The Heather Blazing (19 page)

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The lane was muddy with the previous week's rain. He had to walk on the verge to avoid the mud, and even then he was afraid of slipping. It was cold as well as windy and he knew now that taking his towel and togs had been a mistake. He put the togs into his jacket pocket and the towel around his shoulders. When he came to the turn in the lane he looked over the cliff: the sea was rough, each wave as it broke released huge choppy sheets of foam. It was the beginning of the winter sea. He walked down to the strand.

He wondered if the tide was turning as he picked up a flat stone and tried to skim it along the water but it was too rough. He searched for another flat stone but he could not find one. As he walked along he listened to the sound of the stones knocking against each other on the shore each time a wave swept in over them. It was a harder sound now, more brittle and hollow than on calmer days in the summer.

As he went towards Ballyconnigar he watched the waves twenty yards out pouring over each other as though boiling. He began picking up stones and throwing them into the rushing water and listening to the shrill sounds of the gulls heading out to sea. He was enjoying the day, regretting that
he had not come down earlier, but knowing that he could not leave Carmel too long by herself.

He wondered what would happen if he swam out now into the sea, how strong the currents were and how hard it might be to fight against the tide going out. The cliffs along here had taken a battering, he noticed. Huge boulders made of hard mud and stone were lying on the strand. Small clumps of clay and a tight film of sand were being blown down the cliff-face as well, even now, as he walked along.

When he came to Keating's he saw that the sheds had fallen down the cliff. This must have happened, he thought, during the previous week. The last time he was here they had been in place, but now the red galvanized material was hanging down over the edge, and bits of the walls were lying on the shore where they would not last long. He could see that two sides of the old shed had been left standing, waiting to be toppled over in a night of strong wind. He realized that this was the first building to go since Mike's house.

He turned back. The wind was still strong and a light drizzle was starting up. He put the towel over his head. The sea was the colour of steel under the grey sky. He walked as fast as he could against the wind. The drizzle turned to rain as he moved along, and then eased off again, but he knew that it would be a wet evening, and was glad of the fire at home and the television. If he were in Dublin now, he thought, he would be getting ready to brave the traffic and make his way home from the courts.

He made his way up the gap, holding on to weeds and clusters of grass to keep his balance. It was raining hard now, and he thought that he would have to have a hot shower when he got in. When he turned in the lane he stopped for a second, startled as he saw Carmel coming towards him with a coat over her head, moving much too fast, her limp heavy and pronounced.

“It's all right,” he shouted towards her. “I'm coming.”

As he drew nearer he could see that she was crying, her face distorted as she tried to shout something to him. She stopped and put the raincoat around her shoulders, letting her hair get wet. He could see that she was still crying.

“What's wrong?” he asked when he reached her, but she did not reply. They turned and walked together towards the house, his arm around her. She was almost choking with tears, desperately clinging on to him.

“You're all right, love,” he said. “You'll be fine when we get inside.” She tried to speak again, but began to cry even harder. As they reached the gate, the rain started to pour down. He grappled in his pocket for the key. Once inside, he felt the house was strangely cold and uncomforting.

As soon as they stood together in the living room he knew that she had soiled herself. After her sister left, she told him slowly between gasps of tears, she had gone down to look for him, even though it was raining, and just before he came around the corner, when she was thinking of turning back she had lost control over her bowels. She started to cry again and he had to hold her.

They went into the bathroom where he let the hot water run in the bath. He emptied a bucket in the kitchen and rinsed it out. When he came back into the bathroom Carmel was standing facing away from him, resting her arms against the wall. He put Parazone into the bucket and filled it up with hot water. He held her as she continued to sniffle.

“You'll be all right,” he said.

He took off her coat and hung it on the back of the door. He knelt down and took off her shoes. The faeces had run down her legs. He tried not to smell, tried instead to concentrate on taking down her tights and her pants. He went into the kitchen with her pants and her tights and put them into the black plastic rubbish bag beside the door.

The bathroom was now filling up with steam. He put Radox in the bath in an effort to kill the smell. He felt the
water to make sure it was not too hot for her. She was still standing, leaning against the wall. He opened the buttons at the back of her dress, and she slipped out of it.

“You can leave me now,” she said. “I'll be okay.”

“No, I'll stay,” he said.

He helped her out of her slip and then opened her brassière at the back so that she was completely naked. Her breasts hung white and heavy. He helped her into the bath which was now filled up with suds. He took his watch off and then his jacket and shirt, and he switched on the electric heater.

“Lie down and relax,” he said. “I'm going into the bedroom to put on the electric blanket for you.”

He could still smell the faeces when he came back to the bathroom. He did everything he could to resist a sudden urge to get sick. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe through his nose. He took a bar of soap from the wash-handbasin and put it under the water, letting it soften as he ran it along her body. He made her turn on her side and he ran it down her back and between her buttocks. He rubbed her with a cloth and with his hand until he was sure that she was clean. She was quiet now, with her eyes closed. He soaped her legs, and ran the cloth along her belly and under her breasts. The water was dirty, and he pulled the plug out to let it drain. He turned the switch to the shower and tested the water again to make sure that it was not too hot. Carmel was still lying with her eyes closed. He ran the shower down her body, making her turn as the water drained off her and running the soap down her back and between her buttocks again and then washing it off.

He went to the hot press and got several large towels. He put a chair for her beside the bath. There were still flecks of faeces on the floor and on her shoes, but the smell had gone. He put her dress and slip into the bucket and began to dry her. She held her hands over her breasts and shivered. He went to the bedroom and fetched her nightdress and her dressing-gown.

“We'll move the television into the bedroom and watch the news,” he said.

