The Law of Dreams (2 page)

A brass clock ticked on the mantelpiece. The ashes of yesterday's
fire had not been swept from the grate. The agent had previously begged
Carmichael's pardon to eat his dinner of bread and cheese. Crumbs of wheat bread
on his desk. Waxy yellow cube of cheese.

Soldiers were no good. No protection on a lonely farm.

“Whoever ejects them — people like them, mountain people,
cabin people — stands to get himself killed,” Carmichael heard himself
saying.

Was he afraid? Fear had always been his goad, a spur. He'd always
thrown himself passionately at what he feared most.

“Oh dear,” the agent drawled. “I was assuming you would
be eager to incorporate the mountain to your —”

“It's shoulder bog,” Carmichael said sharply.
“Good for nothing but mountain men and their potatoes.”

It wasn't fear, no. He wasn't afraid of whiteboys and
outrages. It was a sense of hopelessness he felt. There were too many of them. He had
always been too generous, granting too many conacre arrangements as his father had
before him. Now there were dozens of wild people living up there toward Cappaghabaun,
dug into the mountainy portions of the farm that they'd overrun. They'd
woven themselves into his land like thistle.

“Sheep,” the agent said. “Scotch cattle and
sheep.”

“I can't get 'em off.” Carmichael heard the
weakness in his own voice and it disgusted him. It reminded him of his own tenants,
their various cadging pleas.

“Is there blight in your country?” the agent asked. “I
heard there was. Is my information correct?”

“On the mountain they haven't lifted a crop yet. So it's
too early to tell.” “But there is blight around Scariff, yes? Lands along
the river, yes? Leaves standing black?”

“Yes.” He'd seen it that morning.

“Then they will suffer it on the mountain,” the agent declared
with satisfaction. “There ain't no dodging. Without the praties, if they
linger, they will starve. I tell you, one way or another you will be clear of those
people. Overpopulation, sir, is the curse of this country.”

And it is the truth.

ANOTHER MILE
closer to home, and Carmichael finds
himself riding alongside a turnip field. There is not a man in sight, but females in
cloaks and little naked children are scattered across the flat field like a flock of
seabirds blown off-course by the wind.

Owen Carmichael tries to fix his vision upon the straight, well-made
highway. He tightens his knees and nudges the mare a little quicker. He will certainly
be home in time for his dinner. Afterward he will inspect his early cornfields to
determine if the crop is ripe for cutting.

Women close by the road straighten up from their scavenging to stare.

He has no cash and cannot meet the poor rates on paupers breeding like
rabbits and overrunning his farm. No, he cannot possibly.

Ejection, ejection.

The agent's voice, flat as paper. “Any investment, Mr.
Carmichael, must show a decent rate of return.”

A woman calls out in a language Owen Carmichael has heard all his life but
does not understand. Instead of ignoring her, he makes the mistake of turning his head,
and instantly there are a dozen or more paupers closing in on the road, a tide of
females with gray mud on their legs, holding up naked children screaming with
hunger.

* * *

THAT EVENING
, inspecting his field of ripening wheat,
plucking a stalk and pressing the grains out onto his palm, he tastes one on his tongue.
Cracks it between his teeth.

Then opens his hand.

Light and dry the pale grains are, wholly ripe, practically
weightless.

In a second, the casual wind has swept them away.

IRELAND
, 1846

HE WOULD SLIP FROM THE CABIN
before the rest of them
were awake and come down the mountain, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. With his dog,
he'd course the slick, foggy slope, then down along the river and across
Carmichael's meadows. Feet brushing cold wet silver grass. Slipping the straw rope
off the fanatic dog, freeing her to nose under hedges, at dry burrows, her tail
swinging.

Approaching the farm, they'd pass Carmichael's rich black
mountain of manure and the stone haggard, crowded with hay.

The Carmichael farmyard was flanked by stone walls six feet high, built to
withstand — built for war. The only entrance an iron gate.

The yard was paved with blue stone. He had always distrusted the alien
firmness of the stone on his heels. And the gaunt, whitewashed farmhouse eyeing him so
bitterly: the whitewashed face of disregard.

