Inch Levels Read online

  Their mother? – Sarah was sitting on the sand, with her face turned up to the sun; and Cassie was sitting too, fiddling with a sandal, maybe, or simply looking at the waves.

  He was first into the water. He beat Margaret to it. She was speechless with rage. Older, two years older, but second, this time. Speechless. Goaded beyond bearing. She might have drowned her little brother that day. Instead, she realised how much she loved him. He saw it all now, with the benefit of hindsight.

  *

  Patrick waded a little deeper. The sand on this beach shelved steeply, a little too steeply. This was why they seldom came here. His mother and Cassie preferred the beaches on Lough Swilly, with their gentler slopes, their warmer waters, and all twenty minutes from their front door in Derry. Cassie got anxious: she’d been anxious even sitting there in the back of the car, being brought out to this unaccustomed beach; she’d wriggled and shifted in the back seat, her sharp hip bones digging into him.

  He waded a little deeper. He knew why it was Kinnagoe, today. His father took a notion. His mother usually made the choices – about beaches, about everything, taking Cassie into account – but today their father chose. A rush of blood to the head – though, what was that? He didn’t know, but that’s what his mammy had said. ‘You’ve had a rush of blood to the head,’ she said, before glancing into the back, checking on him, on Margaret, on Cassie. ‘We could’ve been in Buncrana in fifteen minutes. Why Kinnagoe?’ she said. ‘Twice as far, three times.’

  But his father won: or his mammy didn’t care enough this time to win.

  ‘Three times as far.’

  She usually won.

  He waded a little deeper. What an excitement it was, what a thrill. They hadn’t been to Kinnagoe this year and they didn’t go last: he didn’t even really remember the road here, did he? The steep road up to the crest of the hill, the sudden view of ocean and islands? – he couldn’t really remember: just a fuzz of a memory, just a haze. He’d whispered to Margaret, there on the sticky back seat, ‘When were we last here?’ – but she had just rolled her eyes. ‘Last year. You were too young to remember.’

  Well, he’d get her for that. Some time. He was nearly the same height now as she is. He’d get her.

  And then they had reached the crest of the hill, and his father pulled the car to the side of the road. He got out and Patrick got out and: ‘Scotland, son, look!’ – and they gazed out across the blue sea to the islands, there in a haze on the horizon. That was Scotland.

  They looked, all of them: he and his daddy standing in the sunshine; and his mammy and sister and Cassie sitting in the car, looking too. He peeped in at his mammy sitting, saying nothing. She was in a good mood today, a good-ish mood, a quiet mood. Cassie was looking too: she was settled now in the back seat; she didn’t seem now to mind being here. Then he watched Margaret watching him, as he stood there with their daddy’s arm on his shoulder. Their daddy thought she wasn’t interested in some things, being a girl: things in the past, like battles and wars. He talked to her, but about other things; it made her – yes, wild: and yes, up there on the crest of the hill, she was wild. Patrick watched her expression, he watched her being driven wild, he glowed with satisfaction, with glee, with perfect and delightful happiness.

  The sun had glinted on the metal roof of the car, on the clean windows: he could see inside, but only by crinkling up his eyes. There was his mammy sitting quietly. She wasn’t looking any more: her eyes were closed. Cassie’s eyes were open, they were looking at her fingers; Margaret’s eyes were glaring, staring at him. Then they drove on, the road falling steeply now, down to the crescent of sand. No, they hadn’t been here for ages: he couldn’t remember the road, the beach, though he knew better than to admit this now to anyone. Margaret said she could remember it; she was cleverer than he, he knew this already, but this time she was a big liar, probably.

  They ran down onto the beach: he ran ahead, faster than Margaret, though she had longer legs. He picked out their patch and dropped his shoes, the picnic bag, the red towel onto the warm sand – and quickly he jumped out of his shorts and ran down the beach and into the water.

  And now here he was, first in.

