On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland (37 page)

‘Yours,’ she said, squeezing the hand closed. ‘It’s okay.’

He spun away, thrashed into the surf, and there he stood against wind and rushing waves, staring out along the long black promontory, out past Finger Rock, a twenty-foot granite needle pointing heavenward out of the depths.

In a blaze of speed he took off along the waterline, climbed up onto the promontory, and continued running out. Cilla roared his name, bolted after him, then halted. About two-hundred yards out, at the end of the promontory, a lone figure stood out against the dark rocks, a woman, purple swimsuit, poised above the tempest, about to dive in.

Cilla all but caught up to Tony, now slowed by rock-slime and weed.

‘Lenny, it’s Lenny!’ he shouted, picking his way forward. Cilla followed his course until they came together, breathless, with no safe next step. He stepped back, sprang into the air. His feet hit the landing spot but continued sliding, taking him over the edge and down into a crevice. In two feet of swirling tide, he righted himself, took stock: throbbing shoulder, right thigh hurting, pounding head. With bloody brine washing over him he tested his legs. Nothing broken, he was fairly sure; he’d been worse.

Cilla’s arm appeared, reaching down; he gripped it, climbed up. He continued picking his way to the jagged tip of the promontory, where moments before, Lenny had been standing.

But not now.

Then he saw her, a blond head rising and sinking in the surf. But swimming. She was swimming, strongly. Swimming out.

‘Lenny! Lenny!’ Cilla yelled over and over, waving frantically. Tony did the same, bellowing as loud as his lungs would allow. But the furore carried off their calls. He pressed his palm against the bleeding wound in his thigh, then tore off his boots.

‘No! You can’t go in there! Oh Jesus, look at your leg!’ Cilla’s fists held on to him. ‘No! It’s suicide. You’ll die, the current will take you, there’s nothing you can do!’

He prised away her grip, discarded his jacket and sweatshirt, then pulled a silver ring off his finger. ‘My father’s. Look after it.’

‘Don’t go in, please, don’t.’

From an elevated ledge he glanced back. ‘I’d do it for you,’ he said.

Cilla offered no further protest. He jumped. A big rebounding breaker swallowed him up, carried him out toward the current, nearer to the pitching golden head. He plunged beneath the surface, stroked till his lungs were empty, his sinuses sour with salt. As a wall of water threw him up, he saw her again, caught in the Africa current, but close, so close to shoot new hope through him.

His wounded leg was numbing. But she was almost reachable, when he could see her. Another sustained effort closed the gap even more, to three or four body lengths. Then doubt hit. His clumsiness in the water had burned his energy, had him in oxygen debt. Had he enough left, he asked, to get to her and get them to safety. The only response he heard was that he should go to her. For her, for him, and because it felt like they’d be stronger together. When he caught sight of her she had stopped stroking. And the current now had them both in its grasp.

Just one more burst would unite them, he felt certain. He blotted out the weakness in his leg, fought against the unrelenting ocean, then dipped under the last wave separating them, and resurfaced.

But Lenny Quin, in that spot moments before, was gone.

His body jack-knifed high, plunged down through froth and haze into a muffled, low-buzzing realm. In the greyness, he groped feverishly, coiling, reaching, searching. No Lenny. He pressed deeper, lungs on fire. Nobody, nothing, in this near-lightless world.

And still going down, he had no more air, salt and seawater getting into his stomach. Death, he asked again, death today, with Lenny somewhere near, near him, neither alone?

Then a siren screamed in his mind, branded resignation too comfortable an end, a lie. He halted his descent, turned back up. Left her to her spirit’s home.

A rush of adrenaline kicked him higher; then nothing impinged his senses until the dark changed to greys and green frothy chaos, and he broke through into noise and light and oxygen, expulsing brine, still stuck in the current.

He treaded water, twisting and searching for her blond hair, stung by new guilt. On the storm now rode his father’s voice, his mother’s, then Kate’s soft cries calling to him, and flashes of Pat and Violet, all invoking him. And Joel Vida too, the man who’d made him see that the world was inside him if he would look. Then his father’s mission face loomed larger, hand pointing, something to be done. And suddenly he understood; it was clear.

