The Healing (17 page)

He set off again, feeling bold enough to increase his speed. All around him were other young people, many of them dressed in fluorescent colours, some of them experienced skaters, but also many no more competent than himself. Sometimes people stumbled or fell across his path and he had to glide round them. He had almost got the hang of turning and was beginning to understand how to use his body when he wanted to veer from a straight line. As he poured himself into his forward motion he thought of the home they had left and the places where he
had grown up, and for some reason he did not understand, he thought of the swallows – dark spurts of speed stitching the sky, the swallows that came back every summer and relined their nests under the eaves. They would have gone by now, leaving behind their secret nests for another year. He thought, too, of the hedgerows and the lanes where he had strolled, stick in hand, beheading tall weeds; of the dam built in the stream – a barrier of mud and stone, and the suds of scum on the top of the water, white, like hawthorn.

He glided on, pushing himself deeper into the rhythm. His mother was right – they did not belong in Belfast. Perhaps what the old man had said about the sickness was true. Maybe there was a sickness spreading to more people every day, spreading until it covered everywhere, just like the spider writing covered every surface, and maybe if they stayed here much longer they too would be infected. He remembered the night he had seen the fires, and as he followed the cold scratches of the ice, he imagined a great fire being built and lit in the darkness, so big that no one could put it out or stop it consuming everything which crossed its path.

It would not be easy going back, and he remembered the frieze of faces which had lurked in the walls of his room and the whispering voices which wound their tightening grip round the trembling silences of the house. It would not be easy, but he thought, too, of his father's grave in the church cemetery and it seemed solitary and lonely. The flowers would be withered now, blown everywhere by the wind; it felt as though they had somehow deserted him, had been only thinking of themselves. He knew, too,
that if they stayed in the city something bad would happen to their lives. He did not know how it would end, but each day that went by loosened his mother's hold on things and she grew, not stronger, but more fragile. Maybe it was the sickness. With a sudden quiver of fear he wondered if it had already infected them. He looked up and all about him he could hear the music and laughter spurring on the whirl of skaters. There were so many people and all of them strangers in his life. Some of them skated arm-in-arm, others formed chains, but no one linked with him or touched him as they passed. He looked over to where his mother was sitting and for a second felt a tight press of panic when he could not see her. As he searched the rows of seats his concentration faltered and he almost slipped, but regained his balance just as he spotted her. She had moved away for a few moments to buy some drinks. She beckoned him over with her hand and he put his arms out in front of him to act as brakes. When he sat down his legs felt funny, the same way they did when he dismounted from a bicycle after cycling hard. She handed him the drink and he cupped it in his hands and sipped it slowly.

‘I know the day we set out for Belfast I told you it was for the best, so I suppose you don't have much confidence in my judgement any more, but the more I think about it, the more I feel it was wrong for us. Your uncle says they're building nice new bungalows just outside the village, and they're not so big that we'd rattle around inside them like two peas in a pod.'

Out on the ice a girl did an elaborate spin, ravelling and unravelling herself with effortless ease.

‘I wish you were able to tell me what you think, Samuel. I want to do what's best for you and I know you'll tell me everything in your own time, but it's hard deciding these things by myself. I suppose I'm used to making important decisions with your father, so it feels strange now to have to do it on my own. But a lot of things feel strange now. Maybe if we went home it would be a help to you, Samuel. Maybe things would get better for you more quickly.'

He took her hand and led her towards the ice. She was reluctant at first, claiming that she was no good at it, but when he insisted she went with him. They set off slowly, hand in hand, his mother taking small diffident steps, almost as if she was attempting to walk across the ice, and he could feel the tightness of her grip as she held onto him for support. Once, she wobbled and he thought for a second that she was going to fall, but they clutched each other and found a faltering balance before setting off again. She began to smile and relax a little as they circled the rink.

‘This reminds me of the day your aunt and I won the three-legged race at Portrush. Only I think we must've been moving a bit faster than this.'

