by Richard Gwyn
What happened to you? I ask, and reach out a hand, meaning to grasp his shoulder in a supportive gesture. Again, he draws back from me.
Don’t be afraid, I say. I’m not going to hurt you.
He is shaking. I notice his duffle bag at his side. He is not a person I would have associated with this state of abject fear. O’Hallaran, with his ready wit, was a man with a quip for all occasions; but not now, as I squat beside him in this uneasy silence.
Can I get you something? I ask, finally. Do you want water, a hot drink? Whisky?
I am thinking that his face could do with a good clean. That wound above the eye looks nasty, and might need stitches.
He shakes his head and waves both hands at me in a violent gesture, as though shooing away a dog, while shuffling back, retreating towards the wall of the shed. He pulls the blanket tight around him.
I try one last time, in an offer of unprecedented generosity:
Would you like to sleep inside the house? There is a spare bed. It’ll be warmer there. You’ll be more comfortable. Or would you like to tell Alice what has happened, someone else, rather than me?
Just Fuck Off, he cries out finally, hoarsely, shaking his head, tears smearing his cheeks: For fuck’s sake leave me alone. Leave me here. I cannot, will not move. I will wash me fucking face in the morning. Now sod off and leave me be.
I remain crouched at his side, pondering this outburst. Does he even recognise me? Is he drunk? I did catch the whiff of alcohol on him … but he has given no real sign of recognition, merely treated me as though I were one amongst a host of terrors, another phantom come to torment him. What can have happened to O’Hallaran to reduce him to this pathetic state?
There is no point in trying to bring about a rescue when the object of my goodwill so evidently wishes to be left alone. I stand slowly and retreat to the door, and O’Hallaran remains huddled against the far wall, as if unable to bear my presence. As I close the door behind me, it makes the same ominous scraping sound that led me here. I need to clear my head, again. I need to think.
Returning to the kitchen I make tea – builder’s tea, with sugar – and retire to the library. I draw the armchair closer to the fire, and pull my feet up beneath me.
I have rarely witnessed so thorough a transformation as has come over O’Hallaran. And all of this since my entering the blue tent this morning. Am I, therefore, in some way responsible for what has happened to him? Was his distress caused by whatever physical injury was done to him, exacerbated by a more ominous and general sense of terror? Or was it on account of seeing me? Which was why I suggested bringing Alice to him, knowing that he was fond of her, which in turn proves I did not loathe O’Hallaran quite as much as I had made out to myself that I did, even if – to be honest – his return was most unwelcome. Whatever the cause of his misery, I was not going to force him to talk, or drag him down to the house against his will. In spite of his anguish, he seemed resigned to his own woeful condition. This, bizarrely, struck me as an attitude for which the tent itself was somehow responsible. I remembered the way that Alice had accepted O’Hallaran’s claim to ownership of the tent without any obvious concern; she had treated it almost as a matter of course and had reacted to her own ousting in a manner which, at the time, had seemed absurdly passive.
Outside, the night is edging into day, and an impressively punctual cockerel starts up from the direction of Morgan’s farm. I put another log on the fire and settle into my armchair. My thoughts return to O’Hallaran. Perhaps I shouldn’t be too concerned: he could always wander over to the house if he feels the need for human company. I will not begrudge him the warmth of my hearth and a cup of coffee. Perhaps Alice will reproach me for not having told her immediately about O’Hallaran’s injury. On the other hand, would it be entirely absurd to suspect that Alice already knows about O’Hallaran’s return? She seems to be abreast of pretty much everything else that goes on around the house. The day before, she certainly seemed to be expecting Gabrielle – more precisely, she had arranged it. Which brings me to thinking about Gabrielle, and the brief encounter that marked the start of the night’s adventures. How spontaneous was it, on Gabrielle’s part? How much of a coincidence was it that Alice should bid us goodnight and go to bed early, giving Gabrielle and myself time to get better acquainted? Especially now that I know she did not go straight up to bed, but was in the library, where I must assume she was reading poetry even as Gabrielle and I were fucking in the blue tent.
