On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland (38 page)

Time after time his fingers plied the ocean from her eyes, pushed back her matted hair, traced her perfect mouth, pressed goose-bumps from her flesh.

Then her eyes opened again, intense as before, unblinking, peering up at him, this time with recognition and delight; he pulled her closer, smiling, a smile of belonging, as though he lived in the bright blue world of her eyes, in a time outside of time. Her fingers sought to still his shaking face, calm his lips; she clasped his hand to her heart, as though re-indulging ecstasies.

‘Darling,’ she said, in a voice weak but full of intimacy. ‘Aidan, darling, you came back. I’m so thrilled. We lost our baby, darling. I couldn’t tell you, couldn’t find you. The hospital said you died; I couldn’t surprise you. We’ll have another baby now, won’t we?’

‘We’ll have two . . . three even.’

‘How much I love you.’ Her eyes glowed like fires shining through eons of lightless time, as though she had reached the end of endlessness.

He pulled her close to him, hiding his sorrowfulness from her joy.

‘Darling, you’re real, not a ghost?’

His face stayed in the storm.

‘Aidan, darling – ’

‘No, no, I’m real. Real for always and always.’

‘If you’re a ghost, I want to be a ghost.’

His head tipped back, and with a long silent cry he tried to purge all that he had saved up, hidden from, fought to overcome, and feared. Then Leo’s words echoed; how they had scared him: that she wouldn’t be his as long as Aidan Harper was alive. How wrong those words would prove to be; they had no meaning now. Lenny was his. Tony MacNeill’s. She was always his, even before he knew her. And forever would be. He straightened out his legs across the slab, wiped blood from his thigh out of her hair.

23

Sometime later he awoke, angry that he had allowed himself sleep, if sleep it was, even for minutes, if minutes it was. The wind felt not so fierce but the clouds were blacker and lower, with booms of thunder shaking the heavens. Lenny was in his arms still, sheltered by his numbed body. But now, with no place higher to climb to, the sea was upon them, striking from below and above. Then from deep in his mind, or maybe riding on the gale, it came again, an echo, distant yet familiar, calling to him from far away, calling his name.

It was this, he realised, that had roused him. And again it sounded, faint, then fading: Tony, Tony. If not delirium, then from within his new-born soul, or a lost spirit whose last wish lived on in the tempest, or a
Titanic
child, or the hymn of an angel calling him home.

Later again, in a lull, it came louder, clearer: Tony, Tony. His head lifted, eyes to Intinn Island. And he strained into alertness. On Intinn’s shore something was moving. He disentangled from Lenny, tried to stand, crashed down onto submerged stone. But he was feeling again, feeling cold, stiff, feeling brine in his thigh, and he tried again to stand.

‘Tony, Tony.’

It was real, he was nearly sure. From the promontory, from Intinn. Someone. Arms waving. Cilla! Cilla deBurca. Alive. Across the strait. Invincible Cilla. He slid down the rock, braced himself upright in the water, and he tried to read what her gestures were saying. She waded into the surf, waving a yellow rope over her head, then gesturing that he should tie it around himself, she’d pull, pull him, pull them, across the whirlpool.

So that’s the deal, he told himself. Wait for the devil of Devil’s Cove. Or attack, beat it, as Cilla had done. If he had the physical strength, the mind, if he could keep the water out of Lenny’s mouth, keep her breathing as they crossed, if Cilla was strong enough, stronger than the devil. So many ifs. But his hope belonged in Cilla of all people, who he had not known to fail in what she promised, who could do what she said. Trust her. Hand her their destinies. Hope she could pull back two lives. Cancel his own demise, whose terror he had defeated on this refuge. No waiting to die. Not the mark of a MacNeill. Die fighting!

He would.

Cilla waited for gusts to slacken, then whirled the end-weighted rope like a lasso. Throw after throw failed, until one landed near enough for him to snatch it from the water. He wedged the end in a fissure, manoeuvred Lenny forward, harnessed the rope to her upper body, then pushed out beside her. Cilla pulled. They cleared ten feet in seconds, his free hand thrashing at the surf, the other holding Lenny up. Nearer the whirlpool gyrating water spun them about, threatened to separate them, but the harness that secured Lenny also locked Tony to her, by design allowing no division of destinies.

When the water demanded, Cilla relaxed the tension, pulling only when her effort counted, pulling them closer and closer against an ocean that sought to steal them away. Near half-way a surge picked them up, swung them like the hand of a time-clock toward Intinn. Cilla beat at the straining line, desperate to abort a crushing impact; she hung from it, flung her body against it, to no avail, the taut line and its passengers raced toward the rocks.

