The Night Swimmer (19 page)

Just the thing, Sebastian said, after a long swim in the cold chop?

I could tell by his collar that he had been sweating that morning, and there were brambles and gorse thorns scattered across his sleeves. He couldn't have been older than thirty-five, yet he carried himself with the calm assurance of a much older man.

I was dragging myself, he said, across the Ballyieragh most of the morning.

See anything good?

Not yet, he said, a few petrels, Manx shearwater, some other things I couldn't get a fix on. But I'm headed to the Bill this afternoon, and that is nearly always a guarantee to catch something coming west across the ocean.

We talked about life in Baltimore, the Nightjar, and about winning the contest. Sebastian seemed to regard this bit of my history with a bemused tolerance, as if he didn't really believe me. I started asking him about his background and how he came to be here, and he told me that he had been coming regularly to the Cape for about six years. He managed to get here several times a year, for a few weeks each time. He was evasive on the question about work, saying something about how he read biology at Cambridge, and apparently for a time specialized in single-celled organisms and invertebrate species. He talked about teaching at Cambridge, going through the rudimentary elements of cell division and reproduction with glassy-eyed undergraduates, but it was all years ago.

What about now? I said. What are you doing now?

Not much of anything, he said with a sheepish grin.

Unemployed?

Something like that.

I found myself watching his hands, playing with his notebook and pen, flipping through the pages, tucking it away in his bag only to take it out again a moment later. He had long, slender fingers,
smooth and umblemished, the hands of a young boy, and he kept giving me an inquisitive glance, as if he was checking to see if I desired his notice. He had a generous cone of attention, like a wand of light, and it never faltered. Being in it was like being carefully studied, though not in a way I was used to.

Isn't it a bit late in the bird season? I say.

He was cutting his potatoes in chunks, using that curious overhand fork maneuver you see so many Europeans employ. He swatted at his throat for a moment and looked away. Was he nervous?

Yes, he said. That's true.

Decided to take one last shot at it, I said. Just in case?

Sebastian fixed me with his eyes, blue like the Ineer in early fall, a hint of steel, gray, cold, but full of depth. He smiled.

Yes, that's right. Thought I'd get one more look. Just in case.

*  *  *

I left my gear at the the Five Bells and after lunch we trundled along the western edge of the Ineer, up to the East Bog, across the bleak windswept highlands of Ballyieragh.

The Bill of Clear, Sebastian said, is the best spot in the world for migrating birds.

Once we reached the plateau of Ballyieragh the wind howled from the west, flattening our jackets against our bodies. We leaned into it, trudging along, occasionally exchanging smiles as it was too loud to say anything. At the West Bog we took the small raised footpath that led through the spongy ground, ahead the line of cliffs and the North Atlantic beyond, a dim pounding beneath the roar of wind. The Fastnet Lighthouse came into view, a hazy smudge, the beckoning finger. Sea spray came in occasional gusts, vaulting over the cliffs and tumbling over us.

The western point of Cape Clear is like a deeply serrated knife edge, with peaks of basaltic rock jutting into the ocean, coming to a sharp point where the most resilient veins of rock resisted the everlasting beating of the sea. As we came to the cliff edge the difference
in the water from the Ineer or Roaringwater Bay was shocking; this was the North Atlantic in full winter mode, and looking out to the lighthouse I was amazed that just a short time ago I had swum out there and nearly made it back.

Sebastian tapped my arm and pointed to the north. A long, flat ship of black iron with a squared prow was chugging into Roaringwater Bay towing the shattered remains of a large wooden sailing yacht. The sailboat was demasted and had a gaping hole punched in the hull near the stern, just at the waterline, and it was clearly taking on water. It bobbed like a fishing cork as it was dragged landward. The black ship had a pair of heavy cranes and other lifting tackle on the forward deck, a small pilothouse midship with a single battered smokestack belching raw exhaust. A few men shuffled through a pile of materials, what looked like sails, duffel bags, boxes.

Salvage ship, Sebastian said. That sailboat must have come up on some rocks. The locals scavenge everything the sea gives up.

