The Trout

by Peter Cunningham

  ‘Seán, I’m finishing up, I’m leaving. It’s over for me. You see, I’m sorry, but I’ve met someone I feel very strongly about. I’m out.’

  8

  She was the elder of two girls. Her father was deceased and her mother, a Waterford woman, was a teacher who had taken early retirement, Kay told me.

  We walked down Maypark Lane to the river and sat on the side of a boat slip. When she had left school the year before, she had stopped going to Mass. This had upset her mother, who had never recovered from her husband’s sudden death a decade before and still lived in a state of perpetual mourning. Kay had applied for trainee positions in Dublin hospitals.

  The summer light was turning the river into amber. I could not take my eyes off her.

  ‘She thinks I’m selfish to want a life outside her and the shadow of Daddy’s death. She says the rosary every night, and anyone who’s in the house has to get down on their knees and pray for the repose of Daddy’s soul. I loved Daddy very much, but we live every day as if he only died yesterday.’

  We made our way along a wooded path by the still water.

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry, but I just had to meet you and have this conversation.’

  We had come to a beech tree and sat down under its spreading branches. I took out cigarettes. I watched her put her head back against the tree as she let the smoke out in a long, slender tail. Her calm beauty made me already regret the moment when I would have to leave her.

  ‘People won’t like me,’ I said. ‘They’ll think I’m letting them down. Waterford’s a very small place. All I’ll bring you is trouble.’

  She looked at me steadily. ‘I don’t care what people think. I make up my own mind.’

  In those heat-baked days of July, as the sweet smells of broom and roses defied anyone to remember winter, we took separate buses out to Tramore and walked down the strand to where we had first met. The tide was held up stiff by wind as tiny crabs scuttled for safety. In the lee of the dunes, I lit a fire using the stones and twigs left behind after our Whitsun picnic. Oystercatchers soared over the Backstrand.

  ‘Life can’t just end,’ she said. ‘Look at this!’

  As night fell and we both knew the last buses were gone, we lay by the fire, looking at the stars. If we stretched high enough, the universe was within our grasp. Behind us, the sea lay flat and mesmerising. Seabirds bent in an arc over the night water, illuminated by the moon.

  9

  Seán Phelan began to suck in his breaths like someone having a seizure. The cigarette dropped from his fingers.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said, ‘oh, no you don’t, Alex, no way. We have a deal, remember? We made it right over there in that pub. We’re going to go through with this together, remember? So, no way, boy—understand? No fucking way!’

  ‘Seán… ’

  He blinked rapidly as if something had just occurred to him.

  ‘That time a couple of weeks ago… when you didn’t show up for supper… when you said you’d got lost out walking… ’

  ‘Seán… ’

  ‘No fucking way!’ he shouted. ‘This is exactly the kind of thing that can happen if you’re not prepared for it. Now we’re going back into that bar and we’re having a stiff drink and we’re going to talk this thing through like you promised we would.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Can’t you see?’ he cried. ‘This is the big test! Like what happened to Our Lord in the desert. Satan curled around him, wrapped himself around Our Saviour’s legs and tried to bleed all the goodness out of him for one moment—one fucking moment!—of pleasurable sin! It’s Satan’s most devious trick. But Jesus knew this was his big test. He put Satan behind Him. So can you, Alex. All you have to do is get over this one test and the rest is easy!’

  ‘This has nothing got to do with Satan,’ I said.

  But Seán had caught me by the arm and was trying to pull me in the direction of the pub. ‘Come on, now, Alex. Enough of this bullshit! Come on!’

  ‘No.’ I shook myself free. ‘I’m sorry, but I know what I’m going to do. I know what I want. Lots of people will think I’ve let them down, but fuck them. It’s my life. Our life. Please accept that.’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ he said, looking away. ‘Is this a joke? It is, isn’t it? Tell me this is a joke.’

  He turned away and I could see that he was trying to contain his tears.

