Year of the Beast

by Steven Carroll

  She pauses. The fact is, she knows so little about him. The games he played as a child, and whom he played with; the family stories he heard; the village his parents came from; the house he grew up in; those remembered moments of broken sleep in the night when the child imagined something fearful out there in the big, frightening world; the books he read, if he read much at all; the God he prayed to, if he prayed at all. Just who is Victor? Who is one half of the child? And how will that half emerge?

  But if Victor is a mystery to Maryanne, that mystery is a small one, she imagines, compared to the mystery that he will become to Vic. And small compared to all that flows from that mystery: the loss, the anger and the damage. For at some point when the baby is old enough, he will surely ask himself – prompted by something someone says in a school playground, some teasing question – who in fact his father is. And, indeed, where he is. And what does he do? But his father will remain a mystery. The kind of mystery that grows with the years until his father becomes little more than a story and a figure in a photograph: a soldier standing awkwardly in a studio setting. Not so much an absent father as a ghost.

  So much to say, but, in the end, so little that is said. Maryanne begins writing again. A short letter. The facts: the baby is born, the baby is healthy. Why bother with all the rest? The pain that was like nothing she has ever known before; the liquid of the child’s private heaven that soaked into the bed and stained the sheets. And the screams. The screams, yes. Father Geoghan would have liked them. We are all fallen, she can hear him saying, but you, fallen woman, daughter of Eve, are truly fallen and your screaming, your pain, is your penance.

  So just as there is no point in talk of gardens, birds and flight, or of back rooms and brooding eyes, there is also no point in talking of pain, tears and satisfied priests. It is a short letter. The child is born and sleeping. Oh, and the child’s name is Victor, which the schoolyard will shorten to Vic. She adds that when everybody is rested and able, she and young Victor will visit a photographer’s studio and photographs will be taken. He can be there too, if he wishes. For the child. And, if he does so wish, they must arrange a day and time.

  She decides there is nothing left to add. Eight lines that could have been eighty or eight hundred. She signs off with a simple ‘Maryanne’. No ‘love’. That would be false. So much to say, so little that is said and recorded in the end.

  She places the letter in an envelope, seals it and calls for Katherine. The door opens slowly, the room an oasis of calm and quiet, and Katherine steps softly across the floor. When Maryanne hands the letter to her and Katherine sees the name and address on it, she raises her eyebrows slightly. A look that says: why? Maryanne looks back at her, unblinking. A look that says: for the child. It is a silent communication, one that is possible because, Maryanne notes, they know each other: she knows the games they played, the stories they read and the God they prayed to in the days when Maryanne prayed. They know each other, in precisely the way that she doesn’t know Victor.

  But perhaps that’s not true, she tells herself as Katherine leaves the room. She knows a lot about Victor, really. She knows the way he displays a cloth, at least to her, how he strokes the cloth, remarks upon its colour and texture, and can turn the exchange into a kind of courtship. She knows things that, quite probably, no one else knows: not his mother, nor the woman he is engaged to. She knows and remembers clearly that moment in the shop when all pretence was dropped, when they each took off their masks and stood facing each other, and the public manner gave way to a direct look that told her what he was really thinking beneath all the talk of cloth, colour and texture. A look that was a question. A question she answered with her eyes, a direct stare that said yes, and which eventually led to a back room behind a school house. She knows the smell of his skin, and the sounds he made in those times in the small bed in her room: the collapsed groan that told her he was finished. And she knows that as much as he might pronounce her beautiful, he can also turn, stamping his feet and wheeling away; she remembers that moment of hard anger when he stared at her in the gardens and silently pronounced her a crafty bitch. And she knows the coldness in his heart, for which she will never forgive him, that was there when he wheeled off and left her alone, birds taking flight from their branches as he stormed away. Yes, she nods, she knows quite a lot about Victor. Things that, quite probably, no one else knows. Yet not well enough for her to speak of all the things that might have been said but, in the end, weren’t.

