In the Province of Saints Page 3

  It was a beautiful night, and not yet fully dark. The distant town lights shimmered through a ghost mist of soft rain. The animals in the fields and pastures were still. Lilac and hyacinth filled the air.

  The gun caught the rising moonlight through the mist, and slivers of moon swam on the barrel. I’d seen Father raise the gun in similar fashion before. We could have been rabbit hunting at midnight; his hair stuck out at angles from his head as if he had just risen from the bed.

  Amidst the dew and the mist, the fading, peculiar light offered only fanciful suggestions of what lay beyond. A quilt of starlings thrummed almost soundlessly into the air.

  We went up the field in the graying and the silence. Dew slicked the grass. Everything shone. A hare burst from the ditch above us and shot across the purple plumb line of the horizon. There was the hare and the low sky and the horizon and nothing more so that the hare seemed to take forever to pass out of sight. The bottoms of clouds tumbled silver above us. We were still. Father raised the gun and tracked the hare with the barrel’s sight until it was gone.

  Tadhg Dolan says the rabbits have run wild on Murphy’s Flats, I said, imagining Father and me spending the rest of the bright summer nights down on the Flats and him forgiving me everything.

  What’s Tadhg Dolan doing in Murphy’s fields?

  Huntin with his da.

  Father grunted and waded through a ditch full of rainwater where a fox floated belly-open in the scum. All manner of things had been at it. Maggots wriggled in its blackened viscera and I eyed it cautiously as I crossed.

  Da, I called. Da.

  Will you come on.

  The fox, Da.

  It won’t bite you, come on.

  I climbed the far side, breathless, still imagining us rabbit hunting: the moon high above the Flats, a curlew crying out beyond the bulrushes, old men out on the Nore fishing for eels, their cigarettes burning like sparks of naphtha light, while Father and I hid in the furze. I would hold Father’s gun while he poured hot tea from a flask, its pungent steam rising in the warm night as we waited and watched rabbits poking their small, soft heads above the wild grass.

  Da, Tadhg and his da go huntin down the Flats every weekend, I said. I’m sure Murphy wouldn’t mind if we —.

  I’m sure, Father snapped, Murphy’ll be huntin the both of them if they’re not careful. Now, would you whisht.

  He hoisted the gun deliberately as he pushed forward through thicket. I blinked and everything began to lose shape and sound in the forming mist. A wind pushed clouds across the moon, creating movement in the changing light, and I wished that Father would say something. He cleared a sty without slowing; using one hand for balance, he leapt high above the rock. It took me a moment to climb over and then longer to make up the ground that I had lost. Father moved further ahead. I kept an eye on the back of his head. In the damp his hair began to curl, dark ringlets raised like horns.

  He paused at the entrance to Flaherty’s field and waited for me. I ran to catch up.

  When something is hurt like this, in the country, we must kill it, he said. It’s the only way. You can’t have an animal suffering. Do you understand? And you can’t have an animal that you cannot control. That effin dog will have to go.

  I looked at him. Sure you’ll not hurt Blackie so.

  Father remained tight-lipped. He ground his teeth and stared off across the fields.

  You’ll not hurt Blackie, I said.

  A’course I won’t hurt the feckin dog! He exhaled. But I don’t know how I’ll pay Flaherty for this at all. Where is it now?

  Just beyond. Along the wall by the ditch.

  Jaysus, right behind his bleedin house. I’m surprised the miser didn’t hear the racket.

  Tall, yet lithe, he snaked easily through the barbed-wire fence into Flaherty’s pasture and waited again, holding the barbs apart, as I climbed through. A barb caught my anorak but he unhooked me quickly and I stumbled forward, down from my torn jacket blooming.

  The lights of Flaherty’s farmhouse shone from the lane. In the courtyard, Flaherty’s daughter, Dodi, was singing as she walked the Black Hunter—I recognized her voice—and the Hunter’s shod hooves snapped the cobblestone as if it were a snare drum.

  Father shifted the gun and cursed. Right behind his bleedin house, he muttered, and shook his head. Sure, this feckin country will be the death of me.