A man and his young daughter – she couldn't have been more than five or six years old – skated past and smiled at them.

‘Some people make it look so easy they'd put you to shame, and yet to look at me now you wouldn't think that I'd done this before. We went skating a couple of times up in the King's Hall in the old days. It was all the go for a while.'

When they completed a circuit she felt she had done enough and made her way to the seats, but she insisted that he should keep going for another while. He watched her as she went to return her skates and when she was out of sight he set off again. Somewhere deep inside himself he felt a tiny tremor of happiness as he locked himself into the rhythm once more, and deliberately he gave himself up to it, pushing with the pulse of his being, letting his spirits glide. It tasted cold and sweet as his blades carved a fine tracery of crystal and all about him the ice sparkled with diamond scratches. Everyone faded out of his consciousness and he felt like a tiny stone skimming the white-crested waves, never pausing long enough to sink below the water. Pushing and gliding, propelling himself forward in a perfect rhythm, never stumbling or losing his balance, using his arms to drive himself on. He made himself think of the good things that had happened in his life, polishing them in his memory like a stone found on the beach. Scoring them into the ice, a tumble of bright images garlanding his head like blossom – the tractor lights shooting moth-filled spears of light into the darkness; the house decorated with Christmas holly his mother had cut from the back hedge; sledging in the big field in winter snow. Maybe it could be like this, maybe he did not have to find another world to live in if he could spark his own momentum which would carry him forward, skimming over the shimmering surface of his life, never pausing long enough for the clutching hands to fasten onto him. Just maybe, he could score his own good memories deep enough to block the sound of his screams, silence the whispering voices.

He felt a tiny bud of hope open in his heart – he could go wherever his mother wanted, support her in the days ahead. He started to skate faster still, but just at that moment he was aware of something happening on the far side of the rink. People were suddenly falling and tripping over each other, some laughing, others shouting angrily, and, as if in his worst dreams, a dark figure, arms flapping like the wings of a black crow, was stumbling towards him. It called him by name as it fell to the ice, scrambled upright again and lurched towards him once more.

His feet slithered from beneath him and the ice burnt the palms of his hands as he tried to push himself up again. He scrambled up as more people tripped over the sprawling bodies which littered his wake. White frosted crystals starred his black coat and damp circles darkened on his knees as he stumbled on shakily. People were shouting at him but he raised his voice above the clamour and called to the boy, stretching out his arms in invitation, calling his name as laughter and anger surged all around him. Across the ice the boy's pale moon face was frozen into stillness, his red hair a burning halo of holiness. And then, as his feet slipped once more from below him, he felt hands grabbing him and pulling him to his feet, forcing him away from the boy and off the ice. The harder he struggled, the firmer the hands gripped him, and when he sagged they pulled him back to his feet and bundled him forward.

They carried him into an office and pushed him into a seat. Some of them were smiling at him while others standing behind his back joked to each other. They were
young men about the same age as his own son and in their faces he saw that they too were blinded by their sin. He knew he could not make them understand, knew that none of his words would reach them, that their only hope now was to look in faith at the serpent of brass which God was going to raise up.

A man in a suit arrived and asked him questions but he answered none of them and when the young men laughed to each other and called him ‘Grandpa' he still said nothing. The man in the suit talked about calling the police but eventually said he would let him off with a warning. As he looked around at the mocking faces he felt no bitterness, only a well of sympathy for these young men whose hearts had been hardened and who marched blindly onwards, oblivious to their coming fate. One of them patted him on the back and brushed his coat a little, then two of them took him by his arms and led him to an exit, opening the door and guiding him down the steps before releasing him. As he looked up at the neon signs on the front of the building they dazzled his eyes.

‘Next time you want to go on the ice, Grandpa, hire a pair of skates.'

He stood listening as their laughter disappeared inside the building. Around him the night shook with an immediancy which disturbed him – the high wail of voices, the lights of arriving cars, crowds of rushing people. He pushed past them, searching for some silent, shadowy respite and as he set off into the falling darkness, his hand fingered the blade of the knife nestling in his pocket and his fingers explored its sharp coldness. It felt beautiful to his touch, colder than the ice, sharper than any human truth.

