9

She wakes with her head against the window and looks outside without seeing, closing her eyes she travels to a darkness as though moving through water with her heart in pain, squeezing and squeezing her hands. Molly is calling from far away and shakes her mother’s arm. Mam, she says, wake up will you, the driver said something just now, I don’t know what he said, we haven’t moved in over an hour, I’m going to go see what’s up. Ben is passed into her arms and Molly follows the passengers towards the front of the coach. The front door makes a hiss and the driver steps down onto the motorway and hitches his jeans, slides a phone into his shirt pocket as people gather around. Ben bouncing on her lap with a malevolent grin, he grabs hold of her nose, beep-beep, he says, beep-beep, beep-beep, and she must honk and honk again, trying to smile as he tweaks her nose, he turns and slaps his hands to the glass. Car, he says, car, car, car, car. She looks outside and points out each word for him, bus, car, van, lorry, woman, child, bird, a meaty rook winging down with foil in its mouth, it empties its beak to poke at a piece of food thrown from the back of a van where too many children are sitting on stacked mattresses inside. People are standing outside their cars reading their phones, the car boots stuffed with outsized items or electrical appliances, the roofs stacked and the belongings sheeted while the motorway winds around a hill pointing north though nothing moves but for those on foot, a silent procession in the lay-by of people walking in winter coats or wrapped in blankets, children strapped to their mothers’ chests or pushed in buggies or carried on the shoulders of men who pull on luggage or carry their lives on their backs. A young child stepping ahead of her parents falls onto the road and turns wailing with arms outstretched and Eilish feels nothing watching this child but a deadness inside her and then sudden pain swells inside her chest and she closes her eyes. Ben is jumping up and down on her lap, he grabs hold of her nose again, beep-beep, beep-beep, and she tries to smile but makes instead a broken shape with her mouth, Molly sliding back into the seat, the gaunt cheeks flushed with news. Everything has gone to shit, she says, the driver just said the corridor has closed and they’ve shut the border just past Dundalk as there’s heavy fighting there, he wants to turn around, the traffic has nowhere to go, he says, we’ll just sit here like this for days, he says he’s going to take the next exit off the motorway soon as the traffic moves forward, the other roads are just as bad apparently and we’d be better off going on foot, the border is about fifty or sixty kilometres away, there’s a row now because people are demanding their money back but he says he doesn’t have it. Eilish looks across the seat to an elderly man who is showing a map on his phone to his wife or perhaps she is his sister, who is to know, they look so alike, Ben banging his hands on the glass, birdy birdy birdy birdy, he says, and she turns to see a boy going by with a lime bird in a small white cage and she closes her eyes and cannot think what to do, the heart has grown too sick for thinking, the heart now in a cage.

How quickly the day signals for night, the body of the sky filled with bruising and Ben whining for a snack, one step following after another as she carries the child strapped to her chest, her eyes fixed upon some null space, a numb vacancy at the centre of her being. The air is growing cold but Ben refuses to wear a hat, she tries to slide the hat back on his head but he slaps her hand back and shouts no no no. They leave the motorway on an off-ramp and follow the signs for the service station, her left hand cradling Ben’s head, her right hand pinched from sharing the weight of a bag with Molly. The forecourt is full of people standing about or sitting on the tarmac with food and drinks while a queue carries out the door. Ben’s nappy is full, she changes it on her lap while squatting in line outside the toilets, the pockets of her long coat stuffed with nappies and wipes. She queues for hot food while Molly sits on their baggage by the entrance with Ben in her lap. There is nowhere to sit so they remain on their bags while Eilish watches an electrical socket where a man is charging his phone, she asks Molly to send a message to Áine, a security guard stands over them and asks them to go outside, you are blocking an exit, he says. They place their bags on the tarmac and sit and eat while Eilish watches a rattish young man move like a beggar among the crowd, he steps before them and offers them a place to stay for the night, Molly wants to know what kind of place it is and how much it costs while Eilish studies his eyes, his shabby clothes, the nails mooned with dirt. What did you say no for? Molly says, watching the man move to the next group. Where are we going to sleep tonight? A woman in a yellow raincoat leans across and taps Molly on the arm. Be on your guard from the likes of that, she says, they lure you away and then they rob you, that’s what they’re doing. The woman slides a packet of biscuits towards Molly and for a time they speak while Eilish does not hear, she is watching Bailey seated on the tarmac across the forecourt with his legs stretched out before him, his hair shaved at the sides, an ear and partial cheek in amber light. He drinks from a can then stands up and stamps it flat with his sneaker and kicks it towards the pumps.

Fire in a darkened field, women wrapped in blankets and children sitting on their laps with their faces lit by phones while people gather firewood in the trees and put up tents. Space is made for them by the fire, a bearded man nipping at sausages wrapped in tinfoil, he blows on his fingers and insists they have some while somewhere in the dark a woman calls for a child, Molly taking a sausage on a twig, she cools it with her mouth and tears a piece for Ben who holds it with both hands and nibbles on it. Darkest blue the sky over the surrounding darkness, the dark blackest around the fire which unmakes each face then paints it again so that a young woman asks with ruined eyes where they are from and where they are going while a man claws at the shadows on his face as he speaks. It’s best if you cross the border someplace else, he says, Crossmaglen is probably the best bet from here, that’s where we’re going, my cousin got across the border no bother yesterday, she says the border police are letting people through so long as you make it sweet for them. There is talk of people risking arrest by crossing the border at night, there is talk of violent gangs that roam the borderlands, of armed patrols along the border roads and how much you have to pay to pass. She watches the flames as though in a trance, watches the firelight dance before their eyes, the firelight reaching for the eyes that remain in darkness, and who are these people without their eyes and who are these people with their eyes blinded to the future, these people trapped between the fire and the dark? She closes her eyes and sees how much has been devoured, sees the whole of her love and what little remains, there is only a body, a body without a heart, a body with swollen feet to carry the children forward—— The woman with ruined eyes is asking if they will sleep in her tent. It’s cold tonight and it’s going to rain, she says, you can’t have an infant sleeping outside and anyhow it’s an eight-man tent, we got twelve in there last night.

