Chapter 6 #22
(Tomás pauses in his writing of the Report of Progress to observe that, across the camp, a tussle has broken out between the two sappers, Carbury and Bentford, apparently playful in nature, but you never can tell.
He deems it best to pretend not to notice.
They are only young lads, so what can you expect?
Tomás sighs and reads back over what he has written.
The dispassionate tone, the scantness of detail, strike him as correct.
He does not, for example, mention to the Office that he sleeps in one tent, the sappers in the other, and that his daughter, Enda, for the sake of decency, has been lodged with a fishing family down by the cove, an irritant and an expense that Tomás had not, of course, foreseen.
Enda, on the first day, a short time after Tomás had begun his walking survey, ran up to his side, dressed and ready, even though it was not yet dawn, saying how excited she was and how maps always made her want to know what was beyond their edges, didn’t he wonder that himself?
He had ordered her back to her lodging house: she may have tricked her way into coming here but he was not going to play along with any of that nonsense.
Tomás dips his pen in the inkpot and returns to his Report.)
—labelled here as (i) the small, natural harbour on the northside; (ii) a knife-edged arrete, (iii) a limestone pavement, (iv) a stronghold of possible Viking origin, much injured by time and the hand of man, (v) an early Christian structure.
(Tomás replaces the lid on the ink bottle, wipes his nib.
In their horseplay, the sappers have knocked over the water butt and crushed the tents: the lads lie in the flattened remains, laughing and cursing, slapping at each other’s heads.
Tomás tidies his papers, then rises. He has to get one of them to sign this week’s Report.
And he will have to reassemble the tents, when they decide to once more get to their feet.)
Week 2: The Division has been engaged, as directed, in interviewing the islanders.
The dwellings here are rudimentary cabins constructed of mud and straw, with the exception of the factor’s house, which is stone.
The landlord’s factor is not resident but visits twice a year.
The islanders now number fewer than 30; they gather feathers and moss in lieu of rent; there is little distinction made here between the labour of the men and the women as both take to the work of spinning and knitting—
(He would like, Tomás reflects, as he writes, crouched in the shelter of a tumble-down wall, for Phina to see the patterns that emerge from their knitting needles. The diamond vents, the textured bobbles, like blackberries made of wool, the ridges and ripples, the blended colours.)
There is a flock of sheep, hardy and thick-fleeced, said to be the property of the landlord, which are unfenced and have the run of what pasture they can find.
The factor’s visits have the purpose of collecting said rent, and removing the fleeces and lambs to the mainland.
What stray wool that may be found snagged to bushes, etc.
, may be kept by the islanders: from this is their knitting made. Signed, Sapr Carbury
Week 3: trig-point set up, measurements begun.
(His pen nib rests on the page, the full stop pooling more ink than is needed: he is too exhausted to write more.
If more is required, what would he say? That he cleaned and assembled the instruments of measurement.
With only a light wind off the Atlantic, the sappers yawning and grumbling, they ascended the highest peak of the island, where Tomás made his trig point.
The sappers had seabird-shooting competitions and discussed which island woman was the best-looking: the daughter of the blacksmith or the wife of the publican?)
Week 4: measurements and calculations.
(He is forced to seek out Enda and, if not apologise for treating her so brusquely, to make amends.
He finds her at the shore, knee-deep in a rockpool, helping with the gathering of cockles.
He cannot do this without a chainboy, he says to her, someone to help him with his calculations.
The sappers will never— But she cuts him off, with a grin, and says, what about a chaingirl?)
Week 5: measurements and calculations.
Week 6: measurements and calculations.
(Enda is suddenly nowhere to be found. Tomás searches the shore, the row of cabins, the pasture, the place where the women sit together, under a hedge, to knit. When he asks the islanders, they pretend not to understand him.)
Week 7: measurements and calculations.
Week 8: measurements and calculations.
Week 9: commencement of draft maps.
(The landlord has given the Office permission for them to use the factor’s house for this work, so Tomás has set himself up at the table here, and has begun the initial sketching.
