looks forbidding, its sinister spirit only enlivened by the twinkling reflections that fracture then repair themselves on its sliding surface. Staring down at the Thames, his arm lying casually about Catherine’s shoulder, he recalls that other river that held him in thrall – the hypnotic River Shannon.

  Sunday afternoons, that was when he did it. Not because it was the best day for it, because it was special or anything like that, but because it was the only day that it was possible. Mass in the morning and it in the afternoon. That was the trouble with the farm, it took everything you had to give, that’s why Sean hadn’t stayed, that’s why one day he had left. You see, he wasn’t going to wake up middle-aged to discover he was spent, that the farm had used him all up. Besides, everyone acknowledged that the land was poor on the West Coast. No one got fat on these wind-swept acres. You could see the storms blowing in from the Atlantic, see the whorl of gales and torrential rain whipped up in the boiling ocean, rolling in towards the holdings that were scattered precariously over the hills. You could tally up the ruined crops, the injured cattle, the damage to the thatched farm and barn, the galvanized hay barn, before it had even happened. You could predict it with daunting accuracy.

  But it wasn’t all bad. There were things that Sean loved too. Roaming the woods close by, for instance, and munching up the hazelnuts he’d collected, or watching the squirrels scampering in the tree-tops making the leaves lash out at the sky, or spying the quaver of a rabbit’s ears and then the twitch of whiskers as it stood on its hind legs, or the rustle of a mouse burrowing in dead leaves unloosing the smell of the earth’s heart. And there was the ancient road also, he mustn’t forget that, the one that ran adjacent to the farm. It was a raised road a good twelve feet wide, with deep ditches to either side. Overgrown now of course, but nevertheless he knew ways to burrow in. And once inside, oh, it was like being on another planet, it really was, secretive and strange. He would crouch among the bracken, close his eyes tight and imagine the soldiers marching along this very stretch, imagine their legs thundering past him.

  He’d seen pictures of soldiers in books at school. The breastplates of their armour would glint metallic blue in the sun, and the wind would catch up the plumes of their helmets and make them swirl. And they would carry shields and weapons that clashed against each other thrillingly. The Irish hills on this outpost of the West coast would rebound with the drumming of their purposeful steps. They would be brave, these men, know how to fight, how to attack and defend themselves. Sean would like to be a soldier. Well, he’d like to be anything that had nothing to do with farming. He wasn’t that choosy, just so long as he became rich.

  Mixed dairy, twenty cattle grazed for milk and meat, and a pig kept for their own consumption, slaughtered annually. That was about all there was to ‘West Point Farm’. You couldn’t help but get accustomed to the poor pig, as it rootled and grunted its way through the passing months. And then inevitably would come the ritualistic killing. The throat slit, then the belly split wide, the still-steaming guts pulled out and the carcass hung from a huge hook protruding from a roof-beam in the barn, while the blood drained blackly into tin pails. Then it was divided into twelve cuts and buried in salt, preserved to feed the family throughout the year. They were self-sufficient, his father would tell him grandly. They grew everything they needed to survive: potatoes, vegetables, their own wheat, took it to the local mill to be ground into flour, even used the stalks from the rye corn to repair the thatching.

  ‘What more could a man want?’ he would declare with a sweep of those hands of his that were the size of spades.

  Electricity and running water just for starters, Sean had wanted to bellow back. Nothing but candles and the occasional oil lamp to light the gloomy winter days, and it was hard to read by their flickering flames. The lamps smoked too, and the smell of burnt oil seemed to suffuse the air in every room of the house, not just the ones they were lit in. Sometimes Sean’s eyes stung and the print would go all smeary. He’d probably need glasses before long, straining his eyes like that. As for the water, it was backbreaking work drawing it up from the well at the bottom of the hill, and loading the barrels onto the cart. Probably not much fun for the horse either, trudging back up the steep lane with that heavy load. The butts of rainwater only went so far. Besides, sometimes the lids came off and the cows drank from them, so you could only use them for washing.

  Come to that, he wasn’t exactly enamoured of the outside toilet, no more than a few wooden planks that served for a seat, and a shaft sunk into earth. He couldn’t put a number on those dreaded nightly scampers but it must be in the thousands, he reckoned. He would put it off for as long as he dared, but eventually the need became so pressing that he would fly out of the warm fug of the kitchen with its cosy peat fire, and into an icy darkness thick with ghosts and beasties, with only seconds to spare before his bladder exploded.

  No, the farm was not the future. Sean was certain of that. His younger brother, Emmet, could have it and welcome. He wanted to own a motor car one day, like the priest and the schoolteacher did. He wanted more than that crummy battery-run radio too. He wanted a television and a cooker and a fridge. And he wanted a city as well, with shops and people and bustle. This place was dead, no excitement at all. The nearest town was Labasheeda three miles away. And what was that? No more than a pub and a few houses. Kildysart was a wee bit more lively, he supposed, but then it was much further off. So what did his father have that made him feel so smug? Green fields sprouting from poor earth and for company, the nearest neighbours over half a mile away.

