I waited a moment longer, fighting the urge to move. My head was filled with the white wash of the river and the image of the man lowering his dark bundle into the boat. I closed my eyes and tried to think of other things, and then, when I couldn’t, I placed the oars back in the oarlocks and pushed off into the channel after him.
I wandered the narrow straits, searching for some sign of the boat. In the mist, sight and sound were transformed, distance changed. Nightjars were shrieking farther down the river. The moon broke from between high clouds and everything was still. I listened to the sound of the river, and gradually, well ahead of me, I picked up the sense of water lapping a boat, heard the scrape of oars pulled over the gunwale. I rowed slowly, soundlessly in that direction and paused when I felt close. Through the shifting bands of fog a gray shape became visible and I remained very still.
Half standing, he dropped his cargo over the side. A clatter of chains or a weighted line dragging the side of the boat. The sound of it choking on the wood then running free and fast. The bundle was swallowed by the water, and moments later, I felt the ripples of disturbance against my prow. The man turned suddenly and stared through the mist in my direction. I was convinced that he must see me, although I could see nothing of his face; there was the sound of oars swinging loosely about in their broken oarlocks and then he was rowing directly toward me. The scissors of his oars parted wide over the water, and in two large strokes he was gone.
After a moment I rowed toward the spot he’d left. Clouds passed before the moon as something broke the surface off to my right. It shifted with the current, and as it began to sink again I saw Lugh’s torn green jumper. I rowed toward it wildly, my oars thrashing the water. The bundle began to go under and I reached with the gaff, caught the jumper, and strained to haul it in. Up from the water came Lugh’s jumper, and then in the fractured light the pale angle of Lugh’s wide jaw emerging from the black. I threw the gaff to the bottom of the boat and pulled at his shoulders, worked his torso up over the keel, and, as water spilt into the boat, tried to untangle him from the tarp and netting. I raised his head so that he could breathe, so that he could help me get him into the boat and out of the freezing water, but everything seemed soft and melting in my hands and when his body turned I gasped. Strands of orange fishing line gathered what was left of his face into a net. One of his eyes was gone, flesh and bone crushed into the vacant bloodied hole. His face looked as if it were sliding away and the eye that remained stared blindly. My hands lost hold of him with the shock of it.
His head lolled forward, and I wrapped my arms about him as best I could, pressed my head atop his shoulders and my weight against him. The moon fell over us, though everywhere else was darkness and mist. Unseen things moved about the water’s edge and in the woods, and down the river the sound of nightjars grew louder.
God is always present, Aunt Una used to say. In Passing and in Light and in Darkness, God is always present. So I prayed to God, I prayed to the river, to the eels, and to my mother’s cairns, but everything seemed to mock my sounds and my struggles in the dark.
Together, we spun in the flat center of the bay and the land seemed to loom up on either side of us so that I felt very small. The hours passed; I was tired and cold and I stopped crying and I stopped praying. I searched the banks and shouted and screamed for help. I closed my eyes and pressed myself against him and tried to hold on even as he slipped down into the still water. He rolled once, a tumble of chalk flesh and green jumper and bloody destroyed face. His one remaining eye, an unflinching pupil full of bright accusing light, stared up at me, and then the moon was rushing in to fill the empty, rippling space where only moments before he’d been.
The Guards asked me if I’d been on the river, they asked if I knew anything about the river, they asked how often I went out there and why I was out there this night. Foley and a junior Guard were the ones they’d sent out to ask the questions and I could tell Foley enjoyed it. Did I see anyone out on the river? he asked. How did I find Lugh’s body? Now wasn’t that strange how in the whole wide stretch of the riverways I’d just come across his body. And why do you suppose that was? It was quare strange so it was. The lads said that they’d often seen me with him in the pubs on the quay. Stranger yet then, that I would know the victim, too. Foley said this as if he didn’t know Lugh at all—as if he was a complete stranger to him and as if it was unusual to know the people you spent your whole life living with.
I looked at him with that one, as if he were daft and did he think he was playing Kojak or something? But my head hurt something fierce and I found I could barely talk at all. Even the face on him gave me a headache to look at.
I think that’s enough, Guard, Mother interceded. She breathed shallowly, and I thought she might be sick. She squinted in the light and kept licking her lips. Even I could see that she was not well, but she was trying hard not to show it. Sure he can barely keep his eyes open, she said. Wasn’t he the one that found him and wasn’t he the one that stayed the night with him until help arrived and wasn’t he the one that got young Murphy to call it in to the Guards? Sure, he’s almost done all the work for you. Can’t you see he’s exhausted?
Mother said this as if Lugh were resting in the back room or lying in state in one of the funeral houses in the town just waiting for us to say last prayers over his body and lower him respectfully into the black earth. Mother said this as if I did something at all, but this was not so. We did not have Lugh because I did not hold on; I could not hold on. I let him go and the river took him and washed him up miles down the shore to strangers, to people he never knew.
I want to know what he was doing out on the river, Foley said. Perhaps he might be taking after his uncles.
And if he was, so, what has that got to do with a dead man?
Foley chewed on the end of his Biro, his brows squeezed in contemplation. Again, I got the sense that he’d watched one too many American films. I expected him to throw a wad of chewing gum in his mouth and begin talking with his mouth full. You never know now, he said, you never know.
Michael often goes out on the river. It’s a way to pass the time. The river is the only bit of comfort he has, sure. What else would a young fella have to do around here? A young fella needs to be out of the house. At least he’s not in the town in the pubs and discos and making trouble on the streets like some of the young hooligans. Mother paused, leant on the kitchen chair, rubbed her temples. She made a slight gagging sound and the young Guard flushed and roused himself.
Sure we can come back again, missus, when you’re feeling a bit better. He coughed lightly, held his fist to his mouth, and nodded at Foley. Can’t we now?
Haven’t you asked all you need to know? Mother asked. She sounded tired and I tried to gather myself and answer what Foley needed answering so that he’d be gone and she could get her rest. The effects of the morphine had faded quicker than I could have imagined, so quick it was frightening.
I’ve not been well, she said and held a small handkerchief to her mouth. Molly brought a bucket smelling of Dettol from the kitchen, and I cringed. She didn’t need to tell Foley anything. I knew the satisfaction the bastard would get from this. He’s been good, looking after me, she said. I sometimes think he’d go mad if he didn’t have the river.
Since his father left, you mean. Foley grinned.
I sat straight in my chair, crossed my arms, and stared at him. My father didn’t leave, I said.
Foley raised his eyes and his grin widened. Oh no?
I see you all the time on the quay, I said suddenly. When I’m running at night. You’re always walking up and down like a hard man. I feel bad for you.
Foley’s grin faded.
I’ve always wanted to be a Guard. It’s something I wouldn’t have to go to school for.
Foley put down his teacup. He rose slowly, stared at me as he straightened his uniform, adjusted the cap on his head. How old are you?
I’m fourteen.
Ay, fou
rteen and headed for trouble. Do you know who killed Lugh McConnahue? he asked, his face hardened and red.
I pulled the blanket around myself. I shook my head and, no longer able to hold my eyes open, lowered it to the warm wool.
Foley grunted and made his way to the door. The other Guard was already at the car. At the threshold Foley paused, turned to Mother. Your one there is headed in the wrong direction, missus, he said, and if he isn’t set right soon, all I can say is, I see trouble.
My son has never done anything wrong, Guard, and you know it.
I’m just saying, he needs an eye kept on him.
You need to just mind what you’re saying.
Missus, we all know you’re not well. There are some who might think you’re not fit to look after your children.
Then, Foley, send those people out here so’s they can have a look for themselves.
I may have to inform them.
Mother laughed and mimicked him. I may have to inform them. Good day, Foley. Mind yourself that you don’t step in the cow shit now on your way out the gate.
Mother began to push the door closed on him, but it was Foley and he had to have the last word. The detectives will be by to have a word with him as well, he hollered. Mother grunted and Foley had to move his foot quickly to avoid her catching it in the doorjamb. The door slammed shut and she turned the lock. Foley was a blurred figure through the opaque yellow glass. For a moment he didn’t move but continued to stare at the door, and I was glad that I didn’t have to see his face. Then there was the sound of his feet crunching the gravel as he made his way up to the gate, through the cow shit, to the car.
After Foley was gone, Molly poured more tea for all of us. Mother sat in the chair opposite and stared at me, her hands cradling her mug.
Michael, she said softly, and I looked up.
Who did that to Lugh? What did you see?
I closed my eyes, lowered my head into the wool, and wrapped the blanket tighter and tighter about me. I began trembling, and Mother, thinking I was cold, came over and wrapped her arms about me and hugged me until I couldn’t breathe. Though she was the one who was not well, I felt like a sick child again, and though I was glad for her touch, I wasn’t trembling from cold. Mother pressed her head against my own; her breath was warm on my neck and I smelled her sickness. What did you see? she said again. What did you see?
The detectives never did come. Lugh was two lines in the Rowan newspaper’s obituary page: Slievecorragh man, Lugh McConnahue, drowns in fishing mishap. Aged fifty-eight. No next of kin.
I was glad that they didn’t mention Flaherty, his years of labor to the man. How he worked as a swineherd, a farmer’s laborer, and how he was a drunk who lived in a hovel, stewing in his own piss.
He was much more than that. And by saying nothing at all, in the end, I’d like to believe that they left him just a little bit of grace. The memory of him, that was something I could take with me.
Hardly anyone attended Lugh’s funeral. There were some people from Slievecorragh but even they seemed impa- tient and pressed to be there. Flaherty kept looking toward the stretches of gently sloping meadows as if he were tracking dogs at a coursing match, and Milo Meaney constantly fiddled with his sleeve cuffs and looked for a watch that wasn’t there.
No one would buy Lugh a stone for his grave. There was a small hand-around for donations at the church, but I saw only change in the plate when it passed us in the pew. I gave all the savings I had: thirty-five pounds that I always imagined I would someday use to leave this place, to hop the night boat to England. But I wasn’t going anywhere, not now. I took the fresh notes from the bank, pressed tight into a white envelope that was creased from folding it in my pocket, and laid them on the church plate.
Flaherty stared at the ground and then toward the road once the priest had said the eulogy. A light breeze came up and over the valley, pushing at the grass, rustling the leaves in the trees above, and bringing with it the sound of men working in fields in the distance. I watched the pockmarked, nervous face of the priest, a young man from another parish who had taken to doing a lot of Father O’Brien’s duties since his palsy had become worse. This priest didn’t know Lugh, and his words seemed meaningless to me. Even he seemed embarrassed by it all.
I looked toward Cait and she glanced up as if sensing it. Even from across the grave, the blue of her eyes was startling. But I was closed off to anything beyond those eyes, and I could not tell if it was my own distance or one of her making. I had no sense of her thoughts or her feelings as I once might have. I tried to smile but no smile would come to my face.
I studied the others: my mother, a couple of local men I recognized from the pubs Lugh frequented—old haggard men whose faces resembled heavily barked wood or crumbling facades of old pub doors that were forever closed off, locked and secured. I wondered how many pints Lugh had bought them that they now anguished they would never see again.
How many stories had he told them, how many secrets whispered over those friendly, murderous pints in that final need to express himself—perhaps to confess what he and others were guilty of—in his fear of death’s imminent approach from a car idling on a street corner, or stepping out of a dark alleyway, or waiting in a chair by the black grate of his fireplace. It would be a pillow perhaps, smothering him in his bed as he slept or pushed to his mouth to prevent him from screaming, and a bullet to his temple. The fear yet the anticipation, the welcome relief that it would all be over and he would soon be with Asha again.
As soon as the priest was done people moved away; no bowed heads, no soil thrown upon the small wood coffin, no flowers left in teary memoriam. They headed toward their cars and their bikes and their separate footpaths. A car door opening then slamming shut, a small diesel engine turning over and catching, the whir and rattle of bike chains and sprockets, the clatter of footfall upon macadam, and then they were gone—even Cait.
Mother leant against my shoulder and I let her. She seemed small and frail and I wondered if she thought the same of me. Molly would have a large supper waiting for us when we got home, and I hoped that Mother would eat and then sleep, and that perhaps in the morning things might be better. Together we took the long way home, down by the rutted path along the banks of the gray churning river, where two nights before I’d held Lugh’s body to me. It was one of the last warm days of summer. The hedgerows burst with color and my head swam with the sound of trilling birds and drowsy bees. Blackberries were bunched in rows like fat bullets amidst the dripping red fuchsia, and the sky, clear and cloudless and blue, rose up into a pale so familiar it resembled nothing at all.
It was a week after Lugh’s funeral and Uncle Brendan had joined us for supper. I watched as he shoveled food around his plate with an edge of brown bread. I ate but tasted nothing. When my plate was half empty, I placed my knife and fork down and listened to the sounds of my uncle and Mother and Molly chewing.
Dusk had fallen and in the living room the Angelus sounded on the telly, followed by news of another dead hunger striker. Mickey Devine, aged twenty-seven, was dead after sixty days. Brendan muttered through a mouthful of food that someone should kill that bitch Thatcher, and my mother bowed her head and crossed herself. Dear God, she said, will it never stop.
No one rose to turn on the electric.
I looked beyond the window toward the road, but the glass was clouded with condensation and there was only the suggestion of the countryside beyond, of blackbirds gathered thickly in the trees, and the distant lights of town. Flaherty’s dogs were still; the road was silent, and the familiar weight of loss, of always having everything taken away, pressed against my chest.
They still haven’t found Lugh, I said, and both my uncle’s and my mother’s faces stiffened, yet I couldn’t help myself. The river hasn’t given him up, I continued. I let go of him and the river took him and Uncle Oweny used to say the river always gives up what it’s taken, that’s what he used to say, but it hasn’t given up Lugh yet.
Michael, my mother hushed. What are you talking about? Of course the river gave him up, aren’t we just after burying him.
Uncle Brendan’s expression darkened. He chewed at something invisible at the front of his mouth. That man, he said through tight lips, talked too bloody much. That’s the only reason he’s dead. The old fool brought it upon hisself.
I continued to stare at him as I realized what he was saying, and he turned back to his mug, drank steadily from his black tea. The knuckles gripping the mug white as bone. A tightness constricted my throat.
But Lugh, I said. What they did to Lugh. Lugh never hurt anyone —.
You don’t know what that man did or didn’t do, Uncle Brendan said, or what he was capable of. You don’t know anything at all.
I looked at him pushing sodden bread across the empty plate although he’d stopped eating. The bread moved on the china in indecipherable patterns. His fingers were blunt as pegs, thick and yellowed from nicotine. His jaws clenched and unclenched. His thick hair wired and curled as a sheep’s. Gray evening light washed down his face like mist, turning it to shadow.
Were you out fishing on the river last week? I asked, my voice trembling and betraying itself.
Brendan stared at his plate, then turned to me, his face rigid and set, his eyes so hard and blazing and full of hatred that I couldn’t believe it was the same man I’d known all these years.
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