A Small Part of Me

by Noelle Harrison

  Henry points to his left and Greta looks up. She can see eagles at home, minding their nest. Every year they’re here. They always look for them. Greta can see two tiny heads poking out of the nest. She thinks it’s a miracle the way eagles stay together, year after year, the offspring they rear, the cycle of life. She has a particular fondness for the eagles. All winter she could see them in the distance from her house, huddled together against the storms.

  Greta turns her attention to the water again. It’s so shallow here that she can see a thousand forms of light and colour, all dancing beneath her. Everywhere there are giant white clam shells, accompanied by moon snails and their egg collars, a trail of grey, rubbery slime. Greta stops paddling for a moment and lets herself float. I’m surrounded in blue, she thinks, cupped beneath the sky, held by the sea. Surely here I can find peace? But her heart continues to thump as she watches an enormous pink sea star drop below. She has been running for so long, and at last – she feels almost relieved by its awfulness – at last she has come to a wall.

  This fear started at the beginning of the winter storms. Henry said that he had counted thirteen in a row. She couldn’t remember specifics, just that day after day the wind beat the house up and the ocean rose higher and higher in dramatic displays, crashing against the land. It was an onslaught, and it made her uneasy. They tried to stay in most times because the wind made it so uncomfortable, but Henry still went out to his meetings and she still saw clients. She had set up her own consultation room in the house, with an ocean view. It was all lined in cedar and lit by candles and low-burning lights. She played soft mood music while she worked, but this winter it had been hard. The storms had disrupted her consciousness, and she was desperate not to transfer her tension into the bodies of her clients. They didn’t seem to notice. They were so wrapped up in themselves. But in the evening when she sat and watched the storms, Greta realised that she wasn’t right, that she shouldn’t be healing others when she couldn’t even heal herself. When she tried to raise the subject with Henry, he just knocked it down.

  ‘But honey,’ he’d say, ‘nobody’s perfect. We’ve all got issues. That doesn’t stop you being a great masseuse. You’re helping people, you can’t give it up.’

  She looks over at Henry now. He’s some distance ahead. His arms swing from side to side in a steady rhythm with the paddle. He’s starting to cross an open area, heading towards Wickannish Island, to the west of which lies Vargas Island, their destination for the day. He turns and looks shocked to see that she’s so far behind.

  ‘Hey, Greta, come on, will you? You know it’s not safe to drift too far apart.’

  She begins to paddle hard. When they’re side by side again, he smiles at her. ‘Are you okay, honey?’ he asks. ‘This isn’t too much for you, is it?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. I’m sorry, I was just thinking about things.’

  He looks at her. He opens his mouth, is forming the words even, then thinks better of it and shakes his head. ‘Onwards we go,’ he says positively. ‘We need to concentrate now that we’re crossing the channel.’

  One year Henry had told her that he’d nearly floated out to sea here. But today there’s no wind at all, and she can even see the sun breaking out. They glide on.

  LUKE

  He sleeps well. The bed feels luxurious after his week on the ground. He rises in one swift movement and immediately reaches over for his clothes. What he needs to do now is not think too much. Just go where he has to go without worrying about it or planning what he’ll say.

  Luke checks out and heads into La Conner. He pulls in outside a coffee shop, but changes his mind and without switching off the engine pulls out again and drives slowly through the town. He can’t stop for coffee; he can’t stop for anything. He has to do this now. He heads out of town and through the reservation. He remembers this road, although it’s over seven years ago now. Loads of kids are already hanging around the firework stand, excited dogs yapping at their heels. The blood rises to his face as he drives by; he feels self-conscious, conspicuous. Are things different now? Are these kids allowed to be who they want to be?

  He crawls slowly down Chilberg Avenue. The bay frames his vision. Here it is still and dead, a small estuary trapped from the large expanse of ocean, the other side of the headland. He pulls up outside the house.

