I took the accordion down from its place on the shelf and I was surprised by its weight. I cradled it gently, watched the light at play upon the marble and wood, this instrument that was Father’s present from Grandfather, that allowed a man to buy his way to America, that became Rory’s and was now Father’s again. I thought of everything it meant to my father and I wondered when Father left if he would take it with him.
Suddenly, I was filled with such sadness and anger I didn’t know what to do with it. I raised the accordion above my head and threw it down as hard as I could. The cherrywood cracked, the accordion’s innards splintered. The bellows groaned as it distended. For a long moment I stared at the damage, unable to believe what I’d done, and I was too scared to move, thinking that if I didn’t move, if I held my breath I could somehow hold time, that I could even undo what I’d done and make things right, but when I did breathe again nothing had changed. The accordion remained on the floor as it had moments before, and I knew there was nothing I could do to make this right.
I picked up the accordion and turned it over. The wood was split along its undersides. When I shook it something loose tumbled inside. I smelled the richness of cherrywood like something thick that had seeped from an open wound. When I closed the bellows and clipped it shut I was glad that it made no sound. I placed the accordion back on the shelf, my hands trembling, and then the rest of me began to shake as well.
The bog gives back what it claims, Father said. Always, all things come back to us. Ten thousand years ago things fell into the bogs and they are still coming back. If you waited long enough everything returned. I thought of the bog giving back Rory, his arms breaking the bog surface and rising toward the sun, purple heather erupting in blossom from his cracked and bloodless palms. I pictured him treading from the grave, walking the long road from Oughterard, the mangy flesh of his feet giving way, and only the thought of the accordion in his dead head and the need for revenge urging him, stumbling on, mile after mile. Would he be black or stripped of skin, his bones polished and shining brightly? Would his soul be intact?
The dog howled from the shed and I knew Father was making his way back across the courtyard. I looked toward the living room and then toward the scullery as if for a way out, as if I could run all the way back to my mother in the South, and as if I was half expecting dragging footsteps on the cobblestone and the heavy sound of fleshless bone striking the latch of the door. What could be worse than that? But I knew what could be worse. It would be to see Father standing there with his smashed accordion, and not Rory at all.
We spent the next day cleaning out the old cow byre. To keep us warm, Father got a small fire going in a rusted milking bucket, and its light threw the shadows of the hanging gambrels and chains and hooks across the walls as we worked.
The dog stayed beyond the door in the sunlight, every once in a while glancing in, and only later when it became cooler and the sun had gone down did she wander into the warmth. She groaned, a bored human sound, and settled herself onto the straw. Father laughed and shook his head. Go on you, he said and the dog looked at him, her ears alert. You would think he’d said, C’mon, girl, let’s go find those sheep. When she saw that there were no sheep to be got, she lowered herself onto the straw and closed her eyes. Father stared at her for a moment and then began to tie up the bundles of Rory’s possessions.
When we stepped out of the barn it was dusk, the twilit rock walls glowing like ashen coals as our eyes adjusted to the changing light. Starlings were skimming low over the rocky fields, racing along the tops of stone walls. A gray-blue stretch of sky was holding the last of the low sun, and it reached like a bough over the bay toward Rosmuc.
Father called to the dog but there was no sound of her. We turned back toward the shadows and father raised the lamp. Her long body lay stretched across the straw as if she were chasing something in her dreams, and although he called again, Spota, she didn’t move. Father sank to the straw next to her and then she opened her eyes to him, whined to him—a sound that was imploring and pleading and strangely human—licked at his fingers, still, it seemed, so eager to please, her tail thumping a broken cadence on the stone floor.
