“Hey!” boasted one of the victors. “Ya’ know the only thing that’s harder to get than a twenty-nine cribbage hand? An eight-ender! Yes!” She roared and raised her victory fist.
It was documented. It was sketched for immediate re-photograph.
Over coffee, everyone sat and discussed how the end had unfolded.
A few of the curlers who’d given it up lamented. “How could we let this happen?” They lined their woe with could-haves and should-haves.
The winners talked of the many times they’d tried and almost achieved the illusive eight-ender. The moment would not be forgotten.
At the same instant, a bleak wind swept the Irish landscape. Inland for miles the North Sea’s pelting force could be seen in the whet of the trees and the grey of the air. The transit corridor had now become multi-fold, for trains or cars or horses or bicycles or foot traffic. Haste was the only assurance inside it, but the pastoral view from the hectic corridor was the same as it had always been.
Despite the impossible deadline, Liz felt in control and in charge. She knew she had to depart and go to the site of the grave. She would go even if she was meant to be late and all was lost. She had to hear the voice and sense the truth. It was the only choice.
Dean’s hair flew in the wind. He panted with the urgent message from Wanda as he approached Liz in the chaotic corridor interface. “I will move forward with the crowd and let them believe that we are lost,” he said. “I will take the message to the front and then we can make our move if he disembarks.”
They each visualized the private cruiser moored off the coast in the waters north of Antrim and the private darkly people there in wait. Then with strength, they shook it off, gave one another an encouraging smile and headed to their separate loading docks. “Hey!” Liz called at him through the crowd. “Don’t look so worried. Repeat it! Always message over might. Go with the people my man. They will turn with us when the time is there.”
Can granite actually cast a stoppage of time? Who would have known that those rocks of stone carried more than weight? Certainly, an aged curler could describe that time shift, the purity of the 8-ender, and the silence of the cold draw. These days though, too few remembered that it was always more than just a game.
Liz left the noisy shuttle train and an amiable chap pointed across the field to the local cemetery. Access was widely open to view by day and as luck would have it, the sun was breaking through to make the approach most obvious, so she could not feel small. The grass was golf course perfect and the walkways were English garden quaint. There was not a soul between the train dock and the refuge of the cemetery oasis three hundred meters overland. She was resigned. She would amble slowly and enjoy the unexpected bursts of sunshine. If her quest had been intercepted, surely this would be where they would meet.
“Maybe there is no glory in an eight-ender,” said Kevin with some strange disappointment. “They must feel so humiliated about giving it up.”
His team was only briefly aghast by his pensive outburst. Their glee could not be deflated. While they buzzed over the moment, he slowly walked toward the door leading to the empty rink of sheets. As it closed behind him and he re-entered the silence of the curling ice, he could hear the clank of glasses and the buzz of aprés curling through the viewing glass. All else was silence. He strolled to sheet five and walked over to the yellow stones, kicking them aside till he stood above number eight. It had been his last rock, the one that had clinched the moment.
He glanced up toward the viewing area to see whether he was being watched. Two kids on chairs were pointing at him from over sheet two. Their faces and hands were pressed against the glass, leaving a nonsense chore for the caretaker after the festivities were done. Inside, at the far end of sheet one, the ice-maker was lifting the score and placing the numbers back in the bin for tomorrow’s draw. Over by the payphone, through the glass, Ronnie, perpetual Ronnie, could be seen leaning in his chair, half snoozing in the din, looking toward the partiers. Beyond him, a few early birds had their coats on and were making for the door, but the party was definitely on, and there was not much attention to the ice, especially with the excitement of the eight-ender.
Kevin juggled the number eight stone out of the pack and kicked it toward the hack. He knelt to clean the rock, as he had, thousands before.
“Damn!” he thought. “My broom!”
In his haste to appear nonchalant he had walked out onto the ice without his broom. He’d stashed it under the table where the party was on. He had never done this before and became panicky. How could he re-throw his rock? How could he finish the spell? He knew he’d best not attract any extra attention. Would the delivery succeed? Would it scatter the point? He’d have to proceed and take the risk.