He filled his lungs. Another jack-knife sent him down through a womb of echoes and fluid darkness, into noiselessness, his father alongside, still pointing, stroke after stroke deeper into blackness. And two eyes lit up, Jesus Pomental, warm, peaceful eyes passing slowly, eleven years after that fateful Newark day. He kicked deeper, blind hands groping, muscles stinging, as the watching chorus approved, even as he grew weaker. Once again the urge came to suck the brine into his deprived lungs, settle with this strange peace.

Just then it touched him, something physical, along his arm, streaming past, like silky seaweed. His flailing hands found nothing. But then it touched again, now through his fingers. He gripped it. Hair. A human head. Cold human head. Heavy, limp, in his hands, eyes, nose, lips, a string with a key attached.

A world inside him lit up, brought power, and mysteriously the realm was swirling now, chaotic again, light from above getting brighter, if his legs could keep moving, arms hold on, lungs not burst, brain stay alive, if the force that had pushed him this far could push him farther; then a paroxysm of agony carried him through into the storm, cold head still in his keeping.

Lenny Quin. Beautiful. Blue.

Stealing air from the gale, he breathed into her as though the gale would give her life. But no life came. He roared into her face.

Now at the end of his physical strength, sweeping to the south, he felt heavier, sinking, slowly submerging. There was no rescue, he knew, no miracles. All he could do was hold her to him, try to keep their heads above water moments longer. Then to forever, whatever that meant. He pulled her higher, tighter to him; they’d travel together, paired to this union from opposite worlds; end of loneliness, injustice, all hurt and regret, travelling together. Their heads slipped under. But the last of his heart interrupted their sinking, pushed their faces back into air, for moments. She had become too heavy in his arms, her beautiful purple and blond form; she was taking him under. He’d go with her. Share her wish, Devils Cove. Quit the world of storms.

Without air or strength now. None needed. Locked together they sank. He, into a time of old peace. And the chaos faded.

* * *

It jabbed into his back. Sharp. Scraping. A presence. Pulling at his hair, pulling at him, until they weren’t sinking any more but moving up, and now the presence was a force beneath them, pushing up, travelling with them, forcing them back to the storm, bursting through with them.

Green eyes, mouth moving, shouting at him, in a world of no sound. Cilla. Cilla deBurca, a blur, slapping his face, slapping his face, slapping. Cilla, soundless, telling him, showing him, hand pumping across him.

‘Finger Rock!’ she yelled into his ear. ‘Can you make it?’

He caught her words, barely, tried to shake his head, didn’t know if Cilla was real, if anything was real, if this was the place beyond, or a place along the way to somewhere else.

‘Tony! I’ll be behind you. Go on!’

His senses sharpened, numbness giving way to pain, remnants of strength returning.

‘I have her! I won’t let her go,’ Cilla yelled. ‘You go!’

He released Lenny into Cilla’s arms. And after fumbling he got his body working, began moving away.

Cilla waited for a let-up, then propping Lenny’s head she started after him. But a cresting wave whipped the pair up and out toward the open ocean. When the crash came, Cilla re-surfaced rapidly, fingers knotted to the purple swimsuit, and once more she pressed her air through Lenny’s blue lips. This time the effort drew a rush of seawater out of Lenny and a single loud moan. Cilla battled on until eventually catching a confluence of water and wind that drove them out of the current and deposited them within reach of Finger Rock, where Tony waited.

They got Lenny to a flat table-sized slab above the water level. There they slumped down and huddled over the comatose figure, shielding her from the breaking waves. Cilla’s trembling fingers probed Lenny’s neck for a pulse. And a second time, with increasing distress. Tony intervened, tried to make his breath revive Lenny until Cilla nudged him aside and began pressing on her chest. They worked in turns, persistent, alternating, to no avail. Tony’s head and shoulders eventually dropped, his face resting on Lenny’s. Cilla stared, motionless but for shivering. Then Tony started again: thirty, forty, fifty compressions, until in the end submitting to Cilla’s constraining embrace, and they held each other, still shields for Lenny against the storm.

Then Cilla yelled, broke out of their embrace. ‘She’s breathing! She’s alive! Oh my God.’ They grabbed for Lenny, whose chest was now rising and falling, breathing Devil’s Cove air. They rubbed her vigorously, tapped her cheeks, hugged her, talked to her, none of which opened her eyes or brought any coherent response.

Cilla untied the key from Lenny’s neck. ‘She can’t last here,’ she said above the clamour pounding their refuge. ‘No one’ll look here for us. Not in time. The tide’s coming in. If we could get to the island, we’d get to the mainland.’