  He’ll make me pay for this in blood, boyo, in blood, Father said. He stared at me then, and for a moment I thought he might have forgiven me.

  What are you crying for? he asked.

  I’m not crying, I argued, and wiped at my eyes with the sleeve of my jumper.

  It best not be for yourself and that blasted dog. Anything’s more deserving than that. The poor sheep should get your tears, or bejesus, a few my way wouldn’t hurt either if you’re in the mood for crying.

  Father spat and his expression darkened. Without speaking we descended the gentle slope of the valley. Trees rose up, their high canopies rustling at their peaks with a gentle wind above, and deeper into the glen the dark, fresh-plowed fields brought the night down, full of crows and other scavengers uprooting the new seed for struggling grubs. The dark patches of earth glinted like scars.

  We came across the lamb in the half-light, its white coat stark and shimmering, and Father’s face tightened. He stared at it for a moment, still counting all the different ways in which Flaherty could make him pay for the sheep, all the different ways in which he could afford to pay him. He spoke aloud to himself, and the words fell together like a desperate prayer: I can fix his pig sheds, they’re in need of work. The gates and posts on the fields down beyond Murphy’s need mending. The corrugate on the milking stalls are near rotted away. And I’m sure when the turnips and beets come in I could give him a few days of free labor, but Jaysus, knowin that man, he’ll take as much as he can get. He’ll want feckin blood. How in God’s name will I satisfy him at all? This feckin country makes everyone so bloody miserly. If he’d wait I’d get the money back to him in spades . . . but he won’t wait . . . not for me . . . Jaysus.

  He placed the barrel of the gun over the head of the lamb, which was still moving, although just slightly, its eyes closed as if asleep. When Father looked at me I knew that I was the one who should be doing this and not him but that he would not make me do it, and I should be glad. Small gasps of air passed through the lamb’s parted mouth, its life sliding away in a broken half whistle, and I wanted to ask Father if we could wait and let it die in its own time instead of doing this, or perhaps it wasn’t really as bad as he thought and after it rested for a while it would be better, perhaps the vet could fix it yet—and then its head was gone, and I jumped with the gunshot. It took moments to properly hear it coming back off the hills, a wash of sound with blackbirds lifting from the trees it seemed for miles, and nothing left but the bloodied stump of the lamb’s neck pooling into the grass.

  White bursts of discharge danced before my eyes. Everything shone brightly: the hillocks and paddocks, the high hedgerows, the plowed fields, the hills covered in gorse, and, higher up, the usually dark heather. Father’s face, full of checked anger, was bright as burnished tin; he was a negative burnt upon film, shining with brilliant violence, and then his figure, too, receded into darkness.

  He raised the gun with the recoil, hand and arm and gun in one quick gleaming movement as if he were shoveling earth. He stared at me coldly as he plucked out the shells and threw them to the ground, a gesture I did not understand.

  Flaherty will get his blood later, he said. Then he tramped away, leaving me standing there.

  Time came back slowly. Blackbirds settled once more in the trees. Flaherty’s dogs barked. The voices of the farmer’s laborers echoed on the road, a woman’s high laughter amongst them, all seemingly unconcerned by the close gunshot. In the country no one cared about a gunshot fired in a field.

  Although there was sound again it all seemed very far away. Lights came on in the farmhouses.
A wild hen called from a far thicket. Everything seemed to be narrowing, converging to a single point of light surrounded by a growing darkness at its edges.

  Mammy will have the tay on, so, and she’ll be mad if it goes cold, I said aloud into the boreen and the empty thicket.

  I stared at the spot where the lamb’s head had been, and knelt, the dew grass wet on my knees. I touched the body, felt its still warmth. I stroked the wool, the odor of suint rising, the blood beneath my fingers black in the fading light.

  There was the sharp-sweet smell of honeysuckle, of fennel, and the scent of pending rain. The air had grown heavy. A dissonant sound like church bells at Mass jarred my senses. I gathered up Father’s spent shell casings and placed them in the breast pocket of my anorak.

