‘The Night of the Big Wind’ by Ruth Gilligan

The gust played the pigeon towers like a pair of pipes, the gob of it leaving spit around the rims. Above, the clouds were doing dramatics as only an Irish sky can do, grey-faced and riled for three o’clock.

By half-past, there was a knock at the door. The sisters looked at one another, a hint of panic, then remembered they were women now so went.

Out on the porch it was the brother, back already.

‘Flight’s cancelled,’ he said, slamming the latch. ‘They reckon it’s getting worse.’ Lumbering his backpack down to the ground until, just like that, the three of them were reunited again, gone back five hours or really ten years and counting.

‘Well?’

Behind them, the letterbox rattled something vicious, warning words they couldn’t understand. The brother made a noise about a thirst and they were off.

*

As the girls scuttled kitchenwards Hugo snooped into the front room, almost as if he suspected there’d been some mischief in his absence. Another couple of boxes had been constructed, CHARITY SHOP along the side, though they were still empty. He looked at the ceiling. The strop of the wind made the chandelier dance as if there were a whole clan up there doing céilí and the three of them left down here, uninvited.

‘The prodigal eejit.’ Imelda reappeared in the doorway, her red hair wild as ever. She pressed a cup into his hands: ‘Talk about déjà bloody vu.’

He didn’t reply, blew ripples on the liquid’s surface.

He had arrived for the first time on Friday evening, a bottle of something and his empty pack in tow.

‘Camping are we?’ the sisters had teased, coddling all the same.

‘I just … in case there was anything I should take back with me, like.’

As it happened, there was little. Boxes upon boxes, but almost nothing the children could even pretend to want to save. An embarrassment of riches, though Hugo always thought it best around this family not to mention the notion of shame.

It was nearly two years now since their father’s departure; their mother’s another two before. The logistics hadn’t amounted to much, all three of them already set up and off. Foxrock. Finglas. The Finchley Road. But now somebody, unbelievably, had named a price for the gaff, so this weekend was to be the very last.

‘Coastal vistas?’ the estate agent had purred. ‘No recession from this view.’

Hugo had scrolled through the pictures online, colour-enhanced and cropped. A stranger’s home altogether.

He turned now to squint past the lace to the sea. The wind had her agitated. Feral. A mare rearing its hooves, tossing the white of its mane, or maybe that was just the Guinness ad talking, every word these days a slogan.

Coastal Vistas.

A perfect family home.

He looked down at the mug in his hands. She had left it black – they must have finished the milk. He thought of Carl. He would have to call and let him know he’d been delayed; promise to try for an evening flight instead.

*

Imelda watched her baby brother, his face lost to the window and beyond. She could tell he was thinking of their father, half-checking as if he might just appear across the road, out for his daily wander, the shadows of the pigeon towers moving down Sandymount Strand like a set of finish lines he could never quite reach.

She still remembered dialling London to deliver Hugo the news, the break of him down the line. Not that, of course, she had told him the half of it. Oh no, Dawn had been adamant on that – even to this day – the firm, brutal way only Dawn could be.

‘Imelda, don’t be daft.’

‘But he deserves to –’

‘To what? To hurt even more?’

They had fought about it again this morning after he had left; after bacon butties for goodbye and reunion plans akimbo. The wind was already up by then. Imelda had sensed Dawn’s temptation to suggest the village for Mass, but for once the eldest had known better than to say.

She looked at Hugo again now. He seemed well in himself – it obviously suited him over there – the escape route she had considered herself once upon a something. But then bubbles had burst and mothers had died and the lad of her almost-dreams had come almost-crawling back.

She touched her stomach, as if to check it was still there. It was. Not that she had told anyone yet – it hadn’t seemed right, given the weekend that was in it – the end of an era not the start of one and maybe a bit superstitious too, what with all the death still lurking, somewhere, here.

And then something else too. The fear of words. Because once out, they couldn’t be undone.

‘Can you give me a minute?’

She looked up now, forgotten about him entirely. Already he was more silhouette than flesh, the day behind him darking off.

‘What?’

‘I need to make a call,’ her brother said. Her baby brother Hugo in their old front room. ‘Do you mind?’

