When Dermot gets back to the pit, Michael is down below exactly where he left him. His notebooks in his canvas bag beside him, the camera on his lap.
Squinting up at Dermot, Michael asks, “Will you bring Abbey along?”
“I will.”
“I was thinking of asking Janey.”
Dermot looks up at the sky, then down at the top of Michael’s head. “All that business is the past.”
“You’re right,” Michael agrees. Picking up a handful of dry turf, sifting it through his fingers.
There had been a time, about ten years ago, when Dermot had managed to live in the present, to let go of the business that had come before. He was seeing Nora Leary then. Forty-two and shy, well-heeled for a seamstress. They’d met at the Festival parade on High Street. It was the second weekend in September and he was just back from Clarinbridge. She’d backed into him, turned, and said sorry. There was music on the bandstand. They spoke about the weather. The next week he took her to the films.
In the end, Nora Leary made a number of demands. That Dermot arrive in good time and in good order, that he give up the drink. And he did, but not to please her. It was a study, a course in the observation of the self. Here I am with Nora in her living room; here I am not drinking. Is this what it feels like to be sober? Is this what it looks like when a man takes a woman’s hand?
There was talk that if all went well for them, he might be welcome in her home after the marriage. He could sell his property in Spiddal and live in the city. He could find work, maybe at the University—he was just forty-five and he had his degree. Nora completely oblivious to the obstacles he was facing. She made a list of things she expected him to do, her life a ranked system of duty and obligation: If you can stay sober, we can get married. If you can find work, we can get a bigger house. If we get a bigger house, it won’t be too late to consider children. I have to save you so you can save me.
They would stay in most nights, which is what she wanted. Sit in front of her television and eat a warm meal. After six months of it, Dermot grew restless. No drink in the house. Canned laughter echoing in all corners of the room and Nora placing her hand on his as if to say, laugh along. He’d yet to touch her.
One night after dinner he’d reached for her. They’d been kissing on the couch and he’d placed his hand ever so gently over her breast, could feel the pert nipple under her shirt. Suddenly she was standing. Wide-eyed, backing away towards the kitchen. “Nora, Nora,” Dermot tried to calm her but she kept backing away, patting her hair, turning to the sink to run water. And in that instant, those months of study that said this is who you are now or this, those months of watching himself, were over. He was completely inside himself then, and for a long time after. Tired of ignoring his wants, of denying who he was, what had come before. It was better, in the end, to be inside yourself. The dark room that he knew was in him.
“Dermot?”
Dermot looks down at Michael, who’s holding up the tarp with his right hand. Two flags visible below it.
“I put your name on the list,” says Michael.
“What list?”
“The license application for The Heritage Service. I put you down as a mediaeval specialist. You’re cleared to be at the excavation.”
“Can’t anyone come?”
“No, I mean you’re cleared to be here.” He points into the pit. “But listen, I don’t want to go into the whole thing with Hopkins. Though I think he might know not to ask.”
Dermot shakes his head, looks down at Michael. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Tá sé sin ar eolas agam.” Michael smirks.
“I see you’ve been working at it.” Dermot puts a hand down to Michael when he nears the top of the ladder. Hauls him out of the pit. The day suddenly brighter. The clouds moving off the sun.
Michael wipes the sweat off his brow. Straightens up. “Actually, there are some things I’ve known all along.”
Odds
OUTSIDE the cottage, the yard has settled into a pocket of good weather and other than the odd gust of wind swirling the grass in half-circles, everything holds its place. Abbey wanders from window to window looking outside as if she were in a bathysphere. The radio is on and Flagon follows along behind her as she walks around the cottage, goes into the bedroom to make the bed. Through the window at the back of the house she can see that Fitch’s cows, used to the new line of the fence, stay away from it, only come up against the wire to scratch their chins. The lettuce in the back garden rustles its leaves. The wild irises called “flagon” bend and sway at the start of the field. Abbey has no idea how long she stands there. Maybe five minutes, maybe ten. But then her father is with her: I spy with my little eye something that is red. And Abbey looks to the clothes on the line, to the field, but sees nothing. Frank’s voice in her head, from those long drives across Ontario, the two of them in the truck and Frank playing “I Spy” to keep her distracted.
“Where are we going?”
“To visit a friend.”
Abbey stayed buckled into the passenger seat the whole time while Frank hopped out of the truck, knocked on doors, asked a few questions, climbed back in. They drove down one county road after another, past farms and silos, co-ops and shopping centres. The two of them looking for Abbey’s mother, though Frank would never admit it.
An hour later, when Sean sees Abbey coming across the field, he goes back to the wire, intent on ignoring her. He holds the “come along” at arm’s length and walks backwards toward the corner post, his heel hitting a rut in the field so that he trips, has to balance himself. Cuts above his elbow and along his shins from the barbs in the wire. Sean is wanting to get the fence done, has come out the last two nights after dinner, working by flashlight so that Dermot would see how things were progressing. He’d stopped at Éinde’s last night on the way home and pulled the stash out from under the pew. Nothing there but a note from Clancy that said “You owe me twenty Euros, you gom.” Sean thinking it was probably more like thirty.
