Iron Behind the Velvet - Chapter 30

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~ The Gentle Wind Doth Move Silently, Invisibly …  ¹

Vincent sensed Martin’s restraint even as the distance between them sparked with energy. He envisioned leading him to the doorway, leading him through and far below, descending level by level by level, down a narrow spiral stair, through an inclined sliver of corridor, one glistening with black mica and pearly muscovite, with evening emerald and sky-blue celestine, at last to a giant’s cavern, the ceilings and walls, the floor dazzling, of crystal and amethyst, its tumbling waterfall nearly twenty stories high.

“Is it true?”

Martin’s tone bore a willingness. A ... readyness. Perhaps just the entry – through the trap door, down the rough-hewn stairs – perhaps just to the secret latch that slides open the stone. He shifted toward the archway, a single considering step.

There ... are ... rules, Vincent!

He deflected the reproach. More than one edict had been ignored this night – more than a dozen, if Father or the Council did the counting. The honed instruction, meant to awe and discipline, had long chafed, long galled. Had not the most wondrous things come to him from broken rules?

How much can you accept?

It was Rosaleen’s question of Catherine ... his, of Martin. He grasped the edges of his hood, fingering the satin binding, the blanket stitching ... pulled it low about his face.

“I’ve seen no pathways of solid amber,” he said and allowed a smile into the words.

“Then you’re saying–” Martin’s laugh bubbled out. “You’re joking, you are. But I’ll admit, I’m not remembering a time I was more curious ... except, well ... perhaps once.” He peered over his shoulder and seemingly satisfied, turned back. “When we first spoke, you said ... you said your home was at some distance and yet you’re–”

“Please, Martin. I cannot bear to deceive you, or to answer with silence. There are ... considerations. I need to …”

“Consider,” Martin finished. “Right then. Righty-O.” He stepped down onto the garden path. “But are you sure you wouldn’t like to–”

“It’s not a question of what I’d like, Martin. Please believe me. I must–”

“Go. And I should let you without whinging.” Martin turned toward the rectory door, then back. “Vincent?”

“Yes?”

“Earlier you– A scrap of poetry. Divine that triumph ... was that Tennyson? No, no. Let me think ... Coleridge?”

Vincent chuckled at the artful delay. “Wordsworth.”

“Your education, Vincent, must have been spectacular. These days, ‘tis hard to interest the young ones in the fine old words. How? Where?”

“My father.”

“Ah. He’s a teacher?”

“A doctor. A teacher as well.” Don’t tell her anything! he heard Father chide, though from very far away. “He is ... the leader of our community.”

“Is he, now? All that? I’d like to meet the man. But you know, Vincent,” Martin said, closing the topmost button of his sweater, smoothing the wide collar, “I’d have believed that last job to be yours.” In the street, a car slowed, its motor grumbly over a low throbbing bass beat until it screeched past. “Ahh, but I’d hoped that to be Flynn, home now.” He fell still and Vincent could just hear his breathing, in it a faint stridor of age and injury. “May I? One last question?”

Flynn. He’d expected this – a last entreaty, a final plea. Habit and necessity warred with need. Already his resistance wavered. Already he searched for a possibility ... a way through.

“Your love. Your ... another. The one who keeps you close.” Martin’s voice dropped into a deep, round register. “She keeps you close ... here.”

“Yes.” Surprised, the admission staggered from him, tripped by a sudden, consuming desire – desire to name her, to claim her as his.

“Does she live …”

“Below. We call our world ... Below.” He drew a steadying breath. “Yours we call Above. She is a woman of both worlds.”

“You told me your love was new and yet ... not. Where you’re from ... Below ... do you ... are you ... married?”

Fierce imperative rushed words onto his tongue – to declare, to profess, to acknowledge ... everything. “We are ... more than that.”

“More than that!” Rocking to his toes, Martin rubbed his chin. A smile spread across his face, brilliant, wide and white. “Dhá anam, croí amháin.” Martin sighed the words. “Glanchroíoch.”

