The Heather Blazing (7 page)

“Don't mind him,” Mrs. Keating said. “You just need to be lucky.”

He could feel his face burning and he felt sorry that he had taken the chance. For the rest of the night he felt a strange guilt. In the morning when he work up he had the feeling that he had done something wrong.

“Are you on for a game tonight?” Phil Cullen asked him.

“Can we play again?” he asked.

“As long as there's no fighting, I'll play,” Mrs. Cullen said.

*  *  *

His father came to Cush one day with a black box full of examination papers to correct. A special table was put into the bedroom for him to work. At the end of each page he wrote a mark in red.

“Who's winning?” he asked his father as the pile of corrected papers began to mount.

“Leave your father alone,” Mrs. Cullen said, “and go outside in the fresh air.”

In the village his father bought him his own pack of cards,
and he hid away from Mrs. Cullen, in the girls' bedroom or in his own room, and began to deal imaginary hands of solo to imaginary partners, playing each hand as though he had not seen the others, and trying not to cheat, trying not to allow his knowledge and his memory to stretch beyond each player's hand. He enjoyed playing his card game on the bed as his father worked. In the evenings now he was ready for them. There were always three others willing to play until it was his bedtime. A few nights Mrs. Cullen was enjoying the games so much that she let him stay up late. His father played too; one night he won a spread misere. Mrs. Cullen said it was the first time she had ever seen anyone succeed at spread misere. Eamon took chances now without worrying; most of the time he won, and when he lost he knew that there would be another game, another opportunity.

One evening he went on the ass and cart with Mrs. Cullen to have tea with Mrs. Keating and Madge Keating and play solo afterwards. Mrs. Keating, he felt, was the only one who really understood the game; the rest of them could play, his father, Mrs. and Mr. Cullen, Phil and the girls, but Mrs. Keating was the only one who really loved the game, who knew what the chances were, who knew the likelihood of each opponent having certain cards, who knew the weaknesses of her opponent's playing style, who knew what luck meant but balanced it with skill. Mrs. Keating loved winning. She looked like a big white cat when she won. He knew that she liked playing with him, he felt a kinship with her. Often, when one of the others won the bid, Eamon and Mrs. Keating would close in together, they would begin to guess what cards the others had and they would send signs to each other. They understood the cards as the other two did not.

In the end, however, much depended on luck and chance. There were few safe hands and fewer foolproof bids. If it was his bid he would watch Mrs. Keating plotting against him.

“I've got a nice little card for you now,” she would say and
she would place it down on the table and look up at him, a deep cunning in her old eyes.

“You'd need something better than that, Mrs. Keating.”

“You're a real Redmond,” Mrs. Cullen would say. Often Mrs. Cullen would become forgetful or distracted and Mrs. Keating had no patience with her.

Mrs. Keating did not want the night to stop; she made a rule that they would not put away the cards until someone played a spread misere, whether they won it or not. It was after one o'clock when they set off for Cush on the ass and cart. There was a full moon over the sea below Keatings' and the sky was bright with stars and so they had no difficulty seeing the turn for Cush at the hand-ball alley and making their way along the narrow road home. His mind was full of cards. As he lay in bed he thought of the games they played and the strategies he had used until he fell asleep.

The black box was now filling up with corrected examination papers. One day Eamon stood at the door watching his father correcting the papers outside at a table under one of the small trees. His father was wearing a straw hat. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew and the rain started up and one of the papers blew down the garden. His father ran down after it and put his foot on it before it got away even further. He had to gather up all the papers and take them into the house. Some of them were wet: the rain had got mixed with the ink and made the writing blurred.

The weather improved and soon the days were sweltering with heat. He had been in the sea only once since he came, but it had been too cold and he had no urge to go back again. But now his father wanted to go and made him find his togs and take a towel. The papers were nearly finished. They walked down the lane; his father had rolled up his shirt sleeves and was wearing sandals with no socks.

“The thing to do,” he said, “is to go into the water without thinking about it. Think of something else, and then just
get down in the water, and then, as long as you keep moving, you'll be warm enough.”

“But it's cold,” Eamon said.

“Not on a day like today. We should be in twice a day.”

They found the gap in the cliff which he had used when he went to swim with Maureen Cullen. Steps had been cut into the moist clay, which made some of the descent easier, but for the last stretch there was nothing except banked sand and they both had to run down. His father took off his sandals and rolled up the bottoms of his trousers to go and check the water. Eamon lay down on the warm sand.

“It's roasting,” his father said.

“I know you're joking.”

His father sat down with his arms clasped around his knees and looked out to sea. There were no clouds, just a vague haze on the horizon. The sea was calm and clear.

“I wonder if there are seals,” his father said. “There were seals last year.”

“Phil said he saw seals.”

“It's a sign of good weather,” his father said.

There were a few people further down the strand, but otherwise it was empty.

“There are probably a lot of people in Curracloe,” his father said.

“They have a shop there now. It's called the Winning Post.”

“Who told you that?” his father asked.

“Josie Cullen was there.”

They waited there in the mid-day heat until his father began to undress. Eamon still lay stretched out with his clothes on. When he sat up he saw that his father had his togs on and was ready. His father's body was white, except for the black hair on his chest. His father paid no attention to him as he walked down towards the sea. Eamon sat and watched as his father stood in the shallow water and then blessed himself
before wading in slowly, jumping at first to avoid the waves breaking against him. He watched as his father dived into the water and swam out before turning to do the backstroke.

