Erich Priebke is dead. I hear it on the radio this morning. The signal is poor by the sea, with the South just across the lough, all sorts of hissing and crackling gets in the way. Dermot will know all the ins and outs about Priebke. He is sitting by the bay window where a puddle of thick sunlight seeps sulkily through the glass. The cottage is borrowed, pleasant, clean. It has a sea view. We have come to mend what has been broken between us.
A clear sky hangs above the sea, the sea rippled here and there by foam tipped waves, the water beneath murky, green. I bring him a cup of tea and place it on the side table, where it can reached easily. I check the fire, add coal, plump up the cushions, fidget nervously. I cannot bring myself to ask him; about Priebke. Ordinary conversation between us is still an ordeal.
‘I’ll see if I can get us a paper.’ When he is in shut down mode, nothing gets through. ‘You’ll be ok for a bit?’
He nods and raises his hand to wave me off. Small gestures matter. Anything between us matters.
He tells me not to worry, that the fresh air will do me good, he tells me he is as happy as Larry with his book and the fire. His hair is fluffed up, freshly washed, sunlight filters through the grey. I yearn to be still beside him. ‘I’ll be off then,’ I say.
I walk along the sandy lane that leads away from the holiday cottages, across the narrow shingled beach to the small harbour. There is a weedy, rotting smell at the barnacled structure that holds up the sloping walkway. Lobster pots with sea green ropes are piled against a small wooden hut at the top of the walkway, I am drawn to a faded poster inside the window; ‘Explore the lough on the Marie Celeste.’ Two boats are berthed on the shingly sand. There is the scent of seaweed, mussel shells, rotting nets, there is the palpable emptiness that summer leaves in its wake.
They say Marconi hung about here for a while. They say he stayed at the Imperial. The Imperial was the classiest spot for miles around, it was blown to smithereens a long time ago now. Two grey horses are grazing in between the dining room and the front bar. I can picture it still, I can place myself inside; bay windows overlooking the sea, thick damask curtains, a peat fire smouldering in the front bar, long ago, before we left Ireland for good.
Along the hedgerows the berries are ripening, fuchsia bulbs dangle, scarlet lanterns among the green, there is the sound of some small creature scurrying through the undergrowth, there is the sound of the sea. Clouds drift together and come apart, a sudden burst of smoky sunlight breaking out over the waves and on the hills. There is the sound of a tractor, cows tearing at the grass. We were meant to have lived a different life and I feel the lack of him walking alongside me now, I feel the lack of something else besides ourselves.
The woman in the shop says there is rain on the way. The shop is old fashioned still with a wooden counter and sweet jars on the shelves, shadowy, half shop, half front parlor, the breeze sidles through the gaps in the front door and there is a strong smell of gas from the heater that hisses in the corner. There are sturdy wooden boxes on the ground, with potatoes, cabbages, carrots, there is a smell of spring onions and wet earth. She asks how we are getting on in the cottage, she says the sea air will do him the world of good. I have told her about the car accident. I have told her this much.
I pick up a local paper. ‘I’ll take some of your ham, then,’ I say, almost as an afterthought. I don’t need it, but I feel duty bound, with her telling me it’s home cooked; with the state of the place. The slicing machine makes a whirring noise, I watch as she holds the waxed paper high up to catch the slivers of ham. I wonder how the place keeps going with the garage down the road.
There is a photograph of Priebke on the front page. He is an old man in an ill fitting raincoat; an old man in a shabby raincoat making headlines all over the world. There is trouble in Belfast. Letter bombs. Suspect devices. There is a film of silvery dust rimming the edges of the newspaper stand. It shimmers in the dull light of the shop.
I pick up a local history magazine for Dermot. There is a pencil etching of Ross’s monument on the cover. With the Norman castles just up the road and across the bay, all the comings and goings there has been here, it will be of interest to him. I will tell him he should contact the editor, any editor. He has a way with words, a sharp mind still.
The woman writes it all out on a small jotter, old style, totting it up in her head, not looking up until it’s done. I listen to the sound of the pencil on the paper. The total will be rounded down to something smaller, by a few pence. I have learnt not to make a fuss. The gesture is part of the routine. Me going away feeling I’d got a bargain.