The night had gone from pitch to charcoal ... was fading now to deep blue. With their whistling wings and somber call, mourning doves rose, scattered from their nests by the approach of dawn. A wave of exhaustion crested – another – beating against the shore of him with a steady cadence of warning. His thoughts swirled in cottony, pale-grey wisps, and worry – the weight of it laid aside these last hours – returned. The threat to their world, vague and ominous in anxious balance. The work awaiting him this day and the next and the next and the next …

Kanin.

And Catherine. Catherine. Their separation was torment enough, but a cold dread hissed – dreggy foam left to seep into the sand. Mitch. If he had returned, everything was changed.

“... and I’ll talk to him.”

“What?” Vincent probed the knotted tendons of his neck. A fog was gathering behind his eyes. “I’m sorry, Martin. I ... didn’t hear you. I was ... I am ...” He sagged to the wall. Sighed.

“I’d only said to bring your friend, ummm, up. I’m glad to speak with him, with Kanin. It helps sometimes, to have the uninvolved ear? Maybe even for yourself, sure, and that anger you believe you’re not allowed. Maybe for yourself and the responsibilities that have you so knackered.”

“Knackered?”

“Flah’ed out. Melted.” Martin’s voice seemed very close. “Tired, Vincent. You could have a kip here – ‘twould be having a nap to you – in the old dormitory across the way. There’s a bed, a decent feather tick and pillow. A lavatory with running water, old as it is.”

“I ... must go.” Vincent’s head was bowed; his face averted and shrouded by his hood. Through the armor of his clothing, Martin’s sudden grip on his arm was firm and sure. Under it, he could not, would not retreat.

“Hmmm. I understand, or rather I–” The pressure to his arm deepened ... released. “They’re never locked, Vincent,” Martin went on. “The cells, the old rooms. A hut to receive ye from the rains, should you find yourself forlorn on the hill of storms. ² Night or day ...” Martin offered his hand, pale now in the ebbing darkness.

A simple handshake …

Stunned with frustration, Vincent shook his head, a slow, sad swing from side to side. Martin’s hand dropped.

“‘Tis all right, my friend. ‘Tis. ‘Tis only my habit to offer you a benediction.”

“I am sorry.”

Martin withdrew to a merciful distance. “Let me leave you with something. At least this. Listen now. Listen closely. Pian. Uaigneas. Trócair. Bráithre. Can you render it, Vincent? I’m thinking you’ll be good at the Gaelic.”

The words hovered almost tangible in the air. “Pian ... pain? Bráithre. Is that ... brother?”

“Very good. Good, indeed. Yes. Pian. Pain is the first lesson of a warrior ... the pain of training and selfless reflection. Uaigneas. Aloneness ... solitude ... the second lesson where the true identity is revealed, where the path becomes both a friend and a heavy burden. Your third lesson ... trócair. Compassion ... compassion for others, for those less able, less willing. These lessons all ... you’ve learned.

“But then ... Bráithre. Brothers. Brotherhood. You who dare to live as you believe, according to your most noble dreams, to understand and control the raging tides of your emotions, to follow the course dictated by your spirit. ³ You ... are ... not completely alone, Vincent. Bráithre. Know that it exists.”

Without a backward glance, leaving the evidence of their feast – proof – Martin strode along the stone walkway, past swaths of tulips and gillyflowers, past the silvery knots of thyme and rosemary and lavender, past the flat marble base gleaming in the last of the moonlight, giving a brush to the low hedges of melissa and hyssop, sending the scent of lemon and anise into the air. On the rectory stoop he paused only to tuck an errant branch of sweetbriar into its thorny arch. A loose board creaked. The screen door clapped. Martin crossed the curtainless kitchen. A door must have closed, for the room’s soft light winked out.

