First published in Great Britain in 2017 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2017 by Canongate Books
www.canonagte.co.uk
Copyright Mike McCormack, 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted
First published in 2016 by Tram Press, www.tramppress.com
An extract of an earlier form of this novel appeared in Shine On: Irish Writers for Shine, edited by Pat Boran. Published by Dedalus Press, 2011
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is availalbe on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 127 3
for Maeve
the bell
the bell as
hearing the bell as
hearing the bell as standing here
the bell being heard standing here
hearing it ring out through the grey light of this
morning, noon or night
god knows
this grey day standing here and
listening to this bell in the middle of the day, the middle of the day bell, the Angelus bell in the middle of the day, ringing out through the grey light to
here
standing in the kitchen
hearing this bell
snag my heart and
draw the whole world into
being here
pale and breathless after coming a long way to stand in this kitchen
confused
no doubt about that
but hearing the bell from the village church a mile away as the crow flies, across the street from the garda station, beneath the giant sycamore trees which tower over it and in which a colony of rooks have made their nests, so many and so noisy that sometimes in spring when they are nesting their clamour fills the church and
exhausted now, so quickly
that sprint to the church and the bell
yes, they are the real thing
the real bells
not a transmission or a broadcast because
theres no mistaking the fuller depth and resonance of the sound carried towards me across the length and breadth of this day and which, even at this distance reverberates in my chest
a systolic thump from the other side of this parish, which lies on the edge of this known world with Sheeffry and Mweelrea to the south and the open expanse of Clew Bay to the north
the Angelus bell
ringing out over its villages and townlands, over the fields and hills and bogs in between, six chimes of three across a minute and a half, a summons struck on the lip of the void which gathers this parish together through all its primary and secondary roads with
all its schools and football pitches
all its bridges and graveyards
all its shops and pubs
the builders yard and health clinic
the community centre
the water treatment plant and
the handball alley
the made world with
all the focal points around which a parish like this gathers itself as surely as
the world itself did at the beginning of time, through
mountains, rivers and lakes
when it gathered in these parts around the Bunowen river which rises in the Lachta hills and flows north towards the sea, carving out that floodplain to which all roads, primary and secondary, following the contours of the landscape, make their way and in the middle of which stands
the village of Louisburgh
from which the Angelus bell is ringing, drawing up the world again
mountains, rivers and lakes
acres, roods and perches
animal, mineral, vegetable
covenant, cross and crown
the given world with
all its history to brace myself while
standing here in the kitchen
of this house
Ive lived in for nearly twenty-five years and raised a family, this house outside the village of Louisburgh in the county of Mayo on the west coast of Ireland, the village in which I can trace my seed and breed back to a time when it was nothing more than a ramshackle river crossing of a few smoky homesteads clustered around a forge and a log bridge, a sod-and-stone hamlet not yet gathered to a proper plan nor licensed to hold a fair, my line traceable to the gloomy prehistory in which a tenacious clan of farmers and fishermen kept their grip on a small patch of land
through hail and gale
hell and high water
men with bellies and short tempers, half of whom went to their graves with pains in their chests before they were sixty, good singers many of them, all
adding to the home place down the generations till it swelled to twenty acres, grazing and tillage, with access to open commonage on Carramore hill which overlooks the bay and
this pain, this fucking pain tells me that
to the best of my knowledge
knowledge being the best of me, that
that
there is something strange about all this, some twitchy energy in the ether which has affected me from the moment those bells began to toll, something flitting through me, a giddiness drawing me
through the house
door by door
room by room
up and down the hall
like a mad thing
bedrooms, bathroom, sitting room and
back again to the kitchen where
Christ
such a frantic burst
Christ
not so much a frantic burst as a rolling crease in the light, flow-ing from room to room only to find
this house is empty
not a soul anywhere
because this is a weekday and my family are gone
all gone
the kids all away now and of course Mairead is at work and wont be back till after four so the house is mine till then, something that should gladden me as normally I would only be too happy to potter around on my own here, doing nothing, listening to the radio or reading the paper, but now the idea makes me uneasy, with four hours stretching ahead of me till she returns,
alone here for four hours
four hours till she returns so
there must be some way of filling the span of time that now spreads out ahead of me, something to cut through this gnawing unease because
the paper
yes
thats what Ill do
the daily paper
get the keys of the car and drive into the village to get the paper, park on the square in front of the chemist and then stand on the street and
this is what I will do
stand there for as long as it takes for someone to come along and speak to me, someone to say
hello
hello
or until someone salutes me in one way or another, waves to me or calls my name, because even though this street is a street like any other it is different in one crucial aspect this particular street is mine, mine in the sense of having walked it thousands of times
man and boy
winter and summer
hail, rain and shine so that
all its doors and shop-fronts are familiar to me, every pole and kerbstone along its length recognisable to me
this street a given
this street is something to rely on
fount and ground
one of those places where someone will pass who can say of me
yes, I know this man
or more specifically
yes, I know this man and I know his sister Eithne and I knew his mother and father before him and all belonging to him
or more intimately
of course I know him Marcus Conway he lives across the fields from me, I can see his house from the back door
