Another Kind of Life Read online

  Richard hesitated.

  ‘All right – you stand here, at her head. Just take the halter and talk to her. Try not to startle her.’

  Abruptly, Richard turned and waded into the river. He bent down, leaning his back against the terrified animal’s rump.

  ‘I’m goin’ to push her on three, May – you pull on the halter at the same time. One, two . . . three.’

  May had a dim memory of a child, a bright flash of blue smock, leaping from a tree in white June sunshine. Jean-Louis’s grinning face now swam before her eyes as she pulled on Dolly’s halter, watching as fear rolled around her wide wet eyes.

  ‘Easy, easy, girl,’ she said firmly, just as she had heard Richard do. But the animal would not budge. Richard stumbled and crashed into the muddying water, regaining his balance again with difficulty. He cursed softly.

  ‘It’s not goin’ to work, May. You’ll have to find Tom. I’ll stay with Dolly. For God’s sake tell him to hurry up!’

  May gathered up her soaking skirts and half ran, half fell up the muddy bank to the field. In the distance, she could see Tom’s large figure beginning to lope towards her. She ran, as quickly as she could, waving her arms to attract his attention.

  ‘Tom – Tom – hurry, please!’

  He quickened his pace, settling his cap lower across his forehead.

  ‘Quick – Dolly’s stuck in the river. We need help to get her out!’

  He nodded, his eyes already scanning the swollen water. May had a fleeting thought that there was something wrong – he seemed unwilling to speak, to look at her.

  ‘Where’s Annie?’

  Still there was no answer. Perhaps he hadn’t heard her. May was suddenly filled with a sense that something was wrong, or about to be wrong. She could feel a return of the old anxiety, a feeling of suffocation, of being trapped in some dark place from which there was no escape.

  She pushed open the back door, ran through the passageway between kitchen and scullery, out into the broad, sun-filled hallway. She flung open the door to the dining room. Her letters sat innocently on the writing-desk, the two cushions still bore the imprint of her son’s small body. But there was no John.

  Annie was coming down the stairs, fixing the strings of her apron. She was startled to see May, frightened by her air of urgency, her panicked breathlessness.

  ‘What is it, mam? Is everythin’ all right?’

  ‘John! Where’s John!’

  ‘I . . . don’t know, mam. I’ve been . . . cleanin’. Upstairs.’

  Annie was nodding, as though agreeing with words spoken by someone else: words which had supplied her with an answer she’d been searching for. Her demeanour was strained, almost guilty. May felt her panic growing. She couldn’t read her way into the young woman’s expression.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me call? I told you to look after the child!’

  ‘No, mam. I didn’t hear nothin’.’

  She straightened her shoulders, smoothed her apron firmly.

  ‘Like I said, I was busy.’

  Her face was now openly defiant.

  ‘The dog – did you hear the dog barking?’

  Annie shook her head.

  ‘Come with me, quickly.’

  May ran back towards the scullery, her throat now so taut with fear she could hardly breathe.

  ‘Hurry – go tell Mr O’Brien. I’ll search the house. Tell him to cover the yard – the byre – the river – anywhere he can think of. Get Tom to help him! Run!’

  Stumbling on the muddied hem of her dress, May went on hands and knees up the stairs and tried to call out to her son. Her voice was choked by sudden, hot tears. She prayed that she would open the door to John’s room and find Molly tearing at the curtains, eating the rugs again. She tried to tell herself sternly to calm down, to stop being hysterical, but something deep inside was warning her that her moment had come. That indefinable sense of dread which she had carried with her all her life was now about to be made flesh.

  His room was empty, too quiet. Muslin billowed in the wind, voices carried from the water’s edge. All the rest was silence.

  One last heave and Dolly finally lurched forward with a suddenness that made Richard stagger in her wake. He brought the switch down with unusual violence across her rump and she hurried up the last few feet to the pasture.

  ‘Bloody animal!’ he roared after her.

  As if he hadn’t enough to contend with – the whole herd infected with God knows what, and money suddenly owed to everyone, everywhere. He turned angrily to Tom.

  ‘And where the hell have you been?’

