The Night Swimmer

by Matt Bondurant

  I passed into the second mile and over the deepest part of my swim and my underwater visual perspective flattened out, making it nearly impossible to judge distances. Occasional specks moved and darted in a way that suggested they were alive, but I had no way of knowing how close they were. My hands entered in front of my face like desperate white fish springing into the darkness. Despite this I knew the floor of ocean was dropping away, the spaces opening up, I felt it in my skin, in my heart. It even seemed like I could see that depth. It was a glorious feeling. I felt absurd, like a spider crawling across the back of an elephant.

  The boat was still up ahead, though a bit too far away and fading to the left, the diesel engine chugging softly. O’Boyle and Dinny had their backs to me, looking over the other side, leaning over the gunwale, pointing at something in water. The boat continued on, now heading southerly, away from Fastnet. I couldn’t fathom what they could be looking at in the water, but to see them in that crappy little boat, bobbing on the sea, slowly tailing off to the south as the wheel spun freely, suddenly struck me as extremely poignant and sad. I clutched my knees and let myself float, head back, rising and falling with the swells.

  After some time I opened my eyes and discovered I was closer to the lighthouse; the surf was pounding on the rocks and etched stone blocks of Fastnet, maybe a half mile off. I figured I would just go on without O’Boyle and Dinny, get to the lighthouse and back on my own. The nausea was gone, and rather than fatigued I felt explosive and strong, and I powered up and over the swells. I felt like I was flying out of the water, my body rising, the fierce winds whisking under my belly and legs.

  The clouds roiled in formations over Fastnet, the beacon shining like an opening eye. The lighthouse, now the height of my forearm in front of me, seemed to move; the light wasn’t rotating anymore, rather the sea and all of its contents, including me, were rotating around it, as if the lighthouse was some kind of pivot around which the world turned. I spun around, but the boat was nowhere in sight. I checked my watch and found that another hour had gone by, which was impossible. A sudden feeling of vertigo struck me, like I was standing at the edge of a great height, and when I looked down into the water I saw streams of light erupting from the bottom of the sea, like long strands of golden seaweed, thousands of feet down, pulsing with energy, winding their way up around my feet. I hung facedown in the water like a limp marionette, watching. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  Then I began to gag, and when I lifted my head I vomited a heavy gush of fluid, which spread around me on the water like a golden moat. I was treading in a sparkling stew of light and shadow, wavering forms wending their way around my legs like ribbons of fluorescent life. This was when I became afraid.

  Then the boat was there, bobbing like a toy just off to my right, two silhouettes on the rail, watching me, one holding a long pole. I felt a tug under my arms, and I was being pulled through the water to the side of the boat. Dinny’s twisted face gazing down at me, the mottled thrust of scars skittering across his visage like some kind of segmented cave dwelling insect, his eyes swimming disks of black.

  Christ, he said. Completely buggered I’d say.

  Then O’Boyle had his arms around me, a rough blanket, and I was sitting on the floor of the boat, cross-legged, looking at my hands in my lap. They were fleshy and pink. I pinched my palm, still warm and full of feeling. O’Boyle was apologizing, the sound of tears in his voice.

  It isn’t your fault, I said. I just got sick.

  I told you it was dangerous, O’Boyle said. Listen to me next time, eh? Will ya?

  The engines throttled to life as Dinny steered for Clear. Empty beer cans rolled across the deck and tumbled over my legs. I was angry. I shouldn’t have had so much trouble. That had never happened to me before.

  I’m okay, I said. Just take me back.

  * * *

  By the time we got back to the harbor I felt steady enough to get up the hill to Nora’s. O’Boyle insisted that Dinny would go get his Renault from the North Harbor and would run me up there, but I wanted to walk. The world still seemed wispy and bright, the edges of things streaking as I moved through space, but I took this to be the effect of seasickness and the pressure of my goggles.

  That was quite a scare, O’Boyle said. Really thought you mighta had it.

  Yeah, I said. Thanks for fishing me out.

