Bog Child

by Siobhan Dowd

  ‘You can still come. Only my mam’s a bit busy visiting some relatives. So I’ll be doing the breakfasts.’

  ‘You can cook?’

  ‘Sort of. Can’t you?’

  ‘Not to save my life.’

  Fergus had the receiver crammed up to his ear. He lowered his voice. ‘Cora?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  He’d the wire corkscrewed around his fingers and wrist. He whispered, ‘Kissus resumus.’

  ‘Kissus maximus resumus.’ Cora giggled.

  He grinned and looked at the mouthpiece as if Cora’s face was imprinted there. He pressed it back to his ear. ‘Be seeing you.’

  ‘Yeah. Tuesday, Fergus.’

  That ‘r’ again. ‘Bye,’ he whispered.

  ‘Bye.’

  Her end clicked dead. He was about to put down the phone when he saw Theresa eavesdropping on him by the door to the lounge. She fluttered her lashes and patted her heart. ‘Kissis whatsits,’ she crooned.

  ‘Shush, T.’

  ‘Mam, Da,’ she caterwauled. ‘Fergus is in love. I heard him.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Fergus dropped the phone and chased her. He picked her up bodily, clapping his hand over her mouth. With muffled squeals, she shook her legs out. He marched her down to the girls’ bedroom and flung her down on the lower bunk.

  ‘Booty?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. Booty. And if you eavesdrop again, I’ll boot the booty. Right?’

  ‘Right, Fergus. Only if you do, I’ll put a curse on you.’ She did her evil stepmother hideous cackle, scratching the air.

  He pinched her kneecap. ‘Curse away. I’m cursed already. One more curse won’t hurt.’

  He left her to her cackling and went back to the hall. Soon, sooner, soonest. Two and a half more days till Tuesday morning. Sixty hours. Every hour would bring Cora closer.

  And take Joe further away.

  The phone receiver was still dangling over the table’s edge. He replaced it, biting his lip. The lounge door was ajar. He could hear the sound of football on TV. He sighed and went through.

  Da was watching Match of the Day. Cath was stretched out on the carpet, cutting out pictures of food from old magazines and arranging them on a piece of yellow card. Mam normally read magazines, filed her nails or sewed when Match of the Day was on. Today she sat in her chair, staring at the screen. The sewing box was open at her side. In her hand she held a large leather-covered button. Da’s cardigan, from which it came, was bundled on her lap. Her eyes were vacant.

  ‘Mam?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I rang the Dublin ladies. They’re coming.’

  ‘Shush,’ said Da. ‘And close that door. There’s a draught.’

  Fergus shut the door. ‘What are you doing, Cath?’

  ‘I’m making a get-well card for Joey.’

  ‘I said, shush, the pair of you,’ Da snapped. The sound of the football crowd, relayed from the Glasgow stadium, crescendo’d, then died away. Da groaned. ‘Celtic nearly scored. If you two hadn’t been gassing, maybe they would’ve.’

  ‘But, Da—’

  Da flapped his hand. Cath gave Fergus a Dunno-what’s-up-with-him look. She went back to cutting out a steaming bowl of soup. Mam sighed and unfurled the cardigan on her lap. She got a needle out of the sewing box and set about threading it.

  Fergus was about to leave them to it when the football play was interrupted by a newsflash. ‘We are interrupting tonight’s programme to bring news of a car bomb that has exploded in Londonderry,’ an announcer said. The scene panned to a female reporter, stationed by a police cordon on a nameless street. Her long blonde hair flew about her in the night breeze. She’d a microphone at the ready. Ambulance and police cars flashed. People milled around, some looking at the camera, some turning their faces away, others hurrying off. The sound hooked up to the waiting reporter. ‘Three people are thought to have been killed and several hospitalized in a bomb that went off about one hour ago,’ she said. ‘The device is thought to have been planted in a car parked outside the local Ulster Defence Regiment quarters, and reports are coming in that two women passers-by, who were out celebrating a friend’s wedding engagement, are among the dead. Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for the attack…A witness says the street was busy, as it usually is on a Saturday evening, then a sound like “giant metal sheets” crashing together was followed by screams and flying debris. It seems as if the bomb was intended to do maximum harm.’