He had always felt deficient here. He had tried convincing himself he did
not but why else the constant self-argument, the tingle of thoughts inside his head
rising up like doves off a perch, fluttering and billing, all confusion?

He would come hoping to catch a glimpse of Phoebe Carmichael in the steel
light of morning, milk pail in her hand.

His old playmate. He had known her all his life, as he knew everyone.

Seeing him waiting at the gate, she'd offer him a drink.

— You wouldn't get it any
fresher.

— No, miss.

He loved Phoebe's narrow pink feet on the blue stones. Her bare
forearms, and the clean fabric of her gown and apron.

She was the only female of the Carmichaels. Her mother a consumptive, dead
at twenty-nine and buried in the yard of the Presbyterian church at Mountshannon.

Setting the pail down on the cobbles, Phoebe took a blue china cup from a
pocket of her apron and handed it to him.

Dipping the cup then raising it to his lips, he'd pause before
tasting the milk.

— Try some yourself, miss?

— No I will not, Fergus. But you go ahead.

The milk scent sweet and cloudy. He'd drink in two swallows, warm
and thick with fat, coating his teeth.

— Thank you, miss
.

— You're welcome.

And every night he'd lie awake, in the cabin on the mountain,
listening to his parents breathe. Phoebe became an ember in his mind, burning down
through his thoughts, glowing. Could she feel what he felt? Did she lie awake in her
father's house, thrilled with trouble, wishing for a tug on the warm red line
connecting them?

HE HAD
always lived on the mountain, his people tenants
of Carmichael.

Farmer Carmichael who kept a red mare. Name of Sally. He'd purchased
her for a hunter in a time when the strong farmers of the district had a fad for hunting
and shared the expense of a pack of hounds.

Red, with a black mane. Not tall, but deep-chested, strong. Plenty of
heart.

The first Carmichael in the country had been a bloody soldier.
Protestants, English speakers, the Carmichaels held the farm as lease-holding tenants of
the earl of Liskerry, the great landlord,
tiarna mór
. No one had ever seen
tiarna mór
himself, said to hold ground all over the country and live
in Rome. Carmichael's subtenants lived in cabins on the mountain, each family with
their cabin, their pig, their allotment of potato ground. In exchange the cabin people
owed the
farmer a certain measure of labor. Working in
Carmichael's fields at harvesttime, they often would catch themselves staring at
red Sally in the little pasture where she grazed. Some of them hated the big mare, and
others felt a pride of connection. Telling themselves that Carmichael's Sally
surely was the finest bounder in the country.

So sexual and easy, her ramblings in that little field.

Fergus relished the red mare. He used to creep into Carmichael's
stable, climb into Sally's stall, and settle himself on her back. No one had ever
caught him there. The stable — infused with scents of old hay, neat's-foot
oil, corn — felt safe. It was warmer, drier, than any cabin on the mountain.
He'd sit aboard the mare an hour or two, legs splayed out, fingers combing out her
stiff mane.

He was fifteen before he attempted to ride her. Until then he hadn't
felt the need of mastering anyone. Climbing aboard in secret — that had been
enough. Then one afternoon, lying on the grass, head resting on one elbow, watching the
lovely mare graze — her lips pulled back, blue gums and yellow teeth cropping
grass blades — he suddenly felt that he must get aboard her and ride.

The feeling came on him suddenly, like a hunger pang.

He sat up and looked around, wary.

There was no one in sight. It was midsummer. A lull between hay cuts. The
meadows were empty, silver sun rippling across.

He got up and approached the mare softly. At first she shied, but each
time he renewed his steady discourse in Irish, speaking calmly, and at his fourth
approach she let him catch hold, twisting his fingers in her mane, laying his cheek
against her neck, smelling the sun's heat there.

He led her to the stone wall, climbed the wall, and swung a leg across.
When he kicked lightly with his heels the mare ambled on the grass, pausing to sniff at
a butterfly twitching through the poppies.

They slowly perambulated the little pasture. When Fergus knotted his
fingers tighter in her mane and bunched with his knees, Sally broke into gorgeous
canter.

