Thin Air (16 page)

He got up quickly, still in yesterday’s clothes, and went out on to the landing. By the time he got there the panic was over. His mother was on her knees with her arms around Aine, who peered with sleepy indifference over her shoulder and straight at him. His father, outside now, was still calling. Joseph ran down to enlighten him.

Trish was woken by the sound of a helicopter flying low over the house. For a moment she didn’t know where she was, then everything came back like a tightening noose.

Thomas was standing at the door watching the helicopter as it made a pass over the lake and swept away inland. Trish joined him.

‘Never thought I’d be so glad to see one of those,’ said Trish. ‘They’re sure to find her with that.’

‘If she’s on the ground,’ said Thomas. He went back into the kitchen. Trish stepped outside. The air was fresh, scoured by the storm. A few branches had broken and a new complement of tattered silage plastic was wrapped around the bushes and fence posts. It seemed to Trish as though she spent half her life picking it up.

In the morning light the island looked clean and innocent. A figure was walking up the hill beside the church. Anthony, no doubt, checking his cattle. Trish put on her boots and set off up the boirin towards the yard.

On the island, Anthony watched the chopper swing away and steepened his ascent, heading for the fort. The smell of the dead cow wafted towards him on the wind. Before the helicopter could come back he wanted it gone, over the edge and into the lake. There was no sense in confusing the issue.

Peter Mullins and his young sidekick called to tell Gerard and Brigid that everything possible was being done. Afterwards they went over to talk to Trish. She was in the yard, trying to ascertain how lame The Nipper was.

‘Nice horse,’ said the young officer.

‘Except that he’s lame,’ said Trish. ‘Needs a holiday.’

‘Don’t we all,’ said the Guard, then remembered himself and straightened up.

‘Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?’ said Peter Mullins.

It was the usual stuff: when did she last see Martina, what was she doing, did she have a boyfriend. Trish showed them the saddle and the broken martingale but they didn’t want to see the horse and were content with a description of him. Afterwards they went down to see Thomas and asked him the same things.

Trish finally got round to turning the horses out into the paddock and mucking out the boxes, one by one. The helicopter buzzed backwards and forwards like a trapped bee. She hoped it would find Martina, and then she changed her mind and hoped that it would not.

Breakfast was practically silent. Joseph wondered which one of them had found the magazine. It was like waiting for a blow to land.

Brigid’s behaviour was driving Gerard up the wall. She was vague and fluttery, going through the motions of things without any energy, getting things back to front. She started to gather the plates and cups before anyone had eaten anything and she dropped a net of fresh oranges into the pedal bin. When they had all finished she put bread into the toaster. He wanted to shout at her but he was afraid.

When they heard the helicopter coming Joseph raced Aine to the door. They watched it fly over and Aine jumped up and down like a crash survivor.

‘If they don’t find her no one will,’ said Joseph, returning to the table. His words were greeted by a despairing silence and he wished he hadn’t said it.

Gerard made a dozen phone calls to friends and relatives outside the area, just on the off-chance. None of them knew anything and they all wanted to know too much. He found it a terrible strain. By the time he got round to phoning Kevin in Stuttgart he was shaking.

Brigid watched the helicopter as it floated across the lower slopes of the mountain like a big dragon fly. She wondered what the goats would think of it.

Aine was quiet and wouldn’t respond to suggestions; wouldn’t read her book or help her mother to make gingerbread men. She turned on the television but she didn’t watch it. Instead she wandered round the house for a while, looking under things and into things until she came across a long-lost sliotar and brought it into the kitchen.

‘What happens to people when they die?’ she said.

Brigid flinched and reached for her rubber gloves even though the washing-up was all finished.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Well …’ She struggled, but could not bring herself to repeat empty dogma, even for the sake of her daughter.

‘Do they come alive again?’ Aine asked.

‘Martina isn’t dead, Aine,’ said Brigid. She said it with certainty, with authority. It seemed to be the best answer for everyone. It eased the panic around the dark place in her mind.

‘I never said she was.’ Aine tossed the battered sliotar from hand to hand, then dropped it and ran after it.

‘Can I give this to Popeye?’ she said.

