On a February evening, in 1980, John Joe Green found Seamus Dwyer in the river; John Joe was out foddering his cattle, a job he did every morning and evening in wintertime.

He’d drive the tractor to the silage pit and fill the transport box; then he’d drive back through the yard, past the hay barn, out the broken-down red gate, where he swerved left onto the tractor path that circled the hillock and ended five minutes later at the feeding stalls he had set up along the riverbank, in the shade of the alder trees.

On this February evening, John Joe rounded the hillock to one car headlight shining through the purplish alder branches, the shadow of those branches ghostly and deformed in the cone of light cast along the frosty grass. The cattle bawled loudly, though John Joe couldn’t hear them above the tractor’s engine, but he was terrified by their frantic running through the light beam, for all of those cows were close to calving—and what tough luck, he thought, the tough luck to drive off the road in the place where the ditch was knocked down, knocked down then never mended by the county council that past summer when they, John Joe would always maintain, did only a half-hearted job on fixing the potholes.

He shifted the tractor into top gear and opened the throttle fully—and the roaring tractor speeding toward the riverbank caused the cattle to become even madder; they bawled louder, rising on one another, as they teemed along the ditch, following it up to the farthest corner of the field.

He slammed on the brakes a few feet from the river. He left the engine running, pulled up the handbrake, unclasped the cab door, booted it open, and jumped out. He plucked the flashlight from his anorak pocket, adjusted the peak of his cap downwards, and ran the few feet through the dark, outside of the blinding headlight, which conked out when he was elbowing his way through the alders. At the river he put the flashlight in his pocket, and sat with his legs dangling over the sloped bank; he folded his arms and let himself go—and there he was, gasping in the putrid air that blew in small clouds off the freezing water that was flowing gently around his legs and trickling into his wellingtons. He knew in daylight where the rocks were, but now the water was mucked up, so he pulled the flashlight from his pocket and ran the beam over and back along the water before him—at the same time shifting his feet the way a child mad to walk does—and the light beam exposed a fairly flat rock, right where John Joe thought it was. He stuck the flashlight back into his pocket, and dashed toward the rock, the water reaching his knees, but he managed to climb onto it, managed to stand on it, and draw the flashlight from his pocket and shine the beam up along the opposite bank, until it lit up the front of an old Ford Escort, whose front wheels, layered with crushed clay and grass, were fully over the bank. Water dripped from the radiator, which made John Joe think that what happened here didn’t happen too long ago—the light now revealing a burst hole in the windshield, at the driver’s side. Broken briars almost concealed the hole and broken briars and alder branches lay scattered across the bonnet in the quivering light beam he lowered down to the water, where he jerked the light sideways, like he was being pulled by a magnet, and the light landed upon Seamus Dwyer’s face.

John Joe knew that face; he knew Seamus worked for Donovan, the mechanic in Oola. Katie Lennon and Paddy Dwyer’s only child. Paddy had worked in the mines, and died there years ago in an accident when Seamus was a few months old—Seamus had left the Tech two years ago. He’d taken the bus there with John Joe’s own son, Tommy, who’d gone to the Convent, who was back in the house, home from college in Dublin, lying on his bed, doing the Irish Times crossword, the electric heater on full blast. When John Joe was putting on his wellingtons in the back hall, on his way out to fodder a few hours earlier, his mother was bringing Tommy a mug of tea and a plate of Goldgrain biscuits, although his dinner was less than an hour away—he knew that face, and for years to come, he’d tell many times how he knew it, despite his terror, despite the dark and the ruthless cold, the swollen eyes, the bloody, torn nose, and the long hair that hid the ears, the hair matted, soiled with oil and grease, blood and river water.

Seamus was sitting on a bed of rushes, his back propped nicely against the riverbank. His arms were flat against his body, the hands submerged in the water, and the stretched out and floating legs looked as though they were bound in the lodged reeds and rushes. John Joe stepped on to a rock nearer the boy (the muck was settling, the water clearing) and noticed blood trickling from the mouth and from a gash on his forehead; the blood flowed along his jaw and chin and dripped onto the front of his checkered shirt, where you couldn’t really tell the blood from the car oil and the grease. He wore no winter coat, but that could have been up above, thrown on the passenger seat of the Escort.

John Joe’s plan was to step onto the bed of rushes, gather the boy in his arms, and carry him across the river, but then he understood that if something was broken he’d only be doing extra damage, and how with such weight was he going to step from one rock to the next, and how was he to lift him onto the riverbank? So John Joe lay the lamp down in the rushes; he fished the box of Major and matches out of his anorak pocket and slid them into his shirt pocket; then he bent over and buttoned up the boy’s shirt, and he took the anorak off and folded it around the boy’s exposed neck, and tucked it in between his legs. He removed the boy’s right hand from the water, quickly massaged it, kissed it back and front, and placed it in the anorak pocket; he was doing the same with the other hand when he felt the fingers stirring, and Seamus Dwyer’s mouth moved, and he muttered something, which John Joe couldn’t make out, though he felt sure that word was rescue.

