On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland

by Joseph Éamon Cummins

To the west, rain clouds still hung over a wild, hissing Atlantic. He trudged along a line of storm-torn fuchsia, battling wind and hill and a weekend that had left him craving sleep. Just before Greyfriars B&B the green Escort slowed alongside him.

  ‘Tony, Lenny’s not with you?’ Cilla shouted.

  For a second he caught himself smiling, a rarity in recent days. He watched her manoeuvre onto the shoulder and into a tight 360-degree turn. The feeling in him, he thought, was something like belongingness; though he wasn’t sure that was it. Whatever, he felt taken by the unexpected comfort she induced in him, her unique brand of corny: jeans, boots, curls and ruggedness. And intensity. And looks.

  ‘Where’s Lenny?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Dublin. Coming back tonight, the late train.’

  ‘She’s not in Dublin. She was – ’

  ‘She’s with my sister, Kate, in Dublin.’

  ‘No! No, she’s not. She was here yesterday.’

  ‘That’s not possible. I saw her in Dublin. I mean I talked to her there.’

  ‘When? When did you talk to her?’

  ‘Night before last. Saturday. I phoned her there. Why? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Paddy met her yesterday. Mairead told her you got the train to Dublin. She was depressed, Paddy said, very down. Now she’s missing, she’s nowhere in the village. Paddy’s racing around like a madman.’

  ‘You sure about this?’

  ‘I’m telling you, she was here in Aranroe yesterday; she’s not here now.’

  Tony sank into his thoughts.

  ‘What? What is it? You know something?’

  He shook his head. What was in his mind was too frightening to think.

  ‘Leo’s in a state. He went to Greyfriars with her, looking for you. It’s just over an hour now since she rang him.’

  ‘She’s at the Beehive. Or in the Horslips. Got to be.’

  She’s not, I told you. I’ve searched, so has Paddy. We were praying she was with you. The weather’s set to turn.’

  ‘Lenny phoned Leo? What are you saying? She called Leo an hour ago, and?’

  Cilla’s eyes turned away then back to him. ‘You ready, for a shock?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I love you, dad. That’s what she said, nothing else. Now you know.’

  ‘Father, daughter: I figured that. So what, what does it mean?’

  ‘She never called him dad or da or father, never in her life. And she thinks you took off. I hope I’m wrong, but it could mean she was saying goodbye.’

  ‘Oh Christ. Intinn Island. She told me, she said she, she – ’

  ‘What? Say it.’

  ‘She said her soul, her spirit, would always . . . Devil’s Cove! It’s Devil’s Cove, I’m sure.’

  ‘Let’s hope to God you’re wrong. C’mon, get in.’

  Tony threw his backpack into the car. Before they could pull out, the blaring yellow taxi drew up alongside them with Paddy, Eilis and Madeleine onboard.

  He was the last person to see her, Paddy reported breathlessly. Drove her up yesterday to the Abbey. Should have said to Leo about how she was; thought it was just a little mix-up, be fixed in no time. He was collecting Leo now, to drive along the road to Killadoon. Eilis and Madeleine were hiking over the head, to the beach. Wherever she’d taken off to, she’d a good hour head-start.

  ‘Tell Eilis the wind on the head will be crazy,’ Tony said. ‘Could sweep someone over the edge.’

  ‘Go, Paddy, you go on. We’re going to the loch,’ Cilla said. ‘If we don’t find her, we’ll try cross over to Intinn, Devil’s Cove.’

  The taxi sped up the hill, the Escort in the opposite direction.

  Out beyond Loch Doog, beyond the pincer headlands, the ocean roared like thunder, throwing up mountains of white spume. From the mainland they scanned the length of Intinn, a mile offshore but densely wooded. Nothing moved on the island but windblown trees and bushes. They then bustled down to the water, where a cluster of small rowboats bumped together. The brown boat was missing, the Quins’ boat, Cilla declared; no one other than Lenny would have taken it, and she was not a strong rower.

  They scoured the strait separating them from the island. Nothing but water and a few lobster pot markers.

  ‘It’s doable,’ Tony said. ‘Close enough to get over there.’

  ‘Wind’s kicked up in the last half hour; it was calm up to then,’ Cilla said emphatically. ‘She made it across. Definitely.’