Liz realized how she must have looked as she stepped off the train dock. She had been through so much and the sense of urgency was exhausting her.
“Stupid stupid shoes,” she remarked to herself as she looked down at her feet that housed tacky white sling-backs, a throw back from the sixties; retro, they were called now. She’d spent yesterday evening at kareoke in Newcastle and had sipped several rums too many. But the rum was no burden. She lit a smoke as she started toward the spruce circle that was her destination.
“Anything, anything, not to be noticed,” she said to herself. The walk felt like eternity. The skin on the inside of her lips and cheeks felt prominent as time slowed down. She heard her spine as she turned her head from left to right.
“Yes,” she thought. “Time, time, play with me,” she prayed.
Wanda sat back and smelled the wind as the masses of train travellers moved toward the north coast. “I feel quite safe,” she softly whispered to the wind. “Momentum is neither force nor might,” she reminded herself.
Dean’s despair did not show as he moved forward with the crowd of people gleefully hoping for a glimpse of the mysterious craft. The crowd was a hopeful crowd, he thought. Could they be swayed? Would they care? Would it matter? He knew he was a worrier and so usually he lacked the special sensitivity. He knew then, that he simply must trust and listen crisply for cues. He listened for Wanda in the wind and wondered how she knew the people would be in motion. She always knew.
“What part does the broom play in the spell anyway?” Kevin consoled himself and weighed the value of privacy against the purpose he’d been granted. He had a critical role.
He could hear the voices in his head, “Deliver that stone. Deliver that stone, son. Just deliver that stone. A clean draw.”
He decided to stay put and take advantage of the privacy with only the oblivious ice maker at hand. He would deliver it without his broom. He crouched and tilted the rock. He wore no gloves and gently placed his hand on the smooth cold surface, looking at the new porcelain insert on its underbelly.
“Does it feel warmer? Does it feel different? What is my role?” Poor Kevin was driven to carry the task that had been handed to him from his mother and grandfather and curling uncles and aunts as long as any of them could remember good living room craic. He did know what he had to do. Could he carry it out for them all?
Liz could see the dew on the grass as she approached the glen. The stones were becoming apparent. She casually threw her cigarette into the dewy lawn and entered the shade of the shrubbery and majestic spruce circle. She was surprised that so many of the stones were being overgrown, some flat foot stones were barely visible. The cemetery was marked by soft white limestone for the most part. She relaxed with the bird songs, knowing from the stories that they sweetened when the time was richer. The creatures did not mind at all. She glanced back at the transport corridor and saw the motion but no apparent interest in her. How would she know? How would she know? She lit another smoke and sat on the arbour beside the gate, feeling relaxed and hoped that was a good sign.
Ronnie tilted his chair and giggled to himself. He couldn’t believe that destiny had placed this in his hands. This was his seventh eight-ender. No, he’d never been on the ice but he’d always hung around to be there, just in case. Never before had it mattered. But funny, he had never doubted. And now, here, in this prairie town, he was called to intervene. The children were fighting and giggling and jumping from chair to chair, banging the glass as they dodged one another.
Boom! Screech! Liz looked through the trees to the corridor. “Damn traffic,” she thought. The flashing lights at the station vibrated blue indicating a halt to all except bicycle and foot traffic. “Thank god we’re not in an air corridor,” she mumbled.
“Yah,” she heard a reply.
“Hey, Ronnie, my man! I wondered.” She took a slow drag on her smoke.
Kevin’s heart was pounding. Not a good sign. His assurance was wavering. He felt isolated and alone, like the big forget.
Wanda’s job was almost done. “We can survive it quite easily if the voice is muffled,” she spoke silently.
“Gordon,” she mused, “he cannot hear you. Ronnie is awake and we have smiles to carry us. There is no glory in annihilation. There never was. There never will be.”
Liz crunched her smoke under the heel of her sling back, stood and walked onto the wet grass to find baby Ricky and give him a little kiss. She had been given her instructions.
Kevin nervously glanced over his right shoulder and then his left as he settled into the hack to deliver. The kids were jumping around. The old guy by the phone was still rocking. The icemaker, was sweeping off the bottom of his lambskin down at the far end. “ Just do it,” he whispered to himself under his breath.