“Of course I’ll rescue you,” John Joe cried, taking his cap off. “What the fuck do you think I’m standing in this bitch of a river risking my own useless life for?”

He placed the cap on the boy’s head, secured it around the boy’s ears and forehead, knowing this would help somewhat against the cold that he, himself, was no longer aware of. He stood and picked up the flashlight, blessed himself, turned and shone the light on each rock, then briskly made his way to the other bank, like a new strength had entered him. He gripped the alder roots on the river wall and climbed up the bank in seconds, almost leaving his right wellington behind him in the muck, but at the last second he turned his toes upward and plucked himself free.

He rolled onto the bank and sat up. He pulled his wellingtons off, and poured the water from them, all the while coughing in the exhaust fumes that now billowed through the tractor headlights. He felt dizzy on standing, then clutched his stomach and vomited, and reeled away from the fumes for a breath of clean night air, which restored him a little, though his legs would not support him, and he sank to his knees, watching into the field, where all looked as it did before he went down into the river: the frost glittering on the stiffened grass, the field darkened in places with the hoof prints of the once restive cattle, who were now hushed at its farthest corner. The calamity so soon forgotten. His eyes wandered up to the brilliant winter stars that circled the full moon above the hillock; he shut his eyes to it all and said, “Stay right where you are. Everything will be grand, a stór, so don’t stir. Sit there, a stór. The night can’t and won’t get any colder and this moment will pass like all of them do and I need to leave you and get up and go home and get Kathleen to ring for the ambulance.”

He drove home in top gear, the back wheels churning mud, skidding around the hillock, and the silage toppling in clumps onto the ground beside and behind the tractor. He sped through the red gate, the tractor almost unseating him when the front wheels hit the edge of the cemented yard, but he’d raised himself a little out of the seat, anticipating that jolt. He didn’t turn left toward the hay barn to park where he usually did, but drove straight on around the house, up to the back hall door.

Kathleen stood over the cooker. She’d drained the potatoes a half hour ago; she’d been fretting about him, which she did every time he was alone in the fields, especially on the tractor, in the dark, especially during wintertime; she was well aware, though, that he dallied there and lost all track of time inspecting the cows-in-calf, shining the flashlight on the older cows, who were his favorite, because they were the best milkers. Right before she’d drained the potatoes, she’d stepped into Tommy’s room and asked him if he’d put on his coat and boots and go down to the field to check on his father, but Tommy, still stretched on the bed, still engrossed in the crossword, told her, without looking up, that his father was fine: his father was watching the cattle, as usual—so she was greatly relieved on hearing the tractor coming through the red gate at the edge of the yard, but its speed and noise, and the clamor with which it hit the edge of the yard, unsettled her, and then those blinding headlights flashing upon the window to the right of the cooker: why was he bringing that tractor around the back? Why was he not parking it in the barn, like every other evening? She blessed herself, drew a deep breath, picked up a fork, and readied herself.

He leaned his head against the doorframe and reached his right hand along the door and pulled it shut; and then hastily, as though hiding something, he placed his hands behind his back, his eyes furiously blinking at her. She looked into the pot of steaming potatoes, glanced back at him, then back to the pot, listening to his loud breaths; between those, she heard the blocks popping in the range and the low, vigorous sound of boiling water tossing the peas; she turned that ring down to low. Strands of hair fell over her left ear, which she arranged back, and she turned from him to the darkened window above the sink; she had drawn back the organdy curtains, but had forgotten to prop open those two small windows at the top, which she did every evening at dinner time; the kitchen, because of this, was unnaturally hot and she scanned the pale blue walls, noting that she could write her name on the lines of condensation that streamed down. She turned and stabbed at a potato with the fork; it split in half and she laid the fork aside, folded her arms, and turned fully to face him. Waiting for him to make a move, to say something, but knowing only too well that when he was upset she had to give him time—and what was he doing without his anorak on a bitterly cold night such as this one! And where was his cap! It was only then she noticed the scrape marks on his pale face, the fresh blood oozing from them. The jumper drenched. A cow down in the river. An older cow pucked one of the younger cows into the river? A younger cow foolish enough to get in front of an older one. And, of course, he’d gone down into the river himself. Gone in there, without thinking of herself or himself or the consequences: he could have been struck by that cow and have fallen down in the water and drowned. Killed dead. Not that young anymore, and never able to ask for help and the dinner ruined and washing to be done for Tommy, who’d brought home a present of his dirty clothes. Down in the room. Him and his bloody crossword. Too insolent to help his father. Like such work was now beneath him. A fat lot of good going to college did but change him into a worthless, selfish heap—but to have to stand and watch that face at the door was the problem; the expression that was exactly like Tommy’s the evening a few years ago he came in from the bus and she’d not heard him walk into the hall, or heard him walk through the kitchen door; she only knew he was in when the thud of the schoolbag he dropped to the floor caused her to turn from the sink, and there he was, leaning against the same doorframe, everything the same as it was now, including that look on the face, the hands and all. He had mitched school and was caught shoplifting, along with a few other boys, at a grocer’s in the village of Hospital. Got off the bus that morning but did not go to school. Went into the handball alley instead and ventured down the village street after classes commenced. Him and some few other lads from the Tech and the Convent had it all arranged. But someone on the bus, who went to the Convent, knew about this plan and squealed on them. It was Brother Eamonn who discovered them, late in the afternoon, sitting in the corner of the handball alley, smoking the cigarettes they’d stolen at the grocery, which was owned by an elderly widow, who ran it on her own, and whose dead husband was a cousin of John Joe’s. Even then, Tommy knew better than to do that. But he did it anyway. A week later Kathleen drove up there on a Saturday morning to make amends. She parked down the street, near the Convent gates, and walked up the short path lined with old oaks, to Sister Helen’s office: Sister Helen being the head sister at this time. Kathleen had brought her an envelope of money she’d been saving for the Christmas.

