Sunrise with Sea Monster (15 page)

She was several people, I found. She was the Rose I had seen on the first day there, hair in a tumble as her stockings dried
by the range, eyes smiling in an uncluttered, girlish way, promising friendship in her smile, and trying to be older than
her years. Then she was the Rose I met on my first day back, the woman of someone's house, possessed by a destiny that emanated
from upstairs, distracted, with the blonde hair uncombed and the eyes preoccupied. Then she was the Rose with the delicious
and exact sense of her own pleasures, who would say no, wait, and clench her teeth as if the muscular rigour coursing through
her could be prolonged for ever. A green light would come into her eyes, as if a forest had been illuminated inside her. On
some afternoons she was the Rose her name implied, the roses you see on faded wallpaper and the patterns of dresses, an absolutely
sweet presence in the odd arrangements of that household. On days when the light mist came down the headland and the sun broke
through it intermittently, filling the rooms with a silver, elegiac light.

I could say I felt some guilt, but that would be a lie. One of those retrospective kinds of lies again. I felt no guilt whatsoever;
each morning provided its own elation, I would rise, and walk to the shop by the station, buy the
Irish Times,
read what news there was of the conflagration over there. I would buy milk and bread and bacon and walk back as the sun illuminated
the amusement arcades. She would be up by the time I came back, have the old man washed and cleaned so we would bump him into
the kitchen again, I would comb his beard and hair while she cooked his—our—breakfast. He seemed sweet, like a child that
completed our presence, the child we didn't have. His eyes with that cornflower blue that grew more startling every day, I
would sometimes find them unaccountably on me, then when I turned away and back, would find them staring out of the window
again. Birds would grab the attention of those eyes, the birds whose nests he used to catalogue along the walk to Greystones.
I would read him the leaders from the
Times
as she fed him, and assume he understood. I could imagine him in any guise from his expression; the kindly patriarch, in the
quiet autumn of his years, beyond all rage now, looked after by those who cared for him most. Or I could imagine a fierce
intelligence behind those cornflower eyes, one that stared, saw everything behind their apparently random movement. Despair
I could see there if I wanted to, hope that his condition would change, quiet devotion for Rose, the mother of all his attentions.
I would imagine these things, maybe in lieu of the truth, which was, I suspected, that he took in very little.

Then one day I woke to find him sitting in his chair in the hallway, staring at a letter on the floor. I saw the stamp of
the Reich and wondered had he somehow divined the full extent of my betrayals, before I realised his chair had moved. During
the night, from the study through the open door into the hall. I wondered could he do in his sleep what he couldn't do waking,
and imagined the thin hands pushing the wheels, motored by some dream. Then Rose came from his room, pushed him to the kitchen
and I realised with a dull ache that none of us would be touched with the miraculous.

I opened the letter, fed him breakfast while I checked the scrawl of numbers against the Heisenberg. Scarlett, I could decipher.
Rhett would welcome a shopping trip. Await your list.

I was emptying the wicker pots in Bullock harbour when I saw three figures dressed in greatcoats bumping on bicycles down
the pier towards me. I saw the same broad shoulders on the first one and in the noonday sun his scale seemed diminished. Scarlett,
he said, how's she cutting. Donal's the name, I told him. Always Scarlett to me, he said. And while we're at it, meet Oliver.
He gestured to the smallest of the three, who glared at me with protruding eyes through a pair of steel-rimmed glasses. No
hand was extended, so I didn't extend mine. And this is Festy.

The third was long as the first was broad with hair halfheartedly slicked back, a greased lock of which dangled in front of
his eyes.

And what'll I call you? I asked the broad one. Red, he said. A bit like yourself but with less of a stare.

You're a fisherman? asked the small one, Oliver, rubbing his left eye under the disc of his glasses with one finger.

For the time being, I said.

Would you grace us with a spin? he asked. Since the ocean, as far as I know, doesn't have ears.