Just before impact, Tony scrambled in front of Lenny, pushed her underwater. His body bore the hit but was saved from serious damage by the forceful backwash. The following wave carried them to the surface and to Intinn’s shoreline.

Cilla untied the harness while supporting Lenny. Tony balanced alongside them, glaring out, as though calling the devil’s failure.

‘Tony! Get in out of the water! Let’s go!’ Cilla shouted. He smiled for what could not be spoken. For a moment, she reciprocated.

The trio manoeuvred up to the top of the promontory, resting there briefly with a container of fresh water Cilla had brought. They then set off for the eastern side of the island, battling driving sand along Devil’s Cove beach before reaching Rock Cottage.

Within minutes they had Lenny dry and under blankets, a tinder fire burning close by in the bedroom grate. When they had dried off using found cloths and bedcovers, Tony lit a pre-set fire in the candle-lit main room and fell quickly into slumber against a fireside chair. Not long after, despite the clamour outside, Cilla joined him.

‘Let me see that leg,’ she said a while later, tapping at his shoulder. His expression halted her, but only for an instant. She prised away his hand, undid his rough bandaging to expose a jagged, still-bleeding wound.

‘Needs about a million stitches,’ she said in a disturbed tone. ‘God knows how much blood you lost.’ She folded pieces of shrivelled flesh back over the wound, and with torn linen she set about stemming the bleeding.

In his self-induced distraction he stared at a row of standing photos to the left of the chimney breast, some of which, when he was here last, he’d noticed Lenny turn face down. Among them now was a picture of Leo with a girl of three or four, almost certainly Lenny. Also there, the young red-haired woman, Róisín, a photo he’d seen in Lenny’s apartment. And at the end, the picture of himself and Lenny climbing to Killadoon Head, when she had set the camera’s timer and run around to get in the picture.

‘Agghhhh, fuucck!’ he cried out.

‘Sorry. You moved. Has to be tight.’ She continued wrapping layers of material around the wound.

‘Climber,’ he said, his voice straining, ‘. . . climber, racer, lifeguard. Now, surgeon.’

‘Stop your yak and keep still.’

He squeezed her shoulder as she tied multiple knots in the bandaging.

‘That’s it now,’ she said. ‘No good if it’s not tight; you could bleed to death. Needs to be sewed up proper, and we need to get someone to examine your side and that bump on your head.’

‘Freezing cold in here,’ he said, drawing closer to the dying embers. ‘Should have lit just one fire; only a few bundles of small sticks left. I’ll check on Lenny, see if our clothes are dry.’

‘No. Look at you, you’re as white as a ghost and you’re shivering; I’ll go.’ A minute later Cilla was back, settling next to him before an improving fire. ‘She’s rambling, neither asleep nor awake. Not in pain though, thank God. Was good she threw up all that salt water she had inside her, after all those tablets she took.’

‘Needs a doctor fast.’

‘Dr Lappin’s the one that knows all her medicines and stuff.’

‘You know about that? How come you – ’

‘Little bits.’ Her features contorted. ‘Why are you looking at me like that? Person’s word’s a person’s word.’

They exchanged stares, neither choosing to add to the point.

‘Anyhow, we’ve no boat; I robbed the line off it to make the rope long enough to reach you. All I could think of. Means we’re stuck, for now.’

He reclined, reliving what they had come through.

‘Why did you do it?’ he asked after minutes of silence.

‘Do what?’ she said with a rebuff.

‘No way I was getting to shore with Lenny. We were doomed.’

‘You don’t know that, you’re not God. Don’t be saying stuff like that. You’re not that bad a swimmer. I’ve seen worse.’

Again, for another while they remained silent, as though their words were immaterial and what mattered was their thoughts.

‘Lenny was next to dead – was dead, I thought. I couldn’t hold her up. So why did you risk your life? Why did you jump into the water – twice?’

Disquiet entered her demeanour; she delayed responding. ‘Who knows why anyone does things. If it’s right, you do it.’

‘You do know. You know the sea. You knew you’d probably die. So, why? I’m asking you. What makes someone do a thing like that?’

Her eyes remained large and still. ‘You’d do it for me,’ she said. ‘You said so. When you were diving in to get Lenny. Why’d you do it?’

He joined her in staring into the blazing fire.

