Michael Crummey - Sweetland

Clara and Pilgrim had come over to see him on Tibb’s Eve, with a fruitcake and a flask of rum. It was the first time Clara had been in the house since the day after Jesse was buried. She gave Sweetland a hug that felt like something she’d been rehearsing for months. And was glad to have out of the way.

Sweetland had been keeping to himself all fall. Passed his days puttering in the shed, out of view of anyone below. It was Clara he dreaded seeing and he could tell it was the same for her. Impossible to keep clear of Jesse, even when he went unmentioned. That loss reflected back and forth between them like a bell ringing and echoing home off a cliff face.

You haven’t got your tree up, she said.

Don’t think I’ll bother with it.

You got to have a tree, Pilgrim said.

And what difference do it make to you? You can’t see it there anyway.

It’s the spirit of the thing, Pilgrim said. He had his two hands spread wide, a gesture that dredged the word beseeching from the murk of Sweetland’s church years.

Would you mind? Clara said.

Sweetland looked at her, surprised. I thought maybe, he said.

No, I’d like it, I think. I think it would be good. Jesse loved that tree.

Get the blind fucker a drink, he said. I’ll go dig it out of the shed.

There was hardly a Christmas light to be seen down through the cove as he walked back with the box in his arms. A dozen houses still occupied, scattered outposts of blinking green and blue lights in the dark. A mild year and no sign of snow. An air of desperate pretend about the season’s scattered trappings.

They took their drinks into the living room where Sweetland set up the tree on top of the television. He turned off the overhead and they finished the flask and half the fruitcake and Sweetland went to the kitchen to stoke the stove and fetch a bottle of rye. The alcohol seemed hardly to touch them for a long time and they got quietly drunk together in the auroral glow of the tree lights as they pulsed and dimmed.

Jesse used to say it was like the lights were breathing, Sweetland said.

Why is that? Pilgrim asked. He roused himself in his seat where he’d been drifting off.

They’re on a timer, Clara told him. They glows brighter a second and then fades out.

We used to have candles in the branches, remember that, Mose? On those little clip-on candleholders. They was only lit ten minutes the whole of the season. And someone standing by with a bucket of water in case the tree caught fire.

Sweetland gave Clara a look. You wouldn’t know but he seen it with his own two eyes, he said.

Leave him be, Clara whispered.

Tell us about the orange you used to get in the wool sock you had for a stocking, Pilgrim.

And you was lucky to get that, the blind man said, swinging his glass wide enough the drink lipped over the side. We’d keep the orange peel, he said, and soak it in a glass of water with a bit of sugar. And we’d drink that down, honey-sweet.

How many generations of youngsters have he bored to death with that story, I wonder.

He bored me to death with it, Clara said and she rolled her eyes.

Oh kiss my arse, Pilgrim said, the both of you. He tried to get to his feet and failed, the ice in his glass rattling onto the floor. Jesus, he said.

Clara and Sweetland dragged Pilgrim up off the couch and they shuffled awkwardly into the kitchen.

We’ll never get him down the hill like this, Sweetland said. Let him sleep it off on the daybed.

They laid him out there beside the stove. Sweetland sat at the kitchen table as Clara untied Pilgrim’s boots and worked them from his feet. There was a quilt folded at one end of the bed that she shook out and tucked around his shoulders, Pilgrim already sound asleep. She leaned in to kiss him and lost her balance, reaching a hand to catch herself. She straightened from the daybed and turned around carefully. Fuck, she said. I’m wasted.

One more for the road?

Why not, hey.

She sat across from Sweetland at the table and he poured them each a generous shot of rye, topping the glasses with Sprite. Pilgrim snoring across the room, a high, strangled sound like wind through a leaky door seal.

He’s a fucken piece of work, that one, Sweetland said.

Clara pointed at him with her drink. You don’t say a word about him.

Wouldn’t dream of it. Loves him like a brother. Sun shines out of his blind arse.

It’s not many men would have been as good to me as he’ve been, I know that for a fact.

Coming home with Jesse to be looked after, you mean?

That, she said. And the rest of it.

The rest of what?

Me not being his youngster.

Sweetland didn’t so much as flinch, but he felt suddenly, miserably sober. He glanced at the man asleep on the daybed and then back across the table at Clara.

He’s blind, Moses, she said, he’s not an idiot.

Sweetland shook his head. How long have he known?

From the beginning. Why do you think him and Mom had no youngsters all those years?

What, they didn’t?

Nope.

Never? Sweetland said. Not once?

Jesus, I don’t know about never, Clara said. Never for a long time though. Long before I come along, anyway.

He told you all this?

After Mom died. Thought he should come clean with me, I guess.

It struck Sweetland that Clara was assuming he already knew the truth of the matter, that it wasn’t a secret she was divulging. Which likely meant Pilgrim assumed as much as well. The heat in the room was stifling. He got up from his chair and opened the door to the hallway, stood in the door frame a few minutes with his back to the kitchen. Breathing in the cool.

How’s Uncle Clar doing out there? Clara said.

He’s all right.

Sin to leave him alone out in the hall like that, don’t you think? You should put him in the porch here, so’s he’ll have some company when you comes and goes.

Clara, Sweetland said without turning to look at her. Do you know who your father is?

Not a clue, she said. But I got my money on Loveless. And then she started giggling. Fucken Loveless! she shouted and she laughed drunkenly, almost hysterical. She caught her breath long enough to say, Can you imagine? Mom and Loveless?

That’s my sister you’re talking about, Sweetland said, and Clara doubled over at the table, slapping her hand on the Formica.

Jesus loves the little children, Sweetland said. He made his way to his chair unsteadily, waited there while Clara calmed down and wiped her eyes, ran her hands through her hair.

Sorry, she said. Couldn’t help myself. She grimaced across the table and tapped at her front teeth with a fingernail. Can’t feel a damn thing, she said. And then she said, I expect you knows his name. My father’s. But I don’t care, to be honest. She tossed her head toward the man snoring beside the stove. We did all right, she said, not knowing.

Sweetland nodded down at the table. That’s grand, he said.

I don’t know how Mom managed to keep it a secret in this town, that’s what really amazes me.

It don’t seem likely, I grant you that.

Clara got up from her seat and steadied herself with a hand to the back of her chair. I should head home out of it, she said, before I makes a fool of myself.

What about Jesse? Sweetland said.

What about him?

What happened to his father?

His father got laid, Clara said. And I got knocked up. Just a one-night thing. Didn’t even know the guy’s last name.

Jesus, Clara.

You want to know the worst of it? she said. It wasn’t even a decent bit of skin.

Jesus , Clara.

She wavered on her feet, fighting to hold herself still. She covered her eyes, her mother’s gesture with a drunken weight added to it, the heel of the hand pushing her nose and lips askew. I hates the thought of leaving Jesse up there, she said. With no one even to cut the grass on his grave.