A Man in a Distant Field

by Theresa Kishkan

  She looked at him, smiling. “I remember that nightshirt. My grandmother did the embroidery and my grandfather teased her about it. ‘Wheat!’ he’d say. ‘Was there nothing romantic you could have given me on my nightshirt?’ She would just laugh. I loved it, of course, because even then I was happy to discover plants in any manifestation.”

  They sat by the fire, talking about the day, and drinking their hot whiskeys, and then Una heated some soup, telling him as she stirred it how the plants had survived the drive home from the Bealanabrack River and how she had catalogued them. Declan drank a bowl of the soup and found he could not keep his eyes open. His hostess noticed and showed him to the bed in the box room where the harp was kept. Linen sheets and billowing eiderdown put him to sleep almost immediately.

  At first he didn’t know why he was awake. He located himself: no, not at World’s End, not in the turf shed, alas no longer wrapped in Eilis’s arms as he so often dreamed, faint memories as he worked himself backwards in his state of disorientation; then he sat up in bed, listening. Someone was crying. It must be Una. He got out of bed and allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark. Her room was on the other side of the main room, and he made his way to her door. A few coals of turf glowed in the darkness. “Una,” he called softly, “are ye all right?”

  “Oh, Declan, I’m so sorry to have woken you. Open the door, Declan, and come in. I’ll light the lamp. Unless you can’t bear to hear a woman weep and want only to return to your bed, and I shall quite understand if you do. There, the lamp is lit. No, I’m not all right, although I’m not ill or anything. I woke and felt so desperately lonely, as though I might never be happy again. I keep wondering if I’ve made the right decision, coming back to Marshlands. Seeing you in my grandfather’s nightshirt, I was filled with memories of my childhood here when everything was innocent and good.”

  She looked stricken, her eyes swollen with crying. The room was bathed in soft light, and Declan could see that her bureau was covered in photographs, her walls held framed portraits of her family, including the grandfather who’d owned the night-shirt; Declan remembered him from childhood, a kind man who rode a tall grey hunter. He stood by Una’s bed and felt helpless at her sorrow.

  “My cousins and I rode our ponies to far lakes and hills without a single worry apart from how to explain that our pony had cast a shoe and we’d never noticed,” she said. “We all expected to do grand things. We were raised to expect that, I suppose, so how did I get to be this age without any accomplishments? No child, no real role in my community, not even a pair of wolfhounds to walk with and care for. I can’t help but think that my grandparents must be so disappointed in me, wherever they are.”

  “Disappointed in ye, Una?” asked Declan as he sat on the edge of her bed. “Ye are so alive and so brave! If they could have seen ye encountering the problems of the car on that forsaken road, their hearts would have been bursting with pride. As for accomplishments, well, what are they anyway? Ye think ye have done the things that yer life leads to so, and then it all disappears in the wink of an eye, taken by fire. Aye, and a child ...” his voice trailed off in sadness.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you ...”

  He looked up. “Of course ye didn’t. But the book plan, surely that is something good. Putting down what is known about dyes and cures. Yer grandparents would be mightily proud of ye, particularly if they could see the drawings of all the homely things I walked by a hundred times and never noticed.”

  He was stroking her head. She was lovely in lamplight, her hair down and curly from its earlier soaking. She reached up to touch his face, her fingers suddenly electric on his skin, and then they were kissing. It was a long kiss, containing the yearning for lost partners, arms emptied of lovers’ bodies, one mouth unblessed by another for years, and when Una broke away to ask, “Do you think this is a sin?” Declan could only reply, “I never dreamed kissing ye would be so right.”

  And then he was holding her fiercely in his arms, not for comfort, as he had held her by the mass rock while she wept. She was not weeping, she was kissing him as though she was hungry for what his mouth contained, and she moved his hands to the inside of her nightdress where her breasts waited, full and soft, their nipples rising to his fingers. She smelled of rain and tasted of cloves and just faintly of whiskey, as he thought he must, too. He could not believe he was being held by her, her hands gently guiding him so that he was entering her, having forgotten the utter sweetness of a woman’s body, its rich temperatures, its weathers. Her body was responding as he could not have anticipated, her arms were wrapped around his hips and she was pushing his buttocks forward with her hands so that he was fully within her; they were moving under the coverlet as though they had loved one another for decades. When he could not wait any longer, she suddenly broke her mouth away and shuddered against him, her belly damp with sweat.