Still Imelda stared, then tried a smile. ‘The latest, is it? Let me guess – some gorgeous Hackney bear?’ Only as soon as it was out the tone was wrong. Token. More like Dawn than she would ever choose to be.

‘Fuck’s sake.’

‘Ah, sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean –’

But he was gone, brushing by and up the stairs, rattling the chandelier above her like a fairy reel.

Maybe Dawn was right, she thought. He had been through enough as it was.

Imelda sighed and looked around the room. Five lives boxed up and sealed away. And now another? She listened to the world outside, the sound of it so intent on harm. But then she smiled as she realised – he must have taken his tea with him. At least, she thought, he wouldn’t go thirsty in his strop.

*

‘What did you say to him?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You didn’t –’

‘Of course I didn’t.’

And Dawn believed her, she just needed to check.

‘Well, would you give me a hand with this – we still have the utility room to go and I’m not finishing it off on my lonesome.’ She could hear it as she spoke, the nag off her – the same one Tim and the boys despised. But it had been a long weekend and she was knackered, her lower back cranking out.

Dawn heard her sister sigh, a master in the bloody art. Though she supposed she should go easy, given her condition. Dawn guessed six weeks, maybe more, judging by the sweat, though she also supposed that until Imelda had actually announced she could hardly expect any slack.

She placed another mug into the cardboard box, then noticed a chip in its base. She chucked it in the black sack with a satisfying smash.

She tried not to feel offended by Imelda’s silence, but she also just didn’t understand. Of course, it was hardly an ideal situation – not a plan in sight – but it wasn’t like Dawn would pass comment, or judgement; would only say her prayers and not another word.

She thought of their mother; their father too. Yet another secret to add to the list – the full four-bedroom coastal-vista semi-detached of them.

Eventually Hugo descended and they were a trio again, making progress, albeit slow. Dawn wished they hadn’t tossed the radio. But when she said as much he produced his phone and asked her which station she’d prefer, fancy with the tech as ever.

He had to turn up Barry Manilow to make it over the wind. The whistle and thud had grown louder on the panes, God’s rampage and the rest. She hummed along into the depths of the cupboard, back where the dishes were soldered brown, the lumps of char hard and cruel as scabs. She thought of her mother again, and her beloved casseroles – anything and everything fecked in and baked on high. And then that one time after holidays when they’d missed the corner shop by five minutes so had just clobbered together whatever they could find. Beans and rice and a tin of dog food leftover from minding the neighbour’s mutt; a wink off her mother that meant not a word.

‘But the stench!’ Dawn said aloud now. ‘Not that Daddy noticed a thing – sure, he gobbled the whole plate clean.’

She waited for her siblings’ chime, but it never arrived. She wasn’t sure if her words had made it. She strained to listen and heard Manilow fading out, the news intro next so Hugo turned it up: ‘Two-hundred kilometres per hour … all flights grounded for the …’

‘Ah shite,’ he cursed, as if he were the only one with somewhere else to be.

After the news came a pop song she didn’t recognise. She tried to focus on her work, but she could feel the atmosphere greying so she knew it was her job and always hers to buoy them up.

‘I was just remembering,’ she shouted over her shoulder, a tilt in her neck to be sure this time. ‘Do you remember when Mammy cooked dog food for Daddy?’

She took out a baking tray, the base scraped to silver like claws. A toboggan in another life. ‘And he ate the whole thing? Practically begged for seconds!’ Still the wind tried to win, but she wasn’t stopping now. ‘And poor Mammy struggling to keep a straight face, while the rest of us –’

‘Dawn, that’s bollocks.’

Slowly, she siphoned her head; saw Hugo over by the cutlery, while Imelda was on the bottom drawer, a consortium of scales and screws.

A gust slammed into the window like a train-door just missed.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said that’s bollocks,’ Imelda repeated, placing a dented tin to the side. ‘He took one bite and knew straight away – nearly hurled on the spot.’

Next a car alarm got going, somewhere not so far away.

‘Wait, no.’ Hugo’s turn. ‘I could have sworn he actually puked.’ Though even as he spoke the women knew to ignore his version – far too young, bless, to remember a thing.

