The All of It: A Novel (5 page)

“It was the shock of relief, Enda.”

“Whatever,” she murmured, “it was ruinous to
Kevin. He couldn’t settle me, you see, for all his trying.” Her voice dropped. “
That
—that he couldn’t—made him helpless in his own eyes and”—her lips trembled—“it broke him.”

“Broke him?”

“Brought him to the end of himself.” Her voice was steady but barely audible: “He started crying…but not out loud. If it had been out loud I might have got hold of myself. But there wasn’t a sound from him, just the tears on his face. Them, and hopelessness.”

He thought he could not bear her visibly remembered suffering and, helplessly, near wonderingly, he examined his hands, turned them over slowly, peering at them as if there, in his own palms’ lines, he might find some graven, antidotal hieroglyph of reason or comfort to offer her. Finally he said: “An ordeal like that—” and stopped himself—
is a test of faith
, is what he arrested himself from saying—and said instead: “In all my life, Enda, I’ve not heard of such a kind of torment.”

“
Torment!
” she blurted out. “Aye, Father!” and, with a brilliant look: “You see it now, how it was with Kevin and me. How what we did, it but
happened—
”

“
What
,” he broke in imperatively.

“What?” she repeated.

“
What happened?
”

“That we took to each other,” she answered with
a profound simplicity, “being all we had and thinking we were to die.”

He gazed at her in a fix of sorrow and something else he could not then name. (An acute secular shyness? as he thought on it later….) Whatever; with augury of her tale’s bourne, towards which, outside the confessional, and against all his principles and priestly disciplines, he had allowed her to lead him. And having to know (he reasoned it his duty) and the tool of interrogation being the only one he had for mining the specificity and seriousness of the deed, he asked, as in the confessional: “What do you mean, Enda, when you say you ‘took to each other’?”

Her calm gave way to a faint confusion, but her voice remained steady: “Kevin—for the comfort, Father—against the cold, like he was a blanket, he covered me with himself.”

“Sexually?” Said, the syllables hung.

“Aye,” she said softly, “it came to that, but not as a sin.”

Not
(he spoke to himself) as lust, or as an act rehearsed and wickedly anticipated in the imagination, but as a grave, countering vitality against the rot of despair. Still: “‘Not as a sin’?” he gave quietly back to her.

“As I said, things being the way they were, it but happened,” she answered simply.

He nodded. Then, patiently: “Enda dear, I re
alize the terror and torment you and Kevin were suffering. I acknowledge the extraordinary circumstances, but what you did was nevertheless a sin and you should properly bring it to the confessional.”

“You agreed!” she cut in sharply.

“I did! I grant you I did. But as a
priest
I must—”

“Then we’ll quit with it,” she blazed.

“Enda!
Please
. Try to understand.”

But she would not be stopped: “’Tis not as a priest I’m telling it to you.”

“I appreciate—”

“—’Tis as the friend you’ve been to Kevin and myself.”

“I understand that, Enda, but—”

“As a friend,” she repeated stubbornly.

“But Enda, can you not see it?” he pressed, “That I’m
both
? Friend
and
priest.
Both
, and that I cannot divide myself—”

She gnarled her brow. “Your being a priest,” she began deliberately, then gained a canny speed, “would that be the
purpose
of your being a friend?”

He shot her a glance of the most intense admiration, then, to erase it, turned from her. “As I said, I cannot divide myself,” he repeated.

“But you’ll hear me out? For Kevin’s sake?”

He ignored her second question, replying with: “If you wish me to, and on the terms of my not dividing myself.”

“It wasn’t me that brought up the dividing of yourself,” she brooded.

“
Enda
,” he all but growled.

“So I’ll go on.” But she was scattered. She said, “I’m not sure where to pick up.”

It was a positive relief to him to help her. “Your dad did come back, of course,” he stated quietly.

“Oh,” she instantly replied, “he did, of course.”

“When?”

“Dusk-time of that afternoon.” She turned her gaze to the fire. “By then—it’d been thirty-six hours for Kevin and me—we were near senseless; almost too far gone to care….” Her voice deepened: “I haven’t told you of one thing, Father—over and above everything else, how
thirst
got to us.” Her mouth dropped bitterly. “To this day I can’t think of it.” She made fists of her hands. “I’ve no means to tell you how cruel thirst is…. Kevin, but a fortnight ago, sick as he was, he had his dream about it…. It was a regular thing with him, that dream, always the same as he’d tell it to me, that he was perishing for want of water…. It makes me wild to think of it.”

