Black Lake Page 5

  He parked the car on the bridge over the river that cut the town in two. Malachy’s pub was the closest building to the water and it did well in seafood and Guinness when the tourists came. It must seem terribly authentic to them, John thought, an old whitewashed Donegal farmhouse, with family photographs on the windowsills, watching as you ate. It made him wonder what the tourists would make of Dulough. It would be quite a different experience altogether.

  The town was quiet. A few people scurried between the butcher’s, the hardware shop, and the Spar, clutching bags. They paid John no attention and he was glad of this as he walked up the road. Frank Foyle’s office was above Driver’s, a shop that sold goods like walking boots and fishing rods. John rang the bell and waited. He shivered in his shirtsleeves; it was not as warm as it had been the day before. Frank Foyle’s secretary came downstairs; her name was Nancy. She was a buxom, cowlike girl. She’d only left school a year or two ago, but she looked much, much older. Her face was covered in a deep, heavy layer of makeup. Smiling broadly, she said, “How are you, Mr. Campbell?” with the implication that there was no need for an answer.

  “Hello there, Nancy.” He’d come to know her quite well over the past year or so, having waited often in the outer office where her desk was while Frank Foyle readied himself for these visits. He felt sorry for Nancy. There were few prospects in the area for girls like her; the ones with any ambition went to Dublin or London. The best John could do was plant the idea in her mind that perhaps Councillor Foyle wasn’t the best choice of employer, that she might be better off somewhere else. Of course, this was a delicate thing to suggest, but he feared that he’d been too subtle. He had often wondered whether she had a boyfriend, a local she might eventually marry, someone who’d build her a nice house and protect her from the Foyles of the world. She would make a good mother, he thought; she was kind, she had sympathy for him and Marianne, he could tell by her manner. He wondered whether there might be a place for her at Dulough now; perhaps she could be trained as a guide or employed in the office overseeing the construction of the Visitors’ Center. He must ask Murphy.

  Foyle arrived at his office door, hand outstretched, boots caked in mud and, by the smell of it, dung. “Good to see you, sir,” he said.

  A mahogany desk, resembling a coffin, dominated the small room. The county councillor plunged back into his ergonomic chair; there was no such luxury for his guests. What John perched on was hard, wooden, decidedly school-like. Councillor Foyle made John uneasy. He wasn’t sure how much irony was in the “sir.” He knew that Mr. Foyle relished this deal and his own part in it, that he felt things were being righted; Irish land was being returned to the Irish people. Besides, the town needed the jobs that the estate would provide. John had to stifle the urge to remind Foyle that the house still belonged to him, that the government was only looking after the upkeep for the time being. The panic that had caused him to flee the moving men yesterday morning returned.

  “That’ll be two cups of tea, Nancy, thanks,” Foyle said, as he got up again to shut the door with his boot.

  He looked closely at John in a manner he wouldn’t have had the guts for a year earlier.

  “I spoke to your wife yesterday. She said the move was going smoothly.”

  So Marianne knew he hadn’t been in town. He should have thought of a better excuse. But he’d no time to dwell on it; a piece of paper was being pushed towards him across the cluttered desk. The thought of visitors arriving in four weeks’ time was suddenly too much.

  “Mr. Foyle, I’m still of the same mind about the opening date. The estate won’t be ready in a month.”

  What difference would it make if they opened the gates a little later? The weather would be better in June anyway.

  Frank Foyle’s mouth puckered. John knew him well enough by now to realize that the politician was annoyed, that he was trying to choose his words carefully.

  “We’ve printed the publicity materials with the May opening date already, Mr. Campbell. Paddy Friel’s putting them up this morning. And didn’t you say yourself that the house was in need of a new chimney?”

  “It is,” John paused. “That’s precisely what I’m saying, we should wait until the repairs are finished.”

  “Ah, but rebuilding the chimney is a big investment that will require a lot of capital. Michael—Mr. Murphy—and me have decided that we need to see how the business does before we invest heavily in the venture.”

