Sunrise with Sea Monster (17 page)

Rose had her flower-patterned dress on and was packing a hamper. He enjoys it, I told her. What? she asked. Motorised transport,
I said. It makes him smile. She smiled too, and followed me to the door when I carried out the cases. She stood there, flowers
all over, hamper in one hand, looking at him, rigid in his seat within a seat in the back of the Ford and a gust of wind lifted
her dress, making a taut umbrella round her legs. She laughed, didn't seem to care and pulled the door closed behind her.
She walked forwards and the wind gusted again, weaving her dress round the hamper. Don't look, she said. Can't help it, I
told her. Neither can he.

So we drove. Through the city with its brown fringes of early morning smoke, sleeping in its unnatural peace, along the Liffey,
out by the Strawberry Beds, Chapelizod, Leixlip, Lucan. We halted by the canal gate at Kilcock to give him breakfast. Rose
laid out a linen by the green canal bank, while I turned the car so he could face us. I opened the door, sat on the running-board
by the front seat and wondered could he appreciate the picture she made: the white linen cloth on the green, the roses around
her waist and behind her head the falling waters of the break. I fed him a sandwich, brushed the crumbs from his lapels and
saw his blue eyes staring at a point behind her. A swan rose then, from the depths of the lock, an explosive snake of white.
I saw his eyes follow it upwards till it got lost in the trees beyond.

The midlands shimmered in the midday sun, cattle stood motionless in the shade of trees; there seemed to be nobody about.
The country slept in its cocoon, unchanged and unchangeable. Outside Athlone a wedding party passed us on a hayrick; near
Ballinasloe a lorryful of soldiers trundled by. Rose hummed as I drove, snatches of melodies I knew from years of lessons,
like an overture to her whole absent repertoire. I kept an eye on him in the back through the rearview mirror, his head jerking
with each bump, his eyes turning with each new sight. We stopped at Kilreekill and finished the remains of Rose's sandwiches
in the grounds of a gaunt limestone church. Then the light was falling, the evening sun slanted low over the Galway fields,
silhouetting the jagged stone walls. We reached the Atlantic, set in swathes of limestone, and turned left along its coast
through towns I'd heard him speak of: Kinvara, Ballyvaughan, Doonyvarden and when the light was fading, I stopped in the middle
of what was like a stone desert. Why are you stopping? Rose asked. I want him to see it before the light goes, I told her.
He campaigned here with De Valera in 1917.

I looked at him in the back seat, his face as gaunt as the stone walls that surrounded the stone fields, his beard the same
limestone grey. If anything would suit his condition, I told her, it would be these fields: grey, immobile, furious and silent.
As the light fell his profile seemed to glow with a light of its own; all distinction between him and the stones behind him
slowly vanished. His breath rose and fell with hardly a murmur and then seemed to disappear. He was simply silent. I watched
him in silence, then in a rash of sudden panic, reached out and touched his cheek. The beard quivered and the spell was broken.
I drove on.

Lisdoonvarna announced itself from the brow of a hill, a string of sad-coloured lights below us like a circus which, when
we drove down, we found to be a square, each lamppost strung with coloured bulbs. I want to kiss you, Rose said suddenly.
You can't, I said, not here. It's those bulbs, she said, they seem to lack the celebratory touch. Kiss him then, I said when
the car had stopped, and she did. She leaned backwards in the car, planted a kiss on the cheek nearest to her. I saw his eyes
flicker, but nothing else. He's stopped smiling, I said. Because I kissed him? she asked. No, I said. Something in the air
. . .

We checked into the Spa Hotel, a mildewed affair with a lounge with an odour of stale Guinness. A glass-panelled veranda looked
out on the square. A smattering of small farmers sat there, two women with spinsterish spectacles, a maid dressed in widow's
black. I wheeled father through to the reception.

For the waters? the concierge asked, part sympathy and all inquisition.

Yes, I said, they come well recommended.

Work wonders with the joints, she said, lumbago, arthritis, what have you. But don't expect miracles.

I don't, I said. I wanted to sign, but she was unstoppable.

If it's miracles you want, she said, here's your man. She tapped the wall behind her.

Who's your man? I asked her.

