Cold spring, p.20
Cold Spring, page 20
‘I knew you were a true Leaca man. That’s why I wanted to do a portrait of you.’
‘You can do it in Dublin but not here.’
‘I’d like to paint you with your turf-spade on your shoulder, wearing knee-straps just like Muiris.’
‘You wouldn’t want to paint a lie. It would show only one face of the cube.’
He smiled at her as he got up to go.
‘What time will you be leaving on Saturday?’ she asked as he reached the door.
‘I’ll call down after breakfast. We’ll leave around ten.’
* * *
He had felt awkward talking to her. Escaping was a blessing and sheer relief. Wherever he turned he was reminded of Ambrose. That morning he had run into Muiris on the
way to the bog. Muiris was wearing his green donkey jacket, and leather knee-straps to keep the cuffs of his trousers from getting dirty. No matter where he was or what he was doing, he contrived to look different from anyone else around. Unlike the other locals, he enjoyed dressing up. He shaved every day and kept his white moustache neatly trimmed.
‘I thought you said you’d be coming down to see me. I’ve saved a very special bottle for you.’
‘I’ll come down this evening, if that’s all right.’
‘Why wouldn’t it? I have a story to tell you.’
‘How do you know I haven’t heard it already?’ He thought he’d try a little dart of ambiguity.
‘Because I made it up myself. It’s as fresh as an egg straight from a hen’s behind, and as perfect. Nothing beats a story that’s never been told before.’
‘I prefer old stories, ones that are well polished from retelling.’
Muiris drew himself up to his full height and held out his crook to the full length of his arm. He looked every inch a man of acknowledged authority and, furthermore, a man who knew the value of the symbols of high office.
‘I’ll tell you two stories, then, a new story and an old story. Scéal úr agus sean scéal. And while we’re at it, we’ll drink a toast to absent friends.’ His lower jaw trembled as he bared his teeth in silent laughter. Jim raised his hand in farewell. Was one story about Agent Cox, and the other about Nick Ambrose?’
‘How is Her Ladyship?’ his mother asked when he returned from seeing Sharon.
‘Bearing up, I think. She won’t die of grief.’
‘You didn’t tell her the truth, did you?’
‘No, the truth would be too terrible for her to bear.’
‘That isn’t why you didn’t tell her.’ His mother looked up sharply from her knitting.
‘I met Muiris on the hill this morning. He invited me down this evening.’ He thought he might try to wean away her mind from Sharon.
‘You’re not going to see him after what he did!’
‘He said he had something to give me.’
‘Poteen, what else? He just wants a hand with the turf. Well, I wouldn’t please him.’
‘Like everyone else, Muiris has a good side as well as a bad side. He’d have made an excellent journalist, if only he’d had half a chance.’
‘He’s guilty of murder.’
‘If he is, he doesn’t show it. Like my editor, he’s devoid of all moral scruples.’
‘You mean he doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong?’
‘Something like that.’
‘He knows only too well but he doesn’t let it trouble him. I wouldn’t like to be in his two big boots on Judgment Day.’
One of his mother’s strong points was that she always knew what to think. Like Muiris, she did not know the meaning of doubt.
‘I’d better not tell him that.’ Smiling, he reached for his cap.
* * *
Tom Barron was standing on the cliff edge, looking out to sea. The wind from the land was skimming froth off the crests of the waves, which rode in one after the other, rising over rocks and spilling back in white rivulets to be swallowed up again by the waves that followed. He found a kind of comfort in the forever-and-ever motion of restless water, in things happening naturally, seabirds crying below and the clouds above hurrying into the west.
‘Expecting cast-in, Tom?’ It was Daniel, the schoolmaster, who spoke.
‘Just noticing things I’ve seen a thousand times before.’
‘I’m the same. I like looking at things Adam must have noticed long ago in the garden. There’s peace of mind in little things, and these days we need all the peace we can get.’
‘It’s a terrible business, Daniel. It has a lobster’s grip on my mind.’