“Hey.”
“Hi.” Sean glances at Abbey then goes back to hammering the nail into the post.
“Do you want a hand?”
“No.” He hits the U-shaped nail three times until the wire is snug underneath it. Then he pulls the wire taut with his right hand and hammers in the nail the rest of the way.
“I brought you a sandwich.”
“Thanks.” He stands up and starts walking down the east length of the field until he gets to the next post. Abbey walks behind him. Sean sees her and brusquely adds, “Watch it. You’ll get cut.”
“Are you pissed off at me?” Abbey tries to remember if they’d ended on a sour note after he’d come for tea.
“I’m just busy.” He tugs the wire taut and pulls a nail out of his pocket.
“Should I go?”
He turns and looks at her. She’s wearing Dermot’s Arran sweater. He can see the white of a t-shirt underneath, between the knots of wool. “No.”
Abbey hands him the sandwich and he takes it. Opens the wax paper and lifts up the crust.
“I got a job at the Bridge House.” Abbey swings her arms back and forth, clapping them in front of her then behind her.
“Doing what?”
“Cleaning.”
“My sister Nuala worked there last summer. Thought it was crap.”
“Yeah? Well, it might be.” Abbey watches him take a quarter of the sandwich, shove it in his mouth. “What are you going to do after this? Go into fence building?”
“I dunno.” His face softens for the first time since Abbey’s known him. “Maybe work for my Da.” Sean looks over Abbey’s shoulder towards Fitch’s field. “He’s an electrician.”
Abbey turns around, curious to see what Sean’s seeing. But there’s nothing there. Just one of Fitch’s cows standing over by the back stream. The alder tree’s shadow thrown across the field. The wind rustling the leaves.
——
That evening when Dermot ge
ts home, he and Abbey go for a walk in the back field. The sky has gone black like a great glove above them. They go as far as the bridge but Dermot doesn’t want to cross it so they turn around. Flagon nosing the bank by the stream. Dermot talks about the bog and tomorrow’s excavation. About Lindow man, how he saw the body when he was in London. The red hair of his beard visible. One side of his face pushed down like in sleep. Skin puckered between the ribs so that it seemed he had no mass left in him. Like a soft outline of the person he’d once been.
At the southeast corner of the field Dermot walks to the last post that Sean had run wire to. He puts his hand on the top wire and tugs at it but it doesn’t bend. He pulls at the post with his hand and it stands firm.
“He has a crush on you.”
“Who?”
“The boy.” Adding, “You two are closer in age anyway.” Laughing at that. He takes Abbey’s hand and pulls her along, notices Abbey looking back once.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
And Dermot doesn’t force it. They’ve circled the issue of her father one too many times; it’s up to Abbey now to resolve things. Dermot had thought, at first, it was in his power to help. That if he could, he’d roll back time, make her stay with the old man, see it through. But Abbey was right to leave her father, to try to find her own life. She was no more to blame than the woman who had died giving birth to Frank, than the wife who had walked out. Matters beyond our choosing. Abbey hasn’t understood this yet. People do as they will, as they must, and we can only watch them. What was it Michael had said about Eileen McGilloway? “These things happen,” and even Dermot had been put off by that at the time, still reeling from the news. But now he sees the truth of it: people die or they leave us. Life stalls and then picks up and moves on. Dermot looks at Abbey standing in the field, in her skirt and his sweater, her arms crossed, gazing at the sky. Maybe when she gets back to the beginning of the story, when she realizes her place in it, maybe then she’ll settle, or maybe she’ll move on. Travel a way of physically remembering the past. From his dissertation.
When they get to the cottage, Dermot starts walking south.
“Where are we going?” Abbey catches up to him.
“The bungalow.”
The black tarp over the bungalow lifts in waves, and underneath, the yellow siding is briefly revealed. The ground covered in hard soil, piles of dirt turned over for flower beds, holes dug out for hedges that have yet to arrive. Abbey walks to the north wall of the building. The light from their own porch and kitchen reaching them here although the far side of the bungalow is dark. Wind comes in gusts off the bay. Dermot trips on a stack of wood when he is close to the wall, reaches out to steady himself and feels the breath rush out of him. He stops and looks up, waits for the return of air, for his breathing to slow.
“What is it?” She’s beside him, over-concerned.
“I just got winded.” He smiles at her, straightens up. “Shall we?”
He holds out his arm and they lift the tarp. The doorway to the right, a piece of plywood with a hole for a handle. Dermot pushes it open and they walk in. Drywall sacks line the wall in the first room. Wood beams stretch across the ceiling, the tarp above them. In the second room an electrical box with coloured wires dangling in knots has been mounted on the wall. The floor is nothing more than wood sheets, hollow-sounding as Abbey walks over them. Dermot stares up at the crossbeams of the ceiling, just as he does in the old church, only here there is no gash of sky coming through, no rain. Above their heads, the tarp flaps like insincere thunder. Everything tainted with the smell of sawdust. Dermot looks around and around as if the walls might give him clues to the kind of people who will one day occupy this place, as if he can see in the unfixed seams of plaster whether or not they will be good neighbours.
