Crow's Breath

by John Kinsella

  There was a knock at the front door. He ignored it. It came louder, over and over. He heard children’s voices – small children. He ignored them and the noise, and fixated on his hand, the thread it was working. The knocking stopped, and he heard the tricksters crunching across the bluestone. For a moment he wondered where the bluestone had been quarried, then settled again.

  The next set of knocks was louder, more aggressive. Someone shrieked, and he looked out of the kitchen, down the corridor, to the front door, which was taking a battering. His hand was shaking and he bumped the model, jumping out of his chair with a start. He saw the mail slot lift, and fancied there were eyes glowing in the darkness. Tricksters! Had they seen him? He couldn’t be sure. He abandoned the model and retreated to the side of the doorframe. His palms were sweating. They were yelling and banging and then there was silence and something – blue metal? – fell through the door slot.

  Looking back anxiously at his work on the table, he retreated into the living room, which was as much in the centre of the house as he could get. He closed the doors, checked the curtains were drawn, and turned off the lights. And there he crouched in the abject darkness, the tenuous silence, waiting for the next assault.

  *

  It’s the time of year, the night when the veil is thinnest. Before the children were born, he and his wife had lived in America, and had vaguely ‘participated’ in the grotesqueries and festivities by attending a Halloween work party in costume (he a ghoul, she a witch). But in that place, there was a degree of separation from the festival’s origins that made it less disturbing for him. Not that he was admitting he was disturbed, huddled there in the dark, without even the glow of a computer screen to comfort him. In fact, as the next set of pounding pounding pounding on the door came, he was glad there was no computer on in the house – it suddenly seemed the thinnest of membranes.

  Not far from their house, there was a famine pit, a mass grave. He walked around it rather than past it. His ancestors had travelled to Australia to escape the famine. It had struck him that so much of the Halloween imagery was portrayals of the starving, of the faces of those whose lives were stripped away by blight and a murderous government policy emanating from London. In that room, the pounding reached in and threatened to pull his heart out, the sounds of the starving pleading for the sweets and chocolates buried in that bag in the cupboard.

  When the Others reach through the membrane, they are alive and vibrant. It’s their time of year, and they must be respected and celebrated. They feel empowered. They assemble the ship in the bottle without tools, without threads to raise the mast. Someone was tapping at the window and yelling, Trick trick trick. Teenagers. Rocking back and forth, he propelled himself forward, opened the door and dashed to the kitchen. Groping in the dark, he found the cupboard and the sweets and, following the street lights to the front door, opened it and hurled the entire bag out front, slamming the door behind him. A manic dance began outside, with caterwauling, screaming and hooting.

  *

  Hello? Are you here, love? Where are you? Why are the lights off? Love!

  Where’s Dad, Mum? Look, here he is. Dad, what’s wrong?

  Love, why are you curled up like that on the floor? Come on, get up. What’s wrong? You’re frightening the children!

  He looked up into the faces of demons, the flesh of the faces running hot in the cold air they dragged in from outside.

  *

  He didn’t emerge from the house for days. The house had grown older inside. He insisted the computer wouldn’t function; his work was an anachronism. His wife compensated, to meet a deadline. She was brimming with creative energy and ability, but frustrated with him, and in agony on the children’s behalf. He had a habit of bringing her down when she was otherwise peaking.

  The children were embarrassed when they realised the ‘madman who hurled sweets’ at kids was in fact their father. It was the talk of school, of the village. They hadn’t had friends round yet, so nobody had quite worked it out, but they would eventually. And then the children would die a thousand deaths. They had to move town, they just had to.

  Really, love, you can’t behave like that. You’re getting more and more anti-social. It’s not a good model for the children to follow. You know they’ve always looked up to you. I must say, now I think about it, you’ve not really been yourself since we moved here.

  In the cold, crisp November air, the sun breaking through over the bay, he walked down to the main street. It had taken every bit of mental and emotional strength he could muster to propel himself through the front door. There weren’t many people out and about; those that were stared at him, then put their heads down suddenly and walked briskly past. He fancied even their little toy dogs gave up shitting on the pavement to get away from him as fast as possible. He reached his target, his reason for venturing out, and stood before its weirdness. He peered in through the window. His wife had told him about it – how much care went into its creation, how much activity, belief, and ‘art’. You would have been impressed, love, with the detail. So much detail – just like you have with your models. Pure attention to detail. He broke into a cold sweat.

