by Paul Lynch
Good man Inishowen, said The Cutter.
Just heard something that’s all. I didn’t know what he was up to.
Up to no good so he was the fucking thief. We’ll have to keep an eye on him. Lock up your stuff boys.
Talk to the brother of his the morrow, said Coyle.
Either a talking or a drowning. I’ll bloody do it myself.
The men went back to their beds and curled cramped, their minds wrestling with thoughts of sleep but their hearts beat as restless as the sea.
NOBLE GROWLED A WORD that sounded like cards and he produced and waved a pack and then he spat tobacco on the floor. The Cutter grumbled and swung stiffly off his cot and stood up with his back covered in straw. Snodgrass and Coyle leaned in and they lifted luggage to fashion a makeshift table and The Cutter began to dust himself. Noble started to cut the pack when Sam Tea leaned in beside them. The man carried more muscle than The Mute but he was the weaker brother of the two and he nodded to the men, his face all serious while Coyle nudged The Cutter.
Listen boys, he whispered. I’m sorry about that wee incident the other night.
They looked at his red-rimmed eyes all earnest and caught the whiskey on his breath.
What are ye whispering for? said The Cutter almost shouting.
Tea cringed and put his hand in the air as if to quieten the man and then he looked behind him.
We were wondering when you might say something, said Coyle. I’d begun to take odds from the men. If you’d come tomorrow I’d have made a few shillings.
Tea shrugged then scratched his nose. There’s not much I canny do with him but I do my best with him.
Noble began to deal the cards and the men each picked up a hand and Tea nodded to the table.
What are yous playing? he asked.
Twenty-five.
Tea nodded. There was a wee bit of trouble back home so we had to go.
What was it he done? The Cutter asked. Can I take a wild guess?
Tea’s head dropped and he spoke almost inaudible. He was caught thieving, he said.
The men said nothing. The Cutter looked at his cards and played a seven of spades and he made an animal squeal of excitement. He looked up smiling. That’s a fucking surprise. Tell him to stay well away from here or I swear he’s going to get it.
Coyle looked up at The Cutter but said nothing. Tea looked at the deck and then he nodded and his arm fished into his pocket and he produced a flask. I hear ye, he said. Wee sup?
HE LAY ON HIS COT troubled by memory. His father handling that horse old and forlorn on its feet. The mare dappled gray and its frame shrunken with age and the old man nursing it gently from the edge of the field with aim towards the stables. The horse walked stiff and slow until it stopped in the middle of the yard and he whispered to it encouragement but the horse was arthritic and its rheumy eyes spoke that it would go no further for now.
Coyle left his father’s side and returned with straw in his hand and he offered it flat to the mouth of the animal but the horse showed no interest. The boy looked up at his father and the man looked back at the boy and he shook his head and spoke softly into the ear of the horse, pleaded to no avail, for the horse was like rock now resisting and the intransigence of the animal became too long for the man’s liking and he pleaded further and less quietly and then what he dreaded most. From the big house the shutting of a door and then the shape of Faller and young Hamilton walking with his head cocked before him. The foreman’s eyes fixed on the scene and as they neared the father cursed the beast and then spoke an apology to it and he pulled at it one more time but the horse looked at him sadly.
Young Hamilton just half a head taller. That’s all he was. Bastard. Must have been no more than fourteen. The way he drew near that horse grinning, the long snout of Faller’s gun dipping heavy in his hand. Coyle had looked at the gun, saw that it was barreled twice and he watched how the boy struggled with it and the towering man lean in to cock the weapon for him. Put it to the head, he said. The gunshot smacked the walls and jolted the boy who put his hands to his ears and when he turned around again he watched with ringing ears the mechanics of the horse cease to function, its knees crumple and its legs unspool from under it as the creature collapsed onto its side, one leg flickering briefly and then it became still but for its blood which was bright and glossy and pooling about their feet. Faller put the gun back in his belt and looked briefly at young Hamilton who stood proudly and then he turned to Coyle’s father.
I told you about that old horse. Have somebody clean it up.
The pair of them walking back to the house together.
HE SLEPT AND WOKE from shallow sleep with the small fingers of his daughter in his hand. Her face liminal before him in that dark hold, the red rose of her lips and the sea rings of her eyes the very same as her mother and he could feel her body nimble with energy in his lap. He sat up awake. The bed cramped and his back ached and he scratched his face. The ship yawing deeper now than before. He lay back down and heard a whisper towards him. Inishowen? The Cutter’s voice smiling in the dark. Are you awake?
Naw. Fast asleep so I am. What about ye? I thought ye were sleeping.
I went for a wee walk. Off getting myself seen to. Bit lighter now on me feet.
You and everybody else in here. The whole boat will tip over if all our money keeps going to those hoors in the women’s quarters.
He heard The Cutter shifting his weight and then the man sidled down onto the bunk beside him. I’ve been thinking, The Cutter said.
What you been thinking?
The sooner we get off this boat the better.
Did you come up with that yourself?
Aye. Been pondering it all night.
You keep pondering then.
He heard The Cutter rustling about for his pipe.
Been pondering you too so I have.
No wonder you can’t sleep.
Aye. Well. Wondering what kind of strange beast ye are because I canny figure.
That’s great so it is.
I’ve known types to be on the run but you donny strike me as one of them.
Who says I’m on the run?
The Cutter shunted a compressed whisper in the dark towards Snodgrass. Hey boy. I know yer awake. Give me your matches.
His request was met by silence and The Cutter reached out and poked the sleeping man. There was a groan and a mutter and Snodgrass found his voice in the dark. What do ye want?
The Cutter reached out and ribbed the lying man again. Matches, he said.
Yer an awful cunt so ye are. Here, he said. A rattle in the dark and The Cutter grasped blindly and he found the hand and took them.
Anyways, he said.
The Cutter tamped down his pipe and struck a match but it went out again. Coyle sat up. The Cutter struck another and put it to his pipe. He sucked on it in the dark. Gimme here. Coyle took the pipe and toked on it.
I hope it was worth it, The Cutter said.
What was?
Whatever it was that you did.
Why’s that?
Because once you get to where we’re going you’re hardly likely to get back.
That’s great so it is. I ask you to buy me a ticket and you have to go and get one for the boat that is going away the furthest. Real considerate.
There was no other passenger boat sailing. Anyhow, I needed the company. Here have a wee toke on this now and shut up.
THE DAYS BLURRED INDISTINCT from one another. And then the rain, the relentless sound of it. He imagined mountains of small stone being loosed ceaselessly upon the deck, loosed steady for two days now. It made cooking on the deck impossible, produced a restlessness that pressed down upon them in their hunger, filled the air and gnawed at them until it left them more enfeebled than before. They ate raw what they could and heard word of men from the family quarters swearing trouble if they could not feed properly their wives and children. A man stout and elderly led a delegation to the ship’s master who met the mi
nor insurrection with the proud jut of his jaw. He made an order for more grog to be released and then he turned his back and the men took to drunkenness and cursed the sea and the weather and they cursed their hunger. They drank too the water that had become foul, corrupting in wine casks until it sat in their cups like thin tea, muddied and bitter, and after a time some of them stopped drinking it. The Cutter threw his cup of water across the room and some of the men cheered. Gimme some matches, he said.
They heard a report from Snodgrass that a man had the fever. And then talk of a woman. Word traveled on worried faces and then there were two more among their own in the hold. At night Coyle listened, the wind wrapping a sough around the keening timbers of the ship and the grim sound of the stricken. The sawtoothed groan of a man for want of water throughout the night and the mumbles of another incomprehensible. Their voices like wraiths in the darkness, circling unseen but felt above the rest of them dozing fitful or wide-eyed in their beds and in the morning his mind would race to breathe in the calm report of the sea.
HE STOOD ON DECK in the mesh of his thoughts, his eyes fixed numbly on the sea, the impossibility of what it presented. The image of Hamilton falling against stone. The child by the door crying. And what he saw of his brother Jim. I shouldn’t have listened to Ranty. Should have gone back home. Should have lived my life quietly. Shoulda just gone and left. But maybe Ranty was right. I am still alive and I can send for them. And maybe she will forgive me for what I have done though I did not plan any of it. And deep in his being he fought against a deeper drift of thought, something phantom and unseen that traveled through him darkly, the surety that Faller would come after him.
And he thought of his father sinking into the water, the calm indifference of the river surrounding, the face of his father plunging into the smooth gray flanks, the eyes he remembers rigid with terror as they came back to the surface momentarily, his hands reaching for something, the liquid that would not give hold, the horse calmly swimming. The boy who just stood there watching, aware of the other man who had come at a sprint down the bank, who stood there shouting that he didn’t know how to swim, and the boy grappling with the enormity of the moment, his impotency in the face of it, cannot remember if he was able even to shout, and the realization that his father would not be coming back up. And him just standing there not doing anything.
The Cutter poked him in the ribs. Yer away off someplace.
Just thinking.
THE CUTTER CUT CARDS and shuffled and dealt to the two others three cards at a time followed by two. The cards in the pack he stacked face down on the valise and he turned the top card face up. Two of spades. Spades are trumps boys. The men leaned over to pick up their cards. Snodgrass sat down beside them on the bed and leaned in and whispered. Sounds like the older Tea brother has got the fever, he said. He rubbed his jaw with the back of his hand and looked at the other men. Smudged cards pressed together between forefinger and thumb, eyes watching intently. Coyle played the two of diamonds and in the same breath the diamond queen. He looked up. For sure?
Aye.
Noble sat quiet chewing on tobacco and kept his cards close to his face. He fingered the queen of spades and played it and then worked his mouth and spat tobacco onto the floor. He whispered loudly. The Mute spent the night sitting at Sam’s bed. I saw meself when I got up for a piss.
The Cutter placed a three of spades and smiled. Could be just visiting. For a chat, like.
He’s a great talker alright, said Coyle. The men giggled. The Cutter put down a two of clubs. An awful one for the idle chatter, he said. Snodgrass looked back over his shoulder. There was a lot of moaning coming from Sam during the night, he said. It wasna nightmares.
Got it bad do you think?
Bad enough by the sounds of it.
When they were finished playing Coyle walked over to the cot to see. The Mute just sitting there backturned and Coyle stole behind him all quiet. He saw Sam Tea, his feet and ankles swollen out of all natural proportion and his face and hands peppered with dark spots purplish in the faint light. His lips were parched and his mouth worked feverish whispers for water and Coyle walked on and when he returned he threw a glance casual and found The Mute staring.
THE FIRST MATE WENT among them with water and the men cursed him under their breaths for the filthy piss it was but they drank it anyway. He returned in the afternoon, master’s grog he said, and he went around collecting money from their outstretched dirty hands. They held their cups out and slugged thirstily on the watered-down brew and the men watched the mate with mean eyes but they said nothing. Coyle stood up and told him there was another man sick and he pointed to the cot and the first mate nodded. What’s his name? he said. The first mate put down the pitcher and took out a black notebook from his shirt pocket and penciled a note.
THE SEA MORE RESTLESS than before and they sensed the weather turning. The men huddled to make merry, the hold draped in candlelight and the smoke ghosting above their heads and they scratched at the lice in their hair and dug their nails into the bedbugs that sucked on them through their clothes. They slurped messily on their cups, the contents pitching and splashing contrary to the leanings of the ship, their beards wet with grog, and they clamored voluminously over each other’s voices, each one wanting to be heard, the hearing of one’s voice a kind of fortitude to drown out all other noises—the groans of the sick, the intimations of invisible violence in the wind, their own silence that whispered of their powerlessness.
