Thin Air (10 page)

Remembering it brought a catch to Gerard’s throat, as it had done when he was a child. Sometimes it seemed as though Ireland was nothing but an enormous burial ground. Why wouldn’t strange things happen? He blocked off the thought quickly, fearful of where his imagination seemed to be leading him.

‘Martina!’

Gerard stood still and listened. A long, moaning call answered from far behind him and he swung round, his nerves a-jangle. The cattle had followed him back across the causeway and were standing at the bottom of the hill, watching. It was one of them that had answered him.

Specks turned neither left nor right but kept steadfastly on along the Ennis road. Tractors passed with rattling trailers and lorries thundered by without consideration but the cob paid not the slightest attention. He was safe as houses, safer than a bicycle and a lot safer than the jittery youngsters that Trish rode every day. She patted his neck and praised him. He listened with one ear and kept the other on the road ahead.

Brigid went out through the gate and closed it behind her. For a moment she leant on her stick and, as if in salute, a lark climbed the steep steps of the sky and hung in the heights, ringing bubbling glass bells for her. Brigid’s heart lifted towards it until it took her breath away with a headlong plunge towards the rocky ground. At the last minute it saved itself and landed as lightly as a moth. When she turned to leave it was sitting on the wall with its crest standing up in punky spikes, and it was still singing.

Gerard had climbed up the hill and was not far from the fort when, sure enough, Popeye put up a hare. Gerard groaned and called a couple of times, quite uselessly. The dog’s only master now was its instincts.

Hare and hound were well matched; both lean and muscular and powerful. Gerard was stunned by their speed. He became mesmerised and, despite himself, found that he sided with the hare. The dog’s head was down, straining towards the hare’s heel. No matter how she twisted and turned, Popeye twisted and turned behind her. She led him into the fort but doubled back when she met the inner ditch. His nose followed her but the rest of him was still set on a different course and his legs went out from under him. He yelped and rolled over three times, but with astonishing speed he was on his feet and gaining on the hare again.

She was heading down the hill now and Gerard was sure that she was making for the trees. But suddenly Popeye was upon her and she was jinking and dodging and leading him back up across the field towards the fort. She leaped the outer bank, the dog snapping at her heels. She leaped the inner bank, hardly seeming to touch it. And then she was sprinting across the enclosure, straight towards the sheer drop which hung over the lake.

Gerard couldn’t believe it. He wanted to warn the dog but it was all happening too fast; his diaphragm seemed to have seized and he couldn’t find breath. The hare was certain to go straight out over the edge, but she didn’t. With breath-taking agility she doubled, right on the brink. Far too late, Popeye saw the danger and put on the brakes. His front feet dug into the ground an inch from the edge but his back end went up over him and he flew in a somersault out into midair and down.

Gerard drew a sharp breath and began to run across the grass. He looked for the hare, expecting to see her loping off towards her home again. But she was gone. Gerard stopped, unable to believe his eyes. There was no sign of her at all. She had vanished.

Specks was still swinging along in the same mood and Trish was beginning to wonder whether he wouldn’t keep going on like that till he came to the sea. They had travelled at least a mile and passed several turns but the horse hadn’t shown the slightest inclination to go down any of them. Trish lit another cigarette and dropped her feet out of the stirrups to let the blood back into her toes, but put them back in again as a blue Hi-ace van pulled up beside her. There were three Travellers in the front; a middle-aged woman in the passenger seat, a child of about Aine’s age in the middle and a man driving. He leaned across as the woman rolled down the window. He was a lot younger than the woman was, more likely to be her son, Trish thought, than her husband.

‘Are you selling the horse?’ he asked.

Trish shook her head. ‘He’s not mine.’

‘Whose is he?’

‘He belongs to my boss’s daughter.’

‘Will she sell him?’

Specks looked at his reflection in the wing-mirror, then blew on it and misted it up.

‘She’s missing,’ said Trish.

‘What d’you mean, missing?’

Trish told the story and the woman listened. She didn’t move except to prevent Specks from taking a bite out of the wing-mirror. Beside her the child was silent, picking at a fraying hole in his jeans.