Dermot and Abbey walk around the rooms for the better part of an hour. They talk about the hotel, about Dublin, about Dermot putting the cottage up for sale. Abbey could go back to Connor’s, Dermot could go with her, or maybe, he says, “Your visa will run out and you’ll go back to Canada, go back to your studies.” They talk about moving on, unsure if either of them has the will to do it, if either of them even has a plan. “You’re smart, Abbey. You should go to University.” And he means it. Would never have left Trinity if the choice had been his. And then they just stand there, in the middle of the bungalow, holding on to everything that makes and sways them: Frank and Karen, Rory and Sophie. All of them might as well be there. Dermot eying the crossbeams along the roof, trying to take the measure of things, the underlying structures, the what-it-is that keeps the world from falling in.
IV
All and Sundry
Wending their Way up the Coast
BY eight in the morning a line of cars and trucks can be seen heading up the coast towards Maam Cross. They come from all over, from every village the workmen have been through; and everyone who has met Michael in the week since he’s found the hand, is tagging along. Word about the body has spread, and now the entire west of Ireland wants to see it.
Deirdre McGilloway is sitting on a chair looking out her mother’s window when the procession starts. She steps onto the porch and sees people walking in groups towards the main road. There’s Meehan, and Marianne Lynch’s cousin, and the Flynns. Mrs. Keating, flour on her dress from the bakery, passes by with two huge wicker baskets full of steaming biscuits hanging from her arms. Roxy, the Hughes’ dog, following behind her.
“Are you not bringing the babe to Maam Cross?” Keating’s face is full of encouragement.
“What’s at Maam Cross?”
“Have ya not heard?”
“No.”
“There’s a body in Maam Bog.”
The first of the cars drives out the bay road, through town, over the Spiddal River, past the bungalows that line the coast. Father O’Dugain, standing outside the Church in Rossaveel, sees a few go by, then a few more, until there is almost a train of cars. Two dozen people hitch from the road in front of Hughes. Deirdre finally heads out there with the pram, waiting to catch sight of someone she knows. Cars crawl by slow enough that people wanting a lift can jump right in. Greetings called from one passenger window to another. A little girl in her yard waving a plastic doll.
In the backseat of Mrs. Joyce’s car, Deirdre settles in, listens to the woman tell her cousin from Tuam about the exorcism in Furbo. “I’ve not seen this many out since then.”
“But sure, the ‘Ros na Run’ people are taking over the coast.”
“Now, did you see it last week?”
“I did.”
“Who’d have guessed it?”
“Indeed.”
Old man Conneely walks up the road until Keating drives by and pulls over for him.
“Are we away?” she asks.
“We are,” he replies. One hand on the van door, the other on the headrest as he climbs in. The smell of the biscuits fills the van. The sun comes in through the front window. Conneely considers the square of light that’s landed on his lap.
“Would ya mind?” he asks, indicating the baskets behind him.
Keating narrows her eyes before turning back to the road. “You can have one.”
The line of cars in front of them starts to slow. More cars are coming off the side roads.
“I say you’ll do fair business today,” Conneely says, breaking the biscuit, steam rising between his hands.
Fitch walks towards Spiddal with his dog Egan behind him. A few cars go by, someone honks their horn and drives on. When Fitch lifts a hand a car pulls over, brakes loudly on the gravel. A blond fellow he doesn’t recognize leans over to open the door. “You’re for Maam?”
“I am.”
“Get in.”
“Do you mind the dog?” Fitch asks.
“Not at all.”
The Lab scampers into the backseat and Liam reaches his left hand out to pet him. When he’s settled in, Fitch sees the Bord na Móna parking permit on the dash of the car
. “Ah, you’re in great shape. The rest of us will be at the gates but you’ll be in.”
Minding
THE morning of the excavation, Dermot finds himself at the O’Riordan house, on the front steps where he first met Sean. It’s just past eight and already, driving over, he’d met a line of cars. He balls his hand into a fist and raps on the door. The house is silent and the front room’s dark behind the veneer of curtains. Dermot thinks to turn and go, but suddenly the door opens and the wide-awake, smiling face of Eamon O’Riordan is before him.
“Dermot.” Sean’s father sticks out a hand, a dishtowel in the other. They shake and then Eamon, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, holds open the door, moves aside to let Dermot in.
“How’s the fence coming? I’ve meant to come out to see it, but Sean seems keen and says it’s goin’ all right.”
“He’s a good worker.”
Eamon motions to the wing-back chair in the living room, turns on a lamp, but Dermot stays standing just inside the door. In the back of the house the kitchen lights are on.
“How’s it at the ESB?” Dermot asks.
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