‘If only we’d taken the threat more seriously, maybe we could have stopped it happening.’
‘I took it seriously enough, God knows. I thought about it night and day. I just couldn’t see my way out of the fog.’
‘Thinking isn’t enough,’ Daniel said. ‘We both knew what we should do, but we weren’t strong enough to do it. It’s a shocking comment on the limitations of two serious men.’
‘It was like sailing through a narrow channel between two big rocks. If you veer too much to one side or the other you make matchwood of your boat.’
‘With hindsight, we should have told the police,’ Daniel said. ‘If we had, it would not be on our conscience today.’
‘What must we do now?’ Tom wondered.
‘I think we should both tell McNally what happened. Then it will be up to him to bring the culprits to justice.’
‘It wouldn’t help poor Ambrose, and it would only cause ill feeling. We’d be the talk of the three parishes. We wouldn’t be able to hold up our heads in the chapel or on a fair day ever again.’
‘The alternative is to live with it, and that isn’t easy either.’
‘Give me a bit of time, and I’ll think about it,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll talk to Nancy when the time is ripe for talk.’
* * *
Daniel headed south along the cliffs, hoping to enjoy one of his favourite views, standing with his back to the perfect stonework of the Tower looking out towards the island and the white lighthouse on the far side of the bay. Today he walked briskly with the breeze on his left cheek, but still he could not put behind him the terrible events that soured the very earth underfoot. How could they have happened in the community he knew and loved? Or thought he knew. Ambrose may have been a nuisance but he was an innocent, a lamb in the middle of a wolf pack. Having come to Leaca to seek peace and renewal, poor man, he saw nothing but good in men who’d led him to believe that he was being received with open arms. Was the fault in the inbred culture from which the little mountain community drew its strength, or was there a pervasive poison in the mountain air? Taken individually, his neighbours were honest, upright men whose only thought was wresting a living from soil and sea; but in what you might call ‘conference’, their darker nature surfaced. It was as if each had activated a splinter of wickedness in the heart of the others until it burgeoned and tainted every thought and action.
No one could escape blame. He himself could not. Neither could Tom Barron, a man who seemed at pains to do only what was right. Even Tom did not seem to grasp the extent of their culpability or the enormity of what had taken place. Taken place? The phrase was inadequate to describe a crime in which every man in Leaca had played a part. It was as if the collective demands of the tribe had obliterated all individual feelings of humanity, morality, decency and responsibility. He felt deeply ashamed of himself, so ashamed that he dared not tell Sheila everything he knew. Waking from his reverie, he found himself looking down at a white wave swirling round the base of Tor a’ Chreasaigh, a noble sea stack cleansed daily by salty wind and water, but not even a tidal wave would now cleanse the acid soil of Leaca.
Heading back the way he had come, he stood on the stony beach where generations of fishermen had hauled their boats and counted and shared their catch. To him it had been a place made sacred by honest toil. He stooped to pick up a white stone the size of a goose egg from among the stones at his feet. Weighing it in his right hand, he caressed its surface with his thumb as if to seek tactile comfort from an object indifferent to either good or evil. The surface of the stone was worn smooth but its curve was still not perfect. On one side was just a hint of a swelling, which was not quite visible to the eye. He flung the gibbous missile into the water with such force that he almost lost his balance.
‘What were you aiming at?’ Neil Durkin came up behind him.
‘The sea, of course.’
‘Well, at least you didn’t miss,’ he smiled.
‘I wasn’t trying to.’
‘They say Cuchulainn fought the waves. He must have been mad to take on the sea.’
‘Maybe he had reason to be mad.’
‘People do strange things at times. I once saw Ambrose standing on the spot you’re on now, throwing one stone after another into the sea. “What are you doing?” says I. “Trying to find out how long it will take the sea to cast them up again,” says he. Sure, that man had a screw loose. He used to do the oddest things.’
‘There’s room for all sorts in God’s plentiful world,’ Daniel said.
‘Is there room for murderers, I wonder?’
