An Irish Heart

by C M Blackwood

  She smiled faintly. “No, I don’t. I’d never expect you to do a thing like that.”

  “You’d do much better, my fallen friend, to reserve the flattery for someone who wishes for such things from your dirty lips.”

  She nodded, accepting my reproach without complaint. Her docility seemed completely out of place – as I remembered how aggressive she was capable of being.

  I suppose that there are two sides to every coin.

  “I know it sounds ridiculous,” she began, “but I’ve been waiting for you. You probably don’t believe me. You see my light?” She gestured back to the open doorway. “I sit up every night, until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. I found that I couldn’t stand to be at the hospital anymore, because I was afraid you would come back while I was away. I’ve been waiting all these months, and now that you’ve come, I hardly know what to say to you.”

  “You asked me to let you explain,” I said evenly. “So explain.”

  She nodded again, faster this time. She looked almost frantic.

  “It was only about a week before they took you,” she said. “A man came to me at the infirmary. He asked about you, asked me if I knew you. You made poor choices when it came to your friends, he said; but I didn’t know what he was talking about. At first I told him no – of course, Kate, I told him no.” She closed her eyes, drew a breath. “But then he threatened to shut down the infirmary. He could have done it, in a second! I know it’s a terrible excuse, and I know that I should never – well, I know that I could have . . .”

  It was very hard to remain silent, as she floundered this way and that, in an attempt to go on with her story. Because, you see, that is all it was to me – a sad and silly story.

  “I let him leave that day,” she went on. “But he had left me a way to contact him – and I just couldn’t let him do it, Kate. I couldn’t lose that place. He told me that they wouldn’t hurt you, he promised me. I swear to you, Kate, I had no idea that they would take you!” She paused to breathe; and looked as if she were having great difficulty in managing it. I found myself wishing that her heart would burst with the effort, and that her lungs would fill up with blood, which would spew forth from her foul mouth as she fell down dead upon the floor.

  “Do you have any idea what happened to me?” I asked slowly.

  She shook her head miserably.

  “I spent over four months in a filthy, rotten jail cell. I would tell you more of how I passed the time – or rather, how it was passed for me – but I’m not as heartless as you, I’ll spare you that. I was barely alive when I got out. And I wouldn’t have gotten out, Niamh, if I hadn’t been broken out. You would still be sitting here, waiting for me. Until you forgot about me altogether.” I tried to calm my trembling hands. (I think that the source of their restlessness lay in their desire to strangle Niamh.)

  “I wouldn’t have forgotten,” she choked, holding her arms out slightly. If they were reaching for me, I tried my very best not to notice.

  “I suppose you wouldn’t have,” said I. “Most people have a great deal of trouble, forgetting the despicable things they’ve done!”

  She began to cry, then. “Oh, please, Kate – I’m begging you –”

  “You’re begging me, Niamh? What are you begging me for? You want me to forgive you? Don’t you dare think that I’m about to feel sorry for you. Don’t you dare.”

  “I don’t – I don’t want that . . .”

  “Yes, you do. That’s exactly what you want. All this time, you haven’t cared about what happened to me. You only wanted my forgiveness. You only wanted the guilt to go away! I could have been dead, for God’s sake, so long as somebody passed along a letter – from me to you, signed and sealed with my own damned blood – saying that I forgave you.” I stared at her. “Tell me that’s not true, Niamh, and maybe we’ll have something to talk about.”

  She just stood there at the end of the hall, shaking and blubbering like a child being scolded by its mother.

  “Maybe not,” I said, turning to head back down the stairs.

  “Please wait!” she cried, running as quickly as she could to catch me. “Oh, Kate, please don’t go.”

  “Why would I stay?”

  “Because – because, Kate, I know that you don’t believe me, but I’ve missed you so much . . .”

  “You won’t be surprised that that repulses me.”

  She shook her head. “No – oh no, I’m not. Oh, Kate, I’m not! It’s disgusting, it’s abominable – that I would even expect you to care for what I have to say, after all this.”

  “You’re right.”

  She hung her head. “You might not want to know, but I still care about you.”

  “Don’t say that to me.”

  “It’s true.”

  “I don’t care if it is. Keep it to yourself.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have.”

  I leant back against the wall, and exhaled slowly.

  “Do you want to know where I’ve been?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ve been right down the street,” I said. “I’ve been right here. What do you think of that?”

  Oh, dear! said my audience. Isn’t that just quite the thing? Don’t you know – oh, of course you know! – that she would have known, had you been so near? She would have known it in an instant! Look upon this silly wench before you – and laugh! Oh, just laugh upon her, why don’t you? Laugh!

  And so my laughter burst forth like a wave, washing over Niamh to increase the misery which lay already so acutely upon her heavy spirit. I studied each aspect of it in her countenance – and laughed so loudly! My audience cheered for me, and broke into a round of clapping, somewhere in that deep space between my ears.

  I left, then – without looking back. Niamh kept to her position at the top of the stairs; but she said not another word.