  When he could breath again, and when his heart had quieted within the cage of his chest, Declan asked, “Una, what have we done?”

  “Do you really need me to tell you?” she laughed. “I want to assure you, though, that this is not what I intended when I suggested you stay here for the night, if that is what you’re thinking. But I will confess something to you. When you comforted me on the high rocks this afternoon, I realized that I have fallen in love with you. All my talk about the divisions in our country, and I fall in love with a Catholic man who farms his land. That is an example of practising what I preach, would you not agree?”

  “But love, Una? How could a woman like ye, with yer education and yer family, say that ye’ve fallen in love with a man who has only ever taught country children their sums and dug turf and hoed his potatoes, come summer?”

  “You are simple-minded, Declan, if you honestly think that is all you have done. I have fallen in love with a man who is decent and intelligent and who has shown me that he believes in honour in a way most men could never understand. Besides, I have always wanted to learn Greek and I am counting on you to teach me. Tomorrow let’s begin with the alphabet!”

  “And that collector of lilies, Una? Ye have no plans for him, are ye telling me this?” He would not tell her that he had fervently hoped that she had not given that man a gift at Christmas, that his own book of plants she had wrapped for him was kept under his pillow—for protection, he’d have said if anyone had seen it, but he remembered the sting he had felt when she’d mentioned the fellow in passing.

  “Declan, I believe you’re jealous! My mother has mentioned him in letters, hinting that he would not say no to an invitation to come to Ireland to look for lilies. Well, I don’t imagine he would be satisfied with our simple wild garlic or the three-cornered leek. But do you know, I cannot even remember his name. Higgins, perhaps?”

  When he woke again, the body of a woman against his back, he thought he was dreaming. It was like being in the canoe, every nerve ending alive, and the divisions between the living world and the other world blurred. He thought he could hear music, but taking a moment to gather his wits, he realized it was the Erriff River rushing down to meet Killary Harbour. He began to ease himself out of the bed when Una woke and kissed his neck.

  “Will I make us a cup of tea?” he asked, stroking her hand.

  “I am perishing for tea,” she replied, lifting the weight of her hair from the pillow.

  Walking back later that morning to Delphi, in sunshine, for the rain had lifted to show the Mweel Reas in blue air with their white peaks glittering, Declan made up his mind to offer his teaching services to the National School for the next year. He had been adrift, and if not now at anchor, he at least felt that he wanted his feet on dry ground, a reason to rise in the mornings, his days filled with purpose, an occupation. The idea of a book of the townland and beyond had settled into his mind and he saw its potential for bringing together families, generations, village people and those of the outlying farms. He remembered his mother telling him that some women could coax beautiful dyes out of simple pl
ants and that she wished she knew how, for she’d colour the old tea towels something other than grey, there being entirely too much grey in the world. The Kelly children at the school: Declan remembered that their grandmother had worked in the woollen industry in Leenane as a dyer, and he knew the woman was still alive, though she spoke not a word of English. Well, there was the beginning. Perhaps.

  News came that Liam Kenny had been wounded and taken by the Civil Guards who had assumed policing duties in Leenane. He was sent to Galway, where he was imprisoned and then released. He wrote to Declan, saying that he had great respect for his teaching and that the young men from his classroom had spoken with some knowledge of Irish history and politics. “I am about to take my degree at the university, though there was some determination to keep all jailbirds out, but those who knew my father have spoken in my favour. I will work against the cursed Treaty but hope, of course, that this might be done in a civilized way. I mind that an Irish winter is a cold time to be camping out around a sizzling fire with only the odd old tune to comfort a man. Erin go bragh, Mr. O’Malley.”

