Sebastian Barry - The Secret Scripture

'You didn't want me,' he said, the first time in his life he had spoken to me, which amazed me, 'and you preferring to stay the Godless girl you are.'

He walked forward at me and I don't know what he intended. But as he moved I thought that indeed something ancient and irresistible was born in him. The silent temple in the silent yard, the darkness of December, and whatever was in me he wanted. It seemed as he moved forward, his intention changed, humanity cleared from his face, something private and darker than humanity, something before we were given our troublesome souls, stirred in his eyes. I think at this impossible distance that he wanted to kill me, why ever so I do not know. There was a story of this Joe Brady that I had just stepped in on, what huge plot he had plotted with Fr Gaunt I do not know. In seeking to find my father I seemed to have found my murderer. I called out with suddenly found strength of voice. I roared!

Now in behind him stepped another man. What luck I had that there was another man in that quiet place. Joe Brady by this time had completed the last step to my form, and as if it was what he greatly desired in all the things of the world, he closed his hands about my scrawny neck and pulled me to him. Then I knew somehow without knowing that he was scrabbling about at his flies to release whatever was there, God help me, I was only sixteen and though I knew about birds and bees, I hardly knew aught else, except that certain lads might stir you as you passed them, and you would not know why. At this point in my life I may have been the most innocent girl in Sligo, and I do remember even as I remember here, writing, that my first thought was that he was drawing forth a gun or a knife from his britches, because of course this was the very place I had seen guns drawn and heard them explode.

As if in very harmony with that thought, the new man behind Joe Brady indeed had a gun drawn, a big heavy-looking yoke that he brought across the back of Joe Brady's head with a movement like a man cutting a high bramble with a slash-hook. I was aware of all this even as I stood drenched in terror. Joe Brady didn't go out on the first blow, but he sank to his knees, and in utter disgust and misery I saw his swollen penis between his legs and threw my hands to my eyes. The new man gave him another swipe with his gun. I thought, does everyone in this place have a gun, am I fated always to see guns here?

Joe Brady now lay quietly on the floor. I took my hands from my face and looked at him, and then looked at the man behind him. He was a skinny youngish fella with black hair.

'Are ya all right?' he said. 'Is that your father?'

'No, it is not my father,' I said, well-nigh hysterical. 'My father is dead.'

'I see,' said the man, 'and do you not remember me? I remember you.'

'No,' I said, 'I do not remember.'

'Well,' he said, 'you knew me once. I'm going away to America and wanted to come and say goodbye to my brother

Willie.'

'Who's that?' I said stupidly. 'Why would he be here?'

'Because he's buried here. Don't you remember? Aren't you the girleen brought the bloody priest for him, and that likely brought the soldiers, those very soldiers that took us off and killed the some of us, and yet me getting away back home by a miracle.'

'I do know,' I said. 'I do know you.' And his name swam into my mind, maybe only because my father had spoken it, sitting in the little room reading the paper, or was it sitting there in the temple? 'You're John Lavelle. From the islands.'

'John Lavelle from the Inishkeas. And I am going to that other place I am, far away from this stinking lousy country, with its oath of fucking allegiance and its dead betrayed.'

I stared at him. Here truly was an astonishing revenant.

'Since I did you the kindness to save you,' he said, with hostile bravery, 'a kindness you never done for me, you might tell me where my brother's grave is, for I have wandered up and down and up and down those avenues and cannot find him.'

'I don't know, I don't know.' I said. 'But, but, it will be in the book there, on the table. Is this man dead?'

'I don't know if he is dead. It is funny he is not your father, but that I have struck him down anyway. You will know your father had a sentence on his head for what he done. Or not for what he done, for what you done, bringing the soldiers. But we couldn't be shooting girls.'

'I think you could bring yourself to be shooting girls, if you tried. What do you mean, a sentence on my father?'

'While the war raged, we were obliged to send him a letter, with his death sentence in it, and he was lucky when the war was over we let it go.'

'He was lucky?' I said, the words gushing up in fury from my throat. 'The unluckiest man that ever was born in Ireland. The poor man lies dead over in the other yard! You sent him a letter? Don't you know the hard life he had of it? The dark fate of him? Oh, I knew there was another thing I did not know of. You, you, you killed him. You killed him, John Lavelle!'

Now this John Lavelle was silent. The sort of discolouring, excited look went out of his face. He spoke suddenly very normally, even nicely. For some reason I cannot fathom still, I knew my words were untrue. I am proud I could understand that much. Whatever this young man had done in his life, he had not killed my father.

'Well,' he said. 'I am sorry your father is dead. Of course I am. Don't you know they shot my comrades? They took them out without mercy and shot them, Irishmen killing their own.'

It was as if his sudden change were a sort of catching cold, and I caught it.

'I am sorry about that,' I said. Why did I suddenly feel silly and awkward? 'I am sorry about everything. I never brought in the soldiers. I never did. But I don't even care if you think I did. I don't even care if you shoot me down dead. I loved my father. And now your comrades are dead and my father is dead. I never said a word to no one but the priest, and he had no chance to speak on the way. Don't you see, the soldiers were following you? Do you think no one else saw you? This town has eyes. This town can see out secrets, no bother.'

He was staring at me then with his eyes the tainted strange colour of seaweed. The seaweed of his island was in his eyes. Maybe there was seaweed slugging about in the wombs of the women there, people half gone back to the sea, like the first little thrumming creatures in creation, if I am to believe what I read. Oh, he cleared his eyes of everything then, and he stared at me, and for the first time I saw what was also hiding in John Lavelle, a sort of kindness. How much of such kindness the war had covered over with corpses and curses I do not know.

'Will you show me my brother's grave?' he said, in the same tones as another might have said, I love you.

'I will, if I can find it.'

So I went over to the book in question and scanned down the names. There was my father's beautiful blue copperplate writing, the hand of a proper scribe, though he was none such. And among the Ls I found him, Willie, Willie Lavelle. Then I noted the numbers of reference, and as if I was my father himself, and not a girl of sixteen that had nearly been knocked down and raped, I walked past the still inert lump of Joe Brady, and John Lavelle, and out among the avenues, and brought John Lavelle to his brother, so that he might say goodbye.

Then maybe John Lavelle went to America for it was a long while before anyone heard anything about him.

John Lavelle went to America and I went to a place called the Cafe Cairo – which wasn't quite as far.

John Kane came out today with an extraordinary statement. He said the snowdrops were early this year. You would not expect such a man to notice snowdrops. He said that in the top garden where only the workers at the asylum are allowed to go, he saw a crocus in bloom. He said all this in a very nice way, standing in the middle of the room with the mop. In fact he came in to mop the floor, told me about these miracles, and then went off, forgetting actually to mop. Distracted I must surmise by his own sudden attack of poetry. This goes to prove yet again that few people stick to the articles of their characters, and will keep breaking away from them. At the same time he has been the same stranger to the washbasin and his flies were open as is mostly the case. Some day a small animal will notice his open flies and go in and live there, like a hedgehog in the inviting damp hollow of an ash tree.