In the Province of Saints

by Thomas O'Malley

Genres: Coming of Age; Literary Fiction; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

O'Malley sets a haunting local mystery against the tense backdrop of a country tormented by bloodshed and deep schisms. In the tradition of Seamus Deane and John McGahern, a stirring, beautifully written, but unsentimental portrait of an Irish boyhood. Thomas O'Malley's work has appeared in literary journals such as "Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Shenandoah, Gulf Stream, and "Blue Mesa Review".

Release date: September 3, 2007

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 320

Sample

in the dead of winter

April 1976

I was nine the year winter came in spring, and Cait Delacey’s mother, Mag of Slievecorragh, died; the winter had come and gone and surprised us with its return—sneaking furtively back to us like a fox during the night. The storm turned the sky black, the mercury plummeted, and everything beyond New Rowan froze. The snow fell so heavily and quickly it was like a hand wiping the land of every distinguishable feature. In the morning the fields were blanketed by soft-packed snow that sparkled all the way to town.

No one was prepared for snow, most especially the distraught farmers. The sudden deep chill killed livestock as well as crops. In the morning the small frozen bodies of lambs lay shrouded in white all across the hillsides and fields; clusters of sheep, their fleece now suddenly and noticeably yellow against the backdrop of white, moved in and around them, bleating softly. I stared from my bedroom window, disturbed but in awe of the storm’s strange beauty.

It was the same night that Mag Delacey died quietly in her sleep as her heart ruptured but continued pumping and spilling her blood throughout the cavity of her body while her husband, John, slept beside her, only awakening when he heard a long final death rattle from her lungs and noticed the blood about her mouth, while the children down the hall, Cait, the youngest, her two sisters and four brothers, and the rest of us in the parish slept in a world of dreams, numb and oblivious to death during the soundless fall of snow covering the land beyond our curtained windows.

In the morning, when I saw Lugh McConnahue, the farmer’s laborer, tracking his way across the far field, I dressed quickly and rushed out into the cold bright morning to join him. Snot froze in my nose. My breath whistled high in my chest. Ice crystals sparkled on tree limbs where crows were already gathering. Lugh was kneeling before a lamb, his thin angular frame bent, cords of tight-wound muscle flexed in his shoulders and back. His black shaggy head was flecked with silver frost.

Howya, Lugh, I called. Jaysus, it’s cold so.

Lugh looked up, squinting. He had hard drinking eyes, bleached and pale, like I remembered my father’s. At times I wondered if I actually remembered Father or had merely created an image of him in my mind and clung to it, and dreamed of him instead. He was in America these last two years working on the construction, and always, it seemed, on the point of return. Lugh’s face was wan and pinched. He smiled grimly.

’Tis that. He looked back at the lamb.

Ah, the poor little lambs, I said, leaning forward, resting my hands on my thighs.

Feckin shame, Lugh agreed. Paddy’ll be fit to be tied.

He tenderly brushed the snow from the lamb’s face. Its brown eyes stared back, and I was waiting for it to blink; it seemed that if you touched the lamb it would still be warm, the fleece still soft, the heart still alive within, and that it might awake. Lugh grasped its rigid hind legs, and in one quick movement hurled it into the back of the lorry with a loud resounding crack of bone against metal.

How many do you think there are? he asked as he reached for another carcass. I looked about the field and up the slopes of the valley, and I thought about Paddy Flaherty’s fields that lay beyond the road and on the other side of the hill, all covered in white death.

I shrugged. There’s got to be a hundred or more.

Lugh nodded and grimaced. Oh, he’ll be on the tear after this all right.

In the pub? I asked and he laughed.

In the pub, on the horses, with the women.

I nodded seriously as if I understood this.

Lugh paused and cracked his back. I had gloves on but my hands were numb.

How’s your mammy? he asked.

She’s well, I said without ever thinking whether she was or not; she hadn’t been up when I left. She’d been sleeping for days it seemed, only rising late at night while Molly and I lay awake in bed, listening.

