Summary
Cal continues to live in the cottage and work for the Mortons. He takes a few things from the farm to make the house more livable and goes each night to a nearby inn for cigarettes and food. In his cottage, he is able to observe Marcella in the house. He knows he will never be able to truly be with Marcella because of what he has done, and instead can only watch her from afar. One night Cal spies on Marcella while she is taking a bath. While watching her for a few minutes, he knows he is risking his job and his chance to be with her, so he runs back to the cottage. There, he thinks about her, again brooding over how ridiculous it is to love the one person in the world who is “forbidden him.”
Still, Cal wants to stay in the cottage for now, as he feels it is more easy there to avoid Crilly and Skeffington. He has the gun under the floor for when they come looking for him. Suddenly, the door to the cottage busts open and soldiers with rifles enter, telling Cal to freeze. They ask him what he’s doing there. The Mortons have phoned the police about someone in the cottage; Cal tells them he works at the farm and has been burned out of his own home. They take Cal to the main house, where the police talk with Marcella. After questioning him more and making him sign something, the police leave.
Mrs. Morton is very mad at Cal for staying in the cottage without permission and says he should have told them about his house being destroyed, as they had no idea. While she scolds him, Marcella tends to the wound on Cal’s head from the police raid. Mrs. Morton says that when she noticed someone in the cottage, it scared her and her husband very badly; they are still traumatized from the tragedy that happened a year ago. Marcella takes Mrs. Morton aside and when they return, the older woman says Cal can stay in the cottage and that she can deduct rent from his salary.
The next morning, Cal wakes up and finally bathes in the Mortons’ house. During his lunch break, he and Marcella start moving furniture from the house into the cottage. Cal notices how Marcella is more natural and playful when not around Mrs. Morton. Mrs. Morton says they will have to take the price of these items out of Cal’s’ salary. She makes Cal nervous, as he can’t tell when she is serious or joking. Once set up, Cal makes tea for Marcella and him in the cottage. There, she tells him a bit about her childhood in an Italian family. When she makes reference to the murder of her husband, Cal awkwardly tries to change the subject. When Cal tells Marcella that all his things burned in the fire, she offers him some of the clothes of her husband, asking him if he minds wearing the clothes of a “dead man”; Cal says no.
After spending nearly three hours together talking, Marcella leaves to attend to her daughter, who is tired. Cal can’t believe that he was just able to spend so much time with Marcella and that she seemed to like his company. Later when he goes to the house to give Marcella his clothes, as she promised to wash them for him, she acts more curtly. That evening, Cal sits in the cottage, thinking of his mother and how disciplined she was. When he had aches as a child, she would tell him to give the pain to God to deal with. Now, he thinks about how he may not give his suffering to God, but to another person, which he sees as a selfless act. He feels he is now starting a new life for himself in the cottage.
That night he has a nightmare about being in Rome and witnessing a man being hit by a train. Marcella and a crowd of people are there, but don’t seem to care about the man. The next day Marcella comes to Cal’s cottage to bring him some books. She talks about how depressing it is to be in the house and always hear Mr. Morton, her father-in-law, coughing and suffering. She opens up about how hard it is to live with the Mortons after the tragedy and how she sometimes considers leaving with Lucy. Mrs. Morton is also not easy to live with and has Parkinson’s disease. Before leaving, Marcella offers to drive Cal to Mass on Sundays; he agrees. When they go to Mass that Sunday, Cal knows to not sit with her. After the service, they talk about the cartoonish painting of the crucifixion in the church and how she prefers the more serious one by Grünewald.
Cal finally goes to visit his father at Dermot Ryan’s and is appalled to find Shamie in a terrible state. He is weeping and very depressed about losing the house and everything in it. Cal urges Shamie to go to the doctor, hoping he can get prescribed some pills for his depression. Cal asks about Crilly and Shamie says Crilly asks about Cal every day. Cal reminds his father not to say a word about him. His father tells him that Skeffington has also been calling for him. Cal ponders on how the UVF men would be happy to see how they not only destroyed Shamie’s house but also his spirit.
Cal gets a ride back to the Mortons’ with Marcella after she ends her shift at the library. Cal convinces her to have a drink with him at an inn. She is at first reluctant, telling Cal that her in-laws treat her like a schoolgirl and worry if she is home late. At the bar, Marcella acknowledges that spending time with Cal is good for her and Cal almost asks her out but gets too scared. As it gets late, Marcella insists that she must return home, comparing herself to the fairytale character Rapunzel who is locked in her tower.