Dean thought he sensed, the crowd around him in the coastal access corridor had become, in some way, less focussed. The seaside was in view and the boat could be seen moored about 500 meters out. The sun was breaking through after days of rain, and the wind was abating. His heart was still pounding but an inexplicable happiness rather than fear was fuelling its fury.
Ronnie stood up and walked toward the glass behind sheet five. The partiers remained oblivious. The kids thought he was walking over to give them hell so they jumped down, crawled under the bleachers and started giggling.
Liz looked for granite. “Right,” she thought. “The angel, the dove, and the granite. Of course! They would test time. Ricky, where are you?” her voice lingered softly as if she was playing a wee game of hide-and-seek. She spotted a red piece of polished stone, half buried with the grass and soil of time in the cemetery. She pushed back the grass with her shoe and saw part of the inscription. The year was seventeen something. “Hmmm,” she thought. “It has been a while since the last one.”
Kevin did feel awkward without his broom, but he had come this far.
The crowd began to disembark from the coastal corridor and to Dean’s surprise, they moved casually in small groups, quietly enjoying the wintery seaside nature, paying little or no attention to the vessel that had seemed to be the focus of the journey.
Ronnie knelt and called the kids out from under the bleachers while reaching into his pocket to see if he had a loonie. “What’s your name son? Whose kid are you?” he barked gruffly.
“She’s a girl!” pouted the younger of the two. “I’m Garret and she’s my sister, Ricki.”
“We’re Gordons,” said Ricki.
“Ah fine then,” said Ronnie. “Come ‘ere. I got a loonie for each of you so you can go an’ have a piece of pie from the canteen.” He kissed each coin. As he placed them in the children’s hands he gently patted the tops of their heads and turned to see Kevin in his awkward back swing.
Liz pushed the dirt away and saw baby Ricky being lifted by an angel. She gave him a little kiss. Stood and lit a smoke.
Wanda leaned back and closed here eyes with a relaxed sigh.
Kevin counterbalanced the best he could without his broom, slid the draw forward and rotated awkwardly clockwise as the stone left his hand with acceptable draw weight. Not pretty, but delivered. He thought.
The yellow handle was released with an in-turn and rotated gently toward the rings at the far end.
The children ran to the canteen to collect their pie.
Ronnie returned to his seat, content that he had done his duty.
The flags on the boat anchored off the north shore of county Antrim stood outward in the wind. Fully clear to Dean who held his breath as he watched them rise to their wind position. Would the people see the banner Gordon? Would they be eager to heed? The February sun off the northern Irish coast was cold yet the people had been drawn to see one disembark and perhaps carry on.
Liz ambled back toward the train deck, prepared to accept either score.
The rock slid upon its own accord into the house. Twelve foot. Kevin stood and watched, feeling somehow small for the glory of the attempt to deliver for an unknown master.
Three banners: blue and red and yellow. Dean watched. The blue and red caught gusts and gathered themselves into nothing, tangled in the lanyards of their poles. The Yellow remained taught with the wind.
Eight foot. Four foot. Still moving.
Wanda sat upright, then stood wide-eyed and stern. She lifted her arms, palms open to the wind.
Ronnie glanced over his left shoulder and met Kevin’s indifferent eyes. He knew he knew.
Still moving. Biting the button. Beyond the button. Four foot eight foot. Still moving.
The crowds surrounding Dean on the coastal transport corridor were laughing and spirited and quite disinterested in the yellow banner, now moving naturally with the wind, its erection passing.
Slowing. Back twelve. It stopped with a bite of the back line.
Kevin shrugged and started walking down the ice to kick back the rock. The ice maker beat him to it with the six foot wide lambskin sweeper. He looked up sternly at Kevin as they approached one another at centre ice.
“I got it Jack,” said Kevin lightly.
“You got nothin’ Kevin,” said Jack, head down has he swept along the sheet four side board toward home.
“Maybe not.”
As the sun set and the crowds dispersed, Dean watched to be sure. The ship called anchor and set northward after the horizon.