‘Well, you’re wrong,’ Dawn said, kneeling still but adamant. ‘He polished off the lot. Sure, it was always Mammy’s great claim that her cooking was so fantastic she could even cod her husband into –’

‘She wasn’t a fucking saint, you know?’ This time, Imelda’s words were an incantation, the wind joining in, yelling its own version.

‘I never said she was.’

‘And do you really think Da was such a savage that he would’ve –’

‘Ah girls, it doesn’t –’

‘No I don’t, Immy, I’m just saying, I remember –’

‘Why do you always have to be such a judgemental fucking –’

When the lights went they didn’t flicker only blacked. Out. Dawn fell silent – they all did – on that at least they could agree.

From behind the house she heard a smash. A plant pot, maybe, or bigger.

‘Hugo,’ she said eventually, as nag-less as she could. ‘The candles are in the utility …’

But by the sounds of things he had already gone, leaving her alone with the darkness and her sister and their memory that might never glue back together again.

*

Out the bedroom window Imelda watched the world unhinge. The waves had turned to acrobats, lassoing over the tide walls, across the car park to the road. Only the occasional spray had managed to reach the front of the house, but the sound like fingers on the glass had been enough to migrate the siblings upstairs.

It was just gone six o’clock.

Through the gloom, she could still make out the pigeon towers in the distance, the stripe of them like candy canes; a bit of dockside flair. Up close though, the view was something else, a litany of tat all down the street. A wheelie bin and its innards. A watering can. Something that looked like a hutch though she couldn’t tell if it was empty or not. In their own front garden the SOLD sign leaned over like an arm in a wrestle it was about to lose. Imelda watched it, lower and lower, a hammer to an anvil until the crack gave way and off it went towards the giant hoover that seemed to be sucking Ireland up.

‘We’ll have to call the agent, eh? Tell him to put it back on the market.’ To her left Hugo had appeared, boyish smile and bottle in hand.

‘Where’d you find that?’ she said, hiding her fright. ‘I thought we drained the stash last night?’

‘I bought it at the airport earlier. It was supposed to be a present, but sure …’

This time she gave herself a moment, careful of the same mistake.

‘So how long have you been seeing –’

‘Long enough.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘Are you really?’

She looked at him, a stranger. ‘Of course,’ she tried, though the hurt had sucked the wind from her too.

‘I just got off from Tim.’ Behind them Dawn entered, full-volume as ever. ‘He’s going mad about his mother. Apparently there’s talk of the Galway guards going out to the houses along the coast.’

Imelda knew that she was supposed to reply now, her turn to reassure. But the image of her sister’s words had her faltered, picturing the country’s other side – the wind here blowing in off the coast, so did that mean Connemara was the opposite? Whooshed off and out to sea? The stone walls. The cattle. The washing from the lines like blankets to keep the drowning beasts warm.

She half-smiled as she spun, a silly thing, though this time it was the portrait that caught her short – her sister and her brother cross-legged on the carpet, waiting.

Without discussion they had come to their father’s room, their parents’ room as was, a scatter of candles as if for a séance to bring the pair of them back. She was half-tempted to make the joke just to see Dawn’s face.

Hugo had salvaged a trinity of mugs for them to make a start on the whiskey. She knew she shouldn’t, but just one wouldn’t hurt, the smack of it welcome and hot.

She felt her sister watching, a bit too close, but decided it was probably in her head.

The second round had them softer, resolved to their captivity; giddier than they had been all weekend. The radio had given up, but it wasn’t long before the memories emerged out of the boxes, crawling like a something up a shore.

‘What about the Christmas where Hugo did panto on the kitchen table?’

‘Or Mammy’s knitting club? All the parish biddies?’

Outside the smash of slates had grown regular as a pulse. They spoke louder every time they heard an ambulance drive by.

‘Oh he was so proud of you,’ Dawn cooed for another. ‘His little soccer star!’

Imelda looked at her brother now, picking the bottle’s label like a skin.

He had never got over their father’s first reaction. Not a word. Just a stroll along the strand that lasted longer than usual – maybe he had reached the pigeon towers after all. But Imelda supposed he had just needed a bit of time, a bit of sea to take it in. A different language he was after being told – one he never spoke again – but that didn’t mean that he minded. In fact, if anything it was their mother who had ventured closer to that, the tiniest hint of relief (and a rosary) when Hugo had announced the one-way flight the following year.