We grunted together as I helped him swing the next body into the lorry, balancing my short-limbed swing with his large one, my smaller hands wrapped around their narrow legs, my fingers pressing in the narrow spaces between their small bones so that when I squeezed really hard I could hear them splinter and crack. I looked away from their eyes.

It’s a terrible thing, Lugh said and I agreed.

I headed back to the house to light the fire, to feed the dog and let it out, and watched from the kitchen window as Flaherty’s other laborers arrived and gathered up the small bodies. All through the day the lorry made its slow progress through the fields and up the hills, leaving behind deep black furrows in the white snow, so deep it seemed as if nothing might be able to touch that spot ever again.

The church was filled for Mag’s funeral. People who’d come in from the country stretched out the door into the vestibule and then out onto the road. Even as Father O’Brien began, there were coughs and shuffles, stamped feet or the dull slap of Wellingtons on stone as more people pushed into the church. People shook the snow that still lay across the country roads from their feet; their breath smoked the air. The radiators in the church pinged and hissed and shunted water through baseboards. Everything was gurgling and steaming, but if there was warmth it didn’t seem to touch a thing.

Everyone looked cold but Cait. Her face was flushed and her eyes wide—not the squint that people had from being pressed in by a chill. Her hair shone dark as the lacquered pews. Each time Father O’Brien looked up, he glared toward the back, and only after a long still silence, in which he craned his neck to the rafters as if he were searching for strength that only the divine could provide him with, did he begin.

Throughout the Mass I looked at her; sometimes she stared at the coffin, at other times she turned and searched the back of the room. She leant close to Aisling, her eldest sister, who wrapped an arm about her. Aisling gestured with her head toward the coffin and whispered. Cait stared at the coffin again, perplexed it seemed, and I knew that she was wondering where her mother was.

After the Final Commendation, John Delacey and his sons came forward, dipped their knees, and hefted the long box atop their shoulders. One of Mag’s cousins, a large woman from Roscommon, stood before the altar and began to sing the Ave Maria. Someone opened the doors of the church; the heavy wood resounded as they thumped the walls. Coins fell from pockets as people staggered to their feet; knee rests slammed against pews. The heaters kicked in as the cold rushed down the aisle: wick-smoke of extinguished candles; rustle of clothing; smell of wax and incense and the thick doughy odor of old women.

The coffin passed down the aisle, the pallbearers’ feet scraping the tile. John Delacey clean shaven, his face scrubbed so hard it looked like polished stone; Martin holding back tears; and JJ, his head bowed, long, lank hair hanging before his face.

And lastly, Aisling holding Cait’s hand. They followed the coffin out into the gray silver day, their heels shattering what was left of the silence, and we followed them. People spread out like a fan against the wrought-iron gates to allow the funeral procession to pass. It was blustery still and a few strakes of windblown snow threw themselves across the road and the distant fields, dashed the top of the coffin so that the pallbearers squinted and bowed their heads.

To our right, down the hill, lay the Barrow and the bridge that crossed over into Rowan. Boats moved sluggishly before the quay. Cars motored back and forth, slow and hesitant over the bridge, and then along the white stretch of waterfront, exhausts smoking the air. Someone had spray painted UP THE PROVOS! BRITS OUT! on the wall by the rusted old railway tracks that ran alongside the black riverbank. In bright red letters three feet tall the words glared at traffic coming into town on the Waterford road. The doors of the hearse slammed closed.

I blessed myself with holy water from the font, then dallied in the vestibule adjusting my scarf and buttoning my anorak. Two men stood by the arch, finishing their cigarettes. They watched the funeral procession moving off down the hill. When the hearse and the cars were gone, they threw their butt-ends to the gravel and ground them into the crushed stone with their boots.

Do you think John knew? one of them said. He was from the town and I couldn’t place him although he looked familiar. The other, his wide back to me, shrugged and hacked phlegm. Then I heard my father’s name, McDonagh, hissed like a curse and I shrank against the stone, moved back into the shadows against the wall.

