The Island Child

by Molly Aitken

‘I come for the summer work,’ he says. ‘Farm labouring, and then I go back to them in the winter. Life isn’t what it was on Inis. It’s all just about the tourists now. I like to get away when they flood in.’

  ‘How’s Dad?’

  He shrugs. ‘His sight isn’t what it was.’

  ‘Can he still work?’

  ‘Not much. That’s a bit of why I come here. The money helps them.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, Kieran.’

  ‘I never thought about it, did I? It’s just what you do.’

  Kate leaps up and goes to the sink again. Kieran pours another glass for himself, not meeting my eye.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about Enda,’ he says and I can’t look at him, can’t bear to see his pain.

  ‘Did you see much of him?’ Kate asks. ‘I know you lived far away, but it was nice to think of the two of you over there together.’

  ‘I haven’t really spoken about him. Not since it happened.’

  Kate squeezes my shoulder and it gives me the strength to smile at her.

  ‘He was happy, I think. We saw a good bit of him. He loved my daughter. Joyce. They had all these private jokes together.’

  ‘I was always jealous of the pair of you,’ Kieran says to his glass. ‘I was never brave like yous.’

  ‘Of course you were, Kieran.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The things you did to keep us fed when we were young.’

  ‘I was a coward. I was the one who riled the lads up to set the Kilbrides’ cottage on fire.’

  You could snap the air like a sheet of ice.

  ‘They all could’ve been in there,’ I say. ‘Etain was just a baby.’

  ‘They were in there. I don’t know what got into us. I’d never want to hurt any of them now.’

  Kate smiles. ‘He’d like to marry Etain but she won’t have him.’

  Keiran’s ears are flushed and he rubs at his neck. ‘Oona, do you think Aislinn did herself in because of us?’

  ‘She felt alone. A nothingness in her, everywhere, and she couldn’t get away from it.’

  They are quiet, not looking at me.

  ‘Aislinn thought,’ I say, ‘like the rest of us, that Felim killed Liam.’

  ‘Do you think he did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Kate knocks back her drink. ‘Can the two of you not be a bit lighter? Talk about the good things that happened since you last saw each other. You’re making us all depressed with these memories.’

  Kieran laughs, gently, and shakes his head.

  ‘I saw your Joyce the other morning.’

  I turn to Kate.

  ‘He was dropping off the bike he borrowed from Jack,’ she says.

  ‘She looks just like her dad, what I remember of him anyway,’ he says. ‘But prettier, of course.’

  Kate laughs with him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say to their beaming faces. ‘I’m so glad to see you both, but I need to sleep. I’m wrecked.’

  I leave them, cross the hall and go out the door. Night folds around me. Galway is punctured with lights, some blinking through the thickening dark.

  It feels like a shadow is clinging to my footsteps, echoing them along the narrow streets, but when I look over my shoulder no one is there. Joyce is not there.

  He Came from the Sea

  Everyone thought the death of Aislinn was the end of our troubles and life would be uninterrupted again, the tide rushing in and out, the bright half of the year giving way to the dark.

  No one let the sea-fairy’s name pass their lips, afraid it would invite her ghost to melt through their bolted doors and press her wet lips to their ears, whispering curses. I could have told them it was dreams she entered. Most nights she came to me, joyful, laughing silently.

  The priest had words after she washed up, said there was no need to get the Guards over, poor Liam had tripped on a rock, poor Mrs Kilbride tripped into the sea. Perhaps he didn’t want anyone to know his parish was thick with murderers and suicides. God knows what he wrote to the officials on the mainland, but no one came to check. Everyone always trusts a man of the cloth.

  Every day Mam and I stopped in on Pegeen to cook and clean. She wandered around dropping plates and smiling sweetly at me, mumbling about ‘that woman’. Pegeen was gone.

  Felim hid on Éag all winter. The priest could say what he liked; people still had their own notions and he still lived at the heart of them. I was glad not to look at him. Sometimes I even forgot what he had done to Liam. But most days I couldn’t.

  One night, in the early summer, almost a year since Felim had been living on Éag, I could hear from his smooth breaths that Enda was awake too.

