The Secret Scripture

by Sebastian Barry

  She gazed out at me. I don’t know if she knew immediately who it was. She might have thought me a beggerwoman, or a tinker, or something escaped from the madhouse where she worked. Indeed I was a sort of beggarwoman, begging another woman to understand my plight. Forsaken, forsaken was the word that began to ring in my head.

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  ‘What do you want?’ she said, understandably, probably eventually realising it was me, the undesirable woman her son had married and not married. I supposed she had plotted against me years before, but that did not concern me now. I didn’t know how many weeks I was. I was almost afraid I would start to bring forth the baby on her doorstep. Maybe better for the baby if I had.

  I didn’t know what to say to her. I had never known anyone in my situation. I did not know what my situation was. I needed – I desperately needed someone to . . .

  ‘What do you want?’ she said again, as if inclined to shut the door if I didn’t speak.

  ‘I’m in trouble,’ I said.

  ‘I see that, child,’ she said.

  I tried to peer into her face. Child. That sounded there in the porch with the force of a beautiful word.

  ‘I am in desperate trouble,’ I said.

  ‘You’re nothing to do with us any more,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said. ‘But I’ve nowhere else to go. Nowhere.’

  ‘Nothing and nowhere,’ she said.

  ‘Mrs McNulty, I am begging you to help me.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do. What could I do for you? I am frightened of you.’

  This suddenly gave me pause. I had not considered that. Frightened of me.

  ‘I’m not to be frightened of, Mrs McNulty. I need help. I’m, I’m –’

  I was trying to say pregnant, but it didn’t seem a word that could be said. I knew in her ears if I said the word it would have the same meaning as whore, prostitute. Or she would hear those shadowing words in the word pregnant. It felt like there was wood in my mouth, the exact shape of my mouth. A big heave of wind came up the path behind me and tried to bundle me into the door. I think she thought I was trying to force 257

  my way in. But I was so weak on my legs suddenly, I thought I was going to collapse.

  ‘I know you have had your own troubles in the past,’ I said, desperately trying to remember what Jack had said at the Plaza. But had he said anything? Whatever you say, say nothing.

  ‘Vicissitudes, he said. In the long ago?’

  ‘Don’t!’ she shouted. And then she shouted, ‘Tom!’

  Then she whispered, as woundable as a wounded bird.

  ‘What did he tell you, what did Jack tell you?’

  ‘Nothing. Vicissitudes.’

  ‘Filthy gossip,’ she said. ‘All it was.’

  I don’t know how Old Tom had heard her, maybe by long attention to her voice, but in a few moments he appeared around the house in his coat and hat, looking like a halfdrowned mariner.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ he said. ‘Roseanne.’

  ‘You have to get her to go away,’ said Mrs McNulty.

  ‘Come on, Roseanne,’ said Old Tom, ‘come on, come back out the gate.’

  I did obediently as I was told. His voice was friendly. He was nodding his head as he drove me backwards.

  ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘go on,’ like I was a calf in the wrong part of the field.

  ‘Go on.’

  Then I was out on the pavement again. The wind drove along the street like a gang of invisible lorries, roaring and piercing.

  ‘Go on,’ said Old Tom.

  ‘Where?’ I said, with utmost desperation.

  ‘Go back,’ he said. ‘Go back.’

  ‘I need you to help me.’

  ‘There’s no one to help you.’

  ‘Ask Tom to help me, please.’

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  ‘Tom can’t help you, girl. Tom’s getting married. You know? Tom can’t help you.’

  Married? My God.

  ‘But what will I do?’

  ‘Go back the road,’ he said. ‘Go on.’

  I didn’t go back the road at his bidding but because I had no other choice.

  My thought was, if I could reach the hut again, I could dry myself, and rest, and think of another plan. But only to get out of the rain and the wind, and be able to think.

  Tom marrying again. No, not again, for the first time. If I had had him in front of me then, I might have killed him with whatever implement I could find. I might have torn a stone from a wall, a stick from a fence, and battered him, and killed him.