  I remember that look on his face, how strange and tortured it was. O’Boyle was many things, but he was an honest man at heart. Deception didn’t come naturally to him.

  Just before I reached Nora’s gate, I saw a glinting flash of light farther up the road, near the wind turbines. It was a man balancing a large camera lens on a monopod, pointing in my direction. Behind me glowered Fastnet, and I figured he was likely getting shots of the lighthouse in the oddly lit afternoon. After a moment he turned away, shouldering his camera and disappearing behind a hedge.

  I took a long hot shower at Nora’s, then caught the afternoon ferry back to Baltimore. At the Nightjar I found Fred holding court with a small crowd of young people at the bar. It was the woofers, Gus the German, Akio, Magdalene, Patrick, and two young women, wearing jeans and rag wool scarves, with headbands and healthy straight teeth. They sipped colorful drinks through tiny straws. American girls.

  Fred followed me into the kitchen. I asked him what they were doing here.

  The woofers?

  I didn’t know that Fred even knew about the woofers.

  They’ve been coming here for a while, he said. Cool people.

  Those two American girls woofers?

  Stacy and Sara? Yeah. They’re nice. You’d like ’em.

  * * *

  I went up to the apartment, intending to lie down and sleep, but spent most of the time staring at the pulsing ceiling and the wavering bars of light through the window. The muffled sounds from the bar sounded like a subterranean language, and I began to sort and translate the sounds that rose through the floor like spirits of the dead.

  When I came downstairs a couple hours later Fred was showing the woofers how to shotgun beers. There was a small crowd of empties on the bar. Fred was punching holes in the sides of the cans with his keys and handing them out, the jukebox jamming old tunes from Supertramp and the Smiths, part of his nostalgic set. The Japanese girl stared at the punctured can, beer spilling on the floor, clearly baffled by not only the method but the purpose. Patrick waved to me and when I walked over he introduced me to Stacy and Sara. I stood close so I loomed over them while we exchanged greetings.

  * * *

  I just have to keep moving, Fred said that night in bed.

  Sometime after nightfall the dizziness abated and things generally dimmed, a great heaviness settling on me as I lay in bed. I read Cheever’s journals until Fred stumbled in later, reeking of cigarettes and lager.

  As long as I’m moving, he said, I’m all right. It’s when I stop, relax for a moment. It creeps up on me.

  What?

  The feeling. I don’t know. It’s like, some kind of malaise. I feel like the world is continuing on without me and I’m just here, standing still.

  And drinking helps this?

  Yeah. And smoking. Something to get me out of my head, to stop thinking.

  Is it your book? I said.

  Yes, he said. And . . . not. I mean maybe that is just part of it. Sometimes the book seems like a physical manifestation of this thing, whatever it is.

  Fred turned on his side, putting his broad back to me. His voice cracked and wavered.

  I feel like, he said, I feel like I’m groping around in the dark.

  He sighed and went quiet. The wind howled outside the window, the faint clicking of sailboat stays. I could smell the cigarette smoke in Fred’s hair. I closed my eyes and tried to think of Roaringwater Bay, and the ocean. Even the golden light in the water by Fastnet, that terror bubbling up in my throat. But I kept coming back to the woofers in the pub, Stacy and Sara, their plastic smiles and smooth skin.


  * * *

  My mother had the habit of digging her thumb and first finger in the square of my back, grinding her knuckle between my shoulder blades.

  Straighten up, she said. For god’s sake, Elly, stand up straight.

  I have caught myself as I passed a mirror in the hall of a house or the reflection in a storefront window, wearing an off-the-shoulder dress, with my head forward and my shoulder blades jutting out like fins. I have always tried to make myself smaller. In childhood pictures with my girlfriends, I’m always in the back, hunkering down.

  * * *

  You know what that sounds like to me? I said.

  What?

  You really think you are doing this to stop your overproductive mind? Maybe that creeping feeling is something else.

  He raised his head and shifted toward me.

  Like what?

  The shit you should be doing.