Sylvester Quirk, she told me, seventh son of a seventh son. Hands that could make a dead man walk. Find him every day on the
road to O'Brien's Tower on the cliffs.

She pushed the book towards me and I signed. She kept on, about illnesses cured, bones made straight, tumours that vanished
into thin air. She took two bulky keys then from a row of them next to the sign advertising the healer. She led us down a
low corridor to two adjacent rooms overlooking a small back yard. You'd have trouble with the stairs, she said, and opened
one room, then the next. Breakfast from eight to ten, she said, lunch at midday and your evening meal whenever you fancy.
Rose thanked her and dispatched her with a glance.

I wheeled father in, to the damp yellow walls, the single bed and the gas-jet set in the fireplace. Somewhere outside a dog
barked.

While Rose and he rested I walked around the square. The coloured lights swung gently from their posts and beneath one of
them, in the greenish wash the bulbs gave to their environs, was a figure with a bicycle. Collar upturned, a cloud of cigarette
smoke above him like a halo of green. I recognised the smallest of the three, Oliver. Where's your companion? I asked him,
when I had crossed to his side. Don't you worry your sweet head about him, he said. Tomorrow night, high tide, the beach at
Spanish Point. You'll be there. If you insist, I told him. Damn right I do, he said.

We took him to the springs next morning, a low-roofed collection of huts over a bubbling pool. He drank the sulphurous water
obediently and then I undressed him, lifted him with a male nurse into the bath of carved rock. The water bubbled round him,
grey-coloured, insipid and he suffered it in his usual silence, eyes staring at me with an expression of anguished surprise.
When his time was up we lifted him, wrapped him in a white towel and sat him back in his chair to dry.

Will it work? Rose asked me when I had him clothed and wheeled him out once more.

Who knows, I said. We made it to the square, both thinking the same thought.

That boy, she said.

The one at Spanish Point? I said.

Yes, she said.

Do you really believe, I asked her, that something will happen?

It's not a matter of that, she said. It's something in the air.

What? I asked her.

Hope, she said.

I convinced myself to believe her. We winched him into the back seat once more and drove. The road seemed to lead us with
a sense of inevitability, the low stone walls, the bent blackthorns, the fields of limestone now interspersed with green.
We had asked no directions, but somehow I knew that I would know the spot when I found it. The sun came through the clouds
and raked a low silver light which obscured the corners. But I turned one corner and there it was.

A withered tree with coins hammered into the bark, medals strung from them, faded pictures of the Virgin and in place of leaves,
a mass of ribbons tied up and down the dead branches. They shivered in the morning breeze. Two walls led from the tree to
a rough stone grotto. The walls were lined with crutches, blackthorn sticks, old orthopaedic boots, a crushed and rotten wooden
wheelchair. A woman in black sat in a chair at the grotto entrance knitting.

I drew the car to a halt by the tree. There was the sense of death about the place. Do you feel it? Rose, I asked. She said
nothing, drew in her breath. The woman in black raised one arm and beckoned. I'm afraid, Rose, I said. Of what? she asked.
Her lips were tight with a suppressed excitement. The woman beckoned again. I'm afraid it might be true, I told her. You can't
be, she said. The woman beckoned a third time. I opened the door, walked out.

The ribbons fluttered in the breeze and there was a soft tinkle. I saw a silver bell, hanging from one of the dead branches.
I walked forwards on the limestone slabs that led to the grotto and overturned a wooden crutch. It clattered off the stone.
I bent to pick it up and the woman smiled, quite toothless.

You'll want the boy, she said. I nodded. For yourself? she asked. My father, I said and she smiled again. Her needles clattered
softly all the time. Bring him up then, she said. I waited for her to say something else but she returned to her needles as
if I had vanished from her world. I walked backwards then, one step at a time. I looked from her to Rose in the car. Rose
gestured with her hand.

I opened the door and sat beside her. Do you think this is wise? I asked.

Nothing is or has been wise, she said.

Is that a yes? I asked.

The woman gestured once more. There was an authority there which I could only obey. Come with me Rose, I said. She nodded.
I got out and opened her door, then opened his. She took one arm of the wheelchair, I took the other and together we eased
him backwards until the rubber wheels bumped on the limestone slabs. I took his weight then, turned him and began to move
towards the grotto, but felt Rose's hand on my shoulder.