  It was icy, the water, and now he was waist-deep and he gasped a little. Icy, icy water: so cold he could hardly breathe. He gasped and gasped again, he took another breath, another step. He heard Margaret panting a little behind him, gasping as he gasped at the chill slap of the waves. I’ll duck first, I’ll get wet first, I have to: first in, first down, first always.

  He ducked.

  He was after drowned treasure. I’ll be a hero, he thought: I’ll find it first. Margaret will rage.

  This was why they came here today: the ship, the shipwreck. The Spanish sailors from the Armada: they were on a great wooden ship driven into the coast and wrecked on the reefs here, off Kinnagoe, off this beach. His father told him. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago this happened: oh, hundreds.

  This is why they came here to Kinnagoe.

  And where was the wreck? – but his father had shrugged. ‘Never found, son. Not yet – but the local people know it’s here.’

  ‘How do they know?’

  ‘Ghosts, son, on the beach in stormy weather.’

  ‘Ghosts?’

  ‘Ghosts. They ride the white horses to shore, son, and they come ashore, they come off the ship.’

  Patrick’s blood ran cold, then, deliciously. Margaret made a disbelieving noise: there was, she said, no such thing as ghosts. Their father laughed, then. ‘We’ll see,’ he said. This was earlier: a day or so earlier, in the hot back garden of their new house in Derry. Planning the trip, selecting the beach. ‘We’ll see. Make a change, anyway,’ he said, ‘from Buncrana. We’ll go a little bit further afield,’ he said to them, privately, ‘this time.’ Then he went indoors and Patrick and Margaret, focused now on other matters on which could make common cause: there would be chocolate waiting for them tomorrow; there would be ice cream, maybe. They sat in the sun and discussed ice cream, until it was time to come inside for tea.

  And now Patrick ducked his head into the icy water and the sea enveloped him. He would be the first to see the shipwreck, the bones, the skeletons of Spanish sailors, the chests of golden treasure. He opened his eyes: green sunlit water, a thick strand of waving, drifting seaweed. He closed his eyes and rose to the surface, emerged with a pop, and another breath and down again – the water less cold now, and bones to be discovered – and now he felt his leg grasped, and he was yanked down, towards the sandy, rocky bottom of the sea.

  *

  Margaret’s throat was tight with rage and frustration. How dare he, how dare they, how dare Patrick and how dare their father? How dare they and how dare they?

  ‘Not out of your depth, Margaret,’ her daddy said, behind her, from the shallows: he was wading, his trouser legs turned up neatly. ‘Go carefully, please.’ He said to her. Not to Patrick, who was younger, but who was allowed to wade into the deep water, who could go out of his depth, who was first to take a breath and plunge his head into the waves.

  Who was a boy.

  She ignored her daddy; she waded faster. Her daddy didn’t want to get his trousers wet: she knew this, she’d trade on it. She moved faster, out of his reach, out of her depth: the sandy bottom fell away, she took a breath and plunged and opened her eyes – all suddenly, suddenly, not a moment to lose, the water green and cold, pressing against her wide eyes – and now she saw her brother’s left leg, and she caught at it and pulled.

  She’d teach him.

  She could feel his panic, there in the green water. He was out of his depth now – well out – and he kicked away, but she yanked again, harder. She’d teach him a lesson, she had the advantage of surprise, she yanked again: she’d show them who was strongest and cleverest – and she didn’t need her father to say so, besides.

  And suddenly now her brother’s face appeared, white and ghost-like in the green water: they were face to face and his right l
eg and his arms were thrashing and his eyes wide with shock and fear – and in a horrified, blurred moment she released her grasp of his other leg.

  For another instant they stared, suspended, their eyes wide open in the water – and now she felt herself yanked in her turn and pulled upwards – and she surfaced, streaming water, and there he was, her father, livid and streaming too; and now Patrick popped to the surface of the water beside her. His hands were empty: no treasure, no bones; she knew what he was looking for. And now she was pulled ashore.

  ‘What were you doing? What the hell did you think you were doing?’

  ‘I was swimming, diving.’

