Night Swimming

by Doreen Finn

  As expected, Judith couldn’t come because of her American wives’ gathering, which she insisted Chris had known about, while he, equally adamant, denied all knowledge of any such gathering. Beth and I had heard their voices, raised and frustrated, as we listened to Queen outside, the previous evening. I’d eaten dinner in the flat with Beth, a margherita pizza made by Judith, quite possibly the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten up to that point. Beth had rolled her eyes at her parents’ bickering.

  ‘They’re always like this,’ she had said, reaching for her glass of lemonade. Judith seemed to have an unending supply of lemonade in the small fridge, rising early each morning to squeeze lemons and boil sugar.

  Gemma was coming as the other adult. It had been Beth’s idea. Chris wanted to go to Wicklow for the day, bring a picnic, go for a hike, find a river to splash in. Breathe some cooler air.

  Sarah had been enthusiastic. ‘What a great idea! What can I make?’

  Beth had been vague. ‘I’ll ask my mom.’

  And so Sarah had spent half an hour making sandwiches, assembling all the fruit she could find in the kitchen and putting it in a brown paper bag, and slicing a cake she had made the day before.

  ‘Is your mother looking forward to it?’ she asked Beth.

  ‘Oh, my mom can’t go. She’s got this thing on, something with other American women who live here. A picnic of some sort.’

  ‘So who’s going to go as well?’ Sarah didn’t say what woman , but it hung there, unvoiced in the hot kitchen. Sarah didn’t trust men to keep as close an eye on children as a woman would. Men didn’t notice things like wet shoes and clothes, tended not to take note of who ate what and how much. They usually failed to do a full sweep of belongings when things were being packed up, and they more than likely fed too many treats to children and not enough proper food.

  Beth shook her head, pulled a grape off the bunch on the table. ‘No clue. Gemma?’

  Sarah hesitated. It was a fraction of a second’s wavering, but I caught it. Sarah’s eyes darted to the kitchen doors, beyond which Chris was calling over the wall to Daniel’s mother, asking if he and Stevie would like to go too.

  Gemma came into the kitchen in that moment, her painting shirt on, her hair caught up with a pencil. ‘Gemma what?’ She poured two jam jars of paint-cloudy water down the sink, rinsed them and refilled them, as Sarah murmured a caution about wasting water. ‘Mother,’ Gemma chided Sarah, ‘I’m not pouring painty water on the bloody flowers. The world won’t dry out because I’m rinsing a bit of glass.’

  Sarah said nothing.

  Beth jammed her hands into the pockets of her shorts. ‘My dad’s taking us out for the day, but my mom can’t go and I said that maybe you could come instead.’

  Gemma brushed at a clot of dried paint. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She too looked out at the garden, to where Chris was charming Mrs Sullivan over the garden wall. Sure, we’ll take care of him! He’ll be a big help when we’re looking at creatures that crawl. Mrs Sullivan’s laugh, restrained, self-conscious. I could almost imagine her blessing herself.

  ‘You’re busy, Gemma,’ Sarah said briskly. ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘But you have those curtains to finish, don’t you?’

  Sarah waved away the suggestion. ‘I’ll finish them this evening. We’ll be back early.’

  Chris stepped up to the kitchen door, tapped the glass with his fingers. ‘Morning, ladies.’ He touched his forehead with two fingers, a mock salute I had seen him do several times now.

  Gemma’s hand flew to her hair, to the pencil that was stuck like a chopstick in her bun. Sarah’s eyes swivelled in her daughter’s direction and Gemma’s hand went back to join the other one. She pulled at the fish charm on her silver bracelet, kept her face neutral.

  ‘Good morning, Chris,’ Sarah said, tearing paper towels off a roll and folding them.

  Sarah didn’t much care for Chris. Unfailingly polite, Sarah would never let Chris know, but I knew. I could tell. Her usual warmth had dissipated, her smile faded.