She’d never disclosed a word of this to John Joe. She’d told him that morning she had to do a drive to the chemist in Hospital for something for herself, knowing he’d never inquire about female matters. He’d have gone lunatic if he discovered what Tommy did, a thing made even worse with family involved.

When Kathleen handed Sister Helen the envelope, the nun smiled and announced that Tommy was a remarkably bright student, sure to go far, and such an incident would not be permitted to get in the way of his future. Kathleen and the nun shook hands, and Kathleen left the office, walked down that path, turned left up the street to the widow, who, when she saw Kathleen walk in, closed up the shop, and led Kathleen into a back room, where she poured tea for them, saying such an incident was the kind of thing boys of Tommy’s age naturally do, and Kathleen should feel secure that the way they were raised had nothing to do with it, for boys in packs were like dogs, had no mind of their own, and no doubt those boys from the Tech were the ringleaders, because the Greens were not that kind; the Greens were above such wretched behavior. The widow relishing her capacity to pardon. Not once looking Kathleen in the eye. Letting Kathleen know she was doing her a favor, was the way Kathleen read that—and all that curtsying over a few packets of cigarettes and a few bars of Kit Kats and Milky Ways. And Kathleen, right before she left, asking her to please not mention a word to John Joe, if she were to run into him; it would upset him greatly; you’d never know how he’d take that. And the old woman saying, of course, she wouldn’t utter a single word, and at Mass this evening she would pray that Thomas Green never be led astray by others again.

Kathleen undid her arms; his cold breath had crossed the kitchen to her; as least that’s how she perceived it; she shivered and nervously folded her arms again, and she smelled that odor of silage that never left him during winter; even on Saturday nights, when he sat in the bath and she scrubbed his back and shampooed his white hair, before she ironed his fresh drawers; and later, when they were in bed, and he undid the buttons on his drawers to free himself, groaning, Christ, Kathleen, and got between her legs, it was there when their mouths clasped. She knew he had no idea that smell was on him and she would never say a word about it, even though she worried that neighbors he met on the road, and at the creamery, and shopkeepers he met in town on Friday afternoon might think less of him because of it—think less of her, too.

Without stirring, without bringing his hands from behind his back, he stammered, “Young Dwyer’s down in the river, Kathleen. Drove his car in there. Below at the bend in the road, where that ditch is knocked down. Can’t you run into the hall and phone the ambulance immediately.”

“Immediately, you say now, but why, for God’s sake, didn’t you say it immediately, when you walked in the door immediately, when you were out there immediately? Do you think it’s vision I have. You’re in shock, that’s what’s wrong with you. In shock, you are. Why didn’t you come in and tell us? And that idle young fellow at home with nothing to do but do what he likes.”

She was sprinting across the kitchen, unknotting her apron, as she spoke, flinging the apron onto the couch, before she went out the door to his right, into the hall, passing Tommy in the doorway, who was adjusting his glasses, a pencil stub stuck above his ear.

“I got that crossword all finished; are you all right, Da?” Tommy asked, turning then from his father to watch his mother pick up the phone and dial without looking in the phone book. He turned back to his father. “Is she calling a vet?”

“I’m not calling a vet, you useless whelp,” she said, not looking at him, but dialing. “Your father’s in shock. There was an accident, and you lying on that bed, doing nothing, you good for nothing, and I asked you to go out there—in shock, he is! That’s the word for it.”