He turned the heater on in the bedroom. When he came back she was sitting on the chair with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” he asked. “Maybe I should make tea.”

She said nothing and did not move. He wondered if he should telephone her sister or the hospital.

“Are you sick?” he asked.

She said nothing. He went into the bedroom and came back with slippers for her. She stood up and let him help her put on her nightdress. He had put on his own dressing-gown and he stood there holding her, but she would not speak and soon by her shaking he knew that she was crying again.

She made no sound. They went into the bedroom together and lay down on the bed. After a while she turned away from him as though she wanted to sleep. He turned the bedside lamp on and switched off the main light. The room was becoming warm. He went out to get the pile of books he had bought. He did not know which one he would read. She was quiet now, but she was not asleep, her eyes were wide open. He thought that she was about to have another stroke, and he wondered if he should put her into the car now and take her to Wexford, or at least get a doctor. He put his hand on her waist and asked her what he should do.

“I'm all right. I'm going to sleep now,” she said.

He covered her with blankets and lay on the bed beside her, flicking through the pages of one of the novels, trying to remember if he had read it before. She turned in the bed and faced him.

“I feel I don't know you at all,” she said. Her speech was slurred, even more than usual, but he had no difficulty understanding what she said.

“You've always been so distant, so far away from everybody.
It is so hard to know you, you let me see so little of you. I watch you sometimes and wonder if you will ever let any of us know you.”

“I'm trying to help you all day,” he said.

“You don't love me.” She put her arms around him. “You don't love any of us.”

“Carmel, I do, I do love you.”

“Years ago I tried to tell you about my father and my mother and how much they fought and argued when I was a child, and how much he drank, and no matter what he did how much we preferred him to her, and how handsome I thought he was. Eamon, are you listening to me? Already you are thinking about something else.”

“That's not fair,” he said.

“So I always try and do what will make other people happy. I avoid trouble. Eamon, please pay attention to me now. We talked about this years ago, I don't know if you remember. I still feel that we are not close to each other. I am sorry that I am boring you.”

“You're not boring me,” he said.

“You sound bored. It is one of the things that you have learned to do over the years.”

“I'm still worried about you. Should we ring the doctor?”

“Maybe I'm the one who's cold. Maybe I made you like that. Can you understand me? Maybe we looked for each other and found a match, each of us.”

“Why are you talking like this?” he asked her.

“I have had this conversation in my mind so many times over the past few months. But when I imagined it, I saw you speaking too, but you won't.”

“It's too sudden, and I'm not sure you're well.”

“We have all night to talk,” she said.

“You sound so strange,” he said.

“I used to love that, how reserved you were, but I know now that it was wrong of me to want you like that.”

Half the time her voice was perfect, but then it became slurred again, but she spoke slowly, making sure that he caught each word. She lay back in the bed and covered her face with her hands.

“I went down to tell you all of this earlier. I'm sorry that you had to clean up after me like that.”

“Do you want anything?” he asked.

She smiled and shook her head. “We have to talk,” she said.

“I'll think about what you said.”

He took his book out into the living room and turned on the lamp. Slowly he set about lighting the fire. It was dark and blustery outside, but the rain had stopped. He went out to the shed to get coal. The night was pitch dark: with no moon or stars. Back inside, he sat at the window and looked out at Tuskar and the fierce beam of light which came at intervals. He watched for it, it was much slower than a heartbeat or the ticking of a clock. It came in its own time, unfolding its light clear and full against the darkness which was everywhere outside.

The table in the back room was covered in posters, leaflets and envelopes. “I've done all the M's,” Eamon said to his father. “I've a pain in my arm.”

“Are there many left?” his father asked.

“There's a day's work,” he said.

The election work made his father tired and sometimes he became irritable. In school, if the boys in the class could not understand him he became angry for a moment, and then tried to calm himself and slow down. He had stopped teaching Irish; it was too hard for him to pronounce the words. He taught Commerce and Geography. But even after two years there were times when he spoke and no one, not even Eamon, could understand what he was saying.

Eamon found something to do or someone to talk to in the classroom at lunchtime and the end of the day's class. He did not want to walk home with his father. It was hard to make conversation. He felt embarrassed when he misjudged how far ahead his father had gone and found himself catching up with him, and having to walk along beside him.

One day he passed the open door of the front room and saw his father sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands. He thought at first that his father was praying, but the longer he stayed watching the more he was sure that it was something else. He stood there until his father became aware of his presence, looking up with a start. His face seemed drawn and full of pain. And then his father smiled at him and he smiled back before going upstairs.

Now, the coalition government had fallen and his father had become involved, as usual, in the election campaign and the battle to have Fianna Fail back in power. For as long as anyone could remember, his father had made a speech at the final rally in the Market Square, but this time he would not be able, his voice was not clear enough. Some of the men who spent their day in the unused shop which had become party headquarters in the town said that Eamon should make the speech, but his Uncle Tom said that he was too young and they needed someone with more experience.

“How can you get experience, Tom Redmond, if you don't start,” a man in the headquarters said. “He's a real Redmond, this fellow,” he said, pointing at Eamon. Eamon looked over at his father who was busy consulting a list of voters and paid no attention to the conversation.

There were still two weeks to go in the campaign. All the party workers congregated in the headquarters for the first meeting to discuss the election. His father was in the chair and began by saying that the discussion was open to everybody. Most of the speakers were old party members, men in greatcoats excited at the prospect of returning to power. Each one wanted to have his say now. There were also a few women there, who did most of the organizing and who knew which houses had already been canvassed and which families had problems. There were a few girls at the meeting as well, daughters of party members.