The Night Swimmer

by Matt Bondurant

  You’d go nuts out there, I said.

  Maybe, my husband said. Maybe not.

  We made our turn to the southwest, Bill setting the spinnaker for the downwind leg, Fred holding the mainsail out wide, and the boat rolled before the steady push of wind, surfing the swells. I found a spot just forward of the mast to lie back against the slope of the cabin, my legs stretched out and the spinnaker billowing above me. Fastnet was now clearly visible on the horizon, still a few miles off, and it seemed we would make it there by early afternoon. I closed my eyes and dozed off, enjoying the slow roll of Ceres and the light crackle of the sails. I thought about swimming out from the Ineer at Clear, the long stretch of blue to Fastnet. If the weather was good, and I had seen days when the sea seemed as smooth as a farm pond, and I got a safety boat, I could do it. Since we’d arrived in Baltimore, I felt cut loose, like a dog let off the chain. Something drew me out there, to Cape Clear, and even farther out to Fastnet, and the spaces between Fred and me that normally drove me to distraction unspooled in every direction without end.

  Fred was talking excitedly to Bill about something and I heard the pop of a cork. The sunlight was warm on my face and through my eyelashes the deck flickered and moved like an open palm guiding us through the blue sea. I was filled with contentment; glad to be in Baltimore, glad to have met Bill, glad to be married to Fred.

  Dark matter, he was telling Bill, we don’t even know what it is, except that it isn’t there. There’s more of it than what is there.

  The wind carried the smells of the back of the boat over me, the bacon and tomato sandwiches, Bill’s aftershave, the musty smell of the cabin, and the scent that was Fred. Only Fred.

  Oh, what can you do with a man like that? The thought of this made me smile, and our trip to Fastnet seemed to me like a voyage of real import and consequence, a journey that marked us with significance, just as Fred had declared it would be. It was as if some other source moved us across the blue globe and guided our fortunes, something ancient and unknowable.

  A few minutes later Bill was shouting something and Fred was stepping over me, struggling with the spinnaker lines. I sat up, Fastnet still due ahead, the size of my hand. The water was black around the rocks and the sky behind rolling up like a gray sheet while we still sailed in sunlight. The waves were peaking, forming delicate tops flecked with foam, and as the wind came around southwest the boat vibrated while it groaned and rolled. In a matter of minutes the wind turned completely around and increased in velocity. There was a bit of confusion as Fred and I tried to wrestle the collapsed spinnaker into the forward hatch, and we ended up dragging a good bit of it over the side. The boom banged back and forth as Bill slacked the sails.

  Christ, he said, now we’ll have to beat upwind. This might get rough.

  Fred was peering at the LCD readouts on the navigation electronics above the cabin hatch.

  Wind at fourteen knots, he said. Seventeen. Holy shit it is picking up.

  We were nearly broadside to Fastnet now, the boat fighting the angle, heeling over sharply. I got on the rail and hung my legs over the high side as Bill instructed. You could feel the lead keel torquing with pressure and cutting through the forces that wanted to twist it in half. Fastnet was now covered by a thin layer of low clouds, and white spray exploded at the base of the rocks. We banged out a few tacks and seemed to be going backward.

  This is not good, Bill said. We’re not going to make it there.

  On the rail I tried to use the binoculars as we slammed up and down, spray now surging up to the deck line and soaking my jeans. The water felt decidedly colder. Ocean water normally lightens in the shallows, but around Fastnet it seemed to get darker, as if the finger of rock was a thin spire, tunneling hundreds of feet straight down to the ocean floor. Birds clustered on the rusted base of the first lighthouse. The new lighthouse was built starting lower, at the waterline. This way the big waves would break on its gently curved base, transferring the energy up its full height and spreading out the relentless pounding. A narrow channel of stairs cut into the face of the rock wended up to a plateau. It was tough to keep the tight circle of the binoculars on anything, but as it lurched over parts of the exposed eastern side of the rock I kept seeing small things moving around the rocks, in and out of the water.

  Are there seals out there? I yelled back to Bill.

  He shook his head. No way.

