Why the Water Turns White III

A boy chases after a dog at 3:28 PM the day after the incident of the pebble and the pint glass.  The dog is an old Irish sheep dog.  The boy is small and nimble.  The dog is in need of a haircut, but he has seen the scissors and is on the run. 

Father O’brien grins to himself and wonders who will win in the end.  As he muses over the possible outcomes he strolls into town with a skip in his step.  The milkman has just been by and passed on the news that is fast spreading through ears and mouths all over the town.

There has been a sighting of John O’Connell in the town outside the pub.  The priest is on his way to procure information on where John is staying at the moment.  For unlike many of the town people this isn’t the first time the priest has heard the name John O’Connell since that tragedy that betook the O’Connell’s.  No, the priest stumbled upon the name one day when he was passing through Dublin for the annual synod.  It wasn’t at the synod, but in a bookstore where he glimpsed the name John O’Connell.  In the Winding Stair Bookstore along the quays of the Liffey, where he decided to stop on his way to O’Connell street where he was due to view an enactment put on by a historical society of whom his brother was the chairperson.  He found these enactments dreadfully boring and thought he would pick up a book to carry him through.  As he browsed the store he picked out several books that were to his liking, but on his way to the till something caught his eye.  It was in the reflection of the front window captured by wayward rays of street lamps, that same name John O’Connell on the front of a book pointed out towards the street.  He was nearly already late, but the name rung a bell and the priest had a habit of listening to the bell.  Believing in fact that it may be God talking to him or prompting him. 

On further inspection the back page of the book revealed why that bell had rung.  For it read, “John O’Connell is an author living in New York City.  He weaves tales of his childhood, in the small Irish village of Fanore, into many of his critically acclaimed collections of poetry.  His work is known for its tragically soulful tone brought forth from the exposition of achingly simple, but heartbreakingly beautiful happenings.”  The priest thought to himself, surely this in an act of God my finding this book of a boy who completed his confirmation under my supervision.  Thanks be to God.  I’d say we will cross paths again this boy and I. 

With this recollection shining like a light in his mind he is terribly pleased with himself.  This divine providence has turned his usually stern countenance almost joyful.  His lifeless, pale, white lips almost seem a tinge redder turned up in a smile, and his eyes carry a spark that at times grows dull in the confines of his solitary home.  Father O’brien is of no great height, but he is a very lean man and as it sometimes does this gives the impression of tallness.  However, his emaciated limbs and sunken eyes leave some in the town wondering if he is walking close to the grave, but today he would leave them all doubters.  He bounds forward purposefully, his church posed dramatically behind looking more severe than the man himself ever does, and we are left to consider if it is really man who is stern at all or is it just the place, for here outside the walls the father looks very different, as if some duty has been shed, a thorn removed, an affliction lifted, as if he can tread lighter away from the calling of God and the building in which we have locked Him.  As he passes through the town he contemplates his options, and under the warm rays of the sun, he feels nothing could go wrong on a glorious day such as this.

Like any good priest it doesn’t sit well with him to allow one of his sheep unattended especially one gone so long.  Creeping somewhere along with his priestly care he also has in mind several repairs for the church.  This building, his ball and chain, has been minded by the residents for years but now with the town shrinking the giving has slipped, but the dread and worry that the thoughts of renovation bring are lifted away on angels wings as Father O’brien feels a lightness in his chest at the thought of a potential benefactor in the village especially one whose mother, God rest her soul, had been such a benevolent and devoted giver.

As he is nearly carried away by the possibility of all his problems being resolved he happens upon Daniel, the old guard, crouched behind his low front wall tending to his front garden.  “Lovely day, Daniel isn’t it?  Good man, getting to the garden.” 

Daniel shaken by the sudden presence of the priest peering over the front wall of his garden has to think a moment before he can respond.  Since he was caught as a child robbing wine from the vestry, by angry Father Ronan and given a good beating, he is a bit jumpy any time a priest appears.  “Well yes, father.  Sure, look I haven’t seen a day like it this summer.”  He pushes himself up off his knees and stands.  Resting his gloved hands on his low garden wall he addresses the priest “Father what’s this I've been hearing about John O’Connell?  Is he back, sure I haven’t seen John since he was just a wee lad.” 

Father O’Brien is delighted because he was hoping this was the way the conversation would go.  A long time ago another priest had told him that a priest should never be the curious one and so he would always let the other speak first and then set about finding his facts.  “I did hear that Daniel.  The milkman was by this morning carrying the news.  Have you heard anything yourself.”  Daniel reaches up and scratches his scalp vigorously, “I haven’t heard a thing father… just that he was seen yesterday down by the pub.  Awful the things that happened to the O’Connell’s, just awful sad.  It’s been so long since I heard his name I’d near forgotten him.” 

