by Neil Hegarty
She looked at him. ‘What is?’ she said. ‘What what’s like?’
‘So I scratch myself,’ Patrick murmured, ‘and wonder what I have begun.’
‘What?’
‘You know, in Sisyphean fashion.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, nothing.’
She rolled her eyes, then, and edged the chair back again.
But Patrick was also aware of time ticking ever onwards, of the impossibility of resolution. So that he need not worry, necessarily, about the final product, about its shape, about consequences. And God knows, he thought, surely the consequences are clear already? I’ll just keep on rolling along.
Before he got sick – just before; in his mind’s eye, it was barrelling along the motorway in his direction – he had come across the theory about the butterfly’s wing. Everyone was getting excited about it and he could see why. He talked to one of his senior classes about this theory.
‘For the sake of argument, let’s say down there on the grass.’
Those closest to the classroom windows glanced out and down onto the lawn and then back at him again. The rest of the class just kept looking at him.
‘So, the idea is that the movement of a butterfly’s wing down there on that bit of grass here in Derry will, given time and the correct set of circumstances’ – and he paused for breath now, aware of the disinterest in the room, ploughing on through air that had the consistency of thick soup, ‘create consequences undreamt-of in the here and now.’ He paused again. ‘What do you think of that?’
They didn’t think much about it, apparently.
‘So,’ he said, ‘an iceberg calved in Antarctica, a flood in Australia, a dust storm in the Gobi –’
‘That’s in China,’ said one of the boys, unexpectedly.
‘That’s right. And if there’s a dust storm in China, a dust storm that maybe – what, say it stops production in one of their electronics factories. Say the sand gets into the air conditioning system. What does that mean?’
They were all paying a little more attention now.
‘It might mean – say it means that you won’t get the new Walkman you wanted. There might be a delay.’
A delay? Now he had their attention.
‘And all because a butterfly took it into its head to have a little spin on our front lawn. What do you think of that, boys?’
There was a movement through the class, a ripple.
‘Yeah. That’s pretty cool, sir.’
It was cool, he thought. I really get this theory: I really do. I really get it: I can apply it to my own life without even having to think about it.
It is the most appealing theory I have ever come across.
This was the point of history: that in the movement of a butterfly’s wing lay the potential for the world – or portions of it, at any rate – to turn on a pivot.
His father had understood this. The name of the theory had changed in the, what, quarter-century since that day on the beach in the summer of 1960, but the substance remained the same. His father said that that poor ship of the Spanish Armada wouldn’t even have been beating its way back home to Spain via Scotland and Ireland if it hadn’t been for a series of curious, frustrating delays back in Spain in the spring and summer of that year. The fleet was late taking sail: already, the commanders were doubtful about the whole enterprise. Then, as the Armada reached the Channel, the season turned with a snarl: summer ended abruptly, too early, and an autumn storm howled down from the North Sea: the great, top-heavy ships could not manage such narrow, stormy waters; the vengeful English navy went hungrily to work – and the rest was history.
So I might say, he thought, that the movement of a butterfly’s wing late in the sixteenth century caused a shipwreck off the beach at Kinnagoe; thus inclining my father to visit that same beach on a warm summer day four hundred years later; and causing me to be nearly drowned by my sister.
Or not, she would claim.
So yes, he thought now: the theory appeals. Of course it appeals: he could apply it always to his own story. This flutter of a butterfly’s wing created movements: a wave, and another wave, rippling from one house to another, from this place to that one, from person to person, era to era. They ripple, he thought, and they submerge me. And his family, his mother, his sister, her husband: each of them also entangled.
He thought: I had my own personal history. So too did my father, and Margaret and Cassie, and my mother; all of them.
Even Robert. Yes: Robert too.
But Patrick’s mind shrank from this topic.
Margaret had filled him in – or tried too. Robert had a history too, it seemed. Quite the back story.
‘They burned him out,’ she said. Out of his house.’