  ‘I saw what you were doing. Wait ’til I get you home.’ Seawater ran down her father’s face. Yes, livid: she’d be thrashed this evening, when they got home. So he said – though he’d cool down, later. He never thrashed. And even now he was cooling: the beach had filled up a little, even in these last few minutes, and there was too much of an audience for him; he was cooling right down. She sensed this, her escape from a promised thrashing – but running alongside this relief she was aware of other sensations. Envy, yes, and a still potent fury at her brother’s position, his privilege based on nothing. But something else, too.

  ‘We were just trying to touch the bottom,’ said Patrick; and she watched as their father turned and looked from one to the other.

  Love, of course.

  And – the ache that came with it, born out there in the water of a fear that something might happen to this little boy, with his red towel, with his skinny arms and legs and his white, thin face. Patrick was rubbing his eyes, blindly; then his hands dropped and he looked at her – and she saw this same realisation written in his eyes. Margaret would remember this expression – oh, for the rest of her life. Would do anything for this little boy. For this brother that, not five minutes before, she would gladly have drowned, had she been able to get away with it.

  She glanced up the beach, to where her mammy and Cassie sat on towels. Mammy hadn’t moved: she looked like a… like that statue, Margaret thought, carved in their church from white stone. Margaret saw her and looked away: no need to have anything or anyone interfere with her newfound knowledge, standing dripping here on the warm white sand, on a sunny afternoon.

  *

  Martin waded into the water. His son had vanished beneath the waves, but there was no need to worry about Patrick: he’d be fine. But Margaret had vanished too, and she couldn’t swim – could she? I don’t even know, he thought, and with sudden fear he waded further in, peering into the cold, green water. Where was she?

  There she was. There was her shadowy form: her long hair waving above her head in dark tendrils, the sunlight falling in bars across her form. There she was, and he grabbed and lunged and pulled her up, gasping, to the surface, onto the beach.

  ‘What were you doing? What the hell did you think you were doing?’

  She coughed up seawater. ‘I was looking for treasure.’

  Your fault, she was implying, without saying a word: all your fault. You mentioned the Spanish treasure in the first place. Didn’t you?

  Martin did. He accepted his guilt. He would not thrash her, later.

  *

  Cassie watched. The sand was warm. ‘Take your sandals off, Cassie,’ said Sarah, ‘why don’t you?’ – and she did: she did take her sandals off and now the sand is soft and warm under her bare feet. Lovely and warm, and she reached her hands too into the warm, into the beautiful fine sand. It is never as hot as this: my bones are heating; they are heating up to stay warm when the winter comes. To keep me warm. And there’s poor Margaret beside herself. Poor Margaret and poor Patrick. And poor Sarah, wrapped up in herself. Always, always, always wrapped up in herself on a beach. She needs to leave the past in the past, Cassie thought – but this is a thing Sarah has never been able to do. Cassie watched the water, the hauling and shouting, she watched dreamily, now. She closed her eyes. She doesn’t have to look too closely. Nobody was about to die. Not this time. Lovely, Cassie thought, and closed her eyes.

  *

  Twenty-five years ago now, and more, that day: Margaret and me, our relationship sealed by murderous rage.

  Sealed, Patrick thought, with a yank.

  Twenty-five years ago, that talk about Spanish sailors, coming ashore, with the wind roaring and the waves roaring and lamplight and torchlight waiting for them on the beach. Coming ashore to a new world – for them, at any rate. To discover the future, to explore how it would shape up for them.

  That was the thing: his father giving him a certain way of looking at the world, at history, at other people’s lives. Those Spanish sailors on the Armada ship: what did they think as they came ashore, or as they drowned in cold Irish seas? Nothing about them in the books, which deal with Spanish kings and English queens and Irish chieftains, jockeying for position. Nothing about the others: about the actual people on the ships. For these stories, we have to use our imaginations.

  Patrick lay still. Footsteps squeaked and crunched on rubber floors; a trolley wheeled along the corridor; a vast, humming cleaning machine swept past. This was the lesson he was taught, as a small boy: a lesson he was honour-bound to apply to his own life. He thought of Margaret, and Robert: of the living and the dead, of deeds done and not undone. He hadn’t applied the lesson, had he?