Ben turns her face with his hand so that they lie breath to breath in the sleeping bag and when he is asleep she lies listening to the long silence of the night, seeing how death follows along the road, it follows into the dreams of those who are too tired to sleep and who must dream with open eyes, the gasps and cries that escape their mouths as though death were parading before them again and again each night so that each death is relived many times, and she lies hearing the sleepers mutter death into the darkness, lies feeling the cold earth to her back, hearing the rain on the tent as though it were a rain that fell millennia ago and outside there lies nothing but uninhabited earth, the world outside a darkness without pain, and to be without pain would be to enter fully into that darkness but there will be no going out, she knows this now, there will be no going out into the darkness after her son though she wishes she could follow, she will stand watching her son but she will not go out to the darkness because she must remain and there is only this for her now, to be a vessel in which to carry the children away from the darkness and there will be no peace and there will be no escape from pain and not even the darkness of closing her eyes is peace. Ben turns, he reaches for her face and begins to cry and calms when she smooths his cheek. She whispers to him though there are no words for a child this age, no explanation for what has been done and yet what the child will never recall from memory will always be known by him and he will carry it as poison in the blood. She looks to Molly and sees the sleeping heart beating the poison throughout the body and yet there is a light coming from within, her skin blue from the dawn brightening the tent but there is a light radiating also from within her body, a light that brings with it an increase of strength, and she does not know where this light inside Molly has come from, this light that shines out of darkness. Footfall on softened ground outside and cigarette smoke drifting towards the tent, a man coughs and children’s voices sound the new day while a youth climbs over them to exit. Molly sits up and musses her hair then begins to rub her feet. Mam, she whispers, let me comb your hair. Eilish looks into her daughter’s face and sees she has been crying in her sleep. She unzips from the sleeping bag and puts on her runners and steps outside. A low and cold greyness and the fire in ashes, litter strewn about the fallow field. She sits Ben on her rucksack and peels a banana and pours milk into his cup while Molly slaps her arms about her chest to keep warm, Ben toddling about the dirt and then he begins towards the trees. Eilish calls for him to come back but he continues towards the woodland by the edge of the field stamping his feet in the dirt and she follows ignoring the pain in her shoulders and feet. Ben standing in the mossy grass, he waves a stick and beats it off a tree then turns with his eyes agleam and brings up the stick to strike her. No, she says, wagging her finger, no no no, and she takes the stick and waves it before him and says, you do not hit, you do not hit another person, and she throws the stick away and turns him around and sends him back out onto the fallow field, the dead field crowned with weeds and underneath the worms turning the soil and within the soil the remains of the last crop, dead matter decomposing to give nutrient to what grows next, and Ben is running across the field with his fists pointed at the sky and she looks for a moment behind to the trees and sees the grass full of fallen leaves, sees the leaves lying graveless on the grass, yellow their faces among the dying brown.

The minibus comes from behind and clears its throat with a downshifting of gears that sends the walkers onto the verge, the bus slowing and then it pulls up alongside them while the driver with a slapped-red face leans out. I’m going to the border and there’s two seats left inside if somebody wants a ride, fifty quid per head. Some of the walkers turn and look at each other and shake their heads while Molly drops the bag onto the grass. Mam, she says, you need a rest and my hand is broken from carrying this thing. Eilish watches the minibus, her eyes adrift as though waiting for some answer to take shape in her mind, there is nothing but silence and darkness, she exhales against the weight of the child as she climbs the steps and the driver does not meet her eyes. She places her sister’s money into his palm and then he looks at his hand and shakes his head. The price is fifty per head. Yes, she says, but there’s just two of us and an infant. Fifty per person is what I said and I count three. But the child will be sitting on my lap, she says, he won’t take up any space. The driver sighs and continues the slow shaking of his head. It’s fifty per head or go on foot if you like but you’re safer on this bus than being out there on your own, do whatever you like. She is on display for the passengers watching the exchange, a child crying down the back, Molly nudging her from behind when she snaps at her purse and draws another note and throws it into the man’s lap, forcing the piglet eyes to look at her, the thin and gobbling mouth. Leave the bags down outside the door, Molly, let this man put them into the hold. Ben wants to walk the narrow aisle, he wants to stand on her lap and bounce and play hide and seek with the people behind, he is hungry and needs to nap, she turns her face towards the glass watching the sun gone from the sky, the country road full of walkers parting to let the bus through, a woman pushing a child in a buggy lifts her eyes towards the window and Eilish sees herself staring back. Molly says something about her father and Eilish turns watching her daughter’s face in the compact mirror as she paints her eyes. I didn’t hear what you said. I was talking about Dad, she says, it’s going to be his birthday soon, what year was he born again? Eilish turns to the window and shuts her eyes. It is not that she has forgotten him, it is that when she thinks of him now so little remains, he has become a shadow, an absence in the place where love used to be, or perhaps some small love remains in a chamber of the heart sealed under so much weight. Ben is asleep in her arms when the bus slows and then it stops and the driver drops his shoulder to yank the