He found it difficult to stay firmly seated, and began springing higher
with every stride. Catching a sideways glimpse of Farmer Carmichael standing at the
gate, Fergus lost his concentration. Relaxing his grip, he was pitched off her back,
landing hard on hands and knees, stunned.

The mare shook herself, stopped, bent to munch.
Looking up, Fergus saw Carmichael striding across the field toward him. The farmer wore
an old black swallowtail coat, muddy boots, and a straw hat tied under his chin with a
scrap of purple ribbon. He carried a blackthorn stick.

Wary of a beating, Fergus stood up hastily, looking around for a rock to
defend himself with.

The mare rubbed her feet on the grass.

“The knees!” the farmer shouted. “She'll want a
good strong grip! Comes from the knees!”

He had a brown, chiseled face. The inflexible lips of the English. Phoebe,
his daughter, had the same lips. She liked to play-bite.

“Use your hands gentle, but keep your knees firmly. She will carry
you like a cloud if you have the right hands and strong at the knees.” He peered
at Fergus. “You're Mike O'Brien's boy, yes? Grandson of old
Feeny?”

Fergus nodded.

There was silence troubled only by curlews sputtering over, winging
sharply toward the byre. Carmichael reached out and caught his mare, grabbing a fistful
of her mane. Sally sniffed at his pockets, and the farmer dropped his stick in the
grass.

“Let's see you aboard.”

Fergus hesitated, unsure. At the same time angry. It was impossible to be
around a farmer for very long and not feel the ancestral glow of tedious, unilluminating
anger.

“Come, boy!” The farmer interlaced his fingers, making a
footstep, insisting. “Quickly now!”

Better to be up above the farmer, looking down. Fergus stepped into
Carmichael's hands and was instantly thrown up across Sally's warm back.

“Hold her steady, boy.” Carmichael circled around, eyeing them
keenly. “You're sitting like a plowboy. Straight back! Don't
slump!”

Fergus let go of the mane and thrust his shoulders back.

“Don't use hands at all,” the farmer instructed.
“Only knees. Come now. At a walk. Step her along. There it is. There it
is.”

For half an hour Fergus walked then jogged the mare around the little
field while Farmer Carmichael criticized his seat and called out instructions.
“Feel
her muscles working. Feel them slide, feel them knit.
You'll never sit properly until you know your horse down to the bones. Loosen up
and keep loose. Your knees are your voice with her. Your hands come later.”

AS HE
walked home that afternoon, up the mountain, four
young men — one a cousin — stopped him on the path. Before a blow had been
struck, while the cousin was still boiling up insults, calling Carmichael's mare
a sorry lump of leather
;
a bag of goat bones
;
a mustard
fuck
, Fergus lowered his head and ran at him, butting him in the chest and
knocking him down. Seizing a stick, he held off the others until his cousin stood up,
grunting like a bull. Fergus threw away the stick and ran. They gave chase, screaming
like a pack of hounds, and one of them finally brought him down with a brute shove that
sent him sprawling.

He lay with nose pushed into the decaying leaves, his cousin's knee
pressing in the small of his back.

“That girl's a goat-boned whore,” the cousin whispered
in his ear, giving his arm a twist. “Say it, Fergus. The little cunt Phoebe, your
sweetheart, is nothing but a goat-boned whore.”

But he would not. He never could bring himself to give in. He would eat
his pain.

His cousin wrenched the arm back another inch so the joint was grinding on
the rim of its socket.

Eating pain. It was a kind of food. Made you dizzy.

He was aware of the young men's raucous laughter. Sunlight splitting
though the oaks. Moldy leaves scratching his eyebrow. Scent of turf.

Phoebe would smell like cold water or honey, or the black turf. When a
turf bank was sliced open, the strongest, purest fragrance was available only if you got
down on your knees, put your nose very close, and breathed it in. He always felt
compelled to do so and the scent always spun him — clobbered his chest, strove at
his heart so he felt his heart as a muscle working. Other turf cutters — men and
boys kicking at their spades, constantly relighting their pipes — laughed at him
kneeling on the ground, inhaling, losing himself. No one else felt such a need —
or if they did, they stifled it.