Chapter 4 #16
He is sitting on an upturned bucket in the byre, rolling one of the drafts into itself and attempting to tie a length of cloth around it to keep it scrolled, but his fingers can’t seem to make the knot.
Again he feels the lack of Enda, she with the clever hands that can do anything, bind up Rose’s straggling hair, twirl a spoon through all five fingers and back again.
She would snatch this map from him and have it trussed up in seconds, handing it back before he even realised what was happening.
He is trying for the third time to tie the fastening when he sees something at the corner of his eye and looks up through the open doorway of the byre.
The priest is stepping out of the cottage, leading a stooped figure by the arm.
For a moment, Liam thinks it is an old, infirm man, his shoulders bent, his face bearded, some elderly villager he’s never met before.
The widow is fussing around, bringing out a stool; the man is being lowered onto it.
Then he sees exposed feet that are familiar to him, the hem of a striped nightgown.
The hand that tremblingly grips the priest’s has fine dark hairs on it, and its nails are rimed with ink.
Liam flinches as if slapped. He flings aside the map and runs towards them. “Da,” he cries. “Da!”
He squirms himself between the bodies of the widow and the priest: he won’t let them keep him from his father, not this time. He gets a handful of Tomás’s sleeve and hauls himself towards him.
“Da,” Liam says, placing a hand on his father’s face, much as his mother does when she’s checking if any of them are sick, “are you all right, are you—?”
“He is restored,” the priest says, in a voice of modest triumph, and Liam can tell without turning round that the man is smiling, “to the Lord, and to us, and to—”
“Is it back you are, Da?” Liam says, touching a finger to the skin rubbed raw on his father’s wrists.
The widow is shunting him aside, saying not to fuss, not to worry, let his father take a bite now. She is placing a thick slice of bread, slathered with butter, into his hand, and a cup of milk.
Liam watches as his father, who hasn’t yet met anyone’s eye, stares down at the bread. He tilts it one way, then the other, his fingers trembling. He lifts it close to his face, then lowers it. His lips move soundlessly. Liam leans closer.
“What was that, Da?”
“…not too much,” his father is muttering, and his voice is thistledown, the sound of it smothered by the chatter of the widow and the priest behind him, “little by little.”
His father wants the bread, Liam can see, but is unable to eat it. This strikes the boy as peculiarly upsetting. “You can eat it, Da,” he says. “It’s for you.”
“Is it?” his father whispers. “Is it for me?”
“It is.”
“All of it?”
His father raises the slice, but as it approaches his mouth, Liam is appalled to see tears spring from Tomás’s eyes and course down his cheeks.
He makes no effort to wipe them away; instead, they sink into his new, scraggly beard.
Tomás, with a shaking hand, presses his teeth into the crust and takes the tiniest nibble Liam has ever seen, but his father chews as if he has a whole mouthful.
Mutely, Liam takes the milk from his father’s hand and replaces it with his own fingers.
Next to him, the widow is saying how the priest has worked a miracle, right here, in her very own house, and the priest is chuckling bashfully, saying, No, not at all, a miracle you say?
Liam holds the cup to his father’s lips, watching him take a minuscule sip, and he wants to say: Do you call this restored?
The man is like a ghost: this is not my father, this cannot be him.
The next day, the redcoats come. Two of them, mounted on glossy-flanked horses, buttons gleaming in the sun, their mouths hidden by moustaches.
The widow has shaved Tomás, who is still not speaking or meeting anyone’s eye, and dressed him in his best shirt and trousers, rubbing the mud off his boots.
He stands next to Liam by the cottage door, holding his hand, or is it the other way round?
Is Liam holding his father’s, wedging his shoulder into Tomás’s side so as to remind him to remain upright, to show the right balance of deference and confidence?
Ah ha, quite so, the redcoats say, in their odd, hee-hawing way of talking, far back in the throat, hardly opening their lips.