‘’Tis very strange,’ said the woman, when Trish finished.

‘’Tis strange all right,’ said the young man.

‘You didn’t see anything?’ said Trish.

They both shook their heads.

‘Will you keep your ears open? Put the word out?’

‘We will, of course,’ said the woman. ‘What was the girl’s name at all?’

‘Martina,’ said Trish. ‘Martina Keane.’

The woman repeated it. The man started the engine.

‘Good luck, now,’ he said.

The van pulled off and Specks set out again, as purposeful as ever.

The cow’s skeleton, when he came across it, threatened to breach the stout walls of Gerard’s rationality. He forgot all about the dog. He had not admitted to himself that this search might end with the discovery of a death but he knew it none the less. And then, although he satisfied himself immediately that it was not his daughter, it was some time before he succeeded in working out what, in fact, it was.

She must have died on her back with her legs in the air. Gerard didn’t know why animals died like that but he had seen it before. He had seen sheep on several occasions and then there had been Thomas’s donkey, a long time ago now, but still a vivid memory.

Whatever creatures had been feeding on the cow’s carcass must have eaten through the ligaments so that the legs had slipped straight down and created the appearance of something that walked upright. A nine-foot cow. Or a bull spirit.

Gerard turned away, disliking the direction of his thoughts. A year ago she would not have been left there like that. Anthony would have dragged her down behind the tractor and the knacker-lorry would have paid him to take her away. But since BSE the boot had been on the other foot. The rendering plants were not equipped to dispose of carcasses in accordance with the new regulations and the knacker-man didn’t come any more. To bury a dead cow required a vet’s certificate and a licence, every time. Between paper-work and digger drivers a lot of time and money could be spent. It was generally easier to turn a blind eye. He had already done it himself, more than once.

As the shock receded, Gerard remembered the dog again, and walked on around the outer bank of the fort. At the westernmost side the bank disappeared; the steepness of the cliff below being sufficient defence for anyone. Gerard looked down to the dark waters of the lake, far below. Popeye was clambering out on to the rocks and Gerard laughed and called. The dog shook himself so hard that he nearly fell over, then looked around eagerly, ready to obey Gerard’s call but not sure where it had come from. Gerard dropped to his knees on the grass, then down on to his stomach, leaning out over the edge. Below him the dog found its bearings and raced around the rocky shore to climb the hill again. Gerard continued to look down. There were wet splashes where the dog had been and a few small waves ran into the narrow shore, remembering him. Gerard watched them as they lulled and slowed and forgot. He had rarely seen the lake so still. If he stretched out just a bit further he would be able to see his own reflection. He was tempted to chuck a stone but refrained, shamed by a sudden memory of his youth. He and Peadar had once dismantled a whole section of the outer bank of the fort and thrown the smaller stone into the lake. He stood up and walked over to the place. The grass had long since grown over it again but one or two of the bigger stones, the ones they could not lift, still broke the surface. They hadn’t, before. Gerard was about to turn away when he remembered that they had found something, the two of them. What had it been? A model, a little statue. A bull. Peadar had wanted to take it home and show it to their parents and teachers, but Gerard had been ashamed of it and had sworn him to secrecy. He couldn’t remember why, now. It must have been because of the forbidden destruction of the fort.

But where was it now? The memory came back so suddenly and so sharply that the grass itself seemed to live and to glow more brightly, the way it had when he was a child. He walked over to where the ground fell away and followed the slope until he came to the souterrain. They had hidden the bull there; the memory was so clear that it might have been yesterday. Beside the rocks that had been thrown in to block the entrance to the ancient chambers there was, or there had been, a little cavity. Gerard dropped on to his hands and knees at the edge of the depression. The grass was long around the edge of the stones where the cattle couldn’t easily reach it, and a few primroses clung to the thin soil. Gerard pushed his hand between them and felt around. The hole was still there, but as he leaned forward to reach into it, the stone he was kneeling against shifted suddenly, causing the ones beside it to slide and wobble and knock against each other. Gerard stood up quickly. Those stones had been there for generations; no one knew how long. Thomas, of course, had some story about the place, but then he had stories about everything. It had probably been blocked to stop cattle from falling into it, or maybe to stop children going down. If it was on his land, he would block it, too.