I headed out for the Kish with the three of them and we bobbed in the wash of the Liverpool Ferry which was passing. You've
heard from your friend, Red asked me, when the noise of the engine had died. Yes, I told him, he's planning a trip here. Even
before he's got the shopping-list? he asked, as if there was an etiquette for such things. What exactly was on the shopping-list?
I asked him. Funds, said Oliver, wiping the spray from his glasses. Funds for what? I asked. Silence came over all three of
them for a moment, and they exchanged glances. Can we trust him? the tall one asked Red, and I heard the deep Cavan accent
for the first time. Perhaps, said Red, we have no alternative.

Let me ask you a question, then, said Festy. If you were to strike at the heart of the enemy, where would you hit?

I'd have to first find out which enemy, I said.

Would you stop your codding, you know the one I mean. England, the Crown, the whole damn caboodle.

Ah, old England is it? Well. I gave myself some time, and the appearance of what I hoped was reflection. The heart, I said
and ventured. Houses of Parliament?

He shook his head with a twinkle in his eyes. Think again, he said.

Buckingham Palace?

He grinned now, with obvious relish.

Again.

I give up, I said, knowing it would increase his glee and it did.

Give up? Really?

Yes, I said, really.

Where, he asked, would you find the Royal Family, the War Cabinet, and the old dog Churchill himself all under the same roof?

Westminster Abbey on Poppy Day, I ventured.

Wrong again.

He lit a cigarette for dramatic effect, then finally came out with it. In a conspiratorial whisper, as if a passing herring-gull
might have overheard.

Madame Tussaud's.

I drew breath, perhaps for the wrong reasons. He gripped my elbow, brought his lips closer to my ear.

Hit them where it hurts most. Their symbols.

Ah, I said. I tried to imagine his enemies melting into a ball of wax.

What a stroke, he said. George, Victoria, Anne, that old crone Elizabeth.

Milton, I said, Shakespeare . . .

Guy Fawkes, he said, with a certain lack of logic.

I nodded sagely and looked at the bobbing waters. I thought, thank God it's harmless.

We would need considerable funds, the tall one said.

Explosives, said the small one.

Weapons, said Red.

Must I describe the operation in detail? I asked.

What do you think yourself, asked Festy, his Cavan consonants thickening.

I thought even the Prussian Hans would have seen the humour in it. But I didn't say that.

Never show your hand is what I think, I said instead.

You think that's wiser?

Keep the cards close to the chest . . .

Maybe you're right. Or before we know it the Huns'll hit it themselves.

Better safe than sorry, I told him.

On the way back, while a porbeagle played around the bow, I told them Rhett had requested a meeting, and was awaiting details
of the time and place. All four of us agreed to leave their operational plans in the realm of the unknown until that meeting
had taken place. In cold print, I continued, the symbolic value of your plan would be obvious only to the most perceptive
of minds. Better to explain it in person. The small one nodded, then the tall one nodded too and Red smiled. And there seemed
more to his smile than met the eye. So what's the best place? I asked. Depends how he travels, said Red. By land, sea or air.
By sea is the best, the submarine off the West Clare coast, Spanish Point strand, half a mile offshore on a good moonlit night.
Put that to him, and tell him we've got just the vessel to pick him up. Which vessel is that? I asked. The one we're standing
in, he said. And the tide was up, so he swung himself in one leap on to the granite surface off Bullock pier, now level with
the boat.

We'll be in touch, he said, rolling his trouser-leg inside his woollen sock. Then all three of them mounted and cycled off
into the grey afternoon.

Spanish Point, said Soames three days later, staring at the rain that spattered on the cobbled courtyard outside. I used to
summer there, in the Eagle Guesthouse, nuns walking on the windswept beach below.

What have nuns got to do with it? I asked.

They have a summer home there. Spanish Point, he said again, as if the name awoke sentimental echoes for him. I suppose it
has historic resonances.

The Armada? I asked.

The sea was red, they say, with the blood of Spanish sailors. He twirled my coded letter in his fingers.

Madame Tussaud's, he mused. They can't be serious.

Maybe they're not, I said. Maybe they have quite different intentions.

Or maybe, he said, they see some symbolic virtue in it. Explosives, landed at Spanish Point. Used to blow up the waxen image
of Sir Francis Drake.