‘Saw you going down. Looking for her. Gone a horrible long time. Thought you weren’t coming back up.’

‘All I know is, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have. Nor would Lenny. We were gone.’

Wind and debris continued beating at the cottage; occasionally shafts of air roared down the chimney, firing sparks into their rest.

It was a while later when Tony broke the séance-like mood. He limped to the scullery and returned with an armful of old newspapers, which he wrung tight and placed on the fading embers. At that moment a burst of noise startled him. Cilla charged into the room, directly toward him, panic over her.

‘Something’s outside! I saw it, I swear, I saw it!’

‘Shhh shhh! What? What? What are you saying?’

‘It’s big. In the bushes. Swear to God, it’s out there. Moving.’ She pulled the bedspread tighter around her. ‘I don’t imagine things. I’m not – ’

‘It’s an island. Uninhabited, you said so. Has to be an animal.’

‘It’s not.’ She shook her head, cowered behind him, eyes glued to the unclad window. ‘No big animals here.’

‘Just a bat or a bird; there’s bats and birds.’

‘Not in storms, never. This is big. I saw it – ’

‘Saw what? What are you saying?’

Her eyes jumped between door and window. ‘Liza Murtagh,’ she whispered. ‘The banshee woman and her children. Holy God!’

‘That’s dumb, you know that? I thought you weren’t afraid of things.’

She edged closer to him. ‘Some things.’

‘It’s a story,’ he said, ‘Liza Murtagh. Lenny made it up to keep people off the island.’ He limped boldly to the window, glimpsed into the darkness, then returned to the fireside. ‘Nothing. Trees, rain, leaves blowing around. Okay?’

‘Sure?’

‘Positive. There’s nothing.’

Cilla freed her breath. ‘Wasn’t really that afraid. I better go back in, see if she’s alright.’ As she left, she searched back to his unsympathetic observation of her.

He re-wrapped his makeshift covering and went back to tending to the fire.

‘Jesus! Nooo!’ The scream shrieked through the cottage. A moment later, Cilla’s hysterical form appeared. He was already on his feet. This time he retreated, holding her, toward the back wall.

‘It’s there, definitely, a dark hood over its head, coming for us, at the bushes. I saw it, Tony; I swear, I saw it.’

‘It’s trees, and leaves, I told you. You’re silly.’

‘She’s come for us; she’s here for us.’ Cilla dug her fingers into his arm.

Then it started, at the front door. Thumping, rattling. They slid together along the back wall, toward the scullery. Suddenly, a shape appeared, at the window, a hooded figure, head pressing to the glass, catchlights for eyes; it was looking in at them. They stared back, motionless.

‘Open up!’ A cry mixed with wind and rain. ‘Let me in, let me in.’ Then a succession of hard raps shook the glass. ‘Open the door!’

‘It’s Leo!’ Cilla rushed forward, then stopped.

‘Open up!’

‘Sounds like Leo,’ she said, searching Tony’s face.

He didn’t answer.

The steel bolt squealed in her hand, the door swung in. She recoiled. Within its dark hood an old face took shape, eyes flaring.

‘Christ Almighty, Leo,’ she sighed. ‘You put – ’

‘Lenny. She here?’

‘Yes, yes, she’s okay, she’s here.’ She pushed the door shut. ‘She’s okay, but we need to get her to a hospital, and Tony too. Tony pulled her out of the water, Devil’s Cove.’

‘Thanks be to Jesus and his Blessed Mother.’ Leo made the sign of the cross then dropped his olive-green oilskin to the floor. ‘Paddy said you could be here. Where is she?’

‘This way,’ Cilla said.

‘Leo’s nod beckoned across the dimly lit room, to Tony. He then followed Cilla into the cramped bedroom where Lenny lay tightly wrapped, breathing normally, her features glowing.

‘Princess,’ he said, touching her brow, staring into her responselessness.

‘It’s all thanks to Tony,’ Cilla said. ‘She took a pile of tablets; I think that’s why she’s so sleepy.’ As she left the room she placed a hand on his shoulder.

Leo’s silent fixation went on for minutes, then he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Her eyes half opened.

‘Dad,’ she said.

‘You’re doing grand, Princess. Just grand.’

‘Dad . . .’

‘Right here, Princess. Right beside you.’

She drifted off again.

‘Right beside you. The luckiest man in the world.’

He returned to the main room and the last of the fire. To Tony he extended his hand. ‘You’re a good man. To the end of my days I’m in your debt.’