  When she receives his reply early the next week, he names a day when he can get away. And she writes back – a second letter, she remarks to herself, in as many weeks; more contact than she made in all of the past year – naming the day and the hour at a photographer’s studio in the city. And when they all gather that day, the three of them, it will be the first and last time that the three are together, and the first and last time that father and son ever meet. One will remember; the other will not. For the child, the stranger in uniform photographed that day will become a ghost from history: one that will haunt the child, the husband, the father, and the old man Vic will become. An old man who will die at around three o’clock in the morning in a simple one-bedroom flat in the sub-tropical northern town to which he will retreat in his final years when everybody has grown and gone their separate ways. Was he lonely then? Or just alone? Did nature, retreating to some distant place where it wouldn’t bother anyone, simply do what nature does?

  Maryanne leans her head against a pillow, staring out the window, oblivious of all this. At some point she looks at the child, telling herself, don’t fret. The child will live, you will die. And she tries to conceive of the child, grown and in a world without her, even old, and she can’t bear to.

  There is no need to look ahead into the future, she tells herself; just live these days. These days of wonder. Let that be enough. For it is: this separate peace they have created, this oasis of calm and quiet. She strokes the baby’s head, smoothing the ebony hair that is yet to turn wavy, and closes her eyes, sinking into the soothing quiet of the room, the silence broken only by a snort and a long sigh from the sleeping child.

  17.

  There are trees in the background, sun on the leaves, and low shrubbery, lush and green. She can almost hear birds hidden in the branches. But the trees, leaves and shrubbery are all painted on a large canvas backdrop. They do not sway in the breeze because there is none. And the only birdsong to be heard is the whistling of the photographer.

  He is instructing Victor on how to stand: one foot slightly forward, the other back, toes pointing outwards. Head high, hat tilted, hands just so as they grip a baton. Statues stand like that, Maryanne notes, sitting in a studio chair beside the baby, observing the scene. Statues, not people. It is curious to be looking at Victor again, after everything. She has learned that his engagement is finally off and that he is, as the phrase goes, a free man. But, of course, he’s not. He’s theirs, in that silly uniform that looks a good size too large, and they’ll send him wherever they want.

  But here he is, all the same. Back in the picture. Assuming his place beside her as he did a few minutes before, the missing figure in a family portrait. But is he? Just who is Victor? Does he really complete the portrait? For as much as three is a good number, as much as people think of three as a good number, a balanced one (the baby in between, mother and father either side), there is also something disturbing in his sudden presence. He is here, as they arranged, but she is not sure she likes the arrangement. For he disturbs the perfect balance of mother and child. In the weeks since the birth, she and the baby have created their own small universe: two heavenly bodies, one circling the other, held together by an invisible force that was born the moment the child was. And so, as much as he is here, she is asking herself if she really wants him in the picture, after all. Does he complete it, or disrupt it?

  He brings presents. Is considerate. Seems changed. But when she looks at those feet, carefully arranged by the photographer, she sees them wh
eeling off in anger once again, leaving her behind in the gardens, the gift of her miracle flung back in her face. He brings clothes for the child: mittens and knitted jackets and tiny socks for winter. And for her his finest cloths from the shop, for her to fashion as she will. His eyes were soft when he greeted her, no sign of the look that pronounced her a crafty bitch. Instead, she sees the same eyes that, in an unguarded moment, saw the beauty in her that no one else had. But, for all that, does he complete the picture or intrude upon it?