Margaret had told him the stories that Robert had told her. The mobs, the howling, the stones. The flames at one end of Bombay Street. Being kicked out of their own house. ‘Can you imagine? You went marching for the likes of him, we both did.’
But that was a long time ago. And it was different, when these people appeared in the flesh. In this, at least, he was his mother’s son. My father, he thought instead: take my father. He was happy enough to yarn on: he was an open book, especially in his final years; he had come to terms with fortune and misfortune and ill-health and destiny, shoving them all aside as equally irrelevant. Or take my sister: I knew as much about Margaret’s life as anyone could know: when she married, she necessarily moved out of my orbit – a little, and not decisively and later she moved back in again; and besides, I had the insight of years to fall back on. As for my mother: well, he knew least about her: just bits and gleaned scraps. Nothing so very substantial. Ditto Cassie, though that’s because I never took the trouble to ask a few questions.
But sometimes, all this – stuff, these episodes and disparate, all this stuff came together in a way that made another shape. And of course later, usually: at the time, they were too much in the thick of things to make out any shapes with clarity. Sometimes. Looking back, he could see clear shapes emerging from the darkness: an episode here and an episode there which made perfect sense, where the ripples, the connections were clear to be seen. When characters came together, when stories merged and melded.
Such as: one September night, just a couple of years ago, when Margaret and Robert came to the house for dinner: a birthday dinner, for Margaret’s birthday, in their parents’ suburban house. He could recall it with much clarity because his father died shortly afterwards. It was the last time they would all be together – and it was as if his mother had divined the future, because she cooked a fancy meal.
He could even recall the menu. Fillet of pork stuffed with apricots, with a home-made lemon meringue number to follow. And a birthday cake, festooned with mandarin orange segments from a tin. In his mother’s eyes, tinned fruit still counted as fancy.
And not all together, either. Cassie had passed away by this point. A mere postscript, Patrick thought: after all that care, there she was dangling on the edge of the family; dropping off without anyone much noticing. All there together, then, except Cassie.
It had been raining all morning, but it stopped as he drove home. When he parked the car in the driveway, he paused for a moment to take the place in, to smell the air. The leaves were starting to fall. Cool enough in the evenings, already, for fires to be lit: he could smell coal, a little turf, hanging in the still air. And the air also full of the freshness that follows rain; though with an undertow of falling, decaying leaves; a beautiful, heady smell of autumn. Mushrooms sprang up on the lawn overnight: he remembered that, too; a glimmer of white under the trees when he opened his window the following morning.
Coal smoke and turf; decaying leaves and fresh rain lying slicked on the grass; roasting meat.
And dreadful hindsight.
No wonder, of course, that I remember it all so well. The date, the day of the week, the occasion, the weather. Even – yes, even the phase of the moon.
*
&
nbsp; The rain was over, at least for now. The sky was clearing, and a pale gibbous moon was rising. He pulled neatly into the drive, parked behind his father’s car, beside his mother’s car, saw a house that gleamed like a Christmas decoration in the autumn twilight. Was every lamp in the place switched on? It seemed so: the darkness was being pushed back by the glint of the copper bowl on its high shelf; by the light shining from the windows of the hall, the dining room – all places normally in darkness. The house welled with light. He locked the car, and stood on the gravel for a second: the rain had stopped for now, but from the garden came a sound of oozing, like a heavy sponge; the soil murmuring to itself, the whole place trying to find a way of dealing with, of shedding this superabundance of water. The eaves of the house dripped; the trees dripped, his mother’s azalea bushes dripped in the darkness.
Patrick stood on the gravel and looked at the illuminated house: then, on an impulse, slipped through the car port, past the high slatted gate which lay, tonight, wide open, and into the long back garden. Here too, when he stood the garden seemed to ooze – but instead of listening, he was now looking: standing just outside the pools of lamplight on the white walls of the house, on the wet grass, on the path. He looked through the wide, uncurtained windows, and there was his sister: there was Margaret, a gin and tonic in hand, the picture now of relaxation after a long day, her toes pointing towards the fire. There was Robert, sitting in a chair pushed well back into the corner; and there was his dad, saying something – what? Pointing, gesticulating at the drinks cabinet, at the half-lemon rolling on the board, at the tongs, the gently sweating little bowl of ice and his cane on the polished floor. A punchline delivered.