  A blast of fresh wind, coming directly from Fastnet, knocked the nose of the boat farther to the east. The boat heeled sharply and Bill cursed and shouted at Fred, who released the mainsail. The small crowd of birds on the rock took off in a group and headed to the mainland. There were gulls, terns, smaller birds, larger dark ones with giant wingspans. I’d never seen a group of different birds flock together like that. We were now nearly running away from Fastnet.

  Twenty-four knots, Fred read from the nav.

  That’s it, Bill said. We’ve gotta turn it back.

  We can’t make it? Fred said.

  Fred’s T-shirt stuck to his body, his feet wedged against the opposite bench, his hands gripping the mainsail sheet.

  Maybe, Bill said, this boat can take it, but it would be a long beat. Longer than I think any of us want to deal with. And the weather looks like it’s turning. We’ll run before this and make the North Bay of Clear in maybe an hour. Another half hour after that we’ll be having Nell’s scones and tea on the terrace. We can watch this thing play out from there.

  I tried to keep the binoculars trained on Fastnet as it receded quickly but didn’t see any more movement around the rocks. We were borne away downwind from Fastnet as if pulled by a string.

  By the time we reached Cape Clear the skies over Fastnet were empty, the afternoon sun high and warm, and the wind had rotated back around to a fresh westerly. The golden seas calmed to a slight undulating swell that rolled out to Fastnet and into the Atlantic.

  Chapter Five

  Ibegan spending half the week on Cape Clear that fall, swimming in the Ineer every day I was on the island. At Blananarragaun the black rocks were pocked with puffin nests, and coming in to touch the rocks before turning back across the harbor mouth I would set off small explosions of puffin flight, the birds popping out of their nooks and crevices, arching delicately into the air, and hitting the water so softly they seemed absorbed by it. They moved through the water like plump black and white bullets, and I could feel them zip around my legs.

  Pointanbullig on the other hand was populated with razorbills, auks, and the occasional gray seal hauled out onto the rocks. Even when I drew to within a few yards, the seals were unperturbed by my approach, regarding me silently with apparent disinterest. But always at least one seal would shove off into the water after I made my turn, and I would catch them eyeing me from below or behind, shooting by suddenly or sometimes approaching head-on only to veer off, twisting in gentle corkscrews, their bodies flashing, disappearing into the sea.

  Three miles to Fastnet and back would not be much of an issue, rather it was the conditions. But many days the sea seemed as calm and inviting as a warm quilt, the sun rippling across it. I thought about the lighthouse all the time. At all points on the island I found myself craning my neck or searching the horizon for a glimpse. It lorded over my sleep like some giant, silent sentinel. I suppose I was afraid, but the sensation somehow didn’t take that shape. Fastnet drew me on, as if it was attached somewhere to part of me I didn’t understand or couldn’t locate.

  I asked O’Boyle if he could arrange a boat to trail me to Fastnet and back.

  You havin’ me on?

  No.

  Ah, Elly, you can’t be serious. It’s too far. Too rough.

  The wind rocked his caravan as we sat with a couple cans of Old Peculier and ate apple slices off of paper plates. I explained that this would take under three hours if everything went well, more if it didn’t. The weather was still holding, but as we moved toward November it would only get worse, and in a few weeks the swim would likely b
e impossible.

  I’ve done this distance before, I said. I’ve done longer, a lot longer.

  What if you drown?

  Not me, I said. Won’t happen.

  Posh. Anyone can drown. ’Specially out there.

  Feel this, I said, and held out my arm.

  O’Boyle touched my forearm carefully with his fingertips, running from my wrist to my elbow. His eyes crinkled into a smile. He took his other hand and held my wrist, examining my fingers and palm.

  Huh.

  Don’t worry, I said. I can’t be drowned.

  I wrote it all down for O’Boyle on a sheet of paper: Friday, the Ineer, seven in the morning.

  I’ll do it without you if I have to.

  Okay, okay, he said. Got a mate with just the rig. Dinny’s got a good boat.

  He taped the sheet to his caravan door with a used Band-Aid he found on the counter.

  Don’t tell anyone, I said. I don’t want anyone to know.

  I don’t know why I said it. But the shock of saying it out loud made my skin flex and hum.