  *

  Doctors who do house calls are rare anywhere in the world these days. Even rarer in a place that shares its doctor with two other villages. And she was impatient and annoyed at being summoned. He needs to go to hospital, the doctor told his wife. He’ll need to go on a drip. If he won’t eat … can’t eat … then that’s the only way. You say he’s lost fifteen kilos? Really, something should have been done days ago. I know what men are like when they refuse to see a doctor. And I can’t rule out something psychological, but I’ll send these blood samples off immediately and see if we can’t locate something biological. The fevers certainly suggest an infection, but if, as you say, he keeps repeating himself and obsessing over what seem like trivial details to you or me, then clearly he’s under some kind of stress.

  *

  He had forgotten his wife, his children. He remembered the witches’ house. The witches had been tending great cauldrons – cooking children. Turnips bobbed in the bubbling muck – turnips that were heads of children. Blood ran down the windows and the walls. Emaciated ghoul-children caged and prodded, part of a thin feast.

  This was how it had been described to him. The kids were thrilled, love; I’ve never seen them so excited. And they felt part of the community – so many of their friends were visiting and a few were even in the cages. You’d think they’d not eaten for months. The make-up was a credit to them. And the witches were mothers and grandmothers, really caught up in the spirit of the occasion. The amount of time and effort that went into it! Says something about the sense of belonging, of sharing and camaraderie you get here.

  He had peered into the building – abandoned by a shop owner who’d gone bankrupt during the crash. Through streaks of red paint and dirt, he could see fragments of truth. Most had been cleared away. But there was a cauldron, there were babies’ playpens folded up. The cages. Making do with what’s at hand. The messiness of it all appalled him. It looked so slipshod – even in the clearing-up, it shouldn’t look so slipshod.

  *

  Hunger gnawed at him. He needed Hunger to consume him. The hospital lights ate into him like false suns. He hated the light. Through the murk of generations and migration, he remembered the one saying that had come down through generations of his family on the Irish side, from his Gaelicspeaking ancestors who had climbed aboard the ships with hope and fear and with death everywhere behind them. He wondered how much had been lost in translation, through the whisperings fading over years, through reading other accounts. Who did the words belong to? He tore the drip from his arm and called out in a voice barely his own, ‘Crowds of wretched creatures begging for something to eat, wan little faces thrusting themselves in at the window.’ The thin veil of skin and flesh fell away and he walked free, replete.

  NEED OF ASSISTANCE

  Travelling between st
orms he led his mum and dad, both drunk as skunks, into the ferry terminal. It was dark and cold outside, and inside wasn’t much warmer. He was rugged up but his mum and dad were lightly dressed, yet not feeling the cold. He was annoyed with them for being so out of it, but looked fiercely at the other passengers when they stared down their noses, as his mum would say. But she wasn’t saying much because she was really pissed, really, really out of it. Wasted, she’d have said of his dad if he’d been that far gone.

  His dad headed off back to town to get another drink, though the ferry was due to board in twenty minutes. He stayed there with his mum, in the blue plastic terminal seats under fluorescent lights. He was conscious of every glance as his mum swayed from side to side, her eyes half-shut, singing to herself lightly and still in key. She wore boots and jeans so low that her bum crack and butterfly tattoo showed; her bomber jacket open over a loose blouse decorated with spittle and traces of vomit.

  It was five minutes to boarding and his dad wasn’t back. Then the gate opened and people started pushing towards it. He panicked, trying to get his mum up and handle their wheelie cases at the same time. There was a sudden stink of piss and he saw from his mum’s expression that she was warm, relieved, then confused and distressed. The urine pooled in the bucket seat as she leaned forward to check herself, plunging to the ground, her wet bum facing the ceiling. People steered around her and tried their best to look the other way. It amazed the boy how fast the stink had come – usually it takes a while and needs to go stale. He wondered if his mum was pissing stale piss.