Vincent stepped down into the churchyard. Dewdrops glistened on every petal and leaf, and beyond the high wall, the sky was streaked purple and blue and orange. Over the subtle whisper of breeze ... a warbled trill, ethereal and pure. The morning song of the wood thrush.

Whenever a man hears it, he is young. Whenever he hears it, it is a new world ... and the gates of heaven are not shut against him. ⁴


He wheeled under the gleam of the daybreak star.

_________


In his study, Martin groped for the light switch, but froze when his thumb found the toggle. Instead, he threaded the dark to his desk, through the maze of books stacked on the floor, and fumbled for the pull-chain of the lamp. A buttery pool spread beneath the satin-glass shade. His hands planted flat on the surface, he leaned for a moment on shaking arms. Then drawing a deep breath, he pushed aside a clutter of papers and open volumes to clear a space on the worn wood. A volley of pencils racketed over the edge.

One hand to his heart, with the other he yanked at the bottommost drawer. Glaring at the result – a bare inch of gap – he shoved it in, and fitting eight fingers to the grip, planting his heels, pulled back again. He groaned as he straightened and kicked at the still-stuck drawer.

The dark no impediment to familiarity, he hustled to the kitchen.

The room was veiled in steel-blue, the streetlamp light filtered by the newly leafed-out trees, the glow from his study meager and from far down the hallway. He rummaged the contents of a drawer beside the stove, shoved it shut, darted to the sink, pitching utensils from the dish drainer one by one. Metal clanked against old porcelain. His own reflection ghostlike in the panes, beyond the window in the center of the garden a great figure rounded, wide wings black contrast to the lightening stones …

There you are. Rooted at the counter, the long, steel spatula in hand, he closed his eyes against a flash of ivory and feathered gold, against the sound of bells and flutes, ringing like old silver lightly dropped. ⁵


__________

Keeping to the indigo edges, Vincent circled the churchyard. In the far corner, no window between them, two doors were set into stone. The long, vertical planks were heavy, hinged and battened. Nailed above, etched into a slab of gray-weathered wood, a winged being kept eternal watch. The latch of old iron levered open without complaint.

Inside the narrow cell, his eyes adjusted to a gloom mitigated by a milky skylight set in the ceiling’s eastern slope. He sniffed the air, found it cool, freshened by a current through a grillwork vent. A table at the entry hosted an array of candles, a silver quiver of matches. He struck a light.

Rusted, hand-forged spikes, pounded head-high in a row along one wall, served as the closet. A striped umbrella hung there, oversized, red and yellow, the handle a duck’s bill and so out of place that he laughed out loud. Beneath it, rolled tight and secured with straps, a thin pallet wrapped in a mustard-brown army blanket stood on its end. A passage-like space connected the two rooms; as he explored, a knotted pull-string brushed his cheek. Lit by the single, bare bulb, the alcove housed an old-fashioned washroom with an elevated cistern and a long pull-chain, a yellowed china basin worn blue-black in spots. At the spin of the crosspoint handle, water stuttered out, then streamed. He drank from his hands, splashed his face and neck. The stiff towel was rough on his skin and smelled bright and sweet, like a candle Mary once gave him – the sun, she’d said, on new-mown hay. There was no mirror.

In the second room, the coil of bare bedsprings glimmered but in the first, an iron bedstead was fitted with a tufted, blue-striped mattress and a small feather pillow. Bedding was folded neat and square and piled at the foot – cotton sheets and quilts worn velvety with age. He sank down. Every muscle mellowed toward sleep.

Smoothing the old fabrics under his hand, he struggled with the need for rest, to forget his perimeters ... to dream. He studied the rock and mortar walls. Over the headboard hung a carved plaque, testament to a life’s purpose – om et labora – prayer and work.


_______________

When Martin dared to look, the figure had disappeared, but a pale light seeped from the dormitory’s door frame.

“Aoi a bhfuil fáilte roimhe, dlúthchara. A welcome guest you are, my friend. Welcome.”