  ***

  I walked along under the clear black sky, trying to count the stars as I went. I thought, for a moment, that I would be very happy to be able to count them all, and to know just how many hovered there in the misty heavens. I had to satisfy myself, though, with an inventory of just the small patch of sky directly above me – until I began to grow dizzy, and had to lower my eyes back down to the road.

  Ever and anon, my audience burst into another round of applause; and I smiled widely, accepting its admiration, and feeling anything but humble. Several voices cried out at once, that I had wrought such beautiful vengeance upon my enemy! Not death, oh no – for she would live forever with what I gave instead, and wither away beneath its unbearable weight!

  I smiled as I came upon the river. I walked right up to it, looking down into its inky, slowly shifting darkness, and wondering what I would see, if it were light. Probably just rocks and sticks, true enough – but I wanted to see, anyway.

  I reached down and patted my pocket. In it lay the small knife that I always carried with me. I pulled it out and drew forth the blade, examining it in the pale moonlight. It shined but little, even in the ghostly white light; but the tip was sharp enough. I pressed a fingertip to it, and brought it away when a drop of blood sprang from my skin.

  There was something so surreal about that moment, I could almost feel myself floating out of my body, the better to hover there and look down upon myself. There was something about that moment – something about the thoughts that were racing through my mind, so quick that I could scarcely register them. It’s not as though they were all so unfamiliar, though, not so very new or unexpected. Even if I could not understand them all – even if I did not have time to fully appreciate them before they hurried away – I recognised them well enough. They had been there for what was not forever, but what seemed like a very long time.

  I listened to the silence for an indeterminate number of seconds, waiting for something, anything, to come and snap me out of my strange and eerie state of mind. I waited for the sound of a rustling leaf; a tree branch swaying in the wind; an animal wandering about in my vicinit
y – a voice that may or may not have been real, I would not have cared which. My audience seemed to have fled, frightened at the severity of the moment, and wholly unsure as to whether it wished to bear witness to the outcome. I begrudged them not, each and every voice which had dissipated; but concentrated instead on finding a new sound; of any of the aforementioned types, it mattered not so long as it was only a sound, heavy and real and reminiscent of life.

  Much to my disappointment (but not so much to my surprise), no sound came. There was only me, and my racing mind.

  Well, no – that was not entirely true. It wasn’t racing. It was very still, like something that was preparing for an impending explosion. But I didn’t feel like I was going to explode. I felt very light, like a balloon whose tethers had just been untied.

  I looked up at the sky, searching for something that I highly doubted I would find. I wanted to see something solid, something unbreakable; I wanted to see something that could hold me, when I fell. Because I felt, with quite as much certainty as the moment may have rendered necessary, that I would soon fall, down and down into a place from which I could not climb.

  I winced, and looked down at my hand. I had not even realised it, but I had been turning the knife over and over in my fingers, while I thought my darkish thoughts. There was a deep cut on my palm.

  I glanced up again, more absently this time. I do not believe, at that point, that I wished to be saved. I wished only for understanding, somewhere in that great space up above. If it could not be found there, then I was certain that it could not be found anywhere. The sky was big, open and simple – but the scene unfolding down on the ground was convoluted, and trapped by gravity.

  I looked at the knife. I looked at the river. The water flowed on, but my brain seemed to have stopped. There were no new thoughts occurring; there was nothing coming to try and alter the abstraction that had become locked behind my eyes, itching to make itself a reality.

  I studied the thin blue veins that ran through my wrist, winding up my arm and out of sight, only to connect with much larger and equally blood-filled things which I could not see.

  I really had no idea what I was doing. The way I started slashing at my arms, swiping madly back and forth with the blade, it’s a wonder I did not lose consciousness from the pain.

  But only for a few moments did I feel the pain. It came, and went, like a strong breeze, which ruffled me at first, but did not greatly displease me. And as the blood began to flow freely, not dripping but literally pouring from my wounds, my head started to spin. Any trace of pain which remained, disappeared; took flight upon the river, and flowed away from me with all due haste. I closed my eyes, and fell down to my knees.

  I wished to crawl into the river, and swim out to the middle, so that my body might sink to the bottom when my breath had dissipated. But I could not reach the bank. I dragged myself along, until my head grew too light to continue. It was necessary to drop it down, you see, before it could flutter away. I looked once more, out at the water; held tightly to either side of my head, to keep it in its place; until my vision began to blur, and I was forced to lie prostrate upon the ground.

  I rolled onto my back, so that I could fix my eyes upon the sky. It was all that remained, which I had any desire to see. I wanted its emptiness, its infinite space. It would be so much better up there – so much better than down here, on the ground.

  Chapter 38

  At first, I could hear nothing at all. I could only feel.

  I felt something under me, and something above me. I was very cold. I knew that I was dead, but I doubted that I had ended up in heaven, if any such place actually existed.

  It would not be so cold there.

  I tried to move, and found that I could, though I was very weak. I wanted to open my eyes, but the lids felt so heavy that I could scarcely get them to twitch. I could see light on the other side, though. Soft, warm light – but it could not dispel the chill that had taken hold of my bones.

  Slowly, I became aware of sounds around me. They were fuzzy – but they were there. I heard people talking.

  Who was talking? I was dead.