handbrake and stands out of his seat to pull open the door. He steps down onto the road and speaks to a soldier wearing a black beret then lights a cigarette while a second soldier steps onto the bus with a handgun buttoned on his hip. They are told to leave the bus, have your security passes ready and take your bags out of the hold for inspection. They step down off the bus and there is no border but open countryside, the border is thirty kilometres away, a man says, almost an hour has passed before they climb onto the bus again. It is evening and then it is night, the bus meeting one checkpoint after another, military Land Rovers or civilian SUVs angled across the road, soldiers from the Defence Forces or militias in surplus army fatigues, shaven heads and hands in fingerless gloves holding automatic rifles at the shoulder pointed towards the ground, different faces each time speaking the same commands, the driver standing away from the bus with a cigarette in his mouth counting the cash he has to pay. IDs must be shown, they must explain where they are going, they are forced to open their bags and place their belongings onto the road and then pack them again and sometimes the bags are a little lighter and each time there is a different price, an exit tax some of them call it, a contribution to the cause you are leaving behind. One road is closed after another, a petrol station looms brightly in the darkness and they stop to use the toilets and buy food and drinks. She can sense the border nearby in the dark, can sense it withdrawing from them as though a tide were leaving the shore behind to barren moonlight. She needs to sleep but cannot, she must wake Molly again and carry Ben asleep in her arms as they step down off the bus for the fifth time, Molly dragging her feet, it is almost 1am, a stone wall and hooding trees, the bus pinned in the headlights of an SUV while flashlights take a read of each face. A bearded militant waves a handgun and shouts them into line, he is dressed in civilian clothing with jeans rolled over the top of his boots. He pulls a middle-aged man from the line and puts a torch in his face. So what do you think you’re running from, baldy, why don’t you stay and fight for your country you chickenshit cunt? The man remains motionless with his face turned away from the torchlight, his eyes half-closed and then he blinks slowly as though trying to understand what has been said to him. She looks away when the militant kicks the man behind the legs. Get down on your knees and show your ID. She looks again to the militant’s face and sees nothing but his malignancy turned inside out so that it is worn openly, she takes hold of Molly’s arm and seeks her eyes asking her to look away, watches the driver and sees him rub his eyes from fatigue and understands now his price, better to drive around in circles all night meeting one checkpoint after another than be out here alone in the dark meeting the likes of these, the kneeling man fumbling at the pockets of his coat, his fingers have fled leaving two useless fists, finally he produces an ID. The militant tosses it towards another man who picks it up off the ground and reads the details into a radio, the bearded man nudging at the kneeling man’s shoulder with his gun, he brings the muzzle to the man’s temple and slides it slowly down his neck then lifts a boot and rests it on his shoulder. So what do you work at you cunt? The man whispers something with his face towards the ground. I didn’t hear what you said. The man half-shouts. I’m a technician. A technician of what? The man clears his throat and begins to weep, the militant bringing the torchlight onto the faces of the people standing in line by the bus, static talk on the radio and then the boot comes down and the man’s ID is thrown onto the ground before him. The price for you is not the same as for the others, the price for a chickenshit cunt like you is double. She watches the man remain on his knees as the militant steps away, sees him carry his humiliation onto the bus with bowed shoulders, his hands shaking on his lap when he takes his seat. Without thought she has placed a hand on his arm and squeezes and the man looks up and tries to smile but something in his eyes is destroyed.

There should be nothing on the other side but the edge of a cliff that begins the long fall down into nothingness but instead the road continues past the border, the prefabs greying in the dawn, the utility wire running without interruption across the international line, an articulated truck slowing to a stop as a yawning soldier covers his mouth. They join a queue for those on foot, people trying to sleep or keep warm while propped against their bags or against one another while Molly leans into her mother’s arm and falls asleep. She begins to mutter then makes a small cry, sits up rubbing her eyes and Eilish can see in her eyes the terror reaching out from the dream. The queue at last begins to move as the checkpoint finally opens and they drag their bags forward a few paces and sit down again. Watching the last of the night recede, the British checkpoint further along the road growing in definition, the corrugated barriers and the barbed wire and the military watchtower and the road continuing onwards and she knows that once they walk across this line the weight will begin, that what is left behind will not be left behind at all but will continue to grow in weight and be carried forever on their backs. They stand in a prefab waiting room where all the stackable chairs have been taken by people filling forms on their laps, the floor vibrating as people move in groups towards the glass and she cannot find her pen, she must borrow one from the elderly man standing beside her, he looks into her eyes and smiles but she cannot return the smile and looks to the floor, sees he is wearing two different shoes, one tan and one grey. When she steps to the glass she slides the forms and documents across and stands waiting to be told how much she will have to pay, the going rate changes each time, they look at your clothes and come up with a price, they look and see if they like your smile, it all depends on the time of day, the moon and the tide. She is told she has filled out the wrong form, that she is trying to cross with an undocumented child and must instead fill out another form and await an interview, she must exit the door