  ‘Seán… ’

  He gulped.

  ‘We can still be friends… ’ I began.

  He sprang at me, his hands at my throat and I fell down on the hard sand. He began to punch me in the face.

  ‘You fucking sniveller!’ he shouted as I tasted blood. ‘You traitor!’

  I caught his wrist and we rolled down the slight incline. He kept pummelling my face. He caught my hair and jerked back my head to hit me again. I thumped him once, full on his jaw and he slumped over.

  ‘Seán… are you all right?’ I gasped. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He was up on his knees. ‘All that stuff you told me,’ he said with a choke in his voice, ‘it was pure shite, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘About there being a person inside you that you’d never met. Do I sound crazy, Seán? I have these bad dreams all the time. I’m scared to go asleep. I think Father McVee is trying to kill me, Seán.’

  ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘you know that was just between us.’

  ‘I know what shit smells like, Alex. It smells like you. You and your old man. You know what we used to say whenever he left our house? If Doctor Smyth sticks his nose up any higher, we’ll have to get the door lintel raised! How many times did Doctor Smyth come in to see my little sister in Clonmel when we all thought she was dying? Not once. Not one fucking time. But Father McVee came in. Three or four times a week. And now you’re trying to paint him as some kind of a monster? It’s men like you who are the monsters, Alex, leading people on, saying bad things about good men, pretending to be friends when it suits you, making promises you can’t keep. I would have trusted you with my life, you know that? With my life.’

  If it wasn’t for the image of Kay’s luminous face, I would have walked into the estuary and drowned myself. Seán wiped his face with his handkerchief, blew his nose and straightened his hair.

  ‘I’m amazed it took me so long to see it.’ He rubbed his jaw. ‘We never had this conversation. We were never out here today.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  ‘We never came out here last winter, or had a drink, or talked about our lives and made a pact,’ he said as his face became set and he looked, in that moment, a much older person. ‘I don’t know what happened to you as a child, Alex, but whatever it was, you are the most fucked-up person I have ever met.’

  I felt both desolate and elated.

  ‘Seán… ’

  His back was to me. I held out my hand.

  ‘We’ll probably never speak again, but for old times’ sake?’

  ‘May God forgive you,’ he said, ‘because I don’t think I can.’

  He walked back towards the road. I could hear the cries of the children in the dunes, the screech of gulls and the thud of my soaring heart.

  10

  I often thought of the moment the doctor answered the telephone the following morning. It is the first of August. He’s a man used to calls that bring bad news, but this is in a different category. When it is over, he sits down heavily, hollowed by what he has just been told.

  His first reaction is to not believe it. He sees me as his ultimate project, someone he has not just begot but designed. I have gone seamlessly from school to seminary and passed my exams with distinction. Everything he has heard affirms my relentless progress towards achieving the greatest accolade he can imagine. Now this. A brief but decisive call. He is completely flattened.

  But the doctor is not a man to lie down under misfortune for long. After my mother’s death, he ste
eled himself, built up a flourishing medical practice and at the same time reared a child. Every day he must gird himself against the injustices of fate and social deprivation. Now this. After a few minutes, he gets up. He must brace himself again.

  After Mass, everyone scrambled to get packed and gone. I made my way to the rector’s office.

  ‘Are you quite sure?’ he asked, and when I said I was, he held out his hand. ‘Goodbye, Alex.’

  Dizzy, I walked down the corridor to the stairs that led up to the bedrooms and came face to face with Seán Phelan. I tried to say something but he averted his eyes and hurried past me. In my room, I left my cassock and biretta on the bed. I looked up and saw Anthony Butler standing at the door.

  ‘Anthony, I’m… I don’t know if you heard but… ’

  He looked at me despondently. ‘It’s not my fault, is it?’

  ‘Your fault?’

  ‘That day in Tramore… ’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I saw what was going to happen, I saw it exactly. I wondered afterwards if I should have made you come with me,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t. You stood your ground, I ran away.’