Yes, yes. Rather. Seems to me. They unroll the new map drafts, they flick through the pages of the name books, then stow them all in their saddlebags, and remount their horses.
Just as they are about to leave, one leans down from the saddle and holds out a drawstring purse. For you, Tommy.
Tomás’s eyes remain fixed on the ground. So it is Liam who steps forward and takes the purse, who weighs the slippery coins in his palm, who nods his thanks and watches as the pair ride away, their horses breaking into a canter, tails swishing.
Liam grips the purse to his chest, letting out a breath. He can hardly believe they got away with it. It feels as though the top of his head is missing, that the sea air is circulating around his brain, his eye sockets, so sharp is his relief.
The widow shades her eyes, following the two red dots as they progress down the track, towards the crossroads, as if to be sure they are really leaving. Then she puts a hand on his shoulder. “Now,” she says, “we need to think about getting you home.”
What happened to Tomás was simple, in its way. First, a harassed British-army corporal rapped at the workhouse door, requesting to see whoever was in charge, and then, shortly afterwards, the warden was seen to rush about, rounding up some boys.
The corporal was the commanding officer of a surveying division, which only that morning had lost its chainboy.
The unfortunate youth had been ordered to wade into a fast-flowing river while carrying the heavy, forty-yard length of chain.
The boy had neglected to mention his inability to swim, and the water proving deeper than anyone could have expected, the worst had come to pass.
Most unfortunate. Nobody’s fault. The corporal would write to the boy’s family, of course, but the incident left him under enormous pressure.
These map revisions had to be done and they had to be done quickly—the initial maps were such an unqualified disaster that the government was keen to set the situation right.
Truth be told, the corporal wanted nothing more than to finish the amendments and get the hell out of this godforsaken country.
His division was now a man down and he had to find a replacement chainboy—and fast—if he was to keep to the schedule.
Riding past the gates of the workhouse that morning, he had hit upon the idea of recruiting a youth from within its walls: it was a scheme both inspired and economic. So here he was.
Tomás would only later discover the fate of the dead chainboy. All he knew at the time was that the warden burst distractedly into the basement where they were oakum-picking, beckoned to five or six of the boys and, as an afterthought, seized Tomás by the collar.
Tomás was dragged into the daylight, coughing from the oakum dust, half listening to one of the others asking the warden where they were going.
The warden was replying that some redcoats had appeared, wanting a chainboy, and the lot of them better be on their best behaviour, no messing, did they hear him?
What is a chainboy? one of the boys asked, and the warden muttered something about land and measurements and the fecking British army and cess tax and the drawing of maps and—
Maps? Tomás repeated, as he was shoved into line beside the others.
He looked at the army officer, who was standing at a slight distance, wearing some kind of fancy waterproof coat that came down to his ankles, and the other, younger, soldier, who was being ordered to examine the workhouse boys.
He stepped forward to peer into ears and mouths, saying some short words over his shoulder to the officer.
Tomás couldn’t make sense of this scene or these people.
He didn’t know what a chainboy was or what maps had to do with taxes or the army, but what he did know was this: here was a chance, his chance.
He straightened his spine, trying to appear tall, lifting his head, as he had seen soldiers do. As the young redcoat sapper came down the line of boys, Tomás shuffled his feet ever so slightly forwards. The man had to take notice of him, he had to.
The sapper pulled out the boy next to Tomás, then another further along.
Tomás could see a rash of pimples on the sapper’s neck; there was a powerful stench of drink off him.
Tomás cleared his throat, raised his chin even higher, almost on tiptoe now.
The sapper paused, looked at him briefly with bleary eyes, then walked past.
Gripped by devastation, Tomás watched as the sapper poked the chosen boys in the stomachs, rolled up their sleeves to examine the muscles in their arms. Tomás had only seconds to stake his claim.
He pushed one hand then the other into his pockets, found a piece of chalk, and stepped out of line, towards the yard wall into which, he knew, was built a particular stone, beautifully smooth and gratifyingly large.