The Scorpio Races

“Tommy Falk?” echoes one of the spectators next to him, a mainlander by his navy suit coat and tie, even down here on the sand. “Good-looking boy?”

I have no idea if he is or not. “Maybe yes at that?”

He points toward the curve of the cliffs. The race official, as an afterthought, adds, “Someone was looking for you, Mr. Kendrick.” I wait for him to say who, but he doesn’t, so I step away. In all this I’ve lost Puck. Everyone looks the same in this vile weather. If all of the capaill uisce are black when they’re wet, so is every human. The beach is populated by dark, insensible beasts and the smaller dark creatures on their backs. There’s no point calling for her; in five feet all sound becomes the savage howl of the wind.

With my eyes, I finally find not Puck, not Tommy Falk, but his mare. She is blacker than a mirror and unmistakable with her fine bone. She stands about ten lengths away in the shelter of the cliffs, tied near another capall uisce, her head low to the ground. The mare’s still in her tack, but there’s no sign of Tommy Falk about her. I think perhaps that Puck has seen her as well, so I head toward the mare, across the loose stones of the high beach.

But before I get even halfway there, I find Puck. Tucked behind the curve of the cliff road, slightly protected from the weather, there are four bodies stretched out parallel to each other, dark outlines on the pale beach, casualties of the morning. Puck crouches beside one of them, not touching or even looking at it. Just hunched down against the wind, studying the ground between her feet.

I walk over to stand beside her and look down at the battered face of Tommy Falk.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

PUCK

The next day is both the last day before the races and Tommy Falk’s funeral. I am driven to distraction by the idea of the race tomorrow, which feels like a disservice to Tommy. But when I try to tell myself Tommy Falk is dead, all I can think about is him and Gabe tossing that chicken around our house.

When I leave with Dove, Gabe is still lying in his bed, his door cracked open so that I can see that he stares up at the ceiling. By the time I get home, he has moved the debris I’ve put in front of the fence section the capall uisce destroyed and is smashing nails into boards. I can’t stay in the house because I keep thinking that tomorrow is the race and tomorrow is only one night’s sleep away, so Finn and I go to Dory Maud’s to help her get a new batch of catalogs ready to mail. When we get back, Gabe has transformed the yard – pulled up every weed and piled every bit of scrap into a heap behind the lean-to – but I can see that it hasn’t made him forget that Tommy Falk is dead. When we walk into the yard, he looks at us for half a minute before his face changes into something like recognition. His hands are shaky, and I make him eat something. I don’t think he’s stopped working all day. As afternoon turns into evening, Beech Gratton arrives, and he and Gabe exchange a grim- lipped greeting. Then we’re dressed and off to the western cliffs.

Gabe doesn’t tell us much about Tommy’s funeral, only that the Falks are “old Thisby” and that means that the funeral will involve neither St. Columba nor Father Mooneyham, but will instead take place on the rocks by the sea. Finn looks nervous at this, as anything that involves his immortal soul tends to make him nervous, but Gabe tells him to be decent and that it’s just as good a religion as any brand that our parents wore, that the Falks were the best sort of people you’d want to meet. He says it all in a very faraway sort of voice, like he is pulling the words from a storage cabinet for us. I sense that he’s drowning but I don’t have any idea of how to start to put my hand into the water to save him.

We have to pick our way across the long ragged cliffs to the western beach, which is rockier and more uncertain than the racing beach. The ocean is glazed gold in the evening light, and there is a fire burning just out of the reach of the water. We’re met by a small funeral party; I recognize many of my father’s fishermen friends among them.

“Thank you for coming, Gabe,” says Tommy Falk’s mother. I see now that she’s the one who Tommy had gotten his lips from, but if the rest of her is beautiful, I can’t tell, because her eyes are red and small from loss.

She takes Gabe’s hands. Gabe says, so serious that I’m suddenly ferociously proud of him despite everything, “Tommy was my best friend on this island. I’d have done anything for him.” She says something back, but I don’t hear what it is, because I’m so surprised to see that Gabe is crying. He’s still speaking to her quite plainly, but as he does, tears course down his cheeks with every blink. I find, weirdly, that I can’t watch him do it, so I leave him and Finn with her and move toward the fire.

It only takes me a moment to realize that it’s not just a bonfire, but a pyre. It smokes and crackles, the loudest thing on the beach. The flames are orange and white against the deep blue of the evening sky, and the wet, flat sand reflects them like a mirror. Each wave extinguishes the reflection and then returns it. It’s been burning for a very long time, with a mound of glowing coals and ash beneath it, and I am stricken when I see a somehow unmolested scrap of Tommy Falk’s jacket caught on the timbers.

I think: He was just sitting at our table in that jacket.

“Puck, isn’t it?”

I look to my left and see a man standing there, his arms folded neatly in front of him, as if he stands in church. Of course I know that he’s Norman Falk, now that I look at him, because I remember him standing in our kitchen the exact same way, talking to my mother. I’d just always thought of his face and thought fisherman, not Tommy Falk’s father. Beside him is a kid, possibly one of Tommy’s siblings. Norman Falk doesn’t look anything like Tommy. He smells like Gabe, which is to say, like fish.

“I’m sorry about this,” I say, because that’s what people said to me after our parents died.

Norman Falk’s eyes are dry as he looks into the pyre. The boy leans against his leg, and Norman Falk puts a hand on his shoulder. “We would’ve lost him either way.”

It seems a funny sort of comfort. I can’t imagine thinking that about Gabe. There is Gabe being dead, which is forever.

And there is Gabe being happy somewhere I might never see him again. It might feel the same to me, but I’m quite certain it wouldn’t feel the same to Gabe.

“He was very brave,” I offer, because it sounds polite in my head. My face is getting hot from the flames; I want to step back but I don’t want to seem like I’m stepping away from the conversation.

“That he was. Everyone will remember him on that mare.” There’s naked pride in Norman Falk’s voice. “We’ve asked Sean Kendrick to give her back to the sea, and he’s said yes. We’re doing it right for Tommy.”

I ask, ever so polite, trying to pretend that Sean Kendrick’s name hasn’t interested me, “Give her back to the sea, sir?”

Norman Falk spits behind him, hard, so that he won’t spit on the boy at his side, and then turns back to the pyre. “Yes, releasing her the proper way. Give the dead some respect, like we used to. Give the capaill some respect. It’s not about the tourists coming in and lining pockets. It’s about the capaill uisce and us, and anything less than that makes it a dirty sport.” Then he seems to remember who he’s talking to, because he says, “There’s no place for you on the beach, now, Puck Connolly. You and your mare. Shouldn’t be. I knew your father and I liked him, but I think what you’re doing’s wrong, if you’ll hear me.”

I feel shamed for no reason I can name, and then I feel bad that I’ve let myself be shamed. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful.”

Norman Falk’s voice is kind enough. “’Course you don’t. You just don’t have a mum and dad to set you right. That horse of yours is just a horse, is the problem. If the Scorpio Races are just horse races, then all this” – Norman Falk jerks his chin toward the flames – “was just a bloody shame and nothing else.”

Two weeks ago, I would’ve thought he was crazy, that of course it was just about the race, the money, the thrill. And if I’d just been watching the training on the beach, I probably would’ve still said that. But now that I’ve spent time with Sean Kendrick, now that I’ve been on the back of Corr, I feel something inside me slipping. I’m still not sure it was worth Tommy dying for. But I can see the allure of having one foot on the land and one foot in the