  He acted quickly, grabbing her arm and trying to lever her upright. When her right breast fell through the opening in her blouse, he managed to pop it neatly back into privacy. His dad arrived, swaying and swearing and, grabbing his wife’s other arm and one of the wheelie cases, hoisted her into a staggering, crouching position, and frogmarched her to the gate. The boy followed, bringing the two resistant wheelie cases to order.

  He doubted they’d be allowed onto the ferry, but the ferry is the drunk’s mode of travel, and the ticket checkers turn a blind eye. Without the drunks, there’d only be the cars and their passengers. The business relied on drink.

  The long, steep climb to the ferry was almost done when his mum slipped over again and his dad went down as well.

  Fucken eedjet! Silly fucken bitch, yelled his dad, but then, pulling himself together, he smoothed his wife’s hair and said, Sorry, darlin’ … sorry, my fault.

  The boy smiled inside. He loved his dad for this. Dad never lost his temper for long. Other boys his age, sons of his parents’ friends, didn’t have it so good. Their old men would beat them when pissed: clip around the ear, kick in the bum, damned good flogging. And all in the name of God, the Church and Mother Mary. He couldn’t understand it. He was going to be a priest and become pope and put a stop to it all. No more wine in church, the blood of Christ would be fruit juice, raspberry-red fruit juice. And people would walk upright and never curse.

  But his dad did have a temper with other folk. The boy often thought his dad hated the world and everyone in it, other than his wife and the boy. Seeing them fall, an official in a white uniform – a sailor, the purser, the boy didn’t know – asked them as gently as possible: Are you in need of assistance?

  No, not them – he asked the boy, not his mum and dad, and maybe that was the Samaritan’s error. He asked the boy, as if he were the adult, as if he were in command and control, the authority figure.

  His dad looked cockeyed at the uniformed man – from below, as he drew himself upright, then straight in the eye. The boy saw his dad’s body tense and his mum grip his arm tightly, as if in her haze she could sense what was going to come, like the eyeless witch who is suddenly given the eye and can see all (though the boy thought his mum beautiful). The boy knew the fist would clench and suddenly leap out towards the jaw of the uniformed man.

  But just before their fates were sealed, something out of the usual happened, halting his dad’s fist midair and suspending it. The boy started to cry.

  Yes, thank you, sir, I am … we are in need of assistance. My mum is unwell and needs to lie down. She has a change of clothes in her bag. Would you have a cabin free?

  The family had discussed taking a cabin but it was sixty euro more and that was good drinking money. They’d sit in seats crossing the Irish Sea, although a rough crossing was expected.

  The uniformed man had expected the fist and was surprised when it didn’t arrive. Yes, he said, it’s a fairly empty ship tonight due to the weather. I am sure we can arrange something.

  The family were placed in a cabin, and no payment was asked for. In the middle of the Irish Sea, after his mum and dad had collapsed into sleep on the bunks, the boy went out onto the deck, spray rising many times his height to cover him. Only one other person was on deck: the uniformed man, the sailor. He braced his way along the rails to stand next to the boy, yelling into the weather: You shouldn’t be out here, boy. He said it in a way that meant, But you’ve experience of storms worse than this.

  Thank you for helping us, sir.

  That’s okay, matey. Watch the grog when you’re older, it’ll rot your socks. I know, matey, I know …

  The boy fought his way back through the watertight door and down to the cabin where he sat in a seat watching the luminous storm and listening to his parents snore and ‘sleep the sleep of the dead’, as his dad would say.

  When they docked a few hours later, rotten headaches and tiredness making a surreal swirl of Fishguard Harbour, the family managed to pull themselves together and made their way off the boat with relative efficiency. At the bottom of the gangplank stood the uniformed man, seeing the passengers onto terra firma.

  Yes, indeed, it was a very rough crossing, he said. Captain almost didn’t sail. But we’re here now, safe and sound.

  As the boy’s dad, arm linked in his wife’s, passed the man, he looked at him cockeyed again and mumbled, We’ve met before somewhere, I never forget a face.

