The Black Snow (19 page)

He saw himself standing outside the byre beside Matthew Peoples.

So long ago now the life lived like a dream and yet he never forgot the Mohawk saying it.

He smoked as he worked, stood up when the fags were all smoked and he would straighten his back and roll himself five more, stow them in his shirt pocket. He worked with each fag hanging from his mouth, smoked in near-circular breathing. When the horse woke from sleep she would stick her head out the stable half-door and watch. A strange creature she saw back-bent and heaving over rocks, a monster with the body of a man and the mind of a bull and smoke blasting from its head in the half light like a dragon, if the horse knew of such things. As each day rose the shape of Eskra would appear made spectral by the kitchen window and she would come outside to Barnabas in her dressing gown and place beside him a cup of tea, ask him how he was getting on. He would smile at her and work on. The tea going cold until he would remember about it and he would slosh it down with a wince in one drink. Nothing worse than cold tea. Soon enough the byre rose up all four walls to meet its maker and it began to lend some of its appearance, dusting his hair and face and thickening like stone the skin on his fingers. What he
felt in his mind as he worked was the deep humming flow of a river. Working each day until his shadowed self became lost in the bluing dark and then he would stand back and look at it, the byre turning silhouette to the merging of night sky and hills.

That same day Billy and Eskra went to the beach the dog did not return and by evening Billy had grown desperate. In the yard he saw one of Cyclop’s bones freshly dug out of the earth and he stood over the bone and kicked it, called out at the top of his voice for the dog. The bone skittered hollow on the flagstones and the dog did not come and an awareness then came over him. He chased after the bone and kicked it towards the new barn shouting the dog’s name. He met the back gate that dipped rickety when opened as if it had grown tired of holding itself, and he walked out towards the edge of the back field. The grass came to his ankles and he shouted again for the dog. In the sky a fresh-hung moon like a pill to stay the night’s pain and his voice reached out into the grand silence but did not hold there. He looked towards the darkening scrim of the fields and he thought of The Masher and his strange bird-like whistle and he stopped shouting, turned back for the house. When he stood in the yard he called out again but the sound of his voice fell lonely.

He saw his father in the range chair with his shoes kicked off and his legs stretched out towards the table. Toe-white poking through a hole in his sock. Some kind of grandness to him now with his belt undone and a hand upon his belly as if he were pregnant with satisfaction, while Eskra sat quiet and focused, bent over herself stitching a button to a shirt. When Billy spoke his father pointed to the radio with a jabbing quick finger. Billy
stood awkward for a moment and then he stamped his foot. Jesus, will ye listen to me? he said.

Barnabas stared at him. Would you ever shut up. I’m trying to hear. The Russians are nearing Berlin. Could there be anything more important?

Eskra turned around. Let the boy speak, she said. You’ve heard the news today already, Barnabas. Nothing’s changed in the last hour. She turned to Billy. What’s wrong with you, love?

Cyclop’s still gone, he said. He never came back after yesterday. I’ve been out looking for him so I have, but there’s no sign of him.

Barnabas groaned and Eskra dropped her voice into a whisper. He’ll come back tonight wait till you see, Billy. Cyclop lives his own life.

Barnabas rolled his legs in towards him with dramatic fashion and he stood up. For fuck sake, he said. A heavy blink as he walked across the room and dialled up the volume, sat down again with a humph and stretched out his legs. That damn dog does only as it pleases, he said. Now would the pair of yez shush. That boy Hitler is on his way out.

He saw Billy running up the road from school, his bag bouncing eager on his back, watched him reach the yard and stand staring over the dog’s food and water bowls. The boy turned around with a tight look on his face and he dropped his head when Barnabas called him over, walked towards the byre slapping his hands by his sides. Barnabas stood up off his haunches. Go in and change into your work clothes. I need help out here. As Barnabas bent back down, Billy’s face hardened into a look of hate that went unseen by his father. He walked wordless towards the house and soon after Eskra came out. She went towards Barnabas with her
arms folded and when he saw her he stood up agitated. What is it now with that boy of ours? he said. He saw she had tied her hair up different that made lonely the full shell of her ears. Whitely they stood out and a new tightness to her mouth he did not like the look of.

