The Walking People (12 page)

"Lads!" he shouted, taking hold of Padraic's boot and giving it a shake. "Where's Big Tom?"

The boys, groggy, stared at him for a moment and then sprang into action, Jack and Little Tom tumbling down from the highest mounds of hay and landing on their feet. No one answered the man.

"Fair enough," John Hogan said. "But pass him this message. I've been let go. Grady's got two men from Roscommon coming to take positions along the river, starting tonight. Former guards, both of them. No ties to Conch or to Ballyroan, you understand? You tell your father from me. Tell him to think hard on it, and I'll say the same to the three of you as well."

 

Big Tom and the boys stayed away from the river for two weeks. Big Tom was like a thunderstorm trapped inside the small cottage, stomping around in his heavy boots, his expression a dark cloud the rest of the family stayed away from. Lily restrained herself from pointing out that her prediction had come true, that the fool's system had been put to bed. In the evenings Big Tom stood at the gate and watched for the two strangers from Roscommon to pass his door. He never laid eyes on them, and after a few days he concluded that they must be getting lodging from Grady as well. This made him even more angry.

The boys, on the other hand, were delighted. Instead of sleeping, they took their pipes to the shed and talked away the long daylight hours left after coming in from the fields. Twice they walked to the crossroads and caught the van to Oughterard, where the local parish hosted dances on Friday nights in the month of June. They stumbled home at two and three in the morning, complaining of the van's many stops but also keyed up over the girls they'd met, who'd danced with whom, who'd seen the culprit who spiked the punch, who'd witnessed the bloody fight that rolled into the cemetery. They clammed up when Greta came around, and more so when Johanna came, because she demanded details of the girls' outfits, hairstyles, the music that was played, the names of songs, the order of the songs, and so on. She begged to go with them next time, and they swore they'd never bring her.

On the first of July, Big Tom decided enough was enough. The day was overcast, and the night would be the same. "There will be
no moon tonight," he said to Lily at supper, and the boys exchanged looks. "It'll be black as tar out there, and I know the fields and the riverbank like I know the rooms of this house. So do the boys."

"And so does Grady, and knows you'll be looking for a black night like this one," Lily said.

"Grady knows this land as well as I do? My eye. I hear that river flowing all day and all night. The river on one side, the ocean on the other. East and west. And every rock that lies between."

"And can Grady not hear the water from his place?" Lily asked. Big Tom glared at her. After dinner he went as he always did on river nights to lie down for a few hours.

Also as always, he told one of the boys to wake him just before midnight. "We'll do it a little different tonight," he said before leaving the kitchen. "We don't need three on the net. If we have to, we'll take a smaller catch. Padraic, you take the second shotgun and go wide with Jack. Make sure you clean it, and clean it well. Little Tom is the strongest, and the two of us will handle the net."

The boys nodded, taking the change in stride. Lily had gone quiet and was holding on to the arms of her chair. Greta looked at Johanna and saw that she'd noticed too. Lily stared blankly at her husband, then at her boys. Then her gaze ambled across the room and rested on Greta and Johanna. She jumped into action, standing so abruptly that her chair hopped backward. She rushed across the kitchen. "Out!" she shouted at the girls. "To bed!" She followed them into their room, and for the first time in years she helped them out of their clothes, yanked off their shoes. She plucked Greta's glasses from her face and pulled her sweater roughly over her head.

"It's only gone half eight," Johanna protested. "It's still bright out."

"You're hurting my ears!" Greta cried as Lily pulled and pulled, Greta's head caught in the head opening.

"I'm sorry, love," Lily said. She tugged gently, and the sweater gave way. She tucked them in and had to lie half on top of Johanna to reach Greta for a kiss. After kisses she sat at the edge of their bed, and the girls pretended to fall asleep. With her eyes closed and Johanna's warm breath brushing against the back of her neck, Greta let out a long yawn.

When all three heard Big Tom's snores come from the other side of the wall, Lily left them.

At a quarter to twelve Little Tom opened the door to his parents' bedroom. When the light from the lantern didn't wake his father, he went and touched his shoulder. Lily was in the kitchen making tea.

