The Miracle Man (2 page)

“Hmph, it’s a wonder you’ve got any room for it. Ye’ll do yourself no good at that drinking, I’m tellin’ ye. I remember the day, John McGhee – when you were about nineteen or twenty – and not half a mile from here you took the pledge.”

“So I did, Lizzie, so I did. Haven’t ye the marvellous memory. And I swear t’God, only this leg wasn’t making my
life a living hell, I’d be off the drink to this day, so I would. Not a drop would pass my lips, I swear to God.”

Mrs Megarrity gave a dismissive toss of her head. She’d heard it all before, and in a hundred variations.

“That’ll be right. You’d probably take it intervenus.”

“What’s one of them, Lizzie?”

“Those things that go straight into your veins.” When Limpy still looked puzzled, she offered, “Like them optics in the bar, with a tube coming out the bottom.”

For a moment his eyes glazed over as he contemplated this wonder of modern science.

“Jeez, ye’d need some kind of brain on ye to think that one up. D’ye think would it work?”

Pulling him back onto the well-charted course, his sister said, “How much’re ye after this time?”

Limpy looked hurt. She had seen that before, too.

“God forgive ye, Lizzie Megarrity. I come in here to see how my wee sister is, see if there’s anything ye want fetchin’ from the shop, and all you think is I’m after yer money. I don’t know, ye try and do somebody a good turn, and all ye get’s dog’s abuse. What’s new.”

On cue, he turned towards the door. And on cue, she said,

“How much?”

The old man shrugged and shuffled his feet in a show of reluctance at the largesse that was about to be pressed upon him.

“If ye could see your way to lending me – a tenner – I think – ”

“A tenner?” The Winter cook almost shouted. “Good God Almighty d’ye think I’m the Queen o’ Sheba or what?” At which point in history the Queen of Sheba became famous for having a spare tenner in her purse, the Winter Cook neither knew nor cared.

“Did I say a tenner? Sure, ye know I meant a fiver. Ah, there’s
old age for ye, Lizzie. The brain’s gone entirely. God knows, I’ll hardly be long for this earth.” His chest became concave and he gave a racking cough that would surely have been enough to summon any undertaker within earshot. Mrs Megarrity went to a drawer and roughly pulled it open, taking from it a battered purse from which she extracted a five-pound note.

“I’ll pay ye back, mind,” Limpy choked out the words. “I’ll pay ye back, for sure.”

“When? When ye find a crock of gold? I wouldn’t need to be desperate. Here,” Mrs Megarrity said, thrusting the note at Limpy, “I suppose it’ll be in McAllister’s till before ye can say ‘Same again’. I don’t know, I’m more stupider than you that gives it to ye.”

The fiver swiftly disappeared into Limpy’s jacket pocket, so that he might better explain his case with two free hands.

“Ah now Lizzie, don’t be saying that. This here donation – gratefully received – it’ll be used to buy grub. Build up my strength again.” As he was seized by another paroxysm of coughing, his whole frame seemed to sag and he caught hold of the table for support. Speechless for a moment, his breath coming in short gasps, he shook his head in near despair at the parlous state of his health. The Winter Cook’s face clouded as she looked at her brother intently.

“You all right, John? Dammit, haven’t I told you before to eat proper?” She gave a snort. “Ye’ve never grew up, have ye?” She went to the refrigerator and brought out a plate with a large piece of cheese on it. Then she cut the cheese in half, wrapping one piece in greaseproof paper.

“Here, take that with ye,” she said. “I can’t give ye nothing else just now. That bloody McAllister’s poking into everything, so he is. He’ll be counting the sugar lumps next.”

“Ah, God love ye. Ye always did look after yer big brother.” He put the cheese inside his jacket. “Listen, Lizzie, I was wanting yer advice on something. To do with money.”

“I haven’t got one penny piece more to give ye. Ye’ve had all – ”

“No, no, ye’ve been more than kind. More than. It’s this. I thought that, seeing as how old Quinn has died and left that bit of land my wee house is on to young Nancy, maybe this could be a good time to ask her for a reduction in my rent. She’ll maybe be a softer touch than the old fella was.”

“Well, it’s not as if your rent’s very high now.”

“Always worth a try, I say.”

“Ye know what them Quinn’s is like as well as me, John. They’d wrestle a ghost for a ha’penny. But she could hardly be tighter than that old bugger was. Ye’ve got nothing to lose, I suppose.”

