Michael Crummey - Sweetland

“Now,” Sweetland said, “you just imagined it.”

The boy seemed to hold that demonstration against Sweetland, as if it was designed to make a fool of him, and he grew more standoffish and cold than Sweetland could remember. He was regressing on every level, according to the Reverend. Singing nonsense syllables and waving his hands and rocking on his feet. It was only when he was plugged into some electronic device that the boy seemed to calm down, to lose himself briefly.

The Priddles came back to Sweetland shortly after Hayward went west, and the loss in the cove made even the brothers relatively subdued and reflective. They stayed more or less sober and visited at houses they hadn’t gone into in years. Sweetland walked up to the cemetery with them when they went to pay their respects and they stood around the fresh grave, handing a flask back and forth between them. The brothers telling stories of stealing cigarettes from Queenie’s stash as youngsters, climbing halfway into her window when she went upstairs to use the bathroom, reaching for the pack where she’d left it beside her chair. Tearing off up to the old cemetery, Queenie cursing at them from the window vent beside the toilet.

It struck Sweetland again it could have been the Priddles who nailed the rabbit head to the door of the stage while he was trying to birth the dead calf in Loveless’s barn. For a lark, a little fuck you remembrance on their way off the island.

Before they left the graveyard Keith stopped at his mother’s marker, kneeling at the white marble to trace a finger across the dates scored into the stone. Barry and Sweetland walked on to the gate. “He’s going to have a little bawl now,” Barry said, his tone dismissive and affectionate both.

“Spose he can’t help feeling it’s his fault somehow,” Sweetland said.

“He’s just drunk is all. He cries watching fucken Marley & Me . Keith,” he called. “Let’s fly the Jesus out of this.”

Barry held out the flask but Sweetland shook his head. The boys had never asked him about their mother. It was an odd reticence on their part, he thought, though he was relieved not to have to say anything about the woman or what passed between them.

Barry turned his back on the sight of his brother kneeling at their mother’s grave. He glanced across at Sweetland and rolled his eyes. “Keith,” he called over his shoulder. “Me and Mose are going on ahead.” But he didn’t move from where he stood. And they waited there until Keith had finished communing with whatever he imagined his mother might have been before he ended her life on his way into the world.

Two weeks after Hayward left on the ferry for Alberta, Pilgrim came to see Sweetland at the house, Jesse leading him up the path by the hand. A changeable day, threatening rain awhile and then brightening, the clouds scoured away for half an hour before they crowded back.

Jesse sat on the daybed with his headphones, listening to his iPod, in another world altogether while the two men settled at the table. Sweetland watching the mercurial weather as it skated across the afternoon’s surface. They talked about the funeral service and Hayward’s sudden departure and the Priddles’ visit to the island, though the conversation was skittish, distracted. As if they expected any moment to light on a topic more serious and consequential.

The phone rang, so loud in the tiny room that both men started. Sweetland stared at the unlikely contraption where it was fixed to the side of the kitchen cupboard.

“You going to answer that?” Pilgrim asked.

“Trying to think who it might be. No one I wants to speak to, I’m guessing.”

“I’d say that’s Clara, calling us down to our dinner,” Pilgrim said, and he rushed up from the table to look for the corner of the cupboard. He waved his hand until he knocked the phone. “Hello,” he said with his back to the room. “No,” he said. “Yes, hang on. No, sir, no, he’s right here.” He held out the phone with a hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s that one from the government,” Pilgrim said. “The fellow was out here for the last town meeting.”

“Well, tell him I’m not here.”

“I just said you was.”

“Tell him you made a mistake, you’re blind for chrissakes.”

Pilgrim shook the phone in the direction of Sweetland’s voice. “Answer the goddamn phone, Moses.”

“Jesus,” Sweetland whispered, and he got up to grab it from Pilgrim’s hand.

“Mr. Sweetland,” the government man said.

“This is he,” Sweetland said. This is he . He must have heard someone on television use that phrase. And it sounded exactly right for the false prick on the other end.

“I hope you’re keeping well.”

“I imagine you wishes I was dead, like everyone else around here.”

There was a pause on the other end and Sweetland looked down at the slack length of cord that hung to the floor and pooled there in a beige spiral. It was the only phone in the house, a rotary dial that had been installed when telephone service first reached the island in the early seventies. His mother used to haul the twelve feet of cord all the way across the hall to the living room so she could talk and watch the afternoon soaps at the same time. Sweetland forced to duck under it on his way in or out of the house. Used so little now he’d never thought to replace it.

“Mr. Sweetland,” the government man said, “I’ve heard the news about Queenie Coffin. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the loss.”

He turned to look at Pilgrim. “So this is a sympathy call, is it?”

“I’ve also been in touch with Mr. Loveless and he has committed to signing on to the package, you’re aware of this I presume.”

“News to me.”

Sweetland could almost hear the man roll his eyes.

“I thought I should check in with you,” the government man said finally, “to see if there have been any developments since we talked last.”

Other than someone mutilating the rabbits on his line and nailing a severed head to his stage door. Other than a drawerful of anonymous threats. Other than Queenie Coffin days in the ground and Hayward packed off to the mainland. Other than fucken Loveless.

“No developments,” he said, “no.” There was a short intake of breath on the line, and Sweetland could feel the man gearing up a prepared speech. “Good of you to call, all the same.”

“Mr. Sweetland.”

“Bye now.” And he set the phone back in its cradle. He glanced across at Pilgrim, who kept his face turned away. “That was Clara, was it?” he said. “Calling you down to your dinner?”

“Now, Moses.”

“You knew he was going to call here today, didn’t you.”

Pilgrim turned his head left and right. “Clara and Reet have been talking to him.”

“And the women sent you up here to make sure he got through.” Pilgrim looked naked and adrift in his seat, not able to set his blind eyes anywhere to anchor himself.

“You’re a gutless wonder, you are.”

“Jesus Christ, Mose,” Pilgrim said. He slapped a hand against his thigh. “You got to stop being so goddamn bullheaded about this.”

“Why?” Sweetland said. “Tell me why it is I got to stop?”

Pilgrim made a motion with his arms that seemed almost involuntary, a spasm of frustration and spite. He uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way. He said, “How much longer is it you expects to be around, Moses?”

“Fuck,” Sweetland said. “How should I know?”

“You’re an old man,” Pilgrim said. “We’re all old men. And what’s Jesse going to have here once we goes?”

“I don’t know. He’ll have the Reverend.”

“The Reverend is older than we are, for Jesus sake.”