On a beautiful Saturday, Cal goes blackberry picking with Marcella and Lucy. Lucy has gotten used to Cal and even holds his hand while they walk. They talk about the “Troubles” in Ireland. Cal feels very happy spending time with Marcella, yet also miserable because of the secret he carries; he almost wants to admit everything and beg for forgiveness. Cal asks Marcella if she has ever done anything “bad” and she tells him about hurting the feelings of a boy who liked her. Cal realizes then that he cannot confess about what he’s done and feels helpless. They start to walk back and Marcella momentarily touches Cal’s hand and then apologizes; Cal tells her it was nice.
Before Marcella can respond, there is a loud explosion. Startled, Marcella brings Lucy back to the house while Cal goes to check it out. A few fields over there, a mine has been detonated and has killed the cows in the pasture. Cal spots a sign posted in the tree by the town preacher, which reads “The Kingdom of God is within You.” He vomits twice before going back.
Analysis
In Chapter 4, Cal begins to entwine himself more and more in the life of Marcella Morton, which he feels as both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, he is elated that she appears open to a connection with him, such as how she invites Cal to go blackberry picking and accepts his offer to go out for a drink. We see Marcella displaying her own fondness for Cal in the way she defends him after being caught squatting in the Mortons’ cottage. When Mrs. Morton agrees to let Cal stay, Marcella takes it upon herself to furbish the little house and make it a home for Cal, and from here they start a much more consistent and intimate relationship than before, where they often converse in a very lighthearted and humorous manner.
Yet in what could be considered a high level of irony, Cal is unable to fully enjoy this relationship, as what he has done in the past will forever stand in the way of a true love between them. He recognizes the absurdity of striving for something that he knows “could not exist,” and yet he is unable to stop himself, pulled magnetically to this woman whose life he has completely torn apart without her knowing. Another darkly ironic moment comes when Marcella brings her husband Robert’s old clothes for Cal to wear after he loses everything in the fire. Cal dresses in the clothes willingly but can’t shake the strange sensation of taking the belongings of a man whose death he helped to orchestrate.
The theme of suffering and redemption is particularly underscored in this chapter, with Cal frequently alluding to his “sin” that haunts him and ruins any chance for happiness. The pain is only deepened in that Cal knows the atrocity he committed served no higher purpose, such as the will of God, and thus his suffering is in in vain rather than a noble sacrifice. While characters like Crilly and Skeffington have succeeded in convincing themselves that their violent actions are justified as part of a war for Irish freedom, Cal’s own moral compass and intelligence will not allow any such rationalizations. There is no way to sugarcoat the reality of what has been done; this idea is symbolized when Cal and Marcella discuss the crucifixion painting in their church, with Marcella criticizing its overly cartoonish quality which denies the more visceral truth of Christ’s suffering.
Still, MacLaverty does not try to present an overly grim and merciless world, despite the gravity of the behaviors which his characters have entangled themselves. A small and subtle note of redemption is alluded to in the last paragraph of the chapter, when Cal notices one of the local preacher’s signs propped up in the tree, right after witnessing a mine explosion. The plaque reads “The Kingdom of God is within you”—a biblical quote which could be interpreted to mean that salvation starts within oneself. This salvation is foreign to Cal, who finds it impossible to forgive himself.
MacLaverty’s narration seems to suggest that mercy is available through self-forgiveness. But at the same time, that mercy can only be bestowed when we also make the right follow-up actions and sacrifice our personal desires, rather than taking the easy way out. For Cal, this would entail confessing his crimes, thereby risking his life and certainly his relationship with Marcella. It is a large price to pay, yet it is only through honesty that he will ever be able to experience a clear conscience again.
Without coming clean, it makes sense that Cal will be continually burdened by an oppressive sense of insecurity and self-hatred. The author utilizes metaphors such as describing Cal as being “at the bottom of a gully, buried in a an avalanche of his own making.” This sort of language expresses the utter helplessness Cal feels in not being able to tell the truth to the woman he loves most. Throughout the book we are truly shown the stark reality of war and how the damage done is not just physical but also deeply psychological, creating lifetimes of guilt and shame for those who have committed heinous acts, ruining and obstructing relationships. Or for those like Shamie, there is the emotional despair that comes with losing all of one’s possessions, and even deeper than that, one’s dignity and trust. Men can be put in jail and houses may be rebuilt, but the lasting terror and animosity within a nation has longstanding effects that are primarily wreaked in the hearts of its people.