So what will you do? I asked him.

Send it, he said. And symbolic or not, when they move we'll move.

But before either moved, my father did.

I l l

T
HE DAY HE moved again there were low clouds hanging on the skyline like a membrane, ready to burst. To believe the weather
affected our moods would have been fallacious, but I remember each moment with the skies that accompanied it, so the presence
of rain, the heat in the house, the winds moving the rigging in the harbour behind us all come to have a spurious significance.
A relationship, like a chord that accompanies each note of whatever melody we made, so the skies on this day stick with me,
the grey-blue sack hanging over the sea, the occasional curtains of soft rain moving towards us. I woke early and checked
them through the front window as usual. I left Rose sleeping and went in to check him, sleeping on the bed I had made of his
chair, the woollen rug tucked around his chin. I put one hand on his and when his eyes opened, raised him gently to a sitting
position, then moved him slowly out into the hallway. I set him by the window in the kitchen, with the view of rough sky beyond
the chimneys he seemed to like so much and laid out the things for his breakfast. I let the eggs brown around the edges and
the strips of bacon crinkle the way he favoured them, made the tea then wheeled him to the table. And I was bringing the fork
towards his mouth when I heard the sound of nails scraping off a wooden surface and realised his hand was moving.

It was moving towards the sugar-bowl, like a stiff crab, the veins standing out against the mottled skin. I looked at his
eyes and saw them staring back at me with that sad intensity, his mouth pursed with the effort. I held my breath and watched
the hand cross the acres of board to reach the bowl and grip it. I tried to speak, tried to encourage him but no sound came
out. Then I saw the hand shake with a heroic inner fury and the bowl was overturned, the sugar spread in a neat arc beneath
it. The eyes seemed to well up with tears then. Don't worry, father, I managed to say, you tried, and reached out a hand to
his face, but he almost imperceptibly jerked it away. I could see the mouth then pursing with a further effort and followed
the line of it, down his twitching shoulder to his wrist to his hand, gripped crablike as before but now with one finger extended,
tracing a line in the spilt sugar. One unsteady stroke downwards then two more to reach the centre of the first. It was a
K, traced with all the awkwardness of a child at kindergarten. Then another downwards stroke and another with a stroke to
meet it at the base. I L. He then repeated the L, began to form another letter but I already knew what it would say. Kill
me.

His arm fell to his side, as if exhausted by the effort. It touched the sugar-bowl as it fell, sent it spinning like a top,
the sound of its rocking gradually diminishing into silence. And when the silence came it was absolute. His hand hung by the
chrome wheel, his shoulders slumped forwards, his head bent at an odd angle, eyes staring sideways at the message he had written.
Do you mean it? I asked him, but there was not a whisper of movement in reply, as if he had said all he could, or would. Then
it was my turn to cry. The tears came quite independent of me, they streamed down my face unbidden and splashed on to his
inert hand. Odd, since I was feeling nothing. I knew what I should feel: grief, guilt, an unutterable sadness at the thought
that he could see, feel, perceive from his solitary cage. I thought of these things, should have felt them, thought I should
have felt them, but the only hint of feeling was in the film of salt water that covered my cheeks. I am sorry, I said to him,
I should have realised, should have felt more but can't. Please tell me why that is? He stayed slumped there, his breath gradually
quietening, as distant and unapproachable as he was when I was ten. I heard the sound of Rose's feet coming down the stairs
and ran my hand over the mess of sugar on the table, obscuring the letters.

She came in and touched her hand to my cheek and felt the wetness. Who made the mess? She asked. He did, I told her. How?
she asked, and she must have sensed something for her hand went to my other cheek and began to wipe it. He moved, I told her.
He moved? she said. He can't move. Well he did, I said. She put her hands round my shoulders. Don't, I told her. Why not,
darling? she asked. Because he moved, I told her, he moved and he knows. My God, she said. Yes, I said, my God. He sees things.
He hears things. He feels things. Don't you, father?