Talk to her, he said. I have to fetch the gun from the house. And I talked to Spota, I told her of where we’d all be off to after we were done with the shed and what we had planned for all the days before Father left us again; I told her, When you’re hurt like this, in the country, we must kill you—it’s the only way, and then I stroked her head, and she let me. When Father returned I smelled the oil of the gun first, and then the looming black shape of him framed the doorway and the length of gun was an extension of his hand divining the space of sky at his back and the earth and everything between. He stepped forward and knelt and the image was gone. He touched Spota’s head, talked to her until she closed her eyes. Then he rose, stationed the barrel at the back of her head, and fired one shot into her. The sound was muted in the close shed—the lanyards jangled although there was no wind to move them—nothing more than a dull pop, a shudder of air, and Spota was still for good.
From the gun, acrid white smoke, no wider than a candle flame, curling in the graying space. Father stroked Spota’s matted fur, cradled and squeezed her head roughly with affection so that her head lolled and she seemed alive and eager to be up and running. Good girl, he said, good girl, you’re a good girl, as he ran his hand down the lean body in longer and longer strokes. As if he were merely coaxing and comforting her toward sleep after a long day. I imagined her rolling over onto her back and exposing her pale belly with the pleasure of it and with the trust and love she had for Father.
Slowly, he wrapped her body in a burlap tarp, folded the edges and bound them with rope the way that he had wrapped Rory’s possessions, then rose with the dog bundled in his arms. Come, he said, and I followed him up the hill, with the sky turning purple around us, toward the blackened stack of wood, the edges of the burlap overhanging his arms, dangling as if it were a child in a gansey, bundled against the cold weather.
The dog should’ve seemed larger wrapped within the thick burlap, but atop the woodpile she looked very small. He poured the last of the paraffin over the blackened timbers and the tarp, and when he threw a match upon it, it exploded into a huge billowing flame that took the breath from our lungs and only slowly folded into itself. We stepped back and watched the black shape of the tarp burning brightly and quickly becoming smaller. A wind came up and carried the embers and the smoke toward the north, and I was glad for it because I didn’t want to smell the dog.
Father stooped, gouged a handful of muck from the ground, and threw it onto the fire. He said something in Irish that I didn’t understand and it didn’t seem important that I should and I felt no need to ask him what it meant. On top of the hill, the air, the space that we occupied, the enclosed stillness that we were wrapped within had the quality of a church, of cupped hands holding us close, and I didn’t wish to disturb it. Father wiped his hands on his trousers and then picked up the empty paraffin canister, but we stood there still, for a long time watching the fire burning down and, at its edges, glimmering like steel, the dark countryside beyond.
Three weeks passed and the days became warm and fine. Knowing that the weather would not last, Father took long walks around the property; in wider and wider circles he traveled outward and then, shortening his circles, he returned in the evening once more. Now that Spota was gone I joined him, and though we were mostly silent as we climbed through gorse and over stone walls, I no longer minded this silence; Father seemed content, even happy that we were together.
We were passing the lough when Father gestured toward the small islands at its center. When we were children, he said, Rory and me used to row out there and make small camps. We’d light a fire of turf and cook up fish we caught in the tide pools. We wrapped them up in seaweed so as not to burn them. The dog would be barking from the far shore at us. Sometimes we brought her with us but she’d get so restless over the
re she wouldn’t stop until we brought her back again. He laughed. I think she just wanted the boat ride, never saw a dog like her the way she took to water.
He walked toward the field’s edge and began to make his way down to the rocky shoreline. It used to make us feel like we were adults, going out there, he said. And here’s where we used to swim. The water always stayed the warmest here, it caught the last of the sun.
I followed him down to the rocky edge. There was no shoreline really, just rock upon rock. Father sat on a large one that jutted out over the water. He took off his Wellingtons and his jumper and then began to undo his trousers. Within moments, he was standing on the rock in his underwear. He seemed taller without clothes, all lean muscle, as straight and angled as a pale blade driven into the earth. The only darkness on him was around his neck and on his arms; everything else looked as if it had never seen the sun. Father bent forward, slipped smoothly into the water, and disappeared beneath it. Moments later he surfaced, about ten yards out, the roped muscles in his shoulders glistening. He began to kick farther out but then quickly turned on his back and floated. Father didn’t swim. He bobbed up and down on the swells as if he were driftwood, sea wrack waiting for the tide to wash him to shore.
