Lark's Eggs (6 page)

‘If it's dying I am I want to die in peace. Bring me to the
crossroad
in Aughrim.' A Pakistani doctor nearly had concussion but the solemn occasion speeded up as a nun intervened.

Young nurses watched Eileen being carted off.

They laid her on the ground and a Galway woman keened her. The voice was like sharp pincers in her ears.

Now that they were saying she was on the verge of death ancient memories were budging and a woman, the lady of the manor, was moving again, a woman in white, standing by French windows, gazing into summer.

She'd had fuzzy blonde hair and maybe that was why she'd looked at Joseph more closely the first time she saw him. She had the same eyes, twinkling brazen eyes.

She heard again the lady's voice. ‘No, I won't go in,' answering her husband. ‘It's not evening. It's just the afternoon.'

Eileen woke.

The stars shone above like silver dishes. The bushes were tipped with first frost.

She stirred a bit. ‘Is it better I'm getting?' she wondered. She moved again and laughed.

Her bones felt more free. She lifted her head. ‘They might be killing old men but they won't kill me.'

 She stirred. A girl heard her.

Women shook free from tents and gazed as though at Count Dracula.

In the morning she was hobbling on a stick.

She hobbled down the lane and gazed on the Galway road. ‘I'll have duck for dinner,' she said. ‘Ye can well afford it with all the shillings you're getting from the government.'

At Christmas she was able to hobble, albeit with the help of a stick, into the church, crossing herself first with holy water.

Afterwards it had the awkward grace of a legend; a silence when his name was mentioned, an implied
understanding
of what had happened. Few know what actually happened though, so to make it easier for you to understand I will make my own version.

I was five when he came to town, a child at street comers. I was an intensely curious child, a seer, one who poked into everyone's houses and recalled scandal, chagrin and disgrace. I know all about the Hennessys and if I don't let me pretend to.

He came in 1956. He was a young man of twenty-nine but already there was something old about him. He recalled the fires of the Korean War. He'd been an American pilot there. I'm not sure what he saw but it left his face with a curious neglect of reality; he stared ahead. Sometimes a donkey, a flying piece of hay, a budding tree at the end of the street would enthral him but otherwise silence. He kept quiet. He kept his distance. He shared very few things but he talked much to me. By a fire in the Hennessys', flames spitting and crying out, he talked of the sacred places of Asia, shrines to
draconian
goddesses, seated statues of Buddha.

I always nodded with understanding.

I suppose that's why he trusted me. Because, although a child of five, I was used to lengthy conversations with fire-brigade men,
painters, road-sweepers. So he and I discussed Buddha, Korea and sunsets that made you forget war, long raving sunsets, sunsets of ruby and a red brushed but not destroyed by orange. The air became red for odd moments in Korea; the redness stood in the air, so much so you could almost ensnare a colour.

He had blond hair, sharpened by glints of silver and gold, a face tainted by a purple colour. It was as though someone had painted him, brush strokes running through his appearance, a glow, a
healthiness
about it, yet always a malign image before his eyes that kept him quiet, that compelled an austerity into eyes that would
otherwise
have been lit by handsomeness in the middle of a strange, arresting and, for an Irish small town, very distinctive face.

He came in April, time when the hedgerows were blossoming, time when Tinkers moved on and anglers serenely stood above the river. Light rains penetrated his arrival; talk of fat trout and drone of drovers in the pub next door to the Hennessys in the evening.

The Hennessys were the most auspicious young ladies in town. Margaret and Mona. They'd been left a small fortune by a father who won the Irish Sweep Stakes once and the pools another time. Their father had spent his whole life gambling. His wife had left him in the middle of it all. But before he died he won large stakes of money and these passed to his daughters. So his life wasn't in vain. They made sure of that, gambling and feasting themselves, an accordion moving through the night, taking all into its rhythms, sound of a train, flash of a bicycle light. The Hennessy girls sported and sang, inflaming passions of spinsters, rousing priests like devils, but retaining this in their sitting room, a knowledge of joy, a
disposition
for good music and songs that weren't loud and sluttish but graced by magic. Such were the songs I heard from bed up the road, songs about the Irish heart forever misplaced and wandering on Broadway or in Sydney, Australia, miles from home, but sure of this, its heritage of bog, lake and Irish motherhood.