‘You swim across to Intinn. You’re strong enough.’

Cilla glared at him. ‘Storm won’t pass before dawn. Too long for any of us. Too cold.’

‘You go! Save yourself. You know you can do it. Fuck it, just go; I want you to.’

She shook her head, an emphatic negation.

‘Go, Cilla! Send a boat for us.’

‘Boat? In this?’ She pointed to the encrusted spire. ‘Top of the weed is high tide. Three foot over us. Could be ten. Two hours, maybe three, it’s coming.’

‘Wade out. Forty feet, fifty feet, to the promontory. You know you can make it.’

‘Beat the Devil? Alone? What if I die, if I’m not able?’

‘You know you are!’ His words brought no response. ‘Fuck it, be smart. Live! I’ll be with Lenny.’

‘Me too. And with you.’

‘That’s dumb! You hear me?’ She refused to look at him. ‘Get to Rock Cottage, light a fire, get warm, get dry. For fuck’s sake just go, will you!’

Her head shook again with the same slow certainty, her eyes sad with her thoughts. He grabbed her freezing shoulders, pulled her to him; they clung to each other, a tight, wordless embrace.

‘Have Liza Murtagh get me. Old banshee woman owns Intinn. I’ll be tons safer with you.’

‘No, you won’t. Be sensible.’ He held her at arms’ length. ‘You’re twenty-three. I want you to go. You hear me? I want you to go!’ He shook her until her eyes came back to him. ‘Lenny and I will be fine. Now, just go. Right? Go on.’

She wrenched out of his grip, got to her feet, seemed to try to force her thoughts into words, but nothing emerged. He took her back into his arms, felt the pounding in her, felt it flow into him, felt her sorrow, and her sadness for him.

‘It’s okay to go,’ he said. ‘You’re the bravest girl I’ve ever known.’

Their sopping, frigid bodies shook in unison. And when her tears became sobs she turned away across their drowning slab. He followed, and from behind he urged her into the water.

‘Show me,’ he said. ‘I’m watching. And don’t look back.’

She lifted his hand from her shoulder, held it to her cheek. His lips kissed her crown of wet curls, curls he remembered admiring when he first saw her at the Abbey one long year ago. As they edged out he prevented her from turning around, then gave her a final push. From that point, she did not look back. Her head and black cotton shoulders disappeared quickly in the waves. But then a stroking arm arced up, then another, and another, in fluid motion; she was moving strongly but already being taken south, toward the whirlpool and even wilder surf. And then she was lost to him.

Cradling Lenny’s head, he closed his eyes and invented Cilla’s progress. Cilla deBurca, this woman of simple certainties, as he had come to see her. He watched her, in his mind, saw her conquer the devil blow by blow, breaker after breaker; he willed her on, cheered her courage, her fire, her fight against the odds, travelled with her in every stroke, until he guided her up onto the promontory, onto Intinn and safety. In more lucid intervals he was thankful she had not once looked back, that she did not feel his faith dying, that she knew only that he believed in her to the end.

Time passed, unmeasurable time. The swells were crashing over them now from all sides, gradually submerging their ocean refuge. And with dusk not far off and thunder in the skies, the cold wind cut like a knife into his bones and flesh. Still, nothing stole him long away, no pain or regret, no delusion of rescue, for all of his moments belonged to Lenny Quin. She was pallid still but with hints of pink, looking almost content to him, as if journeying within a dream to somewhere warm, even wonderful, a haven not so far away.

For the next while, fighting against numbness, he saw her glistening face become faces from the past, faces appearing and leaving and reappearing, one after another, all merging eventually into a single entity, no separate parts, an everlasting one. Then something brought terror to her features, tore out of her a young girl’s cry, and lips that pushed out wilfully to form words.

‘Mama, mama, come down,’ she sobbed, eyes wide open. ‘I’ll be the best girl, I promise. Please, Mama, come down.’ Just as suddenly, it ended, leaving a dreadfulness over her.

‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no,’ he whispered to her, ‘no, no, no, no, no.’ His arms rocked her back into the peaceful place that had been hers.

Then somewhere in his head someone kept calling him back to his childhood, to Dublin, to hills and woods and canals, school friends and his dog, comics and bicycles and birds’ eggs, fruit fields and football and red coal fires. All parts of the life he had come back to Ireland not to relive, but reclaim, before fate conspired otherwise.