to her right and go to the next prefab outside. There is nobody in the cold unheated room and nothing to look at but a window of frosted glass and a desk with a PC and an empty mug, she tries to hide the tremor in her hand when they hear quick footsteps outside and a muffled cough, Molly taking hold of her hand and squeezing as the official steps into the room and pulls a chair before them, an angular man with a Roman nose, a pale shirt unbuttoned at the neck, she does not know what he is, a policeman or a military officer or a small-time bureaucrat, he types quickly into the computer and exhales sharply then looks at Eilish as though seeing through her to something else. He asks for their documents and turns to the screen and types, Ben wriggling to be free, she tries to pull him back onto her lap but he screams into kicking and Molly lets down her hair and gives him the elastic hairband to play with, the official turning his head as though to study the child, he is staring at Molly as she combs her fingers through her hair. He asks one question after another and obscurely shakes his head as Eilish gives each answer, scratching the end of his nose with a fingernail, typing quickly into the computer, she believes she is giving the wrong answer each time and begins to bite down on her teeth. She looks into the man’s grey-blue eyes and hears his mouth speak but his eyes are saying something different to the questions the mouth is asking, the finger toddling the downward key while the eyes are sizing up how much she is worth, watching a quick slight smile pulling on the corners of his mouth as though he has read her thoughts, it is then that she knows and no longer believes in the substance of the interview. She looks about the empty room seeing it all as a game, she has been fingering the child’s birth certificate but leaves it down and sits back in the chair and tries to smile as she leans forward again. We might as well be frank with one other, she says, how much money do you want? The man allows a frowning look of surprise, he regards Molly and seems to tut under his breath as he leans back in the chair. There will be a cost for crossing the border, he says, an exit tax if you will, but there is also an additional cost, you are seeking to leave the state with a child who does not have a travel document, and though this birth certificate proves his citizenship, it affords him no right to leave the state and denies him the protection he would enjoy as a citizen of this state while travelling in other jurisdictions, what you must do is buy a temporary passport for the child, the passport will have no legal effect after today and later you will have to apply for a passport in full from your new place of residence, of course there will be a price, there is always a price for such things. The man picks up a pen and writes quickly on a sheet of paper and slides it towards Eilish, she reads the paper upside down then turns it around and begins to cry, looking again at the sheet, she shakes her head and closes her eyes, seeing them forced to run the gauntlet across the border at night, the military patrols and the baying dogs, Molly takes a hold of her hand again but Eilish pulls it free. I don’t have this kind of money, she says, nobody told us it would cost this much. The man exhales sharply out his nose while doodling with a pen, she looks at the hand that has found time to divine something from the man’s subconscious, a geometric pattern coming loose into tumbleweed, a thought begins to pull on his mouth as he lifts his eyes. It is going to cost you a lot more to pay a smuggler to take you across at night and half of what you give him will come back here. She looks at the man and cannot speak and he sighs again and stands up as though to leave. Wait, she says, and the official remains standing before them and when she speaks again he licks at the corner of his mouth and declines with a slow shake of the head. That will pay for your son’s temporary passport and it will pay for your exit visa, but it will not cover the cost of your daughter. The voices sounding outside, the voices and the sound of footfall passing onwards in steady transference across the border and she is biting down on her tongue and there is nothing in his eyes, an agonised smile creeping across her face. But please, she says, surely we can agree a price, I’ll give you all that I have. The official studies her a long moment and then he looks at Molly and nods at her. I’d like to interview you alone, he says. Eilish looks towards her daughter and then she looks for the man’s eyes but he is clicking at something onscreen, he is searching for the soccer results perhaps, some titbit of useless information, she looks towards the frosted window feeling a sudden nausea. She passes Ben across to Molly and tells her to leave the prefab. I said take the child outside now. Molly stands with a frowning look then carries Ben outside and closes the door while Eilish studies the official. You want to interview her alone, she says, why do you want to interview her alone? Something has caught on the end of her voice as he watches the door, without word he softly shakes his head, then scratches the end of his nose. There have been inconsistencies in the account you have given of your family, it would be best if I speak to her alone. She leans sideways in her seat and looks to the screen, sees that he is playing Solitaire. And for how long do you want to speak to her alone, she says, do you not want to interview me alone, I can paint my lips if that’s what you want, I can fix my hair, but I’m not what you want, isn’t that right, perhaps the thing you want is something you can only take from a child. The face before her grows very still and then the mouth goes to speak but stumbles, the hand padding blindly for the pen while Eilish begins to unzip a travel wallet strapped to her stomach, she places a sheaf of notes on the table. Look, she says, this is all that I have, surely that is enough when what you are taking from us is everything. The official’s face reddens with anger and she sees beneath that anger the coming perhaps of shame, the man exhaling sharply as he puts both hands down on the table. I don’t have time for this, he says, do you think I can sit around here all day, this interview is over, leave the money on the table and go back inside to the waiting room.