Wait one minute, she whispered. She looked down at her hands, placed one finger and thumb over her wedding ring and drew it
off. She reached up to the tree where a blue ribbon fluttered, and tied a knot round the ring.

What will that do? I asked her.

It's a sign, she said. If I could undo the past I would.

What bit would you change? I asked.

Whatever bit would help him, she said.

I looked at the ring, swinging idly against the grey sky. When the past overtakes the present, I wondered, what tense does
it form? Then I turned and pushed him towards the grotto. The woman was back at her needles, unconcerned with us now that
it had been decided. The long skein of some garment hung between her knees, below which was a copper bowl, coins and crumpled
notes sitting in it. How much? I asked her. Whatever the gentleman thinks, she said. I pulled the roll I had been given by
Soames from my pocket and peeled off ten notes. God be with you, sir, she said, her head still bent down, showing us the combed
and glittering plane of her scalp.

I pushed him towards the stone entrance, shaped like a rough horseshoe. I could hear the regular dripping of water from inside,
together with the low murmur of an adolescent voice. There was a slight incline, where his wheelchair took on its own momentum
and pulled me suddenly inside. There was darkness then, the smell of funereal damp and stagnant water. I could feel Rose's
arm at my elbow. Then gradually the gloom lifted, as my eyes grew accustomed to it. I could see a boy, sitting on a rock by
a pool of water, a woman bent before him, her blouse pulled up to reveal her curved back. The boy, dressed in a suit like
a diminutive cattle-salesman, dipped a thin white hand in the water and passed it over her back repeatedly, as he murmured
to himself. The words were unrecognisable, came out of his lips with a whispered tension, like a murmur of pain. Then he pulled
her blouse down and raised two dull eyes in our direction.

The woman raised herself stiffly, apologetically, as if embarrassed to be seen like this, and edged past us, her head and
torso bent to one side. I stood there, waiting for the boy to acknowledge us, then looked at his unresponsive eyes and realised
he was blind. Then I heard a voice from outside.

Go to him, he knows what ails you, she said, to the rhythm of her clacking needles.

The boy sat still, his head cocked to one side, listening to the wheels approach. He stretched out one hand, which came to
rest neatly on father's head. The thin fingers traced the mane of hair down to the forehead, then over his nose and lips,
as if drawing his profile with an invisible pen. I saw father's eyes flicker, then the lids fall slowly over them as if into
a sleep. Bring him closer, the boy said, in a voice that was rural and matter of fact. I obeyed, pushing the chair to the
edge of the pool. The boy's hand took up his chin again and traced the same line down his chest. The fingers began opening
the buttons of his shirt, with an extraordinary rapidity. The other hand reached down to the pool, came up cupped with water
which he dabbed over the white hairs of father's sunken chest. Then the hand reached up to his head again and pushed it downwards,
like a pliant doll, so his forehead touched his knees. One hand pulled up his jacket and shirt, exposing the white knuckles
of his spine, while the other dipped once more in the pool, raising to let the water run in rivulets down the exposed skin.
The murmuring began then, as if he had found what he wanted, his thin lips quivering with the half-words that escaped them.
I turned and could see Rose, framed in the light by the ragged horseshoe of the entrance. The boy dipped, rubbed and murmured,
so many times that the process became hypnotic, I lost count. Then the murmuring stopped; there was just the repetitive dripping
water. The boy righted father's clothing and stood. He edged his way around the wheelchair, reached two hands down to my father's
fallen chin and whipped it upwards. There was a crack of twisting bone as father's huge frame sat up, like an obedient doll.
Don't worry, the boy whispered, it can't hurt him. He took his place back by the stone, rocking slightly backwards and forwards,
his sightless eyes now somewhere else.

I drew father backwards up the small incline, then wheeled him out to face the light. What do you think? I asked Rose, and
she threw her eyes down to the woman, saying nothing. What do you think, father? I asked as I reached the tree. He was as
removed as ever, more so, if that were possible, his blue-veined lids covering his eyes. I reached up to the wizened tree
and untied the ring from the ribbon where Rose had left it. Here, I told her, he would have wanted you to keep it.