Chapter 128: The Dark Before the Dawn

We sat in the hall until four in the morning and the whole of it was the lamp and the long table and the frame on the wall and the sea outside.

Declan talked and I let him. He talked about his father and the spring of 1975 and the day the boat came back without him. He talked about his mother and the winter of 1981 and the way she had stood at the window in the weeks before she went up to the high ground. He talked about the boy and the day the boy was born and the way he had held him in the harbor office with the door shut because there was not a wolf in the village who was going to come in.

And then he talked about 1994.

"There is a thing about the north," he said. "I took him up the coast in the summer and he was nineteen and he had never been further than Galway in his life and the whole of it was a boat and a bottle and a girl in a shop. And there was a woman in Killybegs and her name was Mary and she was a fisherman's wife with two children and she was kind to him." He put his hands in his lap. "And then Korkut came down the coast in a good coat and he was in Killybegs for a week and there was a thing that happened in a room above a shop and my son came home with a mark on his throat that was not right."

"Declan."

"There is a thing about a father," he said, "that I have been getting wrong since 1994. He is not a wolf who keeps his son out of a room. He is a wolf who goes into the room after him and sits down and says the whole of it out loud." He looked at me. "And there is a thing about a father who has not done that. He has a son who has been carrying a broken mark for three years and a secret and a whole lot of shame and he has been carrying it alone because there was not a wolf in his life who was going to sit down and say the whole of it."

The lamp ticked. The hall was cold and the whole of it was quiet.

"There is a thing about tonight," I said. "The whole of the co-op was in this hall and the whole of it heard the receipt and the letter and the bond. And there is a thing about a co-op that has heard the whole of it and that has gone home to its beds. It is going to come back in the morning and it is going to be a different thing."

"It is going to be a split thing," Declan said. "Eleven walked out of the hall in June and there is not a wolf in the village who has not been in a kitchen with a woman in a black coat since."

"Then there is a thing we have to do before the morning," I said. "And it is not a thing that a woman from Dublin can do and it is not a thing that a Beta can do. It is a thing that a wolf who was born in this village can do." I stood up. "There is a woman with a grey plait who has been carrying a vote that did not come for twenty two years and a fireman from Galway who has been on a pier since Monday and a cooper who is ninety one years old and who has been waiting thirty eight years to say the whole of it. And there is a pack of nine wolves who have been banished from this village for a thing they did not do and who came down this coast on a boat in a storm." I put my coat on. "So we are going to do the thing a pack does. Not in a hall. On the shore."

We went down the shore road at half past four and the sky was going grey and the whole of the harbor was quiet and the nine were on the pier with their coats round them and the woman with the grey plait was standing at the wall with a lamp.

And there was a thing I had not expected.

The shore was full of wolves.

There were twenty of them and they were standing along the sand in the grey light with their coats and their lamps and their faces turned toward the water, and every one of them was a wolf who had been in that hall in June and who had put a lamp down on the slip and walked across to my side.

Tom was at the front with his red face and his grey moustache and his hands in his pockets and Hannah was beside him with the baby in a shawl.

"There is a thing about a village at half past four in the morning," Tom said. "It does not sleep. It has been awake since midnight and it has been in kitchens and it has been talking and there is a thing about twenty wolves on a shore in the grey light that the whole of the co-op is going to hear before the sun is up. We have been talking since the hall and there is not a wolf on this sand who is not going to be in that room in Galway on the fourteenth. And there is a thing about a wolf who is going to be in that room. He is not going to be there because a woman from Dublin asked him. He is going to be there because he was in a garden in the rain in June and he said aye."

The whole of the shore was silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said, "and I am going to say it to the whole of you and then we are going to do the thing that has to be done before the sun is up. The whole of it is going to be read out loud on the fourteenth and there is not a wolf on this sand who is not going to hear a thing that is going to make him ashamed. The receipt and the letter and the false bond and the boathouse and the rope and the whole of the thirty six years. And there is a thing about a shame that is read out loud in a room in Galway. It is a shame that is going to be in a file and it is going to be a shame that a village can put down." I put my hand on my chest. "But there is a thing that has to happen before the fourteenth and it has to happen on this shore and it has to happen now. The whole of you are going to have to say the thing that no wolf in this village has said since 1961."