An arc of headlamps swept the adjoining yard. He blew out a long breath. “Ahh, ‘tis Flynn,” he murmured to the empty kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and by its light, checked the clock above the stove. Tut, he mouthed. Tut-tut-tut.

_______________


The last lock keyed, he eased the latch open, glad he’d finally oiled the squeaking hinges. Out of habit, he reached for the bank of switches by the door, but he curled his fingers in, chastised himself, shook his head. When he peered around the tapered column, he found the party neatened away, the blinds open to the streetlights, the livingroom cast in shadows of gray and violet ... the sofa empty.

So, he thought, stranded between relief and disappointment. She didn’t wait up.

The foyer’s bench was crowded with returns for the library, beside it, a black plastic bag knobby with clothes he’d promised to take to the mission a dozen times over. Fighting an urge to open the door and kick the bundle into the street, he sat down hard, shoving aside the books with his hip, grabbing for the top two before they slid to the floor. Frowning, he watched the stairwell, listened for footsteps overhead, then bent to unlace his boots. Trained for stealth, he padded to the kitchen.

Mab turned from the window at his approach, her eyes black, rimmed with only a thin circlet of brilliant copper. Unblinking, she stared at him as he crossed to the laundry room.

“What?” he mumbled, as he stripped off his tee shirt on the way.

The pool was a clammy surprise to his sock feet. “Yah!” He flipped up the washer’s lid and reached in. “Damn it.” He plowed wet fingers through his hair and cold water, slick with soap, dripped down his face.

Again at the window, Mab’s ears canted forward, her tail twitching as she bunted the glass with her forehead. Flynn stood ... watching her ... with his shirt and wet socks wadded together against his chest. The damp soaked through. With a snarl, he pitched them to the corner and opened the dryer, his pulse thumping in his ears, a sharp pain shooting temple to temple.

“Where’re my–” He threw the door shut, catching it in time to muffle the slam, mashing his fingers. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Get a-hold of yourselves! His mother’s voice rang in his memory. Funny, he thought, how she always referred to me in the plural. He jammed his throbbing hand under his armpit and trudged to the refrigerator.

Chattering, Mab rose to her feet, arching her body in a long, lazy, padding stretch. She leapt from the counter, greeting him midway across the room, stopping him, pricking at his pants and legs, reaching up for his knees.

“Owww, Mabby.” Flynn wiggled his foot and side-stepped, but the kitten held on. He pried her claws loose, one at a time. Even in his arms, she was adamant ... needy ... noisy and vibrating against him. “What are you doing up anyway? Something out there? Wanna go outside?”


_________________


He didn’t want to leave, wanted time to ponder ... to reflect ... to appreciate ... but daylight scrabbled at the door, the flare of it fire to his feet. It wasn’t – had never been – a choice. He’d race it home.

Maybe ... just for a moment …

It was true, what he’d said – I need little sleep – and a half-hour's repose, even a few meditative minutes could renew him. Without that respite, images loosed in his mind, flashing and weaving, gathering force and speed, and he found it more difficult to concentrate, felt himself more sensitive, more ... irritable. Long without rest, he’d hear the rumbling approach of storm – the clash of cymbals, the throb of drums. Even his sight would dim.

But I can ... I will ... hold the center. ⁶

Concentrating on the sensation of his breath, he straightened his spine, expanded his lungs, allowed his gaze to soften.

Be, he bid himself. Witness. Exist. Nothing more. Nothing more …

He called up the shimmering mists, the music of the falls ... imagined a dive into the water below, his eyes open to the swirl of diamonds around him, his skin teased by the sparkling froth. Descending …

Catherine ... bare-skinned on a bed of satin in a chamber behind the cascade ... droplets of pearl, of opal, beaded at her collarbone ... on her breasts …

... pushing off, rocketing to the surface, emerging from the pool, hair slicked back, a bellow in his throat …

To a clamor of voices. Where are you? Where?

His daydreams ... wondrous, exquisite ... could not be indulged.