She tells herself not to look behind as they cross the border, she turns around and a stone forms in her mouth so that she must whisper as she speaks, the stone sliding down her throat so that she must breathe around it as she shows her documents, the soldier on the other side is firm but polite and directs them to a registration centre in a Nissen hut. She is watching for the man they are supposed to meet, there are cars parked along the verge beyond the checkpoint and a handful of people are waiting nearby watching for who comes through, she scans the faces for a quick nod or smile but meets no response, she looks to Molly who is carrying Ben on her chest, she does not know what she is supposed to do, the instructions were so unclear, another soldier marshals them along and she finds herself being carried forward. Somebody has come alongside her and touches her elbow, a resonant smiling voice says, you don’t want to go in there. She turns around and a young man in a fleece pulls her into a hug and she lets down the bag and stands with her hands by her sides trying not to recoil until the man lets go, the intrusion of another body, the smell of sweat and cologne, the man smiles at Molly and Ben. Eilish, he says, so good to see yous, come quickly along, this way to the car. He takes hold of the carry bag and walks with its weight pulling on his shoulder as they follow him to a maroon Ford parked tight to the ditch. He is not the man she has been told they will meet, his name is Gary and he opens the doors for them, motioning for Molly to put Ben in the child seat. He puts their bags in the boot then sits into the car searching the door pocket and the organiser between the seats, he finds his glasses and puts them on, turns and smiles at Ben. Right, he says, sorry about that, I didn’t see yous come through. He turns to fix the seatbelt and his eyes stop at Eilish who is sitting very pale and still with her hands on her lap, the stone has grown so that she cannot breathe, she thinks her heart has stopped. Whatever’s the matter? Gary says, but she cannot speak, the man looking to Molly for help as she leans forward and pulls on her mother’s shoulder. Mam, she says, what’s wrong? Eilish shakes her head and takes a breath and releases it slowly while Gary pats her hand. Don’t worry, love, yous are doing the right thing, the wrong thing would have been going into that registration building back there and signing your life away, they’d have put yous on the bus to limbo land, yous would be stuck in the camps for who knows how long with no right to leave Northern Ireland, yous could be living there for the rest of your lives in one of them tents with the rain pishing down on yous all day, at least when we’re done yous’ll be free to go wherever you like, yous are doing the right thing, so relax, everything has been arranged.

She sits numbly watching the road, the sky shoreline and foaming wave, Ben bawling for milk but she has nothing to give him, Gary offers to stop along the way. She closes her eyes unable to think or feel, seeking within for some path forward, in the shadows Bailey comes to her and she touches his face and strokes his hair and the numbness in her body swells into a pain that forces her to open her eyes, watching Molly in the rear-view mirror brushing her hair then opening the compact mirror to line her eyes, of a sudden Eilish is reaching between the seats, she grabs the mirror from Molly’s hands and snaps it shut, points to a petrol station on the far side of the road. If you don’t mind I’d like to stop there. With two fingers she reaches into the lining of her coat and slides out a cigarette of bank notes. She buys fruit and milk, returns to the car with the key to the bathroom, Ben watching her with a livid face as she fills his bottle. She opens the boot and unzips her bag and removes an oval case, knocks on the window and motions for Molly to follow. The pale bathroom reeks of urine and citrus bleach and she catches sight of herself in the mirror seeing the ghost of her future, sees in Molly’s face a look of liquid unease as she removes from the case a pair of scissors. Mam, she says, what’s going on? Stand still and do not move, Eilish says, I’m going to make sure nobody looks at you again. Molly’s face shrinks when she sees the scissors come up, she steps back against the wall and pushes against Eilish who takes a hold of her hair and begins to cut, Molly slapping at her mother, she releases a scream and goes limp, covers her face with her hands. When Eilish is finished she turns to the mirror and begins at her own hair, one savage stroke after another until she sees before her a ruined lopsided crop, Gary knocking on the door. Are yous in there? he says, yer gone an awful long time, we have to get back on the road. He is leaning against the side door of the Ford thumbing at his phone when Molly steps outside with her face in her hands, he looks up and says, what in the fuck, looks to Eilish while shaking his head, watching her as she drops Molly’s make-up bag into the bin. He does not turn to look at her when she sits inside and he is silent as he drives, watching Molly occasionally in the mirror, Eilish sitting with her arms folded looking straight ahead. There is no will now, no sovereignty nor strength, just a hollow body reflected in the glass, a body pulled forward along the road through cattle fields and arable land, casual trees and hedgerow, houses abutting the road with pebble-dashed walls and dogs inside barking to be let out, the car travelling smoothly towards the Sperrin Mountains. Gary is checking his watch, his hand is searching for his phone in the organiser, he fits a headset in his ear and makes a call. Not long now, horse, he says, just give us fifteen minutes. The car makes a turn and they drive up into the hills and soon there is nothing but sky and steepled firs to one side of the road, the car slowing to take a turn into forestry and it grows dark inside the Ford, Gary looking into the mirror where he sees Molly’s face in distress. Don’t worry, he says, everything’s cool, we’ll be there in a moment. The sunken road gives to a clearing where a white delivery truck is parked, a goateed face watching intensely from behind the windscreen. That’s us now, Gary says, let me go have a wee chat with this fella and then yer on your way. Eilish watches him go to the truck, he turns around and motions for them to get out. She tries to wake Ben, brings him into her arms but he nuzzles into her neck and goes back to sleep, the goateed man leaping down from the truck with a mean little face, Eilish watching the way he lopes with lowered head to the rear of the truck and sends the back door rolling upward with a clatter. The interior is full of people and she does not want to climb in, the driver grabbing hold of their bags, he slides them inside and motions with his thumb for them to climb up but she is unable to move, Molly watching while the goateed man stands before them with an irate look, he wipes his sleeve across his mouth and shouts, hurry up to fuck. She is no longer a person but a thing, this is what she thinks, a thing climbing into the truck with a child in her arms, Molly climbing after her, hearing behind them as the shutters go down a strange puling sound from the trees.

