John Banville - Nightspawn

To be honest, I did nothing of the kind. I puked for a while, and coughed, and wiped my nose on my sleeve, felt very sorry for myself, groaned, and began the process all over again, until there was nothing left inside me but bad air and spleen. Why do I make drama from a fit of drunken vomiting? Because the drama was not there.

After the climb down the broken slopes in the dark, under the stars that gave no guidance, after the thorns, the stones, I came to a little grove of pines, and sat down exhausted with my back against a rock. Far below, through the trees, there was the faint glimmer of water. The night had turned cold. My bones were stiff. With my arms around my shivering knees, I nodded, nodded, waves of sleep carrying me down to the sea, the weeds and the wild water. I thought I wanted to die, but I knew nothing yet of that black wish. Twigs crackled behind me, and soft steps approached through the wood. My teeth chattered with fear. Cautiously I peered around the rock, and squeaked in terror to find before my eyes a pair of knees.

‘Mrs Kyd? Jesus Christ.’

She moved past me without a word, and took a step or two to the other side of the clearing. I could barely see her slim outline against the murmurous trees, though she was not more than six feet away from me. A wind sprang up.

‘You frightened me,’ I said.

‘Did I?’

Her voice had changed. I listened vainly for it to come again, and tried to think of some question to provoke it. We were silent, not moving, catching faint words in the wind. At last I asked,

‘Is that the sea down there?’

‘Yes. The channel.’

‘The channel?’

‘Yes.’

I sighed.

‘A channel. Not even the ocean, not even that. It’s always the same with me, always second best. If it was the ocean now I might have indulged in a soliloquy. A word about the fish. Pisces my sign. The fish is a noble animal, and recognized as such is given, like man, a singular plurality.’

The trees took my worthless words, examined them, and set them free into the sky. The figure before me said nothing, and for a moment I had the notion, for some reason terrifying, that I had not spoken at all. I dug my fingers into the soft pine needles beneath me and cried,

‘Well say something, can’t you?’

There was a soft laugh, and then what sounded like,

‘I missed her night looking for you.’

‘What? What the hell is that supposed to mean? All right, all right, I don’t want to know.’

I sulked for a while, wrapped in my cocoon of arms and legs, my arse slowly turning to ice. Then, since my partner would contribute nothing to the general merriment, I said,

‘Listen, all right, I’ll tell you a story, that will keep our spirits up, or those other spirits down, ho ho. Ahem. I’ll tell you the one about Cain. He went up into the mountains one day, and … no, I can’t. He went up into the mountains, to the old man who lived there. “Old man, “he said, “my life lacks direction.” This is ridiculous. Are you sure you never heard it? Well anyway. “My life lacks direction, I’m enclosed on all sides and I can’t see.” The old man told him to go back into the valley and break down his house, and Cain said,

‘“But I built that house with my own hands. It’s all I have.”

‘But he went down, and brought out his wife from the house, and with an axe he smashed the walls and windows, and the great roof-tree. Lying that night in the open fields, he looked up at the dark mountain, thinking. In a little while he was back with the old man, who said,

‘“Your wife is still with you.”

‘So Cain left his wife. It went on like that. Cain gave away all his money, and all his clothes save for one torn shroud.

‘“Put away your pipe and drums,” the old man told him.

‘Cain broke them all, and there was no more music. That was the hardest loss of all.’

I paused, and looked up through the branches. A star fell.

‘When he had destroyed everything, Cain was happy for a while, wandering like a leper. Happy, yes, yes, but soon he had travelled every road, and there was nothing before him, and the sea seemed all around him. Bent and broken he climbed the mountain. The old man scratched his chin, and looked at the sky.

‘“You have a brother,” he mused.

‘“I have,” Cain answered. “I have a brother that I dearly love —”

‘“Kill your brother.”

‘“What? But I love him.”

‘“Kill him, kill him tonight while he prays.”

‘“But he’s all and everything I have,” said Cain. “He’s all I have to love.”

‘“While you love you will never be free,” the old man told him, shaking his head vehemently.

‘Cain went down, and in the violent night he stole an axe and opened his brother’s head while he prayed. Then he went back to the old man, his hands still bathed in blood, and he asked,

‘“Now what shall I do?”

‘The old man said nothing.

‘“What shall I do?” Cain screamed, falling to his knees.

‘“Now you’re free,” the old man answered softly.

‘“And what shall I do with freedom?”

‘The old man smiled.

‘“I told you how you might be free,” he said, “but I can tell nothing to a free man, and you must find your own ways.”

‘“But I’m afraid,” Cain whimpered. “I have nothing, my brother is dead, my life lies about me, broken and dead. Can you not tell me what god would have me do?”

‘The old man raised his eyebrows, and laughed, and asked him if he was blind.

‘“Do you not see who I am?” he cried, chuckling.

‘Cain ran in despair and terror down out of the mountains.’

The wind was rising steadily; it came up the hill and stirred the fretful trees. The stars glimmered, turning through their enormous courses. A hard light filtered through the branches as the moon swung up over the hill.

‘And Cain stole a boat and sailed to an island. There he would sit and do nothing, moving only when the things he had lost and destroyed sent their little creatures to disturb him. He tried to make a pipe from the wild reeds, but he failed. Then he turned to the sand and tried to build something, anything, but it fell asunder in his hands. So he watched the coming and going of the sea, and listened to the days go away, and smelled the winds, and felt the world grow older. And he tasted the bitter fruits of freedom. One day, who should come walking on the beach but the old man from the mountains. He named for Cain those bitter fruits, calling them loss, and dread, and something else for which the only name is wormwood. And then he went away.’

I looked at the still figure before me. Now in the moonlight I could see a little better, but not well enough, no.

‘Well?’ I asked. ‘Did you like that fairytale?’

There was a short, and, it seemed to me, a thoughtful pause. The figure stirred, and slipped down like liquid shadow to the ground. The voice spoke, indifferent and drowsy.

‘Who have you ever killed?’

‘That I’m not able to tell you,’ I said, and put my head upon the carpet of pine needles.

Time passed.

‘Ah, dear god,’ said I.

So we lay, somewhat together, sighing and shifting, listening to the voices of tree and grass, the whisper of the wind stealthily dismantling the forest floor, the murmur of things, and beyond that, the deeper sounds, the far wild silences and music of the night.

Dark, dark.

Leave this place. Too many fanged and flesh-devouring beasts are slouching through the undergrowth. I have not the courage.

The day was crazed with the wind tearing the rocks and bushes, and the land tormented by a thundering purple sea. The sun was well off the horizon, touching the sky, in spite of the storm, with a brave and delicate blue, the burnt hills with gold. A fine salt spray was threaded in the air. It stung my lips and eyes as I slowly climbed the hill. My skin was suffused with a dry fire, burning yet with the sour dregs of too much alcohol, and the roots of my hair pained me when the wind shook it. I was dressed in faded denim, and the shirt was open at my throat. Sandals bound my dust-soiled feet. I needed a shave. There is nothing else. What my thoughts were is my own affair. As to the method by which I was returned from the holy island to this profane one, I had only vague and dubious recollections.