After dressing, Big Tom joined the boys in the kitchen. The curtains were pulled tight, and the room was lit by a single lamp, the wick lowered as far as it could go without the flame going out. If Lily had her way, they'd get ready in the dark, but no, Big Tom would never agree. Lily put a steaming mug in front of him, and he slurped it down. The two shotguns waited side by side at the back door. At midnight Big Tom fetched the net from its hiding place and told the boys to shake a leg. Lily stepped outside the back door and was relieved to find the sky as inky black as Tom had predicted. The night was warm, and the air was very still.

"There'll be a big rain later," she said as they brushed by her. The boys kissed her cheek one by one.

"Don't wait up," Jack said.

"We'll be back in an hour," Padraic said.

Jack walked about twenty feet ahead, Padraic twenty feet behind. As they disappeared into the darkened field, Lily watched Padraic look left, look right, pointing the shotgun in whichever direction he was facing. He'll make himself dizzy, she thought, and was tempted to call out to him. When she looked again, he was gone. She went back inside, blew out the lantern, and lit a single small candle. She placed the candle on the floor in the corner farthest from the window.

At a quarter past, Lily heard the girls talking in their bed. At twelve-thirty she heard their bare feet slide along the worn wood planks of the hall floor. She listened to the kitchen door creak open, inch by inch.

"Don't tell me you're both up."

"Couldn't sleep," Johanna announced, pushing the door open all the way and flopping down in Big Tom's chair. Greta sat in front of the cold fireplace. She almost asked if they could build a fire, but then she remembered.

At one
A.M.
Lily went to stand watch at the back door.

At one-fifteen she walked out into the yard as far as the hay shed and
peered out into the empty darkness. After a few minutes she pressed forward, walking past the stable to the wall that marked the boundary of their first field. She saw a light in the corner of her eye and turned to find the lantern she'd snuffed out an hour earlier bobbing toward her. When the girls reached her, she snatched the lantern away and gave them each a pinch. "I could kill you both," she said, but instead of extinguishing the flame, she put the lantern on the ground and pulled the girls close. She decided to give Big Tom and the boys another fifteen minutes, and if they weren't back, she was going to take that lantern and march straight down to the river. She'd yell for them if she had to. She'd have the girls yell too. Damn them to hell anyway. She'd call the
gardai
if she had to. She'd wake all of Conch.

If they'd been caught, Greta reasoned, the
gardai
would have made a racket dragging them away. There would have been shouts. They'd have heard Mr. Grady's voice cut through the dense night air. Big Tom would never go silently; he would have cursed and sworn, and the boys would have done the same.

"What in the world is keeping them?" Lily whispered.

Then all three heard a pair of thunderous cracks, one call and one answer, and the night was split in two.

 

Years later, Greta would still not know whether she actually remembered the second half of the night or if she'd merely visualized what she'd been told. The picture she pieced together looked as if it belonged inside one of those toys she'd once seen in Norton's shop. While Lily was shopping, she'd picked up the toy, looked through a peephole, and seen what looked like fragments of a stained glass window, and when she turned the dial, all the colors and shapes collapsed and came together again, collapsed and came together, constantly turning into something else.

The two blasts were soon followed by real thunder and rain so heavy it pressed down the nettles and the long grass. Big Tom was dead. That was the first thing that soaked in, though Greta would never be able to recall the moment she knew, if she'd still been standing out by the wall or if she'd made it back home with Johanna before realizing what had happened. Sometimes she remembered Lily telling her in the kitchen.
Sometimes she remembered listening on the other side of the kitchen door as the boys recounted the story for Lily. Sometimes she was sure that no one ever told her; she simply knew.

It was a funny thing, in a way, with all the shotguns that had been present that night—Jack's, Padraic's, and those of the two strangers—Big Tom had drowned in his own river. Grazed by a shot meant only to scare him, he stumbled and fell. The rush of the water carried him for about thirty feet, until his head became wedged between two rocks. Unaware that their father was in trouble, one of the boys—which one was a secret they decided not to tell—fired back at the strangers but missed, instead finding the chest of Mr. Grady, who was observing the capture of the poachers from a few yards away. In the spot where Big Tom died, the water was two feet deep.