  For bringing me with love into such wretched danger. I don’t think I was walking then but sort of heaving myself along. The little girl was still behind the window-glass as I passed, still with her doll, still waiting for the storm to abate, so she could go outside and play. This time for some reason she didn’t wave.

  They say that we come from apes and maybe it is the residing animal in us that knows things deep down that we almost don’t realise we know. There was something, some clock or engine, beginning to stir in me, and my whole instinct was to hurry my steps, to hurry my steps, and find somewhere quiet and sheltered where I could try and understand that engine. There was an urgency in it, and a smell to it, some strange noise rose from me, and was whipped away by the wind. Now I was out on the tarmacadam road to Strandhill, green fields and stone walls around me, and the visible rain striking the 259

  surface of the road and leaping about with a sort of anger. It was like I had music in my belly, strong driving drumming music, the ‘Black Bottom Stomp’ gone over the edge, the piano player going wilder and wilder at the keys.

  The road took a slow turn and then the bay began to be visible below. Who did I have to help me? No one. Where was the world? How was it I had managed to live in the world with no one? How was it that the inhabitants of the few houses along the way didn’t rush out to me, to hurry me into their houses, to hold me in their arms? A savage sense entered me, of being of such small account in the world that I wasn’t to be helped, that priest and woman and man had put out an edict that I wasn’t to be helped, I was to be left to the elements, just as I was, a walking animal, forsaken.

  Maybe it was then that some part of me leapt away from myself, something fled from my brain, I don’t know.

  Refuge. A forlorn being seeks refuge. I had the fire covered in ashes in my hut, and all it would need would be the ashes knocked off the turves, and more turves added, and soon I would have a decent fire. And I could peel off my old coat and my dress and my slip and my shoes and dry myself exultant in the dry room, laughing, victorious, having gained a victory over storms and families. I had a simple stew in a covered pot and I would eat that, and then when I was dry and fed, into the bed with me, and I would lie there looking out on Knocknarea, poor old Queen Maeve above in her own stone bed, feeling maybe the worst of the storm so high up, and I would look at my belly as I liked to do, and see the elbows and the knees poking out and disappearing as my baby stretched and stirred. I had about six miles to go before I reached this longed-for safety. I could see from the cut of the land that if I went out on the beach as the motorcars used to do at low tide, I would take a good two miles from the journey. I noted even in my distress that the tide was at its lowest ebb, though it was hard to make 260

  this out with the armies and legions of rain that lashed across it. So I cut down from the high road along a steep boreen, not minding the rough stones too much, contented in my mind I was shortening my way, and indeed so numb in my feet and legs I think I no longer felt much pain there. The pain was all in my stomach, the pain was all about my child, and I was fearsomely anxious to gain my advantage. Beautiful once, but beauty ended.

  Down on the sand all was like a dance, as if the Plaza itself had expanded to fill Sligo Bay. The rain was like huge skirts, swirling and lifting, with hammering pillars of legs driving down, the whole of the strand and the sea between Strandhill and Rosses blanked out by a million brushstr
okes of grey and grey. I thought then that it was not so sensible to have taken to the sand, or at least, I was cursed by a change in the gear of the weather, an infinite swelling and belling of the storm, tearing at me and my stomach, my little creature of elbows and knees. Then I was starting to slosh through shallow runs of water and knew I was not on a proper course. The sand that the cars favoured as they roared out to the dance sat higher than the rest, and on a summer’s night was dry. I feared I was heading towards the channel of the Garravoge, a disaster unimaginable, and now I didn’t know which way to turn. Where was the mountain, where was the bulge of the land? Where was Strandhill and where was Coney?

  Suddenly in front of me loomed a monster – no, it wasn’t a monster, it was a cone of carved stones, it was one of the bollards that were set up in a line to show the way to the island, along the best sand, the last sand to be covered as the tide came in. A thing the tide was beginning to do, I knew, because I could hear, inside the roaring of the storm, the other galloping sound of the sea, as it rushed in eagerly to take the empty places in its arms. But I reached the bollard and held onto its stones for a few moments, trying to calm myself, at least a mite 261

  encouraged to have found it. Unless I had turned myself around completely, I judged the river would be over to my right, and Strandhill somewhere to my left. At the top of the bollard was a rusty metal arrow, pointing to the island. Fearsomely in the storm the Metal Man would be standing on his rock, pointing to deep water, pointing, pointing. He would have no time to help the likes of me.