  I could make out only a few words of it. There were several voices, all melding together into something that was far from coherent.

  “Left – came – didn’t –”

  “Strange – before – ran –”

  “Here – stop – now –”

  I felt something beside me, felt something touching my arm. Pulling on it.

  I struggled to open my eyes. They were very blurry, but I could make out three figures around me; one sitting next to me, and two standing over me. Familiar faces . . .

  “Kate?”

  I squinted, trying to make the picture focus. I strained my ears, trying to hear.

  “Kate. Look at me.”

  The voice issued forth from that figure beside me. I turned to see its face, closing my eyes briefly and shaking my head; and when I looked again, I saw Abbaline, clear as day.

  “No,” I whispered, swivelling my head away. It was not easy to force the word from my mouth; for that great cavern behind my lips felt so dry and horrible, I expected it to crumble into dust at any moment. My throat ached almost unbearably.

  “You’re not here,” I said. “You can’t be.”

  “Kate?” Another voice. “Are you – are you all right?”

  Abbaline looked sharply back at Myrne, and he fell silent.

  I had yet to look at the third person in the room. When she spoke, though, I could avoid her face no longer; I could not make myself believe, that she was not really there.

  “I was worried,” she said. Her voice could not have been more tentative. “You seemed so upset, and then you went so odd . . .”

  I was not dead.

  Niamh Carlin was standing not five feet away from me.

  With strength that I did not even know I possessed, I shot up to my feet and onto Niamh, sending her sprawling down to the floor. I had time to punch her once in the face before Myrne yanked me off of her.

  He set me on my feet, and I stood breathing heavily, looking down at the evil creature upon the rug. She stared up at me, blood trickling from her nose.

  I watched a drop of blood slide from her upper lip, and down onto her shirt. I recalled the drops that had fallen from my fingertips, all the way down to the frozen ground . . .

  I started to scream – shrilly, piercingly, and as loudly as I could manage. I jumped up and down, trying to shake the floorboards; I stamped my feet, waving my arms wildly so that no one could come near me. There were no words. There was just the screaming.

  I looked up at the ceiling, and sideways at the wall – angry for their being there, and for their involuntary duty to keep me captive. I looked at the people around me, and was outraged because they stood so close, so undeniably real. I hated the floor I stood upon, hated the earth beneath it, because I could not escape it. I had tried to escape it; and it had reclaimed me. O great heavens, what must I have done, to be rid of it forever?

  I hollered and shouted, I yelled and I shrieked, until I grew suddenly very dizzy and began to fall forward. I was glad that Myrne caught me; for I did not want to have to touch Niamh again.

  “Lay her back down,” barked Abbaline, shoving Myrne in the shoulder as if to tell him he should have known that already.

  I offered no resistance, as Myrne helped me back to the sofa. I realised only then that I was in the parlour. There were thick white bandages on my wrists, with perfect circles of red on the undersides. I stared at them for a long moment, transfixed.

  Dolly had come bounding in at the sound of my screams. She was running all round the room in wide circles, stopping at each person to press a supplicatory paw against their leg.

  “Get that dog out of here!” said Abbaline. Myrne took her by the collar, and murmured a few words to comfort her.

  “I want to go upstairs,” I said quietly.

  “You’ll stay where I’ve put you,” said Abbaline
, taking a seat in the armchair beside the sofa. “You have some talking to do.”

  “You must be joking,” said Myrne.

  “If so, that wasn’t much of a jest, was it?”

  “Goodness, Abbaline! Not tonight! Just let her sleep.”

  “You listen to me, boy. If she can go taking swings at people, she can manage to put in a few words.”

  I leant back, laying my head against a pillow. “I have nothing to say.”

  “You surely do. You can start with why Myrne and I just spent the past thirty minutes dragging you up from the riverbank. And you’re quite lucky for that meeting I had today – or I wouldn’t have been here at all.”

  Myrne flinched. “Could you be any more insensitive?”

  “Didn’t I tell you to take that damned dog out of here?”

  He escorted Dolly from the room, with a dark glower cast towards Abbaline from the doorway.

  “Now,” continued Abbaline, folding her hands in her lap. “Start talking.”

  “I already told you. I have nothing to say.”

  “Let’s start simple. Who is this stupid girl here at my feet, dripping blood all over the carpet?”

  “Ask her,” I said.

  “I asked you. This waif showed up here about three hours ago, woke me from a dead sleep, and went blathering on about how you had just stormed out of her house. She was concerned for you. Why she didn’t go looking for you herself, I’ll never know. I went to your room and saw you were gone; I woke Myrne and asked him if he knew where you had gone. Then he was concerned. So, being trailed about by all of these concerned individuals, I was forced to go searching for you in the middle of the night. You are obviously aware of where you were found, seeing as you placed yourself there.”

  I tried not to let it be known, just how much her words hurt me. She spoke with such annoyance, and with such matter-of-factness, that it was clear she was not particularly affected. It was not that I had wanted her to be; it was not as if I had expected to even be in this predicament. But unhappy soul that I was, with the tethers which anchored me to the earth still blowing about in the breeze, her attitude was like a loud crash to a terrible headache.