The pickup stank of animal shit and blood. My aunt Eithne was driving, changing gears with the heel of her hand, an unlit cigarette hanging from her lip. My mother had asked her not to smoke. She was nauseated enough as it was and sat with her head half hanging out of the window, a pained look on her face. I sat scrunched between them, the gearstick drumming against my knee. Behind me, in the truck bed, our belongings lay beneath a fluttering tarp.

It’s beautiful here, my mother said.

The house was on a hill. It had been a tiny cottage, but over the years Eithne and her husband Columba had been adding onto it. It now had a conservatory and in behind, hidden from the road, two shipping containers had been turned into an open-plan bathroom and shower, and a kitchen you had to step up into. A shed to the left had been repurposed into a makeshift veterinary clinic for Eithne. She had retired a few years ago but kept the space ready in case of emergencies. The local vet was not always available. There was also a smaller shed to the right, which Columba used as an art studio.

When we pulled up, Eithne shouted for Columba. I got out of the car and waved at him and he showed me, with a hovering hand, the height I was the last time he saw me.

Will you go and help her out, said Eithne to Columba.

He opened my mother’s door a crack and asked if she was fit to walk to the house.

I’m fine, I’m fine, my mother said.

She threw a skinny arm around his shoulder and they hobbled towards the house and I followed after them. Columba ducked in and, in the gloom, directed my mother to a big chair by the fire. She sighed and pushed the hair back from her face and said, Now.

Now, said Columba.

I wanted to say it too, but I didn’t.

That’s one job, said Columba. What’s next?

He went back outside to Eithne and I was left alone with my mother. Come here, she said.

She was still catching her breath.

Come here, she said again, and when I reached her, she took my hand and patted it. Good boy, she said and then, looking around her, she said, It’s nice, isn’t it?

I followed her eyes and took the room in. It was one of two rooms from the original house and the walls were exposed stone. From nails driven into the stone, paintings hung and swung in the breeze. There were floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books, and secured to the far wall was an old tackle box containing old medals and coins. A tiny ace of hearts was pinned to a post by a thumbtack.

From outside came the sound of the truck bed opening and then my uncle’s weight as he jumped up onto it. I angled my head to watch as he tossed the black bags of our clothes onto the ground. My mother rubbed my hand and assured the room that we’d be happy here.

 

Our two rooms, the ground floor of the old house, were connected by a door and a shared chimney. Eithne told me not to light my fire without asking first, and either way, if I was cold, I could just go and sit with Mam. Mam’s fire would always be lit. My bed was a couch covered in heavy quilts, and when my uncle assured me that it was perfectly comfortable my mother snorted a laugh that set her coughing. The first night was cold and I found it hard to sleep. Above me on a mezzanine, my aunt and uncle slept, and Columba snored loudly.

 

*

 

It was just after breakfast when my auntie asked if I’d like to go for a walk around the roads.

Young man like you needs exercise, she said.

I didn’t look down, but became intensely conscious of my sticky-out belly and the sad soft cones of my chest. I looked to my mother for help, but she didn’t seem to be listening. She was sitting at the front window running her fingers along the fronds of a small plant.

Your mam will be fine without you for an hour, said Eithne. Columba will be here.

Columba was by the sink, rinsing bowls.

What’s that, he said.

Mal and I are going to go for a wee stroll.

Oh good.

Go on and get your coat. It looks OK out, but the rain is never very far away.

My aunt walked slowly with her hands clasped behind her back and a cigarette rolling between her fingers like a magician’s coin. I trudged along beside her wishing I was anywhere else. With her chin raised and her eyes heavily lidded she told me about the land and how it was being destroyed by forestry. Farmers who couldn’t see the bigger picture sold small plots to developers and bit by bit the rolling hills were blanketed with conifers. Houses that had held generations were left to rack and ruin.

Cunts, she said. Fucking cunts.

The road wound through the valleys like a river and we took or didn’t take turn-offs and went up and down hills, stopping sometimes to look at old abandoned houses or to say sucksuck to cows or sheep. The cows came over in one big shuffling mass and ate torn grass out of Eithne’s hand. I was too nervous to approach and stood back until my auntie got bored. At a random point in the road, she stopped to look at the sky and then suggested we go back.

That’s far enough for today, she said. Tomorrow we’ll go in the other direction.

 

At dinner my auntie told my mother that we’d had a great time out walking. We were eating baked potatoes with vegetarian sausages and a beetroot and sweetcorn salad. I had to cut up my mother’s food for her.

Did you see anything nice? she asked me.

Yeah, I said. We saw some cool abandoned buildings.