  ‘It’s okay, Anthony, really.’

  He smiled. ‘I bet I know which one of them it is. The tall one.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m happy for you, Alex,’ he said. ‘She’s lovely.’

  I made it down to the garden level with my suitcase, took a deep breath and walked out. The first person I saw was the doctor. He was standing by the car, talking to the rector. They both turned when they saw me. The rector touched my father’s elbow in a gesture of sympathy or conciliation, then, with a sad smile, went into the building. The doctor’s hands had balled into fists and were level with his waistcoat.

  ‘Hello, Alex.’

  ‘Hello, Dad.’

  ‘Are we going home, Alex?’

  ‘I’d like that, Dad. Yes, please.’

  He reached for my case. ‘He’s a most understanding man, your rector, you’re blessed to have him here. A saint.’

  I closed my eyes. ‘He’s told you.’

  ‘We discussed you,’ the doctor said busily, as he placed my case in the boot and slammed the lid.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Oh, just that you’d had a little brainstorm, that’s all—nothing he hasn’t seen a hundred times before. Nothing that we can’t work out between the lot of us. You can take a whole month off, he told me. What could be more generous?’ The doctor was getting into the car. ‘By the way, I meant to write and tell you, the trout at home these nights are lepping something unbelievable.’

  ‘Dad.’

  He frowned.

  ‘Dad, I’m not coming back here. It’s over. Sorry, but that’s my decision.’

  He got out of the car again and very carefully closed the door. ‘What?’

  ‘Dad, let me explain… ’

  ‘Just a moment, Alex, if you wouldn’t mind. We’ve just dealt with all that, haven’t we? Please don’t make a fool of yourself twice in the same morning. Now get into the car. I have left sick people waiting in order to come down here. Get in, please!’

  ‘I can’t do that unless you accept my decision, Dad.’

  His face darkened. ‘Is this all the respect you have for me, Alex? After all I’ve done for you? Brought you up on my own? Kept you by my side, given you everything you could want, loved you. I made huge sacrifices, you know. Is this the way you repay me?’

  ‘If only you’d listen.’

  ‘For what? To hear more lies?’

  I shook my head. ‘What lies?’

  ‘Your letters telling me everything here was going so well. The promises you made to your friends.’

  I realised then that Seán must have telephoned him. ‘Everything I said was true at the time,’ I said.

  His mirthless laugh was the prelude to the eruptions I so feared. ‘At least there are some decent lads here who understand how a father feels. A father who prayed he would get his reward in heaven and not a liar for a son.’

  ‘Dad… ’

  ‘A liar is a bad trait,’ he snarled. ‘I told you that many years ago, but it seems my words fell on deaf ears.’

  ‘If I ever told lies,’ I said, ‘it was only because I was too afraid of you to tell the truth.’

  ‘Why this?’ he asked and his face cracked in bewilderment. ‘You have the whole world at your feet. Why?’

  ‘Because I’ve met someone and fallen in love. Surely you can understand that, Dad?’

  His lips came back from his teeth. ‘What do you know of love?’

  I knew it was hopeless then. ‘Maybe in time you will understand,’ I said.

  ‘I’m giving you one last chance,’ he said and took a step towards me. ‘Go back into that building and tell the rector that you made a mistake. Tell him you’re sorry and that you’re going home with me now, but that you’re coming back here after the holidays. Tell him nothing has changed.’

  I realized for the first time that I was a full head and shoulders taller than him. ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘Then,’ he said and his whole body quivered, ‘I don’t have a son.’

  I didn’t believe him. ‘Dad, I can’t,’ I said. ‘The mistake would be to stay here.’

  Breathing heavily, he went to the boot, opened it, took my suitcase and set it down on the gravel. He returned to the car, started up and shot down the avenue. I kept my back to the seminary as I picked up my case. Then I walked downhill as the smell of petrol still lingered, into the rest of my life.

