by Paul Lynch
That clear sky took for a while, a rise in parts to a blue perfection that reached the eye to its limits. Trailing after it she saw rain. When the sky darkened with that coming rain she went outside with the washing basket and set it on the flagstones and rolled up her sleeves, saw a gull high above the trees winging whitely. The gull sounded at the world like a cart sent downhill with a squeaking axle, a rolling squawk that reached a high point of agitation. She walked the basket at her hip around the house and it was then her face began to knit. The orange washing line tied between two poles was empty. Twice her eye travelled the length of it, clothes pegs propped like rabbit ears and parts of the line fraying like old wool but there was no washing on it at all. She set the basket down and looked at it twice, searched her mind as to when she hung the washing the day before. She began to look about, looked to the junipers and to the hedgerow and she went over to the fence and looked upon the empty field as far as any wind could take her laundry, not that there was any wind for it. She saw in her mind the new white sheets she had hung out dripping. She marched into the house, saw Barnabas walking about the kitchen with a fag hung on his mouth and grey smoke wreathing the air above him and that far-flung scheming look in his eyes. She began looking about the kitchen as if somebody could have put the washing there and she went upstairs and looked in the press and in the bedroom and she came downstairs with her hands on her hips.
Did you take in the washing, Barnabas?
Why would I take in the washing?
Somebody took in the washing.
Why are you asking me about it?
Could Billy have done it?
Does anybody here know what that boy ever does?
Tell me then how the sheets are gone, Barnabas?
What sheets, Eskra?
Eskra sighed and shook her head, watched Barnabas walking about as if he were resolving the parts of some inward puzzle and he stopped at the window and looked out at the darkening day. Fuck it’s going to rain. I was just about to head out, he said. He turned and looked at her and saw her with her sleeves rolled, the sheer white of her arms and the way she was picking at the scabs on her fingers in anxiety.
Why won’t you ever leave your hands alone?
She made quick stars of her hands like she was letting go quickly of something.
Barnabas. Somebody took down the sheets and put them somewhere. I hung them out yesterday and they’re gone. They’re not upstairs. They’re not in the kitchen. Where else would they be?
He shook his head and began to chuckle. How could you lose the washing?
Do you think I’m being funny, Barnabas?
I’m not saying it is funny. I’m just saying. He began to knuckle his cheek. Are you sure you put them there? He saw how her eyes began to spark with agitation.
Now you’re telling me I’m losing my mind?
I’m just saying that’s all. You can’t be blaming everybody else for you losing the washing. How can it be lost anyhow?
Where is it then?
He was silent a minute. Did you look in on the horse? he said.
What would the washing be doing there?
Naw. I meant did you look in on her? See is she getting any better?
Those are new sheets I bought after the old ones were ruined by the smoke. The new sheets. Are you playing games with me, Barnabas?
Why are you being so daft with me, woman?
The dapple and tap of rain against the window. They watched it persist against the glass as if asking softly to be let in, saw then in an instant how the rain in temper turned and began to slam and lacerate. The day took to an instant twilight and Barnabas shook his head. Arrah, I can’t be going out in that.
That rain came with a venomous slant to cut a man wide open. The wind circled and outburst as it pleased, took the sloping rain and ran with it in bladed drifts that riled the trees and sliced at them. He watched the rain relentless for two days, scratched his growing beard, watched it until his eyes were full of it, each liquid bead unique and fated to the terminal of its journey. Billy left the house to walk to school and he was drenched no sooner than he was out in it. Barnabas only leaving the house under his coat to get water or muck out the horse. The goddamned house and his thoughts trapped in it, taking on the suffocating shape of each room with the walls pressing in, no space to think. He walked about the house, picked things up and put them down again, sat in the range chair and stood again, got the screwdriver and turned the chair over and began to tighten the seat. She could sense his energy coiled and seeking release.
It was the afternoon of the second day when he stood and began towards the back door, a day that began with morning upended by an evening pallor, the rain unceasing. He put on his boots over his wool socks and sleeved his grey gabardine tying the loose tongues of its belt around his waist and he put on his hat as if he could put a lid to his thoughts. Eskra behind him, sighing.
You’re not going out in that, are you?
It’s in my mind to get started, so it is.
It’s going to rain itself out soon.
He went out into it, the rain slapping at his coat like they were old buddies born of the same fight, tyrants against their better natures. Flung from fists of wind came stinging ice-cold rain that blew northerly off the Atlantic. He visored his hat against it and he saw the yard overwhelmed, the flagstones slicked and by the side of the house how a drain held a piece of ruptured sky. He bent to the drain pool and put his hand into the water and fished out some grass and some twigs and saw it made no difference to the drain hole. Looked up and wondered about Cyclop, the dog somewhere hid like he knew better than the man not to be out in it.
The old hills stood dark and waste and over them passed cloud shadow that looked to him as if something huge and inborn to nature was winging overhead, an intimation of some great bearer of violence unseen. Just the need now to get the byre done and in a way that was as swift as possible and he did not want to stop the momentum he was building inside of him. Deeper down the road and the rain made mist in the fields. He looked up and saw the drained disc of the sun had been broken into flitches that strained through the churning canopy. The smudge of McDaid far off in his back field oblivious to the rain, the man hinged and hauling what looked like a lamb, and he wondered if the animal had drowned perhaps. He watched the man as he walked and it seemed McDaid was standing very still in that rain until he realized the man was walking slowly back towards his house, considered for a moment helping him but marched on.