  They have more things now, Luke thinks as he looks at their home. There is a new red pick-up in the garage and the garden is overflowing with rich shrubbery. Bill’s art had been selling well, Teri proudly announced recently. Her father had made something of himself. She hadn’t always been that way about her dad. When they first met she had sneered at his work and told Luke how she and her mother had suffered for years with no money for clothes or nice holidays because their father wouldn’t get a proper job.

  Luke liked Bill. He felt that the man had a kind heart. It was strange that he was surrounded by cold women. Bill’s wife, Martha, had never hidden her disapproval of Luke, and Teri had now become her image.

  Luke sucks in deeply and chews his lip. If he’s going to go back home, this is something he has to do first. He has to do it for Sam. He pulls the keys out of the ignition and goes to open the truck door, but at the same time the door of the house opens. A tall grey-haired woman in a red tracksuit appears. Martha. Luke panics. Clicking the truck door shut again, he starts up and drives on down the road.

  He had meant to turn, to go back, but he just kept on driving and now he finds himself in town again.

  He parks by the side of the road. It’s early still and the streets are empty. He gets out of the truck, leans over by the bumper, breathes in and straightens his back. He can feel the heat already all around him, lifting off the concrete, reflected in the glass and metal from his vehicle. He feels conspicuous in all this brightness, a fool for not being able to face his mother-in-law.

  A large modern building faces him. It looks like a museum. He crosses the road and goes inside. He has to get out of the light.

  GRETA

  Greta lies on the beach, two medallion shells at her feet. Her toes trace the shell’s eroded contours and the impression of a small five-petalled shape. The sun is powerful now and she’s tired after lugging the boat across the beach to get it as far away from the unpredictable surf as possible. Henry had insisted they do this, so they had gone backwards and forwards carrying the gear and then finally the boats. He was probably right. There was no room for faintheartedness on their expedition. If it was up to her she was bound to make the wrong decision and they’d wake up to wet, battered boats. Henry was always right.

  Why did it irritate her sometimes? Would she have preferred more cracks? Like her first husband, in Ireland…

  She didn’t blame him any more. They were so young.

  But when she closes her eyes, all of a sudden there’s an image in her head like a sepia-toned photograph – herself and Tomás walking into The Mill, holding hands. Like two ghosts, they’re floating through the interior. She picks up every detail – the bright green hall with the hunting prints, the deep, blood red carpet on the stairs and the landing with the large bow window looking out past the river, across the fields. She looks through that window now and can see the cattle, Tomás’s herd, the bullocks jousting with each other and smaller creatures, rabbits, a hare lopping across the edge of the field just in front of their garden fence. And in the distance, a dash of orange – the fox, the one she hoped they’d never catch, the one she told no one about, even when it killed the kittens.

  Tomás is leading her into their bedroom. She’s still in her wedding dress. She remembers now – the guests are downstairs, yes, she can hear them, the hum and buzz and the music from the band coming from the marquee on the front lawn, the relentless rhythm of the mill. She’s wearing a long straight dress, empire style with a ribbon under her breasts. Tomás looks so jolly. His cheeks are red from the drink and his curly chestnut hair is tumbling all over the place. They’re only eighteen.

  Children.<
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  She remembers him closing the curtains and then lifting her up onto the big old bed, with a mattress that sucked you in and was nearly impossible to get out of. He has taken off her dress and she’s in her petticoat, and then he undressed too. She remembers her thrill – she’s a woman at last, a married woman. And when he enters her, she’s looking at her hand and the wedding band sparkling in the dusky light.

  Yes, they were very taken with each other. They were fine until she came along. Greta pushes this thought away, and instead she holds in her head the picture of herself, eighteen, in her slip and making love to Tomás.

  LUKE

  He’s never been to a place like this, never sat still and just looked. He lets his eyes wander over the surface of the painting again. It’s what they’d call abstract, but he knows what it’s about.