  ‘I’m sure baby girl here has told you ladies that I’m taking her on a day trip. Wicklow. The garden of Ireland.’ He laughed. ‘I know Megan is joining us, but we’re a mom short. Maybe one of you wouldn’t mind chaperoning? I have no problem bringing a car load of kids anywhere, but sometimes mothers like to know that their babies are going to be fed, that they won’t be forgotten some place by a careless man.’ Chris laughed again, a manly, heaving sound, the like of which we were unused to hearing in this small, hot kitchen. He may have been speaking to both Sarah and Gemma, but his gaze was on my mother only. Gemma tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  Sarah turned away, occupied herself with putting things into our big picnic basket. Annoyance radiated from her, in the rigid set of her shoulders, her lips clamped shut. She did not look up when Gemma said that she would go.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to interrupt the artistic flow,’ Chris said, leaning against the door frame, his arms folded, a smile widening his mouth.

  ‘You won’t,’ my mother replied, arching an eyebrow. ‘When do you want to leave?’

  ‘As soon as.’

  Beyond the door, the morning had brightened and the heat palpitated. The smell from the piggery intensified. It was a good day to go exploring.

  27

  ‘Say it again.’

  Gemma laughed. ‘Why? They’re just words.’

  ‘I like how they sound.’

  ‘ Ath na Sceire .’

  ‘And it means?’

  ‘The ford of the rocky place.’

  ‘Very cool indeed.’

  We were passing through Enniskerry. Gemma had been reading the signposts in Irish, sounding out the words and translating them. This was something new. I’d never thought of my mother as an Irish speaker. I told her so.

  ‘I’m not, Megan. Knowing a few place names doesn’t make me fluent.’

  Chris smiled. ‘It’s pretty impressive, though.’

  Gemma shook her head. Her hair, caught by the warm breeze that came in through the open car windows, lifted off her shoulders. ‘It’s not. After fourteen years of learning it at school, being able to say a few place names isn’t that remarkable.’

  ‘They’re great names, though, when you think of it. All that poetry in every word. And then the English forced the beauty out, with their ridiculous phonetics.’

  A discussion on the Troubles followed, which I didn’t bother listening to. A car bomb had exploded in Belfast early that morning. I’d heard it on the news on the kitchen radio, before Sarah had reached over and switched the radio off. Seven people dead. Buildings evacuated. The army on the streets. The newspaper photos of Belfast were familiar now, the rubble piled to the sides of the roads, the smoke suspended in the air, the children, unsmiling, staring at the cameras. Chris asked Gemma about the Troubles. You have to look at history, Gemma said. It’s never as simple as it seems.

  Beside me, Beth leaned her head against the door, her hair blowing in long sheets about her face. Her mouth was set in a single line of bad temper. Stevie hadn’t come with us. He’d been at a daytime summer camp for the week and this was his last day. Stevie had already left by the time Chris asked Mrs Sullivan if the boys could come with us. Daniel and I ignored Beth’s sulking. I was wedged between the two of them on the back seat, the leatherette covers sticking to my bare legs.

  Chris nudged Gemma and pointed to another black and white signpost. ‘This one?’

  ‘Kilmacanoge. Cill Mocheanóg . The church of Mocheanog.’

  ‘Who the hell is Mocheanog? What a name!’

  ‘No idea. Some local saint, probably.’

  ‘He was Saint Patrick’s friend,’ Daniel piped up. ‘He baptised the Children of Lir.’

  We all turned to stare at Daniel, who had turned his face once again to the window. I nudged him. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘ Lives of the Saints .’

  Gemma reached around and patted his knee. ‘Well done, Dani
el! That’s brilliant.’

  Chris eyed Daniel through the rear-view mirror. ‘My man. Amazing.’

  Daniel remained quiet, but his cheeks were flushed. He looked very happy with himself.

  Even Beth looked impressed, her sulk momentarily discarded.

  ‘Well, it looks like I’m travelling in a car filled with geniuses,’ Chris said.

  We were all quiet after that, for a few moments. Chris let his arm dangle out the window as he drove through the winding rural roads. His fingers on the steering wheel kept rhythm with the music on the radio.

  Gemma leaned forward and turned the radio up. ‘I love this song.’ She turned her face to the window, mouthing the words quietly to herself. Chris glanced at her, a smile hovering at his lips. Maybe this is what it would be like to have a father. Another adult, someone else who cared. And someone who had his own private world with my mother, a quiet place that they could slip in and out of almost without being noticed. I’d never missed having a father and it wasn’t something that crossed my mind much, but here, now, in this big car filled with people from different families, I wondered what it would be like. There would be other days to remember like this one, other car trips with the windows down, music on the radio and squabbling in the back seat.