The Hennessys had no mother; she'd gone early but their house was opened as a guesthouse before their father won his fortunes and so it continued, despite money and all, less a guesthouse, more a
hospice
for British anglers and Irish circus artistes. One travelling painter with a circus painted the Rock of Cashel on the wall. A fire blazed
continually in the back room and the sweetness of hawthorn reigned.

You don't bring hawthorn into the house, it's bad luck; but the Hennessys had no mind for superstition and their house smelt of hedgerow, was smitten by sound of distant train, and warmed by a turf fire. Karl came to this house in 1956.

He meant to stay for a few weeks. His stay lasted the summer and if he did go early in autumn it was only because there was hurt in his stay.

The girls at first kept their distance, served him hot tea, brown bread, Chivers marmalade. He spent a lot of time by the fire, not just staring into it but regulating his thoughts to the outbursts of flame. He had seen war and one was aware of that; he was making a composition from war, images of children mowed down and
buildings
in flame. He came from a far country and had been in another far country. He was a stranger, an ex-soldier, but he was capable of recognizing the images of the world he hailed from in the flames of a fire in a small town in Ireland. I suppose that's why people liked him. He had the touch, just the touch of a poet.

Margaret and Mona nursed him like a patient; making gestures towards his solitude, never venturing too far but the tone of their house altering; the parties easing out and a meditativeness coming, two girls staring into a fire, recalling their lives.

Their father had brought them up, a man in a coffee-coloured suit, white shirt always open. They'd been pretty girls with ribbons like banners on their heads. Their father would bring them to the bog, bring them to picnics by the river, bring them on outings to Galway. Not a very rich man, he was a rent collector, but eventually won all around him and left them wealthy.

Karl when he came sat alone a lot, walked the limestone street, strolled by the river. His shirt, like their father's, was white and opennecked, his suit, when he wore it, granite grey but more than often he wore jeans and shirts, dragon-red with squares of black on them.

Even his eyebrows were blond, coming to a sudden quizzical halt.

He often smoked a cigarette as though it was a burden.
Sometimes
a bird seemed to shock him or a fish leaping with a little quiver of jubilation. The mayfly came, the continual trespass of another life on the water.

 I followed Karl, the stranger, watched him sit by the river, close to the sign advertising God. ‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'

An elm tree sprayed with life in a field. A young man sat on the grass by the river. The Elizabethan fortress shouldered ivy.

Karl spoke little and when he did it was in the evening, in the pub, to the drovers. He was ‘The Yank', but people tolerated this in him. He had no big car, no fast money, an urgency in his quietness, a distinction in his brows.

Margaret and Mona accustomed themselves to him and brought him to the bog with them. On an old ass and cart. Two young ladies with pitchforks in the bog, bottles of orange juice readily available, plastic bags of ice, and the summer sun at its height above them, grazing their work with its heat, its passing shadows, its sweltering fog towards evening. He helped them, becoming tanned; the
complexion
of sand on him, in his face, above his eyes, in his hair. He worked hard and silently. The ass wandered by the river and the girls frequently assessed the situation, sitting, drinking orange.

Margaret was the youngest but looked older; tall, pinched, cheekbones like forks on her and eyes that shot out, often
venomously
, often of an accord of their own, chestnut eyes that flashed and darted about and told an uncertain tale.

Mona was softer, younger-looking, mouse hair on her, a bush of it, and eyes that were at once angelic and reasonable. Her eyes told no tales though.

The river running through the bog was a savage one, foraging and digging, a merciless river that took sharp corners. Donkeys lazed by it; cows explored it; reeds shot up in it; in summer a silver glow on it that seduced.

Margaret and Mona were tolerant of me, using me to do
messages
, paying me with Goldgrain biscuits or pennies. I talked to them though they didn't listen. They made a lot of cakes now and I sat licking bowls. Karl received their attention with moderate ease. He was slightly afraid of it yet glad of their kindness.

I felt him to be gentle though I wouldn't go so far as to say he hadn't done terrible things; however, what was more than likely was that he was haunted by the deeds of others.

 In mid-July an American aunt came and visited Margaret and Mona, a lady from Chicago. She was from Karl's city and Karl
visibly
recoiled, going out more, seeking bog and river. This lady danced around, trimmed her eyebrows a lot, polished her nails.

She kept the girls in abeyance, talked to them as though talking to pet dogs. She had a blue hat that leapt up with a start, a slight veil hanging from the hat. She challenged everyone, me included, as to who they were, where they were from, who their parents were and what their ambition in life was. Karl was unforthcoming. I told her I was going to be a fire-brigade man in China, but Karl said nothing, pulled on a cigarette, his eyes lifting a little.