His faced was filled smooth with candlelight now; the ease that had been a long time coming. She wanted to ask about the fella. Where they had met. What he did. What, even, was his name. But for some reason she didn’t – probably the same reason she hadn’t managed to make it to London yet. Because there was always the sense that actually, he didn’t want them over there, tainting his new life; his home away from stifling coastal home.

She took a drink; wondered if she was offended. Maybe even, a little jealous? Unless it was just something else these last two years that had shifted between them. Because every get-together, every intimacy, only reminded her of the thing she and Dawn were holding back, and that for fuck’s sake, if he had been honest with them then didn’t he deserve the very same?

‘Hugo.’ She drained her glass and held it out, a last lick for the confession. To her right she felt Dawn tightening. She didn’t dare take a turn.

‘What?’

At the window, a wavespray landed in an arc, an arpeggio of drops.

‘Hugo, there’s something …’

The hiss like fireworks on New Year’s Eve, the best view in all the country.

‘Something … something I …’

But the words dried up as swiftly as they had come. Hardly one to talk of secrets, her with her belly full of whiskey. ‘I said …’ The belly she still might or might not unsay.

‘She said would you try the radio again. There must be a bit of reception going somewhere.’

Hugo’s eyes lingered, reading Imelda for the cue. The youngsters disobeying or giving in to the eldest’s command? Only so many battles a family could choose.

Imelda gave a half-nod. Hugo squinted down at the iPhone and clicked his little clicks. Uncle Hugo.

The hollow of the silence turned to fuzz, and then a tinny sort of croon. ‘Flying Without Wings’ coming over the speakers.

The three of them looked at one another, almost bashful. A nervous giggle and a breath. Until one by one invisible microphones were produced and softened mouths winced lyric-shaped, giving in to the glorious, ancient unison.

‘It’s little things that only Iiiiiiiii knooooowwwwww …’

The cheese of it was mighty, a farce if anyone could see. But it was them and only them now, so Imelda let herself be taken, eyes closed and lyrics belted, a heat in her neck that didn’t want to say any more. No, she thought, not now. Not tonight. Not as the keychange came and the last chorus played, a harmony they perfected a million summers ago, until the news was back and a solemn woman spoke from far away: ‘… young girl, aged five, gone missing off the coast of Kinsale. Local witnesses reported sighting a small figure blown clean off the shore. The Water Rescue have assembled, but the conditions have been deemed too treacherous to –’

Imelda barely made it to the loo before the vomit came. It tasted of acid and of heat, the whiskey paying penance on its way out.

She closed her eyes and saw the child. She retched again, caricature-loud. But after three goes, the release refused to come.

*

‘Carl it’s me. Hugo. I’ve been trying to call but this is the first … Anyway, it’s still chaos here. The airport’s shut for the night, so I’m going to have to stay with the wicked witches … Carl, shh but I think Imelda’s preggers. The younger one, you know the one I’m always … Anyway, I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve heard … Oh shit, and Carl, remember that story I told you about my dad eating dog food? Well apparently it might not even be true. Or at least … Haha promise you’ll still love me if it’s a –’

The network died in Hugo’s hands, the sweat of the plastic across his palms. Love? Christ, where had that come from?

He returned to his parents’ bedroom, his father’s room of late, though it had always looked far too big for the old man gormless with one half gone.

The girls were mid-discussion, eyes whiskey-wet and locked.

‘All done.’ He waited in the doorway, expecting their inquisition; wondering if he was ready for it yet.

But when Dawn didn’t even nod he knew enough to read the shift. ‘Well, I don’t know about you lot, but I’m famished.’ Excusing himself back out the door, towards the landing and the stairs.

Love.

He felt his way through the kitchen’s darkness, along the table to the sink, then leaned into the window for the look. Christ. Through the orange of his reflection he could just make out the nightmare, the hurricane and the ballistics in its wake. Down the end, one of the trees had fallen, the bulk of it halfway up the lawn. The patio lay strewn with tiles, the gutter piping snapped at either end, black jags bared like teeth.