  John should have known that he couldn’t trust Foyle. He thought miserably about the crumbling chimney, about the rotten window frames, about the missing roof tiles.

  “That wasn’t our agreement,” he said weakly.

  “We didn’t have an agreement about the chimney, sir. We don’t have agreements about any specific improvements. If you’d like to peruse the documents again, you will see that the Office of Public Works hasn’t said what it will and will not repair. We have no particular obligations in that sense. What we do have is an agreement to build the Visitors’ Center, tarmacadam the roadway up to the house, provide you with three minibuses and drivers, staff for the kitchen, a guide for the tours, and a salary for yourself and Mr. Francis Connolly and Mrs. Mary Connolly until yous all reach retirement age. After that, sir, your son—or daughter—remains the owner, of course, but we’ve no salary obligations towards them.”

  Frank Foyle pushed the final contracts a little further in John’s direction and sat back in his chair. John signed without reading. Mr. Foyle’s tongue poked out the corner of his mouth, following the direction of John’s signature across the page. When John handed the papers back, Foyle made a show of bundling them together and putting them inside a leather case.

  John had never thought of his family as privileged. They had lived in a grand house, yes, but they’d had no luxuries. And yet he realized now that he had been spoilt. He had been brought up to think that there would always be enough money, magically there, because people like them always had enough. It was unthinkable that they would have to compromise themselves to accept a job they didn’t want, a job that might take them away from Dulough, a patch of Ireland they had a right to.

  “Nancy!” Frank Foyle bellowed, as he put the case in the top drawer of his desk and locked it with a key that seemed much too small for his farmer’s fingers to grasp.

  She came to the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Change those teas to whiskeys.”

  “The tea’s made.”

  “Tea would be fine.” John turned to Nancy and smiled.

  Foyle ignored him and gave her a look somewhere between brazen lust and fatherly scolding. John didn’t turn to see what sort of expression Nancy might conjure up in return, but the door shut and he heard the clink of glasses in the outer office.

  The councillor’s seat snapped forwards when Nancy entered with a bottle.

  “To your health, sir,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you and your good wife.”

  John took a drink of the whiskey, trying to hide the loathing he felt for this man.

  Nancy had returned to her desk; her computer keyboard clacked loudly beyond the door. John wished he’d brought one of the children with him so that he could excuse himself sooner. Yesterday, he had been sure that Marianne would understand why he had to leave, that she would forgive him, especially as he’d blamed his absence on a meeting with Foyle. But when they got into bed, she’d turned her face to the wall and drawn her knees up to her chin. He should have known that there was more to her silence than simply irritation that he’d disappeared when the movers arrived.

  What glee this man must have found in catching him in a falsehood, in covering for him in his self-righteous manner: “Don’t worry, Marianne; I’m sure he’s his reasons.” And how much it would have annoyed her to have learnt that John hadn’t been in town after all, from this little man, whom she deplored. It was no wonder that her anger had carried over into this morning, that she hadn’t made him breakfast, that she
’d ignored him as he wandered, lost, around the new, bare kitchen, looking for a tea bag and a slice of bread.

  John finished his whiskey and put the glass down on Foyle’s desk. He realized that the county councillor had been studying him as he drank, and he had the horrible feeling that the man could tell what he was thinking. He had felt more comfortable in the larger meetings, more of a businessman drawing up a deal than someone in need of financial assistance from the government. He and Foyle were partners, two Donegal men, fighting for the good of a local treasure, against the city bureaucrats. But that feeling was gone now. The passage of this year had broken him down. He remembered his early dealings with Frank Foyle. John was the man from the big house, from a family who had remained prosperous for centuries, a family who had given work to local men in the post-Famine years. But John needed the government now, more than they needed him, and he had seen the click of recognition when they realized. With that, he had felt as if he were evaporating, as if he was somehow diminished with each meeting, so that now he was weak and had been weakened for good.

