Bog Child (16 page)

Thirty-four

The frail moth grew strong, but the people grew weak. Rain fell, rust-coloured, the same day that three children died. They were buried on the sward in a freezing fog. ‘Enough is enough,’ I heard the mourners mutter. I walked from the sorrowing place behind my father. I passed the great dripping pine that grew by the palings and spun round, as if it was a game of peep-behind-the-curtain. But this was no game. The settlement stared at me with a hundred blazing eyes, coalesced with hate.

I felt small then. It was as if I was less than knee-height, truly a creature from the Sidhe. My bones ached with the endlessness of urging them to grow. I saw myself as they saw me. I almost believed in the image of Mel the witch, as reflected in their hostile eyes.

Rur stood at the gatepost as we filed by, his eyes fixed to the impenetrable mists of the middle distance, his intentions inscrutable.

Fergus lay prone on the lawn, dressed only in his pyjamas, drifting. The sun slanted down, almost strong enough to burn. Visions of Mel died away. Instead, in and out of his head, the voice of Michael Rafters ebbed and flowed.
A legitimate target, Fergus. The Incendiary Devices? We were only messing, Fergus. The ballot box isn’t enough. Can we count you in, Fergus?

‘Fergus!’ Theresa yelled from the back door. ‘Mam says shake a leg. Mass time.’

He shut his eyes fast.
Lord, I am not worthy to receive you
. ‘Tell Mam I’m not going.’

‘But—’

‘No buts. I’m staying put.’

She must have darted off. A minute later, he heard Mam’s voice. ‘Fergus?’

‘I’m staying here, Mam.’

‘Are you sick?’

Why not say yes? There’d be no more argument or fuss. ‘No.’

‘Hurry on, then.’

‘No. I’m not going. I don’t believe a word of it.’
But only say the word and I shall be healed. Fat chance
.

‘Fergus?’

The plea of generations of Irish Catholic mothers was in her voice. Fergus sat up and glared. ‘I’m not coming.’ She looked aghast, as if the Devil himself had taken possession of him. He fluttered a hand. ‘I’m sorry, Mam. I’m just worn out with all the praying.’

‘C’mon, Pat,’ he heard Da say. ‘Leave him be.’

Fergus flopped back on the lawn. Gradually the sounds of the family departing faded away: the calls, the doors slamming, the gravel crunching, voices retreating down the close. He opened his eyes. The clouds inched their non-judgemental path across the sky. He drifted with them. Mel’s voice returned.

First I was a child. Then I became a woman, trapped in the body of a child. But now I was a malign being, an incubus, sent to bring havoc and grief to the world of giants around me.

A magpie chortled nearby, bringing him back to the present.

‘What should I do?’ he whispered. The sun skimmed behind a shallow cloud. ‘Do nothing?’ This was doing nothing and it was hell. Maybe the Devil really had moved into his soul. ‘Do something? But what?’

Inside, the phone began to ring. He tried to ignore it. But it didn’t stop. Then he thought it might be Cora. Perhaps there was a change in their arrangements. Or maybe it was news of Joe.

He rushed indoors, grabbing the receiver before it rang off. ‘Hello?’

‘H’lo, Fergus. It’s me. Michael.’

‘Christ. You.’

‘Thanks very much.’

‘What the hell d’you want now?’

‘You weren’t at church, Fergus. You’re slipping.’

‘Ha-ha.’

‘I was hoping to see you there. I don’t like talking on the phone. You know why.’

‘I can guess.’

‘One more run, Fergus. Tomorrow.’

‘You always say that. Then it goes on and on. And what about last night?’

There was a silence. Then, ‘What about last night?’

‘How can you say that? The bomb. In Derry.’

‘Shh. You never know who’s listening.’

‘I don’t care who’s listening. They can listen away.’

There was silence. ‘That…little incident, Fergus?’

‘Yes?’

‘It wasn’t us, Fergus.’

‘No? Who then?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘To me it matters.’

‘Whoever it was, it wasn’t us. Ours is a strictly military target. Remember?’

‘I remember. But what difference does it make?’

‘All the difference. And it’s the last time I’m asking you, Fergus.’

‘The last time?’

‘Swear to God. This is the last phase of this…mission.’

Fergus snorted. He nearly said,
You can stuff your mission up your backside
. But something shifted in his head. ‘The last time? You’re sure?’

‘Sure as sure.’

Fergus thought. ‘OK. I’ll do it.’

‘Good man, Fergus. The lads won’t forget this. Never.’

‘I don’t care if they remember or forget. This is my last act. You’d better remember.’

‘I’ll remember, Fergus. The last act. Same time, same place?’

‘Fine.’ Fergus replaced the receiver. He went back into the garden and flopped back on the grass. He numbered the people in his life that he loved. Mam. Joe. Da. Uncle Tally. Cath. Theresa. Padraig. Cora. Felicity.

Do nothing. Do something
. A cortège of dark clouds moved in from over the mountain. He waited. The first drop fell on his cheek. He squeezed his eyelids shut.
The last act.

I passed Rur on the sward and I turned to face the hostile crowd. I clasped my wrists together and held them out before me, offering them up to be bound with rope. ‘Take me,’ I said. ‘Do what you will with me.’ What else was there for me in that world of starvation, with my stunted body an object of such loathing?

Soon rain pelted down, swift and furious. Fergus didn’t move. His pyjamas were sodden. He imagined a lightning bolt crackling down to earth, finishing him.
Take me
. ‘OK, Mel, my girl,’ he whispered. ‘If you can do it, so can I.’

Thirty-five

Uncle Tally came in through the back door after dinner.

‘Look what the cat brought in,’ said Mam over the washing-up.

‘No need to bite his head off,’ Da snapped, shaking out the
Roscillin Star
. It was plastered with pictures of Lennie Sheehan’s funeral.

There was silence.

‘I’m here to take Fergus out driving, Pat. His test’s coming up.’

‘Your test?’ Mam said, glaring at Fergus.

Fergus shrugged. ‘I applied ages ago.’

‘He’ll breeze through it. He drives better than me these days,’ Uncle Tally said.

‘That’s not saying a lot,’ joked Da.

Mam flicked the suds off her fingers and let out the water. ‘On you both go, then. Remember the L-plates, Fergus.’

Da extracted the car keys from his pocket. ‘Mind out for the sheep,’ he warned. It was what he always said. Fergus never knew if he meant actual sheep or the sheep-like drivers who overtook just because the person in front overtook.

He and Uncle Tally left and got into the Austin Maxi. Fergus didn’t bother getting the L-plates out of the glove compartment and Uncle Tally said nothing. Fergus reversed out of the drive.

‘Mind the gate,’ Uncle Tally warned.

He’d barely an inch on the passenger side. He was getting as bad as Mam. He straightened up and reversed again.

‘That’s better.’

Fergus drove to the top of the close.

‘Where shall we go?’ Uncle Tally said. ‘The mountain road?’

‘How about somewhere different?’

‘Like where?’

‘The sea. I haven’t seen it in ages.’

‘Have we time?’

‘Mam and Da aren’t wanting the car today, far as I know.’

‘OK. The sea it is.’

Fergus drove around the lough. There were three handsome white sails out, veering into a brisk wind, and two brightly painted rowing boats. Of the swans there was no sign. They took the main road. The soldier on duty at the border barely glanced at them as they went through. They cut cross-country towards Bundoran.

‘I don’t fancy the crowds,’ Fergus said as they approached signs for the resort.

‘Keep going. There’s a spit of land I know, with a fine strand. I haven’t been there in years.’

‘It’s too chilly to swim.’

‘It’s always too chilly to swim in this godforsaken place.’

‘Why don’t you ever go on holiday, Unk? To Majorca or somewhere?’

‘No mon, no fun,’ Uncle Tally quipped. ‘Turn right at the next junction.’

Fergus turned and followed a narrow road. Views of shining sea opened up. It was hard to tell where the water ended and the sky began. Fermanagh’s shower-clouds had gone. Here the sun shone through a brilliant haze.

‘Jesus, Unk. There’s a permanent rain-cloud over Drumleash compared to this.’

‘It’s the mountain. Clouds always hang about over high ground.’

‘So why do we live up there? We’re all fools.’

‘We are that. Every last one of us. Pull in here.’

Fergus drew up in a lay-by hard on the coastline. ‘Why didn’t you ever move away, Unk?’

‘Dunno. Call me foolish, but I love Drumleash. It must be an acquired taste.’

‘Yeah. And maybe it takes a lifetime to acquire it.’ Fergus turned off the engine but kept his arms resting on the steering wheel. Uncle Tally wound down the window. Dry grasses hissed. Bright yellow flowers fluttered in the scrub. Beyond was a strip of bone-white sand and then the endless shimmer of sea. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to live out here?’

Uncle Tally shook his head.

‘Why not?’

‘The ocean is vast, Fergus. You can see no end to it. It’s like looking at eternity.’

‘Isn’t that what’s great about it?’

‘For you, perhaps. For me, Fergus, it’s a reminder.’

‘A reminder of what?’

‘Death.’

Fergus stared out at the gentle void. He could see two lads’ heads bobbing, a trail of their footprints across the sand, leading back to a mini-mound of clothing. ‘I remember now, Unk.’

‘What?’

‘The last time you brought us here. Years ago. It was the time you saved Joey’s life.’

‘I didn’t save him, Fergus. I just stopped him going out beyond his depth.’

‘You did save him. He was caught in a current.’

Uncle Tally raised protesting hands.

‘Afterwards you told us not to tell Mam about it.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes. That’s how I knew it was serious.’

Uncle Tally laughed. ‘Well. It must have been serious, I s’pose, if I actually got in the water.’

‘You ran in, shouting, then you got hold of Joe’s neck and swam sideways. I was in the shallows, shaking with terror.’

‘You’ve an elephant’s memory.’

‘He was nearly blue when you got out.’

Uncle Tally took out his fags and lit one. ‘Never did like the sea.’ He smoked without offering one to Fergus.

‘Unk?’

‘What?’

‘I forgot to tell you what Joe said to me. The last time I visited him.’

‘He mentioned me, did he?’

‘Yes. He asked how you were. I said nothing about…you know what.’

‘What?’

‘Cindy.’

‘Oh. Cindy.’ Uncle Tally looked along the length of his cigarette as if it was lopsided. ‘Did he say anything else?’

‘Not much. Just to tell you it was “all for the best”.’

‘ “All for the best”?’

‘Those were the words.’

Uncle Tally took a last drag on the cigarette, then stubbed it out. ‘
What
was all for the best?’

‘I dunno, Unk. That’s all he said. I thought he meant Cindy.’

‘Yeah, s’pose that was it. Cindy.’

‘Unk?’

‘What?’

‘It’s sad, isn’t it? Your saving Joe all those years ago. And now this.’ Fergus pointed through the windshield as if the view beyond constituted whatever lay at the end of starvation.

Uncle Tally grimaced. ‘You have to wonder.’

‘Wonder what, Unk?’

Uncle Tally didn’t answer. Instead he lit another fag. The silence in the car grew. He exhaled. ‘They say drowning’s a pleasant death.’

Fergus stared at the boundless blue, numb.

‘I’m glad you’re getting out of the North, Fergus. Believe me. We’ll miss you. But we’ll breathe easier when you’re gone.’

When I’m gone. Yes. You could say there’s safety where I’m going.

‘Unk. Let’s head back.’

‘You sure you don’t want to get out and walk?’

Fergus shook his head. ‘I’ve seen as much as I need to.’

‘You sound tired. Shall I drive?’

‘Would you?’

As they got out to swap seats, Fergus felt the wind in his hair. He’d not cut it since his exams and it was shoulder-length, like a girl’s. He wet his finger to judge the wind direction. It felt as if it was coming from everywhere at once. He strained to hear the sea over the sound of the wind. He made out the softest of whispers, like a memory of a memory, an irregular heartbeat.

They drove back the way they’d come. In the wing mirror, Fergus could see the green hedges retreating, the final inlets, and then the sky behind, turning orange, then pink. Ahead, the evening thickened. After they passed back over the border, he broke a long silence. ‘Unk, d’you know what Semtex looks like?’

Uncle Tally missed a gear change. The car nearly stalled. ‘Semtex?’

‘Yeah. You know. The explosive.’

‘Why d’you ask?’

‘Just curious. After that bomb last night up in Derry.’

‘How d’you know that was Semtex?’

‘Dunno. Just assumed.’

‘I wouldn’t assume anything. Could have been old-fashioned TNT.’ Uncle Tally’s hands briefly raised themselves off the steering wheel. ‘I’d say that wasn’t a Provo job.’

‘That’s what someone else told me. So, Unk, you don’t know what Semtex looks like?’

‘Haven’t a clue. Isn’t it in your science books?’

‘No.’

‘You’d have to ask a demolition expert. Or a soldier.’

Fergus smiled.
A soldier
. As they looped around the lough, the sun seemed to draw up close to them. It was bulging out of itself, a pulsating disc of crimson.

‘Only look, Unk.’

The road was deserted, so Uncle Tally pulled up. They watched the sun as it sank below the mountain with a final flare of green. Colour drained away from the land. The lough turned grey and the trees black. Uncle Tally restarted the car. Fergus sat back and shut his eyes, listening to the hum of the tyres on the road and imagining the sound as the endless lapping of the sea.
An eternity, Fergus. A reminder
. In the quiet of the twilight, with the familiar presence of his uncle, something like peace came down on him.