  Part Four

  Ontario, Canada

  Two Years Ago

  1

  The Air Canada flight from London touches down in Toronto Pearson shortly after three, local time. Instead of driving north for home, I head south-west on the 401. Because it’s Friday evening, the traffic south is dense. The sun hangs in the sky like an apricot. Eventually, within sight of Lake Erie, the highway swings inland towards Windsor, where I get into a line for the border and sit there until the light ebbs.

  You can’t feel high blood pressure; you just suspect it. As I grew older, my panic attacks became worse, especially at night, to the point where Kay and I seldom slept in the same room. Now I crave the fresh air I left behind in Ireland. On the outskirts of Detroit, I pull in at the first motel and pay for a room. There’s a tender quality to the sunset that is absent in midsummer, a blushing innocence. The street block is illuminated by only a single streetlight and long shadows rush out. A car cruises by, music from its radio seeping out in an invisible net.

  It’s dark outside as Kay goes to the kitchen, rummages in a deep drawer and finds cigarettes. She hasn’t smoked in thirty-three weeks. Through bared teeth she draws in the smoke with singular intent.

  I have just called from a motel in Detroit.

  ‘Detroit? Why are you in Detroit?’

  ‘I’ll try to explain.’

  ‘You only called me once from Ireland.’

  ‘I told you, I forgot to pack my charger.’

  ‘Do they not have payphones in Ireland?’

  ‘Not in the places I was. But listen, Larry is not this person. He’s not Terence.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because Terence became a priest. He worked in a number of U.S. dioceses, including Detroit. I looked him up on the Internet. He’s in a diocese here called Saint Patrick’s.’

  Kay presses the bridge of her nose tightly. ‘Do you have a photograph of him?’ she asks. ‘Of Terence?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Jesus,’ she says, ‘I think you should come home. The strain of this is killing me.’

  ‘I’ll be home tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m really feeling uncomfortable about Larry and whatever is going on, you know? Can you not come on home tonight?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I just got here. I have to finish this. I’ll call you in the morning.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she said and hung up.

  She�
��s suddenly terrified, as if she has heard someone circling the house but cannot see him. She wonders if she should call Keith and ask him to come over—but what would he think of that request if she can’t tell him what’s going on? Or the Echenoz family? They’re good neighbours, but the idea of landing in on them with such problems seems extreme. With a shock, Kay realizes she has no one to turn to.

  Outside, night settles over Lake Muskoka.

  2

  In the early morning light yachts scurry in sunny clutches on Lake St Clair. It’s just gone eight when I pull into the parking lot of Saint Patrick’s church. Close by, linked to the church by a tree-lined path, stands the parochial office, a low building overlooking lawns. Fifty yards away, towards the boundary fence, in a grove set apart, are two houses with carports. Where the priests live.

  I have repeated over and over to myself the words I’m going to say. Terence, my name is Alex Smyth and I’m truly sorry for what happened. What does he look like? Will he remember me? I get out of the car.

  The quality of silence found in an empty church is always so reassuring. In the cool vestibule, floor-to-beam stained-glass windows scatter the sunlight in velvet cuttings.

  ‘Good morning. Can I help you at all?’

  A priest has emerged, smiling. Thick black eyebrows stand out, in contrast to his silver hair. He’s a broad-shouldered man with a round face, a prominent nose. His age is difficult to pin down. I’m staring at him. His accent is Irish, or at least he speaks in the way of Irish people who have spent most of their lives in America.

  ‘Father Deasy? Father Thomas Deasy?’

  His smile disappears.

  ‘Who wants him?’

  ‘Alex Smyth is my name.’

  It’s him, I’m sure of it, even though I had expected Terence to be a man of bigger build and stature.

  ‘Terence?’

  The priest closes his eyes briefly in a gesture of impatience. ‘My name is Father Denis Greely. Are you looking for Father Deasy?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, suddenly exhausted. ‘Is he here?’