  No. He had done the opposite. He had erased a story. He had failed to honour the dead.

  He had wiped the slate clean.

  4

  ‘And how is the patient today?’

  Sarah repeated the question – almost immediately. This was a favourite approach: she liked to see the other person’s mouth open and then close; the faint expression of shock in the face of this pressing, prodding rudeness. This sweet lady – who turns out to be not so sweet after all. ‘How is my son today?’

  My son, she thought. My son, my son. My son is dying: and there you stand, so sanctimonious. I’ve had enough of you, of the lot of you.

  No saying any of this, she knew. They’d swoop in. They’d take the opportunity to section me, probably, to cart me off to the nearest loony bin, in two seconds. Serve her right, they’d say; nothing but trouble, that one. How many times had she seen the contempt in their eyes? – many times, was the answer to that: contempt for this doll, causing trouble, asking questions.

  Well, she’d set them right on that one. Getting older, she might be. But feeble? – no, and with a tongue like the blade of an axe, if she chose to use it. She was no pushover: and the staff in this place knew it by now.

  But there was a flipside. Never show my feelings: that was Sarah’s number one rule. She knew how to keep her feelings in check, to keep them pushed down – even with her son lying dying right there, on the other side of the door. It was easily done: it really was very easy. A lifetime of experience in that particular art had made her an expert now in stamping down.

  And besides, age had made it easier. Because there was nobody to speak to: not for five, six years now, not since Cassie died. She had forgotten how to do it.

  ‘How is my son today?’

  Sarah watched the nurse’s mouth open again, she watched her lips move. She watched, as if from miles away, as the girl began to speak.

  *

  ‘And how is the patient today?’ she said. ‘How is my son today?’

  And the nurse paused for a moment. Warily, by this stage. Too many stings, by this stage. Fed-up, too, by this stage: for Mrs Jackson, this nice, upright lady in her fleecy wraps and her knitting needles and her fondness for pastel shades had a tongue on her, when she felt like showing it off. They had all felt sorry for her, to begin with: not very nice for the lady to see her son fading away like this, fading day by day: to sit and watch this, in silence for the most part. It was an inversion of the natural order of things: it called for sensitivity over and above what training demanded. It called for kid gloves.

  But a few tongue lashings and – worse, much worse – a few biting sarcasms, put p
aid to all that. A bit of a harridan, that one: so went the talk in the nurses’ room. A tartar; and she can stand up for herself, that one. And so now the nurse paused before selecting the right word. The doctors, she thought, they can deal with the ins and outs of it.

  ‘As well as can be expected,’ the nurse said, ‘considering.’

  The fleecy lady seemed to – yes, to consider for a moment. She considered. The nurse waited. Her duties were stacked up like planes waiting to land, today as on every other day, but she waited. This lady had a quality: the nurse felt as though she was being held by a tightening leash.

  ‘Considering,’ Mrs Jackson said at last. ‘Considering – everything.’

  The nurse nodded.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Jackson, ‘that certainly clarifies matters for me, doesn’t it? That answers all the questions, doesn’t it?’

  The leash was released now, it was snapped. The nurse nodded dumbly.

  ‘Thank you, dear.’ The nurse turned and scuttled away down the corridor. The fleecy lady paused for another moment: then she too turned and squared her shoulders. She took a moment: and then she pushed the door, and it swung and she entered the room.

  *

  Moments came and went: of course she’d had her chances, over the years. Plenty of them. One moment in particular came to mind: when the chance arose to – if not set matters right, then at least to speak of them, to begin to sort through them in her head.

  ‘What is it, mammy?’ Margaret asked, long ago: sitting up on her bed, tall now and long of limb and of hair, a teenaged pimple or two. What do you want? – is what she meant, though she was too polite to put it in those terms: what do you want? She looked at her mother, who was perched there on the edge of her bed: a wet February night, the window streaming with rain.