Was Alice a party to Gabrielle’s seduction of me? And if so, why? And the poem – if it was intended for me, and I can think of no other reason why the book would be left open on the rug – what relation if any, does it bear on the events of the night? Or, on the contrary, was my fifteen minutes of passion with the Frenchwoman something I should conceal from Alice; would it inspire jealousy and cause offence – even if it was not, exactly, at my instigation?
Tired now, but knowing I will not be able to sleep, and still bubbling with the febrile energy of the night, I wander over to the window. As I stand there, the fox trots by, at a distance of only a few yards, returning from his nocturnal scavenging. I have not seen him since he spoke to me, or I imagined him speaking to me. I smile, as one does at the sight of animals going about their business, oblivious to human society – inhabitants of a world that is contiguous with our own, and yet separate – and he stops dead, one forepaw raised in a characteristic gesture, before taking off again at a run, and climbing to the upper lawn, where the woods begin.
24
By now other birds, songsters of the middle air, have joined the yokel cockerel in celebrating the advance of daylight. I decide to go and wake Alice, and tell her of the wounded man in the woodshed. She is sprawled across her double bed, stirs reluctantly and then, when she sees me, sits up, rubs her eyes, and hugs me warmly. This display of affection takes me by surprise, and I am moved, more than just a little.
I tell her that I heard a noise during the night, coming from the woodshed, and went to investigate. I tell her the state in which I found O’Hallaran, battered and bloody. She looks concerned – but doesn’t appear to find the news entirely unexpected, is not entirely shocked or surprised, nor does she ask me why I didn’t tell her earlier. She gets up, wrapping the throw around herself, and asks me to wait while she showers. When she returns – dressed for a summer’s day in trainers, shorts and a T-shirt – we set off into the garden, and up towards the woodshed.
As we approach, I feel unduly nervous. Recent events at Llys Rhosyn are tinged with a sense of unreality, and I am even beginning to wonder whether I imagined some of last night’s unfoldings. Alice strides along beside me, seemingly at ease with the world, Keto the dog bouncing at her heels. We march to the accompaniment of trilling birdsong.
At the woodshed, I push the door open, with the now familiar, grating response. The interior is revealed in far greater clarity than it was during my night visit. The logs are piled neatly in rows to our left and, to the right, long-handled gardening shears, a hoe, an axe, a spade, a fork, an upturned wheelbarrow; all are carefully arranged, the legacy of Aunt Megan’s reign as custodian of garden tools, and one which O’Hallaran and Alice are now continuing. I also spot some boxes of shrubs and a few sacks whose contents I have never explored …
But at the far end of the shed, where last night he lay cowering, there is no sign of O’Hallaran, although his duffle bag and blanket mark the spot, testimony to his presence, and likely return. Keto sniffs at them, and looks up at us expectantly, tail thrashing.
I stand there feeling foolish, a slow-witted detective.
Well, he’s not here now, I say.
Alice looks around the shed and kicks up a little dust. There on the floor, leading from his sleeping place to the door, is an irregular trail of what appears to be blood. We search in vain for any other signs of O’Hallaran’s passage. Outside again, we are met by the sun rising over the valley, with Llys Rhosyn to our left, and there on the edge of Morgan�
�s field, straight ahead, the blue tent is a solitary artefact, source of all that has come to pass.
Let’s go wake Gabrielle, says Alice.
Right, I say, a little hesitantly. Let’s do that.
It only takes a minute to cross the garden and reach the tent. Alice stands outside and calls her friend’s name. There is no answer. She bends and unzips the entrance. I decide I do not wish to be immediately visible.
But inside – just as at the woodshed – there is only the minimal evidence of occupancy; Gabrielle’s sleeping bag, and a small backpack. Their owner – the tent’s current occupant – has already left. I turn and take in the landscape. Crows are circling the tops of the beech trees high in the woods, making a terrible racket. Clouds are scudding fast over the mountains to the west. And across Morgan’s field, from the direction of the stream, Alice and I both spot O’Hallaran coming towards us, his slow, easy gait unimpeded by any obvious injury. As he gets closer, I call out a greeting, which he returns with a cheerful wave. Alice starts walking towards him, and I follow.