  He found the book one Christmas Eve. His Aunt Regan, the schoolteacher from England, had been staying, and she’d brought a suitcase full of them. ‘They’re only old, I’m afraid. They were going to throw them out so I rescued them. I thought the boys might enjoy them,’ she had said while his father staggered down the path with it. Sean had grown alert instantly. Books. He’d rather have a book any day than toys. Books showed him other places, told him stories of other people who did not live on a farm and have to drag themselves out of bed on freezing, grey mornings to milk the cows. And he learnt things from books too. He bet that there were books that showed you how to make money, not by breaking your back lugging hay about the place, but by running a business, by buying cheap and selling for a profit. So as soon as supper was done he slipped down from the table and crept away.

  He loved Christmas, not for the right reasons, reasons that his mother would approve of, like attending special mass. And not because of the presents either, which were never what he wanted. But because of the candles, the Christmas candles. His mother cut holes in turnips and used them as candle-holders, and she set one on every windowsill in the house. It was magical. For those few festive days he did not have to move carefully from room to room, for the most part feeling his way, his own candle with its stuttering flame held tentatively before him. The single-storey building was laid out in an ‘L’ shape, and at Christmas he could charge down a tunnel of light, almost convincing himself that they did have electricity.

  But that night he did not charge, he walked slowly and steadily, with purpose, to where he knew his aunt’s suitcase lay at the bottom of her bed. He snapped the shiny clasps open and rifled through the contents, looking for that one title, that money-making volume with instructions on how to get rich. His heart had been beating loudly and he kept glancing back over his shoulder, fearful of discovery. He knew the books wo
uld be presented to them tomorrow with official ceremony, knew that his brother, Emmet would only pretend to be pleased, that he would be happy for Sean to have the lot. But even so, he couldn’t wait. He had to see what there was now.

  It seemed a pretty drab haul at first glance, a few Bibles, as if they hadn’t seen enough of those already, and a load of hymn books and books on grammar, some volumes of poetry, and a couple of plays by William Shakespeare and someone called Richard Brinsley Sheridan. But as far as he could tell, nothing on setting up your own business. He was about to shut the case when he caught sight of a grey triangle peeping out from under the stack of poetry books. He delved and pulled out a small, cloth-bound book, frayed in places. He looked for the title, but finding none, thumbed through it. There were as many pictures as there were printed pages. It took him a minute to work out what they were of. Pen and ink drawings of a man taking up different positions. He was only wearing bathing trunks and a cap. You had to turn the upright pages sideways to see more clearly what it was. They were stage-by-stage diagrams of how his body moved through different swimming strokes. Towards the end of the book there were chapters that dealt exclusively with life-saving, how to rescue someone who was drowning. Sean felt like he was drowning most days. He would like someone to rescue him, he decided. He was so engrossed that he did not hear the footsteps behind him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ The tone was accusatory.

  He swung round to see his brother, Emmet, peering down at him.

  ‘I wanted to look at the books, that’s all,’ he said, trying not to seem flustered. If he showed that he felt guilty or afraid, his brother would be bound to tell his father and then he would be whipped, Christmas or not, he guaranteed it.

  ‘Oh,’ sighed Emmet. He sounded disappointed. He angled for a better view inside the suitcase, and what he saw seemed to confirm his suspicions. ‘Nothing but boring books. You’d think she’d bring us something more interesting, like a football or roller skates.’ He shrugged and shuffled despondently to the door, pausing to ask Sean if he was coming.

  ‘Mother wants to sing some carols. She sent me to fetch you,’ he said sulkily. Sean hid a smile. He did not think that a few hours spent lustily singing Christmas carols was his eight-year-old brother’s idea of entertainment either.

  ‘I’ll just put this back, then join you,’ Sean said. He nearly pleaded with his brother not to tell their parents what he’d seen, but Emmet had already gone. Looking after him, Sean thought it was a safe bet though that he wouldn’t bother. Not out of loyalty. Oh no, that had nothing to do with it. If Emmet could possibly gain from tattling, he would. But in this circumstance, as the only reward he was likely to reap were books, boring books, it seemed unlikely.

  It was odd them being brothers, when they looked so different. Emmet was black haired and thick set, with his father’s broad shoulders. His features were coarse: fleshy lips, his jaw set in an overbite, his nose large, his iron-grey eyes too close together, his complexion tanned as leather. Whereas Sean had a hint of ginger in his fine corn-coloured hair. Depending on the weather, his smiling eyes could look blue as the sky or green as the river. His mouth was finely drawn. His nose was straight. His fair eyelashes and eyebrows gave a slightly vulnerable, nude look to his face. His skin was pale and dusted over the bridge of his nose with light freckles. And he was taller and slim in build. Their voices were octaves apart too, Emmet’s gruff and surly, Sean’s soft and lilting. His hands were those of an artist, not a labourer. Side by side it was hard to believe that they were related.

  He took in the reflected flames and shadows moving like figures on the canvas of the whitewashed walls. They made Sean feel as if he was in a room crowded with people, instead of kneeling alone by a suitcase packed with words. Sean’s hand, poised to tuck the book under the pile of verses, hesitated. In a second he had slipped it underneath his jumper. Then, quietly, he refastened the case and stole after his unlikely sibling.

