He made it back to his house out on Mullet two days later. The papers were still set out on the table. The starving animals scraped the door. Daisy went beserk when Jack threw him some bones. The wild cat meowed round his feet, her tail stiff with hunger. He fed her milk gone off and porridge oats. The house felt unlived in. It smelled of old distemper and stale potatoes. He passed by the kitchen where his papers were and moved on into the bedroom. He lay down and lifted one of her letters onto his chest. The hopelessness was intense. The badness started. The veins on the back of his hands began to pulsate. He was back among the enemy. Future realities were being measured out in woeful doses. Jesus Christ! He got up and put her letters away. And he said the only way I can free myself is to imagine her, not as herself, but as someone else, someone different, for then I can think of her without resenting her.

And then he realized with a start what she had done; she had saved them from each other. He saw the smile that had partly formed on her lips as she heard his familiar voice behind her. For an instant it was there, her old longing. Then he cringed as he heard the sound of his loathsome plea. He saw her turn, with wild eyes, towards him on the street. Her sadness, her loveliness. For a moment it could have begun all over, but it didn’t. She had struggled against the disillusionment. She had seen what was coming.

Now he had to live on in a different world. To transcend. To enter a new story. She must be imagined. He opened a spiral-bound notebook and thought, Here it begins.

II. The Salmon of Knowledge

II

THE SALMON OF KNOWLEDGE

9. The Death of Matti Bonner

9

The Death of Matti Bonner

Catherine was thirteen the day that Matti hanged himself from a tree midway between the Catholic chapel and the Presbyterian church. She was first down the steps of the church to face his contorted visage.

At the beginning she did not realize what had happened.

He was like a climber reaching out for the next branch, or someone hiding up a tree, but then she saw that his two boots were resting on nothing. She had left the church because religious gatherings often made her sick. Now, filling her lungs with air, she saw Matti Bonner’s face. She came forward a bit. The right hand, that lacked a middle finger, seemed to stir imperceptibly. Behind her an organ played and a choir was singing a hymn.

“Daddy!” she screamed.

In convulsions she ran back to the church.

“Daddy! Daddy!” she screamed, and men, embarrassed, stood up to let Jonathan Adams through to his daughter.