‘Of course you can! Go down and give it to Popeye.’

The helicopter made another pass of the mountainside, so low that it seemed to be skimming the rocks. Gerard came in from the hall. ‘Go and talk to Kevin,’ he said.

‘Kevin?’

‘On the phone. Tell him there’s no need to come home.’

Brigid was delighted to hear him. She asked how he was getting on in the job and whether he had found a girlfriend and what he did in the evenings and at weekends. He answered her brightly, her Kevin, always kind and forthcoming. But then he asked if he should come home and stay with them until they found out what had happened to Martina. She was off guard and the shock went through her like an electric current.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, don’t come home. Martina will be back soon, I’m sure of that.’

There was a silence on the other end of the line, then Kevin said: ‘There’s a nice priest here. I’ll have a mass said for her.’

‘Send us a postcard,’ said Brigid.

Gerard sent Joseph to check on the cattle in the roadside meadows, even though he usually complained that the boy couldn’t tell a live one from a dead one unless it was on his plate. He located his wellingtons, but his feet had grown since he had last worn them. He borrowed the pair that Father Fogarty had worn the previous day, feeling slightly queasy about it.

Around the gates the earth was slimy and sucky, and soon the wellingtons were heavy with mud. He would never be a farmer. He was certain of that. Nor would Kevin, not in a million years. The only one of them who showed any interest was Martina. If she didn’t come back …

One of the wellingtons got stuck and he stepped out of it and into the sludgy mud. Joseph swore, then swore again, then roared and shouted until his voice went soft and whiny, like a child.

Aine collected the milk from the box at the top of the drive and ran all the way back to the house. She dropped four cartons on the kitchen table and ran with the fifth down to Thomas’s house.

‘Good girl yourself,’ he said, taking the milk from her. ‘Now I can make myself a rice pudding.’

‘Will you?’ said Aine.

‘I might,’ said Thomas. ‘Later. I might.’

Aine gave the sliotar to Popeye who took it, gently and politely, then dropped it on the floor. Aine called him outside and threw the sliotar down the path which led to the lake. Popeye sat beside her and watched it come to a halt on the shingle.

‘Go fetch it, Popeye! Go fetch it.’

The dog licked her face earnestly and went back inside.

‘Why won’t he play, Granddad?’

‘Don’t mind him, Aine. He’s very stupid.’

‘He is not. Are you, Popeye?’

Popeye rolled over on to his back.

‘See?’ said Thomas. ‘What did I tell you?’

Aine shrugged and threw the ball up and caught it.

‘What happens to people after they die?’ she said.

Thomas thought for a moment. ‘Who says they die?’ he said.

‘Everybody dies, stupid!’

‘Who says?’ said Thomas. ‘Tuan Mac Cairill didn’t die, did he? And he was one of the very first men in Ireland.’

‘Who?’

‘Sure, you have that story in a book. I know that because I gave it to you myself. And I read it to you as well. I remember it.’

Aine bit her lip and frowned.

‘He went to sleep and when he woke up he was a stag, isn’t that right?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Aine. ‘And then he was a hawk, and then he was ‘king of the salmon and then, and then …’

‘I don’t recall,’ said Thomas. ‘But didn’t he come back as a man again and tell the old abbot a thing or two?’

Aine was clearly pleased with the answer. She threw the sliotar to Popeye. It hit him on the nose and he yelped.

‘A very stupid dog,’ said Thomas.

Joseph left the wellies and the muddy sock outside the back door. He hadn’t enjoyed going around the cattle but it had made him feel more solid; more like a part of things.

‘Someone should go and count the cattle on the winterage,’ he said to Brigid. ‘After the storm.’

Brigid nodded. She wanted it to be her. On her own.

‘Dad’s going off his nut,’ said Joseph. ‘He’s tearing the place apart.’

‘You should help him,’ said Brigid.

‘He’s too cross,’ said Joseph.

Gerard felt the need to see into the middle of the piles of rusted wire which lay beside the boirin so he was sorting them out at last. But they had been there for a long time. Nettles and brambles had woven themselves into a sort of vegetable knotwork and were reluctant to be disturbed. In places the fallen leaves and stalks of years had made new soil and the wire lay underneath it. Most tenacious of all were the tough, yellow roots of the nettles.

