Darkness Falling
The previous evening, Michael McGuinness had given his two sons the last of a small sack of oatmeal. He had not eaten himself for two days and nor had his wife, Sorcha.
Hunger now consumed him as he stood staring up at the cliff face, searching for the areas where most of the gulls’ nests seemed to be sited. He spotted a ledge about halfway up on which sat at least a dozen nests, and searched for the best route to reach it. Most of the more accessible nests had already been stripped by men lowered down on ropes, so those that remained were either beyond the reach of a rope or too difficult to climb to. He was determined, though. He took a deep breath and started to climb.
By the time he reached the ledge he was breathing hard and his legs were shaking. He stretched for the first of the nests and felt a heavy blow to his neck that almost dislodged him. A different angle would have sent him spinning earthwards. Blood trickled down his neck and back, which were already soaked with sweat despite the cold. He knew the seagull would return for another attack, but there was nothing he could do to defend himself. Gripping an outcrop of rock with his left hand, he leant down into the nest with his right and lifted the first egg, which he pushed down into a canvas sack tied around his waist.
He glanced round; gulls weaved and danced around him, dipping their black-tipped wings, their angry cries sawing the air. Turning to look at them was a mistake. He felt another blow to his head and a piercing pain just above his right eye. One of the gulls had used its sharp talons to open a deep wound in his forehead. Blood spilled down into his eye, obscuring his vision. He blinked to try and clear it, using the heel of his right hand to wipe the blood away. His heart beating furiously and still half-blinded, he reached down for another egg, hurriedly stuffing it into the sack while using his hand as a buffer to make sure he didn’t damage the first egg. Despite the gulls wheeling above him, pelting him with their shit, he managed to collect the remaining two eggs.
He spotted a second nest on a nearby ledge, but to reach it he would have to trust his weight to a thin slab of rock less than half the width of his boot. He eased himself across, hugging the cliff face as tightly as he could. As the ledge took his full weight, he felt it shift beneath him. There was a thin rattle of stones and soil as the slab suddenly tilted downwards. His adrenaline surging, he lunged upwards and grabbed onto another shelf of rock immediately above his head. With a loud roar, the slab beneath him broke away and tumbled to the rocks hundreds of feet below. His grip held for the brief moment it took for his feet to find fresh purchase on the rock face. Relief coursed through him.
He released one of his arms to bring it slowly to his side where he had spotted a fissure in the rock. He used this to provide a more secure handhold, wedging his hand deep into the crack. His legs were trembling. He anxiously searched the cliff face near him for a hand or foothold which would both allow him to move closer to the other nest and to feel more secure. The nest itself was level with his hip. He calculated that if he could shuffle across a little, he might be able to stretch over and reach the eggs. Gazing down, he saw a narrow nub of rock which he thought might serve as a foothold and, more importantly, bear his weight. He very slowly eased out his right hand from the fissure and replaced it with his left hand. He groped with his right hand again for a handhold just above the nest and swung his right foot across onto the nub of rock, hauling himself across, so the nest was now directly in front of him, wedged against his belly. Switching his grip on the rock face to his left hand, he reached into the nest with his right and quickly emptied it into his sack. He now had seven eggs, enough to feed his family for that evening at least. He gazed up. The top of the cliff was roughly forty feet above him. Angry gulls were still diving and swooping at his back. Slowly, he started to haul himself up.
At the top of the cliff, he lay on his back and stared up at the leaden grey sky. He felt oddly exhilarated but also very tired. Shutting his eyes for a brief second, he felt a wave of exhaustion and almost drifted off. He stood and gazed back down the cliff face. Far below, the sea boiled and roared against the rocks at the base. He could just pick out a figure making his way over the sandy beach towards some rocks close to the sea’s edge. He was carrying a wooden bucket, and every now and then he fell to his knees, scrambling in the sand and throwing what he found up into it. A glitter from its interior revealed it had been half filled with seawater to keep the shellfish alive and fresh until they could be eaten. He smiled to himself. Whoever it was down there was taking a hell of a risk, gathering shellfish on Clifton’s land with his bailiff, Moran, regularly patrolling the shoreline. If he stumbled across anyone, he fired on them – usually just enough to frighten them off, but once Moran had seriously wounded a man who finally died from his injuries two days later. Still, men were desperate enough to risk it. They were even desperate enough to try and venture out to sea to try and catch some fish using small currachs. Michael knew these to be dangerous, having no keel and their steering relying solely on paddles. The weather and the dangerous cove the boats were launched from meant only the bravest or most foolhardy ventured out.
He sighed and turned his attention to the sack, opening it to examine his precious, hard-won eggs. Fortunately, none had been damaged. Each was slightly larger than a hen’s egg and mottled with green and brown markings. Sorcha would be delighted, he thought. He hadn’t told her about his plan to collect them. He had simply muttered something about seeing if he could get a bit of seaweed down on the shore to make up a broth, knowing how worried she would have been if he had told her the truth. He would ask his sister Mary to join them for supper as well.
A shaft of light pierced the clouds and he watched as the shadows on the mountains across the bay slowly rolled across the landscape. Their slopes were patched with a luminous green, which shimmered for a few seconds before dissolving into darkness again. It was magical and he never tired of seeing it. The landscape itself was a bleak affair. He had once heard a soldier remark to his companions that there were no trees to hang a man and scarcely enough soil to bury one either. This was the truth. The land was dominated by the Ox Mountains to the south. To the north lay the town of Sligo and the flat slab of Benbulbin. To the west and east, a featureless landscape of marshland, granite rock and dark scars where the peat had been sliced away for turf fires. Much of the land was riven with streams and bogs, the bogs themselves bordered by black-tipped grasses and thick spikes of sedge. In the early summer, bog cottons produced a meadow of white tufts shimmering in the breeze.
As cruel as the land was, he also loved it, and if the land was cruel, then so too were people and they were the same wherever you went. The ports were crammed with the desperate, fleeing Ireland, eager to make new lives elsewhere, but Michael knew he would never leave. The sun vanished and darkness fell again. Turning away from the cliff and peering into the gloom he could just make out the dim outline of the whitewashed church far in the distance. Sunday would be hard for his sister Mary and he would need to summon up all his courage to face down the priest. He frowned and, leaning forward into the wind, pushed for home.
