Niall Williams - History of the Rain

‘Virgil,’ he says, ‘you will not be returning to Highfield School.’

Spray-spray. Spray-spray- spray . ‘What are you talking about, Abraham?’

‘That school has nothing more to teach him.’

‘Don’t be silly. How will he learn?’ She does the smile again. This time she adds an eyebrow in the manner of the Colonel.

Grandfather won’t have it. He won’t have eyebrows like that aimed at him. ‘That’s the end of it,’ he says and fires the full chin back at the raised eyebrow.

She gives him both eyebrows; he gives her the nostrils.

He’s taking Virgil over for himself, and that’s that. Let Grandmother have the girls — she already has — he will take Virgil. He will have one proper Swain. My father will be the reason the bullets missed Abraham’s heart. He will become The One.

For a more profound insight into the problem from a salmon’s perspective, see Mr Willis Bund’s Salmon Problems and The Life of the Salmon (Books 477 & 478, Sampson Low & Co., London). For my perspective, read on.

While his sisters went to school, a parade of tutors came to Ashcroft House for my father.

Some days when I am Poor, when I haven’t the energy to lift myself on the pillow, when the rain washes down the skylight and I want to sleep for ever, they visit.

Mr O. W. Thornton.

Mr J. G. Gerard, Mathematician.

Mr Ivor Naughton, Latin, Greek & Classics.

The young Mr Olde.

The old Mr Ebbing.

Mr Jeremiah Lewis.

They are walk-on parts. Each of them was hired and eventually fired once they made the fatal flaw of declaring Virgil brilliant.

Only one, Mr Phadraig MacGhiolla, makes a lasting impression. He’s the one who brings the folktales. He’s the one in the too-tight black suit with the up-forked red hair and fiery eyes of a nationalist who speaks Irish mythology. Teachers don’t always know when they’ve lit the torch paper. But MacGhiolla knew. He knew he’d entered Virgil Swain’s imagination and held up a flame when he told him of a boy who fell in love with a girl called Emer who said he could not have her unless he completed Impossible Tasks. The boy was sent to study warcraft in Scotland under the tutelage of the female warrior Scathach-the-Shadow. Scathach-the-Shadow was about twenty centuries ahead of Marvel Comics. Gaming was in the early development stages back then. One in every two gamers died. Being Scottish and a warrior meant that Scathach was ferociousness itself. She didn’t have a Console, she had a hawk with talons. The boy was sent to her to learn how to achieve the impossible, and when he did, when Scathach had brought him up through all the Levels, showed him all the Cheats, and listed him on the Roll of Honour as All-Time Number-One Player, he came back and entered the fortress where Emer was guarded.

He entered it by going upriver against the current.

The method he used was salmon-leaps.

Not kidding.

Virgil tried it out for himself. One day he sneaked out the back door into the rough tufted grass that looked like a green sea behind Ashcroft. He put his hands down by his sides, straightened himself to salmon-slimness, sucked in as much breath as he could and then, with face turned to blue sky, he blew hard, arching his back into bow-shape, and tried to leap upward.

Maybe it did work. Maybe he’d inherited something from the pole-vaulting legs. He felt sure there’d been some take-off. Definitely more than if he just jumped. Yes, there was definitely some ascent .

That was the beginning. And MacGhiolla, Son of the Fox, knew. What he didn’t know was that his own position was guaranteed the day he told Grandfather that Virgil was hopeless in Irish History, Culture & Language.

In the meantime, between husband and wife battle proper was commenced. Knocking and Straightening long over, Grandmother now took to a new field; she would not be outdone by Grandfather and so marshalled the girls into various endeavours of high achievement.

Piano was a particular favourite. Esther, Penelope and Daphne were each instructed by a Mrs Moira Hackett whose sense of humour was no longer intact and who personally had no music in her but employed the Irish Academy ruler-on-knuckles method to significant effect. The three girls were soon able to perform like upright porcelain pianists, backs a perfect plumb-line, shoulders squared, and only the curved claw-shapes of their fingers moving, producing a kind of flawless mechanical music only a little worse than the cheapest wind-up musical boxes. One evening when Abraham returned from fishing he was called in to the drawing room to hear three sequential versions of Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu .

My father began the piano the next day.

His three sisters were all started on the violin.

We pause here because The Narrator has to go to Dublin.

In general, I no longer go outside. It’s hard to explain. Unless you’ve felt it yourself, once you hear that you think Oh-oh , you look away but you think She’s bonkers , a little case of the Do-Lallies here, because who doesn’t go outside? Well, excuse me, I don’t. Get over it. Once I returned from university I had this dread pressing in on my chest. If I got to the front door my legs stopped working. That was it. I couldn’t breathe. I’d turn back in and sit on the arm of Nan’s chair. But the feeling didn’t pass. Glasses of water, air, deep breaths, blowing in a brown paper bag that had been emptied of onions, arm-pinches, Vicks inhaler, hot water with Vicks, more air (fanned Clare Champion ), more water (sparkling), vinegar, a squirt of lemon, and a mouthful of whiskey, made no difference, neither did the little parade of the parish’s amateur psychiatrists who came and sat on the bed and played a game of Questions-with-no-Answers. What is it you are afraid of, dear?

Please.

But now I have to go to Dublin. For Timmy and Packy this is a Big Day. Uniforms are ironed, boots cleaned, and Hair has met Comb. It’s like we’re going up for the All-Ireland, only instead of a team of lads in those too-short shorts and shin-high socks they wear in GAA, I’m going to be facing The Consultant.

In a secret room somewhere long ago, Jimmy Mac says, the leaders of the Medical Profession decided the best way to turn consultants into millionaires was to only have about four for the whole country. Once they had the four the doors were locked. So it takes about ten years to get to see one. Consultants are mystical as Magi, but in inverse, you have to travel to them. You have to be in Serious Condition to be sent, and if you are it’s pretty much the end of the yellow brick road. Mary Houlihan in Knock was three years buried when she got called. Her husband Matty said he’d a right to dig her up and bring her corpse, only Dignam the ticket inspector in Ennis probably wouldn’t allow her the free pass.

I come down the stairs in the stretcher. I’m trying to breathe all the time but it feels like I’m underwater.

‘It’s okay, love,’ Mam says. ‘It’s okay.’ Her hand takes mine at the bottom of the stairs, and with Timmy holding up the top and Packy the bottom we sail out the front door.

The sky is huge and jellyfish-grey and there’s no light in it at all. There’s just this watery expanse leaking drops as we go down the garden to the ambulance.

Timmy and Packy have the inside of it shining. Mam sits beside me. You can see the bravery in her. You can see how she will not be defeated , how the world has thrown sadness after sadness at her and knocked her down and she’s still getting up, she’s older than she was and there’s these few silver hairs coming at her temples and her eyes have that extra deepness of knowledge that makes her more beautiful in a kind of lasting way. It’s like she’s this eternal Mother, my mam, this wall around me, holding back the sea that keeps coming for me. I can see it in her eyes. I can see the way she’s hoping so hard that this might be the time, this might be Help Coming.