A’course he knew, sure isn’t that why she’s in the ground right now instead of off with your man?

Well, there are other reasons for that.

He’d be daft not to know, the whole town knows.

Still.

I expect it will be a cold day in hell before we see his face again.

I doubt we would, but sure when he hears about this. . . . The man shook his head again.

I waited in the shadows until I heard their footsteps receding on the road. They were heading down the hill toward the pub, their shoulders hunched against the wind. Across the river, upon the far hill, the funeral procession moved in a staggered, uncertain line up Mary Street. The river a black sheet of glass. The fertilizer factory stacks pumping gray. The last of the snow dropped in soft lumps from tree branches above the sedge, thumping the macadam in an incessant and awkward rhythm, and then slowing as everything froze once more. My hands and feet were numb, my head aching with the cold. I stood and watched as the snow, turning to ice, slowly darkened into pools at the edge of the road.

After Mag Delacey’s funeral, Mother didn’t move from her bed for days. It was Thursday and she was supposed to go into Rowan to collect the dole but sent me instead with a letter from Dr. French.

The dole office was in an old building squeezed between derelict tenements on the Bosheen Housing Estate. Across the road St. Bridget’s massive spires blocked all sunlight and the dole office was so dark that you had to stand in the dim light squinting; the wooden floors echoed as you stepped across them to the desk, and everything smelled of mildew and dust burning black on the radiators and Dettol disinfectant coming in from the outdoor toilets. When you said your name it resounded off the wood and the stone and narrow walls and splintered desks so that everyone in the room heard.

The last of the snow had melted and rushed through the gutters, flooding the cobbled lanes and tenements in the Old Quay. The clouds looked bright and hard as stamped metal so that you had to squint at them, and there was a coolness in the air that suggested autumn and not spring at all. A fierce wind howled down the narrow streets, pushing empty crisp packets before it, and I was glad for the coat I was wearing.

At nine in the morning it was crowded; people queued down the street. Those that had already gotten their money lounged outside with others, smoking cigarettes or waiting for someone else to be done. The country people nodded at one another, spoke silently, and headed toward the bank or the shops with their money when they were done. Those without cars would ride back into the country on their push-bikes. The townsfolk were raucous and happy. They threw their cigarette butts into the gutter and called to one another from either side of the street as they made their way down to the pubs along the quay. I turned my face toward the wall and hoped I would see no one who might recognize me from school.

Color rose to my cheeks as I looked at the woman behind the desk. Moira McDonagh, I whispered and still my voice seemed to carry and echo beyond and around me and I willed myself to stand straight and to look strong and proud, no matter what I felt inside.

Where’s your mammy? the woman asked.

She’s not well, I said, and slid the paper across the desk to her. This is the doctor’s note.

She glanced at the paper, and her mouth puckered. What’s the matter with her then?

Heads turned in our direction. It seemed as if talking had stilled. Outside someone hollered and then there was laughter. A wireless somewhere was playing a football match. I shrugged.

You’re too young to be in here, she said. Why aren’t you in school? Whose son are ye?

Mammy’s too ill to come. I’m looking after her.

What’s the matter with her? she asked again.

I don’t know. What does the letter say?

The woman grunted and made me wait at the far side of the room, against the wall, until she called me.

I’ve talked to the manager, she said as she handed over the pound notes. She stuck her mouth forward when she said this and pursed her lips, showing her teeth so that manager sounded very impressive and official-like.

Can I have me letter? I asked.

She hesitated, looked at the letter in her hands, then stared at me coldly. Wha? Did ye think I’d want to hold on to your silly paper?

She tossed the letter onto the counter and I folded it carefully into my pocket. Will I need to bring it next time? I asked, but she had already turned away and was pointing to me as she spoke with another clerk.

It’s all right, a voice whispered at my shoulder, and I turned and there was Lugh grinning. She’s a right bitch, that one. Has been since she was a schoolgirl. He put his hand on my shoulder and leant in close. His breath was warm with whiskey. Look at her, Michael. No, go ahead. Look at her and tell me what you see.