  Before Tom had time to answer, Annie arrived at the edge of the river-bank, breathless, wiping her forehead with her sleeve.

  ‘Please, sir, quickly, sir – Mrs O’Brien says to look for the boy. He’s not in the house – we’re to search everywhere.’

  Richard looked at her stupidly. What boy? What was she talking about? He looked blankly from her to Tom.

  ‘It’s little John, sir, he’s gone missin’.’

  Richard felt his anger drain away, leaving a cold and empty space where it had once been.

  ‘Since when?’

  He stood still in the grainy water, Tom just above him on the sloping bank, Annie bending towards them from the edge of the pasture. Something about the way they all stood there struck him as odd, theatrical almost. It was as though this were really happening somewhere else, the three of them on stage, displaced, representing somebody else’s reality, not his. He noted the fierceness of the sun over Tom’s left shoulder, and how the man’s large face was thrown almost completely into shadow. Fear paralysed him.

  Annie had started to cry.

  ‘Don’t know, sir. Missus came runnin’ into the house a few minutes ago, screamin’ that he was gone. That’s all I know, sir.’

  Richard caught the glance between her and Tom that made something seem clearer to him, but he didn’t know what. Couldn’t put his finger on it. He scrambled up the bank, pushing both of them out of his way.

  ‘Get back to the house, Annie – help Mrs O’Brien. Tom, you come with me. Now.’

  He wanted to separate them, wanted them not to be together, to whisper away the uneasy guilt he’d seen in both their eyes. He’d deal with whatever it was later: for now, all that mattered was his son. He sent Tom downriver, whistling for Molly. He made his way upstream, calling cheerfully to John, wanting the boy to know by his tone that no punishment awaited him, no matter what he had done.

  Some instinct brought him towards the lake-boat. It bobbed innocently on the small waves, tap-tapping gently against the side of the wooden jetty.

  ‘John? Son? Come on out to Pa, now. We’ll go in the boat together. Would you like that?’

  His words were returned to him on the breeze. Something had gripped his insides, hard. He didn’t know whether it was hope or despair. He made a bargain with God – if his son lay silent, playing hide-and-seek in the bottom of the lake-boat, or sleeping under the willows on the river-bank, he would never ask for another thing. Please, God, just let him be safe.

  He approached cautiously.

  At first it looked to him like an unbleached flour sack, swelling gently with the movement of the water. He laughed out loud in relief, a short, sharp sound, more bark than mirth. One occasionally floated down from the flour mills a quarter of a mile upstream. On still days, the fine, white, powdery residue clung like a cloud, a sort of hazy halo above the stiff material, before they both sank slowly into the greenish eddies just beyond the bend in the river. Kneeling on the slippery wooden planks of the jetty, Richard rolled up his sleeve and plunged his hand into the restless water.

  At the same moment, the flour sack stirred and turned, its lazy billow disturbed by the tug of his fingers. Quietly, almost innocently, it revealed its secret to the kneeling man. Small, cold face. Eyes closed. Bruise like a sad poppy stretching from cheekbone to hairline, its outer edges already turning purple, pewter, indigo.

  The
watery silence was shattered by the sound of a man’s voice howling. His own.

  ‘Ah, Jesus, no. No, no, no, dear Jesus, please!’

  He gathered his small son into his arms with difficulty, almost losing his balance on the treacherous surface of the jetty. The child felt so heavy, so unfamiliar, that for a moment Richard wondered was this really his son, or was it someone else’s, someone who had strayed on to his land, or perhaps a body washed down to his farm from further upstream, a mill-child, an orphan, a son that nobody wanted, that no father would miss. It was an impression he couldn’t shake for several minutes. He pushed the fair hair back from the swollen forehead, looking for signs, for something to recognize. Eventually the plump curve of the child’s blue-white forearm brought weeping so harsh that he believed he would never be able to bear the pain. He buried his face in his son’s neck, wondering wildly how he could hide him, bury him, keep May from seeing him like this.

  He was so little, so cold. Richard had nothing to wrap him in, no coat, no jacket. He tried again to struggle to his feet.