  I imagined my mother and father sitting before the supper, accusing and condemning each other without ever saying the words, and I, smelling the lamb’s blood-let on my hands and clothes, my heart still racing like a hare’s, felt where Father’s gun shells pressed tightly against my chest. Touching my hand there, the image of him still burning bright in my mind, I followed the flattened path his large footsteps had made in the wet grass, to the darkness at the bottom of the field, and through the dusk mist, the lights of our house shimmering beyond.

  F laherty’s Rover was blocking the gate when Molly and I walked the road from school. We stood at the gate and stared toward the house. Oh Jay, she said, you’re in for it now.

  Will you not come in with me?

  I will in me hole. Sure you know Daddy’ll be in a right temper. He’ll eat the head off anyone who looks at him. Flaherty’s probably in there this very minute lording it over him for what your fool dog did to his sheep. You’d best stay out of his way, so.

  Molly took jeans from the clothesline and went into the coal shed to change. There was the rattle of Blackie’s chain and her voice came through the rotten timbers: Ahhh, Blackie, sure you’re a fine little fool, aren’t ye, and don’t we love you anyway? I shook my head and waited for her to emerge. She sat on the overturned water barrel, bound up her long black hair, and pulled on her Wellingtons. She grinned. I’m off to the river. Shall I check your traps for you?

  You’re awful funny, aren’t you? I swung my satchel at her and she took off running down the field.

  I took my time feeding Blackie the dinner scraps that were waiting in a bucket by the back door and made sure he was locked in his shed before I went in. The smell of Flaherty seemed to take up most of the scullery. He was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing Wellingtons he hadn’t bothered to wipe at the door. He’d traipsed muck all the way through the carpeted living room. Upstairs I could hear Mother moving about restlessly.

  Flaherty was wearing his tweed cap, which probably meant he was on his way to the dog races. He seemed incredibly pleased with himself. As he sipped his tea his face had the look of a squeezed lemon to it.

  Father sat quietly in the chair opposite, staring at his cup. He glanced up when I came in.

  Howya, Michael, Flaherty said, and I nodded. Me and your daddy were just talking about the bit of work he’s going to do for me, after what your dog did to my sheep. Flaherty took a bite out of a biscuit and then dropped it back to the plate. I was glad to see that Father had only put out the digestives for him, not the good Jacobs we normally kept for guests. Flaherty gulped his tea down and slapped his big thighs. Crumbs fell to the floor. He smelled of manure, silage, and stale sweat. He laughed. Ah, that’s a grand dog, so. You might think of letting me bring him coursin, seems like he has it in him all right.

  I stared through him and pictured Father leveling him back and forth the length of the road.

  Well, then, he said, I’d best be off. Flaherty rose and, it seemed, was waiting for my father to do the same. Father tipped off the top of his tea into the saucer and sipped from it slowly. Flaherty stared down at him and frowned.

  So, are we right then? Flaherty asked.

  We are, Father said.

  Tomorrow evening at six.

  As soon as I get in from the foundry.

  Flaherty grinned at the thought of it: my father slogging in the furnaces all day long only to come home and slog for him. Do ye like pigs? Flaherty asked with his lemon face.

  Father remained quiet. I like pigs, I said, and my father exhaled deeply.

  Flaherty laughed. Grand, so. Perhaps you can help your father.

  After, I watched his car from the window. Rain misted the glass, shimmered on the road. A skein of geese tossed overhead, white through the swirling gray. When Flaherty was gone I said, Da, I’m sorry.

  Father sighed behind me. He was watching the geese pass as well. He placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed softly. He held his hand there for a long time as if he didn’t have the energy to move. Ah, sure, it’s done now, he said. It’s no harm. I’ll give him what he wants and be done with it. But there didn’t seem to be a lot of conviction to his words. You have to pick your battles, son, he said. He laughed bitterly and shook his head. But I’ve never been much good at it.

  He passed back through the living room, and when he paused, I knew he was staring at the muck Flaherty had tracked in. He seemed to be standing in one spot for a long time, then I heard him rummaging in the coal closet for the Hoover. I followed him into the living room. He was fumbling at the coils and the cord and suddenly he threw the vacuum to the floor; plastic splintered and cracked. For fucksake! he shouted. When he ran his hand through his thick hair, it was trembling. Da, I said and touched him gently on the shoulder. I squeezed softly as he had done. He stared at me, his eyes red-rimmed and pale, the blue washed from them.