He leaves the door open, for the air, and Enda passes by, one afternoon; she carries her fiddle under her arm.
Tomás hails her, waves her inside, and asks if she would clean his pens.
She refuses. Tomás tells her to clean his pens.
She shakes her head. Tomás informs Enda that she is to sit down on this here stool and do as he bids.
She smiles then steps out of the door, slamming it behind her.
Just like that. Tomás stares after her, open-mouthed.
There seem to be several people outside in the lane who greet her by name, and was it his imagination or did she talk to them in the island language?)
Week 10: draft mapping.
Week 11: draft mapping.
Week 12: draft mapping.
(Tomás has been told to knock on the door of the shepherd after dark: he wants to check the spellings and origins of some of the names of the island—the hills, the coves, the Viking stronghold—and one of the fishermen said he should come to the shepherd’s cabin, for the whole island gathered there of an evening.
He knocks, then steps inside. The interior is thick with smoke, candles spreading an oily yellow disc around themselves.
Islanders sit on the tables and chairs, on the floor, men and women, youngers held on knees or on shoulders.
Several dogs lie on their sides by the fire.
Someone puts a cup into Tomás’s hand; he doesn’t take a drink usually but feels to refuse would not be conducive to his purpose here.
The liquid blasts his mouth and gullet with a fiery heat.
Two young men shuffle up to give him a space on the bench, and he sits himself down, one hand on his knee.
From a corner of the room there is the sound of musicians.
There is a drum and a pipe or whistle. The tune is slow and lilting; an elderly woman near the fire is singing a chorus about flowers and a river.
When this tune comes to its close, Tomás decides, he will stand, he will make for the shepherd, who is sitting in a chair at the table, his head turned towards the music, and Tomás will get out his papers, explain to him, to everyone, what he is about, and ask them all to confirm the names of the hill, the stronghold, the coves.
Tomás clears his throat in readiness, takes a second sip of his drink, and as he does so the tune changes, all of a sudden, without pause, into one that is fast and wild; it is greeted with whooping and clapping, a few get up to dance, and Tomás sighs because now he’ll have to wait until this is over.
The musician this time is a woman with a heavy curtain of hair and she stands to play, stamping her feet, her body bent around her instrument, and everyone in the room stares at her, rapt, held in the net of her music.
Everyone, that is, except Tomás. He is looking around, deciding who are the best people to speak with, the ones least intoxicated, when the young man next to him leans over and says something in his ear.
What was that? Tomás asks, bending closer.
I said, says the man, she’s a rare one, is she not, your daughter?
Tomás is about to say, What would you know of my daughter, when he realises, he sees, that the woman playing, the woman with the heavy hair, is indeed Enda.
His daughter. The music in the room comes from her, her fiddle, her fingers, her bow.
Tomás gapes, split down the middle between shock and admiration.
His daughter: she has loosened out her plaits, she shakes her head as the tune gains speed, as the notes flood from her hands, and her hair shimmers and snakes in the candlelight, and her foot under her skirt stamps out the rhythm, and the children dance and the islanders drum their hands and call out their approval.
Tomás lurches to his feet, stumbles forward.
He wants to say, Stop; he wants to say, Where did you learn to play like that?
; he wants to say, What would your mother think, come with me now, come away from here.
Hands are grasping at him, pulling him back, and the young men on the bench are laughing, saying to him, Leave her, leave her be.
They push him to sit down between them, half gaolers, half companions, and they are saying to him that a couple on the island, a man and a woman, who are grand musicians, have taken Enda under their wing, have been teaching her every day, but he knew that, sure, didn’t he?
Tomás cannot speak, cannot take his eyes off Enda, the movement of her wild hair, the swan-like elegance of her bowing arm, the sweat that glows on her brow, and he thinks of what she said about wanting to travel beyond the edges of maps, to find out what was there, and he recognises in that moment that she has gone beyond the limits of his paternal reach, far beyond, that she will never again reside within it.)
Week 13: draft mapping, name checking.
Week 14: draft mapping, name checking.
Week 15: completion of draft mapping.