  She has time to contemplate this because the photographer, an artistic type in coloured waistcoat and floral tie, is taking his picture. Victor looks puzzled and seems impatient with the photographer’s instructions, but goes along with things. Maryanne observes him, her mind ticking over. There he is, solid, standing like a statue, looking awkward in his oversize uniform. Suddenly back in her life when he’s been out of it for most of the year. No hint of apology. No sign of regret. Just back again. And although he’s said nothing that might suggest staying on – he could be shipped overseas any time anyway – would she want him around if he suggested as much? Asked her to wait, gave her a ring to make the wait official? Would she want it? There he is, like some lost lord coming home to claim what’s his, or what he assumes or hopes is still his. Come back to his domain. But why, she asks herself, why should she bow to a lost lord just because he’s returned? Because it now suits him? The conceit! No, she won’t. They’ve got on perfectly well so far, the child and Maryanne. Without the lord, and will in the future. They have created this small universe, mother and child, and she’s decided she likes it that way. She’s already used to it that way. And what is more, she’s decided she can do this thing. Why should he be thought of as completing the picture; the picture feels complete as it is. And why should she bow to the lord just because he’s back?

  Besides, he is part of a larger story now. Victor is not Victor the small-town draper any more, but somebody else. Somebody in a grand tale. One that is worthy of both mother and child. And yet here he is, like a wayward character who doesn’t know his place, stepping out of his role. No, it won’t do: Victor is not Victor any more, but someone else. The pattern is set. The story written. His presence now is a sort of inconvenience. No, she’s looked ahead into the years to come, and he’s not there.

  Victor stands perfectly still. To attention, almost. A statue, indeed. There is a flash. A white light, and the moment is caught. Maryanne, in her best hat, starched white blouse and navy skirt, takes her place on a chair next to where Victor stood. The baby rests in a cot beside her. Victor watches. She is blinded by one flash after another. A series of photographs capturing a moment, a meeting of three people that will not happen again: photographs that will be passed down through the generations and finish up with Michael (currently speeding towards the city centre and following his progress on a map on the wall of his carriage). Ghostly figures from a ghostly past, stories within stories attached to them: imagined and real, and no way of telling one from the other. And Maryanne, the storyteller at the centre of it all, deciding what was, what wasn’t and what ought to have been: the egg that gave birth to a whole mythology.

  Afterwards, she pushes the pram along the footpath, Victor walking beside her. It is a late January afternoon. Hot and dusty. An annoying north wind blows across the city. Sad banners – a Yes here, a No there – flap, lift and fall in the wind. The battle cries of yesterday’s battle. The No has prevailed over the Yes. The Wart has lost, the voice of Ireland has held sway. And for that she thanks him, this Mannix with the cold eyes of God himself, staring at her belly, judging both her and the child even as he saves all those sons who would have been dragged off into an army and sent thousands of miles away to die in the mud. Yes, for that she’s thankful. At least something good has come of these days of the beast. But still, a crowd is a crowd, a mob a mob, and the cold eyes of a judging God are just as cold for all that.

  She stares at Victor as they walk, aware that she too is staring with eyes that judge: that judge him and find him wanting. For nobody was ever going to be able to put Victor into a uniform if he didn’t want it. And all of those soldiers from this land, on the other side of the world from the war, all of those soldiers lying dead or shivering in the mud, are there because they took themselves there. Or does anybody, Victor or anyone, just take themselves off to a war? Or does the hounding and the bullying of the schoolyard simply reemerge on a grand scale? The Wart could call for volunteers all he liked, but if nobody turned up to the enlistment offices there would be no army to send. No, nobody was ever going to put Victor in a uniform. But he went ahead and did it all the same. Idiot!

  ‘When do you leave?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Soon?’

  ‘Probably. We’ve finished our training. We can’t stay. Could be tomorrow, could be next week. They don’t tell you these things.’

  She shakes her head, a gesture of impatience: with the heat, with him. A couple is arguing on a nearby corner. They’re hot. Everybody is: these dusty January days, like stepping out into an oven, are enough to drive anyone mad. Over the littlest things. But her impatience with Victor is not over some little thing. There he is in uniform. A soldier. A soldier, for heaven’s sake! Surrendering his independence, his will, to a faceless army that won’t even tell him what it intends for him until the last minute. No, her impatience stems from disbelief. Why, Victor? Why? But the question is left hanging, blown away in the hot, dusty air.

  They stop at a tea-house.

  ‘Will this do?’

  She nods. ‘It’s as good as anywhere. How long have you got?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘Then it will have to do.’

  They find a table, they sit, the pram beside her – Maryanne, Victor, the child – taking in the clatter of cutlery, the buzz of talk, the gentle whirring of a fan in the corner of the room.

  He looks at the baby, listless in the heat. He is awkward, fidgeting with his cap. ‘Your forehead. Your cheeks. And jaw: especially the jaw.’ He seems pleased with what he sees.

  The gardens of the town rise up in front of her: Victor is wheeling away from her, storming off, the pronouncement of crafty bitch in his eyes.

  ‘You don’t think he’s yours, do you?’

  He turns to her, stunned. ‘I didn’t say that. Besides, I do. Just right now, though, it’s you I see. Not me.’

  ‘I can see you.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The eyes.’

  ‘Really?’ He is pleased.

  ‘He’s got the eyes of a little brooder. Are you a brooder, Victor?’

  The pleased look fades with the question. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘I can be.’

  She nods. ‘You see, we know so little of each other.’

  ‘Not so little.’

  ‘But not a lot. What have you ever really known of me?’

  He doesn’t get a chance to answer because a waitress appears, hot and flushed, pad and pencil in hand. When they have ordered their tea and cakes, they sit in silence. Like a bored married couple. And for a moment, Maryanne has an intimation of the life they might have had. Or is it just the day? Besides, it’s not a bored silence. It’s a silence that comes of having too much to say, having too little time and not knowing where to begin. But above all, a silence that comes of once having had so much to say, but missing the moment when such things might have been said, indeed needed to be said.

  He plunges in. ‘Was it hard?’

  She sighs. Now he asks. Only now. ‘Yes.’ It is a snappy yes, and Maryanne is suddenly aware of the lurking anger in her. The anger that has been there all the time. Not just with Victor, but all of them: his family she has never met, Father Geoghan, Mrs Collins, Mrs Collins, who lost her drawers, neighbours who fling feathers at you in the street and pronounce you a Hun’s whore, the shops full of accusing eyes, the door, the front door of the house that she couldn’t approach one morning. Was
it hard?

  ‘Did you have help?’

  ‘My sister. She’s a bit of a pioneer. She knows everything.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Yes, it was good. At least someone was there! I couldn’t have done it without her.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it.’

  Still no hint of regret or apology. He shows no sign of picking up the pointed way she speaks of at least someone being there. And ‘pleased’, he says. Pleased. Why, Victor? You never showed the slightest sign of caring. Why should you be pleased now? It’s just your guilt speaking, Victor, isn’t it? And instead of silently asking all this, she distils it.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why should you be pleased?’

  He is taken aback. ‘Well, because …’

  ‘… it makes you feel better?’

  ‘No … I mean, yes, but …’

  She doesn’t bother waiting for a more considered response. ‘I’m glad it happened the way it did. I never thought I’d get through it all. Not really. I seemed to be just dragging myself from one day to another. And some days never seemed to end. And some mornings I barely had the strength to begin. I didn’t think I could do it. But I did. I had it in me, after all. And I’m so glad I found that out. But was it hard? You bet it was.’

  He looks down at the child, wriggling in the heat. ‘You came through. You both have. You found the strength in yourself. I’m pleased for you. Yes, pleased.’ He pauses, a slight frown. ‘At some point during the year I became aware that I was thinking of you, and what you might be going through, more than I was thinking of Lizzie.’

  Lizzie, he explains, is the woman to whom he was engaged. The responsibility that weighed upon him so heavily that day in the gardens, that caused him to wheel off and leave her weeping, a blubbering mess in a public garden, in public view. A Maryanne she will never be again. But she nods; it is the first time she has heard the woman’s name. The first time, in fact, he has ever spoken of her directly.