  It’s a journey. He passes his hand over his face and then he can hear the picture, the sounds of the colour. A green root walks like a tall man, its bulb like a large white head bowed over in sorrow. There is a small green circle in front of it and he looks down towards it, to the seed. The whole painting is contained within a wobbly enclosure, embedded in flesh tones, hidden in the soft belly of the oblique. And all the time while he looks at this picture he can hear his grandfather’s voice singing one of the songs of prayer.

  Luke closes his eyes. He can see little Luke again, sitting beneath his grandfather, listening to him describe oo-simch. He curls up like a tiny cat as the elder describes how his own father and grandfather would go with the rest of the family to a secluded spot in the swamp behind the village. First they would bathe in the ocean and then they would scrub their bodies afterwards with tree branches, all the while singing songs of prayer. They would do this every day for eight days, using secret herbs and secret songs, cleansing themselves inside and out.

  ‘Luke, this is how we passed on the secrets of healing.’

  When Luke went to school, the teacher had spoken about the baptism of Christ, and in his innocence, Luke had asked him, ‘Sir, is that an oo-simch?’ He had been laughed at for saying that. He had learned to forget everything his grandfather told him. Now, looking at this painting, it was coming back to him.

  In the city there was no shortage of Native American imagery, in shops and on the walls of people’s apartments. When they had got married, Teri had bought him a large print called Eagles. It was made by a native artist and depicted a split eagle with whale heads in the wing joints and a humanoid face in the tail. Teri loved that print. It was up in their bedroom. But it had always disturbed Luke, made him feel slightly uncomfortable. The thick black lines and its rigid geometry made him feel confined. There was always a story in those pictures, and they reminded him of his inadequacy, his failure to live up to anything.

  Now this painting, by a white man, meant more to him. It was caught between two worlds. The artist didn’t want to tell a story, but the paint itself sang out with no effort at representation. It told Luke something. He could hear the song coming back to him, his grandfather’s shaky voice as he sang and stroked his head.

  Luke stands up and walks towards the painting. There’s a short piece written about the artist underneath it. His name is Morris Graves, and of his pictures he has written, ‘I don’t want to say anything. I just want them to be.’

  GRETA

  She’s not sure how long she’s slept, but when she wakes she’s cold. The sun has passed on and is now blocked by a row of trees. She opens her eyes, struggling to remain in the moment, just to let her senses work. Her vision takes in the dappling of the late afternoon and all the blues around, the kind of blue you can only see here, the kind of blue she had never seen in Ireland. Her hands push into the fine white sand and she sniffs the air. Salty, but then she can smell something else. Garlic. Lemon. She stiffens. It’s Angeline’s scent, the citrus mix with the earthiness of the garlic root. It was singular to her, an aroma that was alien to The Mill before she arrived.

  She looks around her. It’s ridiculous to think that Angeline might be here. Maybe she was still inside a dream? But Greta can see Henry – he’s cooking the supper.

  Thinking of Angeline always made her feel uneasy. She didn’t deserve this life. She couldn’t help wondering if her old friend now viewed Greta as a coward, for she had never returned to claim her child.

  But Greta had never felt completely sure of herself. Often she wondered if they were right. Was she really of sound mind? If she took each day as it came, she could survive. In a place so close to nature, with a man who was part of it, she could feel safe. If she went back to Ireland, to her interior world, the part of her that was weak and unstable might resurface. Everything could come tumbling down.

  Henry sees her stirring and calls over to her, ‘I didn’t want to wake you, you looked so at peace.’

  He winks at her and she gets up and goes over to him. She kisses him and passes her hand through his crown of silver. She loves Henry for his earnestness. Nothing is hidden. He is what he is. If only this was what she could be.

  CHRISTINA

  Is she going mad?

  A small white hand reaches into the fog and pulls her out. Her legs are stretched out in front of her and she feels like a shot soldier, slumped against the wood. Cian pushes his face against hers and she feels his fingers entwined with her own.

  ‘Cian,’ she whispers.

  ‘Give her some air.’

  Cian moves back and she looks at the voice. A dark man stands over her and offers her a bottle of water. She shakes her head, terrified to speak.