There is a stronger breeze now, the weather turning; a soft salty drizzle on my face. This German. This place. Stirring things in my head. I walk; distracted by it all. The past, the present, all of the same. It is like unscrewing the lid off an old jar, the sound of rust around the edges, the lid coming loose in my hand, the air inside, musty, familiar.
I take the sandy, stoney, narrow little slip of a lane that leads down to the beach. The sea is framed in between the hedgerows and the low stone walls of a white painted cottage; thick set windows, painted windowsills, pots of still blooming flowers. The tide is on the turn, powdery wisps of silvery sand blow across the wide dimpled space in between sea and land; no man’s land I think to myself. Seaweed lies in moistened clumps by the waters edge, sea birds feed and hop and scavenge, they flee as come up close. There are flashes of silver on the land across the lough; sunlight on a window, on a roof, a car; perhaps. Dermot will walk again. For weeks it was in the balance. For weeks there was the terror of it hanging over us.
The old lighthouse rises up out of the sea like some mythological creature, its glass windows gleam and glitter in the salty sunlight. I used to think of the lighthouse, when we were away, I used to wonder would it still be there when I returned.
It should never have happened. Him taking the car out that night, too much in his head, us not getting on, us on the brink of separation. Beyond the foam the sea is calm. I breathe in the moist sea air in an effort to draw myself out, the sea does that, it draws me out of myself, and the horizon is made wide again.
The German brings me back, to the past. Small, insignificant things often do; the sound of rain on an umbrella, the hissing of a lorry up close, sounds left behind but something of them staying; blackberries, haystacks, mossy grass, the elm tree outside my window, the ice cream van rattling up the lane.
The troubles. Uprooted. 1972. South America; Clear white sunlight bouncing off the wings of a Pan Am jet; palm trees, high rise buildings, the thunderous spray from a river running through the city, lanterns, balconies, horse carts among the traffic, barefoot children among the traffic, the sound of traffic through the hot air; all that I had left behind still wounding me from the inside.
Up at the stables everyone called him Max but out of earshot we called him ‘The German.’ We stand by our horses, the young stable boys fastening the girths beneath trees that tower and rustle, dry and reedy, peppering the air with a spicy, oriental scent. My father. The two women from the British school. The German. Fernando carries the Bloody Mary in a hide skin flask. Fernando and his English wife run the whole show.
The horses gather pace. Beyond the valley the Andes sweep across the horizon, pale blue, jagged peaks, snowcapped, waterfalls glinting like silver. The valley is lush and green, it rises and falls, the edges of the hills fall sharply into deep ravines, red, coppery earth, it sticks to your skin and to your clothes.
There’d be the thunderous clapping of horses on the dirt roads; roadside shacks, dark eyed children with tangled hair, me gripping the reigns tight against the pommel, looking out for stray dogs, looking out for the horses being spooked. Men with rolled up shirt sleeves at makeshift bars. Us making their day. Plastic chairs pulled out, wiped down, ice cold beers, ice cold coke, coke with bugs stuck to the outside of the bottle. Once, a dead cockroach, pinging at my lips, one tentacle sticking in between the gap in my teeth. The horror of it. Hot tears welling up inside me. The adults not noticing. Me not having the words to say. Red earth on my face, wood smoke, dogs, people staring, people with no shoes and tattered clothes.
The sea truck sails out of the lough towards the open sea, it is just short of the light house. It has a Viking name; Viking ships still sailing the lough; Viking ships still visible from the hills. There is a momentary breaking of the clouds, sunlight spilling onto the sea and on to the stone walls of the lighthouse.
The room in the wooden bungalow of Fernando’s house is dark like a cave. There are photographs on the walls, black and white, men in uniforms leaning on planes, men in uniforms on horses, there are hides on the floor, old saddles hanging from the rafters. From the verandah there is laughter, the sound of ice rattling against glasses, the room smells of polish and leather. I have taken a wrong turn, the door slamming shut behind me. I am trapped inside a darkened room.
I am not alone. There is something else in the room; something I cannot see, it moves and flutters, it makes a flapping, feathery sound against the wooden floor. I imagine it is a bird, or a rat. Or a snake. I am terrified by the sound and by the strangeness of the room. I try to make the door handle turn but it is rigid in my hand. There is sweat and dust on my hands, they slip and slither off the handle. The sound moves closer and I run to the other end, I hide behind a wicker rocking chair, it rocks back and forward as I lean against it, it makes an ghostly noise, my small pale hands are shaking.