Can you not see he’s worried sick about that dog.

I didn’t think of it.

I’m worried about Cyclop as well, Barnabas. I was going to say when you came in that we should go and search for him.

Barnabas leaned back and began to light a cigarette. Why doesn’t he go out looking for him then?

He says he wants you to go with him.

Arrah, Jesus.

Barnabas took off his workboots and put on his wellies and he shouted for Billy to come downstairs, that they were going now in a minute. He put on his coat and stood by the door and waited. Billy came running down the stairs. Put on your welly boots, Eskra said. The boy kicked off his shoes and stepped his bare legs into puddling boots while his father’s old coat hung on him like a pair of huge wings. They were walking up the yard when Eskra called behind them. Take this, she said. Barnabas turned and saw she held an unlit lamp.

No need, he said.

It’s going to get dark in an hour. Just in case. He might be injured or something. She waved it at him as if he did not have a choice in the matter.

They set out through northerly fields calling out for Cyclop. The dog a wary beast at the best of times and in his mind Barnabas saw the animal sitting somewhere covert between
trees, his tongue lolling in amusement. They trudged towards the perimeter of Fran Glacken’s fields and began to veer west down the slope of tapering pasture until they met impenetrable whin that held its yellow to itself like stilled flames. They swung around and came by a stream and crossed it and in the trees birds began to make their last calls and blend into the deeper darkness. Billy stood in the middle of the stream until his father summoned him onwards. Through trees and the sloping fields and they came upon a view of Pat the Masher’s house distant and dark with no light in the windows. Billy looked at the house and in his coat his hand began to tighten around the haft of a knife.

They walked a wide circle, all the while calling out to the dog as the dark crept slowly around them. Barnabas turned to the boy. C’mon, he said. It’s growing dark. We can finish this tomorrow.

Just a wee while more.

Barnabas sighed but kept walking.

Their shadows began to fuse into one and passed into that wider dark that claimed them man and boy the same, the stars too dimmed by cloud and a moon that lay hid so the night became but one dimension. Barnabas stopped and lit a low moon from the lamp and held it up before them, saw a moth wing itself at the lamp’s glass.

I mind when that dog was a pup he went about the place like a dog with two dicks, peeing all over the place. You’d be carrying him in your hands and next thing he’d let go on you. On your trousers and everything. He’d piss in your eye, so he would. The great piddler of his age. Cyclop was the wrong name for him. Should have called him Piddlin’ Pete.

Who was it gave him to you?

Oh, some auld fella from up Glebe. He wasn’t fit for looking after him. Had a heap of them. The dog seemed glad of the change. If only we knew what we were getting ourselves in for.

They came upon a narrow lane guarded over by trees that stood feather to the night, followed it, Barnabas’s voice bellowing into that dark as if he had some kind of authority over its province. He listened to the way sound travelled, the whump of wing-beat, a small animal’s rustle and scuttle, walked wide-eyed to pick out like bruising fruit the colours of the dark. At the end of the lane they began to close a wide circle, came upon the main road. Smell of moss and muck and damp and then through trees they heard a dog’s barking. They stopped and held their breaths and Billy called out and ran. Barnabas calling after him. Walked quickly. Heard a creature on the road and ran towards it with the lamp, the shape of a dog, and what was held before them when they saw it was another. A skinny mongrel standing slantways and suspicious before it skittered off. Billy’s head dropped low.

McDaid’s house loomed and Barnabas went to the door and knocked. The door opened and lamplight made a sight of McDaid in yellowing long-johns with his fly wide open and his cock on show. His feet planted in wellies. Barnabas nodded towards the man’s crotch. Jesus Christ, Peter. The electric eel is making a run for the river.

McDaid looked down and laughed and he fixed at his long-johns. Jeez, boys, you caught me nappin.

They stepped in and Barnabas told him about the dog and he eyed them back with the odd alignment of his gaze. How old is he now? McDaid said. Maybe he’s sick and gone off to die in one of the fields the way that dogs do.

Billy shot the man a look of hurt and Barnabas saw it, reached out to his son and rubbed his head. Naw, he said. He’s too young for that carry on.