He watched two friends begin to wrestle on the floor and when it turned to blows the men were pulled off one another. The others told stories. A group of them huddled in a loose circle by the cots and he sat down among them and listened. Two brothers identical and one of them called Joe and the other John and both of them with the kind of glint in the eye that relished confusion. Joe was telling a story from home and John kept interrupting.
It went on for months so it did, said Joe. You’d be dying to tell her but you couldna. It was part of the fun of it. You’d go across that moss at Whitetown and you’d find her house in a parting of trees. The old boy long dead.
She had no idea, said John. A year it went maybe. You’d be hoping for a moon. Otherwise you’d hardly know where you’d be going.
Knock three times on the door.
Aye that was it. That was the code.
The men laughed. The Cutter sat down and took out his pipe. Snodgrass passed him a box of matches.
She was wild stupid so she was. She’d do anything you’d tell her, said Joe.
John shook his head at the memory of her. Silly bitch, he said. Just a wee whimper of complaint out of her and that was all.
Bring an animal into the room and she woulda.
You did not did you?
Naw. I’m just sayin.
She must have been mad for it, said Snodgrass.
Let’s just say she was wild compliant, said Joe. Do you remember the way she smelt? Her hair smelt like new grass. Skin smelling like the way it does after it stops raining.
We used to swap nights so we did, said John.
We did it first as a wee notion, just for the joke of it because John was seeing her first and told me about her. To see would she notice, the silly bitch. But then we kept it up. Always in the dark though. For fear she’d figure us out. She’d moan out oh John, oh John, and of course I was Joe.
What are ye on about? There was only ever a wee whimper out of her.
She’d say oh John you’re much bigger tonight. And I’d be tempted to tell her I was Joe.
The men shook with laughter and John drove a big fist into the leg of his brother. Behind them they heard Sam Tea groan for water.
And then there was the time we were both away, said Joe. I was up working a farm in Dunfanaghy. And John was working away for the day in Miltown. I had the horn wild bad. It was a bright night all lit up by the moon.
Naw, there wasn’t. It was dark so it was.
So what. I remember weighing it up b
ut in the end I walked the extra few miles. Me feet aching under me. I got to the door and knocked three times. She was slow to open and I was beginning to wonder if she had gone away. And then the door pulled back slowly and the reaction out of her. I stood there with a wee grin on me face and told her I’m bursting for ya and she put a hand to her mouth and next thing she was off, not a sound out of her, mind, just off out into the night, running and nothing but a shawl on her past me out into the darkness.
John spoke. I was lying on the bed with her and next thing you know there are three knocks on the door.
The men laughed, wheezing like a pack of dogs.
We never went back to her after that. She probably died in the cold of fright.
Behind them Sam Tea groaned. Coyle turned around and saw The Mute glowering at the men. He stood up and walked over stepping roughly on the men’s belongings and he slapped Snodgrass’s cup out of his hand. The contents splashed onto the heads of the men and the cup crashed off the floor and the men roared indignantly. Snodgrass stood to his feet as if to fight. Coyle stood up and put a hand on the man’s shoulder, his voice firm but quiet. Leave it.
Snodgrass shook his shoulder. I will not.
Sit down, he said. And you, he said pointing to The Mute. Sit yourself back down there and quit causing trouble. You make a lot of noise for a man who canny talk.
The Mute just stared at him and then he walked closer. Coyle felt the man’s breath on his face and he spoke to him again. Go and sit yourself down and quit this nonsense.
Some of the men giggled and Noble stood up and pulled The Mute by the arm until he was led away.
Joe shook his head. Och to be back in that bed with that silly bitch. John smiled but his eyes began to glaze and inwardly he traveled the thousands of miles home and as he did his smile fell silently from his face.