Sadden’d and stunn’d the boding day coming. ⁷

He was ... required.

And the sun traveled on its inevitable path.


_____________


Crouched at his desk, Martin worked the spatula into the space at the top edge of the drawer, levering for the obstruction. In mid-jab, the drawer still stuck, he went rigid.

Flynn …

Flynn home so late. Or so early. He’d be likely to walk the garden ... unwilling to wake Eimear from her last hour of sleep, unwilling to meet her questioning expression. The door in the wall ... was it open still? He race-walked from the room, skidded across the kitchen in a careening trot.

Hurry up after it, will ye? he heard in his mother’s voice.

_____________


The heavy bar again in place, he imagined Martin trying the entry first thing upon waking. As he threaded the chain through the iron brackets, he hesitated, then pulled the links free, letting them circle on the ground ... reached out to test the barricade. Enough. With his boot, he shoved the mound to the corner where the lock lay in pieces.

He closed the gates behind him – the trap door within the wall, the rusted fencing at the bottom of the stairs. At the secret sliding stone, he felt along the ridges for the hidden lever, hoisted the rolled mattress and blanket he’d ... borrowed ... from the dormitory room. He’d have – what had Martin called it – a kip in the antechamber on the other side, some time alone before he cast himself into the long day and longer night. He’d meet the crew at the worksite ... later.

The wall opened to a surprise of lantern light. Groggy and blinking, their heads just raised from their folded arms and upraised knees, Mouse and Kanin waited.


______________


In the archway, wheezing, wobbly, he bent his forehead to the door, one hand flat to the rutted wood.

Closed tight. Might I be– Is it possible I’m–

“What’re you doing, Martin?”

He started and wheeled. Flynn advanced on him, arriving bare-chested and bare-footed with Mab draped over his arm. Her purr revved in the still-quiet hour.

“Doing?”

“Yeah, doing. Outside so early, armed with ... a spatula.”

“I ... ummmm ... was out for herbs, yes, herbs for my morning omelet.”

“You're a little out of breath for gardening, aren't you? And I thought you fasted on Mondays.”

Martin put his hands behind his back and smiled. ‘Tis my innocent look I’m giving, Flynn. Now go on with you. Take your surely freezing self to the house.

But light bloomed in the yard and Eimear appeared on the porch, where she leaned out gripping the railing. Mab scrabbled against Flynn’s chest, leapt to the ground and ran to her. He traced the reddening scratch, a tender gouge torn below his heart.

Eimear started down the steps. “You’re finally home. Where were you?”


____________


“Vincent!" Mouse popped to his feet. "Went up! Didn’t come back down!”

Kanin groaned and lowered his head again to his arms. A pizza box lay at his feet.

Vincent crouched to nudge open the top. One piece was missing. He let the lid fall back. His head tilted in query, he felt the corners of his mouth twitch.

“Ate your supper,” Mouse said with a cutting glance for Kanin. “Made him get it for you. Up top.” He scuffled at the dirt. “Got a little hungry, waiting.”

“Go on back to camp,” Vincent said. “I’ll follow after a while. Don’t worry,” he whispered, when Mouse made no move for the narrow corridor. “We’re all right.” And Mouse scampered off, a last longing look cast at the red and white container.

With a grasp of forearms, he hauled Kanin upright.

“I’m sorry,” they said in unison.



Click HERE for Chapter 31


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Photograph manipulation of Vincent in the giant crystal cave were created by Sonia
Dormitory drawing by MLA


1. William Blake. Love's Secret.
2. James Macpherson. Fragments of Ancient Poetry. X. 1761.
3. Lessons from the Karate-do, translated by the kind folks at www.irishgaelictranslator.com
4. Henry David Thoreau. From his Journals. Vol. IV. July 5, 1852.
5. Donald Culross Peattie. An Almanac for Moderns. 1937.
6. William Butler Yeats. The Second Coming. 1919.
7. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The Pains of Sleep. 1816.