He turned my body slightly with his strong hands so that I was looking back at the woman. Now that Lugh was with me she didn’t look my way. An old man held himself at the desk with a dirty, muck-encrusted cane. It looked as if he’d come in from the country. She shoved some papers back across the table at him and shook her head. She looked incredibly satisfied. When the old man shuffled from the counter, spittle covered his chin; he looked as if he were drooling but couldn’t help himself. His mouth was sunken in on itself, his eyes as small as pips, and he shook. Mrs. Kelly adjusted her hair, compressed it with her palm into a tight bun, then stared off into space with her lips pursed tightly. I suddenly felt sorry for her although I couldn’t explain why.

Lugh followed my gaze. Will you look at the puss on her. She’s been like that her entire life, do ye understand? Her entire life.

He stood straight and he seemed taller in that small room; he shrugged his shoulders slowly, rolling the muscles. You’ve always got to hold your head a little higher than them, yeah?

He took a bent hand-rolled cigarette from his shirt pocket and looked at it; it seemed in sad shape but he tightened the roll with a lick and lit it anyway, squinting as he inhaled. He stepped toward the polished wood counter. Howya, Katherine, he said loudly, exhaling a plume of thick blue-gray smoke, and the woman turned. By God, you’re looking fit today. Sure how does Niall keep the men at bay at all? Jaysus woman, you’d tempt a monk in that dress, wha? All the men must be after you.

Like fleas on a dog.

Aye, you have it right there sure enough, Katherine. Ahh, there we are, grand, grand so. The Republic’s reward to the people who served her well all these years. Lugh kissed the pound notes, bowed, and, taking my shoulder, led me out into the sunlight.

September 1976

We didn’t get to go to the beach often although it was only a short drive away. But Father was home from America and there were all sorts of things he had planned for us. The beach was deserted because it was the end of summer and much too cold to be swimming. We had sandwiches wrapped in wax paper and a large flask of tea. Father bought us pink rock candy from the only shop that was open in the village; I wanted to play the penny arcades but everything was boarded up and closed. Besides me and my father and mother and sister, Molly, I saw only two other people on the beach. An old couple, in blue anoraks, bundled up from the wind and the sea spray, treaded carefully around tide pools in the distance, every once in a while peering and pointing, then holding each other and walking on. It seemed natural to be cold all the time when you were old; mother was cold all the time but I’d never thought of her as being old.

I ran up and down the sand dunes whooping and hollering, sending birds lifting in great flapping crowds. All the way along the beach, one end to the other, I was leading the armies of the West into Ulster. I was Cuchulain defending Ulster from Queen Maeve and the Connaught invaders. I shifted allegiances and heroes and outcomes. I was Queen Maeve and I’d come into Ulster with my men, come for revenge and for the great Brown Bull while the Ulstermen dozed beneath a magic spell of sleep or lay down helpless, crying with women’s cramps. What if Cuchulain came too late, what if all of Ulster was destroyed? I was Finn McCool and his son Oisin; I was Caoilte, the fastest man in all Ireland. I swung a great cudgel and crushed the fleeing Fomorians before me. With a sling I drove a rock through the big eye of Balor, turning his eye back in his head so that he stared at his own men and turned them all to stone.

I dove and flopped on the sand, mortally wounded, then back up on my feet cutting great swaths of air with my sword. Gannets shrieked above the cliff tops, echoing my war cries; they rose into the low gray sky and became specks out over the waves before they wheeled back toward their mossy crags.

Mother was sitting up near the rocks with my father and sister, together, sheltered from the wind. Father had been home from the construction in America for a month now, and it seemed as if he might stay. He said all the jobs in America were done. Mother was as content as I had seen her in a long time. She stretched her legs and arched her back toward the sun and looked young and strong again, the way she looked when Molly and I were little, before Father left. She had her sandals off and was curling the sand with her toes. She winced momentarily, a small tight exhale whistling through her clenched teeth. Father looked up. Are you all right? he asked.