  His aunt never noticed it was missing and the book presentation went off without a hitch, with Emmet hardly paying any attention at all, let alone informing on his elder brother. The grey book became Sean’s constant friend, no day passing without him studying it. A bold plan was forming in his head. He would teach himself to swim. He was ten years old, nearly eleven. He wanted to learn how to swim. No one knew how to swim round here. The farmers and their families viewed the sea with suspicion, and the nearby tidal River Shannon in much the same light. The sea brought the storms that ruined the harvest, that smashed up the fishing boats, that sucked hardened men with fit bodies of brawn and muscle to their deaths.

  The Shannon was no more than three quarters of a mile away. Barely six months ago a girl from Labasheeda, Iona O’Neill, had drowned in its waters. They had been taking livestock from one of the little islands across the river to the mainland and she had fallen in. Sean had overheard the men talking about her in lowered voices outside the pub. Gap-toothed Finn, the fishmonger, claimed that he’d seen her ghost skipping over the dark-green waters and wailing eerily, her long black hair all wild and whipping about in the wind. The men had listened goggle-eyed and stroked their beards, and muttered that it was a bad business, that the lass should have steered clear of the greedy waters, for they brought no man, or woman either, it had to be said, any good at all.

  But Sean did not want to steer clear of the Shannon. Despite his mother’s ominous warnings, he wanted to make her acquaintance, to slip off his clothes and let her slither, cold and bracing and fresh, over his skin. He wanted to take hold of her fluid body and bend it to serve him, he wanted to dominate her, he wanted to have the taste of her on his tongue. He was patient, he waited through the long winter months, waited for the ice slide they had made on the hill road to melt, and for the snow to turn to slush and run away in muddy rivulets. He waited for the sound of birdsong to return, and for the insistent press of life to show itself in bright-green shoots and buds. He waited for a spring day, a Sunday, when the Kerry Mountains were wreathed in mists, for if you could see them clear as glass then sure enough, rain was coming. He tucked a small towel and his precious book under his jacket. With mass still ringing in his head, along with the names of those the priest had shamed for cutting hay on the Sabbath, he rode off down the hill on his bike.

  He found his way to a spot he knew where a stand of trees gave shelter and privacy from inquisitive eyes, and where the bank of sand, pebbles and silt shelved gently into the green wonder of the estuary river. For a moment he gazed about him. Here, she spanned at least three miles across. The shadows of the clouds scurried over the face of the gliding waters, as if trying to keep pace with them. The flow shifted and stretched out its vitreous limbs, veined with diaphanous golden browns. The sun, emerging from behind a fan of feathery clouds, emptied rays full of gold nuggets on the gleaming highway. Birds swooped from the dark cordon of trees that fringed the banks, dipping their beaks in the shallows. In the distance, Sean could see the silhouette of a barge slipping silently by with its cargo of goods, destined for Limerick, he guessed. And he could just detect the low rumble of a Flying Boat that would land further up river.

  Quickly, not allowing time for his resolve to weaken, he took off his clothes. He folded them in a neat pile and laid them by the side of his bike, which was propped against a tree. He took one last look at the first diagram in the book, and hopped naked down to the water’s edge. Stepping into it, he braced himself for the shock of cold, which when it came was more icy than he had expected. He waded out until he estimated that the water was roughly two foot deep, sat down fast, astonished by how the drop in temperature and sudden immersion seemed to heighten his sensations. He could feel his buttocks pressing into the grit, feel a pebble, smooth and flat, near the base of his spine, feel silt being piped between the gaps in his toes. He was shivering, and his breathing suddenly felt conscious, as if he had to remember to do it. All in one speedy move he stretched his legs and rolled, arms before him straight as sticks, hands groping
for the bottom. And it was there. No tricks. The sandy flesh of his green mistress was firm.

  So now he was facing downwards, chin sitting on the shelf of the water, legs out behind him. He began to kick. Immediately he liked the sucking row, the pother of it. He was starting to warm up. Then, slowly, he began to pull himself forwards, walking his arms under the water. He must look like a giant newt, he thought, laughing and taking a mouthful of liquid. He spat, concentrated, picked up speed. Forward and back, crablike, he went, covering a stretch of about twenty foot each time. Naturally it was easier going with the flow of the river, more difficult opposing it. After half an hour, his confidence growing, he went a little deeper, was even courageous enough to lift both hands up and paddle them a couple of times. Oh, he sank, but as the water was only a few feet deep he hadn’t far to go, and had soon righted himself.

  It was the elongating shadows that reminded him it was growing late, that it was time to go, and not the gathering cold. He had discovered that as long as he kept thrashing, kept dragging himself along, he did not feel the invasive chill. But when, with some reluctance, he clambered out, the evening breeze chopped like a blade against his wet body. Briskly he towelled himself dry, paying particular attention to his hair. He did not want to arouse his brother’s curiosity, for he had no illusions. Unlike the books, this latest pursuit of his was far from boring. Introducing Emmet to such a dangerous pastime would earn him the severest of reprimands.