From lorry dark they climb out into a factory yard, grey graffitied buildings with broken windows and weeds greening the cement while a lean man in an anorak talks into a phone without turning around, his eyes hidden under a baseball cap. Ben kicks to be free of her arms and he begins to shriek and when she puts him down he is gone at a run and she catches him and must carry him sideways under her arm. The driver climbs into the rear of the truck and kicks a lone duffel bag to the edge then jumps down, points to the man on the phone. That there’s the Gaffer, just do what he says and yous’ll be alright. They follow the Gaffer through a metal door and along a corridor of peeling paint into a bare industrial room, the smell of damp and squalor, cardboard pallets on a cement floor with brown blankets and three new windowpanes with bars looking out onto a yard. Molly has taken a space beneath a window and she puts her bag down and holds out her arms for Ben while a shapeless woman directs two teenage boys onto the pallets beside them, the woman glancing across at Eilish, she introduces herself as Mona and Eilish sees into her eyes and knows the story of the woman’s life without a word having to be spoken. The Gaffer by the door thumbing at his phone, he brings up two fingers and makes a silent headcount and then he clears his throat. Alright you lot, listen up, this is the lie of the land, yous will be here just for a few days but so long as yous are here nobody gets to go outside and this door will be locked at all times, there’s a toilet in that room with a shower rigged up and there’s two bins in the corner, yous will get three square meals a day until it’s time to go, for those with small children, make a list of what yous want, nappies and formula, that kind of thing, I’ll come back for it in a while. A man in a tweed jacket steps forward holding a child while pointing towards the toilet. Are you having a laugh? he says, this place is unfit for habitation, take a look how many infants and small children there are and not a single heater and just one small sink between them, you must be out of your mind. The Gaffer stands before the man incalculable, he lifts a hand to his own face and backs it through stubble without lifting his eyes from the man. Don’t be a stupid cunt, he says, and the man lowers his eyes and begins to mutter then walks away. Eilish watching the Gaffer, she feels her chest grow tight as she searches for the eyes in the shadow of the hat and imagines there are none as he steps outside and locks the door. She feels a sudden twist of panic, turns to the barred windows and puts a hand to the glass, looking past the yard to the corner of a building and beyond to maroon shipping containers and further still a brambled field, hills and sky. Twenty-three people in the room and by evening there are forty-seven, a hard rain pulling down the dark, a pregnant woman has to be helped to sit down on the ground and already people have begun to form small groups. She does not want to talk to anyone, there aren’t enough electricity points to charge their phones, Áine will want to know how we are. A young boy with a swatch of grey hair stands at the top of the queue for the bathroom cupping his hands between his legs while his father calls and knocks on the door. Ben is whingeing for his dinner but she has only one cracker left, nobody knows what time the food will come. An elderly man bangs on the main door and shouts for them to hurry up with the dinner, there is no answer, it is a quarter past eight when they hear the door unlock and a doleful young man with his hair in a ponytail steps inside wearing an army surplus coat, his hands ringed with plastic bags full of take-away, a panicked look in his eyes as the people begin to crowd around him. Jesus fuck, he says, would yous ever stand back. He puts the bags on the table and returns with more. It is Mona who brings up her hands and calls for order in the room. Agreement is made to form a queue led by one member from each group. Molly goes and returns with Chinese fried rice and spoons it out onto paper plates. Eilish can eat only a little, she has not seen Molly eat like this for some time, Ben throwing a fistful of rice onto the floor and Eilish sweeps it up with her hand. The dark outside dense against the glass while the room remains in hard light, there is a meeting to decide on the use of the bathroom, it is agreed that it will be used one group a time, nobody can agree on what time to turn off the lights, children are crying and cannot sleep. It is past nine o’clock already, says a man standing up. If you don’t turn those lights off now and let my children sleep I’ll put those lights off for good.

Days pass by and she watches the rainlight in its rivering drift, the winter taking from each passing day what the days have come to know and yet the heart remains in knowing, this heart that beats like a drum on her grief. There is no word from the Gaffer about when the time will come to go, the people huddling in groups and some of them sleep during the day while she tries to amuse Ben with some toys, he wants to go outside and she cannot explain. She finds herself watching Molly but seeing Bailey, the close-cropped hair and freckled eyes, the gapped teeth in the narrow mouth, only the slender, up-turned nose does not belong and yet beneath the nose lies the philtrum that she painted onto his mouth at birth. She watches him and is present with him and she seeks to remain with him in this null space of looking, Molly giving her a strange look before turning away. When Eilish closes her eyes now she sees only the past, a past that belongs to somebody else and she is emptiness watching from some cold and bottomless dark and is met with the feeling of the world grown intolerable, watching her husband and eldest son taken by a silence that cannot be pierced, it is as though a door opened onto nothingness and each one stepped inside and was gone. Each day she sits with her phone scrolling through the death certificates published daily by the regime, waiting for Larry’s name to appear and the relief when it doesn’t only adds to her grief. Rain dashed against the windows, sliced white bread and tubs of butter for breakfast with cold cooked sausages. They stand in line for the bathroom while a youth seated against the wall leans into a cigarette and exhales overhead and a woman turns with a child on her breast and shouts for him to put it out while the youth huffs himself to standing and joins a group of men. There is no lock on the bathroom door, the shower is rigged from a wall tap and the cold water dribbles into an open drain, she has only a small piece of soap and a hand towel to dry herself, Molly refusing to wash, she holds Ben flailing in the air while Eilish soaps him with cold water. There is a sick child in the room and it is the same child that has been crying each night, Mona returning from the group gathered around the parents. That woman holding the child now is an intensive care nurse, she says, the child needs to go to hospital but the parents don’t know what to do. When the youth comes through the door he is met by the nurse who points to the parents and the child, his hands are full of plastic bags