A single figure stood on the bow of the wrecked sailboat with a hand on the towing lines. Even at this distance we could tell he was an enormous man, bareheaded and wearing brown coveralls. He turned his head toward the island and seemed to immediately find us on the cliff top, as if he already knew we were there. Sebastian raised a hand, but his greeting was not returned.

Sebastian paused on the trail and pointed to a little brown smudge like a patch of lichen on a flat rock embedded in the hill. It was a small bird, huddled in the lee of the rock.

Nightjar,
Sebastian shouted in my ear. You can tell it's a male because of the white spots on the wings. Nocturnal, so they huddle up most of the day. They won't move until you step on them. The old Irish call them goatsuckers. Used to believe they sucked milk from goats.

The wind was changing directions quickly and buffeting us from all sides. We walked leaning into the hill, one hand clutching the ground, Sebastian's binocular case dragging through the grass, until
we came to where the land formed a dramatic tight V with the actual point only a few feet wide. Below us the ground sloped away another hundred feet till the cliffs, a sheer drop of another two hundred feet to the sea. We sat on a jutting rock and Sebastian took out his binoculars to scan the horizon.

There, he said, pointing, and he handed me the binoculars.

I tried to keep them pointed in the same direction. All I could see was exposed and magnified sky, a rich shade of blue.

Like a bobbing comma, Sebastian said, coming straight at us. A large seagoing bird, I think, perhaps a black-browed albatross. A large, dark thing.

I can't see it, I said, and handed him the binoculars.

Just wait a bit. It's coming right at us. It's only going to get bigger.

The wind tore through our clothes, the rocks below boiling with white surf. On the narrow rock our shoulders and thighs were touching, and I was acutely conscious of that warmth.

Watch, keep looking. There!

He pointed into the blue at a bobbing wisp, a line of black flexing, high above the water, a thousand feet or more.

Awfully high, Sebastian said, frowning. For an albatross this close to land. Might be something else.

He raised the binoculars to his eyes and focused.

Odd, he said after a moment. Take a look at this.

I took the binoculars and the bird popped into view, a large, wide-winged black thing, heavy flexing shoulders, long ponderous strokes. A thick bill like a wedge, the color of a lemon.

A raven, Sebastian said. Never seen that before. No telling where that chap is coming from. Something must have compelled him to come this far across the ocean.

It was getting late and I had to catch the ferry. I stood up and needed to put my hand on his shoulder to steady myself in the wind. He looked a bit surprised, but pleased. He stood up and took my hand, and we laughed a little as we swayed and lurched.

Shall we go then?

I'll go, I said, you can stay.

You sure? I'd say be careful on the walk back, but I guess if you fell in the water it wouldn't matter much, would it?

Not really, I said. You'll be around?

Sure, Elly. I'll be here. Right at this spot.

I left Sebastian there, scanning the horizon.

M
y parents married late, and my older sister Beatrice was born when my mother was well into her thirties, and so they had recently begun the mild eccentricities of the aged. Since I left home my mother had taken to arranging ever-widening fans of newspaper around the kitchen door where all visitors entered, imploring everyone repeatedly in remonstrative tones to remove their shoes. My father disappeared for hours in the basement, most of the time in the bathroom. The holidays at my parents' house were a testament to the ability of my mother to contrive ways to tint the celebration with the veneer of joy, while underneath the constant reminder of disappointment echoed like a dirge.

The year Fred and I returned from Ireland for Christmas, Beatrice brought to dinner a man who had the improbable job of restoring flintlock muskets.

He's got this sweet farm on the Eastern Shore, Beatrice said, her mouth full of cheese dip. It's got a barn full of bullet holes from the Civil War.

The gunsmith was working alongside Beatrice on the bowl of corn chips and dip, chewing, his thin ponytail slung across one shoulder. He had a half dozen leather thongs around his neck bearing various amulets, most of which appeared to be made of lead. Nobody had brought up the topic of the baby.