Gerard knew the right way to do the job. The right way was to use wire-cutters or pliers or even to use the tractor to drag the wire clear, undergrowth and all. But he hadn’t the patience to get the tools. Instead he made a horse of himself, hauling on the wire till it gave and he staggered, or yanking at it until his muscles ached and his hands bled. When Sergeant Mullins arrived he found Gerard in a frenzy that took some time to subside. He waited until he caught his breath.

‘Someone rang in to say they saw Martina riding down beside the lake that day,’ said Peter. ‘We have dogs down on the lake-shore. And a few divers,’ he added, almost apologetically. ‘They’re gone on down to the lake beside the causeway. I thought I should tell you.’

It seemed that they were nearly the last to know. By the time they got down to the lake half the neighbourhood was already there. When people saw Brigid and Gerard coming they lowered their eyes and stepped back deferentially. It made Joseph feel important. He walked an inch taller.

Anthony was among the crowd. He told the Keanes that the story had gone out on local radio, along with an appeal for information. Mullins confirmed it. There were already a number of calls about sightings of riders, he told them. They were all being followed up, but none of them looked very promising.

Two bright orange rubber dinghies were being unloaded from their trailers and launched into the shallows, one on each side of the causeway. Four frogmen in wet-suits attended each craft, wading out with it until it was clear of the shingle, then loading it with flippers and cylinders and anoraks. It took them a long time to get going. There was a lot of standing around and talking. Brigid noticed that the helicopter was gone and asked Joseph how long it was since he had seen it. He couldn’t remember, either. He went to ask Peter Mullins, who was leaning on the bonnet of his own car with his arms folded, but Gerard intercepted him and told him not to be wasting the sergeant’s time.

Joseph lost the inch he had gained. He went over and poked the tyres of the boat trailers with his toe and spun their rubber rollers. Then he went for a walk along the causeway towards the island. Anthony’s cattle were standing in a line like a second tier of spectators. They moved aside to let him through and watched him for a while before returning their attention to the madness on the water.

Gerard asked Sergeant Mullins what had happened to the helicopter. Mullins said it had done all it could and gone back to base.

‘Does that mean she’s nowhere out there?’ asked Gerard.

‘It means the guys in the helicopter didn’t see her, anyway.’

Gerard wanted to tell Joseph but when he looked around he couldn’t see him. Brigid was sitting on one of the trailers staring into the shallow water which lapped against the wheels. He couldn’t handle her fear. It was making her a stranger and it frightened him. It was easier to stay away. He was sure that she must feel the same.

He watched the small stones moving this way and that beneath the waves. It wasn’t like the sea, where the tide acted like a great mill and rounded the pebbles on its shores. These stones were the same shape as when they were first brought here by horse and cart from the quarry. Broken by hand. Gerard thought of the famine workers, the ones who made the repairs here. There were famine roads everywhere, some of them in regular use, some leading into the back of beyond, still others unfinished, monuments to tragedy. If each of those starving builders had brought a stone and made a pile of them, and if those who survived the famine took their stone away, what kind of a pile would remain? One like the one on the island? Or one like the unexcavated mound on Slieve Cairn, visible for miles around.

Gerard returned to the present as the first boat’s engine started up. When it was well clear of the shore, two men in waders went out into the shallows with hooks and drag lines.

As soon as she realised what they were doing, Brigid decided that she didn’t want to watch. She didn’t want to see anything that might be dredged up from those bleak, invisible depths. She took the keys from Gerard and walked back up the track to the car.

Aine ran up to the yard and found Trish sitting on a feed bin, smoking a cigarette.

‘Who are you going to be riding today?’ she asked.

‘It’s Sunday,’ said Trish. ‘Sunday is a rest day.’

‘But they had a Sunday yesterday, and the day before.’

‘Won’t do them any harm,’ said Trish.

‘Does Specks have to rest on a Sunday?’

‘Why? Do you want to ride him?’

Aine nodded eagerly.

‘I’ll make a deal with you, then. If you ride Specks you have to clean his tack for him afterwards.’