  I knew I had to keep going, if I stayed where I was the tide would simply gather in, cover the sand at my feet, and slowly slowly rise up the bollard. I did not dare go back towards the shore, where there might be a rising flood. But at high tide most of the bollards were covered, and there would be no safety here. It would be the realm of currents and fishes. I put the bollard at my back, taking a course from the arrow, and stepped forward into the storm, praying I could keep enough of a straight line from that compass, and reach Coney. A swathe of blue angry light was cut into the storm, like a slice of mad cake, and suddenly I saw the great prow of Ben Bulben looming, like a liner that was going to run me down. No, no, it was miles away. But it was also where I had supposed it to be, and then I was able to gain the next bollard. Oh, I sent my heart to the Metal Man in gratitude. Now I could see indistinctly but distinctly enough the mound of Coney island ahead. I forged on towards it. As I moved from the next bollard I felt that water gush from me and briefly warm my legs. With another hundred aching strides I had reached the first rocks, and the black seaweed, and drove myself up the sloping path. Without that break in the storm I don’t know what I would have done, except drowned in the hurrying sea. Because now the storm closed about me again like a room of utter madness, walls of water and ceiling of banging fire, it seemed, and I lay in a nest of boulders, panting, and half expired.

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  I awoke. The storm was still howling roundabout. I hardly knew who I was. I remember searching in my mind even for words. In my sleep or whatever state it was, I had heaved my back up against a mossy rock, I don’t know why. The storm was howling, with enormous drenching drifts of rain. I was lying so still I had the mad thought that I was dead. But I was far from dead. Every so often, minutes or hours I couldn’t tell, something took a hold of me, like I was being squeezed from the crown of my head to my toes. It was so painful it seemed to have crept beyond pain, I don’t know how other to describe it. I pulled myself onto all fours, again not exactly deciding to, but responding to a will unknown. Looking now wildly forwards, I thought in the cascading sheets of rain I saw a person standing, watching me. Then the storm seemed to blot the figure out. I screamed out to whoever it was, screamed and screamed. Then another shock of pain gripped me, as if someone had cleaved my backbone with an axe. Who was it watching me in the rain? Not someone who was going to approach and help. More hours passed. I felt the tide recede again from the island, felt it in my veins. The storm burned down from the heavens. Or rather, I was on fire in all that wetness. My stomach was like a bread oven, gathering in heat. No, no, it could not have been. The time of human clocks flew away, the coming and going of the pain was the new marker of time. Did the pain come closer and closer now? Less time between? Had night fallen secretly to darken the storm? Was I blind? Now there was suddenness, arrival, blood. I looked down between my legs. I felt I had my arms outstretched like wings, ready to catch something falling from the sky. But it wasn’t falling from the sky, it was falling down through me. My blood fell on the soaking heather and cried out to God to help me, His striving animal. The voice of my blood cried out. No, no, that was only madness, madness. Between my legs was only coals, a ring of coals burning so redly nothing could live if it passed through it. In that second of madness then was the crown of a 263

  little head, and in another second a shoulder, all smeared in skin and blood. There was a face, there was a breast, there was a belly and two legs, and even the storm seemed to draw its breath in silence, there was a silence, I looked, I took up the little creature, it drew out after it a vivid cord, I lifted the baby to my face and, again without real thought, bit the cord, the storm swelled up and howled and howled, and my child also swelled, seemed to form himself in the lashing dark, gathered his first diamond of air, and howled out in miniature, called out tinily, to the island, to Sligo, to me, to me.

