The Heather Blazing (16 page)

He lay on the bed in his clothes until he fell asleep. Niamh woke him when it was time for dinner. He had a shower and a change of clothes. Later, he sat on his own in the porch and watched the beams from the lighthouse crisscrossing the darkness.

They telephoned in the morning and were told that she
was still stable and could be visited for a short time. Niamh left the baby with Mrs. Murphy in the house above them on the lane and they drove to Wexford.

“I brought her a book,” Niamh said. “I know that she won't be able to read, but I thought it might be nice for her to have it beside the bed.”

They sat in the waiting room. The coffee-dispensing machine had spilled over and a woman was mopping up the floor. Neither of them spoke; Niamh went several times to ask the nurses if they could see Carmel, but she was told that they would have to wait. When the matron appeared he knew by her attitude that someone had found out that he was a judge. She led them along the corridor towards Carmel's ward. She told him that the consultant wanted to see him before he left.

There were only two beds in the darkened room; the other one was empty. He went in quietly while Niamh waited outside with the matron. He noticed the heat in the room and the pale skin of her arms.

“You're much better, Carmel,” he whispered. He was afraid to touch her. “You're going to be great.”

She began to mumble as though in a dream, as though she was deeply disturbed by something.

“I'm listening, I'm here, Carmel.”

The mumbling continued; he strained to make out what she was saying. It seemed to be a precise, definite question. She was asking him something. He listened again. Was I worse before? Was I with . . . But he could only guess that these were the words. He stayed still. He concentrated on her, on being with her, saying nothing, trying not to think.

When he went outside Niamh was waiting to go in. The matron told him that the consultant was ready now, in his office on the next floor. When he was finished with the consultant, she said, he could come back down to her office.

“Judge Redmond,” the consultant said and stood up from his desk.

“Is she going to pull through?” Eamon asked him when they had shaken hands.

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm going to send her to Dublin. She's still in trouble, but she must be very strong. There could be some damage, I'm not sure, but they'll know better up there. I would have had the ambulance earlier, except we're short-staffed, but she'll be going up in the next hour. Incidentally, are you insured for the Blackrock Clinic?”

“No,” Eamon said. “Should she go there?”

“I'm going to send her to Vincent's for the moment.”

“When you say damage what do you mean?”

“To be honest, there's a fair chance that her speech and her general mobility will be impaired. That's the best I can tell you.”

“And the worst?”

“She's stable for the moment anyway. As I say, she's very strong. Some people are.”

Eamon and Niamh drove in silence back to Cush, collected the baby, packed their things and set off for Dublin.

“Do you want me to drive?” Niamh asked.

“Maybe in a while; do you mind?”

“It's terrible to think of her on this road as well in an ambulance, isn't it?” Niamh said.

“She was doing too much. We should never have let her work so hard,” he said. “Do you want to come and stay at home?” he asked.

“Thanks, but I think I'll stay in the flat. There's a phone there.”

“You would be very welcome.”

“Thanks, but I think I'll stay in the flat.”

“What did Donal say?”

“He's in a terrible state.”

“I don't know what financial arrangements you have with your mother. She's in charge of all the money, but I'd like to keep it up, whatever it is.”

“I'm actually doing very well. I've worked out a new way of processing the polls, so I'm in demand. But thanks, all the same.”

When he reached home he telephoned St. Vincent's Hospital; the nurse on duty told him that Carmel was still stable and could be visited only by members of her immediate family. He could come at seven o'clock. He drove to the supermarket and bought a newspaper and some groceries. He sat in the car park for a while, not wanting to go home. He went in search of flowers and bought another newspaper before driving to the hospital and waiting in the car park until seven o'clock.

The nurse in charge took out her chart and looked at it.

“I don't know why they kept her in Wexford for so long,” she said. “We should have had her here immediately. We have her under observation.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“She has to be checked every few minutes. It could go one way or the other. We'll know in the next couple of days,” she said. “You're the judge, aren't you?” she added, as though it were an afterthought.

“Yes,” he said. “Can I go and sit with her?”

“She won't remember anything,” the nurse said.

“I'd like to sit beside her for a while.”

She was quiet; he did not know whether she was asleep or unconscious. Maybe she was drugged. She looked peaceful.

“Carmel, I'm here,” he whispered. “I'm here, I'm beside you.”

He could see the grey roots of her hair, and the light-coloured skin of her arm reminded him of her when she was younger. He was afraid to touch her, as though one small movement could damage her even more.

He drove home from the hospital and waited in the empty house in case the phone would ring. He made himself a sandwich and drank a few glasses of brandy. He hoped that he would be able to sleep. He was drawn back all the time to the scene in the Cathedral when he was young, his father standing up as though something had shot slowly through him. As the night drew on he did not turn on the light, but waited in the dark.

He could not remember how long he had stayed with his Aunt Kitty during his father's first illness. He remembered waiting for news and listening in case something was said, but he knew that if he asked he would be fobbed off. The wind, he remembered, for the first weeks was bitterly cold and the evenings were dark, and the house always seemed strange and alien. He could not wait to go home.

“I'm going to fail my Intercert if I don't study,” he said to his Aunt Kitty.

There was no secondary school nearby, only a technical school. She assured him that they studied English and Irish there as well, and he could do woodwork and mechanical drawing.

“I couldn't go to the technical school. They don't do Latin in the technical school.”

“And what good will Latin be to you?”

“You have to have Latin to get into university.”

He pictured the technical school in Enniscorthy and the boys who went there, many from cottages on the outskirts of
the town, others from rows of houses on the town's edges, boys he knew to see but had never spoken to. When they left school most of them would go to England. He did not want to go to the technical school, no matter how different his aunt assured him it was from the technical school in Enniscorthy.

