The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry Page A

fainted in the street while she was shopping, and was brought to Roscommon hospital. She was in there all day having tests, and in the evening one of the doctors innocently phoned me to come and get her. He probably thought I knew she was there. I was so alarmed. I nearly crashed the car coming out our gate, nearly hung it on the pillar, drove like a man drives his pregnant wife in the night to hospital, when the famous pains begin, not that she ever endured that, and therein maybe lies the crux of the matter.
    She was staring now at the glass.
    'How are the legs?' I said.
    'Swollen,' she said. 'It's just water. That's what they said. I wish it would go away.'
    'Yes, of course,' I said, taking some courage from the phrase 'go away', as in holiday. 'Look, I've been thinking, it might be nice, when I have everything sorted out at work, if we went away for a few days. A holiday.'
    She looked at me, swilling the fizzing tablets in the glass, readying herself for the bitter taste. I am sorry to report she laughed, just a little laugh, that I suspect she would have liked not to have let loose, but here it was, a laugh, between us.
    'I don't think so,' she said.
    'Why not,' I said. 'Old times' sake. Do us both good.' 'Is that right, Doctor?' 'Yes, do us good. Definitely.'
    It was suddenly difficult to speak, as if every word was a little lump of mud in my mouth.
    'I'm sorry, William,' she said, and that was a bad sign, the full first name, no longer Will, just William, separate, 'I don't really want to. I hate to see all the children.'
    'The what?'
    'The people, with their children.'
    'Why?'
    Oh yes, depthless stupid question. Children. The thing we have none of. Infinite pains we took. Infinite. Unrewarded. 'William, you are not a stupid man.' 'We'll go somewhere where there aren't any children.' 'Where? Mars?' she said.
    'Somewhere where there aren't any,' I said, lifting my face to the ceiling, as if that was a likely place. 'I don't know where that
    is.'
     
    Roseanne's Testimony of Herself
    It was then the horror of horrors occurred.
    To this day, I swear by my God, I do not know how it happened. Someone else or others surely know, or did while they lived. And maybe the exactly how of it is not important, never was, but only, what certain people thought had happened.
    Not that it matters now, maybe, because all those people are swept away by time. But maybe there is another place where everything matters eternally, the courts of heaven as may be. It would be a useful court for the living but the living will never see it.
    It was persons unknown that banged on the door then, and shouted out with harsh military voices. We were like a set of hidden woodlice then inside, scattering away in different directions, myself drawing back like a tragedian in a travelling play, such as might be seen in a damp hall in the town, the three Irregulars ducking down behind the table, my father drawing Fr Gaunt near to me, as if he might hide me behind the priest and his own love. For it was clear to anyone that there would be shots now, and just as I had that thought, the iron door pushed open on its big scraping hinges.
    Yes, it was lads of the new army in their awkward uniforms. It would be thought as they came in that they had bullets aplenty, at least they levelled their guns at us in their own fierce moments of concentration, and to my young eyes, looking out through my father's legs, the six or seven faces that entered the temple looked only terrified in the light of the fire.
    The long thin boy from the mountain, with the trousers not quite to his ankles, jumped up from behind the table, and for mad reasons of his own, charged against the newcomers as if he was out on a proper battlefield. The brother of the dead man was right behind him, maybe in his grief demanding this of himself. It is difficult to describe the noise that guns make in a small enclosed space, but it would make the bones drop out of your flesh. My father, Fr Gaunt and I