He stepped back. Where the stones had moved they had left bare edges of earth showing among the grass, almost as if someone had taken them out and put them back in again. But he was sure that they hadn’t been like that when he had first knelt down beside them.

Or was he?

‘Martina!’

The fear, the desperation in his voice surprised him. Surely to God she was at home by now? Behind him he could hear the dog galloping over the meadow and then it was upon him, its wet nose and tongue shoving against his hand, its paws on his legs, delighted to have found him.

Gerard pushed him away. The cattle had followed up behind them and now stood in a ragged phalanx, watching. Popeye watched them back and then, as Gerard was about to set off down the hill, he discovered the souterrain. Gerard called him but he went down into the hollow until only his tail was showing. Gerard called him again, but he wouldn’t come. He was scrabbling about between the stones with his paws, the terrier in him now winning out over the greyhound. Gerard strode over and grabbed him by the scruff, pulled him out, then stood examining the hole. What the hell was the dog looking for? There was nowhere that he could see for the hare to have gone, but there was bare earth beside the stones where the dog had been scratching. There could no longer be any doubt that those stones had moved or been moved recently. Gerard tried to picture how they had looked when he first saw them a few minutes ago but he couldn’t be sure. The dog was in there again and digging. Gerard lifted him and hurled him across the grass. Popeye yelped and tumbled and stood looking hurt, his tail between his legs. Gerard advanced on him and shouted and sent him scuttling off down the hillside. When the dog was safely on its way he followed and, although he turned round often and looked back up the hill, he could not get rid of the hideous feeling that there was something behind him, every step of the way.

When Thomas heard the front door bell ring he was afraid that it was the Guards.

‘There’s a swan at the back,’ said Brigid when he opened the door. ‘I didn’t like to chase it off.’

‘No,’ said Thomas. ‘I wouldn’t, either.’

‘They can break your arm,’ said Brigid.

‘They can,’ said Thomas.

Brigid propped the hazel rod against the wall beside the kitchen door. She was surprised that she had brought it from the car. She hadn’t meant to.

Thomas sat down again. ‘Put the kettle on there, for your mother,’ he said.

Aine filled it from the tap and took out one of the comic annuals that Thomas kept there for her.

‘There’s no one at the house,’ said Brigid.

‘No. They’re all gone. Off around the place. A good crowd.’

Brigid stared out of the window. The swan had come round the side of the house and was watching the front door, its head on one side.

‘What does it want?’ she said.

‘You wouldn’t know with swans,’ said Thomas. ‘They can get spoiled by tourists and such. I’d say it found some food belonging to Popeye. He’s very fussy, you know, always leaving bits after him. I’d say that’s what it’s after.’

‘Shall I give him some bread?’ said Aine.

‘No,’ said Thomas. ‘Then we’d never be rid of it.’

They watched in silence as the swan waddled away down the path. At the edge of the lake it shook itself and straightened a few feathers under one wing. Then it waded into the shallows and settled itself on to the water, as gently as a hen on to a clutch of eggs.

The kettle started whining and Aine slipped outside before Thomas could command her to make the tea. The swan had been heavy and waddly on land like a big, white goose, but on the water it was pure grace. Its neck curved elegantly and its wings were folded more crisply than Japanese paper. It swam in pulses as it was propelled by first one foot, then the other. A clean, even wake spread out behind it in a long, narrow triangle. As it swam it turned its head, first to the left and then to the right, looking back at Aine with one black eye and then the other. Then, without any reason that Aine could see, it stood up on the surface and beat its great wings, creating temporary chaos in the surrounding waters. Aine ran down to the shore and clambered out to the prow of Thomas’s boat, but it was too late. The swan was already running along the water, reaching and flapping, and a moment later it was in the air. As soon as it was high enough it banked and circled and flew right back over Aine’s head. She thought at first that it was honking to her, but it was only the noise of its wings.