‘We’ll all be judged one day, guilty and innocent, murderer and victim, alike.’
‘Muiris says that too much reading will soften a man’s brain.’
‘Well, Muiris need have no fear of that. He’s always boasting that Old Moore’s Almanac is the only book in his house.’
‘I’m going to try a few shots of the hand-line from the Leic Chrochta,’ Neil Durkin said. ‘There’s nothing like fishing to put a man’s thoughts in their proper order and place.’
Daniel raised his hand and turned on his heel. All his life he had lived contentedly in Leaca, drawing strength from the living culture of its little community. He had seen it as an open community, generous and warm-hearted to a fault. It was a community in which both stranger and beggar were always made welcome. Now one determined man had changed all that. Or had a deformed history of injustice and misery also taken a hand? If Agent Cox had not been murdered, Ambrose would be alive today. It was a case of false parallels born out of ignorance and superstition. So what must he do? Go to the police and spill beans that were not his to spill? The police were bound to meet with a wall of silence. There was no proof, only nods, winks, hearsay and supposition. Instead he would talk to Sheila about moving. Leaca was a void, an empty bottle that had once contained an animating liquor. He couldn’t live out the rest of his days in a place of moral nullity.
* * *
Standing in the centre of the Leic Chrochta, Neil Durkin unwound his hand-line, making sure it fell cleanly at his feet. He had been busy all week on a web for the factory in Kilcar. This was his first attempt at fishing since Sunday. He had come because he needed to be alone with the sea for an hour, to allow the sediment in his thoughts to settle, and to think without having to try to think. He could tell what Daniel was up to: talking about Judgment Day to make him feel guilty. Muiris was right. Too much reading makes shit of the brain. Daniel probably felt guilty himself and wanted to steep everyone else in the same pickle. He’d got too close to Ambrose, lending him books and reading his poems. That would explain his difficulty. And being the type of man he was, he’d like everyone else to feel the same. It was like that fake story of the fox that lost his tail. He himself didn’t feel any guilt. Why should he? He didn’t murder Paddy Canty and he didn’t murder Ambrose. He minded his own business, which was warping, filling bobbins and weaving. He was a good weaver. Given the right thread, he could turn out a web with any man in the parish. The last batch of thread wasn’t as good as it should have been. The weft kept breaking and holding him up. Unlike some weavers he could name, he didn’t lose his temper and curse the factory manager. He took his time because what mattered was a job well done. A man was no more and no less than his work when every copper was counted. That’s where Ambrose had gone wrong. He had no real work he could call his own. Writing isn’t work, and neither is stealing eggs and turf. Not real work. Not work you could feel proud of. You couldn’t say at the end of the day, ‘That’s a job well done.’
He shot the line and waited a few seconds for the lead to sink. He hauled slowly and carefully, giving the line an occasional jerk while making sure it didn’t wet his only pair of trousers. Daniel needed watching. No one knew his mind or even what he’d do next. He probably thought everyone felt guilty like himself. In a situation like this, a man had to be careful. He had to keep his thoughts in order, and not allow them to run away with him. An orderly mind meant contentment and peace; it was a blessing from heaven. And what more could any man ask for? Of course, he needed the company of other people from time to time. He couldn’t live entirely on his own. Tom Barron had Nancy and Daniel had Sheila, but he himself had no one to talk to in bed at night. That’s why he would have to be careful and not let his thoughts run riot. The sound of the sea was as good a cure as any. Whenever he felt the pressure building up inside his head after a long day at the loom, he would take his fishing-rod from under the eaves, and after ten minutes on the Leic Chrochta he’d feel as right as rain again. The sight and sound of moving water was better than a visit to the doctor—the noise of waves breaking and lapping and licking, and spilling over the rocks and then running off the rocks back into the sea. You could predict a good tune on the fiddle or the melodeon if you knew a right note from a wrong one, but no one could predict the music of the sea because no two waves ever broke with the same force and sound, and all the waves taken together never made the same sound from one minute to the next.