She put a paraffin oil heater into the parlour for him and let him pile his books up on the table.

“You're a great scholar,” she said to him. “Your mother, God have mercy on her, was a great reader. She used to send to Dublin for books. We have a lot of books upstairs, your uncle's father bought them years ago at an auction. You can take any of them you want.”

For a few hours in the day the house was quiet. He went through the books upstairs and carried a few down to the parlour. He recognized the names of some of the authors. There was mildew on a few of the books and a damp smell, but no one had opened them for years and the print was still legible. One day when the fumes from the paraffin had made him drowsy and he could study no longer he picked one of them up and began to read the opening page. He was puzzled by it, the unfamiliar was being described in too much detail. But he carried on, until he found a story to follow and learned how to skip the descriptive passages. He became engrossed in the story, the side plots and the cast of characters. Thereafter, he spent more time in the parlour reading the novels than studying his own texts.

When his cousins came home from school he had to do the farm work with them. He hated leaving his warm room and the intricate stories of the novels, but his aunt insisted that he must. He hated putting on Wellington boots and wading through the thick muck of the haggard. His two cousins took it for granted and had a keen interest in prices at the market and the cost of animal feed. They could not believe that he wanted to go to university. They wanted to leave school as soon as they could and make money for themselves.

After tea in the evening he played cards; he taught his three older cousins to play solo. They understood trumps because they had played twenty-five with their father, and soon they knew the rules of solo. They played at the kitchen table, as his aunt had ruled that only Eamon could use the parlour. The game was constantly interrupted by workmen and cattle dealers. His cousins began to play solo with as much skill and concentration as he did, and his aunt and uncle, after a few desultory attempts to join in the game, left them alone until it was bedtime, and then there was always trouble over how many more games could be played before the final chores of the evening and bed.

When the lambing season came the house changed: the boys could be woken at any time in the night and told to come and help. They did not go to school, but spent the day with the weaker lambs, or cleaning out sheds. Eamon stood shivering in the barn, watching the lambs, weak and slimy in the dim electric light. They were so small and frail, but within a day or two they were strong enough to be left in the fields with the sheep.

The days were getting longer; he noticed the pale light in the evening sky, but there was still no news. His presence was explained in the same way to anyone who came to the house: his Daddy was in hospital up in Dublin and he was here until his Daddy came home. And some other comment would be added like, “he's after turning this house into a real card school” or “he's a great scholar” or “we'll make a farmer out of him yet.”

Jimmy Walsh often called into his aunt and uncle's house; he had a cup of tea and talked about prices and neighbours and football matches. He told Eamon that he could come any time to try out the horse which Jimmy kept in a stable.

“There's still great go in her,” Jimmy said as he looked up at Eamon and narrowed his eyes. “A bit of fresh air would do you good.”

*  *  *

It was a long walk to Walsh's; the first afternoon he went there he thought that he had missed the turning. It took him almost an hour to reach the wooden ledge with the three milk churns he had been told about, and half an hour to walk down the lane, being careful to close each gate behind him, as he had been instructed to do. The house, when he came to it, looked desolate and damp. He went to the front door and rapped with his knuckles and then with his fist, but there was no sign of life. A sheepdog appeared and barked at him. When the dog came closer he patted its head. The dog wagged its tail and followed him as he went around to the back of the house. As he turned the corner the kitchen door opened and a girl a few years older than himself appeared. She was wearing an apron.

“Mr. Walsh said I was to have a try on the horse,” he said.

“I'm Anne,” she said and clipped her hair back. “I thought that you'd be younger.”

“I'm Eamon,” he said.

“What age are you?” she asked.

“I'm fourteen.”

“You look older. My uncle said that I was to saddle the horse for you and show you the ropes. He said that you were to have a cup of tea first.”

“Is Mr. Walsh your uncle?”

“Yes. I come down here every day and do for him.”

The kitchen was bare and cold. He sat at the table while she made tea.

“Do you have many brothers and sisters?” she asked.

“No. I'm an only child.”

“I have ten,” she said. “You can't hear yourself talking in the house. It's great down here.”

She put some soda bread and butter on the table, and sat with her elbows on the table.

“Is your father sick?” she asked.

“He had a turn.”

“And where's your mother?”

“She's dead,” he said and looked down.

“When did she die?”

“She died when I was a baby.”

“So there was just you and your father? What was it like with just the two of you?”

He hesitated. He did not know how to answer, but she continued to look at him without speaking, waiting for him to say something.

“I don't know,” he said. “It was all right, I suppose.”

“You must miss your father now,” she said as she came back with the teapot and cups.

“Yes, I do,” he said and smiled at her as she watched him from across the table. It was the first time anyone had asked him about his father. He wanted to say something else. She poured the tea.

“I was with him in the cathedral when he had the turn. I was very frightened.”

She took off her apron and wiped her hands with a cloth. They walked out to an outhouse where the saddle was kept on a wide shelf beside the door. She told him to gather it up, and as he turned he noticed her breasts under her woollen pullover. He caught her eye as he averted his glance.

She opened a gate which led into a field full of thistles and closed the gate behind her. She was wearing a pleated tartan skirt. He noticed her waist, how slim she was. He liked the way she walked and her confidence as she spoke.

“You'd want to be careful,” she said, as they approached the horse in the adjoining field. “You could fall off and break your neck. The last man on this mare had a terrible fall,” she laughed. “Don't mind me. I'm only joking. You looked so afraid.”