His sister, her husband, his father – and there now, his mother coming into view, slim, upright and purposeful in her movements. His dad – what, he made another comment, laughed, Margaret laughed; and now suddenly his mother glanced into the darkness, her expression familiar.
Set, tense. Immeasurably sad.
He had not created it, this expression, none of them had created it – but he wondered if in some way he added to it, day by day. A familiar thought: this sense he had had since childhood. He watched as his mother’s expression flicked back into a tense smile, as she turned and said – something, and sat down with a plump in her chair. And now he moved, slipped through the car port again; now he jangled the keys in the front door, now he eased off his boots, and closed the front door behind him and went in to greet his family.
*
The gin and tonic hit the spot. ‘That really hits the spot,’ Margaret said, and she clinked the ice in her glass, ‘it really, really does,’ and Martin smiled and offered a top-up. Margaret put a hand on the rim of the glass. ‘Not a bit,’ she said, ‘or I’ll fall off the chair. Before we even eat.’
‘Which reminds me,’ said her mother. ‘I must put on the potatoes.’ She slipped away.
In full martyr mode, Margaret thought, tonight: she is revelling in this volume of work. ‘What can I do?’ she’d said, presenting herself in the kitchen door – but her mother had chivvied her out again: she had everything in hand; have a drink, she said, instead. Now she sat, uncomfortably aware of a genteel rattling of utensils from the kitchen. Her mother could do sound effects better than anyone.
Robert had entered, and sat. Had offered no assistance: and now he too sat with his drink, clinking gently from time to time the ice against the glass.
‘Actually, Daddy, you know what: I could do with a refill.’
Her mother bustled back from the kitchen. ‘Another one? Are you sure?’
Margaret took a breath. ‘I’m sure,’ she said, and her dad did the necessary. ‘You’re red in the face, Mum,’ she said and her mum replied sharply that opening the oven had heated her face right up.
‘I sometimes wonder,’ she said, ‘how do chefs manage if they wear glasses? All that steam!’ And then she glanced quickly out of the window, into the black garden.
‘OK, Mum?’ Margaret regretted already her bitchiness – but her mother brought it out in her, no question – and after a moment a short reply, ‘Fine, fine, nearly there now.’
Robert still sat, quietly in the corner. Not a man of many words, but more than usually silent tonight. He put a hand over his glass: no, his drink was fine for the moment; and her dad retreated, for the moment vanquished.
And now a jingle of keys and Patrick appeared. Margaret thought – not for the first time – that he looked older than his twenty-something years, tall and thin, the beginnings, already, of a stoop; his hair already receding. She hugged him briefly, aware of his sharp shoulder blades, so different from her soft roundness, so unalike they were as siblings. He had already nodded at her husband, distantly; she was aware of Robert’s eyes on her back. She was thirty years old today: and there was her cake, all white cream and tinned mandarin orange segments, ready and resplendent on the sideboard.
From the kitchen, a clatter of dishes, of pots and pans.
*
The dining room table was already decked: a red paper tablecloth and red matching paper napkins; paper party plates and glasses – and on the sideboard, Margaret’s impressive birthday cake, three layers of chocolate icing and the ‘10’ picked out in white piping. Cassie had gone to town. ‘You’re going to town on this one, Cassie,’ her dad had said, earlier, ‘You’re looking serious.’ Cassie laughed at that – but she had been serious, she had gone to town with the cake. ‘What do you say to Cassie?’ said her mammy, and Margaret said, ‘Thank you, Cassie.’ And Cassie had given her a hug – one of her special hugs, that lasted for a long, long time. ‘You’re ten, love,’ said Cassie. ‘Ten!’
‘This is serious. This is a double-digit affair,’ her dad said.