  Immediately, I felt guilty for imagining such scenes, felt as though I was betraying Gemma and Sarah after all they had done to provide me with everything I needed for a happy childhood. I was frequently reminded by them of the many children who had less than I, who had nothing. Children born in famine, in war. Abandoned babies, children doing their growing up in homes that weren’t theirs, without their mothers. Children in the laundries and industrial schools, their lives shrouded behind high stone walls that kept them in and, more importantly, kept the rest of the world out. It was only later, as an adult, that I would come to know more about these particular children, would read with horror of the lost lives and wonder how I had never known.

  I had never doubted how much I was loved, how wanted I was. And yet still I’d allowed that other life, the one I hadn’t lived, to seep into my thoughts – even if just for a few moments.

  My mother leaned back against the headrest, her lips forming the shape of the song lyrics, and her happiness evident. I loved her. I snaked my hand through the front seats and touched her cheek. She patted my hand with hers and we stayed like that for a long time.

  We wound our way over narrow roads that spiralled through the countryside. Other signposts flashed by: Djouce. The Fortified Height. Roundwood. An Tóchar. The Causeway. Glendalough. Gleann Da Loch . The Valley of Two Lakes. Laragh. An Láithreach . The Ruins.

  Finally, when Beth began to complain of feeling carsick, and the three of us in the back seat were tired of being flung around at every twist in the road, Chris pulled the car into a lay-by and switched off the engine. The silence that rushed in to fill the gap left in the wake was as sudden as it was complete. Then the engine ticked. The keys jangled on their chain. The road map crackled on Gemma’s lap as she unfolded it. Seat leather sucked at our skin as we shifted. The door creaked open and Daniel’s feet hit the grass.

  ‘Where are we?’ I asked, unsticking my thighs from the hot seat. Tiny hexagons had imprinted themselves in my skin, bumpy to the touch.

  ‘Not far from the Wicklow Gap,’ Gemma said, consulting the map.

  Chris opened his door and got out. ‘This is gorgeous,’ he said, shading his eyes against the sun. ‘Come on, everyone out. Look at this view!’

  28

  The immense silence stretched infinitely, it seemed, in every direction, further than we could see. We disturbed the stillness with our very presence. Around us, our voices echoed. The slam of the car boot bounced back to us, our footsteps on the dry earth scratchy and loud. We were intruders where we did not belong.

  The sea, a single line of blue on the horizon, provided no breeze to cool the landscape. A sheep bleated in a nearby field, scratching itself against the wooden gate. I felt sorry for the poor thing in its woolly coat. A cow lowed out of sight.

  We were infinitesimal beneath a sky so bright we could not see it, the sun burning out of sight. Thirst made my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth.

  ‘Well, folks,’ Chris said, rubbing his hands together. ‘This seems as good as place as any to start our expedition.’

  Gemma shaded her eyes with her hand. ‘Are you sure you can just leave the car here?’

  ‘I can’t see why there’d be a problem. It’s hardly populated around here.’

  ‘I know, but still.’

  ‘Gemma, honey, it’s fine.’ Chris gestured at the car, quiet now, the engine cooled and no longer ticking. ‘Who’s going to come along? This looks like a legit place to leave it. We’re in off the road, not blocking anyone. It’s fine.’ He pointed towards a narrow pathway. ‘Let’s check that trail out.’

  ‘Do we have to?’ Beth dropped her bag on the ground. A small cloud of dust rose in protest. ‘It’s too hot to go walking.’

  Chris consulted the map again. ‘Look. This trail leads down that hill there. There’s a creek you can swim in. We can eat there, take another hike. Come on, Bethy. We’re in Ireland. Time to explore!’

  He set off, his sandals kicking up dust as he strode. Obediently, we followed him in single file along the tapered path. On either side were fields, their boundaries marked by low, scruffy bushes. The grass was dry and yellowed. The animals were tired, lethargic-looking. In the distance, a red tractor hummed.