Glad to see you looking so much better, I say, when we are within speaking distance.
O’Hallaran is inclined, it would seem, to put last night’s encounter behind him. Aw, he says, I stopped off for a couple of pints in the village (he doesn’t say which village) and rather forgot myself on the way home. Took a tumble.
Forgot himself? Took a tumble? He is obviously lying. But why? Why should he need to lie, and what is he concealing?
He has been down at the stream at the far end of Morgan’s field, he says. To freshen up. Fair play to him: he never asks to use the bathroom in the house, and this is why. He comes to the stream – which hereabouts is quite wide, and could be considered a small river – and carries out his ablutions like a true frontiersman, in a pool deep enough to stand in up to the chest. I peer at him carefully while attempting not to make it obvious that I am inspecting his face for the wound I noticed the night before. There is a deep graze above the eyebrow on the left side. It still looks like it might need stitches, but has been thoroughly washed. There is colourful bruising around the eye itself.
O’Hallaran knows I am examining his face, and puts up with it. Then, as if to break the tension – Alice, thus far, has uttered not a word – he drops his shoulder bag to the ground and pulls out two medium-sized trout. Breakfast, he says. They were just lounging around in the pool, lazy feckers. So I tickled them out.
I am impressed. Truly, O’Hallaran has earned his wild man spurs. Alice gazes at the fish. Wow, she says. I have never met anyone who could do that. She squats and turns one over in her hand. A good weight too, she adds.
O’Hallaran shrugs modestly, and strokes his beard.
Why has O’Hallaran made no mention of the blue tent’s new tenant? He obviously knows someone is there. For one thing, his own belongings must have been removed and placed elsewhere, either by him, or by Gabrielle. Is he adopting the same nonchalance that Alice did when, on his own arrival at Llys Rhosyn, the tent suddenly became his – despite its previous affiliation to her? Has he, after all these years as its owner, now been dumped by the tent? The thought almost makes me feel sorry for him. Perhaps this was partly why he was so upset the night before … apart from the crack on the head, of course.
I am distracted from these thoughts by Alice tugging at my sleeve. Look, she says, and points down the drive. Gabrielle is approaching from the direction of the road, riding an old-fashioned lady’s bicycle that I have previously noticed in the lean-to near the back door, once used for storing coal. A bicycle neither I nor Alice (nor O’Hallaran) had thought of trying out, but which Gabrielle has discovered and appropriated. As she reaches the end of the drive she alights – most elegantly, I observe, with a delicate sashay – pushing the bike for the few remaining yards towards the kitchen door.
Alice and I climb back across the field to the garden, intending to join Gabrielle inside. As we turn to enter the kitchen, O’Hallaran mutters quickly, I won’t be joining you just now … have things to do … here, take the fish. And he passes the two trout to Alice, and hurries off up towards the woodshed. He seems in a terrible hurry.
25
I set about grilling the trout for breakfast, and Gabrielle helps in the kitchen, preparing a fruit salad. She doesn’t ask where the fish have come from, but in answer to a question from Alice, I let slip O’Hallaran’s name, and immediately Gabrielle appears uneasy. I feel certain that there is bad blood between the two of them. I am curious to know whether, if this is the case, the source of their antagonism is based on a disputed tenancy of the tent, or whether they knew each other before coming to the house. But I do not ask.
O’Hallaran does not make an appearance at breakfast.
Gabrielle’s attitude towards me is affectionate but discreet. She is fond of making physical contact, her hand on my arm or shoulder when we speak, but no one observing us would have guessed that only the evening before we enjoyed an encounter of uninhibited passion.
After our late breakfast, as the three of us are cleaning up the kitchen, Alice says she wants to work in the greenhouse, and suggests I take Gabrielle for a walk. She likes the outdoor life, you know, says Alice. Hiking up mountains, all that stuff. And she knows the names of all the birds, don’t you, Gabi …
I am not sure quite what Alice is playing at, but I am not going along with it. I could no more leave the grounds of Llys Rhosyn right now than cut off my right hand. I cannot even bring myself to go shopping for food, and I make a mental note to order a delivery from the supermarket.