The whole of the shore was silent.

"Say it," Arthur said.

"The whole of it was not the Alpha's," I said. "It was ours. Every wolf in this village took the boat and the mooring and the catch and the quiet nights and not one of you asked a question. And there is a thing about a village that has been quiet for thirty six years. It has been quiet because every wolf in it was frightened and because every wolf in it told himself that the reason made it right." I put my hand down. "So I am not going to stand on this sand and tell the whole of you that you are innocent. You are not. You are a village that let a woman put a rope round another woman's neck and did not say a word. And there is a thing about a village that has done that. It is a village that is going to have to say it out loud on the fourteenth in a room in Galway."

The whole of the shore was silent.

And then Tom said, "There is a thing about a village that has done that. It is a village that is not going to be able to say it in a room in Galway if it has not said it on this shore first." He put his hand out. "So I am going to say it. I am Tom and I have been the Alpha's hand for fourteen years and I set a fire in a back room and I have known since I was seventeen that my father pushed a woman off a cliff and I have never said it out loud. And there is a thing about a wolf who has never said it out loud. He is a wolf who has been a coward and I am not going to be a coward on this sand."

Hannah put her hand out.

And then Arthur.

And then the woman with the grey plait and the fireman and the man who had been at the wake and the woman I had never spoken to and the whole of the twenty on the sand. The lamps went down one by one and the whole of it took a long time and nobody said a word and the sky went from grey to gold along the edge of the sea.

When it was done there were twenty wolves on the shore with their hands out and the whole of the nine behind them and Declan beside me.

And then Declan said, "There is a thing I have to say and I am going to say it on this sand and then I am going to say it again in a room in Galway on the fourteenth. I am Declan and I have been the Beta of this pack for twenty years and I took five hundred pounds out of the co-op's account and I put it in the hand of a man in Galway and I stood in a door and let a thing happen to a woman I carried down a road. And there is a thing about a wolf who has done that. He is not fit to be the Beta of this pack and I am going to give the rank to the co-op on the fourteenth and I am going to stand in that room as a wolf and not as a Beta."

The whole of the shore was silent.

And then, from the top of the shore road, a voice said, "There is a thing about the fourteenth that the whole of this shore has not said out loud."

The whole of it turned round.

Owen was standing at the top of the road with his cap in his hand and his coat over his arm and his face grey.

"There is a thing about a hunter who has been on this coast since 1994 and who has been paid by a woman in a black coat and a woman in a house on a road," he said. "He is not going to be in a room in Galway on the fourteenth because there is not a warrant for him and there is not a wolf in Galway who has asked him a question." He put his cap on. "So I have come down here at half past four in the morning to say the whole of it to the whole of this shore. I am Owen and I have been a hunter since I was nineteen and I was paid twice for the same job in 1995 and a wolf died. And there is a thing about a hunter who has done that. He is going to be in that room on the fourteenth with a paper in his hand and the whole of it written down and signed and he is going to say the whole of it in front of nine wolves and the whole of the co-op."

The whole of the shore was silent.

"You are not a wolf of this pack," Tom said.

"I am not a wolf of this pack and I am not a wolf of any pack and I have been on this coast since 1994," Owen said. "But there is a thing about a hunter who has been on a coast for three years and who has been paid by a woman in a black coat and who has watched a village lie to itself. He has a thing to say and he is going to say it." He put his hand in his coat and took out a paper. "And there is a thing about this paper that the whole of this shore is going to hear. It is a photograph and it was given to me in April by a woman in a house on a road and it is a picture of a woman in a grey coat in front of a cottage with a white gate and a red shed. And there is a thing about a photograph that a woman in a house on a road gives to a hunter. It is a photograph of the woman she is going to have taken out to the deep water."

The whole of the shore was silent.

"Give it to me," I said.

And then there was a sound from the harbor and the whole of the shore turned round and there was a boat coming into the harbor with her light going and she was not one of the twenty and she was not the Star of the Sea.