He sat beneath us, head still inclined at the same angle, eyes staring at the spot on the table where the letters had been.
I don't believe you, she said. You don't? I asked her and I stood and grabbed her hair and kissed her. Her lips struggled
against mine and I saw his head give a tiny jerk, away from us to avert his eyes. Did you see that? I asked her. No, she said
and I grabbed her again and brought her mouth forcibly to mine and twisted her round so she could face him, see the head jerk
once more, a small spasm run through his body this time. You saw that? I asked her. Stop it, Donal, she said, and now she
was crying. I'll stop, I told her. But you saw it. Yes, she said, and now it was her turn to cry. Doesn't bear thinking of,
does it, I said, to no one in particular this time. No, she agreed. It doesn't. What do we do? What do we ever do? I asked
her. Take him for a walk.

I wheeled him out into the same low clouds, the rain still holding off but a fine mist blowing down from the Head. The mist,
deceptive in its wetness, soon brought a fine dew to his beard. So you hear me, I said to him, you've heard everything I've
told you. The back of his head kept the same rigid aspect towards me, moving only with the movement of the wheels. And you
know, you old goat, you know everything probably and if you don't know you can guess. And I can only apologise. I'm sorry
that it happened in precisely that way, that it happened when it did, between us and you but the one thing I can't be sorry
for is that it happened at all. Do you get my drift, father? The wheels swished along the wet cement in reply. The dew glistened
from his grey hair and that was all. I walked him past the empty gazebos, waiting for some sign from him, but got nothing.
We came to the end of the railings, where the sand bled on to the cement of the prom and I turned his chair left and pushed
him towards the sea. I halted just at the lapping tide and left him facing the water, sat down on the wet sand and looked
at his profile. It was rigid, like an immobile hawk, the blue eyes fixed on the horizon. Come on, father, I said and at the
word father, the eyes flickered towards me. Father, I said, and the eyes flickered again. Look at me, I said, and the head
turned slowly to face me, the eyes fixing on mine. The fury seemed gone from them, the wide, staring fixation, they were moist
and melancholic like the mist all around us. Can you hear me? I said, Donal, your only son. I've done you wrong, I said and
the eyelids blinked, rapidly. Does that mean yes, I asked, and they blinked again. Or was it a no? I said, and they continued
blinking. This is frustrating, I told him, I'll have to choose silence like you. The eyes blinked once more and I gave up
talking. I sat there, laid my head against his inert arm and looked out on the sea.

And the silence brought a kind of peace. I could feel the occasional twitch of his arm and felt glad he was alive. I saw the
line of the horizon gradually merge with the cloud and saw the rain coming towards us. I sat until the last possible moment,
savouring the illusion of a union, then walked him back along the promenade as the rain sheeted down. We were both wet through
when we reached the house.

I couldn't speak to Rose. I left him with her in the hallway and called up the boy and together we readied the boats in the
driving rain. We chugged out beyond the Kish and let the nets out and drifted. The line of the bay was like a soft brushstroke,
barely visible through the falling water. I could have cut the nets and drifted for days, left them both to themselves, to
whatever silences would persist now between them. I could have drifted to Belfast, Liverpool, to the Isle of Skye, to some
Norwegian outcrop where the language would have given me a different kind of silence. The thought of it was beguiling, seductive
even: to leave whatever shards of life were left behind, to let that small smudge that was the Irish coastline vanish gradually
into the mist that almost hid it. I was about to do it when I was brought back by a shoal of mackerel.

The pattern that the spitting rain made on the water's surface was thickened suddenly and I thought the showers had strengthened.
But they hadn't; it was an explosion of sprats peppering the water all around us and after them the silver-blue flashes of
the mackerel, foaming when they hit the nets like froth on a horse's mouth. The net was full in what seemed an instant, we
pulled it in, dumped the slapping silver on the bottom of the boat and dipped it again. It filled as quickly and we pulled
and dipped again till the weight brought the water almost to the gunwale. Then we headed for home.