He urged, “Don’t dwell on it, Enda; it’ll do no good.” Then, foolishly, because she remained so pitched: “I can imagine how terrible it must have been.”

She started: “No, you can’t,” she said abruptly, though not unkindly. “It’s something that can’t be
imagined.” Then: “But you’re right, Father, that it does no good to dwell on it, all these years later especially. At the time, though, we had nought but to dwell on it….”

“Go on, Enda.”

She made a lifting motion with her shoulders: “Like I said, by the time our dad got back, we could hardly stir ourselves to care…. Earlier in the day, around noontime I guess it was, Kevin’d had a sort of fit, stood up and sawed at the air with his arms and cursed our dad, called him a bastard—begging your pardon, Father—and said how he hated him and that he’d kill him if he but could…. I remember the look on his face when he said about killing him…. Then, it was like his legs gave under him, he dropped down onto the floor and sobbed.” There was, in her voice, the inflection of immeasurable distress: “His fit, and the way he caved in after it, it was a turning point for us—it fixed for us, I mean, in our hearts, that we were to die and that there was nothing left for us but to get through the lingering. In a queer way, for myself, I felt relieved…. I think Kevin did too, that he didn’t have to put on for me anymore.” She looked down, shyly, into her lap: “We hugged each other, the way you do, you know, when you’re saying goodbye. Kevin said he’d pray for my soul and I told him I’d pray for his. Then we set ourselves apart, meaning to die that way,
together of course as we were in the one room, but still, apart….”

“Enda, my dear—”

She seemed not to have heard him: “The cold and all was so deep in us—everything—and our will to let ourselves die…we’d got senseless, like I said, so the fact of our dad’s having come back didn’t
take
with us right away. It was his ranting and kicking at things and his cursing after he’d finally got himself inside the house and the furtherance of his frenzy, knocking things about downstairs, yelling and coughing—it finally
reached
us as you might say, that he was truly back…. Kevin, from where he was on the floor, he whispered to me that he was going to call to our dad, that maybe he’d care to hear and come up with the key right away and let us out, but that surely, anyhow, when he sobered up a bit, he’d come up, so we weren’t lost after all, and that when he
did
come up, I was to take my lead from him—”

“From Kevin, you mean?”

“Aye—to just burr myself to him, was the way he put it. Then he booted the floor hard and called out twice…. I was sure that drunk as our dad was, he’d not answer, but I was wrong. He bawled right back at Kevin, charging him with neglect of the fire, and where was I with his supper and so forth, bellowing loud enough to break your eardrums, and the walls that thick…. Kevin waited
for him to take a breath, then booted the floor again and called to him that if he’d but come upstairs and unlock the door and let us out, we’d see to whatever he wanted…. Our dad—there wasn’t a sound from him for a minute or two, but in a bit we heard him scrabbling through the tins where we kept the flour and such, stuff that spoils, you know, and as it had come on to be dark, we figured he was searching out the match-tin so he could light a wick…. After a while—oh, I couldn’t say how long, forever, it seemed—we heard him put a foot to the stairs. Kevin told me, ‘Leave him to me.’” She straightened her back: “I won’t draw it out, Father, only to say that we hardly breathed all the time it took him fiddling to get the key in the lock. Being unsteady, it was a task for him. But he finally managed, and the bolt let…. We were standing on the ready just inside the door, and when it swung open, Kevin drove himself at our dad—knocked him off his feet—and we hared past him down the stairs.
What
, Father?”

He’d startled her by thromping his hands on the sides of his chair: “Free!” he cried exultantly, “You were
free
!”

