Chapter 6 #15
Father Joseph, who has been watching Liam’s struggle all this time in the reflection of the window, turns around, a slight but perceptible smile on his face.
The child is gifted, certainly, and several cuts above any of the others, but Father Joseph has noticed of late that there is something more within Liam, something exulted.
Something that he himself might mould and steer.
Staggering to think that this boy came from that troublemaking heretic of a father, and how dare the man shun and ignore him, an ordained priest, in front of his congregation, week after week at mass, refusing to shake his hand or meet his eye?
It beggars belief, after everything he did for him.
Not a hint of gratitude, not a semblance of repentance or respect will the man show him, almost as if he has forgotten the triumph and glory of that exorcism, and how can it be that the bishop never replied to his letter, that he, Father Joseph, has never received a shred of recognition for his efforts, for all his inspired labour on behalf of the Lord?
But God works His mystery in many ways, and He perhaps always intended for Father Joseph to tread the path of humility, to take on the role of this exceptional child’s saviour and spiritual father.
And what more perfect way to demonstrate to Tomás the error of his ways, to teach that most arrogant of men a lesson?
There’s an irresistible symmetry to it all.
In plucking away the son—no, guiding the son—Father Joseph will show Tomás that a disrespect for the Church will never go unchallenged.
Father Joseph intends to do the Lord’s work, always.
He will save this boy. He will lift him out of that rude and elementary cabin on the hillside; he will divert him from a future of toil and set him instead on a path of righteousness and glory.
And his eejit of a father won’t be able to do a thing to stop it.
Father Joseph walks triumphantly to the blackboard, and surveys his modest flock. He smiles at them, holds out his arms.
“Boys,” he says, “let us pray.”
Rose and Enda are ready when they re-enter the cottage.
They have it all arranged, the case for keeping the dog, how he doesn’t seem to belong to anyone, they don’t know where he came from; they have promised each other that they will remain calm, they won’t cry or shout.
They will talk like grown-ups to the grown-ups, and Liam will be on their side, they are sure.
As they reach the haggard, the dog hangs back, he paces the perimeter of the cottage; he will not come inside.
Rose slips her hand into Enda’s. They are ready.
When they go through the half-door, however, all this talk flies from their heads; it takes wing and flaps out of the open window.
For, inside, everything has changed. The fire has been built up so that its flames roar alarmingly up the chimney; the room smells, to Rose, of strangeness, like a mixture of salt and old railings.
There is a bucket stuffed with stained sheets and cloths, a lid placed precariously over it.
A pair of scissors lies discarded, blades open, upon the floor.
Phina is sitting by the fire, feet apart, several blankets wrapped around her. Her hair is curiously disarrayed, with strands falling to her shoulders, her face gaunt and clammy-looking, but she is smiling at them, beckoning, as if she has something she wants to show them.
And indeed she does. Come and meet your new brother, she is saying, his name is Eugene.
The baby who has been inside their mother for so long is now outside her.
It is in her arms, tucked into her side.
Rose cannot understand how this came about.
Her mother looks as she always did—there is no rent or tear in her to let the baby through—but out it has come, for here it is.
Or here he is, rather, for the baby is a boy, like the dog outside, which no one has yet mentioned, and Rose feels that she, too, must not say anything about him yet (although she means to take him some of the crusts she has spied on the table just as soon as she is able).
Instead, she will peer over the edge of the shawled bundle her mother is holding, and here now comes the source of a memory that will be vivid and present in her mind for ever: the first sight of her brother’s face, night-dark eyes gazing beyond them all at something only he can see, tiny star hands grasping for stray explanations for what has happened to him, how he came to arrive in this bright, jarring place.
Rose places a finger into his palm and instantly his fingers close over it, gripping it fast, taking possession of it, the second creature of the day to claim her, to say: You belong to me and I belong to you, and we must stick together, you and I.