  His wife, catching the boy’s nervous glance, processed quickly. Yes, my darling, on another crossing … or in a bar here or back in Rosslare …

  The boy’s dad looked doubtful but said, Yes, that’s surely it, and stuck out his paw to shake the man’s hand.

  They passed on into Wales and the boy looked back at the uniformed man, who winked an ancient wink full of the power of the pagan god of the sea, and of all religions everywhere.

  IN NECROSPECT

  He always carried one in his wallet, just in case. It was one of those plastic imitation snakeskin jobs – the wallet, that is. I reckon he got it out of a show bag. He’d say, I’d do you if you’d let me. And I’d say, Not on your life, buddy. That’s how it was between us, and even then I felt that show-and-tell rubber would mean the end of our friendship. Get between us, so to speak, or not, as the case may be. Mouldering away in its metallic plastic wrap, the ring an eyehole from being pressed flat. Sort of emptily gloating. He showed me, like, every day, almost. A ritual, just to reassure himself.

  I’ve got to say that he hadn’t laid a hand on me in a suspect way – in that way; he was a nice boy at heart, I’d tell myself. It was all tough-guy stuff on the surface. And I was a good girl … well, insofar as blokes didn’t turn me on, anyway. I had a crush on our teacher, though I wasn’t telling anyone that. I knew where I was and what I wanted, and it just wasn’t Tom Sinclair – or Stink, as we’d call him. We’d been knocking around after school with each other for years: kicking footies, smoking cigarettes, doing the odd joint, roaming the streets.

  That afternoon we met at my place and headed off for the Squat. We’d only ever skirted the place before, but had it in our minds that the time had come to go all the way and check it out inside. It was the talk of the school. We weren’t sure if it was being used, but thought we’d take the risk. What the hell! They – the squatters – could only tell us to fuck off! And they might turn out to be okay, like the guys who hung out beneath Freo wharf, smokin
g joints and dangling lines without hooks in the water.

  Stink was in a rush to get there, while the light was good. From then on things become super vivid and I’m right there, on the brink, all over again …

  It’s the middle of winter, so it will get dark pretty early. There’s not much time. Stink is dragging on my arm, telling me to get a move on. I kind of fall around, and jelly-walk after him – it’s an attempt to be familiar and funny and reluctant all at once. I don’t know why I do things like this, just part of my make-up I guess. I tell Stink to watch my sleeve because it’s my favourite red checked shirt and I’ve already stitched it up twice. So he’s off, and I’m after him. The house used to belong to Mrs Pollard, whom my Mum apparently knew. Mrs Pollard died when I was small and the house has been left vacant since then. Don’t know why, never asked, but I’d heard Mum mention it disapprovingly over the years.

  It’s not much now, with the windows boarded up and the doors locked. You see smoke coming out of the chimney sometimes and everyone knows that out-of-it dudes drink and take drugs in there, so there’s obviously a way in around back. It’s hard to work out why it’s been left, but Stink says because it’s owned by an absentee landlord, and that it’s an investment property. I don’t get it, or why the council or the cops don’t clear the dump out, but there you go. It’s there, and it has occasional occupants at least, it has a reputation, and schoolkids stay clear. Until now. Anyway, we’re darting around the back of the place, searching for an entry point, and lift a loose sheet of corrugated iron that’s been attached by ropes through holes near the top so it works like a flap. And we’re in.

  There’s some weird shit over the walls and floor. Before we even call out we’re shut down by the stench and the fear that fills the place. It’s blood and shit – like, real shit. There’s a pentacle on the wall and shafts of light from the lowering sun are making their way in through holes we couldn’t see on the outside, giving the place a sickly feeling where even the dust motes come crashing down. Let’s get out of here … but Stink is at my damned sleeve again and I stick to the spot. What are those signs? Runes or something. There’s a lot of witchcraft in Freo. I yell it inside my head, worried someone might hear. One of my friends at school reckons the teacher I’ve got a crush on is a witch. She only ever wears black. And her hair falls over her eyes and she doesn’t flick it back, you know she’s watching you but can never pin her back with a look. Not that I could anyway, I’d die of shame …