“Aye—” she drew out the word with a rueful tongue, “we were loose all right, but still, there was little that was natural for us with things as they were, like we’d barely got to the foot of the stairs when our dad started to his feet in one of
his thriving rages, threatening us with every punishment in the book…. The candle—there was but a single wick lit—it made a shadow of himself on the wall behind—monstrous, every part of him swollen. It was like there was two of him over us…. Kevin ordered me to get the axe—it was kept just inside the back door—then he faced up the stairs to our dad and told him, ‘I’m in charge now.’ Our dad started out of his jacket, making ready, you know, to brawl, shouting how he’d bundle Kevin once and for all, but Kevin told him ‘You but try and I swear before God I’ll kill you.’ I’d got the axe by then and he took it from me and held it up over his head and told our dad again, ‘I’ll kill you.’ Like
that
”—she snapped her fingers—“our dad took hold of himself…. People given to drink can do that, Father, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, get hold of themselves, far gone as they may be. Our dad, he put his hands together and asked Kevin, ‘Now what kind of a thing is that to say to your own flesh and blood?’ wheedling-like, his eyes very wide and surprised-looking, and his chin tilted in that crippled way he could put on…. But Kevin only waved the axe back at him. Then—it took me by surprise—Kevin brought me into it, telling our dad, ‘Myself and Enda’ll take no pity on you if you cross us.’ It set me up, his saying that, that he counted us together against the worry
of our dad. It shocks you, I can see, Father, that it made me proud—”

“No, Enda, you’re wrong. It doesn’t shock me. Believe me.”

“I do if you say so.”

“Go on, Enda.”

“Well, then Kevin told me to get a draught of water for us, but warned me against drinking more than a bit. I knew what he meant, of course, having seen parched creatures bloat themselves. Then he told me the next thing that was needed was to get a fire going and more candles lit, and after that a bit of food laid out, only he felt, he said, that it’d be a mistake if he gave off the guarding of our dad’s conduct, and could I do the necessaries by myself. ‘Have you the strength?’ he asked me…. I told him I did. I put a sweater over his shoulders and a shawl over myself and went to work…. The fire took in jig time and the place began to warm up. It was,” she smiled dimly, “to be in the world again. Still, all the while I was working I was careful not to let go my attention of our dad, knowing him for his tricks and figuring to be ready to back up Kevin if the need came…. Our dad’d sprawled himself down on the bit of landing, intending you know to make himself look abused, then he started in whining about all the hardships he’d put himself through on our account and how
we owed him a bit of respect for all his troubles. Maundering, you know, on and on, trying to shame us.” She took a breath: “He almost got my pity with his coughing…. He’d bend double, hawking and spitting-up like. It make him an awful sight…. But he’d come out of an attack and start in again at us, saying things and—” She let the thought go. “We knew of course his ways when he’d come home after one of his sprees. The
stages
, as you might say, the meanness and the ranting, and in a while how he’d begin to get dim and heavy-like, the steam gone out of him, and all he’d want was his bed. He’d sleep then for hours, snoring so loud you could hear him in the hills. And the
smell
, Father!” she turned away.

“Drink’s a terrible thing,” he affirmed.

“
Terrible
,” she picked up. “The lives it ruins! If people but knew when they start in on it!”

“Some know and take it up anyhow.”

“It’s beyond me how they can—”

He saw her face liven to the subject, and he thought for a moment she might lapse into a gossip about the drinkers in the parish, but he was wrong: without prompting, she put herself back on the track of her telling.

“Anyhow, Father, in a bit our dad got to that point where he couldn’t stay awake. We saw his head lop to one side and knew it wasn’t but a matter
of seconds before he’d be snoring…. I had tea ready and some bread laid out, and Kevin said, ‘Let’s eat now.’ Famished as we were, we still had the sense not to gorge ourselves.” Again, the dim smile: “I credit us with that, that we ate like human beings in a regular way…. When we’d finished, Kevin whispered to me that he’d tell me now what we were to do—his ‘plan,’ as he put it. He started off by pointing to the mantel-board. Bright as he was—Kevin never missed anything—he’d noticed that our dad’d laid the two house-keys there…. We had, he said, to get some rest, for at the crack of dawn we were lighting out for good. He’d worked it through in his mind, that we’d sleep that night in the shed behind the house, only this time, he went on to say, it’d be our dad who’d be locked up—
that
so we wouldn’t have the worry and fear of him while we slept. In the morning, just before we’d leave, we’d unlock the back door from the outside. We’d take nothing with us but our clothes—our warmest, he warned—and a bit of food in a pack with a jug of water and—” she drew her brows together: “there was a few coins in a cup over the sink, ‘the extra,’ as our dad called it. He’d always empty out the cup when we went to Mass…. I have to say he was good about putting the bit aside…. I was for not taking the money, but Kevin asked, ‘Why shouldn’t we?’—we’d worked
ourselves raw around the place since we were small, and in that sense we’d earned it…. It was a pitiful sum, Father, no more than a few pence…. In the end, I went along with Kevin about taking it.”