  Sudden movement beyond his right shoulder caught the edge of my eye. Through the window, a bird was flickering in the hedgerow. Thrashing its wings, it moved from shadow to sunlight like water flashing down a mountain. I saw that it was caught, a piece of glinting snare wire around its bloody claw.

  I’ll do this, I said. Don’t mind it.

  Father pursed his bottom lip, looked down at the muck, and, after a moment, nodded. His footsteps were slow and measured on the stairs and then they were above me in the bedroom. I heard him talking with Mother quietly. I turned on the Hoover and began grinding Flaherty’s dirt out of the carpet.

  After my dog ravaged Flaherty’s lamb, Father was sullen. He had no patience for the dog or, it seemed, for me. He was tired all the time now. On weekends when he should have been enjoying his rest from the foundry, he was working for Flaherty to pay off the damages, and Father had been right when he said Flaherty would make him pay for it in blood. It wasn’t just the loss of the lamb, Flaherty claimed, but trespass, and destruction of property that he’d charge Father with if he didn’t satisfy his demands. I imagined Flaherty took almost as much satisfaction in watching Father labor silently for him as he would had he kicked his teeth in. This was for all the blows he would never strike at my father, and for all the pain he could never make him feel.

  But finally, it was the last of the month and almost the end of Father’s indenture to him. The day had darkened quickly, and as dusk turned, the sky burnt purple with storm clouds and the rains began. The dog dozed before the fire; the small room was crowded with the smell of him and of the cabbage my mother was boiling for dinner. When Father came in from the foundry, his clothes were drenched. He’d walked all the way from town in the rain and was in bad form. And although he didn’t say it, I could also tell he’d been in Sullivan’s on the quay.

  No one had stopped to offer him a lift although he said countless cars from the country had passed him, including Flaherty’s—that bastard. He swore they went out of their way to be mean and miserly. Great satisfaction they got from their little acts of spite. He could only hope they’d get theirs in one form or another.

  He threw his overalls on the clothes rack and pulled the rack before the fire. He nudged at Blackie with his toe, but Blackie wouldn’t budge. Effin move, will you? he growled, but the dog just rolled onto his back, baring his pale
belly at him.

  Jaysus, my father said, will you move! He put his boot into Blackie’s rib cage and I flinched. The dog yelped and jumped to his feet. He eyed Father warily, circled about him, and then came to rest beside the sofa. He lay alert for a time and I patted him until he placed his head upon his paws and fell asleep. All the while Father continued cursing under his breath.

  On Father’s last day at Flaherty’s, we all sat at the kitchen table waiting for him until twilight when the skies darkened and it began to rain again. Mother lit the lamp and we watched the high fields flatten and sway and finally I rose and went down the road in the rain and the wind moaning through the trees to greet him.

  Father stood just outside Flaherty’s closed gate, staring into the dusky shadows beyond, but looked up when he heard my footsteps on the road. I smelled a Woodbine, the scent of it came warmly through the rain, and when I approached I saw Flaherty standing on the other side of the gate beneath the shelter of yew trees, the glowing tip of his cigarette a spark in the dusk light as he drew on it.

  Father stood with his feet planted wide apart, large work boots covered in muck—a black figure with the rain and the wind whipping at his collar, rippling the waist of his foundry work shirt with the embroidered name patch on its chest. Something had been said between the two of them, and Flaherty was smiling.

  Father’s face was rigid and set like stone. I feared a fight happening again, and I came up to father and held tight to his arm. He forearm was taut and wired with veins. He looked down at me, and though his mouth was set and grim, he squeezed my hand tightly. And then he reassured me with a brief smile that did not touch his eyes.

  We’re done here. Michael, let’s go home.

  Father turned away from the gate and began to walk slowly up the lane, his hand hard but reassuring in mine. I looked up at the rain slanting down over his brow and sharpening his already hawkish nose. His powerful jaws were clenched and they seemed to stand out terribly in the dimming light.