Queenie peering curious between McDaid’s legs. He looked down at her. Don’t mind me, Billy, I’m just thinking out loud. How old did ye say he was?

He’s eight so he is, Billy said.

Well what’s that in dog years? McDaid reached down as if asking the dog. Let’s see now. That makes him about fifty-six. My own good age. He’ll be all right then so he will, for I’m fit as a fiddle.

When they entered their own house, Eskra went to embrace the boy but he went sullenly upstairs. Barnabas stood pulling at his sock. That dog, he said. When I lay my eyes on him I’m going to give him such a mighty kick up the hole.

The brass bell above the grocery and hardware shop door pinged its hopeful ring, reached for the sky and died there. Eskra standing beneath it on the street staring across the road. What she saw was a chimney smoking so thick it seemed to her to have caught fire. The smoke chugged like blood arterial, as if some dark heart were pumping it relentless, and she stood under the shop’s sign and found her feet had become lead. A small bird fluttering panic in her chest. Oh no, she said. She cast her eye at the people on the street and pointed but nobody seemed to notice, saw a young farmer with his hands hooked in his pants coming close by. He saw her pointing towards the roof and he stopped and unpursed his lips and squinted, and then he turned to her and shrugged. Tis nothin, he said. He left her standing there staring at the smoke and she watched it until she saw it
thin out and whiten. What is wrong with you, Eskra? A bit of smoke and you think the place is burning down.

She wheeled her bicycle down the street and turned the corner, came straight in front of Pat the Masher. He stood at the top of the hill in quiet colloquy with the priest who lay a soft white hand upon his shoulder. The cleric’s eyes met the eyes of Eskra and he dropped his hand to wave to her. She stopped before them flushed. I feel like such a fool, she said. I thought that one of the houses there on the street was having a chimney fire.

The priest looked at her a long moment and smiled. Better to be safe than sorry, he said.

She looked at Pat the Masher. And how are you, Pat? she said. I haven’t seen you in a long while.

The Masher stood close to her own height, thick-boned, always fidgeting with his hands, but he had a way of standing gentle. His head was bald but he had hedgerows over his eyes that could house birds. He smiled at her a little and when he spoke he sounded nervous. Kept clearing his throat. She knew in that moment she had intruded upon something. She took the weak grip of his hand. Good to see you, Eskra, he said. Tis getting warmer so it is.

He spoke as if he were sighing and she saw how he looked exhausted, the skin under his eyes pooled with the dark of sleeplessness while his eyes looked loaded with burden. He was not looking after himself, his clothes stained and he wore a blue rope-belt that reminded her of Matthew Peoples. The way he stood awkward, began to look down the street, began to futher with his hands, and she wanted then to get away. Well, she said. I must be going.

The priest smiled at her. And how are you and yours, Mrs Kane? Are yous doing well?

We’re doing all right, she said. Barnabas is out rebuilding the byre and it is going up quick. It was either that or sell up the fields. He says it will be restored in the next month or so and then we’ll be right again. Between you and me I can’t wait to hear again the sound of new animals.

Pat the Masher spoke quietly. That’s good to hear.

And how is your boy doing? she said.

In the instant that she spoke she saw a change come over the man’s face, as if what she said had caused him some harm, the hedgerow of his eyebrows coming down in distress and he made then the smallest of grimaces, turned his head away. As he turned she saw his gaze uncouple from the world around them and become a strange unseeing. The priest taking quick steps forward and he began anxiously to rub his hands. Well, Eskra, we must all be going about our business. And he held out his hand for her to shake it.

The town a twenty-minute cycle behind her when she saw them amongst dusty nettles, head-bowed in a ditch as if ashamed at their own grandeur. She stopped the bicycle and wheeled it back and laid it on the road. A thunder of pure blue to pound the day and she reached her hand in to seize them. Nettles bit at her hand like the bee stings she was indifferent to and she removed each blue flower by the stem, stood on the roadside and stared at them. What the bluebells evoked in her was unspoken, nature’s mastery over a part of her being she could not account for. Perhaps it was an awareness of time’s passing, another late spring and her fleet life through it or maybe it was just the shock
of their beauty, that a light so piercing to her heart could be as simple as this.