The boys carried him home, laid him on his bed, pulled off his shirt, loosened his belt, touched and retouched his face with the backs of their hands. And this Greta was sure she remembered firsthand: when they pulled off his boots the river poured out and ran to every corner of the room.

M
ORE THAN TWO HUNDRED
men and women, old and young, pressed elbow to elbow in the Conch town hall. The collective heat from their bodies and the dampness of the unseasonably warm day steamed the two windows of the long, low-ceilinged room that faced west onto Sky Street, where another two hundred people waited, some from as far as forty miles away. Inside and out, the people were silent. Even the floorboards had stopped creaking as soon as everyone found a spot. The people who gathered had already worked a full day, had their supper, had their tea, and now they waited together for the daylight to disappear. Most of the heads were turned west, as if a stern look might goad the last of the sun's rays to get on with it, get out of the way.

"Here they are!" A man standing on the top outside step shouted over his shoulder into the crowded room, his voice sparking life into those who'd begun to let their minds wander as the blood pooled in their tired feet. The crowd, which had arranged itself to take up every bit of spare space, silently agreed to split down the middle as the pastor, the county councilor, and the local director of the Electricity Supply Board passed down a narrow center aisle. The crowd stood on tiptoe to see them.

The ESB representative reached the small raised platform first, then stood aside and gestured to the priest and the councilor to precede
him. When they took their positions, he joined them on the platform and cleared his throat to address the crowd. The people outside surged forward to hear.

"It's been a great honor getting to know so many of you over this past year, and on behalf of the entire board, I wish the people of Conch, and the outlying homes, much happiness and prosperity. It has brought me particular pleasure, in this post-development phase, to continue bringing light to communities beyond the reach of the initial push. One day very soon, all of Ireland will be electrified."

He stepped back as the crowd, believing the time had come, applauded. The priest raised his hand to shush them, and like dutiful children, they dropped their hands to their sides. The county councilor cleared his throat and thanked the supply board for its speed and efficiency. The ESB man smiled, pretended to wave his words away. A muffled cough sounded from the middle of the room.

The priest stepped forward next and read a short passage about light and darkness from the Gospel of Saint John. He shook holy water on the rust-spotted switch box that had been temporarily set up for the occasion. It had finally grown dark, and the priest signaled to the men in the far corners of the room to extinguish the paraffin lamps.

"Father?" the ESB man said. "The honors?" All eyes in the room were strained to make out the dark shadow that was the priest reach over to the box and move the ceremonial switch from the bottom to the top. A half second later the room was filled with bright electric light. The electric gramophone clicked to life, and the first notes of Rosemary Clooney's voice were overwhelmed by thunderous applause, stamping, shouting.

Outside, the shopwindows and arc lamps lining the streets had also lit up, and at the outermost edge of the crowd, Greta looked over at Johanna and then at Little Tom and announced that she could see them as clearly as midmorning. She took off her glasses, which were almost identical to her first pair of six years earlier, and the brightness remained. The streetlamps buzzed, and for a moment Greta panicked, thinking that they might not be safe to touch. Before she could mention it, a young man grabbed hold of one of the poles and swung around and around, calling out for everyone to look at him, look at him, he
was an American film star. A girl about his age caught his elbow and told him he was making a bollocks of himself. The dancing that had begun inside was beginning to spread to the people in the street, and the same young man who'd been swinging on the lamp grabbed Johanna's elbow and spun her around. When he released her, she came back to Greta and announced that she could count every single freckle on Greta's nose.

The three Cahills celebrated with the crowd until two o'clock in the morning, and then they collected their bicycles from outside the post office and headed back to Ballyroan. The light appeared to dim as they got farther from town, and by the time they reached the sharp curve in the road, they were in total darkness. Greta tried to estimate how many times in her life she'd walked or cycled that road in the dark, but on that night, it seemed so much darker. Johanna weaved back and forth, cutting an unseen pattern with the treads of her bicycle wheel, and talked nonstop about electric irons, electric cookers, electric clothes-washing machines.