You are quiet. I watch your even, shallow breathing. I am waiting for the dark undertow to settle. I try to move in small circles, try to have some small control over the currents. I try to use the moon as anchor, try to keep an eye on the shore, that luminous, thin arc in the far distance I am not convinced is not some sort of diaphanous mirage.

  And things appear eventually to fall into place, a kind of unreal settlement. You have given yourself over to me. Imagine. We steady as one into some kind of cold fixed rhythm, in out left right tick tock love love not. How long does this slippery alignment last. I can’t seem to put a figure on it. We are bobbing together but we are getting nowhere.

  You are becoming heavier, how is it that you are becoming heavier, this weight, is it trying to pull us down to the dicey open palm. Your wide chest rises and falls, rises and falls on me. And the hollow V on your throat, look, quiet as a mouse.

  I am cold. I watch flickering aircraft pass overhead trailing their low rumble, heading west to America or east to Europe and beyond. Dear shifting pole stars, dear secret satellite systems in the sky, do you pull us in your chemical wakes, are we too heavy, are we a burden, which one is a burden, will we cancel each other out, this east west north south.

  What are they, pinkish, are they bright streaks appearing ashore in the sky over that dark field of ox-eyes, look. Dawn doesn’t come to us, we have to go to it. Or maybe will it meet me halfway. Are you mad don’t ask for too much. I didn’t ask for anything, I didn’t ask for this did I. Dear God, I did not. All of the clueless useless people ashore, asleep warm inside houses, being ferried blind to their dawn without even the slightest show of gratitude. Lazy arseholes. Calm down. I am telling myself to calm down.

  He’s gurgling. Salt in the throat. I feel it. Salt soot burying in. Creep. Sweep. A scalded chimney. Don’t think about it. This dirt. I feel the wet weight of his skull on my lungs. Stone. Put a stone in the bag, throw the bag of meowls in the water. Are you sleeping. I cannot see his face. I stare at the crown of his head. Dark strands of hair radiating out from a central spot, celestial white spot, a celestial ceiling, is this another thing, this tiny star of skin in the centre so pale smooth against his straggly black strands, wheeling outward, cosmos, is the tide still going out, what about that time in between when the tide stands still, listen, remember when you said to me, listen you need to hear this, Bunny, remember the time remember when you said, don’t think of us as a long-term thing, when you said, I won’t be hanging around here forever, Bea, get real, I was just, listen, soon as this semester’s over, you said, as soon, I won’t be tied, Bea, putting up with your, don’t be so goddamned, you called me clingy, it’s embarrassing, you said, it’s fucking embarrassing, you said, are we tied at the hip or something, what is it you want Bunny, tell me now, space or time if you could have one of these, one in each pocket and, look! is this another thing, a blotchy star of whitest spiralling out into this his dark head, not going anywhere now Bunny are you, no, and why am I tied here at the hips to a deadweight bedraggled buoy with a galaxy for skin, a bag with a stone heart, a helpless, a useless arsehole, did I need to hear that, Bunny, did you need to say that back then, when words mattered, clinging to me now aren’t you with your tight little rabbit soul, we’re going, damn right we’re going, every one of these scraggly black strings attached to the tide, the tide going out with all this shit or no, stop, no, is this a big black sea urchin here in the tide on my breast, yes the git, the spiny, spineful spinesome spineless, in the middle the round, urchin mouth one side, anus the other, am I looking at anus or mouth, what’s the difference, both suns being ferried to the dawn without so much as a thank you, my lovely, my very own groaning burden, now come on now, you know I cannot swim us both there, swim to shore, from shore to shore, what do you expect from me, come on, get real, I am old so cold there is nothing here, my limbs are numb, nothing, where are my limbs, maybe your eyes are open, maybe not, maybe half, maybe one, are these other limbs, are your eyes open, oh God.

  Bunny?

  He mumbles something, then back to a low gurgle, a child, a huge suckling urchin. The stars are gone, wrong, not gone, just we can’t see them any more, they’re still there dithering, only hidden by the bright pink and orange blooms happening now, look, look! in laser streaks, rising in the sky yes from the east, oh these overland torches seeking out what, remember the car beams shining on those two white discs in the hedgerow back there knee-height remember then gone in a flash. In a flash. Blink. No looking back, just do it. What? I am too cold, I am too old. This dead water, how. A hard shivering cold. What was the voodoo doll joke, is it too late for that, is there a sting to those spikes. Oh yes, them there.

  And the vixen calls out to me from the rosy the lonely shore has she been calling out for long and I know now what she is saying. You have to go to your dawn, it won’t come to you. You have to leave the black sea urchin behind. All his hard spines, get them away from you. The sickle-marks. He doesn’t belong deadweight on your breast. Leave him be. Give him to the Atlantic if it wants him that bad. Give him to the open palm waiting below if it wants him. And beneath the surface it’s quiet, is it sleeping. A soft sea bed. Let the black sea urchin go. Let him go there. There below.

  Say it now, Bea.

  With one hand, I loosen his grip, it’s easy. With my other, I circle a fistful of hair from the side of his black head. He rouses, too late for rousing. I push his head underwater, rolling away from him. There’s no special noise, nothing much changes on the sea surface. After a time, how much time, not much, I let go. Did he touch me, did he reach out and touch my arm before he began to tick-tock away towards the dim west, out into his secret, his own chill, his very own sea.

  My limbs are returned to me. I am light as air. I twist my back to the sky and swim slow a wide slow arc through the invisible arrows until yes in time I reach the brightening shore. The hard cold sand. Keep going. Find our jumble of rabbit costumes, pull mine on, hood up, wrap his around my arm, sand rasping skin, walk back past the oxeyes. Their flower heads are beginning to open. No thank you, Little Ox-eye, hold on to it. I’m going home.