  And you must make Dinny swear not to tell, I said. He comes to our pub. Make him swear. I don’t want Fred to find out.

  O’Boyle regarded me quizzically. Then he shrugged and ate the last of the apple and brushed his fingertips on his shirtfront.

  Sure, sure, he said. No problem.

  * * *

  Fred shut down the pub and came out for a night with me at Nora’s. I trooped him around the island in the early afternoon, showing him the old Napoleonic lighthouse, the birthplace of St. Kieran, the wind turbine, the Castle of Gold, and the Ogham stone. Fred was of course most impressed by the terrific vistas, rock and sea, and there is always plenty of that on Clear. We had dinner at the Five Bells, and I introduced Fred to Sheila and Ariel. I steered Fred away from O’Boyle, giving him a nod from across the room, which he returned with a wink as he wound a circular tune on his fiddle. We sat in a dim corner, munching our chops with leeks, roasted potatoes, and a mound of sweet peas glistening with butter. We had a few pints of Murphy’s then ordered up some double hot whiskeys and clinked our glasses together and crouched over the table holding hands. Fred talked about his plans for buying a used car or truck, something he could take to pick up supplies in Cork, get to the university library, and generally give us more freedom.

  Something practical, he said, like an old station wagon. Then we can get out of town if we like.

  We felt like visitors, like honeymooners perhaps, just passing through, enjoying the brief, simple beauty of a quiet dinner in a foreign country, the sea crashing into the night.

  After we left I talked Fred into taking a nighttime dip in the Ineer. We stripped down naked, and Fred spent a few minutes preening comically, doing a bit of an Irish dance and rubbing his bulbous belly.

  Maybe I’ll just have a baby, he said.

  Fine by me. Go right ahead.

  Gonna be a soccer player, he said, and hefted it in both hands.

  Fred wanted to dive in from a high perch, so we walked out on the Giant’s Causeway and clambered up the rock and crouched there like puffins, sharing swigs from his flask. The water was oily and undulating, a black field with a scattering of stars. We perched on the rock, Fred shivering, poking each other and giggling, our eyes silently warping and growing in the dark, until the bay was lit with our own happiness.

  Fastnet cast its intermittent beam across us. Fred held my hand, tightly, and we stood up together, balancing. We were about twenty feet up and would need to clear a few feet of rocks below.

  This is gonna be cold, Fred said. Real cold.

  Yep. You won’t be able to stay in long.

  How deep?

  At least twenty, but you are going to have to really stretch out if you want to dive.

  Fred squeezed my ass and I squealed.

  I almost fell you asshole.

  We’re gonna dive, right?

  Of course.

  That’s what I love about you, Elly, he said. One of many things.

  I gave his barreled torso a big squeeze.

  We counted down and launched ourselves into the air, still holding hands at the peak of our flight. We didn’t let go until we began to fall.

  * * *

  That night the wind howled across the island, rattling the windows in our room, where Fred laid me out on the bed and methodically licked the salt from my skin. He started at my toes, and I giggled and twisted at first. Then he parted my legs and I felt his whiskery cheeks along my inner thigh and I grabbed handfuls of the bedspread and writhed under him. The moonlight through the window illuminated one side of his face and body, silver and shining, and when he put his hands into my hair, still wet from the sea, I cried out in the hollow of his neck and jaw and arched into him.

  In the morning we both ate huge breakfasts, and Nora seemed especially pleased that Fred was there. He kept up a steady stream of hyperbolic compliments on her cooking, her house, the island, until she flapped a dish towel at him and insisted he come back often.

  We hugged in the yard by the gate, Fred searching my back with his hands. I inhaled his scent deeply, as if to keep him with me.

  Stay as long as you like, he said. This place is amazing.

  I’m gonna visit a goat farm today, I said.

  Awesome, Fred said. I’m going to open up our pub, the pub we own. In Ireland. On the coast of Ireland. Sometimes life is so badass I can’t hardly believe it.

  I kissed him in the road and he jogged down the hill to catch the ferry and open up the Nightjar. I sat on the stone wall and drank my coffee. I realized that we’d rarely made love in Ireland, and it had been many weeks before last night. Watching Fred’s retreating form, I realized how much I missed him. And yet I stayed.