“Right,” Limpy said, “I’ll call round and see her. Give her a bit of my charm, ye know?” He winked at his sister and gave a crooked smile that showed his brown-stained teeth.

“Get away off with ye,” she said, and gave him a playful slap on the shoulder, “before I change my mind about that fiver.”

“Thanks, Lizzie. I won’t forget it,” Limpy said and quietly slipped out the back door, closing it gently behind him. From a pocket beneath her apron, the Winter Cook drew out a quarter bottle of whiskey and uncorked it.

“I’m sure ye won’t, for you always know where to come back for more.” She put the top of the bottle to her lips and took a long drink.

Outside, Limpy looked around before making his way across the yard and through the gap in the wall. He seemed happier now, with a broad smile on his face and a certain swagger in his limping walk. His health, it seemed, had dramatically improved.

“Knock and it shall be opened unto ye,” he said aloud. “Ask for a tenner and ye shall receive a fiver. Thus saith the Lord.”
A little further along the lane that ran behind the hotel, he drew out the little parcel from inside his jacket. Weighing it in his hand, he said, “Bloody cheese,” and threw it high over the hedge.

It had been a wet spring that year in the Glens of Antrim, and the village of Inisbreen and the surrounding countryside had seen the steady rains of March and April saturate the high bogland and send torrents of water cascading down the steep hillsides, through deep gullies over-arched with bracken, fern and hazel. The small river which ran the length of the valley floor, at one point taking the middle ground through broad, flat meadows, then crossing to reach the sea beside the village, was frequently gorged with brown peaty water that drew a dark trail across the green expanse of the sea water in the bay. With the flood had come its usual casualties, the low branches of riverside trees festooned with uprooted vegetation, blackfaced sheep swept from the slopes and floating downstream with their distended bellies uppermost, along with a procession of wooden boxes, planks and other assorted debris.

Under the bridge at the village there had come floating one afternoon a woman’s nightdress, spread out on top of the water and rippling seductively in the waves, as if worn by a river siren who was beckoning to the men who watched its progress from above. As they observed its approach there was speculation amongst them as to whom its former owner might be and the circumstances of her disrobement, with someone suggesting it was a signal and that she could even then be observing them from some riverside haunt, naked and awaiting their attentions. There was even talk from some of a search party, with declarations of intent more appropriate to the search for the source of the Nile. And then Seamus McAvoy, a man who had once given serious consideration to
working for a living and who had managed to last six weeks as a haberdasher’s assistant, gave it as his considered opinion that the size of the nightdress was at the very least Extra Large and that its former owner would therefore have been of such a build and temperament as to require the attentions of a man with the power and stamina of a prize bull. After this, the men’s interest in the nether garment faded with its rapid passage towards the mouth of the river and thence to the sea, where a being of more mythical proportions, they fancied, might take up the challenge that it offered.

Now the days of driving sleet, of torrential rain or grey mist creeping down the hillsides had gone, and the sun probed its warm fingers into wooded crevices and rocky fissures that had lain dark all winter. On the slopes above the valley, heather and bog cotton put on new growth and high above them the skylark sang of them and of the growing lambs and the black turf banks. The sheep lay on the warming grass and on the road, their starkly stupid faces turned towards the North Channel with the Scottish hills beyond, ranging in colour with their proximity, from dull green and brown to a faded purple, from the near to the far distance. Here and there, at the side of the winding, rutted tracks that led off the road and into the bog, stood turf stacks depleted from winter usage, like the ruins of some ancient clachan. Curlews called across this treeless landscape and snipe flew zigzag to hidden nests among the tiny pools.

From the topmost hills could be seen the whole valley, from the steep-sided upper slopes where the viaduct bridge crossed, past the plantation of oak and sycamore, the chapel and graveyard held in the crook of the river’s arm, to the broad strand and sandy crescent bay. At one end of the bay stood the village, its main street continuing over the bridge and making a sharp right turn to climb the hill above the river. To the left, a
road ran down by the side of the river and in front of the Glens Hotel, petering out a few hundred yards farther on where a tumble of rocks was washed by the sea. The yellow-painted front of the hotel – with the name picked out in brown Gaelic-style letters – looked across the bay, the building’s ancient bulk seeming to have settled back into the hill behind it at a slight tilt, an old boy with his hat at a rakish angle, someone had said. And like an old hand too, it had been around and seen a few things in it’s time and it’s past was a little mysterious. Some said it had once been a ropeworks and others a warehouse to store the produce wrested from the land and the mouths of Irishmen for shipment to the groaning tables of mainland landlords. A retired schoolteacher – and self-appointed chronicler of local history – had even claimed evidence of a meeting between Charles Stewart Parnell and a Prussian count to plan a German invasion of Ireland, but this story was dismissed by locals on the grounds that the schoolteacher’s brother, as the owner of a nearby taxi business, had a vested interest in the tourist trade. In any event, the small, sleepy-eyed windows and heavy oak door of the Glens Hotel were giving no clue as to its past life.