She wanted to know where in Chicago he hailed from. He
muttered
something and she chattered on again, encompassing many subjects in her discursiveness, talking about the weather, the bog, her relatives in Armagh, Chicago, the Great Lakes, golf, swimming,
croquet
, timber forests, Indian reservations, the Queen, Prince Philip and lastly her dog, who'd jumped under a car one day when he'd been feeling—understandably—despairing.

Karl looked as though he was about to go when she left. The girls moved closer then, tried to ruffle him a bit, demanded more of him. He sang songs for them, recited poetry about American Indians. They listened. Mona had a song or two, songs about death and the banshee's call to death. Margaret was jealous of Mona's voice and showed her jealousy by pursing her scarlet lips.

They had parties again, entertaining the roguish young clerks. They had dances and sing-songs, the gramophone searing the nights with Ginger Rogers.

Karl went to church with them sometimes. He looked at the ceremonies as though at something difficult to understand, the
hurried
Latin, the sermons by the priest always muttered so low no one could hear them.

Mona went to Dublin early in September and bought new clothes. Margaret followed her example in doing this.

I went into the sitting room one evening and Margaret had her arm on Karl's shoulder. He talked about the War now for the first time, the planes, the screams, trees and houses fighting for their lives, the children moaning and the women grabbing their children. He
recalled the fighter planes, the village targets; he spoke of the
mercilessness
of war. People asked for alms. They got war. Margaret recounted her father's tales about the Black and Tans, the butcheries, the maiming, and Mona philosophically added, ‘Thank God we didn't have Churchill or Hitler here. Those men were just interested in the money.'

Margaret chirped in: ‘About time someone got interested in money. They're starving beyond in England and Germany for want of money. We're lucky here.'

Ireland was the land of full and plenty to them, legends about other countries somehow awry.

Margaret boldly got up, put on the gramophone while I was there one evening and asked Karl to dance. Whereupon he threw off his shoes and danced with her, a waltz, the kernel of the music binding them together.

Mona watched, quiet, but not too jealous. They'd always been strange together and now the strangeness emerged. They saw in Karl a common ideal. They wanted to get him come hell or high water. High water came with the floods in early October. Mona outshone herself, russet in her hair, a dress of lilac and her arms brown from summer. Margaret became pertinent to the fact that Mona was more attractive than she, so she did many things, wore necklaces of pearl, daubed her lips in many colours, wore even higher high heels. She stood above Mona and was nearly as tall as Karl.

Their house had a bad reputation and now Margaret began appearing like an expensive courtesan; she wore her grandmother's fur to the pictures while all the time Mona shone with the grace of a Michaelmas daisy.

Geese clanked over; bare trees were reflected in water. The sun was still warm, the vibrancy and health of honey in it. The leaves had fallen prematurely and the floods had arrived before their time but still the days were warm and Mona wore sandals while Karl sported light jackets.

The ladies of town noted the combat between the two girls, or rather Margaret's unusual assertiveness. They were overjoyed and sensed a coming downfall on a house that had distressed them so much with its joyful sounds.

 Karl had taken to talking to me, talking about Korea, Chicago, war, the race problem. He found a unique audience in me and I
listened
to everything and I watched his silences, his playing cards by himself. I started accompanying him on his walks; he sometimes
sitting
to read Chinese poems out loud while cows mooed appreciatively.

He took my hand once or twice and distilled in me the sense of a father. I suppose with Karl holding my hand then I decided I would have a child of my own some day, a male child.

Karl spoke, spoke of the weather in Chicago, winter storms over the Great Lakes, ice skating, swimming in the huge oblong winter pools. There was something Chicago didn't yield him, though, despite multi-layered ice creams or skyscrapers always disappearing into the clouds, and that was the sky of Ireland, clouds over the mustard-coloured marshes, Atlantic clouds heaving and blowing and provoking rancour in the bog-water. He'd come to our town looking for the ease of an Eastern shrine, found it. Now two young women were vying for him.

He spoke about his mother, his father, Americans, scoffed at the American belief in war. I told my parents that Karl didn't believe in war and they didn't hear me. I told my grandfather. Eventually I told our dog.

To the women of town Margaret and Mona were as courtesans, they'd stopped going to mass. God knows what they were doing with that American.