  Outside the office, he stopped to collect himself.

  A voice behind him said, “Mr. Campbell, how are you keeping?”

  It was Mrs. Baskin, the chemist. She was always very well turned out, even when she served in the shop. Marianne had drawn his attention to this one day, after filling a prescription for Kate. She mused that Mrs. Baskin could have done better. “Better than what?” John had wondered. Marianne was still relatively new to Dulough then and he hadn’t dared to ask whether she meant “better than here.”

  “So you’ll be opening those gates to the tourists then?”

  Surely the posters couldn’t be up already, John thought.

  “It was only that Mary was in the other day,” she added.

  So it had been Mrs. Connolly. There was no point in getting het up about it, the news would be out soon anyway.

  “I might come up and have a look at the place myself—if I can get someone to mind the shop. I mean if it’s all right with you, but if the tourists…”

  Her voice trailed off. John saw that it was his job now to be polite. “Yes, yes. Of course. Please do. You’d be very welcome.” He’d better get used to this.

  Twenty minutes later, as he swung the car into the muddy driveway outside the new cottage, he was surprised that instinct had not made him drive up to the big house. Through the window, he could see his son sitting at the table. Philip looked around expectantly when he heard the door open and watched in silence as his father took off his coat and hung it on the hook behind the door. John was taken aback by Philip’s appearance; he seemed to have grown younger in the past few days. His feet knocked against the chair legs without reaching the floor and he was impossibly thin, his skin almost transparent, the veins traceable rivers in his arms. Between tentative bites of a cold roast beef sandwich, he told John that Marianne was upset because government men were digging up the garden. John tried to remember if there had been anything in the contracts about preserving the lawn.

  “Where’s Mummy now?”

  “Gone for a walk.” Philip handed him the note Marianne had written in his geography copybook. He read the looping scrawl of his wife’s handwriting. It was clearer than usual, a little more carefully written, as a concession to her son. John had been bending down to understand better what Philip was saying and now his muscles hurt as he stood. “Try to eat that up, we’ll have something nice tomorrow.”

  He drove the half mile or so up to the big house. Parking the car at the back, on the patch of grass in front of the barn, he took a shortcut through the scullery door. In the kitchen, the chessboard tiles had just been washed, so he walked on his tiptoes across them, leaving a crescent trail behind. He unlocked the front door and deliberately left it swinging open behind him. He would have to talk to Murphy about this. Dulough was never locked.

  First he would take a look at the grass. They had indeed dug up the lovely old stone path, and remnants of it had been thrown here and there. Underneath, there was a small stream that originated somewhere behind the house and headed for the sea. He hadn’t known about it and wondered why the first gardeners had thought to cover it up. It seemed a pity. Picnics on the lawn had been a specialty of his mother’s. He remembered lying on the blanket as she put out the tea things. The children drank very milky tea (the milk quotient decreased as one got older, until, at fifteen or sixteen, it was the same color as the adults’). Their mother always insisted that they wait an hour before they went swimming—she was petrified they would get a cramp. When she gave the all clear, he and Phil ran down to the beach and raced each other to the island and back, while their mother watched from the shore, towels at the ready. John couldn’t fathom why his children liked the pool better; as far as he was concerned, nothing could beat sea-bathing.

  Marianne would be in her new garden, hiding from the mess down here. As he climbed up through the forest to the flat piece of land on the other side, he felt an anticipation at seeing her, after his final meeting with Foyle. He wondered whether he should explain why he’d lied to her the day before. If he put it in the right terms, she’d understand. But surely she should understand without him having to say anything, he thought.