The hotel’s tourist business was highly seasonal, running from the beginning of June to the end of September at best and was largely comprised of expatriate families on a two-week break from mainland cities, as well as the odd – sometimes very odd – American, French or German couple on an overnight stop during a tour of the North coast. There were a few permanent residents in the hotel – three to be precise – and they had something of a second-class status, guests who were tolerated rather than attended, serviced rather than served. Dermot McAllister had tried in a number of ways to increase the off-season business of the hotel, but to little avail. He had advertised weekend breaks for two with a champagne breakfast and fishing holidays with warming alcoholic
beverages supplied. He had even considered bringing in busloads of men for an evening meal and strip show at an all-inclusive price, but he had a wife to reckon with, the formidable Agnes, and an eight-year-old son who somehow, sure as hell, would have managed to sneak into the proceedings. And of course there would be the clergy to contend with. The trouble was that Dermot, first and foremost, was a man of the land, more at home climbing steep acres after sheep than bowing and scraping to people who, having paid his modest prices for a fortnight’s full board, appeared to think that they had bought the hotel and could therefore enjoy certain rights in perpetuity.

Like the people of the glens, being of the land, Dermot had its scale of time upon him, a reckoning that dictated that things happened in days or weeks but never in minutes or hours. Nothing was so urgent that it could not wait until a few words were exchanged with a neighbour or a final drink was taken to keep the previous ones company. Time was marked by the passage of the seasons, by sowings and lambings and harvestings, and not by the three o’clock bus to Ballymane or the school bell that drew reluctant children to the rigours of grammar and arithmetic. And being a man of the land, Dermot had always been interested in acquiring as much of it as possible. Boggy tracts high on the mountain or the broad and lusher pastures of the valley, land was the only truly worthwhile possession. It gave a man status and power and a sense of belonging. So when Dermot had heard that the young piano teacher Nancy Quinn had inherited a few acres next to some of his own land, naturally he was interested. While she was still considering whether or not to let him buy the land, he had started an affair with her which, he fancied, would go some considerable way in compensation if she decided not to sell. If he could manage to enjoy the benefits not only of the land but also of its current owner, he would
be a happy man. Until, that is, another piece of land became of interest to him, or the flick of a different skirt caught his eye.

From his armchair by the window of the Glens Hotel sitting-room, Mr Pointerly looked out at the river, placid beneath the calm evening sky, then above and beyond it to the green-marled waters of the bay. The scene could have been from last year, he thought, or half a century ago. Nothing much seemed to change. Oh, they had built a few houses at the back of the village – ugly, black and white things that looked more like police barracks than domestic accommodation – but that was all. And neither had he changed. Older, of course – who wasn’t? Yet he still walked out every day to his haunts of six decades, and his mind was as active and sharp as ever. Well, perhaps a little misty at the edges. Only to be expected when you were getting on a bit. “Blessed with a poor memory,” he would say, and “Selective forgetfulness”. Slowly the memories came drifting back to him of warm summer days on the strand with Celia and Mother in her straw hat that was almost the colour of her hair, of afternoons beneath the shade of the wild rhododendrons, those that Seumas the gardener was always going to “blast the buggers out with dynermite”. That was where his and Celia’s hide-out had been, where they had laid their plans to ambush some passing tribe of Red Indians. But the Red Indians had never come. Now, if he cared to speak her name, lifted his head and said clearly, “Celia!”, she would answer him from the rhododendron bushes. It was possible. Anything was possible. He had his dreams, always had done. Dreams in the past that his parents would understand him, dreams of the present that some day he would turn and there before him would be . . . well, he had his dreams. So many of them had gone over the years, ground away to nothing by the cruel abrasion of time, or dashed from his hands with a laugh
of derision. Like the grains of sand on the beach, he decided, in a flood of self-pity. If only they could have understood him, made some kind of effort. But they had never even tried.