She nodded and tried to smile, but her teeth were still clenched. After a moment: I’m fine, just an old muscle ache is all. Father shifted closer to her on the sand, pulled up the bottom of her jumper, and began to massage her. Mother drew her knees up to her chest, dropped her head as Father’s strong hands worked her back.

From here I could see the tower of the Knights Templar standing above Ballyhack Harbor and all the colorful boats pressed in against one another as if awaiting a storm. Shearwaters dipped and rolled above the whitecaps, raking the crest and coming up with fish angled silver in their claws.

Mother lifted her face and closed her eyes, a smile playing on her face. The small wireless was tuned to Radio 1, which was counting down the top forty. Telly Savalas was singing “Lovin’ Understandin’ Man,” sounding, I imagined, like a New York drunk rolling in a gutter, and Father laughed.

Is that what it’s like then? Mother asked, teasing him—but there was a slight edge to her voice.

He grinned and shook his head. No place like America. That’s for sure.

The skin pinched between my mother’s eyebrows. She stared at her toes moving through the sand. Her lips pursed and she nodded her head. No place. Molly was next to her, chewing on her stick of soft rock, her mouth stained pink as if she’d just been slapped.

Father began fiddling with the lure at the end of an entangled fishing line. The rod’s cork base had crumbled; he held it daintily with three fingers, his little finger curled in midair as if he were holding a teacup. Each time he looked up, the tide had receded further. He grunted and worked faster on the lure but it was futile, and he laughed. Jaysus, he said when the water had made the breakwater at the outer edges of the rock scar, everything turning the color of a dirty washcloth.

Finally he threw the rod behind him. And sure I wasn’t meant to bring home the supper today, he said. What on earth shall we do? I suppose we could get chips in town, and some battie burgers? He raised his eyebrows questioningly. But I don’t know so, sure everyone was counting on me catching some fish. He looked at Molly seriously; I paused halfway up the beach.

Father laughed and pulled Mother close to him. The small bleached skeleton of some unrecognizable thing jutted up from the sand. Mussel shells scratched at the bottoms of my feet. I looked back toward the drying sand, darker where my feet had pressed.

I stood in the pools as the tide receded, the sharp brine of the sea high in my nostrils, the sound of the gannets and shearwaters filling up the sky as my parents kissed.

Molly wrapped up what was left of her rock candy even though the plastic was covered with sand. Father helped Mother up, and then collected the towels and blanket. Mother carried the flask and what was left of the sandwiches in her Dunne’s Stores shopping bag. They wiped the sand off each other’s backs and made their way up the beach to the car, and I followed them, ignoring the pain in my feet, but by the time I reached them, something had changed. The radio was on and it was announcing that the government had declared a state of emergency following a summer of sectarian violence in the North. Catholics and Protestants were killing one another on the street, in the pubs, and in one another’s homes. The latest were ten-month-old Brigeen Dempsey and her brother and sister killed in their home by a petrol bomb.

Mother sat motionless in the front seat, staring straight ahead and crying, and at first I thought it was because of the murders. The sky had turned darker beyond the glass, and low clouds had come in with the waves. I cupped my hands over my feet, squeezed my toes tight; I’d left my socks on the beach.

You know what they’ve said about you and Mag, she said. You know what I’ve had to listen to this entire time, me raising two children on my own and not a word or care from you.

This town, this bleedin town, Moira, you know as well as I that they live to spread muck like this. I can’t believe you of all people would listen to such rubbish.

Even her own husband believes it.

I can’t take this. I can’t.

Did you cry when you’d heard she’d died, John? Did you cry in America thinking of her?

For fucksake, Moira!

The sky darkened and the beach lay empty; even the old couple was gone. Wind whipped against the dunes and rain began to fall, hard and fast. The birds retreated to their scraggy nests. I waited for Father to start the car,. . .