False Mermaid

The drawer slid open easily. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find there, but was surprised to see stacks of neatly pressed handkerchiefs, some plain, some monogrammed with the initials ERM. A gold watch, a tray of loose coins—the old money—and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. It looked as if nothing in the drawer had been touched since his greatgrandfather’s death fifty years ago. For some reason, he had no trouble imagining hotheaded young Joseph Maguire turning his back on this, on all worldly goods. But in the end, even he could not divest himself entirely of the legacy of his ancestors. You could deny who you were, where you were from, for a time—but eventually it laid claim to you, and would not be denied. Again Cormac detected in his own thoughts a creeping acknowledgment of mortality. Perhaps the gene that controlled the onset of old age also triggered a need to hear the stories of those who had come before. Perhaps his own devotion to archaeology was just an errant expression of that need.

He shut the handkerchief drawer and crossed to the bedside table, checking the drawer for anything he ought to bring along to the hospital. As he lifted the reading glasses from the book on the table, he saw the crinkled edge of a small black-and-white photograph peeping from between the pages. He cracked open the book and found the snapshot of a young dark-haired woman, standing somewhere overlooking the sea cliffs, head scarf untied and held aloft like a sail in a gesture of joyous abandon. His own mother. Could this have been taken in some oddly temperate stretch of days before he was born? He studied the smooth pliability of the flesh on her uplifted arms, trying to imagine his parents both young, flush with life and promise. The unique complexity of two individual lives became even more profoundly intricate with the addition of another life, a child. He had always wondered exactly what his arrival signified to his father, other than an unnecessary complication.

He slid the photo into his pocket for safekeeping and shut the book. The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans-Wentz. He set it back, noting the title of the volume underneath: On the Radical Nature of Love: From Plato to John Coltrane. Perhaps his father was one of those people who found it impossible to apply abstract principles of philosophy to his own life. Cormac considered the title, remembering some of the freethinkers he’d met briefly at university, the ones who loved to rail against the plight of the downtrodden worker all night in pubs, oblivious to wives and girlfriends they themselves had left at home and up to their oxters in soiled nappies. Quare auld world.

He leaned over and pulled a pair of heavy brogues from under the nightstand. The same sort he wore on excavations. On a sudden whim, he set the shoes down on the floor and slipped his own feet into them. A perfect fit. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring down at the shoes, studying the cracks and creases in the leather, the places where the width of his father’s foot had strained the cobbler’s stitchery, the splatters of shiny red paint that matched the front door of this house. Apart from the shoes, he hadn’t found any of his father’s clothing. Rising from the bed, he crossed to the wardrobe that stood opposite. Inside, among print dresses and cardigans, and a pair of ancient worsted suits, he found a meager wardrobe of worn khakis and threadbare denim shirts, and a handknit jumper of undyed wool. Was it possible that this was all that Joseph Maguire had brought back with him from thirty years abroad? What was the old man doing here? Why had he come home? And as soon as the thought struck him, he quashed it. No point in worrying the question if he would never have an answer.

On the top shelf of the wardrobe he found a fiddle case. He took it down, and opened the case to find a stringless fiddle resting under a square of green velvet. Strange—he’d never known that anyone in his family had played music. Returning the fiddle case to the shelf, he found a dusty old 78 rpm record. He carried the disc out to the sitting room, where the gramophone occupied a corner near the fireplace. The record was labeled in the same hand as the photos. “Fiddle Duet. Glencolumbkille Hotel, June 8, 1950.” Cormac nearly dropped the disc when he saw the names of the players below: Joseph and Julia Maguire. His father would have been about sixteen years old.