The lane met another that veered left and he followed it up a gentle hill. These pasture fields belonging to Fran Glacken and he had his cattle already out after the winter. That man too hard on his animals and the ground couldn’t be ready for it yet. The cattle stood huddling under trees, swung their tails and shunted at the air in front of them with their breaths. He came upon the drive of Glacken’s farm, his hat soaked and the rain trickling cold over his ears and down his neck and to his wrists his sleeves were cold and sodden. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and blew on them and warmed his cheeks. He saw Pat Glacken at the window facing him, Glacken’s house a white farm bungalow, and he waved to her but she did not see him through the rain. He saw then Glacken walking across the yard and the man saw him and stopped, squinted his pop-eyes at Barnabas as if he were an apparition, watched him approach up the hill, Barnabas moving through the teeming rain like a man passing through moments of his own life and whatever traces of him left were washed clean behind him.
Barnabas half shouted. Yes, Fran.
Yes, Barnabas.
Soft day.
Aye.
Glacken wore dungarees and a tan shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal freckled lobster arms. The rain rolled off his flesh and darkened his cap and he stood blinking against it. C’mon up, he said. Meself and Martin are skulling.
The yard mudded in the rain and a squat pig walked in front of them greaved with mud and Glacken booted it, sent the animal half scuttling as if it were used
to such things. The swallowing dark of the barn and his eyes had to adjust to the light that pressed meekly from a small back window and he saw then the shape of Glacken’s son Martin take form out of that shadow like a younger vision of his father, the same body and bald head, and he slunk forward shepherding a calf in the gulf between his legs.
Yes, Barney, he said. How’s about ye?
Yes, Martin.
I see that new beard has shielded you from the rain.
Aye. And how’s the new wife?
What new wife?
Barnabas nodded to the animal.
Martin let out a small laugh. Well, she don’t talk back, he said.
His father motioned with his head. C’mon now.
Barnabas watched, knew well the procedure. Glacken leaning over the calf all sable and milk and Martin with a chain around its neck. The pink snout of the animal quivering between Martin’s thighs as if it could take from the air a sense of what was coming. The man’s strange odour and his huge hands around the animal’s flanks. Glacken leaning dangerously as if he was intending for it violence though in his mind what he was about to do to the animal was good for it. He came at the calf with a yellow cup dehorner and he put it to the animal’s head where the soft fur had been pared back to reveal the jut of first horns. Come here to me, sweetheart. Martin holding the animal with a look of concentration, his father going down upon the skull, cutting through the protuberance with the tool, the animal kicking up something fierce, the language of suffering translated simply into movement and then it let out a bawl. Jesus fuck, hold her steady. Martin roaring at the animal. Hold still, ye bold bitch. His father leaning over again, going at the second horn, the animal shaking now, the son trying to hold her still. Take a hold of her for fuck’s sake. What in the hell are ye? The crunch sound as he worked the dehorner. He stood up when he was finished and pushed the bawling beast away from him.
Jesus, I hate the skulling of them, Martin said.
None of us likes it, said Barnabas.
Glacken nodded to him. How’s everything up at your place?
Have you got a minute?
Glacken turned and motioned for the two of them to stand by the edge of the door and Barnabas stuck his boot out into the rain, watched it spatter. Glacken nodded. What’s up with ye, Barney?
I’m setting out to rebuild the byre, Fran. Have to do it mainly from nothin.
Glacken frowned. Did you not have insurance, Barney?
No, Fran. I had it cancelled.
Glacken leaned his head out and took a look at the rain and he rolled his mouth into a spit. So yer all out.
I’m all out.
Knowing you, you have ideas.
Well, that’s what I’m here about.
You want to sell me some of those fields then.
Barnabas gave him a strange look and he shook his head. Naw. I’m thinking bout something else you might be able to help me with.
Glacken looked at him surprised. And what’s that?
That mountain of blocks under the tarpaulin behind the barn. I seen them there a long time unused. Was wondering if you’d let me have them. There’s nearly enough of them for what I want to do. I can pay you back the full price of them when I’m back up and motoring.
As Barnabas talked Glacken began to knead the palm of his left hand with his thumb. He spoke with his eyeballs full upon the yard.
Well, Barney. That’s wild problematic so it is. Wild problematic.
Come on now, Fran. I’ll pay you interest.
That doesn’t stop it being wild problematic.
What is wild problematic?
That.
I’m just asking, Fran, is all.
The problem is I need em. I’m not done with em yet. I’m really sorry, Barney, but that’s the way it is. Glacken turned around and nodded towards his son. Them boys are gonna help me put up a new shed for the new machinery. We’ve been waiting for the summer to build it. He pointed across the yard to where he would build it.
A long silence wedged between them and Barnabas began to look at an old shoe lying at the edge of the yard, its mouth stouped to the rain.