His father and he used to play soccer out here for hours, even in the dark; even when the mother had the knitters in and Hugo accidentally-on-purpose shanked his kick to score a cracker through the glass.

The shards spilled over their rainbow of wool, the women tangled together. His father took the blame, flashed the ladies his brightest sorry, though they didn’t call again for maybe months.

Hugo stared at the tree now, the gnarl of the roots unclenched.

After their mother’s exit, so much of their father had disappeared. Hugo knew the girls had had a rota, which really meant Dawn then Dawn then Dawn. Mass on Sundays, a flurry of grandsons and roasts and then Hugo up on the Skype with a cup of tea for dessert. Only, the old man always played dumb with the device, wandering off mid-chat like he had anywhere else in the world to be.

Hugo thought of that little girl down in Kinsale.

He started on the corner cupboard and worked his way along.

He always tried not to let on that he was bruised they didn’t visit. Dawn with Tim and the nephews, of course, and Dad unable to travel alone, but Imelda’s excuse wasn’t so clear. As far as he knew she was still on-off with your man – the usual drama – and the job too, always chopping and changing, so no point in taking it personal. But that didn’t mean he didn’t miss it, their closeness, and recently most of all. Said she was happy for him, but he was never sure, words and slogans only so much.

He stopped on a pack of cheese biscuits. Taste the Difference, they said. He tried one to see if he could.

And he thought she had wanted to tell him something earlier, probably about the baby, but maybe she had decided against in front of Dawn. But even still, Hugo knew the girls would be grand – the bond he had never been allowed – the littlest and the lad armed now with packets, the three of them cockroaches coming in to claim the very last of the scraps.

‘Well I hope you weren’t expecting a feast!’

The wall of hate that greeted him at the doorway was brutal.

‘Alright?’

By the window, Imelda’s shoulders shook, while by the candle, Dawn’s eyes were brimming.

‘Ah Jesus, girls, what’s –’

‘Ask her.’ Imelda wasted no time, greedy for the opportunity. Hugo had always hated the temper on her.

‘Well, it’s a bit of an eclectic mix,’ he ploughed on, sitting down to lay out his bounty, hoping the praise would thaw the silence at least. A word or two of thanks. But even the wind seemed to be on the huff for the moment, so he tucked in alone; used his finger to smear mayo on the back of an oatcake. ‘Suit yourselves.’

He had forgotten how crazy their wars drove him, the whole house on tenterhooks. Yet even with locked horns there was still the sense they shared things he never did, like they didn’t trust him to manage the full weight of their world.

‘Look, if there’s something I should know just spit it out.’ Without the furniture to soak the shout came loud and full. Hugo stared at the walls, the picture holes like old piercings never closed. ‘No really, I mean it. God knows there’s clearly something I don’t -’

But when the answer came it wasn’t the sisters but God Himself, a groan like He had doubled up in pain.

Dawn and Hugo raced to the window where Imelda already had her finger on the glass. At first he couldn’t see, only the wind clawing strokes through the lightless air, but then he spotted it, the red-and-white quivers in the distance. The pigeon tower, the one on the right, coming loose.

‘Holy fuck.’

The thing wobbled like a tooth. The iron groan again. Hugo’s mind froze. Waited. And then it hurtled off for numbers – the height of the thing and the distance from here to there – less in it than you would think. Weight and velocity versus bricks and mortar, the nearest exit and the time to run. And for the first time all afternoon he felt a little slick of fear. For his sisters yes, but for someone else too – an instinct that said it all. ‘His … his name is Carl.’ Hugo only knew he had spoken aloud because he saw the haw of words on the window. The mayonnaise tang of his breath. ‘Carl Morris.’ Still he didn’t move, the angry bodies wedged warm on either side. ‘We’ve been together about a year now and I think…’ Before he let it out, the smile easing through just as the tower stopped its shimmy. ‘Girls, you should … I think I’m after falling in love.’

*

The other two had nodded off but Dawn could not. She tried a prayer. For her boys. For Tim. For the rural residents along the Galway coast and the family of that Kinsale girl.

She closed her eyes. She tried a prayer for her brother and sister.

But when it wouldn’t catch she opened them; faced the room again. The gusts still came from outside like an engine, revved up to drive them all away.