  ‘He said Liam just fell, like a tourist,’ Enda whispered.

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘Liam was sure on his feet. Surer than anyone.’

  We’d both felt Felim’s anger, and he’d been controlling it, but he was always on the edge of falling into rage.

  * * *

  Summer wind whipped salt in off the sea, cooling me from the rare warmth of the sun. I was up digging the thin earth of our field with my brothers. It was only a few days until I’d be sixteen and then I would be closer to leaving, to getting the ferry and arriving at Kate’s, and she would help me find a job with her or in a shop. This thought had got me through the winter while I was at my sewing. I’d make money for myself and not see all my hard work go into Mam’s stack of coins.

  These days Enda was always off with the priest, so the three of us being together was as rare as the sun. The holy disappearances was what me and Kieran called Enda’s time with Father Finnegan. Dad had the fear that his second son was wanting to become a priest. Mam feared he wouldn’t, and Enda was too distracted to notice their tense glances.

  When Kieran wasn’t fishing or hunting, he and some other lads went about following the girls and running races to ready themselves for the Saint John’s Eve games.

  The smack, smack, smack of metal rang around us. Limp potato leaves crushed by my spade lifted a smell of rotting soil. Enda and Kieran’s arms glistened with dirt and sweat. My skirts scratched my prickly, hot legs and I longed to rip off my shirt like them.

  My back strained pleasantly with each slice of the spade and I wished the day could stretch on for ever. I lifted my head and there was Felim walking along the road with a loaded sack over his shoulder. He must have come to labour, but who’d take him on and risk the judgement of everyone? The only person I could think who enjoyed the presence of a sinner was the priest. I wondered what Felim had told the Father, if he confessed at all.

  He’d grown taller and even thinner than when I last saw him, and there was a growth of straggly hair on his chin. Felim’s shadow stretched across the field. Kieran hadn’t noticed and Enda continued pounding the earth. Felim disappeared around the turn in the road.

  In the neighbouring field rye wafted its moist, green smell. Far off, above the water, clouds stacked quickly with a wind I couldn’t feel.

  I went to the wall and watched the sky and sea blur together.

  Something hard smacked my thigh.

  ‘Wake up, you clod.’ Kieran laughed. ‘You’re away with the fairies.’

  I threw a sod back at him, but it fell wide. My mind was all a-wander, unfixed, unfixing. The sky and sea were boiling. The wind picked up, clouds rolled in to eat the blue behind us and fat drops tapped my face, splattered the turned soil and darkened the pile of potatoes at my feet. The sky spun, darker and darker.

  Far too close to the shore, I saw the ferry; it was late and no large boats ever came to this part of the coast. My gaze fastened to it. Everyone knew the shallows rose almost out of nowhere, sharp-toothed and starving. I tried to shout but my voice was gone. Moments dragged like a nail on flesh. Lightning scarred the sky and thunder rolled along the waves, up the beach, across the broken walls and through me.

  ‘Enda! Kieran!’ I roared.

  Over the howling of the wind their
voices yelled and their bodies ran towards the beach. My feet chased after them. The air was thick with water. From where I stood at the top of the shore, I could make out that the ferry was already swarmed by waves.

  Kieran wrenched open the door of the hut where we kept the breeches buoy. We’d never used the life-saver before. No islander in the past had reached the wrecks in time.

  Enda hooked the coil of rope over his shoulder and grabbed the swing. He darted past me and Kieran snatched the rocket and launcher, his eyes alight with something like excitement, and I would’ve hit him, only I felt it too. Nothing like this had happened before.

  I tasted salt in my mouth. On the ashy sea the ferry appeared and disappeared behind black waves. I stood still, searching for what to do, who to run for, but there was nobody about except Felim in the shallows.

  No one could risk taking a boat out to rescue them. The only chance was the breeches buoy. Shapes of men slipped over the rocks. If they called out, I couldn’t hear. Rain battered me and my dress sucked to my skin. Women joined me on the seaweed line.

  At the edge of the waves two men in oilskins planted the rocket for launching the rope. They aimed it at the ferry, marked by flitting bird-like lanterns.