  ‘Why would they interrupt the football with a report like that?’ raved Da. ‘Another bomb? What’s new about that?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Mam said, stabbing the button with her needle. ‘Nothing’s new about it. Not nowadays.’

  Fergus fumbled with the door handle and backed out of the room. Quietly, he closed the door after him. He stood with his forehead dropped against its smooth, blank wood, with a sensation of drowning overwhelming him. Gasping for air, he went outside into the back garden.

  He fingered his throat, staring at the pegged shirts hanging on the line. Jesus. Two women dead. He saw them, high as kites, arm in arm, laughing as they swayed down the street, the worse for wear after a night on the vodkas, boozed out of their brains. Then that awful sound, the clash of metal sheets, the flying parts. Was anything left of them? Did they even know what hit them? Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for the attack… He imagined a quiet backstreet room, maybe right here, in Drumleash. A man worked in the bright light of an angle-poise lamp, his face in shade, his nimble hands opening the brown packet, fixing explosives to fuses, setting the timer. Deus at work. The Incendiary Device himself. Michael Rafters.

  And himself, Fergus McCann, the courier.

  I killed them, he thought. As surely as if I’d planted the bomb myself.

  Thirty-four

  The frail moth grew strong, but the people grew weak. Rain fell, rust-coloured, the same day that three children died. They were buried on the sward in a freezing fog. ‘Enough is enough,’ I heard the mourners mutter. I walked from the sorrowing place behind my father. I passed the great dripping pine that grew by the palings and spun round, as if it was a game of peep-behind-the-curtain. But this was no game. The settlement stared at me with a hundred blazing eyes, coalesced with hate.

  I felt small then. It was as if I was less than knee-height, truly a creature from the Sidhe. My bones ached with the endlessness of urging them to grow. I saw myself as they saw me. I almost believed in the image of Mel the witch, as reflected in their hostile eyes.

  Rur stood at the gatepost as we filed by, his eyes fixed to the impenetrable mists of the middle distance, his intentions inscrutable.

  Fergus lay prone on the lawn, dressed only in his pyjamas, drifting. The sun slanted down, almost strong enough to burn. Visions of Mel died away. Instead, in and out of his head, the voice of Michael Rafters ebbed and flowed. A legitimate target, Fergus. The Incendiary Devices? We were only messing, Fergus. The ballot box isn’t enough. Can we count you in, Fergus?

  ‘Fergus!’ Theresa yelled from the back door. ‘Mam says shake a leg. Mass time.’

  He shut his eyes fast. Lord, I am not worthy to receive you. ‘Tell Mam I’m not going.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No buts. I’m staying put.’

  She must have darted off. A minute later, he heard Mam’s voice. ‘Fergus?’

  ‘I’m staying here, Mam.’

  ‘Are you sick?’

  Why not say yes? There’d be no more argument or fuss. ‘No.’

  ‘Hurry on, then.’

  ‘No. I’m not going. I don’t believe a word of it.’ But only say the word and I shall be healed. Fat chance.

  ‘Fergus?’

  The plea of generations of Irish Catholic mothers was in her voice. Fergus sat up and glared. ‘I’m not coming.’ She looked aghast, as if the Devil himself had taken possession of him. He fluttered a hand. ‘I’m sorry, Mam. I’m just worn out with all the praying.’

  ‘C’mon, Pat,’ he heard Da say. ‘Leav
e him be.’

  Fergus flopped back on the lawn. Gradually the sounds of the family departing faded away: the calls, the doors slamming, the gravel crunching, voices retreating down the close. He opened his eyes. The clouds inched their non-judgemental path across the sky. He drifted with them. Mel’s voice returned.

  First I was a child. Then I became a woman, trapped in the body of a child. But now I was a malign being, an incubus, sent to bring havoc and grief to the world of giants around me.

  A magpie chortled nearby, bringing him back to the present.

  ‘What should I do?’ he whispered. The sun skimmed behind a shallow cloud. ‘Do nothing?’ This was doing nothing and it was hell. Maybe the Devil really had moved into his soul. ‘Do something? But what?’

  Inside, the phone began to ring. He tried to ignore it. But it didn’t stop. Then he thought it might be Cora. Perhaps there was a change in their arrangements. Or maybe it was news of Joe.

  He rushed indoors, grabbing the receiver before it rang off. ‘Hello?’

  ‘H’lo, Fergus. It’s me. Michael.’

  ‘Christ. You.’

  ‘Thanks very much.’

  ‘What the hell d’you want now?’

  ‘You weren’t at church, Fergus. You’re slipping.’

  ‘Ha-ha.’

  ‘I was hoping to see you there. I don’t like talking on the phone. You know why.’

  ‘I can guess.’

  ‘One more run, Fergus. Tomorrow.’

  ‘You always say that. Then it goes on and on. And what about last night?’

  There was a silence. Then, ‘What about last night?’

  ‘How can you say that? The bomb. In Derry.’

  ‘Shh. You never know who’s listening.’

  ‘I don’t care who’s listening. They can listen away.’

  There was silence. ‘That…little incident, Fergus?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It wasn’t us, Fergus.’

  ‘No? Who then?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘To me it matters.’

  ‘Whoever it was, it wasn’t us. Ours is a strictly military target. Remember?’

  ‘I remember. But what difference does it make?’

  ‘All the difference. And it’s the last time I’m asking you, Fergus.’

  ‘The last time?’

  ‘Swear to God. This is the last phase of this…mission.’

  Fergus snorted. He nearly said, You can stuff your mission up your backside. But something shifted in his head. ‘The last time? You’re sure?’

  ‘Sure as sure.’

  Fergus thought. ‘OK. I’ll do it.’

  ‘Good man, Fergus. The lads won’t forget this. Never.’

  ‘I don’t care if they remember or forget. This is my last act. You’d better remember.’

  ‘I’ll remember, Fergus. The last act. Same time, same place?’

  ‘Fine.’ Fergus replaced the receiver. He went back into the garden and flopped back on the grass. He numbered the people in his life that he loved. Mam. Joe. Da. Uncle Tally. Cath. Theresa. Padraig. Cora. Felicity.

  Do nothing. Do something. A cortège of dark clouds moved in from over the mountain. He waited. The first drop fell on his cheek. He squeezed his eyelids shut. The last act.

  I passed Rur on the sward and I turned to face the hostile crowd. I clasped my wrists together and held them out before me, offering them up to be bound with rope. ‘Take me,’ I said. ‘Do what you will with me.’ What else was there for me in that world of starvation, with my stunted body an object of such loathing?

  Soon rain pelted down, swift and furious. Fergus didn’t move. His pyjamas were sodden. He imagined a lightning bolt crackling down to earth, finishing him. Take me. ‘OK, Mel, my girl,’ he whispered. ‘If you can do it, so can I.’

  Thirty-five

  Uncle Tally came in through the back door after dinner.

  ‘Look what the cat brought in,’ said Mam over the washing-up.

  ‘No need to bite his head off,’ Da snapped, shaking out the Roscillin Star. It was plastered with pictures of Lennie Sheehan’s funeral.

  There was silence.

  ‘I’m here to take Fergus out driving, Pat. His test’s coming up.’

  ‘Your test?’ Mam said, glaring at Fergus.

  Fergus shrugged. ‘I applied ages ago.’

  ‘He’ll breeze through it. He drives better than me these days,’ Uncle Tally said.

  ‘That’s not saying a lot,’ joked Da.

  Mam flicked the suds off her fingers and let out the water. ‘On you both go, then. Remember the L-plates, Fergus.’

  Da extracted the car keys from his pocket. ‘Mind out for the sheep,’ he warned. It was what he always said. Fergus never knew if he meant actual sheep or the sheep-like drivers who overtook just because the person in front overtook.

  He and Uncle Tally left and got into the Austin Maxi. Fergus didn’t bother getting the L-plates out of the glove compartment and Uncle Tally said nothing. Fergus reversed out of the drive.

  ‘Mind the gate,’ Uncle Tally warned.

  He’d barely an inch on the passenger side. He was getting as bad as Mam. He straightened up and reversed again.

  ‘That’s better.’

  Fergus drove to the top of the close.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ Uncle Tally said. ‘The mountain road?’

  ‘How about somewhere different?’

  ‘Like where?’

  ‘The sea. I haven’t seen it in ages.’

  ‘Have we time?’

  ‘Mam and Da aren’t wanting the car today, far as I know.’

  ‘OK. The sea it is.’

  Fergus drove around the lough. There were three handsome white sails out, veering into a brisk wind, and two brightly painted rowing boats. Of the swans there was no sign. They took the main road. The soldier on duty at the border barely glanced at them as they went through. They cut cross-country towards Bundoran.

  ‘I don’t fancy the crowds,’ Fergus said as they approached signs for the resort.

  ‘Keep going. There’s a spit of land I know, with a fine strand. I haven’t been there in years.’

  ‘It’s too chilly to swim.’

  ‘It’s always too chilly to swim in this godforsaken place.’

  ‘Why don’t you ever go on holiday, Unk? To Majorca or somewhere?’

  ‘No mon, no fun,’ Uncle Tally quipped. ‘Turn right at the next junction.’

  Fergus turned and followed a narrow road. Views of shining sea opened up. It was hard to tell where the water ended and the sky began. Fermanagh’s shower-clouds had gone. Here the sun shone through a brilliant haze.

  ‘Jesus, Unk. There’s a permanent rain-cloud over Drumleash compared to this.’

  ‘It’s the mountain. Clouds always hang about over high ground.’

  ‘So why do we live up there? We’re all fools.’

  ‘We are that. Every last one of us. Pull in here.’

  Fergus drew up in a lay-by hard on the coastline. ‘Why didn’t you ever move away, Unk?’

  ‘Dunno. Call me foolish, but I love Drumleash. It must be an acquired taste.’

  ‘Yeah. And maybe it takes a lifetime to acquire it.’ Fergus turned off the engine but kept his arms resting on the steering wheel. Uncle Tally wound down the window. Dry grasses hissed. Bright yellow flowers fluttered in the scrub. Beyond was a strip of bone-white sand and then the endless shimmer of sea. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to live out here?’

  Uncle Tally shook his head.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The ocean is vast, Fergus. You can see no end to it. It’s like looking at eternity.’

  ‘Isn’t that what’s great about it?’

  ‘For you, perhaps. For me, Fergus, it’s a reminder.’

  ‘A reminder of what?’

  ‘Death.’

  Fergus stared out at the gentle void. He could see two lads’ heads bobbing, a trail of their footprints across the sand, leading back
to a mini-mound of clothing. ‘I remember now, Unk.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The last time you brought us here. Years ago. It was the time you saved Joey’s life.’

  ‘I didn’t save him, Fergus. I just stopped him going out beyond his depth.’

  ‘You did save him. He was caught in a current.’

  Uncle Tally raised protesting hands.

  ‘Afterwards you told us not to tell Mam about it.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes. That’s how I knew it was serious.’

  Uncle Tally laughed. ‘Well. It must have been serious, I s’pose, if I actually got in the water.’

  ‘You ran in, shouting, then you got hold of Joe’s neck and swam sideways. I was in the shallows, shaking with terror.’

  ‘You’ve an elephant’s memory.’

  ‘He was nearly blue when you got out.’

  Uncle Tally took out his fags and lit one. ‘Never did like the sea.’ He smoked without offering one to Fergus.

  ‘Unk?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I forgot to tell you what Joe said to me. The last time I visited him.’

  ‘He mentioned me, did he?’

  ‘Yes. He asked how you were. I said nothing about…you know what.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cindy.’

  ‘Oh. Cindy.’ Uncle Tally looked along the length of his cigarette as if it was lopsided. ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘Not much. Just to tell you it was “all for the best”.’

  ‘ “All for the best”?’

  ‘Those were the words.’

  Uncle Tally took a last drag on the cigarette, then stubbed it out. ‘What was all for the best?’

  ‘I dunno, Unk. That’s all he said. I thought he meant Cindy.’

  ‘Yeah, s’pose that was it. Cindy.’

  ‘Unk?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s sad, isn’t it? Your saving Joe all those years ago. And now this.’ Fergus pointed through the windshield as if the view beyond constituted whatever lay at the end of starvation.

  Uncle Tally grimaced. ‘You have to wonder.’

  ‘Wonder what, Unk?’

  Uncle Tally didn’t answer. Instead he lit another fag. The silence in the car grew. He exhaled. ‘They say drowning’s a pleasant death.’