  It was late afternoon. She was on her knees at the edge of a flower bed, heaping soil around a new planting. He stopped on the ridge, watching. She wasn’t wearing her gardening clothes but a skirt, which she had pulled up over her knees so as to keep it clean. He wondered what she could have been doing that day to require a skirt. She would be cold. He had meant to go straight to her, to comfort her about the lawn, but when she gave the soil a final pat and stood up, she turned her back to him and looked out to sea. She was cold, he could see that now, in the stiff way that she moved. He thought how seldom it was that he had a chance to watch Marianne, how different his wife seemed when she thought she was alone. Without taking her eyes off the sea, she squatted on the ground. Then she began to rock back and forth. The act was unfamiliar to John, and disconcerting in its inelegance. He wondered what she could be doing. And then the obviousness of it hit him, his own stupidity! She was crying, of course.

  He had wanted to tell her about his afternoon, and how Mrs. Baskin said she was going to come up to the house one of these days to “have a look at the place.” But he stepped back into the undergrowth. It was dark in the forest, the light outside too weak to penetrate. He slipped down the paths, his hands grabbing at tree trunks until he was at the bottom.

  When she came back, it was getting dark and he had begun supper. He had not been particularly successful in the beginnings of this impromptu meal and was glad to see her. There was not a speck of mud on her skirt, nor was there any evidence of her distress. She smiled at Philip, who was helping with dinner.

  “Did you see the stream, Mummy?” he said, as he led her to the kitchen table, where his and Kate’s drawings of the valley were laid out side by side. Kate arrived at the kitchen door, settling against the frame.

  As Marianne hugged Philip, she watched John over the top of the child’s head. He could feel it as he opened and closed cupboards, which made him wonder if she had sensed him watching her hours earlier. No, he had been well hidden, and besides, he was expecting her disapproval; she would blame him for the lawn, for the stone path, he knew this. What would she say when she found out the full extent of his agreement with the government, that they had almost no power over what happened at Dulough now?

  Philip

  Philip slipped out of the cottage and made his way up the avenue towards the big house and, beyond it, to the beach. He carried a shovel that he’d taken from Francis’s work shed. It thumped off the ground, sending shock waves into his shoulder. He was beginning to regret taking the stupid thing and he wondered if he should leave it behind the hedge. It would be difficult to come back for it when the tide came in, though.

  The government car, which always seemed to be parked in front of the house these days, had not yet arr
ived. He was pleased to know that he’d got the better of them. Turning, he went under the archway that was the entrance to the garden. He checked on the stream he’d fixed; the water flowed smoothly, straightly down to the sea. It was clearer now that the earth had settled, now that the worms and cigarette butts had been washed away. He scooped a handful into his mouth. It tasted of rust.

  Pushing his way between the pines at the foot of the lawn, he arrived at the top of the cliffs. The headland curled away to his left and right like crab claws, peninsulas that belonged to his family but were never used. They were too near the sea for the deer, and the ground wasn’t good enough to grow anything other than rough grass. Owen Mór had once asked Philip’s father if he could put his sheep there. His father had said yes but retracted his offer when Francis convinced him that it wasn’t a good idea, that the animals would get in and ruin the gardens. Francis didn’t much like Owen Mór, because his blue-daubed sheep had a habit of jumping in front of the car on the way to town.

  Philip went down the winding sandy path. It was steep, and he used the shovel to steady himself. The tide was out, leaving behind seawater-filled rivulets on the sand and a few jellyfish, their tentacles plastered to the beach, dying slowly. Philip stopped to look at one; it lay half in, half out of a pool. There was no sign that it was alive, but he wasn’t sure how to tell. Did jellyfish breathe? Lifting the spade as high as he could, he cut the creature in two. It was like slicing through trifle, each side stayed intact, nothing spilled out, no blood and guts, it just wobbled for a moment and was still. In fact, unless you looked at it closely, you couldn’t even see that it had been cut in half at all. Philip brought the spade down again and cut it into quarters, then into eighths, clearly, symmetrically, as if he was drawing a mathematical diagram. To finish the job, he severed the tentacles where they met the body. He imagined the water coming in and lifting it, intact at first, then separate, each piece floating off in a different direction, on the tide.