Just a wee bit of help, Fran, is all I ask.
Help has nothing to do with it, Barney. Would ye not sell up some of them fields to me? I’ve got two boys hungry now to put down their own roots.
Sure what would I farm if the fields are all gone to yous? Haven’t you enough of them?
I’m wild sorry, Barney. Listen, when yer leaving would ye go in and tell Pat I said to give you a side of beef. It’s there hanging.
I canny build a byre with raw meat.
I’ll talk to ye man to man, Barney, about the fields if ye want to sell, but I canny help ye with the blocks. I’m wild sorry.
The men stood there plain and awkward and Barnabas saw himself standing like a fool. He searched for something to say that would save face, make it seem he had other things to talk about, that he was indifferent to the man’s attitude, but what came out of him whipped unbidden from its own dark. Jesus, you’re a tight cunt of a man, Fran Glacken. A right dog in the manger. Them blocks are lying there as long as. He shook his head furiously as he spoke and he saw then Martin stepping fast towards him and he took a hold of Barnabas’s tie and roared at him, don’t you talk to my father like that, and Barnabas gave him a shove backwards and Martin lowered his head and charged into him. The two men went to the ground and began rolling like the stars of some silent slapstick comedy till Fran Glacken roared at his son and kicked him in the ribs. Glacken staring pop-eyed at Martin who stood up red-cheeked, began fixing his shirt calmly, not once lifting his eyes off Barnabas who bent for his spilled cap. Barnabas began to brush dirt and straw off his arms and he stared at Fran Glacken, his breath heaving, a look in his eye of derision. In the silence that was held for that moment it became clear to all that the words Barnabas had said were said and would always be said and Glacken’s silence stood itself between them in acknowledgement of that fact and Barnabas began to walk off down the yard, his fists out of his coat a pair of useless shining obols, could feel the hard orbs of Glacken’s vision upon him. Down onto the road amidst the sharp sheets of rain that cut into him and he pulled his hat against it.
He stepped into the house with his clothes stained dark from the rain and in the shadows of his eyes lay storm pools. He stood there shaking his head at no one in particular.
Didn’t I tell you not to go out in that? she said.
He began to mutter. I’ll never ask nobody again for help, nobody at all.
She helped him out of his coat, turned a chair towards the stove and hung the coat off it. He stood over the heat with his hands flat out, water vapours beginning to rise off him like some spectre freeing itself of his body, water from his coat pooling upon the tiles, water in the hollows of his ears, and he put a finger into each earhole and shook them.
You’ve got dirt all down the back of your coat. What were you doing?
I tell you, when I was a youngster in America I remembered nothing of the rain.
Go upstairs and change out of them wet things or you’ll get a cold.
He turned and she saw him briefly like a different person, the colour of his face changed by a rusting beard that was at odds with the darkness of his hair. How the beard had aged him quick. He stood a minute staring at the wall and then he turned for upstairs. He came back down in a change of clothes and poured himself tea and sat drinking it. He began to roll a cigarette and she ran her hand through the glisten of his damp hair and stopped. I’ll get you a towel, she said.
You’re all right. I’ll get it myself.
He took to the stairs again with heavy steps, went to the press and stood looking at its contents, reached into the back and pulled out two balled sheets. His brow thickened. He stood looking at them, had just begun to open them out when Eskra came quickly up the stairs, swiped them out of his hands.
Are you mad, woman? Aren’t those the sheets that went missing?
No, they’re not, she said.
Well what are they then?
Those are the sheets that were ruined in the fire. Take a look at them. They’re smoked dark.
Well, what in the hell are you holding onto them for if they’re ruined?
Just.
He looked at her a moment as if she were the flesh and bone of confusion, grabbed at a hand towel and shook his head at her, began back down the stairs muttering. She stood with the sheets in her hands and looked towards the window, saw the rain had just stopped. The air held hushed and trembling and the world washed to a lustre that took the evening light and glittered it back in all its manifold colours. She heard then the back door close, pricked her ears for Billy’s voice, but heard none. She put the sheets back in the press and went downstairs but what she saw was an empty room and the soaking coat gone from the chair against the stove.
The house of Goat McLaughlin rose to meet him in the spit-rain that lingered after the hard fall. He came to it from the back fields, saw the dirty white walls of the house alight in evening’s amber. From behind a galvanized pig house came a black dog alertly forward. It woofed sharply and the other dogs came. One of them sidled forward on spindled legs with eyes shark-like and then another younger just like it. The three grouped watching Barnabas trudge the turnip field and begin to climb the barbed wire fence, saw him swing a leg over and stop, snapped loud woofs when they saw his trouser leg snagged on a barb. It clung tenacious as if it had its own animal nature and Barnabas roared out a curse at the dogs, at the fence, shook his leg but set free only beads of rain. Arrah fuck. He shook his leg again and took a look towards the house, had a feeling he was being watched, could see himself from a distance as if he had been stuffed to the gills with stupidity like some ridiculous scarecrow with its leg held aloft. He saw then Goat McLaughlin come spry towards him gathering the spit-rain in his beard. Pig shit smell off him. A pinch of his fingers and Barnabas was freed.