  * * *

  The gate to Highgate’s farm was whitewashed brick with a hand-painted sign: Cleire Goats—Milk, Ice-Cream, Cheeses. The door was answered quickly by a frowsy-looking young German man in a knit cap and a five-day beard. He turned and called out: Someone to see you! The large black German shepherd pushed his nose into my crotch and stopped me in the doorway to the main room. Another giant shepherd, brown with a ruff of black, lay curled in a sawed-off plastic barrel next to the door, eyeing me without concern. The doormat was a slurry of mud, gorse, and grass stains, and the house had the general odor of a wet barnyard. The ceiling was low enough that I had to slouch under the lintel.

  Highgate came out of the kitchen, chin up and smiling, trailing a finger along the couch covered in ratty afghan blankets. There were armchairs on either side of the couch, all facing the squat blackened stove, the floors covered in carpet textured with dog hair and the outside elements.

  Hello, he said, nice to meet you.

  His accent was off, not quite Irish, English, or Scottish. Highgate shook my hand, his hands white and fleshy, tapering down to points, his nails long and crusted. The black dog released me, stepping back and wagging his tail.

  Highgate gestured for me to sit and took his place in one of the chairs. The black dog curled up on my feet, at least a hundred pounds of animal on my toes. Highgate smiled sweetly and raised his chin, testing the air. He was an old man, white bearded but his skin around his eyes was smooth and uncreased, eyes cloudy blue, barely cracked. This man is blind.

  That is Ajax there, probably on your feet. The other one is Hector, who’s officially retired.

  He called back to the kitchen and in a few minutes Gus the German brought out two mismatched mugs of tea sweetened with goat’s milk.

  So you’re the one who’s been swimming in the Ineer, he said. A bit brisk in there now, isn’t it? The cold must not bother you much.

  The stove was barely warm, and a damp draft was circulating around my ankles. Highgate was barefoot, his feet gnarled and buckled with thick yellowed nails.

  Never been in myself, he said. Sorry to say. But as you can imagine, it gets tricky for a man like me. I stay dry as often as I can. Is the tea all right?

  Ye
s, wonderful.

  And the Nightjar? Things going well for you there?

  Yes. Mostly.

  He chuckled and stroked his beard.

  Tricky business, that. You just have to hang on till the summer.

  That’s what we’ve been told.

  The gale season is long out here, Highgate said. It can be trying. But summer brings all kinds of fresh humanity to our shores.

  I told Highgate that I was interested in goats. I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t want to simply demand to know who was walking around his fields at night, watching me from the cliffs. He said he’d show me around the farm and introduce me to his helpers and goats.

  First how about some lunch? We have plenty. Come meet the rest of the crew.

  If a blind man cooks you dinner, you had better be prepared to have your food generously handled. I sat at the small Formica table in the kitchen with the woofers while Highgate prodded goat meat patties in a skillet with his fingers. He had washed his hands, but there was a layer of Cape Clear that could not be removed from the creases and nail edges. On the table was a pitcher of thick goat’s milk, a bowl of crumbled goat cheese veined with blue streaks, a torn hunk of bread, and a plate of greens from the garden dressed with vinegar.

  Highgate fumbled around on the counter, trying to locate some plates and glasses.

  The trouble with being blind, he said, is other people. When I lived by myself, I knew where everything was. Someone else comes by, things get moved.

  Besides Gus the German there was the slight, large-eyed Japanese girl named Akio; a young Frenchwoman, Magdalene, just back from hitchhiking through Africa, her hair tightly wound in a dozen braids colored with beads and feathers, each marking a place she’d been; and a clean-cut young man from Ohio named Patrick. The two other woofers, both American girls from Texas, had cleaning duty for the day and were mopping the upper rooms. They were all young, just out of college, save Magdalene, who was a hairdresser back in Marseille. They scrambled for the goat patties as Highgate ladled them out, spotted with beads of grease, and happily ate them with their hands like large cookies. Ground goat meat is not unlike very lean ground beef, and the cheese was pungent and crumbly, tasting of soil and salt.