As the two men chat the dog and boy appear again at the mouth of the town.  The dog swings his head this way and that, his too long fringe blinding him ever so slightly as he searches for a place of refuge.  They sprint along the road that cuts the narrow sliver of land into two, winding its way down to the harbour and then to its end point, the lighthouse and the sea.   As he scurries along we witness the town stretched before us.  The church sleeping ominously to the right followed by houses of many colours on both sides.  We follow the sheep dog romping through the priest’s legs and tearing around Daniel’s garden evading the men as well as the boy.  We hear behind us in indignant tone, “Finn stop that Dog!”, but we won’t be stopped we must go!  Wind catching shaggy coat, and now a light rain begins to fall.  Out back onto the road and past more cottages across the road and into the bakery, snatching a scone at the baker’s protest, jumping between the forms of Siofra and Mary, under the barrier of the French women’s café and out beyond O’Connells pub to the fields and sheep and cows where the richest smells are to be found.

Finn stops up in the middle of the road with his hands resting on his knees.  Heaving breaths, his heart pounds from the exertion of the chase.  “Damn dog”, he exhales and straightens, “I’ll catch you yet.”  He makes to turn around, but remembers that some of the older boys had said they would be playing football at the field up the way.  He thinks to himself, I can watch… I’d love to play, but I know no one would pick me.  He turns back towards the town and takes a step, but then lunges around and starts the trot out to the Gaelic pitch.  He is a fine boy, his golden hair growing in thick curls frame a brave face.

Above him clouds stream across the sky as regularly as waves and a mist begins to descend over the land.  In the fields to his left and right horses whiny, sheep bleat, and cows moo as if to sound a warning of some impending event.  The pitch comes into view and the mist presses further down as if the clouds are descending and the sky coming down to earth.  As he draws closer he doesn’t see anyone playing.  They must have finished earlier… stupid… why did you come out here.  Now you’re stuck in the rain.  Then up ahead he sees a furry figure.  He bends down to get a view under the mist and then raises his hands as if to usher the cheeky clouds away.  “Raja… come here boy… we don’t have to do the haircut now… come on home now.” 

A wind whips in from the Atlantic and gusts over the land bending the long grass and billowing in Finn’s shirt.  The mist is low and thick now and he can just barely make out the stubborn sheep dog sauntering out in the direction of the light house, which has been transported away into some netherworld of vapour.  The boy knows he is caught out, and he must make a decision.  He stands and thinks and as he stands tensed in uncertainty the fog swirls in around him and obscures him from view.   Rising up into the mist that has swallowed the village time has become stuck and phantoms emerge as we are spirited away at the mercy of the wind.  The rain lances down, splattering painfully and kicking off the ground to create another microcosmic rain fall inches above the earth.  The village people wander in aimlessly to kindle a fire, to the inner sanctum of their sitting room, someone inevitably calls out to “put on the kettle”, and they settle down to discuss the capricious nature of the creature who holds such a draconian grip over their lives.

Inside the cafe the French women Anabelle pirouettes and sings with the rhythm of the rain.  Wiping the tables in an odd sort of dance, with each sound of thunder she roars as if some madness has infected her, stomping about in the throes of what looks like an aboriginal rain dance as if to the appease the God’s who have sent the rain.  One final crack rends the sky and her body gyrates violently, bouncing, trembling, she collapses to the floor in quivering seizure like shake and then rising to a sickening crescendo she is still.  Her expression is peaceful, as she is still there on the floor and she feels close to herself, as she knows she shares some peculiar closeness to nature itself, for she has expressed the madness, the brutality, the virility of the storm, she has not held herself still, she has performed in a duet with the insanity of the gale.

When she stands she glimpses a ghost like figure fixed at her window.  It is the old priest staring in wide-eyed.  She lets out a little nervous laugh and waves.  He catching hold of himself waves back and walks on.  His simple black umbrella buffeted by wind threatens to escape his grasp and then does.  Skipping along the road and then flying up and away into the mist.  Father O’Brien, exasperated by his failure to find the whereabouts of John O’Connell and greatly distressed by the pagan wildness, of Anabella’s rain dance looks after his umbrella and then up at the sky as if to say “you’ve taken my umbrella as well”, and everybody gathered apart, tucked away in their homes feel vaguely but intimately connected, uniquely together buried under the thick mist, not seeing the houses outside their windows, but knowing they are there and people like themselves sit inside gathered around the fire, and when the storm meets its end they will all go and talk about it, “That was some gale”, and “wasn’t the worst storm of the summer”, and “must be a sign winter is on it’s way.”