Yes: this was a serious, double-digit affair – and Margaret was serious too. Her party dress was new, her hair brushed and her shoulders set and now she clutched her hands to her sharp elbows. Four o’clock, the invitations read, and four o’clock it was, right now: the girls arriving any minute.
She looked around the room. Her house was the best house, she had the best house in her gang, she knew this: the best and the newest. She knew the other girls thought this: she’d noticed, already, the way the girls looked around its new rooms and wooden hall and glossy parquet floor and big back garden; her mammy’s copper bowl shining with red light on the high shelf in the hall; the long, long back garden. Most of the other girls lived in the town, still: there were some new houses outside the town, but not many. Margaret knew they were jealous: she’d seen the look in their eyes and in the mammies’ eyes when they came to visit. They wanted to live here, in this house in this street, they wanted to live here too.
Veronica most of all. Veronica, the queen, the bully, the one to keep as a friend if she could, if she could. Nobody wanted Veronica as an enemy. Margaret was afraid of Veronica; she knew too that Veronica was – she was inching close to getting rid of Margaret from the group. So, this house was Margaret’s secret weapon: the house and also Margaret’s strange mammy, of whom so many people seemed afraid, or unsure of themselves around. Veronica herself was afraid of Margaret’s mammy, she was specially nice to her, specially polite to her, though, even though, Margaret’s mammy was not really specially polite and nice back, and this too kept Margaret safe.
Though, she hoped Veronica would not laugh at Cassie. Later, at school on Monday. She hoped not.
Her mammy came into the dining room. ‘All set?’ she said. Margaret could’ve done with another hug – but a hug was unlikely, on the whole; her mammy was not a hugging kind of lady. Instead she smiled. ‘All set,’ she told her mammy – and then several things happened at once: the front doorbell pealed; and the back door slammed shut, sending a draught into the house and setting a few paper cups flying and a lampshade swaying; and Patrick jumped into the room. He was filthy: he was covered in dirt; and the girls were waiting at the front door.
‘Make him clean himself!’ she hissed at her mammy. ‘Make him, ma
ke him!’ She did not want the girls to hear her shouting at her dirty little brother; and now there was the bell again; and she whisked into the hall. There were faces behind the rippling glass, many blurred faces. She took a breath and opened the door, and there was Veronica, standing and waiting at the head of the posse. A few mammies lurked behind: the plan was that they would stay in the kitchen and drink tea, while the girls had a birthday feast – a Feast, said the invitation, for Margaret’s 10th birthday – in the dining room.
‘Come in,’ said Margaret, for she could hear her mammy manhandling Patrick along the hall and down the step and into the bathroom. The coast was clear. ‘Come in,’ she said, and she opened the door and Veronica came into the hall. ‘I brought you this,’ Veronica said, raking a stare around, and she handed over a little parcel, wrapped and ribboned excitingly; and now the other girls filed in too, one by one, and soon Margaret’s arms overflowed with presents. ‘Thank you,’ she said to one and all, ‘thank you.’
Later, when the girls and their mammies left, with the front and back doors and all the windows wide open to let the smoke out (but it lingered and clung just the same: her mammy said that the curtains would need to be taken down after all this, and sent away to be cleaned), and the neighbours dispersed from the street outside – later, after all this, Margaret sat on the dining room floor and cried. The floorboards were strewn with wrapping paper and ribbons, for they had just reached this point in the ceremony when the smoke began to billow from the sitting room. But the food remained piled on plates, the cake, with its chocolate icing, remained uncut – and now Patrick appeared, sidling into the room, his face once more smudged and dirty. But so too was Margaret’s face – smudged and dirty from smoke and tears; and so had been Veronica’s face when she left the house – smudged with smoke and tears. For good reason.
‘Why did you want to ruin my party?’ Margaret wailed now: she had drawn her knees in close to her body, and now as Patrick sidled closer, she aimed a kick. He skipped out of reach – but half-heartedly, not triumphantly, for he too had been crying, at first in the sitting room amid the smoke, and then in the hall, the girls eddying around all the while in scandalised formation, and then in his own bedroom.