  I’m still cold when I get back to the house, my body hurts. I take a shower and sleep for a few hours. That evening, I return to the Department Head’s house. I apologize about the previous night’s unpleasantness, explain about the continued disagreement in the car after we left the party, he’s such a hothead, you know the way he could the way he can be sometimes, stubborn as a child, yes his insistence on a solo swim, his demand to be left alone, what could I do, when he gets like that. And now, God, his unexplained disappearance. Did he, by any chance, return here? He actually told me to fuck off home, give him breathing space. Breathing space, can you believe it? Yes, over a silly poem, over a line in a poem. Oh God oh God, I’m getting a bad feeling about this, I’m getting a bad vibe. Look, if he turns up here, tell him he can take as much time and space as he needs, I only want to know he’s safe, I only want to let him know he can come home when he’s ready. I only ever wanted what was good for him. God, I swear, I’ll kill him when I see him. What he put, what he puts me through! But I forgive him. Of course I forgive him. Tell him I forgave him if he turns up.

  As I demonstrate my distress, they reassure me everything will be alright, it’s not my fault, drink does strange things sometimes, he’s unlikely to come back here, considering everything, maybe he’s gone to a friend’s, maybe it’s all been a bit much for him, all the, it’s a lot to take on, young lad like him. Maybe just give him some space. When he’s ready, he’ll make contact. Best to drop it, Bea. Go on home.

  And four weeks later I read online about an eyeless, lipless, hairless body washing up further out west on Coral Strand, the grave-wax skin darkened, the little indigo swift gone (that somehow is the worst part). By then, I’ve quit the job and severed all contact with my former colleagues, I’ve sought out and accepted a part-time lecturing job back in New Zealand, I’ve left Galway to return home.

  Yet, all these years, all this distance and you’re still not gone, you’re still clinging on.

  She leaves the balcony, empties the bath, watches the spinning gurgle clockwise, ha! as the last of the bathwater drains away. Closing the balcony doors, she looks again at the parrot, is it alive or dead, is it real, what does it matter, the dog thinks it is. Oh God he’s done his doggy-pee in the balcony corner, the edge of the towel sodden. It’s leaked along the metal mesh and dripped down through the storeys, how many storeys, one two three four five not counting this one, it’ll have disappeared by the time it gets to the fifth, as in, the first storey. Hope no one was out. They’d never trace it back to here anyway, enough of a distance between, and no provable connection, loads of people have dogs, accidents happen.

  She walks back into the bedroom, he follows her. They plonk down together on either side of the coupled rabbit-costumes figure reclining on the bed, its faux-fur arms hugging its torso. Her laptop glows blue on the bedside table. Good, get that last submission done, then get all the critiqued pieces sent back out to the students by this afternoon.

  But first, let’s get this call out of the way. (Look oh look at him the shape of him inside my bunny costume inside his bunny costume lying here beside me!) Now my own delights I make. What. Apply Starlet Vixen, a little touch to your lips. And take the secret phone from the bunny’s pocket. Okay, good. Lie back on the pillow, tell me what to type;

  – Sorry Bea, got mixed up with the time zones, what a f*cking dope !!

  😍 will call tomorrow, thinking of you xx

  and listen out now for the message received notification ping from the phone still propped on the laundry basket beside the bath.

  I know none of this is good. I know. Most pleased when most uneasy.

  When she hears the beautiful, the sharp ping hit in the bathroom, it’s like a warm shot in the arm, it’s like what she imagines a shot of heroin in the mangled arm of an addict would feel like. The vibrating ping causes the phone to fall off the laundry basket and clatter into the empty bath. As she drags the laptop onto her knee to finish the final critique, she sniggers at the overly romantic, unrefined metaphor of herself as forlorn addict. Ha ha ha! Pathetic. Like something one of the weaker students would write.

  She’d given her Creative Writing class a simple brief: 1,500 words on a life-changing personal experience you’ve had. Note: it must contain some reference to a body of water. She’ll go easy with this final critique, but she’ll be firm. This student (a favourite, it’s true) is proving to be an interesting challenge; appearing to wilfully misunderstand suggestions, wilfully extract double meanings where the meaning is clear.

  She’ll start the feedback with a comment on the submission’s title, ‘ON DIVING INTO AN EMPTY POOL’ (too abstract, one-dimensional, unfledged, a wasted opportunity, a parable-title is not always the sophisticated approach people think it is). She’ll suggest something with greater clarity embedded, something that can carry weight, a metaphor from the physical world is always a good start, is there something in nature that maybe intrigues you, an animal, a plant, something you don’t necessarily understand, something that could be used as a symbol of a deeper conflict, a type of diving board into your story.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am wildly grateful to the following:

  the team at Lilliput Press,

  my agent Marianne Gunn O’Connor,

  the Arts Council of Ireland and Leitrim County Council,

  my pals from The Sandy Field Writers Group (especially its founder Una Mannion),

  all the journals and magazines who have kindly published my work,

  my colleagues on the Writing & Literature and the Performing Arts programmes at ATU Sligo,

  the many crossed-path strangers whose words and actions have marked me,

  my beloveds: Bernardine Hanratty, Cecily Gilligan, and soulmate Kirsten Mosher,

  the cailleach,

  and finally, and forever, my fine men, Comhall Cába and Finn Fíor.

 

 

  Niamh Mac Cabe, Four Night Seas

 

 

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