  Tony grabbed the line of a tar-black boat and waded out to it, Cilla behind him. He turned, raised his hand. She slogged past him.

  ‘No, Cilla! I don’t want you with me.’

  ‘Not your call,’ she said, and climbed into the boat.

  Standing knee-deep in the slapping water, he watched her ready both oars in their locks, exuding her own stamp of invincibility. The instant, fleeting as it was, felt to him like it fused their spirits, and maybe their destinies. At her insistence they sat abreast, each grasping a heavy oar.

  Out past the headlands the flap and furl of the ocean smacked the little boat high and low, racked the oars against joints and muscle and washed surf over them. Farther out, gyrating air currents sucked them into a swirl. No word was uttered by either, no sigh or cry or curse. Nor did either break from the rises and drops and pulls that kept them stable and lugged the island closer.

  Halfway across, something hit their boat, a jarring thud that sent them chasing after their oars. Seconds later it hit again, this time appearing alongside them. The brown boat. Empty. Both oars inside, lying side by side, under water.

  ‘Doesn’t mean a thing,’ Cilla roared over the hiss and rumble. ‘Broke off in the storm. Happens.’ She re-sank her oar and pulled harder, forcing Tony to match her, all the way across.

  On Intinn Island they slogged up to Rock Cottage. Found it locked. No sign of life. Tony searched around the side. No key.

  ‘Fuck it, don’t do this!’ he yelled toward the dark clouds now stealing the blue sky. ‘Don’t do this to me!’

  Cilla tugged at him. ‘Not your fault! None of it.’

  He broke her hold. ‘She’s gone to Devil’s Cove to die.’

  ‘No, she’s not. Stop saying that! We’ll go there, now. If she’s not there, she’s back on the mainland.’

  He shot away, Cilla at his heels, through ferns and whitethorn, not certain he’d remember the trail Lenny had shown him. But soon they emerged onto a familiar stretch of shoreline; they raced past rocks and tide-pools with never more than a couple of strides between them, until together they rounded the tip of Intinn and onto Devil’s Cove, into a vortex of elements.

  He halted there and stared as though hypnotised by some invisible force. Everything was intact in front of him: Lenny reclining, beautiful, full of life, full of sun, him beside her, serene in this new world they had brought to each other, each on fire, on the white sand, newly free, she teasing him into swimming naked, then lying together, soaking up the world’s warmth. All in a flash, the life he had lived in one single month.

  Cilla’s shouting snapped him alert. They pushed on, down the curving beach, searching land and the thundering waves.

  Nothing here for him, the voice inside his head insisted, no human life, just the Devil’s winds and waters, no sun, no child at play, no joy-filled woman; just dreams, hers and his, drowning in a world in which he could no longer believe.

  ‘Look!’ Cilla’s yell jolted him once again, from higher up on the sloping sand. ‘The rocks! The rocks!’

  His eyes shot to a cluster of sea-rocks three hundred feet away. In the erupting tide a rose-pink form was beating against the weed-encrusted boulders. They ran toward it, straining to maintain sight of it.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Cilla cried, reaching for him. ‘Holy Jesus!’

  They raced into the surf together. The form kept tossing chaotically, ballooning, disappearing and reappearing. Now well out of his depth, he battled through walls of water, arms working machine-like, until he reached the ro
se-pink form.

  A nylon jacket! No body. He searched about. Lenny’s ski jacket. No body. An empty jacket. He started back toward shore. No reason to believe the worst, he told himself, and he wouldn’t, he just wouldn’t. She was powerful in any water, he’d seen that, a fish, dolphin-like, a survivor.

  But as his feet found the bottom Cilla’s face tore at his hope. From twenty feet he saw the agony in her, saw that within her lay something only she knew, the gravity of which he could not undo. He could turn around, swim away, swim out, not face it; the notion overtook his mind; no he couldn’t, he couldn’t wipe away what Cilla knew, nor turn back time, nor change what was coming.

  Nearer to her, her bearing told him she would lead him, that he should follow. She circled around a set of giant beach rocks, toward the spot where he and Lenny had sat watching the red sun sink into the western ocean. He trailed after her, dead to the elements, asleep to all but the beating inside him.