And a buzzard, said Eithne, reminding me of the big bird we saw on the way home.

My mother asked what a buzzard was.

Big bird of prey, said Columba. Like an eagle.

He pinched salt from a small bowl and sprinkled it over his potatoes. I did the same and ate them and the sausages. I had some of the salad but I didn’t really like it. Eithne pointed at my plate with a fork and said, Eat up. Good for you.

I’m full, I said.

Shortly after, my mother asked to be excused. Columba got up to help her. He led her back to her bed where I heard her groan as she lay down. I was about to ask Eithne if she had heard from my father, but Columba came back and, rubbing his hands, sat back to his dinner. I pushed the plate away from me and said I was done.

 

The next morning we took a right, and when we came to a small stone bridge over a narrow stream we paused and looked down at the goats drinking. There were loads of them with twitchy ears and bells around their necks. Eithne breathed in deeply and told me that she loved their smell. I didn’t love their smell.

The day was bright and its colours—the blue of the sky, and the green of the fields and trees—were almost cartoonish. Up ahead the sun was causing the road to shimmer and into it, as if summoned from some other world, came the shape of a huge black bull. Two great horns, a glimmering nose ring. I turned to flee but my auntie’s arm barred my path. She pulled me close and told me to stay still.

It’s only Cisco’s bull, she said. It’s gotten out again.

I squirmed in her grip. The bull was still coming towards us, its bulk shifting and shuddering with each step, its hooves clacking on the tarmac. I couldn’t seem to comprehend its presence there on that peaceful road. Fear shot through me and I rose above myself. The urge to run expanded my chest. My auntie shushed me and told me to look. See, she said. He’s not coming for us. He’s just lost. Come on and we’ll turn him around.

No, I said, and grabbed hold of her arm. No, please.

It’s fine, Mal, she said. I’ve treated this bull before. He knows me.

I whimpered again but acquiesced. The bull was only a few feet away now but had stopped to chew the grass in the verge. As my aunt approached, it looked up and she stopped. She stood tall and in her deepest voice said, Hup, hup.

I expected the bull to stamp. I expected it to lower its head and charge. But it didn’t. It went back to the grass. Eithne whispered for me to get behind her and then, with both arms outstretched, she stepped forward again.

Hup, she shouted. Hup.

The bull regarded her for a moment and then shook its massive head. I squealed and Eithne told me to whisht up. She continued to shout and move towards it and eventually the bull turned itself back the way it came and started walking.

It’s a long way yet to Cisco’s, Eithne said, so just stay beside me.

The bull never looked back and only stopped to gaze at a car easing past it. The driver, a big burly man, stopped for a moment to speak to Eithne.

Is that Cisco’s again, he said.

Aye, said my auntie. Just bringing him back now.

God bless you, Eithne.

She called the man by his name and said it’s easy done with good help. She patted my shoulder. When the man drove away, I helped my aunt out with the shouting.

Hup, I shouted. Hup, hup.

Cisco’s farm was on the floor of the valley and was made of two buildings. One was an old stone cowshed with an empty doorframe and empty windows. The other was a square two-storey building with half of its roof fallen in. Cisco lived in there. The land around the buildings had been mostly retaken by nature. Dotted here and there were old pieces of machinery, tractors rusted and entwined with brambles, and trailers lacking tyres, their tongues dipped forever into the dirt. The bull instinctively took the turn down towards the old buildings, and halfway down Eithne guided it through an open gate and locked it in. We stood and looked at the house. There was no sign of anyone there.

Is he home? I asked.

Oh he’s home all right, said Eithne. He never leaves.

She took a few steps towards the house and shouted Cisco’s name.

She waited a moment for an answer and then shouted again that the bull was back and if he needed anything, to come and see her. As if she expected him to change his mind and come out, she stood a moment longer. It was deathly quiet, the cawing of crows the only sound. She looked in all the windows of the house before she was satisfied enough to leave. We trekked back up the hill, our hands on the tops of our thighs for leverage against the incline.

 

In the evening my mother was too tired to come to the table, so she and I ate dinner in her room. Propped up by pillows, she forked flakes of salmon into her mouth and chewed. She was quiet and so was I. I was sitting on a short stool by the fire with my plate on my knee. I was not hungry for this food.

I wish I could have a burger, I said.

You eat what your aunt has given you now, good boy.

But I don’t like it.

She told me to keep my voice down.

When is dad coming? I asked.

She said my name softly, with renewed patience. Your father isn’t coming here.

But what if you asked him? He can come and bring me to the chipper.