“Young fellow of the Dwyers drove his car into the river, Kathy Lennon’s only boy,” John Joe said, staring at the cooker, at steam drifting from pots. “Driving too fast around that bend, Tommy, the way you young fellows like to. That young fellow you went to school with. Knew that was going to happen someday. Haven’t I been saying it to your mother for years. A wonder it didn’t happen before this evening. Always said that was an awful bend but the County Council would never do a thing about it. Knocked down that ditch and never fixed it.”

“Seamus Dwyer,” Tommy said. “Seamus who I went on the bus with?”

“Who else. The father dead with years, Katie on her own below, going mad wondering where he is, I can bet you. Probably think he’s in Ryan’s public house in Oola. Where else?”

Five minutes later, Kathleen and Tommy stood at the table on either side of John Joe. He was pressed against it, gripping it, the thumbs on top; he stared down at an empty plate.

“Down in that miserable river,” John Joe said. “But the hands were frightfully warm, never saw or felt the likes of it, as warm as if they were vegetables boiling over there on the gas cooker, as we speak.”

“They’ll be here in a minute,” Kathleen said for the fifth time, taking a step closer to John Joe, aware that if he fell she’d break his fall, she signaling Tommy with her eyes to also step closer, which he did immediately.

“Kathleen,” John Joe said, gripping the table so tightly that it creaked. “Kathleen, you’ll have to go and tell Katie Lennon. Tommy there ‘ill drive you down and take the two of you into the Regional. For it’s to the Regional they’ll take him. Sure put your Sunday coat on. You’ll be fine. Tommy, go out and warm up the car and don’t drive fast because God only knows what kind of condition them roads are in. Put the Holy Water on you before you go and make sure to stay with your mother at all times—”

He let his grip on the table go and rolled his sleeves up. Kathleen understood this was because of the hot kitchen, but she did not want to leave his side and walk over and shut the range door, or open them windows; she watched him grip the table again with both hands; she heard him moan; she smelled something scorching—the water had boiled off the peas, of course; how could she have forgotten that—but she was immediately distracted by the sound of a drip and she looked down to see that the river water from his wellingtons and pants had made little pools on the tiles, the smashed reeds and rushes stuck to his wellingtons, and steam beginning to rise from the patches of wetness on the front and back of his pants. She needed to get him out of them wet clothes, but she would have to bide her time.

John Joe lifted a trembling hand from the table and took a Major from his shirt pocket and put it to his lips. Tommy was about to light it for him, but he knew this might only insult his father—Tommy was thinking about the gas cooker remark, about Seamus Dwyer’s hands hot like vegetables in boiling water—there hadn’t been a gas cooker in the house since after he was born—but he was thinking, too, about Seamus Dwyer wearing a stripy jumper on the bus every day, and because of this, they called him Rainbow. Tommy and he were friends in National school, but that ended when they got on the bus. Tommy sat up front; Seamus sat at the back and smoked with the boys from Emly; they shouted vulgar remarks up the bus at the good-looking girls, and they made vulgar remarks about everyone who got on and off—but a few years before, while training for Confirmation, Tommy and Seamus walked home from National School together every evening; and one evening, Seamus led Tommy into the shed behind his house, a shed filled with old and broken things, where he played Tommy John McCormack records on an old gramophone that he said belonged to his father. Seamus mocked the tunes, as he sang along, but Tommy was thinking how he knew all the words, and his voice was lovely—

John Joe finally lit the Major and took a few quick drags.

The siren cried on the road.

“Thanks be to God,” Kathleen said.

“We should make a move,” Tommy said.

“I can’t go with ye anyway,” John Joe said, his shoulders shaking, as he took another drag. “I can’t because Christ didn’t I forget to fodder them cattle who must be starving by now, and I need to move them feeding stalls up the field for good and not down there underneath the alders. Because you never know when a thing like that will occur again.”

“But you will not go out there and fodder those cattle!” Kathleen warned. “Tommy there can do that when we come back. He’s not doing much else. Do you hear me now? You go down to the room when we leave and get out of them wet clothes and take a bath and eat a bit and go to bed immediately—”

“The young fellow’s alive, all right,” John Joe spoke abruptly, as though he had not heard a word Kathleen had said, as though he were not in that kitchen at all. “The eyes were moving. And he’s a strong young fellow—his father was that. Could see him in the young fellow’s shoulders. He’s lucky enough to have landed on them rushes, but if I was only there a bit sooner! If only! Didn’t I change the oil in the tractor and that set me back a good half hour. I didn’t even plan to do that but I did, and I could have waited till after the creamery tomorrow to do it. If I hadn’t done that, I’ve have been out there sooner. I’d have seen the whole thing happen the way it happened. But the hands—but if I’d been out there I’d have heard that car coming around that bend and seen it leave the road and come through the trees and seen young Dwyer smashing like a bullet through the windshield.”