He changed into his togs as his father swam further out. He felt sweaty in the heat and noticed when he lay out flat on the sand again that the sand was sticking to his skin. He stood up and walked down towards the sea. He knew it would be cold, but with the warm sun on his back it was not as bad as he expected. His father was waving to him and swimming in a dog-paddle stroke back towards the shore. Eamon moved out until he, too, had to jump to avoid the waves. The water was cold. He wondered how you could get the courage to dive in: what would those first moments be like? His father was beckoning him to come out further.

“It's too cold,” he shouted and made as though to shiver.

“Come on,” his father shouted and moved faster towards him.

“Don't splash me,” he said.

His father came and put his cold hands on his back. He squirmed.

“It's easy, come on,” his father said.

He felt wet now and he shivered as he stood up to his thighs in the water.

“I'll give you a piggy-back,” his father said.

“You're too wet,” he said.

“Come on.” His father stood in front of him and stooped. He put his arms around his father's neck and as his father stood up he let him hold the soles of his feet.

“You're heavy,” his father said, as he waded out slowly. Eamon was above the level of the water, but his father was moving straight out from the shore until he was up to his waist in water.

“Don't throw me in,” he said.

“No, you can jump in,” his father moved further out into the deep and hoisted him up even higher on his back.

“Let go my neck,” he said, but Eamon held on as a wave broke right over them. He was now completely wet.

“Let go my neck,” his father said again. Eamon waited for a moment and then jumped as best he could into the water. He had forgotten to close his mouth, which was full of brine when he surfaced. He was out of his depth now, but able to keep himself up in the water without his father's help. When his father turned and floated, he floated too, with his head right back in the water, his body relaxed, but enough air in his lungs to keep him from sinking.

His father swam out, while Eamon moved in towards the shore and practised his strokes. When his father came out they went for a run to dry out in the sun. Eamon brought his towel and put it around him on the way back.

“A swim twice a day from now on,” his father said. “I'll have the papers finished by Friday. I'll take them to Dublin on Monday.”

“I'll be swimming on my own so. The Cullens are too busy. They don't like swimming.”

“I'll be back on Tuesday,” his father said. He dressed himself and sat down again, his hands once more clasped around his knees as he stared out to sea.

“It's a great country when the weather's like this,” his father said.

Soon, they walked up to the cliff, each helping the other, Eamon taking his father's sandals when he needed both his hands to pull himself up. They were hungry now, and they knew that their dinner would be on the table for them when they got back to Cullens' house.

He sat drinking coffee, watching from the porch window as the sky became a clearer blue. The swim that day in the past, his arms around his father's neck, the texture of his father's wet skin and the thrill of the water were still with him. Clear and sharp memory of hot days in summer when they came to this house as visitors. Some of it more real and vivid and focused than anything that had happened since. It was not yet ten o'clock and this would be the fourth day in a row of pure sunshine, a miracle after the days of wind and rain. The sky was white and hazy at the edges and the sun hot in the middle of the day with the garden full of bees and grasshoppers. Hardly anything had changed in all the years; the nettles grew high in the rain and sunshine, the pink flower of the wild rose settled against the trellis as it had done ever since he remembered. If he let his mind wander he could see his father's shadow correcting examination papers at the table in the corner of the garden, and the sudden gust of wind and the papers blowing as the rain began and the blotched writing becoming indecipherable. The long evenings in the house in the days before he and Carmel made the windows larger and put on a slate roof. The people moving as shadows; the cards on the table; the slow gestures as Mrs. Cullen went over to the wall and lit the lamp; the room lighting up.

He stood and walked into the bedroom and put on his togs and then his dressing-gown and a pair of sandals. He stood at the front door for a few moments and took in the sun. Carmel was in the garden. Once outside, he noticed that the air
was brisk; it would take another hour or two for the day to become really warm. He took a towel which had been drying on a bush and walked down towards the cliff, hoping that he would meet no one. Some of the locals were working on a field of hay over the brow of the hill; the fields bordering the cliff had already been cut, and a green-tinged stubble had been left behind.

There was no wind, but there was still a faint dew on the grass. He put the towel down on the edge of the cliff and sat down. The sea was a light green with patches of a darker green and further out patches of blue. He watched the waves as they rolled in and quietly broke near the shore.

He made his way down to the strand where it was warmer, more sheltered. He took off his sandals and dressing-gown and walked towards the water shivering as he put his feet into the cold sea. Maybe he should have waited. He stood there for a while before walking back to where his things lay. It was peaceful; he listened for the sound of the combine-harvester at work, but it was too distant, or else they had stopped working. He put his hands behind his head and turned his head around from side to side as though he was doing exercises to relieve the tension in his neck. He did it until he was tired and hot. Now, he could try the sea again. He walked down, determined not to stop even to test the water. He waded in, ignoring the splash from an oncoming wave, then stopped and dived in, swimming out as fast as he could, letting the shock of cold run through him. He lay back in the water and looked down the coast, noticing how sharp and clear everything now was in the early light. He tried not to think about the cold.

Carmel was still working in the garden when he came back to the house.

“The postman's been,” she said as she stood up, a small shovel still in her hand. “He's that small friendly man. He hasn't been here for a while. He had a big package for you
which I had him leave on the table. He wants to talk to you about becoming permanent. He asked me about it last year too, one day when you weren't here. He says he's done the Irish exam but they still won't make him permanent.”

“Does he think I run the Post Office?” he asked.

“He thinks that you have pull,” she said.

The envelope had a government stamp. It contained the previous year's Law Reports in booklet form. His own judgment on the health case should be in one of them. He checked through to make sure it was there, and came across several other judgments he had made during the year. He went into the bedroom and dressed himself, and then took a deckchair and a small table into the garden and began going through the Law Reports. After a while, as he read, he realized that he wanted to mark certain passages so he went inside and found a biro. He became engrossed in what he read, and he left notes, interjections, exclamation marks and question marks in the margin with the biro.