Into his memory flickered an image of his wife's cavernous face, her sunken eyes deep pools of suffering and the brittle coils of grey wreathed on the pillow, and he saw clearly what he had to do. He thought of Sean Hughes, of John Connolly, a man with a white spray in his lapel, of Anthony McCallan and the winding cavalcade of taxis. He thought of Francis Bradley, perhaps at that very moment living his life, talking to his wife, touching his children, unaware that his name had been called, added to a list by people he would never know, people he would see only once. All across the city that summer the beating of the dark angel's wings, moving through the narrow streets and white-walled estates, stopping at doors which had been singled out by men with no faces. Lintels smeared with blood.

As the falling dusk thickened about him he walked steadily until he reached a main road and caught a bus towards the city centre, and then another which took him home. As he climbed the roads up to his house he had to stop at regular intervals to regain his breath. He felt more weary now than he had ever done in his whole life. Above him the night sky was a dark net stretched taut, shivering stars trapped in the mesh. The house was silent; the curtains of his son's room were still open and the grey square of glass stared blindly down at him. As he opened the gate he caught the scent of stock and white alyssum glistened like patches of frost. He walked down the side of the house, pushed open the unlocked door, and stood listening, his head raised and alert. A droplet of water dripped into the sink and somewhere pipes stretched a little, but the house hunched over him, an empty husk
of a home. It frightened him a little and he felt only hostility in the things that should have been familiar and reassuring. He avoided touching anything, pulling his coat tightly about him so that he did not brush anything as he passed.

In the living-room the fire was out, and the ledgers still squatted on the table. He could not bring himself to put on the lights, but stood motionless until his eyes grew accustomed to the greyness. He forced himself to climb the stairs, each step a battle against his will, taking him closer to a confirmation of something which even at this final hour he hoped might still be taken from him. On the landing grey swirls of light ebbed and flowed about him and the open door of his son's room signalled him forward.

It had not been a dream. All around him were still strewn the clothes and possessions he had scattered a few hours earlier. They lay in heaped piles at his feet while opened drawers sagged into the space below them. His eyes picked out the blue envelopes lying beside the wooden box and then he saw the photograph. He sat down on the edge of the bed and held it close to his face. He could remember it now. The camera had been borrowed from someone at work. It had been that first Christmas. The boy was only six months old and round the tiny silver tree were the presents she had wrapped for him. He had teased her about the care with which she had wrapped them when she knew the child was too young to open them and she would have to undo all her own careful work. So much happiness, so many hopes and dreams all bound together in the little photograph. Where had it all
gone? He stared into the faces. Was there always some tare in the wheat, some seed of corruption present even in that very moment? Had it always been there, growing steadily and stealthily, unperceived because he did not want to see it or acknowledge its existence? He slipped the photograph into the pocket of his coat and went down the stairs.

Outside, the night air had grown colder and the sky looked like a net that might fall at any moment. On his way to the garage he glanced up at the boy's house but there were no lights on. The unlocked door of the garage opened noiselessly and he stared into the darkness for a second before he went in, carefully closing the door behind him. As he approached the secret place he knew already that nothing had been touched. He looked around at the things which had once played some part in his life but were now decaying in damp corners, forgotten about. He moved around, his feet shuffling noiselessly across the carpet, touching things with a vague curiosity as if trying to recapture some lost meaning. Then, finding the best place he began to move objects, making a little path into the corner of the garage's back wall. He lifted the wooden chair and sat down on it in the cleared space, his head resting against an old bookcase which was now used to store tins of nails and screws. Then gradually the disturbance which his movements had created died away, and the stillness engulfed him and blended him with the webbed world of silence. He could smell the rotting grass which clogged the roller of the mower and lined the crevices of the grassbox, and then slowly his eyes closed and he slipped into a shallow sleep.