Fred had retreated into the den with my dad to watch football.
Through the door I could see him in the armchair that was covered with an old print sheet, a glass of bourbon balancing on the arm. My father was crammed in his worn corduroy recliner, the footrest under his calves, enormous feet in slippers dangling. Mother worried over the stove, boiling water for tea. On the table she had laid out three boxes of Entenmann's pastries: coffee cake, raspberry strudel, and something called the Cinnamon Wedge, all covered with thick laces of crusty white icing. Also on the table was the crock of cheese dip that Beatrice had brought, which consisted of ground beef and Velveeta, and the plate of tomato caprese that Fred had arranged, alternating fans of red and yellow tomatoes topped with disks of creamy mozzarella, chopped basil, olive oil. I told him that no one would eat it. Beatrice stared at me with a puzzled look, chewing. She was waiting for my response.

Wow, was all I could think to say. That must be interesting.

It is, Beatrice said, and there's lots of money in it. You wouldn't believe it.

The gunsmith nodded. His fingers were tattooed with Gothic letters, but he moved so deftly between chip bowl, dip, and mouth that I couldn't read them.

The Christmas Eve gathering took on the same general configuration each year; after rising early to Mother's gentle bed shaking, we made a trip to the store for whatever odd purchases she had missed or created the need for, had lunch of cold cuts and white bread, then the steady diet of Entenmann's pastries and whatever unholy dish Beatrice came to town with, Dad and Fred in the den diligently watching sports, putting away nearly a fifth of whiskey between them before dinner. The turkey was always served at four thirty, dry as a bone, cut into shreds with an electric knife by Dad while the meat was still hot, such was the old man's zeal to dismember the bird, the buzzing knife rattling against bone and cartilage. My mother watched each year with trepidation, a towel at the ready to stanch bleeding or make a tourniquet as her husband lurched into it, his eyes filmed over like a feeding alligator, a faint smile on his lips. But he seemed to take
genuine, honest pleasure in the ceremony, which for my dad was a rare thing, and so everyone left him to it.

Beatrice was still living in Ocean City, Maryland, working at an Italian restaurant that catered to tourists. In the winter she went on unemployment. She was thirty-two years old, divorced, and wore belly shirts to show her pierced navel surrounded by a Polynesian scrawl. Beatrice was tall like me and had the lean look of a habitual drug user. She kept her hair dyed black and had stopped using most hygiene products. Our father paid for her car insurance, when she had a car, and for her phone bill, in an attempt to get her to call. During dinner she took numerous bathroom breaks as well as getting up to step out onto the porch and smoke, the gunsmith tailing behind her, gripping his hand-tooled leather tobacco pouch.

Later in the kitchen my mother and I were discussing how unfit my sister was for motherhood, her complete lack of any sense of responsibility and how this marked her for a problematic and difficult career as a breeder. I had a few glasses of wine, and I think I was trying to gain some insight into my sister's life by talking to my mother. Which was a mistake.

Maybe some people just shouldn't have children, I said. My mother was spooning butter and sour cream into a giant bowl of mashed potatoes, mixing it with her hands.

I wish you wouldn't go, she said. Why can't you stay here?

Her eyeliner was caked under her eyes, and my mother suddenly looked clownish and absurd.

You could help your sister, you know, she said.

I can't do anything for Beatrice, I said.
You
are her mother,
you
do something.

She paused, and looking at me my mother said: You know Eleanor, some women are mothers, and some women have children. I was no mother. I was just a woman who had children.

Mom, I said, that's a terrible thing to say. Particularly to your daughter.

She shook her head, tried to wipe her eyes with her sleeve, and left a streak of potatoes across her cheek.

I'm afraid, she said, that you will likely have to confront this yourself at some point.

*  *  *

I can't take much more of this, I whispered to Fred.

We were sleeping in my old room, in the separate twin beds that Beatrice and I had slept in as children. The mattresses were special-order, an extra six inches in length, like all of the beds in the house.

Hmmm.

Fred was solidly drunk. He would snore, I knew, and I would spend half the night getting him to turn over.

And what's with the gunsmith?

Take it easy, Fred mumbled.

What?

You are awfully lucky, Elly.