He’s not coming, Mal.

But why?

He just isn’t.

But why?

The noise of her cutlery hitting her plate startled me. She put her hands over her eyes like a saint. She drew a horrible stuttering breath and let out a low whine that brought me to my feet and to her bed. I rubbed her shoulder and told her not to cry.

Eithne appeared in the doorway and then went around the other side of the bed. She took the plate off my mother’s lap and handed it to me. Bring that to the sink now, good man.

I took it and the fork fell, and as I picked it up and left the room, I heard my aunt shush my mother and tell her it would all be OK, but the crying didn’t stop.

 

The next day Columba brought me with him to town to do the shopping. Not far out the road, he pointed out his window and said, There’s your friend there.

I leaned across the gearbox and strained my neck, but I couldn’t quite see down the valley.

Is it the bull? I asked.

Yep, that’s him there, said Columba, and then he asked if I was scared of him when I met him on the road.

I wanted to say I wasn’t, but I was, and I told him so.

You’re right to be scared. Bulls are dangerous creatures. Even if they know you, you can never be quite sure how they’re going to react. You were lucky Eithne was there with you.

Yeah, I said. She knew what to do.

I’d hate to be the bull who goes up against her, he said. Mincemeat.

The road rose higher and higher and soon we were above the trees and the land below stretched out before us: a patchwork of fields divided by stone walls; minor roads servicing villages, and major ones carrying convoys of lorries and vans glinting with sunlight. Off on the horizon, the crystal wink of the sea.

In the fluorescent lights of the big shop, I tried to put a microwave burger in the trolley. Columba saw it and told me sadly that he couldn’t let me get it.

Not my rules, lad, he said.

I put it back with abject disappointment and the shopping continued. Along every aisle and up to the counter, I listened as he made small talk with the cashier, and outside I toed the loose stones of the carpark as he transferred the bags into the pickup’s footwell. It started to rain as we left, and after filling up on diesel Columba stopped again on the edge of town. He told me he’d be back in a minute and I watched him as he fixed the waist of his jeans and disappeared around a corner.

It was almost twenty minutes before he returned. In the crook of his arm was a brown paper bag that, when he hopped back into the truck, released its smell to me. I was swept away with such familiarity that I almost cried.

Here, said Columba, handing me the crackling bag. Get that into you fast and don’t tell the women. All right?

I opened the bag to find a hot and heavy quarter-pounder and a scattering of loose salty chips. I stuffed my face as though to stop from sobbing. It tasted so good and in seconds I had most of it gone. Columba was watching me, but he didn’t say anything, only turned the key in the ignition.

It was dark when we pulled up at the house.

Here gimme that, said Columba.

I handed him the scrunched up ball of chipper bag and with the key still in the ignition and the radio playing, he bounced it on his knee and sighed.

I know you miss your father, he said. But he’s not coming back.

Why?

Columba sighed again. It’s hard to explain, Mal. Your father just couldn’t hack it, is all. Some men aren’t strong enough for situations like this.

 

The spits of rain we felt leaving the town that evening turned to heavy lashings that, whipped by strong winds, battered at the windows of the house. It got cold over the following weeks and I started sleeping on the chair before the fire in my mother’s room. Sometimes Columba would light my fire, and if my mother was feeling strong, she’d come and sit beside me, and the adults would have whiskey and tell stories. Mam never had any more than a fingerful and one night, when she couldn’t even finish that, I secretly sipped it before going to sleep warm and bold.

One such night, I asked to hear more about the bull and the man who owned it. Eithne was leaning forward in her chair, elbows on her knees and her hands joined together to hold a glass of wine. She was staring into the fire and I wasn’t sure she had heard me until she spoke.

Cisco’s an odd one, she said.

Very odd, Columba echoed from the kitchen where he was doing dishes.

Who’s this now, my mother asked.

Her eyes were heavy and she swung her head in slow confusion. I patted her hand and reminded her about the day we saw the bull.

Ah yes, Cisco, she said, and then laughed. What a name.

My auntie smiled and said, He was christened Francisco, after Saint Francis, but his mother now long dead was the only one to ever call him that. His father, God have mercy on him too, called him Frankie. I only know most of this from stories – his parents were long dead before I arrived – but apparently they were quite old when they had him.

Like old-old, said Columba, returning with his own glass of wine.

They were born in the early 1900s, said Eithne.

My mother screwed up her face in disbelief. Then what age does that make him?

I don’t think they had him until they were in their late forties, fifties. The mother at least. So that would make Cisco sixty-odd?

Columba stood at the fire, warming one hand. Around that, he said.