So I was brought back to him by fish, once more. The rains had stopped when we made it to the harbour and got to shovelling
the tons of gasping silver that weighed down the boats. We worked till midnight, packing them in ice, became covered in a
sheen of silver scales ourselves and when the moon came out, we gleamed in its light. I made it to the house then, left the
boy to arrange to get the catch to Dublin. She was sitting in the kitchen downstairs, the whiskey bottle open beside her,
a cigarette smoking from a saucer on the table. She told me I stank of fish.

I know, I said, and poured a glass for myself. What did he do all day? I asked her.

The same as usual, she said.

But he knows.

How do you know he knows? she asked me.

So I showed her. I overturned the sugar-bowl and spelt the words he had spelt in the granules.

She stared at them for a while, saying nothing. So what do we do? she asked.

What do you mean, Rose? I asked her softly.

You're his son. For once in your life you could obey him.

You're serious?

No. Not serious. Jaded. Exhausted. I never thought things could be like this.

You wanted them so, Rose.

No. I wanted you. It happened.

I thought I could leave today and never come back. But I couldn't.

I know you can't. Neither can I.

She reached her hand over to mine.

I think I'm going mad, she said, in a quiet, matter-of-fact manner that made me believe she was. I spent all day with him,
talking. I told him everything twenty times over. I was hoping for something from him. Some response. But nothing came.

She smoked and drank a little.

He's a vegetable, Donal.

He spoke to me.

Then he's playing a vegetable.

You hate him, do you?

Sometimes.

I could say nothing more to her. I put the wireless on and we listened to talk of the war. I fiddled with the dials and found
some music, a marching tune with heavy brass, made distant by the interference. I walked behind her then and put my arms around
her. She held them to her breast with one of her hands and reached the other back to grip my neck. The fish scales gleamed
on my arms. Do I still stink? I asked her. Yes, she said and drew me down on her knee and kissed me like a man. I knew then
she was stronger than both of us.

I slept in his room that night. In the hope of discovering some secret life he lived while the house slept, of dreaming a
dream he dreamt, of hearing him talk in his sleep, I wasn't sure. He lay still in the moonlight, breathing softly, staring
at the ceiling. His breath rose and fell with the rhythm of the waves outside. They moved in counterpoint with each other,
meeting intermittently, then departing again. In my sleep I was walking with him again, both of us barefoot over the wet sand.
I looked behind me to the nightlines, far away by the thin line of tide, etched against it like dark spindles. We were making
our long way back to the promenade; not a word passed between us but the old silence, the comfortable one, the one that didn't
ask for speech. I could see a dim plump figure on the promenade, wearing an apron, rubbing her hands in it with a distracted
air. I could hear a low rumble behind us. I turned and saw where the nightlines had been a white line of water. The rumble
grew louder. There was a man now, running on the promenade towards the house, a figure in black, a black bag swinging neatly
in his hand. Father gave a strange strangled cry, like the squawk of a herring-gull, and began running too and I tried to
follow him but slipped and heard the rumble grow into a roar, and then the white wave was on me, on us both, dragging metal
rods and lines and hooks in its wake. I saw through the whorls of water his face cry out silently as he went down.

And the next day it came. Falling through the letterbox on to the linoleum, its plain white envelope and Swiss stamp too prosaic
for the contents inside.

Tuesday, the twentieth, murmured Soames, tapping the scrawled symbols with a manicured nail.

Why Tuesday? I asked him.

A full moon and a high tide. The beach drops thirty fathoms two hundred yards out. They'll get as close as they can, of course.

And you?

We'll be there, don't worry.

I looked across the square. Two G-men leaned on a battered Ford, eyeing me back.

You'll all be there. So I can take it that I'm finished.

Hold your horses. You've still to inform your Republican friends.

Ah. And when I've done that, I can stop this charade?

You sound as if you're not enjoying it.

I'm not. And my father is ill besides.

There must have been a hint of self-pity in my voice, for he looked at me directly and I could only think he'd never done
that before.

Call me when you've spoken with them and we can forget these meetings ever happened, if you like.

I would like that very much.

Really? he said, with a note of disappointment.

I'm sorry, I said and wondered why I was apologising.