The afternoon she found their father here, she hadn’t seen him since Sunday. Usually she popped around every other day, two off at worst, but five was a lot. Five was too many.

Five was enough.

She could remember the boys had had their Sports Day dramas, an index finger that may or may not have been sprained, and then she and Tim with an argument – another one of those – so she supposed her mind had just been on the glitch. But still, the absence wasn’t like her, a fuss of atonement as she climbed the stairs, a list of all the things she had brought along and then a smother of guilt as soon as she saw.

Five days. So no telling how long since he had done it.

She had placed the empty jars in her handbag before she called the ambulance.

Imelda. ‘A heart attack,’ she had said without a breath.

And then a week later, after the undertakers and the wake and the brother back to the airport all over again, the jars had turned up in the depths of her bag, the plastic smooth as a toy against her hand. It felt wrong to chuck them, so instead she had decided to go down to the beach – his beach – a swansong of footprints in the turf-soft sand. When she got to the water she ripped the prescription labels off like skin and filled them with stones, threw them in for the waves to eat.

She had looked up at the pigeon towers then as her eyes began to sting, burning like the salt had got in. She hadn’t been to Mass all week – just couldn’t manage it – as if the sin of the thing were hers now to bear. And in her weakness she had called Imelda to confess the truth, then instantly felt another dose of guilt.

Bless me father, for I have …

Back in the gloom of the bedroom now she rose, heaving her body.

The window was almost getting bright, even if the wind still warned off the world as best it could. On the street below the view was an eruption, a bric-a-brac of life across the tarmac and strand. Bikes. Buggies. Bits of fabric and filth – Dawn felt exhausted just to look.

And she supposed that was all her father must have felt. Exhausted. Lonesome. And was that really something that deserved to be judged?

She looked behind. Still the younger two slept, better versions of themselves.

When she looked back she thought her eye was on the twitch. Her vision funny – the gale and guilt making illusions of the world. But then she saw it again, clearer somehow.

‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Jesus, wake up.’

She shook her siblings’ shoulders and guided them upright, their limbs too bleary to object. Hugo crunched his face like a child’s, frowning at what he couldn’t yet comprehend. But then they heard it, the groan again. The iron echo of pain.

The noise resounded across the scoop of Dublin Bay. A whale’s cry. But this was man’s making, the hollow rim so perfect for the sound. Dawn leaned in. The sunrise seemed to be speeding up, light enough to catch the tower as its tilt became too much, and then –

Imelda gasped. Hugo’s scrunch unfurled, watching in slow motion.

It was beautiful.

The red and white stripes made it look like a barrier lowering, keeping something out. But Dawn knew there wasn’t unfriendliness in the fall; it was just tired, so tired from the night, slicing through the colourless air.

It felt like hours by the time the body landed in the water. The head just reached the sand.

It is done.

Dawn realised she had been holding her breath. The wreck looked like it had come from the sea, an ancient beast washed up. Behind it though, the other one still stood, alone now, abandoned unto the sky.

It didn’t move.

‘Daddy … Daddy did eat the casserole.’ When she could move again she wiped her cheek; smeared the remains on her shirt. She was surprised at quite how wet it came away. ‘He knew what it was, all right. He just … just didn’t like to complain. To make a fuss.’ She swallowed to manage, though the last bit was for herself as much as anything: ‘And there is no sin … no shame in that.’

She waited, half-expecting the pounce. She looked at the mouth of the tower.

She wondered if it was tall enough for a person to step in, out the other side and start all over.

Her siblings breathed like they were still buried in sleep.

In the distance she heard the sirens approach, her eyes a blur of flashing blue then fire-engine red. A yellow for the sun just joining in. So she turned away from the palate, back downstairs for the last of the boxes – if they hurried now it could all be over by breakfast. She would send Hugo out to the shop for supplies, rashers and eggs, a last carton of milk. Though it would have to be full-fat, she thought as she made the descent. Organic if they had it. Anything to help the baby grow.

From issue #2: spring/summer 2016

About the Author
Ruth Gilligan is a bestselling novelist and journalist from Dublin. Her fourth novel, Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan, was published by Atlantic Books in 2016. She contributes regularly to the Guardian, TLS, LA Review of Books and Irish Independent, and is currently a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham.