By the Lake (41 page)

Jamesie spoke very quickly and his disarray and shock were obvious but there was a finished feel to the account, as if it had been given a number of times already.

“I’m very sorry.” Ruttledge offered his hand and winced at the fierceness of the clasp. “I wanted to leave him all the way up to the house but he wouldn’t hear. He insisted on walking.”

“I know. He told it all to Mary when she was getting his tea. He had a great appetite after the town and lately he’s only been picking at his plate.”

“I’m sorry, Jamesie,” Kate joined them in the porch. “Will you come in and take something?”

“No. No. We have several houses to call to yet,” and it was only then Ruttledge noticed the small car waiting discreetly beyond the alder at the gate.

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

“Not a thing. Nothing. We can’t find Patrick Ryan anywhere. Nobody seems to know where he’s been working or gone. Some even said he could be gone to Dublin to do work for the Reynolds that have houses there.”

“We’ll be over as soon as we get dressed. Is there anything we can bring?”

“No. No. Everything’s got. Take your time.”

The moon was so bright, the night so clear, that the headlights of the small car showed weakly in the spaces between the trees as it crawled out around the shore.

They decided to walk. Wildfowl took fright as soon as they turned round the shore and clattered out towards where flocks of birds were clustered like dark fruit in the middle of the lake. The trees stood like huge sentinels along the shore, casting long shadows back on the moonlit grass. Here and there a barely perceptible night breeze stirred the still water, and stretches appeared like furrows of beaten silver under the moon. The heron had been disturbed by the car and did not rise until they were far out along the shore and was ghostly as it lifted lazily towards the moon before turning back the way they had come.

“The last thing he said to me was here,” Ruttledge spoke when they reached the open gate: “ ‘Everything is now completely alphabetical.’ ”

“It surely was. Somewhere between
Y
and
Z
.”

The small street was filled with cars. Beyond the netting wire the iron posts of the empty hayshed stood out in the moonlight, as did the whitewashed outhouses. The henhouse was closed. Rectangles of light lay on the street from the small window and the open door. The living room was full of people. All the clocks had been stopped. The long inner room was open and several cardboard boxes rested on the oval table. The chairs had been taken from the room and filled the small living room. The door to the lower room was closed.

“Poor Johnny,” Mary clasped their hands. Her face was filled with a strange serenity, as if she had been transported by the shock and excitement of the death to a more spiritual place.

As they shook hands and took their place among the mourners, the muted voices all around them were agreeing: “I know it’s sad but when you think about it maybe it was all for the better. He wasn’t old. No family. What had he to head back to? Nobody related next or near. Sad as it is, when you think about it, it could not have happened any better if it had been planned. Of course it would have been better if it had never happened—but sooner
or later none of us can escape that—God help us all,” and there was a palpable sense of satisfaction that they stood safely and solidly outside all that their words agreed.

The small car that had waited outside the gate beyond the alder tree returned with Jamesie. He was very agitated. The muted voices stopped as he went up to Ruttledge.

“We sent out word far and wide and can find no trace of Patrick. Nobody appears to know where he’s gone.”

“Why is it so necessary to find Patrick?”

“He always lays the body out!”

Jamesie looked anxiously around. The house was full and though it was now well after midnight people were still coming to the house. The cardboard boxes on the oval table were full of food and drink. By custom, nothing could be offered until the corpse was laid out and viewed.

“I’ll lay Johnny out,” Ruttledge offered.

“Will you be able?” Jamesie searched his face. The house went silent.

“I worked in hospitals when I was a student.” Ruttledge tried to hide his own anxiety.

“Do you think …?” Jamesie was uncertain.

“I’m sure, especially if I can get any help.”

“I’ll help,” a man volunteered, Tom Kelly, a neighbour Ruttledge knew slightly. He worked as a hairdresser in Dublin, was home visiting his mother, and had accompanied her to the house.

“You’ll need a glass first,” Jamesie said, and poured each man a glass of whiskey and waited until they drank it down as if it was essential for facing into such a task. He handed Ruttledge a flat cardboard box. “Jimmy Joe McKiernan said everything is there.”

Mary poured a basin of steaming water. She had towels, scissors, a sponge, a razor, a pair of white starched sheets, a pillowslip. She and Jamesie led the two men down into the closed
lower room. Johnny lay on the bed in his shirt and trousers. His feet were bare.

“Poor Johnny,” Mary said dreamily before moving to leave the room.

Jamesie stood by her shoulder but did not speak. He was strained and taut.

“If there’s anything you want, just knock hard on the door and Jamesie will come down,” Mary said.

“Is there cotton wool?” Ruttledge asked.

The flat box contained a large bag of cotton wool, a white habit, rosary beads, a bar of soap, a disposable razor. Jamesie closed the door firmly as he and Mary left the room.

“We’ll have to get off the clothes.”

For a moment, as he held the still warm flesh in his hand, he thought of themselves in the busy evening street of a few hours ago, all the darts flying true from this now lifeless hand. It did not take an ambush to bring about such quick and irrecoverable change.

By lifting the hips, the trousers were pulled free. There was a wallet, coins, a penknife, a comb, a bunch of keys, betting slips, rosary beads in a small worn purse. With more difficulty they drew the strong thick arms out of the shirtsleeves and pulled the shirt loose. The long cotton undershirt was more difficult still. The body was heavy and surprisingly loose.

“Cut it off.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to do like the shirt?”

“It’s too tight.” Ruttledge handed Tom Kelly the pair of scissors and when he looked doubtful added, “He won’t need it any more.”

“There’s no earthly edge on these scissors. You can never get scissors with an edge in the country. They use them for everything,” Tom Kelly complained.

When at last he got the incision made, the cotton tore easily. They did likewise with the underpants. The only thing that
remained on the body was a large silver digital watch, the red numerals pulsing out the seconds like a mechanical heart eerily alive in the stillness.

“He won’t need that any more either,” the hairdresser removed the watch, but it continued to pulse in the glass ashtray until it distracted Ruttledge, and he turned it face down. He then noticed and removed his hearing-aid.

They closed the ears and the nostrils with the cotton wool, and when they turned him over to close the rectum, dentures fell from his mouth. The rectum absorbed almost all the cotton wool. The act was as intimate and warm as the act of sex. The innate sacredness of each single life stood out more starkly in death than in the whole of its natural life. To see him naked was also to know what his character and clothes had disguised—the wonderful physical specimen he had been. That perfect coordination of hand and eye that had caused so many wildfowl to fall like stones from the air had been no accident. That hand, too, had now fallen.

“We’d be better to lift him down to the floor.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’ll have more room and we have to make the bed.”

In the sheet they lifted him from the bed. Tom Kelly shaved him with quick firm professional strokes and nicked the line of the sideburns level with the closed eyes while Ruttledge washed and dried the body.

“Does he need a quick trim?”

“Whatever you think.”

Taking a comb and complaining all the time about the scissors, Tom Kelly trimmed and combed the hair. When they were almost finished, the door burst open. By throwing himself against the door Ruttledge managed to shut it again before it swung wide. Profuse apologies came from the other side of the door. They noticed a large old-fashioned key in the lock and turned the key.

“It would have been terrible if he was seen like this on the floor.”

“We should have noticed the key in the first place.”

“It’s locked now anyhow.”

They changed the sheet and the pillowslip. Very carefully they lifted the great weight back on to the bed. They arranged his feet and took the habit. It was a glowing white, a cloth breastplate with long sleeves, four white ribbons. The cuffs and breastplate were embroidered with gold thread. They eased the hands and arms into the sleeves, lifted the back to secure the breastplate by tying the ribbons.

“They skimp on everything these days,” Tom Kelly complained. “There was a time when every dead person was given a full habit.”

“It makes it easier for us. Nobody will know the difference. What’ll we do about the beads?”

“We’ll give him his own beads.”

Tom Kelly took the beads from the small purse and twined them through his fingers before arranging his hands on the breastplate. They then drew up the sheet and placed the hands on the fold. One eye had opened and was closed gently again.

“We are almost through.”

“All we have to do is get the mouth right.”

Tom Kelly fixed the dentures in place. With cotton wool he moulded the mouth and face into shape slowly and with meticulous care.

“It looks perfect,” Ruttledge said, but as he spoke a final press caused the dentures to fall loose. This occurred a number of times: all would look in place and then come undone through striving for too much perfection.

“I can hear people getting restless.”

“Mark you well my words,” Tom Kelly answered. “Everything we have done will be remarked upon. Everything we have done will be well gone over.”

The whole slow process began again. There was no doubting the growing impatience and restlessness beyond the door for the wake to begin.

“If you don’t get it done this time I’m taking over,” Ruttledge said.

Possibly because of this extra pressure the face became undone more quickly.

“Don’t you worry,” Tom Kelly said angrily as he gave up his place. “We will all have our critics. We will have our critics.”

By using more cotton wool and striving for less, Ruttledge got the dentures in place and the mouth to hold shape.

“I had it far better than that several times.”

“I know.”

“The cheeks bulge.”

“They’ll have to do. Can’t you hear?”

“You may not know it but mark my words our work will be well gone over. We will have our critics. We could be the talk of the country yet,” Tom Kelly said.

“I’ll take the blame. You’ll be in Dublin.”

“Whether we like it or not we could be scourged,” Tom Kelly said so anxiously that Ruttledge pressed his shoulder in reassurance.

“You did great. We did our best. We couldn’t keep at it for ever.”

“Maybe it isn’t too bad, then. We could still pass muster,” he replied doubtfully.

The clothes and waste were stuffed in a plastic bag and hid in the wardrobe with the flat cardboard box. The door was unlocked, the basin of water removed. Jamesie and Mary came down to the room. They stood in silence for a long time looking at the face.

“He’s beautiful,” Mary said and reached across to touch the pale forehead.

“He’s perfect. Patrick couldn’t have done it a whit better,” Jamesie said emotionally.

“I had no idea he was such a fine figure of a man,” Ruttledge said.

“Stronger than me, stronger than my father, far stronger than me the best day ever I was,” Jamesie said.

A row of chairs was arranged around the walls of the room. A bedside table was draped with a white cloth and two candles were placed in brass candlesticks and lit. A huge vase of flowers was set in the windowsill.

One by one each person came and took their leave and stood or knelt. Old men and women sat on the chairs along the wall. The Rosary was said, a woman leading the prayers, the swelling responses given back as one voice.

Huge platters of sandwiches were handed around, whiskey, beer, stout, sherry, port, lemonade. Tea was poured from the large aluminium kettle. The murmurs of speech grew louder and more confident. At first all the talk was of the dead man but then it wandered to their own interests and cares. Some who smoked dropped their cigarette ends down the necks of empty beer or stout bottles, where they hissed like trapped wasps. People wandered out into the night and the moonlight. Jokes began and laughter.

“If we couldn’t have a laugh or two we might as well go and lie down ourselves.”

Morning was beginning to thin the moonlight on the street when Patrick Ryan appeared in the doorway without warning, and stood there, a silent dark-suited apparition. The white shirt shone, the black tie neatly knotted; he was clean-shaven, the thick silver hair brushed.