  A bright flash, a brilliant whooshing noise.

  The ferry was all lit up. It tipped and waves swamped it. The flare went out. We’d missed. There were only two rockets left. I ran closer to the water, to the breeches buoy. It was Enda and Felim holding the flare between them, clinging to one lifeline. They pointed it, fired, and the flare lit the tar-coloured sky. The rope had missed.

  They aimed the last rocket. We watched its course across the sea. A heartbeat. It took hours. I knew somehow it would bring my future to me. The light died. A hand grabbed my wrist, squeezed all the blood out. Shouts cut through the wind. Everyone shouting. They’d done it. The voices faded. The hand released my wrist. It was Mam.

  I saw the words on her lips. Come home, Oona. Come home.

  No. There was beg and sharpness in her eyes but nothing could make me miss this day. People would tell stories about it in the years to come. There were raindrops or tears on Mam’s cheeks. I turned to the sea. She walked away.

  The rope wavered between the shore and the boat. Enda and Felim and the other men slowly winched out the sling. Fear sliced the air.

  The waves crashed up to my knees with brittle coldness. The women scattered. Enda stood in the shallows, steadying the rope. Felim’s hair blazed when the lightning flashed. My eyes stung with the black and salt and cold. I dragged myself out of the sea. The men waited, but I didn’t know what for. It grew darker. The cold began to bite at me. I watched and waited. All around was black and rain and sea lashed from above and below. How many people were on board? Just the ferryman and his lad, or more? Tourists, or what if Kate had come to visit us?

  A whooshing filled my ears and out of the dark flew a body that crashed onto the stones, the waves lashing in behind it. The men ran to him – it was a him – and I was close behind. He leaned against Enda.

  Someone yanked on the rope and the sling whipped away again. Enda beckoned me over and shrugged the arm of the man onto my shoulders. His limbs were so long and he was floppy, as if half asleep. My legs wanted to buckle under the weight of him. It lessened a little and I looked and Felim had taken the other side.

  ‘Take him home,’ Enda yelled, and already he was running back to the sea, away from Felim and me.

  Salt water was pouring off the man. He shook head to toe. He stumbled, dragging Felim and I with him, but we steadied. I felt all the weight of him in my chest. My breath came in quick bursts.

  When we got to the cottage, I kicked the door open. Mam was bent over the fire. I roared over the shriek of the storm and almost in the same instant she spun, crossed herself and frowned at Felim.

  ‘Bring him to the fire, Oona.’

  We placed the stranger in Dad’s seat. His long body made it seem like a child’s chair.

  ‘Get out of my home,’ Mam said, but Felim had already left.

  One hand hovering at her chest, she glanced at me, then at the man I’d brought in, and peeled off his coat. He didn’t move to stop her, just allowed her to take away his layers until he was in only damp shirt and trousers. I was the one who’d carried him back. I should have been helping him.

  Mam went outside to fetch water from the barrel.

  The man was lifeless, empty as a shell, as if the sea had somehow taken his mind, his soul.

  I stood above him. He had hair across his jaw like Jesus. I reached out and brushed it with my fingertip. His eyes fluttered open; blue. He took my hand. His skin was clean like a rain-washed sky.

  The door crashed open and Mam was back in the room, her face tight and her hard black pebble eyes stuck to me. She smacked the bucket down. The man let go of my hand.

  Mam led him into the small room, my room. She was gone a long while, long enough for me to boil a kettle on the fire.

  Mam and I sat in silence, cups of tea growing cold in our hands while we waited for news. Not a word passed between us, because those words would have been about death.

  When the sky had whitened, Dad came back alone. He said the few men on board had been spread among the villagers.

  ‘Get the man awake, Oona,’ Mam said. ‘And bring him in. He’ll have to sleep out the rest of the night in the nook.’

  I opened the door to the little room. The smell of sweat and sea touched my nose and lips.

  I sensed him stand up.

  ‘I’m Oona,’ I said in English.

  ‘Glad to meet you.’ He fell against me. My arms flicked out and grasped him. As I lowered him back onto Enda’s bed, I wondered if he was dead, but his hand gripped mine. He mumbled and fell silent.