and he has not had time to lower his hood. He makes a face as the nurse follows him to the table. Past three o’clock the Gaffer steps into the room ringing keys in his hand. He squats down beside the couple and pulls back his cap to reveal narrow eyes and a shaven skull, he is older than she has thought, he stands up and looks down askance while shaking his head. I can’t bring a doctor in here, he says, soon as the weather turns yous’ll be leaving anyhow, yous can have all the doctors in the world then. The nurse steps towards the Gaffer and takes him by the arm but he shakes her off with an angry look. If I take yous to the hospital there’s no coming back, do yous hear, there’s no getting back what yous paid either, that’s completely out of the question, it’s not even mine to return, so if yous want to go, yous are deciding to go of your own accord and yous will be on your own, I will arrange for somebody to drop yous up to a hospital, tell me what yous want to do. Music from the keys jangling in the Gaffer’s hand and the young parents cannot decide, the mother lowers her head and begins to cry. For Christ’s sake, the Gaffer says, I’m giving yous one hour to make up your minds. Eilish watching the child limp in the father’s arms and she thinks, it is only a small child, what loss will he be to them, they’ve hardly had time to live with him yet, and she stares at the small hands and begins to cry and Mona comes forward on her knees and reaches out offering to take Ben, bounces him on her lap. You’re a fine boy, aren’t you, so big and strong, you’ll make a fine athlete I’ll bet. Her face goes very still and for a moment she stares into space then shakes her head. So much suffering, she whispers, my husband, he went to the shop and didn’t return, I never saw him again, my brother, my first cousin and his wife and their children all missing. For a moment it looks as though the musculature of her face is going to subside and then with effort she rights it again. We were offered visas, you know, to Australia, and we turned them down, my husband said no, plain and simple, he said it was impossible to go at the time and I suppose he was right, and how could he have known anyhow, how could any of us have known what was going to happen, I suppose other people seemed to know, but I never understood how they were so certain, what I mean is, you could never have imagined it, not in a million years, all that was to happen, and I could never understand those that left, how they could just leave like that, leave everything behind, all that life, all that living, it was absolutely impossible for us to do so at the time and the more I look at it the more it seems there was nothing we could do anyhow, what I mean is, there was never any real room for action, that time with the visas, how were we supposed to go when we had so many commitments, so many responsibilities, and when things got worse there was just no room for manoeuvre, I think what I’m trying to say is that I used to believe in free will, if you had asked me before all this I would have told you I was free as a bird, but now I’m not so sure, now, I don’t see how free will is possible when you are caught up within such a monstrosity, one thing leads to another thing until the damn thing has its own momentum and there is nothing you can do, I can see now that what I thought of as freedom was really just struggle and that there was no freedom all along, but look, she says, taking Ben by the hand and dancing him, we are here now aren’t we and so many other people are gone, we’re the lucky ones seeking a better life, there is only looking forward now, isn’t that right, perhaps there is a little freedom to be found in that thought because at least you can make the future your own in your thoughts and if we keep looking back we will die in a way and there is still some living to be done, my two boys, look at them, both of them the image of their father, they have their lives to live and I will make sure of that, your children too, they have to live— oh please don’t cry, I’m sorry, Eilish, if I said something to upset you, look, let me fix your hair, I’m looking at it now since we got here and it’s obvious you did it yourself, it just needs a little fixing, that’s all, I used to do a nixer at a hairdresser’s during the summers when I was a student a lifetime ago, I can fix your daughter’s hair while I’m at it.

Eilish stands at the window watching outside as the mother follows the Gaffer with the child in her arms while the father steps behind with their baggage, the rain striking the concrete, it falls beaded onto the window and she watches her reflection in the glass and sees the shadow of a face grown old, her face that of another. She looks to the sky watching the rain as it falls through space and there is nothing to see in the ruined yard but the world insisting on itself, the cement’s sedate crumbling giving way to the rising sap beneath, and when the yard is past there will remain the world’s insistence, the world insisting it is not a dream and yet to the looker there is no escaping the dream and the price of life that is suffering, and she sees her children delivered into a world of devotion and love and sees them damned to a world of terror, wishing for such a world to end, wishing for the world its destruction, and she looks at her infant son, this child who remains an innocent and she sees how she has fallen afoul of herself and grows aghast, seeing that out of terror comes pity and out of pity comes love and out of love the world can be redeemed again, and she can see that the world does not end, that it is vanity to think the world will end during your lifetime in some sudden event, that what ends is your life and only your life, that what is sung by the prophets is but the same song sung across time, the coming of the sword, the world devoured by fire, the sun gone down into the earth at noon and the world cast in darkness, the fury of some god incarnate in the mouth of the prophet raging at the wickedness that will be cast out of sight, and the prophet sings not of the end of the world but of what has been done and what will be done and what is being done to some but not others, that the world is always ending over and over again in one place but not another and that the end of the world is always a local event, it comes to your country and visits your town and knocks on the door of your house and becomes to others but some distant warning, a brief report on the news, an echo of events that has passed into folklore, Ben’s laughter behind her and she turns and sees Molly tickling him on her lap and she watches her son and sees in his eyes a radiant intensity that speaks of the world before the fall, and she is on her knees crying, taking hold of Molly’s hand. I’m so sorry, she says, and Molly looks at her with a frown and she shakes her head then pulls her mother into a hug. But you’ve nothing to be sorry for, Mam, and Eilish is trying to smile as Molly wipes at her mother’s eyes. What time is it now? Eilish says, I need you to send a message to Áine. She takes Ben into her arms and turns and casts an unforgiving look towards a teenager playing loud techno on his phone, says to Molly, do you think he’ll ever stop?