Eugene, named for Phina’s father, is the first baby born on the peninsula for a long time, and is therefore lucky, the widow tells them, a sign of better times ahead.
She comes each morning, making the long hike up the hillside, to mind the house and instruct Enda on how best to be a help to her mother, to bake the bread or to hold the infant so that Phina can attend to these tasks.
Neighbours start to arrive, as news of the birth spreads.
It seems to Enda that every day, someone comes walking up to view this child: the fishermen, the pair of sisters from the end of the village, the elderly man who lives down by the cove, a silent woman and her two grown-up sons.
They shuffle into the cottage, removing their hats and shawls; some bring buttermilk for Phina to drink, to build up her strength, others a basket filled with shelled hazelnuts or a handful of newly gathered mountain sage.
One man brings a beautiful cradle carved from bog-seasoned oak and says he wants the child to have it, as there is no one in his house who will use it now.
The widow takes over the fire and boils the sage into a green paste, which she insists on spooning into Phina’s mouth, to bring in the milk, she says.
Intriguingly, the pair of sisters produce from somewhere inside their capacious skirts a glass bottle, stoppered with straw: they tilt it over their arthritic hands and sprinkle drops of it onto Eugene, who opens his eyes very wide.
The sisters are murmuring about how they made a special devotion at the well, at dawn, to collect it, and how the remainder in the bottle should be poured carefully away, into wet earth, never dry, and not used for household tasks because water from the well is powerful and—
What well? Enda cuts across them to ask, and the sisters glance at each other and say, The sacred well, girleen, the tobar in—
It does not escape Enda’s notice that, at this point, Liam leaps up, clearing his throat and upsetting a cup so that the sage liquid spills over the table top, pungent fumes rising from it, and then the widow is scolding and the sisters are fussing with cloths and mopping and the conversation is forgotten.
Liam slips out and Enda watches him, eyes narrowed.
Liam is for ever leaving the house these days; he cannot easily stay within its walls; he is holding some secret within himself, Enda suddenly sees, and she wants to know what it is.
She looks at her brother as he steps through the lit rectangle of the doorway, and she looks back at Eugene, her other brother, and his tiny face sparkles with glimmering drops of the mysterious water, his rosebud mouth opening and closing on them, as if he has things he would tell them, if only he could.
He will have a long life here, the widow says as she peruses his face, hungrily, avidly, taking Eugene in her arms and walking with him to the light of the window.
Babies, Enda has noticed, cause people to behave differently, to gather together, to gaze, to utter ridiculous sounds, to allow flickering expressions of hope and sadness and longing to transform their otherwise stolid faces.
Even her father, Enda thinks, isn’t exempt: she has spied him, at night, working on his map preparations, with Eugene in the crook of his arm, looking down at the baby, as if he can find in his face all the answers to everything he ever wanted to know.
She doesn’t understand what it is they all see there, or hope to see. Eugene is a baby: he sleeps, he eats, he cries, he pees. That’s all.
Enda rises from the bench at the table, ignoring Phina’s requests for her to fetch the eggs, deaf to Rose’s voice saying, Where are you going, can I come too?
She steps out of the door and, shading her eyes against the summer sun, she looks one way, then the other.
An inkling of what is bothering Liam has suddenly occurred to her.
She calls his name, twice, hurling the sound like a ball into the air.
She wants to find him, wherever it is he has gone, to fall into step beside him.
She would like to ask him what he’s brooding about and say to him, It’s this island, isn’t it?
You’re not wanting to go with Da, are you, you don’t want to be his apprentice?
Now why is that? Would it be that priest-teacher of yours filling your head with notions, for who wouldn’t want to strike out like that and see such a place?
A great column of rock in the sea, Da says. What a sight that will be.
She would like to see it herself, is the truth of it. She would like to travel towards it on the boat, off the edge of the charted world, to feel the swell of the sea currents beneath her, to go to a place that doesn’t yet appear on any map.