  One ghost less in the chilly hills, thought Declan. One less song to ring in the clear air, accompanied by the crack of a rifle shot, a circle of stones, the smoke gone out. And he wondered if a girl had loved Liam Kenny and watched for his light across the hills and was waiting yet for him. In years to come, this might form a story for Liam Kenny, something he would tell his grandchildren, of how he had fought with Republican brigades in the Connemara mountains, had been shot in the leg, and had left their grandmother for years not knowing whether he was alive or dead, and here he was, a solicitor in a country town who would meet old mates for a drink from time and time and relive the days of ’23. For his sake, Declan hoped the story might go something like that.

  One night, sleeping in Una’s bed, he heard the soft rap of knuckles at her cabin door. He gently shook her awake.

  “Una, there is someone knocking. It might be best if I not answer.” Declan helped her out of the bed; she reached for her wrapper and lit a candle to see her way to the door. Declan stood behind the bedroom door, which he left ajar so he could hear if he might be needed; there was no telling what to expect on those dark nights with the Civil Guards in the barracks and the fierce Republicans still in the mountains.

  He listened as a boy, he couldn’t tell who, told Una that there had been a skirmish and some wounded and the women of the Cumann na mBán were needed for first aid—the doctor, reliable in such emergencies, was away on a difficult maternity case down near Kylemore. They were to go to the designated place, the boy said, and sounded relieved when Una said she would just dress and get her kit. She told the boy to go wait in her car and she would be ready shortly. She returned to the bedroom to quickly put on warm clothing.

  “Will I come with ye, Una? I don’t like the thought of ye travelling into dangerous ground.”

  “Declan, I would rather you didn’t. We have an arrangement, I have three women to collect to bring along with me, and two of them have revolvers in case we need such things. I am quite certain, though, that first aid is just what we are needed for.”

  He heard the car engine start, cough a little. The vehicle moved down the driveway, the headlamps casting a path to follow. He drew on his clothing and walked out to the main road and watched the smudge of light make its way towards Leenane, then disappear as the car turned at one of the side tracks leading into the pleated hills. She would be collecting Brigid Tierney, he thought, and it gave him some comfort to stand in the darkness and imagine sensible Brigid joining Una for the task ahead of them.

  It was hours until she arrived back, dishevelled, her clothing spattered with blood. Yes, there had been a skirmish near the barracks. The road leading south to Clifden had been trenched by the Republicans and the road leading through the Maam Valley had been barricaded by the Nationals; she’d had to do some fancy talking to get past the latter to the safe house, four women in a private car in the dead of night. They’d said they were attending a birth. There had been a lot of shooting, some dead on each side, sniping from impossible positions in the hills where you’d expect only to find gorse, maybe some hardy sheep. Una was very pale as she recounted the number of wounded who had been spirited away to the designated house—she would not tell him which one, she said, because it was safer that he didn’t know in the event she was arrested—where the local Cumann na mBán team arrived with their kits to staunch the bleeding and remove bullets.

  “One young man, Declan, whom I will not name but whom you have taught as well as spoken of, he will lose his leg, I’m afraid. The bone was splintered beyond repair and although we gave him opium and then brandy on top of that, he could not keep from screaming in obvious terrible pain.”

  She was sponging a bloody mark out of her skirt as she talked and Declan noticed that her hands were behaving as though separate from her. They kept dabbing obsessively at the mark with a cloth, without thought, and finally Declan came to her and gently took the cloth from her. She covered her face with her hands for moment, gave a small sob, and then continued.

  “The doctor’s wife—and you will forget that I told you she was there—was very calm, holding his hand while we tried to clean the wound but privately, once he had been sedated enough to lose consciousness, she told us she was certain the leg could not be saved. The others were less serious, though it was traumatic for them, of course. And for one woman who entered the room to find her own son-in-law on the table, head bandaged and arms riddled with bullet wounds.”

  Declan finished removing the bloody mark from the skirt and then made tea for Una; he poured in a measure of whiskey, as she had begun to shake in the telling. Neither of them slept at all in the hour remaining of night and in the morning they said reluctant goodbyes. Both had work to do in their individual houses, and Declan declined Una’s offer of a ride home, thinking that the morning air would clear both his head and his heart. He had been saddened beyond telling to know that deaths had occurred while he lingered in the protection of Una’s cabin, the night spectacular with stars. He tried to find comfort in the poem on his walk home but realized how many deaths were contained in its own sinewy lines.