If only Ambrose had realised that, he’d have been a happier man. In many ways he was better off dead. Leaca was certainly a better place without him. Now everyone could sleep sound of a night. Sadly, there would be less need for meetings with Muiris, and less opportunity to sample the best poteen on the west coast of Ireland. Muiris was as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar or even the Tor Mór itself. A little charge of excitement ran up his arm and down his spine. He began hauling in the line with both hands, seeking to gauge the size of the fish by its resistance. It was a fine wee pollock with a rounded belly. Its slithery, greenish-brown sides reminded him of the colour of wrack. He felt happy and at peace with the world. Fishing had the same effect on the mind that a plane has on rough-sawn timber. It could make smooth the knottiest of thoughts.
* * *
Red Miller’s arrest a month later created anger and confusion among the men of Leaca. At first everyone thought he had been arrested for the murder of Nick Ambrose, but gradually it emerged that he had been charged with the murder of Paddy Canty. The subsequent trial was reported by Jim Barron in the newspaper and in greater detail in the local paper, all of which created a great stir in Leaca. For several weeks it was the only subject of conversation in every chimney corner, and Daniel Burke was in great demand for his skill in translating and interpreting the lawyers’ questions and arguments for his eager neighbours. When Red Miller was found guilty and sentenced to nineteen years’ imprisonment, there was general incredulity in the townland.
‘You’d never think Red Miller was a murderer, now would you?’ Cormac said.
‘I still don’t believe it,’ his friend Marcus said in support. ‘Red Miller is a rough man but he isn’t a bad man.’
‘Maybe we all made a terrible mistake.’ Neil Durkin pursed his lips and shook his head.
‘No one made a mistake,’ Muiris declared. ‘It was just the contrariness of too many things happening to go wrong at the same time. Who could have foreseen Tom Barron’s underhand game? Uisce faoi thalamh. There’s nothing worse.’
Neil Durkin did not challenge Muiris directly, but over the coming weeks he mentioned his unease again and again to his other neighbours. While no one was willing to question his own role in the tragedy, everyone was prepared to cast about for a plausible excuse, or better still, a scapegoat. Cormac blamed Muiris’s poteen, and his friend Marcus Quinn was inclined to agree. He said that it was like no poteen he’d ever tasted. It was smoother than normal poteen, with the result that you did not know how much of it you were drinking. Quite possibly, Muiris had a personal grudge against Ambrose, and the poteen was his way of getting everyone else to agree with him.
Cormac said that he wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. There was something dark, even sinister, about Muiris. He was the kind of man you wouldn’t like to meet on a lonely road on a moonless night. Sharon, Cormac noted, had spotted the evil in his eye. The paintings she made of him were not like the paintings she made of anyone else in Leaca. Gradually the idea took hold that Muiris had led them all astray. They stopped meeting at his house in the evenings and instead gathered for easeful conversation at Neil Durkin’s. Unfortunately, Neil did not have a plentiful supply of poteen on offer. At first they saw it as an inconvenience, but after a while they became accustomed to the new regime.
Muiris was too proud to give anyone cause to think that he had noticed any change in their routines. He kept himself to himself, seeking neither help nor approbation from any other man. He and Tom Barron remained aloof from each other. Whenever they met on the hill they would nod and say good day, but that was as far as their relationship would stretch.
‘I suppose a sort of justice has been done,’ Tom said to Daniel one day on the hill. ‘At least the murderer is now behind bars.’
‘No matter how much we try to explain things, we can never make amends. And isn’t that the essence of the tragedy?’ Daniel replied.
‘As you say, the badness is done. We can’t unbake the cake.’
‘Life will never again be the same in Leaca. I don’t think I want to grow old here. The very ground we walk on is poison.’
‘You’re lucky, you can begin a new life somewhere else. The rest of us must live among these rocks and hills. In every place I ever talked to Ambrose, I’ll hear his voice in my ear crying out against the wrong we did him.’