  And then May was beside him, stumbling, kneeling, tearing at her son’s white smock, covering his body with hers in a futile attempt to warm him.

  ‘No, no, dear God, no! Richard, he’s cold – fetch a blanket – no, no, go – tell Dr O’Connell to come at once! John, John, my little angel, open your eyes!’

  Her cries were those of a wounded animal; their fierceness shocked Richard back to the present again, back to where he was kneeling, sobbing, one large hand on the fair head of his dead son.

  Looking up, he caught sight of Annie, her face buried in her apron. Tom stood awkwardly, his hands hanging loosely by his sides, suddenly too big for his body. His eyes were focused on the distance, on nothing in particular. He stood apart from Annie. He was very carefully not looking at her. It was the distance between the two of them that finally made everything clear to Richard.

  He leapt up the slope and put both hands around the older man’s throat. Roaring in a voice he did not recognize as his own, he pressed hard on the man’s windpipe, needing, wanting to kill him.

  ‘You! Both of you! You’re to blame for this! Fornicating while my son drowned!’

  All the blood had drained from Tom’s face. He was gasping for breath, tearing at Richard’s hands, his own useless in the face of such terrified, white-hot strength.

  It seemed to be Annie’s screams which eventually made Richard loosen his grip and step back, shocked into silence. Instead, it was a thought that had its own clear logic, its own beauty of resolution. Almost forgetting his grief, he strode off in the direction of the house, his mind sharp, clear, like a clean blue light.

  He no longer heard May’s sobs, no longer saw her bent over the lifeless body.

  The shotgun was always locked away. He was a careful man about such things. He reached up and took the key from the dusty surface at the top of the cabinet. He took what he wanted and locked the cabinet after him again, replacing the box of shells on the second shelf, putting the key into his pocket this time. No loaded guns in the vicinity of the house; it was his father’s one unshakeable rule. He carried the shotgun under his arm like a broken branch, and made his way towards the river again. He waited until he was close to the last line of willows before he placed both shells into the breech. He had no idea how long he’d been gone; it was puzzling – everyone was just as he had left them. In a way, he had expected something to have changed.

  All three turned around at the sound of the shotgun being loaded. Richard raised it to his shoulder, drew the sight closer to his eye. The long barrel pointed like a finger, direct, unflinching. He watched, unmoved, as Annie ran towards her lover, screaming, clutching at his chest. With one arm, Tom swept her behind his back, meeting Richard’s eye for the first time.

  ‘We din’t do no wrong, Mr O’Brien, sir. We din’t hear the Missus call . . .’

  May was crooning softly, her mouth buried in the soft, milky flesh just under John’s ear, his small body arcing back over her arms, one hand just brushing the surface of the jetty gently, uselessly. Richard felt something give inside his chest. He was consumed with an unbearable tenderness towards his son. His eyes filled, and for a moment, Tom’s face with its peaked cap blurred and swam before him.

  ‘Go,’ he said softly. He motioned towards the farm gates with the barrel of his shotgun. ‘Get out, both of you. If I ever see either of you within a ten-mile radius of here, Christ help me, I’ll shoot you.’

  Sobbing distractedly, Annie reached for Tom’s hand. She dragged him up the bank, away from the river. He followed, unwillingly, it seemed to Richard. He had a split-second, wild desire to shoot the man in the back. It was the only punishment that felt fitting.

  May was silent now, rocking her son back and forwards, back and forwards.

  ‘Poor little scrap,’ he heard her whisper, over and over.

  Richard knelt behind her, placed both hands on her shoulders. He spoke quietly into her ear, avoiding his son’s face, which was becoming somehow featureless, almost formless.

  ‘Let’s get him up to the house. Let me carry him.’

  She shrugged him off with surprising strength.

  They stayed like that, for hours it seemed to Richard. He found her rocking motion soothing. He swayed with her, holding her close, until the breathless arrival at the water’s edge of Mick Duggan and his wife Bridie.