When the door is opened it is the German, I see a rim of golden light behind the darkened shadow of him. I stare at his black boots as they come up close. He is leaning over me, his mouth slightly twisted on one side, his face brown from the sun, his greying hair combed back over his skull, there are marks on his face, like splashes of mud. He has blue eyes, crystal blue. He holds his pipe in one hand and the smell lingers all around me. I think of my grandfather. I picture him tipping the ash into the fireplace, all splutters and coughs as he makes to stand up again. My grandfather has died, not long after we left. The smell of the German’s pipe makes me feel hollow inside.
He has heard the scuffling sound. He walks towards it, bows down, reaches low and scoops up the creature with cupped hands, there is an frantic fluttering sound from in between the palms of his hands, a sound of the creature flapping hard against the wooden floor. He smiles at me, his pipe wedged deep in his crooked mouth. I follow him out of the darkened room and into the light. On the verandah my father is stretched out on a low leather chair, dressed in grey jodhpurs, like the German, the riding colour of choice in the tropics. Horses are being led by, their hooves scraping against the cobblestones, the sound sharp, like knives. The German raises his arms out over the wooden bannister, his hands parting, like he were offering something up. I step back not wanting to see, but I do see.
It is huge like a bird, its wings are blue, hairy, scaly, turquoise blue with streaks of silver, it has a black body, black like a spider. It falters and flutters and flees. I watch it disappear into the burnished branches of a eucalyptus tree. There is a watery substance in the German’s eyes when he turns to me. He places his hand on my head and tells me I must be a little braver. I feel the weight of him leaning on my head, I feel as if I would be made small by the weight inside him.
I say thank you, in English, but he answers in Spanish. ‘De nada, mi Reina.’
He speaks Spanish like the foreigners do, with long drawn out vowels. He draws on his pipe and turns away. I listen to the sound of his boots on the wooden floor, his boots making the floor creak.
When the German died my father bought his boots off his widow, Doris. He called them his ‘dead man’s boots’ because Max died in them. Monica from the American Embassy bought his horse, ‘Traviata,’ a dappled grey with a touch of the prima donna inside her. I have a photograph of my father in his ‘dead man’s boots’, a memory of him doing the frog march. A memory of my father making light of things.
Thinking of the past makes the present feel close up and real. It makes the moment raw. I told Dermot I was leaving him. I actually said those words. The car crash happened because of me. In the hospital he held my hand tight and didn’t let go. There is a weariness in the pit of my stomach. For what had to happen to him. Me in the tropics, ‘romancing the stone,’ and he, in the thick of it. Dermot was meant to have been a brighter version of himself. So many moving on. So many not able.
The rain moves in like a veil off the sea. It’s the way things are here. Rain and mist and the edges going hazy.
The day ahead takes shape in my head. I am hopeful for it. I will drive us to the village. We will eat in the Italian. The road to the village skirts the sea; sea and sky all the way, the hills heathery, close up, the houses painted in candy floss colours, wind swept gardens. At the castle, where the water narrows, we will slow the car down to a crawl. We will pull up off the road.
It is said that something of that day remains. A presence of some sort. A haunting. There will be a wreath by the side of the road, by the old keep. The keep is holding it’s own. There are plans to turn it into a proper attraction. The place is breathtakingly, mythical. The place holds something of my husband in it’s grip. It holds the spirit of his young brother, his mother, his father; blown to bits outside the castle walls. Wrong place, wrong time. Collateral damage.
I will help him out of the car, reach him his stick, prop him up. There has always been the propping up of a man made less by that day. Above the tree line, the castle chimneys, a silvery mirage against the hills. In the silence that is wedged in between us I will hear the sound of the German’s boots on the wooden floor. I will hear the sound of dead men walking the earth. I will struggle to make light of the mess.
Kerry Gray left Northern Ireland aged six and moved to Colombia where her father took up the post of headmaster of the British school in Cali. After fifteen years in the tropics they then moved to Madrid. She attended QUB and completed a joint honours degree in Spanish and Italian, spent four years in London before returning to Belfast in the early nineties.She is a fulltime mother of four, volunteers at an advice centre in an interface area of Belfast and writes short stories in her spare time.