  We lay there for a while, both of us motionless, as if we were afraid to move.

  Well, he said, what should I be doing?

  You could start, I said, by drinking less. And by just paying attention.

  To what?

  Do you have any idea of what I’m doing? What I’m thinking?

  Yes, he said. I do.

  Chapter Eight

  Later that week Bill picked us up in Ceres to sail to Clear and have tea with Nell. Bill was constantly on the move, in and out of the harbor, around the islands, and so it struck me as odd that his wife was so stationary, spending all of her time out on Clear. By this time Fred was comfortable sailing with Bill, though I could see his face tighten up when he was handed the wheel. The wind was always brisk, and the sails had to be reefed and worked with a strong hand. A J/105 is a ten-thousand-pound boat, thirty-five feet long with a seven-foot lead keel, and is not easy to knock down, as Bill said, but occasionally a gust would heel the boat over to a point where I was hanging on to the shrouds, my feet dangling in space, Bill whooping as Fred worked frantically to release the mainsail. They wanted to scare me, watching me expectantly as they brought the boat to near capsize. They should have known better. I wasn’t afraid of going in the water.

  We brought the boat around the Ineer and got her settled in. Bill’s place was the southernmost house on the island, set behind Nora’s on the high mesa above Pointanbullig. A long cement-block-style building with bright green shutters, a flagstone patio in back and steps leading up to the bluff. Nell was waiting for us outside in the front, smiling and holding her hands together like a young girl. She was a small woman, a little hunched with age and frail of bone, wearing a polyester sheath dress, stippled with faint flowers, a fat string of fake pearls. Her white hair tossed in wisps around her face. She immediately latched on to my arm and took me inside to allow me to “freshen up” while Bill took Fred out back to the patio. A black box stove stood in the middle of the main room, which was neatly decorated with Bill’s military mementos, framed photos of him in uniform, standing on a beach somewhere in Southeast Asia, a set of Japanese-style swords, commendations, plaques, unit photos of hard-chinned young men in battle gear. A large bolt-action rifle on a rack was placed over the door, the parts oiled and gleaming.

  Nell had a wooden tray set with teacups, saucers, plates, a tiered stack of cakes and cookies, juices, fruit, and a large teapot covered with a crocheted cozy that had usmc emblazoned across the front.

  If you’ll carry the tray, Nell said, we’ll go up to the patio and bring the gentlemen tea.

  She struggled up the steps to the high bluff, leaning on the handrail and planting each foot with diligence. I was struck by how old she seemed, and it dawned on me that either Bill was a remarkably preserved old man or he had married an older woman.

  On the upper patio Fred and Bill stood facing the sea. The view was tremendous: a short grassy hill leading to sheer cliffs hundreds of feet high, jagged spires and jutting formations of black rock spreading into the booming surf. To the west was the green bowl of the Ineer, and beyond the hump of the Ballyieragh highlands, the finger of Fastnet. To the south nothing but miles of shimmering sea all the way to North America.

  I stood beside Fred and squeezed his hand.

  Jesus, he said. This is something you don’t see every day.

  If you spend any time out here, Bill said, you’ll see pods of whales, right, Nell?

  Nell was under Bill’s arm, squinting at the sea, nodding.

  And down on the rocks here, Bill said, loads of seals, puffins, and every kind of bird you can imagine. Nell’s seen a killer whale pull himself up here on the rocks going after a seal pup. Got the pup in its teeth and flopped back in the water like a giant trout.

  We settled into the chairs, and Nell made a fuss over serving us all. Bill told a story about a lawyer from California who bought a farm on the eastern edge of the island a few years back. He bought it unseen, never having been to the island. Then he bought an expensive bull and had it shipped over from the mainland, perhaps with an eye on starting a new herd. But before he arrived the bull got loose and tore up several farms. A few days later it was found at the bottom of the eastern cliffs, near Douglass’s Cove. The lawyer tried to make a thing of it in Cork, but it was soon clear nothing would be done. He sold the place, never having set foot on the island.

  Island justice, I said.