  When I awoke again, the storm had cleared away like a savage dress sweeping out of the room of Sligo. Where was the little creature? There was the blood and the skin and cord and the placenta. I started to my feet. I was as dizzy and weak as a newborn foal myself. Where was my baby? Such a wild feeling of panic and loss poured into me. I looked about with the frantic longing and fiery head of any mother, human or animal. I parted the low sprigs and plants of heather, I searched about me in circles. I called out for help. The sky was big and blue all the way to heaven.

  How long had the storm been gone? I didn’t know.

  I fell back down, striking a hip against the rock. There was still a steady twine of blood coming out of me, dark blood, warm and dark. I lay there, staring out at the world like a woman who had been shot in the head, the peaceful beach, the sandbirds dipping and striking with their long beaks along the receding tideline. ‘Please help me,’ I kept saying, but there seemed to be no one to hear me except those birds. Weren’t there a few houses on the island, hiding here and there from the wind? Could someone not come and help me find my baby? Could someone not come?

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  As I lay there a strange sharp hurting feeling came into my breast, it was the milk coming into them, I thought. I had the milk now, ready. Where, where was my baby to drink it? Then down the winding road to the strand I saw a white van moving. I knew immediately it was an ambulance, because even so far away I could hear its siren in the stillness. It reached the sand and surged forward, taking its course, just as I had in the storm, from bollard to bollard. I stood again and waved my arms, like the shipwrecked sailor does when at last he sees the far-off ship to rescue him. But it wasn’t me that needed rescue, it was that tiny person vanished from the space he should have occupied. When the men came up to me with their stretcher, I asked them to tell me where my baby was, I begged them.

  ‘We don’t know, ma’am,’ one said, with perfect manners.

  ‘What are you doing out here on Coney having a baby? It’s no place to have a baby, now, that’s for sure.’

  ‘But where is it, where is my baby?’

  ‘Was the tide in high, ma’am, and washed it away, God bless the poor mite?’

  ‘No, no, I had him in my arms, and slept, and kept him close, and warm. I knew he could be warm beside me. Look, I had him here, in my breast, look, the buttons are undone, I had him safe and warm.’

  ‘All right,’ said another. ‘All right. Do calm yourself. There’s still bleeding,’ he said to his colleague. ‘We’ll have to try and stop that.’

  ‘You mightn’t stop i
t,’ said the man.

  ‘We’ll get her to Sligo quick.’

  And they loaded me into the back. But were we abandoning my child? I didn’t know. I scrabbled at the door when it closed.

  ‘Look everywhere,’ I said. ‘There was a child. There was.’

  Oh, then when they started the engine, it was like falling through floors, I swooned away.

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  Now I begin to encounter difficulties. Now the roads seem to take two courses through the forest, and the forest is so deep in snow there is only whiteness.

  Someone took my child. The ambulance brought me to the hospital. For days I know I was still bleeding inside, and they did not expect me to live. These things I remember. I remember they did an operation on me because I know I stopped bleeding and that I lived. I remember Fr Gaunt coming in and telling me that I was going to be taken care of, that he knew where he could put me for my own safety, and that I would like the place, and that I wasn’t to worry. I asked again and again about my child and each time he just said the word ‘Nazareth’. I didn’t know what he meant. I was so weak I think I must have done what the prisoner will do with his jailer, I looked for Fr Gaunt to help me. I may have asked him for his help. I certainly wept a great deal and I have even a memory of him holding me while I wept. Was there anyone else there? I can’t remember. Soon I saw the two towers of the asylum looming above me and I was given forth to hell.

  I cried out that I wanted to see my mother, but they said,

  ‘You cannot see her, no one can see her, she is beyond seeing.’

  Now memory falters. Yes. It shudders, like a motor trying to start at the turn of the crank, but failing. Phut, phut, phut. Oh, is that Old Tom and Mrs McNulty in the darkness there, in a dark room as may be, and myself there also, and are they measuring me with their linen tapes, for an asylum smock, not saying anything, except the measurements, the bust, the waist, the hips? Like they had measured all the other inmates as they came in, for a smock, and all the inmates as they went out, for a shroud? Now memory stops. It is entirely absent. I don’t even remember suffering, misery. It is not there. I remember Eneas coming in his army uniform one night, charming the staff into seeing 266