  Where is she?

  ‘You passed out,’ the man says. ‘Come on, you’d better have some of this.’ He forces her to take the water. She sips from the bottle and it dribbles down her chin.

  ‘Mammy, are you all right?’

  ‘She’s just fine,’ the stranger says. ‘Let’s give her a chance, hey? Why don’t we have a look for some stones and let your mom get up when she can.’

  The man moves off with Cian, down the beach. Christina raises an arm. No, this isn’t right, but she can’t speak, not yet. She watches them and then suddenly feels her breakfast rising in her stomach. She bends over and is sick in the sand.

  She remembers everything now.

  She has to go home. The thought penetrates her as if she’s been hit and she shakes with fear. It’s all over now. She’s lost control of her life and her son. She’ll never get him back.

  She gets to her feet, sways, then shakily heads towards Cian and the stranger.

  ‘Mammy, look!’ Cian runs towards her, his hands full of white rounds. ‘Can we bring them home? Please, please, please?’

  ‘I…I don’t know, Cian.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ She can see the man properly now. He looks familiar. ‘Remember me?’ he says. ‘We met yesterday when you were riding the shuttle bus. You crashed into me getting off the bus?’

  ‘Yes…I…’

  ‘Small world,’ he says, bending down and pushing his hands through the sand. Christina watches as it falls through his fingers.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks.

  ‘I could ask you the same question.’

  She pulls her hands through her hair. She has a terrible headache. ‘I don’t know…I…thank you for helping us,’ she says, and taking Cian by the hand she begins walking back along the beach towards the road, the two of them sliding across the sand.

  When they reach the road she has to take Cian’s runners off and empty them out.

  ‘Mammy, will you carry these for me?’ He offers up his stones. There must be a least a dozen spread out between his two palms.

  ‘No, Cian, they’re too heavy. You can bring one.’

  ‘Only one! But I want them all.’

  ‘Cian, we have to walk back into town. It’s a long way.’

  ‘I don’t want to walk, my legs are tired.’ He plonks down on the ground.

  ‘Cian, we have to walk, there’s no other way of getting there. Come on, get up. Come
on, please.’ She leans over and takes his hand, pulling his arm, but the child is like a dead weight.

  ‘Come on now, I’m getting really, really cross!’

  ‘I want to sit,’ Cian says defiantly.

  ‘Hey!’ It’s that man again. ‘Can I give you a ride?’

  ‘No, it’s fine, thanks,’ she says with her back to him, still pulling at Cian.

  ‘Mammy, why can’t we go with him?’

  ‘Because he’s a stranger.’

  ‘No he’s not, his name is Luke.’

  ‘It looks like you have your hands full there,’ he calls from the road.

  She can hear the engine stop and the door open. His footsteps approach. Christ, what can she do?

  ‘Are you going into La Conner? It’s a long way from here, too far, I’d say, for his little legs.’

  She swings around. ‘Okay, thanks, we could do with a lift.’

  Cian jumps up immediately and runs over to the vehicle.

  ‘Are you okay?’ the man asks again. ‘You still look pretty shaky.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she says tightly, getting into his truck.

  LUKE

  He looks over at her. Her pale arms are stretched out, her hands gripping the dash. Her body looks so taut it could snap. Her little boy is sitting between them, silently gazing out at the road. Luke sees an eagle circling above them, following him as he drives into town.

  ‘What kind of bird is that?’ asks the child.

  ‘It’s a bald-headed eagle,’ Luke says.

  The little boy rubs his hands together. ‘Wow!’

  ‘My name is Luke,’ he says.

  ‘I know, and my name is Cian.’

  She offers nothing, says nothing.

  After he had left the museum he had driven back out of town. He was ready to go inside and talk to Bill. He was going to give it his best shot and try to get Teri’s father to understand his side of the story, but when he had got there he had seen her and the little boy getting out of a cab at Bill’s house. It was fate that she was there.