I rushed down to the rock where Father’s clothes lay and quickly undid my own. I struggled with my Wellingtons and nearly tore the ear off me trying to get the jumper over my head, and I knew if my mother were there I would have gotten a good belt for that. I eased myself over the rock ledge into the water and was surprised by how cold it was. My breath caught in my chest and I pulled my legs up. I hung there off the rock, with my knees pulled up to my chest, swinging in my underwear.
Father drifted closer, paddling with his hands. Michael, he said, just let yourself go. The water is deeper than you think. You won’t hit rock. Just let yourself go, hold your breath, and before you know it, you’ll be back on top again. It’s only cold for a moment.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and shoved myself backward off the rock. I opened my eyes. There was blue sky and high white clouds and a gannet beating its black-edged wings and then I was under. By the time I was sputtering on the surface and flailing my arms and legs trying to stay afloat, I wasn’t thinking about the cold any longer. I splashed toward Father, who had floated out again but who had turned to make sure he could see me, his feet kicking, his laughter deep and pleasant and resounding off the rocks around us.
We stayed in the water until the sun had fallen away to the west and shadows stretched across the lake and the water turned cold. When we climbed out, gingerly feeling our way along the rocks, I wished we had thought to bring towels. I stood there shivering, wondering what to do, and Father said, Never mind, sure the walk home will warm us up, so. Just put your clothes on, and use your jumper to dry yourself off as best you can. We can change again when we get in.
I toweled myself off with my jumper so that I was mostly dry, but I was already cold, my skin tightening and turning pink, then purple. Father and I walked the fields briskly and I wanted to run but my legs felt too heavy. I worked hard to keep up. He held barbed wire apart so that I could pass through, and standing astride stone walls, he waited for me and then reached for my arms and swung me over. Soon I’d forgotten how cold I was. Father began to sing “The Green Fields of France” and his voice was loud and strong and I joined him for the end of the long chorus, where the young soldier is put in the ground, our voices rising and falling breathlessly as we hurried through burnt-lit fields turning marble in the half-light.
As I undressed in the bedroom, I noticed the first of the ticks, on my thigh, another on my calf, and then higher, on my stomach. And there were more of them besides. I cursed and pulled off my underwear. Three of them, swollen and shiny, clung to my testicle. Da! I shouted. Da! I pulled up my underwear and stood there without moving, sure that I could feel them on me, burrowing deeper and deeper.
Father was in the room. What is it?
I have ticks on me, I said.
He looked me up and down.
Down there, I said, in my underwear.
Father stared at me. Don’t worry, let us have a look.
I pulled down my underwear and looked away. Father took hold of my arms and shuffled me closer to the candlelight. I sensed that he was kneeling and then his hard fingers were brushing my penis, and he grunted, Dirty little bastards, and I was glad for the tone of his voice, as if he were merely discovering a tick on the dog. I had seen him be gentle in that, too, seen his concern for the dog and the direct way in which he applied himself to the task of removing it.
This will hurt a bit, he said, and it did. He held the loose skin firmly between his fingers and then, using his nails, he squeezed, pried first the head of one tick out, and then the others, working as quickly as he could. I clenched my teeth, closed my eyes, and willed myself not to cry out.
Got you, you bastard, Father said and then his hands were no longer on me. He patted my thigh and I pulled up my underwear, my testicles throbbing. I couldn’t look Father in the eye but was glad when he squeezed my shoulder. In his other hand he held the ticks in balled-up tissue paper.
Well we won’t go swimming there again. He grinned, and I tried to smile and wanted to laugh but thought if I laughed I would cry instead; I was so grateful to him for not being ashamed of me.