  Corrigan justice, Bill said.

  We drank the tea, watching the horizon, the endless sheets of clouds, the patterned peaks of the ocean that seemed almost motionless.

  This is Nell’s favorite spot, Bill said. And the real reason we bought this house.

  I can see why, Fred said. It is amazing. I could stay up here all day.

  Nell just had to have it, Bill said. There was no stopping her.

  Nell grinned and shrugged her shoulders, pleased. There were blue veins mapping her pale temples, and her hands shook.

  Oh, you should see the sunsets, she said. The way the light falls over Fastnet. Sometimes the rocks glow, golden, like it’s on fire.

  We watched the gentle play of sunshine and water around the lone rock, the slender finger of stone. The more you watched it the more it did seem like the sea somehow revolved around the rock with purpose, like it was moved by some kind of energy from below. The sight of it filled me with contentment.

  I could look at it all day, I said.

  Oh, Bill said, Nell will be up here all times of the day and night. I’ve come out and found her in a January gale, wrapped in blankets, the wind howling around her.

  I never get tired of it, Nell said.

  * * *

  It was November before I got a clear look at Kieran Corrigan. On the ferry he remained enclosed in the pilothouse, his sons, nephews, and cousins collecting the fares and off-loading the goods. I suppose I could have gotten a decent look at him if I had tried, but I didn’t really want to attract his attention.

  I was waiting for the evening ferry back to Baltimore on a bitterly cold Friday, streaming with rain, looking forward to the comfort of the Nightjar, depending upon Fred’s state of sobriety. A generous batch of English birders were holed up in Baltimore waiting for the rain to break, and Fred said they had run through a keg of Murphy’s and were keeping the jukebox wailing. I stood under the short awning of the Siopa Beag. A few cars idled on the pier, but otherwise the harbor was empty, save one man who was standing on the edge of the outer concrete quay, looking to the mainland, hands tucked in his gray slicker, hood covering his head. I could see his profile, the wide heavy mouth of the Corrigans, large square glasses with thick lenses, dotted with rainwater. He looked like my high school algebra teacher.

  * * *

  In the alley behind the Nightjar there was a ten-year-old tan-colored Peugeot 205 hatchback, its wheel wells rimmed with rust and the rear window spidered with cracks.

  Six hundred pounds, Fred said. A lotta miles but still a good deal. We have transportation.

  On Monday when the pub was closed we drove up the N71 to Cork to pick up supplies and
go to the library. The backseats were ripped up as if an extended knife fight had occurred there, but Fred just laid them flat for more cargo space. It was just the two of us, he argued, and the point was really to be able to pick up our own supplies for the bar. It would cut down on our costs, and as no money was coming in anything helped. The car reeked of cigarettes and fried fish, and the windows had to be cranked down with a set of pliers. Still, it felt good to be up and moving across the landscape, a thin spray of rain, the shining narrow road.

  Fred played tapes he found in the glove box, The Best of Sam Cooke, as we drove into the city. Cork’s working-class roots, even in a working-class country like Ireland, are glaringly evident everywhere you look. Some areas have a pasted-on veneer of urban sophistication, but driving along the river that cuts through the center of the city, you can see the old bones not yet buried. Despite the new pedestrian shopping mall and gabled edifices of gastropubs, the eye is drawn to the long rows of empty warehouses and the rusty towers of manufacture gone cold.

  The other day, Fred said as we searched for parking, when it was blowing real hard? I think it was Tuesday? Anyway, the boats were all knocking around in the harbor, stuff flying around, and this big gust knocks the door open. Slam! The power dimmed for a second, and out the doorway there was lightning forking into Roaringwater Bay. It was intense. Anyway, just me and Dinny there and as I go over to close the door I swear he muttered something about Highgate. The goat guy. I mean, I heard him say that name. But when I asked Dinny what he said he wouldn’t repeat it. Just clammed up.

  The Corrigans don’t like him, I said.

  They got a problem with goats?

  Not sure. I think it goes deeper than that.