  They’d found Molly’s body, trapped in the reeds by the fence at the bottom of their lower field. At first, Mick had thought it was a young fox, maybe poisoned or shot for killing chickens. But he was puzzled – no news of any foxes on the prowl had reached him, and Bridie was always on the alert, clucking like a demented hen herself at the first sign of danger to her little beauties.

  He’d climbed carefully between the wires of the fence, holding the dangerous barbs as far away from his body as he could, easing his large frame safely through. He went closer to the river to have a good look. Molly’s coat was matted, covered in green slime, but Mick had recognized her instantly once he knelt at the water’s edge.

  He pulled the swollen body out of the water, and felt a surge of compassion. He’d been really fond of that little dog, and her gentle mother. He had a sudden stab of misgiving. He knew Richard O’Brien to be a careful man: if something like this had happened, then it was likely there was some sort of trouble above at his neighbours’ farm.

  He manoeuvred his way with difficulty back through the barbed wire, still holding on to Molly’s waterlogged body. He walked quickly back towards the house. Bridie was feeding the chickens, letting them roam freely around the yard as usual, occasionally stooping to pick up an egg that she had missed earlier. She was proud of her chickens. She still had a sense of wonder at the large, warm eggs that they produced, just for her. She loved handling their translucent shells, loved the tiny, breathy feathers that often clung to their speckled surface. She had grown to regard them as a sort of fragile daily miracle that she was fortunate enough to witness. She smiled as she saw Mick approach, then her face froze.

  One look at his expression was enough.

  ‘What? What is it?’ she said fearfully.

  At the same time, her eyes rested on the sodden bundle under her husband’s arm.

  Mick held out the puppy’s body to her, wordlessly.

  ‘Ah, dear God,’ she said, her eyes filling. ‘Poor little thing. How did that happen?’

  Mick shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this – something at the O’Briens’ is not right.’

  Bridie stroked the puppy’s cold nose.

  ‘What a shame. Little John will be broken-hearted. Let me leave these eggs inside and we’ll go down together.’

  She gestured towards her husband’s burden.

  ‘I think we’d best leave Molly here. We might be able to pretend she’s gone missin’, or somethin’. Better that the child doesn’t see her like that.’

  She took off her apron an
d pulled the door closed behind her.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  They set off together down the road that led to the neighbouring farm. Almost at once, Bridie spotted two figures hurrying off into the distance, something vaguely comical about their ungainly speed.

  ‘Isn’t that Tom?’ she asked her husband. ‘And Annie? What on earth are they doin’ runnin’ off like that?’

  Mick didn’t reply. He quickened his pace and Bridie put her arm through his, almost trotting to keep up with him.

  They reached the farm, but neither of them called out. As they crossed the front pasture, the total silence suddenly unnerved them. The air around them seemed to have stilled, as though time had stopped itself in its own tracks. All the doors of the house were wide open. Curtains bellied and sagged gently through upstairs windows. There was no one to be seen anywhere, no movement of man or animal. They made their way automatically towards the river, Bridie holding on very tight to Mick’s solid arm. Still they saw no one.

  Suddenly, Bridie heard a sound that made something chill inside her. She gripped Mick’s arm, hard. He had heard it too, and for an instant, his big face looked wide open, helpless.

  ‘Come on, love,’ Bridie said, steering them both towards the sound, in the direction of the jetty. At first, all they could hear was the swell and hurry of water, indistinguishable now from the rush of wind through swaying, leaf-laden branches. Once they made their way around the gentle bend in the river, they saw them.

  Hoping, dreading, praying for it not to be so, Bridie saw May and Richard kneeling over something white. She didn’t need to look any closer. May’s body was despair made flesh. Richard was kneeling behind her, clutching her to him, holding on. A few more steps and Bridie saw, all too clearly, the small, drained face, the livid bruise, the lifelessness.

  ‘Dear God, no,’ she whispered.

  She made her way on to the jetty, placing first one foot, then the other, carefully planting the sole of each sturdy boot, still holding on to Mick’s outstretched hand. She bent down, her face level with May’s. She looked for a moment into Richard’s eyes, and looked away again. She couldn’t bear to hold his gaze. She put her hands on May’s shoulders and squeezed them gently.