Can you manage the rest? he said and I nodded and he stroked my head, and when he left he closed the door behind him. The other ticks came out more easily, once I got used to applying pressure beneath their mouths and pushing upward. The fatter they were the easier it was. One burst between my fingers and I had to dig again to pry its small head out. When I was done, I washed myself with water from the basin on the nightstand, then dressed and went to the door, but I didn’t want to open it. I felt the shame of everything all over again. Slowly I opened the door and stepped out into the living room. Father looked up and rose from his chair. He poured some poitin into a cracked mug, thinned it with warm tea steeping over the fire, and handed it to me.
Here, he said, this will make you forget all about it. Drink it slow. I took the cup and he watched me as I sipped, and then grinned when tears came to my eyes and color flushed my cheeks. The slow lasting burn in my throat made me forget everything else. Made me think that I might even laugh along with him, with the pure joy and relief of it.
The animal sheds were boarded up, the cottage walls and floors washed, the windows and doors left open to air out rooms and to allow everything to dry. Father replaced broken and missing slates and fixed the gutters, painted the windows and replaced the putty in the frames that blackbirds had picked clean. We were working in the courtyard, clearing it of grass.
Father had given me a small hand scythe and shown me how to swing it while he used the big scythe to cut the deep stretches around the well. I moved my scythe back and forth, copying Father’s large thrusting cuts. He twisted from the waist and he was a gyre of torque propelling arm and scythe. Sunlight caught his blade and his arc was a prism of shattered light as he cleaved the grass in two.
Father watched me as well. That blade is sharp, he said. Watch your leg and arm on the backswing, and so I did, and I was too busy watching him, wondering how he could make it look so easy when already my arm and my back were aching, that I didn’t notice the two old men come up the lane until I heard them at the gate arguing, one of them hacking phlegm, and Father was crossing the field to join them. Dia anseo isteach! they greeted him and the three shook hands.
Father asked them inside for the tea but they declined and passed their tobacco to him but Father didn’t smoke. They’d come to see about The Leaving on Friday; it was the first I’d heard of it.
How’s young Michael? I heard one of them ask, and Father looked toward me, looked at me as if he were looking at me for the first time. I dropped my scythe and pretended to be engrossed in the work of tying bundles of wood and of stacking turf, of hacking a stubborn gorse root with an ax. He smiled and it brightene
d his face. A mhac, he called and I looked up. Conas tá tú? How are you?
Tá mé go maith, I said in my terrible Irish, and in hearing my own voice, I felt blood rush to my face. Fáilte romhat, I said, and Tá sé fuar inniu agus ar mhaith leat cupán tae? If not, then, Slán leat, for I have work to do before it gets dark, and the old men laughed and the eldest clapped his hands. The other, who had a dirty gray-stubbled face, said, O Dia, a buachaill, he’s the spittin image of himself sure, and isn’t it a great comfort you have in him.
It is, Father agreed.
They puffed on pipes as they spoke the Irish to Father and after a while they banged the pipes against the wall and placed them back in their pockets. One of the old men gathered his bike from the ditch while the other waited on the road.
We’ll see you Friday then, he said and raised his hand in salute. God bless you.
Father nodded and wished them farewell. I came up to the wall and watched them make their way down the hill. Their figures became narrow silhouettes glancing through the light of the sun as it set in the bay, and still I heard their voices trailing behind, rising and falling, and then gone and only the low purple sky remaining, a last sliver of light raking across the water with night pressing down from above. A flock of greylag bellowed as they crossed the sky, black darts spearing west across the waters to America.
I’m leaving, Father said. It’s time I was back. The job won’t wait for me forever. I’ll put you on the train to your mammy Saturday morning. I’m sure she’s missing you something awful. You’ll have to thank her for me. He tousled my hair, rested his large hand against my head and held it there. I don’t know what I would have done without you here these last few weeks. The next time perhaps you’ll come out to America to visit me—would you like that?
In the Province of Saints Page 11