  On the sand lay clothing neatly folded, anchored by three sea stones. Cilla dropped to her knees: blue jeans, black turtle-neck sweater, sneakers, and tucked between them a folded white cap. From inside the cap she extracted an empty pill bottle, then a gold chain with a tiny cross of Connemara marble. She held it out to him, kept holding it out. Her hand took his, fought it into shape, and into his palm she placed the chain and small green cross.

  ‘Yours,’ she said, squeezing the hand closed. ‘It’s okay.’

  He spun away, thrashed into the surf, and there he stood against wind and rushing waves, staring out along the long black promontory, out past Finger Rock, a twenty-foot granite needle pointing heavenward out of the depths.

  In a blaze of speed he took off along the waterline, climbed up onto the promontory, and continued running out. Cilla roared his name, bolted after him, then halted. About two-hundred yards out, at the end of the promontory, a lone figure stood out against the dark rocks, a woman, purple swimsuit, poised above the tempest, about to dive in.

  Cilla all but caught up to Tony, now slowed by rock-slime and weed.

  ‘Lenny, it’s Lenny!’ he shouted, picking his way forward. Cilla followed his course until they came together, breathless, with no safe next step. He stepped back, sprang into the air. His feet hit the landing spot but continued sliding, taking him over the edge and down into a crevice. In two feet of swirling tide, he righted himself, took stock: throbbing shoulder, right thigh hurting, pounding head. With bloody brine washing over him he tested his legs. Nothing broken, he was fairly sure; he’d been worse.

  Cilla’s arm appeared, reaching down; he gripped it, climbed up. He continued picking his way to the jagged tip of the promontory, where moments before, Lenny had been standing.

  But not now.

  Then he saw her, a blond head rising and sinking in the surf. But swimming. She was swimming, strongly. Swimming out.

  ‘Lenny! Lenny!’ Cilla yelled over and over, waving frantically. Tony did the same, bellowing as loud as his lungs would allow. But the furore carried off their calls. He pressed his palm against the bleeding wound in his thigh, then tore off his boots.

  ‘No! You can’t go in there! Oh Jesus, look at your leg!’ Cilla’s fists held on to him. ‘No! It’s suicide. You’ll die, the current will take you, there’s nothing you can do!’

  He prised away her grip, discarded his jacket and sweatshirt, then pulled a silver ring off his finger. ‘My father’s. Look after it.’

  ‘Don’t go in, please, don’t.’

  From an elevated ledge he glanced back. ‘I’d do it for you,’ he said.

  Cilla offered no further protest. He jumped. A big rebounding breaker swallowed him up, carried him out toward the current, nearer to the pitching golden head. He plunged beneath the surface, stroked till his lungs were empty, his sinuses sour with salt. As a wall of water threw him up, he saw her again, caught in the Africa current, but close, so close to shoot new hope through him.

  His wounded leg was numbing. But she was almost reachable, when he could see her. Another sustained effort closed the gap even more, to three or four body lengths. Then doubt hit. His clumsiness in the water had burned his energy, had him in oxygen debt. Had he enough left, he asked, to get to her and get them to safety. The only response he heard was that he should go to her. For her, for him, and because it felt like they’d be stronger together. When he caught sight of her she had stopped stroking. And the current now had them both in its grasp.

  Just one more burst would unite them, he felt certain. He blotted out the weakness in his leg, fought against the unrelenting ocean, then dipped under the last wave separating them, and resurfaced.

  But Lenny Quin, in that spot moments before, was gone.

  His body jack-knifed high, plunged down through froth and haze into a muffled, low-buzzing realm. In the greyness, he groped feverishly, coiling, reaching, searching. No Lenny. He pressed deeper, lungs on fire. Nobody, nothing, in this near-lightless world.

  And still going down, he had no more air, salt and seawater getting into his stomach. Death, he asked again, death today, with Lenny somewhere near, near him, neither alone?

  Then a siren screamed in his mind, branded resignation too comfortable an end, a lie. He halted his descent, turned back up. Left her to her spirit’s home.

  A rush of adrenaline kicked him higher; then nothing impinged his senses until the dark changed to greys and green frothy chaos, and he broke through into noise and light and oxygen, expulsing brine, still stuck in the current.

  He treaded water, twisting and searching for her blond hair, stung by new guilt. On the storm now rode his father’s voice, his mother’s, then Kate’s soft cries calling to him, and flashes of Pat and Violet, all invoking him. And Joel Vida too, the man who’d made him see that the world was inside him if he would look. Then his father’s mission face loomed larger, hand pointing, something to be done. And suddenly he understood; it was clear.