My mother wondered how on earth his mother had survived the childbirth.

It was a miracle, said Eithne. Probably didn’t do him any good. He was as odd as a fish. Didn’t even leave the house until he was twelve, when he took it upon himself to show up to the nearest school, eight miles away, dressed in one of his father’s old suits, the sleeves and legs rolled up.

Columba burst out laughing and my mother held her hand before her face and sniggered. I looked around me and smiled.

What did the teachers say, I asked.

I don’t think they minded much, said Eithne. It was the other kids that had the problem. They teased him endlessly and he never went back. Never really left the house since. He’s let the whole place fall down around him and now the only thing he has left is that bull.

That’s very sad, said Mam.

Desperate, said Eithne. Absolutely desperate.

 

Three nights later, during a particularly tough time for my mother, he showed up at the door: Cisco. He wasn’t wearing a coat or a hat, and in his jumper and jeans, he stood there soaked through. Water streamed down his face and off the end of his considerable nose. Eithne had answered the door and when she asked what was wrong, he gestured behind him with his head and said, Bull.

Has it gotten out again?

No, he said. The fucker’s sick.

Impatient to go, he took a few steps back and half-turned away.

Right, said Eithne. Go on and get in the truck and we’ll go down and sort him.

The rest of us watched as Eithne gathered her coat and her keys and then stood there for a moment trying to remember anything else she might need. I stood up and asked if I could go with her.

No, pet, she said. You better stay here with your mother.

But please, I said.

He can go if he wants, said Columba. I’ll stay here with Maura.

I followed Eithne into my mother’s room where, instead of asking if it was OK if I left with her, she put the back of a hand to her head and helped her drink some water.

I’ll be back soon, Mam, I said.

My mother dipped her head as though she were nodding off. She held an arm out for me to give her a hug and so I did. I leant my head on her shoulder and rubbed with my thumb the crochet knots of her cotton top. In my ear she told me to be good.

When I had gotten my coat on and was ready, Eithne was still standing in the middle of the room. What else? she said. What else?

Smokes, said Columba.

Yes, she said, and grabbed the golden pack and her lighter from the coffee table.

Up your hood, she said, and we ran out into the rain to where Cisco was waiting. When he saw that I was coming too, he shifted over on the seat, sitting between my auntie and me like a big child. The blood and shit smell of animals was replaced by a sour hum off Cisco and the sweet smell of rain.

As we arrived at the turn off for Cisco’s my auntie asked where the bull was.

He’s in the cow shed, said Cisco.

And what sort of state is he in?

He won’t stand up. Won’t eat.

Has he any wounds or anything?

Cisco said he had checked him all over and there were no signs of a hurt.

Eithne parked up beside the shed and told me to let Cisco out, but wait in the pickup for a minute. She left the headlights on full, pointing away out across the darkness and catching streaks of rain. I stood by the open door as Cisco climbed out and went past me and straight into the shed. Eithne reached for the big green bag under her seat and followed him in. All was dark for a few minutes and then the doors and windows lit up with buttery light. Eithne’s silhouette appeared in one of the windows and a dark hand waved for me to come in.

She had set up and turned on a standing floodlight and in its glow, like a pooling shadow, lay the bull. I had met it before, but in that space it was as foreign to me as a dragon. Cisco knelt by its side and stroked its jet-black flank, and it exhaled slow heavy breaths that stirred the dirt on the bare concrete floor.

Stay where he can see you, said Eithne.

She was hunkered over her vet’s bag and muttering about the possible cause of all this. The only word I caught was salmonella. Cisco didn’t seem to be listening. He stayed petting the bull, his little black eyes welling with tears.

You have to do something, woman, he said.

Eithne crossed the floor on her knees and inserted a large needle into the bull’s stomach and then another into its rump. Sitting back on her hunkers she said that that was all she could do.

Sometimes they just lie down, Cisco. And no one knows why they won’t get up.

Cisco swung his head in agony.

For what seemed like hours, we sat in silence, until Eithne’s phone rang and she stepped outside to take it. In the silence of Cisco’s pain, I could not help but listen to the call. My auntie asked was it serious and then after a moment said, Just make sure she’s comfortable. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

She hung up and pocketed the phone and stood in the rain and smoked. She held her head back and closed her eyes. I knew what was happening but hadn’t the power to do anything. I turned to the bull and knelt down beside it and scratched its nose. It tossed its head and I told it to shush. I told it that it was a good boy and I asked it not to leave just yet.

Stay a little longer, I said. Good man.

 

To read the rest of Dublin Review 91, you may purchase the issue here.