The lights are off when the door unlocks and the Gaffer steps into the room shining a torch at the wall. Where’s the fucking lights? he says, and a man answers, they’re over this side. People sit up rubbing their eyes against the sudden light while the Gaffer wades over the sleeping bodies to the centre of the room. Alright, everybody, listen up, yous are going to be leaving tonight, we’re going to come at 2am sharpish, so yous need to be ready to file outside and keep the children quiet, there won’t be room for your bags, yous are allowed to take just one small backpack or shopping bag per person and that includes one bag per child, if yous don’t do what we ask your bags will be taken away and yous’ll go without any, that’s all I have to say. He has turned to go when a woman calls out, what do you mean about the bags, nobody told us about the bags, others begin to remonstrate but the Gaffer puts his hands up and stops them. One bag per person, that’s all I have to say on the matter. When he is gone out the door people begin at their belongings cursing the man, Eilish laying everything out on the floor while Ben remains asleep, Molly sitting with her arms folded. Mam, I don’t know what to take, I don’t want to go. Just take two changes of clothes, you can always buy more clothes later on, you must take the things you can’t replace. She is holding in her hand a photo frame and she turns it around and prises open the back and slides the photo into her passport, Molly watching and then she lowers her face in tears. Mam, she says, please, why do we have to go, I don’t want to go, it’s not safe, you know it’s not safe, all those people—— Eilish reaches for her hand and squeezes. We’ve talked about this enough times, haven’t we? she says, we could talk about it all night, Áine has arranged everything, there is no other path for us, not now. The door unlocks at 2am and a hand reaches for the lights and it is not the Gaffer but an unshaven man in a beanie hat calling in a Scottish voice for them to remain quiet, Eilish with Ben asleep on her chest and a bag on her back and in her hand a shopping bag with all that she needs for him, she turns to look at their belongings, the room full of abandoned luggage and rubbish and ruined cardboard and the air heavy with sweat and soiled nappies, a freshening cold air outside and the clouds vanished. They follow to the rear of the property where an articulated truck is parked, a man with a torch instructs them to climb into the container and a child is bawling as people begin to mount the step ladder, Molly will not move forward and Eilish nudges her, telling her to follow, she pushes at her back until Molly relents and climbs the step, seeing their way forward by the light of a phone and there are pallets to sit on and everybody is watching as the man in the beanie hat stands at the door and says, this won’t take long, remember to keep silent when the truck stops and keep those children quiet. There is a hinged groan as the doors are swung shut and a child screams as they are sealed into the container, somewhere inside a woman begins to pray and Molly grips hold of her mother’s hand when the engine starts. Eilish whispering to Larry, telling him that everything is going to be fine and when she opens her eyes the container is filled with white light from phones and people are sending messages and following the truck’s route and after some time the truck slows and makes a turn and travels along a road at low speed until it comes to a stop and gasps. The rear door is unbolted and gives to dim light and a man tells them to climb out quietly, Molly gripping her mother’s hand as they step through the container. The wish to be at one with the dawn, this feeling of the new day waiting to emerge and a man offers Eilish his hand and she climbs down knowing the shape of the Gaffer standing with his hands in his pockets. An old bungalow leaden in the dark, the night hushed and the world unexpressed but for a breeze that hurries them along. Soon the dawn will come and they walk as a group along a narrow road with children in their arms past a field of silent cattle and not a word is spoken and for a moment the light of the Gaffer’s torch powers on and then it is turned off again. It is then the sea is visible, the sound of the ocean woven with the racing breeze as they cross a road and follow a sandy path through dunes onto a beach and she knows the name of this beach, she has been here so many times before, and there is a man standing in a pale anorak with his hood pulled up texting into a phone and she sees two inflatable boats by the water’s edge and something inside her is flung when she sees the ocean dark and barren but for the rollers breaking whitely by the headland. The man calls out something but his words are unheard and she follows the others towards the life vests piled on the beach and there aren’t enough to go around, she takes one for Molly but Molly refuses to put it on, she is shaking her head and Eilish says, look, I have Ben strapped to my chest, I’d never get it on anyhow, and Molly is crying openly as the man in the anorak appoints one man to pilot each boat, and Eilish can hear what the man is saying as he hands each of them a GPS, direct the motor towards the coordinates and you’ll be there in no time. Molly is having trouble with her vest, she flaps her hands and Eilish adjusts the straps and looks into her daughter’s face. For an instant it seems the world has been silenced, a silence that belongs only to the mouthing darkness of the horizon beyond it and Molly is pleading with her not to go, she begins to shout, Mam, please, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to do this, and Eilish stands a moment watching the people climb into the boats and she sees the wind racing into their mouths as though to wrench something from out of them and she watches the dim and sloping headland and she sees in a far field a horse standing softly blue and she watches the blue horse and something becomes known to her. She looks for Molly’s eyes and cannot find the right words, there are no words now for what she wants to say and she looks towards the sky seeing only darkness knowing she has been at one with this darkness and that to stay would be to remain in this dark when she wants for them to live, and she touches her son’s head and she takes Molly’s hands and squeezes them as though saying she will never let go, and she says, to the sea, we must go to the sea, the sea is life.