  He filled his lungs. Another jack-knife sent him down through a womb of echoes and fluid darkness, into noiselessness, his father alongside, still pointing, stroke after stroke deeper into blackness. And two eyes lit up, Jesus Pomental, warm, peaceful eyes passing slowly, eleven years after that fateful Newark day. He kicked deeper, blind hands groping, muscles stinging, as the watching chorus approved, even as he grew weaker. Once again the urge came to suck the brine into his deprived lungs, settle with this strange peace.

  Just then it touched him, something physical, along his arm, streaming past, like silky seaweed. His flailing hands found nothing. But then it touched again, now through his fingers. He gripped it. Hair. A human head. Cold human head. Heavy, limp, in his hands, eyes, nose, lips, a string with a key attached.

  A world inside him lit up, brought power, and mysteriously the realm was swirling now, chaotic again, light from above getting brighter, if his legs could keep moving, arms hold on, lungs not burst, brain stay alive, if the force that had pushed him this far could push him farther; then a paroxysm of agony carried him through into the storm, cold head still in his keeping.

  Lenny Quin. Beautiful. Blue.

  Stealing air from the gale, he breathed into her as though the gale would give her life. But no life came. He roared into her face.

  Now at the end of his physical strength, sweeping to the south, he felt heavier, sinking, slowly submerging. There was no rescue, he knew, no miracles. All he could do was hold her to him, try to keep their heads above water moments longer. Then to forever, whatever that meant. He pulled her higher, tighter to him; they’d travel together, paired to this union from opposite worlds; end of loneliness, injustice, all hurt and regret, travelling together. Their heads slipped under. But the last of his heart interrupted their sinking, pushed their faces back into air, for moments. She had become too heavy in his arms, her beautiful purple and blond form; she was taking him under. He’d go with her. Share her wish, Devils Cove. Quit the world of storms.

  Without air or strength now. None needed. Locked together they sank. He, i
nto a time of old peace. And the chaos faded.

  * * *

  It jabbed into his back. Sharp. Scraping. A presence. Pulling at his hair, pulling at him, until they weren’t sinking any more but moving up, and now the presence was a force beneath them, pushing up, travelling with them, forcing them back to the storm, bursting through with them.

  Green eyes, mouth moving, shouting at him, in a world of no sound. Cilla. Cilla deBurca, a blur, slapping his face, slapping his face, slapping. Cilla, soundless, telling him, showing him, hand pumping across him.

  ‘Finger Rock!’ she yelled into his ear. ‘Can you make it?’

  He caught her words, barely, tried to shake his head, didn’t know if Cilla was real, if anything was real, if this was the place beyond, or a place along the way to somewhere else.

  ‘Tony! I’ll be behind you. Go on!’

  His senses sharpened, numbness giving way to pain, remnants of strength returning.

  ‘I have her! I won’t let her go,’ Cilla yelled. ‘You go!’

  He released Lenny into Cilla’s arms. And after fumbling he got his body working, began moving away.

  Cilla waited for a let-up, then propping Lenny’s head she started after him. But a cresting wave whipped the pair up and out toward the open ocean. When the crash came, Cilla re-surfaced rapidly, fingers knotted to the purple swimsuit, and once more she pressed her air through Lenny’s blue lips. This time the effort drew a rush of seawater out of Lenny and a single loud moan. Cilla battled on until eventually catching a confluence of water and wind that drove them out of the current and deposited them within reach of Finger Rock, where Tony waited.

  They got Lenny to a flat table-sized slab above the water level. There they slumped down and huddled over the comatose figure, shielding her from the breaking waves. Cilla’s trembling fingers probed Lenny’s neck for a pulse. And a second time, with increasing distress. Tony intervened, tried to make his breath revive Lenny until Cilla nudged him aside and began pressing on her chest. They worked in turns, persistent, alternating, to no avail. Tony’s head and shoulders eventually dropped, his face resting on Lenny’s. Cilla stared, motionless but for shivering. Then Tony started again: thirty, forty, fifty compressions, until in the end submitting to Cilla’s constraining embrace, and they held each other, still shields for Lenny against the storm.