  At the turn north by Tully, the road was barricaded by an armoured car, two other military vehicles, sandbags piled around their tyres. Declan could see no men at all, but as he approached, a voice shouted “Hands up”; he stopped and raised his arms above his head. Two men emerged from the armoured car and advanced towards him, rifles pointed at his chest. To his horror, he noted that the guns were Enfields, the same as those he had found that day in his turf pile. These men were dressed in the uniform of the National Army, and their voices were Irish.

  “Why are you on the road so early?” one of them asked.

  “I am returning home after a night away,” Declan replied, as calmly as he could. He could feel sweat dampening his shirt, and his heart pounded in its cage of chest.

  “Away, were you? Can you tell us, please, where you were and what you were up to?”

  “I spent the night in a woman’s bed,” he answered. “I would rather not say her name.”

  The men laughed, and one of them nudged Declan’s arm with his rifle. “You’ll have to do better than that, man. These are dangerous times, you must know, and we are charged with protecting the citizenry from the Republican Western Division, what’s left of them—you might have heard they attacked the barracks in Leenane last night and there was great bloodshed. Can you say you know nothing about this? You cannot hide behind an anonymous woman, man, when for all we know you might have been one of the men with dynamite. We’ve found one young lad down by the river trying to hide a rifle and we’ve got him hog-tied by the lorry. We’ll do the same to you if you don’t come clean and tell us what you know of the ambush last night.”

  “I know of it to be sure. This is my community, after all, and people talk of shots being fired in the night, explosions. But I am not part of them, I am only a schoolmaste
r who has never fired a gun. And I will not harm the name of the woman I was with by identifying her to you.” Declan was growing angry at the repeated nudge of the rifle in his ribs, his shoulders. He could see a boy, one of the youths he’d spoken to on their way home from Tawnynoran gap, and the boy was shivering with fear. Declan longed to go to him, to lead him firmly up the Delphi road to his farm and his mother who would scold him but then offer porridge, tea. “Ye have a job to do, I am with ye there, but to threaten a man on his own road, to insult him as ye are doing, this is no way to treat an Irish citizen. Where were ye with those protecting guns when my house was burned to the ground by the Black and Tans in 1921, when my wife and daughters were burned within it? Where were ye then with yer brave words and guns? Take that rifle from me arm and let me pass. And mind ye treat that young lad with respect. There is no need to tie him up like an animal going to be butchered. He has no gun and there are more of ye than him, I’m thinking. He could be yer brother, or yer son. I am going home to plant potatoes.”

  Another man with the stripes of a sergeant joined the two soldiers, and the three of them conferred for a moment. The sergeant held out his hand to Declan and told him he was free to pass but to mind his step—there were snipers positioned in the hills overlooking the Delphi Road all the way up to Westport.

  It was the longest road he’d walked. The blackbirds were silent in the reeds by the Bundorragha River, the sun rose quietly over Ben Gorm, spilling its gold over the rocky flank of the mountain, and there was a smell in the air of cordite and brass—or was that dust washed from the stones by an earlier rain? He did not want to think of explosives as he walked home to his unfinished house and a bucket of shilawns for planting. Cupping his hands around his eyes, he tried to keep the image of all that was sacred to him on this road that his family had walked for generations, a tunnel of rocks and low trees, punctuated by bird-song, a scrabble of badgers in the dense fuchsia. All that he loved was held in that cup of vision, all that he knew of homecoming and leave-taking, the road inward and outward, the long stitches of stone walls securing the fields of Tullaglas to the townland. He was overcome with such contrary emotions—anger at the soldiers, love for Una and this road that also stitched them together, an unlikely quilt, grief at the darkness of war that shadowed these sunlit mountains like the rot that had come to the potatoes in the last century and which caused such endless suffering—so overcome that he sank to his knees as though shot. He wept into his hands, closing the cup so that flat palms covered his eyes. His tears scalded his face, his sobs came from his throat like a sickness, bitter as sloes. When he stood again, the view tilted and he saw only the track leading home. He would stop at the young lad’s home and tell them what had happened, hoping by now the ropes had been loosened, a few civil words said.