I tell Alice that if I want to know the names of all the birds I can google them, and I leave for the library.
This little outburst surprises me as much as it does Alice, but I feel that I am being played, and I don’t like it.
In the library, I settle to a study by a seventeenth-century Dutch scholar, Pietr van Nootebaum entitled (in its translation from the Latin) A most Fortunate and Timely Exegesis of the Kabbalistic Wisdom of the Aleph, but I find it hard to concentrate. It occurs to me that Alice wanted Gabrielle and me out of the way so that she could speak with O’Hallaran without fear of interruption. But she could have managed that without us having to leave the house altogether. I cannot understand what she is trying to engineer.
My rumination is cut short by a knock on the door. It is Gabrielle, carrying a tray on which stand a pot of coffee and two cups. She looks about, assessing her surroundings – I assume it is the first time she has been inside the library, and then remember she has visited the house before, with her mother – and she asks if I am busy, but not in a way that seriously suggests I might be, or that if I were it would deter her.
I gesture to her to put the tray down on a small table alongside the green armchair. She pours the coffee and brings me a cup, settling herself on a hard-backed chair that she places alongside the desk, next to my own. She sits on the chair backwards, as it were, like a cowboy in a Western, legs apart. I am a little uneasy about her close proximity. There is certainly a frisson between us. However, I find it difficult – although not, if I am entirely honest, impossible – to consider exploring a longer-term sexual relationship. Fortunately, Gabrielle doesn’t expect me to investigate this dilemma with her. Instead – most conveniently, in the light of my own unanswered questions – she starts asking about O’Hallaran.
How long, she says, have you known this man O’Hallaran, who is staying at your house? The one I saw this morning, who brought the fish.
Not long, I reply. Three weeks or so. And he isn’t exactly staying in my house. He seems to have decided on squatting in the woodshed.
Squatting?
Living as an unofficial resident, or non-paying tenant. Why do you ask?
He is not such a good person, I think.
Why? I ask. What has O’Hallaran done?
Last night, after you left … I was half asleep and I heard sounds outside, someone moving around, bumping into the side of the tent. I knew it wasn’t
you. Then the zip was pulled down. Obviously I thought it was an intruder …
It was O’Hallaran?
Yes, it was, she says, quietly.
That is not so surprising, you know. He will have thought he was coming home to his tent.
His tent?
O’Hallaran mistook your tent for his own, since he possesses a blue tent also. Possibly the very one that you own, although I cannot go into that now; it’s complicated. But you, presumably, took fright, took offence …
Gabrielle is looking down at the ground, shaking her head. She begins to mutter something in French, and then she looks up – I’m afraid I did rather more than take offence, she says, in answer to my remark. I pushed him backwards and hit him with a baseball bat.
Jesus, I say.
Well, I travel with a baseball bat, she explains. I started playing in Montréal.
Oh well, I say, as if that explained everything. It must come in useful when the special protection of the tent doesn’t prove sufficient.
Exactly, she says, oblivious to my sarcasm.
Please, I ask her, after pausing to digest her confession: tell me about the tent.
What do you mean? What do you want to know? she asks.
How did you acquire the tent, Gabrielle? You say it was a gift from my Aunt Megan, but what was the occasion of her giving it to you?
Megan gave me the tent six or seven years ago, when I was visiting Llys Rhosyn. It was just after my twenty-first birthday. She said that since I had begun to travel, I was going to need a special tent, that might, if I looked after it, offer me a degree of protection.
What did you make of her saying that? I mean, did that not sound odd to you?
Well, it might have, if I hadn’t been brought up listening to all kinds of stuff of a similar kind. From my mother as well as Megan. They were both – despite being scientists – also susceptible to some very strange ideas. Well, strange to most people anyway. About alchemy, synchronicity, the transcendent properties of objects, and so on. It was the early influence of Jung, and MLF, you know …