  A Song for a Man

  In one night the island was changed. The air was warm, full of moisture and heavy with the smell of flowers. I reached the highest point of the land, near the castle, and looked out at the wreck far below. Men were on the water, rowing towards it still stranded sideways, pinned to the dead place between land and sea. Watching them under the gaze of the castle, I felt oddly lonely.

  The night before Dad had helped the stranger out of Enda’s bed and into the nook. Still shivering and wet, I collapsed onto my mattress but I lay awake until I heard Kieran and Enda talking and the stranger’s low voice answering them. They fell quiet and I shut my eyes, waking to silence.

  When I came through to the kitchen the sun was well up and no one was about, not even Mam.

  I ran outside and stopped Jonjoe on the way down the hill, ignoring his blushes, and asked what the news was. He said tomorrow the four men from the boat would be rowed over to the big island beyond Éag to catch the ferry back to the mainland.

  I rushed up the road, yelling my thanks over my shoulder. There was still time to see the stranger again.

  I climbed down the cliff, hung with ferns and ivy, lay flat on my belly and thought of the stranger. Purple sea stock, sage and yellow samphire kissed my cheeks and forehead. The wind picked up their soft scents and made its music. There was a pooling in my navel that spread out and I rolled onto my back. The sky bent and starlings darted in and out of my sight. For once, I felt all was right.

  My fingers climbed under the band of my skirt. A strange purpose came into my hand, an unknown need in my thighs and upwards to my groin. I was blank, except for need. My hand moved, urgent, fast. Then slow. I smoothed. I stopped, and my breath was a panting, shuddering. I flung out my arms, released, and breathed in the sky.

  * * *

  Mam was kneading the bread, white for special occasions, but the stranger wasn’t there. The door to the little room was wide open. The beds empty. The warmth, the thrill I had made inside me, dropped away. He was gone back to the mainland. I was too late.

  ‘He’s not here,’ she said. ‘Did you see him?’ She was in her church clothes, her blue dress, and it wasn’t a Sunday.

  I picked up the basket of w
ashing and went down the road to the shore.

  * * *

  The sea was bitter cold, the air soft with rain. I stuck out my tongue to catch the moistness. At the other end of the beach the men were black smudges against the stones. A few currachs were out. Someone flicked the fishing line, an arc of beautiful, ordinary entrapment. I plunged the stiff laundry into the water, beginning with the men’s clothes, then changed my mind, my new dress in my hands. I’d saved the money all winter, sneaking pennies from Mam’s coin pot, and bought the material from a tinker. When Mam was out at the priest’s I sewed it, pricking my fingers in my haste, but when it was done it fit like skin, sky-coloured and pierced with red flowers. It was the dress I’d wear to leave the island.

  A man broke away from the group by the pier and walked towards me. Slowly, he grew into the tall body of the stranger. My breath came fast. He stopped above me on the stones, the water licking his boots. I looked away. His gaze, long and blue.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ I kept my fist under the water, not wanting him to see the dress.

  ‘The men told me you’re the girl who carried me back.’

  ‘I was. You seemed to fly out of nowhere. Were you afraid to be the first to try our sling? Why were you the first one to come?’

  ‘I volunteered to test it.’

  ‘Lucky for you it held.’

  He laughed. ‘My name is Michael. You’re Oona?’

  I scrubbed the sleeves of the dress against each other.

  ‘You’ll have to thank your friend too,’ he said. ‘He helped carry me back as well, didn’t he?’

  ‘He’s not my friend.’

  Michael smiled and I bent down, stretching my arms deeper into the water.

  ‘I went out early to explore.’ His hair was light now it was dry. ‘It’s a pretty spot.’

  ‘I’ve not been anywhere so I couldn’t tell you if it’s prettier than anywhere else.’

  He didn’t say anything for a moment and I watched my dress drift to the surface. ‘Where I’m from it’s all forests and snow and lakes.’ He grinned, thinking thoughts I’d never know because I’d never see the places he spoke about. I wanted to reach into him and grab them for myself. ‘Here life is on the edge somehow. The sea is your master.’