  The blankets were heavy to carry and too warm on my skin. Beth straggled further behind, kicking her bag every so often. Gemma caught up with Chris, and I watched them side by side, her hair lifting off her shoulders in rhythm with her striding. Gemma held Sarah’s picnic basket. Her camera, I now noticed, hung on its wide strap around her neck. Chris gripped the cooler in one hand and a bag in the other. Bits of conversation floated back to me, but nothing that I could draw much meaning from. Beside me, Daniel kept stopping to look at things on the ground: insects, plants, anything at all that caught his attention. Each time he moved, his fishing net, tucked in his bag, was like a flag, the red net swishing around on the long pole.

  Chris looked back over his shoulder. ‘Dan! Come on, little dude, we’re never going to get anywhere if you keep stopping.’ Chris and Gemma were quite a bit ahead of us now and I didn’t want to lose sight of them.

  Beth, who’d caught up with us, gestured vaguely at the ground. ‘Daniel, I’ll never figure out what you find so interesting about all that.’

  I again encouraged him to hurry up. Chris and Gemma were nearly out of sight.

  ‘Go on ahead and leave me alone.’ Daniel was on his knees, picking up a tiny insect. He slipped it in his jar and tightened the lid. Air holes he had punched in it previously meant that the insect wouldn’t suffocate before Daniel got a chance to examine it.

  ‘It’s like being in a lab,’ Beth said, ‘every time I’m around you.’

  ‘Then don’t be around me,’ Daniel said, stowing his jar carefully back into his bag. ‘I didn’t ask you to walk with me.’

  Up ahead, Gemma had stopped. ‘Come on, you stragglers! We don’t want to lose you.’ Her voice carried clearly across the hush. We walked a bit quicker. Gemma waited. ‘My God, we’ll never get a swim at this rate!’ But she wasn’t being serious, and her mouth on the top of my head when I reached her was full of its usual tenderness. My mother kept her arm around my shoulder as we walked. I kept pace with her, matching my footsteps to hers. Our feet were identical in our sandals, same-shaped toes, same small mole on our right feet. Gemma’s toenails were painted bright pink.

  I pointed at her toes. ‘When did you do those?’

  ‘A day or two ago.’

  ‘Will you do mine?’

  ‘When we get home.’

  Daniel touched my shoulder as he ran past, his bag bouncing, the fishing net in danger of falling. ‘Come on, Megan. I’ll race you down.’ He pointed to where the trail we were walking d
ipped into a sloping path through a huge field and towards the river.

  I looked up at Gemma. ‘Do you mind?’

  She laughed, tugged on my ponytail. ‘You do what you want. Off you go.’

  The path was difficult to manoeuvre with my burden of tartan blankets. I couldn’t see my feet properly as I ran, picking up speed as the path slanted downward. I ran as fast as I could, knowing I wouldn’t win, but not wishing to give in. Long grass whipped at my legs, the ground uneven and bumpy in parts. Daniel got further ahead when I had to stop to reorganise the blankets, which were slipping out of my grasp. It didn’t bother me when Daniel reached the river first. He was always a gracious winner. I stopped running when he got to the river. He unhooked his net and immediately plunged it into the water. Chris put a hand out from where he was unpacking, having made it to the riverside well ahead of the rest of us.

  ‘Careful there, son. We don’t need any accidents.’

  Daniel smiled at him. Chris could have been his father, the way he went over to him, made sure Daniel didn’t fall in. His hand on Daniel’s shoulder was kind, assured. I glanced back at Gemma. She was making her way down the slope, holding on carefully to the wicker basket. She didn’t look up to see Chris being kind to Daniel, and I didn’t say a word.

  The river was wider than I’d imagined and dark, its water peaty and brown. Until we stood in it and it flowed clean and clear over our feet. The cold made us gasp.

  ‘This isn’t a proper river,’ Beth said. ‘Not like the Hudson, or the ones upstate. Or even the ones in Georgia. This is a stream.’

  It was clear that her mood hadn’t improved much since we’d left the house.

  ‘Baby girl, I’m going to ask you to sit further downstream if you don’t park that bad attitude.’ Chris didn’t look at Beth as he spoke. Instead, he peeled off his jeans to reveal a pair of red swimming shorts. ‘I’m sorry Stevie is at his summer camp, but that’s not anyone’s fault and you’re not going to make everyone else’s day miserable.’ Chris pulled his T-shirt over his head and stepped into the water. ‘Man, that’s cold.’ He looked at the rest of us, standing there. ‘Aren’t you getting in? We’ve come all this way, might as well cool off.’